51 things in 1051 days ... My to do list

I have been for a while now planning to put together a todo list of what i intend to do when i become "agbani" not like i want to get down to agbani's size oh! dress size 12-16 is OK for me joor.

Ok Oya Nelly focus... eh heh hmmm... lol

Meanwhile have you enrolled for Hearty giveaways? if no please do it now here

My to do list after the cut...

The desire to put in a list stems from my satisfaction ... instead of having a big goal at the end of a year i decided to have small goals and work towards getting there. So i want to share with you my my to do list ... here they are...

1. Do so something about my enormous weight Started...
2. Loose 10kg in 4 weeks done in 3 weeks 15.03.13
3. Loose 30 kg in 12 weeks
4. Loose 60 kg from my initial weight
5. Loose 80kg from my initial weight
6. Fit comfortably in a plane seat I think i can
7. No need to ask for extra belt seat
8. Start climbing stairs every evening consistently
9. Take walks on weekends
10. Play games with my kids without panting Kinda.. lol
11. Ride a bike again
12. Ride a Horse
13. Wear fitting shorts for my son's birthday in Aug (i love shorts cos i have the legs ... lol)
14. Start jogging
15. Visit the Gym 2 times a week
16. Visit the Gym 3 times a week
17. Run on the treadmill 2 hours non stop
18. Enroll for a half marathon
19. Enroll for a 5k Marathon
20. Go dancing
21. Go clubbing and not just sitting down
22. Play tennis
23. Get a massage (and enjoy it)
24. Wear something sleeveless
25. Wear knee lenght skirt
26. Wear heels again (dont care if am tall)
27. Go to the beach
28. Wear a swim suit witout complete shame
29. Learn to swim
30. Of course take a "nat geo" Vacation with hubby (fishing, hunting ... he loves it...)
31. Go to gambia/kenya (wild life things)
32. Go to Australia!
33. Be more confident
34. Go for a full fashion shoot ...
35. Cut my wedding and engagement ring size down
36. Take pictures of me completing the todo lists
37. Donate most of my plus size clothes (if i will see someone to give it to)
38. Start up a "teamslimbody" club... (name could change)
39. Sing karoke!
40. Encourage others
41. Be a consultant
42. Wear a lesser size in bra
43. Buy pretty bras
44. Be able to walk in to a clothing store and pick dresses not just earrings
45. Stop snoring
46. Speak in an audience without wondering if they are checking out my size
47. Of course eat right!
48. Stay on a 1000 calorie intake
49. Love more!
50. Be smarter!
51. And be healthier!

Tips to loosing weight

Once upon a time i was giving my baby a bottle of water and he started playing with the bottle and then threw it down, so i handed my baby to my nanny and decided to give to pick the bottle, tried squatting to pick it the bottle and it was just impossible so i decided to bend down yet my hand could not reach the floor i was obstructed by the 160kg fat which had made sure i could not pick the bottle. Then reality struck me, i was severely obese and need to do something right now before i die!

I thought about my sedenatry life which never included exercise and my eating habit? just too sad to mention, i became desperate to loose weight ... i started with taking walks in the field but i noticed i get tired easily and i was not loosing as fast as i wanted to enable me start running. Was introduced to Cambridge diet by a friend/consultant and since then i got hooked.

As a beginner, starting a weight loss journey takes every being in you, you need to need it more than ever before and be determined enough to go through it... whether is waking up and exercising or just watching what you eat or even dieting, it needs to be a lifestyle and that's the only way to get through.

Whether you have 5kg or 80kg to loose you need to find your motivation stick on it and dont ever think you will start to see results from day 1.

Know yourself: What will work for you may not certainly work for me, study your body and know what is good for you. not everyone can diet like am doing, even me at a time i could not diet because i always wanted to eat even when am not hungry.

Baby Steps: You did not put all those fat in one day so dont expect to loose it in a split of a second. Have a goal every week and try to acheive it, i used to walk on the steps 5 times when i started then i pushed myself in walking 10 times and more ... dont worry you will see the changes pretty soon.

Dont be discouraged: There are days when you feel "hey am not loosing any weight i rather continue eating" that's the worst thing you can ever do to yourself. Just keep calm and be focused, people may not notice those little changes you get to feel but you know (deep in your heart ) that you are turning around to your dream weight.

If you mess up, try again: Just because you cheated or skipped a work out session doesnt meant you should quit. get up dust yourself and try again. Stop the self pity and move that fat around.

Start from your comfort zone: Not everyone can do those workouts as seen in the videos, they actually started from somewhere, like me am avery busy person so working out from mondays to fridays is almost impossible, what i do is after ensuring that my kids have slept, i go to the stairs and climb 20 times have my bath and sleep, this is my comfort zone what i can do so i make it a routine. if also you are dieting and cannot do a liquid diet all through, the add some meals, just ensure you watch the amount of calories you are taking in.

Focus on the end goal: As i said earlier, always begin with the end in mind, you are trying to change your life and this is not an easy thing to do, just keep doing what you are doing and never forget when you tend to achieve at the end.

Listen to your doctor: Always ensure you consult your doctor before you start any program.

Anyone else have any advise to share? any specific question?

"I ate a very low-calorie diet" - Beyonce

I found this article on Beyonce talking about how she lost all the baby weight on a very low calorie diet. This was an interview with shape magazine.
Impossible is nothing ....

Read the extract from Abc news after the cut...




In an interview with Shape magazine  the star who was born Beyonce Knowles said she gained 57 pounds during her pregnancy.
Describing herself as someone who is "not naturally very thin," she added that she has to work to keep her body in shape. She told the magazine that 80 percent of her post-baby weight loss resulted from cutting back on food.

"I ate a very low-calorie diet. I stayed away from red meat and ate a lot of fish, replaced pasta and rice with quinoa," Beyonce said.

The Grammy Award-winning singer gave birth to Blue Ivy, her daughter with rapper-husband Jay-Z, Jan. 8, 2012, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Beyonce, 31, also told the magazine that she was at her ideal weight while working on her iconic "Crazy in Love" music video, saying that's the body size she aims for when she wants to get in shape.

"For me, dancing is what keeps me active and I would just say, everyone is not supposed to be the same. Be healthy and take care of yourself, but be happy with the beautiful things that make you you," she added.

She also said that she doesn't count calories.

"I always have breakfast, say, scrambled egg whites, a vegetable smoothie, or whole-grain cereal with low-fat milk. For lunch and dinner, I eat a lot of fish and vegetables. And throughout the day, I try to stay hydrated," she said.

But she does splurge from time to time.

"I always treat myself to one meal on Sundays when I can have whatever I want," she said. "Usually it's pizza, which is my favorite indulgence."

Beyonce kicks off her Mrs. Carter Show World tour next month, and tells Shape that once the tour wraps, she'll start trying for more children.

The singer debuted her new single, "Bow Down/I Been On," on her website Sunday along with a photo of a young Beyonce standing in front of a mantle full of trophies.

Tips to make the Cambridge Diet Journey Easier!

So I thought it was fun knowing what to do first before starting up the diet, am no expert or consultant *yet* but this are little things that could spice up the journey


1. Make sure you take a picture of yourself, front view, back view, both sides, on the day you start your C D Journey.

2. Take pictures every 4 weeks so that you can see yourself getting slimmer, and make them into a photo journal. I have printed mine off and have in a photo album so that when I am feeling hungry etc. I keep looking at it! :)




3. Get measured!! If you dont want your CDC to measure you, then do it yourself! You might not think it's a great idea at first but when you have small losses, it's so amazing when you have lost inches off your waist instead!! Do this every 4 weeks!

4. Have a CD buddie, join a group for weight loss people or just track your loss it sure keeps you motivated.

5. Buy yourself something for every 10kg you lose. I have not gotten myself anything yet cos I have not lost 10kg yet but am certain I will in my next weigh in which is tomorrow!

6. When you first start CD, buy a piece of clothing that you want to get into, that is a few sizes lower than what you are and hang it somewhere where you will see it everyday, I have a lovely Ankara gown that is just pending its actually dress size 14!

7. Go to balogun market and buy clothes that are one size lower than one you are, I have trousers that are size 22, 20, 18, 16. I am currently a size 22, but I started a size 24.

8. Sell your 'fat' clothes on OLX!
Honestly, it is so much fun and you will make some money for your 'new slimmer' clothes!

9. If you dont like OLX or ebay, then, get rid of your fat clothes from your wardrobe, and take them to an orphanage. Not only are you doing something for the greater good, but you will feel so wonderful with a wardrope that is now free from clothes that are too big for you!

10. Keep one pair of fat trousers and one fat top. I have a size 24/26 of both and I look at them all the time. I used to be too tight for these, and they are a reminder that I never want to be able to fit into them again!

11. Moisturise your skin! I use bio-oil on a daily basis, for my skin, as I do not want to have too much saggy skin, but remember, to use it every single day and dont forget about it! It really does help!

12. Make sure to look after your hair while you are on this diet.

13. Keep a blog! I have kept a blog from day one and it is very useful to read back when you are feeling weak. If you dont want something online, write a journal, it is good to write about your feelings!

14. With the water, get a big jug and fill the whole thing with icecubes and then keep refilling it with your water, so that everytime you pour it into your glass, it's really cold. I find that having fizzy water with the water flavourings is just like having fanta!

Day what? For the love of water ...

Cant remember ... lol
Well what matters is that today is the day before Week 3 weigh in..yeay!
Ok, not like am expecting to drop a huge one when i climb the scale tomorrow morning but its now a routine i look forward to Saturday mornings!
So am in this BB group with awesome Cambridge diet dieters and we try to motivate ourselves every now and then... We all have different goals and talking about them makes the journey abit easier, we decided to weigh in every saturday and everyone looks forward to know who "biggest looser" will be, though i won it last week but i am no sure i will win it this week  ... no i didn't cheat well if tasting my son's food is cheating am so guilty.
But all in all am happy with the results am noticing, my lastest biggest challange is that water is now bitter, thanks for flavourings as its really difficult to gulp down water.
I have also noticed some nice changes in me since i started taking water, i pee alot, My skin glows and it kinda smoothe maybe my imagination so i google it up and i saw some amazing benefits of drinking water so am sticking to water...lol. see the amazing facts about water after the cut...

10 Reasons to Drink Water1. Water is absolutely essential to the human body’s survival. A person can live for about a month without food, but only about a week without water.
2. Water helps to maintain healthy body weight by increasing metabolism and regulating appetite.
3. Water leads to increased energy levels. The most common cause of daytime fatigue is actually mild dehydration.
4. Drinking adequate amounts of water can decrease the risk of certain types of cancers, including colon cancer, bladder cancer, and breast cancer.
5. For a majority of sufferers, drinking water can significantly reduce joint and/or back pain.
6. Water leads to overall greater health by flushing out wastes and bacteria that can cause disease.
7. Water can prevent and alleviate headaches.
8. Water naturally moisturizes skin and ensures proper cellular formation underneath layers of skin to give it a healthy, glowing appearance.
9. Water aids in the digestion process and prevents constipation.
10. Water is the primary mode of transportation for all nutrients in the body and is essential for proper circulation.

20 Interesting and Useful Water Facts1. Roughly 70 percent of an adult’s body is made up of water.
2. At birth, water accounts for approximately 80 percent of an infant’s body weight.
3. A healthy person can drink about three gallons (48 cups) of water per day.
4. Drinking too much water too quickly can lead to water intoxication. Water intoxication occurs when water dilutes the sodium level in the bloodstream and causes an imbalance of water in the brain.
5. Water intoxication is most likely to occur during periods of intense athletic performance.
6. Water consists of three atoms, 2 Hydrogen atoms and an Oxygen atom, that are bond together due to electrical charges.
7. While the daily recommended amount of water is eight cups per day, not all of this water must be consumed in the liquid form. Nearly every food or drink item provides some water to the body.
8. Soft drinks, coffee, and tea, while made up almost entirely of water, also contain caffeine. Caffeine can act as a mild diuretic, preventing water from traveling to necessary locations in the body.
9. Pure water (solely hydrogen and oxygen atoms) has a neutral pH of 7, which is neither acidic nor basic.
10. Water dissolves more substances than any other liquid. Wherever it travels, water carries chemicals, minerals, and nutrients with it.
11. Somewhere between 70 and 75 percent of the earth’s surface is covered with water.
12. Much more fresh water is stored under the ground in aquifers than on the earth’s surface.
13. The earth is a closed system, similar to a terrarium, meaning that it rarely loses or gains extra matter. The same water that existed on the earth millions of years ago is still present today.
14. The total amount of water on the earth is about 326 million cubic miles of water.
15. Of all the water on the earth, humans can used only about three tenths of a percent of this water. Such usable water is found in groundwater aquifers, rivers, and freshwater lakes.
16. There are two kinds of water; salt water and freshwater. Salt water contains great amounts of salt, whereas freshwater has a dissolved salt concentration of less than 1%. Only freshwater can be applied as drinking water
17. Water is the only substance that is found naturally on earth in three forms: liquid, gas, solid.
18. Frozen water is 9% lighter than water, which is why ice floats on water.
19. By the time a person feels thirsty, his or her body has lost over 1 percent of its total water amount.
20. The weight a person loses directly after intense physical activity is weight from water, not fat

Culled from Linda Ikeji

The Cambridge Diet - Review

THE DIET

Cambridge Diet is a diet invented by a scientist at, yes, you guessed it Cambridge University.
It is what is known as a VLCD (a very low calorie diet). In fact it’s so low you can only do it for 12 weeks at a time, then you have to increase your intake again for at least a week before continuing.
While you are on the diet you only consume around 500 calories a day, and live off your body weight (fat) instead.

This is my 3rd week  on the diet an so far i have lost

10lbs = first week
8.13lbs = 2nd week
(total of 18lbs or 9kg)

*I think why i lost so much is because i have lot of fat to loose ... lol*


Cambridge themselves specify you should usually expect an average of a stone (14lbs or 6.35kg) a month.
Fed up of losing a pound here, and half a pound there, this was the main thing that attracted me to this diet. I wanted quick, decisive results. But that is not to say other conservative diets are not good and may work better for you.

There are six steps to the Cambridge Diet, with the first step being divided into A and B:


Step 1: A Sole Source:
----------------------------
This consists of 415-554 calories acquired from 3 or 4 shakes or soups per day (depending on how fast you want to lose weight, your gender and your level of willpower). No other food is consumed although you should drink a minimum of 2.5 litres of water.

OR

Step 1: B Sole Source Plus:
----------------------------------
This consists of 615 calories and involves either 3 soups/shakes plus a 200kcal meal OR 4 shakes/soups plus 200ml of skimmed milk.

Sole source should be followed for a minimum of 1 week and a maximum of 12 weeks as it is a very low calorie diet (VLCD).



Step 2:
---------
This consists of 810 calories and requires the dieter to consume 3 shakes/soups plus additional protein rich foods, skimmed milk and some vegetables.

Step 3:
---------
1000 calories from 2 shakes/soups plus skimmed milk, breakfast, salads for lunch and dinner.

Step 4:
---------
1200 calories from 2 shakes/soups plus skimmed milk, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Step 5:
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1500 calories from 1 shake/soup plus skimmed milk, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack.

Step 6: Maintenance
--------------------------
1500+ calories from healthy diet plus your choice of using shakes/soups or not.

THE FOOD

The Cambridge Diet is a primarily a liquid diet consisting of shakes and soups. I won't lie to you and say that it's tasty. Some of the soups are, frankly, disgusting, and some of the shakes are much too sweet, but it is tolerable and my tastebuds got used to the flavours after the first week. It is trial and error as to which flavours you may prefer. I have tried most of them apart from banana flavour, which I despise in all things. As well as the shakes and soups there are two porridge flavours, plain and cinammon and apple flavoured. Apparently these are really popular, but I found them very floury and too thick so I just stick to the shakes and soups. There are bars too, but I have yet to try these. I'm worried that eating chewable food may set me on the path to ruin so will resist these for a while yet.

The flavours:
Shakes can be mixed with hot or cold water. I prefer mine as hot drinks. The flavours I have tried, with my own preference ratings are listed below:

Chocolate 4/5 If left too long this gets a thick skin on top which is not nice.

Cholcoate Mint 4/5 Also develops a skin. The mint is very subtle and quite artificial in flavour.

Chocolate Orange 3/5 Much too sweet.

Strawberry 3/5 Best cold. Very sweet but no mistaking the strawberry flavour.

Butterscotch 2/5 Much too sweet and smells artificial.

Cappucino 2/5 Like many of the shakes, very sweet. Apparently this is better made hot and mixed with coffee. And it's my favorite.

Soups:
Spicy Tomato 4/5 takes a little getting used to.

Cheese and Broccoli -2/5, Yuk, yuk, yuk. Smells like baby poop and doesn't taste much better either.

Vegetable 3/5, quite creamy but has a strange artificial smell. Blindfolded I would not know this was vegetable, but am not sure what I would think it was either!

Lactose free Leek and potato 3/5, this was my favourite but now when I have it I am overwhelmed by the saltiness. Must be a sign of my tastebuds changing.

Chicken and Mushroom 4/5, this comes with tiny slices of mushroom in it.

I'm sure I've missed some of the flavours out, but you get a general gist.

As well as the packet soups and shakes that you must mix for yourself (add hot or cold water) there are also tetra boxes of ready made shakes. These come in Banana, chocolate and strawberry flavours. I take chocolate and strawberry tetra boxes to work as it saves the hassle of mixing during my lunch break. These are slightly different in flavour to the shakes that you mix yourself. They are thicker and smoother and it is recommended that you increase your water intake if using the boxes. I certainly find them less filling that the packet shakes, but that is partly because there is less in them than the shakes I make at home.


MAINTENECE

Finally and perhaps most importantly I want to tackle the issue of maintenance. One of my biggest concerns when I went for my first consultation was if I lost the weight quickly, would I put it back on just as fast when I begin to eat normal food again.
I plan to try and exist on the Cambridge liquid diet for six months in total, after which I will hopefully have lost enough. Now, after six months of abstinence, you cannot simply start eating normally again. Cambridge have a 7 step programme to introduce food back into your diet slowly. By the end of this programme you will be on your recommended daily allowance of calories. Teaching you how to eat healthily and and about portion control.
However, after 2 weeks on this diet. I’ve already began to learn some very interesting things about myself. My relationship with food. Its amazing how this diet teaches, now when i pick up that noodles, i will like to know how many calories is in a pack. Yes its difficult doing the diet here in Nigeria but its possible, Am begining to learn how to count calories on our local nigerian foods.

SUMMARY

The Cambridge Diet is a very fast and effective means of weight loss. But, it’s not for everyone. It’s not a wonder diet, it has side affects that you need to consider before you start. There is something very exhilarating about losing weight rapidly, and seeing a difference in yourself and clothes right from the very first week.
If you’ve tried other diets unsuccessfully and don’t believe a diet can work for you, this one may very well do.

DISCLAIMER
I’m not a scientist & I’m not a weight-loss consultant, this is simply my interpretation & experiences of this diet also culled from different people's experience and blogs. I recommend that if you’re seriously considering doing it you read the Cambridge Diet website thoroughly and meet with a Cambridge Consultant.