12wbt

2 February, I am starting Michelle Bridges' 12 week body transformation 'thing'.  I don't like to call it a diet as it is more of a lifestyle change... I am hoping that this will be more than a flash in the pan.  Another step towards trying to be fitter and to have a more healthy lifestyle.  Much as I enjoy it, spending all day sitting on the couch eating chocolate won't make me fit.  However, I am willing to give it a go...

On this 12 week challenge, you get given meal plans (which apparently you can choose from many different options, which is a good thing given how picky I am) and you exercise 6 times a week, a mixture of cardio, strength and resistance from what I can make out. 

I did the pre-season fitness test today, which is supposed to categorise you, and that put me in the "intermediate" category, which is a bit disappointing, as I was hoping to be a "beginner"!  You do this fitness test every 4 weeks during the program to see how you are progressing.  You can also choose how many calories to consume during the challenge - whether it be 1200 for weight loss, or 1500 for tone & strengthen, etc. and you can change your plan around during the 12 weeks also.

I'm a little bit scared.

There's a section of the pre-course notes that talks about excuses.  These being divided into three categories - internal, external, and external beyond your control, I think they were. 

Internal being the little voices in my head that say there is NO way you can keep that up for 12 weeks.  There is absolutely no way you will enjoy the food, want to cook it, want to eat it, or want to exercise.  You'll be way too tired to get out of bed to exercise.  You won't exercise on an overnight, you know that.  And so on.

External being factors like going on overnights, where food options will be very limited and a lot of planning will have to go in to taking enough food for the duration.  Other factors like outings, social gatherings, etc.  Heat, for working out after an early duty - I don't think cold is going to be an issue over the next 12 weeks, as that only takes me to the end of April!  These are things that I can plan for - for instance exercising indoors with the air-conditioning on if it is 35 degrees outside.

External factors outside my control would be things like sickness (of others around me, or myself), getting stuck at an outport for an unscheduled overnight with only enough food planned for one day, etc.  Those aren't things that I can plan around, and would just have to wing on the day.

It's the little voices that scare me the most.

12 weeks is an incredibly long time - you struggle to do one week without a cheat meal!  

So... I guess we'll just have to watch this space.  Tomorrow I get the first week's shopping list (very useful, they tell you what you need to buy for a week!) and then on Thursday I take measurements of my body so that I can compare it to what it looks like along the way...

And I really don't like eggs.  Or seafood, or weird things like tofu, and cottage cheese, and beetroot, and avocado, and oh the list goes on...

This is going to be very "interesting".