Being in Nature and Enjoying Swimming! - Weight Loss VLog - Elanor's Jou...

This morning I decided to do my weekly Weight Loss VLog outside in nature after going for a swim in our family's small lake. No pressure, just some quality time doing exercise where I feel good about - being in the water makes me feel lighter and stronger - relieved of the troubles.

Swimming is something I would recommend to anyone as heavy as I am to do some exercise without stress, panting or feeling the weight on the bones.

Go out and enjoy the beautiful summertime in nature! Thank you for watching!

Yours, Elanor

Please excuse my English - I do my best, because I feel at the right place in the English speaking community but I'm no native speaker.

My favourite fitness channels at the moment:
DaveDoesWeightloss https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9gMoTx2EFYRnzWwYADEhRA
ObesetoBeast https://www.youtube.com/user/ObesetoBeast
Nerdfitness https://www.youtube.com/user/NerdFitness
LiveLeanTV https://www.youtube.com/user/bradgouthrofitness
ModernHealthMonk https://www.youtube.com/user/ModernHealthMonk
GaugeGirlTraining: https://www.youtube.com/user/gaugegirl82
Fitness Marshall: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheFitnessMarshall

My social media:
YouTube; https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUL0Eq7QLwnGwYlUVW_gBog
Blog: http://elanorthefairsjourney.blogspot.fr/
Instagram; @elanorsjourney
Art channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb9po5XOs5n-wYPm0oVurDQ

Getting STRUCTURE into my Life!

So, I'm fired up optimizing my life again!

If your weight loss plan doesn't work out, maybe it's time to get structured: planning your week, looking at your life and see if you are in control can help you with structuring your weight loss journey e.g. by mealplanning / mealprepping, sceduling your workouts to the best time of the week etc. but also to check if you're getting enough rest days.

At least this is what I will be doing nowand I really feel energized again and up to new adventures. First plus was for my husband because I decided, today was the day he would be allowed to sleep in.

Thank you so much for watching!
Yours, Elanor

Please excuse my English - I do my best, because I feel at the right place in the English speaking community but I'm no native speaker.

My favourite fitness channels at the moment:
DaveDoesWeightloss https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9gMoTx2EFYRnzWwYADEhRA
ObesetoBeast https://www.youtube.com/user/ObesetoBeast
Nerdfitness https://www.youtube.com/user/NerdFitness
LiveLeanTV https://www.youtube.com/user/bradgouthrofitness
ModernHealthMonk https://www.youtube.com/user/ModernHealthMonk
GaugeGirlTraining: https://www.youtube.com/user/gaugegirl82

My social media:
YouTube; https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUL0Eq7QLwnGwYlUVW_gBog
Blog: http://elanorthefairsjourney.blogspot.fr/
Instagram; @elanorsjourney
Art channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb9po5XOs5n-wYPm0oVurDQ

What if life is a test?

Hello my fellow Rebels,


here goes this weeks
UPDATE:

this week really was full of challenges; our car broke down, my husband got sick and I had to do all the farm work alone, the money didn't arrive the date it was planned and everyone in my family was really busy with their own work. I was left with all my farmwork alone ...

BUT!

... that way I was active everyday and more or less got all my goals in and this really surprised me because I was really struggling.

Even mealplanning finally starts to get easier and we had got 2 meals left over so we were able to go 1 more day without shopping. As I'm writing this, 2,5 kgs of chicken is baking in the oven for tomorrows family meeting. Yes, I'm especially proud of how I'm doing when life tests me.

This week I will leave out the question of the week, as I just want this update to be "out there". ;)

Having a daily workout routine really seems to be working out for me - this is what I feel woud be my answer for last weeks question.

Thank you for checking out this post!

Yours,
Elanor

Do you have to work out daily?

My Short list of an Update:

Question of the week: Do you also work out daily and just rotate the type of exercise or do you rest completely and then push with more intensity the other days?
My weekly weight loss journey's update: 2 weeks challenge is over - drinking water is becoming natural to me - mealplanning is still a struggle but it keeps getting better and I will find ways to improve.
Biking is great - much improvement - workouts done - did workouts daily this week!

Fitness Marshall Cardio Workout: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX9R-...

Last weeks question:
Laptop really put stress out of my life and I feel much more productive and less stressed.

Next weeks new habit:
- working out everyday with strenght training every 2nd day.
- continue smart mealplanning

Yours,
Elanor

I'm back! Healing my body!

Yes, it's me! I took a break from writing while the preparations in my family for the pastry chef exams where around and I had to try and judge pastry nearly every day :P

But this break really changed everything - I suddenly was so relaxed I didn't even feel hungry anymore!!! Of course I'm sure to have gained the weight back, but I feel so much better and my body shows me with many subtle signs, that letting go of the stress while at the same time having cleared my emotions, was a very good thing.

A lot of my internet fitness buddy Apocalypse's diet suggestions stick around however - I'm having muesli every morning and force myself to have breakfast and just feel so amazing! I also try to stick to it with the meals - a big healing has happened inside of me and I can't thank him enough!!!

Overall I'm living a much healthier lifestyle than last year - snacking is no longer uncontrolled and I even start to get a grip on those portion controls. Weight wise, I doesn't seem to change, but screw the scale for the moment - I learn so much about myself - that's so much more important and I hope to be able to share some of those things in the next entries with you too. :-)

I was away a lot for work too. In Switzerland I was the co-trainer on a horse workshop. You can see me here, at minute 1:32 - I was working with this amazing stallion called Kelian - look at me close to this bundle of muscles and power!

And what now?

I've got a hometrainer bike!!!!

As it's been raining for over a week and there's flooded roads everywhere, I sat on that very old bike inside and yesterday I reached a round number, so I decided I'll challenge myself to do 100 km during the month of June!

It's a VERY old machine - very interesting - everything works mechanically, no digital display. It must be around 40-50 years old! The kilometers count shows already over 3000 km! Wow! This is what it looks like (photo isn't mine).



I sat on it the last 2 months rather casually, not really looking at the kilometers - but as the pastry exam is over I was looking for a new challenge - so here we go ;-)

You'll read me again on Wednesday - enjoy the rest of this Sunday and let's hope that it will sotp raining once in a while!

Yours,
Elanor

The progress I didn't notice for several years

There's been much I wanted to write about today but there's something I want to reflect on more specifically - this is why I'm writing this blog: to get my thoughts out of my head - like the pensieve in the Harry Potter series.

Pensieve

Yesterday I met my father and my full sister again. I hadn't met her in about 6 months or so. I was a little anxious about the meeting, but it went good and wont be the main focus of today's article.

I really felt for so many years I was the least fit person in my family. Yes, I had my horses but I thought "fit" meant to be thin - wich isn't true it seems. Some time ago I wrote an entry here where I said I thought that moving everyday for approximately 2,5 hours wasn't very much to me.

But meeting my other family made me realize how I had changed. Aside from the people doing physical work, most designers or other office employees rarely spend even half the time each day with physical activity! My father gets up to take a walk from time to time and I considered him to be fit. In my environment I know only one person overall that does any kind of regular training.

It seems I've confused being fit to being thin. My weight may be one issue but over the years I've become one of the fittest persons in my family: endurant, strong and flexible. I can work 3-4 hours with no problem - I can lift nearly as good as my husband - I can walk 10 km over hills - I can do any physical work - I might not be as efficient with tools however ;-)

This stuns me because it's not always been this way - it's been some kind of struggle. It started already about 5-6 years ago, when I quit my little boutique in the neighboring town to live more in nature and get to move more instead sitting in the shop all day.

Since then I evolved slowly but never dared to dream that one day I would feel more comfortable in moving than my father would, doing all farm work on my own AND carrying around my bodyweight. Yeah, I already surprised myself of thinking about going for a hike in the alps with my grandfather - something I always dreaded because I would be the one panting and sweating the most.

I think this would be a kind of holiday I'd like to do with my husband in the next months or so.

THIS FEELING IS AMAZING!!!!

I want to stop today and honor this moment - there's still such a long road to go, but I realized, it's not been the fact of myself doing training - it's been the decision I made in 2010-2011 that was the change - everything else followed naturally - at it's own pace.

So, maybe I'll be able to write to you soon about my trips to the alps - I feel really touched and I want to say thank you to myself, the universe and everything!

- Thanks for reading
Elanor

So many new discoveries for my weight loss

Hello all!
Yes, I'm one day late, but I've so many new things inside my head that are digesting the new knowledge of the past week that really need to come out - I hoped that I would be able to make a more "organized" post yesterday but for the moment, there's still only chaos - so chaos will have to come out - hehe.

Source

Ok, so what's going on?

Remember I started tracking my daily activity? Remember I ended u paround 2,5 hours a day and how I wondered if this was much or not (I honestly don't think it's enough)?

Well, tracking something you do every day changes EVERYTHING! It changes our consciousness and therefore influences our actions. So many new possibilities already sprang to my mind how to improve my daily acitvity but I really want to finish this challenge with only tracking what I'm doing normally: there's always time to start getting better, but if I have no knowledge about the point I was starting from, I won't be able to compare the improvements.

That said - and it's really hard, because it goes completely against to what I'm used to think - of course there are a few very obvious plans building up inside my mind, wich I just want to write down here so I can come back to them in the beginning of February:

1. Warm up before the farm work! - this will improve my overall wellbeing during the work and I will know that I'm safe regarding my muscles and joints.
2. Add variations in work intensity - getting more conscious about what I'm doing and working special muscle groups or cardio whilst I'm at work
3. Increase the active time of the day - I will add more and more minutes everyday and if I don't fill them out with my usual work I will clean the house or go for a walk.

So, there's a lot I can do and I'm really happy to have my farm so I can work as much as I want - there's always something left to do! I also want to sign up for a class of any kind - maybe Tai Chi or Chi Gong - but that's not decided yet - just to write it down here.

Ah, and I wanted to make some things more clearly understandable: I don't have a real farm, I mean, one where I have to gain my living. I'm a graphic designer and illustrator but we have a private farm and I'm additionnally working with horses. So I have 3 own horses and we have 2 more, a pony, a donkey, dogs, cats, sheep, rabbits, chicken, guinea pigs, fish and also a ferret - so, I think I can call this all a farm and you might imagine, there's a lot of work everyday. I'm doing this together with my sisters, my husband (we don't have any kids yet) and my stepfather, so we are sharing the chores, but I plan to do more and more for my weight loss.

Ok, I think I'll leave it for today - you'll read me soon anyway.

Thank you so much for reading and check out also my log in the NF-forums, where I log on everyday!

Yours,
Elanor

Get moving girl!!! 2 weeks in!!

Hello together!
I hope everyone had or is having a great Sunday!

First of all: I rocked the scale today having lost already 1,7 kgs so I'm again below 130!!! This is how I jumped around after weighing (my husband was at his work so he didn't see me ;) ).

I'm sorry no new video has come out yet - I still have to learn to scedule the time to make it - but I filmed it already and it's in the process of being edited.

So, how's it going? I'm tracking my daily activity without fail and for the last 4 days my average time moving was a 143 mins per day, making it 2h23. Okay, I won't put much on this number yet and wait till more days are gathering up so I can have a more accurate average number.

My goal would be to be able to easily do at leat 3 hours per day - because if I'm talking about moving, this means I included all household things where I was standing around too, which probably isn't burning lots of calories.

So, beginning with the last week of the challenge, I will start to also track my gross calories burned by my daily activities - I'm not doing this because there's really a need to it - I know that I should move more - but I like tracking it and it gives me a better feeling about myself.

I'm really curious about the results - is 2,5 hours of work much everyday or not? I don't have much comparison but my husband can easily do so much more! I haven't been around people doing sports a lot, so if you'd like to share your experiences this would be nice!

Ok, I'll check in with you again on Wednesday and I hope my next video will be finished by tomorrow - thanks for reading!

Elanor

Choose the best goals! - Changes I need to make for my challenge

that's what I looked all day - image by wikipedia

Hey! It's Wednesday again and though I didn't make any video yet (we had a storm and I was outside all day with my animals), I'm right on time to write this blogpost.

In my Nerdfitness-Forum Challenge log you can find more details about how my days went since Sunday but I want to fill this blog with more than pure data. I want to write down what moved my head in those 3 days.

It's hard for me to admit, but I really have to rescedule my biking goal - I would so much love to go for a ride, but I'm so tired every night and I just don't want to see any outdoor's rain, mud and wind anymore. I'd rather make body weight exercises. But yet a smaller goal came to my mind, but you'll read about it a little more below.

John, from the Obese to Beast YouTube Channel is a big inspriation for me. Not only because he's lost such a big amount of weight but also because his videos are so helpful. Some days ago he posted this very cool video - you might only understand it if you've been through what he's talking about yourself: how weight loss and willpower ride like a rollercoaster up and down and you never really get it. People in the comments argue, that there is no proof scientifically for metabolism damage, but if you've been there, you know exactly what John is talking about.

Here is the video:

So I realised something important about the weight loss equation that wasn't as clear before in my mind: "Calories in versus calories out" doesn't mean the same thing as just cutting out calories!!! It's all about balance!

My body has a certain ratio in which it burns calories everyday - this ratio depends on my body fat percentage and also on my level of activity. Eating less than I burn will FORCE my body into burning his stocked energy - Ok - I think, this is an obvious thing.

As a person interested in Biology I might add: my body's metabolism is constantly trying to find balance and it gets used to a certain amount of food and a way to process it - to loose weight we breaks this balance and we hope, that our body gets used to eating less. We are focused on the result: having a different number on the scale - but do we care to regain balance?

How can we have a healthy relationship with food if we forcefully strain our body and try to imitate having less food available?

At this point exercise comes in - strenght training to be more precise. I never really got this point - as I understood it it sounded like this: everyone talks about calories and that diet is 90 % of the battle - so, eating less equals weight loss - exercise keeps our mind busy, we spend more time doing something else than eating and it makes us feel good and we also build endurance - ok, so I can just eat less/right and loose weight without exercise also?

But I didn't yet pay attention to this tiny detail rarely ever mentioned anywhere: we cannot durably eat less than our BMR!!! Our body will always try to bring us back to it! Even if we do more exercise, we will get hungry for more food!

So, is weight loss a hopeless case?

First of all, I'm still trying - my journey is just on the beginning and everything I write here is just a hypothesis - but I dare to say: no! There's something we can do:

1. Build muscle!
Our body will then spend it's energy into building up the muscles instead of storing it as fat, which will make us even more endurant and strong to take on even bigger challenges. Plus: more muscle means we are spending more calories to mantain them, which means we can eat more, which means it's easier for us to eat less.

2. Eat clean!
There are certain foods that make us feel full easier on one side but there are also those full of minerals, protein, vitamines and healthy fats that really help our metabolism and make us feel great! We don't have to stuff our face with carbs and feel bad all day long because of our sugar levels. We can choose smart foods and not restrict us!!!

The 2 combined can help me to feel full and not hungry but caring about my weight at the same time - I'm curious where this hypothesis will lead me - it's very basic and simple so I can easily track it's evolution.

For 3 days now I started to eat more and more paleo again and I start to feel great again - what a happy moment.

I wanted to come back to my biking challenge: having realized now, that cardio is good but strenght training is having more benefits I'm thinking of changing this part. But I won't go into strenght training right away, there was something else with wich I wanted to start out:

Track my daily level of exercise in my daily life!

Before I make new workout plans, I want to know how much I'm doing already and have a better look at my real life. This is a small step but for the next few weeks I will track the minutes I spend working on the farm, doing grocery shopping, playing with the dogs, cleaning the house, working with m horses etc. I want to know how much of the day I'm active and to be able to optimize this or bring it to a more regular basis.

For example: let's say I find out I'm moving around 3 hours on some days and only 30 mins on others, I could then make the goal of moving for at least 1,5 hours every day so I know, when I'm doing less, I will have to look out for another activity (e.g. work in the garden).

This is my goal-change for this challenge - I will keep you updated on twitter, tumblr and in my NF-Battle log.

Thanks for reading - I will write again on Sunday!

Heads up everyone!
Yours,
Elanor