This is it!

OK world... this is it.

2012 is the year of ME! I have set some pretty crazy goals and am very determined to achieve them.

I'm a fat girl. I've always been a fat girl. I don't want to be a fat girl any more. So what can I do to change it? Well, sit back, relax, and watch my world change....

In August 2009 my workplace ran a Biggest Loser competition, which I competed in and came second. I started the competition with a weight of 134.7kg. Disgusted with myself, I went on Lite N Easy and started walking for half an hour a day. At the end of the Biggest Loser competition, I had lost 14kg and was pretty impressed with myself. I stopped Lite N Easy because it was too expensive, and hey, I was a winner now, I'd learned everything I needed to know and was ready to go out on my own.

In May 2010, I weighed myself again and had put back on 7kg of the 14kg I lost. Disaster.

I signed up to the local gym (open 24/7/365, no excuses!) and started trying to take control of my eating again. I also signed up to MyFitnessPal which tracks food, exercise, and also has an online community for support. Over the next few months I lost the 'found' 7kgs and a couple of kilos more.

In August 2010 the work Biggest Loser came up again. I signed up and started cycling as my daily exercise. My brother had given me his awesome bike when he headed off overseas so I signed up for a 35km charity ride and started training. In November 2010 I completed the ride in just under 2 hours (I'd set myself a goal of 2:15:00) and was pretty impressed with myself. The work Biggest Loser finished in December 2010 and I ended up with a loss of only 1kg for the whole time. Pretty unimpressive.

I decided that 2012 was going to be the year of me. On January 2nd I weighed in at 113.8kg. Yes, I've lost 20kg in 18 months. I must acknowledge that. But (and there's always a but!) in order to be in a healthy weight range for my height I need to get down to 70kg - and that's is just nudging the border between healthy and overweight. I do want to have muscle definition in my arms and legs (wouldn't mind a six-pack either while we're dreaming big!) but in no way aim to starve myself to fit the BMI definition of healthy. My current goal is to get to 90kg and reassess from there. I'm not sure that I'll ever know what my true weight should be, but I'm guessing somewhere between 75-85kg. I'd love to fit into a size 10-12 Aussie.

What am I going to do this year that I didn't do last year? I mean, I joined a gym, I tracked my food, I rode so many kms on my bike I now have a callus for a butt.... THIS YEAR I AM SO MUCH MORE DETERMINED DO GET THERE. I have set clear goals - SMART goals.

-2012kms ridden, run, walked or ellipticalled
-20120 minutes of exercise
-201200 calories burned

All of these goals are set to be completed by 31st December 2012. See the theme? It wasn't that hard to work out...

I have also signed up to the Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation (12WBT) to kickstart for the first few months of the year. It doesn't officially start until February 13th, but there are preseason tasks starting  in the next couple of days that stretch until the program kicks off. I've got the general gist from forums and the facebook groups which I've joined - 1200 calories of food a day, 500 calories burned through exercise a day (with one rest day and a 1000 calorie burn day to make up for the rest day). Michelle gives you a menu plan, shopping list, and exercise plan each week. No thinking required. Simple.

I'm still using MyFitnessPal to track my food and exercise, and the main difference is that MFP suggests that you eat back any exercise calories as they already calculate a defecit in your daily allowance. I ate back all my exercise calories in 2010 and feel like maybe I shouldn't have - I might have lost more weight if I didn't. I'm going to stick with Mish's plan until the program ends, and then reassess from there. I want to lose this weight as quickly as is healthily possible and then I can get started on learning how to maintain a healthy weight.

Anyway... the whole point of this was that I'm going to document my journey here. Most of the time it will probably be a boring account of what exercise I did. But I want to have it for years to come to remind myself where I've come from and what I'm capable of. You never know - I might turn it into a best-selling book and realise my dream of staying at home and raising my brood of yet-to-be-borns.