Confuzzled....

Well, it's official. I have no idea how the human body works when it comes to weight loss. Particularly the FEMALE human body. Nope, not a f***ing clue.

As you may have read, about a week or so ago, I decided to go sharp on the food in an all-out assault to knock off another 2-3kgs and see where that left me as I near my goal weight. Well. I did exactly that for the first week. Jumped on the scales on Saturday morning to review my progress, to discover that I'd GAINED 0.3kg. Hmmmm. Not big in the scheme of things, I know .. but definitely NOT in the right direction. And no, it's not THAT week where it's easy to retain weight (that's this week). Admittedly, my body fat had dropped, so most of it was muscle gain. But not all of it.

A bit disappointed, but determined to persevere. Maybe not be so concerned about being perfect with the food though, since it didn't pay dividends for me. So on Sunday I had my favourite Portuguese chilli chicken burger (LOADED with full egg mayo and chilli oil sauce .. mmmm .. and about 900 calories, at my estimate). Then I went out for dinner with a friend and kept the food reasonably healthy and portion sizes small. Followed by a chocolate bar. Yeah, that'll teach this body of mine!

Woke this morning firmly back to reality and decided to see what damage I did yesterday (according to the scales). Well. I was back to the 68.0kg from a week ago .. but with lower body fat. Does my body thrive on the occasional lashing of semi-naughtiness? Does a mini calorie overload inspire it to drop weight like a hot potato?? Weird. Very weird. So I'll just keep on keeping on - being very good 95% of the time.

(New plan - I've upped the cardio workouts I'm doing. Gonna burn those last couple of kgs off now. So there! According to the calcs now, my ideal weight for 18% body fat is 65.5kg .. so not far to go.)

A Waste of Time .. ??

As some of you may know (or have noticed), I practice karate - Go Kan Ryu style, if that means anything to you. I've recently graded to my blue belt, which is half way to black in the level of belts .. although the higher you go, the longer you stay on each belt. Excluding any major injuries, I'm probably looking at another 3-4 years before I would be ready for my black belt grading.

But there are other things you can do besides simply working to achieve your black belt. I'm currently doing the Sempai Training Programme (STP), which means I'm learning to be an assistant instructor. Sempai's and Sensei's (full instructors) get to wear a black belt with a white stripe through it, if they're lower than black belt grade. And you get assigned to your own Dojo. In addition, any karate student can compete in tournaments - Regional, State, Australasian and World Cup (which is being held in Melbourne this year).

When you compete, you go in either or both the kata and the kumite. Kata is a pattern - different ones at different levels - and you perform it solo, with lots of people watching you. Quite nerve-racking. Kumite is fighting. It's points based - first one to so many points, or furthest ahead when time is up. Now THAT'S fun! In 2007 I won medals in both kata and kumite at both Regional Tournaments, plus the gold medal at the Australasians for kumite and bronze for kata. Yep, I was the Aussie champ for my gender, age-group and grade (which at the time was the "old chicks" and "beginners", before I start to sound too good!). Here's a picture of my Australasian medals.

I didn't compete last year as I broke my toe and spent much of the year trying to recover - both the toe and my general fitness. This year I'm fighting fit (pun intended!) and barring any injury, will be competing in all the tournaments - including the World Cup. And this year I'm in the intermediate division. (Next division is brown belt and above .. which is as high as it goes, unless you want to compete in the opens against fit, strong 20yo's! Not.)

So last Thursday I was training at the senior class (which is for all the instructors in the region - so imagine about 50 people training and not only am I the lowest grade, but there are only 4 people with belts lower than brown belt .. pretty awesome company!). The Region Sensei - who is the most senior instructor in NSW, at least, and a third dan black belt - was asking who was going to enter the World Cup. Who wanted to be the World Champ? Surprisingly, not many of us raised our hands. When he asked why not, someone said that he probably wouldn't win .. and would be disappointed. Sensei then made a very good point.

"Well, firstly, you won't know unless you give it a go. Someone has to win, so why not you? Someone will win, that's a given. So imagine you decided you're going to go for it. You train hard for the next few months. You enter the other tournaments and may or may not win medals along the way. Your karate improves out of sight. You get to the World Cup and don't win .. or get a medal at all. But your karate is SO improved from where you are right now. Was it a waste of time? Gee, you didn't win but you have learnt so much in a short space of time and your karate is at a whole new level. Yeah, probably a complete waste of time and effort. Why bother?"

Moral: See the bigger picture. Brilliant.