Back to the grindstone

Yep - it's time to put my nose back to the grindstone, in more ways than one.

Not only am I back at work today (oh yeah, let me hear a big fat booooooo! about that), but it's high time the healthy eating resumed on a proper basis.

Christmas has been a bit odd this year because, as you may have read, I got food-poisoning. The end result of that was that ate pretty much nothing on Christmas Day and was pretty ill to boot, didn't eat a hell of a lot on Boxing Day, but then Sunday I was at a friend's family Xmas party pretty much all day and night and was surrounded by a plethora of amazing food. I didn't start too badly, and I was conscious all along of how much I ate, but perhaps inevitably I was a fair way over on points. I say inevitably because if you'd missed your entire Christmas lunch and tea, and had barely eaten for 2 days you'd have given yourself a bit of leeway too! Didn't drink much though and certainly didn't eat as much as I could have done.

Yesterday morning we had a post-party full English breakfast - I had one small bit of everything and left it at that - and then I was off into town to meet a bunch of old school-friends for lunch. It was great to see everyone, as I don't get to see them at all often since they're so scattered these days, although I didn't have as much time as I'd have liked as I had to bolt off to my opticians straight afterwards.

On a side-note - can I just say my opticians are absolutely useless buggers!!!! I had new lenses fitted a month ago and I've been really struggling with them and couldn't focus properly on stuff. They did a full check yesterday to see what was wrong and it turned out they'd only managed to mix up my prescriptions so they'd had me wearing my right lens in my left eye and vice versa for a month. Idiots!!!

Weight-wise, I lost quite a lot with the food-poisoning and was down at about 12st 2lbs from about 12st 9lbs. Following the two day binge of Sunday and Monday I was back at 12st 6.5lbs, but I reckon it should stabilise a little lower than that now I'm eating normally again. I'll do a proper weigh-in before New Year and let you know where I finish!


-- Posted from my iPhone

The sandwich that ruined Chrstmas

Guys - I tell you - Santa bought me the ultimate dieter's gift that keeps on giving this year!! Forget the Wii Fit Plus that my Dad bought me - this was the present that answers all a dieter's prayers. Have you guessed what it is yet?

Well have you?

Oh yes - Santa ... well, he bought me food poisoning. Gee thanks, Santa, you are tooooo kind!!!

Let me just explain the benefits of food poisoning to the dieter. What are the two things all dieters pray for at Christmas?

1. Some iron self-will so that they can make it through the days without completely derailing the old dieting wagon.
2. Spontaneous loss of those pesky extra lbs to make it to their end of year goals in one piece.

Thanks to Santa, I'm two for two on those wishes this year. I'm so nauseous I can't touch food - and in fact couldn't be in the same room as the turkey and had to run away to be sick. Again. And with my body's total rejection of all that was removable from it, I can safely say that the scales have moved heavily in my favour today. About half a stone in my favour when I looked several hours ago.

Santa, dude, you outdid yourself this year!!!

And if you haven't spotted the sarcasm yet, I'll come and hit you ... when I have any strength to get out of my bed.

The worst thing is I think this is self-inflicted. I was in a rush last night between getting back from lunch with friends and shooting out for drinks with old schoolmates, and I made myself a quick chicken wrap. I remember glancing at the date on the chicken and thinking it was a day or two past its display date but that it would be fine. I drenched it in sweet chilli sauce and wolfed it down. It wasn't til this morning that I realised that the date had said the 16th December - I don't know what date I thought it was yesterday but I seriously didn't twig that it was over a week out of date.

I'm feeling pretty guilty amongst other things because I'm staying at Dad's for the weekend, so not only was I not able to cook the lunch, which is my contribution to the day (and Dad has had to do as well as running out to do the 2 hour round trip to collect my grandma) but Dad's been running up and down the stairs every hour or so to check on me. He's a superstar.

So that's been my day - numerous sprints to the bathroom, lying in bed sleeping or feeling horrible, and nearly passing out earlier as I staggered back to bed.

I've now managed to sip about half a can of Coke (figured I needed the caffeine and sugar after the near-fainting) and I've nibbled about 3/4's of a Nice biscuit. That's it. I haven't opened my presents, seen my grandma or wrapped Dad's presents so he can have them.

I think we can safely say Xmas has been a write-off this year. I hope yours have been fab and you've faired better and had a great day! X


-- Posted from my iPhone

I found another way not to diet.

Oh deary me - I'm just not very on the ball at the moment. I made it through yesterday without taking any damage from the gauntlet of sweets at work and then promptly fucked it up in the evening.

The snow finally arrived for us yesterday night - so I left work early and swung by the retail park on the way home to pick up de-icer and screenwash for the car. And some warn pyjamas for Xmas and skiing. Since I was already in M & S for the pj's, I ducked into the food hall to pick up a few extra provisions in case of it being an impromptu snow day today. Salad. Fine. Some croutons - checked the nutritional info - fine. A small snack pack of savoury Xmas treats, a slice of Xmas cheesecake and a little box of 6 chocolates .... errrmmm ... would be fine if I didn't consume the cheesecake, chocolates and half the snack pack in one go after my dinner. FOOL!!

I feel pretty gross today. So, in the interests of being festively positive what have I learned?

1. I only ate half the snack pack - I knew I didn't want or need all of it with tea, so I stopped.

2. The cheesecake was ok, but actually it wasn't spectacular. I should have stopped when I realised this half-way through the slice. I felt guilty and annoyed afterwards. I know that that having the cheesecake wasn't better than having that disappointed feeling. I already knew that halfway through the slice. Everytime this happens and I acknowledge that feeling I find the balance tipping slowly towards the not-eating side. In the beginning I didn't think til afterwards. Then I started to have vague thoughts which I'd discard in order to continue eating. Now I full-on stop and waver before continuing, or sometimes I actually stop. In time I'll win this battle with my fear of not finishing things. There's no shame in throwing away food that you don't really want. There's no waste in not clearing your plate if you're not hungry or don't really like something. And if you do like it, but you're full, it's not going to magically disappear from the fridge when you're not looking. My brain knows this - my body is slowly learning to listen.

3. Those chocolates were gorgeous but rich. Oh so rich. I should have saved half for tonight.

I've payed for my indiscretion on the scale this morning. I know it's temporary, no-one can gain 2lbs of fat overnight. I want to be disappointed, but I shall look at the positives above instead. Someone yesterday was talking about Thomas Eddison's quote regarding his invention of the lightbulb - "I didn't fail to make a lightbulb a 1000 times, I just found a 1000 ways not to make a lightbulb". I think we can safely say that I found another couple of ways not to eat healthily for life last night. Habits that still need to be dissolved.

The only good thing about the times I trip up like last night? I wake up in the morning with a sour stomach and a refreshed sense of purpose. I had beans on toast for breakfast and bought fruit on the way to work this morning. Wish me luck for lunch out later!


-- Posted from my iPhone

Challenge!

I think I am one of the few people who actually looks forward to the holiday weekend from a diet point of view. Yes, I am indeed a total freak. I'm sure this merely confirms the suspicions you already had!

See - when I'm home, I'm generally well behaved. On the basis that I can't eat what I don't have - I'm safe. I don't keep crap in the house - that's temptation I don't need, and I've got a handle on the tin of homemade cookies from the other week - I might have one or two but I don't binge.

But when I'm at work it's another story. A very different one. The people I work with LOVE having treats in the office. And that's just during the rest of the year - at Christmas they just go nuts. Today there are 3 or 4 separate boxes of chocolates, 2 boxes of mince pies, and 2 boxes of chocolate covered biscuits dotted around on the cabinets lining the main corridor. It's like a gauntlet of food everytime you step away from your desk.

Yesterday it was just the chocolates - none of the rest of it had appeared yet. Yesterday my eating was fine ... if you ignore the however-many-far-too-many Celebrations chocolates that found there way into my mouth. Today the temptation, and variety of it, is trebled. Well ... enough. Today I challenge myself to keep my hands and my mouth out of the snacks. It's 11am now and I'm clean so far. I'm also not hungry and I've kept myself busy which helps.

So there's my challenge. I'm still after that elusive number on the scale on Friday, and I've got a lunch out tomorrow to navigate. Time to pull the big girl pants on and suck it up!

On a separate note - how delish was my breakfast this morning??? I had porridge Christmas-stylee! When it was cooked I added a couple of teaspoons of golden caster sugar and a 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, stirred it and popped it in the microwave for a 30 second blast ... soooooooo nice!!! Try it! Warm and spicy and Christmassy!


-- Posted from my iPhone

Ummm ... ouch?

I learned a valuable lesson last night: coming in out of the freezing cold into a very warm room and starting Balance almost straight away with Shivas (reach tall and then swing and release down into fold position) is a recipe for an achey back.

I did Balance last night, followed by a 45min Bootcamp class. By halfway through Balance my back was twinging a little bit. By the time we got to the 3 - yes, 3!! - back-to-back abs tracks in Bootcamp my back was out right twanging and tightening up and generally not a happy bunny!!!

Today it's best described as crunchy. Not the best. Luckily, I didn't have any hardcore exercise scheduled for tonight - just lots of errands that'll help me keep moving, which is probably the best possible thing for it. I'm picking my Dad up straight from work this evening to go do the Christmas food shop - this is good because it means I get to partly cotrol what food is in the house over the festive period when I'm staying with him. After that I think I'm going to meet friends for one last drink before everyone scatters there separate ways to go home to their families - so we'll be walking to and from the pub.

I'm going to heed the lessons I've learnt earlier in the year with regard to my back - rest and gentle movement heal it much quicker - and by gentle I now know that my physio means normal day-to-day movement not exercise.

Food-wise I need to keep tracking, tracking tracking everything as that's where I go wrong. Track it before I eat it if possible. Then I stay on plan. And I want to stay on plan. I want to recapture what I saw on the scales at the weekend and score another loss come Friday. So now I've just got to do it!


-- Posted from my iPhone

Gotta keep moving!

So another weekend's been and gone. I finished Saturday being fine for food but then spoilt it a bit yesterday by going out for dinner and having sticky toffee pudding for dessert - this is what happens when you accept late invitations for Xmas dinners you hadn't planned for and then take your eye off the ball. At least I'm starting to think more about hungry I am though, as I didn't automatically devour everything on my plate for my main course.

As I lay in bed yesterday morning thinking about getting up I was busy talking myself into going for the run that I chickened out of on Sat because if the cold. And you know what I saw when I got up and opened the damn curtains - frigging shining bright mirror ice all over the road and pavements outside. The cars and pedestrians looked like Bambi on ice out there, so no WAY was I going to be running on it. Hell, you couldn't even walk properly on it, and it just didn't melt either. Damn - foiled again! I did get a little bit of exercise helping Sheena move some of her stuff in, carrying it up the steep drive from the road (no cars could get up our drive at all) and then up two flights of stairs to the flat. Other than that and going to see my Dad, I stayed firmly indoors in the warm!

Today we've had our dept's Xmas quiz and lunch. I'm on our social committee so this is something I've been planning for the last couple of weeks, so I was quite nervous all morning that everything should go well. We had a buffet lunch but I just kept an eye on what I ate, and tonight I'm going for a short yoga class and then a bootcamp class with Bridget after work, so that'll be a good chance to work up a sweat!

I think exercise is going to be a bit hit and miss between now and the New Year as after tonight all my regular classes are cancelled and the weather's certainly making running difficult! My plan is to get my exercise where I can: walk to the pub for for Xmas drinks, walk on the hills and the common, especially if we get lots of lovely snow - hell if we get that much snow play with the sledges and burn some calories laughing myself silly and running back up the hill, go running from Dad's house over Xmas if the roads / paths clear enough and use the Wii fitness software that I bought. I don't want to just sit in and veg, because I'll feel gross if I do. Gotta keep moving!!! I feel I can move the scales downward a little bit more yet this year!

Ooooh - do you think we might even have a White Christmas this year?? How exciting!!


-- Posted from my iPhone

Chilled by the cold and chilling out

I'm chilled out, I'm sat in front of the tv watching the Strictly Come Dancing finals and I've had a nice day. I was over on points yesterday, as I had a Chinese takeaway for dinner. I hadn't actually planned on eating as much as I did, but a combination of the flat being absolutely freezing and me being unable to get anything like comfortably warm, and all the cash machines being broken by the takeaway, so I had to pay on card and meet a minimum cost, led me to getting a cheeky portion of spare ribs. Pretty much tasted like heaven, but I actually felt a bit ill afterwards.

That said I've got plenty of points to spare this evening, even after my dinner. I'm playing around with a lovely recipe tonight for sauteed chicken with cider and tarragon - I say playing around because the original recipe has both butter and double cream in, so I'm trying it with some healthier substitutes - will let you know how that goes!

Running has not happened over the last couple of days because it is tooooooooo bitterly cold to get out - the temps with wind-chill here are about -12 celcius at the moment ..... brrrrrrr-idiculous! The only exercise that has happened was Body Balance on Thursday, which was a really good session. Mind you, I've not been sitting that still as I've been tidying round the flat and helping move Sheena's stuff in, as well as running round the shops getting stuff sorted for Christmas.

I've been into town today and bought a wooly hat with pom-pom and some layering clothes, because it's flaming cold and I LOVE hats - you should seriously see how many I take skiing!!!

I also found gorgeous orginal oil painting in the Christmas arts and crafts market in the grounds of the priory, which was an absolute bargain! Can you believe this was £40???

And finally I bought more more veg as I seem to be getting through a lot of it at the moment! Oooh - and some heavenly festive fudge! Which I may have started nibbling while I'm watching Strictly ....



How strange - I'm now watching the broadcast of Take That's Circus Tour on ITV, and have just realised it was the gig I was actually at in Wembley this summer!!!! Good memories!! And funny to think I'm somewhere in those crowd shots!

Shuffling forward

Well the scales have finally moved a little bit again. Not far, another lb gone, taking me to 12st 8.5lbs. A new low for me. Just.

16.5lbs to go til goal. 2.5lbs to go before I get to 4st gone. Another day to try and get it right. One day at a time. One foot in front of the other.

I've got another weekend at home - excellent because I'm too damn tired to do anything else at the moment!!! Which doesn't mean I don't have loads of stuff that needs doing this weekend, so there's still plenty of running round to do.

Yesterday we booked the chalet for our ski trip in January - muchly exciting as it's a super-luxury pad with ski-in access, sauna and hot-tub on the deck and full-time chalet bitch / ski guide to cater to our every need. It also has more bedrooms than you can shake a stick at so I'll actually get a room to myself instead of having to share - heaven!!! We've just got to book our flights and transfers now, as the chalet company will do the rest of our holiday planning for us!!! 4 weeks tomorrow we jet off to Geneva - yay!!!

I've also just found out that I should now definitely have New Year off work so I can now set about some hasty celebration planning for that weekend - whoop :-)

Right - well I was going to run this afternoon, but it's so cold out we keep getting snow flurries, and I don't have kit to deal with that kind of cold, so I'm thinking of substituting for a walk on the hills instead - def want to get some kind of fresh air today.

Laters!


-- Posted from my iPhone

Is there an end in sight yet?

Is it a success that I'm stressed but know that what I eat doesn't make me feel any better, so there's no point doing it anymore?

I stayed on plan yesterday. I might even do it again today. I'm desperately looking forward to yoga later so I can just release all this tension I'm holding onto right now and re-centre a bit - trite-sounding but true.

I'll feel a lot better when I break from work for Xmas - ironically I'm a lot more in control away from the office. At the moment, I'm just looking forward to the respite of the weekend though.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Soldiering on

I just read that Kari over at Fat Free Me has got to goal. Isn't that fantastic??? I am so pleased for her as I've been following her adventures for a while now and have admired her unswerving focus on what she was doing.

It does highlight to me though the following question - what the bloody hell have I been playing around at????? Whilst Kari has been steadily losing every week, I've been up, down, unmoving and then down a little bit more. I always knew it would get harder the further along I got, but for the last couple of months I've really struggled to move in the right direction.

I left for Croatia, back in August, weighing 13 and a half stone. In the 3 weeks after I got back I lost another half a stone, and I've essentially stayed pretty much there since then. I lost 3 lbs, I put it back on, lost it again and the scales continue to bounce.

I can't seem to find my rhythm at the moment - I've lost my groove.

I continue to do what I can, trying to make each new day, or even hour, a fresh start when I get it wrong, but it's not enough and right now I can't seem to get down to and through that 4 stone barrier. And it feels exactly that ... a barrier.

I'm not down and out yet, just struggling to get enough of it right to make any move forward. Last night is a good example - I made a healthy tea of homemade soup to counteract the big lunch, then made Xmas cookies to bring to work and made myself feel sick by eating the leftover dough after I'd cut out all the cookies. Stupid.

At least I'm leaving the cookies alone today though, even though the open tin is right in front if my desk. All I can do right now is keep my head down and keep plodding along.

I have to admit that I was half-tempted to say I'd switch to maintenance just for the Xmas period and give myself a break and a fresh start in the New Year, but that smells a bit too much like defeat to me so I won't do that. Well, not intentionally at least!!

Yesterday I said that I was just shooting for 12st 8lbs at the moment, and I am, because that's the golden number that tells me I'm back to breaking new ground. This morning the scales had somehow bounced back up 3lbs since yesterday so I've got my work cut out to turn this shit around. But I'm going to keep trying, keep working, keep pushing myself. Because sometime soon I'd like to make like Kari and shout GOOOAAAL!!

-- Posted from my iPhone

Too much to do!!

I've got so much on my plate at the moment that I'm feeling a bit frustrated and panicky about managing everything.

After a hectic day at work yesterday I got home and had a whole 25 minutes to prepare tea and eat it before Sheena arrived for an another evening of decorating. Needless to say I was still eating when she arrived and then ended up juggling a phonecall from my Dad as well.

I didn't have many points left last night for dinner, but using my rush as an excuse for making a poor choice isn't good enough. I chose to eat pasta with some pancetta and pine nuts, and realised when I totted it up later in the evening that I was way over at 30pts for the day. Spinning also got ditched in the rush so I was feeling pretty grumpy by the end if the day.

After a rushed visit to the DIY store we managed to finish painting at 10.40 last night, so aside from needing to tidy up tonight, that is at least one big thing off my to-do list.

I was quite excited when I got home last night to pick up my post and see that part of my Xmas present to myself has arrived. Now, I don't know how good it will be, but I ordered myself a copy of the My Fitness Coach game for the Wii. I've wanted something I could do at home for ages, for when it's too miserable to go out and I don't have the time or inclination to go to the gym. What I didn't want was a static video-based routine where you just do the same thing over and over, so after a bit of research I stumbled on this game.

The idea is, that unlike the Wii Fit (which I've also ordered for Xmas), this is a personal trainer program rather than a series of games. It has pretty much solid 5* reviews on Amazon, which encouraged me, and I thought it might be good as I really enjoyed the circuits classes I did at the gym.

The game sets up a profile for you and then runs a series of basic fitness tests to see how fit you are to start with. You then decide what you want to work on and what sort of workout you prefer - such as strength, cardio, yoga and flexibility, and how long you want your workouts to last for, and it then builds a set of ever-changing programs for you which you go through with a virtual personal trainer on screen. Every 10 sessions you retake the fitness test to see how you're progressing.

I honestly don't know how good it will be, but I thought it was worth a try, especially at this time of year when the weather's frequently crap and the gyms are closed for Xmas and then rammed in the New Year with all the January Resolutions. And it was only £12!

With that in mind, I can't decide whether to go for a longer run out in the miserable freezing cold tonight (which I kind of need for the race), run at the gym on the dreaded treadmill, or stay in and try out the new toy. Urgh - decisions!!!

Incidentally, I figured out why I find running at the gym harder! I started a running log the other day (which I'll post to the blog soon) and I realised that I set the treadmill considerably faster than I run on the road - if I set it a bit slower I might find it less of a mission to complete 20 or 25 mins!!!

I've buggered up my points somewhat today already - I had Xmas lunch at work and used up all my points for the day already - lucky I planned on having soup tonight anyway!! I really want to keep on the straight and narrow this week and make it a good week - I really really want to make it to 12st 8lb and past this sticking point of 12st 9.5lbs where I've been hanging around for the last couple of months. I'm still hoping and aiming to make it to my 4 stone off at 12st 6lbs for my New Year weigh in .... come on Sue, you can do this!!

-- Posted from my iPhone

Weekend report

Phew - it's been a busy, busy weekend!

Before I start on that I'm going to backtrack slightly to last week and something that happened on Wednesday night. That was the night, if you'd be so kind as to cast your minds back into the depths of last week, that I went for dinner at Bec's and we had the roast veg with oil, oil and oil incident. Something else happened though that I forgot to mention, or more accurately just blocked from my mind. I committed the dieter's cardinal sin of sneaking food. Seriously -why the hell would I do that??? Am I the only one who STILL does this from time to time?? Such a stupid behaviour.

I did it because I was straight out hungry, and Bec was still busy washing up before putting dinner on. Because I was hungry I nicked two triangles of Toblerone from the big bar that was open in the living room. Not so bad in the scale of things I guess, but why did I sneak the food when I could have just said to Bec "I'm starving, is there anything I could have while dinner's cooking?". I evidently still have issues with food. I don't know if it's because I still feel paranoid about being judged around food sometimes. The old "look at the fat girl eating that Mars Bar" style paranoia, where I think people will judge me for what I eat and my appetite. I don't know - but it's frustrating none the less.

Fast forward to Friday and weigh in day. I've got a confession - I did something a bit weird with weigh in this week. Normally I just take whatever weight I get on the scales on a Friday morning, but having been moving steadily downwards all week, it jumped back up by 2lbs for some reason on the morning. So I left it a couple of days over the weekend to see if it was going to settle up or down. It settled down so I took the lower weight, which means I lost 1.5lb this week and I'm back to my lowest. And my reason for doing that? I was so bloody grumpy after the gains of the last 2 weeks (which were admittedly well deserved) that I didn't want to depress myself by posting a 3rd consecutive gain if it wasn't a true gain. A little bit cheaty maybe but it's TOTM again so I'm fluctuating.

The weekend was pretty good for me. I bombed off to Birmingham with Bridget after work on Friday afternoon. Did a bit of Xmas shopping, bought a lovely new ski jacket and some work clothes and then had dinner out. We ate at Wagamama's and despite major cravings for cheesecake for dessert, I decided I was just comfortably full and left it there. Nice. We then went to see Paramore at the NIA, who were absolutely fabulous live and finally stumbled back tired to the car and home. I also plucked up the courage to tell Bridget that I wasn't going to New Year at hers and got myself off that hook. It was an uncomfortable 10 mins of explaining and apologising, but it's done now.

Saturday I had a bit of a lie-in and a lazy morning in my pyjamas til lunchtime, then had a walk into town. After a bit of fresh air, I set to baking and made my mum's recipe Christmas Swedish biscuits - nearly got the recipe right - second batch tonight to bring to work. Just watched some tv in the evening with Sid and fell asleep on his sofa and an early night.

Sunday morning Sid dragged me out at 9am for a run, and 47 mins later he'd pretty much broken me!!! We did my longest run to date at 6.3km - obviously I had a couple of quick walking breaks, not least because of the big hill up for the first 12 mins, but I'm pretty pleased with that. I might use the weekends to do a longer run in future and just run as far as I can and then walk to recover.

I had a mad scramble when I got back to have a shower and get to the DIY store for wallpapering goodies and then back home for 11 - just about made it as my Dad turned up at the flat. We spent the rest of the day, through til half 9 last night, decorating the back room. Just managed to finish the papering with Sid's help, so I've got to tidy the edges and sort paint out tonight.

Foodwise the weekend was good - I'm on track with my points, so that's great. This week's going to be pretty manic as we race to get the bedroom finished and Sheena moved in, and I've got tons of tidying and other stuff that I want to do. Not quite sure how much exercise is going to get done, but we'll see!

-- Posted from my iPhone

Musings from my messy room

Nothing to do with weight loss at all this - just something random.

As I was sat on my bed this morning drying my hair and putting on moisturiser, I was looking round my room. It's an absolute bombsite at the moment (as per usual) but I was struck by the fact that it looks like it belongs to somebody with a split personality! Imagine if a girly-girl ran head first into a tom-boy - my room kind of looks like the fall-out from that explosion.

Next to the huge unmade bed ( don't know what I do when I sleep, but the duvet and pillows look like I've wrestled then for 7 hours by the morning) is my bedside table which has a delicate glass lamp, and a sprawling pile of one-off silver jewellery tangled with necklaces bought back from abroad - coral from Croatia and turquoise from Egypt. Mixed in with the mess is a headtorch and my runners water bottle. On the floor by the table is my Lonely Planet career break guide, a load of remote controls, the hairdryer and various miscellaneous shopping bags.

The chest of drawers looks like a triathlete went past shedding stuff - swimming goggles, spare inner tubes for my mountain bike and a heart rate monitor litter the top, along with a rainbow of nail-polish bottles, moisturiser pots, boxes of contact lenses and the Wii remotes.

Next to that is the laundry basket which is towering at an impressive 4 or 5 ft in height at the moment. A quick glance reveals bikinis, board shorts, rash vest, girly maxi dresses, gym kit, bright printed t-shirts and sequin- encrusted going out tops with the latest shoulder pads. On the floor is a pile of sweaty running kit from yesterday morning - gross but I was in a huge rush when I got back from my run yesterday morning - don't judge me!!

On the other chest of drawers is a huge spray of silk flowers in a vase, 3 straw hats (one cowboy, one trilby and one panama) and a pile of car brochures for Mazda MX5's, BMW 1 series and Z4, and Audi A3's, my passport, and a pile of miscellaneous currencies - Euros, Swedish and Norwegian Kroner, and more.

The contents of the wardrobe sprawl out through the doors - crates of handbags, piles of fabulous high heels dotted with my Scarpa's, running trainers and cleated shoes for the bike. A big pile of ski gear is currently in front of the wardrobe, with my windsurfing harness left on top - still not back in the drybag in the back of the wardrobe with my wetsuit and other bits. My Camelbak hangs on the wardrobe next to a pretty graphic print short dress.

I don't think I quite know who I want to be when I grow up!!! Outdoor cool girl or city chic extroafinaire?

And yes, I am horribly untidy - always have been and suspect I always will be! Lol.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Would you like some veg with your oil?

Which is the unfortunate scenario that occurred last night, when I went round to Bec's house for tea. We'd wandered around the supermarket looking for healthy stuff (me for my diet, her because she's waiting to hear results from tests to see if she has Coeliac disease), and picked up ultra lean steak and loads of root veg to roast.

Back at Bec's all the veg was chopped and ready to go in the roasting tin. She drizzled a load of oil in the bottom of the tray, and I was thinking "wow, I've not been using that much recently". Then the veg went in. Then she picked the oil up again, and proceeded to slug it over the veg like it was going out of fashion. Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

"Stop!! No, that's enough now!! That's plenty! Whoa Bec, you're going to drown them!!"

"They'll taste nice."

"They don't need that much though!"

"Well, our oven's a bit hot, and they won't burn this way".

"Well, just turn them down and cook them a but slower then."

"But I'm hungry!!"

"Do you know how many points are in all that oil though?"

"There's points in oil??"

"Errrr, yes."

"Oh. Oooops. Sorreeeeeee."

And thus, the healthiness of my dinner kind of went out the window. In Bec's defence, she genuinely seemed not to realise that olive oil can be bad for you, or too much anyway. To be honest, I realised how much I prefer my spritzed with olive oil veg, which is how I cook - our veg last night didn't really go crispy, the aubergine soaked up all the oil and kind of went downright slimy (well, tasted like that for me anyway), and I just felt all I could taste was olive oil.

I think I like it better without in future please!

Aaaah - freak out!

So the ever sensible Trio suggested yesterday that if I'm worried about being last in the race, I should just check out the finish times from the last race and see what the standard was.

Good suggestion, done that and now I'm reassu.... oh no, hang on - not in the slightest bit reassured!!!!! Big panic. There were only 16 people in the short race in the last event in November - and the slowest time was a shade over 40mins - which incidentally the same as the OPTIMISTIC time I put down on my entry form.

Shit - I'm totally screwed. I guess the only thing to do is keep training and if it looks like I'm still going to be massively slower with a week to go, I can always pull out to avoid total humiliation. Groan - why do I never make things easy for myself??


-- Posted from my iPhone

Slight miscalculation

So here's a truth for you: eat haute cuisine and you'll surely lose weight because the sodding portions are so small!!!

One thing I forgot to take into acount with my points yesterday was portion size. I naturally assumed that everything would be standard restaurant portions, aka bigger than average. In fact, the portions were downright skinny albeit delicious. Another error in my calculations was assuming there would be veggies with the main course even though they weren't specifically mentioned ... there weren't. Overall, I reckon I still came out where I expected to be on points - dessert was way smaller as was the meat portion but I scarfed a few small slice of bread and butter in lieu.

I did my run before I went to dinner, and it was pretty cold and wet. My running itself felt fairly steady and not too laboured, but I'm still ridiculously slow. I clocked 4.2km in just under 32 mins - def need to speed up for this race.

I have a big fear that I'm going to be last by a long way in the race. And because it's a race I feel the added pressure that I can't walk if I get tired. I know that really I have to set realistic goals - I'll be happy if I can just run the whole thing, uphill first half included, at a steady pace, and if I come last then that's fine. Afterall, someone has to come last at these things. I just don't want to embarrass myself and relive a repeat of my school athletics nightmares. The 1500m races always used to kill me, and the same with cross country. I could play stop-and-start sprint sports like hockey and netball easily enough, and indeed played hockey on the school team on my own time, but I was always a weak distance runner. Ah well - it's certainly giving me the motivation to get my runs in!!

On a different note, I've just booked myself a private ski lesson on a local indoor slope for just after Xmas. I want to hit the slopes running (well, skiing obviously) in Jan and a refresher session will be just what I need! Better start doing some squats to condition my legs soon!!


-- Posted from my iPhone

Plan, plan, plan

I am the planning QUEEN today!! Yes, I am!

And the reason for this military-like co-ordination? My spinning class's Christmas dinner this evening. It's a 3 course spectacular at a gorgeous local restaurant, and I'm scrambling to find that perfect balance between enjoying the meal I'm paying for and an evening with friends, and not cocking up my week for weight loss.

So how's this plan working? Well, I already know what I'm eating as I had to make my menu selections last week. I looked down the menu and made the healthiest choices I could - avoiding cream and opting low fat where possible. I've already worked out, to the best of my ability how many points that accounts for (the number eeeeek springs to mind!), and I've given myself a drinks allowance for the evening which allows for my free Winter Pimms when we arrive and a couple of glasses of wine at the table if we're sharing bottles.

I'm also implementing a few simple rules. Leave any bread and butter that come with the soup starter. Leave any snacky bits like the "apple crisps" that will be on the side of my dessert - they're bound to be highly calorie laden. No more than 2 roast potatoes with my main, and load up with free veggies / salad. Leave something on the plate at each course. Don't touch the nibbly bits before dinner and just one chocolate with the after dinner coffees. I think that covers it off.

I've allowed for wine with dinner but if it's not being shared at the table I'll save points and go for a different drink. And finally, I'm going for a run straight after work to get some activity in.

Planning Central!!! I've also planned the rest of my day's food to keep it light, with lots of fruit and I've foregone my usual morning hot chocolate (skinny of course). I'll still be over points at the end of that day, since the meal alone comes to 27 points -but it won't be anywhere near as catastrophic as it could have been, and I'll make further savings if I can.

Food yesterday was good and I did my quick run after spin, so feeling fairly happy with that.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Dilemma!!

It's a quiet day today for me. My food is planned and so far I'm sticking to it. I'll be spinning later and want to get in at least 15 mins on the treadmill at the gym before or after the class. I've started to get the Fear about the run in Jan and need to up how much I'm running each week, whether that's short runs built around my classes or longer runs outside.

I'm also being a grumpy, ungrateful bitch today. I found out yesterday that the New Years party I accepted an invite to back in September is now only going to be myself and my friends Bridget and Tim, and Steve and Amanda. Yep - two couples. And two of the most coupley couples I know at that. It's every single girl's worst nightmare, finding out that you're actually celebrating New Year with 2 couples and a very grown up dinner party, when what you were expecting when you accepted was a raucous party full of lots of people.

The worst part is that I have 3 other New Year invites - all to the kind of event I'd like to be going to, but when I accepted Bridget and Tim's invite back in September I thought I was working the whole of New Year and therefore couldn't make any of the others as they're all away trips for several nights. Now I know that I'm not actually working and could go on any of the others, but Bridget will be really upset if I back out now. What's a girl to do? Go to an evening that's just going to rub in my face how very single I am and will frankly depress the hell out of me, however much Bridget promises me that it won't, or upset one of my best friends in a purely selfish move to make myself feel better??

I need some advice here folks, because at the moment I'm just considering throwing a sicky and ditching New Year in favour of curling up in bed and shutting out the world!!


-- Posted from my iPhone

Out of the clouds

I'm feeling a lot like the picture below, as this weekend draws to a close:


After the doom and gloom of Friday's weigh in (which I also have to subsequently own up to - I can't add up - I'd gained another lb, not half a lb .... boooooo!), and the realisation that I'd been cheating myself last week, I feel like a bit of a rainbow peeking out from behind the dark clouds ... evidence that there might be better, less stormy weather on the way.

I've had a good weekend - I had a bit of a stroppy morning at work on Friday, when I realised that as per usual on my short day in the office, I had a list longer than my arm of stuff that had to be done. Yuck - but ultimately I knuckled down and got it sorted. There were cakes in the office yet again, but I behaved myself this time. By the time I left for the afternoon, I was feeling the need for a bit of therapy and relaxation time. I wanted some fresh air, and since I've been wanting sweet stuff all week, I thought it was time to go the whole hog (in a controlled fashion) and just bake something nice for the weekend.

I find time in the kitchen to be very therapeutic - especially if I'm doing something new which has lots of prep stuff to do, and requires me to pay attention to a recipe. It's time when I can just put aside the troubles of the day, and do something else completely. The other benefit to baking being that I get something sweet to eat, that probably tastes infinitely nicer than a chocolate bar or shop-bought cake (well, it does when it works anyway!), and isn't full of artificial crap, because I know exactly what all-fresh ingredients went in there.

After a happy 20mins perusing my baking book, I settled on Raspberry, White Chocolate & Cinnamon Blondie, and walked into town to go and collect the missing ingredients and have a little mooch. Feeling a lot better for the fresh air / leg stretch, I settled down to make a mess in the kitchen, and about an hour later, this is what came out the oven:


Dense, scrumptious cake with a raspberry and white chocolate layer right through the middle - think a kind of albino chocolate brownie. And better still - 4.5pts a square!! I took it round to the boys' next door and they happily devoured some with me. Well worth the splatter effect left in the kitchen, which it turns out happens when you don't grate the butternut squash finely enough and it gets caught in the whisk .... ooops!!

I was happy with Friday - I stuck to my points, I de-stressed for the weekend, I tried a new recipe which was a resounding success, and I remembered to take some of Thursday's tasty soup with me for lunch.

Saturday, I spent with my new flatmate Sheena, stripping wallpaper in the back bedroom, so we can redecorate before she moves in in a couple of weeks. We had a really productive day, and managed to do pretty much all of it - I just need to tidy up the bits round the skirting boards and coving before Dad comes round to help me rehang the lining paper.

I did learn a valuable lesson yesterday though - another bad habit that's contributed to my weight gain prior to the start of the year. By the time we broke for lunch, I suggested we do what we've often done in the past - grab some fresh baguette from the supermarket, a roast chicken from the rotisserie counter, salad and some crisps and build yummy, fresh sandwiches. Total error!!!! We used to do this all the time on weekends when there was a group of us - everyone just building whatever combination they want and sharing the food, but when I added it up to track afterwards, I realised that my little half baguette and vegetable crisps had cost me a mighty 16.5pts!! Good grief.

This actually made me pretty sad initially, as it's such a fun social way to eat, as well as marvelling at how deluded I'd been. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought of ways I could make it healthier without too much trouble. I mistakenly had cheese as well as chicken ... extra 4.5pts (god, I miss the lovely nutty taste of Jarlsburg - heaven!) and didn't measure out the crisps and just put them in a shared bowl - just sorting out those two things, would have saved me about 6 points or so, taking the lunch to a more manageable 10pts. Having a roll instead of my demi-baguette would have saved me more. Small changes, but at least I feel educated now.

Takeaway for tea (pre-planned and I didn't automatically scoff all of it), and then a lazy evening watching Strictly Come Dancing and Inglourious Basterds, which may well be my favourite Tarantino film to date. I also managed a pretty good job at keeping my hands out of the snacks Sheena had bought (Doritos and Cadbury's Buttons), and stayed off the vino in favour of Diet Coke. So, some points over from the lunch error, but not catastrophic by any means.

Cleaning up this morning, and be very proud of me please guys, all the leftovers - including half a share bag of Doritos went in the bin. No picking whatsoever!!

I've had quite a productive day today - I've cleared all the mess from the second bedroom and bagged it up, taken two of the four rubbish bags, plus two bin bags of non-recyclable clothes to the tip, tidied the flat, done some washing, been to look at ski jackets at Cotswold Outdoors, and now I'm sitting waiting for Bridget to come round for tea and tv. My food has all been planned for the day, including enough left for tea and a slice of cake afterwards. Nice.

In fact, since I've got a spare 5 mins, I might sit and plan my food for the next couple of days, something I very rarely do, but I've got a 3 course Christmas meal on Tuesday night with my spinning class and it can't hurt to be prepared.

So I'll leave you with a picture of my pretty Christmas tree which I put up on Sat afternoon - I've never had a full-size tree before, so I was very excited to have a proper 6ft one!! I love it as it's got all my mum's Christmas decorations on, some of which date from Austria in the 70's - it's nice to see them out again.

Hope you all had a good weekend!!

Mwah!!

ARGH!!!

For the first time since I started in January this year I've gained for the second week in a row. Only another 0.5lb but a gain none the less. I'm soooooooo frustrated with myself. I thought I'd got a handle on it this week, but I was obviously kidding myself. I realise now that while my points looked fine I've been quietly "forgetting" to record little things if they were too incovenient to work out points for, or I plain just wanted to sweep them under the carpet. Not helpful, Sue, not helpful.

Soooooooo - I refuse to give up, I just have to be more honest with myself and you guys. I've made a promise to myself to try and encourage myself - I only have two pairs of jeans currently , some size 14 skinnies and my size 16 boyfriend jeans. The boyfriend jeans are my chill out uniform, but I can now remove them without undoing them with just a little wriggle, so they're starting to get too big. I can have some new ones when I get to my 4 stone off, which is 12st 6lbs. That's 5lbs away from where I am now (back) at 12st 11lbs. I've seen 12st 8lbs on the scales once already a couple of weeks ago, although it was never an official weigh in. So I'd better get a shuffle on before I lose my jeans and embarrass myself. No time limits, just a target.

I'm eating soup today - lots of it. I made it fresh last night, and I'm hoping to kick myself off back in the right direction. I've got a weekend at home redecorating with my flatmate, chilling out and finding Xmas decorations - no excuse not to make it a good one for food and moving.

Have a great weekend guys!!


-- Posted from my iPhone

Plodding along

I'm being boring at the moment with my eating, but in a good way. I knocked out another good day of food yesterday and I'm on track for another one today. Having said that I don't expect to see a loss at the scales tomorrow because I don't think my body has quite forgiven me for last week yet. We'll see.

I was in a bit of a mad rush last night after work as I had a date. I knew I couldn't go to Combat because of the date, and that I wouldn't have a lot of tine after work as I also had to swing by the retail park and grab a new cardi as I managed to leave mine in London at the weekend. So it was very tempting to say sod it, I won't do anything in the way of exercise, but I got home, stuck my running gear straight on and plodded out the door in search of a sweat. It wasn't as windy as last week but it was flipping freezing out, as I soon realised when I could see my breath huffing out as I walked down the drive. I ran just a little further and a few more hills than last week, and it was just shy of 4k in 28 minutes, which I'm sure is an inprovement over the last time I ran that loop.

I had a quick dinner when I got back, and for the first time in as long as I can remember I voluntarily didn't finish my whole plate - too much jacket potato so I just left about half of it.

The date wasn't amazing to be honest, but I'm proud of my eating and exercise for the evening so not a complete loss of a night. (just to clarify - the date wasn't BAD either, he just wasn't really my type, and I don't think I was really his either). Went home afterwards and went round to the boys' to discuss ski holiday planning stuff (so excited!!!)

Body Balance class tonight and need to do a bit of tidying before the weekend as Sheena (my lovely new flatmate) and I are going to be redecorating the spare room. Oooooh - I do live the high life don't I??? ;-)


-- Posted from my iPhone

I'm on FIRE!

Good news everybody - I'm still walking the path of good eating!! Hurrah, I hear you shout!

Put it this way - the more weight I can lose before my run, the easier it will be!

In case you missed it yesterday, I've entered myself for my first ever race in the second of the Scott Aztec Trail Series runs in the Forest of Dean on 10 Jan. I'm running the short course, which is 5.4km, and the race is all over trails in the woods, no roads. I'm slightly scared that this is an actual race, rather than a charity fun run, and they have a whole points scheme for places (mostly for people running the whole series of races), and the timings are done via fancy-Dan ankle chips that each runner wears, but it does say it's for everyone from complete novices to elite, so what the heck - in the words that I heard all windsurfing holiday - "go big or go home".

After yesterday's realisation that I've back-tracked to eating crappy food which isn't keeping me satisfied, I've been keeping an eye on what I've been eating, as well as how much. I was reading an article in Zest magazine about the energy density of foods (which is basically what the Weight Watchers filling foods principle is based on), and it just reminded me what I already knew - that foods with lots of water in are much lower in points, but sure keep you filled up for longer. Plus they tend to be much less full of artificial rubbish. So it's back to basics again! Poached eggs for breakfast, soup and a yoghurt for lunch, stir-frys and pasta for dinners, and I feel a lot better for it already.

I need to get my head into a healthier place in the long-run as I don't want to struggle when I hit maintenance, and when I can't be close to a computer to monitor my calories all day. I also want to fuel my body for maximum efficiency - I've got lots of stuff I want to do next year, which will need my fitness to be higher than it is now (as much as now is a vast improvement on a year ago).

You want a sneak peak of stuff I want to do next year?

1. Obviously skiing in Jan - I'm looking forward to this as I'll be lighter and fitter than I've ever been when I've hit the slopes before.
2. My 5km first race, and I'd like to work up to a 10km or so during the year.
3. Kite-surfing weekend - I'd love to give this a go, as we see the kite-surfers when we go to Egypt and it does look like fun, and Jo's up for heading somewhere like Cornwall and giving it a bash.
4. Hit the lake and make some proper improvements to my windsurfing. This went a bit under the radar this year, with hitting the gym and a 1000 holidays, plus back problems, but I want and need to get it moving again this year.
5. Career Break.

Yep - point 5 is the big change that I've been talking about. It's been a long time coming, but I'm at a point where I'm ready to take the bull by the horns and do stuff. I'm booting around a couple of ideas at the moment, so I can't really say exactly what I'm going to do yet, but at some point from the summer onwards next year I'm planning on jumping on a jet plane and disappearing for a bit to go and do something completely different. Without going in to too many details at the moment, general fitness and point 4 above potentially come into my plans.

I've been dreaming my dreams for ages now of a better lifestyle, but I totally lacked the confidence and self-belief to get up and make the moves I needed to. Now it's a different story, and whilst the uncertainty and enormity still scares me silly, I'm ready to face it head on and get stuck in.

Recovery

I'm feeling a bit more in control today, and the weekend looked a bit more normal. I was still a bit over on points, which I expected to be realistically, but I don't feel like I went completely nuts.

I feel like I'm a bit more settled back into my routines today. Something Lizzie said last week on one of my posts really struck home - I'm struggling because I've been eating more convenience foods recently, and less home-cooked and basics, and it's not as filling - no wonder I end up raiding the cupboards again and again!

So how did the weekend go, after Friday's epic session of food lunacy? Better. Saturday, after I'd posted about my disappointment in myself I went and made myself pasta with tomato and chilli sauce, lean chicken and veg. That kept me nicely filled up til I made it to the boys' flat in Clapham, and upon arrival I got fed tea, which actually turned out to be more pasta! Bolognaise sauce second time round, but a nice size portion and a healthy sauce again. I had a glass of wine with dinner, and then stuck my evening drinking to vodka and diet mixers ... I think there were quite a few of those but it was damage limitation. I did have 2 slices of toast when I got back at 3.30am, but considering the boys had kebabs on the way home, I'd say that was ok.

Yesterday, I got woken up to be handed a toasted bacon and egg sandwich, but all grilled and no butter - not too bad. I stopped on the way out of London to grab a sandwich for lunch - M & S Count on Us range, a small chocolate bar, and then on to home. I got cooked for in the evening - roast lamb (oh my god - absolutely heavenly!!!), but it worked out really well because it was lean leg, and LOTS of veg - celeriac, parsnip, carrots, 2 small roast potatoes, broccoli, onions and a little bit of bacon in with joint, and a bit of gravy and redcurrant and port sauce. I got given a small piece of cheesecake for dessert without being asked - nice but luxurious.

Today, I'm fully back on plan with a vengance. In accordance with Lizzie's thoughts, I've bought my lunch with me and had a jacket potato with plain tuna and a yoghurt for lunch. Tonight I'm going to have pasta with tomato sauce, chicken and veg, and I'm going to spin.

Going forward, I'm going to make much more of an effort to bring my lunches from home, and make them filling foods. Partly because I need to control my hunger during the day, but also for another reason.

I need to start saving money. Major saving over a short space of time, because I have plans. Yep - this is related to the mysterious life changing stuff I was talking about last week. My plans have changed slightly over the weekend, as things move along. One option has been taken away from me, but it ended up leading me down a slightly different path that I'm pretty damn excited about. I'm still exploring the options, but I need to start thinking about funding now, and get started on that. I'll say this for the options though - they're all things that sit very nicely in my ideal of healthier, fitter lifestyle and will give me plenty of ways to challenge myself over the next year in getting to that place.

On a completely separate note - I've just crazily entered myself for my first ever race!! No tame 5km on the road for me - nope!! Instead I've entered myself for the 2nd of the Scott Aztec Trail Runs in the Forest of Dean. So on 10th January, I shall be collecting my timing chip (gulp - this seems quite serious!) and setting out for 5.4km round the forest trails. There's 3 races running that day, so I'll be running with people doing the 10.4km and 15.4km races too - they go on to do extra laps of the course. I would allow myself to get scared as this is a race rather than a charity run, but it says it's open for people of all abilities, from complete novices upwards, so I'm going to concentrate on enjoying my experience and see what time I get. I've cautiously put myself down as an estimated 40 mins to complete, as I'm not the fastest runner on the planet, so we'll see how it goes! I'm going to see if any of my friends want to come do it (or one of the longer races) with me, but thought I'd better enter now, before I allow me to talk myself out of it!

That's everything for today!

Ta-rah!!

Disappointed

Yep, I'm disappointed with myself this morning. I seem to be stuck in a little self-sabotage loop at the moment, and every time I'll say I'll eat better today I seem to get a little worse instead.

Take yesterday - I ate well up to mid-afternoon. I left the office several hours later than intended on my Friday afternoon off, and rushed off to an optician's appointment in town with points still in hand for dinner out with Jo. I met up with Jo, and after a bit of hunting round (it seemed to be ridiculously busy in town last night), we settled on a very nice Italian restaurant.

I made a halfway good choice for dinner - tagliatelle with chicken, mushrooms, and a tomato-y sauce, but with a bit of cream in. Ok. Not the absolute best I could have picked, but ok. Then I ordered garlic bread. With cheese. Kinda going down hill, as I didn't have the points for it, but not an absolute deal breaker, and would have been fine if I'd stopped there.

After dinner, we wandered along to the Victorian Christmas market down the street. And bought fudge. Now, this should be a clue to me how far off the beaten path my mind has wandered, as fudge is like my own personal crack - I can't not eat it. Had a few chunks, left the rest alone.

Afterward we'd said our goodbyes, I meandered home, and popped round to see the boys who were having a bit of a geeky boardgames night with friends. Danger signs flashing in neon on the edge of my vision, as I decided to take the vodka and slimline tonic with me and have a drink or 2. No points for this .... again, not a deal breaker in terms of points, but just not needed. What was I thinking???

Suffice it to say that all control went right out the window at round about this point, and I then stuffed my face with about 4 slices of Pizza Express thin-crust pizza (prob about 3 or 4 points a slice?), Jelly Babies (god knows how many points) and 2 small slices of home-made apple cake (don't even want to think about it). Like the genius I am, I then proceeded to stay up til 6.30am this morning drinking vodka and watching films with Jon.

WHY??????

So this morning, I'm tired, but can't sleep, cranky, kicking myself, and wondering where the hell my head is at????

I'm due off to London at some point fairly shortly for a night out, and I'm pretty sure that my lack of sleep (about 2 hours??) is going to catch up and majorly kick me in the ass shortly.

And what's with the eating. Why on earth would I continue to stuff my face with junk yesterday, when I've just had to report a small gain that morning because I've already stuffed my face with junk? I just don't understand my logic, or lack there of.

Today, I'm now faced with the prospect of another night out, and a night away from home, where I've got to try and get my head back in the game. It's not there yet. How can I tell? The fact that the open packet of fudge is next to me and I've been nibbling from it this morning is probably an awesome clue.

*Closes packet and moves it away before I just say fuck it and finish it off*

I don't like where my head is. I want to get these last 18 lbs kicked, and this is not the way to do it. Here's my promise to you - today I will practice moderation, like I certainly didn't practice it yesterday. I'm not sure that I'll be able to do today under points, as I am out drinking with the boys, but I will think things through, and make conscious decisions. I ate all the crap yesterday, so it's not like I'm denying myself anything I haven't had in ages.

Time to go and have a shower, put some washing through, and find something sensible to have for lunch (I've missed breakfast now). Do half an hour or so on my "project", pack my stuff and go. I will make good choices for dinner tonight, and not go nuts with the drinking.

That's my plan. I'll report in tomorrow.

Ooooh - and thanks to Kate for the Ronhill recommendation for my winter kit - had a look on Wiggle yesterday, and the prices were much more sensible than what I'd been looking at before!

Food diary number 2

It turns out that even photo-journalling what I eat can save me from myself sometimes!! I had the sweetest tooth last night and was really struggling to not dive head-first into the boys' biscuit box when I went round to see them after Body Balance, and the only reason I didn't eat more was I had very little in the house last night. So here's yesterday:

Breakfast was beans on toast (2.5pts), orange juice (1.5pts) and 2 satsumas (0.5pts).


Mid-morning snack of small skinny hot chocolate and a Weightwatchers Caramel Wafer (3pts).



Bottle of Coke Zero for a caffeine hit - 0pts.


Lunch (which I may have forgotten to take a picture of til I was half way through) - chicken and stuffing sandwich (4.5pts), Walkers Squares (1.5pts), and a Weightwatchers yoghurt (0.5pts).


Afternoon tea break - MORE Coke (it was a very long day!) and half a Double Decker (my colleague Claire had the other half).


And then it all went a bit wrong. I got back from work starving and couldn't find anything in the house, so I ended up scarfing down 2 wholemeal pitta breads with an individual pot of humour (I think 4pts for the pittas and 3 for the humous) and then a little pack of Weightwatchers Lemon and Ginger cookies (1.5pts). Then after Balance I heard the siren call of the biscuit box at the boys' house and the miracle is that I only had 1 biscuit when I wanted about 4! So another 1.5pts there.

All in all, not an absolutely stellar day. About 27pts eaten and only 21pts allowed plus the 2.5pts earned from Balance.

And the result of my indiscretions this week - 0.5lbs back on. Not a huge surprise after the birthday weekend, but frustrating and, as per usual, a kick up the arse that I can't mess around if I want to keep losing.

Got dinner out tonight so I shall try and make a sensible choice and get this week off to a good start.

-- Posted from my iPhone

Preparing for the Winter

Nice try, Kate, but I'm not giving up my secrets just yet - they still remain firmly shrouded in mystery. Suffice it to say that I spent another hour or so on this little project last night, and I'm slowly gaining confidence in my decisions - sods law is I'll get turned down and it won't happen now .... hmmmmm, has that got you intrigued???

I'm nicely achey this morning after Body Combat last night, I blasted through it giving it my all (what can I say, I had a lot of pent-up aggression to get rid of!), but I felt a few little twinges in my hip and ankle towards the end, which tells me I still need to be careful with my kicks. Balance tonight which is nicely timed to unwind the tightness from the week's exercise.

I started looking at kit yesterday, knowing I wanted some long tights for running in the colder weather. I'm not a fan of the treadmill (DULL!!!!), so would rather be running outside, even in the winter. All the streets round me are pretty well street-lit, and I could take a head-torch if I want to run on the commons or the hills in the dark, so there's no excuse to not go out. I was reading BettyMountainGirl's most recent post, regarding kit, and it did make me laugh as I'm such a magpie for shiny stuff. So I've pared down my list of "wants" - I don't need a new jacket, as my current waterproof is short and well-cut, lightweight and well ventilated, I do want some long tights, but don't need anything extraordinarily expensive, I've survived so far with out specialist headphones and the Nike+ for my iPhone, I would quite like to just get some reflective bands for running in the dark so I don't get mown down, and I already own a fleece headband and lightweight fleece-lined gloves from skiing, so that'll keep me cozy. That's probably cut the cost in half! Plus I can use the tights for biking in the winter too - no excuses not to get out!

That's pretty much it for me, at the moment. I'm doing the photo diary thing again today - boring for you guys but useful for me - just trying to rein in the damage from the weekend - a half a lb loss this week would be fab after the over-eat of the weekend, but I'm somewhat dubious that will happen!

Food diary number 1

It's quite interesting photographing everything you eat, as you have to think, with each item, whether you want to show everyone you ate it.

Breakfast was a 50g bowl of Special K with skimmed milk and a big glass of low sugar squash - 3.5pts.


Bottle of Diet Coke when I got to work - 0pts.


Fruit salad with 2 dessertspoons of low-fat natural yoghurt from the salad bar - c. 2pts.


Small hot chocolate with skimmed milk from Costa bar at work - 1.5pts.


New Covent Garden Winter Veg soup (carton for 1) - 2.5pts, meat sushi selection from Sainsbury's - 4pts, Weight Watchers Vanilla yoghurt - 0.5pts.



Mid-afternoon snack of an Alprn Light Bar - the chocolate and fudge are really nice and only 1pt!



Pre-gym and bloody starving, so a slice of the infamous birthday cake is called for - 3pts.


Scallops with lime and chilli marinade and some added mushrooms, broccoli and organic Mediterranean tomato couscous - 6pts.


So that's 24pts eaten out of a daily allowance of 21, plus a Body Combat class which earns me 6pts. 3pts banked. If anyone's dubious about the points for the Combat class, I wear an HRm for the class, calibrated for me, which clocked me at 632 calories in 58 mins - which I will bear testimony to with the sheer amount of sweat dripping off me and the bear continuous sticth for the hour long class ... good times!!

-- Posted from my iPhone

Think before you eat

My food intake the last two days has been getting worse not better, so today I'm experimenting with taking pics of everything to force me to think before I eat. Less cake that way hopefully!!!

I did go for my run last night - just a short one of 20 mins to ease back into it. Surprisingly, it didn't feel too bad at all considering I've not run in about 2 months, so I've not lost too much fitness, and I was able to put a nice little sprint in to finish up. REALLY need some full length tights and a jacket for the winter though - it was bloody arctic out in the wind last night!!!

-- Posted from my iPhone

Back on the bike

Yesterday went pretty much to plan ... apart from the dratted birthday cake, of which 2 small slices somehow insinuated their way into my mouth. Ummmm .... not sure how to excuse that, apart from to say it's very NICE cake, and somewhat healthy because it's got butternut squashes in it (ok, so it's less unhealthy), and that I intend to exercise more self-restraint later this evening in the face of the cake.

I got to spin last night, and busted a good sweat on the bike, as well as booking myself back in for Combat on Wednesday, so that's that part of my goals for the week being adhered to! I'm heading to the cinema tonight to see Bright Star (about the poet Keats), and I've planned a nice healthy, veg heavy dinner beforehand, which can be in the oven roasting whilst I bolt out for a quick run after work. Tick another point off my goals!

I was also good last night in two ways: firstly, I got back from spin and had a text asking if I wanted to go for home-made pizza next door with the boys. I wavered for 5 mins, thinking it would taste soooooo much nicer than my healthier, already pointed thin crust one from Pizza Express that I was planning to have for dinner, but in the end I stayed to eat mine as it was less points - tick! I also made myself get up off their sofa at 10pm, as I started to feel tired and GO TO BED, so I could get my 8 hours kip. Another tick and a gold star. Especially as the show we were watching was only halfway through and I missed the end.

So that's my life at the moment. I've got quiet nights with exercise planned til Thursday this week, then Fri I'm going to meet up with Jo, and Sat I'm off down to London to see some friends for a "quiet" night out in Clapham. Hopefully, I'm going to catch one of my schoolfriends, Koks, for coffee on Sunday on t'other side of Clapham Common and then crawl home for some sleep.

There are other things afoot in my life at the moment, things that make my stomach crawl with nerves, but I can't really talk about them yet. They're not bad, but they could potentially turn my whole life upside down, at least for a short time. I'll talk about them if anything happens (in fact you'd be hard put to miss them, if anything comes of it), but I may still yet bottle it, if I don't have the courage to see it through.

Intrigued?

Suffice it to say, that a year ago, I felt the same way, but didn't have the courage to even think about it. I'm still not sure I do now - but they always say that you regret the things you didn't do, not the things you did do, right?

And I'll leave you on that cliffhanger.

Sleeping it off

I've got a few things I want to talk about today, mostly to do with things I have recently noticed or discovered along this little weight loss caper I'm on.

In an odd twist this weekend, I've eaten and drank far more calories and fat in the past 3 days than I would usually consume but not seen the expected outcome. Friday was the worst, Saturday not so bad, and the same yesterday. I fully expected to see the scales go up this morning after the foody debauchery, but it had bizarrely dropped away from Friday's weight by nearly a lb.

First up, I reset the scale and stepped on a second time to double check what I was seeing. It was still the same, and when I put my work trousers on this morning, I noticed that they're sitting a tiny bit better too. So what's the answer to this mysterious loss? I have a theory.

Sleep.

Yep, sleep; not moving my butt, but in fact, NOT moving my butt is, I believe, the answer.

This weekend I got 3 really decent nights sleep of around 8 hours and woke up this morning feeling really refreshed for it. It's quite unusual for me to get a full 8 hours sleep as I usually clock around 6 hours or so. But I have noticed over the last month or 2 that the scales go in my favour when I manage to get a couple of nights in a row of decent 8 hour sleep.

And it's not just me; I read an article in December's Zest magazine corroborating this. Apparently health professionals dub it "inslimnia" and it's a known affect on the metabolism of minor sleep deprivation. When the body doesn't get enough rest the hormone balance gets out of whack, and the metabolism ends up being inhibited. My thoughts on this - I'm going to make a real effort over the coming weeks to get at least 4 or 5 nights of quality 8+ hours sleep a week. It might even help the ginormous bags under my eyes too!!

Discovery number 2, and we're returning to my underwear drawer. This has been the topic of coversation before, and we're delving in once more. Underwear is the one drawer that I've been less than stellar at sorting out and discarding from during my weight loss. I've bought new smaller knickers as I've gone along, but been shockingly bad at getting rid of the older / bigger stuff, and the result is chaos. Like most women, I have a ton of different sized bras in there. As I've lost weight I've noticed that the bigger ones are now too big - they are on the tightest fitting and still ride up my back, and now gape at the front. But I'm bad at throwing stuff out as it's so pretty, and it's kind of hard to determine when it's just TOO big.

No more. It's got to be sorted. For the first time EVER I bought new bras on Saturday and they were a 36in band. Even when I first got measured as a teen they were a 38in band. It's WEIRD having 36's fit. Anyway, I think this marks time that the 40's need to be chucked. Ditto any knickers that aren't a size 14 or 16. There's just no point and I might as well get properly cleared out since I said I'd chuck all the clothes in the massive pile this week.

On another overshare of information, I'd like to share my pleasure at the reappearance of my belly button piercing. I had it done years ago, in my gap year just after I'd left school. Over the subsequent years and weight gain, it kind of disappeared into a little overhang of fat. Ok, I'm kind of grossing myself out here, but it's the cold hard truth. It wasn't really visible anymore, and you can't imagine the feelings of jealousy that people like Brittany Spears and her tiny, flat abdomen induced in me. For some reason I never took the bar out though - prob on the basis that no-one really ever saw my belly anyway so it didn't matter. But slowly, slowly it's starting to make a reappearance, as my belly gets smaller and starts to tone up. It's a slow process, and I don't know how much progress I can reasonably expect to make after years of abuse but every little bit is a bonus.

Talking of progress and things fitting better, you might remember me talking a while ago about shopping for kit for Egypt, and the joy and relief of not having to worry about being able to find a brand that fits, and even having a choice of things. In 6 weeks I head off skiing, and obviously my stuff from last year doesn't fit. What does fit are the pair of ski trousers that I bought years ago.

I bought them for my 2005 ski trip, when I was at my heaviest. I'd ordered them over the Internet as they were listed as being a UK size 20, but I couldn't even get them past my thighs when they arrived and I was gutted but kept them in the vague hope that I would one day manage to diet my way into them. I've been trying them on intermittently since I started losing as they've been my long-term marker of my success. On Saturday I tried them on again and they now fit absolutely perfectly with even a bit of room to spare. So I only need to buy a jacket and mid-layers this year. The exciting thing is I've started looking at jackets and they're are so many cool brands I can choose from now. I absolutely love it - having this choice, as even the coolest of brands go to a size 14. This was one of my motivating factors when I started and I've achieved it.

Goals-wise for the week, as promised I've fully jumped straight back on plan today and have my food planned for the rest of the day. I've rung the gym and booked my spinning class, and I'll book my Body Combat when I'm there later. I've chucked out more stuff on the pile and I'm going to work on bagging it all up over the next couple if evenings - I'm still intending on getting it all out of the flat this week - and I think it's going to be quite a cathartic thing to do!!

Apologies for the lack of comments on other folks' blogs recently - I've been catching up on everyone's adventures via my iPhone, and it's hard to comment from here - but I will get back to my regular commenting soon!!

More anon, healthseekers!


-- Posted from my iPhone

Birthday celebrations

I've had a great birthday weekend, and had a lovely day yesterday. Friday turned into a bit of a massive overeat. I took cakes into the office, but made sure I took in small things that I could eat like French Fancies, which turned out to be a good thing. I had a gorgeous dinner at a local gourmet restaurant on Friday after work. The food was absolutely luscious, but being a birthday dinner, I chose exactly what I wanted, without a thought for healthy eating. Not something I do often these days, but it makes it a genuine treat when I do. I had an amazing open ciabatta with cajun steak, peppers, onion and cheese (lots and lots of cheese), and an absolutely massive pile of chips with real mayonnaise. YUM!!! And then there may have been sticky date and toffee pudding with honeycomb icecream ... droool .....

After a dinner that big, I just had homemade soup for tea, and honestly, I didn't really even need that, and felt pretty sick after eating so much, and then went for a very cheesey trip to the cinema to see New Moon, complete with Pic 'n' Mix. A loooooooot of food, but I don't do it often.

Yesterday, on my actual birthday I had a very lazy day, and got up late. It was really nice to have a chilled out day when I was able to watch a bit of tv, do some tidying up before guests arrived. I also had a couple of hours shopping and bought a lovely dress, which I'm so excited about, because it's sooooooo pretty :O)

I kept food normal during the day, poached egg on toast for breakfast and a jacket potato with prawns for lunch. We ate out again last night, but I picked healthily for that (lamb and couscous). There was some a little off-plan drinking, but genuinely not that much - I enjoyed what I had:


.... although maybe not the sambuca as much .....


... and then danced like a loon til gone 3am!

Finally stumbled into bed around 4-ish, but I feel good this morning, no hangover and pretty awake. I'm off for tea with my dad and my grandma in a bit and then catching up with some friends later.

Catch ya later!

I lost again

Weight that is. Yep, after much finger, toe, leg, arm and eye-crossing the scales magnanimously stayed right where they were and I'm now officially 12 st 9.5 lbs, which is a new all time low for me.

It does seem like I'm a bit tortoise-like with my progress, but I am, none the less, getting there one tiny bit at a time. 52.5 lbs gone, 17.5 lbs to go til goal.

A while ago, when there was still 50 or 40 or even 30 lbs to go, just losing 1.5 lbs a week made me think I would never ever get there. No wonder we're always advised to look to the shorter term goals. But now, with under 20 lbs left, it's really nice to be able to look at the final goal and see each little weekly movement putting a noticable dent in what's left to lose.

As I mentioned yesterday I was looking at my weight loss stats over the course of the year and I could see two things. My average losses have gradually been slowing down all year, and are now just a shade over 1 lb a week. But all the times I gain are holidays or a long weekend away with heavy duty partying. In between those I actually lose pretty consistently. At the moment I don't have anything like that in my diary til skiing a couple of weeks in to the New Year.

I'm celebrating my birthday this weekend (birthday is actually tomorrow) so I'm out for lunch today and dinner tomorrow plus some drinking and dancing, but I don't want to go too far off the rails. Next weekend I'm heading down to London to do some catching up with folks, but again, I'm not planning on going bonkers. Christmas for me is fairly restrained, and I'm working pretty much the whole holiday season this year anyway so it's not so hard to keep the indulgences limited to just the weekend.

I'm not putting any timescales on getting to goal now. My progress chart says I'll prob chug my way to goal sometime about mid-Feb, based on progress this year, and just for once, I'm not inclined to fight it anymore. I'll get there in my own sweet time and there's no point fretting over it. It will just be interesting to see what I can do when I'm not jetting off on holidays here, there and everywhere.

Aims for this week:

* Get back into usual exercise routine of spin class, body combat and body balance classes next week, or as much as my foot can take.
* Go for one run.
* Get rid of the piles of clothes on the floor of my room that have been sitting there for weeks and months because they're too big, because the pile keeps growing and I can't get in the bottom 3 drawers of my chest now!
* Whatever happens food / points wise over the weekend, jump back on it as soon as possible.

More anon, health seekers!

-- Posted from my iPhone

On the mend

I've been feeling pretty rough the past couple of days, hence my blog being rather quiet. I've been kicking the last of the stomach bug into touch, as well as the joy of THAT time of the month and a headache that didn't want to shift for about 36 hours.

I find these days that whilst I'm better at dealing with emotional eating issues like stress, I can still turn to food for comfort when it's physical discomfort. Having said that, I've only been a few points over on any given day, so whilst I'm eating more than usual, it's not particularly bad stuff.

Take last night for example: I was driving back from my speed awareness course (boring!!!!) and feeling absolutely shattered. My first thought was that I absolutely couldn't be bothered to cook and just wanted some "instant" food, so maybe I should stop at the takeaway on the way home. Then I thought about it, and actually thought that all the MSG in the food would just make me feel crappier afterwards and I didn't really want that. So then I thought I could just have the ready-done pizza from the fridge at home or just do some pitta bread and humous quickly. Then I thought a bit more and thought that I already had ready-cubed butternut squash in the fridge and it would barely take any longer to stick that in to roast and shove a chicken breast on the grill and some green veg on the hob.

Yes, folks, I actually started out wanting takeaway and talked myself back into a healthy meal, not because I thought I should or was feeling guilty about eating less healthily, but just because I wanted it. Weird. I'm sure these things usually go the other way round.

After dinner I curled up in bed with Strictly Come Dancing from the weekend and the remains of a tub of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia low fat frozen yoghurt. God bless that stuff - I can scoff just under half a tub and it's still only about 5 or 6 points (should have weighed it out, but frankly didn't care, but by eye, it looked to be about 3 x 60g scoops).

This morning was a bit of a surprise as the scales have been a bit all over the place this week but suddenly jumped to a new all-time low this morning. I had to get on twice to believe it! If it stays anything close to that for tomorow's weigh in I'd be delighted.

I've not been exercising this week yet, due to the rather large gash on the top of my right foot courtesy of windsurfing on Sat. The only shoes I can currently put on are little pumps that don't cover the area at all or my Ugg boots which are soft and don't rub. Trainers are out, especially combined with lots of jumping round. But tonight is Body Balance which I can do because it's barefoot - yay!!!! I never thought I'd say it, but I'm actually looking forward to Balance and getting really stretched out.

Anyway, more anon, fellow health-seekers! Not sure how healthy this weekend will actually be, as it's my birthday and there is going to be a certain amount of eating out and drinking involved. But here's an interesting fact to finish with: I was looking at my weight loss patterns earlier today, an pretty much everytime I've gained (I think there have been 5 occasions to date) have been after holidays or trips away. The stay-the-same weeks are often around TOTM. Which means there's not a lot between now and Xmas to stop me getting some of this shifted. What stops your progress in it's tracks?


-- Posted from my iPhone

Body confidence

I've put up a load of photos from holiday here, but there's just one other I wanted to share with you:


I'm not perfect, and there's plenty of work still to do, but it's nice to feel like a bikini is at least an option, and it might not terrify the natives too much!

A huge improvement over h0w I felt this time last year.

Thank god.

Nose back to the grindstone

Hey guys, I'm back after my little sojourn to warmer waters (literally), and more or less in one piece. It was a most excellent holiday, and you can read about more about it -----> HERE!

Food-wise, the trip had it's ups and downs. Before I left, I set myself 2 goals for the week:

• to leave something on my plate at the Indian meal I went to with my Body Balance class the night before I left,
• and to write my journal whilst I was away.

Not so difficult, but I only managed a 50% pass rate! D'oh!! The meal was fine, but for various reasons the journal never made it past the first paragraph on the first day.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!

I went a lot like this -

Manic day rushing round on Sat, packing, running errands, tidying the flat, visiting my Dad, getting myself plus luggage to Jo's, then both of us to the hotel at Gatwick. Collapse in front of Strictly Come Dancing, eat dinner, sleep. No journal.

Up super-early, check out, car to airport parking, coach to airport, check in, 6 hour flight (?? Should have been 5, but they screwed up the take-off times a bit), 2 hours ahead in Egypt, transfer to hotel, eat exhausted dinner, sleep. No journal.

Hoof it to the beach, first morning sort out of teaching groups for the week, much windsurfing, exhausted dinner, welcome drinks in the evening, sleep, no journal.

Repeat on day 2, minus the first morning stuff, but plus one very messy night out in town. Throw up due to going completely bonkers on alcohol after time away from drinking. Pass out. No journal.

Wake up to find have developed bad stomach bug (locally known as Dahab Dash, since everyone gets it to some degree or another, spend next 36 hours throwing up, stomach cramps, "Dashing" and generally curled up in a small miserable ball on the bed, and gulping down the broad-spectrum anti-biotics I'd been prescribed by nice local pharmacist. Crawl out to the beach on the afternoon of the 4th day, lie in the sun (still no energy to windsurf), early night, no journal (and not a lot of food).

Days 5 and 6 - repeats of days 1 and 2, including very messy closing party, but minus the throwing up due to virtual alcohol poisoning this time. Still no journalling.

Final day - up early, hangover, lie on beach and chill for the morning, loooooooong trip home. No journal.

Whoops.

Food was generally up and down - breakfast and dinner were massive buffets, but eating a lot of good stuff in the evening like pitta, mezze and fish and rice. Breakfast was pancakes, lunch varied depending on what we got down on the beach - sometimes healthy like rice (and only half portions because appetite shot) and sometimes not so healthy like burgers. On 4 of the days, you can then add in at least several hours of windsurfing, falling in, manhandling kit and hauling myself out the water.

I did step on the scales yesterday morning when I got back, and they were ever so slightly up, but then I've been gulping down pills to try and settle my stomach for the last half of the week, so god knows what the true impact is. I'll weigh in properly on Friday and we'll see. Kind of hoping I'll have properly kicked this bug by then as it's still lurking!!

Anyway - I was straight back on plan yesterday morning, and did a shopping trip last night, with a list of meals for the week in mind. Had lucious venison burgers with roasted butternut squash with rosemary and broccoli and green beans last night - god, I missed veg while I was away!!!