Wednesday 31 March 2010

Really wish I hadn't done that

I had a long and toxic day at work yesterday (again). There seems to be far too many of them recently.

Long story short - I didn't finish work til gone half 7, and I was tired and fed up on the way home, so I stopped and picked up a takeaway. Just chow mein and some prawn crackers. I had the points but, same old story, when I'm really hungry I get full really quickly. Did I stop when I was satisfied? Hell no! Did I keep going til I felt fairly sick? Err, yes.

I didn't actually finish all the crackers but I felt horrible after, and this morning too. I still haven't learned that lesson, and I'm disappointed in myself for not making better choices.

Why didn't I stop?

Why did I even bother with the takeaway when I didn't really crave it at all?

Tell me I'm not the only one!


-- Posted from my iPhone

Tuesday 30 March 2010

Living for the weekend

Evening, my lovelies!

Apologies for the absense - I went to Bristol for the weekend with friends and I was totally wiped out by last night. Excuses, excuses!!

It was an absolutely gorgeous weekend - quality time spent with two lovely ladies who I'm honoured to call friends, and it involved everything a proper girly weekend should: namely wine, shopping, a fantastic dinner out, cocktails, more wine, dancing, (sore feet), (lack of sleep), a very lazy morning and brunch, a lovely walk round the docks and a good chick flick at the cinema.

On the confession side of things, I now have a some-what hefty points deficit to work on this week - kind of inevitable after a dinner that involved rabbit ravioli (oh. my. god. They were to die for), lamb that literally fell apart under the fork, and sticky toffee pudding that could produce an orgasm in most grown women, as well as any sentence that involves the words "wine" and "cocktails".

But I didn't let myself go crazy. I certainly enjoyed what I had, in fact I savoured every last bite of it, but I didn't let that one night out spill into the rest of the weekend. We also walked a lot, both while we were shopping and just for the hell of it on Sunday.

We got home late Sunday evening, and despite my lift stopping to get fish and chips on the way, I arrived home food-free and skipped tea as I still felt full after eating some pic'n'mix at the cinema earlier. On a separate note, we saw The Blind Side and I absolutely loved it and would absolutely recommend it. I left that cinema with a lump the size of a golf ball in my throat.

Anyhoo - back to that very first paragraph where I said I was wiped out last night, well I'm going to be a bit smug. I was absolutely shattered last night, but I still went for a run when I finally got home from work at 8. Nice.




-- Posted from my iPhone

Friday 26 March 2010

Steady as she goes

So a steady week of eating and exercising equates to a steady loss. A lb off this week - nothing stellar or exciting, but quiet understated progress none-the-less.

I did what I wanted to do this week - I tracked everything, I worked out 4 times plus my walk on Sunday, and I came home with a smaller deficit than last week.

Sure, I'm still making some mistakes, but I'm acknowledging them, and hopefully taking them on board.

Yesterday I navigated a work buffet lunch without too many problems, ate a healthy tea of homemade soup, did a Body Combat class at the gym and went to horror movie night at a friend's house. That could have turned into a minefield of pizza-laden proportions, but I stayed clear of the pizza, skipped the Doritos and contented myself with a couple of handfuls of fruit pastilles. I count that as an at least partial success.

And so to the scales this week. If I'm honest I wanted to see more than a lb gone, as the scales weren't the lowest they've been all week, BUT I think I've got what I deserved. The task for next week is to stick with it and keep focused.

This is my danger point - over the last 3 months I've lost that half a stone from skiing but also managed to put it back on, which is to say that the good weeks have been followed by bad weeks. Time to turn that around.

The first test of that resolve will be this weekend as I'm away for 2 nights with the girls. And I'm out for lunch today with my Dad. I need to not go crazy, view food as a neccessity not a reward, and remind myself that there's very little that won't be available again soon if I don't have it this time. In other words - stay mindful.

Actually, I think the first test is continuing to ignore the cakes on the cabinet 10ft from my desk!

Have a great weekend, folks!

-- Posted from my iPhone

Wednesday 24 March 2010

Exciting times!

Evening comrades!

So stuff and things have been happening at Casa del Sue in the last 24 hours ... and whilst I might well be wondering if I've lost my marbles, or at the very least temporarily mislaid them, I'm also wildly excited!

Errr, right, where to start? So yesterday was good in terms of eating - I planned my food, which meant that I could cook a tasty butternut squash risotto for Bridget when she came over in the evening (and Sid too, who gate-crashed lol), and stay on plan, and then we bombed off to the pub quiz at one of our locals.

Today - also good. It's getting boring right? Me just saying "it's been ok today". Sorry about that! I had a slight swap round with what I'd planned today, as a colleague at work has bought in amazing home-made cakes to celebrate her birthday, so I had some of the banoffee pie (oh. my. god. so good!), but then delayed my planned dinner with my Dad tonight until lunch on Friday, so I could just come home and have a healthy salad for tea instead.

I also finally got my car back from the garage after it broke down all those weeks ago. Un-freakin'-believable!!! Remember this face? Yep - the garage have been hanging on to my car since then. 4 weeks. They rang to tell me this afternoon that it was ready, after telling me 3 different delivery dates for the part that needed to be replaced, including telling me yesterday that it would be at least another week or so. My joy at getting my car back was more than offest though by them telling me that the quote they gave me previously for the work, was a £100 less than the final price .... grrrrrrrr.

After getting my car back and getting home, I was in a pretty grumpy mood, so rather than ditch my planned run, I decided to go and channel the negative energy into something useful. And you know what? It felt like the best run I've done this year so far, so I was really glad that I made the effort to go.

I've gone into my activity points a bit today, as I put mackeral on my evening salad - I guess if you're going to plough over your points, eating one of your portions of oily fish a week is a good way to do it.

I keep wondering why it is, that when we're on a roll, we're inspired to keep going and make the little sacrifices, and we even feel good in a masochistic way for making them, but when we're down, it's so difficult to even make one little decision right, and denying yourself the unhealthy stuff becomes an impossibility. And more to the point, how do you just flip the switch and change one mentality to the other?

OK - now the exciting stuff. I've booked flights to Costa Rica. In August. For 4 whole weeks!

Yeeehaaaaaa!

I am so damn excited! It's a huge step for me, as this will be the first proper extended backpacking I've ever done.

I'm going with Jo and Lissa (who I went to Croatia with last year) and God only knows how I'm going to fund it (I've half an idea on that one) and what I'm going to do about my job (only about a quarter of an idea) - but I tell you what - if this is not the best motivation to keep going and get to goal (hello? pretty much a month in a bikini?) then I don't know what is.

So Carribbean beaches, surfing, cloud forests and zip lines in the tree canopy, monkeys, turtles, and trekking up volcanoes, here I come!

Tuesday 23 March 2010

Another boring (but successful) post

I'm sorry ...

My posts are going to get horribly boring if I stay on track much longer. Yesterday:

I got up.

I ate a sensible breakfast and snacks.

I resisted the fiendishly-placed bag of Cadburys mini Creme Eggs right by my desk at work - I had one, I pointed it, I moved on.

I had a healthy lunch.

I came home and did a short run.

I ate salad for dinner.

I watched Glee, paid the bills and went to bed.

Yeah. Exciting. I know.

However, I'm grateful, as I managed to save some points, which was the objective, and I always feel good when I finish a positive day on plan. I didn't much feel like going for the run, but I did it anyway, and I felt a sense of achievement when I finished. And I was amazed at how full I felt after my dinner, when I'd eaten healthily and saved points.

I've kind of taken a step backwards at the moment - I'm trying to remember all the eating habits I employed when I was so successful at the start of last year, and re-incorporate them into my schedule. There's no point re-inventing the wheel when I did it last year and it worked perfectly well.

Tonight, Bridget is coming over to mine for dinner before we hit the pub quiz - I'm cooking a healthy risotto for dinner, which should leave me a couple of points left to bank for the day, and whilst I won't have time to run or workout this evening, I'm going to try and walk to and from the pub / supermarket this evening if I can, just to stretch my legs a bit.

I'm enjoying being back on plan and making this work for me, but a little bit worried that I'm away for the next 2 weekends, which could lead to potential derailment. I was talking to Bridget about it on Sunday whilst we were walking (she's going to be on both the same weekends as me) and we've agreed that in order to save both money and our figures, the key is to limit the eating out, and cakage on the trips.

This weekend we're hopefully heading down to Bristol to see our friend Hannah for a girly weekend. Since Hannah is also health-conscious, I'm hopeful that we won't have too much trouble in convincing her to cook in for dinner rather than eating out, and sticking to some vodka and slimline rather than copious amounts of wine. We're also planning to sneak lots of walking into the weekend and maybe a swim in the pool at Bath Spa - so basically lots of movement and not spending too much money. Win!

The following weekend we're heading to Wales, with 10 of our closest buddies (Hannah included again) for a long weekend to celebrate Bridget's birthday. The menu is pre-planned, and we've decided that purchase of extra snacks / goodies in the supplies, other than the main meals isn't necessary as everyone always brings that with them. Hopefully, that will help minimise the badness, but at the moment there are about 4 separate promises of birthday cake being made and bought along, so I'm going to need to develop a strategy to cope!

I'm on this at the moment, and I want to stay here, so I've got plenty of incentive to make the small sacrifices necessary. I've also potentially got one hell of a big incentive to do it, but more on that later.

Monday 22 March 2010

Looking on the bright side

I had a great weekend - exactly what I needed to reset after a hectic week last week.

And don't you just love this Spring weather? I was ablento go out in t-shirt and jeans yesterday! Love it!

Anyway, I'm jumping ahead of myself. Up til yesterday evening I had a good weekend on plan. I stayed in my points, I went to the gym on Saturdy morning. And then, and I'm smacking myself round the head for this, for some reason I decided to have pizza with the boys last night. I wasn't even particularly hungry and yet somehow 4 slices found there way into my mouth. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I'd been planning to have soup or pasta for tea to stay within my points, but there I was sat eating pizza. On the plus side it wa home-made from scratch so no nasty, fatty, artificial crap, but I still reckon 4 points a slice (they were medium sized) plus Mayo leaves me with about a 20 point deficit. Booooo!!!

So now I've got some catching up to do.

Other than that it was a really peaceful weekend. I had a very nice chilled out afternoon and evening on Friday, pottering around town and watching copious episodes of Glee. After the gym on Saturday I watched the rugby, baked some lemon cupcakes, and then got talked into going out with friends. As I'm very much trying to save money as well as stick to Weightwatchers at the moment, I decided to venture out, but drive and not drink. I can't say I'd want to do it on every night out, but I had fun, spent a whole £2 the entire night and didn't use any points on drinks or wake up with a hangover, so it definitely has some plus points!

After a much needed lie-in yesterday I went for a walk on the hills with Bridget in glorious sunshine. It was a lovely afternoon out - we walked and talked and a had a cold drink and an icecream cone at the hotel at the far end of the hills - we've decided we're definitely doing more things like that this year!

Overall, I'm disappointed that I tripped up last night, but I'm still on track to complete my mini-goal of finishing this week with a smaller deficit than last week, even if I don't manage to scrape any more points back this week, so that's positive.

Happy Monday everybody!


-- Posted from my iPhone

Friday 19 March 2010

Feeling satisfied but I can still do better!

After a week in which I ate out 4 times, but thought about what was going in my gob and got my butt out on the streets to run 3 times, I've managed to book a 3.5lb loss this week.

To put that in perspective the scales were up by 4lbs last week, so really I'm only staying the same over the course of 2 weeks, but I feel in control and like I'm making some progress with my attitude to my eating again.

With that in mind, if I keep it up again next week then I should be cracking on into the territory below that blasted 12st 12lb that I haven't been able to get past in the last 2 months. Its half a lb off at the momeny and that in itself is a good incentive!

Last night I went for another quick run when I got home. Actually, "quick" is probably a bit misleading - "short" would be a better description, as I defintely wasn't quick - my legs had totally turned to lead! Anyway, I did what I could and then tootled home to change.

I was all geared up to set a new precedent last night and try a salad at the restaurant, but they said they couldn't do it with out dressing as the meat was cooked in it. I allowed myself to get distracted at that point and had pizza instead - note to self - have a back-up option planned next time! I was also slightly foxed as there was a surprise birthday cake for Jo, and since it was only 6 of us I felt odd about saying no to cake - I might want to work on that!

So I actually went over by about 7 points yesterday - not ideal, but not so bad either - the planning definitely helps.

Onto a fresh week starting today. Last week wasn't too bad, and I'm pretty pleased with my progress, but I still showed a deficit in my tracker at the end of the week of 30 points. Smaller than any recent weeks, but still a deficit. This week's challenge is therefore to aim for a smaller deficit this week - to continue to improve.

Of my other current mini-goals I did pretty well - I ran 3 times, which ticked off my "exercise 3+ times in the week" goal and I spent an evening with my Dad for my "spend more time with the family" goal. Winner!!

I'll keep both of those goals for next week too, alongside aiming for a smaller deficit.

Who reckons 12st 12lbs is toast next week?


-- Posted from my iPhone

Thursday 18 March 2010

Will everyone stop trying to feed me!!!!

Gaaaah!!!!! I'm trying to be good and what happens????

Bourbons (one of my favourite biscuits) placed on the cabinet in front of my desk to share out.

A Cadburys Creme Egg placed on my desk by one of managers as a little treat.

Seriously guys - stop trying to sabotage me!!!!


-- Posted from my iPhone

Eating out

I ate "out" last night for the third time this week. I obviously don't like to try and make things easy on myself!

I finished the work day on plan and without snacking, and then dropped in another quick run as soon as I got home. It felt harder than the day before as not only had I selected a hillier route (although infinitely more scenic as it crosses the common) but I already had muscles from the previous day that were trying to remember what this running malarkey was all about. Still, I did ok against my memories of the last time I ran that circuit (only stopped to walk and catch my breath once at the top of the hill on the common, rather than needing 3 breaks like last time) and there is a small sense of accomplishment in a job well done.

Straight after I'd got changed I went round for tea at my Dad's. As well as recently recommitting to my health, I've decided that I need more regular family time so I'm aiming to spend at least one evening a week with my Dad. Unfortunately, on this occasion Dad decided he wanted Chinese takeaway when I rang to say I was on my way over. Rats!!!

Like a good girl, I checked how many points I had left, and bought him what he wanted, but decided to exercise a litttle healthy selfishness and bought myself something with less points in. I also turned down icecream for dessert, walked to the pub to meet friends for a drink afterwards instead of driving, and steered clear of the alcohol - 1 vodka and slimline and then on to Diet Coke or water - and by a scramble I survived the day only 2 points over. Not too shabby.

Today, just for shits and giggles, I've got another flaming dinner out. I KNOW!!!! 4!!!!! 4 meals out in a week!!!! Gaaaah!!!

So plan, plan, planning I am! The dinner is for one of my best friend's birthdays so I obviously don't want to miss it, and to be honest, by this point I'm on a mission to prove to myself that I can do it this week and cope. Next week will be a bloody breeze after this!

On a separate note - I just went out to go and buy my lunch, and suddenly realised exactly how starving I was - proper hot and cold, shaky starving (where'd that come from all of a sudden???). Two things: 1st - I had to suddenly think very carefully about what I was buying for lunch. I'd planned on a wrap and a Shapers chocolate bar, but immediately found myself thinking "I'm really hungry - it won't be enough!". Logic eventually prevailed as deep down I know that I actually tend to get full QUICKER when I'm really hungry, and I talked myself down from the ledge with promises of further food later if I actually need it.

2nd - when I got back to the office the temptation was to rip in to my lunch and practically inhale it without tasting it. I forced myself to slow down though and exercise some control - at least I now remember having my lunch!

-- Posted from my iPhone

Wednesday 17 March 2010

So this what "on plan" looks like

For the first time in quite a while, I genuinely had a day yesterday that I was happy with Weightwatchers-wise.

I steered clear of the cakes for the remainder of the day in the office - no sneaking. I didn't have a lot of time between getting home from work and heading out to the pub quiz, but rather than do nothing I slung on some workout clothes and went out for a quick 20 minute run. I just ran the shortest loop I have in my arsenal, but it was lovely out and I thought it was better to do something than to do nothing.

It's the first time this year that I've not only been able to run in capris and a long-sleeved base-layer and be the perfect temperature (hoorah!), but also the first time I've been able to run in the daylight after work. Anyway, it was actually quite nice and I felt a tiny sense of achievement for going. Better still, I feel oddly energised today - is it because I got out do you think?

After a quick, but healthy, dinner (tomato-based pasta sauces - how I've missed thee!) I shuffled off to meet friends for a local pub quiz. Please scrape your jaws off the floor - I stuck to water for the evening. Normally when I'm not drinking for whatever reason, I stick to Diet Coke, but I really wanted to allow my body to wind down for the evening caffeine-free last night. It totally worked too - I fell into bed at 10pm and crashed out like a light til 6am this morning!

I was at the office working for 7.30am this morning as we've all opted to work earlies this week. The Cheltenham Gold Cup race festival is being held 1/2 a mile from my office this week, which brings absolute chaos to the roads as well as a constant stream of helicopters flying in directly overhead all day - sodding noisy, I can tell you! Much better for us all to leave for the day before the last race kicks out and 50,000-odd people try to leave the racecourse simultaneously!!

As I was in early, I was absolutely starving by 9am. I managed to avoid the chocolate in the shop in favour of a bowl of hot porridge from the canteen - figured it was a more wholesome choice! I've had soup and a bread roll, followed by a yoghurt for lunch, so hopefully that will see me through to dinner and allow me another decent day on food.

Just another 2 hours before I can leave for the day - I can do this!

Hope you're all well, possums! I'm still following everyone's progress, even if I'm noticably quiet on the commenting front at the moment. X

-- Posted from my iPhone

Tuesday 16 March 2010

Edging back on plan

I'm tracking properly still, which is good, but reveals an underlying problem in that I've started snacking again. I'm trying hard to make today about making good choices. It's hard-going when the office is full of cakes yet again and I'm inexplicably starving but I'm hanging in there so far.

I've been really struggling to get the scales moving below 12st 12lbs since skiing - that's where I'm sat today so I'm just focusing on staying on plan and getting through that. It's one lb at a time at the moment, one day at a time.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Monday 15 March 2010

Meeting stars, kissing strangers and decluttering

Phew - that turned out to be a busy old weekend!!! For once though, I managed to stay relatively on track and although I do have a bit of a deficit to catch up on this week, it's not an insurmountable one - which makes a welcome change!!

After work I ran around running errands in the afternoon, and then spent a happy couple of hours in the kitchen baking. I'm loving learning to bake, even if I do have to be mindful of how many of my own goodies I consume.

After the first load of cupcakes were on the rack cooling, I just had time to grab a shower and get changed before running off to catch a train to Birmingham. After meeting up with friends we just had time to grab a drink before heading off to see Newton Faulkner at Symphony Hall.

It was an absolutely fabulous show - the guy is amazingly talented and a great performer too - but we were absolutely starving when it finished at 10.30pm, so the group decision was to grab dinner at the nearby Handmade Burger Co. This could have been such a disaster but I'm glad to say I kept my head and ordered a Cajun chicken burger (grilled chicken breast, Cajun Mayo and salad on a bun) and skipped chips in favour of an undressed side-salad. I enjoyed it, left part of the bun and stayed in my points for the day.

On the way back to car, we passed back through Symphony Hall and guess who we saw?! Mr Newton Faulkner himself!!! He was just finishing up a meet and greet and as it was getting quiet we shyly went over to ask if he'd sign our tickets for us. The guy was lovely - really friendly - so I thought I'd be a real geek:





Saturday morning, I had a lie-in and pottered round the kitchen baking a second batch of cup-cakes and learning how to do frosting for the first time. Success!!! Look how pretty they turned out!





They're chocolate at the back and peaches and cream at the front - both from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook Sid bought me.

After that it was another quick change (I had a I-don't-know what-to-wear moment so Sheena stepped in and rifled through my wardrobe and chucked stuff at me to wear, and then we headed into town to watch tr rugby with friends.

One thing led to another an before I knew it the game was over, we'd all gone out for dinner (I know - the second time in as many days, but I avoided thr starters, and stuck to a tried and tested tomato-pasta dish) and then on for some drinks. Somehow I then got dragged out to a club, despite so not being dressed for it. I think sometimes though, the nights that are sprung on you at the last moment are often the best. There was crazy dancing, a few more drinks, including dome I'll advised Jagerbombs, and despite feeling under-dressed compared to most of the other girls out, I somehow ended up having a total teenager-flashback and snogging the face of some random stranger on the dance floor. Not my usual style, but a much needed and timely boost to the ego. I finally crawled into my bed at 4am.

I paid for all the drinking yesterday with a less than pleasant hangover so it was a pretty slow start to the day. When I finally got moving I ran some errands off my list of things to do, including finally clearing out the rubbish bags from the hall cupboard and taking them to the tip, and finally bagging up the two big bin-liners of old clothes that are too big and taking them to the recycling bank. That was highly therapeutic I can tell you, to get rid of them - a positive statement that I won't be needing them again. I also dropped a load of the cupcakes round to friends to get them out the house, although I may have indulged in a few myself due to my hungover state. I know - ironic that I made it through 2 days or eating out and drinking and then ran over my points on a day when I wasn't doing much.

An ok day today, took a load of cakes to work to hand out and successfully managed to ignore the siren call of them after my allotted one mid-morning. I was going to head out for a run this evening, but I'm pretty snotty and bunges up with a cold so thought I concentrate on trying finish the day off eating right and then get a decent night's sleep.

More anon, troopers.

-- Posted from my iPhone

Friday 12 March 2010

Defeat

I'm trying very hard not to feel depressed this morning and throw in the towel on the weight-loss lark. The scales, which were sitting sensibly at a stay-the-same for the week have bounced overnight - up a whole 4 lbs.

This means, that for the first time since autumn last year, I have officially weighed in back over 13st. It feels pretty heartbreaking right now to be back-tracking like this, in fact it feels a lot like it used to feel pre-Weightwatchers, when I'd watch helplessly as the scales would very slowly creep upwards one tiny bit at a time regardless of what I did.

I would say I'm losing confidence in the Weightwatchers programme, but really I'm losing confidence in me.

I don't want to go back to where I was, half my clothes feel tight and I feel like I'm on a slow inevitable slide - a bit like watching a car crash in slow motion.

I hate feeling like this.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Thursday 11 March 2010

Game on!

I've got a challenge ahead of me today - I've just got to work to realise that I've got another encounter with the lunch buffet from hell today. The super luxury (but super nice) one where one plateful can very easily be an entire day's worth of points.

Time for some careful choices, soup for dinner and the Body Combat class that I already had booked for this evening!

Wish me luck!

EDIT - I survived lunch!!! Just had a sandwich, some lean roast meat and a couple of mini sausage rolls - result!!

-- Posted from my iPhone

Wednesday 10 March 2010

Lists, lists, lists

Sometimes you really underestimate how good your friends are. After getting council from Bridget at the pub, I spent a long time chatting to Jon last night when I got home on MSN - more good advice and unquestioning support later, and I finally went to bed feeling more peaceful.

And the advice I got? Take your problems and break them down into more manageable bits, then break them down again. Keep going until you have a list of lots of little tasks that are easy to tackle. Also - stop worrying about the things you can change, and just change them, and the things you can't change? Well, stop worrying about them.

Good advice indeed.

So I spent my lunch hour today scribbling in my notepads, doing just that - it looks a bit more like a molehill than a mountain now, albeit a bloody big molehill. But there's the basic strategies on dealing with my debts, my career, travelling, my health / weight and family. And I came up with some basic rules and guidelines I want to keep in mind too. To keep me focused, I want to get a big pin-board and put all this stuff where I can see it. I'm not the most creative of people, so it's going to be a bit like a 5 year old being set loose with the crayons. I am quite a visual person though, so I think this would be a good thing to have. Being able to see me ticking off mini-goals along the way - not just weight stuff, but on all my goals - will be rewarding.

Back to my awesome friends - not only do they offer me good advice and non-judgmental support, they are apparently psychic. I was chatting to them on email this afternoon at work (actually discussing where I could get my pin-board from), when Sid said he thought I'd seemed a bit down and had bought me a present. How nice is that?!?! He bought it round this evening - the guy is officially a legend - here's what he got me:


Oh yeah!!!

I'm very excited about this - I've wanted this for ages!!! Not particularly healthy recipes I'll grant you, but then as I've already discovered - when learning to bake, I have a lot of friends and workmates who are more than happy to devour the extras!

So yeah - my friends totally rock!

Food's been ok-ish today, I've done something off my list, in that I went and had dinner with my Dad after work (spending more time with my family is one of my goals), and said no to pudding - it's not perfect, but I feel like I'm heading in the right direction one little bit at a time.

Tuesday 9 March 2010

Not feeling too shiny right now

I'm feeling a bit fragile right now. Everything feels too much, like someone turned the volume up on the world and everything's shouting at me at the same time. How much my job is making me stressed and miserable at the moment, worries over travel plans and whether I'm making the right decision or have the balls to go through with it, the black cloud of my debts constantly hanging over my head, worries about my Dad who just had a corrective laser surgery on his eyes yesterday and is genuinely scared he might go blind, and my increasingly frail soon-to-be-95 grandma, sadness that the 3 year anniversary of my mother's death was 2 days ago, and guilt that I actually forgot on the day, and ongoing confusion over what happened with The Guy.

Basically my head's a bit fucked. I just got back from a pub-quiz and a much-needed girly one-on-one chat with Bridget afterwards, during which I 'fessed up most of the above, including alluding to The Guy. She's such a star that she didn't even press me for details - just gave me a hug, told me I was an idiot for thinking she would judge me, that her phone was always on and she wished there was something she could do to help in practical terms. She's the best.

On getting back from the pub, the first thing I did was head for the cake tin, and I got it as far as the kitchen counter before thinking that this wasn't the right reason to be eating late-night cake and putting it away again.

My eating is by no means perfect at the moment, but I feel a bit nearer to being on track than I have done in recent weeks. The weekend wasn't amazing, but was certainly better than it could have been. At least I'm starting to consciously think about my choices and the consequences again and also to track everything and I'm also taking on board lessons learned.

We had another long walk on the weekend - 12 miles of hills. This time I pointed my picnic food in advance, unlike the Great Day of 70 points, and I made a more sensible dinner time choice at the lovely pub / restaurant. I was still a few points over at the end, but only a handful.

Sunday was also a few points over, due to a visit to Yo! Sushi during a shopping trip - although I did maintain some awareness of what I was eating whilst I was there. Today and yesterday haven't been too bad at all. So although the scales were back up over the 13 st mark after the weekend, they weren't as bad as the previous weekend and were already climbing back down this morning. If my weekend's aren't going to be perfect, then if I can at least keep that trend of not being as high as the previous week, and then climbing straight back on it on the Monday (or sooner) then I should at least see some slow progress in the right direction.

Now I just need to figure out how to tackle all the other crap in my life before my head explodes or I jump off the nearest cliff.

On a more positive note, the walk was a lot of fun on Saturday - I pushed myself marginally harder than I did last time but doing all the peaks along the way this time rather than taking the paths round a few of them, so that was good. There's a few photos below of us on top of the hills and also hiding for a mid-morning break in a dell while we waited for friends to meet us. The theme of the day, which was my friend Graeme's birthday celebration, was to bring one super-extravagant thing with you - I was quite boring with my luxury item, which was organic clotted cream fudge yoghurt, but some of the others were quite original - at the lunchtime picnic we had fresh G & T's with lemons, freshly done toast (on a camping stove) to go with the pate and Gentleman's Relish, and a whole hot roast chicken, roast potatoes and gravy, complete with salt and pepper shakers!!! Genius!



So there, we go, I'm trying hard to end on a positive note I don't quite feel at the moment, the mojo's still a bit elusive, but I did realise earlier that I do feel much better when I can feel in control of at least one aspect of the chaos, and if that's my eating that's fine.

Friday 5 March 2010

Yup - these are definitely mojo tracks I'm following

Still plodding along, resolutely following the trail of my errant mojo.

By some miracle I'd lost half a lb this morning at weigh in - it doesn't sound much, but when you consider that the scales were 5lbs up a couple of days ago I'm so damn relieved that I pulled the week back.

Now I have the challenge of a weekend ahead - usually about the time in the mojo hunt where a rest and an indulgent picnic at the side of the trail calls to me - I'm just going to have to keep putting one foot in front of the other this weekend.

Thursday 4 March 2010

On the trail of the missing mojo

Well, I started the hunt for my missing mojo yesterday - today I'm far from home, but THINK I might have found it's trail. It's very faint and weeks old, but it's the best lead I've got as to where the damn things gone so I'm following it.

Got a long way to go yet though to catch it up.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Wednesday 3 March 2010

Lesson 349

I can safely say that I've found another way not to lose weight - lesson 349 - don't think before you eat.

After a painfully long and stressful day yesterday at work I came home and just gulped down leftover fajitas from Monday night. Not everything in sight but enough to leave me feeling a bit sick, and still weird this morning.

I'm doing a good job at finding ways to make the scale go up though.

I'm off to hunt for my missing mojo - I may be sometime.


-- Posted from my iPhone

Tuesday 2 March 2010

Still sinking

I started writing a post yesterday saying how the weekend hadn't been perfect but could have been a lot worse. Then yesterday night happened as well (we were entertaining at ours and I literally had enough chocolate confectionary to make me feel sick) and I can't lie to myself or you ... this week is not going well.

I wouldn't be so hard on myself but that's the story of all my weeks recently and truth-to-tell I was too scared to even step on the scale this morning.

Why the hell can't I pull my act together????? 5 weeks since I got back from skiing and I've not lost any of the weight I put on at all. This is bad.

Anyone seen my missing mojo?


-- Posted from my iPhone