Hello, Mr Bank Manager …

I’ve just taken what was, for me, a very scary step.

I’ve rung my bank and spent quite a while talking through my debts and trying to sort out a better solution for them.

*************

The worst part of being an adult, is that you have to stand tall and face your own fears.  There’s no parental figure to hide behind when things get tough, and for the most part cushioning of childhood is gone.

I’ve spoken before, I think, about the fact that I’ve managed to get myself in a financial mess in the last couple of years.  I’ve never been great with my own money (oh yes, spot the irony of a debt-saddled accountant – hilarious), but the last couple of years saw me take my eye off the ball and let it get somewhat out of control.

Probably much the way some proportion of readers here feel about their weight.

Debt’s a little bit sneaky though.  Whereas when you put on weight there only is a certain amount of denying it you can get away with – after all, everyone else can see it, and you’re clothes will certainly tell you sooner or later – it is entirely possible to completely stick your head in the sand with debts and just pretend it isn’t happening.  After all – if like me, you have a decent credit rating and a slightly above average salary, the financial institutions are falling over themselves to lend you money, and it takes a bloody long time for you to get to the point where you start to feel the bite of the repayments.  But like all good things – the fairytale comes to an end, and one day you realise, with a panic-stricken jolt, what a horrible mess you’ve got yourself into.

If you’re me, it’s one step worse, because as a professionally qualified accountant who’s been living the life of riley for years and is apparently successful in the financial world, it’s frankly embarrassing to have to own up that you have an alarming amount of debt lurking in the background.

Still, I have started to face up to it.  I’ve scared myself sufficiently to realise that now is the time to do something about it, whilst I can still just about afford to take control without damaging my credit record further.  That’s given me the motivation to get this thing sorted.  I got over the embarrassment and told a few close friends, and I’m trying to be open about it, so they can support me (is any of this sounding familiar from anyone about to start a healthy-eating and fitness plan???), and I’ve sat down and written down the nasty truth, and worked out a budget so that I have a realistic plan for getting it paid off.  And that’s got me through the first couple of months. 

I’m finding it hard to adjust to having a strict budget (oh God – this is a diet!), but the longer I stick to it, the more I find that a) I appreciate now how all my spending adds up, and b) I am sometimes surprised by how little it’s possible to live on relatively comfortably if I apply myself (it’s like Weightwatchers for my bloody bank account!!!!).  But what I started with wasn’t enough – chipping away at the balance a tiny bit at a time is good, but I can do better.

So I’ve finally bitten the big bullet, and done the thing I’m really scared of.  I’ve rung the bank and asked about my options.  Admitting to your friends that you’re broke and in debt is one thing – doing to the bank is a whole lot bigger and scarier.  I owe somewhere in the realms of £22k between my credit cards and my overdraft.  That is a whole big heap of debt.  I’ve heard of worse, admittedly, but I need to get a handle on my personal ball of pain now.

The problem I’ve had, is that I already applied for one loan so I can pay off my cards and cut them all up, but because of the way credit checking works, they don’t take into account that I want the loan instead of the credit cards, and not as well as, and so I was turned down.  Speaking to the bank has been my next option, because I obviously I want to do something so I’m paying less interest and have a strict payment plan to stick to, but actually having to beg the bank – well, it’s just not a nice option.

But I’ve done it.  It’s a little bit more expensive each month than I wanted, which will mean having to stay on a really strict budget until I can either engineer another payrise or can find some costs I can comfortably cut back on, and it’s a slightly higher interest rate than I wanted, but it’s still half the interest rates on my cards / overdraft and has the flexibility to repay early if I can find a better financial option later.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get accepted straight off, and my application has been referred for someone to individually review (again – most likely because of my current balance of debt and the fact that they need to manually adjust my budget (they took about a billion details of my income and outgoings) to cancel my current debt-repayments off), so I now have a nerve-wracking 3 days to wait and find out if I’ve been accepted or not.

I’m literally praying at this point (probably somewhat pointless as a confirmed non-believer), because this would be a big step forward for me in getting my finances straightened out, and I’m not sure what I’ll do if it gets rejected.

I know this is a little off-track from my usual topics of conversation, but I guess my blog title is Losing A Little Bit of Me, and right now this debt is a rather large part of life, and an even larger source of stress to me, to boot.

Fingers crossed, eh?

Feeeeeed Me!

One of the things that I have always found hardest to deal with is trying to make good decisions when I’m hungry.  Not a bit hungry, but really-freaking-starving, got-the-shakes hungry.

My natural inclination is always instant gratification, and preferably in the sweetest but sugar-laden form I can find.  I literally crave sugar when I hit that level of hunger, and it is so difficult to think clearly at that stage.  As I’ve mentioned before, I also suffer from a massive case of eyes-bigger-than-stomach when I’m really hungry too.  I want it all, and I want it now, damnit!!!!

Conquering myself when I’m in that situation is literally an effort of willpower – a conscious decision to fight it, and try and make the best decision I can at that time.

For me, that was this evening.  I was so hungry when I got home from work, that I was literally prowling round the kitchen looking for what would hit the spot.  Cereal straight from the box?  Tempting.  Cake decorations from the cupboard?  I kid you not – it crossed my mind.  How about decision no. 2?  Something more sensible to hold me over like a banana.  Zero points and it’ll probably take the edge off for a bit.

Or here’s a thought:  why not just suck it up like a big girl, and just get on with cooking the damn dinner????  My planned dinner was pasta with a tomato and vegetable sauce – even cooked fresh from scratch (it’s still one of my favourite meals as it’s so colourful and tasty and chunky and wholesome, and just all-round guilt-free!) it takes a little over 10 mins.  Surely, I could hold out that long???

I probably cooked a few more veggies than I strictly needed in a normal-sized portion – a whole red pepper, half an onion, some garlic, a couple of small carrots, half a courgette and 3 large-ish closed cup mushrooms, but given that was pretty much all of dinner, with just the addition of half a can of tomatoes and a 60g portion of pasta, I don’t think I need to worry too much.

So a small win for me.

Another fight for me, is taking the time after a meal to sit and relax and allow my stomach to say “hey matey, I’m full now, ta”.  Which it did after 20 mins or so, meaning I could stop obsessing over pudding and think a bit more clearly.  Sometimes I wonder why it should be so hard to just get the small things right, that other people do without even thinking.

Post-dinner / feeding frenzy, I’ve been thinking about this plan for the weekend, and the required strategising I mentioned earlier.Here’s the problem with me – in order for me to actually lose weight, I have to approach this eating / moving malarkey with something akin to military precision.  And discipline.  And let’s face it – neither of those is a natural state of affairs for me.  If I just roll with it, 9 times out of 10, I do enough to maintain but no more.  But it did occur to me earlier, that completely accidentally, I’ve picked up the organising of food and drink for our barge this weekend, which puts me in some kind of control.  More than that, I already know what’s been planned for Friday night’s dinner, and I’ve had to pre-order my food for Saturday.  So, I have more than control – I have the ability to pre-plan and pre-track a lot of my food over the next couple of days, and retain a total awareness of what remaining points I have to play with this weekend.  Wooohoooo – could this the plan of success????

I hate that having to be so conscious of my diet / exercise in order to have any success causes me to dread weekends away like this.  But I reckon with a little bit of forethought, I can have my cake and eat it (or in this case: crème brulee on Saturday night).

So I guess I’m off to scare myself with how many points this weekend is likely to consume if I’m not careful.  Better now than afterwards though!

A Weekend Well Spent

It never ceases to amaze me what a weekend on track can do to the scales on a Monday morning.  It should be the basis of encouraging me to get on with it and stick to the plan for, well I would say the rest of the week, but really indefinitely til I get where I want to be. 

Oddly, after all that stretching in Body Balance  yesterday, I actually feel a little tight and stiff today, but I hadn't got any plans to work out so I shall call it a rest day and let it be.

My dinners are already planned for the rest of the week, and with an element of organisation seeming to kick back in, I made my lunch last night, and remembered how much easier that makes everything in the mornings.  So I'm going to make the effort to make my lunches, and clean and pack my gym kit the night before for the rest of the week to keep things simple.

I'm off again for a long weekend in Wales from Friday, and shall be heading back up to Malvern on Thursday night, so rather than attempt a dodgy weigh-in on my Dad's scales Friday morning, I shall vote for an early weigh-in at mine on Thursday this week.  Then I need to some hard-core thinking about how I'm going to strategise the weekend, so I get a little of what I fancy without completely cancelling out this week's good work.  I've bimbled around a little bit this past couple of weeks, and although I'm still in the ball-park of my lowest weight (especially as at this morning), I'd like to crack on through that and take another small step forward now.  Psychologically, even setting a new low by half a lb would be great, as it's all still new ground.

So onwards, troops, onwards!  I've got a plan for the week - eat clean, try to stay away from using the activity points, but at any rate, use less than half of them (and thereby also make sure I get off my ass and earn some in the first place!).  I've got PT tomorrow night with Rob, which leaves me Wednesday and Thursday for maybe a lunchtime run and a toning class of some sort - Lili in my office did a Fitball class at the gym a couple of weeks ago on a Thursday, and it left her in suitable amounts of muscular pain afterwards, so I'm tending towards trying that one out (masochistic tendencies?  Moi?).

On a completely different topic, I realised last night that my second anniversary of this blog slid quietly by, unmarked and forgotten, a couple of days ago.  Two years, and my random rants and tangents - yet another thing that I've surprised myself by sticking too, almost as much as my continuing with the diet / healthy eating / fitness quest itself!

I flipped back to my first post last night (which you can find here) and was surprised how much I feel different from the girl who wrote that.  Since then I spent a year losing quite a lot of weight successfully, and a further year figuring out how not lose quite a lot of weight successfully and getting very frustrated with my lack of progress.  It took me quite a long time to work out that what I had managed to do was keep the weight off while I went about living a very full life.  I did a lot of growing in other ways last year:  I tried new things, pushing my boundaries and comfort zones, and taking some chances.  And then I dropped everything to go travelling (and managed to come home the same weight I left), quit my job, got a new job and moved cities.

Compared to the girl who was just starting out on 2009, I've shown myself to have more perserverence, guts and determination, along with sheer, bloody-minded, pig-headed stubborness, than I would ever have guessed.

Now it's just down to me to make my way to wherever I want to be on this blog's 3rd anniversary. 

R & R

Mmmmm, the self-indulgent weekend has continued apiece and boy, have I needed / enjoyed it.

I slept for a straight 11 hours last night, which is totally unheard for me. I'm the kind of girl who routinely exists on 6 hours a night, so I was clearly wiped out.

When I finally did wake up, I felt really refreshed, and since I was in time for it, I had a nice breakfast of crumpets and then wandered over to the gym for Sunday morning Body Balance. Not having been for a couple of weeks, I was a bit disappointed to find myself rather stiff, but it was a great session anyway.

I've been far more on track with my eating this weekend, and despite the temptation of a day with no plans, I've been good today, and have wrestled myself through to the end of the day on my daily points.

Here's to a good week.

- Posted from my iPhone

Lazy Days

I have had a thoroughly self-indulgent day, and it's been bloody great.  I slept in, and when I finally did get up, I had a proper weekend treat breakfast sat on my sofa, in my pj's in the sunshine, taking my time and reading.  I loafed around til lunchtime, and did a few much needed jobs on my to-do list that could be done from the comfort of the sofa (phone call type stuff). 

This afternoon I took a wander up to Clifton Village, which I've been meaning to do for ages now, to have a bit of a nose around and an explore.  It's about a 40 min walk from the flat, but it was a nice afternoon, and I needed to stretch my legs a bit.  I love the mix of boutiques and independent stores up there - it is so damn quaint!  I seriously think I aspire to having one of the gorgeous modern flats up there one day - a chic pad, views of the city, but all the loveliness of the shops and bars at your fingertips.  One day, huh?

Since I'd handily packed my current book, I found myself a promising looking coffee shop and treated myself** to a decadent mid-afternoon tea; a praline hot-chocolate and one of the nicest blueberry and yoghurt muffins ever.  I spent a very enjoyable hour + lazing in the coffee shop, lingering over my cake, reading and doing some quality people watching.  They're very fashonable folks up there in the Village!

Another stroll back down the hill later bought me home for some Glee and tasty stir-fry for dinner.

It's been a lovely day, but I have to admit, as much as I've enjoyed dancing only to my own tune and doing exactly what I want, I have been feeling a little nostalgic and would have enjoyed having someone around to share that with; good friend, loved one, someone special ... just someone to share it with.

In terms of food, I'm doing ok this weekend.  I had a work dinner out last night, which although not terrible did involve rather more alchohol than I'd originally intended (and a follow-up moment of "Oh God, why did I tell them that?" this morning as I recalled my beverage-induced chattiness last night) - between that and my afternoon tea, I've burned through my flex points for this week already.  That's not a problem though, as I have another lazy day of nothing planned tomorrow, and I'm usually pretty good with my eating during the week.

Thinking about Claire's feedback last week on how I use my points, I'm going to try a little experiment this week.  I want to work out, what I can get away with in terms of my losses vs points used, so I have a better idea of how the plan works for me.  I tend to be a little haphazard with Weightwatchers, in that I'm either having an absolutely on-the-ball week and haven't used any of my extra points, or like last week I'm right on the edge and have used them all (or far more than). 

Since I don't often have perfect weeks, I need to work out what I can get away with and still have some more consistent losses - if I know what I can get away with, I'll have a far clearer target to aim for.  So for this week, I'm going to aim to use as few of my activity points as possible, but no more than half of them at the most.  Let's see how that works as a starting point.

I'm also trying to pay more attention to how hungry I am, rather than eating because it's a meal-time, or piling the plate high because the points are zero on something.  For instance:  I had a late breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast with some wafer thin turkey and mushrooms this morning, and consequently, I was not at all hungry by late lunchtime.  I had the smoothie and a yoghurt instead (I was feeling a want for some fruit of some sort), and then enjoyed my afternoon tea later.  Dinner was stir-fry as mentioned, but cooked late, as I was once again not so hungry.  Now I have to persuade myself to listen to my belly that is telling me I'm comfortably full, rather than my head which for some reason wants to carry on nibbling on stuff.

I think I might tidy the kitchen, and then retreat to bed with a film for an early night to avoid the siren call of the kitchen cupboards and fridge.

Night all!

** Treat - yes, treat.  I now take note of something I read a while ago, that pointed out that a "treat" is only a treat if you do it rarely.  If it turns into a regular ingulgence, then it's no longer a treat but a habit ... and 9 times out of 10, it will be a bad habit of some sort (shopping, eating, drinking being the usual "treats").  I used to have coffee and cake in coffee shops a lot, and for a dieter, it's a pretty expensive indulgence to make.  I've cut back since, and now I really enjoy it when I get the chance to do it.  I appreciate it more for the fact that I only do it rarely.

Ah Saturdays ...

... The day when I have time to enjoy homemade smoothies :-)




- Posted from my iPhone

Honesty

Hey kids,

I come here this evening in the spirit of the confessional.  Forgive me readers, because diet-wise, I have sinned. 

Today was always going to be a little testing as I've been out with clients all day, which meant eating a buffet lunch and no chance to exercise, and then I met a friend who lives in the Oxford area for dinner, since I was over that way.

Actually - the day - not so bad.  Sensible breakfast, thoughtful snack and drink for the journey, and I held it together at lunch - a small plate, realistic portions and no going back for seconds.  No snacks other than fruit - not too shabby at all.  Dinner however, wasn't as great.  I was defeated by being taken to a wonderful Thai place, and although I resisted the deliciousness of Thai curry, aside from a  spoonful of Kate's to taste, we did have a mixed starter platter and coconut rice.  Delicious, and a rare treat (I hardly ever get Thai food), but I know I could have stopped earlier than I did, on the rice at the very least.

On the upside, I did resist any suggestions of pudding and also further sweet snacks (any snacks in fact) for the drive home - I knew I was full and that was enough.

I don't forsee a great weigh in tomorrow.

But Claire had a very good point on her comment on yesterday's post - these last two weeks when I've gained, I have been flying very close to the wire on my weekly points allowances (and in fact, I know that this evening's meal will have taken me just over this weeks points), because I've been using all my activity points as well as my allowances.  Even allowing for me trying to be realistic with my food pointing and prudent with my activity points, I have to allow that I may be the wrong side of my allowance by more than I suspect - it's entirely possible. 

I'm also growing a little suspicious of my portion sizes too;  I eat a hell of a lot of vegetables and fruit .... which is all very well and good, but even if it's healthy and "free" on Weightwatchers, I should still be considering my appetite and how much food I actually need, rather than how much I can cram on my plate for the points.  I'm pretty damn sure that I'm eating more volume-wise than I was a couple of weeks ago when I was consistently losing.

So - this week I will most likely show a gain of another lb or 2 tomorrow.  Suck it up, Sue.  I have very little planned this weekend;  I have a work dinner out tomorrow night, but I've pre-ordered my choice of a vegetarian pasta dish in tomato sauce.  We have two free drinks via our meal deal, but I might not bother and just stick to soft drinks.  Even if I use most of my flex up tomorrow, I have a clear weekend to stay in points, and it's usually the weekend free-for-alls that set the week up for failure.  Less drinking, more thought and a little bit of movement. 

I might not lose tomorrow, but I reckon I can get a good loss next week.

More anon, Fellow Battlers of Food!

Holding It Together

I have to confess, I'm a little annoyed with myself the last couple of days.

Whilst I remain about 90% great with the eating, and have done a spin class yesterday lunchtime and a rather rainy 5km run today, it seems like it's a bit of a cat's cradle keeping the whole thing together sometimes.  The moment I pick up one loose strand, I seem to drop another one.

Yesterday, I had a perfect day of eating, but then ended up with my hand in the cereal box at the end of the evening.  I'd sat there all evening debating whether to wander to the corner shop for a Curly Wurly to use up the very last of my daily points, and in doing so ended up short-cutting with something to hand, but hard to point.  Not enough to do major damage but annoying none the less.

And today, I've flipping well done it again!

Concentration, Sue!!  This is what you need to do! 

Tomorrow's a slightly tougher proposition as I have to go and see clients so will not only lose the opportunity to work out, but will be stuck eating whatever buffet lunch has been laid on.  I hear warning bells already!  On top of that, I'm potentially supposed to be meeting a friend for dinner tomorrow night in Oxford after my meetings.

The scales are already rebelliously up this week ( by less than a lb, but a lb none-the-less), and I don't see it getting any better after tomorrow.  It's so frustrating as I have been watching my eating all week and working out hard, and according to my tracker I'm not over my points (as in, I've eaten my allotted flex points and my activity points, but no more).  I thought you were supposed to be able to do that and still lose weight, but apparently not.

Must.  Try.  Harder.

Weekend Roundup

Hey hey hey!

Phew - what a busy weekend!  It's been pretty food-oriented but I don't think I've cocked up too badly, which is the good news.

Friday, I was still miserably down in the dumps, so Hannah took me out for dinner after work.  Just Ask, but we had a voucher so it seemed like an obvious choice.  I decided to try something a little different for my starter and had a pesto, mozzarella and sun-dried tomato salad which was very tasty, if not quite as healthy as it could have been.  I think I'd try this again at home though and just tweak the proportions slightly to suit my own tastes, as it was gloriously summery.  Mind you, the vegetable pizza and desserts that followed, plus a bottle of wine (each) put a rather large dent in my flex points for the week!

On Saturday I had various friends down for my housewarming party - I was getting a bit wound up, as I was feeling very unprepared.  It seems that it doesn't matter how many times I tell myself that I don't need to go as overboard on hostessing as I always do, I still end up getting so stressed about not having enough food / drink / friends / things to entertain them - very silly.  As it happens it all went well.  The flat was tidied and looking good in time, I managed to sneak a half an hour aside to put a quick banana loaf together and I'd bought all the necessary nibbles and drinks.  It turned into a fun but quietly civilised evening and was very relaxed, although I did have to break up a very intense (and somewhat inebriated) theological / existential discussion at 2am so I could boot everyone out as some of my guests were literally going to sleep on my kitchen floor by that point!

Not a fantastic evening for food, in that I ate a few too many of my own nibbles, but all pointed as best I can remember, and I hadn't had a lot to eat during the day.

Sunday turned into one of the laid back days where everyone quietly held their somewhat tired and hungover heads and didn't move too much.  My houseguests and I had a little wander round town for some fresh air after the ubiquitous bacon sarnies for breakfast, and I bumped into Hannah on the way back who helpfully suggested we go for a run in the afternoon.

I'd been debating it anyway, as I knew I really should be starting to put in a slightly longer run each week in preparation for my 10k and duathlon, but it really hasn't happened yet.  Anyway, the idea of having someone to run with made it far less painful, so I booted my last houseguest out at 4pm and jogged over to meet Hannah.  We have only run together once before, which was the 10k in October, but it turns out that our paces are well-matched and we set a slower but comfortable pace as we headed out, chatting merrily away as we went.  

Turns out that that's the best tactic ever for a longer run, as we went way further than we intended.  We'd kind of been aiming for a 7 - 8k-ish run, but we jogged back in 1hr 15 later with around 10k tucked under our belts.  And frankly?  I felt like I could either have run faster or carried on a bit longer!  We only stopped to walk when Hannah needed a quick break, and honestly, there weren't many of those; perhaps 5 when she slowed to a walk for a minute or two - no more.  I felt a bit silly doing it, but I took a leaf out of my personal trainer's advice and when she walked I continued to jog but at her pace.  It must look ridiculous just slowly bouncing along beside her, but it allowed breathing recovery whilst stopping my leg muscles cooling down too much.  Whatever - I felt good.  We've definitely agreed to do more of those.

Today has been back on the money with the eating.  I've just decided today that I need to have another look at my portion sizes and make sure they don't get out of hand.  And just for something a little different I had gnocchi for tea with bacon, mushroom and butternut squash, a little bit of Philadelphia Extra Light, and some tarragon.  Yum!!!!  I hadn't tried the squash with pasta / gnocchi before, but it works amazingly well!  Try it!

Spinning tomorrow hopefully, after a rest day today.

A Little More Detail

As always, you guys pitch in there with the support at a moment's notice - you rock.

I do feel I need to clarify something a bit though, as right now it makes my friend sound like an absolute bastard for what he said.

So here's the deal:  J and I were chatting last night online, and it was just after the London Boy had broken the news.  As you can imagine, I wasn't in the best of moods, and was bemoaning the fact that I seem to have the worst luck with guys.  This inevitably led to the "why do guys not find me attractive?" whine, and being the good friend he is bravely piled in.  He told me I was attractive, intelligent and fun, if "a little loud and overbearing sometimes when you get self-conscious".  That was followed very shortly by "over-bearing probaly isn't the right word".  He also clarified that it was generally when I drink and "if I drank that much Diet Coke, I'd be like I was on rocket fuel too". 

He was trying to be honest, and I do appreciate that - he freely admitted that he has can be difficult when he's self-conscious himself, so I know he's aware of his own faults.  And given he accepted my criticism recently when I had cause to pull him up on his behaviour, I know he really is trying to help.

The problem, really, is I don't know what to do about it.  I'm aware that when I feel nervous or self-conscious, I automatically bolster my behaviour to appear more confident.  Pretty much all of my friends are out-going and confident types, who shine at one thing or another, and I don't feel I stack up against them if I don't behave larger than life.  As I said to J, when I was bigger, I felt like I had the role of the funny fat chick to play.  In many ways, I still feel like that's my role - sometimes because I still "feel" fat and sometimes because I just don't know what else to be.  I don't have any particular talent now, that I didn't have before - which is to say, that generally what I do best is make people laugh.  And to do that I guess I am loud - in fact, half the time I feel like a performing monkey!  But I didn't know that came across as over-bearing, or annoying, or whatever word he was looking for.  And I don't know how to play any other role. 

J pointed out that I do many things pretty well, and that is a lot more than most, but I feel like I disappear next to my friends and just fade into the background, if I'm not being the Sue they know.  In fact, if I do stop (usually because I'm tired) I get actively asked what's wrong, or even why I'm so grumpy. 

So now I'm faced with a dilemma - should I try and be quieter, a bit more lady-like?  I definitely don't want to be annoying and drive people away.  Or carry on with my coping strategy and hope I naturally become a bit more confident at some point and quieten down of my own accord?

Things Could Be Better

Weigh-in result: 2lbs on despite sticking to plan all week.

Physical condition: broken - bloody personal trainer has done his worst - sprint intervals and an arms / upper body work out that has officially killed me.

Headache and puffy eyes: check, due to being ditched for the girl he loves who's suddenly single (well at least he was honest I suppose) and a further battering to the self-esteem from other friends / guys letting me down. And apparently I can be "loud and over-bearing" when I'm feeling self-conscious and over-compensate - guaranteed to make a girl feel more confident and less self-conscious than ever.

Work: still stupid.

Spirit: not yet quite broken. It's a new day, none of the above has killed me (yet), and all I can do is keep trying to be better.

I couldn't quite face getting up at 6am to spin this morning, so I slept a bit longer and I'll hit the lunchtime class. Lunch is packed. And if I'm a little quieter than normal today at least I can still look them in the eye.

But I'll be glad when this week is done.


- Posted from my iPhone

Counteracting The Scales

I stepped on the scales this morning, as I do every morning, and I have to say I am not happy with these numbers, this week. 

Not.  Happy.  At.  All.

I have tracked everything I've eaten to the best, and most honest, of my ability.  Right down to the tiny individual mini-eggs I had at the weekend.  I've probably been over-cautious with my exercise points, so anything I've missed on the food front, should have been soaked up by that.  And in any case, I currently have a small surplus of unused activity points.

And yet, here I am, nearly 3 lbs higher than last week.  WHY?????

Why can I not get through this stupid 12st 3lb boundary??????

Grrrrrrr - it's driving me utterly nuts.  This happens all the freaking time - I hit my head repeatedly on one weight boundary, finally crawl through it, only to hit another only a few lbs later.

If I wasn't doing it properly I could understand this lack of progress, but I'm doing everything right, as far as I know.  Talk about starting to doubt myself!!!

Now listen up, Body!  Seriously, dude, can we just get below 12st before we stall again?  Please?  I'm not asking much here.

And the counteraction of that crappy number and all my subsequent doubt this morning?  I put on an extra nice dress, some heels and walked out the house knowing I looked good. And that totally paid off as I've had about 3 people randomly comment how lovely I look today.  Yeah - lovely.  Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, oh Scales of Doom and Gloom!

Mixed bag

I’m having a mixed feelings kind of day.  I spent most of the day being uber-stressed (again) because I’m trying to cover my boss’s work this week whilst he’s on holiday.  Unfortunately, it’s my first quarter end with the business (which is our busiest, most time-pressured, craziest, flat out time of the work cycle), and the unit that my boss is responsible for happens to be the biggest and most bad-ass complicated of any looked after my our entire team / in our whole business.  Now add in that my junior is off on holiday this week, I’m still trying to mop up all the outstanding queries and adjustments on my own units, and I’m supposed to have started a whole brand new chunk of work that’s heavily timetable dependent some time last  week that I still haven’t even looked at you can see why I was debating tearing my hair out at multiple points of the day. Just for a little light entertainment, y’know?

Small things help relieve the stress: a run at lunch with Liz (a slightly slower than usual (for me) just-about-5km, but only Liz’s second run in a very long time, so very good for her), and one of the guys taking pity on me looking so miserable, and rocking up at my desk to offer me a mini gingerbread man to cheer me up.  That’s thoughtful for you!

The food was pretty good today on the whole – no snacking apart from fruit, and a big plate of simple food when I got home – grilled chicken with cajun spice, broccoli, carrots, some mushrooms and couscous.  I confess I did finish the very last remains of the cereal box off, but it was less than a full bowl, and it’s pointed – I ate it as dessert.

I got pampered at the hairdresser after work (and now have shiny, swishy, pretty hair again),  but felt a bit down after being asked the question all singles dread post-Valentines day: “did you do anything / get anything?”.  That would be a big, fat no.  Again.  For the I-don’t-know-how-many-years in a row.  I get so fed up of people telling me “it will happen”.  Really??  Will it?  Do you promise???  I sometimes wish I could just look into the future and know for sure, and at least I could stop worrying then if it isn’t on the cards.  I just hate the constant looking.  I don’t want to care, and waste so much energy on it, but I’m buggered if I know how to flick that switch in my head.#

Last night I also got myself depressed about my money too, as there’s no quick ladder out of that pool of debt either.

Up and down like a see-saw.

Staring Into the Cereal Box

Sometimes you catch yourself, just in time, from doing something stupid.  This evening that stupid thing was going head-first, or at least hand-first, into the cereal box. 

I don’t know what it is about cereal, but I love it.  Which is super-weird, as I hated it til about 2 years ago.  Now, I could eat it by the box-full, with or without milk.  So I have to be super-disciplined about the cereal.  It’s one of the things I snacked on when I wasn’t sticking strictly to plan, and as I cooked my dinner tonight, there I was with my hand half-way in the box.  I stopped, had a think, debated taking just a flake or two out, and then closed the box and put it away.  Dinner took 10 mins to cook, and I have the knowledge that I haven’t eaten anything I haven’t tracked. 

A much better way to do things.

I’m off to wash some gym kit now so I’ve got stuff for the rest of my work-outs this week.  Got to bust this ass down a size!

A little of what you fancy.

Flamin' heck - I'm absolutely cream-crackered and it's only a little past 10pm!!

This will therefore be a very quick post. My long weekend away has gone surprisingly ok on the dieting / health-front, although I can feel myself just starting to slide, so will welcome the routine of the office again tomorrow. On on a non-eating front it's been absolutely ace for the most part, and I've thoroughly enjoyed myself!

I headed home to Malvern on Thursday night, after a frustratingly late exit from the office (and I forgot to put my Out Of Office on my email so will no doubt face an onslaught of e-wrath tomorrow morning), but managed to scramble home and sneak in a quick trip to the pub before falling into bed and death-sleep. Thankfully, I'd already got in my run on Thursday lunchtime, and didn't drink at the pub, so didn't have too much to feel guilty about.

Following Friday's rather pleasant weigh-in, I did about a billion errands / jobs on the list in a sudden burst of hitherto-unheard-of productiveness, and was on Jon's drive packed and bang on time to get my lift to Wales at 6pm. Several hours, and a lot of raucous bad singing, later we arrived in deepest, darkest (central?) Wales for the weekend - I had no idea where we were, but the cottage was warm and welcoming and full of friends, so that was all fine by me.

I avoided snacking too much, enjoyed a lovely homecooked dinner, drank rather too much Polish cherry vodka and crawled to bed about 2am.

Saturday morning was a little slow to get moving, as we seemed to have a lot of people who have worked mighty hard through January and were enjoying there lie-ins, but after a well thought out breakfast choice, I booted and layered up and set off for a "stroll" with the others. 4 hours later, some scrambling up a waterfall, a lot of hills, and several miles of wild, heather-strewn bog-topped hill and a steep brackeny descent (paths?? who needs paths when you've got an orienteering expert with you!?!?) and we all arrived back at the cottage extremely muddy, extremely satisfied and starving since we hadn't quite expected to be gone that long and hadn't taken food. Good job that it was tea-party o'clock then!!!

Whilst the rugby was played on tv, we descended like a plague of locusts on the cake selections (of which there were many!!!) and drank our booze from teapots and cup and saucer like the civilised folks that we are :o) My original plan was just to have two cakes, and I freely admit that went out the window, but I didn't go nuts, and I sensibly decided to take the edge off my hunger pre-cake with a banana and jam and toast - a wise move, I feel! The hours (and alcohol) rolled by in a pleasant hum of companionship (and booze) and eventually an amazing roast dinner appeared from the kitchen. More booze (yes - more!) and an eventual 3am (wobbly) ascent of the stairs to my bed.

One entire bottle of Polish cherry vodka demolished on my own over the weekend. And a bit of champagne. And possible a sneaky (half a) beer by the waterfall on the walk. If you're going to binge drink, then truly, you should aim high! Apparently.

Sunday morning, consequently, hurt. Quite a lot. Less enthusiasm for breakfast than Saturday, although I did have some, and then we cleaned the cottage and started the trek home. Jon and I had to stop for liquids and snack food as we were both still feeling it, but even then, I managed to think logically and pick stuff that wouldn't ruin my day's points. I stopped over with the boys in Malvern last night, as films and the sofa and a blanket seemed more appealing than another hour's drive to Bristol.

Today, once I got back, I went exploring. My poor, poor bike has sat neglected in the store room for far, far too long. It hasn't even been out since I got Jon to tinker with it and get the gears running more smoothly! Since the weather looked ok-ish, I decided that I'd run out of excuses this afternoon, and today was an exploring day ..... and it turns out that Ashton Court is only 14 mins from my garage door along the bike paths .... I don't even have to go on the roads to get there!!! Woooohooo!

Mind you, it was like riding through a bog when I did get there. I spent a little while just wandering around the tarmac trails and the bridal paths, working out the geography, before I stumbled into the first section of the single track. Two short sections later I gave up - absolute liquid mud or deep puddles! I'm all for honing my wet-weather riding skills, but after one rather neat dismount / step completely off the bike whilst it was still moving, and one flat out sideways slide into the mud on my arse, I decided that sticking to the wider trails was probably a good idea until it's a little drier. I only went out to explore anyway, so I'm not really disappointed about not getting to ride more of the actual trail.

I had a smile on my face for most of the ride, in any case, and spinning appears to have kept my legs strong which is great. I still love though, that when I switched off my heart rate monitor after 90 mins easy-ish biking (or so it felt), it still shows my max as 174, my average at 137 and an estimate 834 calorie burn - got to love something that works you so hard, but feels so easy!

So despite much cake and alcohol (or certainly more than was strictly necessary), I actually remain with activity points to spare at the end of this weekend. Just goes to show that a long walk and a short bike ride make all the difference! :o)

0.5 lb

Best half a lb ever!

I weighed in this morning. Now I must admit, that I'm at Dad's house so these are his scales not mine, and although they are exactly the same make and model as mine, and were in fact bought on the same day from the same shop, it is possible there's a slight variance between them and mine. Also, I'm having a day off work, so I'm weighing in a little later than usual.

But screw that - because that half a lb lost this week means I officially hit a new lowest weight to date!!!! It breaks me out of that endless cycle I've been stuck in for so long and gives me something to fight for next week :-) So entirely accurate or not - I'm taking it!

I'm especially happy with that considering the sheer volume of eating out that happened last week.

One thing I have struggled with still, is not wanting to waste food and chuck it out. I'm feeling much better about making choices to balance my diet, so eating a really light tea because I've had lunch out, kind of thing. But I absolutely hate wasting food that's in the fridge because it will go off if u don't eat it.

I left work later than I meant to yesterday, which was a nightmare a I had to get home and pack for the evening and then I was supposed to be getting Bec's birthday present from John Lewis on the way back to Malvern. I needed a really quick dinner and it was a choice of either doing mushrooms on toast quickly or grabbing the leftover pizza - I chose the pizza as it would have gone of over the weekend otherwise. Fine - since I had enough points to cover it. Not so fine, that I then grabbed the last muffin from last weekend too. You know what? It didn't even taste that fresh anymore - I totally should have just binned it. Must learn!!!

I'm off for a weekend in Wales with friends for Bec's birthday this evening. I'm really looking forward to it, but also really want to make it a great weekend on the eating / exercising front too, so I must remember to keep tracking and not go crazy. Might be a bit of a challenge as apparently there's no mobile phone reception up at the cottage so I'm not sure my Weightwatchers app will work - fingers crossed! I'll have to go old-school and track on paper or something otherwise!

Have a great weekend people!


- Posted from my iPhone

Aaaah - much better

I went for a very soggy lunchtime run with Liz - 35 mins of slowish, chatty jogging. Another 5k onto the 2011 total.

As predicted, I now feel much less prone to acts of random violence this afternoon or stalking to the cake selection and burying my face in it.

A little sanity restored.


- Posted from my iPhone

Feeling grrrrrrrrrrrrr

I'm having a bitchy, stressy morning where what I really want to do is scream at everyone to stop bothering me and let me get on with shit, and then chow down on one of the lush muffins or giant slices of chocolate chip shortbread on the nearby cupboard.

What I'm actually going to do is eat a banana and go for a run with Liz. And if it's too damn wet, then we'll run in the gym.

The cakes won't help and will just make me feel guilty and angry with myself. Running will release the frustration. It's an easy choice really.


- Posted from my iPhone

OUCH!

In a fit of enthusiasm, I booked myself in for the morning circuits class last night.  I even packed my kit and made my lunchtime sandwiches last night so I was all ready to go this morning for my 7.15am class.  Organisation just makes everything soooooo much easier for me!  But fuck me (language! ‘Scuse me!) if it wasn’t the hardest class I’ve ever been to!!!!

I am well and truly broken – I can feel the aches setting in as I type.  I remember glancing at the clock at one point and we were only 25 mins in …. and it felt like an eternity of sweaty torture had already passed.  When we stopped for a quick breather, I actually debated the wisdom of throwing up.  Good lord.  I did however, slog it out to the end, despite being distinctly rubbish at a lot of the exercises (seriously ….. I mean, how many possible configurations of doing a press-up are there????) and trying to break the guy-on-the-next-station’s fingers by falling of a Swiss ball and stamping on his hand with my size 7 hoof (so sorry Mr Grey T-shirt!!!) – I kind of figured in the end, that the only way to hold my head high amongst the super-fit bods around me was to keep going as long as they did.

And the funny thing is, that early morning exercise always puts me in the right frame of mind for the rest of the day.  I’m back on the ball today, and it’s feeling good.

I was meant to have my third date with London Boy today at lunchtime, but he had to cancel at the last minute because he was baby-sitting his sick niece (yeah – there’s a certain “ahhh” factor there so I’ll let him off), and you know what my first thought was?  “Well, thank god I don’t have to eat out again today”!  Yes, that was my actual first thought.  I am officially a dieting-social-reject!

As it happens though, I did still go out for lunch, because one of my colleagues was having an utterly shit day and needed a little cheering up. Lunch could have been worse, and could have been better – I had a Thai chicken panini with some crisps.  The sandwiches are all handmade, so at least they’re fresh, but I could have had soup or a bagel with scrambled eggs instead if I’d thought a bit harder.  Next time, huh?  But I did make up for lunch, by leaving my afternoon yoghurt in the fridge and just eating fruit, and dropping the carbs out of my evening meal.  So I had leftover crispy chilli orange chicken (which was lovely, FYI, maybe I’ll try and post the recipe soon?) with a massive heaped pile of kale and mixed veg.  I’ve therefore managed to save a few points today and that’s great.

Since I’m on it at the moment, I’m dragging poor Liz who I work with out for a run tomorrow lunchtime.  I don’t know how that will go, but it’s always nice to find new people to exercise with :o)

I’m feeling pretty good about my eating the last couple of days.  The scales are still pinging around a little, so I won’t be surprised if I don’t lose again this week, but I like this feeling of motivation and am happy to hang on to it.

Must go to bed now, as my eyes keep closing as I type!  Night, lovelies!

Five

5 points!!! 5!!!! That's apparently how many there are in one little packet of Kettle Chips. Grrrrrr .... that was a bad choice and goodbye to my Maltesers at the cinema tonight.

My lunchtime spin class was short but sweaty so I'm now down to 10 points deficit for the week and working hard on it. Which might mean having to brave circuits tomorrow morning before work so that I can fit a lunch out, present shopping and a workout all into a work day. Organisation, planning and detail.

Ok - good to go for the afternoon.


- Posted from my iPhone

Cracking on.

The mojo has returned after a few days of not being entirely driven. Well, thank god for that! Now I just need to see if it was in time to reclaim some kind of progress from this week.

Dinner last night was lovely - Tapas may not be the healthier food but it sure is delicious. We had some not-terrible choices of mussels and lamb skewers and some naughtier things like White beans in a cream and tomato sauce. I've pointed it all as best I can, and trying very hard to be realistic about it, which leaves with a small deficit for the week of 12 points.

I packed my gym bag when I got back last night, set my alarm for half an hour earlier so I could be sure of booking a space this morning and made my lunch. Preparation is key!!! :-)


- Posted from my iPhone

Tactical Warfare!

Right - I'm going out for dinner tonight, and since we're not eating til after 8, I've done some mushrooms on toast to take the edge off my appetite.

Fuller stomach now = me not looking or acting like a pig later.

Aaaaaargh - second date ....

...... I'm off to go and pull my hair out trying to find something to wear now ....

Full Disclosure: v2

Today's prompt to disclose comes from Hetty.

Anyone who's been around the blogging universe for a while, knows that radio silence usually roughly equates to a blogger struggling manfully (womanly? Womanfully? Why is there no equivalent????) with the urge to stuff there gob full of chocolate (or pick your alternative poison here) and trying not to waste any by smearing it on your face in the unseemly rush to do it. Right. RIGHT?

So in the spirit of total honesty I shall put my hand up and admit that I ate quite a lot of chocolate this weekend. An entire 140g bar of Dairy Milk to be quite precise - which is 20 points if you're at all curious. And whilst it was lovely (bloody delicious in fact), that is not going to get me to goal. And to be fair, at the point in time while I chowing it down and savouring it .... no unseemly haste for me ... the answer to "how much do I want it?" was "chocolate more than weight loss".


Surprisingly though, after a weekend that has included pizza, Maltesers, Dairy Milk, Yo! Sushi, Tarragon Chicken cooked for friends, home baked muffins and lunch out yesterday, I'm not actually in points deficit yet. Yes, I've used my daily points and all of my flex, but I haven't burned through all of my activity points as yet, so I'm obviously doing something right.

Last night, I sat there and asked myself how much I wanted it. The weekend guests had gone home, the mess had been tidied, and I was left wondering what to have for dinner. I sat on the floor with my laptop and my tracker and asked myself why I had eaten quite so much this weekend, and what I planned to do about it. My original meal plan called for me to polish off the leftover pizza last night, but that would put me closer to a points deficit than I cared to be, so I swapped a few things round and had stir-fry instead. Right at that moment in time, with all that junk food eaten, I could feel the craving to keep eating that way even though the bonus points were all gone. What I couldn't feel was the burning motivation that's got me through the last couple of weeks.

But I did know that I would feel it again, once the junk food was out of my system, and I'd only be cross if I screwed it up now. All but 2 of the muffins had been sent home with Bec, since she's trying to put weight on and they're IBS friendly for her. There's not much junk left in the house, so I just needed to pick up the slack and carry on where I left off. The only possible slip up is dinner out at a really good Tapas restaurant tonight, which I can't really cancel for dieting reasons as it's a date (yay!). So I'll just have to be a good little girl and not go crazy. Stick to the healthy choices in a subtle manner and lay off the booze. Other than that it's a clean social-free week ahead to keep the scales going the way I like them.

And on that note .... despite everything this weekend, the scales are lower than Friday. Which is great considering they usually bounce up slightly over the weekend anyway :o)

If Hetty can do full disclosure so can I. Now I'm off to finish my work and then go home and panic about what to wear tonight. Sometimes being a girl sucks!

What makes the difference?

I was thinking this afternoon about my earlier post (and may I just point out: 2 in one day, aren’t you lucky, boys and girls?) and what it is that really makes the difference between winning and losing at this weight loss malarkey.  Or, in fact, anything in life.

And what it comes down to is this:  How much do you want it?

When you really want it, you care, and I mean really care about whether or not it happens.  And when you care, nothing is too much trouble in the pursuit of your goal.  You make it work.  Whatever happens – you just suck it up and make it work.  And if you can’t make it work right then, then you make it up as soon as you can.

You never fail, because failing is when you stop trying.

And when you’re hearts not in it, then every-bloody-thing is too much trouble.  You don’t really care when one little thing goes wrong, and when you stop caring about the little things, it’s the time that that big things spiral out of control.  Because let’s face it, all the big things are simply made up of the smaller things – lots and lots of little things.

So when spinning didn’t work this morning, I did weights.  And oh my God, did that hurt on my already sore legs.  But it was what was available.  And I walked back home afterwards to get my extra layers, because amongst other things I knew the extra walking would clock a few more activity points.  On mornings when I hit the gym before work, I have a second breakfast at work, as my normal breakfast is lighter and earlier.  Since I didn’t spin today, I just toned my second breakfast down.  I ate my fruit salad mid-morning and resolutely dodged the birthday cakes in the office.  And all those little things are what are going to get the scales going back my way again in the shortest time, and make this thing work for me.

I’m currently sitting pretty at my lowest weight, and I want something lower, and I want it soon.  I want the steady losses I’ve been seeing.  The gentle downward creep of the scales.

As it was pointed out to me earlier, I could be more organised, and it helps me when I am prepared.  I managed to get my lunch packed today, but messed up my gym kit.  In recent weeks, I’ve found myself more organised than I think I’ve pretty much ever been before.  Gym kits packed the night before, sandwiches prepped the night before and in the fridge.  Meals planned, hell, even my workouts planned. 

But I do want this. 

Want to see someone else who really wants this … then step this way and congratulate Hetty who’s just lost her first stone – yay!!!! Congrats Hetty – nice work :o)

A Catalogue of Disasters

Also entitled: How I Didn't Make My Spin Class This Morning

Oh good lord - ever have one of those days when everything seems to go wrong???

Firstly, I stepped on the scales this morning for my weekly weigh in and they were up 4lbs from last week.

Secondly, I left for my spin class, got halfway there and realised that I hadn't got my work pass, my purse or my gym class, so had to walk back home and therefore missed my spin class.

Thirdly, once back at the gym and finished with my alternative workout, I realised that I hadn't packed my long-sleeve top to go under my t-shirt, and was therefore going to be very cold at work since I had no jumper either. Cue another walk back home to retrieve extra clothing.

Fourthly, I'm so sore I can barely move, so I'm walking comedically stiffly and look a bit like Bambi on his newborn legs.

Fifthly (still reading?), I feel bloated and horrible.

Sixthly, I apparently did a drunken invite for a flatwarming party last night, and invited about 65 people. I only remembered this this morning when I got a text from a friend to say he couldn't come. Then Facebook decided to change the time of the event, and delete about 2/3rds of the invitations, so now I'm left with a very bizarrely lop-sided guest list with a particularly random selection of guests, and a lot of instances of one half of a couple being invited and not the other. So as if my spontaneous decision making wasn't bad enough, now I look like a plonker and have to fix it when I get home this evening.

AND BREATHE.

But here's the deal - all of these things can coped with if I choose to deal with the day on my terms. And I do.

Let's deal with points 1,5 and 6 first.

I didn't eat as well as I wanted to last night, as I got slightly foxed by the restaurant's way of dealing with our order. All the dishes were randomly bought out and shared out amongst us, so there was no way to track down what you'd actually ordered. Instead, we had a smorgasbord (OMG - don't you love that word????) of gorgeousness spread in front of us to be shared out, and we got stuck in. I ate more than I planned, but not ridiculously. Mostly dimsum and shellfish / fish (we had 3 whole lobsters, 3 baked seabass and a whole crab), but only a tablespoon or so of each in total. No more than 2 tablespoons of rice in total. Half a spring roll. 3 small duck pancakes.

Given that I went to last night's dinner with 12 points to spare from my day and something like 48 untouched activity points, I'm not unduly worried that I overstepped the mark a bit on my eating. I'm a little more ashamed to admit that I may have sunk a bottle of wine with dinner (after specifically saying I wouldn't drink), but I resisted the peer pressure up to a point, and then caved. I did limit my drinking to the restaurant though - not in the bar beforehand and not in the pub afterwards.

Much as I love Chinese though, I had forgotten again that it doesn't love me back. Stupid, stupid MSG. It makes me insanely thirsty, feel sick and retain water like it's going to be a global drought shortly. Which brings me to point 1. Strike that weigh in from the book, m'Lord, because it's bollocks. I was steady at 12st 3lbs yesterday, and there's no way in hell that I've put on 4lbs of fat overnight. So I'm very much inclined to take yesterday's weigh in and assume I've stayed the same this week, rather than upset myself unduly about the scales this morning. NOt something I would usually do, but that's just not a real number on the scales this morning.

Point 6 is clearly a side-effect of the wine - guess I'm having a party now! Although, actually, everybody's said they're busy so far, so perhaps not lol.

Moving swiftly along! Errr, yeah - so the gym this morning! Oh good grief - how many times do I have to walk to and fom my flat??? I didn't make my spin class (and was fairly spitting about it), but I walked my ass back to the gym (and nearly got blown sideways doing it) and did my trainer's weights workout instead. Since I'm still sore from my actual training on Wednesday, now I'm extra sore! Ouch, ouch, ouch!! I might try and make spin tomorrow to catch up my missing class.

So, in summary, I'm ignoring this morning's weigh in, I've worked out my sore butt (literally - my butt is so sore!!!), and I'm straight onto the eating good wagon. I feel another good week coming on. Oh - and I have no problem staying the same weight - I said last week that I knew I would struggle to lose anymore this week after losing 3lbs last week - I'm happy I've eaten right and exercised - the rest will happen in time.

Happy weekends, lovelies! Tell me what exciting things you have planned!

Owwwwww!

Oh my lord, my butt and hamstrings ache today, and I suspect everything else will join in the complaining shortly.

I didn't feel much like a gym workout today, so in an effort to burn a few calories ahead of tonight's meal, and more importantly, do something to alleviate my achy legs, I put my coat on, plugged my iPod in and went for a 45 min brisk walk round the harbour at lunch.

We've been asked to pre-order some of tonight's food and I was delighted to discover there's a huge chunk of dimsum on the menu - yum!! Operation Self-Restraint commences with saving lots of points for dinner and ordering some healthy dishes to get started with :-)

Not loving the thought of weigh in tomorrow!


- Posted from my iPhone

And from one extreme …

….to the other. 

Yesterday, I (mildly) berated myself for slipping back into old habits and eating sweets while I waited for my tea.  Today, I somehow saved so many points during the day, that I was dreaming up ways of using them up this evening – a slice of hot buttered toast and a Curly Wurly later and I was almost there.

Note to self – if you’ve already got the evening meal planned out and don’t have a specific splurge pudding or evening drinks in mind, don’t be stupid and save points needlessly.

I got the mother of all beastings at the gym this evening, and pretty much masochistically loved every moment of it.  HIIT training on the x-trainer for 15 mins, leg presses, squats and lunges with weights (and extra sets just on my left side since I’m weaker on that side – just call me lop-sided!), shoulder press / bicep curls and chest press on the gym ball, and an abs circuit that nearly flattened me (crunches, bicycle kicks, “canoe-paddles” and planks – don’t stop, don’t rest, rinse and repeat.  Twice) and it was a rather wobbly version of myself that walked home.

Via the supermarket where I just bought a head of cauliflower and left.

On the other hand, on days when I eat this much for dinner (massive plate of food – grilled chicken breast with Cajun spice, loads of cauliflower with a little bit of Philadelphia Extra Light instead of butter, some sauteed mushrooms and roasted butternnut squash and swede, followed by the toast and chocolate), I don’t see how I can ever eat so much and lose weight – it seems to defy logic – guess we’ll have to weight and see on that point, but also see my earlier point about using my points better.

Tomorrow is the Chinese torture all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet for Chinese New Year.  I’m thinking not drinking is going to help my self-restraint.  Right?

Extra grrrrrrrrr

Yep – you guessed it:  I left work late again.

I mean c’mon!!!!!!  Give me a break – when does normal life return???  So no, no run today. 

Food was good, apart from eating a handful of little rhubarb and custard sweets whilst I was cooking – not a habit I want to slip back into, so i must be careful (although I did put some points in my tracker for them – it’s more the snacking bit I don’t like).

At least tomorrow is personal training, so I know I’ll be getting a decent workout in, and better still I’ve now got an after work slot which a) means I have to leave work on time, and b) means I don’t have to rush to get it all in in an hour and then shoot back to the office.  Good stuff.  And I can even tell my trainer that yes, I have run (even not as much as I wanted) and I’ve done his weights too.

More exercise this week is good as I’m going out for dinner for Chinese New Year on Thursday with some friends from work.  I lurve Chinese, and this is an all-you-can-eat buffet so I need some decent self-restraint to not cock up Friday’s weigh in.  Exercise is all good.

Hear me roar :o)

Grrr ... frustration!

After not getting to go for a run last night (well, let's face it, I was at least 15% sneakily relieved about that), I did force myself to hunt down some clean(ish) kit and pack for spin class today.

Only to be told, when I rang at 7.30am as soon as I woke up, that the class was already fully booked. Apparently 25 people had rung to book between 6am at 7.30am. Seriously.

Some days you can't win.

Looks like I'll have to run tonight instead.