Gaaaaaaah!!!

Stepped on the scales this morning and they've rocketed up to 12st 11lbs - that's a mighty impressive 6.2lbs in the space of 4 days!!!!

Definitely time for a good day of eating and a lunchtime run!


- Posted from my iPhone

Good and Bad

I totally forgot to say that Friday's weigh in miraculously showed me another 0.5 lbs down, at 12st 4.8lbs.

However, I'm pretty sure that an extensive weekend of cake-eating (and everything-else eating too) will have undone that. Friday wasn't terrible and I've tried hard to reign it back in again today, but Saturday and Sunday were a free-for-all.

Still, at least I'm straight back on it and planning out a good Tuesday to Thursday to finish the week on a high note.

Hen party post to follow as it was a lot of fun. Hope you all had suitable great long weekends! X


- Posted from my iPhone

Tasteless

Although I slept a bit better last night and felt a little clearer-headed this morning, I decided to stay off work today. I felt so damn tired yesterday that I'm taking that as my body's cue that it just needs some rest. In fact, I'm pretty rarely ill, but I do tend to sleep it off when I am, and I slept through til noon today once I'd called in to work.

I still can't smell or taste a thing, and I've discovered that there's no compulsion to eat when you can't taste it. In fact, I find it pretty off-putting trying to chew and swallow something I can't taste at all. It's quite interesting really, because I'd always thought it was the action of eating that I found so comforting, but without the taste and smell it becomes meaningless, so it must be more linked to taste and the associations we have with it.

Instead, without a sense of taste, I've had a banana and some water today, because it's all I can be bothered with. It doesn't really seem worth cooking anything else when it will just be so much chewing and no taste.

So, until I get properly hungry, I think I'm going to stay in bed; dozing, reading, watching the odd film, and succumbing to the occasional outbreak of sneezing!


- Posted from my iPhone

Blech!

I.  Feel.  Awful.

It is now official that I am the world's worst person at being ill.  I don't think the Men and they're Flu have anything on me.

Went to work this morning feeling rubbish - lethargic, completely bunged up, dry mouth because I have to breathe through it constantly and a head full of pressure.  Had a fairly unproductive day because a) it was my first day back for 2 weeks and I moved desks whilst I was away, so there was a mountain of email and unpacking to sort, and b) well, I just feel shit.

Went to meet a newly Bristol-based friend for a couple of drinks after work - couldn't taste the cocktails really at all.  Went home.  Couldn't taste dinner at all.  Seriously - I had pesto - couldn't smell it in the jar, couldn't taste it apart from the slightest hint of salt.  Had a small portion of rice-pudding and jam for dessert - again - apart from the barest hint of sweet - nothing.  De nada.  Rien.

Lay on my rug under a blanket by the heater feeling sorry for myself and reading for a bit whilst trying to get warm.  I'm off to bed now, but don't expect I'll sleep much better than last night when I woke constantly, and then dreamt twice that I died.  First in a car crash, and woke with an almighty jolt literally gasping for air, and then later dreaming I was drowning in thick, gloopy mud in a swamp (hey - can't breathe with the cold ... wonder how I got to dreams of drowning, huh?).

I very much suspect that tomorrow will be a rare sick day, unless something miraculous happens over night.  On the upside - at least my razor-blade throat has gone for the minute.

So Far So Good

Hey all,

Just thought I'd jump online quickly before I head to bed.  It's been a fun weekend with a wedding and a catch-up with the lovely Jo, and by some small miracle, I've even managed to put a rein on the eating and still have a few flex points left over as I start the week.  As regular readers of this 'ere blog will know, that's not an altogether regular experience for me, so looks like I'm all set to do something good this week.

It is, however, set to be a stupidly busy week, and I'm coming down with a cold, just to top it all off.  I don't think I have an evening in / day at home until next Tuesday, which is a bit of a pain, so I shall just have to try and make some good choices and continue being at least a little bit sensible!

I'm off to go and feel bunged up and snotty in my bed, although at least this mornings razer sore-throat has now gone.  I'll leave you with a photo from last night .... looking rather good if I do say so myself, with my very dapper friend Dan.

Friday Must Be Weigh Day

Well, by extreme flukiness, rather than any consistent effort on my part this week, I've managed to scrape another 0.5 lb off the week.

I've not really been good enough to deserve that, I don't think, but I'll gratefully take it, and use it as a positive platform to kick off a new week.

It's funny, because I always think it will be easier for me to eat well and lose weight when I'm away from work and all its temptations, but in actual fact, the reverse is true, because I tend to fill my time off with adventures and social occasions.

I have one last weekend of my time off to scrape through, and then it's back to my normal routines - work eating and a regular exercise schedule. And although these two weeks have been fabulous (more on those later), I'm half relieved to return to normality. At least for a little while.


- Posted from my iPhone

Oops

Must pull my act together this week! Eating wasn't great on Friday / Saturday which was to be expected as I was on the road a lot of the time and there was much drinking going on, but it wasn't horrific, it was all tracked and I had two ace surfs and all my flex points to use.

However, when I should have jumped back on it on Sunday, I didn't quite. Or yesterday. Both days started out well, but veered off course towards the end. If I don't want to give up last week's hard fought for ground, I need to get it all back together today. And stick it to the end this time!


- Posted from my iPhone

Friday Weigh In

Well for once the Scales of Doom have offered a reprieve, and have therefore been temporarily re-christened the Scales of Delight. This week sees me down to 12st 5.6lbs, which is something just over a lb off last week, I think.

For the most part, I ate ok last week, with Tuesday being the notable exception. I think in all honesty, that what I'm seeing this week though is more the dividend of the last couple of weekends, and so if I want to keep that momentum going, it needs to be more of the same from the first couple of weeks and less of last week's slips.

For the moment, I'm happy with seeing small signs of progress.

- Posted from my iPhone

Week of Fun – Monday – Thursday

Hey, I’m back in Bristol, temporarily at least, so thought I’d do a quick catch up on what’s been happening in this Week O’ Fun, I’m currently enjoying.  Monday morning, I was up what felt like diabolically early (but was in fact 7am) to finish packing quickly, and sling everything in the car.  A quick trip to the supermarket to pick up food and petrol, and I was off and heading for the motorway just before 8.30am.  Not bad if I do say so!  What I always find funny on these little trips away, is just how much stuff I end up taking.  See: 

 

That’s just 2 days worth of stuff!  Note to self – must master the art of packing light! 

It turned out to be a very easy and relaxed trip down to Cornwall, and I arrived at Widemouth Bay by 11.30am, with an hour to spare before my lesson.  Just time to kick back, admire the view and eat a bit of lunch.

It was a good lesson, if a little frustrating at times, because I kept popping up just that bit too far back on the board.  As the instructor kept telling me.  Over and over again.  Plus it was really busy out there - “people soup” as one of the other instructors put – but the two hours passed quickly, and by the end, I had apparently started to pop up a bit further forward on the board.  After a hasty change back into warm clothes, I took my somewhat tired self back to the car to sit and chill with a toasted teacake and a much needed cold drink for a bit.

Once I felt like I had a bit more energy back, I headed a few minutes down the road to Bude to go find my hostel and my bed for the next couple of nights.  The hostel was great, as it is owned by a lovely couple called Janine and Sean who have set it up so it’s basically like being a guest in their giant house.  A proper lounge and dining room and a giant fully equipped kitchen to play in.  And a sea-view from the window by my bed!

I spent the rest of the evening chilling out, reading my book, watching a bit of telly, and just generally relaxing.  I ate a bit more than I meant to, as I ended up doing all the packet of tortelloni and sauce, since I was hungry, but since I’d earned a fair whack of points from my surfing, it wasn’t so bad. 

Bright and early Tuesday morning, I was up, breakfasted, and back to the beach at Widemouth Bay for another lesson.  Another lovely day, but completely different surf as we’d gone from high tide conditions yesterday afternoon to low tide, and the wind had switched conditions.

For ages, it felt like I was hardly picking up any waves, but the instructor did say he was seeing consistency in the ones I did pick and catch.  On the whole, I felt like I was getting a bit battered round for little result, but kept with it, and it started to feel like it was coming together by the end of the session. 

I wasn’t feeling terribly hungry afterwards, so I grabbed some ice-cream instead of lunch (after that much salt water, I just crave something sweet to take the taste away), and headed back to the hostel for a shower.  Since I had the rest of the afternoon to myself, I decided to walk into Bude and go and have a little explore.  The beach in town was absolutely heaving (which is not my cup of tea), so I wound my way round the harbour and up the cliff to the coast path and the little sailors church tower at the top.  It was so much more peaceful up there, so I actually lay down in the meadow and just enjoyed the quiet for a little while.   I eventually wandered back down a different path, through some quiet back streets of Bude, and circled back round into town, where I could have a look at some of the shops along the canal.  I found a cupcake shop, where I bought a beautiful little lemon and orange cupcake and a little bag of fudge for after dinner, and then, since I was finally starting to get hungry again, I sort of had a pasty.  Well, you can’t really go to Cornwall and not do it, can you???  It was a proper homemade one and everything, and it was pretty tasty!

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I have to confess that my eating on Tuesday night wasn’t great.  After the pasty in the afternoon, I wasn’t really hungry, but somehow still dmeolished the fudge, the cupcake, a small baguette and a bowl of soup.  Silly, but I guess it happens from time to time.

Wednesday morning was an earlyish start to check out from the hostel, and then I headed down to Padstow for a couple of hours.  It was glorious out, and I loved the little town.  Pretty little streets, yummy fish and chips on the sea front, and beautiful views across the bay to Rock, and (I think) Polzeath.  Lovely, lovely, lovely!

I love that this perfect little street has a giant No Entry across the bottom – it’s a bit like saying to the tourists “you’re not good enough to come in here” :o)

 

I just adore the colours in this last picture – the sun truly came out and it look magical!  There were some windsurfers out, over at what I think was Polzeath, and I just thought what a day for it!  Flat glassy seas and smooth winds.  Lucky them!

Despite having enjoyed the fish and chips for lunch (which were scrummy), I was back to trying to eat sensibly and just had soup and toast for tea when I got back.  The journey home was a bit slower than the one out, due to encountering two car crashes in the roads heading out of Padstow.  The first one had closed the road completely, and once I’d gone round that detour, I found myself being waved around another nasty one about 10 miles further on.  I just hope no one was too badly injured.  Back in Bristol, I skipped running club; technically, I could have made it if I’d got changed as soon as I got into the flat and headed straight out, but after 4 hours in the car, I wasn’t much feeling it.  Oooops.

Today has been a no photo day (so far), as I was late to wake up, and get up, and then went out for lunch with my date from Saturday, before just sitting in my local coffee shop and reading for the afternoon.  So sorry about that!  Unless there are pictures from the pub tonight (surf club), which I doubt, you’ll just have to do without today.  I’ve been pretty good with the eating though, which has pleased me.  Weigh in tomorrow, and I’m not sure how being away will have affected me in the end.  Apart from Tuesday’s debacle, I was pretty ok most of the week, just using up flex and a bit of activity points, so we’ll just have to see how it goes!

Then back to Cornwall for more surfing tomorrow!

Bike Fun

Unfortunately for you, Day 1 of the Photo Diary of Fun was a fail.  Not so much a total fail as an I-was-on-a-first-date-all-afternoon-and-couldn’t-really-take-photos kind of fail.  On the upside, from the “all-afternoon” part of that statement, we can take it that the date wasn’t a complete disaster or I’d have cut my losses and legged it a lot earlier!  So in lieu of Saturday’s photos, I shall have to give you edited highlights instead.  I had a very pleasant lie-in and pottered for the latter part of the morning, before heading out to meet my date in the afternoon.  During the date there were:

• at least 2 very nice compliments along the lines of “you’re gorgeous”.  Thank you very much.
• one hero incident when he said hold still, leaned over and I thought was going to tuck my hair behind my ear (yeah, you can all go “awwww”) and instead, actually removed a live wasp that was caught crawling in my hair!  Eeeep – thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!!!
• a very nice evening walk around the harbour.
• dinner at a rather nice Thai restaurant.  He insisted on paying.

Yeah – not a terrible way to spend the day!

I am also pleased to say that I ate sensible breakfasts and lunches, kept my head on the afternoon drinking, and made a sensible choice at dinner (no Thai green curry and coconut rice for me then), and stopped when I was full.  Hoorah.

Today has seen rather more of these …

… getting hammered down this ….

Totally by chance, I’d mentioned that I was intending to get away and do some biking at Afan in South Wales to one of the guys at the surf club on Thursday night, and he said that he would be that area of Wales on Sunday and was thinking of riding too.  Another lady from the club also wanted in, and very handily lives about 10 min bike from my flat and owns a van.  So at half 11 this morning, we piled our bikes in the van and set off to meet Stu in Cwmcarn, which was deemed nearer in the end and more doable.

The weather on the way over was looking atrocious, and we were either going to get absolutely soaked, or end up not hitting the trail at all.  I don’t know about anyone else,  but we’ve been getting bursts of intense downpours for the last 36 hours or so, and it wasn’t looking any better.  As we arrived at the centre, it absolutely started to bucket down, so we decided to eat our sandwiches and see how it was looking.  And miraculously, it lightened up, and completely stopped as we headed out!

We did the Twrch trail, which is pretty good.  There was a lung-busting climb for the first couple of miles, which was straight up technical single-track, although Catherine and I did duck one short section in favour of the road that the uplift trucks use for the neighbouring downhill course.  Typically, our respite turned out to be the shortest section of the climb, so we barely made it ahead of Stu!  Then it was back to more climbing and heading up top to the open hillsides.  Forest, forest, forest, near vertical sections that none of us made it over, and just when we thought we were done, another section of fire road that seemed to go for  … well … miles! 

Unfortunately, the skills and freeride park at the top is currently closed for maintenance which disappointed Catherine and Stu, as it is apparently one of the best bits.  Not having been before, I didn’t know what I was missing out on, so was quite happy to head straight into all the glorious downhill!  Despite not having ridden testing singletrack for a while, I was feeling pretty confident today.  So confident in fact that there were a couple of near-misses when I overcooked it, like the tree trunk I tried to go over and slammed the pedal into so hard I thought I’d snapped it off, and I dropped the chain.  The result of that was a very impressive triple set of pedal scratches right down the back of my calf (stupid bitey metal pedals!).  In fact, I’ve got a few bumps and scrapes, but that usually means I’ve ridden hard.  All in all, I was very happy with how well I was committing to the descents though – Cwmcarn isn’t what I would consider hugely technical downhill – it’s pretty straight and largely pretty smooth, just off-camber, narrow and damn steep in parts, but it doesn’t have the steps and drop-offs or lots of the sweeping switch-backs you see elsewhere – in other words it’s a speed-monkey’s delight, because there is absolutely nothing but your own nerve to slow you down. 

We were absolutely filthy by the time we made it to the bottom, so we just jet-washed ourselves along with the bikes – wasn’t going to make us much wetter than we already were!  Then just as we put the bikes away, the rain came back with a vengeance.  It had held off for a perfect 2.5 hour window while we rode – perfect. 

I didn’t get many photos as a) I was riding with relatively new-to-me people, and b) I was probably enjoying myself a bit too much to stop!  What you can see in the shot of part of the trail though, is how glorious it was when the sun came out and the whole trail was literally steaming itself dry – stunning.  Believe you me, the steam was pretty much rolling off me too when we finished!

Back in Bristol, I talked myself out of takeaway, and have even managed to do most of my packing for tomorrow when I head down to Bude for a few days!

0.2lbs

That is the grand total of what I lost this week.  Yay.

So two weeks of eating on plan, and I'm still 0.3lbs heavier than two weeks ago.  Hmm.

I suppose if I swing it round and look at it a different way - I'm 4lbs lighter than when I actually started eating right again 2.5 weeks ago, just frustrated that all of that was in the first 3 days. 

I have to admit, I slipped a little yesterday.  Yesterday was a bit of a trial, as we had a long breakfast meeting at work where we'd been provided with bacon rolls.  Rather than try and resist that temptation, I skipped breakfast at home and had a roll in the meeting.  Unfortunately, someone has also bought amazing homemade cupcakes to work and I had one of those too.  That would probably have not been a big issue, but somehow from there I was then hungry for the rest of the day. 

I kind of kept a lid on it, as best I could, but by hometime, I only had about two points left for dinner.  I'd planned on having a poached egg on toast with mushrooms as a quick tea, as I had to shoot back out to the hairdressers in the evening, but rather than have one, I somehow convinced myself I needed two, so I was about 6 points over for the day.  Again this wouldn't have been a huge issue, but by the time I got back from the hairdressers, I'd worked myself into quite a snit about how I'd been eating well to no effect, and then proceeded to (logically, of course) eat a mini bar of Green and Black's chocolate (5 points) and a Rice Krispies Caramel Square (4 points).  Don't ask me why that seemed a good idea, it just did.

Luckily, I had a lot of activity points still unused, so I did still finish my WW's week in credit, but I am annoyed with myself that I let myself do that, and it was less perfect than it could have been.

Anyhoo - I promised 3 weeks of tracking, so today marks the start of the third week.  Should be an interesting week since I'm not in work, and have driving all over the place for different activities, so I'm going to have to be vigilant and make some good choices.  Today starts with the usual fun of Circuits at lunchtime.

Gaaaaaah!

Yep - that was the sound of my frustration.  I thought yesterday that the scales were maybe starting to move finally, but no, straight back up again this morning.

Seriously, I have been eating like a fucking saint for 2+ weeks now, and have got nothing to show for it.  Actually, I have got something to show for.  A half a fricking lb gain.

Ok, ok - I know that I said I would be patient, because I can't control that shit, but I'm seriously starting to lose faith in either my tracking abilities, or the Weightwatchers plan as a whole, because something is not clicking.

Breeeeeeathe.  I said I'd give it 3 weeks, and I'm only at the end of the second full week, so I will faithfully stick it out at least another week in case there's just something weird going on.  It's just ... well .... usually, as soon as I've been on plan a couple of days, I start to lose, so I'm finding it really tough that I've been glued to plan for the 14 days since the scales last graced me with a loss.  It just doesn't feel right.

And no, before you ask, my clothes don't particularly feel any looser either.

I ran last night in humid, sticky heat - another hills session that nearly killed me.  I think I now know how asthmatics feel - I could barely drag air into my lungs at the top of each hill, didn't know how to breathe, and my heart rate was hitting 180 - 195 bpm with each rep.  The session was a 10 or so min jog out to the hill, dynamic stretching for 5 mins, 10 mins of hill sprint reps, another 5 mins of stretching, 5 more mins of hill sprints, a slow 15 min jog back (different route) and another 10 or so of static stretching.  And despite all that recovering and stretching during the session, when I turned my watch off just before the final stretch (at about the 50 min marker), my average heart rate was showing as 165 bpm, with 621 calories burnt. 

The hill can't have been more than 100m - all we had to do was sprint up (80% effort, which is about 100% for me where hills are concerned) and walk / jog back down to recover and go again, but I was seriously dying.  I wasn't fast, especially not compared to some runners in my group, but I did manage to run each of my hill attempts in their entirety right to the end point, so I suppose that's something.

Right - onwards, I suppose.

Hopefully, I'm going to get home today or tomorrow to a shiny new wetsuit sitting on my doorstep!  :o)  I bought my first wetsuit before I'd lost any weight, when I was an 18-20.  Whilst I can still wear it, it obviously doesn't quite the close fit it should have, so it doesn't seal as well these days, so I've splashed out and bought myself a new one - I should have a very smart new Roxy Steamer in a size 14 arriving any day now, just in time for the next couple of surf sessions - and it was an absolute steal because they only had my size left in that particular one so I got it for £69 instead of £132!  Fingers crossed it fits me!

Restaurant Respite

That little whooping noise you can hear in the distance is the sound of me rocking eating out last night, and making a good choice.  It turned out that last night's eating venue was Bella Italia, which didn't present me with a lot of choice, but I picked a pasta dish with prawns and a tomato and chilli sauce, that I was pretty sure would come close to my target points.

I then managed to make it into the cinema without snacks - woooooooooo - go me!!

And I feel like I got a little tiny reward for my virtue this morning, as the scales slid a tiny bit down.  Finally. 

We're still not back to where I was a 2 weigh in's ago, but I can cope as long as I feel like I'm not doing all this in vain.

I'm really, really looking forward to my 2 weeks holiday now - I want a break!  And I'm half toying with doing a little photo diary for here of what I get up to, if that's not too boring.  Maybe it will even make sure I go out and have a little more fun!?!

Another running club session this evening to contend with ... please, God, no more hills after last week's torment!  Too much to hope for probably - it's going to hurt which ever way I look at it!

Careful As She Goes

I finished yesterday on 30 points, so not quite my 29 point total, but pretty damn close.  I need to make sure I stay vigilant today, as I'm going to eating an impromptu dinner out this evening, before going to the cinema with friends.  At the moment, I've got 14 points left after lunch time, so that should be sufficient to get me something for tea, I hope!  I must remember that I need to be restrained at the cinema though, as I've got far too into the habit of "treating" myself to either ice cream or sweets.

I also managed to book my surfing trip for the first couple of days of next week - the first item in my two weeks of fun!!  Yay!!  I'm off to Bude for a couple of days, and have surf lessons booked on Monday and Tuesday, which I'm rather excited about.  I've got a few other ideas of things I want to do with my time off, one of which is less fun but far more practical:  I've been meaning to do some de-cluttering in the flat for ages, so I'm going to take a day or two to try and make a few small inroads into that.  Chuck a few things out, clear up and get it all nice and organised and tidy again.  Or at least, that's the plan!

Now I just need the scales to take pity on me and move in the right direction - after 2 weeks of on-track eating, they are still stubbornly refusing to budge at all ....