Day 1 back on track

Yesterday was much better - not a bad start at all to being back on track. My food was all tracked and I finished the day with some points banked after exercise. One box ticked.

I went to the gym when I got home, and much as my legs protested I warmed up on the X-trainer for 10 mins and then knocked out another 20 min run with the treadmill set a speed or two higher than usual. I wasn't in the mood for a long haul so went for short and intense instead. Still slow at 5.5mph, but slowly, slowly increasing my speed little by little. 2 days in a row of even short runs has given me achey legs of lead today though!!! (Oh, and I didn't spin as I said I would because both classes were full).

I stayed in last night, had a long luxury shower instead of a bath and the boys popped round later to demolish more of the shortbread for me. I had a half slice since I had a couple of points left. In bed by midnight - not quite as early as I'd have liked, but not bad.

The scales this morning are 0.4lbs down - any movement away from the dreaded 13 stone barrier is good - I am soooooooo not going back there!!!!

Today is a rinse and repeat of yesterday. Dinner tonight is going to be replaced by a nutritious pile of pancakes!!! Forgive me - I am at least saving up the points for it and planning on staying in my points for the day. I might also make some tomato soup in case I need extras.

I'm not sure my legs can take another session of running just yet as they're feeling pathetically tight right now, so I'm going to try and find some yoga and stretches to do for tonight's activity.

21.5lbs to goal - and I'm going to keep chipping away at it.

Laters, lovelies!!


-- Posted from my iPhone

Whoa, Nelly!!!!

TIME OUT!!!!

Enough is enough and I'm now calling a mini intervention on my ass. I've not eaten great over the weekend, although I am at least tracking 100% honestly again, but I sure as hell didn't like what I saw on the scales this morning. I'm within a shade of going back over 13 stone and I flatly refuse to go back there.

It is therefore time to go full on Nazi on my (increasing) ass again and get my head properly back in the game.

As you may have noticed, I've been blogging less frequently than usual recently - a symptom of the decline. At the same time, my social life has gone into over-drive, and between that and work, I've not had enough time for me.

So ... it's time for me to be selfish. This week is allllllll about ME!!! About giving myself a little love (and discipline). My plan is to totally let my social life take a back seat this week. I'm not going to do my usual trick of saying yes to absolutely everything and then running from pillar to post every night. I'm also not going to spend every spare minute round at the boys' house.

I want to cut out the booze this week. I've been drinking way too much recently which is bad in itself, but also leads to other bad decisions. I'm going to pay attention to what I'm eating as I've been snacking mindlessly far too much. And I'm going to try and get in some form of exercise or activity every night the rest of this week. I'm also aiming for at least 7 hours of sleep a night. The scales can do what they want to do - I'm going to be focusing on getting my mental house in order.

Other than that - I had a lovely weekend once it finally got started. I ended up working 3 hours over on Friday night so I wasn't the happiest of bunnies. I dropped into see my dad on the way home and then headed to a house party in the evening. 1 bottle of wine later and I was pretty drunk, but oddly not far over on points for the day. Saturday was a bit of a mix up, as I'd made late plans to go on a 10 mile walk near Ludlow with friends and then stay over for the night, before being reminded on Friday night that I actually had tickets to see Imogen Heap in Birmingham on Sat night. Disaster!!! I ended up cancelling the walk and going to the gig as well as watching the 6 Nations rugby with friends on Sat. I ate far too much at dinner out in the evening - or rather I talked myself into eating when I wasn't actually hungry - and ended up feeling really uncomfortable for the gig - when will I learn????

After Saturday morning's hangover it made a pleasant change to wake up yesterday morning feeling refreshed and clear-headed so I went for a 5k run. Pretty slow as I've really not done much running recently, but I felt better for having it done before breakfast. After a leisurely morning I watched the rugby again next door with Sid and then tried my hand at baking Millionaire Shortbread. They turned out pretty damn delicious, but insanely rich. I had one yesterday, but since I now want to be back on track I'm busy giving the rest away to appreciative friends.

Food so far today is back where I would like it to be. I'm going to spin tonight, then I think I might treat myself to a bath and a night catching up on Supernatural alone on the sofa and an early-ish night. Suddenly that sounds exactly what I need.


-- Posted from my iPhone

The war of attrition

I am one of those people that frequently struggles with motivation. I'd like to be the sort of person that forges ahead, regardless of the circumstances or obstacles in my way, but the truth is that as soon as something doesn't go my way my willpower can flag. And that, dear readers, can be a vicious cycle for us weight loss types.

When I'm eating right, the weight comes off. When the weight comes off I see the rewards for my work, and I'm encouraged to do more of the same. A positive feedback cycle. When the weight loss slows, or I gain, then I get a bit of a fuck-you mentality on - it's harder to persuade myself to put the good stuff in my mouth because I can't see the result anymore, and so things can easily spiral out of control. Blame it on my 3 second, goldfish memory.

That's where I could have been after skiing - I've been struggling with the 12 stone bracket for what feels like forever. I'm within sight of my goal, and yet far enough away that it's a long final push to get there. I'm tired of watching what I eat for the moment, but know that it's all that stands between me and a big backwards slide (as Saturday loudly reminds me), so I'm using the one tool in my arsenal that I have left - one day at a time and live in the present and immediate future only.

That way, mistakes I make are in the past - I can learn from them, but I can't change them - 20/20 hindsight and all that - so there's no point letting them have a negative impact on what comes next. Done it, log it, move right along. At the same time I'm just keeping my eye on the here and now and my immediate choices and options -there's no point looking too far ahead - for a time when I reach goal - and waiting for it to happen. I'll get there eventually, but I have to keep living my life until I get there.

I'm stuck in a funk and I have to keep going until I can find my way out again. The fabulous Ms. Bitchcakes described it perfectly the other day - the first phase of whole-hearted committment and steady results; the slow decline into complacency, weight-loss plateau and going-round-in-circles; and eventually re-committment when my brain finally catches up with me. I've just got to not quit before that point.

To the people who had the grit to do it all on the first time with no distractions - the lovely Kari, gorgeous Lizzie and of course the eponymous Jack Sh!t - I salute you. For the rest of us - who's still here plodding along with me??


-- Posted from my iPhone

Lessons learned

What surprised me most about yesterday's comments was that people said they would never have pointed The Day of 70 Points. But I think this was the most valuable thing I could have done.

You see Saturday wasn't a binge. I didn't set out to consume quantities of food until I was satisfied or squelch any cravings. I just stopped specifically thinking about making healthy choices as I knew I would be earning a lot of extra points from my walk.

The result is a huge lesson in what can happen when you're not paying attention, and the staggering way in which things can stack up.

At first when I totted up Saturday's points, I was so ashamed and shocked that I wasn't going to post anything about it. But this is something that anyone who is trying to eat healthily, and especially anyone just starting out on that road, needs to have their eyes open to.

I can't count the number of days that I've probably had in the past where I've eaten what I damn well please because I'm also being active. Hell, I probably did it most days while I was away skiing - so it's no wonder we can all struggle with our weight.

Back in the normal world, I'm back to making the effort to get it right on a daily basis. I was irritated last night to work late again and ended up missing my spin class. I prob should have gone for a run or something instead, but I was bloody knackered so concentrated on trying to eat vaguely right instead. Also, I'm honestly feeling a bit averse to the running thing at the moment - I'm just not liking the hideous cold much. Roll on Spring!!!!

I'm due out to go and see friends for a silly board games evening tonight. There's pizza on offer for tea, but I'd better steer clear of that as I don't have the points to soak it up, and I've eaten plenty of crap this week already. I haven't got any classes booked for this evening, but I feel I want to do something gentle, so I'm going to try and investigate the exercisetv website that Prior Fat Girl Jen was talking about a couple of days ago .... a home yoga session feels like it would just nicely hit the spot!


-- Posted from my iPhone

Maximum stress

Foregive me, readers, for it is a week since I last blogged. I'm sorry.

I think it's fair to say that this last week achieved record-breaking levels of stress and general bonkers-ness, and isn't one I'd care to repeat any time in the near future.

Here's the summary:

1. Number of evenings when I got drunk - mostly due to the need to shrug off work stress - 4, matched by an equal number of hungover and sleep-deprived mornings.
2. Number of times reduced to tears at work in the ladies loos - 1.
3. Number of episodes of intense Tourettes-style episodes at work due to stress - uncountable.
4. Number for financial directors no longer talking to me after I regrettably let fly in a meeting when I could no longer keep my mouth shut - 1.
5. Number of extra points consumed due to I-don't-give-a-flying-fuck moments in the evening due to extreme lateness home from work - numerous and unmentionable.
6. Number of exercise classes missed due to above lateness - 1.
7. Number of lbs lost on Friday's weigh in - 0.5 - god only knows how as the scales should rightfully have revolted against me.

Eventful week, I hear you say.

I have absolutely no idea how the scales went down - I guess the good behaviour from the previous week / weekend finally caught up with me, but if I don't pull my thumb out it's not going to stay that way.

This weekend saw some absolutely atrocious eating. Friday was fine, as I managed to wing it, so that even with my night out on the tiles in Cheltenham, I ended up within 4 points of my daily allowance. Saturday was an eating catastrophe. 70 points. That's all I'm saying. I didn't even know it was possible to eat that much in a day, and felt pretty disgusted when I added it all up. A typical case of lots of little things adding up. To put it in context, we went for an all-day 12 mile hill walk on Saturday along the length of the Malvern hills and down to Ledbury. After getting in at 4.30am on Sat morning, I was up at 8.30am to get ready. Read it and weep - a whole 4 hours sleep, or slightly under (we would have got back earlier on Friday night, but managed to get the world's slowest taxi home - I swear to god he didn't get out of 4th gear / over 40mph on the entire 26 mile ride home - even on the M5 - grrrrrrr!).

For those of you curious how you consume 70 points (ish) in one day - here's a quick guide:

• 1 x 2 egg ommelette for breakfast with some half-fat cheddar, and a bowl of Special K with skimmed milk. Also about a pint and a half of fruit juice to feed the hangover. 11 points. Damn!
• 1 slice buttered maltloaf mid-morning, and a hot chocolate at the hotel just before lunch - about 6 points or so I think.
• 1 submarine roll for lunch with chicken, pesto and mayo, a Scotch egg and a Cadbury flake yoghurt - a hefty 19 points. Shall I start crying yet?
• 2 Welsh cakes, en route during the second half of the walk, plus some jelly babies. Another 5 or 6 points.
• Pint of coke and 3 large glasses or wine in the pub (arrive at 5 to watch the rugby - stay for dinner and until 9.30). About 8-10 points.
• Homemade steak and kidney pie for dinner with chips and veg. 20 points.

And voila - you've killed yourself. In my defence, I didn't add anything up as I went along, and when you're walking all day and monkeying around in the cold, it doesn't feel like that much food. Well, apart from dinner. The dinner made me feel sick. It was delicious, but I couldn't finish it and felt overly full.

I was absolutely shattered by the time we got the train home, and having weaved to the station I lay on a bench feeling sick and dizzy (and drunk). I crashed straight to sleep when we got home, but woke up at midnight, literally ill from the food. I can't take it anymore and my body literally rebelled against me.

On the upside - the walk earned me 20 activity points. The mistake I made was thinking I could treat myself as to what I ate as I'd be able to soak it up with the activity points, and I just didn't even think that it would add up to that much - or even could add up to that much. Not making that mistake again!!

Yesterday was a recovery day - very lazy after 14 hours sleep (the last week suddenly caught up with me), and a bit of overeating, but nothing too catastrophic. Today, I'm back to it.

Oh, and I'm looking for a new job, as my current one is clearly unhealthy for me!!

Karma? What did I ever do to you????

Well, I think we can safely say I'm having the crappiest day I've had for quite some time today. Oh joy; what total and utter joy.

Shall I list out for you the many ways in which the shitstorm has descended on my head?

1. I've lost my purse. Sometime between paying for my pic'n'mix at the cinema last night (we'll come onto that separate matter after I've finished ranting - patience, my friends) and this morning, it vanished from my bag. It's not in my room - its newly tidy status made that fairly easy to confirm, it's not anywhere else obvious around the flat, it's not in Jon's car (yep - I had to wake the boys up at 7.30 this morning to request the keys to check - cue me getting an eyeful as Sid opens the front door in the tiniest pants known to man or woman - I sooooo did not need to see that at any time of the day - never mind the early morning, and Jon looking at me very bleary eyed in a towel, trying to understand what I was saying as he was only approximately 26% conscious), and my last hope is the cinema. Ah yes, the cinema, who helpfully inform me that there's no direct number for me to ring the actual cinema, and therefore customer services have emailed them on my behalf, and I'll hopefully hear back sometime in the next 4 hours / year. My entire life is in that purse, so I'm currently penniless, cardless, driving licence-less and about 45 other miscellaneous items that I suddenly find I can't live without. Bugger. Oh yes, and I literally had to go through the trash this morning as having taken the bags out to the bin, I suddenly panicked that I'd thrown my purse away when I cleaned the cinema tickets and receipts out of my bag last night. Nice.

2. Flashy orange lights came on in the car on the way to work this morning - I have no idea if this is a reminder for a routine hideously expensive service that I can't really afford right now (curse skiing!!!!) or something more serious. I ignored them.

3. Some stupid bint tried to drive into the side of my car this morning on the way to work. She was so busy jockeying for position at the roundabout outside my work this morning, and gesticulating rude things at the driver next to her, that she failed miserably to notice that I'm one of the few people who actually go right round the roundabout to the site entrance when I signal right, and not turn off down the main road. She'd practically driven onto me in her oversized, and no doubt needlessly large, people carrier before she spotted me and threw out the anchors. I was not amused.

4. I got to work to remember that I was going to buy my lunch today, since I didn't have any lunch stuff in. No purse equals no money equals no lunch. Luckily, the lovely Fran threw me a lifeline in the form of a £10 note, so I'm over that one.

5. My friend Claire, who is currently 7 months pregnant, got sent home from work this morning in a state of panic and over-stressedness, after she completely broke down on arriving at the office this morning. A) I'm obviously really worried about her. B) I'm now covering her phone, potentially some of her work, and lying through my teeth about why she's not in as she doesn't want people outside our office to know (fair enough). Nice working environment I have, right?

So there we have the state of play for today - want to know how I've tackled it?

By not eating the cake.

Oh yeah.

There's birthday cakes again. And I ain't eating them. I figure I ate cake yesterday, and today's are shop-bought, so all I'm missing out on is a shop-bought muffin - I can have those some other time. What have I eaten? Bowl of cereal with skimmed milk for breakfast. A satsuma and an Alpen Light bar during the morning. Sandwich and yoghurt for lunch. In other words, I've eaten exactly what was planned into my tracker this morning.

In. Your. Dirty. Face. Stress.

On a stress front, I've kind of simmered down now. There's not much I can do either way til the cinema phones me back about my purse. If it's gone, then I'm leaving early to start calling all the banks. I was at breaking point early this morning, but a well-timed funny and sympathetic email from Jon with a suggestion of pub tonight, and he's buying the drinks if the purse has gone, calmed me down a bit. I've spoken to Claire and she sounds better. Time to just head down and get on with shit.

So the pic'n'mix. We went to see Sherlock Holmes at the cinema last night. I don't know why, but I made a last minute decsion that I really wanted more pic'n'mix after only having some on Friday night. I literally had my little pack of popcorn in my bag, but just didn't want it. As it goes, it's no biggie though as I went to Spin last night, so I still banked a half point for the day - just not as much as I'd planned on. Other than that I stuck to my post-cookie-revised plan for yesterday.

I'm liking the plans - I don't have to think in the evenings when I'm hungry, just grab stuff and cook, so I can do my thinking and planning and decsion-making when I'm not hungry and can be objective. I'm good for finishing this week with points to spare, which will be the first time in quite some time that I can honestly say I've fully tracked and that has happened. Sadly, the scales don't seem to want to play ball and acknowledge this fact just yet, so I'm just going to have to be patient and wait for them to catch up with me.

They will.

Over and out, amigos! xx

Check me out!!!

Oh yes, my lovelies, check me out indeed!!! I'm back in the zone and survived a weekend that involved an overnight girls' night and a cinema trip with only a 4 point excess to show for it!!!

I thank you very much!!! You can stop applauding now! ;-)

Soooooooo - I know - long time, no post. Sorreeeeeee!!! What can I say - I was having too much fun!

Friday felt like one of those hungry days when you just can't stop thinking about damn food. Thanks to the planning I largely stayed on plan through morning at the office. Ironically, having been obsessing over food all morning I wasn't hungry by the time I got home at about half 2.

Typical, but I took advantage of that. Since the sun was shining on the way home, I dragged my trainers on as soon as I got home and set out for my first outdoor run of the year. Boy, it felt like hard work, but despite more walking breaks than usual I actually completed my short circuit in 26 mins which is a min or two quicker than usual! Guess I must have been running faster and that was why I needed the breaks. On a booooooo side - in typical fashion as soon as I got round the first corner it started to snow on me and proceeded to keep snowing in various intensities until 5 mins before I got home. Which is rubbish news when you're out running in capris and a fleece!!! My hands were so cold that they took a painful 5 mins to defrost in the shower when I got back. Ouch.

I had a nice quiet afternoon after that although the nibbles were still with me so I used some of my running activity points to snack sensibly.

Friday evening I went to the cinema to see Avatar with Bridget, but it was annoyingly sold out when we arrived so we saw It's Complicated instead. We whiled away the time til the later showing in the pub over the road catching up on several weeks worth of gossip (over Diet Coke) and I totally enjoyed my (pre-pointed) pic'n'mix with the film. And the film was pretty good too although I was so tired that I was struggling to stay awake by the end of it.

I had another lovely quiet day on Saturday as I walked into town to take some books back to the library in the morning and to go and get lots of lovely fresh fruit from the supermarket. After that and a healthy lunch I rocked into Worcester for a couple of hours of shopping with Sheena. I was really pleased to get some great bargains from TK Maxx, somewhere I usually hate, as I got a new work out top for the gym, a technical t-shirt for biking, running and spin, and a proper lightweight windproof / showerproof shell for biking / running all for £40!!!! Super happy about that as I've been coveting a running / biking jacket for months (a proper one that's cut high at the front and properly low at the back)- and I picked this one up for £16!!

Now, I have to admit that I forgot to do my food planning for Saturday until Saturday morning, but I was really pleased with how it worked. I went to a girls' night at Bridget's in the evening and it was so nice to turn up knowing that my dinner and a couple of glasses of wine were already planned in for the day, and I had some spare points on top for cakes. And oh my god were there cakes!!!! Home made ones from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook which I got Bridget for Xmas. French Fancies. Mini chocolate eggs donated by Sheena.

Yes, I was over my points for Saturday as I indulged and had cake. But the planning meant that it wasn't catastrophic for my week or even my weekend. Nice!!

Yesterday morning we very groggily dragged ourselves out of bed and out to the gym for 10am to sample this new Aerojam class. My god, it was the funniest thing I've done for a while!!!! The music was super-loud and up-to-date chart music (think Lady Gaga, Britney Spears and Beyonce), the instructor was a hyper-active, super enthusiastic loon and the instructions ran something along the lines of "gyrate!! And now the other way!" "touch yourselves - be sexy, ladies!!!" "show me some attitude" and many more gems! The class is a mixture of aerobics, dance, Bodyjam and whatever else Tabitha feels like throwing in. There's street dance moves, hip-hop, Latin, and funky variations on traditional grape-vines and box steps, as well as a lot of jogging around and what seemed like an endless set of lunges. It certainly worked me hard - my HRM read out an average heart rate of 157 over 58 mins at the end of the class, maxed out at 181 and with an estimated burn of 635 calories!!! It also showed me that while I might think I can dance, I'm not always that co-ordinated, but I did have a smile on my face for pretty much the whole class, so I'll definitely give that another go next week.

I spent yesterday afternoon looking on the Internet at possible options for my big trip at the end of the year. It's so exciting, but I also feel anxious about such a big step. Eeeek - even just planning it is putting me outside my comfort zone!!! Well, I guess that's a good thing as it was part of the reasoning behind the whole trip.

I finished yesterday on another good day of eating and planned out today's food yesterday evening. I've deviated slightly from my plan already as I'd forgotten there'd be birthday cakes today, but I picked sensibly and I've adjusted my plan accordingly, so I'm still on track for a good day.

Happy Monday everybody!! Xx

-- Posted from my iPhone