Monday, September 20, 2010

Day 23: Just popping through

It's just a very fleeting post today as real life has taken over a bit!

House was a complete state and I felt bad that my flat mate starts her weekend and tomorrow and was doing so in such a messy house so as soon as I got back from work I tidied and swept the kitchen, sorted the bins, did the washing up and then my laundry - By the time this was all finished it's taken me to 11:30pm. Normally this would be fine, however today my boss has asked me to prepare a presentation and I'd really like to put a decent amount of effort in to it so I want to immediately crack on with working on that tonight so it's ready quickly, as such I don't have time to post properly but just wanted to let you know where I was!

Today I've been relatively good, the only bad thing is that I haven't eaten enough. I woke up with no shopping in the house so skipped breakfast, had my usual lunch and haven't had time for dinner (due to the above chores) so I'm really slacking on keeping my metabolism awake - I get paid on Friday though and will do a big shop to stop this from happening again though very, very soon! Will likely be busy tomorrow evening with this presentation as well but I'm sure you understand, thinking of you!

Breakfast: Nothing
Lunch: Jacket potato with 28g cheese & bean and a side salad
Dinner: Nothing
x

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Day 22: That heavy feeling

I've got that heavy feeling again. You know the one you have after you know you've been naughty and just started being good again? Oh yeah, big time.

But I am back on track, today I missed breakfast because I don't actually have anything appropriate in the house to eat but I did have my usual Sunday Tuna baguette (because the jacket potato cafe is closed Sundays) and came home to a cheese omelette with Quorn sausages.

My first day back at work posts are always pretty boring because there's nothing to report other than "I'm being good again everyone, yay!" - I'm a tad worried about cash tomorrow as I'm now relying on my flatmate being able to pay some of the rent early (which she prefers to do generally as she gets paid weekly so it's easier for her to pay week by week). The problem is that I normally try not to rely on her early payments (as that's unfair), but this week I said I could only go out for her birthday on the condition that she'd be able to pay me a further 50 euros early, as otherwise I couldn't afford to go out.

Now it's looking like there's a possibility that she won't be able to do that, which means there's a possibility that I won't be eating, at all, for a few days. Looks like we could be losing weight faster than we thought, aye?! (Only joking, I know starvation isn't great as it stops your metabolism working... then again, I've never seen a fat anorexic! Ok I shouldn't joke about that, so I'll cross it out. All better!)

Off to bed for me now, I think an early night will do me good, sweet dreams!

Breakfast: Nothing
Lunch: Tuna salad baguette & a pack of Snack-a-Jacks
Dinner: Cheese omelette with 3x Quorn sausages
x

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Day 21: The good, the bad & the ugly

Well, the sabotage came, it saw and it conquered. Though while it may have won the battle, it has not won the war! For I am here, fresh as a daisy and posting an update.

The shenanigans that were contained within Day 20 (sabotage day) started with good intentions. Knowing I would later be drinking quite a lot, I started the day with a Mullerlight and for lunch had a chicken salad sandwich on Wholemeal bread (which is fine for a Slimming World red day, so at this stage, I hadn't done anything wrong). Knowing what happened last week when I went out drinking (the pizza the next day), I decided to try to prevent that by buying a microwavable panini, so that when I woke today with a hangover I could just throw that in the microwave and eat around 400 calories, rather than order a pizza that would have been closer to 2500 calories.

So it was all looking good, I had a chicken sandwich in my belly to cushion the alcohol blow, I had a hangover snack prepared in order to attempt damage control the next morning and when my friends cake was cut I even said no to that too. This was "the good".

Then the alcohol started. I had a fabulous night and danced a fair amount, not quite the dancing I aspire to be doing (the sweatless type), but nevertheless, I had fun. By the time I got home though I was really quite drunk (you know that point where you sit down and suddenly you're dizzy? Indeed). To make matters worse, I had uncontrollable munchies, so the panini was devoured then and there. Due to the state I was in by the time I got home, yesterdays blog post was also missed altogether (never a good sign). This was "the bad".

I woke up today hungover and paniniless, my judgement momentarily lapsed and before I knew it I'd forgotten to weigh in and had a pizza in front of me. This was "the ugly".

Now I weighed in sneakily a couple of days ago and I was on track to lose 4 or 5lbs this week, however given the panini and pizza this weekend I'm worried that I'll either stay the same, or worse, gain. A result like this will really knock me back and make me feel pretty negative for a few days which isn't going to help anyone, so I've made the decision not to weigh-in. This might sound like denial, but it's not. I'm not in denial, I accept that I've potentially gained, it's just that I also accept that ignorance as to whether this is a fact will be more beneficial with getting me back on track.

Thankfully that was the last social event that I had to go to in some time, the next one is in about 4 weeks now so I've got plenty of time without sabotage, to recover fully and knock out a good 15 to 20 pounds in losses if I play my cards right.

Of course, I'm now straight back on the plan. I'm disappointed that I've missed a post and a weigh-in however pleased that it should be smooth sailing for the next month. Let's get this weight moving again.
x

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Day 19: Accepting the inevitable

It is inevitable that potential sabotage situations will crop up. My flat mates party tomorrow, my uncles wedding in 4 weeks, my grandmas family reunion/birthday in 6 weeks, Christmas in 14 weeks... you get the picture, stuff comes up. I can't realistically avoid these occasions, they're part of life. So I'm going tomorrow.

I'm going to the gym first thing in the morning, I'm going to have grapes for lunch and then.. well.. that might be all I eat as I don't want any stodge inside me that any alcohol can soak into later on. It's for the best, really.

Weigh-in is going to be a scary place on Saturday!

Breakfast: 2x Mullerlight
Lunch: Cheese omelette with 3x Quorn sausages
Dinner: 1x Mullerlight
x

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Day 18: When to face the weights

So, there's an incredibly hot guy on YouTube that you may have heard of called Scott Herman, he's a personal trainer, underwear and fitness model and is slowly becoming a minor celebrity with his online following - He has a site where you can buy customised diet plans and such but more importantly he has a huge, vast catalogue of YouTube videos with health and fitness advice and workout routines.

I personally follow his Facebook page so that I get updates whenever he posts a new video, and one he's just posted has really made me think. Check it out:


Wasn't that interesting? I've often been told by personal trainers, both during workouts and when I used to work at a gym (I worked in sales so didn't really need any real health and fitness knowledge, just good sales skills) that doing weights is actually really good for weight loss - but no-one ever said why. Now Scott has explained it, it really does make a lot of sense, so I hope you've learnt something as I certainly have!

Now we have a problem. I'm pretty scared about doing weights at the gym! I'm quite comfortable pushing myself to exhaustion with Cardio while all the meat-heads and muscle boys use the scary heavy things. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to get over it. I don't intend to get over it this weekend though as I'd like to lose a little bit more weight so I'm a tad more comfortable with my figure before I venture into the meat-head section of my gym, but... at least I know what I should be doing now.

Today was the last day of my working week and I have a new 3-day weekend ahead of me now - my flat mates birthday party on Friday is still a terrifying prospect as I really don't want to be sabotaged. I hope I stay strong but I also don't want to upset her by not joining in (as if I don't join in and get drunk, I guarantee you, she'll be pissed off) - we'll see how it goes.

I've been a little naughty today in that I seriously overslept and had to literally jump out of bed and run out the house, thus no breafkast, and to make matters worse I was too tired to cook dinner so ended up having a couple of Mullerlights - at least the weekend has finally arrived so I have time to workout, rest properly and cook now!

Maybe I'll look at the classes at the gym tomorrow and see whether they offer a group weights class like BodyPump? That should be less intimidating as it will involve a trainer, studio and music... I know they won't do BodyPump itself as they don't offer Les Mills classes which is unfortunate, but perhaps they have an equivalent that I could maybe think about doing... maybe...

Breakfast: Nothing
Lunch: Jacket potato with 28g cheese & beans and a side salad
Dinner: 2x Mullerlight
x

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Day 17: Why aren't I skinny yet, damn it!?

I know it's really early for comments like that, but this is my sanctuary and that's how I feel so I'm blogging about it!

I always find that when I'm successfully losing weight, I start daydreaming about how amazing it will be when I've lost X pounds and got to Y stage in my journey, then I start daydreaming about it too much and then I forget that I'm not actually there yet and get quite frustrated and disappointed when I get knocked out of my daydream and fall back down to reality!

We're two and a half weeks in, I've lost over 25 pounds and yet because of these consuming daydreams I'm actually disappointed with the speed of my loss - if it was any faster I'd probably be dying and yet I still want more! I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels like this and I'm sure once I get to the 2 to 3 month point in my diet, I will have finally accepted that this is actually a long, life-changing experience and I shouldn't expect miracles overnight, but while I'm waiting to reach that point I'd like to ask how did/do you guys deal with your own unrealistic expectations?

These feelings of disappointment are doing their very best to make me feeling guilty about my little weekend hiccup, planting seeds in my mind along the lines of "Well if only you hadn't have had those drinks and that pizza, perhaps you would be losing faster" which isn't making me feel all that great. I'm not fishing for "Don't be stupid you're doing amazing" comments here but just some genuine advice (if you have any) on how you tackle this negative thought process?

Anyway, I'll leave that question with you! I've finally got up to speed with my blogging, I may have missed a couple of posts from about 5 or 6 days ago, but any post from the people I follow that went up in the last 2 or 3 days has been read entirely and I feel much better now that I'm up to speed.

I was really naughty. I weighed myself yesterday when I shouldn't have - I was fully dressed, in jeans, it was half way through the day so I'd already eaten and the scales showed a gain of 2.2kg since weigh in. I know I shouldn't have done it but I kept waking up feeling heavy after the weekend and I needed to know if I was feeling heavy for a reason. I wish I didn't know now as it's confirmed the disappointment I was talking about.

To make matters worse, my flat mate is having her birthday party before my weigh-in this weekend at our place and then going out, she might kill me in my sleep if I don't go and the entire day is due to revolve around eating naughty food and drinking even naughtier drink. I don't know what I'm going to do. Perhaps send myself off to a nunnery and tell the nuns I've had a change of heart on the Sunday? That could work. All I know is I don't want to be disappointed through all of next week after another boozy blowout. C'est la vie I guess.

Breakfast: Nothing (Sorry! Overslept again, blame the blogs!)
Lunch: Jacket potato with 28g cheese & beans and a side salad
Dinner: Slimming World chips with 3x Quorn sausages and mushy peas
x

Monday, September 13, 2010

Day 16: These shifts are trying to kill me

Exhaustion strikes, again. I'm obviously just trying to do too much in a day but 24 hours really isn't enough when you spend 80% of those hours sleeping and working!

As soon as I got back from work today I cooked a big vegetable stir fry with Quorn sausages and then watched the final episode of True Blood, Series 3 as it came out yesterday in the US and I'm a very big fan (bit of a disappointing episode for the last one of the series though, don't you think? Let's hope next year rocks).

After that was over it was already coming up to midnight so I hit the blogs - I still hadn't got round to reading some of the blogs I regularly follow so made an effort to catch up on some this evening prior to making this post, which has been great as some of the posts have really been motivational. Unfortunately though, it's now 1am and I need to be awake in 7 and a half hours for work!

Thankfully, due to less than ideal finances, I won't be going out clubbing or anything of the sort this weekend and should be able to catch up on some much needed gym-time and resting, not to mention blogging, but for now I'm going to have to clock out before I pass out!

Breakfast: Nothing (overslept and had to run out the door)
Lunch: Jacket potato with 28g cheese & beans and a side salad
Dinner: Vegetable stir fry with 3x Quorn sausages
x

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Day 15: Just another manic monday

When you work for the company I work for, shifts are crazy and real days don't mean anything anymore (because everyone you know also has crazy shifts) - thus you rename the days of the week depending on when you personally start your working week. As my first working day after the weekend is Sunday, Sunday automatically becomes Monday - And oh what a Monday it has been.

It's gone past midnight, we're already in to Tuesday (which is really Monday, keeping up?) and I've only just finished my chores and been able to sit down for a moments reset. I was up at the crack of dawn and off to work for an 11 hour shift, got back home around 9.30pm and had to cook dinner for me and my friend (as he's so impressed by my weight loss that he wants to eat exactly what I eat for 2 weeks and is apparently incapable of cooking it himself), then I had to wash up everything that the household had accrued (from both before, during and after dinner). The bin was overflowing so that needed emptying and replacing and by the time that was done my laundry finished so that needed hanging up. before I could hang it up my flatmates and my own drying clothes needed taking down and removing. You get the picture. And here I am, 30 minutes past midnight - In 8 hours time I will need to wake up and go to work to start it all again. I am the exhausted mother of this house which leaves very little time for blogging you know, but we must persist!

Anyway, that's my little moan over - Now on to the day. Lunch was a bit problematic. As you may recall from previous posts, the jacket potato cafe is closed on Sunday so I grab a baguette, however today the place that sells those had also closed early so we had to go to a nearby sandwich cafe. I had a relatively healthy lunch opting for a chicken salad sandwich (with no crisps/naughty treats on the side as they didn't do anything as low fat as Snack-a-Jacks), so it wasn't too bad. From tomorrow we're back on the potatoes and the wheels will be well and truly rolling once more.

It was a little more difficult than usual to make good choices today, which I think is normal after a day of poor choices, however I certaintly haven't continued off the rails and I'd say we're on track for another decent loss this week - 5lbs would be great as that will put me above 30lbs lost in 3 weeks (crazy numbers, I know >_>).

Now if you don't mind I'm making a swift exit tonight to try to catch up on sleep, I'm hoping if I go to bed now that tomorrow evening the washing up won't have grown in my absence, there won't be any more urgent laundry and I'll therefore have an opportunity to sit down and go through some other blogs (as I feel guilty if other people read mine while I'm a few days behind on theirs >_>) - Before I do disappear though, I'll leave you with a quick food summary:

Breakfast: Mullerlight
Lunch: Chicken & Salad Sandwich (oh and there was some bacon in it too I think)
Dinner: Slimming World chips, 3x Quorn sausages & mushy peas
x

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Day 14: Forgive me bloggers, for I have synned.

Hey hey! Finally a moment to sit down and blog - We've got a lot of catching up to do!

So as you may know I went out yesterday evening and wondered whether I'd feel different - I can confirm I truly did. Only 25lbs lost and the difference is already huge, other people were sweating, while I was in a club still wearing my leather jacket, and not perspiring at all. Granted, once I hit the dance floor, the sweat situation did rapidly and dramatically come back with a vengeance, but for that first hour in there I felt fabulous!

I was overjoyed all night. On other nights out over the past 2 months I've been miserable, wanted to go home, on a couple of occasions ended up getting so depressed that I've almost had a break down - however not last night. Last night I was happy, socialable, one of my work colleagues who has only lived here a few months was with me and even said "Wow, I haven't really met 'Happy Joe' before" - so other people definitely noticed too, we visited the club my flatmate works at and she said she could tell I was clearly a lot happier than I had been in the past.

Over all it was a really enjoyable experience and it was a taste of things to come I think,it reminded me that I do love going out, I just hate going out while fat, which has motivated me further.

However, this experience came at a price. That price was a huge amount of alcohol (wine and vodka w/diet coke), and a hangover pizza today (I hadn't eaten at all prior and even managed to turn down fast food munchies after the club kicked out, in spite of everyone else I was with grabbing burgers, so the situation really could have been a lot worse).

I'd like to declare though that it was my choice to pick up the phone and order a pizza, my hangover didn't do it for me, and it was my choice to eat it when it arrived. It was my choice to keep the drink flowing at the speed it did and my choice to continue drinking alcohol. I'm owning those decisions and I enjoyed the night. Tomorrow I will make the choice to eat healthily because this experience, while temporarily detrimental to my weight, has only further reinforced my desire to lose the weight. This is not over, in fact it's not even begun.

I mentioned yesterday that before going out we saw Resident Evil 3D - My advice? Don't bother. I was so excited about 3D Zombies however even the 3D effects were unable to compensate for such a horrifically poor plot (absolutely no clue how it has 7.8 on IMDB at the moment). That brings me to the last Syn I must confess (I know, it's been a really naughty weekend!) - Popcorn. I was trying to find a Syn value for Popcorn to work out whether I could work it in to my diet (bit pointless in retrospect, given the alcohol/pizza situation afterward), however even with the Syn value both myself and the cinema guy had no idea how many grams of popcorn were in the box so it couldn't be calculated - regardless, I threw caution to the wind and had a medium popcorn with a diet coke.

So all in all people, my Syn Binge wraps up as follows:

1x Medium Popcorn
1x Medium Pizza
1x Small Garlic Bread (w/ the Pizza)
Alcohol estimates: 1.5ltr white wine, 100ml vodka

I don't even regret it if I'm honest, I chose to allow some treats in order to have a good weekend, I did have a good weekend, I still lost a huge amount of weight and I'm choosing a Mullerlight when I wake up tomorrow.

On to another topic - Waxing. NEVER again. Paracetamol just wasn't enough for a full chest, back & arms wax, next time I want nothing less than an epidural. 75 minutes of continuous pain - I've had my back done before so had an idea of what to expect but the chest was just so much worse.

To make matters worse, because my chest hadn't been waxed before the hairs were a lot stronger than normal so a lot broke rather than being pulled out, which basically means I still have bits of hair! What's the point in getting a wax if you're left with hair!? Not only this, but I'm also covered in a wax-type-rash (just redness where the hair was ripped out), and my body is doing it's very best to rebel against the recent torture by covering my chest in spots.

Not only was it agony, ugly for 35 (and counting) hours afterward and incomplete (in that hairs remain), but I had to pay 70 euros for the privilege! Could have had a lovely massage instead! Definitely not happening again - if shaving is good enough for professional fitness models, it's good enough for me.

Grrrr. Waste of money. Anyway, on to something more positive. Todays weigh-in! I didn't actually get to bed until around 6am last night and as you may have guessed from the alcohol consumption, the hangover was pretty intense today. As such, when I woke up a few hours after going to bed, I really didn't want to make a blog post or go downstairs to my Wii - but I did, because I wanted the weigh-in to be accurate. This also explains why it was such a short post!

What a result eh? Over 9lbs lost! This also includes the Popcorn and all the alcohol! As I ordered the pizza a little later, that was after my weigh-in, so that will be taken into consideration next week. I'm hoping for a loss of maybe 5lbs this week to go over the 30lb mark, fingers crossed!
x

Day 14: Weigh In

Just a quicky for now so I can go back and enjoy my hangover. It's weigh in time!

I've just weighed in and the scales said 120.8kg, which means 266.3lbs, or 19 stone, 0.3lbs. Fantastic result after last weeks loss! Would stay and celebrate but feel death. Back to bed for me.
x

Friday, September 10, 2010

Day 13: Apologies

Apologies are due! I've promised for the last two days a decent blog-catch up and for the third and final day I'm going to have to ask for another rain check!

I went to the gym and did a good work-out earlier (about an hour on the cross-trainer and a 15 minute row), then had my all over body wax (details on pain, screaming and hostages will come tomorrow), then met up with a few friends to watch the new Resident Evil 3D at the cinema (opinions on that, also to follow) - After that they wanted to go for a few drinks. I really would have preferred beer and knew I should really have water or vodka & diet coke, so I negotiated a little and had 2x small glasses of wine, sipped and enjoyed them thoroughly. I feel given I've been good all week that this negotiation was fair.

I then came home intending to have a blogaphon (as previously discussed) and have seen a last minute Facebook invite to a friends leaving do this evening, she had her last day at the company I work for today and is having her goodbye drinks tonight and it started 40 minutes ago! I really feel obliged to go as in the past she has been quite a good friend, not just some casual work aquaintance, but I wanted to do a quick post to explain where I was before going out.

Tomorrow I only have the gym planned, no social engagements, no lunches, and even if either of those invitations crop up, no money! Thus I know I will definitely have the time tomorrow to catch up. I could have just not posted at all and then explained myself tomorrow but I really want to stick to my "post everyday" rule as I know if I start abandoning it now I'll very soon be falling down a slippery slope as I did with my previous blog and that is NOT going to happen.

It''s weigh in for week 2 tomorrow morning and I'm really excited - not only that but this evening will be the first time I've been out since prior to my "Sweat" post... I wonder if I notice a difference in how I feel.

Now to jump in the shower (in spite of the beauticians request that I don't shower for 24 hours as I could get some sort of infection in the open pores) - There's no way I'm going out with dry wax all over my body!

Will catch up (and post a food summary) tomorrow, must dash, hope you're all on track!
x

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Day 12: Shattered

Absolutely shattered. Today has been a bit of a crazy one - from the second I woke up I was off out the house and off to the gym and I've only just stopped being busy (at half midnight). To make matters worse, due to a salon appointment tomorrow my work out needs to be earlier than usual so I'm going to have to wake up early too, during my weekend of all days!

I made a crazy decision today, I decided in spite of only just starting my weight-loss journey that I'm going to start learning to love my body from now. A part of this I impulsively decided to book a full body was for tomorrow at 1.30pm in the spa at my gym.

It was a completely spur-of-the-moment decision and I can't back out of it now as canceling with under 24 hours notice means paying the entire fee regardless, so I may as well do it - It's for my back, chest and upper arms, can't wait! Not looking forward to the pain (at all), I've been told it will take about 2 HOURS! That's right, 2 hours of flesh-ripping torture. But once it's over I'll have a lovely smooth body to take to the Jacuzzi in future and by the time the hair grows back (4 to 6 weeks or so), I should have a significantly smaller body to get waxed the next time round!

I think I'm going to be extremely self-conscious tomorrow having a beautician wax my chest as Jabba is very much still alive and kicking, but really it's a confidence building exercise and it's something I wouldn't have done 2 weeks ago so I think this is some pretty sharp psychological progress!

I know I intended to catch up with the blogs I follow today but unforeseen circumstances (primarily shopping and cleaning) have kept me up later than I expected and exhausted me, so I'm going to disappear to bed and then tomorrow evening I have a good few hours available to sit down and re-connect with blogger, which will be great!

Another down side of such a busy day (well, or a good side, depending on how you look at it), is that I haven't really had time to cook. I went to Wagamama prior to the gym however that, I'm afraid, is all I've eaten today - BUT I did go shopping on the way home from the gym and my fridge is now stocked up, therefore appropriate food is now available for all meals over the next few days and I'll be able to stop all this meal skipping nonsense! I'm off to catch up on sleep before my early start tomorrow, before I go I'll leave you with my food summary:

Breakfast: Nothing >_>
Lunch: Yasai Yaki Soba & Soy Sauce, then Low-Fat Frozen Yoghurt with Berries
Dinner: Nothing <_<
x

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Day 11: The skinny jeans told me to think again

A friend of mine visited this evening after work and we ended up getting a bit distracted and before I knew it, I found myself retiring to my bedroom at 1am before even blogging! As such (and because I'm very tired) this will be quite short and sweet (I wasn't going to post at all but remembered my promise to post daily!).

Not a bad day but started to get concerned that I'm not eating enough and it's not my fault! OK it is a bit, but it's not intentional! I'm not trying to starve myself, etc, I want to eat three large (where possible) Slimming World meals a day and snack on lovely fruit and Mullerlights but I just keep forgetting to buy enough shopping! This combined with the fact that I would prefer to go hungry then break my diet has meant if I don't have the right foods available, I have admittedly then skipped a meal or two.

Today I had no fruit or Mullerlights (which, are not Miller lights! :-p They're these low-fat yoghurts - they sponsor Sex and the City! :-p), so in the absence of these breakfast essentials I didn't have anything to eat this morning - but I did make up for it with a large healthy lunch and dinner.

Worryingly, I did start feeling a little light headed earlier today with nothing for dinner last night and no breakfast this morning, need to make sure I do bigger shops at the weekend! Also, and completely unrelated, I'm starting to get those horrible irritable bits on my inner thighs now where they start complaining that you've awoken them from their slumber after months of inactivity - not good! (Maybe I'm the only one that gets this?)

Looking forward to my weekend (as today was my last day at work) and can't wait to get in that gym!

OH! I have some good news too! I went down one belt notch comfortably today! In fact, I ended up wearing it two notches lower! (a little less comfortable with it two notches tighter but still not bad actually). Very exciting stuff - in view of this I thought I might have gone down a jean size too so I excitedly tried on my smaller jeans about 10 minutes ago, then gave up at my thighs and less excitedly peeled them back off. Oh well, baby steps!

I may have been a bit naughty this evening too and had a quick weigh-in on the Wii Fit. Since 4 days ago I have lost a further 3lbs so far, however that's wearing jeans (normally I'm in silk PJs when I weigh-in), and at night after eating during the day (where as normally I weigh-in first thing in the morning) - So I anticipate the loss is actually closer to 6lbs, therefore hopefully by weigh day I'll have had another half a stone loss (7lbs) to add to the story so far!

Going to dash now as am literally falling asleep at my keyboard, will have to do double blog reading tomorrow to see how everyone else is doing ^_^

Breakfast: Nothing
Lunch: Jacket potato with 28g Cheese & Beans and a side salad
Dinner: Slimming World "chips" with roasted parsnips and 5x Quorn sausages.
x

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Day 10: Note to self: Remember to eat

As every day flies past now I just feeling like I'm getting more and more pumped with motivation (a considerable amount of that motivation I know is so clearly sourced directly from this blog and blogs of others I might add) - It's a great feeling. I feel like I've had one of those eureka moments where suddenly you know exactly what to do, you start doing it and everything's just plain sailing.

Guess what! The flannel in a bowl idea totally worked out. My alarm went off at 6:30am, I didn't feel like I really needed any more sleep I just wanted it, so I reluctantly wiped my face with the wet flannel by my bed and POW! I was awake. By 6:32am I was out of bed and reading the time from my computers clock while scrolling through a blog or two. How good is that!?

This means that the gym did indeed happen this morning before work - I didn't have a lot of time so I did a 30 minute interval-based weight loss workout on the cross-trainer and then a quick 10 minutes on the rowing machine before hitting the Jacuzzi (which, by the way, there is always time for). I then strolled off to work dropping my gym bag at home on the way and arrived 5 minutes prior to my shift starting - Perfect! What's even better is I don't feel in the least bit more tired for this endeavor, if anything, it put me in the better mood for the rest of the day knowing that I'd achieved something ^_^

I'll admit though, I haven't been great on the diet today. Don't get me wrong I haven't cheated or eaten anything bad, but... well... I don't think I've really eaten enough to keep my metabolism rocking and rolling. I didn't have time in the morning because I needed to dash out if I was going to squeeze in a workout so I just grabbed a low-fat yoghurt and ate it on the way, at lunch I was good as we went to our potato cafe and had the usual, however when I got home I really couldn't be bothered to make anything tonight so I just had another Mullerlight and disappeared to my bedroom and the world of bloggery.

I also noticed that I have no fruit or Mullerlights left, which means I don't actually have anything to eat before work tomorrow - I was thinking about another workout in the morning but I definitely won't be doing that on an empty stomach.

As I walked through the kitchen earlier I was very tempted to weigh myself on the Wii Fit but managed to stop myself as I don't want to be disappointed. With such a huge loss last week, I wouldn't be surprised or even that disappointed if I gain a little or maintain this week while my body questions what the hell I'm playing at (...ok I lie, I would be disappointed, but it would still be an average of 8lbs a week over 2 weeks so I couldn't complain) - We'll just have to weight and see what happens when it's scales time on Saturday I guess! (Did you like that? Weight and see? I know, tragic.)

EGG WHITES! Before I forget, I wanted to share something I've learnt today. I was reading Seans blog earlier and he mentioned that he had eaten an egg white omlette. I hear people now and again speaking about not eating the yolk but have never bothered to investigate why they don't, however this post prompted me to do some searching. I found this article about Egg Whites Vs Whole Eggs. I'm never eating a whole egg again. As you may have noticed I have quite a lot of omlettes (because Slimming World allows unlimited eggs), and I can't believe the amount of calories and cholesterol you save simply by only using the egg white! Crazy. Anyway that was a little off course but I just wanted to get it out there in case you didn't know (as I didn't!).

Lot's of new blogs cropping up that I've been discovering which is very exciting ^_^ Whilst it's fantastic to follow the posts of experienced bloggers and motivating to see how much they've achieved, it's also nice to be able to follow someones progress from the very start, so I'm looking forward to reading those - By the way, on the topic of blogging, I really would like one of those blogrolls that automatically lists the blogs you follow, that puts the bloggers in order of when they last posted... but I don't know how to get one. Is that a widget that I can't find? If anyone knows, I'd love to find out!

Anywho, time to disappear back into other peoples blogs, I'll leave you with my (very short, granted) food summary:

Breakfast: 1x Mullerlight
Lunch: Jacket potato with 28g cheese & beans and a side salad
Dinner: 1x Mullerlight
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Monday, September 6, 2010

Day 9: Did you hear that? DAY NINE.

I know Day 9 isn't quite something brag about while other blogs are well past Day 700, however what I mean is "Wow! Doesn't time fly!" - Those 9 days really have flown by which is great as normally I find while dieting time just drags as slowly as it can. Clearly I'm enjoying the start of this journey which is good news ^_^ It takes 30 days to break a habit they say (and some others disagree, but for the sake of argument, let's just accept this suggestion), so that means in 3 weeks time my new healthy eating should be second nature and old eating habits slowly will start becoming a thing of the past.. in theory!

Today we managed to reserve our jacket potatoes with the cafe to make sure they didn't sell out (as we get lunch quite late), which they were happy to do - they were even happy to weigh the cheese and make sure it was 28 grams (the exact amount allowed in Slimming World as a "Healthy A" option), how great is that for Customer Service? We're going back tomorrow and I have a feeling I'm going to be going there every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday lunch time for a very long time to come!

I still have the gym dilemma but earlier on at work I started really feeling like I needed a work out and made the decision that I would go tomorrow morning. However, even if I fall asleep this second I will only get 8 hours and 9 minutes sleep, giving me the next 9 minutes to finish this post, pack a gym kit and hit the hay! Loretta makes a good point in her comment on my previous post in that; "Lack of sleep causes a rise in cortisol. Cortisol makes it extremely hard to lose weight." - Based on this I'm going to go to bed shortly and if when I wake up I really feel tired (let's say it takes me the next 2 hours to actually get to sleep). Then I'm not going to go. Hopefully I don't use this as a back up excuse if I just can't be bothered though!

I also have a plan to wake me up! I find that I'm a nightmare for waking up because I love my bed so much, I keep pressing snooze until I literally have to get up or I'll be late for work. However, I also know that if I splash water on my face, that's it - I'm definitely awake. So tonight I'm going to leave a wet flannel in a bowl on my bedside cabinet next to my alarm, then before hitting snooze, I'm going to wipe my face with it in the morning... which I think will stop me going back to sleep in case I do decide it's time to hit the gym (we shall see!).

Anywho, better dash if I want to stand a chance at getting enough sleep, so I'll leave you with my food summary:

Breakfast: Mullerlight
Lunch: Jacket potatoe with cheese & beans and a side salad
Dinner: Omlette with a small amount of reduced-fat cheese & 4 Quorn sausages
(seeing a pattern in my eating yet? :-p)
x

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Day 8: Business as usual

So today was my first day back at work after the weekend and the start of week 2. I grabbed a Mullerlight for breakfast before running out the door and had a bit of a hiccup at lunch (again).

The little cafe (that's about a 20 minute walk there and back, who sell jacket potatoes) were closed because it was Sunday! This presents me with a Sunday dilemma, I'll have to work on finding somewhere that do amazing salads or something for Sundays. Today though it caught me off guard last minute so I just bought a tuna baguette and a bag of Snack-a-Jacks again, whilst this isn't ideal on Slimming World, I had this for lunch twice last week and still lost 16lbs, so I figure it can't be all that bad! Plus for the next three days my jacket potato cafe will be open so lunch won't be an issue.

Been thinking a little negatively today, I think it's because I've been sat underneath an Air Conditioning vent blowing cold air directly on to my forehead (in an already cold office, while it's wet and cold outside too) and after a few hours this started a migraine which I'm still suffering with now (fingers crossed I sleep it off as I really can't afford time off work!). This has made me a little grumpy so I've not been my uber-motivated self today, nevertheless I had a healthy dinner when I got home and, excluding the lunch situation which was partly out of my control, I've stuck to the diet religiously.

One of my guy friends from work is trying to talk me in to waking up early on Mondays & Tuesdays and going to the gym with him before our shift, leaving Sunday & Wednesday as the only days I don't go to the gym. Whilst this sounds great and I do enjoy the gym enough to go that often, this would mean waking up at 6.30am, going to the gym, doing an 11 hour shift at work, finishing at 9pm and getting home for 9.30pm. Now.. if I want to get anywhere near 8 hours sleep, that basically means immediately eating and going to bed on a full stomach. No time to blog, clean, or.. well, do anything. I'm not sure about that. Think it's worth it or think I'd be better of getting better sleep and just working hard on the 3 days I do go to the gym during my weekend?

I'm really in two minds about it, on one hand it is a lot to ask with the length of my shifts and I really don't want to get behind with blogging or miss out on sleep (particularly when working out so regularly), on the other hand I should really take every opportunity to get down the gym, I do enjoy it when I'm there and I think about inspiring posts like this one, with points like "I love knowing that by 7am Sunday morning I have accomplished more in my day than most people do in their weekends, even if it means sacrificing sleep." - She does have a very good point. I'm just not sure whether it's a good day idea considering the length of my shifts - it would literally mean no "me time" at all for those two days.

Anyway that's the gym/work dilemma, now I'm off to bed before this migraine takes over completely, before I go though, I'll finish with a quick food summary.

Breakfast: 1x Mullerlight
Lunch: Tuna salad baguette with a pack of Snack-a-Jacks
Dinner: Vegetable stir fry with soy sauce & 5x Quorn sausages (had to throw half of this away as was too full!)
Naughty: Stole a very small Yorkshire Pudding from my housemates dinner!
x

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Day 7: Looking Forward

What a fabulous day to finish off a wonderfully healthy weekend. I'm still in shock regarding the 16lb loss, I know that isn't a healthy amount to lose but... well it's not like I've stopped eating and exercise can only be good for you so I don't really see anything I'm doing as particularly dangerous, if it is I'm sure I'll soon find out!

After I weighed in I had some lunch and then packed my bag and went to the gym and as I walked through town filled with post-weigh-in positivity, I found myself doing a lot of looking forward.

I went past all the shops that do nice clothes and thought "I can't wait until I can shop there" (right now none of them would stock my size and I'm forced into the cheaper shops that sell generic, basic clothing where I still have to buy the largest size they sell). Then I realised something. I had thought "I can't wait until I can shop there" whereas normally I would have thought "I wish I could shop there".

Subconsciously I have acknowledged that wishing is no longer needed, change is inevitable, now it's just a matter of time. This is a good day.

Food Summary:

Breakfast: 3x Mullerlight
Lunch: 2x Jacket potatoes with beans & reduced fat cheese
Dinner: Vegetable stir fry with Quorn sausages & omlette
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Day 7: Week 1 Results

It's that time, it's that time, finally it's that time! I've stuck to the diet for a whole week now which means I am officially "on" the diet and haven't relapsed or decided to put it off a couple of weeks, this means serious business!

I prefer to get weighed early in the day, before I have clothes, food or workouts impacting the results, so that every week the weigh-ins are accurate. As I normally post my blog post at the end of the day though (to review how the day was, look at my diet, etc), I've decided I will make 2 posts on results days, one very quickly after weigh-in to share what the scales said and another one at the end of the day.

Now if you've read my first post, you may recall that I had already eaten 2 baguettes and drank a litre of sprite the first morning I weighed in (as I hadn't started the diet at that point), so please consider the fact I have not done that this week, which may mean this weeks results are a tad higher than expected, but all the same... drum roll please...

I have just weighed in and can confirm that after 7 days I have lost... 16lbs!

That's right, the scales displayed 125.1kg, so that means I am now 275.7lbs, or 19st, 9.7lbs - I'm under 20 stone again!

Granted, maybe 4 pounds or so of that was the baguettes and sprite, but who cares, still a pretty amazing result, I'm a tad flabbergasted actually! Anywho, just wanted to share the news, it's certainly going to keep me motivated in the gym later!
x

Friday, September 3, 2010

Day 6: Too exhausted to eat

Wow. I can't remember the last time I was this exhausted!

I woke up and went to the gym with my friend again this morning but neither of us were really feeling it - thankfully the work-out lifted my mood but beforehand I really would have preferred a day in bed. Whilst the work-out (which was primarily cross-trainer & rowing machine based again) lifted my mood a tad it completely knocked me out, I was so exhausted that I could barely muster the energy to towel dry after my shower! (I did of course... wondering out of the gym drenched or naked may have been a bit weird)

From there we went on to Wagamama for lunch again, can't afford to keep doing that but if I hadn't have done so today I'm not sure I could have walked home!

We then parted ways and I went home to a bit of a pig sty. I had two days of gym clothes and a few other bits that needed washing, the washing up was about 4 days worth and piling up (as battle of the housemates was ongoing and no-one had caved in and done it yet), the bin was overflowing, yuck, yuck, yuck! I chilled out for a little while to regain my strength and then went to work and have done all my laundry, the dishes, took the bins out and blitzed the living room and kitchen, they're sparkling as we speak.

By the time all of the above was over with I looked at the clock and saw it was already 10pm! Given that it was already so late and I had such a lovely clean kitchen, one I certainly didn't intend to spoil and without the energy to do more washing up, nor the will to cook in all honesty, I decided against the lovely massive cooked meal I had planned (Slimming World chips, omlette, Quorn sausages, etc) and instead opted for a Mullerlight and some strawberries before retiring to do some blogging.

I can't believe how much the gym and cleaning have taken it out of me today - the worst bit is I'll be at the gym again in about 12 hours doing it all again! C'est la vie.

Food Summary:

Breakfast: Grapes
Lunch: Yasai Yaki Soba & Soy Sauce again, then Low-Fat Frozen Yoghurt with Berries... again
Dinner: Mullerlight & Strawberries
x

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Day 5: Nothing tastes as good

Well, we no doubt all know the infamous Kate Moss motto, "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" and I've seriously had to hold on to that today. Oh yes, it's the first day off work I've had since I restarted my journey and the challenges and choices flooded in thick and fast!

I woke up and went to collect my friend to go to the gym, we did a little shopping, she didn't have any gym shoes or clothes so we needed to kit her out before we could go, however on the way to the gym we realised we were both starving. This was good choice number 1. I recommended we go to Wagamama (a Japanese style restaurant that's so healthy their slogan is "Positive Eating, Positive Living") and I had a noodle & vegetable dish cooked on a gridle -Which is perfectly fine on my diet, excluding any small amount of oil they used on the gridle (however I did specifically request as little as possible if they were going to use oil). We then ordered dessert and I went for the low-fat frozen yoghurt with berries, this is a bit more of an issue but it was certainly the healthiest choice out of all the desserts.

So we went the gym, where I performed good choice number 2. My friend hadn't worked out in a while (As you've probably guessed from our need to buy her some gym gear) and really wanted to give up long before she should have, as she really was capable of pushing a little bit further, it was laziness telling her to stop and go to the jacuzzi, not physical inability. So after we'd done a bit of cross-trainer and used the rowing machine, rather than give in and take an early jacuzzi, I managed to keep us both motivated so that we doubled the row and even did another 15 minutes of the cross-trainer before we called it a day.

After the gym we went back to her house to make dinner for her, her boyfriend and myself. Good choice number 3. They had roasted vegetables with feta cheese, bacon and a pita bread, whilst this isn't the most unhealthy dish in the world it wouldn't have been allowed on Slimming World and would have broken my diet, so I just had the roasted vegetables and politely declined everything else! Then we decided we'd go back to mine for a few drinks and a chill out.

Good choice number 4. Rather than having beer or wine, which I really do love and could quite happily have drunk excessively, I recommended that we buy vodka and diet coke (as I can get away with a bit of vodka, it's only 2.5 syns per 25ml and I'm allowed around 10 syns a day). I was poured a large vodka and diet coke (around 2 shots so half the days syns) and then I made sure I made all my drinks after that and from that point onwards I secretly had the diet coke on it's own, so only drank 2 shots of vodka in total!

Finally, my housemate came home with one of our friends and they told me they were going out for a night on the tiles and absolutely insisted I went with them, but my first post from 5 days ago, Sweat, was inspired by nights out and the fact that I simply don't enjoy them because I'm overweight. I remembered this post and thought about all the negative results of going out (it would also have impacted tomorrows gym and diet, etc), and then I made good choice number 5. I didn't go with them. Instead my friends went home, my housemate went out clubbing and I went upstairs to write this blog post! Aren't you proud? I know you're proud. I'm quite proud too. ^_^

You know what's weird though? In spite of the numerous potential sabotage attempts I encountered today and all of my good choices, I still feel guilty for that small amount of vodka (which I'm actually allowed on this diet), the small amount of oil that will have been used for the vegetable and roasted veg (which I'm probably also allowed as I imagine it was no more than my 5 remaining syns) and the dessert (which to be honest, I can't justify).

All in all though I think today could have gone catastrophically, it could have really knocked me off the wagon and back to square one, had I have drank what I actually wanted to drink or chosen to go out no doubt the gym would be cancelled for both tomorrow and the day after and I'd be getting a full Irish breakfast at some stage tomorrow - however all of this has been avoided!

Let's hope I can survive the attacks in store for me tomorrow...

Finally, just for my reference, a quick food summary:

Breakfast - Mullerlight
Lunch - Yasai Yaki Soba & Soy Sauce, Low-Fat Frozen Yoghurt with Berries
Dinner - Roasted Vegetables
Naughty - 1x Vodka (approx 2 shots) & Diet Coke
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Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Day 4: Nothing to Report

Well, today was much the same as the three days prior in that it was another 11 hour shift and I'm afraid my work days are going to be the boring blogs days as I really don't have time to do anything other than eat, sleep and work!

Looking forward to tomorrow and going to the gym with my friend though! It will be the first time I've been to the gym in a month or two so I'm a little nervous (which sounds crazy considering this time two years ago I was working at a gym) - I think that's normal. It's normal right? If you've had a long time off you just feel guilty and worried about going back, silly things like being concerned that the staff will be thinking about the fact they haven't seen you in a long time as you pass them on the walk shame to the changing rooms? Maybe it's just me but it puts me off.

In fact, I'm ashamed to admit it, but I had intended to go last Saturday (the same day I made my first blog post about sweat), however this fear managed to prevent my visit! I guess it's good that I've arranged to meet my friend tomorrow to go with her as I'll have someone else holding my hand for my first trip back, although I'll no doubt be pretending that it's me supporting her tomorrow, between you and me, it will totally be the other way round.

Food time! Although I don't want to continuously blog about what I've eaten each day (as if I were reading someones blog where all they talk about is what they've eaten, I wouldn't be reading it very long), I do want to keep a record of what I eat for myself just so I can look back at my good weeks and bad weeks to assess what I was doing differently, consider it a food diary for my own reference that you can access should you wish to. What I think I'm going to do though, so I don't bore people with my food diary who aren't all that interested, is start posting what I've eaten in a little summary so that people can skip it. Anyway, without further ado, here is todays summary:

Breafkast: Nothing (I know, I know, I'm terrible)
Lunch: Went for a jacket potato but they were out! Had to have a vegetarian breakfast instead (mushrooms, tomato, beans, egg, potato) - all of those I'm allowed unlimited amounts of with Slimming World however the oil they were cooked in is obviously not so good, although I did ask them to use as little as possible!
Dinner: Reduced cheese omlette with Slimming World chips and 4 Quorn sausages
Dessert: Mullerlight

Not all that bad, really should have had breakfast but I just find it so difficult to find the time on these shifts - Must start making the time regardless though - need to keep my stove burning!

Really looking forward to Sundays weigh-in to see how I've done after my first week, I reckon my gym visits over the next 3 days may give unpredictable results but we shall see, anyway, time for bed!
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