That is how I'm feeling today - all hyped up. Woke up this morning, met my friend David for our 10km Walk. Really looking forward now to tomorrow week and do the actual walk. I went and got our walk numbers and t-shirt. Now I will go pick up my nephews and niece to go watch a film and then out tonight. Tomorrow, there is the car boot sale project. Did not actually rake up as many things as I thought I would but I have very nice things and books which should sell. This morning I also saw a very nice number on the scales, but since it is not official weigh-in day I'm not letting myself gloat over the number. So hope I'll see the same number on Monday morning. Will be extra careful - the graph would show such a wonderful incline downwards... we'll see Monday. I also tried my beautiful evening dress which I'll be wearing for a wedding today fortnight. I have lost weight and my boobs are not as tight in it (hope they don't continue losing - I love them as they are - wish the weight to be sucked out of thighs/hips/bum). Moreover, last time I wore it, I wore a tummy control to keep in bumps and stuff - seems like I won't be wearing my tummy/bum/thigh control in 2 weeks' time!!!! Absolutely thrilled and maybe for the first time in weeks, the ultimate goes of 65-67kg is looking attainable though not for a few months more cause it's slooooooooooooooow. Still, I'm hyped up.
Another positive thing that happened when I went to pick up our walk numbers and t-shirts. Usually they take one look at me, think big girl, and hand me a large size. Today, he looked at me and told me - a large would definitly be too big for you and handed me a Medium. Happy, happy, happy moment.
Thanks for your knee encouragement. I'm supposed to be given a definite MRI appointment early next week. My thoughts are also with my cousin in Australia who has already undergone a knee reconstruction like me in one knee and now she has injured the other - she's getting an MRI too to see whether she has the same injury in the 'good' knee. We have concluded through emails that it must be a family knee faulty gene.
Off to shower and wash my hair and make myself beautiful - today the world feels like a park and it's all mine to play in. Have a great weekend everyone.
The knee. Well we had the appointment with the surgeon me and my knee. He twisted it here and he twisted it there. I told him it was hurting all the time and I couldn't even run. He asked why wasn't I running? I said because IT IS HURTING ALL THE TIME even in walking. Then he asked me an interesting question - he said - do you want to get rid of the pain 'at all costs'? My first instinctive reaction was YES and then I said - well yes but what do you mean exactly by 'at all costs'? Then he said - well let's get an MRI (FINALLY!!!!!) and take it from there. Next week we (me and my knee) should get the date for the MRI.
So, in retrospect - Finally I'm going to get the MRI that will actually show the damage there is cause so far it's been I think it's this and I think it's that. I've been thinking about that 'at all costs'. Deep down I know what it means - it means an operation. How do I know that I need an operation? CAuse I've tried everything else in terms of therapy and while the knee has grown stronger through a stronger muscle, the pain has got worse or let's say it has not gotten better. Now, while most of you will say go for the operation and get it fixed I have my reservations. First of all, if I have this operation will it actually fix it cause I thought it would fix it last time. Whatever happens in this operation does it have an expiry date in that it will be good for 20 years or so cause if its' like that I'll postpone it as much as possible. Is he talking about a knee replacement? Cause I know it's not wise to have that early in life, even in 50s and I'm 'only' 32. So anyway, we'll wait and see. On a positive note, I told him - listen, I just want to live my usual life without pain, I'm not expecting to go play tennis or volleyball. And he said - why not? - implying that playing tennis or volleyball is not a far-fetched option for the future!!! Let's just wait for the MRI.
I have been having a couple of 'thin' days these last two days. By thin days I mean when I feel my clothes that little teeny weeny looser and a little teeny weeny lighter. So maybe Monday I'll register a loss after about 5 weeks. This evening I'm going out to eat with my sister in law and some friends and I'm bound to lose it a bit. We'll see. In the meantime, stay strong and happy.
yesterday I did manage to stop at the Cadbury so I consider that a success. And this morning we weighed ourselves again.
Let me give you the scenario. I woke up and got on the scales - 72kg, Had breakfast and weighed again 72kg. Got naked and 71kg. Will still put 72kg though cause usually I don't weigh naked. Still in weighing myself sporadically over last week the weight was fluctuating from 71kg to 72kg whereas before it was fluctuating 72kg to 73kg. Still, my graph will continue to show a straight line. Sometimes I stop and thing - if it is taking soooooooo much effort to maintain, what will happen when I will relax?? Gain, gain , gain. It is proving difficult and disinheartening. You have all read how much I walk every week and then do pilates class and try and swim once a week. I don't know. I have to believe that at one point in the next couple of weeks I'm going to jump from 72kg to 70kg like it did from 74kg to 72kg. In the meantime we keep it up and hope and keep the bikini in mind.
Yesterday I posted the 10km walk application for me and my friend David. It's in 2 weeks now and since we walk on the outer lane at the athletics track and we walked 25 laps (@ 400m = 10km), it turns out that we actually walked over 11km since the other lane has some 49m more per lap!!!! Today, in the afternoon I have my orthopedic surgeon's appointment - please please please God make him send me for an MRI. I know I will never run again or play volleyball or tennis again but at least I want to know what is also bugging me in walking. I just want to be able to walk as long as I am able to breathe. We'll see what will come out of this.
that is where I am at this very moment - danger zone. So I thought I'd log on since I'm at home and type away. What do I mean by danger zone? Danger zone means it's Sunday, it's 5pm, I have nowhere to go, actually I don't feell ike going anywhere, I am into a really great book and I want to eat chocolate. I have already had a 49g cadbury (about 250 cals) and I think it's either I eat all the twix my mother has generously bought or maybe I don't go on a choco fest. But how do I prevent it? My first coping strategy is coming and posting a blog post.
Tomorrow is weigh-in - I would love to see a 71.5 - even that would make me happy. So I MUST NOT eat chocolate. I can't go for a walk cause yesterday I did a nice 11km with my friend David (hip hip hurray) and today I went for about half that amount - I can't give my knee any more exercise for a few hours yet. Swimming? The gym is closed. Cinema or coffee - well I just don't feel like going out - I want to read and eat. For now I'll just type :).
It has been so far a good weekend. Yesterday did the walk, went to see my aunt who came back from an aussie holiday, went to mass to try and get my place in heaven maybe and then met friends for a fund raising buffet for the Malta Mission Fund. Way back in 2002 I went to Guatemala with them for a month on mission work and it was a great experience. Although I haven't been able to do it again I still support them by attending events. I won a watch at the lottery they held which apparenlty needs a battery already!!! This morning went for a good walk to return a dvd at a nearby village shop and then went to the SUnday car boot sale. Bought three books one of which I'm reading now - Blue-Eyed Son - The Story of an Adoption by Nicky Campbell - so far it seems good. Mostly I buy books second hand as I am a very fast reader. I have loads of books now and have run out of space - I'm actually thinking about putting up a stall at this car boot sale myself and sell a few things - My friend Elizabeth is keen on joining me so we might do - it would be an experience.
So I've been on and off thinking about 10 things I like about myself. It is difficult to come up with 10 in all honesty. But let's give it a try:
1. I like the fact that I'm tall - it lets me get away with excess weight better than the shorter version. 2. I like my upper body - in other words my boobs. 3. I like the fact that at 32 I'm an independent young woman with a nice career. 4. I like the fact that I have achieved quite a lot of things - travelled a lot, represented my country in sports and did things and saw places other people don't see in a lifetime. 5. I like the fact that while I am burdened by a mortgage which I have to pay by myself I am able to still spend money on me and others on things like a reflexology treatment or a nice expensive dinner out. 6. I like the fact that when I do charity in that I give money to someone in need, mostly who have been hit by medical misfortune, I do so anonymously without expecting the receiving end to embarrass themselves with thank yous and obligations. 7. I like the fact that as years have gone by I have become more sensitive to the persons around me and how they might perceive a situation as opposed to my own point of view. 8. I like the fact that my family and friends know they can count on me and that I'm always available when in need. It is a give and take relationship but they know I'm here for them. 9. I like the fact that when my nephews and niece see me, they genuinly are happy with my presence and that their face lights up. 10. I like the fact that I'm an efficient person and that when I say I'm going to do something I do it. I also know how to say no and am generally a very assertive human being.
I don't know if Tatum's mum had something of this kind in mind when she put this challenge up for grabs. In the meantime I will try and stay off chocolates tonight waiting eagerly for a loss, any kind of loss, on my scales tomorrow.
It has been a very busy week. It did not start all that well on Monday as I went on a super chocolate binge in the evening. Today is Friday and I haven't had chocolate since. It's been 3 days since I've been on EP. I don't think I've ever gone 3 days without posting since I started in here.
Determination, Discipline and Dedication. When I used to play we used to refer to them as the 3Ds and they are 3 good things to go by if you want to do something and you want to check whether you are up to it. Let's take weight loss - do I want it bad enough - how determined am I to reach my goal? Will I have the necessary discipline to say no to the things which will hinder me from losing weight? I HAVE to be dedicated to the whole process. It goes with anything one decides to do in life really. Another favourite of our coaches is the 'no pain no gain' mantra. Since losing 5 kg I have let myself slip by and this can be seen by my lack of progress. My pilates instructor had told me that when the enthusiasm wears off, that is when I will need a new focus. I have bought a beautiful bikini from ebay for which I need to lose 3kg to look great into. So that might be an idea. I want to loose from 5-7kg more - but I will have to work harder for it.
Last time I talked about the gliders and the company confirmed that they do not ship to Malta. Thank you TanyaD for checking out ebay for me - I had checked out the UK one and didn't find any listed but they are listed on the American one. The catch is that since there is the time zone difference the listings close at 3am. Twice I 've been outbid cause I promise myself that I would wake up at 2:30am and finish the bidding and then I wake up at 1:30am, sleep again and wake up at 4am. But isn't it great that through EP someone on the other side of the world (TanyaD) was able to help me over here? Love to all. Hope you all had a great week.
of 72kg. Was I expecting a loss? Well 80% was not expecting a loss, 20% was expecting maybe a .5kg or a 1kg. After all I did puke my guts out on Friday and barely ate anything on Saturday and Sunday I was good. Also I have exercised a lot this last week. A good 10k on Wednesday, murderous pilates on Friday and a 1hr walk on Saturday. Plus yesterday I swam for 1 mile (that took me about 1 hour). Hadn't been swimming for a while. I wanted to break in my new swimsuit - another ebay purchase which fitted perfectly. My old swimsuit was not supporting so much at the top and I was dangerously risking giving other swimmers more than they would have hoped for during their exercise session.
So 72kg it is. However, I know that if I'm careful this week there should be a 71kg waiting for me today week. I'm off to a pilates class in about an hour. Not looking forward - when I'm on my own I go with my pace of work, within a class, well the pace is fast and it kills me. I keep thinking I could go and do 10k again but I told my instructor I would go the class and so I'm going to. Last time I went to a class about a month ago I died.
Well, hope you all had a great weekend. I recovered fully from my Latvian liquer/Italian wine stomach adventure by Sat evening although I did cancel my outing with my friends. Yesterday (Sunday) I went to the casino where I won Lm15 which is about 37$ or 23£. We are not big gamblers so we either lose a little or win a little and by our accounts Lm15 is a very good profit. Hope you all had a good start of the week with more encouraging weigh-ins than mine. I havea really nice thing to look forward to tomorrow. Although I have to deliver a course from 8 til 1pm and then i have Computer lessons from 5 to 8pm, in between I'm meeting my lovely friend Doriella for lunch and we have a 3pm reflexelogy appointment. Afterwards we'll have about 45 mins in the pool and jacuzzi. It should be relaxing and fun. Hope you Tuesday is good too.
Yesterday I went to this really nice wine bars. There has been a boom in nice small wine bars tucked comfortably in our Maltese villages and they are very popular. Looked forward to it as the beginning of my weekend and had about 3 glasses of wine with platters around. Afterwards we had a kind of liquer, don't know the name, but it's from Riga, Latvia. 90mins later I was puking (sorry about the disgust) my guts out. I was sick for about 2 hours until I managed to sleep. This morning I feel like a wreck although my stomach IS flat. Alcohol is evil!!!! Since I used to work as an Alcohol and Drugs Prevention officer for 2 years before my present post I should know better. Somehow the italian wine and the latvian liquer did not get along with each other and had their 3rd world war in my stomach. Another outing to the Hard Rock cafe' this evening is now cancelled.
Back to the flat stomach - I guess that must be the attraction for bulimic persons in puking their guts out every other meal!!!! As nice as it looks this morning, I would never be able to make a habit out of brining up what has gone down!!! What a price to pay to be slim - not worth it.
So all of a sudden my weekend has turned into an even more relaxing one - hope this burning sensation goes from my stomach though. I'm also feeling pain when I move because yesterday I resumed my pilates classes after about 3-4 weeks. Bryn, my instructor, got new equipment called gliding discs. Check their website out - I tried to buy for myself but apparently they only post to USA and Canada. Wow, they were tough and worked my body. I was sweating so much I bet Bryn needed to sterilize and disinfect the area after I left. I will contact the company to check whether they could post to little Malta in Europe.
Well that's all I have to report today. Have a great weekend, be good and for the love of God, stay away from ALCOHOL.
Have you ever been over the moon cause you went shopping and fitted in a particular size, then went to another shop and there was no way in hell you could get into the clothes of that same size? I find that sizes really vary from label to label and I'm not talking about the UK/US difference here. I'm talking within the same continent, country and street!!! Although they should be standardized sizes, sometimes there is a big size 14 and a small size 14. It's true that the shape of the clothes will influence whether it will fit or not but I still feel there are discrepencies. On the subject, I got a stunning Ebay dress delivered ~(another one) which I got for 5£ including shipping and it's a size 10 - it fitted much better than the other one in size 12. In fact I can see myself wearing the size 10 in about a month but the size 12 will have to wait more. And they both came from England. There is no way I'm a size 10
Today I walked for 10km on the athletics track. My knee bothered me but tolerably so although between km 8 and 10, from waist downwards, everything was feeling the toll of the long walk. But it made me happy and the knee is as bad as usual, not worse. Ain't life grand? I walked for a total of 1 hr 50 mins. I actually have an appointment for the knee on the 23rd April and I will so insist on an MRI which will probably be taken in about 2 months time. But I'm very happy I got my 10km and it still feels quite ok. I hope I don't start tomorrow's blog with an 'I feel like crying' title like last time.
Not much else to report. Tomorrow we resume work as we know it after the Easter break. Looking forward to the weekend and next week, on Tuesday, I'm going for a reflexology treatment with a dear friend. It's great to have things to look forward to, isn't it? Have a great rest of the week all of you. XXX
Yes here we are. A new week. When I was young, about 7 years old, once I got 99% on an English test. My only mistake? There was a question about what is the first day of the week? I wrote Monday, apparently it's Sunday. Well, for me Monday is the first day of the week and the loss of that mark for a perfect 100% did not make me change my mind.
I have decided to shift the weigh-in from Wednesday to Monday. I lost the 1kg I had gained, hip hip hurray. Originally I had opted for Wed as the official weigh in because the weekend is the worst for me so that gave me Monday & Tuesday to recuperate. However, I was becoming worse during the weekend lately as I always counted on the Mon and Tue fallback. If weigh in is on a Monday I'll be more on guard on Saturday and Sunday and slip less. Well that' s the theory anyway. We'll test it for these couple of weeks and see if there is any psychological (and numerical) difference.
Today I got delivered with a beautiful size 12 dress. Now I'm not a size 12. I am a size 14 now (for some time I was hovering in the 16). Needles to say it did not zip up. But mark my words, it WILL zip up all the way - maybe not in April or May but I'll wear it this Summer for sure. Ironically the person who sold it on e-bay did so because she thought she would eventually shrink into it but didn't.
I'm a bit miffed at the moment. I dropped my purse and I overran it with my car. I had my pen drive in it and it's not working now . The problem is that I have some files of which I don't have a back-up. Still it could be worse. At the time, on Saturday, I thought I had lost the purse and I had just purchased 2 VIP Bryan Adams tickets which cost a fortune for myself and my sister-in-law. So better the pen drive than the tickets and credit cards in it.
Have a good week my dears and may it be blessed with lots of lost weight in lbs and kg.
everyone. May the joy and the miracle of the Risen Lord fill you and your family with peace and love.
I woke up this morning, went to early mass and then went on a 1hr 20mins walk. I wore my knee support and it felt better. I so needed this walk after yesterday's sumptuous dinner. I tell you, the dessert alone, a dark chocolate mousse which had about 4 layers of different types of chocolate, must have had a zillion calories.
I was really happy yesterday cause I wore a pair of black pants for the first time. When I had bought them a couple of months back I went in the shop, got these size 14s on the small side *(don't you find that sizes differ from one shop to another) and while I managed to close them I had flesh bulging out, there was no way I was going to wear them. I asked for a size 16 but since they were on sale they had run out of 16s so I got the 14s anyway hoping I would shrink into them. And I did!!!!! Yesterday I wore them, admittingly still a close fit but nothing bulging out. A couple of pounds less they will be perfect. I am posting the pic of what I wore yesterday to show off a bit I admit.
After dinner, around midnight and a bit drunk, I did the mistake of coming on ebay and bye bye the 2 week self-imposed ban - bought three items - a PS2 game for my nephew, and 2 jewellery sets that would make perfect presents for a cousin and a friend. Now I got them at really good prices and I should save them for Christmas presents (once I bought a Christmas present way back in February) but I always find myself giving them before then. So we'll see.
For all of you who are adding friends like crazy here in EP, read Deserve Better's 2nd April blog on how to use Google Reader - it saves Lots of time while keeping one on track with what others are writing.
Somehow the italian wine and the latvian liquer did not get along with each other and had their 3rd world war in my stomach. Another outing to the Hard Rock cafe' this evening is now cancelled.