Food/exercise

Breakfast: soya and berry smoothie with almonds

Lunch: white bread (grr) with reduced fat guacamole

Dinner: brown pasta, tomato sauce, onion, peas, bacon, parmesan, spinach

Snacks: apple, 2 satsumas

Drinks: water

Total calories: 2000

Exercise: 30 minutes aerobics, 40 minutes arm, back and core exercises with light weights, stretches

Hmm. An OK day.

Well, borrowing freely from Lucie Lastic, today was a 'glass half full' kind of a day as far as health is concerned.

I did up my fruit intake to 2 pieces (whoo hoo lol), but I didn't get much calcium. The foods I ate were healthy, but I would prefer to get more variety.

Tomorrow morning I am going to sit and plan my day's eating in advance, I haven't done that for a while.

However, the last couple of days I have been good about having proper meals.

No exercise either today beyond shopping round town, I am tired and feel run down and my muscles hurt from yesterday, not a good excuse to not even walk on the treadmill, but there you go! (ooh, edited: OH has just asked if I want to do a walk so doing a quick 2-3 miles now! Yay!)

Food for today:

breakfast: leftover mexican lasagne (!)

lunch: brown pitta, reduced fat houmous

snacks: satsuma, banana

dinner: pasta bake - turkey mince, veg, pasta sauce, brown pasta, cheese.

Drinks: water, caffeine free diet coke

Total calories: 1980

I think what has happened is, I have got much better about being consistent - not superhealthy, but not unhealthy. I would like to shift now a little bit towards the more nutritious choices. Tomorrow it will be 1 week till I go to the US - I need to get my rotund ass in gear from here on out!

Rach xxx

Time for my weekly rant!

New starts

Well...here is my thought for today!

The concept of 'new starts' in weight loss really worries me. Once we have started a health plan, as far as I am concerned, that is it. We have committed to it, that is it. If we then eat in a way we didn't plan, I don't think it is effective to say 'I'm going to start again'.

If we say that, it is as though we are saying to ourselves we have failed somehow. And we haven't. Eating more than we wanted or kinds of foods we know are unhealthy is a normal part of everyone's life - even slim people. We won't stop having these periods of time, they are part of life.

As such, shouldn't we be treating them as PART of our weightloss plan rather than the end of one plan, and the beginning of another? Otherwise we risk weeks of out-of-control eating before 'starting again', and worse, constantly feeling we have not come up to standard.

If we work on treating these episodes as normal parts of our diet, we realise that what matters is the whole picture. Over time, the feelings of guilt about overeating on occasion diminish or even disappear, because we become confident we will get back on track at the next opportunity.

Ok rant over!

Food and exercise for today:

breakfast: brown pitta, reduced fat houmous, satsuma

lunch: stir fried beef with broccoli, mushrooms and cashews, white rice

dinner: mexican 'lasagne' - wholewheat tortillas, bean and veg chilli, enchilada sauce, cheese, raw spinach, salsa

not enough fruit or calcium, will up those tomorrow

Drinks: water

Total calories: 2000

Exercise: 1 hour aerobics, toning, weights and stretches.

I am not venturing outside because the weather is VILE so I shall do a lot of cleaning instead to keep activity levels up! (edited: 1 did 4 hours! what I cleaned I don't know as the house wasn't too bad to begin with).

Take care, have a good day and God Bless,

Rach xxx

blummin tomato sandwiches!

I have had 3 tomato and light mayo sandwiches today, the only other things I have had are some chickpea and veg soup, some chicken, some oatmeal and a smoothie.

Great nutritional balance! I must get into the habit of having proper meals and the snacks being fruit. Although I have had good periods with it, I have never really got into this habit. Three meals a day and sensible snacks was not something that was conditioned into us as children, and it didn't matter for a long time because my metabolism was so good, but now it really does.

Anyway, I reckon I have had about 1800 calories or a bit under, not the best food choices but not the worst. I will have a bit of cottage cheese later!

Have been shopping and got lovely healthy things for this week.

I feel quite bleurgh today, I think I am coming down with something, I hope not though as this is not a good week for it, I have too much on. My OH has been sick though and these are the same symptoms.

I have to go and make the most unhealthy muffins for my OH's work tomorrow.

Lots of love and God Bless,

Rach x

Report back

well, the party was OK. Quite good, actually.

I didn't wear the outfit I planned, I wore my other really nice skirt, I did look chubby round the middle but it could have been worse.

Nice food, friends, a couple of glasses wine (for the first time in 6 months), it was good.

Back nice and early and didn't overeat. I was tempted to stay and drink more, but I thought, going over my calories 6 days in a row? That would just make it harder to get back on track, and so close before Christmas would be bad too.

Food and exercise for today:

Oatmeal made with soya milk, sunflower and pumpkin seeds

brown pasta, tuna, tomato and veg sauce

orange juice

little bit prawn cocktail and garlic bread

half turkey dinner

1.5 small glasses dry white wine

water

Total calories: under 2000 but I am not sure where : )

Exercise: half hour high-intensity aerobics

Also had 3 puffs on a cigarette! Eek, BAD Rachel!

See you all tomorrow,

God Bless

Rach xxx

The best laid plans...

...well, I felt so bad about overeating before the party tonight, I compounded it with a massive blow out last night.

This morning I am 3lb up on the scales, but I don't look too pale or puffy, and I refuse to think negatively about this party.

I am not looking forward to it any more, but I am not going to let myself feel like crap all day either (excuse the language, I feel it is called for for me today!).

So that is IT for me with dates, plans etc. I had found I did better without them before, but Christmas came up and I fell into that trap and my habits were the worse for it.

So back to the usual 4 hours of workouts and 2,000 calories for the foreseeable future.

edited: refusing to feel like crap all day? Yeah, right! despite loads of water, a workout and even diuretic tablets, that 3lb is still firmly stuck to my middle. I tried on my original outfit and I looked pregnant. I now have on another one and I still hate the way it looks.

I wish I had stuck to my plan throughout, or even just stuck to it a little more closely. Lol how many times have I thought this in the past?

Rach xxx

Hello everybody : )

I have just got back from my weekend away - and I am coming on here almost straight away!

I need to, to recommit (once again) to my goals!

First things first...I shall be visiting your blogs over the next day or so, but in the meantime I hope you have all had a good weekend and are getting along well with things.

I had a great time visiting my home town, I met up with lots of friends, waved goodbye to my brother who flew off for a year in Australia, and it was my second wedding anniversary yesterday. We were meant to go for a meal at the place we had our wedding, however my poor husband came down with the most horrible cold and cough so we decided to stay in in the warm and I am glad we did!

Now for weight....well, for the first time in more than 6 months I could not even begin to take a guess as to what I weigh.

I did overeat on the weekend away, despite my OH's work Christmas party TOMORROW night, and boy am I kicking myself now! It was the same story as it usually is when I visit my parents...3 main issues.

1. I can slip back into old habits, somehow the time there doesn't feel as though it 'counts'

2. The food is much less filling than what I normally eat - white carbs and lots of fat, although they have a pretty healthy diet and are more than happy to buy me healthy options, I just ignore them!

3. I have no idea how many calories are in things, and I tend to overestimate them, end up starving, and overeat.

HOWEVER...I did much better than I have done in the past when visiting, I didn't go more than 1500 over at the most in 5 days, as opposed to more than 2000 in 3 days the previous visit. I also did quite a lot more activity than I normally do - shopping, walking to the pub etc etc all the time. And I did about 2 hours of proper working out - less than I would do at home but still good for there.

All in all, I would be pretty delighted with myself if I DIDN'T have the party tomorrow and DIDN'T feel all bloated and spotty! The scales will tell all in the morning! At the moment it looks like I will be slightly up, but it is the bloating and general sickly pallor I am more worried about! I have invested in a bottle of fake tan. I worked so, so hard for this, I have a gorgeous outfit, a hairstyling appointment for tomorrow, and I had really pushed ahead on the diet and exercise...and I really thought I WASN'T going to undo any of it.

Ah well...I did my best, and it was progress, if not as much as I wanted.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings, will go and have a look at your posts and then cook something HEALTHY for dinnner.

Take care, lots of love and God Bless,

Rach xxx

Away

Hiya!

Just to let you all know I will not be on here for a few days, off away. Take care all and I hope you have a good weekend and meet your health goals!

God Bless,

Rach x

Morning all

I am struggling to motivate myself at the minute - not with diet and exercise, that is going fine but I have to always be watchful with it, but with almost everything else .

So today...I am going to try and improve that. Lol look at me saying 'try'. That already means I have no intention of doing it doesn't it?

I refuse to say I am going to 'try' to do anything with my weight loss plan - it just sets me up for failure. I say I am going to DO it. So perhaps that needs to be extended to the rest of my life...although possibly not today .

I have 6 full days left before my OH's work Christmas party. For most of them, I am not going to be eating as healthily as usual, because I am off to my family's house for the weekend (although why I have used that as an excuse to start eating less nutritious foods TODAY I don't know!)

So Monday and Tuesday will be super-healthy days in preparation for the party.

I am nervous because it will involve being assertive. Two of my OH's work friends have in the past been unkind about my weight. It started when I was more than 20 pounds heavier than I am now, when we first met them.

I caught them singing that Mika 'Big Girl, you are beautiful' song under their breath...and they didn't mean it in a complimentary way, they were sniggering away!

Since then...well, they have started treating me more and more like a human being as I lose more weight, which frankly, I resent even more. But they still aren't as polite as I would expect.

My husband says I am imagining it. And I am about 99 per cent sure that is not the case - but they are his friends, even if they are immature (they are like this about most women), so I didn't want to push it.

However...if I get so much as a SNIFF of a nasty comment at this party, they will get a talking-to from me. A polite talking-to, but a talking-to none the less.

Apart from that I am really looking forward to the party and hope it goes well. I haven't been for the past two years because I was self-conscious about my appearance. Well, my appearance isn't all that different from last year, but my attitude has changed.

Anyway..enough written. I am making a veggie curry and brown rice tonight, and I am going to do 1 hour of aerobics, weights and stretches, and a 45 minute to 1 hour walk.

(Edited: I did my aerobics, not my walk. I also ate a little more than I planned (although I didn't overeat) - and I ate it because I was stressed about not doing my walk. Makes sense, huh ?. Well. I am being hard on myself because of my US trip coming up. I am going to work on my balance between being too hard and too soft on myself.

Happy losing, all!

Rach x

WI result

I have lost 2lb this week - I was really pleased. Yes, I have been working hard, but I haven't lost that much in a week in ages so that was great. For much of the week I have been back on 2000 cals - so boo sucks to my doctor who told me 'You will never get below 200lb eating that much'. I am now below 175.

And, as of this morning, I have fewer than 40lb left to lose till I reach goal.

I am going to do an hour of Pilates today, and a 45 minute walk with my OH.

(edited: wow! I only did 40 minutes of Pilates because I haven't done much in years, and my goodness I forgot how hard it was! Especially as I have been doing a lot of intense cardio and weights recently, which seems to have tightened my muscles a lot...will do another session later in the week, I was getting nothing out of continuing).

Also making wholewheat pizza tonight, with chicken and veg. I love homemade pizza.

Lots of love and have a happy and successful day,

Rach x