First slip up in a while - my mum decided to get takeaway fish and chips because she was too tired to cook, and I had a few in a slice of bread, with margarine, instead of my planned stir fry. Well, I'll just say this - it could have been a LOT worse.
Tonight I'm going out, which means drinking! Wine gets me merry the quickest so I'll have a couple of glasses of that before, then stick to vodka and diet Coke when we're out, and make up the points tomorrow. The only benefits of being 4' 11' and therefore a complete lightweight mean that a) I'm a cheap date, and b) it doesn't take too much alcohol (and therefore points!) to get me merry). I haven't been out for about 3 weeks and apart from the usual worry about what to wear, I'm looking forward to it. I can't really afford any new clothes at the moment what with Christmas and my holiday around the corner, so I'll be pulling on the old faithfuls - slimming (I hope) black jeans, sparkly top and shrug to disguise the considerable bingo wings.
I'm desperate for numbers - I need to know how much I weigh! I only have to wait until Tuesday, but its weird doing this not knowing exactly how much you have lost. That's my fault of course for chickening out of WW for 3 weeks. My clothes are still loose, which is good, although I still can't do up the bottom button on my lovely size 18 H&M coat that I bought on a whim a few months ago. It barely fitted me when I actually bought it, so I have made some progress, and I'd love to be able to get that last button up before it gets too warm to wear it!
I haven't exercised today as I've been so busy - I've been volunteering and helping out various family members, but I'll either be in the gym or running in the park tomorrow. I've started my Running Made Easy programme again and have been doing the first part of the programme on the treadmill this week (walk 3 mins, run 1 min). Having the PT sessions is really helping and I've surprised myself (and my trainer, probably, given the size of me lol) by how much I can actually do. I'm beginning to have a new-found respect for my body and its capabilities, rather than loathing it, and myself.
I'm off to watch the X Factor, but this time NOT accompanied by the Pringles I polished off in front of last week's episode......................
Woo, I did it - I got up early and went for a walk
I couldn't sleep last night so at 2am I was laying out my workout gear together with a bottle of water and my iPod, thinking that I would look at it in the morning and feel extra guilty if I didn't go. I was a bit worried that I wouldn't wake up early but funnily enough, I woke up of my own accord at 6am needing the loo and I didn't need to go back to sleep. According to mapmywalk I did 3.22 miles and I was aiming for 3.1 (5k) so I'm pleased. I just went around the neighbourhood block, not taking any of the shortcuts and deliberately doing a longer circular route. It wasn't cold, the fresh air was lovely and it was so quiet being as it was 8am on a Sunday morning. Now I've done it once, I want to make sure it becomes a habit. Sunday is the one day I'm not rushing around! It didn't feel like a chore though at all, in fact it was really nice to get away from the house for a bit. Breakfast was healthy too - I had a mushroom omelette made with Frylight, coffee and half a grapefruit. I feel much better about everything and I know today is going to be good, even though there will be birthday cake in the house ......
Just look at your 13 stone body while lying in the bath. Bleurgh.
Just two weeks of excess and I can feel the changes in my body already. I'm wobblier from the lack of resistance work and the tops of my legs are starting to rub again. All the s**t I've been eating recently has made my skin look sallow and my digestion is also playing up. Definitely time to get my sizeable arse in gear and get back on the plan properly once and for all.
I will exercise tomorrow, come rain or shine. Whether its cycling, walking, running, the gym, whatever, I will sweat, and I will start repairing the damage of the last two weeks. I'm incredibly busy at the moment, but so are thousands of other people who still manage to plan meals properly and find time to exercise. I don't have children to worry about and my job is pretty non-stressful, so I'm ashamed that I haven't been managing to do this properly recently.
I've planned my meals for the next couple of days and made a chickpea curry to last me through. I've also started taking soup to work now instead of sandwiches as well, not just to cut down on the carbs (being a vegetarian means I can get a bit too carb reliant) but because I need something warm at this time of year. Its working pretty well, and I'm going to make a huge batch of tomato and hot red pepper soup tomorrow afternoon for this week. And, of course, EXERCISE!!! Tomorrow, in whatever shape or form, then gym on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
x x x x x
"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently." (Henry Ford).
Recently I've noticed that I always managed to start my days off well, and the moment I start to waver is the minute I walk in the door from work. I had a great day yesterday until my sister got home from work at 10pm and I had a slice of her pizza, then we got out the biscuits to dunk in our tea......enough said.
Same again today. I was so proud of myself for managing to stick to my points and for planning everything, then my plan to go spinning evaporated when a couple of friends dropped in tonight. They had beer (I didn't - I won't drink during the week) but I still managed to eat a couple of slices of banana bread in front of the TV. Arrrgggghhhh!!!!!!!!!
Why is the plan so stupidly easily for the first 2/3 of the day? I don't feel deprived, I'm spreading my points evenly through the day, and I feel good. Then it all falls apart. I've just got to be stronger, I guess. Tonight was unavoidable - I couldn't bugger off to the gym leaving my sister to entertain as it would have been extremely rude, and I can go and do a normal workout tomorrow, but I didn't have to have that banana bread. Must.Be.Stronger! Think of your fat photos! Think of size 10 skinny jeans!
I started off last week full of good intentions but it disintegrated within a couple of days into snacking on Doritos, sharing packets of Maltesers, nicking a slice of pizza, etc, etc, and its only today that I'm really back on track. Yesterday I was eating some chocolate and remembered I had a PT session today. I thought "why am I paying so much for PT sessions when I'm sitting here stuffing my face with chocolate?" So bye bye Maltesers......and today has been really good, the best for ages. I had my PT session which was a killer but I felt great afterwards.
I'm dreading WW tomorrow, I know I've gained but I need to face the music and know what the damage is. But I guess hiccups happen and I can still achieve my goal of losing a stone by Christmas if I put my mind to it from now on.
Grrrrr! What is wrong with me? After a junk and booze fuelled weekend, I vowed to be back at the gym on Monday and eating properly again. Uh......yeah, didn't go quite to plan.
I didn't go to the gym yesterday as I had so many things to do due to being away since Friday. Tonight I had my meal as normal then because I was feeling a bit sorry for myself after a c**p day at work reached for the bread, which as normal I really regret now because I didn't really want it, I just ate it because it was there and I was having a weak moment.
But hey, I can start again tomorrow, although god knows what the scales are going to say next week. I didn't go to WW tonight, genuinely because I was so busy around the house, but I should have made time and gone really, if this is as important as I say it is. I really am itching to get back to the gym - I didn't go running at the weekend because I was recovering from the night before.......its spinning tomorrow, and this weekend will be the first one spent at home in a month, so I will have plenty of time to do everything I need to and get some serious exercise in too. To make up for all these excesses, I'll also be going down to 18 points for the rest of week i.e. until Tuesday.
We took a lot of photos this weekend as we dressed up for Halloween and because I was visiting my sister and doing a lot of socialising. While I'm still obviously huge, for the first time I can see with my own eyes the progress that I have made, something I wasn't able to do when I lost the weight the first time. That's a huge motivator as you can imagine I also have my 2nd PT session on Monday which I'm looking forward to.
I didn't expect a loss at WW last night but I wasn't pleased to discover I'd put on 1.5lbs
If that is what 1 day's damage can do then I'm REALLY going to have to be careful this weekend. I don't want to be a party pooper and not drink but its going to be very hard not to and alcohol ALWAYS shows on the scales for me. I'm going to make a curry tomorrow night and bring it up with me, and maybe some Oatso Simple porridge sachets for breakfast because I know how many points are in them without measuring, and I'm just going to have to try extremely hard to resist the Domino's pizza, the crisps and wine in front of the X Factor on Saturday night, the cookie jar..............arrrgh! Its difficult because I can't prepare my own meals as often as I do here, but there you go.
I'm in London for work again this week, so I'm having to be imaginative with food as I don't have access to a fridge and can't afford to buy lunch at the moment. Today I did quite well, I took my own lunch with me which was pointed and calculated last night, and managed to take a banana on the train and through London without bruising it until I stopped at a newsagents to buy a coffee, water and a magazine as I also bought a Twirl. 6 points in a few gulps........to be honest, it was nice, but it wasn't really worth it, so I'm a bit annoyed. Then I didn't get home tonight until gone 7pm, so I missed spinning and was too hungry to make the effort to go and do a normal workout instead, so I had my planned meal of French Onion soup......and then had quite a lot of bread to go with it. And Lurpak on top. So I've gone over my points AND not exercised today. I guess life throws us these curveballs though, i.e. changes in routine, and I can still exercise at the weekend and make up the loss if I try hard enough. Its so easy to get disheartened when you put on weight you don't "deserve", and its been a big failing of mine in the past, so I have to be careful this week. I still have lost 23.5lbs in total though, I'm still on track for a stone lost for Xmas and all my trousers are loose now, so that's a comfort.
Tomorrow I will:
1. Get up earlier and have a proper breakfast
2. Take my own lunch again
3. Take some fruit (no excuses about getting it bruised because I managed not to today!)
4. Take a cereal bar so I have no excuse to go and buy chocolate
5. Go to the gym to make up for not going tonight.
On a more positive note, parts of the country got some snow last night and when I was on the train this morning the fields and trees just looked stunning. I absolutely adore winter and cold weather and at lunchtime when I went to the shops the air was so crisp and refreshing and it felt so good after spending the morning on the tube and in a stuffy office......aah. I definitely must make the effort to go out for a walk/jog on Sunday morning to make the most of it.......(and I'm pretty sure it being colder means your body burns more calories to keep you warm? )
x x x x x
***********Lose a stone for Xmas: 5.5lbs lost, 8.5lbs to go***************
...aren't a no point vegetable! I'd planned my menu today to include a spicy parsnip and apple soup, thinking parsnips didn't have any points. Only when I logged onto eSource tonight to track did I discover they have a point each!!!!!! So I'm 2 points over which I'm a bit annoyed about, but lesson learned! (the soup was delicioso though - I just won't have any bread with it next time........)
Went to the gym tonight, it was OK but I didn't get round to doing any weights. I'm going to try to fit in the resistance section of my Maximum Impact DVD tomorrow night after WW to compensate. I'm visiting my cousins at the weekend (lots of family reunions recently) and picking up my sister from uni on the way, so its going to be another busy few days. I'm thinking of sneaking out for a half hour run early on Sunday morning -knowing the amount of food and drink I may consume at the Halloween party I'm going to on Friday its going to be necessary. More to the point, I just really want to get out there! Bizarrely, I adore this cold weather and going out really early when its quiet and working up a sweat in it makes me feel alive and refreshed.
Finally, I was on Dietgirl's blog tonight, and liked these quotes from a recent interview she gave:
"Weight loss is about persistence, not perfection. I screwed up many, many times along the way but managed to succeed simply because I didn’t give up.”
“My other tip is to make sure you don’t put your life on hold for weight loss. Don’t think you have to be a certain jeans size before you can go on that European vacation or go for that promotion – you’re worthy of all those things right now.”
"I used to feel such loathing for my body, but getting hooked on exercise very early on in my weight loss journey helped me appreciate my body for what it can do, rather than just for what it looked like."
I had a fantastic weekend with my sister. I went up there on Friday for work then stayed over the weekend until this afternoon. For the most part, I was OK with my food. I wasn't counting points to the letter although I did try to be careful. We went out for our Chinese buffet on Saturday night and the crispy seaweed was my only real sin - I had two small plates of vegetable chow mein, boiled rice, Szechuan style green beans and sweet and sour sauce. No alcohol, and lots of walking (including up several hills). Today I had a (large) bowl of Doritos, a couple of cookies, a bag of Aero bubbles, a bowl of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey and a McFlurry - eek - but its been a long time since I had a day like that and I'll definitely be back to 21 points tomorrow. More importantly, not getting obsessive over points during the weekend made sure I enjoyed it fully. What's lovely though is that over the weekend I had to keep pulling my jeans up - yesterday we were walking back to the house with lots of shopping and they would have been past my knees had I not constantly stopped to pull them back up again. My sister also said she'd noticed my weight loss when I visited her last week but didn't want to say anything at the time because in the past I have always said something along the lines of "no I haven't, I'm still a fat ****". I felt incredibly guilty about that, because her comment made my day, and for the first time, graciously accepted the compliment instead of rebutting it and putting myself down. Yes, looking in the mirror yesterday and seeing some of the photos we took over the weekend, I know I have a way to go, but good things come to those who wait......................(and work their butts off in the gym). I never celebrated the small victories last time, and I believe that partly contributed to my gaining so much of it back.
I haven't done any exercise since Wednesday apart from a lot of walking, and I'm actually itching to get back in the gym. Me, craving exercise! (and not just because I need to work off the Doritos and McFlurry etc), so I'll be off tomorrow night. My menu for tomorrow is planned, I have plenty of healthy food in the house and I'm ready and raring to go for the week ahead x x x x x
I also have my 2nd PT session on Monday which I'm looking forward to. 
until I stopped at a newsagents to buy a coffee, water and a magazine as I also bought a Twirl. 6 points in a few gulps........to be honest, it was nice, but it wasn't really worth it, so I'm a bit annoyed. Then I didn't get home tonight until gone 7pm, so I missed spinning and was too hungry to make the effort to go and do a normal workout instead, so I had my planned meal of French Onion soup......and then had quite a lot of bread to go with it. And Lurpak on top. So I've gone over my points AND not exercised today. I guess life throws us these curveballs though, i.e. changes in routine, and I can still exercise at the weekend and make up the loss if I try hard enough. Its so easy to get disheartened when you put on weight you don't "deserve", and its been a big failing of mine in the past, so I have to be careful this week. I still have lost 23.5lbs in total though, I'm still on track for a stone lost for Xmas and all my trousers are loose now, so that's a comfort. 
) 