I should have stayed in bed...

...and pulled the covers over my head today...

~ My husband took my car keys to work by mistake.
~ The ticket machine at the train station was broken
~ The train was 15 mins late
~ The weather was cold and wet
~ The train conductor forgot me and didn't sell me a ticket
~ I had to queue up and buy my ticket on the platform
~ The man charged me Peak price instead of off-peak and told me I'd have to queue for a form to reclaim the overcharge!!! I was already late for work!
~ I had no lunch & no money, so had to use cash machine
~ I realised I'd forgotten my work pass!!! AAAaaarrrggghh!!

Can you then guess what this all became an excuse for????  Can you??? If you can't you've obviously never had a weight problem!!!

Yes, I thought...I'll buy my lunch from the sandwich lady at work...I deserve it...a chocolate bar and a huge coronation chicken sub later...I still wasn't done...I actually opened a box of truffle style chocs that I have in my drawer that have no real owners because I still wanted more chocolate....hhhmmm. Okay so far I've only eaten 3 of them and I think I'm done...but WTH was that all about and how did I easily  manage to put it all away???

I've just committed myself to wait till I return from my hols in mid June before I get my next fill too...Woops, just ate chocolate number 4!

Why am I still feeling hormonal after at least 3 weeks...my system is up the swany and it always has been with regards to hormones. I despair of them every being under control.

Ah well...I'll have to harness the power of positive thought and get good things happening again...thanks for listening to my little pity party...it's all very minor I know and now I'm ready to move on.

I'm planning on calling into the gym this week for a little tour as I would like to get started on some weight training to tighten up my 'bingo-wings' etc and maybe take the odd class. I get a pretty good discount as an NHS employee...I notice they even run a Zumba class, which I'd never even heard of till reading it in Amy W's blog.

My husband might be miffed though as he already complains that I'm out all the time, I have been going for a long walk with a friend on a Monday night, tennis on Wednesday night and ladies tag rugby on a Thursday night.  I'll tell him I'm doing it all for him, so that I can look good and so that I'll be more into sex...do you think that'll swing it for me?  You know if he really thought it'd up my sex drive, he'd be totally behind it, so I think I'll go with that. he he he

He loves skiing, so when he was complaining about it last night, I said it was so I could get fit and slim enough for our skiing trip next Winter, so I'd be fit enough to learn to do it properly...(I've only been once before about 3 years ago and found it really really difficult). I never normally use manipulation, but I need to make him see how my exercising more is worth the sacrafice of time on his part as he will benefit in the long run.

By the way, I saw an article about Sharon Osbourne and how much weight she's gained lately...it made me a bit scared as I've been worrying about what would happen When not If the band eventually deteriorates.  Will they just pop me a new one in? Or will they make me wait till I put a load of weight back on?

I'm not sure what poor ole' Sharon's story is, but I heard she'd had her band removed, don't know why. Maybe there was a problem. But the thought of getting to her stage, looking so great and then regaining the weight is just a bit terrifying!  Don't know if anyone knows anything about it they care to share, but it's very interesting for fellow bandsters I suppose.

It's taken my mind off scoffing anyway thank goodness and got me thinking about nice healthy exercise...

Hope you are all having a fab week and an even fabber weekend...ours is set to be cold and wet...it's punishment for our lovely sunny hot weekend that we just had.

OOoooh, I'm booking myself a lovely pamper morning for Saturday week prior to my holiday...a spray tan, pedicure, manicure and eyebrow shape...No doubt I'll look like a Hollywood starlet afterwards....NOT!

God Save the Queen & other trivial issues

Well, congratulate me all...I am now an official subject of Her Majesty.  Yesterday I was presented with my certificate of Naturalisation at the Town Hall by the Mayor. 

It only cost me a measley £720 to apply!!!

I'm an Aussie, married to a Brit and have been married since 1997 and eligible to apply since 2000...but of course who gets round to these things??? It would have been bloody free if I had!

Now days they've brought in a 'Life in the UK' test which everyone must pass. It's a huge thick book you've got to learn and then sit a test on, which of course costs money (can't remember how much) and then you've got to fill in a big form similar to a first passport application and go to a ceremony to collect your certificate.  I can now use this certificate to apply for a British passport (for another £72).  I thought I'd better pull my finger out and get it sorted as they are now talking about bringing in a probationary period for citizenship once granted (I think it's about 3 years), I'm not worried that I'm at risk of getting into trouble with the law, but I don't want to be made to wait another 3 years for a passport as it'll make things heaps easier going on hols with the family etc.

Anyway, job done, I can tick it off the list of jobs that you never get round to that hang over your head for years...like my Aussie back taxes...7 years late...just got the assessment through and I've gotta pay a small fortune in Capital Gains Tax from selling our rental property in Aus last year.

On top of all this, my husband's found a house he wants us to move to...which means finishing off all the jobs at our house, putting it on the market and agreeing a price...of course he thinks it's worth less than the seller does! Good luck with that! It's much smaller than our current house and needs tonnes of updating...but it's rural and private with some land and within spitting distance of the right location so my hubby is desperate to get it as we can't really afford anything bigger and better that has the other credentials and they don't often come on the market in the area and price range.

My son is all set to start at a private secondary school in September which is going to cost a small fortune...so we are going to have to get creative to accomplish all these expensive things in the next few months!! Anyway, we shall see. I'm not going to stress over it. What will be will be as they say.

In other news...my weight has been yo-yoing the self same two pounds for two weeks now!!! I'm so not impressed.  I've been exercising loads more the last couple of weeks, but I've also been quite hormonal so I'm hoping to see that it was a combo of fluid retention and extra muscle weight doing this to me...I took my measurements this morning for the first time since the very start and was glad to see a nice drop in the numbers...I knew I had lost inches, but it was still nice to see expecially as Mr Scale is being particularly evil just now!

Feeling uplifted...and...getting rid of last weekends excesses!

Dear Readers,

You may remember last weekend I had a girls night out which obviously entailed the drinking of wine...followed by the need for sugar on Sunday for strictly remedial purposes...this resulted in a 2.2lb overall weight gain for the weekend!

I've spent the entire week getting back where I started from...considering I had big plans to get down to 13 stone by my hols which gave me exactly four weeks to lose 8.8lbs I am not happy to have spent one week of them getting back to needing to lose 8.8lbs...oh well, no use crying over spilt milk, so I just need to get on with things and make the best of it.

When I got up this morning I weighed myself and found again no change (3 days straight)...I'd failed to get the weight off in a single week...I thought.

I have however been much more active this week...which is great as I'd been feeling down now for a few weeks and very sluggish, not doing any of the exercise that I had been doing, which was making things even worse.

This week, I went for a brisk walk with a friend for about 45 mins or so on Monday, Wednesday I went to my tennis lesson and played for an hour and a half, Thursday I walked 2 miles, Friday I walked 3 miles, so I thought I deserved to lose some as I'd been also being careful about what I ate.  Anyway, I decided not to be detered. I was putting some of the problems down to TOTM anyway, so with my new found enthusiasm I jumped out of bed threw on a tracksuit and went into the garage with iPod primed and did 30 mins on the cross trainer.  The machine that I've had for at least a year and used a sum total of FOUR times!

So I feel pretty good about that...the even bigger reward was that I got on the scales...yes AGAIN...before I got in the shower to find i'd lost a whole extra pound! WTH??? Hey, I'm not complaining I earned that sucker.

I didn't find it too hard doing the 30 mins, but when I got off the machine I could really feel it in my thighs and my face was pretty red...that's fab because I really need to slim my thighs down, a lot of my trousers are very loose on the waist, but fit in the thighs, I also have a lot of fat around the sides and back of my knees, which means I really couldn't picture myself EVER wearing a skirt.  I'm really going to try and keep doing this a few times a week, cause I think I'll really see a difference in my muscle tone on my legs.

I'm taking my son to buy some new clothes this afternoon as he's had a growth spurt lately and is running out of clothes that fit...he's just turned 11 and is a 28" waist, he's going to be a big lad I think, he's already as tall as his grandma, broad shouldered and strong.  Anyway, I digress...my point was that whilst I'm out I'm secretly planning on popping into Next and trying on ALL their size 16UK work trousers, my 18UK's are falling off just about. I may buy a pair even if I'm not quite in them yet as the only size 16 pair I have are well worn from all the previous yo-yo diets I've been on and look crappy...something good to aim for.  I really can't wait till I can wear nice things for work and even wear heels without becoming a cripple by 11am.  Wish me luck xx

First alcoholic drink in 4 months...and ancient drama's still causing probs!

Hi All,

As I mentioned in my last post I had a girls night out on Saturday and it would be my first alcoholic evening in 4 months! Up till now I've been abstaining. Obviously I had to for a while for my surgery anyway, but as I love a glass of wine or three I decided it would be for the best to kick drinking to the curb for a while so's I could really focus on my health and cut out one of my largest sources of empty calories. wimper...

Anyways it hasn't been as hard as I'd thought, probably a state of mind thing...you don't have surgery unless you're committed to the process now do you?

I had decided to spread out two large glasses over the course of the night, but of course ended up having four (a whole bottle in other words). I drank it over five hours, but I still ended up a little hung over on Sunday and was forced to eat sugary things to keep me alive...you know how it is.

The evening was good, but could have been better... Last year we had a bit of an implosion in our friendship group caused by the drunken behaviour of one of our number, her behaviour had been questionable for some time and there had been a number of incidents of her flirting outragiously with other peoples husbands over the years (I've never actually witnessed it myself, but I know it had caused bad feeling several times) and then one morning after one of our nights out she phoned me to tell me that her husband had found out she'd been having 'text sex' with the husband of a friend (not someone from our social group) and her husband had phoned up a couple of our mutual friends to tell them all about it and get them on his side against her. Of course this caused enormous ructions and people were very resentful of her and sorry for her hubby.

They seemed to patch things up in record time though and everyone else was expected to forget all about it and they both keep being invited out because no-one wants to upset her hubby...she hates it and feels like a cat on hot bricks the whole time, but refuses to stay home even when it's only the girls going, so everyone is slightly uncomfortable around her. (She's very resentful that people didn't stick by her over it and feels let down by us all!)

Over time I had come to realise she wasn't an entirely balanced individual, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt because I believe she is kind and caring and good hearted...but since all this has happened she just acts more and more strange and I always feel on eggshells whenever I see her as she is understandably paranoid of every look or comment (she was somewhat paranoid to begin with so you can only imagine it now she has something to be paranoid about!) This all happened a full year ago and it still hasn't blown over...there is a lot more I could say about her behaviour, but without wishing to write a book on the subject I'm trying to be brief.

I believe she is still very unhappy in her marriage, but rather than do anything about it she's doing her penance for her misdeed by playing happy families...I was around there on Friday night to pick up my son (our sons are very close friends) and she was so rude and hideous to her husband she obviously has no respect for him. When I asked her why she was saying those things to him, she said 'because he's a liar'! - nice.

Anyway...I think we all see another drama somewhere around the bend, but when I don't know. We'll all just keep holding our breath till it comes.

On a lighter note...I was so dehydrated on Sunday morning I'd actually lost 2lbs despite having drank jug-fulls of water whilst I was out! Monday morning though I'd put on...4lbs! That was an expensive night out in terms of weight loss. I've taken off 0.8 of it, but I can see it'll take me all week just to lose the bottle of wine and hangover food of the weekend. I don't think I was even that bad on Sunday! I can't afford to do that every week can I???

Funny, I arrived in work this morning to see a plastic wine glass on my desk marked with 175ml level and daily alcohol allowances for men and women - a freebie from the alcohol team...I work for the National Health Service...there's a message there somewhere.

Hope you're all having a good week. xx

Results of the two week challenge

Hi folks,

In total I've lost 5 of the 7lbs I was hoping to lose over the two week period. Not bad, but I lost 2lb of it on the first day!

I did have a small glitch on Thursday which did affect things. I had a work conference and I wasn't able to choose my food at lunch time. The room was so crowded with people and in the break I had to man a stand and so couldn't get to any of the fruit. So by lunch time I was ravenous...in fact during the session before lunch my stomach sounded like an earthquake was going on and I expected people to start evacuating the room and heading for safe haven! I was that hungry!

Of course when we broke for lunch the queue for the food was up the hallway and almost out the doors and due to my trip to the loo before lunch I was at the back of it and by the time I got near the food all the good choices of salmon skewers and such things were gone and all that was left were a few slices of quiche and some salad.

The quiche was really nice, but it tasted strongly of butter...hhhmmm...that can't be a good thing. Then to make myself feel better I was forced at gunpoint...no really...to eat this gorgeous slice of chocolate brownie with a lovely chocolatey icing on top...god it was good.

I weighed myself the next day and I'd put on 0.8lb...Gggrrrr.

The next day I had a pretty good food day...was planning on doing the low cal day, but then for tea was forced...yes forced to cook tortellini as it was the used by date...what else could I do? It wasn't that bad, but not as slimming as it could have been, so dropped 0.2lbs this morning, but not the whole chocolate brownie and quiche have come off yet. Trying not to dwell on it.

Gonna try and do 3 or 4 low cal days next week as a big push for my week in Gozo in early June. Would love to be down to 13st or even a smidge below for that...that's my next mini target. That will get me into most UK16 size clothes. I even ordered myself a new swimming costume to celebrate my new lease on life. My old costume was bought to cover me up and looks like I'm borrowing my old granny's costume! I'm only 40, not 80 so I've decided I deserve something a little younger looking. I love my band...

Day 4 of the plan...going good!

I'm really over the moon today. Last week as you know I was killing myself on super low calories and it was affecting my mood and also my energy. I had a good loss early on but then stopped losing weight.

From Friday I started to increase my calories as I could see I wasn't getting the benefits from the super low range and I didn't count calories over the long weekend. I even had a couple of treats here and there. Guess what...I lost another 1.2lbs when I increased my cals. I was actually scared to get on the scales, so you can imagine my reaction when I saw a loss!!!

So today I'm having an 850 calorie day using the packs I bought from Weight to Go. I had a shake for breakfast, a pouch of soup for lunch and another shake when I got home from the school run (just had that now and I feel stuffed...my fill must be doing it's job). I've got a pouch of 'Succulent braised beef in traditional english porter' for dinner (the pouch idea sounds bad, but it looks quite nice...I'll reserve judgement), I'll boil some veg to have with it, then I'm suposed the have another shake in the evening...the shakes are 125 cals which is good and pretty filling. I make them with some frozen fruit to give them some flavour and body and you don't need to use very much fruit which is good calorie wise.

I'm totally raving on about calories at the moment aren't I??? Sorry...I'm just in the process of experimenting really and finding out what works for me and what doesn't...until my fill is spot on and my head is trained up not to eat for pleasure I'm going to have to keep a close eye on myself...but I'll get there.

I'm really excited about it today though as i feel that I've found a process that will work after spending so long starving myself, throwing a wobbler when the weightloss stops and then binging the 10lb I've managed to starve off straight back on again...oh yeah...plus another 10!

I'll let you know when I weigh in on Saturday how the rest of the week's gone and how much I manage to lose.

I've got a girls night out on Saturday. I haven't been out for ages and I've booked a hair appointment for the afternoon so I can try and look my best next to my skinny glamorous friends (skinny cows:0)). I'll also be having my first alcoholic drink since 10th January...nearly 4 months dry!!! Not that I'm counting - much! I'll have to go carefully or they'll be scraping me up off the floor. I'm going to stick to two wines - large ones - spread over about four hours and suplimented with gallons of water.

Can't wait...

New motivation

Hi All,

I've delayed writing this post since last weekend as I'd already written three on the same day!! Don't want to overload you folks...if you're like me you follow a million or so banded blogs and it's hard to keep up to date with them all without people posting four times in one day!

Well...The skinny is...(get it? Skinny?..I know it's bad) I decided to use my last fill as a motivation point and try and lose 7lbs in two weeks by eating around 850 cals a day (in my world that usually means nearer 900-950).

The way I planned to do this was to use my 3 days liquid 3 days mush for the first 6 days and then use a weeks worth of 'Weight to Go' products which are meal replacements (shakes, soups and meals) sold by my provider that add up to 850 cals per day. what I've discovered so far is the usual...my body is very quick to adapt to very low cals and after 3 days my weightloss slowed down to nothing!

First day was mega as I lost 2lbs straight up (one of those pounds I'd been toying with for about 3 weeks..on again off again...you get the picture so it was only hanging on by a thread. The other was an extra. Then the following two days I lost 0.6lb a piece. This made sense accoring to my fat secret app which calculated that I was consuming around 1400 fewer calories per day than I was eating (if 3500 cals equals 1lb). Then on day four, five, and 6 NADA, NOTHING...that was so hard to carry on with but I did, finally on day seven I lost 0.4lb...this does not compute with the logic of 3500 calories defecit = 1lb weight loss.

A lot of people have discussed this recently and my theory for what it's worth is that our bodies slow down our metabolism when we consistently consume too few calories. I felt quite lethargic and woolly headed, so I'm not in much doubt about which functions my body was slowing down on to conserve energy.

The result of this little experiment was that I decided that the best way forward for me was to up my calories to a more sustainable (but still weightloss) level and just use the prepackaged, calorie counted meals I'd bought to trick my body...I'll throw in an extra low cal day twice a week to up my weight loss but not lower my metabolism and see how this goes.

Previously when I'd been eating more calories my body was very responsive to my good days and I'd see it on the scales...but I just don't get the reward for my efforts when I consistently eat too low calories.

Our bodies are more complex than the simple calories in-calories out model once we get into what...to our bodies...is an emergency in terms of calorie defecit. I suppose it had to have ways of surviving famines in cave man days. It's scientifically accepted fact that our metabolism does slow down on very low calorie intakes (this is not permanent though and it returns to normal once our calorie intake returns to a healthy level), the exact level of calorie intake which will cause this to happen varies by person.

Also, it is scientifcally proven that our bodies will conserve fat stores and burn muscle first when calorie levels are too low. Muscle as we all know is less efficient than fat and burns more calories at rest, so it is more efficient in times of famine to burn muscle and conserve fat. In times of true famine people with less efficient bodies would be more prone to die before those with more efficient ones, so it makes sense that over millions of years we have evolved to be efficient when food is scarce. (Scientific lecture over...I am not...as you may have guessed a scientist, I am merely paraphrasing from the reading that I've done).

So I'm happy in that I've dropped 3.6lbs this week, but I did suffer for that loss and I don't think I had to suffer like I did...I think I could have lost this amount on a more sensible number of calories...especially if I'd had any energy and done any exercise as I would normally have done. The other effects of drastically reduced calories for me is that when I increase them I feel I've been deprived and i want to eat bad things like chocolate and carbs!! Also, I've felt very low and depressed even all week...that wasn't pleasant for me or my family.

It'll be interesting to see how much I lose this week with the new plan...I'll have to try and stick to it now that I've put it out there...hard to do on the long weekend...so much temptation.

I hope you all have a good time and have something nice planned for the May Day weekend.