I ♡ Tatties..

I am trying to give up carbs as part of this diet thing. It was either them or meat, and I’m sorry but I bloody love my meat.

I am finding I am having to ween myself off them. Yesterday with my salad I had 2 small new potatoes, today I had just one. They taste so yummy.

Then I thought just now that it is Sunday tomorrow. Sunday is roast day. Chicken, pork, lamb or beef with lots of veggies, but also as important, roast potatoes.

Golden and crunchy on the outside white light and fluffy on the inside. I had finally managed to suss how to cook the perfect roast potato about this time last year. Everytime since my tatties have been perfect. Par boiled for the right amount of time, right type of oil nice and hot, oven set right, shaking the tin and hearing their crisp shells crack against the sides, then taking them out and placing them on kitchen paper to get rid off the excess fat, and then serving them up on the plates with the meat and veg. And lastly pouring on that rich gravy made in the meats roasting tin, making sure it doesn’t spill onto the tatties and make them go soft. Ummmmm roast potatoes surely the food of the gods.

And then there is the jacket potato. The crisp brown skin opened up and a knob of butter forked into the soft insides. A good helping of baked beans and a generous grating of cheese on to. Or without the beans on a plate of salad and lovely sliced of cold cooked gammon.
Jacket potatoes the food of the demigods.

And where would we be without the mashed potato? Mashed till light and fluffy with a knob of butter and a splash of milk, seasoned with freshly ground pepper and salt (sometimes with a little whole grain mustard mixed in too). Served with anything, but nothing beats it spooned on top of mince, sprinkled with grated cheese and put in the oven to go golden to produce the comfort food of all comfort foods the shepards/cottage pie.

Then there is the humble new potato. Boiled, eaten hot or cold, as a salad or with a salad, with lovely spring lamb or some fresh salmon. Small and perfect in every way. 

I guess I should include chips. But the only ones worth mentioning are the ones eaten out of the paper on the beach or riverside. Sprinkled with salt and vinegar that stings your nostrils as you breath their heavenly scent when they are first unwrapped.

Potatoes, what can I say? I will miss you, but I know one day we can be happy together again, but for now I must say, not goodbye, just a fond farewell and adieu until I can take pleasure in your scrummyness once more. I will miss you…….

1st full week over.

Well thats my first full week done.

Good points about the week
1. I have started eating breakfast.
2. I have done 3 half hour walks in my lunch breaks
3. I have started a 45 min cardio and toning class on a thursday night.
4. I survived the 45 min cardio and toning class!
5. I weighed myself and faced the horrific news with a smile and a determined head.
6. I have measured my body and noted how many inches everything is.
7. Me and the boy had chinese takeaway and I only had a small portion of the chowmein and egg fried rice instead of my usual plate piled high and eating until I can eat no more.
8. I’ve cut down on my tea consumption and had herbal tea instead.
9. I feel good about what I have done and feel very determined.

Bad points about the week:
1. I had a slip up, I ate a Baby Ruth.
2. I didn’t do 2 of my half hour walks due to a nasty cold I’ve got.
3. I had chinese and felt guilty about it.
4. Finding out how much I weigh.

So all in all the positives out weight the negatives. That can’t be bad can it?
The Baby Ruth consumption was a moment of weekness. I saw it and thought of The Goonies. You know when Chunk uses it to befriend Sloth?

I had also been up since 4am and it was 6pm and I was suffering sleep deprivation. (Suuusssh I know I’m making excuses).

Anyway as those who follow me on Twitter, might have seen I have decided Thursday nights are the nights I am going to be revealing how much I’ve lost each week.  So next week will be the first update re that. I am so ashamed of how much I weigh so I am not telling you my weight just the amount I’ve lost. That might change over time, but for now it’s just my business.
I will also, when I see the inches lost let you know that as well.

So into the 2nd week I go. First though its a trip to the supermarket to find something yummy for tea. Suggestions anyone?!
See ya! xx

Panic!!

So I’m at work and my phone lets me know I have a voice mail..
I pick it up and listen..
“Hi.. this is a message for Miss Archer. This is Lauren from southern Water leakage detection team. Calling because we have come by and read your meter and the reading is showing really high consumption for the last 6 months, much higher than your usage previously”.
At this point I panic.
“We haven’t billed you yet so you wont get a huge bill landing on your doorstep. If you could call me back on 01903 ******…”
There was more to the message but I hung up and called back.
I spoke to a nice man who said Lauren was on  her lunch break. LUNCH BREAK?!?! What?? She leaves a message telling me somewhere I have an olympic sized swimming pool in my back garden (well not quite but the brain does start to go into over drive), and then goes on her lunch break?!?! How very dare she!

Anyway nice man (can’t remember his name so will call him Jason), Jason looks up my details. He said “wow yes that is rather a lot.”
“What are we talking? How much?” I ask.
“Well we haven’t billed you yet so I can’t say but I did a bill for someone yesterday and they had used (some huge number) cubic metres and their bill came to about £7500 and you’ve used (an even higher about that I cant remember) so I’ll let you do the maths.”

Panic! Sick feeling!

“There is no way I have used that amount of water.” I manage to say before taking a gulp of my scicilian lemon, ginger and honey tea (its very nice you know) wishing it was a large gin.
“Have you had any work done on the house?”
“Nope”
“Any leaks?”
“Nope.. they would have to be tsunami size leaks to use that much water.. I only had a drip from my toilet which was fixed in a matter of 2 days and only produced about 4 pudding bowls of water.”
“Built a swimming pool?”
“Have you seen the size of my house/garden?”
“Hot tub?”
“No”
“Didn’t leave the sprinklers on in the garden in the summer?”
“Well you know what I did think about it as I was concerned the grass wasn’t looking green enough. But no I did not use any sprinklers.”
“Oh” he laughed.
“and I don’t have a cannabis farm either. I am really stingy about my metered services.  My heating hasn’t been on yet this winter. I have a 17 year old who is allergic to water unless its the salty type. I do all the washing up in the evening, and I have the same washing machine. Nothing has changed.”
“So you’ve had no work done, you don’t have a hot tube or swimming pool and we have done no work near you.” He deduces.
” No no and no.. perhaps they read the wrong meter. Perhaps the meter is wrong, I’ve had friends who have had duff meters.”

Anyway, nice Jason explains that they will need to send someone round to have a look.

So it has been arranged for 24th in the morning. I am panicing.. I can’t afford a £80000+ water bill. I can’t afford a £800 water bill. I can only just afford my £283/year water bill I’ve had for the last 3 years since being metered.
I don’t own anything worth £8k+.

So now I wait until the 24th to find out my fate. Wondering if I can move abroad before then to avoid the huge bill I suspect is coming my way.

Perhaps Southern Water will be kind. Perhaps they will just bill me my normal amount, after all haven’t they got way too much water now? Thought they might be giving it away after the year of rain we have had.  Here’s hoping. *fingers crossed*

A Private Battle Made Public.

Why? I’ve been trying to work out why I am blogging this battle I am going to be having with my body and mind for the next year.

Ever since I can remember there have been issues with my weight. One of my oldest memories is me sitting on my grannys back step and her discussing with my parents whether I was fat or just had puppy fat, and then there was the time we were in M&S and we were trying on clothes and my sister looked great but me as far as my mother was concerned looked like “a sack of potatos tied in the middle”. Don’t get me wrong, I have many wonderful memories growing up and I love my family to bits. Looking back at old photos I can’t say I was fat, well covered maybe but not fat. I’ve been promised all sorts by my father over the years if I lost weight, from barbies to a full new wardrobes. None of it ever worked. My Granny, not long before she died, told me the reason I was sent up to stay with her every summer was so I would lose weight. She ate quite a strict diet of lots of fish. But as she said she knew I would go into town and buy sweets. I miss her so very much.

I didnt have a great time at school. At primary I didnt always feel I fitted in.

and the at secondary I was mercilessly bullied, which followed me up to sixth form at a new school. I never told anyone at the time about the bullies, I was forever on the edge of what was going on, watching, quiet, trying to disapear so I wouldn’t be spotted by the gang of girls who verbally, psychologically and once or twice physically bullied me for 5 long years. It didn’t help that my English teacher in the first year at secondary nicknamed me Atilla, and then in my 4th year my science teacher told me in front of a class that I reminded him of Animal from The Muppets. Looking back now I can’t believe it went on. I didn’t want it, I just wanted friends and to be happy. I wasn’t fat, I wasn’t thin, I was just a teenage girl trying to get through each day so I could get home to my Mum and her wonderful homemade dinners.  

I really grew when I left home at 18. I had independence and I discovered a life of fun. I started working in a pub. Me who wouldnt say boo to a goose had my first shift on a bank holiday when the town had a Georgian fair. The first guy I had to serve tried to climb across the bar to kiss me, that soon brought me out of my shell. Every night when I wasnt working I went out (apart from Wednesday night, that was recuperation night). Thursday was ladies night, Friday and Saturday was just because, Sunday was band in the pub nigh, Monday was £1 a pint night and Tuesday was karaoke night. I would stagger back to my flat at 1 in the morning and then be up and at work in a chicken factory by 7.30.

I was probably at my thinest when I was living off rice every day and then suffered awful sickness for weeks. I went to the doctor and told him about the sickness, and he asked me if I could be pregnant.  I said I didnt think so, he felt my stomach and said no I wasnt as it was nice and soft, he diagnosed gastroenteritis and prescribed me pills. It turned out, as I discovered a few months later that I actually had really bad morning sickness and I had been in my first trimester.  

Then after I had my son I never got rid of the post baby weight, the amount I was breast feeding the boy I should have been as skinny as a rake. But no, my body just kept putting the fat down. Having grown up eating wonderful home cooked meals I was adiment my son was going to have the same. So his entire life I have tried to cook him, no matter what my financial situation, good wholesome food made with fresh ingredients. I love cooking, trying new things and eating good food something he enjoys as well, but he contrary to to a Daily Mail article I read a while ago which said fat parents make fat kids, has not announce of fat on him and appears to be pure muscle. Life can be so cruel, he eats 3 times as much as me yet he remains obber healthy.

So anyway, nearly 18 years down the line I am huge, I eat healthy and for a woman my size I am quite active. I often read articles about people my size who have lost weight because they couldn’t walk up the stairs without getting out of breath, or they couldn’t walk more than a 100 yards without their legs/backs/knees/feet hurting, I can walk for miles and stairs cause me no such problems. I’ve even been known to power kite!

So why am I finally doing it? I am 40 next year, and I have said for many years that my life will begin again then. My boy will be coming up to his 19th and hopefully will have started living his life (I live in hope), so what a perfect time to change things. I have another 40 years ahead of me hopefully, but not if I stay the way I am now.

Why so public? Why open myself up to ridicule, hurt, public humiliation, and possible failure? I think those very reasons are why. In the past I have always tried to loose weight quietly,  not telling anyone, so when I fail only I know. I don’t think it can be much more public than written as blog. I love my comfort zone, but you know what? I guess its time to test the waters around it.

My Year – The Beginning

This is my year. 2013 is all about me. I am going to do somethings for me. I’m going to be selfish. I have decided, by this time next year (when I am due to turn the big 40), I will be half the person I am now, I will have a job I want and love and you never know there might even be a man in my life.  

I have started making steps to achieve these things. I have eaten my last packet of crisps (cheese and onion just for the record), and I’ve updated my CV on job sites.

I have also decided that instead of working through my unpaid 1/2 hour lunch break (which I have been doing for the last 2 years), I will go for a 1/2 hour walk along the sea front. I have been back at work 3 days so far and have managed to do 2 walks. I think I need to invest in some trainers, walking that far (and I am hoping I will get further as time goes by) in steel toe caps is not the most comfy way to go. Now this might not seem like much exercise but its 2 and half hours a week more than I am doing now. So that has to be good right?!?

I’m not going to post my before weight because I have no idea what it is, I’m not going to put my inches because I’m too embarrassed,  I’m not going to put my size because again I am embarrassed. Silly I know, but being so uncomfy about anyone knowing is a sure sign I need to sort my shit out. Perhaps as time goes by I will start to feel more comfortable about it, perhaps I will this time next year reveal all. Not literally of course, I strip for no one!!

I’m going to continue this blog over the next 12 months, more as a cathartic thing for me than anything else. But if you choose to follow and read about my ups and downs and no doubt my many failings, then that will be fab. Perhaps if you are trying to do something similar let me know, we can encourage each other. I will deffo need support and encouragement, and probably more than a few metaphorical kicks up the bum.  

No doubt there will be some ramblings about completely random things, and many rantings about who knows what, and I will probably have a bitch or two about the boy or work.

So come with me on my journey to find me and you never know we might actually like each other by the end of it!