2nd Weigh In and a Confession

So I have a confession or 2 to make.

Firstly, I’m not doing this all by myself. I am going to Rosemary Conley Classes on a Thursday night. They are really good because not only you get to weigh in (like Slimming World and Weightwatchers) but on top of that you get to do the exercise class instead of just sitting around talking and then going home. Even I survive (to date by varying degrees) the exercise classes. It’s a ½ hr cardio work out and then ¼ hr toning. Then if you are still standing or even alive, there is a Zumba class after. I am normally just hanging in there till the end of the toning. At the moment if I stayed for Zumba it probably would kill me off.

The one I go to is great, and its turned Thursday nights into my night. The group has lots of lovely ladies in it of all ages and sizes. I was welcomed into the group from my first night, and really enjoy going. I will even be going next Thursday which happens to be my birthday! The concept is quite simple, there is a calorie limit you have a day, starting low for first two weeks and then it goes up a little for another 2, and then you have a limit set for your size, age, weight etc.

Golden rule is everything you eat has to be 5% fat or less. So as long as for the 100g, 100ml the fat is 5 or lower you can have it, obviously keeping in check the calories side for the portion you are having. I have become obsessed by how much fat is in stuff. I was offered a glass of Baileys last weekend at my friends, the first thing that went through my head was “how much fat is in that?” 13% to be exact. I did turn the glass down.

I have been slimmer of the week the last two weeks, both certificates are up on the fridge door to remind me to keep going.

And I guess this brings me on to how much I lost this week. Well I did OK. 5lbs this week, and this is where confession number 2 comes in. I was a little bit gutted. Even though this means I have lost 1lb short of a stone in 2 weeks I was rather disappointed. I was really hoping for the whole stone loss at least, especially as I had done so much walking last weekend, and again have been so strict with myself over what I am eating with no cheating at all, (apart from a small tsp of low fat soft cheese and a bit of salmon when I was preparing my lunch for the following day one day (confession #3?)). I know is stupid that I was disappointed, because 5lbs is still a fab amount to lose. The first thing I thought was what can I change this week? I am also nervous because my daily allowance has gone up this week, so surely I will lose even less if I am eating more calories? I know its unhealthy to lose a lot of weight quickly, but it’s not as though I can’t afford to lose it at perhaps a quicker rate than a slimmer person at the moment.

Anyway I am happy that I lost 5lbs, I am proud that I have done that much already. So as long as I focus on that part then I should get my shrinking arse through the next week until I stand on those scales again on my birthday.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The decision to lose weight etc was toyed with before Christmas. As I was pretty sure I was going to do it, I kept a food diary for a couple of weeks. It wasn’t good reading, apart from the lots of homemade food in the evenings.

There are things I have always done and that won’t change, just a bit of adapting and portion size control.

I very very rarely do ready-made meals, to many additives, chemicals, crap in it, so every homemade evening meal was made with fresh meat and veggies. I made a promise to my son when I had him that no matter how broke I am I will always cook meals using fresh meat, veggies and fish.
I don’t use margarine or spreads either, have you seen the chemicals and rubbish that they put in on the ingredients list of those things? So butter for us.
I don’t fry, everything is grilled, baked, boiled, steamed or stir-fried (tiny oil). I hate things that look greasy, things like roast potatoes and stuffing that is cooked in oil is always put on kitchen roll before put on plates. There are 2 exceptions to this rule – fish and chips and KFC. Neither of which I would have very often, but they were guilty pleasures.
I have always had semi-skimmed milk (1% fat). Skimmed milk is just too watery.
I don’t really do sweet foods. If I get cravings it’s for savoury things. I’m not saying I never ate sweet things as you can see from below, but the majority of it was savoury, Crisps being my nemesis. I love crisps, they were the snack of choice. I had my last packet 2 weeks ago, and so far so good.
If I do eat something sweet it seems to start a sugar high/craving. Perhaps this is because I don’t have a lot of sugar in my diet generally, and my body goes “whooo hoooo sugar!!!!” who knows?
I drink a lot of water. I have two or 3 cups of tea at work, but the rest of the time its water.

Below is what a normal week for me would have been before doing what I am doing now.

Friday
Breakfast – cup of tea
Snack – packet of crisps
Lunch – Homemade Thai butternut squash and sweet potato soup – (has coconut milk in)
Snack – crisps in car on way home
Tea – homemade lamb jalfrazi with lots of rice
Snack – 2 slices of toast.

Exercise – none.

Saturday
Breakfast – Bacon (grilled) sarnie on brown seeded bread with brown sauce
Snack – Costa black forest Hot chocolate with cream
Lunch- nothing
Snack – chocolate bar
Tea – homemade Chilli con carnie with lots of rice with cheese grated on top followed by choccie éclair
Snack – packet of kettle crisps

Exercise – housework? Does that count?

Sunday
Breakfast – None due to lie in
Snack – Bacon (grilled) sarnie on brown seeded bread with brown sauce
Lunch – None due to late eating of bacon sarnie
Tea – homemade roast chicken with lots of roast potatoes, carrots, broccoli, peas, brussel sprouts, gravy
Snack – Brie with crackers and pickled onions.

Exercise – none

Monday
Breakfast – cup of tea at work
Lunch – homemade pasta bake reheated in microwave at work.
Snack – Crisps
Tea – Kedgeree (smoked cod, smoked haddock, boiled eggs, rice, peas with a squeeze lemon juice)
Snack – Slice of toast with brie & extra brie to snack on while toast is cooking

Exercise – none

Tuesday
Breakfast – cup of tea at work
Lunch – homemade pasta bake reheated in microwave at work.
Snack – crisps
Snack – crisps in car on way home
Tea – chicken fricassee (made with remains of roast chicken) – this is delicious, chicken in a white sauce with lemon in on a bed of rice and peas.
Snack – slice or 2 of brie

Exercise – none

Wednesday
Breakfast – Cup of tea
Snack – bacon baguette (courtesy of project manager)
Lunch – homemade pasta bake
Snack – packet of peanut m&ms
Tea – lamb chops with new potatoes, carrots, peas, brussel sprouts.

Exercise – none

Thursday
Breakfast – Cup of tea
Lunch – ready made prawn, cheese and rocket sarnies, crisps, and fresh orange juice (supermarket deal)
Snack – crisps
Snack – kitkat in car on way home
Tea – KFC (2 piece variety meal with medium diet coke after film at cinema.)

Exercise – walked round the supermarket, that counts right??

On Thursday when I blog about how much I have (hopefully) lost I will also post what I have eaten since last Thursday. Hopefully it will look a lot better than the above.

So from above I can see good, bad and ugly stuff.
Good being home cooked food with lots of veggies.
Bad being crisps, no breakfast, snacking.
Ugly being no exercise and that KFC.

Hope So, Want To, Will do

Last night The Boy (my 17 year old son) started complaining that I had said that he wasn’t allowed to eat the food on the top shelf of the fridge. He was also very puzzled about why I had brought a pair of trainers. I flippantly said to him the first time he asked (last week) that I was “dancing the tango in them”. He then assumed I had a man in my life and was going to dancing lessons. I have not owned a pair of trainers in many years. I hate wearing shoes and working in construction I spend my working day in steel toe capped boots and then as soon as I get home I am bare footed. Or if I go out I wear my old boots or flip-flops, depending on the weather.

So last night I made him swear he would support and encourage me and not take the piss if I told him what I was up to. After much sniggering, joking and making daft comments and guesses at as to what it was he finally agreed. He sat on the work top in the kitchen and listened, while I prepared my tea, to what I wanted to achieve and how I was planning on going about it. He sat and listened to me and seemed to understand what I was talking about. I told him how I was doing the walking every day and that I am going to an exercise class on Thursdays. I showed him what was actually on the top shelf and that a lot of it he didn’t like anyway, (low fat soft cheese, low fat yoghurts with bits in). He took pleasure in telling me that I wouldn’t be able to eat the brie I have on the other shelf in the fridge. I sobbed quietly as I remembered tucking into it with crackers and pickled onions over the Christmas period.

I said perhaps on the weekends he could come for a walk with me, and we could talk and just enjoy spending time together, he said that we could. He also agreed that next summer he would teach me to kitesurf. I am hoping he will have sorted himself out by then, have a job and we will be able to afford to go abroad and he could teach me somewhere warm and sandy.

Since the conversation I have been having a think. Perhaps my ”private battle” hasn’t been made so “public” after all. Yes I am writing about it on here. But who reads it? People I don’t know (admittedly more people than I thought would have so far), and no one comments on it (apart from a couple of lovelies who have on twitter). I only post about it on Twitter, where the majority of my followers I don’t really know. There are a few I do, and they are on my Twitter list because I consider them real friends and I don’t mind them seeing the real me.

The Facebook me is very much a toned down, ‘have to behave myself because I have family on it,’ account. It also has people on there from when I was at school. People who even though they weren’t the ones bullying me, we weren’t really friends at school, just more a case of we knew each other and remember each other. Why am I more concerned about what these people think more than anyone else? Have I got more to lose? Do they have anymore of a hold over my life than anyone else?

Perhaps I am just not really ready to be that public about it. Perhaps I’m not ready for those who know me, to know Me. I would love to tell my family what I am doing, but I keep holding myself back. I know my Mum and Dad would love to know I am doing something positive, but I also know that perhaps I might let them down again. I can’t guarantee that I am going to achieve what I want to, I can’t guarantee that I am not going to end up back as I was at the start. Don’t get me wrong, I want to achieve it, I want to change and I want to be able to do things I have prevented myself from doing, but there is always that element of can I really do it this time?
I hope so, I want to, I will do..

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…….

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!