I’m Going On A Cruise

I have a new incentive to lose weight. My friend has just won an overnight stay on a cruise ship and she has asked me to go with her! We sail from Southampton to Brugge (Belguim) overnight, stay in Brugge for the day and then head back. It is in September. I cannot wait. Everything onboard is free except for alcohol, and we plan on finding some mugs nice young men onboard to fund that! I have to buy a nice new posh outfit so I want to lose some weight and look great! I am going to get a new ‘do and everything. I am so excited!

I had another manic weekend. It was good fun, met a new man but again I don’t think anything will come of it *le sigh*. Still, it was a fun time… Monday I was so worn out from the weekend excesses, it wasn’t really tiredness so much as a huge lack of energy. Tuesday I felt a bit better so I went to the gym. I didn’t have as much energy as I would have liked for my workout but I got through it best I could. Today I woke up with the flu so that explains my lack of energy lately. I am hoping it is just a 24-hour thing though so that I can go work out again tomorrow. I have my cruise to get slim for!!

I cancelled my wwonline subscription. It just isn’t working for me at all. I am up and down like a yo-yo. I am trying calorie counting again with weightlossresources.co.uk as I have had more luck with that in the past, so let’s see how I go with that.

I keep buying and eating strawberries, which in itself is not a bad thing. But according to Gillian McKeith they raise your sex drive and I really do not need mine raising any more than it already is! LOL

Meet You In The Kitchen At 3am?

A couple of months ago I talked about my night time eating. It was a problem then and it is still a problem now. This is intensified by the fact that I suffer from insomnia. But I tend to wake up in the night and half-consciously go and eat, go back to bed, wake up a couple of hours later and repeat the behaviour. This can happen between 2-4 times per night and I don’t know why. I am being so good in the day time and yet including my night time eating I am only just maintaining my weight. I have tried everything I can think of to counter this behaviour. It happens more on sleeping tablets than off then but it is a rare night I don’t eat at all.

I was chatting to my cousin about this at lunch time today. She suffers from it too, we both agreed our rate of loss would be better if we could combat this. We have tried telling ourselves not to do it before going to sleep, having only healthy food around, eating before going to bed, having breakfast but nothing solves it. So I was wondering if any of you have suffered with this and overcome it and if you did and have how did you get past it?

I went to the gym again today. I am so glad I am back into working out, it makes me feel so good. I ran for 10 minutes today and found it fairly easy to do so. I felt so great afterwards, and the weight training is making me feel stronger again.

I eat too much bread, out of all my food vices this is by far the worst. I have gotten into the habit in the last week or so of having a one-egg omelette inside a wholemeal pitta bread, coupled with margarine, this becomes quite calorific. Today I decided to forego the pitta and I had the omelette with a side salad I prepared instead and over halved the calories involved. I felt better for it too. My son is on summer holidays now so I do not need to buy bread for the next 6 weeks, so once the bread we have has gone I am going to try not to eat it at all for a while. It might help de-bloat me if nothing else. What is your food vice?

Inch Loss Success!

I slipped this weekend. It was at the end of the night fri-sun night. Friday night I had the opportunity to go out but then my friend couldn’t get a sitter so it didn’t happen. I overate on fruit, feeling sorry for myself, but stopped before any damage was done. Saturday I just got hungry in the evening, not sure why and all motivation was out of the window. Sunday I spent all day in front of the computer because I started writing a new novel and then in the evening I was working on web design projects and I think my body got fustrated sat in front of the computer all day and with no exercise and I got fed up being hungry so I stuffed my face with too much healthy food. I probably averaged 2000 cals that day when I normally have between 1300-1600. Today I was up 3 pounds from my weigh in Friday. I know one of those pounds lost Friday was water weight so I’m only counting 2 pounds up really. But it’s no biggie, honestly.

Well, it might have been had I not gone to the gym today. I woke up this morning and I wasn’t that hungry (I never am if I overeat the night before) but I had breakfast about 10.30. I then had to get ready and go meet my gym instructor for a 6-week review and a new programme so I didn’t have time for lunch before I left. I had my meeting with her (results in a minute) and then did the new workout before leaving. I had to get someshampoo and body creme before heading home and then I had a sandwich when I got in. It is now 17.30 and I have eaten about 500 calories and have probably worked that away at the gym! I’ll lose those 2 pounds by tomorrow, probably.

So, I had my measurements done and I have lost 11.5 inches from my entire body in the last six weeks. I’ll put my exact measurements up on my stats page in a moment. I am so happy! I was saying to Betz this morning that I was worried I won’t have lost any inches and it’s all in my imagination, LOL.

My instructor was really impressed when she saw my weight and then even more so when she saw the inches. She kept saying that she was proud of me over and over. She is so sweet – and has the body that I want! haha

I got an updated workout too, which is better for me now my body is used to the old one.

Old Workout
15mins bike warm up, L2 60 rpm
Stretches
15 mins cross trainer L2 50 rpm
15 mins treadmill 3.0+ incline 4.0 speed
5 mins cross trainer again (couldn’t do this in the beginning)
Upper + lower body conditioning with the weights on alternating visits
Lat pull 10kg 2/15
Chest press 15kg 2/15
Bicep curl 5kg 2/15
Tricep curl 6.25kg 2/15
In and out abductor 20kg 2/15 each
Abs cruncher 10kg 2/15
Stretches
15 mins cooldown bike L2 60 rpm

New Workout
10 mins bike L5 80-90 rpm
Stretches
20 mins cross trainer L3 55-60 rpm
20 mins treadmill 3.0+ incline 4.5 speed
Upper & lower body condition alternating visits
lat pull 15kg 3/15
Chest Press 10kg 3/15
Bicep and Tricep curl 5 + 6.25kg 4/15
Leg press 20kg 4/15
Abs cruncher 15kg 4/15
Toning Tables
Stretches
10 mins bike cool down L5-L2 rpm 80-90

So that works brilliantly. I actually went on the toning tables today. I wasn’t expecting much from them but actually they were really good for my flexibility. They made my legs walk back and forwards even though I was laid down! I really felt a nice stretch at the top of the back of my thighs. Afterwards, when I did my actual stretches on that stretch where you hold you leg behind you; today was the first time I could hold my leg! Before today I couldn’t reach it at all, and while I held the shoe rather than the leg itself, it is still a major accomplishment in myself.

Don’t forget to check out my measurements on the stats page!

Cutting Down

I need to make a conscious effort to cut down the quantity in my main meal. When I started I would make a big salad to go with my meal in order to satisfy my then rather large appitite. Since then my appitite and stomach have shrunk but my dinner portion has not. The thing is I absolutely love my salads but don’t really need them in a main meal anymore so I will have to just have them instead of other veg a few times a week.

The Battle of Weightloss

Thank you to every one of you who left a comment congratulating me on my mega weightloss this week, it really does help to have the support from y’all. (I’m not from Texas or anything, I’m just being silly. LOL)

I went to the gym yesterday afternoon but I had to cut it short due to needing to get home for my son. It’s funny the whole time I was weight training I was dreading having to go on the cross trainer (it works me really hard!) but once I did it and then realised I couldn’t go on the treadmill (which works me just as hard) I was gutted.

I came home and made dinner, and felt stuffed afterwards. But I was feeling sorry for myself because I really wanted to go out but couldn’t and my binge eating mind appeared out of nowhere. I didn’t have that much as I fought the feeling as much as I could (I was still within my calorie allowance of 1600) but I could have been better. But then my friend came on messenger and I forgot about eating all together.

I am starting to think that I am at the stage now where dieting is no longer as big a battle as it once was. I started off with the philosophy that I would take one day at a time but every day was a struggle if I am honest. But now I don’t have to think about taking one day at a time, I just do.

Being Hard On Yourself

My weightloss nurse keeps telling me not to be so hard on myself even though I don’t know where she gets the idea that I am. It is true that I am hard on myself but I just don’t know where she would get that from, it’s not like I confide in her my deepest darkest thoughts. I guess she sees it a lot in obese patients.

When I was at my highest weight I was very good at being hard on myself. I guess you don’t get as big as I was without being hard on yourself. The way I thought about myself I would never have thought about another human being, whether they were friend or foe. And if I did I should have been locked up for a breach of human rights. I was outright nasty to myself. At one point I wouldn’t even leave the house because I thought I should not be seen in public. I consciously had that thought.

And they were just thoughts. If I were on a diet and had a slight slip then I would eat for England telling myself I am a fat pig and this is what fat pigs do. I had a one-off session with a counsellor last year and she asked me if I self harm. “Only by compulsively eating,” I told her. If I’d started an exercise regime and came down with the flu, I’d cease going to the gym because I’d missed one or two sessions. Instead I would prefer to wallow in self pitying thoughts that it is Just Too Hard.

I think it has been a gradual effect but slowly and surely since I have started this effort I have been trying to combat those thoughts and feelings. It has not been easy. I had a packet of crisps yesterday after the gym because I was on minus calories having only had a sandwich all day and even while eating them I was beating myself up for giving in to them. But with every negative thought I told myself it is just a packet of crisps, it is not the end of the world. And with another generous loss on the scale today they didn’t show up anyway. This is my point, being hard on ourselves, while unavoidable at times, is pointless. We only hurt ourselves. And I have found the more I stop myself from thinking bad about myself the easier it is to lose weight.

Feeling More of a Success Now

I don’t normally like to talk about my day to day pound losses in the week, partly due to possible flutuations but also because it means it sounds better in my weekly weigh in on Friday, but today I just cannot help myself.

You see, I am in the 17-stone range at long last! When I started this I was 19 stones and now I am 17.13! I cannot explain how good this makes me feel.

I did have to shock my body into getting there though. I seemed to be stuck at 18.1/18.2 forever and it was really annoying me. I was getting disheartened with the whole thing. And I was eating too much. The thing is, if I eat about 1600 I feel like I am always hungry and as a result had a couple of days where I ended up eating more than I should, hence the stagnation. But yesterday (due to over eating fruit the night before) I went without breakfast, which meant I had about 1200 or 1300 cals over the course of the day and when I eat less I manage my diet better, oddly. And today I lost 2lbs, wicked!

I wonder how many more lbs I can lose between here and Friday!?

An Average Day’s Diet…

Odaatuk was asking what sort of food I eat on my Xenical diet so I thought I would tell you all in a post as it is relevant to the journal

Breakfast – Low Fat cereal with soya milk and chopped strawberries. I usually have Optivia cereal. I used to have Special K but find this too light for me, too unsatisfying.

Lunch - A wholemeal sandwich which consists of low fat spreadable butter, thin slices of ham, maybe some watercress and/or tomatoes or cucumber. I’ll also have a vitality pre/pro-biotic yogurt.

Mid-afternoon snack – some fruit

Dinner – While the above doesn’t really vary, dinner does, it can be any of the following: wholemeal pasta salad, salmon fishcakes with new potatoes and a side salad, salon fillets, fish fingers, mash potato, beans, tinned vegetables etc etc… I don’t eat meat with my main meal (the only meat I eat is in the ham sandwich at lunch) so rely heavily on fish. I always have a large home-made side salad with whatever I cook.

Supper – If I have supper then it will be a cup of oats heated in soya milk with ground cinnamon, 1tsp honey and chopped strawberries afterwards.

Pity Party, Plz.

Urgh, I am so ill. I have had a really dry, tickly cough for a few days but otherwise felt okay. I bought some strepsils yesterday before heading to the gym, but once working out I soon realised that all was not well in camp Groovybabe.

I did try to do as much of a workout as I could but it was nowhere near my normal length or intensity. I didn’t do the last 5 mins of the cross trainer and where I normally finish up with a 15 minute cooldown I just had to finish up after 5 minutes. At least I didn’t feel shattered afterwards, which was handy as I had to go food shopping. I just felt really ill. So I ended up just getting a couple of essentials to see me through the next few days and heading home. My bus was a while so I ended up going to pick up a Brita water filter which doubles up as a filter and a 1.5l jug.

I got home and just was feeling much worse. I chatted to my best friend online and we arranged to do this massive outting today (if I was better), something that I was really looking forward to and I set my alarm this morning but no matter how long I tried to pretend I would cope in the end I had to admit defeat and cancel today. I then went back to bed and slept the morning away.

Oh yeah, I forgot something.

I ended up having what seemed like a massive binge last night but which didn’t affect the scales today, luckily. I went wrong when I decided I was too ill to cook last night and just had soup with bread… oh and a small advoado on toast… then two hours later a steak and kidney pie… and then I couldn’t sleep at 2am and was stressed at having to wake up at 7am and found myself downstairs where I had some peach nut bar, a packet of salt and vinegar crisps and then I found a tub of 16 mini meringues… oh dear! My defense is I was ill and feeling weak, oh and TOM is visiting at the moment, too… and I am sticking to it!

And I am still ill. I hope I am well enough for my scheduled trip to the gym tomorrow.

Different this time

My mum and me, we don’t get on very well. I have just spent 10 minutes with her in the car dropping my son off at his preparation day at senior school and I am close to tears. Or it could just be that TOM showed up yesterday and I am exceptionally hormonal. Either way, I don’t feel great.

But don’t worry, the dietal motivation (hey, new word) is still going brilliantly strong. Betz said yesterday that she feels this time dieting is different for me and I guess it is. Mainly because no matter what mood I am in I still want to lose weight and at no point do I employ a defeatest attitude. I also don’t have any time off my diet. I guess this is because I am very much an all or nothing person so, in that respect, it serves me well. I just don’t see any point in having time off because it is just going to make getting back on the wagon that much harder. But more than this, my diet is not a means to an end; it is about making healthier choices to improve my health and wellbeing and this is not going to stop once I am at goal, it is something I am going to have to work at for the rest of my natural.

I was watching a documentary on television last night. It was about Paris and the journalist went to a chocolate convention. They were devouring all sorts of rich chocolates and practically orgasming as they ate. I didn’t think, ‘oh, god. I would die for just one mouthful; oh how I have missed thee’, in fact it made me realise that I don’t miss it at all. Had I been eating my old ways for the past month then I do not doubt for one second that I would be dribbling with excitement during that programme. I thought, ‘wow, I haven’t had chocolate for about 4 weeks now – and I don’t even miss it.’

I think *that* is what is different in my attitude this time. I really want to do this, I am absolutely desperate to re-gain my health.  And I understand what it takes to achieve this. I don’t think I really understood it before. I guess in the past I hadn’t experienced panic attacks and if anyone knows anything about panic attacks you will know that my health is constantly at the forefront of my mind. Every twinge is a heart attack, every headache is a brain tumour etc… and you can imagine what knowing the effects of obesity can do when playing tricks with your mind. I don’t really suffer so much with it now but my health is always in the forefront of my mind.

Something else I realise is that I now understand how much exercise plays a part in losing weight. Before when I have tried to lose weight I have just dieted or just exercised but this time not only am I exercising and dieting at the same time but I have come to understand just how much they play a part in each others success. Dieting on its own is extremely hard and I cannot control my appitite through thought processes alone. If I exercise on its own within a week or so I am dieting whether I mean to or not because the effect of exercise on my body and brain means that I want to eat less. So with a concerted effort with diet AND weightloss I find losing weight to not be that difficult. It’s making long term habits that are the challenge for me.