First Day…

I have changed my layout once more, the effort I have put in this time really does reflect just how serious I feel about it now. I guess I had to get to the point where I need to turn it around and last night something clicked into place in my head, it felt different, and I guess that was motivation and focus that I so badly needed.

I was really bad with eating last night, once I have a bad choice that is pretty much it, the day is a write off, so I just ate with abandon, knowing today would be completely different. If I am perfectly honest though I did wonder if it would be any different today but when I woke up it just was, like motivation had parked its bum in today.

I stayed awake all day yesterday so that I would sleep last night but when it came to it I’d worked myself up into such a tizz about The Boy that sleep was not forthcoming at all. That is why I ended up redesigning my blog. It was 6am before I got any zeds, I had to get up at 7am and was back to sleep at 8am and was rudely awoken by the electricty company at 11. So as you can imagine I am shattered.

When I woke up I was quite busy, and frankly full from last night, so I didnt eat. I just had a cup of tea, with a dash of skimmed milk and canderel. Then I went over to my friends until 4.30pm so didn’t eat a thing all day. I came home and had my toast with marg and jam and another cup of tea (tea and toast is such a treat!) but got hungry within the hour so had my puffed wheat and a banana. I am just cooking up my dinner which is sweet potato, veg and salmon fishcake. Hopefully it will be all I eat tonight as I will take a Nytol tonight to get off to sleep and will give me a head start.

I weighed in this morning. I knew it would not be pretty and I was right. 15.4 stones or 214lbs. But it can only go down now that I am watching what I eat.

Enthusiasm

I have been struggling, big time. I have been trying not to put on – at least – and failing. I am fluctuating anywhere between 14.0 and 14.10 in any given point of the week. It’s got to stop; I have to start losing seriously again. I want to feel I have it in control again, I want to feel good and start looking better again.

I went back to the gym yesterday for the first time in two weeks. I am sure my lack of exercise was contributing to my lethargic attitude to weightloss. After I came out of the gym I fancied making a salad and so went and bought the ingredients. I havent eaten salad in months, since before I lost my appitite that time.

My insomnia has been raging lately too, which is the biggest problem I have when losing weight. Not only am I too tired for activity, but I tend to eat non stop throughout the 24-hour period. So during bouts of insomnia, dieting is a write-off really. I slept for 11 hours last night though, from 5pm-4am, so I am almost back on normal time. I stopped taking Nytol because I did not want to rely on it the whole time but I am going to take it when I need to because it is a small price to pay if it means I can function on a day to day basis.

So I am going to try and write in here on a daily basis again and see if that helps me to get back on track. I am going to go to the gym three times per week again. I am going to write down everything I eat. I will drink 4 pints of fluid per day. Hopefully I will become enthusiastic again.

Mix Up

Current Weight: 14.0 stones
Yesterday’s Weight: 14.3 stones
Yesterday’s WW Points on track? Yes
Exercise Taken Yesterday: None
Challenge Points: 4

I am back to putting this information at the top of the post because when I was doing that last time it really helped me to stay on track and lose weight. So you can see from this information that yesterday I had a good day of staying on track. It was my first such day in many weeks. I find it so hard to keep the motivation when I havent been doing it for a while but I maintain it is a lot to do with the chemicals from bad foods that make it so uncontrollable. I woke up yesterday after my night out on Saturday and just decided that would be the day I get back on track. Instead of gorging on bad foods to nurse my hangover, which I have been doing lately, I decided to cook up a treat in the way of a home made vegetable soup. It was lovely and curbed my need for bad foods and binging. Lately I have had a real problem with eating through the night (because I don’t sleep well) and last night was the first night I did not feel the need to do that, despite being up until 4am, so there has to be a connection between eating bad foods and wanting to gorge in the night. It is all good though.

You may wonder what the “challenge points” are? Well Betz and I have been talking about setting up a new challenge to help re-motivate us into weightloss. Rather than go for who can lose the most weight, we thought we would offer points for good behaviour, and then the person with the most points at, say, the end of the month is the winner. If you would like to get involved with this then leave a comment and I will update your results every week (on a Monday). Here is how you get points:

• Staying on track with food (either on points or under 1500 calories) – 3 points
• Full workout at the gym – 3 points (half arsed one, 1 point)
• 5 fruit and veg – 1 point
• 2litres of water – 1 point
• 30 minutes of exercise – 1 point (you cant count this into your gym workout to get more points, this is exercise other than a gym workout)

If I can think of other things to add for points then I will, if you have any ideas then let me know, but these are the basic stay healthy-stay on track incentives. I will do a weekly update, but the overall winner will be monthly.

I have changed my layout back to my original one. This is psychological in the main part. I was doing really really well when I had this layout. So I am hoping by putting it back up it will bring me success again. Plus it is pretty.

Today is also weigh in day. Last week I weighed in at 14.0 stones (196lbs) but over the next four days I was gorging through the night uncontrollably as I hinted at above, and by Thursday weighed in at 14.9!!! Saturday I weighed in at 14.3 and today I have weighed in at my lowest weight again of 14.0, so while I havent officially lost on my weekly weigh in, it is a huge success that I managed to regain control again and not end up two stone heavier. I am really looking forward to being in the 13’s now, like you cannot imagine. And it is going to happen in the next few days!!

Pain In The…

Today’s weight: 14.13
Yesterday’s weight: 15.1
Points consumed yesterday: 17.5 out of 24 (4 banked)
Exercise yesterday: none

As I write this I do not know what todays weigh in is as I haven’t done it yet, but I will do before I post.

I think my appitite is reducing. My sleep pattern is out ofsync and I woke up at 1pm yesterday so my meal times were not traditional. I was up all night (fell to sleep at 7am this morning) but didn’t eat throughout the nigh, I just wasn’t hungry. Okay I did have half a sandwich about 4am but because I was feeling faint rather than because I was hungry. But I guess it could be because I wasnt eating at traditional times. I tend to feel hungry at the “right” times but I suspect this is not true hunger so much as expectation of hunger. So, I wouldn’t normally be eating in the night so I didn’t get hungry…

Sciatica update… not that there is anything to update but this is a “health” blog, even if it is weightloss-centric… its still hurting.  Last night I was feeling quite low still. It was the psychological aspect, not even being able to bend over to pick things up off the floor, and walking from room to room being a task and a half. One time I bent over to pick something up from the floor and when I got up I had discomfort/pain on the left side of my waist, which got me to wondering whether it *is* a slipped disc after all. This is because to date all my pain has been down my right side; from my lower back down my right leg. It was an odd feeling in the left side of my waist. I say my waist but that suggests an exterior pain and its very much inside up and down the wall of my torso… I dunno, I am not a doctor. I should get back to the doctors. I did notice a bit of an improvement in the pain today though so hopefully I am on the road to recovery.

14.13 – yay!!!!

Mixed Up Mess (In My Head)

I am sorry I have been AWOL for a few days. I have been going through some emotional turmoil and I wasn’t following my diet much less bothering with mine or other people’s blogs with any sense of commitment.

My sleep, due to the emotional turmoil, has been a complete mess too. As a result I have been eating crap (mostly bread) and not eating meals and stuff. Day and night. I was really worried about getting on the scales this morning as it was the first time in 3 days but doing so has saved me. I have lost 3lbs. REALLY not sure how that one happened! I have been GORGING. And I havent been to the gym in over a week. I guess my motabolism is just in much better shape these days. (I have the flu/cold as a reason for not having been to the gym.)

When we think about losing a significant amount of weight, we do think of the problems we may encounter. These, we assume, are largely our own psychological issues. But to anyone who has lost a significant amount of weight, or if you know someone who has, do you find personal relationships change with the weightloss?

The dynamics of some of my relationships are changing. Some for the better, others not so much. I really do not want to go into details here but I guess losing weight, gaining in confidence and becoming more attractive to the opposite sex can bring its own problems. How we deal with them is paramount, I guess. I lost my social skills to a large extent when I became morbidly obese and am trying to re-learn them but it is a long and sometimes debilitating journey. For example, looking better in the mirror than I feel in my head is weird. You have the new found confidence from obviously looking better and yet your head-space is still screaming ‘you fat, good for nothing, waste of space – go hide now!’ Trying to bring the two together, while trying to convince those around you that you are still ultimately the same person you was six months ago is a skill I am yet to learn.

Insomnia & Christmas

I am sat here trying to pass the time of day without resorting to that ol’ habit, eating.

Yesterday night I had a fairly good sleep, walking up at 6am. Last night I went to sleep at 9am. This morning I woke up at 2am. Go figure.

I tried going back to sleep and it was gone 4am when I gave up and got up. And I have since been sat here surfing the net avoiding eating.

You see, since my insomnia has been particularly bad the last few weeks I have arranged my meal times accordingly. But today I am determined not to have breakfast at 4am! I am going to wait until a normal time, 7am at least. I might have a herbal tea after my shower though.

I have signed up for a paid account on WLR now. I am sufficiently impressed that this tool is going to help me to reach my Christmas goal by Christmas.

I am starting to get anxious about Christmas. I live on my own with my son so we will not go overboard on the Xmas food but I do feel like I need to let him have a little treat or two (particularly as I make him eat so healthily all year around) so it is going to be interesting to see how I cope with the season. I am just glad we don’t have Thanksgiving here! :S

Weigh In (Week 19)

I have just had the most blissful seven hours sleep known to man. It took some organising though. As we know my sleep has been on antipodean time lately. Not only that but I’ve been getting two hours at a time and well, on top of being ill, you can guess how that left me feeling. It didn’t help that I had no eating structure either.

So when I woke up fresh (not!) on Saturday evening at 8.30pm to start my day, I decided enough was enough. Even if I cannot sleep properly, I have got to get back into the weightloss. So I signed up to WLR again. I needed something that was going to encourage me to write down everything I consume again. I’d lost 2 stone in the past with this web site so I thought I would give it a whizz again. It’s only a free 3 day trial so if I don’t use it adequately then no harm done. Then I got to talking to my friend, Jackie, who it turns out as found the motivation she needs to lose weight and as we were talking she got me excited about weightloss again. I think that was one of the problems, the process had gotten boring.

So I wrote everything I ate and drank and chatted on the forums within the site and it really helped. I’d eaten all my calories by 7am (because my sleep was upside down) but I ended up forcing myself to stay awake all day to try and sort the insomnia once and for all. I lasted until 6pm (considering I’d been awake since 8pm the night before, that was good going) but didn’t eat a thing all day because I’d used all my calories. I was so pleased with myself. Normally I would talk myself into believing it was another day therefore the calorie count doesn’t count… or something! But I stuck at it rigidly, like the old days.

WLR tells me I can have 1470 calories per day and I ended up having 1570, so 100 over. I didn’t manage 2 litres of water but I did manage 1.5 litres so I am happy. It felt like my organs were floating around in water!! I didn’t do any exercise but I was having that as a rest day to get over the last remnants of the flu anyway, so that is cool. Overall I am very happy with how I managed my minigoals.

I did wake up after 4 hours sleep but forced myself back to sleep and ended up waking up after seven hours, just after 1am. A bit earlier than I’d hoped for but happy that I am well on my way back to a normal sleep. (I will stay awake until 8 or 9pm tonight.)

So I weighed in when I got up, just before my shower, and dun dun dun…. I weighed in at 15.6lbs! I absolutely cannot believe such a difference. A few days ago I did see 15.8 but then when my sleeping was bad it went back up to 15.10 but I didn’t take this as an accurate reading as I’d not been sleeping properly. I need 6-7 hours to get an accurate reading. So in a day or so I have gone down 4lbs, LOL. But I’ll take it as two pounds as I saw the 15.8 before. But whatever, it is so good to see the scales moving again and reminds me that if I am good and follow the rules then it will happen faster. I also started taking Xenical yesterday as I haven’t had that for a few weeks and I am sure that played a role too.

So do you know what 15 stones 6lbs means? I am less than 15 and a half stones, I have lost FIFTY POUNDS (at last)!! I have los 18.8% of my total body weight since I started. I have 13lbs to lose by Xmas to reach my goal of 14.7 (who knows if I might hit 13.13 by Xmas?). I am in the 34 bmi era. That is 9 bmi points less than when I started. I have 15lbs to lose until my half way mark… I could continue all day. You can view my stats here.

Hit Me Baby, One More Time

I hit 15.9 on the weekend. One more pound off, I hear you say, nothing substantial. But no! It is! I now weigh under 100kg at 99.5kg! And I am also 219lbs, which means I am no longer in the 220’s!! How about that then?

I went out this weekend and got ever so slightly drunked. I actually bought some drinks to take to a mates and picked up some Bacardi Breezers (as she drinks disgusting Guiness) but in the car I was thinking, ‘gah… calories…’ but when I opened the BB I realised that I’d picked up – purely by accident – the half sugar ones, which had half the calories (just over 100 per bottle), so that was a result.

I don’t normally wear make up during the day these days, it just seems like too much effort. It’s usually the gym I am going to anyway and there’s nothing worse than seeing people caked in make up for a work out. So I tend to go without. So when I put my make up on for a night out, I looked in the mirror and thought I looked really good. My skin is clearer than it has been in months, not a single spot to be seen,  and it looks much tighter too. And such an even colour. And I just thought, ‘wow’. With my hair down and straightened, I looked good. I wish I’d taken pictures.

I am pretty sure it is the jogging that is making me look so healthy. Up until a few weeks ago I was getting pretty bad acne, which I assumed was down to the Xenical, and my skin looked really rough. But it has cleared up a lot since I have been jogging. My face always gets really red when I jog so I guess the blood is coming to the surface of my skin and that is what is helping me to look better. Anyway, I like it a lot.
I wore my old-new jeans out again and they were looser than the last time I wore them, and I’d bought a black top with long arms, just a plain fashion Tee, and well yay, as you will see now:

Later on in the night, around midnight, I’d eventually felt brave enough in the cold English weather to take my coat off (we’d been sat outside) and I went into the toilets (bathroom). When I looked in the mirror I was like ‘OMGZ whoZ that skinny dude looking at me? She looks good, I want her figure’ then I was like, ‘that IS you!’ heh and that really made my night. I couldn’t stop looking! When I look in my mirrors at home I tend to see all the work that I need to achieve rather than the work I have already achieved because I am always in those mirrors but looking in a foreign mirror can really help sometimes. I’d only been to that pub once before during my journey, about 3 months ago.

Woo!

Actually I have been hit on quite a bit lately. In fact, I would say I have been hit on more in the last couple of months since losing weight than I was in the 6 years previously. That wouldn’t be too hard as I pretty much wasn’t hit on before I started losing weight, but still it’s a confidence boost all the same! Especially Saturday night, as I had a couple of guys be very direct. They were not my type and so nothing happened but still, it’s nice to feel wanted. (I need to make a post about dating sometime.)

Then after the pub, we’d gone to a house party and I was sat watching the music channels at about 6am when I had a moment of clarity. The reason I have been struggling to stay on track is because I’d lost confidence in my ability to lose weight. I think it happened when I started having sleeping difficulties. In the early days on my weightloss, if I thought I would be bad at night I would take a Nytol to get me to sleep quite early and then I wouldn’t have to face a night time struggle, but when the tablets didn’t work and I wasn’t sleeping well, I started thinking – subconsciously – that I wouldn’t be able to stay on track, this then lead to a self fulfiling prophecy and I wasn’t able to stay on track. Considering this I actually think I did amazingly well in struggling through it and in continuing to lose weight, but weightloss is so much easier when it is not a constant battle of wills. At least I realise now and can move forward in my weightloss.

Insomnia

I am going to stop using fitday all together. My problems with managing my food intake began when I stopped writing in my paper food journal what I ate, and the general amount of calories involved, and started logging every carb, protein, fibre and fat through fitday! I am positive that you can concentrate too much on that stuff.

I was doing good after the gym yesterday and fell to sleep – naturally – before 10pm. Actually, as soon as my head hit the pillow. But come 1am, I was wide awake. It has got so far past being funny that it is not, well, funny. Only last night I didn’t fall back to sleep at 5am, or 6am. I stayed up to get my son ready for school and got him a lift in so I could go back to bed. I slept from 8am until 1.30pm. It was the best sleep I’d had in weeks. Why is it insomniacs can’t sleep at the right time but bring out daylight and they can give the whole nocturnal environment a run for its money?

It’s starting to stress me out now, which I know is counter-productive to combatting it, but what can I do? I’m so tired that I cannot function in the day and my exercise is severely reduced, I can’t keep a track of my weight in the normal way I do because I don’t sleep long enough for my body to readjust over night and I find it increasingly hard to manage my calories because a) meal times are out of the window and b) being up all night makes it hard not to eat!!

And please, no lectures on staying awake all day and then I’ll sleep at night, it simply does not work like that! Today was the first time in two weeks I have given in to a daytime nap. I’ve suffered long and hard with insomnia but the last six months have been relatively sleep-problem-free. I have some things on my mind, which I think are at the root of this problem so that is what I have to sort out, and hopefully it will be open for business as usual.

In the meantime I will continue to try to do what works. I have to get into that 15 stone era, it is proving so elusive but its only a couple of pounds away.

The XT

At my gym we have two types of cross trainer. A black one and a silver one. My instructor said in the beginning to use the black one as its easier (smaller strides) and as that is what everyone else uses I flocked towards the sheep. I don’t really like it because the covers on the handle move and there is no heart monitor on it. This is it on the left. I was averaging about 60-65rpm on the black one, which after speaking to Betz, I discovered was quite low.

Well today I decided to go on the silver (harder) one and it seemed to have a different system because I was averaging 90rpm! I don’t think after a week off I would have risen 30rpm, dropped maybe but not risen!! So I am taking this one as the one which I compare with other people, because it seems more realistic. But saying that, I *did* work harder. On the black eliptical I average 1.60-1.90km’s over 25 minutes but today working at 90rpm on the silver one (pictured, right) I did 3.55kms!!!!! And after I got off it I really felt worked out, so much more than I did on the black one. This one also has a heart monitor and so I was able to monitor my rate throughout. It started out at about 117 (note, this is not my resting as I’d exercised before this) and it steadily rose to about 137 at the height of my exercise, when I was going my fastest about 9.5rpm. I think that is pretty good, actually. When I started going to the gym, almost 6 months ago,I used to have to calm down my heart rate when it hit 150!

I have to say, though, that 25 minutes on any cross trainer is an extremely long time and on the black xt I was dreading using it. In the first few minutes on the silver I was thinking gosh I have so far to go yet but ten minutes in I was feeling really good. Twenty minutes came and I told myself I could get off if I wanted as I’d  worked so much harder today but I stayed on for the full 25, and in the end was competing with myself to raise my distance (was aiming for 3kms, so quite a result).

I did almost 15kms of cardio in todays workout, which is almost double what it was when I started working out. Aside from the weightloss, that has got to be a result in itself.

The last few days for me have been pretty bleak. I think because I wasn’t able to work out all week last week my mental health was really suffering, plus I am sleeping on a mattress on the floor, which isn’t helping at all. Thats when I do sleep, at the moment I am hardly sleeping at all. All of this has made my eating control slim. I’ve not been binging as such but I have been giving into eating more readily than I normally would. This is why it was so pivatol that I get in the gym today. However when I went out to the bus stop it was tipping down with rain and my bus didnt come. I was so tempted to go back in doors (my bus stop is right by my flat), hide under my covers and feel sorry for myself. But I knew if I did that it would have been the beginning of the end so I walked to the shopping centre (15 minute walk) and caught the bus from then. And I am really glad I did. This past week has shown I really cannot live without exercise in my life any more, it is just not worth it.

(PS I have taken my fitday link down because I am not using the web application any more (I was becoming too obsessed by numbers) but I do have fitdays PC programme, which I bought a few years ago and I am using that (mostly) to log what I eat.)