8 sleeps to go !

Well at least K’s knee seems to be improving – hopefully the visit to the orthopeadic surgeon tomorrow will let us know one way or the other if it is something serious and if her holiday to Taiwan and Hong Kong is in jeopardy.
On the weight loss front – I have to confess that I jumped on the scales on Monday night, saw a gain of 1 kg from last Monday night’s weight at home and then decided that I was too busy and didn’t have the time to go to weigh. I am sure that if the scales had been showing a loss I would have made the time. Then I read M’s post and decided that as I was always more than happy to post my losses, I had to do the same with my gains !! I haven’t changed my side bar as that is only my WW figures. I am happy to say that I was down again last night – not the full 1 kg but 0,8 which I figure is OK. It may change after last night as we had Baskin and Robbins ice-creams after Speech Night . I did feel guilty until I wondered what good is living if I can’t even enjoy an ice-cream ?
Someone said to me yesterday that they had been watching Oprah and she had said that we shouldn’t be friends with our scales, we should be friends with our clothes. I have decided that I am going to try to live by that – while I am a scale junky who could never get rid of her scales, I am going to try not to let what they tell me affect my day and how I feel about myself. On Monday I went and bought another two pairs of pants for work because my undies are starting to peep out the top of my current two pairs (not that anyone can see because my blouses always cover the tops of my pants) but they are too big all round. Hopefully these two pairs will be the last that I have to buy and that I can stablise somewhere around this weight.
I am sorry that I haven’t been able to catch up on everyone’s blogs – I do try to pop in and have a read when I can and I will be back reading and commenting when we are back from holiday. Things are a little hectic in the household at the moment and with our departure date now only 8 sleeps away I really need to try to get organized. Our trip to Taroko Gorge is all booked and we are hoping to finalise the flights and accommodation to Hong Kong either today or tomorrow.
Take care everyone and look after yourself.

TFTD : You cannot teach children to take care of themselves unless you let them try. They will make mistakes and out of these mistakes comes wisdom.

TIAGF : The support of my friends

I'm OK

Just a quick note to let you all know that I am OK. We are tracking along relatively well in the circumstances. It has been a very trying week with lots to test my patience, my perseverance and my staying power but so far I am coming out on top !!!
Kaitlin made us very proud today when she was awarded Academic Honours for her achievements academically this semester. Within each sport they award a Striving Award and Merit Award and Kaitlin was awarded the Merit Award for softball.
Thank you to everyone for the wonderful messages of support that you have sent since I stopped blogging. I have to admit that I do miss it and as soon as I can, I will be back to my regular entry. In the meantime I will try to post something at least weekly, to let you know how things are going with all of us.
This week saw me lose another 0.4 which, together with the 0.7 from last week, sees me at my lowest weight in many, many years. I would like to lose a little more before we leave but right now, that is not a priority - just getting through each day relatively unscathed and still sane is all I ask for at the moment !!!!!
Take care and have a great weekend !

Thank you and good-bye

Firstly, I would like to say a big thank you for all the lovely comments and e-mails which I have received over the past few days - it has been very good for my self esteem right now. Thank you all for your support over the past few months - I know that I would not have achieved the success that I have without you, and for that, I am very, very grateful.
Secondly, I want to say good-bye (for now). I have done a lot of thinking over the past few days and I think that I need to take a break from blogging. I am not coping very well with Al being away this time. I thought it would be easier because it was only 4 1/2 weeks until we were together again - but it isn't easier and, for some reason, I am battling more than I have the other times.
I am tired of coming on-line and saying how I wanted to watch what I was eating, but I didn't. I do not feel like I am in control of what is going into my mouth. I know I should be, but I'm not. I know that no matter what I look like on the outside, I will always be fat inside and I need to work on changing that attitude.
I would like to say that this is goodbye until next week but I don't know how long it will be - I am feeling tired - not only sleep deprived tired, but exhausted. It doesn't seem to matter how much or how little I do - I feel like I have just had enough of everything. I am sure that it is an accumulation of many factors but I think that I need to take some time out and concentrate of getting myself feeling like I am loving life and all that is happening around me.
Take care everyone - please look after yourselves. You are all such special people. I have enjoyed sharing in each of your journeys and I look forward to catching up with you all in the future - hopefully all closer to your goal weight as well as closer to the ulitmate challenge of living a healthy life-style. Be good and go safely.

Loss 0.7kg

Just a quick update - went to weigh tonight and lost 0.7kg - have to be happy with that although definitely don't think I deserved it but, like always, I will take it !
Have a great week and be good !

Shop until we drop !!

My $7 T-shirt

My new work shirt
My new sandals

My new sparkly jeans. I have definitely moved out of my comfort zone by buying and wearing these !!!



















I am having some trouble labelling my photos but these are the results of a day of shopping. K and I had a lovely, fun-filled day shopping and trying on clothes. Sometimes we just tried on silly things and other times we tried on clothes we really would buy !!! It was great fun.
Enjoy what is left of your weekend and take care !

Feeling good

I am feeling thinner today – don’t know if it is because the scales told me that this morning or the fact that my work pants seem to be sitting even lower on my hips – but whatever the reason, I am happy with how I look today. Of course, that may change tomorrow when I am off to buy some more jeans so I don’t get cold in Taiwan but, for now, I am feeling good.
I was walking to the chocolate machine which is on the other side of the campus but on the way there, I realised that I was only eating because it was there and not because I really needed, or for that matter, particularly wanted a chocolate – so I turned around and came back to the office. I have to say that while I am proud of the fact that I didn’t just buy it and eat it anyway – there are many occasions when I am not nearly that strong and eat things just because they are there – the worst reason in the world to eat something.
Tonight we have the Sports Awards Dinner at school. I have absolutely no idea of what sort of dinner they will be serving – although at $21 per person (children too !) I hope that it is something worthwhile. I was wondering what I could eat during the day to make sure that I had enough points for whatever was served and then realised that I didn’t have to make my life a misery worrying about that – life goes on and I have to just work around what is dished up. I am sure I can do that.
I have to say that how I feel today is a good motivator for me to watch myself over the weekend – this morning I was sitting at 3.6kg below my goal weight so there is definitely some room to play with on my holiday and for Christmas – so long as I can keep it around about there for the next 4 weeks !!
Congratulations to M on the birth of her nephew and to Lynda on the birth of her grandson – I hope that they both enjoy happy and fruitful lives.
Take care everyone – have a great weekend and remember to be happy with yourself and what you are doing because it is only when we are happy with ourselves that we can make others happy too.

TFTD : Happiness is in the heart, not in the circumstances.

TIAGF : The recognition of K’s accomplishments

My night !

I would love to tell you that this is how my night went
“Went to get the groceries after work and then came home and did some exercise. After which I cooked a lovely stir fry which we both thoroughly enjoyed before going to work. Worked until 1am with only 1 diet coke to drink. Then came home, had a shower and went to bed” - but I would be lying - that is only how I HOPED my evening would be !!!
It actually went like this
“Went to get the groceries after work and then came home and started to do some exercises. During this time, K had a shower and then said that as it was nearly 7pm could we please have a frozen dinner and have the stir fry tomorrow. I said that it wouldn’t be long until I cooked and that it wouldn’t take long but she didn’t want to wait as she was hungry. So off she went to heat up her frozen meal. After about 40 minutes of exercise - not nearly finished all that I wanted to do, Al Skyped me so I stopped the exercising because I would rather talk to him anyway. While I was talking to him (at 7.20pm) work phoned to see if I could start at 8pm instead of 9pm. So I landed up cutting short the conversation with Al, getting K to heat my frozen meal up and going and having a shower. Scoffed my dinner down so I had indigestion most of the night and took off for work. Got there and thought that I should probably buy something to eat as I didn’t think I would last until 1am with only 1 diet coke. So I bought a chocolate (which I have just remembered I left half eaten in the freezer !!!) and a diet pepsi. Then at about 11.30 we had a break and there were do-nuts provided. I would like to say that I only had 1 but that would be lying, I would really like to say that I only had 2 but that would also be lying because in the end I had 3 of them. But, I am at home, won’t be having anything else to eat and am off to shower and then bed”
All I can say is - thank goodness tomorrow is a new day !
Have a great day everyone and take care !

More big clothes

Yesterday I was thinking that I need to check my jeans to see which ones I will be able to take to Taiwan – well the size 10’s are a little big but will probably do. The two pairs of size 12’s just fall off after I had put them on and took my hands away. Sooooo it is back to shopping again this weekend. I told Al I was probably going to have to buy some more jeans as I can’t see myself getting away with one pair of pants for 2 weeks – no problem he said. I have to say he must be one of the few men I know who encourages his wife to go clothes shopping – such a honey ! When we were at Target last weekend I saw a “Buy 1 pair get the 2nd pair for 50% off sale” so will go back there on Saturday to see if it is still on – then I will look at buying two pairs otherwise will probably just get one pair.
This is some advice for people getting close to goal - don't buy clothes until you are at goal !!!!! While 3-4 kilos may not make that much difference to your clothes now, when you are that close to goal and lose 3-4 kilos - your clothes begin to be and look too big and are not nearly as slimming as clothes that fit properly. Rather wait a while until you are at goal and then go on your spending spree. I think this will also help to keep you on track after you have got to goal because if you do put on a little bit of weight, you can feel it straight away and can do some damage control before it gets out of hand.
All I can say is thank goodness he has this job in Taiwan because there is no way we could have afforded to buy me all this clothing if he wasn’t working there !!
I bought the CSIRO cookbook on the weekend and was going to try one of their recipes tonight but ran out of time last night to get organized so it will be curry chicken stir fry from Lennard’s with veggies instead.
Well the day has certainly got away from me and it is now home time and I still haven’t had a chance to post this in blogger – so am going to get it on and then be off to the shops.
Take care everyone and have a great week !

TFTD :To move the world we must first move ourselves.

TIAGF : Cool nights

Gain of 0.1 kg

I was in two minds about whether I was going to go to weigh or not tonight and then decided that I should go just so I have a clean slate for a new week. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised at the result as this was the first week that I have not tracked on paper. After the disasterous start to the week when I was too ashamed to write down all that I had eaten in my tracker - I decided to try the mental tracking thing for the rest of the week. Am not too sure that I was totally successful with it and think that I am going to have to really get back to basics for a few days to make sure that it doesn't come back to bite me on the butt (or should that be to land back on my butt ???) plus I think I would be a lot happier if I could leave for Taiwan a few kilos lighter than I am now. The trouble seems to be getting motivated to get back to basics.
I saw a friend the other night after work and she said that my pants were looking a little big for me - the only problem is that they are my new pants !!!! This makes it really difficult as my clothes are all fitting me or falling off me - I bought them when I was about 1-2 kgs away from goal and now that I am nearly 2 kgs under goal they are too loose. I will have to not use that as an excuse to over eat or eat incorrectly and try to stay focussed on what I want to achieve before the first week of December - will see how I go.
Well am off to work - take care everyone and have a great week !

Another Sunday over !

Well - another weekend over and another day closer to Christmas. Al left this morning and, as usual, there were tears (from me). I have to think that it never gets any easier. But, he left and arrived safely after a good flight so that is the main thing.
K and I were going to stop at the new DFO which has opened on the airport road but we were there at 9.10 and it only opened at 10am so just carried on down to the coast.
We went to do some shopping and came home with all our Christmas shopping done (bar presents for K and Al as I am waiting to get to Taiwan for those) - they are all wrapped and put away - YAY for being organised this year !!! I even got the crackers, serviettes and candles for Christmas lunch.
K has exams this week and so has been doing quite a bit of work for those. She has also been nominated to receive a sporting excellence award at a Sports Award Evening on Friday so we will be going to see what she was nominated for - she really has made us proud with what she has accomplished at school in both the sporting and academic fields. Al was sorry that he wouldn’t be here to see the award but we will take some photos to send to him.
Today I bought the CSIRO cookbook and I am hoping to try some of those recipes out soon - I just need to get the motivation up with it being only K and I to eat. Actually, maybe I can have some friends over and do some entertaining to try the recipes out !!!! Will let you know how I go with them.
I am really not sure what sort of a result I should expect tomorrow at weigh-in - I had a really bad few days to start with, but then managed to pull myself back very nicely. And, although we ate out twice, I am sure that I was well within points on both occasions. I am sorry that I haven’t done as much exercise as I should have, but, tomorrow is a new day and I have the opportunity to start afresh.
Take care everyone and have a great week !

TFTD : Above all, challenge yourself. You may well surprise yourself at what strengths you have, what you can accomplish.

TIAGF : Al's safe arrival

Feeling out of control

This is a bit of a ranting entry so if you are looking for motivation or inspiration you will need to look on someone else’s blog.
For the past couple of days my eating has been out of control. I am not even going to go into what I have eaten suffice to say it has been self sabotage at it’s absolute best.
Right now I liken myself to a naughty child – I know that what I am doing is wrong because it does not help me to achieve what I want, but I do it anyway. I am constantly thinking about what I am going to eat next and, while I know that sometimes people will call that planning – with me it really isn’t about planning (which implies I am staying on track) because I am not tracking and am just eating for no apparent reason really.
I have a wish list and I am going to put some of them in here because maybe I will, at some point in time, be able to turn these wishes (or at least some of them listed) into reality.

I wish –
- I didn’t think about food so much
- I had enough money (and time) to belong to a gym and be able to tone my muscles
- my life didn’t revolve around my weight
- I didn’t let my scales dictate how I feel about myself
- I was more organized and planned my meals better or better still, had someone to plan and cook my meals for me
- I didn’t eat when I was bored or lonely
- I wasn’t so lazy and exercised more
- I had enough money so that I didn’t have to work – I could then do volunteer work and spend more time doing things for my family and myself
- I was more motivated to do things – right now it is all too hard

While I am happy with how I look at the moment, I know that it doesn’t take long to get onto the slippery slide that leads to those kilos piling back on again. I am still getting compliments, which is great for my morale, but they don’t do anything to stop me feeding my face. I did tell Al what I had eaten yesterday and he encouraged me not to throw it all in after the hard work that I have already done. I know that I can manage while he is gone but I would be a liar if I said I wasn’t scared at the prospect of having to stay in control while he is not around. There are a lot of things which my head knows but which my heart just doesn’t seem to want to take notice of and I need to try to find some way to be able to, once again, focus on what I want to achieve and what I am prepared to do to achieve it.

I started this post when I got to work this morning and my head was really in a crappy place. Since then I have had e-mails from some lovely people and I have been out to lunch. I set out to buy some chocolates to have for lunch because my Oxo sandwich just didn’t appeal to me. I got as far as the bakery around the corner and bought a choc chip pecan cookie. Then I went looking for what chocs I was going to buy – I landed up buying two sushi rolls because something a very good friend of mine said in her mail this morning kept on going around and around in my head “Don’t be too hard on yourself – just like you keep telling me about myself”. While it wasn’t exactly a ‘light-bulb’ moment, it did make me think about the Chill Pill comment K would make to me if she knew the conversation that was going on in my head. It did also make me realise that while I may like to control things around me – there are things which I just have to accept and move on. Four bad days do not put on 21 kilos – four bad days are not un-doable - four bad days don’t mean that I can’t put the brakes on now and stop this turning into a 5 or 6 or 7 day binge. Yes Al is going away again – do I want him to meet me at the airport looking worse than I look now ? Of course not. Do I want him to have to be embarrassed to introduce me to the people he is working with over there because I think I am too fat ? Of course not. Will that happen if I carry on the way I am going at moment ? Very good chance. So what can I do about it ? I need to get my head into the right place and move forward. What is eaten, is eaten and I can’t change that but I can change what I put in my mouth from now on. While I don’t expect it to be all plain sailing from here, I do know that if I can get my head in the right place, I will be better equipped to work through this hump in the journey.

It really is a mental issue because when I weighed myself this morning I was down another kilo. I can feel that in my new work pants because they are getting lower and lower on my hips – what I don’t understand is how I can feel so crappy when I feel so much slimmer today.

Take care everyone and hope you have a good day !

Loss of 1.8kg

I must have done something right over the past couple of weeks although I also think that it is a correction of the 1.4kg that I put on 2 weeks ago - the good thing is that this has taken me to my lowest weight in about 14 years - YAY !!!!
Things have been rather hectic in our household - lots to do and with Al only here for another couple of days - it is getting more of a mad rush to get things sorted before he leaves. Plus we have to make sure that everything is done for Christmas as we will only be getting home a day or two before.
I haven't been able to do as much exercise as I would have liked but with other things needing to be done that has had to take a bit of a back seat - I am not too worried because I know that when I get the chance I will be out there doing some walking or cycling again.
On Friday night at about 6.40 the phone went and it was the dr's rooms to ask me to go in to see the dr - well immediately I was wondering what it was (even though I should have thought that as it was so long after the scan it wasn't anything to worry about !) - all is good which makes it a little more worrying as to what is causing the headaches but as they haven't been around for nearly a week I am not going to worry about them. Then I had the injections I need for Taiwan (my arm is still sore from the tetanus one) and I found out that along with my low cholestrol and low iron my blood pressure is also too low !!!! Al asked if the dr had a catalogue that he could look through to find a replacement for me !!!!! Told him that given his current situation he had better watch out that I don't find the catalogue and find a replacement for him !!!
Anyway, other than that we are all well - making the most of the couple of days we have left together and just enjoying each others company. Take care everyone, be good and look after yourself !

TFTD : Life will sometimes hand you a magical moment. Savour it.

TIAGF : Good times