Second loss

Last night I went to weigh having not weighed on my scale during the week - and was EXTREMELY pleased with a loss of .........drum roll please ........................1.5kg !!!! Yes, that means 3.2kg in 2 weeks.

I have been for a walk tonight as well as drinking water each day - most days between 1.5 - 2L - sometimes as much as nearly 3L when I take a 750ml bottle to Coles at night. I have also been trying out new recipes from old WW recipe books - and I am loving the varied menu we are eating.

Have a great week everyone and be good !

Another great day !

Today was a great day - food wise, water wise, exercise wise and entertainment wise - just an all round fantastic day !

Got up this morning and after a breakfast of apricot delight toast, went down to Coolangatta to watch the beach cricket semi-finals and finals. Got there and the queue to get in was miles long (entrance was free) so gave that a miss and wandered down the one street of shops. A had a Big Chief burger and I had Subway for lunch together with a 750ml bottle of water. Then we decided to go to Robina to see a movie - A got tickets for his birthday in Sept which we haven't used yet. So off we went to see American Gangster (with no snacks to eat during the movie !!!) - not a bad movie - you don't have to dash out and see it but not bad if you do get to it.

Then came home and went for a 50min walk even though all I wanted to do was veg out - thanks A for encouraging me enough to get out there and get moving. We had a really healthy dinner - lavash bread with lettuce, carrots, avo and philly cheese - thanks Sue - we had similar for lunch yesterday and it was just yummo. Plus another 750ml of water.

Now we are off to sit in the spa for a while before going to bed - unless the weather in Pretoria clears and the ODI between SA and WI is on - in which case we will watch some of that - or some of the tennis if the match is interesting enough.

Have a fantastic week everyone - take care and I will be back on Tuesday with an update of my weigh-in result tomorrow night. My scales at home have been playing up (25kg gain one day and then 20kg loss the next !!!!) so, scale whore that I am, I haven't stepped on my scales since last Monday night - will see how I go tomorrow night when I get to WW.

Tracking along pretty well

Things are going well for me - tracking online each day and I have even managed to get between 1-2 litres of water down each day for the past couple of days. This is a big accomplishment for me given how I really dislike the taste of water although I can stomach filtered water and today have been drinking the lime Mizone which is quite pleasant tasting - although I have to be honest and say that after all that water - nothing (except maybe some Amarula) beats an ice cold Coke Zero !!!

My exercise is still non-existent - I know that I need to get moving but have been so tired (probably because I haven't been exercising) and just can't be bothered. Plus there is cricket and tennis on TV and with K being on holiday find that we get home from work, the TV is on and we flop down and then it is a battle to get up and do anything.

I did pull out my recipe books and made dinner from one for tonight before we went to work. I have bought ingredients for another three dinners out of the cookbooks - I am so tired of the same old same old dinners - needed to find something different.

Tomorrow we are looking at maybe driving down to Coolangatta to watch the beach cricket - we don't have tickets but they are giving them away from 9am - so will see what time we wake up and whether we can be bothered or not.

Well - that's it for now - will be back on Monday or Tuesday with an update on how weigh-in went on Monday night. We have stock take at Coles on Monday night so it will probably not happen until Tuesday - I hate stock takes - they are such a waste of time especially when they get the school kids in who are so half arsed about counting - it isn't that it is that difficult but geez they manage to stuff it up every time !!!!!

A good result

Lst night A and I went for a walk as soon as we got home from work and then I changed and went to weigh. I lost 1.7kg - not enough to wipe out the gain of December but certainly enough to kick start my weight loss efforts this year. I also received the Slimmer of the Week award - am sure that won't happen many more times until I get to goal but it was good to get the recognition within the group.

My eating and water today have been great - I have finished the day 3.5 points under and I did manage to drink 4 glasses of water - even if the last two glasses had to be skulled as I was about to walk out the door - I made a pact with myself that whatever water goes into the jug in the morning has to be out the jug in the afternoon (and I'm not allowed to use it to water the office plants !!!)

I have been catching up on a few blogs tonight and now I remember how motivating this used to be for me - when I see how successful others have been / are, it really makes me feel like there is no reason why I can't be successful too. Actually when I look at photos of me when I got to goal the last time, it almost breaks my heart to see how I have let myself go and allowed myself to let the kilos pile on again. But, there is no point in dwelling on what used to be or crying over added kilos - what I do need to dwell in on is keeping my motivation up and myself organised enough to make it happen again. And I know I can do it - for Pete's sake, I have done it more times than I care to remember. Each time I get to goal I say "This is it - never again will I put the weight on again" - but I have and when I look back I realise that there are lessons which I am obviously not learning hence the need to re-visit the lesson !!!!

Tonight when someone was surfing the TV channels there was a programme about people in their mid-late 30's changing careers etc because they realised that the big house high powered jobs were not making them feel fulfilled. I am obviously a late starter as it has taken me until my early 40's to realise this - or maybe I should say to actually do something about it because for many years I have realised that being an accountant is not what makes me happy but I have done nothing about changing my career - until now that is.

2008 is the year for me - it is the year when I am going to achieve all that I am capable of achieving and I am going to be successful in all that I do - in my journey to the new me, in my career, in my family life and in my studies. It is going to happen and the reason for that is because I am going to make it happen. Join me for the ride - if you are up to it !!!!

Take care and have an absolutely fantastic week !

5 great days !

Another good day under my belt ! This morning after waking up we sat around for a while before K and A decided to start a jigsaw puzzle. Then it was time for K to go to work and A and I got stuck into the garden.

The back garden is the last thing that needs to be done before all the renovations are completed (except the painting of the front gabled area but I am waiting on loan scaffolding for that so it may be a while !!). We cut and whipper snipped the front and back gardens and got stuck into the beds which haven't really been touched for a long long time. Unfortunately we didn't get it all finished but then this morning we were only really going to cut the grass and we landed up doing heaps more than that.

A trip to the tip was in order for all the cuttings that we had but we jumped in the pool for a while before we went there. Got home and some friends popped over to visit and they left just in time for us to go and collect K from work.

A and K are sitting working on the jigsaw puzzle and I am off to do dinner - very easy tonight - left over chicken for more chicken rolls !!!! We had thought we may use A's birthday present of two movie tickets but I can see that the two of them won't want to drag themselves away from the puzzle so think it will be a stay at home night tonight - maybe we will go tomorrow night instead.

Have a great Sunday everyone and take care !

4 great days !

Taking this one day at a time is certainly working for me - I have now had 4 good days and not even one bad moment. My shopping trips to Coles have been totally uneventful in terms of buying something and eating it in secret because we all know that what we eat in secret doesn't have to be counted in our daily points, don't we ? I have done no secret eating in 4 days - and, while this may not seem like a long time, it certainly is when you are used to eating quite a lot of things in secret each day.

We had friends over for dinner tonight and the chicken rolls were delish - A cooked the chicken to perfection and the rolls which K brought home from work were so fresh I am sure they came out the oven as she left her shift at 3pm.

There is not very much planned for the weekend - some chores around the house and garden and YAY no working on Saturday night - maybe we could use A's birthday present of two movies tickets which has been sitting on a fridge door since September !

For Christmas he was given a nights accomodation, the latest show and breakfast for two at Conrad Jupiter's and we booked that for 1st February so that is something to look forward to. Hopefully by then I will have lost a few kilos and able to wear something reasonably decent to the show. We can check in from 2pm so plan to leave work early - not sure what we will do when we get there although with any luck all the holiday makers will have gone back to wherever they came from and it won't be too busy.

On that note I am off to bed and will hopefully be back sometime on the weekend - this forum and going to weigh-in each week are the two things which keep me honest in my eating. We haven't had much chance to exercise this week - we got our cycle done on Monday night. Tuesday night we had my folks and aunt around for dinner as she was leaving this morning to go back to South Africa and it was the best night to have them around as we don't work then. Wednesday night we were off to the chiro which was just fantastic as we haven't seen her since before we left for Spain due to our medical aid portion running out. Thursday it was school shoe and stationery shopping time and by the time we had got all of that and then gone around to say goodbye to my Aunt it was time to get home, get changed and be off to work. Then tonight we had friends over for dinner so after work a quick dash into the shops to get some nibblies (for them - I didn't have any - go Me !!!) and then home to get dinner prepared. I am not promising myself to exercise on the weekend but if the opportunity presents itself, I hope to take up the challenge and get out there and get moving.

Have a great weekend everyone and take care !

Two fantastic days

Well my journey is, once again, under way. I have had two really good days with even having some water to drink today - go Me !!!! I am going to try the "Finish a couple of glasses of water before having a Coke Zero" - that is how I got the two glasses in today. Not as much as it should be but at least it was a start.

Food has been good - I have been tracking everything that has gone into my mouth. Last night we had friends over for dinner - BBQ chicken, potato, butternut and peas and they brought lemon cheesecake from the Cheesecake Shop for dessert. I was very proud of myself for not having any !!!

Today I popped into Coles while I was out dropping the banking off and, for the first time in I don't know how long, I walked out without a chocolate, a packet of biscuits, a packet of chips or anything apart from a Coke Zero !!! Yay - go Me again !

I guess if I can continue to take this journey one day at a time, I will eventually get there. I know it isn't going to happen overnight but it will happen. Anne (sorry I can't remember how to add the hyper link to Anne's blog but this is the address if you would like to read about her experience http://annesbattletogoal.blogspot.com/) tells the story of how she saw herself in a video and got her mojo back because she didn't want to go back to looking like that - well I had a similar thing happen but in reverse. We bought one of those boxes that has photos on the outside and a whole heap of little photo albums inside and so we pulled out the photos albums we have going back 30 odd years. Not that I had ever really forgotten how thin I used to be - I think I just chose not to remember (especially since I put all the weight on while pregnant). K wanted to know what illness A and I had in the photos as we were so thin we must have been sick !!!! Needless to say, I will never ever get to that weight again but I know that I can get a lot lower than what I am right now - and that is my mission this year - along with going back to studying and changing my career path.

Have a great week everyone, take care and look after yourself.

Happy New Year from Miss Piggy

Well – the holiday season has come and gone and the kilos have come and not yet gone !!! But, I am not going to worry about that – I made the decision not to make my life a misery with worrying about my weight over this period of the year (no doubt I will regret that decision when I get on the scale tonight but hey, it was fun while it lasted.)

I ate too much and on occasions I drank a little too much too but I had a good time. Father Christmas spent most of his money at other people’s homes but that was OK because we all had a good time and enjoyed the time we got to share with each other. We had a great family lunch on Christmas day with the extended family from Perth able to join us – it certainly made for a festive day.

But, I am going to face that scale tonight – not that I particularly want to – but I know that I have to before my weight spirals totally out of control. I would imagine that I will have put on at least the weight I lost before Christmas but it is all good because if I hadn’t of made that effort in those weeks leading up to Christmas I would have been 5-6kgs heavier than I am now.

Onto other really exciting things – I am going back to study this year. The course starts in February and runs through to November and it is through the Massage Schools of Queensland. While for many years I have felt that I am too old to change careers, I have finally decided to bite the bullet and do it. This will be with a view to opening a reflexology/massage practice in the future. I did have an “Oh shit !” moment towards the end of last week when I realised that it is probably close to 15 years ago since I last had to study and write exams but figure it is a bit like riding a bicycle, you never really stop knowing how to do it – you just have to get back into practice !! At least I am hoping that is what it will be like. I am EXTREMELY excited about this prospect and, if it doesn’t pay off, at least I won’t die wondering what would have happened if I had only tried !

To this end it may mean even less time for me to blog because while I have had to give up two nights per week at Coles, I will continue with the other two nights that I currently work just to keep my hand in and also then I will move back to permanent part-time staff when I am finished the course.

I hope you all enjoyed the festive season and that you are all fired up for 2008 – I know that I am and that there are going to be amazing things happening this year.

Take care and look after yourselves.

Added later : Got home from work and went on a 9.2km cycle - not the fastest time and boy did our legs feel it on the way home but exercise none the less. Then dashed off to WW - YAY a 3.8kg gain over the whole month - have to be happy with that given what I was expecting and how I have been eating and drinking !!! It wasn't the usual lady there and she was shocked when I got excited about such a big gain - told her I was expecting more and that I was happy with that !!!! Then got home and walked with A and K to the servo to get K's tyres pumped up as she is going to ride to work and back. So, it is all good in the M household.

Have a great week and go safely !