Getting back on track. Again.

I failed miserably at the challenge I set myself in the previous post. I thought it was unlikely that I would lose anything that week, but I've gone way too far in the other direction and put on three pounds in the past three weeks.



I haven't been very good at controlling myself over the Easter and birthday period. Sweet things always turn me into this person



and I end up binging.

I've been having big thinks about my relationship with food and such, but getting back on track, for now at least, probably isn't that complicated. I just need to control myself. In the long term though, I do need to rethink my attitude to food. Even after a year and three months of Weight Watchers, I still can't shake the idea that over-eating is fun. Which it is at the time, but I end up angry with myself on weigh-in day. I know that it's so not worth it, but I do it all the same.

I know I had the self-control at one point though. In this post from July, I was all about the self control. Now though, having one treat triggers the craving for more, and I end up letting myself binge. I've become lazy with my weight-watching.

I WILL have a loss this week though! Self-control and vegetables, here I come. I'll let you know how I do after next Friday's weigh-in :)

Friday, Friday
Gotta lose weight for Friday
Everybody's looking forward to a weight loss

(If you don't know what that last bit refers to, you're lucky. Or out of touch with memes. Both of which are healthy.)

Ups and downs

Weight-wise, I seem to have been a bit up and down lately. Over the past few weeks, I've been down 3.5lbs, up 1lb, down 1.5lbs, up half a pound, and, this week, down half a pound. Although, that's four pounds in five weeks, so that's really not that bad.

I got to my 10% goal last week too, yay :)

I got a dinky little keyring:



And a booklet full of inspiration:



I just need to keep up the good work really! I also to get a proper exercise routine started, as that is what's missing from my routine. I'm currently only 3.5lbs from my next silver 7 - that'll be a stone and a half, three-eighths of the way to my goal weight. I just need to get moving more to stop having so many gains!

Not only am I 3.5lbs from my next silver 7, I'm also 11lbs away from being a size 14. I've found that dropping a stone also seems to mean dropping a dress size. Well, I was a size 18 when I started, at 12st 7lbs, and I got down to a size 16 when I was about 11st 7lbs. I'm 11st 4lbs now, so in theory I have 11lbs to go until I'm a size 14. In 11 weeks' time it will be late October, so, as long as I don't put any weight on between now and then (although I think I probably have a pound or so of leeway), I'll be a size 14 for Halloween. :D You never know, I might even be a size 12 for Christmas!

Oh! :)

It seems I'd completely miscalculated my 10% goal. I don't know what I'd done to work it out as 10st 10lbs, but it is in fact the first two digits of of your start weight in pounds. My start weight was 175.5lbs, so my 10% goal was to lose 17lbs, or to reach 11st 4lbs. I did that yesterday, so I've reached my 10% :D I'll get a keyring and everything.

Invasion of the Body Slimmers

My kitchen is being taken over by Weight Watchers!



So many of the products I buy these days are WW ones. Crisps, ready meals, cookies and cakes, jam, bread, yoghurts, sugar-free sweets, even beans all bear the familiar blue logo. Even though I don't pay for meetings (I have vouchers from my GP), I'm sure WW make a fortune from me!

Woo!

Well, not quite yet! But I'm getting there. This headline is actually one of the things I use to motivate me - the article was in Look magazine a couple of months ago, and is about Jennifer Hudson's weight loss. She lost four stone, going from a size 18 to a 12, on Weight Watchers. This is exactly what I'm in the process of doing, so I do find it inspiring to have an occasional look at. :)

In fact, I lost 3.5 pounds at weigh-in today :D So now I have 2st 11.5lb to go. I did think I'd lost, because my jeans have been feeling looser over the past week.

I wonder if I could lose 3.5lbs next week? That would be half a stone in a fortnight (yay), without resorting to drastic diets like this one in Grazia:



"The diet's tough, there's no way round that - no grains, which means no bread, pasta or rice; no beans; just a smidgen of fruit and no alcohol." It works, I'm sure, but I could do the same eating properly on Weight Watchers, and not cutting out all the good stuff. I know which I'd rather do!

Dippy-doo-dahs

Dip, pitta bread and veggies - a more interesting lunch than my usual sandwich :)

Picturing it

I joined the Weight Watchers forum last night. I thought you had to be a paying WW member to join, and, as I had a referral from my doctor and I therefore don't have to pay, I thought I couldn't join the site. It seems that I could though! Everyone is really nice and supportive there - one of the girls posted a link to a thing called WeightWatchers Picture It - a little application that lets you see what you'll look like at your goal weight. All you do is upload a 'before' photo, mark where your head, hips etc. are on that photo, then you get a sliding scale so you can see what you'd look like at different weights. Here's mine (look at the chicken legs! Hehehe):


Try it yourself at www.weightwatcherspictureit.co.uk/. (Try it on IE if you're a Firefox user though.)

After yesterday's overindulgence, I'm back on track today. Had my usual breakfast of cereal and skimmed milk (2 points), a leftover lunch of a roast chicken and pea sandwich (8 points), and fish, oven chips and salad for dinner (6.5 points). I've also done what my pedometer tells me is a 'healthy' amount of exercise today. :) Hopefully I'll find I've lost a bit at weigh-in this week!

Quarter of the way there!

I lost two pounds this week, which means I've lost a stone (14lbs) altogether, woo hoo. A stone in four months is not too bad. Maybe I can lose the next stone more quickly though! If I lose a pound a week (not too ambitious), it'll be gone by the end of September. I might even be back to a size 14 by then, which would be very nice. I'd have so many more clothes!

Talking of clothes, as mentioned in a previous post, I've started to sell off a few pieces of clothing. It's not quite yet a case of selling my clothes because they're too big, but that can't be far off.

Click the image below for my little collection of eBay auctions:


Thank you please x

Hahaha, oops

No weight lost this week, oops. No weight gained either though, so it's not all bad. Although this week's effort wasn't helped by the pub lunch I had earlier - burger and chips, nom nom nom (and salad - healthy!). At least I didn't have what the boyfriend had - a mixed grill thing which involved steak, black pudding, gammon, a sausage, a fried egg and pork, plus chips. Mine was my entire points allowance for the day, so I dread to think of the points in his!

Fat clothes, thin(ner) clothes

I'm maybe being a bit premature, but I just felt the need to get my big-box-of-clothes-that-don't-fit-me-yet off the top of the wardrobe to see if any of them do actually fit me now. None of the jackets in the suitcase that was on top of it fit me yet, though that's no surprise because they're size 14s and 12s. Not quite there yet!

From the big-box-of-clothes, I've so far tried on a little purple skirt, as seen in a photo that I took a couple of years ago:



That just about fits me again (yay). I've also tried on two red dresses (one cotton, one velvet), but I've still got a bit too much belly for those! Hopefully there will be a few bits of clothing in the big box that can be taken to the charity shop (or sold on eBay, I'll let you know if I do that) so I can make a bit of space. I'm just looking forward to the day when I can give all my fat clothes to charity!

Reasons why being on a diet is actually good

The weight loss, obviously. After losing 5% of my body weight, I do feel fitter. Walking around doesn't wear me out so much now that there's less of me to lug around!

Weight Watchers cakes are actually quite nice.

I'm doing more proper cookery these days - cooking things from scratch with lots of fresh veg, which makes me feel like I've accomplished something, at least in a small way.

I have better self-esteem these days because I'm achieving something, i.e. weight loss. I'm finally doing what I've been talking about for so long.

I can watch Supersize vs Superskinny without feeling guilty, because I'm at a happy medium, rather than feeling like I have the eating habits of the larger person.

If you're a little bit Obsessive-Compulsive like me, the writing down, and adding up the points of, of everything you've eaten that day is quite enjoyable.

I won't say that it's easy, but it's certainly not as hard as I thought it would be.

Curry

Lost 3 pounds this week, woo! Okay, so I put on 2 and a half last week, so it's really only half a pound. That's still something though. Only 4 and a half to go til I've lost a whole stone!

That won't be helped by the curry we're going out for tomorrow though. Then again, these days I never eat a whole portion of curry. Lots of calculations happen so that I can have something nice but still be ok for points. The sort of thing I used to have was just ridiculous (points-wise I mean - it wasn't wearing a party hat or anything) - my pre-diet meal of butter chicken, pilau rice and a naan would be 32 points (eep). So I'm basically having half of everything for 16 points (or 13 if I don't have a cider). Still pointy, but worth it :)

Noes!

OK, I'm miffed today. I put on 2.5 pounds D: I can blame Easter for that - Sunday and Monday were declared no-diet days, so I shouldn't really be surprised. On Sunday we went to my Mum's, and she had lots of nice foods in, which of course got eaten. She'd made a trifle with mini eggs on top too, and my brother-in-law had made chocolate cake. I had two Easter eggs the next day as well. Nom nom nom ...

Back on track for this week though, and I've had a healthy-ish snack of reduced fat dip and baked crisps. 3.5 points, and part of my lunch - not too bad at all :) The 3 miles I've walked today, and tonight's dinner of Spaghetti Bolognese, from a Weight Watchers recipe, should help me on the way.

Ouchie

My knee hurts because there's too much weight on it, so I'm comfort eating. That's sensible. Although, does it count as comfort eating when you're genuinely hungry?

Only lost half a pound today. Bit miffed, but it's still something. We're getting a curry tonight though, so I'll probably put it straight back on :P Haven't had a curry since I started on Weight Watchers, so I'm looking forward to it! There's a shocking amount of points in a curry though ...

Hello to you

My pedometer thinks I'm evil. It tells me I have done 6606 steps today. That apparently counts as 'healthy' though, so I won't get too paranoid about it. I did 13800, or 5.2 miles, yesterday too. I always knew shopping was good for you.

So I started Weight Watchers last month, nearly three weeks ago now. I started at 12 st 7.5lb, pretty bad since I'm only 4' 10.5" tall (not that 'tall' is a particularly appropriate word!). At my last weigh-in, I was 12st 3.5lb. I keep thinking of long-term goals - the original one was to lose 3 stone by September, which is certainly doable. Although, since I lost 3 pounds last week, and if I lose 3 pounds again this week, that will be half a stone. So I've been thinking that if I keep up the same pace and lose half a stone every three weeks, I will have lost the 3 stone by mid-June. Which would be nice.

My mum keeps saying how proud she is of me, bless her. I've been meaning to start a weight-loss plan for, well, years now, and I'm feeling quite optimistic now that I've finally started. It's really not as hard as I thought it would be either - it's more about changing habits (like my epic snack habit) than giving up the foods I like, so it doesn't feel like I'm making big sacrifices. Though I have been craving a curry and a peshwari naan lately ...