Week 55
Weight: 17st 6lb
Loss This Week: 1.5lb
Total lost: 75.5lb
A result that can only be explained by a miracle!
Thank you to those of you who replied to my last entry. I think writing it was cathartic because I pretty much got my head back in gear straight after, and a few well aimed kicks from you guys have certainly helped! Turns out I was indeed hormonal, and add into the mix the fact that it's January, and therefore a very long time since the pre Christmas payday, so I haven't been able to go and fill a trolley with delicious healthy food and I can see why I let it get me down. I get paid on Wednesday, and have got lots of yummy recipes lined up to keep me excited for this week.
Because laughter is the best medicine I'm going to just leave you with a clip from this week's Dancing on Ice. If you are in the UK you must have seen it by now, but enjoy it again anyway!
Or I would, if only I could work out how to post it on here!
Just go to Youtube and enjoy. And if anyone can help me out with the technical know how (cos I am following the instructions given on Blogger.com!!) I would be mighty grateful!
Monday 26 January 2009
Saturday 24 January 2009
What can make a hippopotamus smile?
What can make a hippopotamus smile?
What can make him walk for more than a mile?
It's not a party with a paper hat.
Or cake and candy that will make him fat.
That's not what hippos do!
They ooze in the gooze without any shoes.
They wade in the water 'til their lips turn blue.
That's what hippos do!
This is the cute song my lovely daughter has been singing a lot this week. But it tells you a lot about how things have been for me when I tell you that she changed the first line to "What can make my grumpy mummy smile?"
I don't know whether I've been really hormonal (I ought to keep track of these things!) but I've been awful - snappy, tired, and oh my god the hunger! Pasta Queen Jeanette talks about food addiction and describes trigger foods as those into which you usually find yourself plunging face first. This is a very graphic representation of how I have felt about food this week. I have fantasised about plunging face first into certain foods. And although I have resisted doing that, I haven't resisted much else.
Today I am mostly hating myself and wondering whether I can keep doing this. Right now it just feels futile. I haven't actually lost weight since August, if you add up all those losses and gains. I get so many "Your an inspiration!" type comments, and I'm so not! I had high hopes that a New Year would revitalise me, and January isn't even over yet and I've lost it. God I'm a fraud!
OK I don't do self pity, and I don't want to start, so I'm going to stop whining right now.
To end this crappy entry on a high, let me just say a HUGE Congratulations!! to Bryher, who made it to target this week, losing 6st 9lbs in just 362 days. Now that lady is an inspiration!
What can make him walk for more than a mile?
It's not a party with a paper hat.
Or cake and candy that will make him fat.
That's not what hippos do!
They ooze in the gooze without any shoes.
They wade in the water 'til their lips turn blue.
That's what hippos do!
This is the cute song my lovely daughter has been singing a lot this week. But it tells you a lot about how things have been for me when I tell you that she changed the first line to "What can make my grumpy mummy smile?"
I don't know whether I've been really hormonal (I ought to keep track of these things!) but I've been awful - snappy, tired, and oh my god the hunger! Pasta Queen Jeanette talks about food addiction and describes trigger foods as those into which you usually find yourself plunging face first. This is a very graphic representation of how I have felt about food this week. I have fantasised about plunging face first into certain foods. And although I have resisted doing that, I haven't resisted much else.
Today I am mostly hating myself and wondering whether I can keep doing this. Right now it just feels futile. I haven't actually lost weight since August, if you add up all those losses and gains. I get so many "Your an inspiration!" type comments, and I'm so not! I had high hopes that a New Year would revitalise me, and January isn't even over yet and I've lost it. God I'm a fraud!
OK I don't do self pity, and I don't want to start, so I'm going to stop whining right now.
To end this crappy entry on a high, let me just say a HUGE Congratulations!! to Bryher, who made it to target this week, losing 6st 9lbs in just 362 days. Now that lady is an inspiration!
Tuesday 20 January 2009
Just a Fling?
Week 54
Weight: 17st 7.5lb
Loss This Week: 0lb
Total lost: 74lb
I stayed the same?? I stayed the bleeding same? Huh! Not only did I stick 100% to The Plan, but I had a 24 hour vomiting bug which probably negated everything I ate for the previous 3 days!
And I stayed the same.
OK, a maintain I can deal with. It's ok, it's not a weird random gain. It may be worth me stepping away from the joy of Extra Easy though, and going back to my trusty old green days, maybe keep the exciting stuff for special occasions.
It's as though I'm married to Green, and having a little extra-marital fling with Extra Easy! It's fun, glamorous and exciting but it's not the kind of plan you can take home to meet your parents ;)
Weight: 17st 7.5lb
Loss This Week: 0lb
Total lost: 74lb
I stayed the same?? I stayed the bleeding same? Huh! Not only did I stick 100% to The Plan, but I had a 24 hour vomiting bug which probably negated everything I ate for the previous 3 days!
And I stayed the same.
OK, a maintain I can deal with. It's ok, it's not a weird random gain. It may be worth me stepping away from the joy of Extra Easy though, and going back to my trusty old green days, maybe keep the exciting stuff for special occasions.
It's as though I'm married to Green, and having a little extra-marital fling with Extra Easy! It's fun, glamorous and exciting but it's not the kind of plan you can take home to meet your parents ;)
Friday 16 January 2009
Wii Fit Review
As requested by Loth and Lakeland Jo, here's what I think so far of the famed Wii Fit.
I love it!
The end.
Only kidding, I do love it, and I shall tell you why!
First of all, it thinks I am 32, when in truth I will be 42 in March. This is allegedly due to my superior athletic and balancing ability. It strokes my ego, what more can I say!
Life on the Wii Fit begins with a Body Test, which consists of measuring weight and BMI, and setting goals. It then goes on to check out your core balance and ask if you fall over a lot! How rude! There's nifty charts to track your progress, but it does prefer you to weigh in daily which I don't like! You can skip it though, so it's no biggy.
The training has 4 sections: Yoga, Muscle Workout, Aerobics and Balance. Let's look at them one at a time.
Yoga: I haven't done any yoga for ages, and I used to love it. It was just too hard to fit the class in with my work / sleep pattern. So I am enjoying the Yoga! I miss the overall class experience, with the incense and the chill out music, the dim lights and soothing voice of the class instructor. But that is compensated for by the feedback! Getting a score for how well I hold a pose really appeals to something in me! The idea is the instructor of your choice (male or female) leads you in the poses and then as you hold the position you are scored on how well you keep the dot inside the predetermined area. Too much wobbling and he knows you fell over! For some reason I score well on pretty much all the Yoga poses, and this pleases me. At the end of the Yoga session my body knows it has worked, no doubt about it.
Muscle Workout: I'm just going to skim over this because it lacks appeal to me so I don't tend to do these exercises. I should discipline myself and do them! But the principle is the same as the yoga, complete with instructor. I'm sure they are excellent, but I'm the kind of person who skips this bit on exercise DVDs too!
Aerobic: This section is very cool! It starts out with some simple hula hooping, jogging and step, and then you get to unlock harder step, much much harder hula hooping, boxing and something I've not yet unlocked! The hula hooping is hard. Oh so hard. I'm doing the 6 minute Super Hula Hoop at the moment - 3 minutes right, 3 minutes left. If you don't do it right, you drop the hoops. It's hard enough exercise that I have to cheerlead myself through it to get to the end. "Come on - come ON! Keep going, you can do it, you can do it! Aaargh!!!" I'm glad I don't usually have witnesses to this. One day soon, when I can have an ambulance on standby, I'm going to try the 10 minute segment! The step is fun too, but not as much fun or as challenging as my old Cher step video. But again, feedback and bettering your score is what keeps you going back for more. The Wii Fit exercises very cleverly tap into my competitive core. For those days when you are full of pent up aggression, the rhythm boxing is cool. You get instructions in what sequence of punches to make, and then you give it your all - "Left! Right! Left! Block!" and at the end you get to beat the hell out of the punchbag in a manner of your own choosing. You'd need a shower even if this was the only thing you did.
Balance: This section is just pure fun - all the games are about making slight changes in your balance to roll marbles safely into holes, or navigate a ski slope, or catch fish dressed as a penguin without sliding into the sea, or walk a tightrope while a metal monster tries to bite you....This is where I go first when I turn Wii Fit on. The balance games get me in the mood and provide a good warm up for the harder stuff. I literally danced round the room in glee when I made it across that tightrope! And I'm the only person in the household to do so at the time of writing!
I end my session in the Balance section too, on a game called Zazen, which involves sitting cross legged on the balance board and gazing at a flickering candle. If you move, the candle will blow out. They try to make you move, but I'm very good at sitting still so they can't catch me out! It's a nice way to cool down and empty your mind though.
Out of the box, there's only a handful of games unlocked, but the more time you spend on Wii Fit, the more games you unlock. It is pretty quick and easy to do the unlocking - there's no horrendously difficult tasks to achieve before you do.
If I was forced to criticise anything about the Wii Fit, it's that you can't swap between players without having to go back to the Wii Fit Plaza and swap totally. Some of the games lend themselves very nicely to drunken party fun, but having to have each player fully exit the game in order to allow the next to play is a bit of a drag really. But I'm nitpicking.
My Wii is in the front room. I have big big windows. It's the innocent passers-by I feel most sorry for!
I love it!
The end.
Only kidding, I do love it, and I shall tell you why!
First of all, it thinks I am 32, when in truth I will be 42 in March. This is allegedly due to my superior athletic and balancing ability. It strokes my ego, what more can I say!
Life on the Wii Fit begins with a Body Test, which consists of measuring weight and BMI, and setting goals. It then goes on to check out your core balance and ask if you fall over a lot! How rude! There's nifty charts to track your progress, but it does prefer you to weigh in daily which I don't like! You can skip it though, so it's no biggy.
The training has 4 sections: Yoga, Muscle Workout, Aerobics and Balance. Let's look at them one at a time.
Yoga: I haven't done any yoga for ages, and I used to love it. It was just too hard to fit the class in with my work / sleep pattern. So I am enjoying the Yoga! I miss the overall class experience, with the incense and the chill out music, the dim lights and soothing voice of the class instructor. But that is compensated for by the feedback! Getting a score for how well I hold a pose really appeals to something in me! The idea is the instructor of your choice (male or female) leads you in the poses and then as you hold the position you are scored on how well you keep the dot inside the predetermined area. Too much wobbling and he knows you fell over! For some reason I score well on pretty much all the Yoga poses, and this pleases me. At the end of the Yoga session my body knows it has worked, no doubt about it.
Muscle Workout: I'm just going to skim over this because it lacks appeal to me so I don't tend to do these exercises. I should discipline myself and do them! But the principle is the same as the yoga, complete with instructor. I'm sure they are excellent, but I'm the kind of person who skips this bit on exercise DVDs too!
Aerobic: This section is very cool! It starts out with some simple hula hooping, jogging and step, and then you get to unlock harder step, much much harder hula hooping, boxing and something I've not yet unlocked! The hula hooping is hard. Oh so hard. I'm doing the 6 minute Super Hula Hoop at the moment - 3 minutes right, 3 minutes left. If you don't do it right, you drop the hoops. It's hard enough exercise that I have to cheerlead myself through it to get to the end. "Come on - come ON! Keep going, you can do it, you can do it! Aaargh!!!" I'm glad I don't usually have witnesses to this. One day soon, when I can have an ambulance on standby, I'm going to try the 10 minute segment! The step is fun too, but not as much fun or as challenging as my old Cher step video. But again, feedback and bettering your score is what keeps you going back for more. The Wii Fit exercises very cleverly tap into my competitive core. For those days when you are full of pent up aggression, the rhythm boxing is cool. You get instructions in what sequence of punches to make, and then you give it your all - "Left! Right! Left! Block!" and at the end you get to beat the hell out of the punchbag in a manner of your own choosing. You'd need a shower even if this was the only thing you did.
Balance: This section is just pure fun - all the games are about making slight changes in your balance to roll marbles safely into holes, or navigate a ski slope, or catch fish dressed as a penguin without sliding into the sea, or walk a tightrope while a metal monster tries to bite you....This is where I go first when I turn Wii Fit on. The balance games get me in the mood and provide a good warm up for the harder stuff. I literally danced round the room in glee when I made it across that tightrope! And I'm the only person in the household to do so at the time of writing!
I end my session in the Balance section too, on a game called Zazen, which involves sitting cross legged on the balance board and gazing at a flickering candle. If you move, the candle will blow out. They try to make you move, but I'm very good at sitting still so they can't catch me out! It's a nice way to cool down and empty your mind though.
Out of the box, there's only a handful of games unlocked, but the more time you spend on Wii Fit, the more games you unlock. It is pretty quick and easy to do the unlocking - there's no horrendously difficult tasks to achieve before you do.
If I was forced to criticise anything about the Wii Fit, it's that you can't swap between players without having to go back to the Wii Fit Plaza and swap totally. Some of the games lend themselves very nicely to drunken party fun, but having to have each player fully exit the game in order to allow the next to play is a bit of a drag really. But I'm nitpicking.
My Wii is in the front room. I have big big windows. It's the innocent passers-by I feel most sorry for!
Monday 12 January 2009
Part Two!
Week 53
Weight: 17st 7.5lb
Loss This Week: 4.5lb
Gain lost: 74lb
It works, it really works! Extra Easy was my plan of choice all this week and look at the result! I felt pretty confident all week too, until I was in the queue for the scales, and then I started thinking "Oh god, what if I have gained weight? I can't believe I could lose weight when I've eaten meat and rice on the same plate!" Obviously it is possible! Witchcraft.
I haven't had time to blog during this week because I've been buried under a mountain of clutter. I foolishly decided that I wanted to make the spare room into a play room. To do that I first had to move all the stuff already in the spare room to somewhere else. To do that, I had to empty the cupboard under the stairs, and the stuff from there had to move to - well, you can see how it escalated! It wasn't until late Saturday that we reached the stage where we could get toys moved into the new play room, and it took until Sunday lunchtime to sort out the resulting shockwaves on just about every other room in the house. I've been to the tip, I'e freecycled, I've been to the charity shop, I've been to the recycling bins. And my house doesn't seem to have much less stuff in. Bizarre! Now I just need to sort out the toys in the way that a mother can do only when her child is out of the house!
I have had requests for a review of the Wii Fit, which I have to say I love a lot. I will make that my next entry later this week, assuming I survive the Great Toy Cull of 2009!
Weight: 17st 7.5lb
Loss This Week: 4.5lb
Gain lost: 74lb
It works, it really works! Extra Easy was my plan of choice all this week and look at the result! I felt pretty confident all week too, until I was in the queue for the scales, and then I started thinking "Oh god, what if I have gained weight? I can't believe I could lose weight when I've eaten meat and rice on the same plate!" Obviously it is possible! Witchcraft.
I haven't had time to blog during this week because I've been buried under a mountain of clutter. I foolishly decided that I wanted to make the spare room into a play room. To do that I first had to move all the stuff already in the spare room to somewhere else. To do that, I had to empty the cupboard under the stairs, and the stuff from there had to move to - well, you can see how it escalated! It wasn't until late Saturday that we reached the stage where we could get toys moved into the new play room, and it took until Sunday lunchtime to sort out the resulting shockwaves on just about every other room in the house. I've been to the tip, I'e freecycled, I've been to the charity shop, I've been to the recycling bins. And my house doesn't seem to have much less stuff in. Bizarre! Now I just need to sort out the toys in the way that a mother can do only when her child is out of the house!
I have had requests for a review of the Wii Fit, which I have to say I love a lot. I will make that my next entry later this week, assuming I survive the Great Toy Cull of 2009!
Monday 5 January 2009
End of Part One
Week 52
Weight: 17st 12lb
Loss This Week: 4lb
Gain lost: 69.5lb
Week 52! Wow, that's a whole year of Slimming World! That's huge!
I can take on the world, and win!
I'm delighted with my loss this week, not least because the weekend was somewhat.....celebratory..... teehee! But I was good as gold for the first half of the week, and I did try to moderate myself even when I was swimming in alcohol. Honest!
Going back to my last entry, I did give the Extra Easy a go in the end, and I liked it! I'm definitely going with it this week, because I suspect it will actually be very beneficial. For example, I had a late lunch, more of a brunch, of egg, bacon, sausage, mushrooms and beans and I was just totally full for the rest of the day. I didn't need to snack at all, and I only needed a light meal later. So I ate lots less than usual. Which may be why it works.
I'm working on my "move more" resolution - my wonderful brother got us a Wii Fit for Christmas and I've been playing on it since yesterday. Initially I thought it seemed easy and doubted the possibility of actually improving my fitness. But a few goes on the hula hooping had me near collapsed so I've reviewed my opinion and fully expect to get very fit indeed! I have awesome balance apparently and am brilliant at the Yoga poses. Good to know :) (Rebecca thinks my little fat Mii is hilarious!)
I need to rest now. I've promised Rebecca I'll pull her to school on her sledge in the morning if it's still snowy. I need to get my strength up!
Weight: 17st 12lb
Loss This Week: 4lb
Gain lost: 69.5lb
Week 52! Wow, that's a whole year of Slimming World! That's huge!
I can take on the world, and win!
I'm delighted with my loss this week, not least because the weekend was somewhat.....celebratory..... teehee! But I was good as gold for the first half of the week, and I did try to moderate myself even when I was swimming in alcohol. Honest!
Going back to my last entry, I did give the Extra Easy a go in the end, and I liked it! I'm definitely going with it this week, because I suspect it will actually be very beneficial. For example, I had a late lunch, more of a brunch, of egg, bacon, sausage, mushrooms and beans and I was just totally full for the rest of the day. I didn't need to snack at all, and I only needed a light meal later. So I ate lots less than usual. Which may be why it works.
I'm working on my "move more" resolution - my wonderful brother got us a Wii Fit for Christmas and I've been playing on it since yesterday. Initially I thought it seemed easy and doubted the possibility of actually improving my fitness. But a few goes on the hula hooping had me near collapsed so I've reviewed my opinion and fully expect to get very fit indeed! I have awesome balance apparently and am brilliant at the Yoga poses. Good to know :) (Rebecca thinks my little fat Mii is hilarious!)
I need to rest now. I've promised Rebecca I'll pull her to school on her sledge in the morning if it's still snowy. I need to get my strength up!
Thursday 1 January 2009
Extra Easy
Slimming World have pulled some witchcraft, and created a plan that lets you eat anything at all, in any quantity you like, and still lose weight. Well, anything except bread and cheese - you have to limit them. Other than that though, fill your boots!
OK, it's not quite that free! But reading it for the first time, that's the feeling you come away with!
It goes something like this:
You choose 1 Healthy Extra A (cheese or milk in the main) and 1 Healthy Extra B (breads, cereals etc) per day, and 5-15 syns. And eat as much as you like of lean meat, fish, eggs, fruit, veg, pasta, rice, pulses etc. Yes, on the same plate! You don't have to choose whether to have meat or rice with your curry, you can have both. As much as you want!
There has to be a catch, surely?
Is it one of those rigid, no good for nightworkers, 3 meals per day plans? Nope.
Can you only snack on carrot and celery? Nope.
Have we lost all the branded free foods then, that made life easy sometimes? No.
Aaaah, it must be a much more limited choice of food! Happily not! The sole proviso appears to be a recommendation that a third of your plate is filled with "superfree" food, essentially veg or fruit, although not exclusively.
I came away from class very excited about trying this! Chicken curry made with actual chicken? Jacket potato filled with tuna! Oh my word, I can make stew with potato in!!
However, haven't been able to do let myself do it. I've tried, but when I look at what I've eaten it's been fine for a green day, with (for example) tuna as a HEB. It's as though I've been given too big a gift. I've taken it out, looked and admired it, and put it reverentially back in the box.
It's nice to know it's there, it is going to come in handy on special occasions, meals out etc, but it's too good to use every day!
OK, it's not quite that free! But reading it for the first time, that's the feeling you come away with!
It goes something like this:
You choose 1 Healthy Extra A (cheese or milk in the main) and 1 Healthy Extra B (breads, cereals etc) per day, and 5-15 syns. And eat as much as you like of lean meat, fish, eggs, fruit, veg, pasta, rice, pulses etc. Yes, on the same plate! You don't have to choose whether to have meat or rice with your curry, you can have both. As much as you want!
There has to be a catch, surely?
Is it one of those rigid, no good for nightworkers, 3 meals per day plans? Nope.
Can you only snack on carrot and celery? Nope.
Have we lost all the branded free foods then, that made life easy sometimes? No.
Aaaah, it must be a much more limited choice of food! Happily not! The sole proviso appears to be a recommendation that a third of your plate is filled with "superfree" food, essentially veg or fruit, although not exclusively.
I came away from class very excited about trying this! Chicken curry made with actual chicken? Jacket potato filled with tuna! Oh my word, I can make stew with potato in!!
However, haven't been able to do let myself do it. I've tried, but when I look at what I've eaten it's been fine for a green day, with (for example) tuna as a HEB. It's as though I've been given too big a gift. I've taken it out, looked and admired it, and put it reverentially back in the box.
It's nice to know it's there, it is going to come in handy on special occasions, meals out etc, but it's too good to use every day!
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