Seeking Recipes

Week 64

Weight: 17st 1.5lb
Loss This Week: 3lb
Total lost: 80lb

I got weighed wearing my jeans, and still lost 3lb, I'm happy with that, oh yeah!

So I end March weighing exactly the same as I did at the start of March - am I good at maintaining or what?! I consider this all good practice for when I'm trying to maintain my weight at 9st something hehehe!

The version of the plan I followed last week was the "desperate for Payday" plan. Poverty is good for weight loss apparently. This week I will be following the "Just been paid and gone mad in Sainsburys" plan and it will be interesting to compare and contrast the 2. Will I fare better on fresh melon and raspberries, or naked pasta and savoury rice? I know which one makes me feel healthier, but there is something quite nice and comforting about the kind of food you find at the very back of the cupboard. There's some mushy peas there calling my name just now, hmmm, what shall I have with them?

My aim for this week is a nice conservative 2lb loss. Slowly, slowly, ever so slowly. Let's not forget, it was the tortoise who won the race with the hare.

I have been trying to keep the spark alive by trying a new recipe every week (except that final empty purse week of the month!) so do me favour, lay your recipes on me. I am open to any suggestions, veggie or otherwise. I'll have to come up with an incentive for you, a competition or something. If I do that, I'll feel like a proper blogger! In the meantime, if I use your recipe I'll review it here, and of course link to your blog - how does that sound?

Aiming For The.....?

Week 63

Weight: 17st 4.5lb
Loss This Week: 2lb
Total lost: 77lb

Yay for a 2lb loss since I last stood on the scales. Bearing in mind the Birthday Weekend that occurred between then and now, I'm very pleased with that result!

This week I'm mostly wondering about how our high expectations can affect how well or badly we do at weight loss. There has been more than a handful of weeks where I've thrown myself heart and soul into The Plan, with the desire to shed 3 or more pounds, or to reach some transient goal, only to be disappointed. And disappointment can take me in one of two directions. It can either make me even more determined the following week, or it can make me throw my hands metaphorically in the air (to actually do it would be better for toning my upper arms though) and slide back into bad habits faster than you can say hot buttered crumpets.

Now, I've never been someone to set my sights low. I firmly believe that you have to aim for the stars to reach the moon. But even I can see that repeatedly setting myself up to fail may, in the long run, prove slightly detrimental to the overall goal. I know I'm not the only slimmer who is hard on themselves when they don't lose as much as they hoped for, and in the cold light of day, away from the emotion of the weigh in, I think it's a shame when we can't be kinder to ourselves. So this week, I aim to lose a nice steady pound or 2. I took years to get fat so I can afford to spend a fair bit of time getting slim too. I'm not going to set unrealistic targets, I'm not going to beat myself up for tiny losses and maintains when I have stuck to The Plan. And I am most certainly not going to fall by the wayside just because it's taking me a long time to get to where I want to be. I believe I have proved I'm in it for the long haul now, so there's no point stressing about how long that may turn out to be.

A final thought. Apparently it has been proven that owners tend to look like their dogs. What part of me looks in any way like either of my skinny greyhounds? Maybe the me we will see one day :-)

Long Time No See...

Wendy looks around furtively to check no one's looking, and runs back in!

Hiya! Fancy seeing you here!

OK, I confess, I didn't blog because I gained weight and ran out of ways to say so. But I miss my witterings, so I'm blogging despite that fact now! So what's been happening in the fortnight since I last put erm, fingers to keyboard?

Well I've had lots of fun! Last week I went to a Ceroc class which I've wanted to do for aaaaages! I finally decided to just do it and dragged a friend along for good measure. It was really good fun, and good exercise too, so I will be going back for sure, although not this week as I'm working that night. Can I just say though, if you are a man reading this, please go and join your local Ceroc classs! The class I was at was seriously short of men, and it's a man-led dance so we need you!

It was my birthday yesterday, and was preceded by a girls day / night out in Manchester on Saturday. We went to all the "nice" places, including cocktails at the Midland Hotel, which makes me feel sooooo sophisticated! And my friends (I was out at the front of the group somewhere and managed to miss this!) saw a boxer called Ola Afolabi leaving the Radisson Hotel on his way to a match. He went with some top girly training tips ringing in his ears (try and kill him, and if you think you're going to lose, walk away!) and he went on to beat his opponent which was apparently a bit of an unexpected result! So maybe my friends have missed their vocation and should be ringside telling boxers to be careful!

As the nicer weather has started to peep out, thoughts turn to the garden. My "lawn" was a disgrace, thanks to the work of 2 dogs. I decided the only thing I could do was fence it off to keep them off it totally, dig it up and start from scratch. My first plan involved paying someone to do it. But I'm not rolling in cash, and it's hard graft rather than rocket science so I've been doing it myself. The fence is a cheap and cheerful affair, low enough for me step over, but high enough to confuse 2 long legged greyhounds who have no idea of the concept of jumping. Digging the old lawn up was a massive task, but I finished it yesterday in the sunshine and am rather proud of my efforts. Today I have raked in some fertiliser, and now I'm torn between buying some turf for instant gratification, or grass seed. The decision comes down to cash really, but I'm going to be unhappy if the birds eat all my seed, that's all I'm saying!

So I've not been the most committed dieter these past couple of weeks, but I've certainly been doing the "move more" part of the equation. And as always, I'm delighted by my ability to do these things. I'm healthy and active, and that's what's important.

Hair, Makeup, Wardrobe, Action!

Week 60

Weight: 17st 1.5lb
Loss This Week: 1lb
Total lost: 80lb

That was a week of herculean effort for 1lb, but hey, I won't complain at a loss, just hope for a bigger one next time!

This week it's all about my look again. I just feel very "meh" about my hair and wardrobe at the moment. I've got clothes that will do rather than clothes I love and that just isn't good enough! I've been browsing clothing collections online and in catalogues and I don't even know what look I want to be in! I kind of know what I like, but I'm not finding it. And as for my hair, well you can all see the state of that - the picture over there <------- shows it in it's true colours. It is pretty frizzy if not well tamed. It can look lovely when the natural curl falls just right, but a bit of rain or humidity and I'm a wreck. If I have it cut shorter the curl becomes more prominent but I'm never convinced I suit short hair.

On the plus side I'm happy with my face right now. I don't know whether you had noticed but I've done a bit of work on my blog, sorting out links to posts so recipes, photos etc are easy to find. In doing so I was forced to confront my "before" pics and it really showed me how far I've come! My face is so so different now. My skin is pretty good too, and in the last week or so I have made the effort to wear a bit of make up every day. I have had so many people telling me that I look "well", "healthy", "fresh", etc that I know it's more than worth the few minutes a day it takes to do.

Of course, all this means shopping. A hard job, but someone has to do it.