Holiday Snaps.

We're back!

We ended up coming home a day early because we had a day and a half of horrible weather, high wind, driving rain and so so cold, so in the end we gave up, packed up and headed for a day trip to Blackpool on the way home instead. As it happens, the weather turned and the sun shone that very afternoon, but I still think we made the right decision because we were getting tired and grouchy in a cold wet tent. And the tent suffered a modicum of damage, in the form of a rip to a seam, so water was getting in. But I am actually very happy with the tent's performance - it really was getting battered by the wind, enough that I was up in the night walking round checking everything was still pegged down. The wind can sound scary in the dead of night when you can feel the groundsheet underneath you trying to lift off the ground!

Anyway, photo time!

We had a visitor in the form of Barnaby Bear from school, and our task is to create a photo diary of Barnaby's half term, so the first photos are of Barnaby at a ballet class, and the following day at church.



We went to a lovely camp site near Morcambe, called Red Bank Farm. We've been before, and loved the wide open spaces, but found the facilities just a little bit too basic. But since then there has been an upgrade, and the facilities are lovely now. There is even a lovely cafe on site, which was very handy for a warming breakfast after a night of holding the tent down. No Points counted I'm afraid, my excuse was I was cold to my very core and if I didn't warm up I might die!

Here's the view from our tent.



Gorgeous isn't it!

Rebecca playing, plus the required inclusion of Barnaby!



The weather looks fab there doesn't it! How could I possibly need a hot breakfast bun plus hot chocolate then?





I think you can actually see the chill in the air in those shots!

But we went on to have a blast in Blackpool, walking along the beach, playing with the waves, fair rides etc, and I think these pics show that we found fun in the end!






We camped with friends, but obviously I have not used photos with them in, since I haven't asked their permission to plaster them all over the internet!

Oh yes, this is my diet blog so I had better mention it! I found a Weight Watchers class in Morcambe and trotted along to get weighed - I lost 4 1/2lbs! I can't complain at that at all, it makes it all worthwhile.

Hope you enjoyed my holiday snaps!

I'll have a banana!

Well, this Weight Watchers malarky is quite a revelation! Early signs are that it is easier to eat the wrong things on WW, whereas it is easier to eat to the point of gluttony and beyond with SW. So I guess what works best will depend on what your particular vice is. I did a good job of learning to make wise food choices with SW, but the portion control side of things was out of the window. So in that regard, WW is proving to be a good thing, although I'm not in love with feeling hungry!

Here's what I mean about eating the wrong things though. In a direct choice between a banana and a packet of WW cheese puffs, the right choice is clearly the banana. But the banana is a higher point value than the cheese puffs, so the person who has a bigger appetite won't need much persuading to take the orange coloured maize snack. I could have 3 packets of them for the price of 2 bananas!

That said, I'm enjoying making different choices to when I did SW. It's easier to eat on the go - I can buy a ready made sandwich if I need to and just work out the points. It really never seemed so easy to work out the values of the same meal on SW to be honest. Your experience may vary.

I am off camping tomorrow. I've printed out a list of the nearest WW classes to my campsite, so all things being equal, I should be getting weighed while I'm gone, but I won't be able to tell you about it until I get back at the weekend. I'm crossing my fingers for a decent loss, because the portions of rice I have been eating have made me feel ravenous! A bad result will hurl me into the pit of despair and I don't like that pit one little bit.

From SW to WW - It isn't Easy!

Oh man, Weight Watchers is hard! The concept is easy enough: Eat this many points worth of food per day and you will lose weight. It's the execution that has my head spinning. I need to forget everything I ever thought I knew about eating and start from scratch. No longer can I grab an apple, or gorge on a punnet of strawberries because fruit is not free food! It all has points, and it's going to take me a while to adjust to that cold hard fact!

And as for portion sizes, well I'm feeling faint at the WW concept of a medium portion of rice, pasta, cereal etc. This is what I expected though. I ate a LOT of these foods before, I filled my boots. And now I can't. 'Tis a fair shock to the system!

The truth is, I am currently feeling properly hungry, but stupidly I don't need to be. I have points left. But I also have to go to work tonight, and I don't want to leave myself short of meal options for there.

Here's what I've eaten today:

Breakfast was a sachet of Oatso Simple with 180mls of semi skimmed milk. As fas as I can tell, this is 4 points worth. I would love to be corrected if I'm wrong!

Lunch was a handy WW ready meal consisting of 5.5 points. It was delicious. It fitted on a side plate. I followed this with a tasty WW yoghurt at 0.5 points.

For tea I had a WW pizza (3.5 points) and filled up with a massive salad, including about 1 points worth of coleslaw. I don't intend to survive soley on WW branded products, but I'm just trying to feel my way in to it. Tomorrow I will cook from scratch. Probably. I have also had a sugar free jelly (nil points) and an orange (0.5 points)

That's 15 points. My usual points allowance will be 26, but I think I'm meant to be having 18 this week, for the Fast Start thingy. That leaves me 3 for the night shift then. I'm pretty certain that the only way I can survive it is to take a day, whatever sort of day, work or otherwise, to be midnight to midnight meaning I can take a cereal bar and some fruit to eat after midnight, and still be able to have a mini pitta with tuna and salad before midnight.

It's all very complicated. I needed to wear my glasses to do the grocery shopping today, because I spent all my time reading food labels and trying to work out the points.

I implore all the WW followers in Blogland to come to my aid and give my your best tips!

Very Conflicted!

My last weigh in at SW was 13th April, and I weighed 17st 5lbs. Since then I have let one bad habit after another slip back in. I'd be in Tesco buying lovely salad inrgedients, and then a Chunky Kit Kat would fall into my basket. The call of white bread proved too strong, and in particular toast suddenly became part of my daily diet again. And then the convenience of the vending machine at work, which I hadn't visited for well over a year, suddenly became essential!

So it goes without saying that the pounds have crept back on, and that's why I've not blogged - I didn't want to blog about gaining weight, and I couldn't just chatter inanely and ignore the big fat weak willed bloater in the room! So I kept logging on to my blog, starting a few sentences and then clicking the cross in the corner and leaving it "for now..."

So what brings me back? Well I couldn't allow this to go on for another day, so I've taken a drastic step. One that I feel very conflicted about. I've been this morning and joined Weight Watchers. I had a voucher out of the newspaper making this week a freebie, so I went with the "nothing to lose" mindset. The reason I'm so conflicted about this decision is that a: I know SW works as long as you do actually stick to it, and b: I really really miss being inspired by Heather and the members of my old SW class. But I can't get to my old class. Heather does a class on another day too, but for all sorts of reasons a Weds morning class is actually very convenient for me. And I did say when I was on the eternal plateau that I needed to change something, so let's give WW a go. I need to sit down and look at the points, shake the SW plan out of my brain and work on some meal plans now.

Oh, you probably want to know about the weigh in. It is with deep, deep regret that I have to inform you that I weigh 18st and half a pound this morning. I could blame my heavy denim skirt, or that "last meal" breakfast I ate before I went. Or I could even say the scales are probably wrong because they are on carpet and definitely wobbled when I stood on them. But what I'm actually going to say is 9 1/2lbs on? It could be a hell of a lot worse actually, I gained 7 in Xmas week alone! We are away next week for half term, so I'm going to have to find a class to attend to get weighed while we are away. I could have waited until we got back to join, it would have been easier in a way. But I couldn't just keep sliding for another fortnight. Today's the day I take myself in hand!

And now I'm going to find the WW forum and look for some inspiration and ideas. Wish me luck!

A Wonder Pill?

Ack, too much time has slipped by since my last post, that's no good!

So how has it been going? Well, I've made some good choices, some OK choices, and some bad choices. I feel as though I'm relearning how to function at the moment which is a bit mad. I need to focus now though or things will slide away from me. I got weighed in Boots shortly after my last post, and according to their scales I had lost 1lb. Obviously I have no idea how their calibration compares to the SW scales, so I'm just going to have to take that weight (17st 4lb) as the baseline and see how I go from there.

Interestingly, the day I went to weigh myself, use of the scales was free. This was due to an instore promo for the release of the over the counter diet pill, Alli. As far as I can gather, Alli is the little brother of Xenical, containing half the strength of the active ingredient, Orlistat, making it available for over the counter sales. I've taken Xenical, oh yes! I'm sure you will have read all about the heinous side effects of that little wonder drug...most notably, and horrifyingly the way the fat is expelled, often without prior warning, from your body. I didn't suffer that particular unacceptable side effect, I tend to think this is because while I was taking them I followed a very low fat diet. I shudder to think what would have happened if I had fancied a curry one night....

The crux of the matter though is that they didn't prove to be the answer. Yes I followed a low fat diet for a while, but as soon as I fell off the wagon, I just stopped taking them. I probably have the unfinished pack somewhere. Would I take them again? I wouldn't rule it out, I would consider all the options available to help me get to a healthy weight. I would by far prefer to do it without pills or surgery or witchcraft, but I had a lightbulb moment after writing about wanting to be in Slimming World magazine. It's meant to be about me losing weight, not glory seeking. I don't need to appear in print to be a success. I just need to lose the damn weight! So I will give due consideration to any and all possible solutions. What I won't be doing however is paying £1 a day for a pill that is half the strength of the version available for the price of a prescription. There is a recession on after all!