Ramblings.

Thank you all for the lovely comments on my last entry :-) Lots of support and useful tips there for me. Outlaw, I may nip into town later and investigate this smart card to get weighed in Boots. I'm not going to weigh myself weekly though. Maybe monthly. My idea is to remove arbitrary deadlines, free myself to enjoy the odd special occasion without the fear of damaging the weekly weigh in, and therefore lose the "I've blown it now anyway..." mentality. God knows I've worked hard on that for the past 16 months but somehow it has remained entrenched deep within my psyche.

PLUKlurker I like the look of the book you suggest. I'm not offended, I'm not easily offended anyway and I see nothing to be offended by in your suggestion. Have you read the book and benefited from it yourself? I will probably buy it when I've been paid, so will get back to you on how that works.

Lots of comments on the portion control issue, which is interesting. I'm glad I'm not alone in finding that a concern. I'm not here to slag SW off, god knows it's been good for me, I do still weigh 5 1/2st less now than I did in January 2008 so it clearly does work. And there are lots of target members at my class. So maybe it depends on the cause of your weight problem. Maybe if you are someone who eats a fairly normal amount of food but the wrong type of food then SW is going to get you to target. But if you are someone with a big big appetite who can and does eat to the point of gluttony, then SW is going to have it's limitations. The big problem I see is that if my appetite doesn't reduce, then when I do fall off the wagon from time to time, it's a big fall because I can eat a lot. A lot of grapes may not be too damaging but a lot of pizza is a bad bad thing!

So how am I doing so far? Well, I had a couple of days of "relaxation". I didn't go berserk, I didn't want to have to report back here that I am in fact a weak willed bloater! I vowed to myself that I would be eating healthily from Tuesday morning. On Monday evening, while Rebecca was at her dance class, I nipped to Somerfield to get something for tea and because of the rushed nature of the evening I opted for a pizza with salad and garlic bread. I chose the healthier option for the garlic bread. I'm such a saint ;-) I had just drifted into the chocolate aisle and was considering a chocolatey treat when I bumped into the lady who takes the money at my SW class. I felt so embarrassed to be caught in the chocolate aisle with pizza in my basket that I made a hasty exit without any chocolate, so I was saved from myself by SW even though I don't go anymore.

I'm happy with what I ate yesterday. I decided to take a "low fat" approach, so I ate 2 crumpets for breakfast, with a smear of jam. No butter of course. This is much less breakfast than I was eating on SW, but because it was something I truly fancied, it was enough. Lunch was a jacket potato and beans, and for tea I was very lazy. I made chickpea curry using a jar of low fat (<3%) sauce. Snacks were fruit and yoghurt. Oh, and I made an effort to drink more water too. That is something I had let slip before.

Today I have had the yummy crumpets for breakfast again, for lunch I have a lovely salad and jacket spud lined up, and for tea I will be having leftover curry and boiled rice.

I realise my 5 a day was a bit absent yesterday, I've sorted that now by going shopping.

So I hope I'm on track. I'm certain that I am eating physically less with these meals which is a primary target for me. I think I am aiming to eat food that is less than 5% fat, that should keep me out of major danger. But does allow me a little bit of what I fancy which is a very good thing indeed.

Right I think I'll nip to Boots and get a baseline weight before I eat my lunch.