Summer Holidays

Let us not speak of dieting and weigh ins! Instead, let us speak of summer and sunshine and fun!

The summer is of course awash with excuses for eating ice cream and burgers and I am not immune to these tasty temptations, but be assured that I am fulfilling my "turning up for weigh in" obligations when I am not away, and will be a good girl again very soon!

So far this summer we have had 3 trips away, with a 4th happening later this week. We are jumping on a train to Bournemouth to stay with my best friend from junior school - we've not set eyes on each other for over 30 years, but we found each other again thanks to the wonder that is the internet and the grand reunion is on Thursday! I'm excited and scared in equal measure and I bet she is too! But she has lured us to Bournemouth with the promise of endless sunshine, and after a quick look at the grey sky here, well who am I to argue!

Speaking of meeting people, I have been in the presence of greatness! I went camping with some friends and had the very great pleasure of meeting Spence Kennedy who writes Siren Voices. I have to admit to feeling pretty much star struck. I love the way Spence writes, the way he paints the picture with his words, and that he never ever passes judgement on what he has seen. There is no political debate, no angst at the issues that rage within the NHS, just stories about people. So I was in the presence of a great author, and all my words deserted me. He probably thought I was quiet or standoffish or something because the best I could do was smile and say hello most of the time - how embarrasing! But he's one of the good guys so I doubt he'll hold it against me. And he did try to help me jumpstart my car, and left me with a pack of wet wipes so I could clean my hands once I'd managed to get going again.

I should have got him to autograph the wipes - one day this guy will have his writing in print, of that I am certain!

Light Bulb!

Weight: 18st 1.5lbs
Loss: l.5lb
Total loss 66lbs

A little smaller loss than I would have liked but I am totally determined to see any loss as a good thing and not allow myself to fall because I became downhearted. So yay!

I had a little lightbulb moment this week. Without a doubt we all know that its important to eat breakfast and drink plenty of fluids. And usually I put this into practice because rules are rules after all. But one day this week I got involved in a busy day without eating or drinking before I began and as the day wore on I found myself battling severe cravings. I wasn't hungry. I couldn't have sat and eaten a big meal or anything. But I wanted chocolate or cake oh so badly. Badly enough that that my husband/enabler found me standing peering into the fridge frantically drumming my fingers on the fridge door. When he pointed out what I was doing I reverted to standing wringing my hands as I tried to head myself off at the pass. I call him enabler there because, bless him, with the best intentions in the world, he rushed out to buy me chocolate. I am proud to report here that I didn't eat it. It remains, 4 days later, uneaten and now hidden from me.

So when I looked back at my day, I very quickly saw where I had gone wrong. No breakfast, a rushed lunch, and shockingly little to drink. In fact once I realised how little I had drunk, I poured myself a huge glass of diet coke (yeah I know, it should have been water, but I was resisting chocolate in the actual house at this point you know!) and very quickly my cravings were suppressed.

I can't claim I will never make this mistake again, but at least I know there is a readily availble solution to the problem, and that's pretty empowering. Better than a Chunky KitKat!

That's what I'm talking about!

Weight: 18st 3lb
Loss: 5lb - oh yeah baby!
Total Loss: 64.5lbs (according to my ticker!)

We're heading in the right direction once again, and it feels good. And as well as feeling good, it feels comfortable. I achieved that loss eating well, filling up on healthy food, and using between 5 and 10 syns per day. I used to try not to use my syns, but I've decided this time round that syns are there to use, and they make things much more tolerable in the long term, so syns will be used. I've mainly used them for salad dressings or sauces to perk things up a bit, but the odd cereal bar or slice of toast has been a big help too, and I think could well provide the answer to the age old problem of the 24 hour days I often endure when working.

It helps that there is so much delicious food in season right now. Peaches and nectarines have never been sweeter or juicier, melon is divine, strawberries to die for.

And my most exciting purchase this week? A salad spinner just like my nana used to have!

Something Awesome

I was just catching up on some Blog reading, and I read a brilliant post (one of many!) on Jack Sh*t, Gettin' Fit and I thought it would be a crime not to share it with you. Go, read, enjoy. I imagine you'll be gone for some time!

http://jackfit.blogspot.com/2009/07/reversing-it.html

Improvisation

Last night I was looking for a syn free snack, and I had a couple of Healthy Extra A choices in need of being used. I ended improvising with some ingredients from the fridge and cupboards, and it was fabulously tasty so I thought I'd share!

Ingredients:
Corn on the cob
Fry Light (the "butter" version)
Sea salt
Laughing Cow Light cheese triangles
Peppers
Tomatoes
Sainsbury's Be Good To Yourself Sweet Balsamic and Smoked Garlic dressing (0.5 syn)

I sprayed the corn with the fry light, wrapped it in foil and bunged it in the oven for 10 minutes. Once cooked I sprinkled it with some sea salt. While it was cooking I finely chopped the pepper and tomato and mixed them in with the cheese, and added a splash of the dressing to loosen the mix a little. And then I just ate and enjoyed - simples! Obviously it was totally improvised using what was in my house, I'm sure the veg, dressing and cheese variety could be varied without any loss of enjoyment.

I'm happy to report I'm doing well so far this week. 100% on track, no problems to report and I'm peeing for England which is always a good indicator halfway through week one! I'm about to go and make sweetcorn soup for lunch - link to recipe over there <--

Can't wait for Monday now!

Homecoming

Week - what the heck is it now? Shall we call it Week 1?
Weight: 18st 8lbs
Total Loss: Shall I start at zero again? I'll come back to this!

Shiiiiiit! But it's OK, because the reason I have this knowledge is that last night I went back to Slimming World. Is there a way of portraying a wide grin on a blog post? I feel so relieved to be back! I got a lovely warm welcome when I walked in, and I just felt like I'd come home.

So today I have had a lovely familiar Green day, and I have eaten salad freshly picked from my own garden, new potatoes picked last night from my own garden and lots of colourful tasty healthy food. Beige is banished!

I have a happy glow today, all's well in my world, how about you?

Home Grown

I'm not sure whether I've mentioned it before, but I embraced the "grow your own" philosophy this year, and since March I've worked hard in the garden to turn it from a muddy quagmire that I was too embarressed to let visitors into for a smoke, into a haven of lovelinees that can provide us with food and flowers, and be a venue for chilled out afternoons in the sun. It was very hard in the beginning, but it's been worth it I can promise you. I love sitting in my garden now and surveying my little kingdom.

And now it's yeilding actual food! How exciting is that! I have lots of little green tomatoes waiting for some sunshine to ripen them, a reasonable amount of strawberries from plants that I didn't expect to flower until next year, carrots, a host of spring onions, potatoes, lettuce, sweetcorn and enough brambles to keep us in pies and jam for a long time to come! I had some coriander too but the very hot weather recently caused it to go all leggy and flower so now it just looks nice in it's pot. Nothing wrong with looking nice! I've enjoyed having fresh cut flowers from my garden adorning my house too.

This year my intention was to learn from my mistakes, so that next year I could produce successful crops, so anything we get to eat this year is a bonus really. My biggest learning curve in this has been that everything grows much much bigger than I expected! Teeny tiny seeds grow into very large plants! So next year I will sow less and be more prepared to give them room to grow. And I need frogs and birds in my garden to deal with numbers of snails that would give me nightmares if I let myself think about it :shudder:! I lost a lot of my early efforts to the snails and now have to have a daily snail patrol. 6 months ago, if you'd told me I'd be picking snails up with my bare hands I'd have run screaming from the room. Now I just go out there and pick the litle sods of my gorgeous plants and hurl them away.

Dietgirl Shauna has been gardening too, and she has managed to come up with some clever reasons why gardening is like weight loss. This is why she has a book and I don't ;)