RE-THINKING GOALS . . .

I realised my blog's tagline reads my goal is to lose a stone in weight. Obviously back when I ORIGINALLY started this blog, I was lighter . . . oh, and I didn't have decent scales. Now I DO have decent scales (well, I THINK they're decent although they like to occasionally let me think I've lost 28 pounds, depending on where I stand on them in my room) and I realise it's more like two stone of weight I need to lose.

My goal weight is 8 stone 3. So 115 pounds. I'm currently hovering above 140 pounds. Which was the weight I was when I ORIGINALLY lost weight nine years ago. Argh!!!

I have been experimenting with The Harcombe Diet of late, which is a food combining diet in essence, but it's been difficult for me to get out of the calorie counting mentality, although I definitely like all the logic behind it. I've now shifted to calorie counting but while trying for the most part to not mix my animal fat and carbs.

With me though, the thing that has made me pile on that last fourteen pounds is definitely the wine.

I drink way too much of it, so that is the thing that I HAVE to cut down on. I have no choice - not just for my weight, but for my health too.

So today was day 2 of yet another diet cycle. I face my first challenge tomorrow when I meet my sister after work for dinner. I need to find a relatively healthy meal . . . and somehow resist the wine. Hmmmm - wish me luck with that one!!!

TIP NUMBER ONE . . .

Breakfast is a bit of a pain for me. I know it's good for me to eat it and not skip it, and I nearly always eat SOMETHING . . . but I always find that when I eat something at breakfast time, I get hungrier more quickly than if I don't eat until later on. So what to eat to keep me fuller for longer???

I've finally worked it out though. I've tried this the past few days and it has really worked for me. I get up in the morning, stick an egg in a pan to hard boil it while I'm getting ready . . . then once I AM ready I have ONE weetabix biscuit with semi-skimmed milk followed by the egg. It fills me up much more than 2 weetabix biscuits would, or just an egg or two by itself would. I guess because it's a good mix of carbs, fibre and protein.

I find by having that around half seven, I can last until at least midday with only a midmorning snack of an apple. Result!

Give it a go - let me know what you think . . .

SUCCESS SO FAR . . .

I've managed to successfully remain on a diet for a week now. Wow. I mean, I slipped a LITTLE at the weekend, but unlike most times I haven't thought "Oooh, I've fallen off the wagon, may as well eat everything in my fridge". So I've ate some junk food, but I'm not beating myself up about it for a change.

I've cut down on the amount of carbs I would normally eat, upped my green tea and fruit intake, tried to cut down on my alcohol habit (I've only drank once this week, which is an achievement in itself for me) and tried to get at least a BIT of exercise in every day. I am proud of my motivation for a change. Let's hope it continues . . .

ATTEMPT ONE MILLION . ..

So I haven't posted in a while but I am trying once again to do this diet thing. I don't have much clue what I'm doing at the moment so I don't have much to say about it . . . but once I have a proper update I'll let you know!

A QUICK UPDATE . . .

I always feel bad for not updating this, but I always feel like such a failure admitting I haven't been all that good diet-wise. However, I AM still keeping up the exercise and trying to make the right choices whenever possible when it comes to my diet.

Trouble is, it's not always easy.

But we all knew that anyway, right???

A proper update coming soon. I promise!

IF YOU READ MY OTHER BLOG . . .

. . . you'll know I've hit a bit of a setback as of today. I've hurt my knee. :(

It's pretty sore at the moment and I'm really hoping it won't stop me exercising for long as I was really getting into it and felt like I was finally getting somewhere. But I guess we can only wait and see.

I'm so pissed off about the whole thing I've just eaten half a large bag of doritos and half a jar of sour cream and chive dip.

Yep, well done Paula . . .

WILLPOWER . . .

. . . is not something that really exists in my vocabulary. I wish it was.

However, I'm proud of myself tonight. I managed to resist having too much to eat after I got home. I had a chicken and noodle stirfry for dinner - nothing big, I didn't really want to spare the calories as I ate quite a lot during the day. Although I walked to and from work so I wasn't worrying too much about the amount I ate.

And after dinner I did my exercise dvd. I'm almost getting quite into it, which is surprising for me. The dvd is a tad repetitive but it manages to get lots of lunges and squats into the workout in an aerobic way, which is unusual in my view. I really need to buy some hand weights because the other workout utilises them a lot, and promises to change your body shape very quickly. I could use some of that!

Anyway, I had three squares of Green & Blacks mint chocolate and that didn't seem enough. I wasn't even hungry but I was craving something else. I wandered about the kitchen, looking for something, realised the only thing I really wanted was something dripping in cheese . . . and stopped myself. Grabbed a can of Sprite Zero instead and headed back to my room. Away from the temptation.

Yay me!

AN UPDATE . . .

So I've been doing okay. Mainly because I haven't drank since last Sunday (which has been pretty difficult) and have been trying to fill up on healthy stuff as much as possible. Okay, so I wasn't BRILLIANT with my food choices but I did cook quite a bit which is unlike me. I made spaghetti bolognese for the flatmates on Monday night and tacos on Tuesday night. I know they aren't UBER-HEALTHY, but the fact I actually MADE them and didn't just eat ready meals is a bit impressive by my standards. As far as I'm concerned, it's the small victories that are important and will contribute to the end result.

I also have the Davina McCall Super Body workout now, which I got via post on Wednesday and have done three times so far. It has a great abs workout which you can really feel working.

In fact, I weighed myself this morning and I was quite happy with my weight. Although I then somehow weighed three and a half pounds more just a few hours later. I'm assuming it's because I had drank quite a lot and eaten too, but it's still a bit demoralising to "put on weight" so quickly!!!

Anyway, I'm going to keep up the exercise, try to avoid the alcohol as much as possible and try to make healthy choices as far as I can . . . and I think I need to stop seeing this as a "diet". Because the word just intimidates me and makes it that much harder!

SO THE DIET . . .

. . . starts tomorrow.



I'm a bit nervous and anxious because I know I am SOOOO bad when it comes to willpower. But this time I think I KNOW I need to do it.



I can't keep on the way I'm doing right now. Because I just can't STOP eating. It's not good!



So we'll see what happens.



Wish me luck!!!

MY PLAN FOR JAN . ..

LIQUID:

• As mentioned in my previous post, no alcohol.
• At least two litres of water a day.
• Try to start off the day with a cup of hot water and lemon.
• Try to drink at least a few cups of green tea a day.

DIET:

• Try to stick to under 1300 calories a day.
• Don't overdo the simple carbs. Pasta and bread are okay, but the key is moderation.
• Fill up on fruit and veg rather than chocolate but don't deny myself if I REALLY want some.
• Plenty of fish.
• Avoid the vending machines at work.

EXERCISE:

• Cardio for half an hour at least four times a week
• Yogalates at least twice a week
• Walk to work as much as possible - try not to sleep in and have to get a taxi, it's not good for my health OR my finances!

This plan is going to start on the 5th January. I'm feeling optimistic.

Wish me luck!!!

ONCE AGAIN . . .

The diet officially starts once again on Monday. Of course, I should really start it today. BUT while I'm still on holiday (and still have christmas sweets kicking about) it seems a bit unrealistic.

I've already done one thing though. Stopped drinking alcohol for the month.

This should definitely make a difference. I hope.

We'll find out soon enough.

I'VE BEEN GOOD . . .

. . . the past couple of days.

I'm actually proud of myself. Because I've been working in a cold warehouse for the past few days, it would be easy for me to stuff myself with comfort food to warm myself up and make myself feel better (I hate this part of my job!) But I've been good.

Think the fact I've been running about a lot has helped, and also it's been so cold in the warehouse I've not really got time to think about being hungry. I've been trying to stick to my three apple a day thing and haven't really had time to eat in the morning before grabbing a taxi to work (the bad thing is that because I'm not within walking distance of the warehouse, i can't walk like I usually would to my office which cuts out some exercise). So I've been having an apple in the morning, another apple with my lunch, and one mid-afternoon. For my ACTUAL lunch, I've been having a tortilla wrap with light Philadelphia and a mixture of red peppers, mushroom and onion - so it tastes yummy AND I feel like it's relatively healthy.

For dinner yesterday I had a cheese and onion grill thing (approx 180 cals) and a bowl of soup with one slice of brown bread and butter, and I had a Curly Wurly as a treat. For dinner tonight I had a Weightwatchers lasagne, and then later on I had some Reece's cups. I know, I know, chocolate isn't good. But I find that I can't deny myself it. If I allow myself a treat of chocolate, I'm far happier and less likely to go off the rails. And as long as I allow space for it, I don't see why i shouldn't let myself have something nice . . .

So tomorrow is my last day in the warehouse so I'm hoping I can stick to a similar plan then. It may all go to ruin once I'm back in the nice hot office sitting on my ass but I'm definitely going to try and stick to the three apples a day and trying not to overdo it when I get home at night. I have a Christmas night out a week on Saturday so would like to feel a little less bulky for that.

I'm also looking for other adjustments i can make to my diet that might help, the little things make all the difference, right? If I find anything, I'll let you know . . .

OKAY I'M A LOSER...

. . . I feel like i've ate and ate and ate since my dinner. I had a chocolate eclair (weightwatchers so not too bad) and had a packet of ryvita minis dipped in light philadelphia. Okay, I know I could have had much worse, I could have eaten crisps and high fat dip I suppose. I'm sitting in watching the "X-Factor" so unfortunately my automatic reflex is to eat. I guess I'm not going to get over that straight away.

Think I'll stick my ab belt thingy on and drink some green tea now. Hopefully it might make me feel a bit better . . .

AN APPLE A DAY . . . OR THREE . . .

I recently read a diet tip that suggested if you eat three apples a day, you can lose up to 2lbs in a month.

Without making any other changes to your diet!!!

Now this could be all rubbish but it makes sense in a way to me. After all, if an apple a day keeps the doctor away, then surely three is even better??? Let's look at this way . . . an average apple has about 60 calories in it, right? And there's quite a lot of eating in one of them. In other words, they keep your mouth occupied for a while without causing you to waste too much calories. And they actually fill you up pretty well.

I know this from experience as last year one of my colleagues told me she had devised her own diet using apples that helped her lose a little bit of weight prior to Christmas (you know, so it didn't matter if she put any weight on over the holidays!). Basically the diet involved eating nothing but apples during the day then a normal meal at night. Of course, I ruined it by stuffing my face with chocolate at night but I certainly didn't put any weight ON!!! Anyway, my point? That trying that diet for a couple of days proved that apples were pretty damn filling. I think I had four or five during the day and didn't get hungry. I DID get bored though but that's not the point...

So I figure there could definitely be some truth in the whole apple as a weight loss food thing. So I'm now trying to combine eating three apples a day with a lower calorie diet in the hope that both can work together to accelerate the weight loss.

So this has been today's meal plan so far . . .

Breakfast:
One egg and some salad (lettuce, some plum tomatoes and yellow pepper with some olive oil and lemon juice as dressing)
Snack:
1 apple
Lunch:
WW Chili con Carne (which was yummy, I might add)
Snack:
1 apple

I've just ate another apple now and have popped a Weightwatchers lasagne in the oven along with a sweet potato. I figure the baked sweet potato will help fill me up (let's face it, the WW meals on their own aren't always that filling). Anyway, I'm quite proud of myself today.

I am also aiming to not drink alcohol again until next Friday since that's obviously a big downfall of mine.

I'm going to try my best to stick to it this time, but I feel a lot more motivated than usual so hopefully it won't be as difficult as I expect it to be...

BEING PREPARED . . .

Me and my flatmate went on a big supermarket shop on Monday night to stock up on lots of healthy food, low fat ready meals, things to snack on that are low calorie and the like.

I definitely think being prepared is a good idea when you are trying to be on a diet or be healthy. Otherwise you end up using lack of food as an excuse to opt for the junk-food option. (Although to be honest, I could do that whether I had a healthily-stocked kitchen or not . . . ) Hopefully the fact that we have bought ourselves tons of stuff to keep us going means that we will end up sticking to the diet. We'll see!!!

I'M FLAGGING AGAIN . . .

My flatmate I started going running with was sick last week and I didn't have the motivation to do it myself. (She, on the other hand, lost four pounds from not being able to eat, and vomiting - not on purpose, I might add . . . )

On top of that I just had too much to do, and alcohol accessibility was waaayyyy too easy. I definitely think cutting down on alcohol for a while is key to my progress here.

Here we go again I guess . . .

OOPS . . .

Yesterday went rapidly downhill after my post. I ended up eating two different meals for dinner, plus I polished off a bottle of wine. Ooops, like I said.

Anyway, today is a new day. So far I've had my usual probiotic yogurt drink and some low fat natural organic yogurt too. Just making my lunch now. I'm having a corn on the cob and also some fish. I bought these great fish portions in Iceland, they're frozen and come in their own little boil in the bag pack with parsley sauce. It's absolutely delicious, so easy to make as you just need to pop it in the microwave and only 123 calories. Plus the sauce is lovely and flavours everything else you want to have with it - I tend to go with green veg like sprouts, brocolli and salad leaves, but today since I'm having the corn on the cob I'm just going to add some mushrooms to the fish sauce and think that will definitely be enough. That should hopefully keep me going until dinner, and I'm going to try and do a bit of an exercise dvd too if possible, just to get my metabolism up and running properly.

It's so hard to motivate yourself when it's the weekend though!

A QUICK UPDATE . . .

I slipped a bit yesterday, what with fireworks night, alcohol, chocolate and pizza but on the whole I haven't been awful with my diet this week. I've went prepared into work every day and apart from eating a couple of Cadbury's Roses yesterday that the department head brought in, I haven't veered off and bought crisps or sweets from the vending machine.

I also managed three runs in total this week. Not massive ones but I'm only starting out. I walked to and from work a lot more than I have been recently too.

And I weighed myself last night and it appears I've lost two pounds from the last time I weighed in.

It's a small start but hey every little counts, right?

GOING A BIT OFF THE RAILS . . .

Not quite so good today, I'm afraid.

I started off well, the same start as yesterday. Two apples, a probiotic yogurt drink. A tub of grapes. At lunch I didn't want to fall into the pumpkin seed trap again so I brought an extra tub - of cherry tomatoes this time - to go with my chicken mayo wrap (as you can see, I varied it very slightly today - and low fat mayo!) and alpen bar.

It was tonight I slipped up. A nice guy in my work had brought me in some home made pizza and I managed to save it til tonight - but ate four slices of it. It was beautiful, mind you, and apparently made using low fat cheese, so I suppose it probably wasn't as bad as a takeaway pizza. And I walked to AND from work today meaning a roundtrip of 5 miles AND a 20 minute jog this evening. Not as long as yesterday but I felt like I shouldn't overdo it if I want to exercise tomorrow too.

So although I DID eat a bit more than I intended, I at least DID exercise I suppose. Oh well, tomorrow's a new day and all that jazz . . .

TODAY I COULD HAVE BEEN SPONSORED BY WEIGHTWATCHERS . . .

Here's what I have ate today. Is it good? Is it bad? I'm not sure . . . Advice anyone???

Breakfast: A probiotic Muller Vitality yogurt drink (approx 60 calories) and two apples
Mid-morning snack - a small tub of grapes (approx 20 grapes)
Lunch - a tortilla wrap with chicken and some low fat coleslaw, a light Alpen chocolate orange bar (approx 80 calories) and a handful of spiced pumpkin seeds
Dinner - a Weightwatchers lasagne, a handful of cherry tomatoes and one light Laughing Cow triangle
Evening snack - one Weightwatchers lemon slice (approx 70 calories) and one Weightwatchers toffee bar (approx 80 calories)

Okay, I slipped up a little this evening by having the TWO evening snacks rather than one (or, even better, NONE!) but at least they were Weightwatchers ones, right? I usually can get through far more calories in an evening so I've actually been fairly restrained - and the lasagne was less than 300 calories as well. And DELICIOUS!!! In addition, I got a good way towards my quota of fruit and veg portions for the day.

The only thing I can't do a good calorie estimation for is the wrap I made for lunch. That's the one advantage to ready-made meals (other than convenience), the fact the nutritional content is written all over the packaging. I'm guessing possibly around 400 which I suppose is okay for lunchtime. If it hadn't been for the pumpkin seeds, I would definitely say I was under 1300 calories. They upset the calculations slightly though, but I suppose they were still good for me.

Oh yes, and despite getting a taxi to work this morning (kudos to me for still managing to make my lunch despite sleeping in I guess!) we walked home (about two and a half miles) after work AND went for a 30 minute jog. So really when I think about it I actually DID eat less and exercise more than usual!

I'm putting a ban on all social activities this week. I need to get a good kick start on the diet this time. Going out is bad because I find it difficult to restrain myself when it comes to alcohol and nice food. So staying in will be the new going out this week, just until I can get myself into a routine. And on top of that, we're hoping to jog another two nights this week.

I'm feeling fairly positive about the diet at the moment but it IS only day one. Again. Hopefully I can stick to it this time . . .