10% gone, never to come back

Just a quick one as I'm about to dash out to the airport, but I've now lost that extra pound that puts me at losing 10% of my starting weight. Time to celebrate by having a great weekend in Budapest.

Just 2 things quickly to show how my habits have changed.

1. I need to leave at about 10.30 to catch my plane. I decided to get up early and go to the gym first.
2. I wanted some snacks for the journey. Before, if I was feeling good I'd take cereal bars. Today I'm taking fruit.

This afternoon I'll try one of my standard tests of fatness. Let's see how much more room there is in that aircraft seat, should we.

Have a great weekend, I will.

Adventures in the wardrobe

I'm feeling good. I've just gone through my wardrobe again. And a couple of things that didn't fit last time I did this a couple of weeks ago not only fit, but look great.

A couple of pairs of size 18 trousers I've not worn for years. I can fasten my size 14 gap flares*

I'm currently wearing a pair of suit trousers I've never worn in over 2 years of owning them. I bought a suit mail order when I was laid up with my broken ankle. The two skirts and the jacket fit (kind of... the lining is ripped to pieces where I was a bit optimistic in my biggest days). But I could never get the trousers anywhere near fastening. I seem to have this problem with trousers, I had exactly the same problem with another suit. I always kept the trousers in hope rather than expectation. And finally they fit. And they look great!

I tried on one of my favourite dresses. I can't believe how loose it is, and how much thinner I look now my stomach isn't bulging to get out of it.

I'm off back to the wardrobe to see what else I can find!

*OK. I'll admit, they're American size 14. I'm not really a size 14. But neither am I a size 22 any more.

Doing something right

According to the scales, I was down another pound this morning. Of course, I know from bitter experience that weighing myself every day does mean that I'm more succeptible to short fluctuations that are gone the next day, but recently that's not seemed to happen as much. If I'm down, I stay down and then drop even further by and large. So although I'll cope if my weight fluctuates back up again tomorrow morning, I'm hopeful that I've kick started the weight loss after my brief hiatus.

I put it down to moving from a stupid diet that did make me lose weight, but consisted mainly of cereal and toast, to a lovely healthy diet that involves a bowl of cereal, about 10 portions of fruit and veg and a piece of chicken. But what shocked me most about this changed diet isn't that I'm losing weight. It's that I'm enjoying it. I enjoyed my roasted peppers so much last night that I went to the supermarket specially to get more peppers to make it tonight. This morning I opened my tub of raspberries to put some on my cereal and had polished off the lot by 9.30am because they were so more-ish.

So maybe, just maybe, I can keep this up. I've lost 25lb in total now, and you can see and feel the difference. While I'm on this roll there's no way I'm giving up and going back to how I was. And blogland, please hold me to it.

Long term thinking, long term doubts

Decisions decisions. Long time goals, or short term goals? How to stay motivated over the long term?

It started this morning. I was working out that to get to the sort of weight I would like to be at it's going to be a long process, and that after that my "short term" aim would be to keep the weight off for at least a year to give any hope of keeping it off in the long term. And I figured out that realistically I'd be exercising and watching what I eat for a couple of years. And then I realised that ideally I'd be doing it for the rest of my life. And for some reason that shocked me.

Anyway, in a fit of forward planning, since this is going to have to be how I live for over a year, I got a year planner in front of me at lunchtime, and I worked through what's left of the year. Since the beginning of March I've been averaging a loss of 1kg a week, more or less, with some weeks where I've lost more and others (like the past 10 days or so when for various reasons I've not been able to lose a thing - although the scales finally started moving down again this morning). So I divided the year into weeks and, depending on what I've already got planned I gave them a target of 1kg, 0.5kg (weekends away and December) and 0kg (holidays, mainly). I didn't have any total target in mind, but I just wanted to get an idea of what was realistic for me.

And it came out to within 1kg of my current, getting into the normal BMI range, target. That may not be my ultimate goal, and I'm planning to reassess my weight when I get there, but it's what I'm currently working on so that it's not overly scary. It's still scary, I'd be lighter than I have been since I was about 12, but at least it's do-able. To not be overweight. How good would that be?

Of course, my rough jottings now don't take account of anything that could throw me off my stride. Another foot injury, illness, falling off the wagon like I did last autumn. Losing my motivation. A plateau. And I'm desperately trying not to hold myself to the figures I set out, because that way I foresee failure. Hopefully not dismal failure, but I don't know whether I can keep up this progress consistently for that long.

But then part of me says, why not? Just go for it. If you fail to lose another 29kg then what does it matter if you've managed to lose 25. Or 15. Or even 5. You'll still be improving your health, your weight, your fitness, and there's always next year. But maybe once I set a target and miss it it will cause me to lose my motivation and throw me off the wagon completely.

The other nice thing about my new, sketchy figures is that if I stay on track I'll be under 100kg by the time I next go over to Gran Canaria to see my family. Even that will be the lightest I've been for years, almost certainly. I hadn't weighed myself for years before I started going to the gym, but even though I'd been putting weight on consistently, I'd not been doing it as quickly as I've been losing it recently, and it will almost certainly put me back to my weight when I was at university. I'm still keeping my 2 stone by Santorini ticker going, but in view of the fantastic progress I've been making on that one, once I hit the stone (4lb to go...) I'll change it to my 100kg by Gran Canaria ticker. Starting from today, obviously, so it looks like I've made some progress when I start!

And despite my initial worries about having to live like this for so long, I'm starting to really enjoy my fruit and veg. After my double portion of leeks yesterday, I surpassed it today by roasting 4 peppers and eating all of them with my chicken. Absolutely divine with a nice light olive oil and herb dressing. I'm tempted to go and buy some more peppers so that I can have another portion before I go to bed it was so nice. To add to my 2 satsumas, 2 portions of strawberries and big fresh tomato soup, of course. And that's the one thing that gives me hope, really. I'm starting to enjoy fresh fruit and veg, and finding new ways to cook it. So maybe if that turns into my favourite choice of food then you never know, it might just last.

Except I had a bar of chocolate at lunchtime...

Progress Photos...

I've finally summoned up the courage to put the worst picture of me I've seen for a while on the internet. Even though this was taken in October last year, when I started going to the gym last July and had supposedly already lost some weight, I look awful.

I like to put it down to the fact that I'd had no sleep the night before. Seriously, I was on an overnight flight to Athens which arrived at about 4am. I then sat in the airport for a while before heading into town and getting to the top of the Acropolis at about 8am. And then got persuaded to stand in the line of the camera. Big mistake. This is why I don't like having photos taken.



Today, I thought I'd wear the same thing to see how my body had changed. Of course I didn't check the photo first, and chose the wrong grey top, but it's the same skirt. Although I still don't like how I look here, the one thing I noticed is my collar bones. Except they're not that noticeable on this photo because it's inexplicably blurry, but still, it gives an idea.



I have better pictures of myself, but this isn't about better photos where I don't look fat. This is about working out how far I have come.

5 portions of fruit and veg? Pah...

5 portions is for wimps.

Today I have eaten 1 portion of strawberries with my cereal. 4 satsumas. A huge bowl of fresh tomato soup (I guess that must count for something, being made with fresh tomatoes and all). 2 portions of steamed leeks. (Greedy me. The bag was 2 portions, but once it's steamed it's steamed really, so there's no point saving it for another day. And at a mere 86 calories per portion I figured I could cope with eating the lot instead of potatoes). All sorts. Correction. All sorts of fruit and veg. A plain chicken breast, cereal and low fat yoghurt too.

Oh, and some mini creme eggs.

And this is what's wrong with me. Instead of focussing on all the lovely, fresh, healthy, low calorie, low fat food I ate today, I beat myself up because I ate a few mini creme eggs. OK, OK. I ate three. But I figure that only adds up to one normal creme egg, so it's not going to send me straight to fat hell. But still, I tell myself off for doing it.

In one way, I suppose that's good. It shows my conscience is alive, well, and trying to keep me on track. But equally, I wish my conscience would congratulate me for the good things I eat rather than making me feel bad about the rubbish. There's increasingly less of the rubbish anyway, which is good, but when it passes my lips, the guilt starts.

Anyway, I'm trying to be good until Friday, then at the weekend I'll allow myself to eat whatever I want. Well, I'll be on holiday so I'm allowed. Typically I'm going to Budapest, and I've heard that Hungarian food is just about as stodgy and fatty as you can get. But never mind. I've earned it. I've lost nearly (not quite, but nearly) 10% of my body weight. And while I want to kick on and lose even more than that, I can't constantly force myself to stop enjoying myself. It's my holiday. I've earned it. And I'm going to enjoy it. I just hope I can leave my conscience at home.

Much better

I can (almost) walk properly again. Big improvement now, which is good.

I did another 20 minutes on the bike today, with a 30 minute swim after and about 30 minutes of the yoga dvd this evening. I also walked to and from the car (about 1km each way) rather than parking in the car park close to work like I've had to all last week. On the way back my foot gave out just before I got back to the car, but overall it was a creditable performance.

No change on the scale, but I've achieved what I wanted to do a couple of weeks ago after my lose 6lb in a week spell, which was stabilise my weight and consolidate what I'd lost, so I'm not too disappointed. At least that says to me that the weight is gone for good rather than as a reaction to what I'd been eating that week.

The big news this morning was that I saw my graduation dress hanging in the wardrobe. I last wore it in about 1999. For some reason I decided to try it on when I was half dressed. Sure, my stomach looked huge, but that could have been something to do with the fact I already had my tracksuit bottoms on underneath it. And even with the extra layer of clothes it fit far better than it has done since, well, graduation. Another success.

I look at it like I'm peeling off the layers of fat. So I've got rid of the living on my own fat and my broken ankle fat, and I'm working my way back to my university weight. Then I have the challenge of getting rid of the 4 months in the USA fat. That lot's going to be a bugger to shift. I went way overboard on the great US "diet", in particular the eat as much as you like buffet at my university for Sunday brunch. Get there fore breakfast. Stay til lunch. And eat in between. That was bad of me.

Then once that's off I'll be back to pretty much my lightest adult weight. I don't have weights as such that I'm aiming for, just clothes in my wardrobe. I've thrown a lot of them out, but there are still some I can use to guauge it. I lost weight when I first went to university, I was so stressed about getting into debt I lived off about £15 per week and hardly ate a thing. That lasted about a term before I got my student loan through, then my lack of knowledge about healthy cooking etc kicked in and the weight started going on, and carried on at various speeds for nearly 8 years. Ouch.

Well, that's it. I've shown it the door, and it's coming off.

For good.

Yoga (2)

I got (nearly) all the way through the first dvd. Towards the end there were a couple of positions I couldn't do because of my foot, but I pretty much managed it all. Obviously my hands weren't necessarily always quite as near my feet as the bloke on the dvd's, but I at least attempted anything in an attempt to find out how flexible I am. Not very!

It's a start though, and it makes a change from pounding away on the treadmill so I'll hopefully give it another go at some point. Preferably when my belly doesn't get in the way!

Not too bad

I went back to the gym in the end and did 35 minutes on the bike. It wasn't actually too bad, so I might start reintroducing exercise with that over the next week or so. Hopefully my foot will be back to normal by Saturday for Budapest.

The good news is that I haven't actually piled on the weight over the past week of no exercise and eating rubbish, I'm still pretty much where I was this time last week, but at least I'm not up. I'd call that a result, in context. But now I've got the house to myself and no-one persuading me to order currys at 10pm I should be able to have a week of eating more healthily and a bit more exercise to restart the loss. That sounds like a plan.

I tried the other yoga video this morning, but the positions on that one put too much pressure on my foot (more standing than lying) so I think I'll go back to the one I tried last night later today.

I'm also trying to keep up eating 5 portions of fruit and veg every day. I managed it Monday - Friday last week which was a start, but now I'm trying new things. I bought some butternut squash chunks earlier (they were out of my favourite stuffed peppers so I had to think of something else to try), so I'll try those at lunch time I think.

Let's get back on track!

Yoga

I got my hands on 2 yoga dvds unexpectedly early today. They were part of an offer on the back of a cereal packet, so I knew they were coming, I was just quite shocked that I posted my tokens on Tuesday or Wednesday and got the dvds through the post today.

Yoga, I thought, that's not high impact, I could do some of that (or try at least). I managed to get through 20 minutes of one of the videos this evening (could have carried on physically, but I got distracted by something and got out of the right state of mind). I could definitely feel the stretching, but it's too early to say whether it's something I'll be keeping up I think.

anyway, I might try to do a full dvd tomorrow (I need to clear more space too before trying it again as I kept banging my feet on bits of furniture), as the bit I did didn't seem to put any undue stress on my foot. And then I'll take it from there and hopefully incorporate it into my routine every so often.

Back in the groove soon?

So, my foot still hurts. But there are signs of improvement, and I'm planning to try going back to the gym tomorrow. Well, it will be one of two places. The gym or the hospital (hopefully not both!). If it's not improved I'll go back to the hospital and try for an x-ray. If it carries on getting better I'll try some light exercise at the gym. Nothing too weight bearing though, I'm planning on a bit of work on the exercise bike, some upper body weights and a swim. Also, I'll be back to eating a bit more healthily tomorrow so will be trying to get back into the groove.

It's been nice having a week off in a way, but I'm conscious that I need to get back into exercising fairly soon so that a week off doesn't turn into three months. So I'm going to try what I can without putting too much stress on my foot.

Learned my lesson

Exercising too much, too soon.

First, the good news. The foot does (touch wood) seem to be getting better. It's looking more promising and less broken than it did. Which is a good start. But I'm starting to look into what happened, and I suspect that exercising my arse off every day, with scant regard for the blister under my foot that made me put my foot down in an unnatural position, didn't help, not least when my foot is already a bit out of alignment because of my ankle.

So I think I've learned my lesson. Build it up slowly, steadily, and don't push it. I'd rather be fat for the rest of my life than in that sort of pain on a regular basis. Incidentally, this story (may not work outside the UK)put a smile on my face this morning.

So, no doubt a few pounds gained over the past week due to the bad timing of no exercise and having to eat the sort of food my father expects me to prepare (roast dinners, highly calorific stuff and chocolate based desserts) at the same time. But hopefully no lasting damage, and I can get back on the wagon in a week or so.

It still hurts

This isn't good. Very very bad, in fact.

I've harly been able to walk for three days, let alone exercise. And now I'm starting to realise that I might not be able to do anything for quite some time yet. Eek.

Inflamed Metatarsal

Great. I'm banned from the gym (although, joy of joys, I can swim). Miserable, and really wish I could get back at it. Which leads me to believe I've swapped personalities with someone else. This morning I could hardly walk yet I still got up and went to the gym for a swim. I'm disappointed that I can't exercise properly.

Is this me????

Just hope it gets better soon and that the diagnosis was right. If it's broken after all I'll be an even unhappier bunny.

Doh

Looks like the new, revised target might be out, together with any hope of exercise for a while. I don't know what I've done, but I've really hurt my foot and I can hardly walk let alone run. I was in the gym this morning, really giving it some on the cross trainer when suddenly I got this shooting pain coming up from my foot. I got off fairly quickly and realised I could hardly walk. Not good. Not good at all. I've tried swimming it off a bit, with two swimming sessions, one straight after I did it and one after work but to no avail. It still kills.

Ouch.

A new target

This lose a stone before my holiday thing is going so well I think I might need to revise the target. And looking at my weight and the date I think I've got just the thing.

I'm going on a little city break in a couple of weeks. This isn't the main, bikini, target that Santorini at the end of May is, but it would be really nice to get that second stone off before I go there and then look at losing another half or so before Santorini. As it currently stands I'd have to lose another 5lb in just under 2 weeks, so 2.5lb per week isn't so bad when you think that in the last 2 weeks I've lost 9. Yes, this could be the way to go. I won't update the date on my ticker just yet, as the main aim is to lose it before the end of May. But if I do lose it earlier that will be a great bonus.

I've just bought a new pair of trousers - size 18! For years I've been convincing myself that I'm a 20 while in fact most of the trousers that fit me properly are more like size 22. Not that I admit that to myself... Anyway, these trousers don't fit as nicely as I'd like, and there's a definite bulge spilling over the top, but they do fasten, and I'm now confident enough that they will fit soon that I bought them anyway while they were in stock as they are just what I was looking for. I've promised myself they will fit me properly, and they will fit me soon.

Yes! Yes!! Yes!!! Yes!!!!

How glad am I that I dragged myself out of bed and went to the gym this morning. Yet another punishing workout, and I hardly felt it. Plus a couple of other bonuses.

1. That extra pound I mentioned this morning has gone. Which means that I'm over half way to my mini target, and I've also now lost over 10kg. 1/4 of the way to my current, randomly picked target. There isn't too much logic to the number I picked, other than it means I need to lose a nice round number (40kg) and it pretty much puts me on the borderline between normal and overweight on the BMI scale. If I get there I can then decide whether I need to lose anything else.

2. Got on the treadmill. I've mentioned before that I'm training for a 5km race. Well, I did it. I've covered 5km before, running various amounts of it, but today I didn't walk a single metre of it. The slowest I went was 8.6km/hour. I know I'm no sprinter, and a lot of people can run a hell of a lot faster, but at the moment I don't care. I DID IT! I CAN RUN 5KM! And I know I'll get faster before July, I used to struggle at 8km/hour, and I'm getting faster even as I'm building up distance. Now I've got the distance I can concentrate on the speed side of it. For the record I knocked about 2.5 minutes off my previous personal best, and I ran continuously for nearly 10 minutes more than I ever have before. Usually I have a bit of a walk at about the 20 - 25 minute mark and then try to jog the last bit. This time I got to 25 minutes and decided to try to push on, the last km just consisted of me trying to persuade myself that I was really close and to keep going, and I did!

3. But I didn't stop there, oh no. 15 minutes on the bike, 30 minutes on the cross trainer and 10 minutes swimming, just to top it off.

4. And then, the best bit, someone I don't even know (another gym regular, but someone I've not spoken to properly before) came up to me and told me you could tell I'd lost loads of weight. That's the kind of confidence booster I needed, as if I needed it after the morning I've had!

So I'm now in a good mood. I've definitely decided that the secret of my sudden weight loss success over the past month or so is that the first 6 months or so of exercising just meant that I got fitter rather than much thinner. I lost a bit of weight but not huge amounts. Then, once I was fit enough to do more punishing workouts, the weight started falling off. So the initial bit was necessary, even if it didn't look like I was getting there at the time. I'm just so glad I stuck with it and pushed on through, rather than losing heart too quickly.

Slower progress

But still progress. Which is good because the main thing I wanted to do this week was to consolidate the weight I lost last week, and I'm still on with a fair chance of losing another pound by official progress day on Tuesday anyway to keep me on track at 2 pounds a week. I can afford to slip a bit for my mini target, but I'd rather get into a routine of losing that amount, and being ahead of target can't be too bad.

One thing I've been very good with this week after my drunkenness on Sunday and consequent hangover for the first part of the week is alcohol. I haven't had a drop since Sunday, despite the work night out on Thursday and the rugby last night. I was driving, but time was when I'd have just the one drink when I got there to relax after the week at work. I don't do that any more, and not only am I presumably a safer driver because of it, but I'm cutting down the alcohol calories nicely. I don't think I'll buy any wine for the weekend either (again), but might have something spirit based later if I feel like something.

Right now I'm trying to persuade myself to get out of bed and go to the gym. I like Saturdays because I have plenty of time to do everything I want to do, but it does make it harder to get out from under the duvet.

Odd mood

I've been in an odd mood today. I did a fantastic workout before work and also went for a swim after work. I've been fairly good with my food and didn't drink anything. But there was a work night out tonight and I just wasn't up for it at all. We were going to Jongleurs, which has been planned for ages. I seriously considered not going at all, it was subsidised so I'd only paid £3 in the first place. I was almost more tempted to go to the gym than to go out.

In the end I just went for a short swim and then went up there. And realised how much I hate going out with my workmates. I got there and everyone ignored me. I'm not the most outgoing of people, so find it hard to strike up a conversation with people I hardly know, and most of the people I did know scarcely acknowledged me. Like I walked in with a group of people. The bloke in charge of the tab asked everyone else what they wanted but ignored me. How to make me feel welcome. I wasn't too bothered, as I wasn't drinking alcohol anyway, but it didn't get things off on a good footing.

The same when we moved into the comedy club. He ordered loads of beer and wine. He also ordered soft drinks for a couple of people but completely ignored the fact I clearly wasn't drinking. Bastard. I don't care, my drinks for the night (or the part of it I was there) only cost 50p, and I'm sure I can afford that, but it made me wonder why I went.

I like going out with my friends. I enjoy a good night out. But the bottom line is that the people I work with aren't my friends. When I'm drinking I can have a chat with them and think that I'm enjoying myself more than I probably am, but really I've never really met anyone there who is "my sort of person". Yet I feel obliged to go to these things.

I'd decided not to drink for two rather startling reasons (for me anyway). So I could get up for the gym at 6 in the morning, and because of all those unnecessary calories. I never used to think like this! It's good, just unexpected. And while I enjoyed the first two acts, during the interval I decided that life is just one big compromise and, having spent the first two days of the week with no energy due to excessive socialising, I'd enjoy tomorrow and the weekend better if I left then and had a relatively early night (or early compared to the time it would be had I stayed til the end). I was having a good time, but not good enough to sacrifice my beauty sleep for. Might need to explain that one in the morning. That's if anyone noticed.

The other thing that has been pre-occupying me today is trying to work out what I would look like thin. I honestly have no idea as I've been overweight all my life. I can't visualise success because I don't know what it looks like. Which almost makes me more determined to get there so I can find out.

And finally, I'd like to say goodbye, good riddance and never come back to my "ankle weight". I seemed to put weight on in a couple of specific spells of my life, the most recent of which was when I broke my ankle two years ago. I spent 2 months lying in bed (I had to keep my foot in the air most of the time which kind of limited movement). Worse than that for my weight was the fact that my mother came to stay with me and cook for me for 2 months. Her portions are huge as it is, but every meal, every day, with absolutely no exercise, even walking round the office, I really piled it on. I couldn't do much for a while after that either, and was limping for a long time. Even now my ankle is still swollen, scarred from where I had plates put in it, and painful in the wrong weather and at the wrong time of day. Going to the gym has strengthened it (not as much as the metal I suppose!) and made it more comfortable, but it's still dodgy, which makes my exercise kick more satisfying for me.

Well, this morning I picked up one of my "pre-ankle" suits, put it on and it was looser than it has ever been since. The weight's gone (or has at least been transformed to slimmer muscle). And I don't intend for it to come back.

Sanity Reigns

Ah, a good night's sleep, a bit of sunshine and all is well with the world again. I'm back, I'm sane, and I'm eating healthy but not excessively calorific food. I've got some stuffed peppers roasting as I type. Lovely. (hopefully!).

So while I still have doubts about my ability to keep weight off long term, and whether I want to be the sort of person who cares about keeping weight off long term, I'm back exercising, staying awake when I get home from work, and feeling better about myself.

Maybe it was just the hangover from hell after all that, I don't know. I think, on reflection, I was a bit hasty blaming it on losing weight when I've been doing that for a while, albeit slower, and felt fine. I should have blamed the beer, really. I've learnt my lesson.

But I'm not racing to get that drunk again for a while. Anyway, this morning for the first time this week I felt able to do a decent workout. Monday and Tuesday I got to the gym, looked at the exercise bike (which I usually find pretty much the easiest machine), decided it was too hard. Went to the pool and found I couldn't swim and went to sit in the steam room. This morning I was back on track with 45 minutes on the cross trainer and 25 minutes walking on the treadmill. All before work, too, I'll have you know.

I love morning workouts, and I suspect the fact I've not been doing them properly for the past few days didn't help my mood any. I find that it really sets me up for the day ahead and makes me feel like I've achieved something before I even get to work. It also means I have far fewer excuses for not exercising because, while I do sometimes work late and feel like I can't be bothered to do anything after work, I rarely have to start work excessively early, and if my alarm goes off at the time I need it to go off to get to the gym (and it does this every morning), then I'm awake and I don't have much else to do, so why not exercise? It's almost a routine now, and a routine I never thought I'd pick up. Even my friends who have always been gym bunnies don't see how I can exercise in the morning, but for me, it's the only time I can face it.

I'm running on empty and I want the old YP back

Not a good day. Not to do with weight loss (or lack thereof) but to do with the side effects. I'm starting to feel as though all life has been drained out of my body. Yesterday I blamed it on a hangover (and with possibly good reason). But I can't still be hungover, can I? I didn't drink that much?

(Yes, sweetie, you probably did. But I digress).

No, I'm feeling a complete emptiness in every limb and in my head. I know it must be because I've not been eating enough, and that losing so much weight in a week because I've hardly been eating isn't the most sustainable way forward, but I can't kick out of it. I look at food, trying to persuade myself to eat carbs to give me some energy, and it makes me feel ill. There's nothing I fancy. I've just managed to make myself eat something, but I didn't enjoy it. I feel sick. And I want to stop feeling like this.

And along with this feeling have come all the nagging doubts I've avoided for so long. I don't want to be this person. Constantly watching what I eat for the sake of a couple of pounds. Caught in a constant yo yo of weight loss and weight gain. Knowing for the rest of my life that if I ever start eating properly again my weight will go back to where it was. OK, that last bit may be an exaggeration, and if I eat sensibly and carry on exercising it wouldn't, but will I? And I'm not meant to be rational when I'm having nagging doubts anyway, so it can stay. I don't want to spend my life like this for the sake of my health when it's making me feel worse than I have for years. I'm sure there's less strain on my heart and my lungs, and there are other benefits, but not at the sake of being me, please.

So to get me through it I'm trying to focus on the compliments. My boss came into work today with her new baby. I've not seen her for two months or so and she said I was looking really good. My wrists are wonderfully slim (why not my stomach? Why am I losing weight from my wrists?). I'm trying to convince myself that if I slow down I can still lose weight, like I did for most of this year, without resorting to extreme exercise regimes or crash diets like I have done in the past week. But I don't know whether I can, not long term.

Is this blip normal? Do you come through it in the end?

Or is it just PMT?

The wrong way to lose weight?

I suspect that drinking so much I throw up everything I ate yesterday and feel too ill today to eat much at all isn't the best way to lose weight long term. I certainly couldn't cope with the general feeling of nausea and dizziness.

But, sadly, it's mighty effective. Over another pound off when I weighed myself this morning, and unless I somehow get my appetite back tonight suspect I'll be down again tomorrow. And as all I want to do at the moment is go to sleep, I doubt I'll be eating much more than a bowl of cereal tonight.

I seem to have miscalculated the fact that less body weight means I can cope with less alcohol before feeling ill. Also don't know whether my general feelings of weakness are because I'm losing weight too fast at the moment. I don't think I can carry on eating like this (or not eating), so at the end of the week I think I'll revert back to a more normal diet and then try to consolidate what I've lost recently. After 1 week of my 7 week plan I'm 2 weeks ahead of schedule, so there's plenty of time to take a break for a while.

What happened there?

How on earth did I find myself in the gym at 8.45 on a Sunday morning? How????? I'm not complaining, mind you, every little bit helps, but I don't know where all this motivation has suddenly come from. Big achievement of the day was 15 minutes on the rowing machine. It's been the one thing that has eluded me from the start. I got my 3 minutes on the cross trainer up to 65, I got my minute of jogging up to 25, but could I do the rowing machine? Not a chance. I haven't tried it for ages, but this morning I was the only person in there (not bloody surprising at that ungodly hour of the morning) and decided to give it a whirl. Surprisingly easy! I was shocked, to say the least.

I lost another 100g yesterday. I don't know whether this habit of weighing myself daily is good or not, but it certainly keeps me constantly aware of whether I'm slipping, and over the past week or so it has been a joy to see the weight fall off. It's strange, you know. I went for years without stepping near any scales. And when I say years, I have a feeling I mean over 5. I think I once went on some scales at the doctors or the hospital, but that was still a long time ago, and I can't remember how much I weighed. And now I'm getting obsessive about checking my weight. I think my denial and my insistence that "if I feel healthy my weight doesn't matter" helped to get me into this situation, and looking back, I'm sure I was far from healthy. So keeping track of it is forcing me not to ignore it like I used to, and trying to make sure that I stay on track. I won't put every day's weight on here, as there are random fluctuations between days I'm sure that don't necessarily give a good overall picture of what's going on, but for my peace of mind, at the moment I'd like to keep a handle on it.

And my 7 week 14lb challenge is going so well - 5lb in less than a week! Might need to revise my target if I can keep this up (is it healthy to keep that rate of loss up anyway?). I'm not even doing any particular plan, I'm just trying to be more careful with what I eat and I'm doing more at the gym.

Race for Life

The other thing I'm doing when I go to the gym is trying to get in shape for the Race for Life. I've written more about this on my other blog, but it fits well here so I've carried it over here. I've never been a great athlete, and I've always been overweight, but I've finally decided to do something about it. I did a mile last year. I didn't exactly run it all, but I got round faster than some people which at that stage (before I started going to the gym) was an achievement in itself. This year I wanted to take it a step further so signed up for the Race for Life for Cancer Research. Unfortunately, at that stage I didn't know how good a choice that would be. A week or so later I found out about my sister's cancer scare, which is still ongoing and unresolved.

I've not really started my fundraising properly yet, but I do have an online donation page which you can use if you want to.

If I manage this (and I'm now managing 5km in the gym in about 36 minutes so there's hope), I might even sign up for the 10km Abbey Dash which I believe takes place in November. Of course, it would be easier to get round if I'm lighter...

Current Status

The slider at the top is the overall progress bar, based on taking me down to a healthy BMI (as calculated here). I've not put a lot of thought into that figure by itself, I prefer to take things a stone at a time. Which helpfully isn't in metric, but I've worked out the figures both ways (in the forlorn hope that one of the sets of figures would look more achievable than the other!)

The first stone was a pig to get off. I started going to the gym in July 2004 and nearly got down to a stone lighter than where I started. And then, due to a variety of reasons I stopped going to the gym. I couldn't use my car for about 6 weeks due to my freeloading family descending on me, so found it hard to get to the gym. I spent about 3 weeks on holiday. I was burgled and it took me about a week to get over that. And it was Christmas, with lots of eating, drinking, and being merry. So I ended up putting most of the weight back on again. And while I was still lighter than when I started, I'd ruined most of the progress that I'd made. So at the beginning of this year I started again and made slow slow progress. I got down to nearly the point I was at before.

And then it just started falling off. Once I got near the stone I seemed to lose nearly another half in about a week or 10 days. I don't think that rate of loss is sustainable, but I'm hoping at the least to keep it off, even if I plateau for a while. It would be great if it would keep on coming off like that, but I'm realistic about these things.

Once I got past the first stone I set a new, achievable, target of losing another stone by the time I go on holiday at the end of May to Greece. Conveniently that gave me 7 weeks to lose 2 pounds a week. I thought that it would be hard, but achievable.

The new plan started on Tuesday. It's Saturday today, and I've lost 4 pounds. I'm where I planned to be in another 10 days time. I'm delighted, and if I can lose more than a stone before I go away, I'll be absolutely ecstatic. I might try to do a mini ticker for my mini-challenges as I go.

A new blog

I've started a nice new blog to keep my weight loss stuff separate from my main blog which is currently being polluted by it increasingly. This is mainly to help me keep track of my weight as it goes down, and to keep track of my feelings as it comes off.

This blog has missed the start of my weight loss journey, and I'm now about 20 pounds down from where I started last year (with a blip or two along the way), and shedding weight fast for the past week or so. I've been keeping notes on and off of my weight, and I want to stay accountable to myself properly. I'll also use this blog for playing around with different toys and tickers as a trial for the main blog.