I just totally posted here instead of somewhere else - sorry , removed it now

yayay

Weight Watchers is fab :-)
Do you know I've been steadily losing weight, this week I've lost 3 pounds and that now makes it a stone that I've lost altogether :-)
Slowly, slowly catch e monkey as my mum would say. It's been steady , mainly it's been unbelievable. This week I was even convinced I'd put weight on and really didn't want to go and be weighed, but there it was 3 pounds off *grin.
So that it' first stone lost :-) *even more grins.

Incentives?

I've been trying, and failing miserably, for what feels like ages now, to stick to my eating plan. I really want to do it and I know that it's good for me, never mind losing weight, I just feel physically healthier when I'm doing it. It's just that it's so darned restrictive and I feel abnormal, punished and deprived when I'm sticking to it. SO if I *do* manage to stick to it for a little while I just have to give myself a treat for being so good, and it's always the forbidden food that's the treat. Some days I can just about manage to be good for breakfast then it all goes haywire.

Are there any other treats or incentives that you lovely ladies can think of?

On the exercise front all is going pretty well, now that I've factored in a bike ride and a walk each week (more if we can manage it) for me and the kids. The bike ride involves the bigger two riding theirs and me puffing up the hills pushing the little one and being the brakes for her going downhill. The last time had me so itchy to be on a bike myself so I went to Halfords and talked to some very nice assistants about getting a towbar for my bike so I can get littlest on the back as she's too big for a seat, and getting an easier arrangement for carrying the bikes on the van. At the moment we have a bike rack that's too high up for me to get the bikes onto, and also you can't use the boot while it's on. So if I can get a towbar fitted I can fit a lower one on. I'm trying to be philosophical about the cost as the bike towbar is cheaper than a tagalong bike and the bike carrier is much cheaper than a trailer.

Weight watchers

well I never thought I'd do it but i have, I've joined weight watchers and tonight I feel quite positive, I had two weeks of staying just the same but this week I've lost 2.5 lbs. I wouldn't have thought i could be so happy at losing weight but I am. The funny thing is that I've not even tried very hard, I've had the odd biscuit and I've not gone hungry but I've tried to always eat something good for me rather than fatty stuff. The big thing is that I haven't eaten chocolate bars or minstrels - which are my failing.
So 3 weeks at weight watchers and this week weight lost :), the previous weeks i'd just stayed even, maintained as they call it, this week losing the weight has given me a taste of it and I want to do even better.
fingers crossed.

partied out

I discovered something over christmas that I never thought I would: that you *can* have too much party food. I gave myself full permission before the festivities to buy, eat and drink just what I wanted to until it all ran out. Mmm, lots of Thornton's chocolate, raspberry liqueur, cointreau, mince pies, roast dinners and christmas pud to share with my Big Girl's fella (the only other person who likes it). After about five days of it I was noticing the indigestion, the old tiredness creeping back, the stomach bloating and a hankering after 'real food' so since then I've been tempering my indulgences and eating more veg, and going easy on the alcohol. And now that the days of mince pies and brandy sauce for breakfast are coming to an end I find I'm really looking forward to treating my body a bit more gently (and a bit more firmly too). I hesitate to call it a new year's resolution, as I don't do those, but I will say that diet and exercise is going to be top of my list of priorities for this coming year. Having my Big Girl's doggy to look after has been really good for me too, and after an hour's walk every day my legs are aching in a good way. I must, must, must keep this up. I don't think I realised how far back I had slipped on the fitness front and the rot stops NOW.

Do you want get rid of the pounds?

there is no easy fix , I had been reading about Acai tea but no help there, this answer is the best one on the site I looked at

Here comes the only answer, no tricks, no pills, no short cuts, If you really want to lose weight, loose weight, not be too fat or overweight, follow these instructions carefully:-

1) Eat less

2) Take regular vigorous exercise

Repeat 1 + 2 forever

 so there we have it, change one , change two and you'll be thinner  . . . . . . . . 

yo-yo dieting

lol I'm not sure I'm managing any dieting let alone yo-yo dieting but this looked interesting anyway

http://style.uk.msn.com/wellbeing/healthyeating/article.aspx?cp-documentid=10498117&ocid=today

Wii Fit fooled me into it!

I've gone from 13st 10lb to 12st 12lb!!! Still working on it, but it has been a bit slow during this month. Have to get off the sugar again. Too many weekends away and family parties with too many gorgeous puddings. My weakness! Also, too many sicky bugs in our house, and I have to keep working myself back to healthiness before I can get back to my exercise. May try to get a cross trainer. Used one at my FIL's and loved it! I'm feeling that I need more challenging exercise now. Maybe getting hooked on the endorphines! I find running a problem because the air gives me asthma even if it is just a little bit cool when I'm running. Shame, as my DH runs in the peaks and it is beautiful up there. Staring at a wall and listening to crap radio wasn't quite the same!

The danger of letting it slip too far

A cautionary tale for me for the future. Although this eating plan of mine is really good in lots of ways, easy it ain't! It takes a lot of thought and planning, two things I didn't want to have to do when I took the kids on a short break recently. So I took a risk and more or less abandoned it for the time I was away. What harm could it do? Well, I think I've been reaping the whirlwind ever since. First it was a major downer the day after I got back, it just settled on me from a height and sat there immovable till it went away again. Then we decided to actually organise that splash party we'd been planning for weeks, but at the height of the preparations I came down with a horrible sore throat that turned to a painful earache overnight, so it had to be postponed. I can honestly say it's the first time I've been as ill as that since I started this eating plan. Properly ill that is, sitting on the couch in my nightie and dressing gown, groaning.
On the plus side I've got my bike! Yay! I'm a bit nervous about getting started with it as I've not ridden one regularly since my twenties, but there's a few byways round here to explore and I'm hoping the kids catch the bug. They love zooming round the garden on theirs but I've always been a bit anxious about them venturing onto the road. I'm just going to have to work out how to get all three of them out and about safely. Littlest is 4 but quite light, but even so she may be too heavy for me to manage in a kiddie seat on the back of mine. I'll have to see if I can borow one to try it out.
And dd2 is keen to try bellydancing with me. That could be a lot of fun! And we've been promising ourselves to join up at the local tiny gym at the village (use it or lose it) and see if they can tailor me some exercises and activities and stuff.

ok another go

ok so this was a view from the back , not bad , quite hate my pudgy shoulders but quite like my hair.
Ok this was the worse picture of the day, they we all are, off to have a lovely day out at Wistowheading around the maze at a steady pace with lovely weather, then we stopped for a breather and we took this pic, lovely family , with spare tyre mum sitting in the middle.

Ok so something has to give doesn't it, I can't hide anymore. But what to do? If I try dieting I think about food more and want to eat even more, because i can't then I want to.
going to try step by step - ok for the next week starting right now, I'm going to replace coffee and tea with lovely cold water - much less calories and maybe a start - the stop eating choc thing didn't get anywhere at all, in fact i'm eating more.
I can't believe how awful I look - it took a new camera, eugh how many inches? or rather tyres?

a bit slippy slidey, but trying hard

Well, I've been trying to stick to it as much as poss, but life's been a bit hard of late. However the boot camp + fruit and veg is slowly paying off, and there are some great sport activities running ove the summer so I'll see how the kids get on with those.
I've also promised myself a bike and another load of those hellishly expensive supplements. I'm sure you're not supposed to do one month religiously then make the next bottle last, well, as long as it lasts cos I kept forgetting to take them, then buy the next bottle a couple of monthes later, but hey, I'm doing what I can.
Picture me a la Miss Hubbard tinkling along the lanes round here, running down bunnies and reminding people about choir practice. Oh and frightening the bejeebers out of any unsuspecting walkers as I come up behind them and ring my bell at the last minute:-)

cravings for good stuff taking over from cravings for crap (as what's his name said it would).

Dawniy posted a youtube here of some American guy with a wacky name talking about the perils of sugar and such stuff ... very useful viewing. He said that when you stop eating crap your body begins to crave the things it really needs ... so here is what I discovered I crave when I don't eat crap:

mushrooms
broccoli
mackerel and oily fish
greens, greens, greens
salads
and more mushrooms!

Blog Rave about Wii Fit!

I've been having a great diet boost with Wii Fit. Somewhat more expensive even than Slimming world ... but is lots more fun! Also we can all use it and get fit and SW doesn't really promise get fit. I fought against it for ages. Jon tried to sell it to me as something to get me fit ... and I was very skeptical. It's FAB. I surprise myself that I haven't made a blog rave about it yet ... but maybe that is too much like consumerism and I'm horribly shy of that (hence the months of fighting against getting it in the first place!) I have really found that it has curtailed my evening snacking and when I feel need for 'compensation' from something sugary and junky, I seem to be gravitating to the Wii instead ... like 'play' is a well deserved reward for all my hard work during the day. (It is seriously rigorous exercise disguised as play and it's got me so fooled that I'm often in danger of overdoing it!) I must think to post about it on Loozing It at least! My DH will say "I told you so!"

(so, Liz ... I just pasted my comment to you in here! There, I posted it!)

obesity

I watched a prog last night about obesity. . . . . . it explained how a few extra calories here and there everyday add up to having a real obesity problem as we get older, well that's how I understood it anyway. While I was pregnant I'd actually gone off making bad food choices because choc and things fatty/creamy were making me feel sick. And now here I am , lost the baby , not pregnant, and very low. What do I do when I'm low ? Eat. I wonder why we do that because after I've eaten I feel even worse, but at the time all I can think about is the craving for choc . . . . . . for me it's harder than stopping smoking, I've successfully done the stop smoking thing. So how did I stop smoking? well as soon as I craved one I just held firm said no and crocheted to keep my hands busy and there weren't any fags in the house to smoke so . . . . . but it isn't the same with food is it? However I try to cut down there's always food in the house, I can't refuse to buy food, I can't be wilfull and refuse to eat. Now then maybe one thing I can do is use the refuse and stubborn thing on chocolate? it sounds do-able, no to chocolate instead of no to fags , maybe I can have success with doing this bit of not eating bad.

Ok so here we are, 7th of july , no more chocolate - sadly I'm feeling deprived already, I feel sad, miserable, been wanting choc ever since i miscarried and i guess I've had some everyday, I can't shop or get petrol without getting some. If Stef goes to the shop he asks "Do you want anything?" maybe I need to change my reply to yes a banana . . . . . at least that way i'd get the nibble without the fat?? Life without the choc hit?? I may aswell give it a try I'm depressed anyway lol woe is me . . . . . .

I have tried the only eat if it's good for me sort of thing but failed terribly . . . . .. . . .. .. . . ..ok try this then.

drat that skirt

Really, REALLY bad day today. I was going out to a picnic with the kids at a friend's house and decided to try something on that I had worn on a sunny day two years ago. I was shocked at how tight it was and suddenly my internal picture of myself just crumbled and I felt totally cr*p. As is usual in these situations everything spiralled until I was the worst person in the world and have been blighting my own and my children's lives. My 9 yr old ds and 6 yr old dd have both been getting a bit chunky, well a lot chunky in my dd's case, since we moved up here 2 years ago so naturally it's ALL MY FAULT. Of course. We used to live in a town and we'd always be out and about walking the dog, popping into town, cycling or scootering down the cycle path etc etc but that just hasn't been possible where we live now. Have I mentioned this before? I'm sure I have. Getting enough exercise here seems a lot harder. Any nice walks are a drive away, which makes them harder to fit into an already crammed full day. The sports centre is half an hour's drive away. The road into the village is pretty dangerous, and besides that walk gets pretty boring if it's all you've got. The dog has aged a lot in two years. he's twelve and a half and really feeling it, so no more yomping. But I must stop looking back at how easy it was then and try and find a way to make exercising a priority. I think cycling might be the way to go. It feels like it'd be so much easier to get myself fit, but I'm responsible for all the kids getting fit too. Tall order.

Well, anyway. I calmed down a bit and told myself that the skirt may have been tight, but I did actually get it on (then took it off in disgust and wore my jeans instead). And I have already lost some weight, I just need to lose a bit more.

I have the feeling that this place is about to become a mini boot camp. No sweets, lots more healthy eating etc etc. Any suggestions on how to persuade the kids to become more responsible about what they put into their bodies and how much they exercise would be gratefully received.

The good news and the bad news

Well, it's been ages since I posted last and I've achieved one of my goals. My marker for success was going to be whether I got into a certain pair of trousers. I managed that about a month ago. I was terribly nervous about trying them and then getting all depressed if they didn't fit, but they did.
The bad news is that I'm supposed to keep up the eating plan for 80% of the time. Yeah, right! I'm pretty bad at keeping to it, but I think the basics are there like not eating carbohydrate without protein, and I'm pretty sure I get my five a day most days, but I'm cheating so often. I've told myself it's ok to eat chocolate again. Well, it may be true that I don't come out in a rash straight away, but it still happens a day or so after. And certain days the sugar cravings are debilitating. One thing I have noticed is that if I eat anything with sugar in it in the evenings I get the odd numbness in my hand that used to worry me so much. Ok so now I know what to do, or rather what not to do, about it, but it is baffling.
I'm also pretty sure that my mood swings are partly down to not eating well enough, as well as environmental factors such as my relationship with a certain member of my family.
Well I know what to do, I just need to do it:-)

Here we go again

Hi Y'all
Back on the wagon again. Three whole days now. Bit depressing really because it's so hard to stick to it if I go out anywhere. Been having a lot of headaches too, wonder if it's caffeine withdrawal after all that easter chocolate. I did rather make up for lost time!LOL Oh well, slog on. The clocks going forward really affects the whole family quite badly. Littlest is now sleping through quite well, but I'm still waking up in the early hours and finding it difficult to get back to sleep. Although it's a possibele sign of depression I don't *think* I'm depressed, it's just a pattern I'm in and it'll take a while to overcome that. Last night our dog Merlin was very restless and had us up for a couple of hours, pacing and wanting to go out then come in then go out again. He's on heart tablets and one of the side effects is restlessness. I'm really looking forward to geting some decent sleep. We've told littlest that she's goign into her own bed when she's 4 in May, so we'll see how that goes.
Nothing else to report.

Cheat! Cheat! Big fat cheat!

Yep. I'll admit it. Look, it's been a tough week. (or more). My eating plan allows for one cheat day in the first month, 2 in the second and 1 a week in the third, but I've completely rewritten the rules. They now read 'If you're having a hard time cheat, cheat and cheat again'. Seems fair enough to me:-)
Had my hair cut last week to go out for a meal with DH. Really nice meal and my only cheat was the alcohol and the strawberries, meringue and cream. Then had a horrible 2 days. Hit the pits. So I thought 'what do women generally do when they feel this miserable? They eat chocolate that's what'. And having discoveed that I can eat chocolate without getting too much of a rash, and given that I'd just bought myself a Lindt bunny, i scoffed it. And I loved it.
Then I found out that I'd run out of my vitamin and amino acid supplements. Now, there's no point sticking to the diet if I can't do all of it is there? So normal service will be resumed when they arrive. Till then I've been quite surprised that even though I'm allowing myself to cheat I'm not bingeing, I'm just giving in to temptation a little bit. A mars bar here, a half a glass of beer there.
Oh well. When my supplements get here I'm going to give it the full 8 weeks and not cheat at all, unless it's an officially sanctioned cheat day. I may have to bend the rules again...

handling stuff too

Reading your post helps me feel that after all not all is lost. I keep falling off the wagon too, I don't think that i eat a lot, but as soon as \i try to eat less i end up wanting to eat more. I am sure there is a direct connection or link, trying to eat less equals wanting to eat more. Every time i try to eat less my poor body immediately tells me things like "You are so hungry Dawn, and you so need to dip 4 biscuits in your coffee. The craving is dire and urgent and physically demanding, I feel as if i will never be able to eat properly again and as a result I make sure I CAN eat.
It's true how ever hard I try that I find it really hard to say no to food and the more I say no the more I feel impelled to say 'yes' it feels physical and almost impossible to not say yes.
Then I have all these guilt hang ups about how I look and feel, and how annoyed my doc will be.
Because lack of food equals increased desire, I need to make it more 'do-able' so now I am concentrating on specific task, well 2 actually. The main things i eat that are fattening are chocolate and bread, also if I eat a lot of bread (ie couple of slices) I feel bloated and get heart burn, so I am going to cut both of these out completely. As I've said before I stopped smoking , I could say no fags, and I could refuse to have them at all. With food I can't say no food at all, so the boundaries and the desires get all muddled, and the "I'll just eat a bit" mentality sneaks in until i can't ignore it.
So now I can say NO and I have s strict criteria for the 'no', no chocolate, no bread. It sounds do able, it might make a difference, keep you posted.

Handling stress

Oops. I've been forgetting to post in purple. Been thinking about stress and how to handle it and still carry on being careful about what I eat. Whenever there's any kind of conflict, even if it's just black clouds on the horizon, or someone else not handling their emotions terribly well ( I'll leave you to guess the gender) I immediately feel that tight little knot and find myself fantasising about food. Or even succumbing.
So I am going to have to find different ways of dealing with stress, and as I can't just drop everything and sink into a hot bath it'll have to be something else. Probably something active involving the kids. And I'll have to take a leaf out of my own pet peeves book ( the one that gets annoyed when I suggest something and the person I've sugested it to comes up with reasons why it just can't be done - when I know it darned well can and needs to be!) and stop that annoying little voice in my head telling me negative things and why this won't be possible or that won't be practical, and by the way shouldn't you be doing x. y or z, I mean you *are* supposed to be educating those kid, you know! After all, who makes my schedule for me? Who is it who decides what I should be doing and how and when? Don't answer that!