A week in Scarborough

Had a fantastic week in Scarborough with Joe.

We did some fairly long walks (2 miles) and ate out every night so off plan for a week. I missed my SW class so then of course I carried on eating all the bad things and takeaways etc, so my post holiday weigh in was a 4.5lb gain. Not too bad really.

Last week at my SW class, I knew I had to get back on plan but was struggling a bit with it, and the new consultant (the lovely Sheila) could tell I was struggling and really tried hard to help me focus and get back on plan. Then as I went to leave the class, the ‘teachers’ who are a group of lovely ladies who come to SW together from a local school, met me at the door and really encouraged me to get back on track and laid down a challenge, as they themselves had had to do the same the week before.

This really encouraged me and the next morning, I started back on plan and have stuck to it all week. so last night at SW class I lost 3.5lbs. I’m pretty chuffed with that.

Another couple of lbs and I reach my 2.5st award and my 10% award as well.

This morning (Friday) I took Joe to work and then had a bit of retail therapy. He wanted to stop for a McDonald’s breakfast, and I have to admit for a moment I thought I might join him, but didn’t. I just had a diet coke. Then during my shopping trip I passed all the bad things and had realised that I didn’t want to go off plan. Which made me feel really happy inside.

I bought myself a muffin tin and some silicone cases to make mini crustless quiches, and some individual jelly moulds with lids to make sugar free jelly.

I got home from shopping at 11.20am and had porridge with skimmed milk and 2tsps sugar (HEB/HEA/2 syns).

I feel lovely and full now and ready to put the shopping away and do some major cleaning which is always good exercise.

Hope to be able to share my next set of awards with you next time I blog.

Thanks for reading.

Emms x

 

 

 

Getting my Mojo back

We’ve all done it. You get to a point where you’ve lost a couple of stone and you start to relax and think how well you’ve done and then you start to ‘treat’ yourself and before you know if you are back in your old bad habits of eating and the SW plan is out the window!

August has been  month of yo-yoing on and off plan.

This week at SW group, our consultant told us about a chap who lost 8st so he could go paragliding with his friends on holiday, but once the holiday was over he slowly gained the entire 8st back.

This really made me think as I do not want to go back to that place of immobility and pain when I was 25st. So although I had already ‘drawn a line’ this month to start again, I really meant it this time. Saturday 19 August I reset my head and told myself I was starting again from the beginning.

I had missed my SW class the week before as I knew I was going to gain 3lbs (my scales at home weigh the same as SW class ones) but after a week of being good and eating lots of free and speed foods I lost 1lb at SW group this week (4lb really as I also lost the 3lb I had gained the week before).

It’s taken a great deal of soul searching and giving myself a good talking to, but I’ve got my Mojo back and I am on plan and aiming to get my two and a half stone award this week. It means a loss of 3.5lbs this week, but I’ve done it before so I know I can do it.

This will be my first mini goal achieved as well as 22st 6lbs is my 10% goal as well. This morning (Saturday) on my scales I am 22st 7lbs, so I know I am on the right track.

My next goal after that is 20st. That will be 5 stone gone. That sounds amazing – I have got to keep going as I feel so much better, my walking is practically back to normal now. Although I still get the odd twinge of pain I am not anywhere near as bad as I was 3 months ago.

I bought myself a new dress to wear for a special occasion two weeks ago and I felt lovely in it. Its a Joanna Hope dress and it hangs really nice, but when I saw the picture of me in it I realised how far I still have to go.

I’ve got a dress put away that I wore for my engagement party in February 2004. I was 17st then. One of my goals along this journey is to be able to wear that dress again.

So the journey to a healthier me continues.

Thanks for reading,

Emms x

 

Self sabotage

Week 11 on the Slimming World Plan and I have come a bit unstuck this week. I gained 2.5lbs. I’ve dipped half a pound back under the 2 stone mark. Grrrr.

The reason?

Hormones. And a little bit of stress.

Its like I’ve changed into another person this week. I’m moody, not sleeping, finding fault with everything and everyone (except me of course) and I have literally wanted to eat everything in sight. As my star week swiftly approaches I am blaming my hormones. Seems pretty obvious to be honest. I’ve also had more than the usual incidents causing me stress and anxiety this week.

It started with small things early in the week, I would have an extra Hifi bar (3 syns) or another packet or two of crisps (6 syns). Then I progressed to a Warburtons Toastie Pocket with nutella (10 syns) before bed, then on Tuesday I was going for bust and wanted to blow the whole thing and have a KFC for lunch! I was persuaded not to by the lovely Sarah who sits next to me at work, and so in my dithering moment I decided to calculate the Syn value of the Boneless Banquet Box…34 Syns, and I am so glad that I did. There is no way that I am going to waste 34 syns on one meal.

I had already prepared a ham salad for my lunch (which just wasn’t hitting the spot) so I opted for half a bag of chip shop chips at 7 syns. After 11 weeks of healthy eating, chip shop chips just taste greasy. So I didn’t eat them all, but did almost manage the half portion.

At this point I knew that I was going to have a gain and not a loss or possibly if I was lucky a maintain this week. I messaged my SW consultant and said I wouldn’t  be coming to class this week and to book a holiday week for me. But I realised that if I didn’t go to class this self sabotage would continue and then by next week I might of gained half a stone. So I decided to bite the bullet and go, take the gain and draw a line. I carried on the plan and ate a normal SW day on Thursday, drinking lots as I would normally do.

I gained 2.5lbs this week.

For treat night we had a chinese takeaway, I didn’t even think about syns, thinking that if I have something comforting (naughty) then maybe it’ll be out of my system and I can start again this week. But noooo…this morning I have woken up craving warm cinnamon rolls. Don’t worry, I’ve had two alpen light bars (HEB) for breakfast.

Looking back, I have always been a comfort eater. Some of my fave foods are chips with gravy or mashed potato with roast chicken and gravy, shepherds pie or treacle sponge and custard. No prizes for realising how I got to 25st!!

I did have issues as a child with bullying at school and started eating secretly at the age of about 8 or 9. When my mum cleaned my bedroom she would find what she called ‘hot wrappers’ of chocolate bars I had eaten in my room and stuffed the wrappers down the back of my bed. I have continued in the ‘eating for comfort’ routine for the past 35 years with bouts of dieting in between.

I remember losing 3 stone previously whilst at a slimming world class but I remember starving myself for long periods to get the weight loss, so wasn’t really following the plan. The a couple of years ago Joe and I did the Cambridge Diet. I lost 3 stone then too, but once I started eating normally again I gained it all back and more.

That is why I am really enjoying the Slimming World plan now. I am following the plan, I am not depriving myself of anything (except maybe treacle sponge and custard) and my eating habits have changed along with my taste buds.

So this week, whilst I do still want to gnaw my right arm off (after I dip it in chocolate) I am going to be inventive and try some new recipes and if I crave something, try to find a good SW swap or SW version.

I am going to Aldi to shop later, so am going to sit now and look at SW recipes so I go armed with a full shopping list of what I need.

At last nights class, one of the ladies told us about a soup she makes that is like Heinz Tomato soup. Pic below – I am so trying this. 

I’m also going to make SW rice pudding with Almond milk.

So we’ll see how I cope this week and if things improve. I have challenged another SW member, the lovely Viola, to a 3lb loss this week, so I’m on it like a car bonnet as my mum would say.

Thanks for reading.

Emms x

2 stone award – whoop whoop!!

I have had an excellent week on plan over the last 7 days and lost 5lbs this week. My total now is 2st 2lbs in 9 weeks, so I achieved my 2 stone award this week and also was joint slimmer of the week! After a gain of half a pound the week before I was very very happy with this loss this week.

I’m not sure if anyone else has experienced this, but for the past two weeks an amount of self doubt has been creeping in and I thought that I had ‘plateaued’ as my weight was not shifting under 23st. I have the terrible habit of weighing myself at home every few days. My scales at home are exactly the same as the ones at my SW class, so I know whatever my scales say is accurate.

I made a few changes this week, making sure that I ate salad at lunch time and some speed food with every meal, even if it was just a tin of tomatoes with bacon and eggs. I’m still not drinking the water regularly. During the week whilst at work I make sure I have at least 1 litre if not 2 litres a day, but at weekends seem to only have diet Pepsi. I buy prepared packs of iceberg lettuce and cucumbers and have half a bag of lettuce and half a cucumber each lunchtime and that seems to be enough speed, along with whatever vegetables I eat with my main meal and I’ve eaten a lot of watermelon this week. I’ve had a water infection this week and am on antibiotics and was retaining water, so I think once the antibiotics kicked in I managed to shed the excess water which resulted in the big weight loss this week.

Health wise my energy levels are increasing all the time and my walking is still improving. Today we went to the BRI for my husbands diabetic appointment and walked a long way around the hospital then we went to Ikea and walked the full length of the store and then called at Asda on the way home and did a grocery shop. That’s a lot of walking for me, but apart from achy feet I was fine, I didn’t need to sit down once and did not have any pain. Result!

My energy levels are enabling me to do certain tasks in the house that I have not been able to tackle previously. I’m currently in the middle of a Pinterest project. We have three ottomans full of DVDs. I am taking them out of the plastic boxes and cutting the covers down to fit into a slim plastic CD case. This will enable me to store lots of DVDs in a much smaller space.

The other thing I am working on is clearing out my kitchen cupboards and purging any items I haven’t used in the past 6 months. Its quite a therapeutic process. A few months ago I read a book called Spark Joy – The Art of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. Kondo has devised a process of reviewing and purging items that don’t bring you joy. I have already started with my books smaller items such as ornaments that we have had for a long time. I can recommend this book to anyone wanting to clear out old items and clutter from their homes.

So to this week and what I plan to do. I have only got 5lbs to go to my 10% goal of 22st 6lbs, I hope to lose at least 2lbs this week. It feels like this goal can be achieved within the next few weeks. This is the first goal that Slimming World set for me. The first goal I have set for myself is 20st. I am aiming to get to this goal by the end of the year. Goals are good to have especially small ones as this makes them more achievable. That will be a 5 stone loss for me which will mean the biggest and best impact on my health.  Watch this space!

Thanks for reading,

Emms x