Non lofty goals = mini success?

Today - the first day of the rest of my diet.

Well, it's not meant to be a "diet", but it sounds more catchy.

I set myself a goal not to go over 35 ProPoints today - not the loftiest of goals maybe (my daily limit is 29), but a goal nonetheless.

Well, I have hit 31 Points today, it is 9:40 pm, and I am not hungry. I may snack n some fruit tonight, but otherwise I am feeling pretty satisfied. I even had a drink in the pub and a meal out in a fancy restaurant.

Ok, so we woke up late and had "brunch" instead of separate meals for breakfast and lunch, but I have to say, this is the first I've been even close to within my allowance. I'm quite proud of myself actually.

Me and the boyfriend did some serius power shopping today - hit the vintage shops around the West Port and Grassmarket pretty hard. He came home with a fabulous duffle coat with a tartan lining from Godiva, which was a total find at 75 quid.

My before and goal pictures (aka 'the way we were')

This is my before picture. I had to root around and steal this one from Facebook (it's on my friend's page, but I wouldn't let her tag me as I think I look big). I think I look big in most photos these days.

It's sad, and I am very vain apparently. I may be grinning like a loon but inside I am hoping the camera will shed 10 lbs.



This is an old photo of me. This is my goal; though it isn't the smallest I have ever been - and at the time I still thought I was fat - I look back on this size of me and think wow, I looked pretty damned good then.

I am also wearing a rubber dress.



I have high hopes for my true 'after' picture...

Fat fortnight

Weightloss was not the watchword these past couple of weeks. I don't know if it is the adjustment period from calorie counting to WW - actually, I am 100% certain I am 100% to blame for my failure this fortnight. Now I am not being particularly down on myself, and actually I am feeling quite good about things at the moment (though I have not lost and may have gained back a couple of those creeping pounds).

My work's Christmas lunch was last Friday, and I just did not give a toss about what went in my mouth, both food (duck, pigeon, meringue) and drink (3/4 bottle of red wine and whiskies aplenty). It was my last day and I think it was fair enough to let things slide for the day! I think it may be some time before I see some of the people I had been working beside for the past year, and I wanted to have a nice time; not spend the whole time thinking about what I was eating.

I've had a few slip-ups and I'm not proud of them. But this week is almost through, and it's only a whisper away from the new one. I am writing this fornight off as one to enjoy myself, see friends, have a little fun. I have been walking most days into town (as opposed to bussing it), and I feel healthier - fat, but healthier!

Day 1 recap

My first day back on WW went ok (not great). I was over my points allowance, but I did restrain myself somewhat – despite the fact my boyfriend was brewing up some tasty smelling stew late last night. He does that all the time – chucks in whatever is about to go off and makes these amazing concoctions. The best was a buffalo and tomato stew with whole shallots, slow-cooked overnight. Oh yum!

I haven’t had time to cook the past few months, and my eating has been atrocious. I’ve been grabbing something after class most days, and eating it on the bus to work. One thing I won’t miss about work is the silly commute from Kings Buildings down to Leith. One time I even took my leftovers from the night before, and nearly ended up with a pile of noodles on my lap around a sharp corner! The people, the actual job – all that I’ll miss. The lack of sleep and the commute…not so much.

My target is 29 WW ProPoints a day. If I’m totally honest, I don’t quite understand the new system yet, but I suppose it’s the same as when I joined WW years ago – it must be a learning curve.

What I have found with WW that I prefer to counting calories is that it’s easier to guesstimate points than it is to do the same with calories. I don’t eat a lot of processed foods (usually only what I consume from the canteen at work or uni) so it’s sometimes more difficult to find a non-branded item such as Brussels sprouts or tomatoes than something from a packet! I don’t plan on changing my diet to include packaged rubbish though.

Some of the items I have logged from the WW site have been branded, but I’ve usually just taken the highest ProPoints value to keep myself right. I probably won’t post every single day’s worth of food here, but as it was my first day I thought it would be rude not to.

I finished the day consuming 40 ProPoints (11 PP over my target of 29 – yikes!), drinking 4 glasses of water (of which I included 1 green tea, no added sugars or sweeteners), and eating 5 of my 5-a-day of fruit and veg. It wasn’t bad as far as first days go, but I now know what I should be keeping an eye on.


Breakfast
Cheese scone (9)
1 serving strawberry jam (1)
Lunch
Mushroom stroganoff (7)
New potatoes, 100g (2)
White basmati rice (0)
Brussels sprouts (6)
Dinner
½ portion Aloo Saag, leftovers (5)
1 poppadom (1)
All day
2 medium bananas (0)
2 medium plums (0)
1 sachet Ella’s Kitchen organic
fruit puree, red (1)
1 peshwari naan, leftovers (8)
Green tea (0)
Total: 40 ProPoints
Water: 4 glasses
Fruits and veg: 5 portions

My starting weight was a ginormous (for me) 175.5 lbs. That’s a whopping 12st7.5 lbs, which is 4.5 lbs heavier than the weight I started at when I first joined WW. My goal? Eventually I’d like to get back down to my fighting weight of 8st13 lbs (125 lbs), which was my weight at my absolute healthiest, living at home with my mum and dad in high school the year after I left that dreadful boarding school. I am 5’3” and big in the chest department, I do realise I will never be 100 lbs and a skinny-minnie. I know how I want my body to be, and I know this because I’ve done it before.

Ok, so it is now over a decade later, but I have every intention of getting there. There’s 50.5 lbs to be lost from my starting weight and I’ve lost 10 lbs since then. That’s only 40.5 lbs to go. Ah hell, that’s only the weight of my dog!


1. 165 lbs: new handbag
I don’t mean some wee purse from Topshop. I’ve got my eye on a few contenders here, including a very special Mulberry classic or something from Chloe or Chanel. I’ve got another half pound to go before a trip to Harvey Nicks will be in the cards!

2. 150 lbs: mini shopping spree
I can't go around in clothes that are too big for me, can I?

3. 140 lbs: tattoo
I’ve wanted a particular illustration of Alice falling through the rabbit hole ever since I first laid eyes on it 6 years ago. It’s by an artist named Iassen Ghuislev, and it is the most beautiful illustration of my favourite book of all time. I need to find a bare spot to put it, but methinks this could become part of my half sleeve.

The last time I was tattooed by this particular artist, I was 140 lbs. And that is the weight I will be when I go back.

Whilst I’m there I have a couple NIN-inspired ideas I’d like to incorporate; song lyrics mostly. I’ve always loved both “Hurt” and “The only time”, and I think lyrics from both sngs would go quite nicely with my Alice tattoo.

From “Hurt”
“Beneath the stains of time/the feelings disappear/you are someone else/I am still right here”
“If I could start again/a million miles away/I will keep myself/I will find a way”

From “The only time”
“Lay my hands on Heaven and the sun and the moon and the stars”.
“I swear/I just found everything i need./the sweat in your eyes the blood in your veins are listening to me”.

4. 130 lbs: NYC
I haven’t seen one of my best friends in a couple years; she lvies in NYC and the last time I saw her was the last time I went to visit her there. We had a total blast – this girl is the only person I know who can outshop me, and she is also the only flatmate I have ever had that I never wanted to throttle at some point.
I miss her, and I’d love to go and see her.

5. 125 lbs: shop for a new wardrobe
Oh yes, when I hit my goal weight of 125 lbs, I will be going on a massive shopping spree. I plan to kit out an entirely new wardrobe of clothing, and I will be selling off my “big girl clothes” on ebay.

Why I want to lose weight

There are a million different reasons why I want to lose the 30+ lbs I’ve been unable to shift for the past year. Not least because it’s a little scary that I managed to gain those pounds in just over a year – that’s 2 lbs a month over a 15 month period! How on earth did I miss this? Why didn’t I do something about it at the time? The truth is, I don’t know. At first it was because I was blissfully happy with my new man. Then I think it became about the lack of motivation I felt as a chunkier me to do anything, much less something about my weight.

My boy loves me just the way I am, and he tells me this everything single day. There are things about me that annoy the hell out of him, but he still finds me attractive. I want to lose weight to feel comfy with myself again, and he’s happy for me just to be healthy.

So here are my reasons; not so much a raison d’etre but more a raison de faire.

1. So I can walk up hills (without gasping for breath)! I used to be quite fit and healthy, but a year or two of too much food and too little exercise have made themselves known... I want to get back to my fighting weight of 9st-ish, and I know I can do it because I've done it before!
2. I want to be able to do the things I like without huffing and puffing
3. I want to climb mountains
4. I want to fit into my size 10 clothes
5. I want to feel pretty again
6. I want to get my half sleeve done, and I want to have nice arms to justify the artist’s work, not jiggly ones!

All about me Part 3: All grown up

A few years ago I started going to Weightwatchers meetings near my house, and I lost 3st in just over a year. I lived on my own at the time, and I did it surreptitiously – I hated to admit I wanted to lose weight, and I pretended it just “fell off” on its own. I have always had a fear of being show to try and to fail, preferring not to be seen to try at all. I also started going to a personal trainer once a week (twice a week during the summer months), who kicked my butt and taught me if not to love, then to like running. I even did a 5k and finished in a decent time.

I think I was lulled into a false sense of security as I was doing quite a bit of exercise as well as watching what I ate. I’ve never been a huge success at keeping tabs on my eating – I’m fine with logging every mouthful, but when it comes time to keep within “restrictions”, I am less than great. I was meant to keep under 21 WW Points per day, and I think in a year and a half I managed this no more than 10 times. When I stopped doing as much exercise, I gained the weight back in half the time it took to lose it.

I met my boyfriend 2 years ago, and in those first few months of lovey-doveyness, when I was taking a break from work and uni, we spent much of it bed eating 2 roasts a day with the full trimmings, pasta and pesto with mountains of cheese as a snack, and drinking wine. It was almost of Henry the Eighth proportions, though we never ordered anyone beheaded. Roman bacchanalian feasts, minus the vomitorium. In that year I also went on the Pill for the first time since high school, and we did little exercise other than going to the shops to buy more food. I gained so much weight, and I became less and less happy. I hated being fat but it was just so hard to get going again. I tried running again, but with the extra weight I hated it. Everything became difficult, even walking to the shops I was gasping for breath. We didn’t go walking anymore, we didn’t do much except eat and watch telly. We became slobs.

This time last year I bought myself an iPhone, and one of the first things I searched for in the App store was a weight loss tool. I had originally set out looking for a WW tool, but there wasn’t one at the time. There were hundreds of Apps that promised to count calories for me though, so I chose the one that seemed the most user-friendly and went for it. The App I chose was MyFitnessPal.

If I am completely honest with myself, I didn’t really do it wholeheartedly to begin with. I logged every morsel I ate, but I still ate whatever the hell I liked. I kept gaining weight or staying the same – since December of last year, I’ve only managed to lose 10 lbs – and much of it has been gained and lost and gained again.

In April of last year, I joined a gym. Twas a very expensive gym, especially as I’d signed up with a personal trainer as well. I went a couple times a week to begin with, but then started going to 3 sessions a week doing kettlebell training on a PowerPlate. I loved it. I actually noticed a difference, especially in my arms and waist, and also in my strength and endurance. My trainer kicked my butt and made me work really hard, and I loved the structure of it. I’ve never been good at doing exercise by myself, as I lose interest so easily. I need a focus, and that is why I have always benefitted when I’ve had a personal trainer.

In August I was injured in an accident on my way home one weekend, and I was unable to continue with the training. I was gutted, but there was nothing that could be done so I just took a break from exercise for awhile. I had some minor depression after the accident and suffered a loss of appetite; I felt queasy all the time and generally unwell. When I wasn’t at work I would just go to sleep. It was a bad time for me, and I’m so happy that period of my life is behind me.

Since then I went back to uni to study full time, as well as working part time at my old job – I’ve always preferred being busy as I get bored so easily. I will be leaving my job to concentrate more on my studies as of next term, so I may have a little more free time – which I hope to spend indulging in some healthy cooking and getting back on track with my fitness.

This is a good week for me to start this new blog. After weeks stuck at the same weight of 11st13.5 (167.5 lbs), I finally managed to shift some of that excess poundage. I lost 2 lbs since my last weigh in, and I met my first goal – I am currently sitting on 11st11.5 (165.5 lbs) and just half a pound away from my first goal of 165 lbs. I think I can manage half a pound this week!

Today I decided to return to WW – I am finding it slightly difficult to be honest, as the new WW site is quite clunky and not as user friendly as MyFitnessPal. The calorie counting thing wasn’t working that well for me though, so I hope this may be the kick I need to get rid of the 30-odd lbs I’d desperately love to see the last of.

So here I am, ready to start losing weight. Welcome to my world!

All about me Part 2: The university years

When I went away to university, I was reasonably fit and slim at around 9st. I maintained this for the first couple years, but then the effects of too many nights out to the pub and unhealthy student grub added a good stone or so of weight onto my 5’3” frame. I was still in the “slim” category, just with a larger waist size in my jeans and more in the chest area than I’d ever had before. I ate whenever I felt like it, which was most definitely not at set mealtimes! I almost never had a breakfast, a lunch and a dinner; it was usually something from the takeaway or deli for lunch (I didn’t often wake up before lunchtime), snacking throughout the day on biscuits or cheese, maybe pasta around tea-time as another snack, then whatever chippy was still open after the pub for dinner. My favourite was the Canadian classic, poutine. Yes, that’s chips with cheese curds and gravy – and the wonder that more Canadians are not obese!

I went on to study for another degree after I finished my first, moving to Edinburgh and retaining the rubbish eating habits I’d picked up at uni. I’d never had much experience of processed foods before as my mum is super-cook and prepares every single meal painstakingly by hand. This is one lady who does not bend to the pressures of packaged foods, and there were no TV dinners in my house! Occasionally we had the odd pizza, but my dad never really took to it and to this day will only partake of a pizza if it’s of the thin crust Italian variety (as opposed to the doughy mess they try to fob off on you at Pizza Hut, one of my most hated eating establishments). The closest I came to fizzy juice was Orangina, though I did sneak a few cream sodas at school from the vending machine. My mum is a big fan of fresh juices, and my favourites as a kid were strawberry (either mum-made or from the basement of Sogo department store in Hong Kong) and watermelon. Nothing beats an ice cold watermelon juice in the summer. Nothing.

Well at uni, I discovered Irn Bru and takeaway pizzas, ready-meals and Supernoodles. The town I lived in when I first moved to Scotland had a small Tesco on the main street and an only-slightly-larger Safeway slightly out of town. By my third year there I had discovered a few delis, but I was still not quite brave enough to venture into the local butchers with the half cow carcasses hanging in the window. The kitchen in our shared flat was a mess anyways, so we used the micro mostly and the oven and hob were only for heating things up rather than anything more adventurous.

When I finally moved out of student digs, I started cooking a bit more for myself. I was living in the east end of Edinburgh with a couple flatmates in a tiny two-bedroom flat we crammed into, with a decent sized kitchen and a Sainsburys across the road. I ate a lot of udon noodles that year, but I also went out clubbing every night of every weekend as well, and I had to walk 20 minutes into the town centre every day. There was exercise to be had, and out of necessity (and lack of a bus pass) I remained reasonably fit and healthy, though a bit on the chubby side at 10st.
When I bought my own flat, things started going a bit downhill as far as my weight was concerned. Or should that be “uphill”? I had a proper kitchen now, and I had three boy flatmates who loved to eat. I fed us all roast duck, lamb chops, steak with creamy peppercorn sauce…all the tasty, heavy, calorie-rich things the boys liked to eat, with not a green vegetable or salad in sight. In a year and a half I gained almost 3st (that’s almost 42 lbs of excess weight I packed on). I still went out every night at the weekends, and I was still reasonably fit and healthy considering my size (an ample size 14 but more realistically a 16).

I pretended I was ok with being this size, but I hated it. I hated going into shops and either having to buy the largest size they offered, or not being able to fit into anything at all. Topshop was a nightmare! I had a rough year, partied too much after a great loss of a good friend who died in the summer of 2004, and generally burned out before I was halfway through my second degree. I took a step away from the people involved in my life at this point – it took me a good year after but I did manage to eventually get my life back.

All about me Part 1: When I was wee

I am a 31 year old mature student doing a land-based course in Scotland. I live with my boyfriend, our dog and our cat (named in size order, as I do love to order things by size) in a crumbling Victorian era flat with loads of history. We’re outdoorsy people; I am a ski bunny and my boyfriend is a cyclist, and we both enjoy long walks along the coast and rough camping. We also like walking up hills, though I’m not as fond of walking down them!

I have struggled with my weight since I was a kid, though until the past year or so I’ve always been healthy. I was a chubby child until the age of 11 – I was never “fat”, but there was definitely a noticeable belly and a certain jolliness around the cheeks and double chin – when I lost quite a lot of weight just by eating a little less and shedding a bit of puppy fat. I was never particularly skinny, but I did a lot of sport in school (football, hockey, baseball, track and jujitsu for the most part) as well as skiing every weekend during the long Canadian winters.

I was also never “skinny” except for a brief eating disorder when I was 14 or 15, which may have originated from a brief bout of food poisoning at boarding school and an aversion to pork in a German- speaking country, where everything from bratwurst to schnitzel was just another incarnation of the pig. I didn’t eat much during my two years at that school! Especially when I discovered the servers at the Spiesesaal identified everything as “fleisch”, with no differentiation between schwein (pig), huhn (chicken) and rindfleisch (beef), not to mention pferdfleisch (horse).