Weekend away

Sunday:

I was away all weekend so didn't weigh myself today, but yesterday I was 79.2 kg -- up 0.3 kg. Same old same old.

You may remember a few weeks ago my jeans split and I accidentally bought new ones a size too small. Looking back through old blogs, I found that I bought my last pair of jeans almost exactly a year before they split. So I had been wearing the larger size for a whole year but had blanked out that fact. The new jeans are in the drawer, still with tags on, waiting for me to loose weight -- I amateurishly sewed up the split in the old ones and I am still wearing them.

Yesterday I was wearing my black jeans, also in the larger size, and they split. Same place they always do -- the seam that gets eroded by my thighs rubbing together. While I will also try to sew up these ones so they last a little longer; I now have no decent jeans. And I wear jeans nearly every day. I don't wear dresses (except for very formal occasions) as my thighs rub together causing a very painful heat rash; I now have one pair of shorts (long enough to cover the knee fat) and one pair of grey trousers that I wear when meeting clients. That's it. Apart from gym shorts and a couple of formal dresses, that is my entire bottom-half wardrobe.

Now the conundrum is: do I go and buy some new stuff in this unhappy size, or do I keep hoping for some weight-loss soon? At least it is finally warm enough to wear the shorts. I have quite a few clothes that would fit me if I drop a size. I am very resistant to accepting that I will continue being this size for long enough to need new clothes, even though I have been this size for a year. And haven't lost weight in four months of exercise. But adding more clothes for the current body shape would feel like giving in.

We drove to Sydney for the weekend and left the kids with my mum while Tim and I went to his cousin's 30th party. It was a geek party which was fun, Tim & I didn't have to look far to find suitable clothes! He wore his Goodies T-shirt and mine read "I appreciate the Muppets on a much deeper level than you". That part of the weekend was good, but we drove for hours each day and ate a lot. Chinese restaurant Saturday lunch, steak restaurant dinner, party, cafe bacon & eggs Sunday morning, McDonald's lunch on the drive back. I ate almost nothing at the party, but had 2 alcholic drinks which have plenty of calories, and no snacks apart from 3 strawberries and a mango all weekend. I wonder what I will weigh tomorrow.

No exercise yesterday but went for a walk after we got home this afternoon. Or preevning, as Sheldon would call it (pre-evening: after afternoon but before evening).

I spent much of my walk thinking about diet plans. Ok, first a disclaimer: I don't watch much daytime TV, but as I work from home I do have the TV on while I have lunch or a cup of tea. So I see bits of Oprah, The Doctors, Ellen Degeneres etc. But I don't sit around in my PJs watching TV all day. So that out of the way; I saw on Dr Phil that he has been pushing something called the 17 day diet. I don't know all the details, but the idea is that you change the rules of the diet every 17 days so that you don't get bored with it. As I get bored with a diet after about 1 day, I was toying with doing my version of a 1 day (or 3 day) diet. So I would change from low-carb to low-calorie to CSIRO etc. Always, of course, aiming to consume less calories than I expended. But the idea seemed kind of silly when I actually tried to plan it out. I am just searching for some way to help me to stick to a healthy eating plan.

I was chatting to a friend about dieting and all that, and she commented that I seem to be an "all or nothing" kind of person, and that maybe I should try little steps as being more sustainable. Yes, yes, but I want to be thin now! Yesterday! Tiny changes with tiny results don't seem motivational. But ... I have changed from cordial to water with a slice of lemon without any problems. A little change, but healthy and easy. No noticable results, of course. But maybe I can keep adding other little things like that instead of going all-out for a couple of days then lapsing.

I am going to focus on two things; drinking enough water, and eating my fruit and vegetables. These are both things I need to work on, they are positive goals (things to do, not things not to do), measurable, achievable. And filling myself with things my body actually needs might just help me stay away from the other stuff.

On the exercise front, I need to up the intensity a bit. I am increasing weights for BodyPump this week, but I am still not getting much intense cardio -- mainly walking and a bit of Zumba. I've been too busy on the weekends to get to my Step classes, and that is going to continue for a while, so I need to find some other way.

I just had a look at my gym timetable and saw that there is an RPM (spin) class on Thursday morning, when I currently don't have a class. Oooo. I shrink away from spin. Leaning forward on the handlebars puts too much weight on my shoulder (the instructor last time said that this is preventable if I just activate my core ie my non-existant abs) and it is ... just ... well ... hard work. Spin is hard.

Ok. This week, I go to spin. Urgle.

photo by pillowhead designs