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Monday:

It looks like I will start my new job on Wednesday if they can get the paperwork through on time. It's the same position as I did for my work experience so I should be able to jump right in, and hopefully less than 30 mins drive away. I'm still a little worried about it being full time, and I don't know my shifts yet, but I'm trying to focus on the happy and exciting aspects. I guess I'm nervous! I've got my useful notes together, and my 'work' mug for tea. I've used it for over 20 years, ever since someone gave it to me in a Secret Santa at work. I use a cup and saucer at home, but this mug is small and delicate so I like it. Amazing it's lasted so long.

I'll have to plan for extra cooking at dinner to have enough leftovers for lunch for everyone.

On Saturday I did some vigorous gardening, hefting bags of soil around and digging out entrenched recalcitrant weedy plants in preparation for putting in some new shrubs. After an hour of hard work I was gently spreading the soil around with the edge of the spade when bam! a horrible back spasm hit me and I nearly fell over. I've never had back issues before except for soreness from bad posture at a desk all day. This was like my whole lower back was clenched up. Painful. It's weird that it happened then, not when I was doing strenuous work, but I guess I was bending and twisting? I held myself up with the spade and waited but it didn't seem to be fading. After a few minutes Tim wandered outside so he helped me to the garden furniture so I could sit. The worst pain went after about 15 minutes but it is still a bit sore two days later after hot baths and massage and heat packs and pain killers. Sunday morning when I got out of bed it took me 5 mins just to shuffle to the bathroom. I probably need to strengthen my core - I've had non-existent stomach muscles since having kids.

I dropped to 15mg Duromine for a couple of days but started 30mg again today, although it probably wasn't the dosage's fault that I was stress eating! I weighed 72.1kg this morning, a gain of 0.1kg. I feel back on track today.

It's been about four weeks since I restarted my gym membership and I've been twice, less than an hour of exercise total. Partly due to having the flu, but mainly I just don't want to go. I'll try to get there tomorrow with my sister-in-law if my back is ok, for a gentle oldies class that has replaced Zumba (shakes fist in annoyance) but then I will cancel my membership. If I can't make myself go when I'm unemployed with all the time in the world, there is no way I'll manage it while working full time and still being a good parent (and taxi service for the kids!). But I need regular exercise, as my sore back is emphasising. Dance at home with the Xbox and walking in my lunch break maybe. I enjoy both those things.

Last weekend at family dinner there wasn't really enough roast meat to go around, this week everyone dropped out of coming over except my father-in-law so there are plenty of leftovers (you can't really divide up a leg of lamb before you cook it). I do wish I knew before about 3.30 in the afternoon how many people were coming for dinner! Some number between just the four of us and 19 people. Most often around 12. But at least it motivates us to clean the house every Sunday.

Two job offers

Thursday:

I got a call while I was shopping this morning. That job I won ages ago, supposed to start last October, to fill in for someone on maternity leave, but then there was a hiring freeze so it fell through. Well the freeze is over and they want me to start as soon as we can get the paperwork done, hopefully Monday! There's only seven weeks left before the real employee comes back, but who knows it could lead somewhere. I'm not looking forward to the 45 min drive through city traffic, but the job itself should be good. I'll be nearly full-time hours, the longest working days I've had for a long time. Tiring. Exciting but also rather scary.

I'm glad I've lost the weight I put on over Christmas, all the new clothes I bought last year will fit better.

And I'm glad I didn't sign up for a course I was thinking of doing.

The dry mouth side effect of Duromine was getting rather unpleasant, I skipped taking it today and filled my repeat script for the 15mg. I'll try going back down to that for a while. The 30mg didn't seem to be having an increased effect except for the dry mouth, in fact the past few days I've eaten way too much junk - a lot of chocolate. But that might have been getting over the flu and/or boredom. Soon I won't have time to be bored.

Later:

So.... when I was interviewed for the above job, there were managers of two branches doing the interviewing. This afternoon the second one called offering a job! When I told her the other one had already called, she laughed and laughed. It’s all a bit messy now. The first offer is further away and only for seven weeks, but she was very accommodating about my hours (I want to leave early two days a week to drive kids to sport) and has already put the paperwork in with admin - although I hadn’t signed anything yet. The second one is closer and until the end of June - more than four months, and could be extended - but the job is full time and she might not be as flexible about hours, and it will include school holidays.

The second manager called the first and tried to get her to give me up, but she wouldn’t, so I had to email her that I withdrew my acceptance and now I feel sick. I shouldn’t, they wasted months of my time when I could have been looking for work! This is only a day. I hope I made the right decision. I’m unlikely to start Monday as there are police clearances etc and this would have been the case with the other one too. What if full time is too much? Now I have to think about school holidays - and we won’t be going to France any time soon. And there’s the kids before and after school activities. I’m all churned up.

Sick

Monday:

I lost 0.7kg this week, down to 72.0 and I'm happy with that. I've been sick with a mild flu since last Wednesday (Tim now has it too) which usually encourages me to turn to 'comfort food' ie carbs and fat so I did well. Also this strain of flu seems to be a real mood downer, both Tim and I have felt quite depressed. I have eaten more chocolate than I had been the previous few weeks (it was also Valentine's Day last week) but otherwise have eaten healthily.

I'm feeling in limbo again about work. I’ve been accepted for casual work ‘on nomination’ whatever that means - I assume that they will call if they need me. So I just wait around.... I’m not enjoying the uncertainty at all. Of course I’m still looking for permanent work, but there is not a lot available for someone with no experience, so getting some casual work would really help me get a permanent position. I’m bored and lonely at home alone all day. Or maybe that is just the flu talking.

I have a few projects to keep me busy. We plan to go to France sometime soon (we've been talking about it for years, ever since we did a Contiki tour of Europe on our honeymoon) so Tim and I are brushing up on our High School French. Jasmine has learned some Italian and Spanish at school which are in the same family ('romance languages') as French and is learning with us on the app Duolingo. I plan to take up guitar again, Tim gave me an acoustic guitar years ago and I was doing quite well learning but then stopped. Since then I bought him an electric guitar - which is thinner so my bosom and stomach don't get in the way so much - but when I tried to tune it last week I broke a string. I have also been teaching myself to use Excel spreadsheets since a couple of jobs have mentioned it and it would be handy to have a basic knowledge.

I also plan to create a book of all our favourite recipes to give a copy to each child when they eventually leave home. I have to remember to photograph each meal.

Aiden left for a three day school camp this morning. I'll miss my baby.

Placebo

Wednesday:

I only lost 0.1kg this week, even though I increased my Duromine dosage midweek, however in the two days since my official weigh-in my weight has started dropping again so I’m happy.

I just watched Dr Mosley’s show about placebos. In his experiment, building on the work of others, he told a group of back-pain sufferers that they would be randomly allocated either a new powerful painkiller or a placebo. They wouldn’t know if they got the real medicine or not. In fact everyone got a placebo - a pill with rice flour in it. Three weeks later something like 46% had shown improvement, some were now completely pain free. He told them it was a placebo, but many continued to get benefit even when they knew there was no active ingredient in their medicine. The only known thing that made it more likely to work was having more quality time with the doctor who gave it to them.

Another study was done with people on lifelong toxic immunosuppressants after an organ transplant. They were given a nasty drink every time they had their medicine (pink milkshake with lavender oil, dyed green). After a while their body associated the drink with the medicine, and just taking the drink  caused their body to react as if they had had the medicine as well (but wouldn’t they still get the side effects in that case? They didn’t say). Dr Mosley tried this on himself by drinking the same nasty milkshake and taking a caffiene pill every day for a week, then testing his reaction times. Sure enough after a week just drinking the milkshake was enough to speed him up - and make him feel a bit jittery.

I plan to do this with my Duromine. I only expect to be on it for two more months but I won’t be at my goal weight even if I lose an optimistic kilogram a week. But if I do something - it has to be something you don’t usually do... what about a blood sugar finger prick test? Little stab of pain and the ritual of checking... then I can keep doing that when I stop taking Duromine and my body should suppress its own appetite.

We are having an insect invasion today. This morning Jasmine’s school bag was full of tiny ants, I found and sprayed the trail coming from a ceiling light. And sprayed again an hour later when they kept coming. And I’m squishing an ant climbing my leg or investigating my water glass about every 4 or 5 minutes, but I can’t see where they are coming from now. And I’ve swatted six flies, and there is another one swooping around. And I stomped on a cockroach, we hardly ever get them in the house here. Very weird. And there is a wasp lurking outside the back door today, I’ll have to look for the
nest. I don’t know what is going on today.

I went to the gym this morning and did 20 mins on treadmill/rower/elliptical. Exhausting. I’m so unfit.

Up and down

Monday:

I lost another 0.5 kg this week, bringing me down to 72.8kg. Not as much as I was hoping, I admit, but it’s true there were a lot of temptations and a few treats this week. Jasmine’s birthday party, her actual birthday and then her family dinner, and family celebration for Chinese New Year. I never ate a lot, but some sugar crept in. Speaking of which, I’ve managed tea without sugar for three weeks now (my record is six weeks), still not used to it, but I learned to appreciate it more after yesterday trying tea without sugar OR milk. Yuck! Bitter and horrible. Probably not cause and effect, but I then spent the whole morning lying on my bed with waves of sickening nausea. I think I’ll keep my tiny splash of milk, thank you.

I tried the tea without even milk because I am trying TRE - time restricted eating - where you extend your overnight fast, which means I don't snack after dinner and I often don't eat breakfast (I do if I'm hungry, or if I'm worried about not having access to healthy food when I do get hungry). The internet is divided if a splash of milk in my essential morning tea - 14 calories - breaks the fast and undoes all the benefits. After my one day trial I'm just going to have my tea with milk and not worry about it.

Wednesday:

By the middle of last week my weight was down to 72.7kg then overnight bounced back up to 73.2, nearly where I started. I didn't worry, daily fluctuations are normal. I was hoping it was just a blip and would disappear as quickly as it came, it didn't but by Monday I was down to 72.8kg, a moderate loss of 0.5kg for the week. Then yesterday the scale bounced back up to 73.3kg.... half a kilogram reappearing by magic (black magic obviously). Arg! This weight is pretty much what I maintained at for a lot of last year before I put on weight over Christmas, clearly it is my body's current 'set point'. I know if I keep up the low-carb calorie deficit it will shift eventually.

I've had no energy and I've been sitting around reading and watching TV a lot. I think low calorie or low carb was making me feel weak and tired and a bit listless (depressed is much too strong a word, but I didn't feel much motivation to do anything). I still haven't got back to the gym. I've also started to feel a bit hungrier and was finding it harder to resist temptations. So today (after a biggish breakfast and a couple of hours of reading instead of going to the gym) I decided to increase my Duromine from 15mg to 30mg and took an extra pill - this was always my doctor's plan, to start with 15mg then increase - and I already feel more energetic and chirpy. I bustled around doing some neglected housework and when the doorbell rang I positively bounded downstairs. So we'll see how this goes.

I came across some photos of me from just after we moved three years ago. I must have been at my highest weight then and I looked awful. So puffy and unhealthy. I'm so much happier with current photos, even one of me in a swimming costume by the pool. It's only 3 or 4 kg difference, but it makes a big difference to my eyes.

A section of our fence blew down in a big storm and it's in the process of being fixed, but in the meantime our neighbours dog Casper keeps wandering into our yard. I don't mind, he's a nice old Golden Retriever, about 15 years old and very gentle. He can't get into our pool area so he's safe. His owners have a pool and he loves swimming with them (Retriever's were originally bred to retrieve shot ducks from water, they love swimming) but I'd worry if he went in unsupervised. He's currently having a good sniff outside my window.