Wednesday weigh-in: 77.7 kg

Wednesday:

Down another half a kg this week which is good. My weight is actually up a little today compared to the last couple of days which annoyed me as we didn't even have the usual D&D supper last night! Oh well, fluctuations happen. The overall direction is down.

Starting weight 15/08/12: 79.1 kg
Week 1: 78.2 kg
Week 2: 77.7 kg

The gods of snot laughed at my recommittment to everyday exercise. I had been fighting off a cold for a few days; headache, runny nose, sore throat; and yesterday I woke up much worse. So I didn't even walk the kids to school. Feel a bit better today. Not sure how I'll go at the gym this afternoon -- but I will go. Even if just for a slow walk on the treadmill.

Speaking of which, I am getting my treadmill back. We got a really good one some years ago but I rarely used it and ended up giving it to a friend. I said she could keep it but she always treated it as a loan and now she is having her house renovated and needs to pack and store most of the stuff in the house so she is going to give it back. I'm not going to put it back in the loungeroom (where it dominated), it will go out in the "studio" which is a converted garage. There is no internal connection to the house so it is a junk room/guest bedroom with no heating or air con and I rarely go out there. I don't see the treadmill being used much out there, but we'll see. It weighs 112kg so even though it has two wheels at the front it is a bugger to move around. The original idea was that it would be in the loungeroom so I could watch TV while jogging, but it is huge and heavy and takes up too much space so I don't see that happening again. The studio is also pretty full. Our house isn't particularly small, but we have too much stuff! Twelve overflowing bookcases, for a start.

Birthday!

Monday:

I had a really lovely day today, if not a particularly healthy one. It started with presents in bed then croissants for breakfast. After taking the kids to school (I walked!) I went to the movies. There was a bit of a mix-up there, I had seen ads for a movie about Snow White -- a comedy with Julia Roberts as the evil queen. So I saw "Snow White and the Huntsman", which turned out to be a completely different movie, with Kirsten Stewart (Bella from Twilight) as Snow White and Charlize Theron as the evil queen. Why are there two movies about Snow White on at the same time? This one was gloomy and serious and not very good. Charlize Theron's acting mainly consisted of shouting, no-one has ever claimed Kirsten Stewart can act, the plot was silly, and the editorial work on the movie was terrible. I enjoyed what I could and let the rest go. Aparently the one I actually wanted to see was called "Mirror Mirror." Oh well.

I wandered around the shops a bit and bought myself a lip balm from the Body Shop then met Tim for lunch at our favourite Chinese. We had a table booked and arrived at almost the same time but were shown to different tables with one table between us. Luckily Tim noticed me before too long. We had some lovely chocolates from Koko Black for dessert then I dropped him back at work and went home for about half an hour before getting the kids (walked again!).

Shortly after that we headed off to the gym where the kids did their Gecko Kids session and I did half an hour on the treadmill, my first exercise in some weeks. It went well, I felt fine and did 4 "sprints". I walked at 4.5 km/h and jogged at 7.0. Of course the girl next to me was walking at 7.0 and jogging at 10.5! I'll speed up in time, but 10.5 will always be running nearly flat out for me, my legs are so short. I think I got to 11 once for about 30 seconds.

Home and started dinner, then Tim called to say he wasn't feeling well so we went and picked him up. Bummer if he has finally succumbed to my germs after holding out for a month. I finished making the crumbed lamb cutlets with broccoli in cream sauce and for dessert a chocolate raspberry mousse concoction. Mmmmm.

I am feeling rather full this evening. I used 61 PP today, more than double my allowance, and used up all my weeklies yesterday & today, plus my handful of activity PP, and I am on -5 for the week! I'll have to earn those back, and be very good for the rest of the week. Of course it is a shame to eat so much and undo the good work of the last few days, but then it was my birthday. Back on the wagon tomorrow. I've had a really good day; the food and the rest, and I am not going to spoil it with regrets. Non, je regret rien!

Sunday weigh-in: 79 kg; down 0.3 kg

Sunday:

Yesterday I walked to the local fruit markets and back (with a backpack full of fruit) then also did 45 mins on the treadmill at the gym -- so about 1 hr 15 mins in total. A couple of short jogs on the treadmill. I also stuck to my calories. I had plenty of my allowance left in the evening so was able to have some chocolate. I broke off a row -- 4 squares -- and sat at my computer. Had 3, and that was enough. I had that one square sitting there looking at me but it didn't make me crave it, or eat it even though I no longer wanted it, it just made me happy because I knew I could eat it if I wanted to. I didn't have the sense of deprivation from the previous day where I wasn't allowed.

Today will have to be one of my "off diet" days. Kids party in the morning, lunch out while we are Christmas shopping, and roast lamb for dinner. I don't think I will be under my calorie limit! And I foolishly started the day with eggs on toast. Nothing wrong with eggs or toast, but it was about twice as many calories of any of my usual breakfasts. Less left for the rest of the day. And I didn't even really enjoy it. I seem to like eggs less and less lately. Maybe they aren't so good without bacon on the side! I get free range so they should taste the nicest. But I guess I've never really been a huge egg fan. My husband likes scrambled eggs when he is feeling sick, but the smell turns my stomach if I am unwell. The last thing I would want to eat. Vegemite on toast is the way to calm an upset stomach. My grandparents, and then uncle, had a poultry farm until 20 years ago; the nicest egg is one you have picked up seconds after you watch the hen lay it and then you cook it straight away.

While on the treadmill yesterday I tried to work out how long my pace is. I'm sure it varies a bit (or a lot), and being on a treadmill is different to being outside, but it is better than my original guesstimate. My stride for a double step (one of each foot) is something like 1.3 metres. 70 paces takes me about 100 metres. Good to know. It means last time I did the lap of the lake, I ran more than 1 km of the 5 km, in 100 metre bursts. Exciting. I didn't know I was running that far. I look forward to getting back into doing laps of the lake. For a while there I was all about BodyPump, now suddenly I want to run! I was definitely one of the sceptics who thought I would never run -- but I already am. A bit.

Back on the treadmill

Thursday:

I went to the gym on Monday and walked very slowly on the treadmill for half an hour. By the end I was sweaty and tired, and I had a bit of an illness relapse that afternoon. So I didn't exercise Tues or Wed -- yesterday was the first day I was feeling myself again. I went to the gym this morning and walked for an hour at a medium pace on the treadmill and it was fine so I think I am back to normal. Yay!

It is the first day of December, the first day of summer here, just over three weeks until Christmas. My weight has been stable for the past three months, which is very frustrating. I hope to lose at least one kilogram by Christmas. No, not hope. Plan. It is a tricky time of year, of course, but I can indulge a bit at parties without binging all month.

I will exercise five days a week again. I can't help having been sick for past couple of weeks, but it is time to get back on track. I will do classes at the gym and work on getting my lap of the lake down to 45 mins. I don't have a goal date for this achievement, I think it might take me a while. I might set a date after doing a few more trials.

I will also diet five days a week. I will track my food every day, and stay under my calorie limit (1340 plus extra for exercise) five days a week. It is the perfect time of year for eating lots of healthy fruit; at this moment in the fruitbowl I have nectarines, apricots, plums and grapes as well as the more mundane bananas and apples. This plan allows me to go over a bit on the evening we have D&D and on one day of the weekend. Like my exercise target, this will get me a bracelet charm after a month. I think this will help me to not give up if I have a bad day -- I still have wriggle room to get back on track.

I don't know why I thought I could trust myself with chips in the house, I bought some yesterday for D&D tonight. Then after my husband called to say he would be home very late from work (he ended up getting home just before midnight, poor darling) I sat in front of the TV and ate half the packet. I suppose I can count it a small victory that I only ate half! A couple of times recently I have kept eating until the packet was empty even though I felt quite sick.

I try not to sink into the mire of hating my body, a part of my self, but it is hard not to. I am very unhappy with how I look. My bulging stomach, in particular, is hard to disguise with clothes and it is what I see first when I look down or in the mirror. The top bulge, just under my breasts, is particularly unsightly; and actually makes it difficult to fit into many clothes that would otherwise be my size. Apparently I am the wrong shape, even for a fat girl. Depressing.

Well and so, it is never too late to do something about it! So I am doing something.

photo by Maxey