Silly Season!

Yes its here- the silly season- or rather, I am silly in the season! Lots of "silly" food choices, but not too stressed, as I have still done plenty of exercise and made good food choices most of the time, and have managed to maintain two weeks in a row.

I've signed up for a new contract at my gym which includes 20 personal training sessions for the year, so hope to use them for a New Year weight loss blitz. The goal is to be 68kg for when I go to England on the 18th of May to visit Scoop's (bf) rellos. I sat down and did the maths yesterday and worked out that if I lose 0.5kg each week until then, I will be 0.5kg off my goal when I leave- so if I have a few weeks of good losses, I should easily get to goal! If I do get to goal, I would have lost 20.5kg since they last saw me.... wow!!!

I went clothes shopping on Tuesday night and bought some strappy summery tops and shorts- types of clothes I have actively avoided wearing since I was teenager because of my size! I look pretty darn cool in them if I do say so myself. I usually hate trying on clothes and checking out my bum in the changeroom mirrors, but for the first time in my weight loss journey, I can really start to see a difference in that area... bring on 2007 and 68kg!!

No loss- but I should expect it

No loss this week, but to be positive, there was no gain either! I just wasn't dedicated to the No Count principles this week, so I know what I have to do to lose next week- eat better!

I have some challenges this week, in that I am going to a wedding reception in Newcastle on Saturday night. While I have decided that I will probably let myself off the hook for the reception what I will be aiming to do is to stick to No Count for the rest the weekend. I tend to just let loose for a whole weekend if I am going away- I figure it will be a lot less damage if I only relax the principles for one meal!

The rest of the week leading up to weigh-in is very normal, so should be ok to be disciplined for the rest of the week.

I've started the "Couch to 5K" running program yesterday, and it felt fab! Looking forward to the end of the 10 weeks when I can just walk out the front door and go running for 30 minutes. If you told me as a teenager that I would have a go at running off my own bat, I wouldn't have believed you!

Well what do you expect!

I lost another 0.5kg this week, which is good and bad... I keep thinking I should be losing a 1kg each week, but I continue to be a bit "relaxed" with my healthy eating, so as my title says, what do I expect? Weight loss to be easy?

I should be happy I am losing weight still! I often think about the people I read on the Weightwatchers message boards who hit plataeus, who try their hearts out to lose the kgs but do not see their weight change- I would find that so disheartening! They are truly strong to keep at it when they don't get the results.

On the positive side, I am on track to get to my revised Xmas goal of 77kg. I really have to be disciplined this week, as the week leading up to Xmas is fraught with temptations! If I can restrain myself this week, I should still be ok to splurge a little at Xmas.

Another point to note this week is that I now have exactly 10kg left to go to get to goal!!!! Woohoo!

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

I lost 0.5kg this week, which was what I was aiming for (considering I did have a splurge for my birthday last Friday) but I am still mildly disappointed. I jumped on the scales yesterday, and it said I was on track for a 1kg loss. But I guess thats the pitfall of daily weighing- there are going to be times when your body does vary, and you're sometimes going to disappointed on official weigh-in day if your saw a better loss earlier in the week.

I'm finding healthy eating pretty easy for me at the moment, so I hope to lose 0.5 kg each week leading up to Xmas, so the goal is to be 77kg for Christmas day! I think that's pretty realistic. I don't have too many days when I would be seriously tempted by bad food planned before Christmas, so fingers crossed I get there. I am just so excited to be in the 70s still- such a long time since I was in this territory!!! Hopefully over Christmas I hope to get some pictures up on this blog which would be cool.

No Change This Week

Well, for once I am really happy that I've stayed the same this week! Reason being it was odds on likely to be a gain this week if I hadn't worked out like an crazy woman in the gym. I had my school reunion on last week and drank beer and ate lots of fried food... not to mention the pig out of biscuits and ice cream I had when I got home from the reunion! So over the weekend I did put on a kg, but managed to lose it again over the week. It gives me an idea that when I finally get to goal weight, I can splurge a bit during the weekend, as long as I am good most of the time I will be right! But as for this week, I'll be back on the bandwagon, going hard to get a 0.5-1kg loss.... Its my birthday today so I will splurge a bit today, but no reason to crazy for the rest of the week..... Go you good thing!!!

Challenge Result

I did my official weigh in today, and my challenge did pay off: I lost the 0.5kg I gained last week, plus another 0.5kg on top of that. So I am very pleased! However the challenge is on again this week! I want to get as far away from that horrible 80 number as possible. I always find it fairly easy to lose weight I have gained recently for some reason, so really want to up the ante this week and continue this losing trend!

Was really happy with myself last night- went to the golf club with Scoop (bf) and ordered the grilled fish and vegies for tea! Even better, I left the fatty mustard potatoes they served me and hoed into Scoop's leftover side salad... pretty impressive choices for me. Similar to how strong I was when I first started WW in the UK, so hopefully its a sign that the same level of willpower is returning to me to finish the task I started all that time ago!

Good Progress

Well, the little challenge I set myself at the beginning of my weigh week is going really well! I have been strong enough to make good choices, and already the scales are looking promising. A sneak peak tells me that not only have I lost the 0.5kg I gained, but another 0.5kg on top of that! So I will be really happy if I can consolidate on being below 80 kg this week. Anything else is a bonus.

So not only is food going well this week, but I had a little insight into how I'm going with my gym classes as well. I had my Body Combat class last night, and was surrounded by people more uncoordinated than me! I didn't think that was possible... I always consider myself the most uncoordinated person alive! But obviously, the more I do classes the better I am getting, so its nice to see it is paying off. It is all getting a bit sad of me though that I now like standing in front of my bathroom mirror checking out the muscles in my arms and shoulders. But it is a nice change that I finally have a bit of love for my own body after hating it for so long.

Back in the 80s :(

Well, as I expected I was duly rewarded for all my poor choices this week- I recorded a weight of 80kg, up 0.5kg from last week. But I've thrown down the challenge to myself of trying to have a perfect week, and then hopefully the result will motivate me to continue making good choices.

I just wonder if I need to shake things up with my exercise as well. I wonder if your body can get use to a routine, and you just don't get the same results after a while. I thought I might try a bit of swimming at the local pool on the weekend, as my body is all achy at the moment, so I thought maybe a change in type+low impact might help shake up my body into losing weight, plus give my poor joints a rest from bouncing around :)

Confession Time...

This is what my blog has turned into! All I seem to do be doing this week is stuffing up my choices, then I come on here and confess, then stuff up again! So I've made a deal with myself- I am going to try to go one complete week without stuffing up, and see what the scales say at the end of the week. Hopefully, all going well, I will have a good loss, and that will get me motivated to continue making the best choices.

It's weigh in day tomorrow, and having sneaked a look at the scales, I would say that I will either gain 0.5kg from last week, or hopefully at least maintained the same weight. I know I have the strength to make this little challenge happen... I just have to put that strength into practice.

Sabotage!

That's what I did to myself last night: I had the opportunity to go to someone's house and have a bbq and choose wisely, but instead I had cheesecake and sausage! Why? Cause I really wanted to eat it! Cause they taste nice! So I'm thinking, I'll always want to eat yummy food. That will never change. The question is what am I going to do about it? Because in the scheme of things it wasn't a major blowout- a small piece of cheesecake and one sausage. The one solution I think of is to increase my exercise. It makes the most sense as a solution as well. So I am going to see if I can get up early for the rest of the week and go for a walk before work, as well as the stuff I do after work. And as long as I make good choices the rest of the week, hopefully I can minimise the damage on the scales!

Weekend Socialising

Well, I managed to survive the weekend! I made fairly good choices with all the socialising I did, choosing stir-fries for the meals I ate out, and drank vodka and diet coke. My only major downfall for the weekend was yesterday afternoon, for my recovery day, I made pikelets because I felt like something warm and comforting for all this cold wet weather we are having in Sydney at the moment. It wouldn't have been so bad if I managed to get some exercise done, but alas I wanted to stay nice and cosied up at home! So, ok, I didn't make the best choice, but what should have I done? What is healthy and warming and comforting to eat? Ermm not much! Maybe I could try stewing some fruit in some sweetener? With just a little bit of low fat custard? I'll have to put my thinking cap on for that one. Perhaps air-popped popcorn would have done the trick.

How I see this Weight-Watchers journey is as a learning experience: learning what options are best in different situations. So sure, I will slip up occasionally, but as long as I learn from these slip-ups, there has to come a time where I know what choices are the best for just about every situation!

I'm Living in the 70s!

Yep, its official! Today I weigh 79.5kg! Woohoo! The last time I was around this weight I was 17/18, which is handy, because in two weeks time I have my ten year school reunion. So at least no one can think "Gee, she's put on weight!"

It's all very exciting, and I feel I should mark it somehow, but I have spent too much money recently buying new clothes for myself for the summer, I don't think I can justify a treat! Ah well- my achievement is a pretty good reward in its self. I felt there was a bit of psychological barrier breaking the 80s mark, so now that I have broken it, hopefully I will be able to put in the effort and see the results on the scales more readily. I feel really good so I can see it happening, which is the biggest hurdle in this whole process!

The challenge I am facing next is "the weekend" and all the choices I have to make while socialising. I believe that reaching this big milestone will help motivate me to make lots of good choices as I am seeing the results at the moment!

Change in your routine....

That is another type of challenge in someone's weight loss journey! And that's what happened to me yesterday- my after work routine went out the window. My partner's best mate from the UK has come out to Australia for a bit over a week, so we went out to meet up with him and his family for a few drinks. I was happy with the choices I made, such as having a big healthy tea before we left, and taking sweetner tablets and diet soft drink, so I avoided any sugar-laden drinks. It's weigh-in tomorrow morning so hopefully all my good choices this week including last night's efforts outweigh my not so good choices! The scales tell me it should be a good loss and I may actually bust the 80s barrier and then I'll be a 70s girl! Bring it on!

The 5PM Snack Attack.....

The biggest thing I am struggling with in terms of weight loss at the moment is resisting the "I've just got home from work and I'm in the kitchen making tea" bingefest. Yesterday I just kept shovelling food in my gob even though I wasn't particularly hungry! Insane! One thing that is going for me however is that I have mostly mastered the "Sorting your surroundings" habit. I never buy chocolates or chips in our weekly shop, so the worst thing I can pig out on is rice thins and mixed dried fruit :)

This particular problem was the topic of a thread on the WW messageboards today, and some of the suggestions to combat this problem was to have a cup of tea or a can of diet soft drink, which I think I might have a crack at. Another idea I just remembered is to chew on some gum so its inconvenient to eat other stuff... I have heard this idea from somewhere, but I can't think where.

Well, I thought I would have a crack at this blogging lark and see what its all about! I've kind of fell into it by accident, as I wanted to post on another blog for my Weight Watchers Biggest Loser Challenge, but to do so, I needed to create a blog account. So I thought, "What the heck, lets see what I can get out of a blog!".

I guess my main aim in creating a blog is to create a story about my day-to-day weight loss struggles and achievements! My weight loss story so far has been very up and down. I have always been "chubby" in my living memory. When I was five, I broke my leg jumping on our backyard trampoline, and my parents said it was from then that I started to carry around some extra weight having to sit around a lot with a full leg cast for 6 weeks. And I have always loved food, so throughout my life I have gradually put on a few kg extra every year.

Breaking point for me was when I travelled to the UK on a working holiday and piled on an extra 6kg over 6 month period due to homesickness and wanting to warm myself up with food. So I joined Weight Watchers at Home in the UK when they introduced the No Count program as I was never interested in counting the points of everything I ate! I really couldn't be bothered! That was in February 05- on the program I then went from 102kg to 88.5kg in July 05.

I then came back to Australia with my English boyfriend, and proceeded to put back on 7.5kg, so went back up to 96kg. So I bought the WW Aus/NZ guides, so I could try and do the No Count program here off my own bat. Since February this year, I have lost that weight gain and some, and currently weigh 80.5kg.

The biggest help in my weight loss in Aus has been doing classes at my gym and reading the WW message boards. I am currently doing two challenges on the message boards: the Littlepiggynomore 10kg for Christmas Challenge (lost 3.5kg for that so far) and this week joined the Biggest Loser Challenge (as mentioned above!). My goal is to reach 68kg, and for the first time it is starting to look achievable!