Pushing myself.

  This is still something I am having to make myself do. I said I was likely to weigh daily and I did. As of this morning I am two pounds down. Seeing that number going down or staying where it was the day before helps me. It makes me feel good and serves as a reminder at this stage. It is a little later in that it starts to be unhelpful. I will make myself aware of that. In the past there has been times where I see that the number is lower than I'd aimed for that week and take that as a green light to go off plan for a couple of days. I am going to avoid that this time.

  I did learn from Monday and didn't let myself get to the point where I was completely ravenous. I made sensible choices when I got hungry outside of my planned meals and snacks. That was not an easy, natural thing though. There was an argument in my head about what to go for.

  The other thing I found was that I needed to eat dinner earlier than planned. I am lucky that because my job is being at home for my children I have the opportunity to eat when I need to rather than waiting till late. Fitting it round everybody's schedule is the tricky part. I am not sure if it would be harder or easier if I worked!

  The sun is shining and the sky is blue today. We also have a super busy day ahead of us so I need to be organised and make sure I have everything in place for easy meals and snacks. The menu is planned, the food is there. I just need to make sure it is there for me to grab. The other thing I need to work on is getting enough water. I was not good on that on Monday, did better yesterday and today onwards I am going to make sure I keep on top of it. It's the only thing I drink so it is easy to monitor how much I am getting.

Hitting the tough part

Sugar.

  That is my downfall. It is something I eat far too much of and I strongly suspect that for some time now I have had way too much of it in my system. I think that perhaps some of the things my body has been feeling is down to that. This is the main reason why I have opted to use The South Beach diet to kick start my weight loss and change my diet.

  I gave some real thought to what I was actually eating. I had reached a stage where the following would not be at all unusual.

Breakfast - Porridge with rasins and golden syrup

OR

Toast with butter and marmalade.

 

Mid morning - Chocolate bar(s). I can easily manage anywhere between 50g and 200g in one go.

Orange.

 

Lunch - A cheese/ham salad sandwich. Crisps. Yogurt. Cake.

 

Mid afternoon - Cake, biscuits or chocolate.

 

Dinner - Proper home cooked from scratch food.

More chocolate.

 

Evening - It would not be unusual for me to have more chocolate or another dessert.

 

  So, um. That looks awful doesn't it. Note the lack of question mark there. I know it is really bad. It wouldn't be so bad if it was a once in a blue moon occurance. It gets to the point though where it is daily. Bad enough for anyone but I am someone who loves to cook and knows what a healthy balanced diet is. I will be completely honest though and say that at this moment in time that list of things is also making my head go "Oh yum. Go on there is a shop just round the corner. The children are at their friends so they wouldn't see. Your husband is at work, he'd never know".

 

  I have two children who get a marvellous diet. They love all food and know that all food is good in moderation. I would not dream of feeding them or allowing them to eat the way I have been eating.

 

  That is why I am starting off by getting myself off the sugar laden stuff. It is hard though. Most of yesterday evening I was craving it. ANYTHING that it might be in. Watching a fab cookery programme about bread where pastries were being made was out of the question. Within minutes my mouth was actually watering! I told my husband about it because he knows how tough this is for me and I know that he will help me.

 

  The other part of my tackling this is going to be taking L-glutamine and Chromium supplements. I have been reading that they can help ease sugar cravings. I don't know if it will make a difference but I will certainly give them a go. I just have to wait for them to be delivered now. In the meantime I am going to try to keep myself busy and remind myself constantly why I am doing this.

 

  Oh and Head - Get lost. This is too important to let you win.



To begin with...

  It has begun. I have come to the end of my first day of sorting out the mess I have let my mind and body get into. To give me a record I have the photos and this morning I have weighed and measured so here are the figures.

Weight: 12st 13lbs (181lbs)

Body fat: 41%

Chest: 46in

Waist: 40.5in

Hips: 46.5in

Upper left arm: 13.25in

Left thigh: 24.5in

Left calf: 15.5in

 

  Although I am really disappointed in myself for letting myself put weight back on after I had made so much progress before (I had got down to 11st 2lbs (156)) I was also kind of relieved not to have gone any higher. I had promised last time I got below 13st that I wouldn't let myself get back there again. I am not impressed with those numbers above though and I want and need to get way below them.

 

  Day one and I need to make sure I am prepared. One thing didn't arrive in my food delivery and as a result I had to go shopping. Unfortunately the only time to fit it in today was on the way home from a group my children go to and I was hungry. It was like a form of torture!

 

  My plan for recording is to weigh daily. I know this is frowned upon by many but it helps me be aware from the start of the day. I am not going to record it here every day but I will weigh. I will take more photos and measurements every 4 weeks.

 

  Food plan is to follow South beach phase 1 for two weeks followed by phase 2 for two weeks. After that I will decide if I will carry on with phase two of just go with planning a sensible menu.

 

  Tomorrow I will start doing some gentle exercise. The cough I was struggling with seems to have gone but after 8 weeks of not doing anything I am feeling very unfit and don't want to just jump into running again.

 

  So that is me started. I am in the right headspace but need to keep reminding myself of what I want and why.



I'm ready.

It's taken me some time to reach this stage. I am ready to make an attack on this and get back the me I want to be. I am sick and tired of being this way. Feeling tired, my body being the way it is, feeling so utterly down on myself. It is enough now.

I have a month of meals and snacks planned. I have a food shop being delivered today.

I have cleared out a lot of things which I don't need in the house tripping me up and taunting me.

I have taken photos for my starting point. These are going to be my never again photos. I have everything ready to go.

I have never shared photos for weight loss motivation before but this time I am going to. I have taken head free shots because I am not that brave!!!

Two years ago this top and jeans fitted me perfectly. In fact the jeans were even a little loose. Clearly that is not the case anymore.

 

Bring it on.

Utterly fed up

I have lost what very little there was of my fitness. Walking my children to and from places has illustrated that very well. I have plodded through the last few weeks waiting, waiting, waiting for the cough to go. It seemed to but the last couple of days have seen it return. I have now had 5 different prescriptions and completely disheartened by it.
I have also felt a bit of a blow this morning after planning out a months meals and then starting to price them up. ££££££ I feel that I need to follow South beach for a month to kick start me and to get the sugar out of my system. But I am not sure I can bring myself to spend that much on food. Not for me. The rest of my family don't have a problem with food. They can all control themselves. Why should I spend loads of money just because I can't.

Trying to decide what to do next but feeling really miserable about it.

Patience

I am still trying to shake off the cough. It is annoying me now. In some ways it has been a good thing.

I have been super aware for a few days that I am actually starting to feel really keen to get out running again. I want to run again. I have even seen a couple of events that I quite fancy taking part in. That has to be good. I haven't been thinking "when I am better I HAVE to make myself start running again". I have been thinking "I can't wait to get rid of this because I WANT to start running again". I know that I am going to have to pretty much start from scratch. I don't care though.

I have a rough plan in my head of what I am going to do. It is all stored away, ready to go when I am. I feel quite encouraged by that.

Still looking for the map

I can't get on with this. I don't know what is holding me back but I think for now this blog is going to be a way of making me think about what I want and what I don't want to be anymore.
I lost my log in details for weeks and only just found them. In that time I have done precisely nothing about losing weight. Instead I have drifted through days when nothing has made me feel aware of it and on other days I have hated going out because I have so few clothes that fit and feel a mess in all of them

I have been had a niggling cough for the last couple of weeks and that is stopping me from getting back into running. An event that I had signed up for is fast approaching and I think I am going to have to defer to next year as I won't be anything like ready in time. I feel like I have failed because I wasted so many months thinking "I'll start training tomorrow". If I had started months ago then I would still be able to do it as I would be playing catch up from when I am well enough rather than starting from scratch.

I think it is safe to say I am not in a great place at the moment when it comes to getting back on the path to how I want to be. Why don't I want it enough?