So, I finally did it.

In February 2014, I joined my local slimming world group, with the thought that once and for all, I would lose the weight. I weighed in at 15 stone 1.5lb. I was a size 20. 9 months later, I was 4.5 stone lighter. And finally, 13 months after I joined, I reached my target weight of 10 stone. It has now been almost 4 months since I reached target. I'm still in my target band of 3lb under to 3lb over, although I now weigh in officially every 4 weeks, to take off the pressure of weekly weighing in, and to give me freedom to enjoy what I eat now and again. I still weigh in at home, daily, to see how much I need to rein it in by, and to make sure that I'm aware of what I'm doing and to keep me aware of what I'm eating. I'm still, in some ways, a fat girl at heart, even though I'm in between a size 10 and size 12 in most clothes. Seeing photos of myself still astonishes me: I look so much slimmer in them than I actually feel! Also, keeping the emotional eating and the boredom eating at bay is HARD work. I can still be very greedy! But I am eating more salad, healthier snacks, and making better treat choices. Something that has surprised me, is that now I'm here, it's not the end of the journey, not by a long shot. But I'm in it for the long haul. I WILL stay slim, and keep up my health. And, the next thing I have yet to motivate myself to do, is get fit.

Monday morning weigh in.

Last Tuesday I weighed in at 157.8lb. I'd not been watching what I was eating, snacking waaaay too much, not fussed about meals so just grabbing whatever to try and satisfy hunger quickly.

We had a takeaway on Friday night, then went out for a meal on Saturday. But even though I had those, I still managed a Monday morning weigh in of 153.4lb! That's 4.4lb loss!!

Things I've done differently:

Had a jug of squash out on the side in the kitchen. Whenever I've gone in there, I've filled my glass up with that and drunk that instead. I know it's not cold, or particularly fresh by the end of the day, but it doesn't bother me too much. I have sensitive teeth anyway so not keen on stuff too cold. I even have to use warm water to rinse my mouth out after brushing my teeth...

Trying to have different things for breakfast other than cereal and toast. I think I'll be looking for stuff that I can pre-prepare the day before and just warm up if it takes a while to prepare.

Focussing on the evening meal more. More veggies, an interesting "main" bit, and a small amount of potato sometimes (not always).

If I want a snack, getting a piece of fruit (orange or apple, or a handful of grapes). The occasional bit of chocolate so I don't feel like I'm depriving myself!

Will try and continue this week, and see where it gets me. Would like to be 2lb down by next Monday, around 151.5lb. And another 2lb or so the week after, so I'm back to my lowest. Hopefully I will get there!

Letting things slide

I've not been watching my weight recently, or what I've been eating, and when I weighed myself on Tuesday I was not happy to see myself back at 157.8lb (or 11 stone 3.8lb). My lowest weight has been 149lb. So on Tuesday, I started watching what I ate, basically curbing the huge amount of junk I had started eating again. Oh and filling a big jug (probably about 3 pints worth) at the beginning of the day with squash, my aim being for me and the kids to drink it up before their bath time. I have not been putting it in the fridge, as it sitting out reminds me it's there and needs to be drunk, therefore I am more likely to pour myself a glass and avoid pulling anything out of the fridge.

On Thursday morning I weighed again and I was 156.2lb, so a loss of 1.6lb. This morning I weighed myself again, one day later, and I was 155.0lb, so a loss from yesterday of 1.2lb, and a total since Tuesday of 2.8lb. :)

We're having a meal out tomorrow so I must try not to over-do it then. But hoping for a big loss by Monday to kickstart things!

Also what helped was looking through the freezer and realising there was lots of food in there needing using up. So used to the shrugging and putting on a jacket potato was I, or a sandwich, it's prompted me into using up the chicken, fish, frozen veg and so on that's in there, and making me think about a decent meal once a day.

With the nice weather come along I've also decided to start making more salad again, which is nice and healthy of course! (even with a big blob of mayonnaise ;) )

So, keeping my fingers crossed that I can lose as much weight as possible this week and in the weeks to come. There is a possibility of a pregnancy during the year, so I do really want to have slimmed down as much as possible before that happens and I get even bigger again!

Back in an upwards cycle :(

Two gains two weeks running :( Back above 11 stone again, at 154.4lb. I'm eating far too much junk and just snacking way too much. I really need to print out some pictures for snack-resistance. Was thinking of an old picture of me at my fattest and one where I look slimmer, plus a sign saying simply "GET A DRINK INSTEAD" to stick on the kitchen door. I snack on the chocolate buttons for R's potty training... and on crackers, rice cakes, as well as fruit and veg. Simply speaking, I'm eating too much.

I'm generally feeling quite low and isolated as well which doesn't help.

Roast aubergine and sweet potato soup

Something I have been enjoying doing to help the weight loss effort is making soup for my lunches. I do one big batch which usually makes 6 portions and I do a different one each week. If I had time to do several batches within days of each other I would fill the freezer with different types of soup. I will try and make new soups every now and then using vegetables I don't often use!

Yesterday I made aubergine (egg plant) and sweet potato soup. Here's the rough recipe.

Ingredients.
3 aubergines halved lengthways
1 White onion and 1 red onion chopped finely
1 large carrot peeled, halved (or cut into 3 if very large)and each half sliced into 3 bits
2 peeled sweet potatoes, sliced thickly.
5 closed cup mushrooms
1 vegetable stock cube
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon thyme
Garlic powder (or fresh garlic) to taste
Water
Oil

Place the aubergines flat bit down on an oiled tray (or two!). Fill the gaps with the carrot and sweet potato. Brush with oil. Roast in the oven at 200 celcius for half an hour or so, turning half way through. Take them out and leave them to cool.

Fry up the onion (and garlic if using fresh) until soft.

Take the sweet potato and carrot and add them to the onion. Get a spoon or table knife and scoop the aubergine flesh from the skin and add
it to the onion. Chop the mushroom finely and add that too. Crumble a vegetable stock cube over and add enough water to completely cover the vegetables. Add the bay leaf, thyme and garlic powder (unless you've used fresh) and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until all the vegetables (particularly the carrots) are soft.

Remove the bay leaf and transfer the mixture to a blender, working in batches if necessary. I needed to add extra water afterwards as the soup was very thick.

Quite pleased

With a maintain this week. Was hoping for a loss to be under 150lb, but I'm still 152.2 which is GREAT considering I had a meal out, a takeaway and a MASSIVE (but omg sooooo divine!!) chocolate brownie at a local country park cafe. As well as a few bad days. I've not recorded my days on MFP recently but I'm slowly getting to know how much food I can eat to lose weight. I would like to lose some more weight this month, as I would like to start out at the lowest weight possible before I get pregnant. If I do get pregnant this month the baby will be born near Robert's birthday, which is a little disconcerting, and makes me wonder if it might be best to hold off until a few months time, or even until we go on holiday in June. Which will of course give me time to get down to my target weight and enjoy it for a while before I "spoil" it with growing a baby in my belly haha!

So, 152.2lb this week, 12.2lb to lose to my "see how I feel" goal. Almost 55lb lost in 16 months. Would love to get down to 60lb lost in a month's time. That would be a good feeling, and I would be my lowest ever weight I remember being.

2nd loss

Two weeks running I have had weight losses. :) haven't done that for months I think, so pretty chuffed! I seem to have found my groove with My Fitness Pal. I weighed in 2lb lighter this morning than I did last Monday. And last Monday I was 3.8lb lighter than the Monday before. I now weigh 152.6lb which is 10 stone 12.6lb. I would like to get down to 10 stone 10 or lighter next week. Very much hoping to be my target weight by June when we go on holiday, that is if I'm not pregnant by then!

Total loss

was 3.8lb bringing me to 11 stone 0.4lb!

Going to do another week and see how I do, and this time try not to weigh myself mid week ;) And keep up the exercises. Who knows now we have a car at home, I might brave going out to the local country parks to let the boys (and me) burn off some energy and get some exercise. Needed a kind of detox, to get myself out of the bad habits I'd got myself into, and sticking to my fitness pal religiously hopefully will do that if I keep it up for a couple of weeks! Really want to see 10 stone on the scales by June!

Doing well!

On my fourth day of using My Fitness Pal, on Monday I weighed back at 158lb, I've been keeping under my set calories for a 2lb loss per week, and doing exercise to give me extra calories if I eat more. This morning I weighed 155 in my underwear which was better than I was expecting, and I am hoping to keep it up!

Struggling

Well I've been struggling of late to stay on track, so for the last two days I have gone back to filling in my food diary at My Fitness Pal.

I have gone over my 1260 calorie recommended intake both days, but in order to balance it out I have done exercise. One good (albeit boring) exercise is simply to climb up and down the first stair. This apparently, according to MFP, burns up 10 calories a minute. I did two 10 minute sessions today, and my thighs are feeling it so I guess it's doing some good!

Weigh in yesterday was back up at 158lb. I am aiming for a 2 lb loss by next Monday, although would be happy if it was lower!

To stay within my calories, it seems that steering clear of sandwiches is prudent, as I totalled up the cheese, chicken and mayo sandwich I ate earlier to be a whopping 550 cals! So having a sandwich for a "light dinner" after a big meal at lunchtime isn't always going to be a good idea!

Dinner tonight was a chicken tonight (classic chasseur) with added chicken, bacon and mushrooms, served with mashed potato. This was only about 450 calories! I am hoping to keep this up for a week or two, and hope that by then my eating will have fallen into a sensible routine and I will be used to eating sensibly!

New Year, this year I will reach my goal!

Well, it's the start of a brand new year (well, 18 days ago ahem) and this year I am determined to reach my goal of 10 stone. I gained a good few pounds over Christmas, and just after the new year, weighed in at 11 stone 3lb. In the first week of the "healthy eating" I managed to gain 1.5lb, which brought me to 11 stone 4.5lb, or 158.5lb. But 8 days later (I missed the Monday weigh in), I weighed 11 stone 2 lbs, having lost 2.5lb. I do hope to continue the weight loss from now on, and for now, I am concentrating *just* on drinking more water (well, squash, I don't like plain water much), and drinking less caffeine. I am hoping that by drinking lots of water, I am a) filling myself up on liquid more so I snack less, b) improving my milk supply for my little ones, and c) generally being a bit healthier than using 4 or 5 cups of tea a day to replenish my water levels.

Simple changes will hopefully make proper lifestyle changes easier!

First goal right now is to reach 150lbs, and I'd like to do that by the beginning of March. Which is 6lbs away, and leaves me with 10lbs to lose.

Hmmm... well...

They say the last few pounds come off really slow. And well, I'm about the same weight as I was in AUGUST. Ahem! I told myself I would be at my target weight by Christmas, but again my motivation has got up and gone. I yo-yo between having great days, and having bad days, so I just seem to maintain.

Anyway, hopefully something to give me a bit of motivation is this photo...



which I look at and think WOW, I look so slim, even with a tiny toddler on my front, my face seems so much slimmer, and I do NOT want to put it all back on!! I would really ideally lose a little bit more, to be bang middle of the healthy weight range, and lose some of the chub from my more wobbly bits. But yes I think I need to print this out, and put it in the kitchen to serve as a reminder, perhaps along side this photo...

1 week down...

and I'm 2.5lb down! I weigh 152.5lb now and this is just 3.5lb higher than my lowest weight. I hope to be below my lowest weight of 149lb a fortnight from now! Considering I had a pretty bad weekend food wise, as it was Jonathan's birthday, much cake, sweets, and meals out, meant I was not anticipating a loss really... much less a good one like that! I would have been pleased for a maintain!

I am hoping that my weigh in next Tuesday is even better news, and I will be doing my best to focus on eating habits again!

Dinner tonight was pumpkin soup! Very nice actually, I was pleasantly surprised! I do like home-made soup, and I was also pleased that Robert ate it, as he tends to refuse soup! I think he liked the idea that the pumpkin we carved made the soup he was eating :)

Yo-yo

Well my bra arrived, I started the Couch to 5k, but I've got bored/fed up of it. :( Finding time to go out running is hard with 2 little ones, and the mental barriers of it all is too much! I would LIKE to get fit though, but I think a home based exercise programme is in order - probably a Wii Fit one would serve me better!

Also, my eating habits have slipped, we have had too many meals out or takeaways in recent weeks, plus my baking for birthdays and so on... I have decided to really see what I am eating... so am going to record my food intake on My Fitness Pal, and I am aiming to see 1 stone off by Christmas.

First weigh in: 11 stone 1 lb (or 155lb) which is up 6lb from my lowest weight. Will weigh in next Tuesday and hopefully I will have got off to a good start!

couch to 5k

I have ordered a sports bra, and as soon as it arrives, I plan to start the couch to 5k running plan. I would love to get fit, increase my stamina and tone up. Basically it is a gradual process to get you from no running experience to being able to run 3 miles over the course of 9 weeks, interspersing running with walking and over time upping the running and cutting down on the walking. I can see it as good alone time and I am quite looking forward to it. Each running session lasts for 30 minutes roughly, and you do it 3 times a week. I was thinking about doing it in the evenings after the kids had gone to bed, but Jonathan said it's getting dark by that time, and suggested I do it in the afternoons on Friday, Sunday and Tuesday. Tuesday is when the in-laws come over to help me with the shopping, I'd feel a bit guilty spending some of that time running (then showering) but I guess we could wait and see. Maybe do an early morning run, but then I really am not a morning person!

Anyway, I am looking forward to it. :)

Lowest weight, yet...

I am the lowest weight I remember being, the same as I was when I was 18, which is 153lb (roughly). I am not quite the size I was last time, I am probably less fit, higher fat ratio, and am still mainly in size 14s with some size 12s. I've dreamed of being a size 12 for years, yet now I am here (more or less), it doesn't feel good enough. I still have just under a stone to take me to my goal weight, and it's coming off soooo slowly now, but part of me is ok with that. Like I know that if I keep going the way I'm going, I'll lose the weight eventually, and it's helping set me up with a new way of eating for the rest of my life. One thing I really need to focus on, is that food isn't a filler in my life, it's not going to make me happy, or give me company, food is purely a fuel, and something I have learned is that my body needs surprisingly little fuel to run efficiently.

I am going to keep the weight off, that's one thing I swear, I want these habits to last me a lifetime, and now I am lighter, I find myself really almost ITCHING to start exercising with a gusto. I find myself wanting to go out running, I need some sports bras before I do that, and some exercise clothes. And some time!! When do people find the time to run when they have two preschoolers?!! Just some more things for me to be thinking about.

Sorting through clothes again!

I have got a huge amount of clothes that fit me, or have done recently, and I am having to sort through them again. A whole load of vest tops I have in size 16 are way too baggy for me now, and a size 16 skirt I wore to my brother's wedding in August 2005 hang around my hips, and I'm pretty sure that if I tried hard enough I could get them off without unbuttoning it. A pair of 3/4 length black trousers I found in my wardrobe, size 14, are loose on me, but they are slightly stretchy ones. Still, it's all good for the confidence boost!

I'm weighing in tomorrow, and hoping that I will be 156lb or lower, I was 156 on Sunday so lost 3lb since 15th June. I am feeling so good about myself, less so when in just underwear, but clothed, I am most certainly feeling comfortable, and I think the more weight I lose, the more likely I am to pay more attention to wearing properly fitting clothes, which highlight my weight loss, which gets me more compliments, which spurs on my weight loss! When I reach 151 lb, I will have lost 4 stone. And that is only about 5lb away! Maybe I should aim to get to that weight by my birthday, the 10 stone isn't going to happen as I had a verrrry slow couple of months, but seeing as I had originally hoped to reach 12 stone by Christopher's first birthday, and I am now very almost 11 stone, with him only 9 months old, I can't help but think I have made a huge amount of progress already, that even though I had hoped for more weight loss by now, I shouldn't be so hard on myself. Some people don't lose 4 stone in 2 years let alone what will be around 10 months.

I am really hoping that when I have my repeat glucose tolerance test this year (which might not be until December, as that's when I took my *ahem* 6 week PP one to check it was gestational only), it will show no glucose intolerance at all, and completely normal levels. And that when/if I get pregnant again, the gestational diabetes does not return.

It's working!

4 days on, and I am now 156.8lb, which is 2lb lighter! I need to lose 2.8lb over the next 6 days to reach my goal, and weigh 11 stone for the first time in about a decade! I am eating much less, thinking twice before eating something, and not going overboard on snacks. Getting into salad again as well which is good!

I'm enjoying snacking on frozen fruit, yes you read that right ;) I chop up bananas, and freeze them. Slice up a pear thinly and freeze that. Halved grapes are delicious frozen too. Because they are frozen, they take longer to eat, so whenever I feel the nibblies coming on, and I find myself in the kitchen, I take out a few pieces of frozen fruit, and that satisfies my cravings. For the most part, I just want to be eating, which is where the craving lies, so eating a few bits of frozen fruit is ideal!

Here's to getting to my first mini goal and completing my 5lb off in 10 days challenge successfully! :)

Still..

I'm still the same weight as I was back in April. This is getting OLD. Very verrry old. I have decided to aim high for the next week and a half, in the hopes that it will prompt me to stop being apathetic, to really put some effort in, to think twice before walking to the fridge, or get something out of it. I've not been perfect the last day and a half, but I have been BETTER. I figure that if I aim high (and by high, I mean, to lose 5lb in 10 days), then if I manage to even lose half that, I'll have done good, you know? I want to see 11 stone 0lb on the scales.. SOON. And I figure by setting myself a date of 25th - the day I've booked us all in to go and have family photos done with a Christmas voucher, the race is on, and hopefully I'll get near to that figure. And that within 3 weeks, I will see the 10 stone somethings on the scales once more. If I manage to get 5lb down by the 25th, then I will be on track for being 10.5 stone by my birthday, if I manage to average 2lb a week from then on.

Back to what works

The mindset of "any loss is a good loss, and a loss for good." It's back! Hurrah! My mojo has returned finally. I lost another 1lb this week, and am now down to 11 stone 5lb again, or 159lb. I am determined that I will lose again next week, be it 1lb, or 1 and a half, or 2lb, whatever. And those lbs will be gone for good too. I am never going to see 160lb on the scales again, with the exception of during pregnancy, while carrying a small child, or perhaps if I naughtily weigh myself during the day or evening, clothed over the next few weeks.

Only 2lb til my 3rd goal of losing 50lb, the combined weight (roughly) of my two boys. And only 5lb until I reach 11 stone, the weight I was when I was 18/19, that's right, how much I weighed almost TEN years ago.

If I lose just 1lb a week on average from now until Christopher's birthday in September, I will fall just 2lb short of my target weight! If I lose on average 1.5lb per week from now, I will reach my target weight by late August! If I lose 2lb per week on average, I will reach my target weight by the beginning of August! To reach my target weight by my birthday in mid-July, I will need to lose a massive 3lb a week on average for the next 6 weeks, which I really don't think is do-able anymore.

So.. for now, I am going to concentrate on eating healthily, and hopefully, the scales next week will be kind. :)

I realised today that I can't remember the last time I ate a bag of crisps. I've eaten some from a bag that have been put out on a table for everyone to dip into (a normal sized bag between 4 adults and Robert), but not for a while, and I haven't missed them at all! Not really anyway, I do like things like wotsits and would enjoy them if I had a bag, but had no real craving to get one at all. This is what I love, the fact that my habits are changing, and I'm barely realising, let alone missing. Maybe someday there will be a day where I do not crave nor miss chocolate, and ice cream too ;)

Anyway, let's see if I can make a 2lb loss by next Wednesday, and see that magic 50lb loss, and maybe pick up Robert and Christopher together to see just how much weight I have lost since Christopher was born :)