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 :)

Treading water

I've been treading water for a while. Since my low carb 6lb loss I've continued trying but not with a lot of success. As such 3 weeks on I have gained back 2lb of that 6lb loss. I've probably been a bit slack on the sweet treats. Now I'm adding some carbs back but trying to focus on healthy snacking, along with keeping meals lower carb. I am going to stick to soup and salad for lunches, and try and keep limiting carbs for the evening meal. Fingers crossed that this will give me another boost into eating healthier and losing the weight again.

I weigh 161lb as of this morning, and I want that to be the last time I see the 160s on the scales again. Time to get back into it!

1 week down..

I have been low carbing (probably between 30 and 50g a day) for a week now. I weighed 165lb last Wednesday morning, started low carbing on the Thursday. This morning I weighed 157.6lb which is 7.4lb less! I am enjoying the food, it's all tasty and I'm experiencing far fewer cravings, although I do get the odd weak moment...

The main difficulty is that low carbing is not as convenient, I have to plan ahead what to eat, there is not really many things we can prepare and cook in 10-15 minutes. If I want to do this long term (adding in more carbs as time goes on, of course, so I don't *keep* losing weight past my goal weight) then I will have to invest in things to make it easier - number 1 on the list being a food processor, as finely grating an entire cauliflower is NOT quick or easy... But things aren't set in stone yet, for now, I think I am trying to boost my weight loss again - and more importantly, get into the habit of healthier eating. And enjoying what I eat. With low carbing I am naturally snacking less, as I feel full for longer, so if I decide to stop low carbing I will hopefully carry that on and that will help me keep the weight off hopefully.

I am just 0.5lb away from having lost 50lb since Christopher was born, which is astounding! We went for the SureStart's buggy walk this week, and since Jonathan is off work til Tuesday, he came along, and it was a lot of fun. Jonathan wore Christopher, and I guess when I'm wearing a baby I tend to look bulkier, as I took it off, to let Jonathan put it on, and immediately got compliments about my weight loss and "don't you look well!"

I still feel happier clothed than in skimpy clothes, but that is a start, definitely. I think very soon it is time for me to start toning up and doing exercises, and now I am lighter, it would be the ideal time to start! It might slow weight loss, due to muscle weighing more than fat, but should help get rid of the inches faster, plus get me fitter.

I am already noticing how much fitter I feel just for having lost the weight, I ran around the living room chasing Robert the other day, and did so for quite a long time, and yes I got a bit tired, but it was good tired, not the dehabilitating tiredness I'd get before after some exercise. And it felt good to be doing such a fun physical game with my son that I always felt too sluggish to do before.

About one and a half stones left to lose (19-21 lb roughly). I can do it! :)

An END to this stagnation!

I am getting fed up of hovering, I've been yo-yoing AGAIN around the 165lb mark, so I had a day of really kicking my bum into gear, no snacking, but lots and lots of drinking! I was craving snacks so badly, I wasn't hungry but I wanted to eat eat eat! Luckily we (read I, mostly) had eaten all the chocolate and ice cream in the house so there was none left for me to snack on.

Then on Thursday I thought lets try low carb again. And so far, I've done pretty well! I'm still on the low carb, I've had the odd bit of fruit as snacks, and so far each day I have had something high carb but I would have had it along with a lot more carbs as well, so overall done pretty well. I had 3 slices of pizza on Thursday night. I was actually pretty impressed that I felt full and did not WANT to eat more, usually I may have managed 5 slices. Friday I had an ice cream after an otherwise perfect low carb day, which was actually not that bad. And today I have had 2 choc ices (which are pretty low carb considering, and came to less than the ice cream yesterday.) but other than that been eating low carb. Dinner I think I will do some chicken tonight (a fairly low carb sauce) with some cauliflower rice. I did weigh in this morning and I was 161.6 lb which I was pretty thrilled at, is definitely my lowest weight so far in this weight loss period, and for a LONG time (almost a decade). It would be pretty awesome to see the 150s on the scales on Wednesday.

I used to think that low carb diets were dangerous, but having done research on them, I think they're pretty healthy actually. The sort of foods I am cooking certainly seem more nutritious, plenty more vegetables and salads, with dairy and meat. I can't wait to try some more things. I think I will be buying cauliflowers in bulk haha :) Not sure how long I will keep this up, I'm already doing better than last time, and enjoying it more. Plus I don't think that any carb slip up is "ruining" it. Obviously the lower carb the better, but the odd carbs will not ruin everything, so fingers crossed this attitude can help :)

hmmm well..

Last Wednesday weigh in saw me back up 2.5lb of the 3.5lb I lost over the week I was ill, weighing in at 165.5 lb.

I've had a few meals out this week, and yesterday, I had a VERY bad day food wise... but as this is a blog and it is good to be completely honest to prompt me into eating better and not doing the same again... I ate an entire giant easter egg that was given to me on Sunday... apparently 1/4 of the egg contained almost 400 calories.. so I had probably about 1500 calories yesterday of CHOCOLATE never mind my breakfast and lunch... I decided to skip dinner and have an early night.

This morning I weighed myself to see what the damage would be, and had a reading of 162.5 lb. Erm, what the?? I don't particularly think I've had a good week even not considering yesterday. Was it the skipped dinner? Maybe I am eating my main meals far too late at night, sometimes as late as 9pm, but usually after the kids are both in bed, so around 8pmish. Maybe I should start eating my main meal for lunch with the kids, and a light meal around 5-ish with the kids instead of a light meal at lunchtime, around 12, then a large meal at 8ish. And save a portion for Jonathan to take to work with him for the next day's lunch. That might help him to lose some weight too which I think he wants to do. He's a lower BMI than I am, but he's around the same weight I was when Christopher was born. I guess being 6'5" helps in that regards ;)

It's worth giving that a try I guess, switching main meals and trying not to eat too late, then Jonathan can grab something when he gets back in the evening. If I do that today, I wonder if I'll get a good weigh in on the scales tomorrow on my official weigh in day.