My lips are unsealed

I have been biting my lip up till now (you should see the scars I've made!! lol). I've been bursting at the seams to tell you!! I've had questions asked that I couldn't answer!! The day has come that I can announce ....

MY MAGAZINE ARTICLE COMES OUT ..... TOMMOROW!!!!

Yep ... tommorrow!!!! I promised Hayley (from Woman's Day) I wouldn't say anything till she gave me the green light. After it was confirmed last week that it would be in this weeks issue I was apologetically asked to keep it secret for one more week until Sunday morning .. so here I am 7am in the morning on a Sunday morning ... doing my update when the rest of the country is sleeping. (can ya tell I'm excited?? lol)

It's in the Woman's Day (NZ) which goes on sale tomorrow. Woman's Day are sending me an online version of the article so everyone who isn't from New Zealand can read it. They're sending it after it goes offsale (so probably some time next week or the week after)

I want to take this part to sincerely thank Hayley (deputy editor for Womans Day) ... she is the coolest lady!!! I have felt so at ease around her and through our phone calls, emails back and forth and of course the actual interview I've made an awesome friend. I was really nervous about the actual written material ... that I would be portrayed as someone I wasn't. And I'm a bit of a perfectionist, control freak (shhh you didn't hear me say that) when it comes to the finished product of anything. Handing the reigns over to her on this was a big thing for me. But I'm wrapped to say she's done a fantastic job on the story and portrayed EXACTLY the feel I wanted. Honestly this lady is the most talented lady and a fantastic friend too .... THANKYOU HAYLEY!!!

The countdown starts ... 25.5hrs to go (the earliest shop that sells mags here doesn't open till 8.30am)

Just a quick note too ... with my website address being published there will be a bit of traffic on here over the next week or so. And I'm sure all my friend's links (bottom right) will get the flow on traffic. If you don't want yourself linked on here let me know before 5pm tonight (NZ time). If I don't hear from you ... your link will remain. Thanks.

Wahooo I'm so excited!
Lyn :)
SW 107.4kg
CW 69.7kg
WWGW 71kg
PGW 65-68kg

Eyes say it all

I've had to relogate another lot of clothes to the "too big" box. I still haven't made the break of actually getting rid of these clothes. Before you all start nagging me (lol) I will get rid of them but all in good time. My brain is slowing bending to the fact that I can say I will NEVER need to wear these big clothes again. I've maintained my goal weight for 2mths now! Wow has it been that long? That's got me thinking about putting a "weeks I've been at goal" figure on the side achievements of this site. It really doesn't seem much of an achievement to just stay the same but I have to be proud of that!

I watched Eat Yourself Whole last night. My heart went out to the girl on this weeks show. She like totally put herself out there, worts and all, showing her weight, measurements and cholesterol levels on nationwide tv! There's one thing to have before photos/weights when there is an after one to follow... but to only have 6wks to show a difference there wasn't much she could do in that time. Seeing the food she ate at the start (chips, burgers, lollies) brought back alot of memories of how I used to eat. We forget how we have actually changed. For the most part we are hard on ourselves because we could have done better with the changes we've made. But we have to continually remind ourselves that Rome wasn't built in a day and that one small change for the better is moving us closer to our final goal. So what if we didn't make all those other changes this week!! As long as the benchmark is shifting we will be shrinking.

Then I watched Extreme Makeover on two sisters who were born with a clef palet (sp). One of them had survived 24 operations to try and correct their birth deformity. I had tears in my eyes on their final reveal! They shined!! Not because of their beautiful new enlarged bossoms, or their corrective surgery on their lips, or their new hair extentions, or their georgous new outfits and make up ... but their eyes!!! Their eyes were so proud of themselves!! (and rightly so!) The saying "beauty is from within" is sooo true!! When someone feels so good about themselves it shows through in such a refreshing way! (especially two woman who have been through so much teasing and stares)

Someone said to Bill the other day "Lyn's a really good sort huh?" to which he replied "she's perfect in everyway". He was telling me this that evening and I tried to correct him saying I wasn't perfect. He interupted me to say this ...

"When someone is beautiful on the outside, but their face says 'I know I'm beautiful and you can't have it' it does nothing for their beauty. But when some is as gorgeous as you AND has a friendly face with open eyes that invite you into their conversation ... THAT IS THE ULTIMATE IN BEAUTY!!"

I was blown away by his words! It was the ultimate compliment. I was embarrased and didn't know how to respond but my heart was beaming!!! The hard times we go through as 'fatties' ultimately makes us even more beautiful!!!

Lyn :)
SW 107.4kg
CW 69.7kg
WWGW 71kg
PGW 65-68kg

Fried brains for dinner?

Happy St Patricks Day and top-oh-da-mornin-to-ya!

Sorry it's been so long since I updated. Busy, busy, busy. Sorry no exciting news either.

I had probably a few more bourbens than I should have had on my planned Monday night blowout, but that's what I love about the points system ... we can savem back with no guilt.

Today was my first day off in 10days so I was exhausted!! Slept for like 2hrs in the middle of the day! (what a nana!!! lol) ... think it's all catching up on me.

Every spare moment we've had off we have been organising stuff for the new shop. We're putting in a really cool till system ... actually the same system that all Woolworths supermarkets in Australia use (well that's what they told us) but it's completely mind blowing at the same time. It does so much that there's sooo much to learn about it. We had a 4hr training session on Tuesday and my brain was fried by the end of it. We have another 8-12hrs of training still to do yet!

We've got the tedious task of entering every single barcode (of stock in our shop) into the system at the moment. Considering we'll probably have between 10,000 and 12,000 different products, and each product takes around a minute to enter in (and not even counting the time of bringing home 1 of each product so it can be scanned) ... am I starting to get it in how big this job is?? lol ... but really I'm not complaining because it's all very exciting too!! Once this system is up and running it will make our stock/GP control so much better!! At the moment it's very hit and miss.

Eating? Hmm ... I've been good, counting points. I'm trying to stick to 18pts for the remainder of the week (supposed to be on 24pts to maintain) to work back the extra points used on Monday night. Last night after dinner I ended up having dessert (which wasn't planned for) and went over by 4pts for the day. (finished up on 22pts). At first I felt really bad about it but on re-evaluating what I did... think I did a pretty good job. I ate fruit salad, custard and a ww pudding. Hang ... 2yrs ago an overindulgence would have existed of far unhealthier things than that!! lol ... I've really got to give myself a break sometimes. But really ... things are going good, I'm eating good, and life is finally back to some normality again!! Yay gotta be excited about that!

Catcha!
Lyn :)
SW 107.4kg
CW 69.7kg
WWGW 71kg
PGW 65-68kg

P.S. Janine ... thanks for the tip. Yes my area leader also suggested this to me. Apparently she gets similar requests alot from soon-to-be leaders.

P.P.S. Thankyou Karen and Jules for your congrats :) And LOL Jules - Christchurch is a liiiiiittle far for me to travel, maybe. :) Thanks for the compliment all the same.

Quick update

Weighin last night gave me a 700g gain. Wasn't quite expecting that much as my scales at home showed a stay the same result. Ahh well, I had a bigger than expected loss (1.2kg) last week so can't complain. I'm still in the 60's so that's all that matters.

My ww leader anounced to the meeting last night that I was taking over being leader when she leaves. A very emotional proud moment for the both of us!!

Sorry this has to be a short and sweet update, I have the computer guy arriving any minute to install a new program for our new shop till system.

I'll update my stats later.

Catcha!
Lyn :)
SW 107.4kg
CW 69.7kg
WWGW 71kg
PGW 65-68kg

2 successful days

My day went really well helping mum with her furniture. We had a few hiccups when we realised at 4.45pm that one truck had delivered their furniture to the wrong address ... 223 instead of 233!!! I walked 5 doors down to see mum and dad's table, 8 chairs and 2 lounge suites sitting under their deck!! I tried to talk mum into the both of us carrying it the 100mtrs to their place but she wasn't too keen on that. We managed to source down a trailer (albeit a very small one) to put the furniture on. So I had our car and trailer down at the neighbours place ready to load it all on with the help of the lady living at number 223. I was nervous about putting it on the trailer incase it got scratched. Lucky as we were about to lift the first piece of furniture the truck turned up again. Their boss had told them to turn back and fix the problem (they were half an hours drive away). I'm glad they did the right thing and came back to fix it, delivering it safely (with no scratches) to mum and dad's correct address.

We left there at 6pm after a good day of hard work (painting mostly). I'm glad I'd taken a packed lunch of salad because mum brought wraps but didn't have any salad to put in them, so we combined our lunches. YUMM!!

On the road home Jordan and Jese were saying they were hungry so I called into McDonald's drive through and got them dinner and you'll be proud of me ... I smelt their food and even handed it all out without putting any of it into my mouth!! 1.5hrs driving home with the smell of McD's in the car when you're tired and hungry ... that's gotta be worth a few bonus points!!! lol

Got home and cooked myself up a healthy low point dinner instead. Talk about a successful day!!!

Yesterday I spent most of it in the shop. I sat down to have my salad for lunch and the staff member I was working with gasped at how much I was eating!! lol (I had a lunchbox full of salad, with smoked salmon and dressing) She said "Are you going to eat all of that?" "yeah? It's my lunch" I said with a chuckle. She couldn't believe that was just my lunch. She said that would be all she would eat all day!! I went on to tell her about my pre ww days when I wouldn't eat hardy anything. No breakfast, no lunch and big dinner. She said yeah that is like her now. I told her I eat far more now than I ever did before ww. But it's about eating the right things ... and lots of them!! The more 0pt things we eat (within reason of course) the more our bodies have to work at burning them up, the faster our metabolism burns.

Until our conversation today I'd actually forgotten how little I used to eat. It's such a psychi of our day .... eat less to lose weight ... IT'S NOT TRUE!!!! I actually try and push the boundaries of how much 0pt food I can eat without gaining. Some nights for dinner I have 3 plates of food!!! But only 3 or 4pts for the whole thing. I'm not saying everyone should do this but for me it works. I fill up 1 dinner plate of 0pt salad with a little dressing, 1 plate of 0pt veges (either corn cob and stirfried zuchinis or something similar) and a small side plate for my meat or ww meal. I don't do this every night but probably 2 or 3 nights a week. I don't believe we should ever go hungry on ww. If you are hungry then I don't think you're making wise enough food choices. There is a difference between being hungry and wanting food tho, but that's a whole nuther journal entry!! lol

I've done a play round with my website here and now there shouldn't be any side-to-side scrolls ... please tell me if it's fixed?? If they are still there I'll have another play. I want to get this right. I know it's no major but I like to have it right.

Thanks for your imput and WOW Chris what a huge achievement!!! 61kgs lost!! I love hearing stories like that, even now that I'm at goal I still buy the ww mags and slimmer mags to see weightloss stories. I never tire of them!!! Now THAT'S inspiration ... 61kgs!!!

Catcha!
Lyn :)
SW 107.4kg
CW 69.0kg
WWGW 71kg
PGW 65-68kg

bits and bobs

We had a great day yesterday on our trip to Hamilton. All the papers are signed and we have our finance for the new shop.

We did our grocery shopping too so I have the pantry full of healthy food again. I've bought up large on lean cuisine frozen meals. I find some days after working hard all day in the shop I'm too exhausted to come home and cook a healthy meal. I tried all the ww frozen meals a few weeks ago and although they are really low in points there's only two that I like, the rest are a bit bland. The lean cuisine ones are slightly higher in points (5-6pts each rather than the 4-5pts that the ww ones are) but they are just yummy!!!

My scales showed an all time low weight this morning!! It probably won't stay down there as my weight goes up and down each day but it's a good sign and motivates me to keep ontrack. It's a big debate whether to weigh yourself daily, and most people shun it. But for me it keeps me incheck with what's happening. I think if you do weigh daily then it pays not to get too disappointed if it does go up (especially if there's no reason for it) because our bodies do go up and down, that's normal. Each to their own, I understand both sides of the argument, but for me it works.

I'm off to mum and dad's batch in Pukahina today. They're shifting alot of furniture and stuff over there so I'm going to help mum lay the house out ... yay that will be heaps of fun! Looking forward to it!

I'm going to pack a lunch for myself so I won't be tempted if anything comes out that I shouldn't have.

It's funny how last week everyone was having a hard time and motivation was at a low point for us all. Then this week we've all made a huge recovery in the motivation side. Shows how much we all help eachother out!! This support network is really second-to-none!!

Thanks to those of you that let me know about the width scroller on my site. I'm having a think about it and will play around and see what I can do to fix it over the next week or so.

Catcha!
Lyn :)
SW 107.4kg
CW 69.0kg
WWGW 71kg
PGW 65-68kg

Kindness breeds kindness

I've finally got sick of the old tagboard being down one too many times so I've changed over to the other one people seem to be using. Only problem is it plays up with my layout a bit by making everything wider. It seems to look ok on my screen but I have a 21 inch monitor. What does it look like on your screens? Does it mean you have to scroll across from left to right? Let me know if it's not right, I only want an up/down scroll not left/right one.

Thankyou for your awesome tags/emails. Today I'm feeling really positive about stuff. Bill and I made a challenge for ourselves yesterday to 'crack' any stiff and cold customers by being REALLY friendly and chatty. And it worked!! One particular customer who has been short and sharp with stiff bodylanguage the last few days I made it my mission to get her talking!! We got talking about what they were doing and I asked her questions about her life. Her face lit up, the ice cracked and she ended up walking out with a smile. Boy that was such a fantastic feeling!!!! That's our stategy (sounds such a calculating word... lol) to overcome this whole situation by making it our challenge to smother everyone in friendliness. It not only helps people forget the gossip, but helps us stay positive and ontop of everything, rather than getting dragged down.

Things always turn out for the better if you have a good heart about it. Flippin hard thing to do in reality, far easier said than done, but boy the rewards are soooo good when you do!!!

We made the plunge of putting Jese and Jordan into full time daycare Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Mostly it was the cost that stopped us doing that in the past but it's been fantastic allowing Bill and I to work together in the shop on those days. Not only is it good for us, the customers love it too seeing a husband and wife working together. And Jordan and Jese are loving having the other kids to play with at daycare. Infact we had tears this morning from Jordan when he discovered he wasn't going today. They haven't had a lot of interaction with kids their own age since we moved here 7mths ago so that was another big reason. It will also help to develop Jordan's language. He's off to school in July and he still talks in a language only select people can understand. I'm not too worried about it because Malachi was the same and now at 7yrs he's doing great academically.

My eating?? ... mostly good ... by that I mean I've counted points and stayed under, but had a couple of lollies in the shop. Not too worried because I also made wise choices too. Bill and the kids went and got KFC for dinner, asking me if I wanted any. But I'm proud to say I declined and heated myself up a ww dinner instead! So I ended the day having drunk my water, eaten under my points and no alcohol!

We're off to Hamilton today to get all the paperwork signed for our finance on the new shop, so that's exciting. By choosing to focus on the positives rather than the negatives makes our lives so much more rewarding!!

Catcha!
Lyn :)
SW 107.4kg
CW 69.0kg
WWGW 71kg
PGW 65-68kg

My sanity place

On with today ... I've put myself back up to 24pts. For the last couple of weeks I had dropped down to 20pts a day to start losing again (fixing up the gain from last week). Feels weird and scarey to be on 24pts again. I've been a good girl all day!!

Thankyou so much to everyone who left tags and sent me emails. This place is my sanity, feels like everything else around is surreal ... like I'm back in high school with bitchy she-said-that-he-said. Meanwhile we keep our mouths shut knowing that defending ourselves will only make things worse. I am a big believer in what goes around comes around. Whether it be through me or through someone else along the line, everyone gets what they give. .. ok, ok I know I said no more on that subject ... k ... onto something else ... lol

Did anyone notice the new icon under my achievements section for lifetime membership? (hope ww doesn't mind me stealing a little pic for my site, lol)

With all the bad news happening around here ... I had something really special happen yesterday that made me smile. When I got asked to be a weight watchers leader back a few weeks ago, I thought about it for 2wks then said to my leader last week, that as much as I wanted to do it, I didn't feel I had the time to commit to it. She was very understanding of my answer. Then last night when she wasn't there (she was sick) a subleader held a meeting to sort out what they were going to do about it. I missed that part because I had weighed and left straight away ... and probably just as well. Because it turns out the members want me to be leader ... awww how sweet is that??? That was one of my concerns that because I was new to the group, I didn't think I had enough experience within the group to take the meeting. But apparently I was wrong. The subleader rang me last night to tell me what they'd all said ... it was a nice finish to the night after such a bad week. I've told her I will think about it again for a few more days and tell her my answer at the end of the week.

But between you and I ... I think I will accept to the offer. It will give me a different outlet to the shop and I can get the chance to mix more with some wonderful ladies in our ww group. My thinking is I'll take it on a 3mth trial basis ... do it for that long then reassess then whether I'm enjoying it or not.

I haven't checked out anyones journals for a few days so might head off to catchup on what you've all been up to.

Catcha!
Lyn :)
SW 107.4kg
CW 69.0kg
WWGW 71kg
PGW 65-68kg

Nothing can keep me down!!!!

I know I said I was stopping ... and I was ... but after a good talk to Bill, a read of all your wonderful emails/tags ... I've decided that no one can stop me doing this weightloss thing ... and that includes this website ... because ultimately it's my website that has got me here!!!! ... well you as my readers ... via my website!!

So here I am ... no one can take me down ... I'm here for good!!!! So take that ...

I've had the most awesome night !!!! I lost 1.2kgs at weigh in tonight ... the success of that is unreal ... I put on 1.1kg last week and with the stress I've gone through this week (unlike anything I've gone through the last year or so) I was very tempted on numerous occasions to buy that bottle of bourben ... but I made a consous decision NOT TOO ... I WAS NOT TO LET THIS RUIN MY WEIGHTLOSS JOURNEY .... I'm in this for good!!!!

This loss tonight gave me lifetime membership for weightwatchers ... unfortunately my ww leader wasn't there tonight so wasn't able to celebrate that at my meeting ... but tomorrow I'll put on a ww lifetime membership icon on my achievements section.

It's late so I'll update my stats tomorrow too! Yay 1.2kgs !!!! ... I'm damn happy with that one!!!! It's the lightest I've been in over 10years!!

Lyn :)
SW 107.4kg
CW 69kgs
WWGW 71kgs
PGW 65-68kgs

Alot to be thankful for

Karen I know you would never do anything to make me gain weight! lol

Yesterday set out to be a pretty boring day at home with the kids. But I got a call just after lunch to say my mum and aunty were coming over. So that gave a nice touch to the afternoon. We spent an hour or so wandering down the beach and back. Yay bonus points earnt there.

I ate well all day. This journey is a long, long one for me, infact one with no end. It made me realise how imperitive this website is for me. I think without it, it would be easy to wallow in my negative state and let it all get to me too much. But with the wise words you all give quickly puts the big picture in perspective. Back ontrack and rearing to go again.

Went to Lauren's Parent/Teacher interview last night and I am so proud of her! She's doing incredibly well and infact with reading and spelling she's 2yrs ahead of her agegroup. Her teachers first comments were "what an absolute darling of a daughter you have!". Sometimes when you're in the midst of bringing kids up it's hard to see the end in sight. But moments like that make you appreciate the gems they are!

I'm very privileged!!

Catcha!
Lyn :)
SW 107.4kg
CW 70.2kg
WWGW 71kg
PGW 65-68kg

Not nice

Yep ... a 1.1kg gain at weighin as expected. Bringing my weight up to 70.2kg.

Sorry don't have anything insperational to talk about. Not a happy girl today. I guess the only good news is I'm still below goal weight.

Catcha!
Lyn :)
SW 107.4kg
CW 70.2kg
WWGW 71kg
PGW 65-68kg

*update* I just realised after reading Karen's journal again that I got it off her!!!! The 1.1kgs she lost this week she must have thrown all the way up here and it got stuck on me!! lol