He'll keep!!

True to the story ... Bill came down to the shop soon after I'd opened to ... umm ... skite!! Yep that's the exact words he used "I've come to skite! I'm only 102kgs this morning"

Damn it!! How can that happen?? The night before last he was scoffing crofters cheesecakes (16.5pts) and a colosal cone (6pts) just before bed. And as I walked in yesterday lunchtime he was trying to shove the remains of a pie in his mouth without me seeing.

Last night when it came for going for a walk, Malachi (9) and I went on our own, while Bill remained at home watching tv. But in saying that, I'm glad I went for the walk. As we got down to the beach we noticed some kite surfers on the beach and it reminded me of the commitment I made to myself back in February. When I get to goal I want to do that. Both Mal and I stared in awe for ages at them going back and forth, in and out of the surf, jumps, flips and bombing out, popping back up and carrying on.

Here's a clip I found on YouTube to show what I mean.



Apparently it takes alot of upper body strength, something I can strive for once I get nearer goal. Although lucky for us here we're not in a flight path with Jumbo Jets!! lol

We got home around 7pm and I cooked up my healthy meal while Bill and the kids had their Tuesday night takeaways. I went to bed with a clear conscience knowing I'd done everything right today and one step closer to my $200 reward. Oooohh! Talking about that I did a bit of googling to research the Pandora Bracelet and Italian Charm Bracelet.

I really like the thought of having something I can continue to ad to as I achieve each 5kg lost.

I'm still keeping focused on that bracelet because IT WILL BE MINE! I know Bill has by some miracle managed to achieve a 3kg loss in 2 days (however official weighday is not till Saturday) and I have heard nothing but "I'm winning, I feel so LIGHT!!" from him ... but he won't hold out ... I'm sure pretty soon he'll be needing a nana nap!

Slow and steady ...

It's official!! Bill and I are having a race to lose weight!

For the last 18mths I've been heavier than Bill ... alot heavier ... 20kgs heavier. And slowly bit by bit I've been catching him up (or down should I say). I am now only a couple kilos heavier than him. Me at 107.7kgs and Bill at 105.6kgs.

So the race is on ... first to 90kgs wins!!

Even tho I'm 2kgs behind him I know I can do this! Bill is a classic hare ... starting with a bang and he'll lose it fast, 2-3kgs a week. That is, while it lasts! He won't hold out tho, he doesn't have the stick ability like I do. He'll flake out half way there and lie down for a nana nap! I know it! hehe!!

While I, the tortoise on the other hand, will plod away slowly bit by bit and pass him 5mtrs before the finishline! Watch me baby, I'll win ... no worries!!

He wanted to give me a helping hand by making it a percentage thing like on biggest loser ... but no way ... I don't need no helping hand. That's just to make his ego feel better when he doesn't win! lol

I was all inspired to go for a walk tonight after reading Chris and Janene's blog. But dinnertime came round too quickly and I just ran out of time. But after dinner I made the suggestion to Bill that we go out as a family for a walk and he jumped at the idea so off we went to walk around the Martha Mine and Pumphouse in Waihi.

We got there at 7.20pm and as we came to the entry gates by our car at 7.45pm the gates were locked!! So we had to walk back to the other entrance. We walked quick smart hoping that gate wasn't locked too or we might be spending the night sleeping under a tree. As we got there the guy was just about to put the lock on the gate... phew! Lucky! It turned our 20 minute walk into a 45 minute one, so that's gotta be good. And my ankle held out good, well onto being fully mended.

So the next thing to do ... choose my prize. My reward for winning our race to 90kgs. We've made the prize something worth $200. It's not allowed to just be money, so I have to think of something cool worth that much ... Any ideas?? I need to seriously think about this, after all, the prize will be MINE!! :)

The burning celebration

LOL Rachel ... yes I guess I must be addicted if on my day off I choose to do ambo. I just love it so much!!

And for those of you who said you like my evaluations idea ... ehem ... I actually stole it off Zanna lol ... thanks Zanna!

I have been missing my walks. The last one I did was on Tuesday night with the girls. Then Wednesday and Thursday I did ambo all day so no walks. By this morning I was itching to get my feet out there.

As I put my exercise clothes on Bill remarked to me ...

Bill: "What do you mean you haven't lost much weight?"

(I'd been moaning to him about my weekly average weightloss not being much)

Bill: "You can really tell that you're toning up when you put those clothes on. Much better than that UGLY skirt you wore the other day!"

(WTF?!!)

Me: "You don't like my skirt? You've never told me that!!"

Bill: "I know"

Me: "And you wait till now to tell me??"

Bill: "It's just that it makes you look worse than you are"

Me: "What do you mean 'worse than I am'?!?!"

Bill: "you know what I mean."

Me: "No!"
(had to make him dig the whole deeper!!)

Bill: "Yeah, infact I hate that skirt so much I'm going to burn it!!"

Me: "What?? You can't BURN my skirt!! It's mine!"

Bill: "Yep, that's what I'm going to do"

So there you have it ... a skirt burning celebration has been born!! I didn't know whether to hit him or hug him!!

I walked for 1hr 30mins today, stopping off at the coffee house on the way. Then went into Waihi to do the banking, calling into the ambo station on the way back for another coffee ... whooops, overloaded a little on the caffeine! (for someone who's not used to drinking much coffee). Hence now I'm bouncing off the walls. Well I guess at least while I'm at work I'll get lots of things done! lol

For those of you who have asked about an update photo ... I'm waiting till I hit the 10kg lost mark, so "hopefully" that will be in the next couple of weeks (only 600g to go).

Well I better get onto that stuff to do, getting ants in my pants ... gotta go!!

One step further ...

Thankyou all for your encouragement! It really makes a huge difference. Once upon a time I would have done like you Jen and thrown my scales out the window. Infact I have broken 2 sets of scales in the past because I got mad and jumped on them, like a 2yr old throwing a tantrum!! lol

I knew when that gain showed up yesterday that I didn't deserve it, therefore I needed to be the bigger person and 'get over it'. Alot of you provided great info that I have taken on board. And wow 4kgs of poo ... that IS a lot of poo!! lol

My pounding of the pavements yesterday morning paid off with setting a personal record ... 11,000 steps achieved in one day!! and 8.23kms!!!

It really wasn't that long ago (back in February of this year) when I started weight watchers again that I struggled to get to the front of our section, both with my ankle and having to heave around my lard. I have really started to notice little things now making a difference. I remember sitting on the public seat outside our shop and feeling the rolls above the waistline on my back touching my hips. Ewww that sounds yuck when I describe it. And it felt yuck at the time. It was one of those things that motivated me to start ww again. I haven't totally lost the upper spare tyre (as I call it) but I don't feel the friction of skin like I used to.

Another thing that motivated me to start again was my heavy breathing when I had to do anything. Even walking up the 5 steps into our house I would put my foot on the step and kind of use momentum to haul my body up to that step. Now I go up and down those steps without a second thought.

Remembering back when one step made me puff and to think I did over 11,000 of them yesterday ... and felt great!!

I've made a small change in my ww plan. Up until now I've been on 26pts per day. With the questionaire they ask you at the start (to work out your points) they ask -

In your main occupation are you:

• Sitting down most of the time


• Occasionally sitting, but mainly standing


• Occasionally standing, but mostly walking


• Doing physically hard work most of the time

Up until now I have always put that I am 'occasionally sitting but mainly standing', which in effect gives me an extra 2pts per day (24 up to 26). When counting bonus points I never count incidental steps, only planned exercise. The problem being with these 2 extra points is that some days I don't work and some days I do alot of sitting while others I walk kilometers in the shop.

So I figure this may have something to do with my problem. I know it's only 2pts but this adds up to 14pts over the whole week. So I have re worked out my points as if I am sitting most of the time (24pts) and will wear my pedometer each day and add my bonus points at the end of each day according to the number of steps I do. I have worked out that 1,500 steps = 1pt, so yesterday would work out to 7pts (11,000 steps). I realise I can only use 4 of these for food and infact I only sometimes use my bonus points. But I still like to record all of them to keep a measure on how much I am doing. Does this all make sense??

Basically it means I am cutting my points back to 24pts. And I know the negatives of cutting back points and slowing motabolism etc but I don't truelly believe I should have been having those extra 2pts in the first place.

Anyway I'll give it a try this week and see what happens.

Power on!!

staring at the face of temptation

No Wanna and Rachel I didn't end up going walking that Tuesday night. Mostly because it was dark and didn't feel comfortable walking in the dark alone.

But ... I did go last night instead. A little earlier this time just as the sun was setting. I actually feel very proud of myself last night. It had the potential to all turn to custard, but I was focused to keeping myself ontrack.

I asked a friend in the late afternoon if she wanted to go for a walk with me. She was unsure if she'd get her work done in time. By 5pm I'd walk just over 3kms in the shop and was pretty 'ankle' sore. Bill and I had a little 'debate' as to who was going out, me for my walk, or him fishing. In the end he decided the sea was a little rough to be taking the boat out, so that left me to organise my walk. An hour would do it because I had to be back to finish dinner before a friend came over for a few drinks. I calculated my alcohol points out and tracked them for later.

I went and saw her at 5.10pm and she said her work wasn't finished yet. Contemplating relaxing in for the night, I checked up on my blog and saw your comments Wanna and Rachel. Well that did it, I was going for my walk anyway. Before I left I put the rice cooker on with our brown rice and got the ingredients out for dinner, gave instructions to Bill on how to cook it and said I would finish it off when I got back in an hour.

Lauren (11yrs), Malachi (9yrs) and I set off. We got talking and before I realised we were well down the beach and it was getting pretty dark. We turned around to come home, but man was I sore. My foot was giving out on me and wasn't being helped by uneven ground with no torch! We were walking so fast in the end, I just wanted to be home!

As I limped in the door I was told the gas had run out, therefore no stirfry. Dinner would have to be microwaved or takeaways. At 6.30pm and as tired as I was ... takeaways it was! But the chinese place I normally get my low point takeaways from is closed for a month. Damn it! Bill and the kids got pizza and the smell of it almost tempted me... well it damn near swallowed me up! I sooo wanted pizza *Homer voice ... "mmmmm, want pizzzzzzaaaaa"*

Stood myself up, told myself off and marched to the freezer to fetch my handy, dandy ww microwave meal and put a cup of rice under it to fill me up. "Tick" ... another box checked.

By this stage I was so pumped by all the obstacles being thrown my way that I dodged, when it came to my allotted drink allowance I looked in the face of temptation and told it to go jump. I decided to be the sober driver ... hmmm we weren't driving lol ... but the sober socialiser, hey someone had to make sure no one made a fool of themselves.

So I went to bed very proud of all that was put in my way yet overcome! And that was all started off by your comments to inspire me to go for my walk. See you just never know the power of your words!! Thankyou!

6000 maker shooter laser!!

Wannabe had a cute 'game' on her blog the other day where you put your name and the words 'needs to' into google and see what comes up. This is what came up for me ...

"Lynette needs a Knight of the Round Table (preferably Lancelot) to rescue her sister"

This one is weird because my sister is married to Lance of whom her pet name for him is Lancelot!

"Lynette needs a quick and easy 'glam' make over."

Hey I'm in for that!

"Lynette needs to have her balls removed so Tom can have them"

Gee thanks!!

"Lynette needs to get a grip on her vanity."

This one cracks me up! Especially for the fact that I had a lovely customer say to me yesterday "The weather's looking good" to which I said "yeah!!", then she blankly looked at me in stunned silence! It got to the awkward moment where no one was saying anything to which I asked to her what she said. She repeated "You're looking good" ... Ahhhh, I now understood why she was looking at me so shocked! She must have thought I was the vainest person out there!!! "yeah of course I look good!!!" LMAO!!

Jese (4yrs) gave me the cutest present last night ...


It's a (and I quote) "6000 maker shooter laser" ... he had it all worked out and explained to me in great detail how it works. He was very excited when I took a photo of it and told him I would show it to all my blogger friends.

This morning I woke up nice and early and thought I would take a morning walk along the beach to watch the sunrise. It took me a bit too long to get my act together and missed the actual sunrise but was beautiful time of day anyway. I took my pocket camera and snapped some pics for you to see.

Bill liked this last one. I wasn't sure how the camera would react to the sun being so bright and it chose to make the sun black, quite cool!

Today ... Malachi (9yrs) has his soccer game, then I'm working for 2hrs (hard life I know) and then out to friends for dinner. Need to plan this one as it's a takeaway/drinks night ... might make it chinese chop suey and take my baby bottle with me. I use an old baby bottle to measure out exact amount of alcohol and give myself an allowance for the night, rather than counting as I go.

Well I better go get Mal ready for his game.

Chow!

Call the fire brigade ... I'M ON FIRE!!

I had a friend of mine tell me yesterday (she knows I'm trying to lose weight) that I have a glow about me at the moment. Wow hope she doesn't think I'm pregnant! lol It's so nice to be receiving compliments on my weightloss, certainly helps keep the motivation going.

Talking about motivation ... man I am on fire!!!! Small note here: I have changed my weighin day from Thursday to Wednesday because I was sick of having to weigh myself at what seemed like the middle of the night (5am) before I went to ambulance.

So this morning I weighed in at 113.7kgs ... that's a 2.4kg loss!! yayya!!!! My biggest loss so far! I had a feeling that my 700g gain last week might disappear this week ... but 2.4kgs!! That's far more than I expected... very, very happy here.

I was really really disappointed last week that I was trying my hardest and was putting on weight. I had that fleeting thought that we all get ... "stuff it, what's the point?" but lucky my common sence kicked in and I 'kept my foot on the gas' as Helena puts it :) Glad I did now!

I went for my night walk with the girls last night. 50mins all up and was feeling it by the time I got home. We made a pact that we are all going to set ourselves a goal to achieve and will tell eachother on our Tuesday night walk how we are going towards our goal. Of course mine was weightloss, but I also got challenged to enter the Thames duathlon (walk and cycle) in February. That scares the shit outta me but then that's me talking at 113kgs. I'm waiting to find a little more info on it yet, but a small inner part of me was spurred on ... maybe I could do it.

Well I'm off to make some breakie, cya!

More compact

I feel very cheated this morning!! I was perfect all week! Stayed within my points, weighed all my food, drank all bar half a litre of my water, exercised 4 days ... and I think that is my downfall ...

Yep I gained!! And gained by 700g!!! Not a measly 100g or 200g but a whopping 700g!!! Damn it!! 116.1kg the scales said this morning, so not fair!!!!

I feel mad about this, but not guilty. I know I did everything right and the scales didn't show this ...BUT

... I will NOT GIVE UP!

I'm going to prove to those bloody scales that I AM LOSING WEIGHT, even if the head matron scales won't believe me!

Why am I not giving up?

• my hard work will EVENTUALLY show up on the scales
• I remember having gains last time I lost weight, yet I still got to goal
• when I get to goal I won't even remember this gain
• I know it's not about the numbers and all about size/measurements
• my normally tight ambulance pants were not tight this morning even after being in the dryer
• I know with the heavily increased exercise I did this week I would have built muscle and we all know that "muscle weighs more than fat"

or does it???

Not according to this article ...

Muscles are not Heavier than Fat

I would like to ask if muscles are heavier than fat. Why is that so?

And is it possible that if I get more muscles, I will also gain weight or maintain my present weight even if I am controlling what I am eating?

Muscles are not heavier than fat. One kilo of muscle weighs exactly the same as one kilo of fat. A kilo is a kilo. However, since muscle is denser, it looks smaller than fat.

If you asked a butcher to put a kilo of pure muscle on one scale and a kilo of pure fat on another scale, you would see that the fat looks bigger than the muscle. Another way to visualize this is to imagine a kilo of cotton and a kilo of steel. The cotton occupies a much bigger space or volume than the same weight of steel.

When people say that "muscles are heavier than fat", they actually mean that muscles are more compact than fat.

So I change that last point ...

• Because muscles are more compact than fat!!

Here's the rest of the article if anyone is interested ...

Muscles are not Heavier than Fat

Thanks for all the breakfast suggestions. I've taken note of them all and will put them to use. Jen you must have known something. I read your comment about pikelets this morning as I was munching on 2 banana topped pikelets ... lol!

As gutted as I was with those scales this morning I have a busy days work ahead of me and I'm not going to let this get me down.

Hit the 10,000 mark

I had a full on evening last night ...

• 6.30pm made dinner


• 7.30pm met friends for our night walk


• 8.30pm got home and ate dinner


• 9.30pm was in bed

I'm not normally in bed by 9.30pm but was so tired after all the days walking. I made it to over 10,000 steps yesterday ... infact 10,258 to be exact! and 7.7kms!! yayya!

I was happy with the amount of exercise I achieved but not so happy with my water and eating, with only 1.5ltrs of water and 5.5pts under for the day. I really don't like going under the 4pts maximum to save. I have to come up with some better breakfast ideas. I don't like cereal, more of a savoury gal. And while I've been having things like baked beans on toast, poached eggs or grilled veges for breakie (not all in one day!!) Some days I'm either too busy or too lazy to cook something so I end up just having a banana or apple. It's on these days that I go way under points for the day. If anyone has any brainwaves on breakfast ideas that doesn't include yoghurt, fruit or cereal ... let me know.

Today is looking like a pretty uneventful day ... working in the shop and then ambulance training tonight.

Weighin tomorrow morning. I'm feeling ok about it. I haven't weighed myself all week, I don't do that anymore. I did last time I lost weight and it got ridiculous as I was getting paranoid about any little gram I was putting on during the week. So this time I made a vow once a week weighing and that's it! I've done a fair amount of exercise again this week so don't know if that will show up as a gain. Shall have to wait and see.

Thanks for all the wonderful suggestions regarding breakfasts. Looks like I'm going to have to get myself organised and do some freezer meals. I didn't think you could freeze egg based things but looks like I'm wrong.

I did well for breakfast this morning and made myself some poached eggs on toast with 2 hash browns and mushrooms. But then I got too busy for lunch (did an 11am-5pm shift). Argghhh!! can't win! lol

So with too many points to spare I decided to indulge in some burger rings.

I haven't had any chips since I started ww a few months ago. My favourite is Krispa's Sweet & Tangy Chips but at 5.5pts that was just too much to spend for a snack. The burger rings at 3pts was just right. I enjoyed them chip by chip but they gave me horrible heartburn afterwards. Serves me right.

This man stopped me

Grrrrrr ... I so wanted to go for my walk yesterday and this man stopped me!!!

Straight after I finished my update yesterday, being a beautiful sunny day I thought I take the opportunity to stroll down the beach. As I walked out the front of the shop I saw friends of mine and asked them if they wanted to come.

"sure" they said, but they needed to get a bit of stuff done first so would meet me back here in a few hours then we'd all go. "ok" I agreed and went to fill in a couple of hours first.

My cousin popped in for a brief visit not long after, grabbed an icecream and left. Then a few minutes later he came up to the house (where both Bill and I were, with staff in the shop) and said he just saw a guy stuffing some things in his pocket and walk out of the shop. So Bill set off to get him. After my cousin identified the guy across the road Bill went straight up to him and told him he was seen stealing something, to come back to the shop. The guy refused, denying it (as expected) so Bill said "well, we can either call the cops here, or come back to the shop and call the cops there" to which the guy calmly followed Bill back to the shop. As Bill was coming around the counter to get the phone book the guy took off to the back of the shop, stashing his stolen goods. What he didn't realise is we have cameras in the shop and one of them happened to be right above him when he stole what he did, so there was no denying it.

Anyway Bill stood guard over him, while I served over the counter (staff were finishing then) until the cops came. So we waited, and waited, and waited, and waited!! We made phone call after phone call asking how long they would be. Each time they said they'd be 20mins, 5mins, 15mins, 30mins ... and so on. And this guy just stood there staring at the wall, in one spot, just stood there .... for 3 hours!!!! All 3 of us just waited. The guy never spoke, never moved, just stood there staring at the wall for 3 bloody hours!!! lol

He refused to give his name or ID. It got to the stage we were ready to close the shop and the cops still weren't here. So we gave up, took a photo of him (I've blurred it for my blog as I didn't know how I stood legally to put his photo on here) and sent him away.

I was so annoyed at the police for not turning up. I know it was only Petty theft but by stopping theft at this stage may mean stopping it before it turns to bigger stuff. And it's not the first time I've heard of police not turning up. I know they're under staffed and all that shit ... but please ... over 3hrs???

So after locking and alarming the shop we sat down to dinner and half way through dinner ..... werrrowerrrowerrro!!!! The alarm went off .... I shit myself! (well not literally) The guys back to get revenge, I thought! Bill cautiously went down to check the shop, opened the door to see the stupid CAT run through the door .... DAMN CAT!!! What a night to choose to be stuck in the shop!!! lol

So I wasted my whole afternoon off and never got my walk in. Hence why I have my walking shoes on now ... I'm off before any more shoplifters can stop me ... see ya!!!

LATER ...

Man, I am soooo ANGRY!!!!

Just had a girl put some smokes on 'tick', promising she'd be back at 9am tomorrow morning to pay for them. Normally we don't have 'tick', but somehow she got to me and I gave in. Given that I knew she worked just down the road and she gave me a big sob story how her pay didn't go through till tonight.

Then not 2mins after she left her boss came to see me, worried that I had given her something on 'tick'. I told her regretably that I had. And she she "ohh nooo, you may not ever see your money. She has things on tick all over town and no one sees their money. We've been trying to get rid of her for ages, she's real bad news."

Why do I give in to people?? We have a policy no 'tick' to general public and I'm scared to tell Bill what I did. Man today is just NOT MY DAY!!! I feel like I have a banner on my forehead "RIP ME OFF"

On a slightly more positive note ... I did get out for my walk today, 45mins. And half an hour after I got back the weather packed in. So I guess that's something. Sheesh I hope the day gets better.

Nearly done ... honest! one more minute ...

I've been on this computer for the last 3hrs and just finished putting in another year of old blog entries (ones that I had saved on hard drive from my last diary) so that people who wanted to read about the first time I lost weight could.

So that's 2003 done and started 2004. Just have 2005 to go after that. Most of my actual weightloss story happened in 2003 for those of you who care :p

It's been really interesting going back over my journal for that time. Makes me realise how chaotic things were in 2003/2004. I started ww, got to goal, sold a house, built a house, moved to Hamilton, moved into new house, Bill got amazing job, Bill lost amazing job, sold our new house, moved to Waihi Beach, bought dairy. Wow I'm exhausted just reading about it. That's a heck of a lot to do in 2yrs!

I remember Mandy saying when we met up last month that blogs are like books for her, that she wants to get to the end of the story. And she's so right. It's weird because you get to know someone so well by reading their blog yet you don't really know them at all. And sometimes you know things about their lives that even their closest friends/family don't know, yet you don't know them. It's quite paradoxical really.

Anyway I'm confusing myself with that chitchat ... onto my book ... uh, I mean blog! heheh ...

We got an invite out last night at the last minute, to go to hear a band at the cafe across the road, with some friends. So with a mad dash panic, finding babysitter, putting makeup on and nice clothes off we went. Band wasn't that good but the company was, so we had a good time. Lucky I had eaten light through the day and only had a 4pt dinner so the extra drinks I had didn't put me over in points for the day.

This morning my dad woke us up bright and early at 8am (I know that's not early to some but this is our only sleepin day of the week when staff open the shop, so we try to sleep) Once I was up and out of bed I was fine, not even hung over so that was a nice bonus.

Then the postie man dropped off my new pedometer ... yay!! Bill said I was like a little kid at christmas. I got it all set up and went off for a walk on the beach. But bummer I got the tides wrong and ended up having to walk barefoot through the water. This is fine normally but when it's high tide there's more of a slope and my ankle didn't handle the slop (and lack of support without shoes) too well. So I'm a bit sore now.

I was still happy with my 4257 steps. Except I lost track of time and have no idea how long I walked for. Does anyone know how to convert steps into bonus points earnt? (I was walking at low intensity pace)

Here's the stats if anyone can work out how many points that would be??

• 4257 steps
• 3.2kms
• It says 334kcal burnt off but I find that a little hard to believe, does that sound right??
• And was "around" 50mins ish in time

If no one knows how to work this out in bonus points I'll just use the 50mins time, but it could have been anywhere from 35mins - 1hr.

Had a yummy homemade egg, avocado, portabello mushroom sandwich for lunch while everyone else hooked into burgers. I'm sure mine was just as nice, and a quarter the points!

Anyway think I'm all computered out for today with adding those archives.

and the award goes to ...

I am in major pain here!!! Silly me got so excited about doing exercise I chose to ignore the pain in my ankle and just 'get over it'!! Stupid mistake!!

After my hour long walk yesterday I thought I was going fine. Lunchtime I was fine, 2pm I was fine, 4pm I felt like a bowling ball had run into my foot. And I still had till 7pm to work. I was so buggered last night I couldn't even bring myself to do the cashup.

Went to bed early to a restless nights sleep with my ankle playing up all night. Then this morning I woke up, head inspired to do more exercise. I gingerly put my foot on the ground on getting outa bed. It was a little stiff but not to sore, so what do I do??? No I didn't go for a walk, but spent 20mins on my cross trainer. The ankle seemed to be holding out and by the end was a little sore but ok. Now at 3pm I am in pain again... do I ever learn??? ummm nope! lol

I guess I got a little frustrated with being held back and chose to ignore it. Ok I've learnt my lesson now, take it a litle slower. Maybe cut my walks back to every other day rather than every day.

My boys come home today and I'm so looking forward to it. Not looking forward to my tidy house becoming messy again ... but looking forward to seeing their cheeky, smiley faces!!

I was very priveleged to get given the thinking bloggers award



by the lovely Chris today. Thankyou so much Chris!! I believe honesty is always the best policy and that's what I base my website on. No matter how silly I feel for posting something I'm sure there are others out there who can relate to whatever I'm writing about. And as a reader I know it's always nice to read of someone else who has gone through the same thing.

So thankyou again Chris :)

The Rules:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.

2. Link to this post (www.thethinkingblog.com) so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.


And here are my 5 fellow blogger awards ...

Emily for showing that you can lose weight, keep it off, go through hard times and come out the other side a success!

KiwiJo who proves that persistance pays off. Jo was the very first blog I ever read back in 2003 I think it was and she's still blogging... Go Jo!!

Karen, another longtime stick it out blogger who has gone through good times and bad and shines with her continual encouragement of others - Thankyou Karen!!!

Mandy, she is a doll!! Always bubbly and possitive towards others, a real sweetie!

And last but definately not least ... Ms Teecher !!! This lady has lost a HUGE amount of weight, kept it off and now runs marathons!!! Anytime I don't feel like exercising, I go read her blog and it totally inspires me!!!

There are alot of you amazing bloggers out there who inspire me and aren't ashamed to put yourself out there and if I could I would give every one on my bloglist an award!!

Ok I'm gonna sign off now before I start crying!!

baby steps work

I woke up yesterday inspired to do some exercise. It was our day off so when Bill said he wanted to go for a kayak I suggested we go hire another 2 kayaks (we own one kayak ourselves), one for me and one for Lauren, 11yrs (the 3 boys are still with their grandparents). So after getting ourselves sorted. Snacks and sweatshirt, shoes, car keys and money, breakfast eaten ... 40mins later we were ready to head out the door. Bill kayaked down to the hire place and we were to meet him there. But as we walked in the shop I noticed there were no kayaks out on display. After asking the lady she snapped back that yes they do still hire out kayaks but not today. Aye?? "we're going out for the day and we don't hire them out when staff are here" I really didn't understand her reasoning, I mean she was there right then and we could bring them back when she returned but nope she was dead set ... no kayaks today! Damn!!

So Lauren and I set off walking down the beach to meet Bill. As we were walking I noticed she was counting. "What are you counting?" I asked her. "my steps". So we set out to count our steps together, me counting 1-100 while she counted the 100's and then 1000's. We made a goal together of getting to 10,000. I really didn't think about how many that was and how long it would take us!! lol ... 5,400 steps and 1hr20mins later!!! We had to stop before my ankle gave out on me.

I got back home, worked out my bonus points and was very happy to record 6.5pts earnt. (of course only saving 4 of them).

Bill's brother, his wife and kids arrived just before lunch for a visit. The guys went out fishing while the girls sat down to watch girly movies. A great day! Everyone voted on takeaways for dinner so I opted for prawn chow mein. I knew I had 17pts spare for dinner so wasn't worried. I looked up the points for it after dinner and to my shock ww reckons it's 15pts (2cups worth). There's no way it would be 15pts!! Chop suey (veges with no meat, no noodles) is 2pts, so I figured 1 serving of prawns is 1 extra point and 2 cups of pasta (over estimating) is 7pts bringing the total to 10pts. I know our chinese takeaways use boiled pasta not fried so I really can't see where the extra 5pts comes from. I made the decision to only count it as 10 not 15pts. Does anyone else know why the huge difference between chop suey (2pts) and chow mein (15pts)??

I decided since I don't have a walking buddy I'd like to get myself a pocket radio and a pedometer. I found one on trademe that has both together (yeah I know I gotta stay off that site! lol) and bid $10 bux on it ... and got it!!






So that should be on it's way to me very shortly... bargain!!

I felt so inspired by my walk yesterday (longest I've done yet) that I got up this morning and did it again! It shows how much my ankle is healing being able to walk on the beach again. I had a stiff leg today but it was the other leg not my 'bung' one. So that was a good sign I had done some 'fat damage'.

My immediate plan was to walk on the beach to the cafe, grab a coffee and walk back. But by the time I got there I'd only walked 15mins and I know it's better to walk 20mins at a time for weightloss, so continued along the beach for another 5mins, then noticed I wasn't far from the end of the beach, so continued walking. It ended up being a little further than I thought to the end so by the time I got home, my planned 'half hour walk' ended up being 65mins.

Well whataya know huh? 3mths ago the thought of walking out to the letterbox and back was too much for me to even consider doing, with being overweight and a 'bung' leg. I remember reading of people who couldn't walk to the letterbox and back when I was losing weight last time and not being able to believe that. But I was in that exact position only a few months back. My first "walk" only last 10mins and I was haddit... now I'm walking for 1hr, who would have guessed? Shows that by making one small change at a time, even if it doesn't feel like you've done anything decent enough (like 10 pathetic mins) is a small step to doing more next time.

Aww one more won't hurt ...

I took the opportunity of a beautiful sunny day and a few hours off work to go for a lovely walk. I've changed the route I take now to include a rather steep hill, that way I get the ol' ticker tickin without the foot doing any extra work.

25 mins later and home again, I jumped on the cross trainer for 13mins this time, beating my other workouts by an extra 3 mins. Well the truth is I wanted to see the end of the last song on Juice TV so kept working out till it finished.

The bad thing was when I'd finished I really didn't feel hungry but knew I had to eat something for brekkie. I downed a cereal bar but with only using 2pts it kinda put me under for the day. Bill brought me home some yummy sushi. Given the nearest sushi shop is 45mins drive away I don't get it very often. But that was only 3pts. I had fruit and other snacks during the day, but was left with having far too many points left over at the end of the day. I don't like to gorge myself too late in the day (having a personal rule of no food after 7pm) and I'm trying to keep my sugar points to a minimum.

Some of you are thinking to yourself right now ... "what a girlie swat!! who cares if you don't eat enough??" And trust me I've had my days where all my points are gone by 10am and had to live on point free stuff for the rest of the day. But this other side is something I've been thinking about for a while and never knew how to tackle it. Is it better to not eat enough or gorge yourself late at night with 18-20pts??

I know it's only a pathetic itty bitty problem and could be solved by eating a damn bag of chips. But I don't want to go there. Potato chips are a 'no go' for me, as is pizza and 'cheesy-weezies'... you don't know what cheesy-weezies are??? Trust me ... never, ever eat them or you won't look at regular chips the same. They will be naked unless they are covered in fat laden dripping, like cheesy-weezies. Dictionary meaning "deep fried chips covered with a marriage of tartare sauce and melted cheese" .... damn it! I'm salivating just typing this!!

I made the dreaded mistake of having just ONE of these chips, last week, when my daughter had them. Don't get me wrong I don't let her have them very often but this day she had worked really hard all day and as a treat got to choose her dinner. She has her mother's taste buds and immediately went for the biggest of all sinful dinners.

Now this night I had already eaten, was quite satisfied with my low fat, low point dinner. I could tolerate the smell wafting over from her plate because I had my eyes steadfast on Shortland Street. But then she said she was full and put the plate on the coffee table ... 1 foot away from me!!!! Before I knew it I had bargained with myself that one would truly be ok. And it probably would have ... but I don't know what came over me ... like a hand possessed that I had no control over it was feeding this devine tasting poison into my mouth. And do you think my mouth protested?? NUP!! I was ashamed to admit that in a matter of 30seconds I had inhaled 15 calorie soaked chips. The stupid thing was ... I WAS COUNTING THEM!!! Why for goodness sake was I counting the chips??? If I cared enough to think about the amount of calories I was consuming then why eat them??? In the end I told Lauren to take them away QUICK!!! Away from my evil hand!! Pour water on them, petrol, anything!!!

Then I burst out laughing at the battle that had gone on between my hand and my brain.

So now the only one and true concrete way of not letting this happen again is to ban it as a NO GO food ... just don't go there!!!

I'm in ww heaven

I've been doing a little tidying up with my website and adding all the old entries from my last blog (when I lost weight the first time) for anyone who was interested.

Trouble is there are so many entries!! I've completed six months worth (which took me 2hrs) and I still have 2 more years to go!! lol, bear with me, it might take a while.

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Went for a 20min walk up some pretty steep hills and then did 10mins on my new cross trainer. I have her set up in the bedroom infront of the tv so I can workout to the music channels. Earned myself 4.5 bonus points.

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You may raise your eyebrows at this, but I don't go grocery shopping. Infact it's been many months since I showed my face inside a supermarket. I have no need to. We own a superette and everything I need for the house we either get delivered to us or Bill gets it for me when he gets stock. Anyway, yesterday Bill wanted me to go to the supermarket to get a couple of red cabbages to put in a produce order for a customer ... well let me tell you ... I was in heaven!!!

There were so many new ww and low fat products out that I never knew about. I felt a little like someone who had stepped forward in time. "Wow look at this", "Ahhhh, cool! I haven't seen that before!". Instead of just walking out with the two cabbages, my trolley was full! And all for me of course .... heheh! My first treat to try was the ww cookies and cream icecream. Absolute YUM!!! I love cookies and cream and to have it in a low fat version ... yay!!

I've put lots of stuff in the freezer for those tempting moments when I need something special without the points.

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I'm on ambulance all day tomorrow so you all won't be able to hear my weighin result till after 6pm when I get home ... hope it will be a good one. But I'm a little uncertain this week.

My baby she's coming home

It started by looking at Bill's stupid exercise thing, that I'd tried to use but without much success... "the body coach". I was supposed to lie on it with my feet in the air and pull on the cords to lift myself up and down kinda like a cockeye rowing machine. I never did get any sort of puffing or sweat happening.



So I jumped online to see if I could get any instructions on how to use this silly contraption but without much success. But what I did find was plenty of sites offering to sell or hire elliptical trainers. Ahhhh ... now that's what I call an exercise machine. In the past years when I have joined gyms I spent most of my time on these machines and loved them! They gave me a great workout without the jarring on my joints and without the puffing. I would finish my workout with a lovely red glow and sweat pouring off my brow. A real sense of achievement!



I wanted one of these babies! Always have ... but they were just so expensive! Starting at $500.00 and going up to beyond the $1500.00 mark!! But by this stage it was too late, I had fallen in looooooooove!! Maybe I could hire one, but with a $25 a week fee and not to mention bond and frieght, that didn't really seem ideal.



Trade me .... lovely trade me might be my option. After squizzing around for ummm about a couple of hours I set my eyes on her! An imported American pearler with the whole shabang and gadgets .... mmmm .... gadgets .... loooove gadgets!



Problem was I'd fallen for her and the auction wasn't to close for another 8hrs. I put in a small bid bringing the total asking price tooooo .... $48!! Alas someone jumped straight after me with a higher bid. So I played hard to get, snobbing her (as hard as it was) until the time was right. The longest 8hr wait in a very long time!! I nervously brought the subject up with Bill, that I had been bad, very bad! Taking a deep breath and eyes to the ground, I admitted I had bid on the auction. To my surprise he was all for it! He even did a bit more research with me to find out the RRP's. I asked him what price he thought I should go up to. $500 or $600 ... ohhh noo I didn't want to pay that much! I settled on $200 - $250.



9pm was the closing time so at 8pm on the dot I was back on the computer to see how the auction was going. It was up to $145 and a whole new set of bidders had entered the auction. How dare they? She's mine!! Didn't they realise that? I still continued to bite my lip until the last moment ... 5 mins to go ... I suddenly had a spur of emotions and entered in an auto bid of $210. If it went beyond that then she wasn't to be mine and I had to accept the fact of letting her go. 4 mins to go ... bidding was up to $180 .... 3 mins ... $190 .... 2 mins ... $200 .... 1 min $205 ... still in the lead ... one more bid from "them" and I would lose her.... 30 secs to go ... no more bids ... 10 secs ... still in the lead ... then ... "closing" ... I let out a scream ... "yes!!!", then I realised about the "auto extend" ... I'd have to wait another 2 minutes ... hadn't I waited for her for long enough??? Countdown to the final 2 minutes and then I could relax ... she was mine!!!



I ran upstairs to share my excitement with Bill. He too was excited for me. "I'll tell ya what" he said "I'll go up to Auckland tomorrow and pick it up for you" ... "would you do that?? for me??" ... "yes of course, you deserve it with the hard work you have put in with your weightloss"



So here I am awaiting her arrival ... here's a photo of her ...







Isn't she beautiful??? ....


oops wrong pic sorry ... here she is ...





I'll update you tomorrow on how she settles in when she gets here ..... oooooooo, I'm so excited!!

Kids ... ya gotta love em!

It's really neat to see people pop their heads up to say hi that followed my first journal! Thankyou for all your kind comments. A friend suggested a whileback that I make my journal private and by invite only this time, after I told her I got burnt a little by being so public last time. I seriously contemplated this but decided that the few bad comments I got last time were far outweighed by the support I got from everyone else. Thankyou to you guys :)

I ended up going over my points last night, first time ever since I started back doing points. I knew my total was heading up there by mid afternoon so did a rescue remedy and got out my handy, dandy point free soup for dinner. But of course had to add some bacon to it to please the man.

I woke up so disappointed in myself this morning. Went to the computer first thing, entered my points for yesterday and realised in having the low point dinner I was only over by 3pts. Pffffft!! What was I complaining about?? I'd get rid of that in one walk.

To give you a bit of background about my walking ... I can't! Well I can but only in very short doses, due to the ankle. I tell ya, there is nothing as frustrating as wanting to get out in the sunshine for a good hardworking walk and not being able to. As yesterday was my day off from work I'd rested my ankle all day and it felt pretty good this morning (no limp) so I took my chances and went! The last exercise walk I'd been on was a week or so ago, I made it to 20mins.

So today determination kick in to beat the record. And on arrival back at depo .... 35mins!!!! Wahooo! Aaaand ... bonus points of ... yep you guessed it ... 3pts!! So I'm all square :)

The sugar points still might get me in the bum on the scales this week but it's all good, I've done everything I can.

Malachi (9yrs) made me smile yesterday when I asked him to get me a can of baked beans from the shop he came up with Oak ones rather than the Watties ones I normally use. Before I could say anything he proudly announced that the Oak ones had lower saturated fat than the Watties so that's why he chose them. How cool is that? I'd never told him to look at the nutritional label, nor have I ever explained to him that I am cutting back in saturated fat. He must have just over heard me talking about it. I gave him a big hug and said Thanks!