Stand the test of time

I went well over my points yesterday ... 34.5pts used!! Only supposed to be on 26, 8.5pts over!! So bad! I woke up this morning feeling quite guilty about it, so got up and went for a walk. That always makes me feel better.

I decided to walk a different direction this time and was amazed at how the beach had changed. It's been probably over a year since I'd walked down that part of the beach. Half an hour later I came across something that hadn't changed ...

It was still there, exactly the same as the last time I saw it a year ago. Now this isn't just a dead tree, it was a log that had been washed up by the sea and someone decided to dig a big hole and stand the log up. That was over 2yrs ago and it's still there strong and firm.

Where am I going with this? This log has great significance for me. It was the prop the photographer for Woman's Day used to take my magazine article photos. You can't see the log very much in the shot ... but it's there.

And this morning it came as a well timed reminder that it doesn't matter that I went well over points, I can get there again not through being a 'super dieter'... but by being strong and standing the test of time ... just sticking it out!! There's no tricks, just persistence ... like that tree stump, through all the storms and hard times.

For those of you who hadn't read the article I've put a permanent link on the right hand side. For a long time (after I put on weight again) I didn't want anyone to see the article and when others mentioned it I cringed. But I think I'm getting over that now and choosing to use it as a focus to help me get back there again, one day.

Do you recognise this lady??

She's the wacky clean freak from 'How Clean is your House?' ... Carolyn Jones

A few years back I was sitting outside the shop having my break when this lady sidled up beside me, sat down and started talking. This outspoken lady was telling me about herself and I'm thinking "ok? do I know you?"

Two weeks later it was valentines day and Bill announced he had gotten me a present this year. Very out of character for him. I was so excited, trying to imagine what it could be. Jewellery? Roses? Chocolates? Nite out? who knows...

"I've gotten you a cleaner" A CLEANER??? WTF??? What sort of valentines present is that??? Don't I clean my house good enough? Aren't I a good enough wife for you?? The questions were endless!!

After 3hrs cleaning my house from top to bottom in preparation, the cleaner arrived. I wasn't going to have my house messy for a cleaner!!! And who should walk in but the lady who had sat next to me and claimed me as her friend. I really wasn't happy about the whole thing. She fluffed around the house making comments about how it must have been a while since we had a cleaner. I was getting madder by the second!!

Although our first couple of meetings were very standoffish (from my side anyway) over the next few months we got to know eachother bit by bit. This dear lady came sometimes up to 3 times a week to clean our house and she worked hard and I learned to relax and let her help. Our friendship grew and we had many a good night out together (her and her partner and Bill and I).

I remember one day she came to me and said she was applying for a job in Auckland. But that there were hundreds applying for the job so she thought it was probably a long shot. I didn't really take alot of notice, just wished her well. She came back a few weeks later excited that she had gotten past stage 1. "What actually is the job?" I asked. "A cleaning program" I didn't really understand the concept and the thought that she, my friend and weirdo lady who sat down and became my friend that day, could be a tv presenter ... yeah right!! Pffft! I still wished her well and hoped for her that she got the job (but deep down didn't hold out much hope)... a week later, next stage passed! And another ... until it was down to 4 people. Then she came to me one day excited "I got the job!". "What's the job again? What's the program about?" Came my questions. Over the next few months she was commuting a lot to Auckland and we didn't see alot of her with the busy schedule.

Then the night of the first episode ... Carolyn and her partner, Bill, myself and the kids sitting around the telly all excited! I've never laughed so hard watching her strut around in her feathered rubber gloves and leopard patterned broom.


The end of the first season ended and she came to me excited that a second season had been confirmed. She got herself an agent (to give her more negotiating power) and now the second season starts airing next Wednesday.

The takeaway/drinks night I mentioned yesterday was at Carolyn's and she made me laugh when she gave me a copy of the photo shoot they did for the show. I gave it back to her and said "well the least you can do is autograph it for me" lol, so she did. Ohhhh wonder how much that would fetch on trademe?? lmao!

She has since told me that day she sat down beside me, she was so lonely and depressed and saw me and thought I might make a good friend. Now look at her! I'm very proud of her and what she has done for herself.

I promised her I would do a plug for the show on my blog, letting everyone know it starts again this Wednesday.

And for those of you who are wondering?? No she doesn't clean my house anymore... she's far too busy cleaning infested bombsites on telly!!

Today ... Bill's gone off to Auckland this morning to pick up his brother who has just split up from his wife last week to bring him down for a days fishing. Then I'm taking Lauren down to Tauranga to get her keyboard she bought off Trademe with her pocket money. Then hopefully get time to get a walk in.

Ohhh and I did really well with dinner last night ... vege chop suey with a bit of rice (4pts) and my allotted baby bottle.

Remember ... TV one, Wednesday night 7.30pm!!

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!

Can ya blame me? it's TTOM

PMT hit with a vengeance this morning with 3 teary-eyed episodes already!! I hate hormones!!

I felt it coming on yesterday when I just couldn't get enough to eat. I ate a ft long subway and was still hungry!!! Normally a 6inch one does me fine. I always recognise when TTOM is on it's way, firstly by the continual unsatisfied hunger and then never ending tears for pathetic reasons. But you'd think after 12yrs of marriage the men would work it out tho huh? Got home last night after ambulance sooo hungry I could have bitten the balls off a horse! Ewww, no maybe not quite :)

I walked into the house and saw left over dinner. Even tho I'd told Bill I'd get my own dinner and to go ahead and eat without me, the sight of stir fried mince was too much to resist. So I started digging my fingers into the food. "What the hell are you doing? Don't eat my dinner" came Bill's rebuke ... well that just set me off!! I was a blubbering mess. Like a volcano that had been bubbling all day and finally blew it's top. Revenge ... I had to EAT something NOW!!! So I chose a can of mushrooms. It was quite a sight ... stuffing these mushrooms into my mouth 2 at a time. By the time the can was finished I'd managed to calm down a little and cooked myself a proper meal.

This morning I wasn't much better, crying at silly things. So at 8.30am I decided to go back to bed and hopefully wake up a little happier and it seemed to work.

10.30am I had my appointment with the specialist to see if/what they were going to do about my ankle and I'm pleased to say he has agreed to operate again to take the pin out. He's putting me through privately so will only be waiting 2-3mths. The only little bugger is that he wants to have a good look at the tendons and joint while he's there to check there isn't another reason for the ankle locking up. So that means a bigger scar (the current one is about 10cm long) but I don't care about that.

And I can't remember who was asking about how to change the line spacing ... I'm not an expert in HTML coding but have self taught myself through doing tutorials and trial and error.
I worked out that if you put the following code ...

{ font-size: 10pt; line-height: 5 };

in your template after the "BODY { blah, blah ... " keeping it within the brackets, that should work. Just play around with where you put it in your HTML coding. But beware!! Make sure you copy and paste your template onto a word document and save it BEFORE you start playing around with it, that way you can always go back to your old one if you stuff it up.

Onto my evaluation for last week ...

Week ending 2 May, 2007

+/- this week: -2.4kg
total points used: 177/182
bonus exercise points earnt: 6.5pts
total steps for the week (exercise + work): 23,500
number of days exercise: 2
tracked: 7/7 days
water consumed: 12 litres/14 litres
sugar points: 21pts

Where did I go wrong? ...

• over all points were closer to where they should be... 99% there on that one
• my exercise was down a little this week but not too worried about that as last week I did it a little hard
• water ... almost there, just another two litres to get it perfect
• sugar points ... still on the high side but lower than last week and not a major

Things to work on for this week ...

• don't have anything major to improve ... just need to keep up the mojo and that may be trickier this week being TTOM. Time to get down and focus!!!

Third hole

Thankyou all soooo much for your comments, it has encouraged me no end!!!

I'm here at the station and it's 6.30am. My brain hasn't really woken up yet so excuse me if I waffle!! :)

Put my ambulance belt on this morning and I've gone down another hole ... wahoo! When I got my uniform a little over 2mths ago I had to get Bill to hammer another hole on the very tip as that was the largest they had and it just didn't quite fit. Two weeks ago I could go to a 'proper' hole but was pretty tight. Infact when I got home that night I had to 'let it all hang out'!! lol and now today I've gone down to hole #3 :)

When I was getting fitted for my ambulance uniform the lady was trying to gauge my size. And I really didn't know (or want to tell her) my size (somewhere round the 24-26 mark). She held up a pair of trousers in the air, looking between me and the trousers. "Nah, those will be way to big for you. They're HUGE!!" she said. I was too embarrassed to say anything. She held up another pair, me knowing they would be way to small. "Here try these on" she said. Well, I only got them no higher than my thighs and whipped them off before she looked. While she was fumbling round in the cupboard I snuck the 'huge' pair from among the pile and slipped them on and you guessed it ... they fitted. "These'll do" I told her. "ohh, where did they come from?" she asked. I just gave her a blank look and changed the subject onto shirts. I was so embarrassed that day, but as I always say "It's only downhill from here"

So you may notice I have a goal on the right column "get new ambulance uniform". You can now understand the significance of this. Given I only wear my uniform once a week it's a great gauge to feel them getting looser each week.

I have my specialist appointment tomorrow for my ankle. Every now and then I start to wonder if I'm making a mountain out of a molehill. I very seldom limp now and it only aches when I've over done the exercise for the day. But the other day I walked down the beach and as I turned around to come back I could see my foot prints in the sand. They looked like penguin footprints. I never realised but I was overcompensating for the slope and turning my plated ankle outwards. It was something my brain automatically did and as the slope changed so did the angle of the foot print. It amazed me that my brain would automatically judge the angle and change how I walked without a thought. This I know is bad in the long run and can cause hip and back problems if it continues. Hence why I need to go to this specialist appointment and stop telling myself I'm overreacting.

It's great to see some new people commenting, thankyou and a big hi!

Chris ... duathlon AND bikini?? Sheesh woman you don't expect much do ya?

Lynise ... I got what you meant first time ... lmao!!

Jules ... yeah I know the importance of exercises. I got told the same thing after I had my plate put in and the cast came off. I'm so glad now I spent the money, went to physio and did my exercises. Oh and as for another update pic ... you gotta wait till I get to 10kgs lost first! :p

Livy ... thankyou for the compliments on my layout. I've always found it hard to read some blogs and eventually either delete them or skim read if the words are too hard to read (especially if I'm tired). So I make it a point to have an increased line space (almost double spacing) for us 'oldies' who struggle with our eyesight.

Well I have a vehicle check to do on my ambulance so better get that underway before the boss arrives.

Cya

P.S. I'll have my weekly analysis up tomorrow when I'm back at home.

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!

Phew that was close!!!

I was sitting here minding my own business about 5pm last night when a friend popped in to tell me he was picking me up in 15mins. We were going to Tauranga to a seminar. I really didn't even have a chance to think about what he was telling me before he slipped out the door again.

So I raced upstairs, threw on some nice clothes, perfume and a face and out the door. In the car he was asking about the shop we were looking at buying and telling me it was a waste of time, that he had something far better for us to consider. My warning bells went off. I could see where the conversation was going ... yep ... MLM (multi-level-marketing) scheme!!

I was trapped in the car, travelling 45mins to Tauranga in the pouring rain when I could have been snuggled up at home infront of the heater! I told my friend I wasn't interested in any MLM schemes and that it wasn't for me. But he kept driving.

We turned up to a vacant shop where we were ushered upstairs like some secret mafia meeting. My body language would have told the lady I wasn't interested. She started on her big spiel about how she was so much in debt, about to be make bankrupt when someone came into her life and saved her... Gawd anyone would think I was in a church meeting the way she was carrying on.

To her credit the powerpoint presentation she gave was very professional and I could see a market for the product she was selling. By the end of the evening she had me convinced to part with OMG .. $12,995.00!!! Promising me that I too could be making 100,000's of dollars like her in a matter of months. I was totally swept away with the whole thing. So much for the supposed stubborn streak, where was that when I needed it. One thing I am grateful for is forgetting my wallet ... and visa card!

3hrs later we stepped out of the dark alleyway and in the car. Man I was starving!!! And at 10pm at night there was NOTHING open in Tauranga! Even McD's was shut! How crazy is that? Finally resorting to Wendy's and choosing a salad and baked potato (not too bad at 11.5pts)

Arrived home to darkness with Bill being in bed long ago. He was in no mood to be discussing the fact that I nearly spent $13,000 and that the lady was arriving to talk to him at 4pm the following day. I figured I'd talk to him about it in the morning.

A horrible nights sleep of continual nightmares about trying to talk people into joining the scheme, and losing friends and customers.

I awoke to Bill wanting to tell me of some more ideas he had for the shop in Tauranga. It was information overload!! I told him I didn't think it was a good idea. He wasn't listening to me tho. I decided to jump on the computer and research the net about this scheme. I found a lot of people saying that if you didn't put a lot of hours into it you would actually lose money!! Not words I wanted to hear. Then speaking to some reps in the shop, the area was flooded with people trying to con others to save their own income.

Now I just had to ring her to let her know I wasn't interested and not to bother coming to see us tonight. Lucky I got her answerphone and left her a polite message.

She rang back 15mins later (as expected) and honestly I couldn't get a word in for 14mins and 38secs!!! She just talked and talked and talked. By the end I had to be so blunt with her (which is so not me).

After hanging up Bill and I just looked at eachother ... and burst out laughing! What were we thinking??? We are happy here, our shop is doing well, why do we need to do anything else???? So we both agreed there and then that we wouldn't do my scheme and we wouldn't do his Tauranga shop ... we'll be content with the pot of gold we have on our own doorstep!

Has anyone else had any experiences with MLM businesses?

I'm getting rather cheeky with my ww points now ... I grilled the lady in the bakery this morning as to what EXACTLY was in her soup. I could see by the look on her face that she was a little aghast that I would ask such a thing. I wanted to know quantities, ingredients and number of serves per pot. After I continued to explain that I was back doing ww and just wanted to work out the points on it I could see the sigh of relief. It's ok lady, I'm not going to steal your secret recipe, lol. We'll I must have hit a soft spot in her because she came back half an hour later with a personally delivered free cup of her special soup!! And I worked it out at only 0.5pt per cup!! Yayya!!

I have my night walk on with the girls tonight. And I'll let you in on a little secret .. I'm really looking forward to weighin this week. I was naughty and took a sneak peak at the scales this morning ... it's looking very good, as long as it stays that way till Thursday ... fingers crossed ;)

Jese don't tell anyone

After we got home yesterday I decided to do a hair treatment on my hair, which meant leaving some stuff in my hair for 15mins. While I was sitting in the lounge at 2pm, in my bathrobe and hair looking crazy-like, there was a knock at the door. Our front door opens into our lounge and I could see a man's figure through the frosted glass. I ran outa there so fast and into the bathroom/toilet, interrupting Jese (4yrs) on the toilet. He asked me what I was doing and I held up my finger to my mouth to signal him to be quiet. He said with the loudest voice (so anyone in the house could hear) "Mum, are you hiding from someone??" ... hmmm ... don't you just love their discretion at that age??

This morning I got up and rang a friend to see if she wanted to come for a walk. So off we went, rain and all, down along the beach and to the coffee house, had a coffee and lovely chat and back again... 4,200 steps done and all before the weather went to the pack.

Oooooh ... And I got a compliment from a customer this morning, asking me if I had lost weight. I smiled and said yes I had, thankyou. She said she could really tell around my face ... yayya!!

Then gst day ... gst done ... yay ... and now work till 4pm, while Bill goes off to Tauranga. He's going down to look at a shop down there. They are basically giving the business away. The guy went through road works last year (which have now finished) and made an $80,000.00 loss and then got himself in too much debt to keep going.

If we decide to buy it we will just have to pay for stock. The guy also made the mistake of stopping all hot food, pies etc. and then put gaming machines in. Given that it is right next to a girls high school that was a mistake because with the gaming machines came a bad sort of boy crowd which scared the girls away. Sounds a bit like Georgy Porgy huh?

If we do take it on it's going to mean a huge commitment for the both of us. I will take on the running of this shop while Bill will run the other one (with staff giving us time off). Financially it's a huge gain, family wise ... hmmm ... not sure. I mean there's pros and cons ... Bill works best at his limit and doesn't get itchy feet syndrome when he has a new set of goals to achieve. I'm relatively comfortable running this shop on my own with staff and we're commuting to Tauranga almost daily now for stock anyway. We would line up the staffs hours together so we both have the same day off. And some days I find it's hard with us both working together so much of the day, we often get on better when we work separately and only see eachother in the evenings. The Tauranga shop will only open 7am-5.30pm because it's main target is school girls and people going to and from work.

But then is it going to be too much stress having two shops?? I know it's something only we can decide. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Beach hoppin to Whangamata

Yesterday afternoon I was so hungry. I was in the mode of 'I don't care about points, I want food ... NOW!'

I had 10.5pts left for afternoon snack and dinner. Deciding on a low fat potato and leek cup-a-soup at 1.5pts. Had that and I still felt hungry so had another serving ... 3pts gone. Then I turned around to see Bill had a bag full of leftover filled rolls from the deli. All the sensible thinking went out of my head and thought I had to have one ... another 5.5pts gone! I'd be ok, I still had 1.5pts left which narrowed my dinner options but with a little creative thinking I'm sure I could come up with something.

Sitting watching telly on a cold and boring afternoon the danish custard roll sitting on the table kept steering at me. I could resist it, I know I could ... hmmm ... nup!! Another 2.5pts gone!!

That's it, my points all gone for the day at only 5.30pm. By this stage I was turning septic, annoyed at myself and subconsiously taking it out on my pour family members.

I decided on a 5.5pt tv dinner for tea. Put it in the microwave and 7mins later it was ready. I heard the finishing beep and as I stepped up to get it, I realised I wasn't hungry anymore. There was no need to eat it, but my scroodge mentality snuck in ... "I paid good money for that dinner, I need to eat it! No I don't ... I don't need the points"

So I went to bed not eating it and this morning, so glad I didn't! Although I had nightmares about eating lots of takeaways... heheh

We decided this morning to go have a look at the beach hop in Whangamata. I packed some snacks and water and off we went. While the kids pigged out on sausages and bread I had my healthy snack bar and banana. We saw some really cool cars, was certainly worth making the trip up there.

Here's my favourite car ...

Then we called in for a family game of mini golf. Gutted to lose but was a heap of fun! Jese (4yrs) thought he was just the coolest playing golf just like dad!

Bill and the kids called in for KFC on the way home, while I had my subway.

This afternoon it's house tidy time and hopefully get a walk in.

mmmmm ... breakfast!

Wow I can't believe that ww no longer count sugar points!! lol When I joined up online back in February I just presumed everything was the same and carried on my merry way. I'm still going to count them because I think for me it's wise to keep a tab on them.

I knew about no count and did that for a couple of weeks. And while I enjoyed no count I didn't feel I had enough control as to how much I was consuming. I'm the type of person who is an all or nothing personality. When I decide to do something I do it with a passion and have to work out every minor detail. So with points I track everything, weigh everything, check everything off. When I walk I count my steps, my time, my calories burnt. With 'no count' it felt too ambiguous and at the end of the week I wouldn't know if I ate too much or too little.

My tendency when trying to lose weight is to eat too little and not often enough. So 'no count' also didn't help with this.

I had the yummiest breakfast this morning ...

• 3 rashers of grilled chicken bacon - 1pt
• 1 slice wholemeal bread toasted - 1pt
• 1 medium banana - 1.5pts
• 25g lite cheese - 2pts

Mush the banana on the toast, top with grilled bacon and cheese and microwave till cheese has melted.

Yum, yum, yum!! and totaling only 5.5pts!

Didn't do any walking yesterday. I'd done it quite hard on my ankle the day before with ambulance duty so gave myself a day off. And then today I'm on call for ambulance from home so have to stay here. Probably quite nice considering it's pouring with rain out there. Waihi Beach is like a ghost town today, we joked about closing the doors on the shop for the day. The beach hop is on in Whangamata this weekend so most of the town has gone up to that.

Not much else happening today. Nice day to take it easy.

I was good or so I thought

Week ending 26 April, 2007

+/- this week: +700g
total points used: 171/182
bonus exercise points earnt: 12pts
total steps for the week (exercise + work): 35,600
number of days exercise: 3
tracked: yes
water consumed: 10 litres/14 litres
sugar points: 23.5pts

Where did I go wrong? ...

• My overall points were definately down on what they should be... bad, bad, bad
• water was a little down too
• and sugar points ... wow!! didn't think I was much of a sugar person but that was way up

Things to work on for this week ...

• Eat bigger breakfasts so I don't have problems eating too little points overall. And I think I'm having too many points for dinner and not spreading it more throughout the day. By doing this I should be able to keep my motabolism burning faster.
• Drink more water!!!
• And keep the sugar points down. My alcohol intake this week didn't help with this. Didn't drink heaps but it soon adds up!

How am I going to achieve these things? ...

• I did a grocery shop last night and stocked up on breakfast stuff, good snacks and canola spray! I've been out of canola spray for the last week and I realised how much I rely on it.
• Hound myself on the water thing. Never been a big water drinker so this is something I just need to do. No easy tips or tricks ... JUST DO IT!!
• Most of my sugar points this week were alcohol points. I started to kid myself that if I only had a couple of drinks on a couple of nights, instead of just one night (like I originally planned), and kept under my daily points then I would be ok. Hmmm ... I'm thinking now maybe not. Going to go back to my original idea ... one night only ... that's it!

So there ya go, I thought I'd been a perfect girl all week but when you REALLY analyse it and look at the nitty gritty there are ways I let myself down.

If I really want to do this then I have to do it and do it properly!!! If I hide stuff then the only person I'm fooling is myself. I know each of these things are minor but obviously if they add up, it may count for my gain.

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.

Bad day over, onto a good one

Feeling much better today. Thankyou for letting me vent off, it always helps :)

I was so glad I got my walk in the morning because the weather totally packed in for the day after I got back. It rain continuesly ALL day.

Even tho I had a bad day I didn't blow out on food like I would have done in the past so I seems I am changing.

My pedometer at the end of the day told me I had walked 7437 steps!! Which equates to just over 5 1/2 kms!! wahooo!! 4000 of those steps were done in my morning walk and the other 3000 during work ... yayya :)

Foot's a bit sore this morning but I'm leaving my walk for tonight. A few of us girls are getting together to go for a night walk (rain, hail or darkness). We're meeting at 7.30pm so that should be a bit of fun and something different.

Ahhh I just had a customer pop in the shop to tell me about a homeopathic remedy for muscle, joint and ligament recovery. It's called "Recovery Power". Has anyone heard about this? Jules? Does it work? Might go get some when I finish work and give it a try, unless I get any really bad feedback before then :)

UPDATE ...

That girl (who put something on tick yesterday) came in this morning and gave me a fob story about forgetting her eftpos card and said she'd be back after she got paid from work at 3.30pm. Then her boss came to tell me an hour later that she left work early and went home!!

Just by chance her flatmate came in to get some milk so I told her to give the girl a message for me. "That I knew she left work early and to get her butt down here and pay her bill by the end of the day!!" By the look on her flatmates face I managed to give her the shits (very proud of myself on that one, heheh). It wasn't half an hour later and she was down here to pay her bill - HAHA!!

Bill just brought some yummy sushi for me for lunch so I'm pigging out on that. I love that you can have a HUGE plateful, feel like an absolute pig and only consume 6pts!!

Then I'm off to take Jese (4yrs) to the dentist for his checkup, then I can finally put my feet up before making dinner.

Day's turned out pretty good in the end.

Jules & Anne ... thanks for that feedback. Just been over to the health shop and the first ingredient in 'Recovery Power' is Arnica followed by Symphytum, Ruta Grav, Bellis Perennis, Ledum, Hamamelis, and Calendula (all foreign words to me). It comes as a spray that you put under your tongue. This is all new to me but I'm willing to try anything to be able to keep exercising.

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.

I was the sex bomb, until ...

I woke up this morning feeling like a "sexy wee thing"... know the feeling? Like you could strut down the main street, swingin ya butt and not caring if the world stares at ya. Infact if they do you secretly say in your mind "yeah.. look a bit longer, great huh??"

That all went to pieces when I got a reminder of a goodbye lunch thingie for a friend flying out overseas for a year. Now I have no problems with her, but the cafe where it's being held has someone working there that hasn't seen me in over a year. Last time I saw her I was slim... now I'm fat!! No matter how slim and sexy I feel today (given that I've lost 7kgs) I am a hell of a lot heavier than when she last saw me.

Now I know I shouldn't care what she thinks and need to just put my shoulders back and walk in proud of who I am. In theory that's right, in reality ... hmmm ... we'll see.

I'm taking a big step by forcing myself to go. Normally I just wouldn't go, I'd sit at home in my little cave and hide. So step one ... done. As to how it goes ... I'll let ya know.

I opened the shop this morning at 7am and my shift finishes at 11am. In that short 4hrs I have walked 2kms in the shop!!! I don't count my shop walking as bonus points but it's still fascinating to work out that I'm walking that far when working.

Well it's 11am and the "do" is starting so better get going. (take a nervous deep breath)

Wish me luck ...

I'm back and the girl wasn't even working today, so all was about nothing. I had a good time. When ordering my brunch I looked at the options on the menu and went for a pasta quiche thing because in the cabinet it looked quite low fat. So I got that with a side salad. The salad was 0pts but after they heated the quiche up all the greasy ooze showed itself up! Damn it! It was far oilier than I had thought. I had no idea how to point it. I figured 5pts for the pasta (about a cup), 1pt for the chicken in it and 4pts for the egg/butter holding it together (all up 10pts). Lucky by the time we ate it was after 11.30am so it can be my breakfast and lunch.

Not much else happening for the rest of the day. It's a beautiful sunny day here so might go for another walk along the beach, now that my working shift is over.

Enjoy the weekend!

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.

not like all the others

Thanks for the encouragement guys! :)

I've decided to do an evaluation at the end of each week. Partly so I can see where I went wrong if I had a gain and also to record it so I can look back later if I need to.

So here's how this week went ...

Week ending 19 April, 2007

+/- this week: -500g
total points used: 182/182
bonus exercise points earnt: 20pts
number of days exercise: 4
tracked: yes
water consumed: 11 litres/14 litres
sugar points: little on the high side

What I could do better next week ...

• My water intake was a little on the low side. I should be consuming 14ltrs per week and only drank 11. It's only a minor point but something I can work on.
• I currently don't count sugar points. I've always had the attitude that if I start to plateau or don't have the weightloss results I want/expect then I'll start looking at sugar. I know over this past week I had a few more than I should have but I'm not really going to worry about it for now

Ultimately I'm pleased with my 500g loss because ...

• I did 4 days of quite intense exercise, therefore some of that has to result in muscle building
• I had a 10.5pt meal of KFC, counted the points and put it into my total. I had points saved to allow for this so it wasn't such a catastrophe.
• I tracked 100% all week

...

I was reading some blogs yesterday morning at the station and said to the other lady on with me to have a look at someone's before/after pics of a girl who had lost a lot of weight. She snapped back at me that it's pointless losing weight because you will only gain it all back and more. I had nothing to say back at the time because alas I am one of those statistics.

But this got me thinking during the day. Let's face it alot of people do gain all their weight back ... and more! And I heard someone saying a little while ago that they have even proven it scientifically now that the body has an inbuilt measure of how much we used to weigh and does everything in it's power to get us back there. So it is/will be a continual fight to get to goal and then to stay there.

The question is ... do I have the willpower and strength to stick it out ... for life??

Yes, this time I think I do. As long as I stick to a few rules along the way ...

• Enjoy the ride there - I'm not going to cut my own throat just to lose weight. I'm going to make sure I have my treats, my occasional icecreams, bourbens and takeouts (but they won't be yucky kfc tho). I think the key to this rule is tracking, accounting for the points used. When I get to goal, theoretically I should be able to just keep doing what I'm doing now and I won't be worried because I don't miss out on anything now. (well other than cheesie-weezies)
• Set some new goals at goal - from the people I have seen who have successfully lost weight and kept it off for years afterwards, they all have one thing in common ... they became passionate about something that involved fitness once they got to goal. One is a marathon runner, another is doing body building, another a triathlete. Now I'm not saying I need to become a fitness freak but I need to continue to set goals to strive towards to keep myself focused.
• Keep the blinkers off - when I started to put weight on again I didn't want to know my weight. Because if I knew about it that meant I had to do something about it. Throughout all my overweight years I have never known what I weighed until I started a weightloss routine. So I need to weigh myself at regular intervals, maybe weekly, maybe monthly. I'll decide that nearer to goal.
• Keep like minded people around me - People inspire other people and the negative side to this is also true. After that lady said what she did to me in the morning I found myself questioning my ability. Negativity brings on negativity. I have found blogging my most successful way of getting on track and staying on track. When I'm around others that are blogging and weightloss focused, I too stay focused.
  

This isn't a guarantee I know but it's a start in changing who I am and who I want to stay as ... "I can lose weight AND keep it off!!"

What is this????

It is 1lb of pure "lard" straight from the back of a pigs arse!! And what did I lose? 500g (1lb) of this stuff straight of the back of MY arse!! Wahooooo!!!

Yep I think I have my excitement for weightloss back!!

Ok so I know you're all surprised that I actually have an update with weighin this morning. Well I worked out I'm allowed to use the computer at the ambulance station (as long as the pager doesn't go off) ... woopsie ... see ya later ...

... heheh ... just kidding!!

Anyway not much else to update about yet. Who cares what else happens I lost 500g of pure and raw lard!!

K...Friggin ...C???

Don't you hate it when you have it all planned out, everything ... you do your homework, cross all the 't's and then it all turns to shit on ya???

What the hell am I on about??

Dinner ... dinner that was absolute crap!! and so expensive in points it would send the queen into bankrupsy!

As Bill was bringing the kids home from grandma's he rang to ask me what I wanted for dinner. Of course I instinctively replied 'Subway' knowing that no matter how much he got my order wrong it wouldn't be too bad in points.

"I'm not going to Subway, that means I have to get out of the car. KFC sounds better... what do you want?"

Well my head went into a spin. KFC is so bad, I know how many piles of deepfried crap comes out of that place. So I told him I would look up their website find out the best choice and ring him back.

After much deliberation and working out the points on every item they produce, I had worked out exactly what I wanted according to the points I had left.

1 x Honey Roast Burger (2.5pts)
1 x small coleslaw (1.5pts)
1 x small potato & gravy (1pt)

Total = 5pts

Not too bad I thought. I repeated the items 3 times to Bill to make sure he ordered the right thing.

On arrival home Malachi brought my dinner to me in the shop ... hang on, wait a minute!! There's two burgers in here and no potato & gravy?? "ohh that's right. They didn't have your burger, so dad got 2 zinger burgers instead and they got the order wrong and didn't give us a potato and gravy" Malachi informed me.

"What??" So instead of 1 healthy burger I had 2 bad ones?? And do you think I could throw one away, nah ah! After all the effort one underpaid, overworked student had put into that burger, the least I could do was consume it.

So down they went, 2 yucky, dry, crusty burgers that I didn't even really want. And the total points I consumed in that discusting meal???

10.5pts!!!

Now if I had wanted to consume 10.5pts I could think of much better ways to do it, not on dry and crusty kfc!! I must have known something when I felt inspired to wake up and do 20mins on the cross trainer this morning. Next time I'll jump in the car myself and drive to Subway, at least then I know I'll get the right thing.

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.

Duh!!! It's not a race

Thankyou all for your encouragement in regards to my loss and not feeling excited yet. I've had a further think about it over the last few days and worked out a strategy to overcome this.

I need to stop thinking of my weightloss as a race. There is no start line and no finish line. We all know it needs to be a lifestyle change rather than something we start and stop. Mandy asked me when we had our coffee last weekend how it felt to get to goal and be on maintenance. I think she was a little surprised when I told her it was horrible!! Sure it was great being at goal but I found I had nothing to go onto from there. I had used the excitement of losing each week to keep me motivated and when there was nothing left to lose I found it hard to keep the motivation up.

So I figure I need to change my mindset on this "race" mentality. And rather than focusing on getting to the "end of the race" focus on the enjoyment along the way. And to help me with this I've done up a list of achievements. These are listed down the right hand side and as I achieve each milestone I'll cross it out. So far I have 50 or so things to achieve and want to add to these as I think of them.

Already this has helped in my day to day motivation. Rather than thinking 'I haven't started yet', I'm thinking 'I'm so close to my next goal'

And then when I get to goal I can do up another set of achievements and keep going again. Things like 'half marathon' or 'running 4kms' etc.

Some people are motivated by negatives while others are motivated by positives. I'm definately a positives person. If someone says something negative to get my arse moving I generally stick my toes in, but if something happens (be it however small) I think 'yeah, I can do this'.

So hopefully this will do the trick to keep my foot on the gas.

Speaking of 'foot' ... I finally got the referal appointment from my orthapedic surgeon yesterday to see what they're going to do about my ankle. I'm not getting as much pain in it now, especailly at night when it used to ache, but I still don't have any sideways movement. I'm hoping they take me seriously, look into the problem and don't just fob me off. My appointment isn't for another few weeks yet, so I'll let you know what happens.

Jules ... you asked 'How did you get involved in the ambulance duty?'... When Bill and I split up 18mths ago and I went to live with my sister, to get my mind off things, she suggested I do ambulance duty with her (she is a paramedic in Ngaruawahia). And I loved it! When Bill and I got back together I then joined up again. And yes I did have to do a physical exam involving press-ups, sit-ups and running around the block with 30kgs on my back under a certain time (along with other things). I was a lot slimmer then (only 5kgs above goal) and it nearly killed me!! But I passed. I don't think I would pass the exam now lol! Lucky for me once you're in, you're in. So it's nothing to do with weight but on physical fitness and being able to lift heavy weights. Hope that answers your question :)

Wow so much for doing a short update! lol

I am happy with that ... I think

LOL Linda ... sorry you missed my "wed" update. On Thursdays (your Wednesday) I do ambulance duty all day and don't get back till late, so here I am and no I didn't go off track.

I planned a lot better today by having my food on me all day. I took a lot more snacks and ate when I had the chance rather than waiting for 'meal times'. Just as well because the pager went off before I even got to the station and then again before I could even make myself a coffee. So at 2pm I finally sat down for my 'breakfast' coffee. But had eaten my cereal bars and fruit in the ambulance returning back each time.

Now for the proper news of this update ...

I lost 1.1kgs this week!! Very happy with that result, given it was over easter. I think I worked out why I haven't been jumping with glee at each loss so far. I think it's because in the back of my mind I still don't see myself at the start line yet. When I start ww last time my first weighin was 107.4kgs and even tho I have lost 6.7kgs so far I am still 115.9kgs. It's silly I know, I should be proud of myself after all 6.7kgs is over a stone in weight but it's head excitement and not heart excitement yet, if that makes sense??

So I'm telling myself I am proud of my achievement so far but I don't think I will truelly feel 'excited' about each loss until I get below that 107.4kgs.

On with another day ...

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!!!

Free woman for the weekend

Thankyou for saying Hi Tania! It's always nice to hear from readers. And don't be scared to comment (any of you lurkers out there) I don't bite honest! (well not hard anyway)

As I said in the last post I have been work, work, working hard all this weekend. It's not often we have this many people in town, so have to make hay while the sun shines.

Have sent the kids off to the grandparents for the weekend so they don't get neglected with us working so much. Got a call from mum this morning to say Jese (4yrs) was homesick so dad was bringing him home. Then got another call an hour later to say "oh no he's not coming home anymore, he decided he'd much rather stay at grandmas a little longer" lol talk about changing his mind. Was sweet that he misses us tho. The house is very quiet without 4 kids. I am enjoying the sleepins.

Met up with Mandy for a coffee yesterday. We talked non-stop for 1 1/2 hrs! And even then we could have kept going. She's really lovely!!

I've been pretty good with my eating. Went over in points a little on Friday night because we decided with no kids we'd go catchup with friends of ours who own a cafe across the road. One quick 15min visit ended up being 4 or 5 hrs and 5 bourbens later ... whoopsie!

But that aside I have been really good honest ... lol. No easter eggs or hot cross buns for me, haven't really missed them either.

Bit of a boring post today, not much happening. Depending on how my ankle holds out might get out for a walk ... yeah might do that now, why not?