Maria’s quest for a healthier body!

ok so i had a terrible terrible week (diet and exercise wise) new job, too busy to plan, drinking last weekend etc etc etc

So i weighed myself this morning, same time i weighed myself last week and im the same, 209. odd! i don’t know how this happened but i am definetly happy about it! yay!

So next week hopefully i’m down to 207…thats the goal anyway, and definetly under 200 by christmas if not sooner!

Maria

well, I don’t know what happened! I was doing so well, 16 pound down and then I lost the motivation. I had a weekend with friends and it sent me wrong (maybe it was the fact they kept commenting on how great I looked since losing weight! it went to my head and i thought I didn’t need to keep trying??!). anyway so I then came back from the weekend and was so tired and working lots so couldn’t get into a routine (i am aware these are all terrible excuses, but they’re all i have at the moment so I’m going to stick with them!!). So now it is the day before halloween and I am off work till monday, so that means a few trips to the pool cause I haven’t been in a week?????? right? wrong, I am having a halloween party in my house and my friends are all coming for the weekend. There will be beer and wine and lots of bad high calorie choices.

So I haven’t weighed in since last week, and I don’t want to!! I might do it tomorrow and then get back on track sunday when my friends leave! Or maybe I just enjoy my weekend, have some fun and get back into it monday morning and start taking responsibility for myself, my health and my weight and not let situations get the better of me! So I think I will choose the latter, don’t weigh in, don’t think about it for the weekend (well, I will try and make some healthy choices and not go too crazy!) and then get back on track monday and continue on the good path I was going. I think I have put on 3 or 4 pounds. So if thats what it is then that won’t be impossible to get rid of again, right? well, the only thing I am sure of is that this is not the end. I am not ready to give up on this. I felt GREAT last week and I looked better than I have in ages and I’m not willing to give up on that.

I’ve started a new job (where we can eat whatever when we are working, free!) so I will have to start making healthy choices there too, cause free food is much more tempting than food you have to pay for!! So I WILL get back on track, I am determined. and I know I should do it now but it’s not very realistic for me with the weekend that lies ahead, it sounds like a bit of a cop out but I believe myself!!

So heres to getting back on track…..soon! lol!

Maria

well, first binge since i started this over 3 weeks ago. I dont feel so good right now….the chocolate that I talked about yesterday, well I just finished it. I came home from a really stressful day of work, was tired and had a headache and I made a healthy dinner but while it was cooking i had some chocolate and then when i had eaten dinner I went for the chocolate again and didn’t stop till it was done. yuck. I havent counted any calories at all today, so i am going to do that this evenin, try and remember my day, so even if i did go over at least i will have ot written down.

I feel pretty guilty for doing that, it was purely because of stress. and i would feel better if i knew i would be back on track tomorrow morning but i am spending the next few days with friends so i may not be as disciplined as i’d like. oh well i am supposed to weigh in tomorrow morning instead of saturday so hopefully that chocolate disaster wont affect it (i think it will!). I could go swimming this evening and that would probably off set things, i am really tired though. i’ll give it a half hour and see if i can get the energy together…..i’m supposed to be at sign language class but our teacher is sick so got the night off.

oh well, i’ve blogged and i’ll move on. one slip up won’t destroy all the hard work. will it??? i hope not!

Mia

oh it was good, I shouldn’t have eaten it but I found it very hard not to!! one of the kids I work with, I wont see him till after halloween cause they’re on school holidays, his mum gave me two big bars of chocolate as a thank you and happy halloween! Very sweet of her. But then I went swimming and I was early and sitting in my car and the chocolate was there and well, i had some! only a little then I rang my friend to talk to her so I wouldn’t eat anymore. I had some more though after swimming. oooops!

All things considered though (today was such a stressful day and there’s a whole lot of crap things going on at the moment) I think I did ok.  My calories weren’t too high today although they didn’t come from the healthiest sources! oh well, we’ll keep going! Spending the weekend with some friends so I might weigh in early (Friday) and see how I’m going. Hopefully I don’t eat or drink too much, but I’ll try my best.

Watching a very tragic programme at the moment (I’ve watched it before) about Renee Williams.  In this documentary it is following her struggle to get gastric bypass surgery (She weighs nearly 900 pounds, I couldn’t actually believe this but thats what the programme says) and her BMI is 113.  She comes across as such a beautiful and amazing person who is trapped in her huge and immobile body. She has too lovely daughters too who also come across as really nice and well brought up. Anyway, it really makes you think, we really can’t let food control us, I know she is a very extreme case of obesity but she didn’t start out that way. And we all owe it to ourselves to treat our bodies properly and live our lives to the full because being what they termed her “super morbidly obese” is no life and she is completely physically disabled by her weight.  Its a touching programme.

So, things have been a struggle here at the minute, money worries being the most stressful but I’ll see my friends this weekend and have some fun and I’ll be back in good spirits soon enough.

Mia

Just looking for some advice really….

I usually don’t eat enough fruit but I definetly get my 5  a day because I eat plenty of vegetables……………..today though I happen to have eaten lots of fruit and was surprised at the calorie content when I put it in my food diary this evening. I was just happy that I snacked on fruit and not anything salty or fatty!:

approx 200g grapes: 120 calories!

large apple: 100 calories

banana: 120 calories

so 340 calories today came from fruit (another 240 came from my small glass of pure fruit smoothie i have every morning and a fruit yogurt but I always include these so have no problem with them!)

I thought that this seemed like a lot. I don’t ever count carbs or fat or fibre or anything but I know it’s much better for my body that i get 340 calories from 3 portions of fruit rather than a chocolate bar but do you think it affects my weight loss too?

Just wondering really cause I don’t want to cut back on fruit because I do think fruit should be plentiful in a diet and I know if I was on WW then most fruits are 0 points (not bananas I know, but I though apples and grapes would be??)

Any info would be greatly appreciated….Thanks!

well I recorded one pound down, the scale kept fluctuating (or maybe it was me!). So I recorded one down and I’ll see what happens next week! I’m down 14 lbs now so a stone!! yay! just another 3 stone to go…oh…i’ll try not to look at it that way…..keep it in smaller goals and I might not get too overwhelmed by it!

Mini goals:

207 by October 31st/Nov 1st: Halloween Weekend

199 by nov 29th (under 200 for first time since god knows when!)                                            190 by Christmas (this would be 13 and 1/2 stone and I feel I’d have  the                        option of putting on a few lbs over the festive season!)

So I didn’t get up at 8am to go swimming, to be honest I really didn’t think I would!! But I didn’t actually need to in the end as I checked the swimming times and there was lanes in place at 11am so I went and did my best yet: 44 lengths in 33 minutes. So I went swimming 5 times this week doing a total of 178 lengths in a week! And I went for an hour long walk one this week aswell!

So this week I plan to go swimming at least 4 times, it really is paying off that i bought a months pass last week because now that i can go as often as I want I feel bad when I don’t go! I’m starting to really enjoy it aswell. And to go walking on two other days that I don’t swim. I might try and cut back on snacking this week as it’s been creeping in again. I will try and keep my calories between 1400-1800 every day and keep drinking water.

So this afternoon I am being lazy and watching TV and reading blogs!But I am going to the cinema later (I will bring a bottle of water, a small bag of popcorn and maybe an apple, so I don’t buy snacks there!) and if the weather looks ok I will walk out there (probably 20 minutes brisk walk) and back again. I’ll see what the weather is like though, as it’s pretty miserable at the moment!

So hopefully if I keep on track as I have been I will see the scale moving down this week.

Maria

well I’m here watching X factor and will probably continue to sit here watching it for the rest of the evening! I was meant to be working and doing an overnight shift in work but it was cancelled and by the time I found out it was too late to make other plans, I would like to have driven home (to my parents, 3/4 hours drive away, haven’t seen them in 2 months!) so I’m a little annoyed but it couldn’t be helped!

So my heartbreakers weigh in didn’t quite go to plan today so I’m going to try again in the morning. I worked out every day this week (except today!) and was about 1600-1800 calories every day. I weighed in at 209.5 then 10 seconds later was 212! how does that happen?? i was 212 last week so I thought maybe if I try again tomorrow it might be better (its my time of month at minute so I might blame that!) and well if its not better then I just have to keep trying for next weeks weigh in! I am starting to realise that I only lose weight every second week, takes my body a while to catch up with what I’m doing! Also took my measurements today and have lost another 5inches in the last 2 weeks! Thats 13 inches in the last 2 months! So the exercise is definetly working! and I can fit into clothes that haven’t fit in ages, so it’s like I have a new wardrobe!

So, what to do tomorrow??! I should have been working overnight and finishing at 1pm tomorrow so I would’ve just been tired and rested for the day but seeing as all I’m doing is sitting on my ass this evening I have to do something tomorrow! Trouble is it’s sunday so the pool is not open its regular times! The only time there are lanes is 8am-9.30am! So maybe I should set my alarm and get outta bed early! I will definetly try! So if I manage that I will come home and work on some college applications for the day and maybe go out for a walk in the afternoon or evening if the weather is ok! Maybe I will drive somewhere nice like a park or something so I have a different route to walk!

Anyway, hopefully my weigh in tomorrow morning will go ok and I will get up early to go swimming! Off now to eat my teacake (its ok its only 75 cals and it’s already included in my food diary!). 

Mia

and now I remember why I decided to give up alcohol for a while!! Sitting here with a little bit of a hangover, not fun, but my own fault and at least I don’t have work today!!

So I went out last night to see a band and went dancing. I had 3 white wines mixed with sprite zero, so I’m not sure how many calories really but I logged it as 300? So even at that I was happy that I didn’t over the top, not long ago I would have had much much more and it would have been pints of beer which are much higher in calories! And I only had a 70 calorie bag of popcorn when I got home at 2am and not a bag of chips or takeaway so I’m proud of myself on that choice as well!!

So my main aim for today is not to go over my calories as I have the day off (it’s not very often that I do!) so I will be home most of the day and the kitchen is always nearby!! So I will try and keep myself busy and out of the kitchen!

Oh and on the weight loss front, I decided to weigh myself this morning just to see how I was going. And……………………….I seem to be down 1.5 lbs! yay! So hopefully I can keep this off till saturday weigh in and maybe even get 2 or 3 lbs loss on saturday! So I will probably go swimming again today and maybe tomorrow too,  and stick to my calories.

but for now its the sofa, my duvet, my self-inflicted sore head and some TV!

Mia

and I hadn’t even realised! I was craving chocolate today and I knew that I could not get rid of the craving without having some so I went for it!

But I picked up pretty much EVERY bar in the shop and eventually settled on the little childs size cadburys dairy milk what only has 95 calories. And it tasted SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO goood. I don’t think I have ever enjoyed chocolate as much in my life. it was so good!

So then I went to add it to my food log this evening and looked back through all my days (I’ve been logging EVERYTHING! I’ve never been this honest in a food diary before!) and I saw that I haven’t had any chocolte since my saturday evening treat of a turkish delight bar (185 calories!) on 4th October! 8 days without chocolate and I hadn’t even realised!! Go me!

So hopefully I don’t go overboard and start slipping them into my diet all the time. (I will try my best not to!). My calorie intake seems to be rising a little: there was days last week that I finished on 1200-1500 calories but this week seems to be 1700, so hopefully that will still be ok for weight loss! I am finding that I am pretty hungry sometimes and I suppose this could be from the exercise (I don’t count any calories from exercise-i’d rather they just went to weight loss, not extra that I could eat!). So I’m eating lots of food, but low calorie things and logging it all so hopefully I will stay on track! Did 40 lengths in the pool today in 33 minutes, I’m amazed at much I’ve come on in a few weeks. I first started 4 maybe 5 weeks ago with 20 lengths and was really tired after and now I did 40 and to be honest I wasn’t too tired at all, I just got bored and wanted to go to the sauna instead!! So my fitness must be improving alot.

Anyway, our tv is still out of action, so another evening on buddyslim looking at profiles and blogs and then maybe I’ll watch a DVD later. Quiet evening in………….

Mia

ok, first off, this blog is about vegetable oil. You might ask what vegetable oil has done to deserve its own post but here goes……

how could I not have known?? I mean the nutritional information is on the side of the bottle, so much for my plan of I’ll check the calories after!!! So I decided to use a little vegetable oil today, I was roasting some sweet potato and parsnip and I usually use spray oil (1 cal per spray) but this can leave food a little dry when you roast them. I used to always use extra virgin olive oil to do this but haven’t bought any in since I’ve started counting calories in case I’d go crazy with it. So I saw my flatmates bottle of vegetable oil sitting beside the cooker and thought, for a treat, I’ll use 2 tablespoons of this (only 2, i’m on a diet you know!) on my roast veg so that it will taste nicer…..and it did!

So I was logging everything in my food diary after I finished eating (too late then!!!) and I checked the side of the bottle and there it was…..15ml tablespoon contains 135 calories!!! 135 CALORIES! WHAT!! When did this happen? Has vegetable oil always been this bad? They can’t be allowed sell that, surely! lol! So without even realising it I added 270 calories to my dinner! Luckily it was a very healthy dinner and came in at 335 calories….therefore 625 with the oil!!!! and it’s 5pm and i’m up to 1195 calories now so I should be ok for the day. Didn’t really eat lunch cause I worked a night shift last night so napped this afternoon instead!!

So, anyway, this really is a learning curve, and there are foods to sabotage us at evrey step, niaively I thought these were the obvious foods like the profiteroles and tiramisu in my local supermarket….oh I want those…………………………….

So I’m not going to go swimming today either because there are only 2 lanes and on a sunday it is really busy and to be honest I’m too tired after working last night but I will definetly try and make it out for a walk later, but if not I suppose I did exercise 5 days out of 7 this week (3 days swimming and an hour walk on the other 2). But I will go swimming 3 days this week again and am looking forward to it!!

Tv is broken at the moment, we didn’t pay the bill in time, ooops. So it’s not so much broken as disconnected, lol! We paid Friday and they said it would be back Monday, so I’ll just have to spend the evening on Buddyslim educating people about the dangers of vegetable oil and bringing my campaign to ban it to a national level.

Wish me luck!

Mia