Sunday skipping

Well I'm pretty convinced that my weight will be up for tomorrow's weigh-in (in fact it would be a miracle if it wasn't!) I know that as the week went on my resolve got weeker, so it's no surprise really. I guess maybe I'll go back on phase one for a week to 're-set' my body.
I did get to do a bit of skipping today, but only 50 jumps, and that was whilst dodging between raindrops!

The problem with skipping ropes

is that you can't skip if it rains all day. Especially if you are as tall as me and there's no way you could skip\jump rope inside without causing endless amounts of damage to all the things around you.

An assortmet of thoughts

I've been away longer than I had planned to be gone, so I'll have to try to get you all up to date. On my Christmas day weigh-in I was actually down 1lb to 268.8. However I think I may have put on a couple of pounds over the last couple of days. I was doing ok, but several days in a row of Christmas celebrations my resolve was worn down a bit, and by yesterday when we visited my Dad's parents I was pretty much just eating whatever was put in front of me. However although I wasn't sticking properly to south beach I wasn't eating to excess, which I#'m sure I've done in the past. Hopefully I'll get back to the diet over the next couple of days, and by the time I get back to work it'll be automatic again.

Hmmm, I received a skipping rope for Christmas. I wasn't feeling brilliant from boxing day onwards - the family cold had got me, giving me a sore throat and glands as well as the snuffles. However today I took it out the box and gave it a go. Now I know my fitness level is not at a high at the moment, so I'm aiming to just build up the amount I can skip in one go. I did 5o jumps (not straight, as I can only seem to do about 8 or 9 in a row, but in a session) and then HP did the same. I did a second fifty, and then escaped back indoors to take my asthma inhaler! However, I did do another 80 about an hour later, so that's 180 altogether today. I've no idea if that's good, or quite how I should be going about it, but it felt good - my heart was certainly pumping faster and I got pretty warm doing it! If anyone has any ideas of how to build it up, or extend what I'm doing, then please let me know.

In other news, I have now switched to the new blogger, so hopefully everything will continue to work ok....!

My job

Sorry people, I haven't said much about my job and what happened in the meetings and stuff. That's cos I'm still trying to work out how I feel about it all. Part of me really wanted to say to them that since my contract ended at the end of the year I wouldn't be returning after Christmas. However, I never quite got round to saying that (the sickness bug got in the way somewhat). I did agree with the headteacher that I could continue childminding the little boy two days a week, so at least I'll be keeping the bit of the week that keeps me sane.

I am going to be changing what I do with the one of the two children I work with - doing some more individual work out of the class (as he is quite far behind the other children, and needs to go back to the basics). And I think I've managed to come up with a balance between totally taking him out of the classroom (Headteacher's idea) and only working with him in class to try to access the work the rest of the class are doing (class teacher's idea). We'll see how that goes.
One sad thing is that the lady who was the other classroom assistant (and the person who made the job bearable) has retired, so we'll be having someone new in the new year. Hopefully I'll get on ok with the new person.

That's about all I can think of about it at the minute and I have to go wrap presents. I'll try to post more about it once I start back in the new year - I plan to try to forget all about it over the holiday!

Monday Weigh-in

Haven't done one of these for a few weeks. Probably because of being stuck pretty much in the same place (I went up, up, down but only little amounts so far as I can remember). However all that changed this week. I was back on phase one of the beach, and have lost at least a pound by Wednesday night. That was when I came down with a horrible sickness bug. I was back to eating normally by the weekend, but at my weigh in today I was down 9.4 to 269.8. Which is a total weight loss of 24.2lb.

I'm sick

sick sick sick, and then sick again. Didn't go to work today, and won't be going tomorrow either. The up side is that I just weighed myself (yes, I am a bit obsessive about it) and I currently weigh my lowest for a long time. However, personally I'd have stuck to the beach than having to go through this. Not sure when I'll be back, but in case you were missing me thought I'd better explain.

Knowing that people care really helps.

I was going to title this post "don't leave me hanging on like a yo-yo", but having thought about it, that title would just be wrong in so many ways.
For a start, I didn't give it a capital letter, and that would be bad, very bad.
Secondly, I don't want to give anyone the impression that I'm about to hang myself - that would be very far from the truth, so please no-body panic.

This weekend I've been to the Saturday morning prayer meeting that our church has, and then a church training meeting, and then to church this morning. At each of these there have been people that have asked me "How are you?" in a way that showed they actually wanted to hear the answer - they weren't just asking for the sake of asking. Although I probably haven't expressed to them just how down I've been feeling, I've been able to share a little bit of the stresses that are going on in my life. And time after time I've heard them say those special words "I'll be praying for you", and I know that they meant it. It's really been such a blessing to know that people do care.

I can't say that everything is sorted yet, but I know that I've got people on my side, and that all I can do is go into the meeting tomorrow moring and say what I've got to say. God already knows what the outcome will be, I've just got to trust him on that.

I've decided that I want to say that I don't want to continue at the school after Christmas (that is, I don't want my contract to be renewed). I've no idea quite how the headteacher will respond to that, but we'll see...

Everything looks bleak

I'm so tired. Not just a physical tiredness, although I can hardly keep my eyes open, but a mental tiredness too. I've had enough, stop the world and let me off for a bit.

I'm off to bed soon, hopefully before 8pm, and that ought to help the physical tiredness. But I don't know what do to about the blank nothing inside my head. I feel like I'm living my life through some sort of emotion stopping machine. Life happens, but I don't feel anything, just nothingness. Perhaps it's my body's way of trying to shut off from the stresses with my job and stuff, I just don't know.

I think I'd better go to bed, but I'll try to post more tomorrow.

Prayer Request

I'm trying to make a few decisions jobwise at the moment and would appreciate your prayers. I just wrote a whole post over at OWOA so I'm not going to write it all out here too, but if you'd go over there and take a look that'd be fantastic.
It's here
Thanks muchly :-)

(I also posted this post at It's My Life)

The sun'll come out tomorrow, bet ya bottom dollar

Still tired. Still not feeling 100%. So glad that the weekend has arrived.
Now I'm off to bed :-)
Will try to post something proper soon.... maybe....

Oh, and guess what I saw at the supermarket the other day?
HOT CROSS BUNS! In December! (This is not them, but a picture that I took last Easter when I was blogging my weekend in pictures over on my other blog)

Today

I am just too tired and there's all this stuff buzzing round in my head. I've got some stuff I want to post at some point, but I need to try and figure it out in my head a bit more before I put fingers to keyboard. In the meantime I just can't seem to stop feeling tired and and bit down. I'm trying so hard to keep 'up' (in my mindset, and physically out of bed) but it's really hard right now.

So I'm off to bed now (it's 7.45pm!) and hopefully it'll all look better in the morning. Night all

Monday, Monday, so good to me

Well, a bit good anyway. I'm down to 279 for today's weigh in. So grand total of 15 pounds lost :-)
In other news I'm feeling ill - nasty cold thing which is getting me down a bit, but hopefully with lots of sleep and lots of water to drink I'll be soon be feeling better.

Beautiful?

I was told I was beautiful today. By a complete stranger. In fact a guy trying to chat me up. Really quite a bizarre experience actually. I don't think he was actually drunk, but he was holding a beer bottle in his hand. And yet, it still felt good. It was something that somewhere inside of me I needed to hear, and God knew that, and it happened. And then I had a really long conversation with the guy about God and church and stuff like that - well having turned the guy down, I at least owed it to him to show him my desire that he (along with all non-Christians) could be saved.

But still, someone told me I was beautiful. I'm not sure I feel in yet myself when I look at my outside - I've lost a stone, but there's still a long way to go. But hey, you know what, I am beautiful :-)

I also wrote about this at OWOA

Wordless Wednesday

Check out my WW over on my other blog - It's those cheeky peppers again :-)

Another Monday weigh-in (and there's many more to come!)

Well I'm done 2.6 pounds this week. That takes me to 280.4 and almost at my short term goal which was to lose a stone (14 pounds) by Christmas. I shall have to have a think about what my next short term goal will be. Happy Happy Joy Joy :-)

The week thus far

Another week is almost ended. Time to evaluate how it went, and especially with regards to the team challenge with the OWOA ladies. Well this week I went swimming with my Mum on Tuesday and we both swam half a mile. That's 32 lengths of the pool we use, and takes around half an hour. My favourite stroke is back stroke, but I was remembering my swimming lessons from when I was little and also did some breast stroke and also some front crawl this week.

On Wednesday I was at home for the day (because 16 month old that I usually look after was away on hoilday. I saw them at church this morning and he's added a new phrase to his repertoire - "oh dear", to add to his other favourite "hello"). I spent lots of the day with the radio on loud dancing, skipping and jumping my way around the house - tidying up and generally sorting things out.

On Saturday morning my Mum and I went for a walk around Forty Hall Estate and had fun spotting friends of our garden weekend visitor (see my other blog if that doesn't make sense!)

I can also report that I have drunk plenty of water this week, over 80 oz each day, and have reported in to my team leader Tami accordingly.

Pictures of me

I really don't like these (although they aren't as bad as some I looked at!), but as a mtter of recording what I was like, and so I can look back and see how I've changed, I've gone through the photos on the computer and found a couple to share...
(The full length one is me and my skinny little sister, HP)

Drum Roll Please

Well, this morning I am down 4.4 bringing total weight loss to 11 pounds. So I'm now at 283 pounds. I think all those numbers add up - I'm at 283 anyway, so you can figure out the rest. I'm too tired!

Team Competition

The lastest thing over at One Weigh or Another is a Team Competion. I'm in a team with Tami (our group leader), Lady Laura, Maria and Stephanie. (Hopefully I just managed to link the right name with the right blog. I'm planning to add them to my side bar soon anyway)

The first thing we need to do is come up with a group name. I've just been mucking around with our initials and come up with a few random ideas, but I totally wouldn't blame the rest of my team if my ideas get shouted down and someone else comes up with something better!

The week we'll be getting points based on weight loss and number of times we've exercised this week. I've done exercise on 4 days and you'll be able to find out my weight loss tomorrow - I'll be posting it here and over on OWOA.
I'll keep you up to date on our team progress as well :-)

Official Member!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have officially commented my way to be an official member over at the One Weigh Or Another site. I just posted my introduction post, so please head over and read it to find out a little more about me :-)

Works for me Wednesday

I just posted my first ever WFMW over on my other blog. Since it's food related I thought I ought to link to it from here. Just click over :-)

Tuesday

I had this wonderful post planned earlier, but now that I'm actually sitting at the computer it's all gone out of my head. So I'll just say where I am at the moment. I'm back on phase one of the south beach diet.

I need to check out our leisure centre's opening times and see if I can start going swimming before I go to work on the three days I work in school. The two days I look after 16 month old I start at 8 and have the leave the house at 7.30ish so I don't think I'm gonna manage to swim on those days. However I don't have to be at school till 9 so that feels more do-able. After all, last year when I was living away from school I used to go swimming before work, and that was when I had to drive half an hour to get to work (I would leave the house before 7, which to me was early!)

I'm trying to get myself back into getting to bed earlier and waking up earlier. The clocks went back for us in the UK last weekend (so 10pm became 9pm). It's the whole going back to GMT after being on British Summer-Time. Anyway, My body still seems to think it's an hour later than it actually is, and I'm in not rush to un-confuse it. Well if it thinks it's after 10 and it's actually only after 9 and I go to bed that's got to be a good thing right?!?!

Um, I'm also wondering whether I ought to start posting what I'm eating every day as a way to stay accountable. I'll think on that a bit longer before I make a decision.

Oh, and in other news my Mum had officially lost 10 pounds in the last 3 weeks. That's another reminder to me that if I stay on track good things will happen!

Weigh-in

I'm up 1.6 to 287.4. After my bad week it's less than I deserve to be up, but I'm drawing a line under last week and will do my best this week :-)

Today

Today I feel a little better about myself. I know that this (the weight and the negative thoughts) is not something I can change overnight, but I'm ready to try to begin. Food-wise I've been sensible today and not had anything I regret! I'm cross with myself that I'll be up at the weigh-in tomorrow, but I'm also glad that I did get some stuff off my chest. Thanks Blest and Laura for showing me you care. I'm going back to look at some of your posts again Blest.

Update - thanks for what you just put Blair, I'm off to read my bible, and then I'll come back and look at Blest's posts!

Sometimes I hate myself

This week has been quite a peculiar one. The old negative thoughts, that I thought I had safely held at bay, came rushing back, and once again I found myself comfort eating.

It's really hard for me to write this, but in a way I feel obliged to the ladies over at One Weigh or Another to write it. That didn't come out as I intended, but I think what I mean is I know how good it feels to be a bit a part of that group, and I feel I need to admit to myself and others how tough I can find things. That way I know that people, even if they are miles away, are aware of how I feel.

For years I've struggled with the way I am and my weight and I guess just have a really low self esteem. It's a vicious circle. I hate the way I am, the way I look, but then I turn in on myself, never letting anyone know how I feel, and I turn to food as a comfort. I think to myself that I'm never going to change so I might as well just eat that bar of chocolate or packet of crisps.

I really thought that things were different this time. I'd been doing really well sticking to my diet, but then for one reason or another I ended up eating things that I wasn't meant to be eating (I find it really hard to say no to people, for example when visiting other people I end up eating whatever it is that they've got on the menu because I don't want to make a fuss). And from there it was just another downward spiral. So this week it may have appeared to the world that I was eating healthily, but then I've added in chocolate and crisps, and not really in small quantities either.

I get this mindset that no one really cares about me anyway, and then because I feel that I can't tell anyone how I feel because they'll be obliged to be all nice and sympathetic, when I 'know' that they don't really care about me. I try and try to persude myself that it's not true, but I just can't break through that mental barrier.

I'm the sort of person that other people turn to when they're having problems and stresses, and I'm so used to helping thme out that I'm really not sure I know how to sort out myself.

I'm going to stop now and post this because if I don't do it right now I don't think I'll have the courage to do it.

My third Monday Weigh-in

Another 2 pounds down this week. That takes total weight loss to 8.2lb.
Hurrah :-)

I noticed something today...

... I can do my belt up tighter than I could before. Yay! I was wondering when I would begin to be able to see and feel the differences in me as well as seeing the change on the scales. It's a little thing, but it's made me feel great.

I now it's Wednesday, but I'm still gonna call this Monday weigh-in.

When I weighed myself on Monday I discovered that in the two weeks since I started I have lost 6.2lb which is really exciting.

I've now started my new job so I need to be really strict with myself about setting a routine for exercise that I will be able to stick with. At the moment I feel really tired, but I think that's partly just getting used to the new job and all the new information my brain is trying to process. My nominated exercise for today is housework and perhaps some stair walking. I'd go out for a walk, but the weather is a bit miserable to take S out in (S is the boy I'm child-minding).

Yesterday we tried no-pasta lasagne for dinner. It's made with aubergine (eggplant to the Americans!) instead of pasta. My mum and I really enjoyed it, and now we've made it once we can experiment with the recipe and maybe add different vegetable each time (last night we had it with yellow pepper and squash in, the recipe also suggested you could put in spinich).

Happy Birthday to my Big Sister

Either Bekki is good at standing with her back to the camera, or my dad (who the camera belongs to) is good at standing behind people to take their picture. Anyway, whichever it is I had trouble finding pictures of Bekki that didn't show her walking away from the camera. This one was taken whilst we were on our family holiday in Sctoland this summer. Bekki is on the left and HP (my little sister) is on the right.

New Job :-)

I've got a new job. I start on Monday. I wrote lots about it on my other blog so you can follow the link for more about it.

In other news, south beach is going well and I've already lost a bit of weight. I'll weigh-in properly on Monday and let you know how much.

Monday Weigh-In

Well this morning I weighed myself and I am down point 2 (0.2) of a pound. i'm not surprised becasue my last week was quite manic - with little time to exercise and I know I didn't eat healthily the whole time.
However, the real big news this morning is that I have now started on the South Beach diet (as of this morning!) We're still working on the final menu planning details, and we really need to go food shopping soon, but I've started and that's the main thing!

Taking the plunge

Having announced my weight to the world over at One Weigh or Another it seems silly, stupid even, not to post it on here as well. (Oh, BTW I'm back. Had a lovely time with the kids. Didn't really manage to stick to healthy eating as much as I'd have liked, but did lots of walking up stairs and carrying a 2 year old!)

My weight, as of the monday weigh-in [rather than today, I'm a little scared to get on the scales right now ;-) ] was 294lb, or 21 stones. That's certainly not a good weight to be at even if I am 6 foot tall. I've read somewhere, possibly on a weightwatchers site that it'd be a good aim to start by trying to lose 10% of your weight. So for me that means about 30lb. Obviously I do need to lost more than that, but that sounds like a good short(ish) term aim. (I know it won't be short, but you know what I mean). I think I probably need to lose about one third of my body weight at the moment, which is a bit scary, but I know what amazing benefits that will give me.

My big announcement for this post is that my mum and I are starting the south beach diet together. I got the book that Blest recommended (The South Beach Diet - The delicious, doctor-designed, foolproof plan for fast and healthy weightloss) and we need to plan our own menu from that, and go shopping to get the stuff we need, and then we are away :-)

Away

I may not be around on my blog till Saturday. (Away from home and limited access to computer) Enjoy yourselves while I'm gone :-)

food thoughts

Right, it seems to me that south beach is the way I want to go, but I haven't got on top of it yet. For one reasons or another I've not yet cut out all the carbs. However, I have got more aware of what I'm putting in my mouth and making healthy choices.

This week may be tricky since as well as looking after 1 year old S on Tuesday and Wednesday, I'm then 'moving in' to live with H, S & J from Wednesday evening till Saturday to take care of them while their parents are away on a conference. Because I'll be at someone else's house eating someone else's food I may not be able to make all the food choices that I want to. However, I'm going to try really hard and not let it be an excuse.

On another note, I now have some scales and I'm going to participate in my first weigh in at OWOA today. Scary, but great to have some accoutability. Cos I'm not gonna do it without being able to think of all those lovely ladies cheering me on and knowing how proud they are of me when I do get things right ;-)

I'm enjoying today

Perhaps it's because I didn't have to get up at a time that had a 6 at the beginning, but I'd like to think it's because I've been making healthy choices. This morning I went swimming and swam 34 lengths (32 lengths is half a mile, so not bad I think!). I've just had a delicious salad for lunch amd now I've off down Walthamstow market (the longest street market in Europe!) to go to the bank, post office, library and job centre. I'm going to find out about signing on at the job centre because I am currently job hunting. Oh, and I'm also going to go to argos and hopefully buy some new scales. Hurrah :-)

choosing a diet plan

I'm in the process of working out what the best diet plan for me would be. I know that I want to get back into swimming regularly and I think trying to build up the amount of walking I do each day, but I'm so sure about which plan to pick eating-wise.

I've been looking at weight-watchers and the south beach diet (as people at one weigh or another are on those). I think that the south beach sounds like a good plac, but I'm not sure how it will fit into my life. I'm currently living back at home with my parents and my main meal of the day tends to be with them in the evening, so it's whatever they're having. I think I need to chat to my mum as I think she's keen to lose some weight as well, to work ot what would be best for the both of us. That way we would have a common regime which mght make eating together easier in terms of sticking to what we ought to be eating.
What do other people do in this kind of situation - Any suggestions?

12 Weeks to Christmas Challenge

Over at One Weigh or Another Blair has suggested a 12 Weeks to Christmas Challenge. This sounds like a good thing to me so I'm starting to think about the following:

1. 5 Reasons I MUST change:

2. By December 25, 2006 I will: (give specific/realistic goals)

3. List 5 accomplishments needed to reach my Goal(s):

Bit of a rotten day

After all the resolve and positive thinking of the weekend today was a bit of a let down. It rained all day (and we're talkng big rain, not just that typical UK drizzle). That meant that although I did get out to do a few things done, I didn't go out a second time to do all the other things on my list, including having a walk that was longer than 5 minutes! I've also eaten some fairly stupid things today. Right, I resolve that tomorrow I'll think positively and also try to have time for reading my bible and praying, and hope that chasing a 1 year old around will be more exercise than I got today.
And I will try to be healthy for my last meal of today. Cos I guess it's about not putting off till tomorrow what can be done today!

weekend exercise

I don't think I'm going to have much chance to go swimming at the weekends (I think that's the main type of exercise I'm going for at the moment), but I did have a bit of exercise this morning when I ended up helping out in creche - we had 23 kids to look after!

Our church meets in a cinema (which is really cool) and there's a room called the 'premier bar' - I think the cinema use it for drinks after big premiers, I guess the name says it all really. Anyway, we use it for creche and then for coffee after the meeting, as well as for midweek groups and alpha.

I love looking after kids, but there were times that we had our work cut out running round after some of the more adventurous ones, and holding crying babies is one way to get some weight training done! Tomorrow I hope to go swimming, although I'm not sure if it will happen. On Tuesday I start doing some childminding and I'm determined to work a walk into the schedule as a way to get some exercise.

Right this is it

I'm fed up of being the size and weight that I am. It's affecting my life, my health and generally how I feel about myself. This is my journey, or at least the start of it, to lose weight and begin to feel good in myself. To feel beautiful and happy about who I am.