Quick progress update….

Hello.  Just a wee update on the scores on the board (scales).  Weighed myself on Friday and was 14stone 4lbs….

WOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO.

Lowest weight ever since the history of me weighing myself.  Cha-ching.  However, had a bit of a piggyish weekend – been at friends houses yesterday and today and had a glass of wine or two and relaxed.  Still wasn’t crazy bingey, but probably could have had smaller portions.  I think that’s life though, in life sometimes the portions are just BIG, and it’s flipping yummy when they are.  So no guilt shall be bubbling forth from me as I’ve had a fantastic weekend!

Anyway, tomorrow is Monday and back to my saintly midweek-style clean eating.

Also it’s only three weeks till my holidays, so going to get a move on over the next three weeks with plenty of butt-kicking exercise and lots of veggies and water and protein.  Yum yum!

 

The rollercoastering….*cue screaming*

This week has been a doozy (sp?) of a soul-searcher.   Epic complaints and mumble-grumbling from me at the weekend, were replaced by a moment of complete euphoria in H & M today. 

Me standing in size 14 tunic dress smock thing: “what?????  This fits me!!!!  What????  I don’t like it, so I’m not going to buy it.  What?!!! It fits me??!!!”

Mirror: “yeah so what, get over it love.  Now get out and stop checking yourself out.”

Me:  “Who AM I?!?!?!”

Mirror:  “I have no freaking clue, now get out of my super-stylish cubicle you wearer of Primark”

Me: “I no longer fear you mirror.  PAH.”

I had a weekend away and thought I did terrible with my diet, and I was all despondent on Monday.  I’m in the zone, you see, and when I’m in the zone I like to keep control and be organised and make good choices, and going away for the weekend means relinquishing control and the like which then makes me feel convinced I’ll have packed on the pounds regardless of how much or little I’ve eaten.

Anyway, a few good days eating and enjoying my food and exercise this week has assured me that I’m not a total pie-face.  Now I keep looking in the mirror in amazement at myself.  I don’t recognise myself! Who is this freak who is able to say NO to chocolate?  Who chooses Zumba over cinema?  Who wears fitness leggings to Zumba and shakes her butt anyway?  Who picks balanced meals?  Who has self-respect?  Who is thinner than she can remember being and who feels better about herself than she ever has?  Who am I?  EEEKKK!!!!

Is it normal to freak out like this?!  To freak out because of succeeding?  I feel like I’m just waiting for the bubble to burst…..I really don’t want it to though.  Please don’t burst Mr. Bubbles…

A bit of a wibble wobble

This weekend has seen an interesting weigh-in….stayed the same as last week! Which I must say surprised me as I’ve been exercising hard, but I think my food choices have been poor even if I was genuinely hungry when making them. However on the plus side I’m feeling a bit skinnier and more toned so I’m really not going to dwell on that! Just going to focus on making decent choices next week, no more lardy food for me. Maybe even a little meandre into the world of Slimming World (http://www.slimmingworld.com) style dieting. I love that diet so much as you can pig out on a carbs, have a little bit of chocolate every day and still lose weight nice and steadily and it’s good for just getting you grounded and back to nice sensible healthy choices. Brrrravo. Will give it a go anyway, mmmm veggies and Quorn galore. And my fave bangers and mash made the low-fat way. Yum Yum Yum.

So today’s been a stinker emotionally. The pass three weeks I’ve been fully kick-ass in my approach to life and feeling like a superhero capable of overcoming all obstacles to move forward. And then BAM! POW! KABOOM! A week of wee niggly issues and I’m out of it for two days with the old neurotic chestnuts crippling me once more. Why does this happen?!! Why do our brains tick along nicely then all of a sudden just pack-in and throw a flipping strop?! I know not why….and I begin to seriously object to losing whole days of my life to being “upset” or “depressed” or “a misery guts” (my favourite).

However I am going to draw a positives from this weekends debacle and they are these:
~ When I feel down I want to bake. And then PIG OUT. Today I baked, then wasn’t that fussed about the eating part. That is, my friends, progress.
~ When I feel down I want chocolate. Today I went to shop and bought chocolate. And while I ate and partook I didn’t eat till I felt pukey like I was going to vomit. And I don’t feel guilt. That too is major progress!
~ The X Factor is awesome and Gary Barlow is a doll! End of.

Now I’m away to my bed, I’m gubbed.

This weeks weigh-in – wooooo.

Happy to report a 2lb loss this week, bring me down to 14st9lb. I celebrated today by eating lots of sweet stuff, but to be fair it wasn’t out of control and was kind of a conscious decision, probably not the wisest of conscious decisions, but ooooooohhh weeeellllll whatchagonnado?!

Oh and I did go for a properly top knotch run. I’ve been working OUT this week, so when I went out I felt like I was jogging pretty slowly, but to my delight the yummy little Cardiotrainer app I have told a different story – I was indeedy running at my fastest. YAY! Loving running just now mostly because I’ve got decent gear to do it in – some supercomfy running leggings, new bouncy well fitted trainers and today a new sports bra (couldn’t believe how much joy this added! My trainers were bouncy, but my boobs were not hooray!). Yup – an all round fantastic week. Feeling strong, fit and on the right track to keep dropping weight. Who’d of thunk it?!

Perilous council leisure centres. A tale of woe.

My friend Cat and I decided we’d go for a wee swim the other day.  It’s something I’ve been meaning to get back into for ages, but basically I’ve just been too lazy and too whiney about it – whining like this:

  “But I’m too faaaaaaaaaaat to swim…..I’m a rubbish swimmer, I always end up looking like one of those numpties who doesn’t want to get their hair wet…..someone will splash me and I will drown.  And die.  I will drown and die.”

Mmhmm all very non-helpful and annoying.  So finally I went with Cat, mostly because it’s something I’d promised we’d do a year ago.  I forgot all about it and then she rocked up at my house and this happened:

C: So let’s totally do that swimming thing tonight, 5pm okay?

S: *trying to think of excuse brain creaking into gear – weigh up new weight loss mission against valid excuses – creak creak creak, silence*

C: Ok so I’ll come pick you up at five…

exit Cat

S: Oh super duper.  Fanflippingtastic.  Where the heck is my cossie?? I will drown and die.  Humph.

Anyway so we got the pool and I was busying myself with the usual length swimming, dodging children and old people (or actually being overtaken by old people who don’t want to get their hair wet - the wusses), and scanning for someone fatter than me, also men who might be fit and therefore would render me incapable of getting out of the pool until they’d done their 600 lengths and gone home. 

And then to my horror the lifeguard came with a little scoopy net thing on a long handle and sploshed it down into the water.  Up scooped a small little dark coloured object which was then closely examined.  Then the duty manager examined it.  And then the woeful announcement was made: “Could all swimmers please evacuate the pool, immediately, all swimmers out of the pool.”

Yup it was poo.  A little tiny bit of human excrement and we’d all been swimming in poo water.  NICE.  We were all scrubbing ourselves silly in the showers gleefully discussing and pretending not to be completely disgusted when a helpful wee man said “oh I hope you didn’t drink any of it!” Thanks mate.  Thanks a lot.  Barf.

But on the plus side I swam a few lengths, got a free voucher for another swim in the pool of excrement and realised that I actually don’t really care anymore if the fit bloke sees me in my swimming costume.  I realised this whilst standing discussing the poo problem with the fit bloke who’d discovered it.  Progress comes in the most unusual of ways sometimes….

Feels like starting over, smells like teen spirit.

A new beginning.  I sit here smelling weird after Zumba class.  Hence the title.  So let me begin by giving you the juicy stats.  Following that generic, numbery section will follow a little bit of background on how I ended up where I am today.  Let us commence.

Generic Number Section

So I am 26 years old, I am 5 foot 9 inches tall (depending on who measures me or how hunchbacked I am that day - this is always give or take an inch) and weigh 207lbs.  Or 14 stone 11 lbs.  I don’t know what it is in kilos or metric - I’m a bit retro like that, hope you don’t mind!  I’m also British therefore seem to be allowed to ignore the fact that the rest of the world has embraced the metric system and can still buy cheese by the “quarter”.  Not that I buy cheese.  That would be baaaaaaad. 

Okay whatever, I buy cheese.  I hope you don’t mind that either.

I haven’t done my measurements, basically because I can’t be bothered and also because I know realistically I never use them as a measure of my weight loss.  I just put on my white shirt and if the buttons gape I know I’m a porker this week, and if they sit nicely I know I’m doing it right.   Simple yet effective I think you’ll find. 

History of Suzy

So I don’t think it’s too melodramatic of me to say that food and I have always had a bit of a rocky relationship.  In fact it’s kind of hard for me to remember a) a time I didn’t feel self-concious b) a time when I wasn’t overweight c) the defining point where my weight issues really became, you know, big fat ISSUES with a capital everything!

All I know is when I was eight I remember asking all the boys I was friends with how much they weighed and a thirteen year old telling me he weighed two stone less than me.  Screwy food thoughts come on down!!!

So I was always overweight, then I left school at 15 and went to a technical college to study cookery, and while I excelled in my course (oh boy oh boy was the patisserie class good!) I also excelled in eating all of the scrummy food, and in doing little exercise, and in eating even more food when I got home.  Mmmhmmmm not good at all.  And I never weighed myself basically because we didn’t have scales, but I remember getting on the scales my Mum had recently purchased one day and just staring at them.  In utter gob-smacking tear-jerking panic-rising disbelief.  I was almost 19 stone, 266lbs. 

Well that was enough to shock me into dieting, and into doing a bit of exercise and getting a bit active.  So despite a tendency to secretly binge I think that I did quite well all things being considered. I never went to diet class or had any formal support, plus I come from a “big” family so therefore my family would often say I looked fine/didn’t need to change/was being a bit of a weirdo.  Of course I was deeply unhappy and using food to get me through the hard times, but I had no idea at the time, as far as I was concerned my behaviour was normal.  But despite all these roadblocks by the time I moved to St Andrews in Fife, when I was nineteen I weighed 17 stone and was intent on the whole “fresh start” thing.  So I did the inevitable – I joined the gym and I joined Weight Watchers and I worked my butt off quite literally….I got down to 14st8lbs.  And that brings us bang up to date, I’ve hovered and yo-yoed for the past five years around the 14/15st mark, at my lowest I got down to 14st5lbs (that was a HAPPY day!) which happened earlier this year, but I’ve bobbed and flabbed my way back up again now, due to a period of stress, and am at the point of attacking the rest of the weight with gusto and enthusiasm and optimism -  which is a totally new approach for me, trust me!

So to scare away Lady Fatula I’m using a different approach this time, because quite frankly diet mentality sucks.  Who wants to put food into little boxes of “good” and “bad” or feel guilt because they had one too many satsumas? Not me.  I’m working on a healthy mental approach to what I put in my mouth, on eating till I’m full and stopping.  On not obsessing or feeling anxious about where the next meal is/what it’s going to be/if I’m going to overeat.  To also eating my five-a-day and having treats, but not to excess. 

Also I’m exercising like a squirrel on caffeine, and finding a way to do it so that I can look forward to it and have it as my happy time.  Zumba helps with this as do power walks beside the sea as does running running running along the Lade Braes with kick-ass tunes thumping into my ears. 

Also I’m doing something new for me which is EFT.  It’s kind of like acupuncture that you do on yourself, but without the needles and whilst being incrrrredibly cringe-worthy in terms of the things you have to say to yourself (lots of love and self-acceptance all round cringe cringe cringe) , it’s worked really well for me.  I’m not here to recommend things because whatever works for one person may not work for others, but all I know is my cravings are well and truly under control now thanks to this wacky and interesting self-help technique! 

So that my friends, is my history and my strategy.  Oh boy oh boy that was long!  Also add this blog now to that strategy and I think we have a winning combo of lovely positively sumptuous ways to help me not be the fat girl anymore! Bring.  It.  On.  Raaaaarr.