WideBride is back in town baby. I had the most fabulous holiday ever and its very depressing to be back but to suspend reality for a little while longer I’ll go through some highlights of the trip. Just a reminder, we had 5 nights in Boston, 2 nights in a little town out of Boston called Concorde (more on this later) and then 4 nights in Charleston, SC:
1. puddings – I forgot how good puddings are as I never order them when I’m out for dinner here in the UK. In the US though, I was giving the starters a miss (they bring you bread and butter instead – oh my!) and having a pudding instead. I had icecream, key lime pie (never had this before and it was just so American sounding I had to have it), cheesecake, warm chocolate chip cookies with hot chocolate dipping sauce (WOW) and no doubt heaps of other things I have forgotten.
2. burgers – I love love LOVE how you get a big old pickle with your burger so you can cut it up and have a little bit of pickle with every bite. More please!
3. nachos – just YUM.
4. Californian wine. Enough said
5. Starbucks low fat cinnamon cake. I had this for breakfast one day (don’t judge me) and it was SO SO SO good. Why can’t we get this here in the UK?
6. Steak. I never usually have steak here (I tend to order fish when I go out for dinner, just because I never have it at home as G is not a fish lover) so it was really nice to have it in the US. They cook it so well. Kudos guys!
7. Magnolia restaurant, Charleston SC. Probably the culinary highlight of my trip. I had fried green tomatoes to start (yeah, I thought that was just the title of a movie too but it is actually FOOD and really tasty to boot) followed by crawfish wrapped in flounder. DIVINE. If I hadn’t had a big giant burger that day for lunch I would REALLY have gone to town on this meal but sadly I had to leave quite a lot of it as I was just so full. I will be having dreams about this meal for months to come.
So yes, the highlights of my trip are mainly food related. Sue me. The Americans know how to eat, what can I say.
The trip was great though. The weather was beautiful (fricking freezing in Boston) and we got a really hot day in Charleston which was just divine. We did SO much walking I ended up doing something horrible to my toe and had to buy some old lady type orthopaedic trainers - I was just in AGONY. We had a lovely hotel in Boston and I had some fabulous seafood. It was great to see all the things I had only ever heard about on the Freedom Trail and it was really NICE how proud of their history the people we encountered were. People were so friendly and I think I can honestly say I had a smile on my face the whole time we were there. What a contrast to London – yikes.
Anyway, there is nothing more dull than listening to someone prattle on and on and ON about their holidays so let’s just say that it was brilliant and a great time was had by all.
But now back to business. We arrived back last Tuesday morning so I have now been back almost a week. I have extended my holiday however and have now not been pointing properly for almost 4 weeks. My Zara basic trousers are now snug again and pulling across the butt. My Monsoon size 14 pants I was so pleased to get in to for my holiday are only JUST wearable and today I am wearing my weird grey Wallis size 16 trousers – they are baggy, yes, but wearable. Not cool.
So its back to the gym today and back to pointing today. I am sick of feeling all fat and bloaty. I have a LOT of social stuff coming up as well which is not great but I’m just going to have to knuckle under and do it. I am going to enquire about personal trainers tonight but may hold off on actually getting one for 2 weeks or so to get my fitness back again so its not wasted money.
Am starting to feel a little bit panicky on the wedding dress front as I kind of feel that I am now back to where I was at the start of the year in terms of weight loss. I know that’s not true and I just need a week or 10 days or so to feel better again but right now I feel VERY fat and like I am going to really really struggle in the next 11 months to lose the weight I need to for the wedding. Its 11 weeks today people!
I didn’t do any wedding stuff in the US (I had thought about going in to Priscilla of Boston, a store which does some bridesmaid dresses I really LOVE but couldn’t be bothered in the end) and I am still in love with Stephanie Allin’s Ellie dress so I will definitely try that on. My head has been turned, however, by a Caroline Castigliano dress called Beauty (it may be Beautiful – there are 2 and quite similar) which is a design I NEVER thought I would go for – strapless corsety type bodice with full skirt. I don’t know that that would really suit me though (the full skirt might make me look really short and with the size I am now, might make me look like I am as wide as I am tall) but on one of the UK forums I go on, the girls rave about it. And it IS a gorgeous dress. And no harm in looking, right?
But I am getting panicky about not being as slim as I would like before I start the dress trying on. From what I can gather, the sample dresses you try on in shops tend to be around a UK size 12 which SHOULD fit me but if they are anything smaller I might be in trouble. And I want to be quite close to the size I will be for the wedding when trying on dresses so that I can pick something I know will look good when I’m a size 8-10 and not just going for what is flattering on my size 14 body. I think I’ll make my first appointment for May 31 which is 7 and a half weeks away. Hopefully by then I’ll be a size smaller. I am worried I’ll be leaving it a bit late though. A lot of people on the UK forum seem to be getting their dresses a full YEAR in advance where as I will be choosing it 8-9 months out. I hope this is enough time...
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LATER: am back from the gym but took it pretty easy. Did 50 minutes and was quite red and sweaty at the end but didn't want to work out too much and cause myself an injury. Have signed up for 2 45min personal trainer sessions for £25 and have my first one on Friday at 7am. Time to get serious.
Monday 7 April 2008
Sunday 16 March 2008
Och aye
Well since the last post (which I just posted but drafted on thursday - ahem) there have been a few updates.
On Thursday night G and I went out for drinks and dinner to celebrate the fact that he was leaving work before 9pm. It was also a BRILLIANT excuse not to have to go to the gym.
Anyway, I ended up going on something of a bender. Bit of a disaster really. We kept drinking after dinner (we went to our local Italian and we shared a starter of bruschetta and then I had a main of pasta with tomoato, aubergine and minced beef - very stodgy and an important detail for later) and I addressed all the save the date cards for the people we have addresses for. the writing got a bit wonky in the end but I'm sure that just adds to the elegant charm....
So Friday morning I felt like COMPLETE SHIT. Friday was a tough day. But I weighed myself and DIED to find that I was 66.1kg (10 stone 5.75 pounds or 145.75lb) so YAY me. As my friend A pointed out, it was no doubt due to the fact that I was a 'husk' thanks to the dehydrating effects of the alcohol, but I will take it! I've made it, I did it!!!!! I know there is a small matter of 100g but I have counted it as a success.
And WOW have I been celebrating it in style. G and I have been in Edinburgh this weekend as he had a work seminar and I decided to freeload. Our flight was delayed on Friday night so we didn't get in until quite late. I had the meal on the plane (chicken, potatoes and veges) and then when we got in I had duck spring rolls at the hotel.
On Saturday morning G had the seminar all day so I got to amuse myself. I got up and had a hotel breakfast (I really went to town on this - a sausage, 2 hash browns, some mushrooms and a poached egg, followed by a croissant with butter and jam - but SO good) then wandered around the shops and just did a spot of sightseeing. Then I bought the Lonely Planet book on Boston and took myself off to the pub for a couple of pints and some research. I didn't bother with lunch. By then it was 4.30pm and G's seminar had finished so he joined me when we got The Call.
It was his mother ringing to tell us that his father was in hospital as he was having trouble breathing. He is almost 61, fairly portly, loves his wine and rich food so it shouldn't have come as such a shock that something was going to get him eventually. The hospital suspected he had a coronary embolism (a clot on the lung) but they wouldn't be running tests until the Monday. So it was a bit of a scary moment - his mother was in pieces and we were stuck in Edinburgh and no one really knew what was going on. We have since got the call that he switched from NHS care to private and they have discovered that he has some kind of nasty infection requiring intravenous antibiotics, so he will be fine. G's mother then left a phone message on my phone telling us that he had discharged himself from hospital and was going to recuperate at home as the hosptital he was in was pretty grim. She is NOT happy about this but he is a very stubborn man.
So essentially, tomorrow night's dinner is off which G's mother is REALLY not happy about (I mean she's not saying anything but G and I know her enough to know that now he is no longer in the 'danger zone' she's probably really annoyed with him for getting ill 'on purpose' and ruining her birthday.
So now instead of having a dinner tomorrow night I think G and I are going to have to head off see them (they live about 45 minutes out of London) after work. Annoying really but never mind. At least G's father is not seriously unwell.
So this weekend has been a bit of an exercise in piggery. I had nachos for lunch today and another massive breakfast. Last night at the black tie dinner (my outfit came together beautifully, btw) I had haggis for the first time and it was BEAUTIFUL - yum! I don't think I'll bother with dinner but I'm sure G is going to make 'lets order a pizza' noises soon....
I will to go back to light eating for the next few days before America but I feel like I've made my goal so all bets are off. Might as well make hay while the sun shines as life is going to SUCK when I get back from the USA. But needs must.
On Thursday night G and I went out for drinks and dinner to celebrate the fact that he was leaving work before 9pm. It was also a BRILLIANT excuse not to have to go to the gym.
Anyway, I ended up going on something of a bender. Bit of a disaster really. We kept drinking after dinner (we went to our local Italian and we shared a starter of bruschetta and then I had a main of pasta with tomoato, aubergine and minced beef - very stodgy and an important detail for later) and I addressed all the save the date cards for the people we have addresses for. the writing got a bit wonky in the end but I'm sure that just adds to the elegant charm....
So Friday morning I felt like COMPLETE SHIT. Friday was a tough day. But I weighed myself and DIED to find that I was 66.1kg (10 stone 5.75 pounds or 145.75lb) so YAY me. As my friend A pointed out, it was no doubt due to the fact that I was a 'husk' thanks to the dehydrating effects of the alcohol, but I will take it! I've made it, I did it!!!!! I know there is a small matter of 100g but I have counted it as a success.
And WOW have I been celebrating it in style. G and I have been in Edinburgh this weekend as he had a work seminar and I decided to freeload. Our flight was delayed on Friday night so we didn't get in until quite late. I had the meal on the plane (chicken, potatoes and veges) and then when we got in I had duck spring rolls at the hotel.
On Saturday morning G had the seminar all day so I got to amuse myself. I got up and had a hotel breakfast (I really went to town on this - a sausage, 2 hash browns, some mushrooms and a poached egg, followed by a croissant with butter and jam - but SO good) then wandered around the shops and just did a spot of sightseeing. Then I bought the Lonely Planet book on Boston and took myself off to the pub for a couple of pints and some research. I didn't bother with lunch. By then it was 4.30pm and G's seminar had finished so he joined me when we got The Call.
It was his mother ringing to tell us that his father was in hospital as he was having trouble breathing. He is almost 61, fairly portly, loves his wine and rich food so it shouldn't have come as such a shock that something was going to get him eventually. The hospital suspected he had a coronary embolism (a clot on the lung) but they wouldn't be running tests until the Monday. So it was a bit of a scary moment - his mother was in pieces and we were stuck in Edinburgh and no one really knew what was going on. We have since got the call that he switched from NHS care to private and they have discovered that he has some kind of nasty infection requiring intravenous antibiotics, so he will be fine. G's mother then left a phone message on my phone telling us that he had discharged himself from hospital and was going to recuperate at home as the hosptital he was in was pretty grim. She is NOT happy about this but he is a very stubborn man.
So essentially, tomorrow night's dinner is off which G's mother is REALLY not happy about (I mean she's not saying anything but G and I know her enough to know that now he is no longer in the 'danger zone' she's probably really annoyed with him for getting ill 'on purpose' and ruining her birthday.
So now instead of having a dinner tomorrow night I think G and I are going to have to head off see them (they live about 45 minutes out of London) after work. Annoying really but never mind. At least G's father is not seriously unwell.
So this weekend has been a bit of an exercise in piggery. I had nachos for lunch today and another massive breakfast. Last night at the black tie dinner (my outfit came together beautifully, btw) I had haggis for the first time and it was BEAUTIFUL - yum! I don't think I'll bother with dinner but I'm sure G is going to make 'lets order a pizza' noises soon....
I will to go back to light eating for the next few days before America but I feel like I've made my goal so all bets are off. Might as well make hay while the sun shines as life is going to SUCK when I get back from the USA. But needs must.
RIP Motivation
Well as you can see from the title of this post, my motivation has died. I am still in mourning for it so am going through the motions but the reality is I’m going to probably ‘start my holiday early’ in terms of eating and exercising.
In good news however, I have weighed in at 66.7 for the last 2 days so I am officially in the 66s – just not the end I want to be in. I have a weigh day tomorrow then next week I will weigh in on Thursday (a week today) before we leave to Boston. Can I lose 700g (1.5lb) in a week when I’m not really dieting or exercising and have a weekend away in Edinburgh, followed by a dinner out on Monday night, followed by leaving drinks on Tuesday night? Unlikely.
I am just so tired of dieting at the moment. I have been really busy at work and so didn’t go to the gym on Monday or Tuesday night. Then when I got home on Tuesday night (I stayed at work past 8pm) I had 2 large glasses of wine (Cloudy Bay so really its not even my fault). I have been eating well in terms of meals but I have been picking a lot and not counting those points. Is it any wonder I am struggling really. I went to the gym last night and managed half an hour before wanting to die. My legs were tired after about 7 minutes on the cross trainer doing my warm up for goodness sakes! I then did a 10 minute run at my new higher level - 5mins at 9.5, 4mins at 10.0 and 1 minute at 10.5 and I was at the point of collapse by the end of it. I just couldn’t catch my breath so I KNOW I was working hard. Then I did 10 minutes on the rower at level 9 (up from 8) so at least I was working out harder than normal. After my row I sat there just feeling knackered and thought I might as well just have a cool down walk and go home.
So that’s what I did. I had tomato soup for dinner but I accidentally bought the wrong one and it was higher in fat than my normal one (and not even better tasting so BOY was I annoyed) and some little mini bruschettas and called it 13.5pts for the day. I also had a chocolate ‘nest’ with 2 crunchy eggs on top at morning tea time, courtesy of the husband of a girl I work with who loves to bake and loves that we all LOVE his baking. So I couldn’t NOT eat it. It was lovely and I could taste the butter and treacle that held it all together. Called it 2 points but I think that underestimated it by QUITE some way. Oh well.
So this weekend we have Edinburgh. G has a work conference on the Saturday so we’re going up on Friday night and will amuse ourselves that night. On the Saturday I need to find something to do that doesn’t involve spending money or revisiting all the tourist sites I went to when I last went to Edinburgh in 2003. Then on Saturday night it’s a black tie dinner for this work conference thing which will be held at the National Gallery in Edinburgh. It should be nice – a drinks reception where we can wander around with our drinks looking at the paintings, then a sit down dinner. There is a seating plan and it looks like we will be seated with G’s boss but never mind. Then on the Sunday we have the day to ourselves until our flight goes at 4. So I’m not going to have any control over what I eat on the Saturday and I’m going to have to really work hard at not eating the world on the Friday night, Saturday daytime and Sunday day time.
The blacktie dinner thing threw me in to a bit of a frenzy earlier in the week when I thought ‘Faaaaaaaaaark, what am I going to wear???’ I tried on the 3 potentials in my wardrobe which were as follows:
1. the sleeveless black dress from Coast that I wore at my engagement party (size 12). Its cotton, lined, knee length, sleeveless with a v-neck (fairly low) front and back. It is really flattering with seams gathering to the side of the waist to give me a really nice hour-glass shape. It also has fabric flowers sewed on at the sides, front and back to give the dress a bit more interest (they are black and the same fabric as the dress so they’re not really standy-outy they just give it some shape). The problem is, the dress is really light and probably not that appropriate for a winter in Scotland type event. Its also probably a bit low cut to be wearing in front of G’s boss. I would need a wrap or something and I don’t have anything so that’s not really a runner. Am happy that it fits though – the last time I tried it on was for my work Xmas dinner and it was WAY too tight to be decent. So YAY!
2. the black jersey dress from Phase 8 that I wore the Chistmas before last (size12). It has ¾ length sleeves and the top crosses over to form a v-neck (its like a crossover wrap dress but without the tie and the skirt itself doesn’t wrap) and the skirt is sort of flared and goes to the knee. As its jersey, it drapes and clings to the lumps and bumps and as I bought it to wear when I was 65kg there are a few more lumps and bumps than originally. So I would need to buy some Bridget Jones undies to smooth the old silhouette. This is the front runner despite it being perhaps a touch too small.
3. the black polyester slinky material dress I wore to my work Xmas function last year because number (1) was too tight (size 16). Hideous. It was in a sale rack at Wallis and I bought it because I was desperate. It has short sleeves, a v-neck and its sort of empire-line in that the fabric is slightly gathered under the bust with some black beads and then it falls down in folds to sort of mid shin. It wasn’t flattering then and it sure is hell isn’t flattering now. Too big and just hangs in all the wrong places actually making me look bigger.
So dress number 2 it is. I need to buy some sheer stockings and also probably some shoe liners so that my Whistles shoes that I will wear with it (real cute, black, round toe, medium heel with dark green leather flowers attached to the toe) fit better (they are a size too big). So that’s what I’ll wear.
Then Monday night its G’s mother’s birthday dinner. We have a table booked for 9.30pm. Yes, REALLY. So that’s annoying but it is to accommodate G’s brother’s wife who has booked herself on a course that doesn’t finish till 9pm. I was really pushing to have the dinner on the Tuesday night instead (her birthday is the Monday) but she has a real thing about being taken out for dinner on her actual birthday day, so Monday at half past fricking midnight it is. Oh well. We are going to a fancy-pants fish restaurant in Mayfair so hopefully I should be able to eat fairly lightly if I can steer clear of the pudding and don’t drink too much wine.
In wedding news, I am still totally in love with the Stephanie Allin dress ‘Ellie’. I have yet to find a store that actually has it in stock but there is one place in Fulham that can order it in for me to try so I guess closer to the time that will be what I do. I have no idea how much it costs yet and I’m praying its not too far over £2000 which is what I will allow myself to spend on a dress. Her dresses start at £1500 apparently and it doesn’t seem to be one of her more popular designs (which really pleases me) so I may just be in luck.
I really HAVE to address the rest of the save the dates tonight so I can get them sent off tomorrow. We still don’t have quite a few addresses and I’m reluctant to send them out a few at a time, but they are mainly G’s family side so its his tough luck really as he won’t get them sorted out.
Other than that, no other wedding news. Still no idea yet if our friends who recently got engaged, T and J are having a big Australian wedding or just keeping it to family. I mean there is no way really that we can go – especially as they haven’t even given the dates yet, but G is still talking about it like he thinks we might have to. He hates letting people down and has a real thing about not going to things he’s been invited to but in this instance I think it is more likely we would get the ‘politeness invite’ and it would actually be more embarrassing for all if we went than if we didn’t. Time will tell.
In good news however, I have weighed in at 66.7 for the last 2 days so I am officially in the 66s – just not the end I want to be in. I have a weigh day tomorrow then next week I will weigh in on Thursday (a week today) before we leave to Boston. Can I lose 700g (1.5lb) in a week when I’m not really dieting or exercising and have a weekend away in Edinburgh, followed by a dinner out on Monday night, followed by leaving drinks on Tuesday night? Unlikely.
I am just so tired of dieting at the moment. I have been really busy at work and so didn’t go to the gym on Monday or Tuesday night. Then when I got home on Tuesday night (I stayed at work past 8pm) I had 2 large glasses of wine (Cloudy Bay so really its not even my fault). I have been eating well in terms of meals but I have been picking a lot and not counting those points. Is it any wonder I am struggling really. I went to the gym last night and managed half an hour before wanting to die. My legs were tired after about 7 minutes on the cross trainer doing my warm up for goodness sakes! I then did a 10 minute run at my new higher level - 5mins at 9.5, 4mins at 10.0 and 1 minute at 10.5 and I was at the point of collapse by the end of it. I just couldn’t catch my breath so I KNOW I was working hard. Then I did 10 minutes on the rower at level 9 (up from 8) so at least I was working out harder than normal. After my row I sat there just feeling knackered and thought I might as well just have a cool down walk and go home.
So that’s what I did. I had tomato soup for dinner but I accidentally bought the wrong one and it was higher in fat than my normal one (and not even better tasting so BOY was I annoyed) and some little mini bruschettas and called it 13.5pts for the day. I also had a chocolate ‘nest’ with 2 crunchy eggs on top at morning tea time, courtesy of the husband of a girl I work with who loves to bake and loves that we all LOVE his baking. So I couldn’t NOT eat it. It was lovely and I could taste the butter and treacle that held it all together. Called it 2 points but I think that underestimated it by QUITE some way. Oh well.
So this weekend we have Edinburgh. G has a work conference on the Saturday so we’re going up on Friday night and will amuse ourselves that night. On the Saturday I need to find something to do that doesn’t involve spending money or revisiting all the tourist sites I went to when I last went to Edinburgh in 2003. Then on Saturday night it’s a black tie dinner for this work conference thing which will be held at the National Gallery in Edinburgh. It should be nice – a drinks reception where we can wander around with our drinks looking at the paintings, then a sit down dinner. There is a seating plan and it looks like we will be seated with G’s boss but never mind. Then on the Sunday we have the day to ourselves until our flight goes at 4. So I’m not going to have any control over what I eat on the Saturday and I’m going to have to really work hard at not eating the world on the Friday night, Saturday daytime and Sunday day time.
The blacktie dinner thing threw me in to a bit of a frenzy earlier in the week when I thought ‘Faaaaaaaaaark, what am I going to wear???’ I tried on the 3 potentials in my wardrobe which were as follows:
1. the sleeveless black dress from Coast that I wore at my engagement party (size 12). Its cotton, lined, knee length, sleeveless with a v-neck (fairly low) front and back. It is really flattering with seams gathering to the side of the waist to give me a really nice hour-glass shape. It also has fabric flowers sewed on at the sides, front and back to give the dress a bit more interest (they are black and the same fabric as the dress so they’re not really standy-outy they just give it some shape). The problem is, the dress is really light and probably not that appropriate for a winter in Scotland type event. Its also probably a bit low cut to be wearing in front of G’s boss. I would need a wrap or something and I don’t have anything so that’s not really a runner. Am happy that it fits though – the last time I tried it on was for my work Xmas dinner and it was WAY too tight to be decent. So YAY!
2. the black jersey dress from Phase 8 that I wore the Chistmas before last (size12). It has ¾ length sleeves and the top crosses over to form a v-neck (its like a crossover wrap dress but without the tie and the skirt itself doesn’t wrap) and the skirt is sort of flared and goes to the knee. As its jersey, it drapes and clings to the lumps and bumps and as I bought it to wear when I was 65kg there are a few more lumps and bumps than originally. So I would need to buy some Bridget Jones undies to smooth the old silhouette. This is the front runner despite it being perhaps a touch too small.
3. the black polyester slinky material dress I wore to my work Xmas function last year because number (1) was too tight (size 16). Hideous. It was in a sale rack at Wallis and I bought it because I was desperate. It has short sleeves, a v-neck and its sort of empire-line in that the fabric is slightly gathered under the bust with some black beads and then it falls down in folds to sort of mid shin. It wasn’t flattering then and it sure is hell isn’t flattering now. Too big and just hangs in all the wrong places actually making me look bigger.
So dress number 2 it is. I need to buy some sheer stockings and also probably some shoe liners so that my Whistles shoes that I will wear with it (real cute, black, round toe, medium heel with dark green leather flowers attached to the toe) fit better (they are a size too big). So that’s what I’ll wear.
Then Monday night its G’s mother’s birthday dinner. We have a table booked for 9.30pm. Yes, REALLY. So that’s annoying but it is to accommodate G’s brother’s wife who has booked herself on a course that doesn’t finish till 9pm. I was really pushing to have the dinner on the Tuesday night instead (her birthday is the Monday) but she has a real thing about being taken out for dinner on her actual birthday day, so Monday at half past fricking midnight it is. Oh well. We are going to a fancy-pants fish restaurant in Mayfair so hopefully I should be able to eat fairly lightly if I can steer clear of the pudding and don’t drink too much wine.
In wedding news, I am still totally in love with the Stephanie Allin dress ‘Ellie’. I have yet to find a store that actually has it in stock but there is one place in Fulham that can order it in for me to try so I guess closer to the time that will be what I do. I have no idea how much it costs yet and I’m praying its not too far over £2000 which is what I will allow myself to spend on a dress. Her dresses start at £1500 apparently and it doesn’t seem to be one of her more popular designs (which really pleases me) so I may just be in luck.
I really HAVE to address the rest of the save the dates tonight so I can get them sent off tomorrow. We still don’t have quite a few addresses and I’m reluctant to send them out a few at a time, but they are mainly G’s family side so its his tough luck really as he won’t get them sorted out.
Other than that, no other wedding news. Still no idea yet if our friends who recently got engaged, T and J are having a big Australian wedding or just keeping it to family. I mean there is no way really that we can go – especially as they haven’t even given the dates yet, but G is still talking about it like he thinks we might have to. He hates letting people down and has a real thing about not going to things he’s been invited to but in this instance I think it is more likely we would get the ‘politeness invite’ and it would actually be more embarrassing for all if we went than if we didn’t. Time will tell.
Monday 10 March 2008
A plea to the Scale Gods
Well after congratulating myself on my weigh in at 67.0 on Thursday, I have fricking well continued to gain. Fuckit. I am still up on that weight, weighing in today at 67.2kg. Its not much but it IS a gain and at a time when I am desperate to see 66.something on the scale, its killing me.
I went to the gym twice this weekend, increasing my levels on the machine yesterday and my butt and legs know all about it. I also kept my points to under 18 but I went awry with my alcohol points (20.5 total for last week).
I haven't gone to the gym tonight as work is a little mad but am planning to go tomorrow and thursday. Wednesday night I MAY be going out for a friend's birthday drinks but its G's friend and if he's working late then I won't go and will go to the gym instead. Friday night we're off to Edinburgh for the weekend and I will be VALIANTLY trying to keep it together for the last week. With so much socialising to come, its not going to be pretty.
I went to the gym twice this weekend, increasing my levels on the machine yesterday and my butt and legs know all about it. I also kept my points to under 18 but I went awry with my alcohol points (20.5 total for last week).
I haven't gone to the gym tonight as work is a little mad but am planning to go tomorrow and thursday. Wednesday night I MAY be going out for a friend's birthday drinks but its G's friend and if he's working late then I won't go and will go to the gym instead. Friday night we're off to Edinburgh for the weekend and I will be VALIANTLY trying to keep it together for the last week. With so much socialising to come, its not going to be pretty.
Sorry for the blah post. Am just not feeling enthusiastic about reaching my goal and I'm SO disappointed. Scale Gods, if you're listening, I would love you forever if you could just let me reach this goal. Sincerely, WideBride.
Friday 7 March 2008
Food porn...
Yesterday was a really great day.
I weighed in at a cool 67.0kg and wore my new size 14 Monsoon trousers to work. I just felt great, like I was finally on my way. Then G and I went to Gaucho Grill for our special 1-year-since-we-got-engaged anniversary dinner. If you have not eaten there, RUN don’t walk to your nearest branch. Oh. My. God. The food was so good. I tried to make diet friendly choices but it just wasn’t happening. As part of the bread basket (school-girl error I know) there were these cheese soufflé thingees. I can’t describe them but they were HEAVEN. I managed to stop at only three quarters of one but it was a close run thing. WOW. G and I shared 3 empiladas for starters (yes, pastry encased deep fried deliciousness) and then I had a 225g fillet steak for my mains. It was the smallest one on the menu and I didn’t quite manage to finish it (that would be all the chunky cut chips filling me up). To wash it all down, I’m ashamed to say we went on something of a bender. I had a glass of sparkling wine to start, shared a bottle of 14% malbec, then had a port and another glass of red wine.
So today was NOT a great day.
I weighed in at 67.6kg but am not panicking about it because I had a huge dinner and we ate late. Although today is my official weigh in day, I am going to see what the scale says tomorrow before I post on the online WW site. I don’t want to screw up my pretty little graph especially with a false gain. I know some might count this as ‘cheating’ but its my weight loss and I’m rolling with it.
I have eaten well today but have been pretty hungry all day. I realised last night that I couldn’t remember the last time I actually felt so stuffed full. It was not pleasant but clearly it has stretched my stomach and now it wants MORE MORE MORE. I am sitting at 10 points today with 4 to go (I have no idea how many points I consumed yesterday so am putting all my previously saved points of which there were 12 towards last night’s dinner, meaning I had 22.5 to spend on dinner – there is no way that meal was only 22.5 but I’m hoping to save as many points as possible this weekend which I won’t eat) and dinner is quorn sausages and baby potatoes.
So today is ONE YEAR EXACTLY to go!!! YAY! I am so excited. And I think I found my dress today. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all day. It’s a Stephanie Allin design called ‘Ellie’. It’s just beautiful – I’ll try and post a picture. Can’t wait to try it on!
I weighed in at a cool 67.0kg and wore my new size 14 Monsoon trousers to work. I just felt great, like I was finally on my way. Then G and I went to Gaucho Grill for our special 1-year-since-we-got-engaged anniversary dinner. If you have not eaten there, RUN don’t walk to your nearest branch. Oh. My. God. The food was so good. I tried to make diet friendly choices but it just wasn’t happening. As part of the bread basket (school-girl error I know) there were these cheese soufflé thingees. I can’t describe them but they were HEAVEN. I managed to stop at only three quarters of one but it was a close run thing. WOW. G and I shared 3 empiladas for starters (yes, pastry encased deep fried deliciousness) and then I had a 225g fillet steak for my mains. It was the smallest one on the menu and I didn’t quite manage to finish it (that would be all the chunky cut chips filling me up). To wash it all down, I’m ashamed to say we went on something of a bender. I had a glass of sparkling wine to start, shared a bottle of 14% malbec, then had a port and another glass of red wine.
So today was NOT a great day.
I weighed in at 67.6kg but am not panicking about it because I had a huge dinner and we ate late. Although today is my official weigh in day, I am going to see what the scale says tomorrow before I post on the online WW site. I don’t want to screw up my pretty little graph especially with a false gain. I know some might count this as ‘cheating’ but its my weight loss and I’m rolling with it.
I have eaten well today but have been pretty hungry all day. I realised last night that I couldn’t remember the last time I actually felt so stuffed full. It was not pleasant but clearly it has stretched my stomach and now it wants MORE MORE MORE. I am sitting at 10 points today with 4 to go (I have no idea how many points I consumed yesterday so am putting all my previously saved points of which there were 12 towards last night’s dinner, meaning I had 22.5 to spend on dinner – there is no way that meal was only 22.5 but I’m hoping to save as many points as possible this weekend which I won’t eat) and dinner is quorn sausages and baby potatoes.
So today is ONE YEAR EXACTLY to go!!! YAY! I am so excited. And I think I found my dress today. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all day. It’s a Stephanie Allin design called ‘Ellie’. It’s just beautiful – I’ll try and post a picture. Can’t wait to try it on!
Wednesday 5 March 2008
You're gonna need to refill your coffee mug before you start on this one...
A few surprises this morning – on the scale I was down to 67.3 (down from 67.9 earlier in the week) and then when I went to put my ZW suit trousers on THAT I WAS WEARING YESTERDAY they felt quite loose and baggy. I have put it down to the fact that I didn’t have a proper dinner last night as I had a work event to go to so I only had 2 large glasses of champagne (am calling it 3 points and you can’t stop me) and 3 canapés (2 points – they weren’t the really nice fried-looking ones) so when I got home at 11pm it was all I could do to open a tin of pears and spoon some yoghurt on the top and eat it while half asleep on the sofa. I had 13.5pts for the whole day yesterday so its no wonder I’m feeling a bit lighter today. Weirdly though I was still puffy when I woke up so I was retaining water somehow.
Anyway, I’ll take it. Only 1.3kg to go in 2 weeks 1 day to make my target – oh PLEASE let me get there.
I felt pretty good yesterday wearing my ZW suit and a size 12 Pink (brand not colour. Well, actually colour as well) business shirt which I hadn’t worn in ages because it was too tight. It was a little snug and gaped a little bit (especially by the afternoon after I had had lunch and 2 litres of water) but I was very pleased to be in it.
So I thought I might recount the tale of my first WW attempt, back in 2000 – and more importantly the mother of all binges that followed. By the time I joined WW I weighed 72.1kg (I think – all my old WW stuff is back in NZ) and I had already lost quite a bit of weight before then and was wearing size 14 trousers for the first time in my adult life. I remember feeling a little put out when I went along to join that people weren’t looking at me and going ‘what are YOU doing here, you don’t need to lose weight’. In my head I knew I needed to lose weight but because I was lighter than I had been in ages I kind of wanted recognition for the fact that I wasn’t as big as some of the other members.
Actually I probably need to go back a bit and explain what was going on with me at the time. In 1999 I was 23, I had just started my first real job after university. I was working hard and it was really quite stressful. I was a NZ size 16 which is a fairly generous size so more like a UK size 18 I guess. I had been watching what I ate and started running but an Achilles tendon strain put paid to that pretty shortly after. After my first real big important project, I got sick – some sort of gastro bug type thing in November of that year. I had also just split up with my boyfriend of 2 years who I was living with and had moved in to a flat share with people I hadn’t previously known. I spent a week in bed feeling very fragile and sorry for myself and when I finally resurfaced, I had lost an entire dress size! It was great! I was down to a size 14 which was the smallest I had been since I was about 13 or 14 years old.
I decided to capitalise on my weight loss and continued to watch what I ate. Then I had a brief summer romance with a guy who lived in another city who I had met at university. It soon fizzled but I was GUTTED when he split up with me in February of 2000. I really was heartbroken and cried and cried and cried. God only knows why, looking back, because he was a complete dick and he bored the hell out of me. I guess it was because he was a little older than me, educated (the ex I had broken up with was not smart, not funny, smoked dope which I hated and was not physically attractive to me. Begs the question why I was with him but he really loved me and treated me well. I grew out of him really, as my confidence grew after finishing university and starting a great job he just wasn’t fitting in with where I wanted my life to go), ambitious and we had a lot in common as we both did the same job and were both at the same stage of life.
Anyway, we broke up and I took it hard. I lost a bit of weight without even trying because I was so upset (this later proved to be not a good thing as I copped on to the fact that breaking up with someone obviously made me lose my appetite and therefore lose weight, so I became conscious of it in the future and once I was waiting to feel ‘not hungry’ I never felt ‘not hungry’ and ate, thus putting on weight. Stupid awareness).
About a month after that, I met another guy at a party and quickly forgot about summer romance guy. This guy, lets call him Poisonous Dwarf or PD for short, was EVERYTHING I wanted in a guy. He was cute (kind of looked like Kevin Spacey who I have always fancied), very witty and funny, mean and sarcastic humour, a real ‘guy’s guy’. He was short though, barely taller than me and I’m only 156cm or 5’2, hence the name ‘PD’. And he WAS poisonous. A lot of my friends hated him and thought he was a complete jerk because he was so mean, so cutting. But I thought he was hilarious and used to love being as equally mean and cutting (this was to prove my undoing).
We ‘saw each other’ for maybe a few months but it was never a real relationship as much as I wanted it to be. And the more I wanted it to be, the more he pulled away and I acted like a complete psycho. I mean if there was ONE time in my life that I could go back and change and do over, it would be how I acted with PD. Awful.
Anyway, he didn’t even need to tell me it was over, it was so completely obvious after a miserable weekend away with a group of friends. I had started to gain a bit of weight back at that stage as well thanks to all the alcohol I was consuming, and hangovers that needed to be fed burgers the next day.
I was so ANGRY after that ‘break up’, probably more angry than I was sad. I was mainly angry at myself for acting like a complete freak but I was angry at him too, for not wanting to be with me. I was COOL dammit! But clearly I was not.
So I decided I was going to get even. I was going to diet and get thin and THEN he would be sorry. And so I joined WW. This would have been maybe in June or so of 2000. I had joined a gym as well and was going 5 times a week in the morning before work. I started off doing 3 1 hour sessions of cardio and 2 sessions of weights per week and then went hell for leather doing an hour and a half at the gym a day, combining about 50 minutes of cardio (different machines for 10 mins each) and a weights programme. I did fairly well at WW, my first week I lost 1.3kg (sound familiar?) and thereafter I lost a lot slower. I can’t now remember how long I attended meetings for but it was for the rest of that year and probably until the March or so of 2001.
I got down to 58kg and I was looking GOOD. I was wearing size 10 trousers and sometimes a size 8 top. People were commenting all the time about how fabulous I looked. I felt like I had made it. I remember I took a month off over Christmas of that year as it just got too hard with all the socialising and I only gained 1kg over that period. Gotta love that youthful metabolism.
Looking back, god knows how I managed to lose so much weight as I must have been grossly underestimating my points. I remember scones on WW were 2 points each – of course they meant tiny little drop-scones that you would have with tea and jam but the supermarket near where I worked sold these GORGEOUS cheese scones about the size of a coffee mug which I would count as 3 (making the grand concession of adding an extra point for the cheese!). Every morning I had a starbucks non fat latte which I counted as 1.5pts when they are in fact 2.5. Every week I would go out and end up drinking way too much at least one night and then just kind of not count those points (but I would save lots of points from the rest of the week). So it really was a miracle that I lose weight (the 6-7.5 hours at the gym each week probably also helped).
My willpower was fuelled by daydreams of seeing PD at a party somewhere when I had got down to my goal weight (that elusive 55kg) where he would realise what a fool he had been and want to get back together again. I had an outfit in my mind that I would be wearing – dark jeans and a black v-neck knit sleeveless top and he would regret that he had ditched me. I hadn’t decided whether I would take him back or not but either way he was going to suffer (it was all very melodramatic in my mind – clearly I was channelling Days of our Lives or similar).
But by about March of 2001, my anger had died down. I no longer really cared about PD. I was surprised I hadn’t seen him out as we ran in the sort of same circle of friends and I still hoped I would bump in to him one day so he could see what he was missing. But I just got so fricking sick of dieting. I was so so so tired of it. I started kind of giving myself a week off here and there and just having a break, filled with resolve to get back on it later. My WW goal weight had been purposely set high so I could stop paying sooner so I hit that (I think it was around 60kg) and even though I had another 5kg I wanted to lose, mentally I kind of gave up as well.
I remember the last time I went to a meeting (I didn’t know it was the last time at that stage). I weighed in on a Monday night and that night I had worn a light cotton shift dress (I knew it would weigh next to nothing and so I’d have a happy result on the scales). I weighed in at 58kg (might have been 58.something but I can’t recall) and was feeling pleased. Relieved. And tired. Afterwards, I went off to the video rental place (god, videos!!) to drop off some videos and pick up some more and go to the supermarket etc. While I was in the video store I walked past a freezer that had icecreams in it – you know, popsicles, cornettos etc and I just remember thinking ‘That’s it, I’m done’.
I walked out of the shop, in to the supermarket and filled up my basket with non-diet foods. No idea what but it wouldn’t have been good – biscuits, bread and butter and crap probably. And with that, I finished WW for the first time.
I don’t know what it was that made me so firmly stop dieting. There really was no question of me going back. I thought I could handle it. I thought I’m thin now, I struggled really hard to get here and while I didn’t make it to 55kg it was only a few kilos off. I worked hard and I don’t need to do this anymore. I gave the WW maintenance guidelines a quick lookover but I didn’t think I needed it. I was done.
I remember feeling a niggling irritation that I might gain back some weight before my older sister who lives in Melbourne next saw me. She is 10 years older than me and moved to Australia when I was 9 years old. As a chubby child and a fat teenager, she only ever saw me overweight although she had managed to slay her fat dragon (all the girls in my family have weight issues). I really wanted her to see me slim. We talked on the phone a bit and she nearly fell over when I told her I had reached 50-something kilos because although she is not tall either (5’4) she is of a much bigger build than me and 64kg for her is pretty trim. She was due to come over for a visit that Easter (April) and I remember trying to hold it together a bit before she saw me. I was really nervous about it actually – I really wanted her to see that I could do it. I had probably gone back to 59-60 when I did see her and it was still a massive shock (the last time she saw me would have been when I was 75kg+) as I probably didn’t look any different with that tiny gain. But I was disappointed in myself that I hadn’t quite made it.
Well it was a slippery slope from there on in. I have thought about this a lot since and wonder just what it was that made me really binge that year. Because binge I did. By the time I met my then boyfriend in December 2001, I was back up to a size 16. Not that he minded. And interestingly he was the first guy I had any attention from since PD, despite being way thinner (and therefore in my mind, and probably in reality for me, way hotter) for most of the year prior.
And why did I binge? At this stage of my life I had been out of university for a year. I had a pretty mental boss who was REALLY hard on me. She controlled me in any way she could – calling me up at 6am to tell me that the office had run out of pads of paper; she would give me the silent treatment if she felt I had not spoken to her enough at a work social event; she would fly in to absolute RAGES for no reason and scream and shout and slam things around. It really was pretty incredible. At that stage in my office there was me, a middle aged female receptionist who was lovely and a guy who was at my level work-wise but probably 5 or so years older. My boss would really take stuff out on me and the receptionist but she didn’t really do it to the same extent with my male colleague – although he saw her craziness daily.
The weirdest part about her though, was her capacity for kindness and generosity which always took you by surprise and made the craziness that much worse to bear. We used to say it was like being in a violent relationship – she would be fine, then the tension would build and you knew something was coming, you would walk around on eggshells hoping it wasn’t YOU that set her off, then she would go NUTS and you’d limp home at the end of the day, exhausted and feeling emotionally wrought. Then the next day you would creep in to work and she would come bounding out of her office saying ‘let’s all take the afternoon off and go out for lunch today, my treat’ or you would come in and there would be a gift from her of jewellery or makeup for no reason whatsoever. It was so exhausting and you just never knew where you stood.
Around April or so of the following year, 2002, me and my colleague were both asked to enter in to new contracts to stay where we were working. The terms were fairly onerous and didn’t really offer us any more security or perks. We had a month to decide what to do but my mind was made up pretty much immediately really – as was his. I decided not to renew but because of my relationship with my boss and my need to keep in good with her (I work in a pretty small industry where relationships are everything) I knew that I had to tell her face to face. I went to her home (she used to work from home a lot) and told her I wouldn’t be staying on. She got such a shock – it was quite gratifying although I HATE that kind of confrontation or feeling like I’m letting someone down). She immediately wanted to know what I was going to do and I just said in an as enigmatic way as possible that I was exploring a few possibilities. It didn’t go down well, but too late she realised that she may have thrown her crazy at us too many times and now that we were no longer working for her, she couldn’t control what we said and to WHOM (as I said, we were in a small industry) she then became as nice as pie to me and treated me like a respected colleague rather than her punching bag. The receptionist didn’t fare so well unfortunately and left a few months later.
So having removed myself from that poisonous situation, I was faced with the prospect of going it alone. Despite being only out of university for 2 years by that stage, I decided to go free-lance and build up a business based on my contacts and reputation (the woman was nuts but she knew EVERYONE and I will always be grateful for that). And this is where I wonder if the binging really kicked in. I was doing it before then for sure, but I really upped the scale and ferocity of my binges – and they WERE ferocious.
At this stage I had moved out of my flat share and was sharing a small flat with my cousin who was a few years younger. We didn’t cook or eat together because our schedules were quite different and that meant I was pretty much not bothering with any normal meals (except MAYBE breakfast) and just eating crap. I am not joking, I wouldn’t have dinner. Instead I would go to bed and read my book and eat an entire (or as close to as I could get) orange chocolate marble sponge cake. In bed. With a fork. I would then have a really uncomfortable night’s sleep, sweating and feeling desperately sick. On the weekends if my cousin was out, I would have fish and chips for dinner, usually with a few deep fried battered oysters. I went through a service station pie phase where I could easily have two for dinner with a cupcake chaser. I became addicted to baked goods – specifically caramel slice and chocolate mint slice. And a particular supermarket near where I lived sold divine little orange flavoured donuts. I really went to town.
Was I eating to cover my anxiety of going out on a limb with my job? Was I comfort eating through the stress of trying to make a living for myself? Was I eating with gay abandon to celebrate leaving a really difficult, toxic work environment? Was it that a diet where I had to control and restrict myself just did not fit in with my new found sense of freedom? Was it that I did not feel comfortable in my new-found ‘thin’ skin? Was it all of this?
I think there is definitely something in the feeling of liberation I felt not working for Beelzebub anymore and not wanting to hamper this feeling by restricting myself. It also felt a lot like moving out of home, away from strict parents and that inevitable going off the rails that seems to be a rite of passage. And it is also true that it was fricking stressful. I didn’t have a regular wage coming in. If I didn’t get the work, I didn’t get the money to pay the bills. At my fairly tender age, that was kind of scary. And food was comforting – I mean what could be better than knowing you could eat 6 rounds of toast with butter and honey IN BED any time you wanted? There was no ill THAT couldn’t cure.
But at the time, and I did try and analyse this at the time, I really didn’t think I was stress eating. I really didn’t think I was comfort eating. I knew in my heart of hearts that I wasn’t going to starve and I wasn’t going to fail. I had options. It was stressful and a little isolating at times, but I was enjoying it. So what was I eating for?
Well this has been the longest post ever so will stop navel-gazing now. I will reflect on this – this has been a really useful exercise actually and I know I will see patterns emerging when I write about my next 2 diet/binge episodes so this will hopefully arm me for the future. Because I really can’t go through all this again.
Anyway, I’ll take it. Only 1.3kg to go in 2 weeks 1 day to make my target – oh PLEASE let me get there.
I felt pretty good yesterday wearing my ZW suit and a size 12 Pink (brand not colour. Well, actually colour as well) business shirt which I hadn’t worn in ages because it was too tight. It was a little snug and gaped a little bit (especially by the afternoon after I had had lunch and 2 litres of water) but I was very pleased to be in it.
So I thought I might recount the tale of my first WW attempt, back in 2000 – and more importantly the mother of all binges that followed. By the time I joined WW I weighed 72.1kg (I think – all my old WW stuff is back in NZ) and I had already lost quite a bit of weight before then and was wearing size 14 trousers for the first time in my adult life. I remember feeling a little put out when I went along to join that people weren’t looking at me and going ‘what are YOU doing here, you don’t need to lose weight’. In my head I knew I needed to lose weight but because I was lighter than I had been in ages I kind of wanted recognition for the fact that I wasn’t as big as some of the other members.
Actually I probably need to go back a bit and explain what was going on with me at the time. In 1999 I was 23, I had just started my first real job after university. I was working hard and it was really quite stressful. I was a NZ size 16 which is a fairly generous size so more like a UK size 18 I guess. I had been watching what I ate and started running but an Achilles tendon strain put paid to that pretty shortly after. After my first real big important project, I got sick – some sort of gastro bug type thing in November of that year. I had also just split up with my boyfriend of 2 years who I was living with and had moved in to a flat share with people I hadn’t previously known. I spent a week in bed feeling very fragile and sorry for myself and when I finally resurfaced, I had lost an entire dress size! It was great! I was down to a size 14 which was the smallest I had been since I was about 13 or 14 years old.
I decided to capitalise on my weight loss and continued to watch what I ate. Then I had a brief summer romance with a guy who lived in another city who I had met at university. It soon fizzled but I was GUTTED when he split up with me in February of 2000. I really was heartbroken and cried and cried and cried. God only knows why, looking back, because he was a complete dick and he bored the hell out of me. I guess it was because he was a little older than me, educated (the ex I had broken up with was not smart, not funny, smoked dope which I hated and was not physically attractive to me. Begs the question why I was with him but he really loved me and treated me well. I grew out of him really, as my confidence grew after finishing university and starting a great job he just wasn’t fitting in with where I wanted my life to go), ambitious and we had a lot in common as we both did the same job and were both at the same stage of life.
Anyway, we broke up and I took it hard. I lost a bit of weight without even trying because I was so upset (this later proved to be not a good thing as I copped on to the fact that breaking up with someone obviously made me lose my appetite and therefore lose weight, so I became conscious of it in the future and once I was waiting to feel ‘not hungry’ I never felt ‘not hungry’ and ate, thus putting on weight. Stupid awareness).
About a month after that, I met another guy at a party and quickly forgot about summer romance guy. This guy, lets call him Poisonous Dwarf or PD for short, was EVERYTHING I wanted in a guy. He was cute (kind of looked like Kevin Spacey who I have always fancied), very witty and funny, mean and sarcastic humour, a real ‘guy’s guy’. He was short though, barely taller than me and I’m only 156cm or 5’2, hence the name ‘PD’. And he WAS poisonous. A lot of my friends hated him and thought he was a complete jerk because he was so mean, so cutting. But I thought he was hilarious and used to love being as equally mean and cutting (this was to prove my undoing).
We ‘saw each other’ for maybe a few months but it was never a real relationship as much as I wanted it to be. And the more I wanted it to be, the more he pulled away and I acted like a complete psycho. I mean if there was ONE time in my life that I could go back and change and do over, it would be how I acted with PD. Awful.
Anyway, he didn’t even need to tell me it was over, it was so completely obvious after a miserable weekend away with a group of friends. I had started to gain a bit of weight back at that stage as well thanks to all the alcohol I was consuming, and hangovers that needed to be fed burgers the next day.
I was so ANGRY after that ‘break up’, probably more angry than I was sad. I was mainly angry at myself for acting like a complete freak but I was angry at him too, for not wanting to be with me. I was COOL dammit! But clearly I was not.
So I decided I was going to get even. I was going to diet and get thin and THEN he would be sorry. And so I joined WW. This would have been maybe in June or so of 2000. I had joined a gym as well and was going 5 times a week in the morning before work. I started off doing 3 1 hour sessions of cardio and 2 sessions of weights per week and then went hell for leather doing an hour and a half at the gym a day, combining about 50 minutes of cardio (different machines for 10 mins each) and a weights programme. I did fairly well at WW, my first week I lost 1.3kg (sound familiar?) and thereafter I lost a lot slower. I can’t now remember how long I attended meetings for but it was for the rest of that year and probably until the March or so of 2001.
I got down to 58kg and I was looking GOOD. I was wearing size 10 trousers and sometimes a size 8 top. People were commenting all the time about how fabulous I looked. I felt like I had made it. I remember I took a month off over Christmas of that year as it just got too hard with all the socialising and I only gained 1kg over that period. Gotta love that youthful metabolism.
Looking back, god knows how I managed to lose so much weight as I must have been grossly underestimating my points. I remember scones on WW were 2 points each – of course they meant tiny little drop-scones that you would have with tea and jam but the supermarket near where I worked sold these GORGEOUS cheese scones about the size of a coffee mug which I would count as 3 (making the grand concession of adding an extra point for the cheese!). Every morning I had a starbucks non fat latte which I counted as 1.5pts when they are in fact 2.5. Every week I would go out and end up drinking way too much at least one night and then just kind of not count those points (but I would save lots of points from the rest of the week). So it really was a miracle that I lose weight (the 6-7.5 hours at the gym each week probably also helped).
My willpower was fuelled by daydreams of seeing PD at a party somewhere when I had got down to my goal weight (that elusive 55kg) where he would realise what a fool he had been and want to get back together again. I had an outfit in my mind that I would be wearing – dark jeans and a black v-neck knit sleeveless top and he would regret that he had ditched me. I hadn’t decided whether I would take him back or not but either way he was going to suffer (it was all very melodramatic in my mind – clearly I was channelling Days of our Lives or similar).
But by about March of 2001, my anger had died down. I no longer really cared about PD. I was surprised I hadn’t seen him out as we ran in the sort of same circle of friends and I still hoped I would bump in to him one day so he could see what he was missing. But I just got so fricking sick of dieting. I was so so so tired of it. I started kind of giving myself a week off here and there and just having a break, filled with resolve to get back on it later. My WW goal weight had been purposely set high so I could stop paying sooner so I hit that (I think it was around 60kg) and even though I had another 5kg I wanted to lose, mentally I kind of gave up as well.
I remember the last time I went to a meeting (I didn’t know it was the last time at that stage). I weighed in on a Monday night and that night I had worn a light cotton shift dress (I knew it would weigh next to nothing and so I’d have a happy result on the scales). I weighed in at 58kg (might have been 58.something but I can’t recall) and was feeling pleased. Relieved. And tired. Afterwards, I went off to the video rental place (god, videos!!) to drop off some videos and pick up some more and go to the supermarket etc. While I was in the video store I walked past a freezer that had icecreams in it – you know, popsicles, cornettos etc and I just remember thinking ‘That’s it, I’m done’.
I walked out of the shop, in to the supermarket and filled up my basket with non-diet foods. No idea what but it wouldn’t have been good – biscuits, bread and butter and crap probably. And with that, I finished WW for the first time.
I don’t know what it was that made me so firmly stop dieting. There really was no question of me going back. I thought I could handle it. I thought I’m thin now, I struggled really hard to get here and while I didn’t make it to 55kg it was only a few kilos off. I worked hard and I don’t need to do this anymore. I gave the WW maintenance guidelines a quick lookover but I didn’t think I needed it. I was done.
I remember feeling a niggling irritation that I might gain back some weight before my older sister who lives in Melbourne next saw me. She is 10 years older than me and moved to Australia when I was 9 years old. As a chubby child and a fat teenager, she only ever saw me overweight although she had managed to slay her fat dragon (all the girls in my family have weight issues). I really wanted her to see me slim. We talked on the phone a bit and she nearly fell over when I told her I had reached 50-something kilos because although she is not tall either (5’4) she is of a much bigger build than me and 64kg for her is pretty trim. She was due to come over for a visit that Easter (April) and I remember trying to hold it together a bit before she saw me. I was really nervous about it actually – I really wanted her to see that I could do it. I had probably gone back to 59-60 when I did see her and it was still a massive shock (the last time she saw me would have been when I was 75kg+) as I probably didn’t look any different with that tiny gain. But I was disappointed in myself that I hadn’t quite made it.
Well it was a slippery slope from there on in. I have thought about this a lot since and wonder just what it was that made me really binge that year. Because binge I did. By the time I met my then boyfriend in December 2001, I was back up to a size 16. Not that he minded. And interestingly he was the first guy I had any attention from since PD, despite being way thinner (and therefore in my mind, and probably in reality for me, way hotter) for most of the year prior.
And why did I binge? At this stage of my life I had been out of university for a year. I had a pretty mental boss who was REALLY hard on me. She controlled me in any way she could – calling me up at 6am to tell me that the office had run out of pads of paper; she would give me the silent treatment if she felt I had not spoken to her enough at a work social event; she would fly in to absolute RAGES for no reason and scream and shout and slam things around. It really was pretty incredible. At that stage in my office there was me, a middle aged female receptionist who was lovely and a guy who was at my level work-wise but probably 5 or so years older. My boss would really take stuff out on me and the receptionist but she didn’t really do it to the same extent with my male colleague – although he saw her craziness daily.
The weirdest part about her though, was her capacity for kindness and generosity which always took you by surprise and made the craziness that much worse to bear. We used to say it was like being in a violent relationship – she would be fine, then the tension would build and you knew something was coming, you would walk around on eggshells hoping it wasn’t YOU that set her off, then she would go NUTS and you’d limp home at the end of the day, exhausted and feeling emotionally wrought. Then the next day you would creep in to work and she would come bounding out of her office saying ‘let’s all take the afternoon off and go out for lunch today, my treat’ or you would come in and there would be a gift from her of jewellery or makeup for no reason whatsoever. It was so exhausting and you just never knew where you stood.
Around April or so of the following year, 2002, me and my colleague were both asked to enter in to new contracts to stay where we were working. The terms were fairly onerous and didn’t really offer us any more security or perks. We had a month to decide what to do but my mind was made up pretty much immediately really – as was his. I decided not to renew but because of my relationship with my boss and my need to keep in good with her (I work in a pretty small industry where relationships are everything) I knew that I had to tell her face to face. I went to her home (she used to work from home a lot) and told her I wouldn’t be staying on. She got such a shock – it was quite gratifying although I HATE that kind of confrontation or feeling like I’m letting someone down). She immediately wanted to know what I was going to do and I just said in an as enigmatic way as possible that I was exploring a few possibilities. It didn’t go down well, but too late she realised that she may have thrown her crazy at us too many times and now that we were no longer working for her, she couldn’t control what we said and to WHOM (as I said, we were in a small industry) she then became as nice as pie to me and treated me like a respected colleague rather than her punching bag. The receptionist didn’t fare so well unfortunately and left a few months later.
So having removed myself from that poisonous situation, I was faced with the prospect of going it alone. Despite being only out of university for 2 years by that stage, I decided to go free-lance and build up a business based on my contacts and reputation (the woman was nuts but she knew EVERYONE and I will always be grateful for that). And this is where I wonder if the binging really kicked in. I was doing it before then for sure, but I really upped the scale and ferocity of my binges – and they WERE ferocious.
At this stage I had moved out of my flat share and was sharing a small flat with my cousin who was a few years younger. We didn’t cook or eat together because our schedules were quite different and that meant I was pretty much not bothering with any normal meals (except MAYBE breakfast) and just eating crap. I am not joking, I wouldn’t have dinner. Instead I would go to bed and read my book and eat an entire (or as close to as I could get) orange chocolate marble sponge cake. In bed. With a fork. I would then have a really uncomfortable night’s sleep, sweating and feeling desperately sick. On the weekends if my cousin was out, I would have fish and chips for dinner, usually with a few deep fried battered oysters. I went through a service station pie phase where I could easily have two for dinner with a cupcake chaser. I became addicted to baked goods – specifically caramel slice and chocolate mint slice. And a particular supermarket near where I lived sold divine little orange flavoured donuts. I really went to town.
Was I eating to cover my anxiety of going out on a limb with my job? Was I comfort eating through the stress of trying to make a living for myself? Was I eating with gay abandon to celebrate leaving a really difficult, toxic work environment? Was it that a diet where I had to control and restrict myself just did not fit in with my new found sense of freedom? Was it that I did not feel comfortable in my new-found ‘thin’ skin? Was it all of this?
I think there is definitely something in the feeling of liberation I felt not working for Beelzebub anymore and not wanting to hamper this feeling by restricting myself. It also felt a lot like moving out of home, away from strict parents and that inevitable going off the rails that seems to be a rite of passage. And it is also true that it was fricking stressful. I didn’t have a regular wage coming in. If I didn’t get the work, I didn’t get the money to pay the bills. At my fairly tender age, that was kind of scary. And food was comforting – I mean what could be better than knowing you could eat 6 rounds of toast with butter and honey IN BED any time you wanted? There was no ill THAT couldn’t cure.
But at the time, and I did try and analyse this at the time, I really didn’t think I was stress eating. I really didn’t think I was comfort eating. I knew in my heart of hearts that I wasn’t going to starve and I wasn’t going to fail. I had options. It was stressful and a little isolating at times, but I was enjoying it. So what was I eating for?
Well this has been the longest post ever so will stop navel-gazing now. I will reflect on this – this has been a really useful exercise actually and I know I will see patterns emerging when I write about my next 2 diet/binge episodes so this will hopefully arm me for the future. Because I really can’t go through all this again.
Monday 3 March 2008
Try-on March 2008: The Results
Right well I am VERY happy to report there is a new item of clothing in my wearable wardrobe as from yesterday. I actually managed to be able to fit in to both my Monsoon size 14 trousers without crying, and the heavier fabric pair are now wearable!! Yes, thank you thank you. I have taken them in to the local alteration place because they need taking up but I think I’ll wear them to work on Friday.
They have what I call a ‘starfish’ across the front where they are probably still a little tight and they pull causing wrinkles of fabric to radiate out from the crotch area (nice mental image, no?) but I think after one day’s wear they will be fine. The fabric is quite heavy and stiff, kind of like gabardine or drill cotton or something so they just need breaking in. But I am SO excited about them, SO excited. I’m not sure how well they really suit me is the only thing – because they are normal length (and I am short) any shaping detail on the legs get lost on me because they have to be hemmed. They are fairly straight-legged with side angle pockets on the hips which generally aren’t flattering to anyone with hips because they stick out and thus draw attention to the hip area. So I’m a little worried that they will just actually make me look short and wide. But I don’t care, they fit they fit they fit.
The lighter fabric ones are still not wearable and I can’t really tell any difference from last time I tried them on. There has to be a difference but in any event, they won’t be worn until well after we come back from Boston. My Zara cord skirt I couldn’t be bothered doing up (the zip is a little wonky) but I put it on without zipping it up and it still feels too tight across the hips. My ZB suit pants are almost wearable though which came as a real surprise. In my mind, they were a good size below the ZW pants that I am currently wearing (in how they fit that is as they are both 14s) but clearly there is not that much in it. I can’t wait to be in these trousers as they are much more flattering and better cut for me than the ZW ones. Not sure when that will be but we shall see. My black ZB suit skirt also now fits again (size 16 but it really is a small size 16) although it fits around the hips and thighs and is too big really around the waist. Wearable though.
I tried on other items as well which you will hear more about in the future. My size 12 James jeans are still not close to doing up (either side of the zip don’t even MEET let alone do up), my Glassons ‘city shorts’ size 12 go on and do up but not close to wearable (they’re supposed to be reasonably baggy and sit low on the hips). My two DvF wrap dresses (US size 8) don’t cover my chest when I put them on and they are very unflattering around the hips so I can’t even wear them with a tank top underneath. I hope to wear the long sleeved one of these dresses to the wedding I’m going to in July in NZ. I think a US size 8 is a UK size 12 but I’m not sure if the DvF sizes run smaller than normal or not, being designer and all. My size 12 Max white/pink/blue skirt goes on and does up but is not wearable. This is the skirt I was wearing when I got engaged and I would have been a good 5kg smaller then, so this is not surprising – well its surprising it goes on and does up I guess.
So those were the results of the March try-on. I may or may not have an April try on depending on how I’m feeling when we get back from the US. We’re back on April 1 but I will probably be feeling bloaty and disgusting so there may not be much point. Maybe I will try on a few things that weekend, giving me a few days to de-bloat. We’ll see.
I actually went to Next at lunch time to see if I could find some plain black work type trousers. I thought if I fit the 14s I would get them (petite size, not normal size as can’t be bothered getting them hemmed). I tried on 2 size 14s and they were just a tiny bit too snug – both gave me a starfish and because they were snug they sat quite high on my hips rather than lower down where they should be so they were shorter than they should be and just a little bit too short. So I decided not to get either pair I tried on. I didn’t bother trying on the 16 as I think they would be too big and I was only going to get them if the 14s fit. But I am in serious need of work trousers as I only have my ZW suit pants (and now my size 14 monsoons). Today I am wearing my size 16 Wallis grey stripe pants that are baggy in the gunt area. They aren’t fitting too badly but they are too baggy and they’re fresh out of the wash so they’re not going to get any better.
I need to get on and start thinking about a personal trainer too. I had a look at a few advertised at my gym when I was there on Sunday (oh yes, briefly my weekend went fairly well, I was under 1.5points for the whole weekend, I had 13.5points in alcohol for the whole week and managed 3 gym sessions for the whole week. Sadly I weighed in at 67.9kg on Sunday morning and this morning so that’s a bit of a worry) Anyway, personal trainers, I had a look at a few advertised and some refer to weight loss and toning as one of their specialties so I guess I’ll go with one of them. They are both guys and weirdly I am feeling a little squeamish about that – I think I would prefer a woman and that is weird because normally I don’t care about stuff like that. But anyway. There seems to be some sort of ‘tier’ system with personal training and one on one sessions start at £25 and go up to £45. Not sure what the difference is so will need to enquire. I probably should do that and make an appointment before I go away to Boston just in case there is a waiting list or something when I get back.
Wedding-wise, after all the excitement of getting my save the date cards back from the printer I haven’t bothered doing anything with them! We gave out 3 to the people we saw in Brighton on Saturday and I just wrote their names on the envelopes and they were well received (cue more ‘oh I’m not sure if we can make it’ crap from one of G’s good friends – will go in to that later). They thought they were really lovely and well done so I’m pleased with them. The main concerns I have with them is how to address the cards. We won’t be putting guests’ names on the card themselves, only the envelope, but it’s the style of writing I’m concerned about. I have a calligraphy pen and originally thought I would do fancy sort of calligraphy writing but I’m just not that good at it. And I’m worried the ink will all smudge and I’ll make mistakes etc etc etc so I’m putting off doing them. I then thought well maybe I should just address them in normal neat handwriting with a black ink pen but that doesn’t look very good either. So its all very confusing.
And the other thing I’m wondering about is whether we put our return addresses on the envelope. The cards say:
Please save the date
For the wedding of
WideBride and G
On [date]
At [venue, New Zealand]
Invitation to follow
They use only our first names and are going out to everyone, including far-flung relations we haven’t seen for years and years – some of whom wouldn’t even know who G was (or who I was, in the case of G’s relatives). My problem is I can just imagine some of the recipients receiving the cards and going ‘hey Ethel, we’ve got this here ‘save the date’ card from WideBride and G’ – just who in the heck are these people?’ (I don’t know why in my mind my relatives have American hick accents when they will all have eye wateringly strong Kiwi accents, but hey its MY imagination). So in order to save confusion, I’m wondering if we ought to put our full names and addresses on the backs of the envelopes so the relatives can easily figure out who we are. That means a LOT of writing though. Sigh. It’s a pickle.
So I’m quite nervous about getting started and I’m REALLY nervous about making mistakes on the envelopes and stuff and then trying to find some way to cover up the mistake, thus making it worse etc etc. We ordered 100 cards and envelopes for what we think were about 86 recipients (some being couples, families etc so they will get one card between them) so there are a few spares but its not doing a lot to ease my nerves. But it will be great to get them away anyway.
In other news, have had to put a deposit down for the videographer - $NZ900.00. But because he doesn’t have credit card facilities, I had to do an international bank transfer. Sweet lord how expensive does THAT get? You can actually do it online via personal banking but it costs like an extra £30 in charges which is the equivalent of about $NZ60. Highway fricking robbery. But no other way to do it other than asking my retired parents to pay the deposit and I’ll pay them back in cash when I see them next in June – and I just couldn’t handle the thought of the two of them going without food for months because it was their life savings (it wouldn’t really be the case but it’s a lot of money to ask people to stump up). So needs must.
So, so far I have booked the following – venue (which includes onsite catering and wine although paid for separately), photographer, videographer, first night accommodation, DJ, sting quartet, cars, flowers, hair and makeup. We have paid about £2000 in deposits (including also the save the date cards) but not all of those suppliers have required a deposit. Its an expensive business this wedding caper. But I think that is pretty much everything booked, except the cake maker who we will sort out when we are over in July and the celebrant (I think I mentioned that my Uncle is an Anglican Priest in Wellington, NZ and I hope he will marry us – we will ask him in July). So we are pretty far on track really.
While we were in Brighton we were catching up with two friends of ours, R and S who got married over here (they’re English) in September. When I told them that pretty much everything had been booked they were AMAZED and reinforced what I had already figured out really – its probably easier to organise a wedding from a different country because you don’t have as much choice as you would if you were there – you just have to book people on a leap of faith really, rather than ‘interview’ 15 florists or cakemakers or whatever. They were telling us what a shocker they had with their florist who basically ignored everything they wanted and then 2 weeks before the wedding announced that as they no longer had a business relationship with their venue they couldn’t do the wedding (they did in the end but it was a very stressful week while it was all getting sorted out). They ended up with lots of pink in the various bouquets which was the one thing the bride stressed she did NOT want so they weren’t very happy. From memory, the flowers were beautiful from my point of view but then I wasn’t paying for them. They also had an interesting experience with their DJ who interviewed THEM to see if he was interested in doing their wedding! The DJ said he would play the music they wanted ‘even if he thought it was rubbish’ but if a guest requested a track and he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t play it. Contrast this with DJ Chuck Woollery who seems will be falling over himself to make this ‘our special day’ (gag) and I think despite it all, we have the better deal.
To be honest, so far the wedding planning has been nothing but fun. I love researching all the different suppliers, and looking at different ideas and pulling it altogether. I’m sure this halcyon time won’t continue and the three weeks before the wedding are going to be hell on earth, but so far I just don’t really get what people complain about! (cut to fate really kicking me in the butt).
So this Thursday is the one year anniversary of our engagement and to celebrate we are going out for dinner (I’m getting a steak!!). I will also be presenting G with his engagement present (its been a long time coming!) which will be a rather substantial ‘blank cheque’ to spend at Berry Bros, a fine wine merchant in London. We have long lamented that we don’t have any decent French wine for cellaring so I think that’s what he is likely to choose. We’ll go along to the store on Saturday probably and G can pick out what he likes and we’ll either get them to store it for us or bring it home and cellar it there (God I hope they store it as we seriously don’t have a lot of room in the house). I think he’ll be really rather happy with that – and the best part is, I get to share it all, ahahahhaaa (evil villain laugh).
So this time next year we will be in NZ and no doubt feeling very very excited. As I said to a friend of mine, this time next year I will be about to get married and I will be THIN – and I think I’m more excited about being thin. Kidding! (Sort of…)
They have what I call a ‘starfish’ across the front where they are probably still a little tight and they pull causing wrinkles of fabric to radiate out from the crotch area (nice mental image, no?) but I think after one day’s wear they will be fine. The fabric is quite heavy and stiff, kind of like gabardine or drill cotton or something so they just need breaking in. But I am SO excited about them, SO excited. I’m not sure how well they really suit me is the only thing – because they are normal length (and I am short) any shaping detail on the legs get lost on me because they have to be hemmed. They are fairly straight-legged with side angle pockets on the hips which generally aren’t flattering to anyone with hips because they stick out and thus draw attention to the hip area. So I’m a little worried that they will just actually make me look short and wide. But I don’t care, they fit they fit they fit.
The lighter fabric ones are still not wearable and I can’t really tell any difference from last time I tried them on. There has to be a difference but in any event, they won’t be worn until well after we come back from Boston. My Zara cord skirt I couldn’t be bothered doing up (the zip is a little wonky) but I put it on without zipping it up and it still feels too tight across the hips. My ZB suit pants are almost wearable though which came as a real surprise. In my mind, they were a good size below the ZW pants that I am currently wearing (in how they fit that is as they are both 14s) but clearly there is not that much in it. I can’t wait to be in these trousers as they are much more flattering and better cut for me than the ZW ones. Not sure when that will be but we shall see. My black ZB suit skirt also now fits again (size 16 but it really is a small size 16) although it fits around the hips and thighs and is too big really around the waist. Wearable though.
I tried on other items as well which you will hear more about in the future. My size 12 James jeans are still not close to doing up (either side of the zip don’t even MEET let alone do up), my Glassons ‘city shorts’ size 12 go on and do up but not close to wearable (they’re supposed to be reasonably baggy and sit low on the hips). My two DvF wrap dresses (US size 8) don’t cover my chest when I put them on and they are very unflattering around the hips so I can’t even wear them with a tank top underneath. I hope to wear the long sleeved one of these dresses to the wedding I’m going to in July in NZ. I think a US size 8 is a UK size 12 but I’m not sure if the DvF sizes run smaller than normal or not, being designer and all. My size 12 Max white/pink/blue skirt goes on and does up but is not wearable. This is the skirt I was wearing when I got engaged and I would have been a good 5kg smaller then, so this is not surprising – well its surprising it goes on and does up I guess.
So those were the results of the March try-on. I may or may not have an April try on depending on how I’m feeling when we get back from the US. We’re back on April 1 but I will probably be feeling bloaty and disgusting so there may not be much point. Maybe I will try on a few things that weekend, giving me a few days to de-bloat. We’ll see.
I actually went to Next at lunch time to see if I could find some plain black work type trousers. I thought if I fit the 14s I would get them (petite size, not normal size as can’t be bothered getting them hemmed). I tried on 2 size 14s and they were just a tiny bit too snug – both gave me a starfish and because they were snug they sat quite high on my hips rather than lower down where they should be so they were shorter than they should be and just a little bit too short. So I decided not to get either pair I tried on. I didn’t bother trying on the 16 as I think they would be too big and I was only going to get them if the 14s fit. But I am in serious need of work trousers as I only have my ZW suit pants (and now my size 14 monsoons). Today I am wearing my size 16 Wallis grey stripe pants that are baggy in the gunt area. They aren’t fitting too badly but they are too baggy and they’re fresh out of the wash so they’re not going to get any better.
I need to get on and start thinking about a personal trainer too. I had a look at a few advertised at my gym when I was there on Sunday (oh yes, briefly my weekend went fairly well, I was under 1.5points for the whole weekend, I had 13.5points in alcohol for the whole week and managed 3 gym sessions for the whole week. Sadly I weighed in at 67.9kg on Sunday morning and this morning so that’s a bit of a worry) Anyway, personal trainers, I had a look at a few advertised and some refer to weight loss and toning as one of their specialties so I guess I’ll go with one of them. They are both guys and weirdly I am feeling a little squeamish about that – I think I would prefer a woman and that is weird because normally I don’t care about stuff like that. But anyway. There seems to be some sort of ‘tier’ system with personal training and one on one sessions start at £25 and go up to £45. Not sure what the difference is so will need to enquire. I probably should do that and make an appointment before I go away to Boston just in case there is a waiting list or something when I get back.
Wedding-wise, after all the excitement of getting my save the date cards back from the printer I haven’t bothered doing anything with them! We gave out 3 to the people we saw in Brighton on Saturday and I just wrote their names on the envelopes and they were well received (cue more ‘oh I’m not sure if we can make it’ crap from one of G’s good friends – will go in to that later). They thought they were really lovely and well done so I’m pleased with them. The main concerns I have with them is how to address the cards. We won’t be putting guests’ names on the card themselves, only the envelope, but it’s the style of writing I’m concerned about. I have a calligraphy pen and originally thought I would do fancy sort of calligraphy writing but I’m just not that good at it. And I’m worried the ink will all smudge and I’ll make mistakes etc etc etc so I’m putting off doing them. I then thought well maybe I should just address them in normal neat handwriting with a black ink pen but that doesn’t look very good either. So its all very confusing.
And the other thing I’m wondering about is whether we put our return addresses on the envelope. The cards say:
Please save the date
For the wedding of
WideBride and G
On [date]
At [venue, New Zealand]
Invitation to follow
They use only our first names and are going out to everyone, including far-flung relations we haven’t seen for years and years – some of whom wouldn’t even know who G was (or who I was, in the case of G’s relatives). My problem is I can just imagine some of the recipients receiving the cards and going ‘hey Ethel, we’ve got this here ‘save the date’ card from WideBride and G’ – just who in the heck are these people?’ (I don’t know why in my mind my relatives have American hick accents when they will all have eye wateringly strong Kiwi accents, but hey its MY imagination). So in order to save confusion, I’m wondering if we ought to put our full names and addresses on the backs of the envelopes so the relatives can easily figure out who we are. That means a LOT of writing though. Sigh. It’s a pickle.
So I’m quite nervous about getting started and I’m REALLY nervous about making mistakes on the envelopes and stuff and then trying to find some way to cover up the mistake, thus making it worse etc etc. We ordered 100 cards and envelopes for what we think were about 86 recipients (some being couples, families etc so they will get one card between them) so there are a few spares but its not doing a lot to ease my nerves. But it will be great to get them away anyway.
In other news, have had to put a deposit down for the videographer - $NZ900.00. But because he doesn’t have credit card facilities, I had to do an international bank transfer. Sweet lord how expensive does THAT get? You can actually do it online via personal banking but it costs like an extra £30 in charges which is the equivalent of about $NZ60. Highway fricking robbery. But no other way to do it other than asking my retired parents to pay the deposit and I’ll pay them back in cash when I see them next in June – and I just couldn’t handle the thought of the two of them going without food for months because it was their life savings (it wouldn’t really be the case but it’s a lot of money to ask people to stump up). So needs must.
So, so far I have booked the following – venue (which includes onsite catering and wine although paid for separately), photographer, videographer, first night accommodation, DJ, sting quartet, cars, flowers, hair and makeup. We have paid about £2000 in deposits (including also the save the date cards) but not all of those suppliers have required a deposit. Its an expensive business this wedding caper. But I think that is pretty much everything booked, except the cake maker who we will sort out when we are over in July and the celebrant (I think I mentioned that my Uncle is an Anglican Priest in Wellington, NZ and I hope he will marry us – we will ask him in July). So we are pretty far on track really.
While we were in Brighton we were catching up with two friends of ours, R and S who got married over here (they’re English) in September. When I told them that pretty much everything had been booked they were AMAZED and reinforced what I had already figured out really – its probably easier to organise a wedding from a different country because you don’t have as much choice as you would if you were there – you just have to book people on a leap of faith really, rather than ‘interview’ 15 florists or cakemakers or whatever. They were telling us what a shocker they had with their florist who basically ignored everything they wanted and then 2 weeks before the wedding announced that as they no longer had a business relationship with their venue they couldn’t do the wedding (they did in the end but it was a very stressful week while it was all getting sorted out). They ended up with lots of pink in the various bouquets which was the one thing the bride stressed she did NOT want so they weren’t very happy. From memory, the flowers were beautiful from my point of view but then I wasn’t paying for them. They also had an interesting experience with their DJ who interviewed THEM to see if he was interested in doing their wedding! The DJ said he would play the music they wanted ‘even if he thought it was rubbish’ but if a guest requested a track and he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t play it. Contrast this with DJ Chuck Woollery who seems will be falling over himself to make this ‘our special day’ (gag) and I think despite it all, we have the better deal.
To be honest, so far the wedding planning has been nothing but fun. I love researching all the different suppliers, and looking at different ideas and pulling it altogether. I’m sure this halcyon time won’t continue and the three weeks before the wedding are going to be hell on earth, but so far I just don’t really get what people complain about! (cut to fate really kicking me in the butt).
So this Thursday is the one year anniversary of our engagement and to celebrate we are going out for dinner (I’m getting a steak!!). I will also be presenting G with his engagement present (its been a long time coming!) which will be a rather substantial ‘blank cheque’ to spend at Berry Bros, a fine wine merchant in London. We have long lamented that we don’t have any decent French wine for cellaring so I think that’s what he is likely to choose. We’ll go along to the store on Saturday probably and G can pick out what he likes and we’ll either get them to store it for us or bring it home and cellar it there (God I hope they store it as we seriously don’t have a lot of room in the house). I think he’ll be really rather happy with that – and the best part is, I get to share it all, ahahahhaaa (evil villain laugh).
So this time next year we will be in NZ and no doubt feeling very very excited. As I said to a friend of mine, this time next year I will be about to get married and I will be THIN – and I think I’m more excited about being thin. Kidding! (Sort of…)
Friday 29 February 2008
Official Weigh Day
So I saw a very welcome 67.4kg today on the scale, this being ‘Official Weigh Day’ (in my head there are trumpets sounding). I was VERY pleased with that because when I got up this morning my body felt so heavy and lumbering that I was convinced I was a good kilo heavier. (I don’t know what it is with me at the moment but I am SO tired all the time and sleeping like the dead) So I sort of limped/stumbled towards the bathroom this morning all ready to be thoroughly annoyed but it appears that I lost 200g since yesterday. I have now lost 5.4kg (11.9lb) in 8 weeks and feeling pretty fricking good about that. It means that I only have half a kilo to go to see 66 on the scale (it will be 66.9 but still). That means I will have nearly made it to my target!! I am so excited I could SPEW. Actually, that might help.
So I’m on track for a low point day again today. It seems I have left the horrors of the earlier part of the week (where I was hungry ALL THE TIME) up north, thank god. I have 11.5pts saved this week for my Brighton outing tomorrow. That should be fine as it will just be 1 pub lunch so not too disastrous – especially if I can order a baked potato. I have work drinks tonight but the wine is usually very average so will limit myself to one glass (2 at the very most) and not drink tonight when I get home.
I am wearing my hammer pants (ie my size 14 Black monsoon pants that are really more of a size 16) today and they are officially too baggy for future use. I wore them yesterday as well, freshly washed and they were loose but not desperately so. But today even G confirmed I was looking a little shabby. So unless my other Monsoon size 14s fit when I try them on on Sunday (oh dear GOD please let them fit), I have exactly one pair of pants that are wearable – my black Zara suit pants (I should add that I in fact have two black Zara suits, one ‘Zara Woman’ size 14 and the other ‘Zara Basic’ size 14. The Zara Woman is the suit that I can now get in to that I couldn’t get in to at the start of the year and the Zara Basic is more like a size 12 that is still not wearable but the style much more flattering when it does fit. I will call them ZW and ZB to differentiate as otherwise in description they are exactly the same).
Right, back to resumed programming, where was I? Oh yes, I only have my ZW suit pants that I can wear. Which begs the question, what the HELL was I wearing on the way up? Once I had grown out of my ZB pants (before which were my Zambesi pants – too much clothing starting with ‘Z’ I know) I must have only had my ZW pants to wear. Did I have another pair of trousers that I have forgotten about?? I definitely threw out my two pairs of Gap long and lean size 10 (ie UK size 14) jeans because I had worn them out in the inner thigh area but I can’t remember throwing out any work style trousers that I would have been wearing. God, I know I don’t really care about my appearance when I’m bigger and just wear whatever fits me, but was I really wearing the same pair of trousers every day, week in week out? If so, I can’t have been at this size very long because I’m sure I would have noticed. How very disturbing.
Right, so long story short, I have exactly one pair of trousers that will fit me. I think the Wallis size 16 petite stripey trousers (the gunt pants) will be going the way of these monsoon trousers as they really are quite baggy too. And very unflattering as they balloon out in weird places. So I guess I’m going to need to go shopping and get another couple of pairs of trousers to see me through the next 5kg. This makes me anxious actually as more than once I have realised I have gotten too skinny for a pair of, say, size 16 trousers so off I go, congratulating myself all the way to the clothes shop, merrily pick out a selection of size 14 trousers to go try on, only to discover that none of the buggers fit. More than once that has happened to me. Leaving me with the inescapable conclusion that I am STILL, despite often months of dieting, a size fricking 16. Soul destroying is what it is. So I am loathe to put myself through it, but I can’t keep looking like a tramp with an eating disorder at the office.
So for yet another reason, I desperately hope that those monsoon trousers fit. Because in the back of my mind, as much as I am congratulating myself for getting close to wearing them, I am still hating myself knowing that they are a SIZE FRICKING 14. I shouldn’t have to be so desperate for them to fit – they should be falling off me. I should be wearing a size 10, not a size 14. I still have SO far to go. The same fricking road to travel as I’ve travelled three times before. WTF? I’m still working my way through my disastrous diet past but will analyse that in the future. I am finding that just writing stuff down helps me see things way more clearly than letting thoughts all whirl about in my head.
Right, before the idea that I might still in fact be a size 16 overwhelms the hell out of me and sends me careening towards the kitchen cupboard packed full of crisps (relax, I’m at work – do you think I’m stupid enough to have crisps in my own kitchen cupboard?), I’m going to pause, take a deep breath and go fill up my water bottle.
LATER: The day in Brighton now looks to be in jeopardy thanks to G’s work. He may have to go in tomorrow and as the friends we are seeing in Brighton are G’s friends, I won’t be going by myself. On the one hand that disappoints me as I was quite looking forward to it and I have all those points saved up (which I REALLY could have used earlier in the week). But on the other hand, I am thinking ‘woohoo, I can go to the gym and have a healthy low point lunch and not have to expend any actual energy and just lie around on the sofa and watch Scrubs all day’. If we don’t end up going tomorrow, I will definitely be gymming it up both days this weekend which will make me feel way less anxious about the social activities in the week ahead. That would make me feel more relaxed generally and the ‘oh what’s the point if I’m eating out twice this week then all is lost, where are the chocolate digestives’ thoughts won’t be bouncing around in my skull all week.
I actually hate that teetering feeling more than I hate being hungry or feeling deprived. I use so much energy constantly fighting with myself about whether or not just to eat a bag of crisps or go hell for leather on a box of celebrations. I’m not happy either way – if I succumb then I HATE myself and am filled with regret and disappointment that I caved and of course in my mind if I only hadn’t eaten the loaf of bread and butter I would totally be 55kg at the next weigh in, and so on and so on. If I DON’T succumb then I feel deprived, angry, frustrated, annoyed, antsy, whiny and just generally out of sorts until G will shout at me ‘just eat the damn [insert whatever food I’m obsessing over here].
Its just so exhausting dancing this dance time and time again. This is the first time (well earlier in the week, I’m kind of over it now) since I started this year that I’ve really really struggled. Motivation wise, I’ve been great all along until I got sick last week when I just wanted comfort food dammit but couldn’t QUITE bring myself to go the whole hog and have pie and mash. I’m kind of ok again now that I’m back in London and back to my routine and slowly but surely feeling better. If I could just kick this lethargy though, things would be a lot better. And I have to keep those numbers in my head – only 1.4kg to go before my Boston goal. To put that in perspective, only a few weeks ago I lost 1.3kg in a single WEEK so surely, surely I can do this (not lose 1.4kg in a week, but lose it over the remaining 3 weeks). Dammit I’m doing this, I am not giving up.
The sad thing is in the back of my head I’m already thinking about how I’m going to return from the States 3kg heavier thanks to the gay abandon with which I’m going to treat menu choices over my holiday. I know I’m going to be here again in like 6 weeks, agonisingly losing last week’s weight AGAIN.
So you can’t win really.
So I’m on track for a low point day again today. It seems I have left the horrors of the earlier part of the week (where I was hungry ALL THE TIME) up north, thank god. I have 11.5pts saved this week for my Brighton outing tomorrow. That should be fine as it will just be 1 pub lunch so not too disastrous – especially if I can order a baked potato. I have work drinks tonight but the wine is usually very average so will limit myself to one glass (2 at the very most) and not drink tonight when I get home.
I am wearing my hammer pants (ie my size 14 Black monsoon pants that are really more of a size 16) today and they are officially too baggy for future use. I wore them yesterday as well, freshly washed and they were loose but not desperately so. But today even G confirmed I was looking a little shabby. So unless my other Monsoon size 14s fit when I try them on on Sunday (oh dear GOD please let them fit), I have exactly one pair of pants that are wearable – my black Zara suit pants (I should add that I in fact have two black Zara suits, one ‘Zara Woman’ size 14 and the other ‘Zara Basic’ size 14. The Zara Woman is the suit that I can now get in to that I couldn’t get in to at the start of the year and the Zara Basic is more like a size 12 that is still not wearable but the style much more flattering when it does fit. I will call them ZW and ZB to differentiate as otherwise in description they are exactly the same).
Right, back to resumed programming, where was I? Oh yes, I only have my ZW suit pants that I can wear. Which begs the question, what the HELL was I wearing on the way up? Once I had grown out of my ZB pants (before which were my Zambesi pants – too much clothing starting with ‘Z’ I know) I must have only had my ZW pants to wear. Did I have another pair of trousers that I have forgotten about?? I definitely threw out my two pairs of Gap long and lean size 10 (ie UK size 14) jeans because I had worn them out in the inner thigh area but I can’t remember throwing out any work style trousers that I would have been wearing. God, I know I don’t really care about my appearance when I’m bigger and just wear whatever fits me, but was I really wearing the same pair of trousers every day, week in week out? If so, I can’t have been at this size very long because I’m sure I would have noticed. How very disturbing.
Right, so long story short, I have exactly one pair of trousers that will fit me. I think the Wallis size 16 petite stripey trousers (the gunt pants) will be going the way of these monsoon trousers as they really are quite baggy too. And very unflattering as they balloon out in weird places. So I guess I’m going to need to go shopping and get another couple of pairs of trousers to see me through the next 5kg. This makes me anxious actually as more than once I have realised I have gotten too skinny for a pair of, say, size 16 trousers so off I go, congratulating myself all the way to the clothes shop, merrily pick out a selection of size 14 trousers to go try on, only to discover that none of the buggers fit. More than once that has happened to me. Leaving me with the inescapable conclusion that I am STILL, despite often months of dieting, a size fricking 16. Soul destroying is what it is. So I am loathe to put myself through it, but I can’t keep looking like a tramp with an eating disorder at the office.
So for yet another reason, I desperately hope that those monsoon trousers fit. Because in the back of my mind, as much as I am congratulating myself for getting close to wearing them, I am still hating myself knowing that they are a SIZE FRICKING 14. I shouldn’t have to be so desperate for them to fit – they should be falling off me. I should be wearing a size 10, not a size 14. I still have SO far to go. The same fricking road to travel as I’ve travelled three times before. WTF? I’m still working my way through my disastrous diet past but will analyse that in the future. I am finding that just writing stuff down helps me see things way more clearly than letting thoughts all whirl about in my head.
Right, before the idea that I might still in fact be a size 16 overwhelms the hell out of me and sends me careening towards the kitchen cupboard packed full of crisps (relax, I’m at work – do you think I’m stupid enough to have crisps in my own kitchen cupboard?), I’m going to pause, take a deep breath and go fill up my water bottle.
LATER: The day in Brighton now looks to be in jeopardy thanks to G’s work. He may have to go in tomorrow and as the friends we are seeing in Brighton are G’s friends, I won’t be going by myself. On the one hand that disappoints me as I was quite looking forward to it and I have all those points saved up (which I REALLY could have used earlier in the week). But on the other hand, I am thinking ‘woohoo, I can go to the gym and have a healthy low point lunch and not have to expend any actual energy and just lie around on the sofa and watch Scrubs all day’. If we don’t end up going tomorrow, I will definitely be gymming it up both days this weekend which will make me feel way less anxious about the social activities in the week ahead. That would make me feel more relaxed generally and the ‘oh what’s the point if I’m eating out twice this week then all is lost, where are the chocolate digestives’ thoughts won’t be bouncing around in my skull all week.
I actually hate that teetering feeling more than I hate being hungry or feeling deprived. I use so much energy constantly fighting with myself about whether or not just to eat a bag of crisps or go hell for leather on a box of celebrations. I’m not happy either way – if I succumb then I HATE myself and am filled with regret and disappointment that I caved and of course in my mind if I only hadn’t eaten the loaf of bread and butter I would totally be 55kg at the next weigh in, and so on and so on. If I DON’T succumb then I feel deprived, angry, frustrated, annoyed, antsy, whiny and just generally out of sorts until G will shout at me ‘just eat the damn [insert whatever food I’m obsessing over here].
Its just so exhausting dancing this dance time and time again. This is the first time (well earlier in the week, I’m kind of over it now) since I started this year that I’ve really really struggled. Motivation wise, I’ve been great all along until I got sick last week when I just wanted comfort food dammit but couldn’t QUITE bring myself to go the whole hog and have pie and mash. I’m kind of ok again now that I’m back in London and back to my routine and slowly but surely feeling better. If I could just kick this lethargy though, things would be a lot better. And I have to keep those numbers in my head – only 1.4kg to go before my Boston goal. To put that in perspective, only a few weeks ago I lost 1.3kg in a single WEEK so surely, surely I can do this (not lose 1.4kg in a week, but lose it over the remaining 3 weeks). Dammit I’m doing this, I am not giving up.
The sad thing is in the back of my head I’m already thinking about how I’m going to return from the States 3kg heavier thanks to the gay abandon with which I’m going to treat menu choices over my holiday. I know I’m going to be here again in like 6 weeks, agonisingly losing last week’s weight AGAIN.
So you can’t win really.
Thursday 28 February 2008
On the brink
Well I'm back in London after a few days up north for work. Its not been a great time for Widebride. Not a great time at ALL. I didn't seriously fall off the wagon or anything but it was HARD GOING and my motivation for some reason is at an all time low.
On Monday, the most stressful day, I did reasonably well even though I was feeling like shit all day. I woke up with slightly swollen glands, a tickly cough and a blocked nose. Brilliant start. I had cereal and yoghurt for breakfast, then carrot and coriander soup for lunch with most of a brown bread roll. After work, I took myself off to Marks and got some dinner for the night and the next night. I also managed to wander past Primark and drop a cool £40 in there... Ahem.
So I went back to the hotel and decided I would go do a workout to see if it would clear my foggy head and sinuses. I managed 50 minutes (no run) and called it a night. I went back to my room and had a hot bath which was nice but I wasn't feeling any better. I ate the butternut squash and chicken salad from Marks that I bought the day before, and had some fruit salad and yoghurt for pudding. I finished the day on 14.5 points, thus saving 3.5.
Tuesday I woke up feeling as equally rough - I mean its one thing if I'd downed an entire bottle of chardonnay but quite another when I was eating well and exercising. Curses. To make myself feel better, I decided to have a hot breakfast consisting of a big splodge of scrambled egg, a poached egg, a slice of bacon, some tomatoes and mushrooms. What can I say - clearly I was needing protein. Oh and I called it 5 points - sue me. At that point, I very nearly decided I had fucked up the whole day and might as well just eat pies for lunch. But I exercised some restraint and instead had a turkey salad sandwich (made to order so no butter or other hidden nasties) and a banana. Then in order to appease my guilt at my 5 point breakfast, I went to the gym for 60 minutes to really try and sweat my fricking cold out. Didn't work.
Dinner was potato and egg salad and prawns, then fruit salad and yoghurt for later. I came in at 18 points for the day and I was BARELY holding on my my fingernails. I just wanted to eat big warm comforting carbs and I couldn't. It was an all time low.
Yesterday I had a much healthier breakfast - cereal with yoghurt and a small glass of apple juice. Lunch was vegetarian sushi and mango so I was up to 9.5 pts by 1.30pm. I had to get the train back to London that day so I figured I would have some grapes or something on the train (prepurchased at WH Smith with a wedding mag) but I was foiled when I couldn't find any. And I was a bit concerned as G was was in charge of cooking dinner and i didn't know how many points I needed to reserve. I thought it would be something very carb-y so I just decided to go without.
I sat on the train, opened my mag and took a swig of diet coke feeling miserable and hungry. And THEN some FUCKER came in my carriage eating a pasty so the whole carriage was filled with the smell of hot meat and pastry. My GOD it was agony. I wanted to cry at that point. Or mug him. Either or.
But I held it together and made it to London just having diet coke as a snack. Distinctly unsatisfying. But G (bless him) had made baked turkey breast with honey glazed carrots. I had a really small piece of turkey so called it 3pts instead of 4, leaving me 1.5pts for fruit salad for pudding. So again, I held it together even though the smell of G's red wine kept wafting in my direction making me want to cry. Or mug him. Either or.
Today has been a bit easier even though I'm still feeling like arse. I had a weightwatchers cereal bar for breakfast, a banana for morning tea, a bread roll and chicken slices for lunch, then yoghurt and pineapple for afternoon tea to sustain me through a rigorous gym session. I was feeling good about my decision to go despite feeling exhausted, having a headache and a bunged up nose.
I got almost to the gym door when I realised I hadn't posted the card to my friend who has just had a baby. So I detoured a bit to go by the post box when it happened. A little voice popped in to my head - you're tired, you're sick, the supermarket is right there, why don't you just flag the gym until you're feeling better.
So just like that, I didn't go. I don't know why I'm now obsessing over that decision and feeling like I'm cheating. Maybe because I only went once last week and was really hoping for 4 full sessions this week. Maybe its because I really am teetering on the edge of holding this diet together and I feel like one chink in my armour will lead to another, leading to another, leading to me giving it up altogether.
Its 3 weeks today that we go off to Boston and after my weigh in this morning (67.6kg) I have just over 1 and a half kilos to lose to reach my goal. God I'd love to do it I really would. Its going to be hard though - I have work drinks tomorrow (but I'll go easy - the cheap wine we get there really isn't worth it), G and I are going to Brighton on Saturday. Next week I have a work networking schmoozing evening (oh GOD) which will feature wine (a necessary evil to survive what is going to be a shocker of an evening - honestly, I would rather be fat than have to go through THAT sober), Thursday G and I are going out for dinner to celebrate the one year anniversary of our engagement. Thank god the weekend is clear so I will aim for 5 gym sessions that week. Then the weekend after we go to Edinburgh for G's work (2 big work dinners - great), the next Monday is G's mother's birthday and we're going out for dinner (again, I will need alcohol for that) then on the Thursday we fly the friendly skies.
So long story short, I have a LOT of social things coming up where eating is not going to be in my control (well, the menu isnt' going to be in my control) so I'm a bit worried about that.
But its the February try on this weekend and I'm really looking forward to that. I am expecting big things so I just hope to god I'm not disappointed. I really really want to be in those damn monsoon pants for Boston so they need to be on the verge of fitting this weekend. G said this morning that he thought I was looking very trim so hopefully I will get there.
In wedding news, the save the date cards arrived today!!! They are SO beautiful I could just cry. Will address them all this weekend - or at least make a start.
On Monday, the most stressful day, I did reasonably well even though I was feeling like shit all day. I woke up with slightly swollen glands, a tickly cough and a blocked nose. Brilliant start. I had cereal and yoghurt for breakfast, then carrot and coriander soup for lunch with most of a brown bread roll. After work, I took myself off to Marks and got some dinner for the night and the next night. I also managed to wander past Primark and drop a cool £40 in there... Ahem.
So I went back to the hotel and decided I would go do a workout to see if it would clear my foggy head and sinuses. I managed 50 minutes (no run) and called it a night. I went back to my room and had a hot bath which was nice but I wasn't feeling any better. I ate the butternut squash and chicken salad from Marks that I bought the day before, and had some fruit salad and yoghurt for pudding. I finished the day on 14.5 points, thus saving 3.5.
Tuesday I woke up feeling as equally rough - I mean its one thing if I'd downed an entire bottle of chardonnay but quite another when I was eating well and exercising. Curses. To make myself feel better, I decided to have a hot breakfast consisting of a big splodge of scrambled egg, a poached egg, a slice of bacon, some tomatoes and mushrooms. What can I say - clearly I was needing protein. Oh and I called it 5 points - sue me. At that point, I very nearly decided I had fucked up the whole day and might as well just eat pies for lunch. But I exercised some restraint and instead had a turkey salad sandwich (made to order so no butter or other hidden nasties) and a banana. Then in order to appease my guilt at my 5 point breakfast, I went to the gym for 60 minutes to really try and sweat my fricking cold out. Didn't work.
Dinner was potato and egg salad and prawns, then fruit salad and yoghurt for later. I came in at 18 points for the day and I was BARELY holding on my my fingernails. I just wanted to eat big warm comforting carbs and I couldn't. It was an all time low.
Yesterday I had a much healthier breakfast - cereal with yoghurt and a small glass of apple juice. Lunch was vegetarian sushi and mango so I was up to 9.5 pts by 1.30pm. I had to get the train back to London that day so I figured I would have some grapes or something on the train (prepurchased at WH Smith with a wedding mag) but I was foiled when I couldn't find any. And I was a bit concerned as G was was in charge of cooking dinner and i didn't know how many points I needed to reserve. I thought it would be something very carb-y so I just decided to go without.
I sat on the train, opened my mag and took a swig of diet coke feeling miserable and hungry. And THEN some FUCKER came in my carriage eating a pasty so the whole carriage was filled with the smell of hot meat and pastry. My GOD it was agony. I wanted to cry at that point. Or mug him. Either or.
But I held it together and made it to London just having diet coke as a snack. Distinctly unsatisfying. But G (bless him) had made baked turkey breast with honey glazed carrots. I had a really small piece of turkey so called it 3pts instead of 4, leaving me 1.5pts for fruit salad for pudding. So again, I held it together even though the smell of G's red wine kept wafting in my direction making me want to cry. Or mug him. Either or.
Today has been a bit easier even though I'm still feeling like arse. I had a weightwatchers cereal bar for breakfast, a banana for morning tea, a bread roll and chicken slices for lunch, then yoghurt and pineapple for afternoon tea to sustain me through a rigorous gym session. I was feeling good about my decision to go despite feeling exhausted, having a headache and a bunged up nose.
I got almost to the gym door when I realised I hadn't posted the card to my friend who has just had a baby. So I detoured a bit to go by the post box when it happened. A little voice popped in to my head - you're tired, you're sick, the supermarket is right there, why don't you just flag the gym until you're feeling better.
So just like that, I didn't go. I don't know why I'm now obsessing over that decision and feeling like I'm cheating. Maybe because I only went once last week and was really hoping for 4 full sessions this week. Maybe its because I really am teetering on the edge of holding this diet together and I feel like one chink in my armour will lead to another, leading to another, leading to me giving it up altogether.
Its 3 weeks today that we go off to Boston and after my weigh in this morning (67.6kg) I have just over 1 and a half kilos to lose to reach my goal. God I'd love to do it I really would. Its going to be hard though - I have work drinks tomorrow (but I'll go easy - the cheap wine we get there really isn't worth it), G and I are going to Brighton on Saturday. Next week I have a work networking schmoozing evening (oh GOD) which will feature wine (a necessary evil to survive what is going to be a shocker of an evening - honestly, I would rather be fat than have to go through THAT sober), Thursday G and I are going out for dinner to celebrate the one year anniversary of our engagement. Thank god the weekend is clear so I will aim for 5 gym sessions that week. Then the weekend after we go to Edinburgh for G's work (2 big work dinners - great), the next Monday is G's mother's birthday and we're going out for dinner (again, I will need alcohol for that) then on the Thursday we fly the friendly skies.
So long story short, I have a LOT of social things coming up where eating is not going to be in my control (well, the menu isnt' going to be in my control) so I'm a bit worried about that.
But its the February try on this weekend and I'm really looking forward to that. I am expecting big things so I just hope to god I'm not disappointed. I really really want to be in those damn monsoon pants for Boston so they need to be on the verge of fitting this weekend. G said this morning that he thought I was looking very trim so hopefully I will get there.
In wedding news, the save the date cards arrived today!!! They are SO beautiful I could just cry. Will address them all this weekend - or at least make a start.
Sunday 24 February 2008
Putting the 'wide' back in to WideBride
Yeah, the eating hasn't been so great the last few days...
Yesterday G and I went to a full day wine tasting and that was never going to end well. I could not tell you how much wine I had but it ended with a shared bowl of cheese fries and almost an entire sausage pizza. I woke up about 3 times during last night in a furious sweat from having so much salt and I couldn't rehydrate myself no matter how much water i drank.
Then today, sporting a headache and now a sniffly nose and raised glands, I had toast with low fat spread and marmite, a packet of french fries crisps, a small tub of yoghurt, a ham and tomato omlette, a pint of lager and FIVE, yes FIVE Ben's chocolate chip cookies from Euston station (consumed on the train on the way up north where I am for work). I'm bloody disgusting. And of course because I don't feel well I'm thinking of eating more food to make mysef feel better. Dis-bloody-graceful. I have also bought a small packet of speckled chocolate eggs from marks which I can't quite bring myself to eat. I have a butternut squash salad as well which i may or may not have, just to round off the day. I am gross.
But its back to the regime tomorrow. Back to pointing and back to the gym (am staying at a hotel with a great gym so its a no-brainer). Back to feeling good about myself and feeling like my goal of a 2kg loss in the next 3 and a half weeks is achievable. I hope I haven't done too much damage over the last few days but I'll just have to wear the consequences if I do.
I mean things could have been a LOT worse. I am not lying on my hotel bed right now, feeling absolutely sick from eating cheesecake (usually a binge food of choice) and sweating with a huge distended belly. God have I been THERE before. This isn't even really a binge - if it was those speckled eggs would not be standing a chance. I looked over the room service menu and nothing really excites so that can't be a binge right??
Oh well, onwards and upwards. On the way up here on the train I read over Dietchick's archives from August - November 2002 and as usual I felt a real sense of comraderie with this girl I've never met who went through exactly I am going through (again) and as usual I was left feeling this real sense of resolve that I will get to target dammit. Even though Dietchick (somehow I feel weird using her actual name - like that's way too intimate and I'm not worthy) didn't quite make it to goal before she started on the way back up, her blog really does help me. She is so painfully honest, not sugar coating anything and telling the whole sordid diet business as it really is. And so fucking funny I was getting weird looks from the rest of the carriage as I was spluttering out cookie crumbs all down my front. If only they knew what I was reading at the time...
Right, well as usual Dietchick has inspired me to start really thinking about my yo-yo dieting over the years. I have lost and gained probably the same 20kg no less than 3 times and now I'm on my 4th attempt. I have never really thought too deeply about why I always regain the weight and I know that I need to really honestly think about that and deal with it if I'm to keep it off this time. So that's going to be my little project over the next few weeks. Really analyse each diet I went on, my motivations, my struggles, my feelings and see if i can't make sense of the whole damn mess.
Yesterday G and I went to a full day wine tasting and that was never going to end well. I could not tell you how much wine I had but it ended with a shared bowl of cheese fries and almost an entire sausage pizza. I woke up about 3 times during last night in a furious sweat from having so much salt and I couldn't rehydrate myself no matter how much water i drank.
Then today, sporting a headache and now a sniffly nose and raised glands, I had toast with low fat spread and marmite, a packet of french fries crisps, a small tub of yoghurt, a ham and tomato omlette, a pint of lager and FIVE, yes FIVE Ben's chocolate chip cookies from Euston station (consumed on the train on the way up north where I am for work). I'm bloody disgusting. And of course because I don't feel well I'm thinking of eating more food to make mysef feel better. Dis-bloody-graceful. I have also bought a small packet of speckled chocolate eggs from marks which I can't quite bring myself to eat. I have a butternut squash salad as well which i may or may not have, just to round off the day. I am gross.
But its back to the regime tomorrow. Back to pointing and back to the gym (am staying at a hotel with a great gym so its a no-brainer). Back to feeling good about myself and feeling like my goal of a 2kg loss in the next 3 and a half weeks is achievable. I hope I haven't done too much damage over the last few days but I'll just have to wear the consequences if I do.
I mean things could have been a LOT worse. I am not lying on my hotel bed right now, feeling absolutely sick from eating cheesecake (usually a binge food of choice) and sweating with a huge distended belly. God have I been THERE before. This isn't even really a binge - if it was those speckled eggs would not be standing a chance. I looked over the room service menu and nothing really excites so that can't be a binge right??
Oh well, onwards and upwards. On the way up here on the train I read over Dietchick's archives from August - November 2002 and as usual I felt a real sense of comraderie with this girl I've never met who went through exactly I am going through (again) and as usual I was left feeling this real sense of resolve that I will get to target dammit. Even though Dietchick (somehow I feel weird using her actual name - like that's way too intimate and I'm not worthy) didn't quite make it to goal before she started on the way back up, her blog really does help me. She is so painfully honest, not sugar coating anything and telling the whole sordid diet business as it really is. And so fucking funny I was getting weird looks from the rest of the carriage as I was spluttering out cookie crumbs all down my front. If only they knew what I was reading at the time...
Right, well as usual Dietchick has inspired me to start really thinking about my yo-yo dieting over the years. I have lost and gained probably the same 20kg no less than 3 times and now I'm on my 4th attempt. I have never really thought too deeply about why I always regain the weight and I know that I need to really honestly think about that and deal with it if I'm to keep it off this time. So that's going to be my little project over the next few weeks. Really analyse each diet I went on, my motivations, my struggles, my feelings and see if i can't make sense of the whole damn mess.
Friday 22 February 2008
It might be due to illness but it still counts, dammit
That was kind of funny. No sooner had I confessed to being a big giant lurker, but someone left a message for me! Wow, is that karma? Anyways Anonymous, nice to know you and yes, the wedding planning is going well, thanks.
Well after I posted last night I got a real hankering for beer. Something really cold and malty and carbonated so I had 3 glasses of leffe beer and let me tell you, I felt grrrreat! Clearly I was a little drunk but it took the edge right off and I was feeling really good. So I then had (in the interests of full disclosure) chorizo pasta with spicy tomato sauce, 2 small glasses of red wine and a weightwatchers chocolate mousse. So yesterday was not brilliant on the old diet but I figured one day wasn’t going to kill me and it made me feel better and if I have to wear the consequences on the scale next week then I can deal with that.
Cos I sure didn’t to deal with the consequences this morning, let me tell you. I weighed in at 67.9kg or 10 stone 9 and three quarters or 149.8 lb. Hell YEAH. So I’m putting that down to the 5 gym sessions I had last week and the fact that I didn’t really blow out yesterday so I wasn’t feeling super bloated (but that thing I have been waiting to arrive has arrived so I am feeling a little bit bloaty). Which means I’m feeling a little bit concerned about next week given that eating this week is not going to be brilliant what with my wine tasting and pizza eating tomorrow and my lack of gymming this week. Curses.
But I have to tell you, my clothes are feeling quite loose at the moment (note I did not say that I am feeling any thinner – it’s the clothes getting bigger not me getting smaller) and I had a mini wow moment in the bathroom at work today when I looked in the mirror and realised I kind of look like a tramp with really baggy pants (am wearing my petite size 16 Wallis pants that emphasise my gunt). So I’m feeling good about that because regardless of whether I lose another half a kg next week or not, I know those pants aren’t suddenly going to fit me again overnight. Then again I shouldn’t congratulate myself too much – they were a horrifying size 16 don’t forget -they fricking well SHOULD be way too big for me.
But I’m feeling like my 66kg mini goal is really within reach. And that STAGGERS me because I have NEVER EVER managed to make it to a scale goal within my goal time. For example, the last time I dieted was in 2006 and I had a goal to get to 65kg for a trip to Santorini at the end of August. I got to 67kg (and frankly I was lucky to get there). Then I had a goal to get to 60kg for Christmas. I changed that to 62kg then 63kg and rang in the new year at 65kg. I got to 64kg for my birthday last January and I felt so fantastic (in fact G thinks photos of me taken at my birthday are the best ones I have) and managed to get down to (I believe this to be true but I stopped weighing myself last February) 61kg or 62kg for my friend’s wedding where I was a bridesmaid which was in early March 2007. My goal had actually been to be 55kg (I wanted to finally reach THAT weight which I didn’t quite achieve in 2004 which was the diet before my last one where I ended up at 58.5kg) and I was 6 or 7kg over that.
So, I never quite make my goals and this time I am really psyched that I actually might achieve what I wanted to achieve. It would be a loss of nearly 7kg over 12 weeks which is not exactly unrealistic and somehow being 66kg just seems so LIGHT. My ultimate goal of 55kg seems so in REACH (God I must remember to read this when I hit 62kg and the scale won’t frigging BUDGE – I’ll be bewildered at my own naiveté). But its going to get harder to achieve scale goals after Boston because I will be doing more weight training so in my mind my goal is to be 60kg for NZ (a loss of 6kg (I hope) over 12 weeks) but what I really want is to be wearing my size 12 (or are they 11s?) James Jeans that I wore to NZ last February but felt a bit snug if I’m honest with myself, without the muffin top. And if I’m REALLY honest with myself, I’d like those jeans to be a little loose…
Well after I posted last night I got a real hankering for beer. Something really cold and malty and carbonated so I had 3 glasses of leffe beer and let me tell you, I felt grrrreat! Clearly I was a little drunk but it took the edge right off and I was feeling really good. So I then had (in the interests of full disclosure) chorizo pasta with spicy tomato sauce, 2 small glasses of red wine and a weightwatchers chocolate mousse. So yesterday was not brilliant on the old diet but I figured one day wasn’t going to kill me and it made me feel better and if I have to wear the consequences on the scale next week then I can deal with that.
Cos I sure didn’t to deal with the consequences this morning, let me tell you. I weighed in at 67.9kg or 10 stone 9 and three quarters or 149.8 lb. Hell YEAH. So I’m putting that down to the 5 gym sessions I had last week and the fact that I didn’t really blow out yesterday so I wasn’t feeling super bloated (but that thing I have been waiting to arrive has arrived so I am feeling a little bit bloaty). Which means I’m feeling a little bit concerned about next week given that eating this week is not going to be brilliant what with my wine tasting and pizza eating tomorrow and my lack of gymming this week. Curses.
But I have to tell you, my clothes are feeling quite loose at the moment (note I did not say that I am feeling any thinner – it’s the clothes getting bigger not me getting smaller) and I had a mini wow moment in the bathroom at work today when I looked in the mirror and realised I kind of look like a tramp with really baggy pants (am wearing my petite size 16 Wallis pants that emphasise my gunt). So I’m feeling good about that because regardless of whether I lose another half a kg next week or not, I know those pants aren’t suddenly going to fit me again overnight. Then again I shouldn’t congratulate myself too much – they were a horrifying size 16 don’t forget -they fricking well SHOULD be way too big for me.
But I’m feeling like my 66kg mini goal is really within reach. And that STAGGERS me because I have NEVER EVER managed to make it to a scale goal within my goal time. For example, the last time I dieted was in 2006 and I had a goal to get to 65kg for a trip to Santorini at the end of August. I got to 67kg (and frankly I was lucky to get there). Then I had a goal to get to 60kg for Christmas. I changed that to 62kg then 63kg and rang in the new year at 65kg. I got to 64kg for my birthday last January and I felt so fantastic (in fact G thinks photos of me taken at my birthday are the best ones I have) and managed to get down to (I believe this to be true but I stopped weighing myself last February) 61kg or 62kg for my friend’s wedding where I was a bridesmaid which was in early March 2007. My goal had actually been to be 55kg (I wanted to finally reach THAT weight which I didn’t quite achieve in 2004 which was the diet before my last one where I ended up at 58.5kg) and I was 6 or 7kg over that.
So, I never quite make my goals and this time I am really psyched that I actually might achieve what I wanted to achieve. It would be a loss of nearly 7kg over 12 weeks which is not exactly unrealistic and somehow being 66kg just seems so LIGHT. My ultimate goal of 55kg seems so in REACH (God I must remember to read this when I hit 62kg and the scale won’t frigging BUDGE – I’ll be bewildered at my own naiveté). But its going to get harder to achieve scale goals after Boston because I will be doing more weight training so in my mind my goal is to be 60kg for NZ (a loss of 6kg (I hope) over 12 weeks) but what I really want is to be wearing my size 12 (or are they 11s?) James Jeans that I wore to NZ last February but felt a bit snug if I’m honest with myself, without the muffin top. And if I’m REALLY honest with myself, I’d like those jeans to be a little loose…
Thursday 21 February 2008
Coming out of the closet
Right, I have a confession to make. I, WideBride, am a LURKER.
Weight loss blogs have been like crack to me since I got a laptop and internet access about 10 years ago. I first discovered such things exist when I used to go on the weightwatchers website in NZ and look at ‘success stories’ which linked also to online journals. And I got hooked. I can’t remember the journals I used to read but they were a great source of comfort and entertainment and I would spend whole days reading them, going through their archives, marvelling at their resolve and their selflessness in sharing what must have been sometimes very private and difficult stories and admissions with the whole world. Tellingly, I would only read them when I myself was dieting, so as not to make myself feel guilty.
And I still read them to this day. Journals have come and gone but I have decided to come out of the closet and finally give credit and thanks to two pretty special people. Now, as someone new to the blogging world I’m not too sure about acknowledgement etiquette so if anyone actually is reading this and I’m not doing it right, sincere apologies. I should also add, that I don’t mean to disrespect anyone or make anyone feel slighted by any sort of ‘ranking’ but at the same time I do want to really give a special acknowledgement to the undisputed weight blogging queens, Diet Girl and Diet Chick.
Diet Girl – www.dietgirl.org
Well, what can I say about Diet Girl that hasn’t already been said by everyone who reads weight loss blogs? Diet Girl is, and I don’t say this lightly, an absolute inspiration. I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, I’ve shrieked, I’ve clapped my hands and stamped my feet. DG is awesome. So brave, courageous, hilarious and painfully honest. And she really does give me hope that one day I will leave all this yo-yoing business behind me and actually learn to like my body. DG, you rock.
Diet Chick – www.dietchick.blogspot.com and www.justnesting.blogspot.com
Dietchick recounts an incident that stays with me to this day. She was at home and feels the need to cheat on her diet. She opens up her fridge and takes all this food out, ready to binge her way through it. Then she looks at it, thinks about what it is she is trying to achieve and puts it all back. I often think of that and Diet Chick has helped me out of quite a number of similar incidents. Like this afternoon when I was at the supermarket and prowling around the cream cake fridge. Eventually, I thought ‘what would Diet Chick do?’ and backed away from the fridge, basket empty. Diet Chick is currently concentrating on conceiving and house flipping and weight loss is on the backburner at the moment but her honest writing and recounting of painful experiences in her current blog still inspire me to be honest in my own decisions. I really hope the American economy sorts its shit out soon because Diet Chick could really catch a break right now.
Weight loss blogs have been like crack to me since I got a laptop and internet access about 10 years ago. I first discovered such things exist when I used to go on the weightwatchers website in NZ and look at ‘success stories’ which linked also to online journals. And I got hooked. I can’t remember the journals I used to read but they were a great source of comfort and entertainment and I would spend whole days reading them, going through their archives, marvelling at their resolve and their selflessness in sharing what must have been sometimes very private and difficult stories and admissions with the whole world. Tellingly, I would only read them when I myself was dieting, so as not to make myself feel guilty.
And I still read them to this day. Journals have come and gone but I have decided to come out of the closet and finally give credit and thanks to two pretty special people. Now, as someone new to the blogging world I’m not too sure about acknowledgement etiquette so if anyone actually is reading this and I’m not doing it right, sincere apologies. I should also add, that I don’t mean to disrespect anyone or make anyone feel slighted by any sort of ‘ranking’ but at the same time I do want to really give a special acknowledgement to the undisputed weight blogging queens, Diet Girl and Diet Chick.
Diet Girl – www.dietgirl.org
Well, what can I say about Diet Girl that hasn’t already been said by everyone who reads weight loss blogs? Diet Girl is, and I don’t say this lightly, an absolute inspiration. I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, I’ve shrieked, I’ve clapped my hands and stamped my feet. DG is awesome. So brave, courageous, hilarious and painfully honest. And she really does give me hope that one day I will leave all this yo-yoing business behind me and actually learn to like my body. DG, you rock.
Diet Chick – www.dietchick.blogspot.com and www.justnesting.blogspot.com
Dietchick recounts an incident that stays with me to this day. She was at home and feels the need to cheat on her diet. She opens up her fridge and takes all this food out, ready to binge her way through it. Then she looks at it, thinks about what it is she is trying to achieve and puts it all back. I often think of that and Diet Chick has helped me out of quite a number of similar incidents. Like this afternoon when I was at the supermarket and prowling around the cream cake fridge. Eventually, I thought ‘what would Diet Chick do?’ and backed away from the fridge, basket empty. Diet Chick is currently concentrating on conceiving and house flipping and weight loss is on the backburner at the moment but her honest writing and recounting of painful experiences in her current blog still inspire me to be honest in my own decisions. I really hope the American economy sorts its shit out soon because Diet Chick could really catch a break right now.
Sick, and not in a good way
Well annoyingly, I have picked up the stomach bug which DOESN’T make you spew and lose like 3kg overnight. Annoying.
I went out with my friend E on Tuesday night and we had a great catch up. We haven’t seen each other since before Xmas and it was really nice to swap gossip. E is probably my best and oldest English friend. We met at my very first job in London and bonded over our mutual hatred of the place. And nachos and wine. We went on a few European trips together when we were both single gals but not so much since we’ve been in serious relationships.
Anyway, E has always struggled with her weight the same as me but the difference is she is looking FABULOUS and I’m still struggling. Cow. But I love her and she has her own problems and I least I can diet. She did say that I had lost weight, especially around my face. And I did feel quite slim as I was wearing my black Zara suit trousers and a pale blue slinky cardigan (also Zara) with a white cotton singlet underneath.
We went out for Turkish on Tuesday night and I tried to eat as well as I could. We shared a starter of dip and bread (the dip had lots of nuts in it but was tomato based) and then I had grilled aubergine and veges on couscous. We also started off with 2 small (175ml) glasses of wine and then shared a bottle over dinner. I felt a bit squiffy when we left the restaurant but nothing more than the usual.
So I was quite surprised when I woke up on Wednesday morning feeling like complete hell. I was really dehydrated and had a massive headache and a funny feeling tummy. I just assumed I had a mild hangover. But I had my shower and went to dry my hair and my legs felt all wobbly and I felt quick nauseous. So I decided I’d stay home for the morning and try to go in during the afternoon. I had a sleep and woke up feeling SICK I was so hungry. So I had toast and marmite and just sat around the house feeling weird. I was hungry but if I ate anything I was getting stabbing pains in my stomach. Really weird. And I had diarrhoea
So yesterday I wasn’t pointing but I hardly had my nose in the trough either. I had tomato and red pepper soup for dinner. Today has been much the same. I had to go in to work this morning to deal with some urgent stuff but I came home around lunch time and have been here ever since, feeling sorry for myself. I had toast with low fat spread for lunch and have had 2 packets of French Fries crisps and some chocolate since. So I guess you could say I’m feeling better....
I haven’t been taking the water retention tablets yesterday and today but I’m not feeling too bloaty and disgusting. I weighed in at 68kg this morning which if I can maintain that for tomorrow (chocolates notwithstanding, ahem) will mean a 500g or 1.1lb loss for the week. Not bad all things considered. We have a busy weekend this weekend with a full day wine tasting on Saturday and then no doubt a fattening pizza for dinner on Saturday night to soak up the alcohol. Then on Sunday I’m on the train up North and I’ll be up there until next Wednesday. But planning to go to the gym on Monday and Tuesday nights and living off marks and sparks salads so I’ll be keeping to my diet. My goal of a 2kg loss in 4 weeks is in my sights!
Wedding-wise nothing to report. I’m currently watching old taped episodes of ‘Perfect Days’ off the wedding channel and I’m dead jealous of the current couple who seem to have had an unlimited budget and Vera Wang personally designed her wedding dress and coat. Now that I feel like I have lost a bit of weight and I’m not so horrified by my size, I’m starting to get REALLY excited about the dress shopping. And really nervous. Because right now in my head, I have the perfect dress that I love and adore (I couldn’t describe it, it’s not like I KNOW the dress yet but while its still in the abstract, it is of course perfect) but what if the one I end up having is not perfect or not timeless or not classic?? It’s really nerve-wracking. But really exciting and I kind of hope I don’t find ‘the one’ immediately so I can go around lots of shops and try lots of different dresses to ‘get my money’s worth’ as it were.
I went out with my friend E on Tuesday night and we had a great catch up. We haven’t seen each other since before Xmas and it was really nice to swap gossip. E is probably my best and oldest English friend. We met at my very first job in London and bonded over our mutual hatred of the place. And nachos and wine. We went on a few European trips together when we were both single gals but not so much since we’ve been in serious relationships.
Anyway, E has always struggled with her weight the same as me but the difference is she is looking FABULOUS and I’m still struggling. Cow. But I love her and she has her own problems and I least I can diet. She did say that I had lost weight, especially around my face. And I did feel quite slim as I was wearing my black Zara suit trousers and a pale blue slinky cardigan (also Zara) with a white cotton singlet underneath.
We went out for Turkish on Tuesday night and I tried to eat as well as I could. We shared a starter of dip and bread (the dip had lots of nuts in it but was tomato based) and then I had grilled aubergine and veges on couscous. We also started off with 2 small (175ml) glasses of wine and then shared a bottle over dinner. I felt a bit squiffy when we left the restaurant but nothing more than the usual.
So I was quite surprised when I woke up on Wednesday morning feeling like complete hell. I was really dehydrated and had a massive headache and a funny feeling tummy. I just assumed I had a mild hangover. But I had my shower and went to dry my hair and my legs felt all wobbly and I felt quick nauseous. So I decided I’d stay home for the morning and try to go in during the afternoon. I had a sleep and woke up feeling SICK I was so hungry. So I had toast and marmite and just sat around the house feeling weird. I was hungry but if I ate anything I was getting stabbing pains in my stomach. Really weird. And I had diarrhoea
So yesterday I wasn’t pointing but I hardly had my nose in the trough either. I had tomato and red pepper soup for dinner. Today has been much the same. I had to go in to work this morning to deal with some urgent stuff but I came home around lunch time and have been here ever since, feeling sorry for myself. I had toast with low fat spread for lunch and have had 2 packets of French Fries crisps and some chocolate since. So I guess you could say I’m feeling better....
I haven’t been taking the water retention tablets yesterday and today but I’m not feeling too bloaty and disgusting. I weighed in at 68kg this morning which if I can maintain that for tomorrow (chocolates notwithstanding, ahem) will mean a 500g or 1.1lb loss for the week. Not bad all things considered. We have a busy weekend this weekend with a full day wine tasting on Saturday and then no doubt a fattening pizza for dinner on Saturday night to soak up the alcohol. Then on Sunday I’m on the train up North and I’ll be up there until next Wednesday. But planning to go to the gym on Monday and Tuesday nights and living off marks and sparks salads so I’ll be keeping to my diet. My goal of a 2kg loss in 4 weeks is in my sights!
Wedding-wise nothing to report. I’m currently watching old taped episodes of ‘Perfect Days’ off the wedding channel and I’m dead jealous of the current couple who seem to have had an unlimited budget and Vera Wang personally designed her wedding dress and coat. Now that I feel like I have lost a bit of weight and I’m not so horrified by my size, I’m starting to get REALLY excited about the dress shopping. And really nervous. Because right now in my head, I have the perfect dress that I love and adore (I couldn’t describe it, it’s not like I KNOW the dress yet but while its still in the abstract, it is of course perfect) but what if the one I end up having is not perfect or not timeless or not classic?? It’s really nerve-wracking. But really exciting and I kind of hope I don’t find ‘the one’ immediately so I can go around lots of shops and try lots of different dresses to ‘get my money’s worth’ as it were.
Monday 18 February 2008
Only 4 Mondays to go til Boston....
Apologies for the snarly post yesterday but I was cold and didn’t feel like going out and the PMT has arrived, alive and kicking. I am taking fluid retention tablets to try and minimise the bloat so I hope that doesn’t give me false readings on the scale.
Last night turned out to be quite good fun really. We braved the arctic chills and went up to North London where these friends have the most BEAUTIFUL house. They moved in in August last year and it just looks perfect. There are 4 stories, 5 bedrooms ALL ENSUITE and it all looks new and stylish and just beautiful. G and I are very jealous and feel very inadequate, especially when we got home, tripping over boxes of dusty books that have been lying around in every room since G moved in there in 2004. God how depressing.
Anyway, these friends, T and J got engaged 2 weeks ago which is exciting news. He’s English and she’s Australian and the plan seems to be that the actual marriage will take place in Sydney where she is from and then they’ll have some sort of party over here afterwards. They are planning to get married this year but haven’t sorted out a date or anything yet. Now, you might be blamed for thinking that they haven’t thought about things too deeply because they’re only just engaged, and they’re just loving the ‘being engaged’ time before the planning nightmare starts.
Not so.
She is about as unenthusiastic about the whole wedding thing as it is possible to be, and he just doesn’t want to do the planning. On balance, he is probably more excited than she is but its close. He proposed to her in Paris with a tiny little diamond ring as a ‘holding ring’ until they go out and choose the proper one. She doesn’t even WANT a ring on the basis that she doesn’t even want to wear it and if she does it won’t be on her ring finger. He is horrified at the prospect of people thinking THAT is the ring he bought her and is insistent that she gets a proper one but she is really not fussed.
Now, I know not everyone is wedding obsessed (even I’m not wedding obsessed REALLY) but I just can’t understand a person’s attitude that they are SO underwhelmed by being engaged and getting married. I mean, why BOTHER?? And before you go thinking that maybe marriage just isn’t her bag and she doesn’t actually WANT to get married, she has been waiting for this for quite some time. I don’t know her particularly well and we’ve never discussed it but from what she was saying last night, G and I both agreed that it sounded like she had been wondering if he would ever actually propose (they have been together maybe 3 and a half years). So I think she DOES want to be married she just doesn’t want to have a wedding, an engagement ring or a wedding ring.
Well, that’s fine I guess, horses for courses. But why not just have a registry office do and why bother celebrating it at all? It sounds like they will have a registry office do in Australia and then some sort of ‘marquee out the back of a pub’ (her words) over here. Am not quite sure what that means for us in terms of having to go to Australia this year (I won’t lie, that’s the FIRST THING I though of when they told us we were engaged – ‘oh CRAP we have to go to Australia in like 6 months and we don’t have the time off or the money but we CAN’T NOT GO because we’re asking them to come to ours’). But G said on the way home that he wondered whether they were really going to invite friends to the Australian thing as they seemed to be down-playing it quite a bit but talking up the ‘marquee behind a pub’.
The other thing that I thought was quite weird, was how awfully opinionated J was about brides and wedding planning (considering she was talking to a fellow bride to be who was planning a wedding). Like she was all ‘I can’t BELIEVE there are women out there who will go on DIETS for their wedding’ (and for the record she is probably average sized, 12-14 or so). I just sort of sat there and smiled without saying anything, not wanting to get in to a debate about why I felt I HAD to lose weight for my wedding. And she talked about how they weren’t going to bother really having a photographer or finding a caterer for the reception (‘someone will have a camera’ and ‘as long as everyone gets fed…’).
So it was just WEIRD. I mean, people have very different approaches to weddings I know, but that is a little beyond the pale. We talked about wedding dresses and she said she couldn’t’ really be bothered having a special dress but she ‘guessed she’d have to’ and how she would get married in jeans if she could. I guess I just feel sort of sorry for her, not having any joy at the idea of having a wedding. I’m sure she must be happy that they are getting married, but she is missing out on so much by not fully embracing the excitement that is having a wedding. I’m sure thousands would disagree, but I am having a BALL planning my wedding, getting excited about the day, working hard to really look the best I hope ever to look in my whole life. I actually AM having fun. And for J (and T), a wedding is just an ordeal to go through. That’s kind of sad.
So am off to the gym tonight for another 60 minute work out. I have downloaded 2 new albums to my ipod so I’ve got some new music to work out to (am really excited about this, I have been getting really fed up with the albums I have) and I’m going to have soup for dinner as G is probably going to be working late again. I didn’t weigh myself today as I felt very bloaty from the dinner I had last night (involved 2 glasses of champagne, 2 glasses of red wine and 2 glasses of dessert wine) so I figured I didn’t need to see it. I had a healthy-ish dinner though – chargrilled squid for starters and steamed mussels for mains (ok, ok with half a small bowl of hot chips which were DELECTABLE and did you hear me – HALF a SMALL bowl?). So I need to eat well tonight.
A pretty busy week this week. I’m meeting up with my friend E tomorrow night for drinks and dinner. E is also dieting but doesn’t need to, lucky cow. She has lost a lot of weight in the time I’ve known her but has somehow managed to keep it all off, give or take half a stone. Then I’ll go to the gym Wed, Thurs and Fri. Then on Saturday G and I are going to an all-day wine tasting event which will be good. We are going with friends T and C (from the nightmare that was New Year’s Eve, so lets hope they’re actually DRINKING this time) and then we’ll probably go out afterwards for a big lard-ridden pizza to soak up all the alcohol – even more fun than the wine tasting itself!
On Sunday afternoon I have to go up north again for work so I’ll be there until next Wednesday night. So that’s 3 nights of marks and spencers salads and the hotel gym for me!
It’s now 4 and a half weeks until Boston and I have 2.5kg to lose.
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Later - the gym kicked my arse again. Did it though, the full 60 minutes.
Last night turned out to be quite good fun really. We braved the arctic chills and went up to North London where these friends have the most BEAUTIFUL house. They moved in in August last year and it just looks perfect. There are 4 stories, 5 bedrooms ALL ENSUITE and it all looks new and stylish and just beautiful. G and I are very jealous and feel very inadequate, especially when we got home, tripping over boxes of dusty books that have been lying around in every room since G moved in there in 2004. God how depressing.
Anyway, these friends, T and J got engaged 2 weeks ago which is exciting news. He’s English and she’s Australian and the plan seems to be that the actual marriage will take place in Sydney where she is from and then they’ll have some sort of party over here afterwards. They are planning to get married this year but haven’t sorted out a date or anything yet. Now, you might be blamed for thinking that they haven’t thought about things too deeply because they’re only just engaged, and they’re just loving the ‘being engaged’ time before the planning nightmare starts.
Not so.
She is about as unenthusiastic about the whole wedding thing as it is possible to be, and he just doesn’t want to do the planning. On balance, he is probably more excited than she is but its close. He proposed to her in Paris with a tiny little diamond ring as a ‘holding ring’ until they go out and choose the proper one. She doesn’t even WANT a ring on the basis that she doesn’t even want to wear it and if she does it won’t be on her ring finger. He is horrified at the prospect of people thinking THAT is the ring he bought her and is insistent that she gets a proper one but she is really not fussed.
Now, I know not everyone is wedding obsessed (even I’m not wedding obsessed REALLY) but I just can’t understand a person’s attitude that they are SO underwhelmed by being engaged and getting married. I mean, why BOTHER?? And before you go thinking that maybe marriage just isn’t her bag and she doesn’t actually WANT to get married, she has been waiting for this for quite some time. I don’t know her particularly well and we’ve never discussed it but from what she was saying last night, G and I both agreed that it sounded like she had been wondering if he would ever actually propose (they have been together maybe 3 and a half years). So I think she DOES want to be married she just doesn’t want to have a wedding, an engagement ring or a wedding ring.
Well, that’s fine I guess, horses for courses. But why not just have a registry office do and why bother celebrating it at all? It sounds like they will have a registry office do in Australia and then some sort of ‘marquee out the back of a pub’ (her words) over here. Am not quite sure what that means for us in terms of having to go to Australia this year (I won’t lie, that’s the FIRST THING I though of when they told us we were engaged – ‘oh CRAP we have to go to Australia in like 6 months and we don’t have the time off or the money but we CAN’T NOT GO because we’re asking them to come to ours’). But G said on the way home that he wondered whether they were really going to invite friends to the Australian thing as they seemed to be down-playing it quite a bit but talking up the ‘marquee behind a pub’.
The other thing that I thought was quite weird, was how awfully opinionated J was about brides and wedding planning (considering she was talking to a fellow bride to be who was planning a wedding). Like she was all ‘I can’t BELIEVE there are women out there who will go on DIETS for their wedding’ (and for the record she is probably average sized, 12-14 or so). I just sort of sat there and smiled without saying anything, not wanting to get in to a debate about why I felt I HAD to lose weight for my wedding. And she talked about how they weren’t going to bother really having a photographer or finding a caterer for the reception (‘someone will have a camera’ and ‘as long as everyone gets fed…’).
So it was just WEIRD. I mean, people have very different approaches to weddings I know, but that is a little beyond the pale. We talked about wedding dresses and she said she couldn’t’ really be bothered having a special dress but she ‘guessed she’d have to’ and how she would get married in jeans if she could. I guess I just feel sort of sorry for her, not having any joy at the idea of having a wedding. I’m sure she must be happy that they are getting married, but she is missing out on so much by not fully embracing the excitement that is having a wedding. I’m sure thousands would disagree, but I am having a BALL planning my wedding, getting excited about the day, working hard to really look the best I hope ever to look in my whole life. I actually AM having fun. And for J (and T), a wedding is just an ordeal to go through. That’s kind of sad.
So am off to the gym tonight for another 60 minute work out. I have downloaded 2 new albums to my ipod so I’ve got some new music to work out to (am really excited about this, I have been getting really fed up with the albums I have) and I’m going to have soup for dinner as G is probably going to be working late again. I didn’t weigh myself today as I felt very bloaty from the dinner I had last night (involved 2 glasses of champagne, 2 glasses of red wine and 2 glasses of dessert wine) so I figured I didn’t need to see it. I had a healthy-ish dinner though – chargrilled squid for starters and steamed mussels for mains (ok, ok with half a small bowl of hot chips which were DELECTABLE and did you hear me – HALF a SMALL bowl?). So I need to eat well tonight.
A pretty busy week this week. I’m meeting up with my friend E tomorrow night for drinks and dinner. E is also dieting but doesn’t need to, lucky cow. She has lost a lot of weight in the time I’ve known her but has somehow managed to keep it all off, give or take half a stone. Then I’ll go to the gym Wed, Thurs and Fri. Then on Saturday G and I are going to an all-day wine tasting event which will be good. We are going with friends T and C (from the nightmare that was New Year’s Eve, so lets hope they’re actually DRINKING this time) and then we’ll probably go out afterwards for a big lard-ridden pizza to soak up all the alcohol – even more fun than the wine tasting itself!
On Sunday afternoon I have to go up north again for work so I’ll be there until next Wednesday night. So that’s 3 nights of marks and spencers salads and the hotel gym for me!
It’s now 4 and a half weeks until Boston and I have 2.5kg to lose.
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Later - the gym kicked my arse again. Did it though, the full 60 minutes.
Sunday 17 February 2008
Just a quick update before I head off to the other side of London to go to dinner to G's groomsman's house. Turns out when we were invited to go around to their new place for dinner we were in fact invited to travel to the other side of London to go out to dinner at a restaurant. Yup. Not only are we schlepping our arses to the other side of London on a fricking cold SUNDAY night, but we're going to pay for ourselves to go out for dinner. Brilliant. Is is just me or does that kind of suck? I mean, why not just suggest we go out to a restaurant somewhere more central so its not such a big ordeal for us? fuckers. Wow hello there Ms PMT.
So Friday night got cancelled at the last minute because G had to work late. So I went out for drinks with V and then came home and had crudites and salsa for dinner. Very low points. Saturday i got up and went to the gym for a kickin' session then G and I walked to Canary Wharf for some beer drinkin' and paper readin'. Then I cooked what has to have been the GREATEST curry in world history. Oh my GOD, brilliant. Is a WW recipe and will be repeated in future for sure.
Today I got up and (cue trumpets sounding) WENT TO THE GYM. YES, for the 5th time this week I went to the gym. It was a bit of a blah workout, only 50 minutes with no run, but it was the 5th time nonetheless.
Which is lucky because now I get to travel to North fucking London and pay for a calorie ridden dinner. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.
So Friday night got cancelled at the last minute because G had to work late. So I went out for drinks with V and then came home and had crudites and salsa for dinner. Very low points. Saturday i got up and went to the gym for a kickin' session then G and I walked to Canary Wharf for some beer drinkin' and paper readin'. Then I cooked what has to have been the GREATEST curry in world history. Oh my GOD, brilliant. Is a WW recipe and will be repeated in future for sure.
Today I got up and (cue trumpets sounding) WENT TO THE GYM. YES, for the 5th time this week I went to the gym. It was a bit of a blah workout, only 50 minutes with no run, but it was the 5th time nonetheless.
Which is lucky because now I get to travel to North fucking London and pay for a calorie ridden dinner. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.
Saturday 16 February 2008
Friday's post...
So the weigh in today was pleasing. 68.5kg. That’s 10 stone 11 or 151lb. I’m nearly out of the 150s. Also, when I was getting dressed for work this morning I was thinking about just trying on my size 14 Zara suit pants – the ones that were too tight to wear the last time I went away for work but I was hoping to be able to wear when I’m away the week after next. I decided, no, don’t try them on until the official trying on session which is going to be next weekend. So I put on my usual size 14 Monsoon trousers and nearly fell over. They looked like hammer pants (can’t touch this). They were huge. And I’d only worn them the day before and I was SURE they didn’t look like that. What the?
So I figured well I’d better try my black Zara pants on because I couldn’t wear those. So I did and while there is slight pulling along the backside-down-in-to-the-crotch area, they fit!! They are wearable! They are in fact being worn as we speak! YAY. Haven’t worn these pants since last November (the 24th in fact) so I’m pleased to be making a little headway. And it means I can finally wear a suit again rather than my suit jackets and clearly non matching trousers. I might look semi-professional!!
So I got to thinking as I was walking to work (wow that was almost a Carrie Bradshaw moment there) – where the hell did that weight go? Cos it was ON me the day before. Its like the Bermuda Triangle of weight (only my weight always comes back, dammit). I know that with me I experience big differences in size between different weights. For example, the period between now (68.5) and Boston (oh please god, 66) is going to be HUGE. I will be fitting stuff I haven’t fitted for ages and it will only be a difference of 2.5kg. Then between 63 and 60 is another big change – at 60 I suddenly feel almost slim. I can only imagine the difference between 60 and my ultimate goal of 55. I will feel waif-like and delicate. And its always only a matter of 2 or 3 kg that makes this difference and it suddenly creeps up on you and you stand in front of the mirror wearing something and go (as I did this morning) WOAH! It’s what I call the ‘woah’ moment when you suddenly see in practical terms, the fruits of your hard labour. I live for woah moments.
So last night I coped well with Valentines Day. I finished the working day on 7 pts (and wasn’t even hungry even though I usually have like 9-10 points during the day) and prepared carrot sticks, celery sticks and sliced red pepper with low fat hummus, tzaziki and salsa for something to nibble on while we had champagne. Then I made honey and mustard glazed chicken on rice with vegetables which we had with a lovely Burgundy. I had also bought weight watchers chocolate mousse for pudding and low fat cheese and crackers and plum chutney but we ended up eating quite late so weren’t actually hungry and didn’t have them. So I finished the whole day on 17.5pts and that is being quite generous. So I’m pleased with that effort. I still have 12.5 points saved for the other 2 social occasions we have this week – going out for dinner tonight with a friend and around to another friend’s place for dinner on Sunday night. I can cope with tonight as I can choose what I eat but eating at someone else’s place is a bit more tricky. Hope its semi healthy. But I’ll go to the gym Saturday and Sunday to minimise the damage.
So I figured well I’d better try my black Zara pants on because I couldn’t wear those. So I did and while there is slight pulling along the backside-down-in-to-the-crotch area, they fit!! They are wearable! They are in fact being worn as we speak! YAY. Haven’t worn these pants since last November (the 24th in fact) so I’m pleased to be making a little headway. And it means I can finally wear a suit again rather than my suit jackets and clearly non matching trousers. I might look semi-professional!!
So I got to thinking as I was walking to work (wow that was almost a Carrie Bradshaw moment there) – where the hell did that weight go? Cos it was ON me the day before. Its like the Bermuda Triangle of weight (only my weight always comes back, dammit). I know that with me I experience big differences in size between different weights. For example, the period between now (68.5) and Boston (oh please god, 66) is going to be HUGE. I will be fitting stuff I haven’t fitted for ages and it will only be a difference of 2.5kg. Then between 63 and 60 is another big change – at 60 I suddenly feel almost slim. I can only imagine the difference between 60 and my ultimate goal of 55. I will feel waif-like and delicate. And its always only a matter of 2 or 3 kg that makes this difference and it suddenly creeps up on you and you stand in front of the mirror wearing something and go (as I did this morning) WOAH! It’s what I call the ‘woah’ moment when you suddenly see in practical terms, the fruits of your hard labour. I live for woah moments.
So last night I coped well with Valentines Day. I finished the working day on 7 pts (and wasn’t even hungry even though I usually have like 9-10 points during the day) and prepared carrot sticks, celery sticks and sliced red pepper with low fat hummus, tzaziki and salsa for something to nibble on while we had champagne. Then I made honey and mustard glazed chicken on rice with vegetables which we had with a lovely Burgundy. I had also bought weight watchers chocolate mousse for pudding and low fat cheese and crackers and plum chutney but we ended up eating quite late so weren’t actually hungry and didn’t have them. So I finished the whole day on 17.5pts and that is being quite generous. So I’m pleased with that effort. I still have 12.5 points saved for the other 2 social occasions we have this week – going out for dinner tonight with a friend and around to another friend’s place for dinner on Sunday night. I can cope with tonight as I can choose what I eat but eating at someone else’s place is a bit more tricky. Hope its semi healthy. But I’ll go to the gym Saturday and Sunday to minimise the damage.
Thursday 14 February 2008
Kicking arse
So its been a good week weight-wise. Official results in tomorrow of course but I have been blessed with some very welcome numbers on the scale this week. On Monday I weighed in at 68.9. My initial response when I glanced down was ‘oh for GOD’S sake I can’t believe I’m back up to 69.9. FRIG’. Then I realised it was in fact 68.9 and if it hadn’t been for the fact that it was Monday morning and one can NEVER jig on a Monday morning, I would have jigged. Tuesday saw an even better result – 68.7. Wednesday I nearly FAINTED when I saw 68.4. 68.4!! That is a 1.3kg loss! Unprecedented loss in any other that the first diet week. I hugged that little nugget to myself ALL day and felt like I was finally getting somewhere. It meant only 2.5kg to go in 5 weeks to hit my 66kg target for Boston. It was in my reach!
Of course I was cruising for a bruising and sure enough it came this morning in the form of 68.7kg. But I have talked sternly to myself and reasoned that had I not known about yesterday’s weight, that’s still a 1kg loss for the week and NOTHING to be sneezed at. So Widebride is a happy dieter. I just hope the general downward trend prevails tomorrow. I would love to enter a 1.3kg loss on my online WW thingee and see the little message that comes up warning that losing too much weight too quickly is bad for you (or whatever crock of crap that it peddles). Then see a big dip in my weight loss graph. So, scale gods if you are listening I implore you!! And next week is water retention week so I kind of need something to get me through that.
Exercise has been weird this week. I went to the gym on Sunday and did an hour’s work out including a ten minute run. It felt FABULOUS to be running again and while I knew I was working hard, it was a GOOD workout, if you know what I mean. I felt really good throughout the workout. Cut to Monday and OH DEAR GOD. Someone had clearly put cement in my shoes because the run was AGONY. I did the same as the day before which was 5 minutes at speed 9.0, 4 minutes at 9.5 and 1 minute at 10.0 and I nearly died. I couldn’t do the full 60 minutes either, managing only 45 minutes – I didn’t do the last 15 minutes on the cross trainer. I just couldn’t.
So on Tuesday I was DREADING the gym and DREADING the run. It was slightly better but the run did kill me. I managed the full 60 minutes though. Last night’s session was probably the easiest of them all which is weird because usually towards the end of the week it gets harder as I get more tired. So I managed the full 60 minutes and felt pretty darn pleased with myself. I’m almost looking forward to doing some resistance work when I eventually get signed up with my personal trainer (April).
Today is Valentine’s Day and G and I are going to eat at home this year. Normally we go out somewhere real nice (last year it was Smiths of Smithfields) but we decided this year to save in to save calories and money. I am cooking (honey mustard chicken on rice) and G has got some nice wine for us to enjoy (god I can’t WAIT for a drink). Slight snag in that G may have to work late tonight due to some big work thing he has on – grrrrrrr. But either way I don’t have to go to the gym for which my knees thank me.
Tomorrow night we are going out with friends for dinner. We haven’t seen them in ages and the guy half of the couple is hopefully going to be G’s best man. I have made G set the dinner up because he STILL hasn’t asked him to be best man and we want to make sure he is actually coming to NZ for the wedding and won’t pull out!
I am SO ready for the weekend too. Not sure what we really have on, but house tidying is going to have to feature sadly. I am aiming to go to the gym both days which will mean 5 times in total this week. Am hoping that will really make a difference for the next 5 weeks and ensure I reach my target (5 weeks today – eeeeeeeeee!) – going 5 times a week regularly I mean, not just 5 times this week. On Sunday night we are going around to the other groomsman’s house for dinner so once again I will be slightly out of my comfort zone in terms of choosing what I want to eat. Hopefully they’ll cook something reasonably healthy and being a Sunday we can’t get TOO stuck in to the wine.
I have been thinking about possible reasons for such a good loss this week (there, have I jinxed tomorrow’s weigh in enough already?) and wonder if it is to do with the fact that since Sunday night, I haven’t had any real starchy carbs with dinner. Sunday night was soup and mini bruschettas, Monday night was chicken in spicy tomato sauce, Tuesday night was poached haddock and last night was soup and mini bruschettas again (I’m on a real soup thing at the moment). Is that why suddenly I am showing losses on the scale? Like its not REAL weight loss in terms of bulk from my body, its just my body is lighter because I’m not retaining as much water (I’m not sure if this is scientifically correct or not so don’t quote me, but I think of starchy carbs like rice, pasta and bread as ‘sponges’ which soak up the water and therefore it weighs more heavily in my stomach. Protein like chicken and fish don’t soak up liquid so I don’t weigh as much). Or is it because I have been drinking at least 2 litres of water a day all week and that is somehow making me pee out my weight…? Or maybe its just that I am having one of those weeks.
This whole weight loss thing (and I know this from so many personal experiences) is just a mystery. There is no rhyme or reason when you look at small statistics, no matter how comforting they may be. I could eat the same thing and do the same exercise week in week out and sometimes I’ll lose, sometimes I’ll gain and sometimes I’ll stay the same. But as long as I keep plugging away, I will lose weight. Its all about the big picture. Which means I can only look at weight loss over a longer term. Like as of today I’ve lost 4.1kg (9lb) over 6 weeks. Now that’s an average of more than half a kilo every week and that takes into account having a period, my birthday and having a gain. And that’s still about what I expected to lose by now, if not slightly more. So there is no point analysing stuff to death. What I am doing IS working. I’d be mad to change it.
Right, wedding wise. Am pleased to report the dvd arrived of the wedding our videographer did in December. I started off feeling a little horrified as I watched it, as some bits such as the bride and her bridesmaid hanging out at the house in the morning just chatting and stuff looked so FORCED. They looked SO self conscious and uncomfortable and I was all thinking ‘oh god this guy is RUBBISH’. Then I realised that it probably wasn’t HIM as much as the people he was filming who were just getting used to having the camera there. And I will have two bridesmaids, not just one so we aren’t just going to sit around trying to think of things to say to each other – especially as one bridesmaid is a self-described wanton exhibitionist. In fact I will probably have trouble getting MYSELF on camera at ALL. And we’ll have the hair and makeup ladies there and stuff. So it will be more lively and fun and we will be drinking and stuff and just generally being excited. I hope. So I think we’ll go with this guy. It helps he’s the only one still available.
The other slightly funny thing about the video is that this couple had DJ Dick as their wedding dj. And he does sound like a complete game show host. Eeeeeeek.
Of course I was cruising for a bruising and sure enough it came this morning in the form of 68.7kg. But I have talked sternly to myself and reasoned that had I not known about yesterday’s weight, that’s still a 1kg loss for the week and NOTHING to be sneezed at. So Widebride is a happy dieter. I just hope the general downward trend prevails tomorrow. I would love to enter a 1.3kg loss on my online WW thingee and see the little message that comes up warning that losing too much weight too quickly is bad for you (or whatever crock of crap that it peddles). Then see a big dip in my weight loss graph. So, scale gods if you are listening I implore you!! And next week is water retention week so I kind of need something to get me through that.
Exercise has been weird this week. I went to the gym on Sunday and did an hour’s work out including a ten minute run. It felt FABULOUS to be running again and while I knew I was working hard, it was a GOOD workout, if you know what I mean. I felt really good throughout the workout. Cut to Monday and OH DEAR GOD. Someone had clearly put cement in my shoes because the run was AGONY. I did the same as the day before which was 5 minutes at speed 9.0, 4 minutes at 9.5 and 1 minute at 10.0 and I nearly died. I couldn’t do the full 60 minutes either, managing only 45 minutes – I didn’t do the last 15 minutes on the cross trainer. I just couldn’t.
So on Tuesday I was DREADING the gym and DREADING the run. It was slightly better but the run did kill me. I managed the full 60 minutes though. Last night’s session was probably the easiest of them all which is weird because usually towards the end of the week it gets harder as I get more tired. So I managed the full 60 minutes and felt pretty darn pleased with myself. I’m almost looking forward to doing some resistance work when I eventually get signed up with my personal trainer (April).
Today is Valentine’s Day and G and I are going to eat at home this year. Normally we go out somewhere real nice (last year it was Smiths of Smithfields) but we decided this year to save in to save calories and money. I am cooking (honey mustard chicken on rice) and G has got some nice wine for us to enjoy (god I can’t WAIT for a drink). Slight snag in that G may have to work late tonight due to some big work thing he has on – grrrrrrr. But either way I don’t have to go to the gym for which my knees thank me.
Tomorrow night we are going out with friends for dinner. We haven’t seen them in ages and the guy half of the couple is hopefully going to be G’s best man. I have made G set the dinner up because he STILL hasn’t asked him to be best man and we want to make sure he is actually coming to NZ for the wedding and won’t pull out!
I am SO ready for the weekend too. Not sure what we really have on, but house tidying is going to have to feature sadly. I am aiming to go to the gym both days which will mean 5 times in total this week. Am hoping that will really make a difference for the next 5 weeks and ensure I reach my target (5 weeks today – eeeeeeeeee!) – going 5 times a week regularly I mean, not just 5 times this week. On Sunday night we are going around to the other groomsman’s house for dinner so once again I will be slightly out of my comfort zone in terms of choosing what I want to eat. Hopefully they’ll cook something reasonably healthy and being a Sunday we can’t get TOO stuck in to the wine.
I have been thinking about possible reasons for such a good loss this week (there, have I jinxed tomorrow’s weigh in enough already?) and wonder if it is to do with the fact that since Sunday night, I haven’t had any real starchy carbs with dinner. Sunday night was soup and mini bruschettas, Monday night was chicken in spicy tomato sauce, Tuesday night was poached haddock and last night was soup and mini bruschettas again (I’m on a real soup thing at the moment). Is that why suddenly I am showing losses on the scale? Like its not REAL weight loss in terms of bulk from my body, its just my body is lighter because I’m not retaining as much water (I’m not sure if this is scientifically correct or not so don’t quote me, but I think of starchy carbs like rice, pasta and bread as ‘sponges’ which soak up the water and therefore it weighs more heavily in my stomach. Protein like chicken and fish don’t soak up liquid so I don’t weigh as much). Or is it because I have been drinking at least 2 litres of water a day all week and that is somehow making me pee out my weight…? Or maybe its just that I am having one of those weeks.
This whole weight loss thing (and I know this from so many personal experiences) is just a mystery. There is no rhyme or reason when you look at small statistics, no matter how comforting they may be. I could eat the same thing and do the same exercise week in week out and sometimes I’ll lose, sometimes I’ll gain and sometimes I’ll stay the same. But as long as I keep plugging away, I will lose weight. Its all about the big picture. Which means I can only look at weight loss over a longer term. Like as of today I’ve lost 4.1kg (9lb) over 6 weeks. Now that’s an average of more than half a kilo every week and that takes into account having a period, my birthday and having a gain. And that’s still about what I expected to lose by now, if not slightly more. So there is no point analysing stuff to death. What I am doing IS working. I’d be mad to change it.
Right, wedding wise. Am pleased to report the dvd arrived of the wedding our videographer did in December. I started off feeling a little horrified as I watched it, as some bits such as the bride and her bridesmaid hanging out at the house in the morning just chatting and stuff looked so FORCED. They looked SO self conscious and uncomfortable and I was all thinking ‘oh god this guy is RUBBISH’. Then I realised that it probably wasn’t HIM as much as the people he was filming who were just getting used to having the camera there. And I will have two bridesmaids, not just one so we aren’t just going to sit around trying to think of things to say to each other – especially as one bridesmaid is a self-described wanton exhibitionist. In fact I will probably have trouble getting MYSELF on camera at ALL. And we’ll have the hair and makeup ladies there and stuff. So it will be more lively and fun and we will be drinking and stuff and just generally being excited. I hope. So I think we’ll go with this guy. It helps he’s the only one still available.
The other slightly funny thing about the video is that this couple had DJ Dick as their wedding dj. And he does sound like a complete game show host. Eeeeeeek.
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