Domestic Goddess - only temporarily!

31^st August 2014

You always have time for the things you put first.

Oh my word, I earned 3pp (12,000 steps) on my pedometer yesterday doing housework!   And I only got the downstairs done, so upstairs in on the cards today, although I do have some gardening to do so we shall see how fast I can get my bedroom sorted, my office may be a different day project!   We threw away so much junk, it’s very therapeutic throwing stuff out – you only need so many gloves when you only have 4 hands in the house!  Mom must have a couple hundred black socks!  I keep buying dishcloths because I don’t think we have any as their not in the drawer that we keep them, turns out moms been putting them in another place and we have about 20 of them, not to mention a trillion carrier bags oh and bits of scrap metal she collects to give the scrap man whilst walking the dog but always forgets where she puts it – solution = she’s getting her very own ‘scrap metal’ tub in the porch so it doesn’t have to come in the house.

Food wise, still on track, did Filling & Healthy yesterday, we had salmon, Actifry chips and corn on cob for lunch and I just had a couple of crumpets for tea as I wasn’t really hungry – that doesn’t happen very often!  It’s because I’m acknowledging my excuse eating, I’m asking myself ‘am I hungry’ or ‘am I just eating because I can’.  Today’s the last day of week 1 of my journal, I will make it to the end of week 12, this week I’ve managed to do every error that would normally concern me, writing in different inks, crossings out, changing from PP to F&H halfway through the day and making a total mess of the page and I’ve got it out my system, it’s okay not to have the perfect journal, we’re not perfect so why should our tracker books be! 

Chicken for dinner today, will make a proper dinner with loads of veggies and some gravy mmm, delivery is on order and I will start next week’s order this morning so I don’t get caught out with an empty fridge which is what usually happens and that’s when I veer off track.  Getting organised is what I’m doing and making myself a priority, that’s what this week’s meeting is all about too “Time for Me” sounds like a great idea but I bet you’re thinking I haven’t got time for anything lately, when you haven’t got time that’s when it’s most important to find it anyway. 

Keeping it short this morning because I’m full of energy again and I want to go get started!

Make Sunday count BeYOUtiful, have a great day. xx

The mojo has officially returned!

30^th August 2014
If happiness is a journey, then I hope you’re eligible for lots of frequent flyer points.  Karen Salmansohn

I was proper proud of myself yesterday, I went out by myself for some ‘me time’ and decided on Bridgemere Gardens and garden centre, planned F&H for the day so started with a good big breakfast. I had a lovely few hours walking round the gardens and the plants and loaded my car to come back leaving there about 2ish, it took me 3 hours to get home because of the traffic (it took me less than an hour to get there) and I didn’t pass anywhere that I could’ve stopped and had a decent meal, luckily I’d bought a bit of fruit and had eaten half dozen plums but the rest were out of reach in the back of the car!  Anyway the proud bit came when I arrived home, instead of stopping off for a takeaway, I chopped up potatoes for the Actifry and waited whilst my chips cooked and had egg, chips and beans for tea, which meant I could have some wine too.

I loved the garden centre, although it’s a dangerous place for me to be allowed on my own with a credit card, I really do need to remember my garden will only hold so many plants!  I’ve bought trillions of bulbs that now need planting ;-) that’ll keep me busy in September!

I’m finding the realisation of the “Excuse Eating” syndrome way more powerful than anything I’ve read or thought about before, for me it’s beating the idea of finding your motivation or acknowledging the emotional eating or anything else to be honest.  As soon as the “shall I……” thought comes into my head I’m immediately acknowledging that I’m playing the “excuse eating” card, justifying going off track and delaying the weight loss AGAIN and it’s stopping me from eating whatever it is I thought about.  Long may this continue!  

I believe for the first time in a long time that I can make it through the weekend focused and on track, I also feel like I have some energy for a change, normally by the weekend I’m shattered and just want to lounge around, yet yesterday and this morning I feel like doing something, is this a coincidence?  Or have I got more energy because I’ve been working realistic hours whereas the few months prior I’d been working silly hours?  I don’t know but I don’t care, I’m going to take advantage of this feeling.  It’s like I’ve said in my meetings and I do believe, we may never have our eating totally sussed but we can do what we can when we can and hopefully change our habits so they’re strong enough to stay in place even when we’re not in a great place.  I’m going to take advantage of this excess energy and I actually think I’m going to tidy up the house and have a good sort out, through stuff away.

How lovely is this, at her meeting on Thursday I took Sally’s photo with a poster saying how much she had lost and she posted this on Facebook yesterday, saying “Stuck this on my fridge from yesterday, got home from work to a little note from my hubby to be bless him he's a big softie lol xx”  They’re getting married in April and seeing that we can tell he’s a keeper for sure!

It also proof that we should join Weight Watchers for ourselves, not for the approval of others, if someone loves you they should love you for who you are because over the years our appearance changes doesn’t it.

Right I’m off to make a cuppa so I can get started on this house, I’m thinking start at the bottom and work up, don’t stop till I hit the last room, mmm I’m getting scared now!

Here’s to staying on track all weekend BeYOUtiful – we can do this….

Ooo I met a right bitch last night!

29^th August 2014

The secret of having it all is believing you already do.

Blogging late this morning, had a lie in till 8am, check me out going out on a Thursday night after working over 12 hours, I’m not gonna lie I wasn’t keen on the idea, I had tickets to see Rose Redd’s EP launch at the Slade Rooms in Wolverhampton and as much as I enjoy her music the thought of having to change and go out on a Thursday night for the first time in years wasn’t making me ooze with excitement!  Am I glad I did, she was incredible, not many artists are better live than on a record but she truly was, awesome voice, great personality which came across as she had the crack with the audience and her band, and not much can keep me awake on a Thursday night but she really did, I enjoyed it enormously.

https://www.facebook.com/rosereddmusic

Now on the way there, actually before leaving the house I thought to myself I need to have something to eat quickly before I go as I haven’t eaten since lunchtime, she didn’t come on till 9.30 and I’d be starving by then if I didn’t eat and that was my inner greedy bitch started to rear her ugly head!  She suggested MacDonalds for quickness, as a treat because we were going out which we don’t really do that often so it was a special occasion!  Erm “NO shut up”, she was over-ruled by the ‘I’m on day 4 of my 12 week journal thank you very much’ determined part of me that was having not of this sabotage!  I had a quesadilla instead with a bit of cheese in, which did the job.  However even then ‘inner greedy bitch’ was still being clever and manipulative, she knew damn well that a wrap with a bit of cheese wasn’t really going to fill me up, it was all part of her plan to try again later.   She failed by the way, no sooner had we left the house to drive to town, about 1/2mile away from my house, she’d even made me go the other way to town – why? Because it took me past McDonalds, oh she’s good, she knows exactly what pushes my buttons.  As we drove towards Maccy D’s she’s suggesting, “you’ve got ten minutes spare, why don’t you go through the drive-in and have a big mac, you’d love that and then you wouldn’t be hungry when you get there, that wrap didn’t really do the job did it, you’d love a big mac, you don’t have to have fries, it wouldn’t be the end of the world and you’re going to be standing up for a couple of hours – that’s almost exercise as far as Thursday nights are concerned!” 

It was then motivated me had a realisation, we talk about emotional eating and comfort eating all the time but what was going on here was what I’ve christened “excuse eating” you justify your decision to overeat or make a bad choice with a damn good excuse, so had I chose to have the MacDonalds, my excuses would have been “I was in a rush”, “it was a special occasion”, “I don’t go out that often”, “I’d had a busy day”, “I was going to be standing for a few hours and I’d be hungry when I got home”, “It’s Thursday night, I’ve worked a 40 hour week already, I deserve a treat”, “I’m reminiscing of my youth when this is what we used to do”, oh I could go on and on finding excuses to justify this or any other occasion where I’ve overeaten or made a bad food choice, I’m sure I’m not the only one.  I’m just glad that I had that thought last night because from now on I’m going to have the “Am I about to excuse eat?” (or drink come to that) question in the forefront of my mind, I have a feeling it will really help.

I don’t want to be looking for the baggy top to wear over the top of my jeans when I’m going out because I don’t feel quite as good as I usually do because I know I’m carrying a few extra pounds, I need to remember that when my good old “oh go on” greedy bitch rears her ugly head, I need to remind her we have a plan, we have a 12 week journal and we have a goal!

Do you?

Here’s to not veering off track this week, remind yourself you’ve pressed the reset button, you’ve refound your mojo because you want to lose weight otherwise you wouldn’t have joined Weight Watchers! 

Have a BeYOUtiful day. xx

Let's make the rest of your year the best of your year!

28^th August 2014

Its not about perfect, it about effort and when you bring that effort every single day, that’s where transformation happens.  That’s how change occurs!

Every morning my pc takes ages to wake up and work, we go through a slow start up first of all  followed by the ‘not responding ‘ stage!  It’s okay once it works but up to then it’s a big pain in the backside or is it just the universe using it to wake me up slower because I literally jump straight out of bed onto my pc.  I’ll go with that theory I think.

Well I got myself all excited yesterday booked a ticket to go to London on Friday to see the poppies at the Tower of London and then an hour later realised I booked for the wrong day!  I have no idea where my head was at when I did it but there you go, I’ve got something to look forward to in a month’s time!  Now to decide whether to actually do something tomorrow, the weather doesn’t really make you want to do much when it’s forecast rain!

Starting Day 4 of my journal which has 84 days in (I’ve just worked that out!) already I’ve realised that I usually give up writing in them because they aren’t ‘perfect’ that may be I’m not 100% on track or I’ve made a mess of the pages with my handwriting or changing what I’ve eaten or adding more on after I thought I’d finished my day.   I then realised it isn’t meant to be perfect because I’m not, no one is, the idea of a food tracking journal is to get to know yourself and your habits and work on the with the knowledge you gain.  As long as I can read and understand it that’s all that matters – I’ve also told myself no one else has to see it which will enable me to be 100% truthful in it and write ‘everything’ down because I know I’m not the only one who doesn’t want to write it all down sometimes!

We had a lovely beef curry yesterday to use the last bit of beef up, it was a jar of sauce Sharwoods Rogan Josh, 7pp a jar and it served 3 not bad for something with a lot of flavour to it and just enough warmth.  As a member commented on the photo “This is what I love about Weight Watchers, being able to use shop brought sauces as long as it's in your pp allowance - so much easier with a busy lifestyle x” and she’s so right, some days you have the time to stand in the kitchen and cook and some days you don’t.

Yeah you really can adapt any lifestyle to suit, it’s all about changing and adapting, it’s for the long term not the short term, I spoke to someone yesterday who said “I’m getting bored with it now”, we had a conversation and it turns out they’ve cut everything ‘nice’ out, hasn’t been for a pint since starting and I explained that won’t work long term, no one wants to give everything they enjoy up just to be a certain weight, it ain’t never gonna last – not from my experience anyways.  Nope I will find a way of having a bit of what I fancy, enjoying my glass of wine and doing the best I can to tweak and change my routines and habits to be the best, healthiest version of me that I can be within the boundaries I set!

Yeah being healthy and happy and enjoying life is the most important thing on my agenda and if all that fits into place then my body will be in the best state possible both physically and mentally.  After all, there’s no point being thin if you’re miserable and there really is no point enjoying copious amounts of food and wine if it makes you feel ill or rubbish – nope it’s all about balance, finding a happy and healthy way of life that you can live for the rest of your life.

Who’s up for making the rest of their year the best of their year?

Let’s make today BeYOUtiful. xx