Off to see the poppies I am :)

26^th September 2014

Life goes by fast.  Enjoy it.  Calm down.  It’s all funny.  Joan Rivers

Another great week in my meetings not only did we raise £216.50 for MacMillan by eating cake, my awesome members lost 401lb at the scales, which is fabulous, three of my BeYOUtiful ladies all achieved their 5 stone targets, well done Ellie, AnnMarie and Victoria, just an inspiration to everyone.  Yes nothing tops a smiling face at the scales, it really is a sight to behold but as I proved Monday nothing quite compares to a case of the sulks when those scales don’t make you smile, I’ve seen a handful of those cases too this week, but we’re all good we’ve worked through them together and come out the other side.

So today I’m off to London to see the Poppies www.poppies.hrp.org.uk. I’m really looking forward to it and I’ve decided to have a totally Weight Watcher free day, once I’m in the taxi to the station, so I won’t be ProPointing anything nor basing my food choices on what’s best for me!  I’ve already been led astray this week by MacMillan and curry flavour chip sticks, so I will wipe the slate clean on Saturday and get back on it properly, but today I will just enjoy my day and have whatever I fancy.  I won’t be treating it as a binge festival though, I don’t mean it like that, I have no desire to make myself ill.

Only 97% sleep efficiency last night according to my fit bit! That’ll be because I had to get up to use the loo and also Alfie woke me a couple of times tap dancing on my wooden floor – you gotta love a dog!  I also didn’t quite reach my water intake requirement yesterday, I opted for tea over water a few too many times I think, I might start drinking hot water again, I do actually like it so that’s a good way of drinking water now the weathers getting cooler.

I’m suddenly aware of my age, I have a wonderful day out planned and all I’ve been thinking about is what I will wear on my feet so I’m comfortable, I don’t care what the rest of me looks like as long as my feet don’t hurt – love being middle-aged I do!  Lots of walking, earning activity ProPoints to compensate for all the cake I’ve consumed this week, I’m not wearing my pedometer though, I’ll have my fitbit on so I’ll know the steps and distance anyway.

Right as much as I’d like to stay and type, I’ve got paperwork to do before I can board my train, so have a BeYOUtiful day, I’m going to, I have my kindle for on the train and my camera to take lots of photos, I’m looking forward to meeting up with a friend for a wonderful afternoon enjoying a piece of history.

Oh one last thing, I can highly recommend the Chocolate & Beetroot Brownies on page 72 of the August edition of the Weight Watchers magazine, one of my members bought them in last night, mmmm for 4pp a square.  She cut them smaller so we just got a sample.... HONEST! 

I slept well according to my fitbit!

25^th September 2014

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.  The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

Not keen on this getting up in the dark lark, I’ll get used to it I’m sure but for now I’m sat here thinking “brrr” and wanting a cup of tea but drinking my pint of water instead, I’ll put kettle on when I’ve finished my blog.

Our MacMillan coffee and cake events are going well this week, I haven’t added it all up, I’ll probably do that Saturday as I’m out all day tomorrow and won’t get time but I know we’ll have over £200 which I think is fantastic.  I resisted much better yesterday, I had to stay away from Sam’s chocolate fudge stuff, it’s dangerous and limited myself to only one of Julie’s cake pops, I don’t do sponge normally but that lady makes a mean sponge cake!

Then one of my fabulous members cooked my tea, she made me a bowl of grey pease, nom nom, for anyone who doesn’t know about them, it’s a local dish that looks disgusting but tastes great and is very popular around bonfire night so if you’re a fan and fancy making some, if you use bacon medallions or lean gammon they’d be F&H, otherwise I ProPoint the dried peas as if they were chick peas which are 9pp per 100g dried weight, then I ProPoint the bacon, add it all together and divide between how many portions you end up with.

I received a new gadget in the post yesterday, a fitbit, I think this may be the motivation I need to move more, although I did 22,000 steps on my pedometer yesterday which isn’t too shabby at all, but what the fitbit enables you to do is so much more, it doesn’t just count your steps, you can compare/compete and interact with friends too.  And awesome it logs your sleep if you want it to, so I’ve just synced it and last night I slept for 7 hours 11 minutes, I was awake 14 minutes and restless for 20 minutes, apparently it took me 11 minutes to fall asleep - how cool is that, love info I do :) it even has a silent alarm on it that woke me up this morning, really impressed with my little gadget so far I am, I do need to see what else it can do though.  The really exciting bit (which I think I can say, don’t think it’s confidential – oops if it still is) is that they will soon be on sale in Weight Watcher meetings (beginning of November) and we’ll be able to sync them with our Weight Watcher esource accounts to exchange the steps for Activity ProPoints which is awesome!  Can’t wait to see how many steps I clock up round London tomorrow, I managed almost 8,000 steps on it yesterday and I didn’t start wearing it till around 1pm so impressed! 

Just noticed it’s telling me I need to drink 1893ml of water a day, so I’ve done my first pint glass, that will be my thing this week I think to ensure I drink my 2 litres a day and hit 10,000 steps.  I’m already going to be over on my ProPoints over the week thanks to MacMillan and the diet demon inside but that doesn’t mean I can’t be as good as possible until weigh day.  As of today, I’ve used all my weeklies and I have 2 activity ProPoints left, so maybe…… just maybe……. I could be much better for the rest of the week and not do too much damage, earn lots of ProPoints and do F&H mostly.  As the friend I’m meeting in London doesn’t do the underground we’ll be doing lots of walking and/or cycling, that’ll help.

Right water drunk, tea needed, let’s be doing this, I refuse to say “sod it” to the rest of this week, I will refocus, go see what’s in the kitchen for today, actually we had a Moroccan chicken yesterday which was completely F&H apart from the 3pp for the packet mix as it was a cook in the bag, but that was over four portions.  I also cooked my jackets in the slow cooker with the bag and it worked a treat, they were bang on, just popped em in the oven to crisp up but if you weren’t bothered about crisp skin they’d be good to go, I wrapped them in foil to cook in slow cooker and put cook in bag by side of them, think I put them in for 8 hours.

Here’s to a great day BeYOUtiful – you in?

Macmillan is leading me astray!

24^th September 2014

The time will pass anyway, you can either spend it crating the life you want or spend it living the life you don’t.  The choice is yours.

Check me out with my slow cooker Moroccan chicken prepared and in the slow cooker already this morning!  Normally my blog is the first thing I do but I went downstairs to put my phone on charge, put the kettle on and thought I’ll get this on out of the way, so I’ve just been chopping onions and carrots!  I’ve also put 2 jacket potatoes in there in foil as the chickens in a bag so we’ll see if they work out or not later.  I’ll let you know.

My members raised £100 yesterday for Macmillan thanks to coffee and cakes, it cost me a whole chunk of ProPoints though, I just couldn’t resist, they looked so good, Samantha’s marshmallow fudge (3pp x 2) got me I won’t lie but it could’ve been a whole lot worse, I also nibbled a bit off the end of a couple of other things I took for mom and I had a small rock cake so that’s another 8pp easily, I’ve tracked it and I will do my best for the rest of the week but whatever the outcome on the scales next Monday, I’ll take it on the chin, hopefully the extra good week last week will help balance it all out.  But I’m still on track, this is a forever thing, not a quick fix.  As a wise friend commented yesterday, “Everything in life seems to be instant and immediate and we tend to look for that in our weight loss, fitness goals etc. We have to accept that change is gradual and enjoy the ride, however much we want to speed up the process. Feel great on day one, hold onto a little of that magic for day two” yep it’s not who can get there the quickest, it’s who can get there and stay there that really counts!

Even when I’m off track I still eat really well, just too much of it, I eat very little processed food or ready meals, I make everything from scratch most of the time, I may occasionally use a cook in the bag, or a jar sauce or maybe packet rice but my cupboards don’t really have much more in them than tinned beans, tomatoes, tuna and microwave rice.  It’s my fridge, freezer and fresh where most of my shopping is kept.

Back to cakes for a moment, I bought scones for my meeting this week to show the difference when we’re not paying attention and guestimating or pretending it never happened, depending on the size you buy, the ProPoints will be different, these two show that, ones twice the ProPoints of the other!  Also the same packet of for when weighed, 3 of them came out at 8pp, only one weighed 7pp as the packet stated!  try to weigh as much of my food as I can when eating at home, it’s more accurate.

Two more days of coffee and cake I have to get through, I’m going to try and stay away from as much of it as possible, tonight’s will be difficult, Julie and Ellie can bake real good, I can resist the sponge stuff that don’t bother me, but if Julies done her cake pops, I’m going to be in trouble!  And Ellie with her rock cakes, oh dear, I will have to search for my stash of willpower before going out tonight!  We can have our cake and eat it, but we can’t have it every few hours for 3 days, that’s just not going to work well with the scales on weigh day at all.

At least I’m going to have a good meal today, I’m doing F&H today because I’m hungry this week, why?  Because I am, we all have those weeks don’t we, emotional or physical reasons or both, sometimes you just have to make sure you’re not hungry and tempted by the other stuff like cake, that’s my plan today anyway!

Right I’m off to do my paperwork now my lunch is on ready and I’ve enjoyed my mug of tea, love my life I do, hope my mom’s a bit better this morning, she could barely get out of bed yesterday, her knees gone, me and my sister had to take it in turns to walk Alfie, she doesn’t like being housebound my mom!

Have a BeYOUtiful healthy & happy day xx

I'm over my sulking, ready for another week.....

23^rd September 2014

Every struggle is a reminder of the question – how bad do you want it?

This is just a sample of the puddings I've watched others eat & resisted this week so that I could get a weight loss;

So I went into super sulk mode for a good few hours last night, I lost 1/2lb and yes I know it’s 1/2lb and it’s a loss and they all add up and blah blah blah blah blah, however when you’re a feeling human being who has a tendency towards the dramatic and you stand on a set of scales having sticking to the plan 100% and watching your loved ones eat cake whilst you’ve drunk diet pop or tea and you’ve eaten and drunk a lot less than normal and you see 1/2lb loss on your first week, I don’t care who you are, you’re going to be disappointed!  I’ve never had a member yet who wasn’t and I tend not to try and make them feel ‘better’ as such, I agree with them if they stuck to the plan they probably did deserve more and yes it does suck!  Then we discuss why it happened and the fact that it will more than likely show the week after and not all bodies are the same and we finish with yeah it sucks!  Because nothing anyone says will make you feel better in that moment really, it’ll give you the information you need to process later when you’ve calmed down but in that moment nah!  I sulked all the way through my meeting which was weird because there are a lot of my old members (I used to do that meeting) there and they’re not used to seeing me ‘moody’ they’re used to seeing me upbeat and motivational but hey guess what, I sulk too ;) and I I don't believe in burying your feelings, I think that’s one of the main causes of depression and being overweight, so instead I let the emotions play out, I feel them, get them out of my system & move on! It's far more productive than burying them under a belly full of food! Or pretending everything’s okay and letting it all simmer inside until one day you explode or even worse, fall apart. 

Nah I sulked, man I sulked good, I moaned to my bestie, I had a whinge with my sister on her doorstep when I dropped some shopping off and on Facebook, and then I was okay, now it’s another morning and I’m all good again, it’s out of my system.  How can I just get over it?  Because that’s life, I know the plan works and the weight loss will show next week if I stay on track, I’m focusing on health and happiness not on weight and the weight loss will become the side effect, that’s my plan anyways!

My poor leader!  Can you imagine, how does she cope with a leader sulking…. I don’t envy her, that’s for sure.

What I am pleased about is I did a week on ProPoints 100%, that was one of my mini goals, another is to complete my 12 week journal and I’m on week 5, I’m 1.5lb lighter than I was at the start, it may not sound like a lot but it’s going in the right direction!

I had a delicious fish curry for tea last night, I used a Bengali coconut sachet (3pp in half) and instead of adding chicken I added white fish, it was really tasty, I’d definitely have it again and I’m slowly getting used to smaller portions, I have a big appetite but I’m learning I won’t die if I don’t eat to satisfy it!

Right I’m off for a busy day, we’re doing MacMillan coffee mornings/evenings this week, I have said that anything brought needs to be ProPointed, I resisted the ones at my meeting last night, although I did enjoy my cup of tea there, worth my pound.  I’ve made a batch of rock cakes, that’s my contribution to the week’s events.  My lunch is already in the slow cooker, I’m trying pork, I’m still undecided if today is going to be a ProPoint day or a Filling & Healthy day, no rush to decide.  I do however know it will be an on track day!

Hope yours will be too….

BeYOUtiful, focus on the healthy & happy. 

 

Oh I almost forgot in my sulkingness ;) we went to www.cupcakelane.co.uk yesterday, it’s behind the Majestic wine shop at Tettenhall lights on Smestow Valley Walk, https://www.facebook.com/cupcakelaneatsmestowstaion?ref=ts&fref=ts  to research this weeks meeting topic of course, I sat and watched mom eat the most delicious looking fruit scone with clotted cream and jam, you can have it out of your weeklies of course, it’ll set you back about 15pp, I enjoyed a cracking pot of tea, and we would both highly recommend it for an afternoon stop off.  Here’s the address;

Station Building
Smestow Local Nature Reserve
Meadow View Terrace
Tettenhall
Wolverhampton
WV6 8NX