20 weeks minus 20 pounds equals me in a bikini for

- aim for 10,000 steps every day on my fancy new pedometer - achieved 25,296 steps
- eat approx 1300 cal/day with 500cal to be spend wherever I need over the week - not achieved

- get up before 8am everyday - acheived
- eat plain/natural yoghurt once a day - not achieved
- eat one light meal every day - not achieved
- take the stairs at work every time - achieved

- eat meals away from the tv and my desk at work - achieved
- drink lots of water - achieved
- think about the food I’m eating, don’t just eat it -not achieved
- eat when I’m hungry and alter size of meal to suit hunger level - not achieved

Today is a day with “room to improve” but that’s ok cos everyone has to start somewhere.  Tomorrow I’m aiming to get all my daily goals achieved.  I just need to think about what I’m doing and I need to have faith that I can do it.  I need to cut the crap (like literally cut the food crap) and get serious.  I need to brave the tough days and battle through.  I’m so proud of myself for the progress I’ve made so far but I’m not happy to let this be the end.  I will get to my goal weight and in the summertime I will feel like myself for the first time since I was a kid.  I deserve to feel beautiful and desireable and confident.  I will do this for me and only me. 

I know what I want, I know how to get it - only thing left to do is to put the theory into practice.  I’ll be back in 10 days for my week three weigh-in.  No more posting until then as I need to do it rather than talk about doing it.  And if I need an activity to distract me then there’s always walking or skipping. 

See ya’ll on the 8th August….

Breakfast: plain yoghurt & berry yoghurt (100), apple (100), orange (60) = 260

Lunch: vege soup (120) multigrain roll (220) = 340

Dinner:

They say it takes 21 days to create a habit. I never quite understand who “they” acutally are but I’m not going to question the theory now I’m just gonna run with it.

I have a list of 11 things that I’m going to do everyday and hopefully by Sunday 17th August I will just do them without thinking. Some of the items on my list are easy and won’t take much effort to achieve them (it’s more about just being aware of doing them) and others are actually harder. So here’s my list..

- aim for 10,000 steps every day on my fancy new pedometer
- eat approx 1300 cal/day with 500cal to be spend wherever I need over the week

- get up before 8am everyday
- eat plain/natural yoghurt once a day
- eat one light meal every day
- take the stairs at work every time

- eat meals away from the tv and my desk at work
- drink lots of water
- think about the food I’m eating, don’t just eat it
- eat when I’m hungry and alter size of meal to suit hunger level

- get up at least once every hour I’m at work and move around for a couple of mins.

The whole 10,000 steps thing is cos I have a challenge running with my mum and sisters where we are trying to out-step each other and at the end of three weeks the overall winner gets to decide what we do (movies, dinner out, rockclimbing etc) to celebrate. For every day that you aren’t the winner you have to pay $1 and that will fund the celebratory event. Although I just went for a walk and my counter fell off and broke. So now I’m stuck on 2125… I’ll have to go out and buy a new one ASAP cos I can’t not win!

Eating 1300cal/day is a good level I think. My BMR is 1466 so with that and an additional 300cal (as burned doing usual tasks throughout the day) I should be able to get a deficit of 466cal per day. Over the week that equals 2762 (taking into account the extra 500cal) and I should be able to lose .78 lbs each week. And that would keep me perfectly on track - with the addition of some exercise I might be able to lose more but I won’t plan/rely on it.

Getting up before 8am is going to be hard, but at the moment I have no sleeping routine and it means that I can’t get to sleep at night and then in the morning I want to keep sleeping since I didn’t get to sleep until 3am… So buy getting up before 8am everyday hopefully I’ll get a good sleep routine back into play.

Eating one light meal a day is how I plan on keeping my calories in check. I love soup, I love making it and eating it and it’s winter so it’s a great option at the moment. Soup is usually low in calories too (except for cream of anything…) so it will be my light meal for the day and dinner will be my heavier meal and I will be able to ’spend’ more calories on it. It’s a technique mentioned in the French book that I like so I’m gonna run with it.  Other light meal options include egg on toast, small pack of sushi, salad.

Taking the stairs at work is pretty easy, I work on the 3rd floor so it’s not even tough. I’m ashamed to say that everyone takes the lift to the 3rd floor!

Most of the other items on my list are about thinking about hunger/food and I’m hoping they will break me out of the Autopilot eating that I do so often. I want to take the time to enjoy my food! Food isn’t just fuel for me!

Ok I’m off to buy myself a new pedometer. Here’s hoping I don’t break this one after a couple of hours!

<><> 3pm update:  Well I went and got myself a brand new pedometer and it’s so much cooler than my old one.  I’ve clocked up just over 5,000 steps so far today and I plan on going for a walk on my way home so that should give me another 3,000 or so.  It’s so silly how a little step counter can give me the motivation I need to go for a walk!  Gotta take what I can get though right?!

I didn’t have time to log in here yesterday so I’m just gonna write a quick word to help me keep track when I look back over time.

Yesterday was my nephews 2nd birthday party and there was a wide variety of yummy foods. I had decided that it would be a non counting day as having to worry about that wouuld put a damper on my day. I decided to eat moderately however. So I ate some piklets (kinda like pancakes but little and fluffier and served cold with jam or butter or nothing at all), some lollies, home made pizza (top quality stuff!), quiche, grain waves, salad, fresh bakery bread and Weight Watchers carrot cake (it’s such a good recipe and doesn’t taste like something WW would encourage!). It sounds like a lot when I read it now but I had a light breakfast and also a light dinner to compensate for the lunch. And it was only small quantities of everything. One piece of bread not 3 and the smallest pieces of pizza and quiche I could find - because I wanted to enjoy their flavours but I knew that I didn’t physically need big to eat big pieces to make me feel satisfied.

So yesterday was good, I actually enjoyed the yummy food that I ate without feeling all guilty about it. I’ve got a dinner out on Thursday and I’m looking forward to having that “enjoying yummy food without guilt” feeling all over again!

Here my food so far for today.

Breakfast: toast with marmite (110), strawberries (30) yoghurt (55) milk for tea (10) = 205.

1st Lunch: cup of vege soup (125) = 125.

2nd Lunch: 4 pieces of sushi (200) peach (60) = 260.

Dinner: chicken (100) veges (80) potato (80) = 260.

Afters: mini mini quiches (400), glass of milk (120) = 320.

Total so far = 1370

Confession time… yesterday I was doing great. Came home from work and I was hungry so I had a bit of fruit waiting for dinner. Then I ate my perfectly on plan dinnner followed by some dessert that turned out to be not so yummy (so I threw it away) and then I had a slice of fruit loaf which was super yum and then I had another piece cos it really was super yum. At this point I’m doing great calorie wise, or at least I would have been if I had just gone to bed but did I? Oh no of course not, I went to the kitchen instead and had a 1/2 peanut butter sandwich and (yet another) slice of loaf. I snuck my extras into my bedroom and over the next hour proceeded to keep sneaking more food. I had a piece of toast with some cheese and ham, some toaster waffles with banana, 3 small packs of smarties (mini mini ones but I ate 3 packs not just 1!) what else… oh another slice of cheese and bread, a belgium biscuit and a couple of lollies. I knew what I was doing was wrong but I just kept going back to get more things to eat. Ugh!

But on the positive side (and there is a positive side) I made myself be accountable. I decided to take action against the harm I had done and I drank lots of water (by the time I’d drunk so much water I was super bloated and this made me too lazy to walk back to the kitchen…. The other thing I did was write a list of what I ate, figure out the calories for it all and make myself aware of the realities. Usually I put my hand in the sand and hide from the truths.

So this morning I woke up, looked in the mirror and thought that I didn’t look any fatter and therefore there was no excuse to keep being naughy and I was just going to keep going as I intended. A line has officially been drawn under last night’s antics.

So instead of eating 1200cal as I originally blogged I ended up eating 2500 calories. On one hand OMG and on the other hand it’s not so bad. The reality is that I would probably have many days each week when I would eat that many calories this time last year, so it’s not one bad night that makes me fat, it’s many many many bad nights in a row!

Lessons learn? Many! #1 don’t pick at a cake straight out of the oven as it leads to over indulgence. Wait until it is time to eat the cake and then sit down and enjoy it properly. #2 never go back for seconds of a treat item (this was potentially the point at which I stepped onto the slippary slope…) #3 don’t ever eat peanut butter except in the morning on toast. Eating it at night with bread ALWAYS leads me to eating more of everything. So I must keep away.

I didn’t weigh myself this morning - I figured the weight of the food alone as it digested would probably be a number of pounds so I’ll wait until later in the week when I feel skinnier!

Today has been a good day, I tried to eat as light as possible to counter-act yesterdays actions and I spend 6 hours at work where I was on my feet the whole time doing lots of running around. It’s also freezing cold so I figure the extra effort my body is putting in to keeping me warm must equal at least one of those mini boxes of smarties?!

Tomorrow is my nephew’s 2nd birthday party and I’m going to indulge but in a healthy and sensible way not in a binge/secret eating in my bedroom type way. Whenever I’m taking food to eat where there are no people it’s a bad sign.

I feel ashamed to come on here to confess but accountability is very VERY important and it helps me evaluate just what went wrong. I think I was starting to get a bit cocky so will never think that I am “cured” especially after just one week of good eating.

I had my first official weigh-in this morning and I was very happy the the results I got. I’m now 25% through my journey and still have 95% of my allocated time left to lose it. Hot stuff I say.

And I’m not just seeing progress on the scales, I can feel it and see it on my body too. It’s funny how I forgot that different parts of me stick out when they’re not covered in such a heavy layer of fat… I suppose I was too busy filling my face with rubbish food to stop and take a look. Only 5 more pounds to lose and I’ll be back at my lowest - I really really really can’t wait for that to happen. I’ll finally be able to get through the guilt that I have for ruining my efforts in a matter of weeks and then have to spend well over a month to scrape back to where I was! I was certainly suffering from the ol’ “one step forward, two steps back” cycle but I’m all good now, and going in only one direction - FORWARDS! (or downwards really).

- pause while I go and eat lunch cos my tummy is rumbling-

Ok I’m back, I can’t remember what I was going to say so I’ll just food diary it.

Breakfast: toast with margarine and marmite (110) mix of melon, strawberries and pineapple (60), yoghurt (40), waffle (40) milk for tea (10) = 260.

Lunch: cup of h/m vege soup (100) toast (110) with cottage cheese (20) and tomato (10) = 240.

Dinner: spinach and ricotta canelloni (156) salad (80) 1/2 piece fresh bread (60)= 296.

Dessert: pudding and yoghurt (210), fruit loaf (240) 1/2 marshmellow lolly (25) =

Total = 1271 .

Last night I bought the book “Why French women don’t get fat” and I am so totally loving it. It’s all about enjoying the pleasure that is food. Chosing wisely, eating to suit appetite and taking time out to actually enjoy what you are eating. It has made these last couple of days even easier than I could have ever imagined. Now I eat when I’m hungry, early or late I just eat when my tummy tells me I should and so far it’s working pretty well. There are a few things I need to change though, last week when I started calorie counting I went out and bought low-cal things (jam, jelly, sauces, bread etc etc) and they go against what I’m reading so I might just have to take them all down to the local food bank. Basically the book says you should enjoy the food you eat, I eat sugar free jelly cos I can eat all I want but in reality I don’t really enjoy it cos it tastes funny. What I should do is eat proper jelly, actually enjoy it and let the satisfaction come from the tastes than the act of eating the jelly. She also is a firm believer in eating seasonally - haha oops just this morning I cut up a mango and ate melon, pineapple and strawberries none of which are in season down here at the moment. I’ll finish them off and then focus on mandarins, oranges, apples pears and the such. Bananas are never in season in NZ so what does that mean? Ah a banana is a banana all year round so I’m gonna keep eatin them! Mmm yum banana!

<>Today I made a conscious effort to do more physical activity. I’m not talking about putting on the gym gear and going for a run, I’m putting more emphasis on just moving. Walking the longer way from where I park my car and my work (an extra 10-15mins each way soon ads up!) taking the stairs instead of the lift, parking my car at the further park from the door, cleaning the communal kitchen at work (I put a good bit of elbow grease into cleaning out the fridge!). It makes me feel better about exercise when it’s just about “moving”. And taking 4 10 min walks each day rather than planning on going for a walk and then not going is far better for me!

I’m on such a diet high at the moment. I’m inspired by food and also the fact that I can create such yummy meals and still lose weight. Ah such bliss to be in control.

Hope everyone has a great Friday night!

Today I weighed myself and I’m sitting pretty on 145 lbs.  So in 4 days I managed to lose 2.8 lbs and since I started (7 days ago…) I suspect I’m down 4-5 lbs (I didn’t weigh myself when I started because I just couldn’t face the horror that it would have been, but I decided my starting weight was most likely going to be somewhere close to 150lbs (at a conservative guess)).

So to conclude…

Week 1: 5 lbs down (150 down to 145)

19 weeks to go and 15 pounds left to lose

So I just calculated where my calories came from for the last 7 days. I made up 7 categories and I know that some of these cross over (such as yoghurt I counted as dairy when it could also be counted in protein). But this is just give me an overview and doesn’t need to be too super over-evaluated!

Vegetables = 23%

Breads/cereals/potatoes = 20%

Fruit = 15%

Protein = 14%

Treats = 11%

Other = 2%

‘Other’ was foods like jam, sauces etc - the biggest contributer is filo pasty that I had no other category to put it in.

I’m actually really happy with how my percentages worked out. Veges was going to have to be the biggest, followes by the starch type foods. Protein isn’t really a true representation as there is protein in the yoghurt and cheese that I ate and if I counted those as protein the numbers would have been more like 20% I’d imagine. Fruit at 15% I’m happy with as I am with my treats being 11% of my intake. And 40% of that 11% was the date scone so they’re not lots of little things they are a couple of items (which I would rather it be so yay).

There is one area that is lacking though and that is the “healthy fats” category. Other than some avocado there wasn’t any other healthy fats in my diet. No fish or nuts or seeds. So I’ll have to work on that a bit won’t I. Almonds are such a good option for healthy fats but I worry that I won’t be able to restrict myself to just a small handful and I will just keep going back for more and more and more until the bad is empty.  For the meantime I’m just gonna stick with avocado, fish and seeds and will look at nuts again in a few months time.

So tomorrow marks the start of week 2 and I cannot begin to tell you the relief that I feel! I keep trying to get back on the wagon over and over again for the last month and have finally managed to get 6 days under my belt and it has been problem-free. Where I was going wrong before was that I was being too restrictive and of course who wants to drink meal replacement drinks all day with only veges and a bit of meat for dinner? Haha not me cos I kept breaking my rules. I eventually “sucked it up” and came to realise that I couldn’t expect a quick fix to get rid of the weight I have put on and that’s when I started just counting calories and allowing myself to eat anything I wanted - so long as I still ate as the food pyramid suggests. And so far in the last week I’ve dropped some pounds and I’m feeling very positive about the whole thing. Last night I had an small ice cream cone after dinner and then this morning I was down from 147.2 to 145.8. Looks like I can have my cake and eat it? It’s all about sensible choices and eating in moderation - who would’ve thought aye?!

Well today there is a big work shared lunch which are usually great fun. I was planning on going along but then yesterday my friend asked if I could babysit her 4 month of baby for a couple of hours so I decided to skip the shared lunch and opted for the babysitting instead. I was more than happy with this (cos it also meant I didn’t have to be a slave to the kitchen last night preparing yummy foods) but then all my work mates thought that I wasn’t eating because of my diet! It kind of rubbed me the wrong way and who can blame me with comments like “just bring your carrot sticks and sit with us”. Um when do I eat carrot sticks? Although the lady who made this comment is life-long dieter, meaning she’s been dieting for her whole life and each time she ends up weighing more - so she tends to like to make rude comments about my diet or what I’m eating for lunch. Sometimes it reminds me of being a kid in the school yard when the bully would tease you about your new lunchbox or something and you’d go home all distraught and your mum would just explain that the poor bully is just jealous of your new lunchbox! I’m sure that the life-long dieter is just envious of the progress I’ve made over the last 5 months. I’m not ashamed to say that I am very proud of myself for losing 25 pounds. I may have made it look easy but I know that there was a struggle or some sort, to some degree every. single. day.

And the other thing is that even if I wasn’t going to be out for lunch and I could go to the shared lunch I wasn’t hungry at midday so that wouldn’t really fit in with my new “eat when you’re hungry and take time out to enjoy the food” theory. And anyways, I’m gonna have a scrummy yummy hot lunch at home and I’m also going to ‘indulge’ in a small date scone - something I am really looking forward to having. Yum!

Ok food time…

Breakfast: Oats (140), peaches (30), 1/3 banana (35) yoghurt (35) milk for tea (10)= 250.

Lunch: 2 slices wholemeal bread (145) 10gms cheese (30) 60gms baked beans (50) mini tomato and slice onion (10) yoghurt (35) =270.

Afternoon tea: milk for tea (10) 1 chocolate covered pretzel (25) = 35

<>Dinner: h/m vege soup (125) =125

<>Dessert: date scone & marg (265) 2/3 of banana (65)= 330.

<>Total = 1010.

Well so far I’ve got 1005cal planned out for the day but I’ve got a mini banana and some yoghurt with me if I’m still hungry after dinner (I’m working late at work so have my dinner with me). Also need to up my water drinking for the day since I’ve had none so far - unless I can count the two cups of tea I’ve had?

<><><><><><>UPDATE: Well it’s 7.50pm and I’m still at work but considering going home shortly. I have been downing the water (to test if I’m hungry or thirsty) and I’m kinda hungry but not like HUNGRY hungry - know what I mean? Haha. So anyways I was thinking about having my soup but I don’t want to eat it at work so I’m going to go home (via the mall to buy a book) and then eat it when I get home, out of a gorgeous bowl at the kitchen bench while browsing through todays paper. I just feel like eating my soup now at work would be a waste of the deliciousness of the soup. I know I’m sounding a bit like a crazy person but I’m trying the whole “evaluate if you’re hungry, what you’re hungry for and then appreciate what you’re eating” thing. So that’s what I’m going to do. And by the time I walk to my car, drive to the mall, drive home it”ll pretty much be 9pm and I should be hungry by then right? Ah now that just gives me something else to worry about. Should I be eating that late? What if I don’t ever feel hungry tonight? - haha that was just a joke I am sure I will be hungry by the time I get home