[ HYC Update ]

Last week I decided not to post my weigh in result. The scale was showing that I was back up to 263.6 lbs and to be honest I was just too disappointed and ashamed to share it with everyone. I know that we all fluctuate from week to week but I have been in this same number range for so long now that I really did begin to feel pathetic and ashamed.

Anyway, since then I have gotten my act together, pulled myself together and decided to stand up and try again. So here is last weeks weigh in results

and this is this weeks weigh in results....
2.2 lbs off this week. I am so pleased. I feel like i am back in control of things and more than that i am feeling positive about this journey.

I have also worked out my new goals. 10% goals which means that i have four goals before my final weight. I have now lost 21.6 pounds and need to lose 28.3 pounds to get to my first 10%. That is 6.7 pounds away. I can definitely do that ladies!

[ Finally ]

I feel like shouting from the roof tops! Finally we have some movement ladies and gentleman. The scale has gone down, down down! So excited! LOL.So this was this mornings weigh in result. Down to 161.4lbs. For those of you who dont know i have been teetering between 264 and 263 for about 2 months now. And Finally i seem to have broken that barrier. 261.6 Babe!! Now its just fingers crossed that it doesn’t go back up.

I have just come back from my first Body Pump class. Lots of fun but very hard work. My shoulders and arms are already sore and achy so who knows what tomorrow is going to be like. Lets just hope that i start to see results soon from this class

I am hoping that next week i will be in the 250's. That would be really great.

It is really late here and i am exhausted so i am going to cut my post short. I do just want to say a very big thank you to Cammy and MaryFran for your comments on yesterdays post. I am feeling a little better today and am making some plans for some of the things that you ladies suggested. Thank you.

[ The second half ]

Can you believe it is the last day of the first half of 2008! Oh yeah, and the last day of June. Wow, where has it all gone to?

Last night I climbed into bed with a cup of tea and my journal and I spent some time writing. Putting my thoughts and my feelings about the past few months onto paper and can I just say how therapeutic this was for me. I went to sleep with a clear mind and a happy heart. I had a good night sleep!

I am feeling so hopeful about the second part of the year ahead. I think that I went through a stage where I had lost my hope. I might have been fighting with all my might on the outside but inside I think I had decided to give up and just lie down. It was easier and ….well, sadder really.
Anyway, this weekend I got to spend some time being creative. I did two new canvas's and finished off one other that has been laying around for weeks now. None of them turned out the way that I had imagined them in my head when I first sat down and started with them but by the time I had washed up my last paint brush I was so proud and so pleased with them. The whole process they had changed, taken on a different look, a different story and by the end of it I knew that they were perfect just the way that they were. The end product was beautiful. As I sat there looking at them and trying to take photos of them with my dad's terrible camera ( love ya dad :-] ) hope started to bloom inside of me. Those rays of sunshine that you hear about in story books and movies moved into my heart and into my spirit and has started to spread, started to grow.


As I said earlier, I am really looking forward to what the rest of this year has in store for me!


While I was writing in my journal the topic of my weight loss or lack of weight loss came up for me. This month has not been a good month for me with regards to the scales but in other aspects things have been good. From June 1st till June 30th I have lost nothing. Yup, these past four weeks my weight has been riding its own little rollercoaster but in total I have lost nothing this month.

I have however managed to do a few good things this month that I am proud of. I had four goals for the month of June.

*Lose 10 lbs - This one didn’t come off the ground.
*Do 350min Cardio Exercise - I smashed this goal! I am proud to say that I have done a total of 501 minutes and so I get to earn my exercise bling! Way to go ME!
*Drink more water - Check, I am drinking at least 5 glasses of water a day……5 more than what I used to drink!
*Try a new exercise - Not only have tried Aquafit but on Saturday I went to my first Body Combat Class. Two days later and I still ache but I am so going back next week!


In my book three out of four is definitely not bad!


Friday afternoon I spent some time reading Cammy's blog and man oh man, if you have some spare time make sure you take a trip over there. It is full of great entries, funny stories and lots of great humour! Anyway, while reading her archives I found myself agreeing a lot with what she was saying. What she said made sense and that was how I wanted things to be.
More specifically, I don’t want to be on a diet for the rest of my life….I want to be eating healthily and looking after my body by exercising it, challenging it. So, l used her SMART entry and put together an action plan for myself. Something that I am going to try and if need be, tweak where necessary. Having some time to just think about it was really good for me. I realised some things that I might be doing which is hindering me from dropping that weight that I want to even though I am doing the right things. Once of those things is eating dinner so late. I work 2 jobs and don’t get home till 8pm which means that I don’t sit down to eat dinner until 9pm and some nights its 9:30 till I am actually sitting down to eat. Then I am going to two hours later and this is simply not good for me. So I have decided to try to have my main meal at lunch time and have the lunch that I would have normally had in the evening. That way, I will have a smaller amount of food that my body is trying to digest and I am hoping that this will help. Like I said, at the moment it is all about the tweaking so we will wait and see if this works for me or not.


So this is what I came up with as my starting points for me:
*I am going to eat 3 meals a day and 2 snacks
*Only eat bread once a week
*Drink min of 5 glasses of water a day
*Work out a min of 3 times a week.
*Not eat after 8pm Eat my main meal at lunch time
*And directly from Cammy - Every 1000 minutes of cardio will earn me 1 full fat treat of my choice. A slice of cake, an ice cream, a chocolate bar - whatever I want.


And just so that I can have something to measure my progress against here are the starting numbers from today:
Weight: 263.4 lbs
Bust: 44 inches
Waist: 48.5 inches
Hips: 53.5 inches


And I think that is enough for today ladies. Thank you for reading and for all the encouraging comments and emails that you send me. My heart smiles when I read them.

[ My newest Toy ]

Normally I am pretty serious and If I am being honest, sometimes I wish I were a little more of a free spirit. Someone who just kicks off her shoes and rolls around on the floor laughing so hard her stomach hurts. I am working on this. Working on being a little more spontaneous, adding a little more fun into my life. One of the ways that I have been doing this is by playing on the Wii! Yup, you read that right…I have a games console! I haven't had one since I was a child and we lived in our old house. I used to love playing games like Mario world, PaperBoy and Frog. Now I got myself an Nintendo Wii and the Wii Fit board and I am having so much fun with it I don’t know why I waited so long.


My favourite activities on the Wii Fit are the Hula Hoping, Steps and the balance games. This morning I unlocked the boxing game and man oh man I can not wait to get some more time to do that one. Bam! Bam! Bam! Block! LOVE IT!


I also splashed out and bought myself the Super Paper Mario game for the Wii a few weeks ago. Another game that i love. I am glad to say that i have now finished chapter 1 and have moved onto chapter 2! Very cool



Oh yeah, and my new little Samsung F210 pink phone. I love that too!


A lot of things have been happening here these past 10 days, so i thought i would give you all a bit of an update


Exercise - Tomorrow night i am heading on over to the local leisure centre to my work and i will be signing up for membership. At the moment i am really busy but i know that right now i could put aside two nights a week to do the Aquafit classes. 120 min of exercise a week would do me the world of good.


Weight - My weight has not really changed this week. Thank you for all the replies about weighing weekly vs daily. I am a curious person so i will probably carry on jumping on the scales in between my weekly weigh ins but for now this is fine.


Job Situation - Well, i have finally decided that i am finished here. I spoke to an agency yesterday and i am going for two job interviews tomorrow. Fingers crossed please ladies!


Desire - Those of you who have been following my blog for a while know how much i loved my camera. Due to needing to get together a lot of money for my permanent residency application i had no choice but to do the adult thing and part with my beloved camera. I know need a new camera. I hate not being able to take photos of things around me and it is really showing in my blog. So i am having to save for a new one but it might be a few months before i can get that sorted out.


My Art - I haven't had much time to do any art lately. I have two unfinished canvases that are waiting for me but i have been tired lately and haven't felt like doing much of anything except reading my current library book, the pact, and watching my DVD sets of Greys Anatomy. I only have another 6 episodes to watch until i am at the end .....again. I really love that show. I cant wait until Season 4 comes out here in the UK.


And that my friends is about it i guess. Take care and catch up soon.

[ HYC Update ]

This week: 264.4 lbs

The scales haven't exactly been going the way I would have liked them to the past few weeks and It has been showing with my updates….or should I say lack of updates. It is so frustrating. Up a pound, down half, up two pounds, no change, up half a pound, down one. I just can seem to get out of this bracket. This morning I had a look back at my records and from the end of April until today I have been fighting with the same four pounds. It is really getting me down and I am trying hard but I am starting to feel hopeless again.



I can definitely tell when I go off track a bit. My body feels horrible and I feel icky. When I am eating properly and exercising I feel good in myself - even though the weight isn't shifting. So that is a positive thing. I like feeling better about myself. I like feeling healthier.



I seem to have hit another snag though. I hurt my knee last week while I was jogging. I can walk OK but when it comes to going up or down stairs it clicks and absolutely aches. My mom has said that I should try to rest it for a few days but here is the problem… I have one flight of stairs at work which I have to go up and down several times a day. I live in a flat that has two flight of stairs in it. There is just no getting away from stairs for me and I don’t want to do any more damage to my knee so I am taking some anti-inflammatory and some glucosamine tablets to help with the joint. I don’t know if this will help or not but I thought that it couldn't’t hurt to give it a try.



So I was wondering if you could answer a question for me? How often do you guys weigh yourself? Do you do It Daily, Weekly or monthly? If you do it daily do the ups and downs upset things? And if you have any suggestions on what to try or do to get myself out of this cycle I would greatly appreciate it.

[ HYC weekly results and a new summer challenge ]

I am so pleased with this weeks weigh in results. As of this morning i am sitting at 262.4 lbs which means that i have lost 2.6 lbs and a grand total of 20.6 lbs. That's one fifth of what i wanted to lose gone! I am so pleased. This means that i get to update my Bling badge to this

My exercise has been a little down this week which has been bothering me a little. Can i just say that the lack of exercise has not been because i didn't want to but more because my feet wouldn't let me. My current running shoes have been hurting me so badly that by the time i get back home i can hardly stand on my right foot. It feels bruised and tender and no matter what i do i just haven't been able to change that. I went out and bought special foam liners - no help. I bought special running socks - no help. So today i decided that if i wanted to keep going with my walking/running - which i definitely want to - then i would have to go and buy myself some new running shoes.

These are what i came home with. My first pair of Asics and my first gel shoe. I'm looking forward to going out for a run a little later today. I will let you all know how i get on with them.

Now onto the Summer Challenge. You can find out all about it here. I have emailed my starting weight and am looking forward to journey to follow.

Have a great week everyone!