Weigh Day, The Result

Isn't that a wonderful little saying? And it is very true of my life at the moment.  I am impatient and impulsive and always expect changes to happen the minute I have decided to implement them. Like, if  I work out for two days in a row, I fully expect to be a size 8 with abs to die for! Even though I may have only done 6 sit ups!!!

But right now, I am slowly throwing each and everyone of my bad habits down the stairs and replacing them with good habits! Slowly!

Today is weigh day.  I went to bed last night with a faint feeling of butterflies in my tummy.  I wasn't really too sure why I was feeling excited, until I got weighed today.  I had a brilliant week. I was very good at tracking everything I ate and I worked out a good bit too. Good hard working out where your sweating from your eyeballs (or crying, whatever you wanna call it!). And it was all very much worth my while because when I approached that scales and hopped up on there, I was told that I had lost 2.5lb this week! Which means that I am now 11lb down, a dress size if you please, and in addition to this, I have lost 5% of my body weight!  Happiness reigns supreme!

I bounced out of my class delighted with myself! All my hard work really and truly paid off this week. It gave me a massive big boost and I headed off into the day to do some christmas shopping and search for a new guna for my Christmas party.  Alas, there are no party guna's anywhere to be found, and the ones that I did find, lets just say my old trick of thinking I'm smaller than I actually am was played and I found myself standing in the changing room, looking at myself buttered into an inappropriate styled dress thinking, what happened between the rail and the changing room? What? 

But it didn't dampen my mood in any way at all. I am just chuffed with myself. 

Next week will be a challenge to say the least! I have a night away on Saturday with Himself and the rest of my family to celebrate a great man in my life turning the big eight-oh! My grandfather is turning 80! I have always been aware of how truly blessed I am to have not one, but three grandparents to celebrate every year! So we are having a great big party for him and staying over in a hotel.  It is a wonderful chance to spend some much needed time with my family and to catch up with aunts and uncles and cousins that I don't get to see a lot of. So I need to work hard to make sure that I don't gain back any of that 2.5lb I lost!! 

This is all the moving I did this week and you can find a copy of my food diary for the week here

Day	Exercise
Tuesday	Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred, Level 2.  This is a work out session I am getting from You Tube
	Jessica Smith TV 30 Minute Yoga Sculpt
	10,893 Steps
Wednesday	Jessica Smith TV 30 Minute Yoga Sculpt
	Jessica Smith TV 45 Minute Cardio Ball Ballet
	11,430 Steps
Thursday	Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred Level 2
	Jessica Smith TV 30 Minute Strength Training
	7,610 Steps
Friday	Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred Level 2
	Jessica Smith TV Fat Burning Burning Belly Fusion Workout
	6,222 Steps
Saturday	4,856 Steps
Sunday	4,641 Steps
Monday	15,546 Steps

Total Steps this week:              61,198

Total KM this week:                  45.3

Weigh Day, The Weekly Result

Yesterday was weigh day. It was a busy week of walking and travelling and a lot of drinking. The usual story, I went off to London and lost all control of myself and proceeded to drink lots of beer and eat all the wrong things. No control whatsoever! But at least that was my last trip to the UK until the Christmas Party in December, so I now can no longer blame travelling to the UK for my lack of achievements on the scales!

All things considered, I didn't gain any weight! I stayed the same so that was a little victory in itself. Clearly the 30 Day Shred challenge is paying off somewhere along the way! And perhaps the little stats below had something to do with it also!

I ate relatively well this week. I even threw in some extra veggies with some of my meals! My favourite lunch this week had to be the Pizza Boats. They were amazing! Really tasty and felt like I was getting a treat.  I had decided that I was going to attempt a new recipe every week to try and keep things fresh and prevent me sinking into a food rut. So I attempted this  Skinny Lasagne. The meat sauce was lovely, but unfortunately, I just don't like leeks.  Food textures play a big part in what I will and won't eat.  And leek is way to slimy for my taste buds.  It was a little bit disappointing after going to all that effort, but at least I tried it. From now on, lasagne will be made with good old fashioned pasta, like the Italians intended it to be!!

So, what's in store for next week? I'm going to continue with Level 2 of the 30 Day Shred. Jillian Michaels is the most irritating person in the world, but at least it makes you get through the routine with a bit of passion! I'm also going to aim for 73,000 steps as well as a couple of Jessica Smith TV routines for good measure.  I am planning on loosing 1.5lb next week and that will be achieved with lots of good food, zero point soups, prep and planning and my big big goal for next week is to track everything I eat and drink 24/7! 

6 Mondays to go until the last weigh in! I got this! 

Birthday's, Benders and Babies

Let's start from the beginning...

After a couple of days in Lovely London, I came home to my wonderful Little Aussie and her Mum and Aunt visiting. So, being the hospitable person I am, I invited them all over for a bit of dinner and a sociable drinkie-pooh. And by sociable, I mean very sociable. I absolutely took advantage of Super Valu's 3 bottles of french wine for €25, in fact, not only did I take advantage of it, I abused the bejaysus out of it.  By all rights, I should have been curled up in the fetal position begging for a Priest to give me my last rights on Saturday morning, but I wasn't. I got up bright as a lark and  thirsty as desert dweller, but I made soup and porridge bread (which I must have made wrong cause it was rank) and I made a lovely dinner for that evening, to provide soakage for round 2.  Yes, you heard me correctly, round 2.  Before going out on Saturday evening I did a bit of shopping and bought a pair of jeans one size smaller than usual. I  didn't end up wearing them out though until round 3... For round 2, I slipped on a pair of mint green skinny jeans.  These jeans are super significant. The last time I wore these I wasn't even a married woman! Oh no. They were purchased for wearing the night before I became a wife. And not only did they zip, they fit! I felt amazing. And so happy with myself for all my hard work.

Here I am looking very pleased with myself!

And, not only was I in pre-wedding jeans, I was in pre-pregnancy shoes too!! I have loads of lovely shoes that do not fit since I got pregnant, but apparently I am getting skinny feet as well as cheek bones! 

I headed off out into the night with my girlies and I had an absolute ball for myself. I didn't rock in until 4am. I danced the feet and legs off myself, accumulating 5,888 steps between 12am and 4am - impressive footwork for sure! And once again, I fully expected to be pleading for death by firing squad when I woke up, but I was grand! Which was great, cause I had to get ready for round 3... And round three was a scream! Out for the Dubs, well, I won't say that I was out FOR the Dubs, cause anyone who knows me knows I could care less about football and all that business, but I was out because of the Dubs and had another kicking night. With no hangover! So apparently, turning 33 means no hangovers, hurray! 

Because of this PMA and bag of aura cleansing material I am carrying around with me these days, my three day bender did not leave me with a bad dose of the Fear and a mountain of negative thoughts! Instead, I took my crazy weekend for what it was, a once off blow out, I dusted myself down and fell asleep on the couch on Monday evening, like the Nana I truly am, before heading to bed at 8am to sleep soundly for a good 12 hour stretch. Refreshed and ready to make it to a weight watchers class Tuesday evening.

But alas, it was not too be! Because Tuesday was spent nursing a very very sick little baby. One that had lots of high temps and needed lots of cuddles and comfort and antibiotics and nurofen and water and just anything at all to relieve her pain and discomfort. My Dolly has tonsillitis again. The poor little divil spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday pretty much curled up on my lap. No more partying... instead it was preparing bags in case we had to go to the hospital with her and trying to get her temps under control.. See why high jinx and baba's don't mix!

Holly's Bed Time Bed Fellows 

Birthday's aren't the same as the were pre-baba days - not that my liver would agree with you after the weekend I had. It was such a stressful couple of days with my poor sick girl that I didn't really think too much about the day itself. Until I was given a birthday present to beat all birthday presents.  Himself was very good this year, really out did himself by giving me my very own designer baby that is to be kept very far away from the real baby...

The celebrations are over, my mojo is back, I'm moving again and tracking again and I am going to make up for lost time this week with loads of soups and low point meals. I am looking forward to my weigh day on Monday.

This is me at 6.30am this morning after sweating the face off myself for 40 mins! 

Operation Skinny Bitch is back in action after a brief hiatus! 

Week 4 of my 12 week challenge

I decided to start a 12 week challenge on the 11 August 2015 which would bring me up to 2 November 2015. The aim is to loose 21lb by that date and track in a 12 Week Journal everything I eat and how I feel. It's going well. I haven't missed a day yet.

I took my measurements at the start of this challenge and decided I would retake them at the end.  But I'm impatient, so I took them just now.

In 4 weeks I have lost 7.5lb, but I have also lost;

0.5 inches from my waist
0.5 inches from my hips
1 inch from my bust
1.5 inches from thighs
1 inch from my arm

At this rate I'll be able to stop carrying around that fire extinguisher every where I walk! The Chub Rub is less likely to set me alight!!!!

Here's to Non-Scale Victories!!!

It's Friday at last!

It's been one heck of a week. Every goal I have achieved so far this week has  been hard won.  The urge to lie on my couch and eat a six pack of monster much, 3 bags of tangtastic jellies and an airport toblerone has been a difficult one to resist. A very difficult one. I have been tempted by the two McDonalds I drive past on my home. That's right, there's two. And there drive in's too. Drive in’s are feckin lethal for me. You see, in my head, anything I eat while in the car or driving is calorie free, because I don’t pay attention to what I’m actually eating and I can ‘forget’ that it happened just by throwing the wrappers in the bin outside the house. So yesterday, as I was approaching the danger zone I decided, feck it, I’m having a Big Mc Meal.  Then, for the first time ever, I decided that I would investigate just how much that big mc would cost me. 22 ProPoints for the meal. So I said no way. Then as I approached the next set of lights I thought, well sure I could take it out of my weeklies couldn’t it, feck it, I will. But, as I approached the turn to go away from the drive thru or head straight for it, I took the turn away from it. No, what if I want to have something really nice at the weekend, like Wine, or chocolate, or wine and chocolate. I’m not wasting points on that crap.

Danger zone 1 successfully averted.  But I still had one more danger zone to navigate. I knew that if I drove towards that second drive thru there would be no way I’d pass it, so I did something really bold, something that won’t jeopardise my weight, but may possibly jeopardise my clean licence… I took an illegal turn and scooted off up the road in the opposite way to the second danger zone towards the safety of my house! Yay me, although very bold for breaking the law. I would have explained the precarious position I was in to a Garda if I was stopped. I am full sure he would have understood that the severity of the situation.

So on we go to the weekend. I am not too worried about it because I have a nice relaxing time planned with my family.  We have only just settled down into the swing of things after me being away from London. My little Dolly decided that she would teach me a lesson for going away and leaving her for nearly a week by suddenly starting to walk all by herself and fed herself. In your face mam, she says, you leave me, I’ll just grow up too quickly on you!! It was a happy day when she started walking by herself on Monday. I nearly caused her to fall down with the screech of delight that I let when I turned around to find her following me up the hall!!

I have completed 35,846 steps of my 83,000 so I am well on my way to achieving my goal by Monday.  I am determined to achieve this weekly goal. I will not be beaten! I am back to feeling like I want to this, not just that I have to.  This weight loss journey business is a funny one.  No matter how much you would just like it to go from A-B in a straight line, it is generally a squiggley up and down and all over the place mess of road!! 

Have a good weekend all x

Weigh Day: Week 5 - Travelling Mama, Walking for Weight Loss and Terrible Tantrums

It's the end of Week 5 of Operation Skinny Bitch and it has gone relatively well.  The mobile stats look good, but I am not entirely sure the output will negate the input, if you get my meaning!!

Being away from home for the four days was difficult. For all my chat and excitement for my baby free time, it was not easy to spend so much time away from her and Himself and I was so excited to get back in to their loving embrace, that was until my little Dolly decided that she would punish me for her abandonment by launching into a level five tantrum that shook the house to its very foundations.  Hell hath no fury like a toddler who cannot wear her leggings on her arms, let me tell you that! For a full 35 minutes she lay on the floor and howled like she was being murdered. I must admit, I admire her dedication and commitment to her cause and it gives me great hopes for a bright and successful career in the future. But my goodness; it was a sight to behold.  By the end of the 35 minutes, she pulled her tear stained, sweaty little head off the floor, crawled up into my lap and lay on my shoulder rubbing my face saying "sssh sssh sssh". We were exhausted, mildly traumatised and relived that the (many) moment(s) had passed.  She returned to her loving little self and was all smiles and hugs and kisses from then on... while the fear of a repeat performance mounted in the pit of my stomach at the thought of having to change her bum! That was my punishment for being a Travelling Mama...

Here's hoping a frustrated drama queen is the only punishment I will receive for my break from the norm! I have asked my WW Leader to talk extra nice to her scales.  I was quiet good, but definitely had a little more than a tiple or two! I didn't go wild, like usual, but I am definitely not as confident about tonight's weigh in as I have been in previous weeks.  I am going for my silver seven. I need to loose 0.5lb to achieve this. It's so hard to have confidence in your choices when you have no control over what is going into them.  Eating out a lot is difficult. I did make some very good choices, I also made some not so good ones too - Doritos, I'm looking at you... but for the most part I kept breakfasts to fruit and yogurts and lunches to salads without the dressings so that I could be a bit more relaxed about my dinner and enjoy a glass of two of wine.

But I walked! I moved and I move and I moved. I set my self a goal of 81k steps by bed time tonight. I have 11,212 steps to go to make this goal. That's not a bad achievement if I do say so myself.

It's easy to rack up the steps in London. You practically walk everywhere, except the first day when your sense of direction fails you and you end up getting the tube to the next stop. It took longer to get down into the tube station, buy a ticket, wait for the tube, get on it, get off it and go back up to the street than it would have if I had walked, but I didn't know where I was going and looked like a fool walking up and down the road afraid to commit to a direction!!! 

Here's my stats so far this week... It's hard not to feel a little bit confident that I will achieve my goal when I look at them, but I am afraid to get cocky... 

Week 6 is about to start. Every week my confidence in myself grows and grows. And with that, so does my pride in myself.  I have made the decision to change my life, and I am not using excuses to stop me from doing this. My mantra again this week; the scales is not a true reflection of the effort I have put in.

All the same, if  you could send a few feather light thoughts my way I'd be ever so grateful!!! 

London Life

Greetings from Lovely London… I am currently living it up in a beautiful serviced apartment in the heart of London. It is amazing. It has a fully functioning kitchen, a shower that would strip the skin off your back, and the biggest bed with the most comfortable mattress, fluffiest pillows and cosiest blanket.  If you’re traveling, this is definitely the way to do it!

I have been concerned about how my eating habits my go while away. It’s so much easier to be at home and in my routine (and my comfort zone), but I know that this is a way of life for me now, I need to be able to adapt my food choices to my life. And I am trying very hard.  I made really good food choices yesterday, I had a bagel with smoked salmon and salad for my breakfast and I went out for dinner to a lovely Italian. I read the menu, I drooled over the pizza choices and the creamy cheesey gooey sauces, so much so that they had to put a “Caution, Wet Floor” sign beside my seat.  But, as tempted as I was by all that, I made good choices. I had an avocado and prawn salad, no dressing, for starter and Gnoochi with a tomato and basil sauce.  I had to fling the menu at the poor girl and order her away from my table before I changed my mind and said “Four cheese sauce, with extra cheese please”..

I can’t speak as highly of my willpower when it came to the bread and oil that was brought to my table. I ate that. I am not proud, but man it was so tasty. So I am happy to live with the shame…. The great thing about being in London is that you manage to get a lot of steps in without actually having to make a huge conscious effort to move. So yesterday I had managed to do a grand total of 14,534 steps without really trying… although tell my legs that cause they are killing me today!

After such a successful eating day yesterday, it’s given me the confidence to remain on track and not completely loose the plot while here. Smart choices! I’m starting with low pointed breakfasts (had fruit salad and granola bar (5pp)) and I’ll do the something similar for lunch so that I can be a bit more relaxed about dinner.

London is such a busy place. It’s one of my favourite places to visit, but I am really missing Himself and the Dolly. I had a facetime with them last night and my poor Dolly didn’t understand what was going on. She got so upset when I was saying goodbye to her. I think she’s wondering where the heck I’ve gone. Only two more nights to go! This jet setting lifestyle wouldn’t really be for me.

Week 2 - Goals Achieved

Weigh Day is Looming

It's coming around to that time of the week again.  And what a week it's been! As I mentioned in a previous post, the day after weigh day this week was a tricky one. I just felt very disappointed that I wasn't seeing the results that I was feeling.  So I let myself have a moan day (one day? I hear my husband say, sure don't you do that every day!), and then I got up off my backside and got going again.  I challenged myself to 60,000 steps this week.  It was a challenge that I didn't think I was going rise to, given how enthusastically I had thrown myself into pity partying. But, despite this, I have so far managed to achieve a grand total of 54,108 steps and I still have one more day to go!

I am feeling so great with the changes I have made.  Last night was the first time in a very very long time that I went on a night out and felt good about myself and how I looked. I even managed to fit into my Hen Party outfit. Although, the look was not really fit for human consumption just yet.  But the jeans zipped, which was more than they did a couple of weeks ago. The last time I attempted to put them on they had a massive row with my hips and thighs.  It was an almighty battle, they were returned, bloodied and bruised, to the wardrobe to lick their wounds.  So that gave me a great big boost alright.

I had such a great night! But the end of it was a feckin minefield.  Have you any idea how many fast food places are open on Swords Main Street at 3.30am on a Sunday morning? Well? There's a million of them.  I trotted on past Mizzoni and ignored the calls of the cheesey fries, I clip clopped on past McDonalds and refused to listen to the Big Mac's begging me to eat them, I tottered on past Apache Pizza and declined to respond to the invitations from the chicken dippers to come in and have a dunk. It took all my willpower to trot, clip clopp and totter on past those tempting invitations.  But I did it, and I got home delighted with myself. Even in a decent enough state to remove my make up correctly and remember to bring some water to bed with me! Managed to remove my lenses AND put them in the bin instead of leaving them somewhere to dry out and become crusty and gross! All in all, it was a successful evening.

I slowly arose from my slumber this morning, gingerly moving my thumping head (I may have avoided the fast food, but I wasn't so virtuous with the aul Vino..) and, instead of having a dirty big cooked breakfast and heading down to the shops to stock up on jambons and wedges and crisps and chocolate and jellies, I had an lovely egg poached in a spicy tomato sauce for my breakfast (recipe on the Recipe page of my blog) and got up and did a work out for 45 minutes! Himself was in shock.  I was in shock. The usual turn of events after a night out consists of removal from horizontal position in bed, to horizontal position on couch barking orders to be brought food of all sorts and watching Harry Potter from start to finish.  But not today! Oh no sir!

So with all that in mind I am expecting to wake up tomorrow morning a size 8! Here's hoping the scales recognises all my work, because if it doesn't, I will have to set it on fire!!!

Although in all seriousness, even if the scales doesn't want to recognise my hard work, I can feel it in myself.  I'm not as tired as I usually am, I am in a constant good mood (although Himself might have something to say on that subject!), my stress levels are decreasing daily and I am starting to notice a big change in my attitude towards myself.  The negative thoughts are not as frequent and I am much kinder to myself this week.  Which was one of my main goals for the week.

Wish me luck tomorrow morning people!!!

Thought for Today - Fall in Love

I love a good inspirational quote! Can't beat them with a stick. They inspire me for about twenty seconds after reading them and then my mind moves on to something else, inspiration forgotten.

But I read this quote last night, and it has been ringing in my ears ever since.  My Weight Watchers class was very interesting. What I took away from it, apart from some amazing medical advice regarding dehydration, was that a lot of us in the Weight Watchers classes, or any slimming groups, are there because of how we feel about ourselves, as much as we are there to learn the right ways to become fit and healthy.  I have been so many years imagining how I would feel when I reach my goal weight. Visualising it and what I would say about how happy it has made me to achieve the goal.  But, after last night, I think that as well as working on my physical health, it is equally as important to work on my mental health and change those negative voices in my head that make me feel worthless.  There is no point in achieving all that I want to achieve if I still can't look in the mirror and love who is looking back at me.

So this weeks goals have increased by one, I will be nicer and kinder to myself I will not berate myself or be too hard on myself.

I think this is a goal that everyone should set for themselves every single day.. Just remind me, won't you?

Thought for Today

Goals!

Week 3 - The Plan of Action

Ok! So apparently I need a kick in my sizeable backside to get my weight watching head back on straight! No point in paying Weight Watchers a tenner a week to just watch my weight increase now is there? 

Having gained 1lb instead of loosing it, I've had my ass kicked and have devised a plan... The goals for next week are;

Loose 1.5lb, complete 20k of walking and track everything I eat..

Exercise...

Exercise is a little bit on the tricky side still. I'm not fully back to fighting fitness, or whatever my pre-pregnancy equivalent was. But in saying that, there may be a chance, a very small minute chance, that I am using this as an excuse to do nothing at all. As I say, possibly a chance - not a guarantee!

I know myself that back pain can be helped by walking and strengthening my core muscles etc... So I am committing to walking a minimum of 20k and the 30 day squat challenge. I have knocked off 7k of my goal already! 

How to loose the 1.5lb?

Well, I'll begin by ridding the house of all baking parifinalia. All of it! I have no ingredients to go creating my downfall from scratch, so I am committing to NOT going out and purchasing any of the required ingredients for chocolate cake or similar. You would think that I wouldn't have to state that I won't go buying the stuff, but let's face it, I am willing to go to all the bother of baking a feckin cake to sabotage my efforts, so best to err on the side of caution!

Track It

I promise to track everything I put into my gob! Every last crumb that I eat. As the saying goes, bite it then write it!

Reward for goal achieved?

My aul eyebrows are starting to take on the look of black caterpillars crawling across my face. My reward for achieving my goals, and not feckin baking, is to get those bad boys tamed! And I need to have it done because I am attending a wedding on Sunday and I can't be going around looking like the evil Sargent from Police Academy;

If this image is not motivation enough, then I don't know what is!!!!