The value of Privacy

Privacy, it's one of those things you don't really think about until it's gone. Today, as I went to the bathroom with an audience, running commentary and uttering eight words I never in my wildest dreams thought I would say in the same sentence; "no pet, Mammy will wipe her own bum", I realised that my privacy is gone, and I miss it. I had often heard tell of inquisitive toddlers accompanying parents to the loo.  I never actually thought that they do it. And that they also question you, head cocked to one side, hands up asking "wee wee?? Pooh pooh?"

Today I remember fondly all the shampoo bottles I have read, all the lonely and unaccompanied wee wees I've had and look forward to going to work tomorrow, if only for a smidgen of privacy!

Only 8 Days till Christmas...

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree, your looking very Christmassy...

I can't believe there are only eight days till the big day.  This is all very exciting let me tell you.   Time has been shooting away from me.  It's been four days since I got weighed and I am only getting around to posting about it now! But before all that, let me fill you in on the last two weeks.

I had my Christmas party two weeks ago.  It was a grand night.  We had some crazy "entertainment" and booze galore for most of the night.  I walked the legs off myself and me and one of my besties ended up partying the night away in a London casino till the wee hours of the morning.  The result? I died a holy death. I mean, the worst hangover I have had in years and years.  It took me 40 minutes to complete a 15 minute walk from where I was staying to where I work. Sweet divine baby Jesus my flight home was horrific. I swear to God I had the little paper bag poised and ready.  When the plane hit turbulence I was instantly thrown back to that time I went on Space Mountain in Disney land Paris and wished I was dead... Some poor man sitting beside me was rubbing my arm reassuring me that it was only a bit of turbulence and all would be well.  I think he took the beads of sweat racing down my face in a marathon to see which one sploshed onto my lap first as a sign that I thought the plane was going down in flames. Thankfully, I managed to make it to solid ground and the privacy of a cubicle before I made a holy show of myself.  I got home, prayed that the baby would be easy for me, which she was, put her to bed at 6.30pm (this is her usual bed time, not the 'mammy has a hangover and can't be dealing with you' bed time) and I lay on the couch and begged for death. When death didn't take me, I rang for a Chinese and prayed it would stay down.  It must have been all my walking and what not because when I got weighed after that weekend I maintained. And when your in the throws of party season, you can't be sniffing at a maintenance.

On to this week.  Well I walked and stepped and lifted my way through the week like a mad woman.  I achieved 1,000,000 steps since 30th August 2015 and decided to achieve 2,000,000 steps by 6th March 2016 (that's 2 million in total, just so we are clear!)

This has given me a real boost to get moving and keep moving over the Christmas. What has also given me a boost is this little ensemble I wore to my father in law's 60th birthday bash 

I felt really great heading out on Saturday night. And I had a great night as a result of all my hard work. I did not feel so great on Sunday. Oh God, I thought the hangovers had left me. But they haven't.  I do not recover well anymore.  I had offered to do a big chicken curry for day two of my father in laws celebrations, and as I stood there, hungover to bejaysis, cutting up those chicken boobs, I genuinely thought I was going to pass out into the raw chicken and get food poisoning. I didn't, but it nearly happened.  I think I must have drank about 50 liters of water and I was still thirsty!!!  

All my hard work paid off, because when I got weighed on Monday, I was informed that I had lost 2.5lb! I'm delighted with myself! I am now 1lb off my stone and I want it on Monday.  I will go into the Christmas week with my stone in my hand. 

With Christmas week fast approaching us, my plan is in place on how to cope with the excess food and drinking. I  am allowing myslef three free days and the rest will be like any other day of the week.  And I have my challenge to continue with, 11,111 steps per day to achieve the goal of 1 million more steps in March. 

Weight Day; The Result

Weigh day has come and gone. I had a day off work yesterday and I decided that I was going to use that day to go to my class and get my hair done.  Getting my hair done was out of necessity rather than desire.  The other day someone told me that the balayage in my hair was lovely... I didn't want to tell them that what they were actually looking at was nearly five months worth of re-growth... I said thank you very much and, with a slight hint of red to my face, picked up the phone and made an appointment to get regain control of my mane! Once upon a time the thought of sitting in a hairdressers for two hours doing nothing would have filled me with dread.  I was never able to fully relax into the experience, I wanted it over and done with as quickly as possible.  These days, well, it's a completely different experience.  Two whole hours of not having to wipe a nose or change a bum.  Two whole hours of reading trashy mag after trashy mag, and they were all in date too so it wasn't months old news I was reading either! I got two cups of tea handed to me along with a couple of Roses, which I politely declined. Then the lady massaged the scalp off me. I was on the verge of making very inappropriate noises when it came to a sad end. Yes, post baby, hairdressers are my new favorite place!

My pampering was almost ruined by the scales... I was half a pound up yesterday morning.  Very disappointed in that because even though I didn't put in the effort with my exercise, I did put in the effort with my food.  But, thankfully, I had measured myself on Sunday night to compare my stats to what I was 12 weeks ago and I was very happy with what I saw.

The scales may not have  been kind to me, but at least the measuring tape was.  That's 9.5 inches lost all over my body in 12 weeks and I think that's not to be sniffed at.  I can feel it in my clothes and have already dropped a dress size. I am very happy I took these measurements because I think if I hadn't, that half pound would have resulted in me saying "Feck it, where's the selection box"?  

With only four weeks left of the year, I am going to give it all I have got to start 2016 at a minimum of one stone lighter than when I started 2015.  I will go into the new year with a much smaller challenge ahead of me.  I will not throw in the towel! 

The party season is upon me and my wee diary is already filling up with fun and frolicks. I love this time of year, catching up with people and getting dolled up and just the general happiness that seems to reign supreme for most.  So as I was scooting around the interweb looking for inspiration from some of my favorite bloggers such as the very talented Skinny Doll, I stumbled across a great post from another blog called 59 Pounds to Go.  This post had a great idea for planning the festive season that I am going to get on board with.

This is my plan for tackling the party season 

My goals for December are as follows: 

Loose 4lb 

Survive Christmas with a maximum of 2lb gain 

Exercise every day 

Do a minimum of 11,500 steps per day 

Drink at least 2.5l of water per day 

Track every day 

Happy 1st of December everyone!

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

This road is long... today

Man oh man, some days this journey I am on is just like a never ending road trip with a really annoying, nagging companion! Today, all I could see in front of me was pounds and pounds of weight to loose and internal fight after fight to make rhe right choices (like avoiding, and failing to do so, the box of biccies my new neighbour gifted us to apologise for the noise of work happening in her house! How sweet was that in a skinny minnie thoughtless kind of way?). Today I felt like just saying feck it, I've enough, sure aren't I grand.

Then I got off the couch and I did the second day of 30 day shred level 2 and I also did another workout, which involved a side plank. I ALWAYS automatically choose the modified version of these positions, but today I decided to give it a bash. And you never guess what? I did it. On both sides. For the length of time I was meant to. With one arm up in the air. Sure I was like a pro, feck Jillian Michaels,  it's Rach Mc The DVD that'll be the best selling fitness DVD in 2016!!!!!

I swear I was utterly delighted with myself. I know to most a side plank is nothing, but it was a big achievement for me and it has helped me see the road ahead in a different light. It has reminded me to focus on getting fit and healthy and the weight loss will come with it.

In another Non Scale Victory, I had a bath tonight (victory for all in my house, the pong off me from all my side planking and jumping jacking). Anyway,  since I was about five months pregnant, I am sad to say that when I had a bath, I created what can only be described as a human dam. Water behind me would rush to freedom when I stood up. Tonight, the water flowed freely. I no longer back up the bath!! Practically svelte at this stage of the game!

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! 

Weigh Day: The Result

I haven't been to class in two weeks because of travelling and family life and, of course, excuses!  When I saw that my leader was off on her jolliers to Boston for a couple of days, I decided that I would give myself one more week to 'claw back' and secure a weight loss before going to my class. Then I remembered that it never works when I do that, and decided to get my backside in to face the music. And face it I did.  I went to class with no expectations. Mainly because I had a big weekend of beer and wine and very little actual working out. But I was good with food and even managed to avoid a large amount of the tricker treaters sweets! I found an amazing way of dealing with the sweets and treats lying around waiting on the dressed up little people, put it in a big pot and leave it on the door step with a note telling them to help themselves, thus avoiding me eating it and teaching the kiddies to be honest and have some self control - I was doing them the favour more than me!!! 

Anyway, I got up on the scales and was delighted to see that I had been doing something right since my last weigh in and was down 1.5lb! So one more pound and I am back to where I was three weeks ago before I started gaining. 

The class was very inspiring and it made me realise where I have been going wrong.  I had been so successful because I was tracking everything I ate. 24 / 7. And I had stopped doing that. Allowing myself to have a sneaky snickers or a crunchy crisp and then ignoring it.  

Novembers goals are in place: 

I want to loose 8lb by the end of the month 

If I bite it, I will write it 

Jillian Michaels 30 day shred 

Water Water Water 

And most importantly, a clean and shiny aura for the rest of the month!! 

I am all set for the coming days with my zero point soup made and my meals planned out. My wee slow cooker will be my savior I think!! 

Here's to an excellent week ahead!