Thread: MLM - going it alone...

Back in January, when I was a wibbly wobbly 19st3lb, I resolved to put my mind to losing some weight this year. The reason I decided it was because in Oct 2000 I married the most splendid man on the planet, and this year is our 10th Wedding Anniversary. I was a "big" bride, I think I was nearly around 19st when we married and much as I loved the whole wedding, I have never really forgiven myself for not making an effort to look beautiful on my wedding day.

To be fair to myself, we only decided 4 weeks before the wedding that we were going to do it, and so it was a push to get everything else sorted out, and I couldnt have made much of a dint in my weight in that time anyway, but we had been engaged for a good eighteen months before that and I should have started working on it sooner.

Anyway, I hated my wedding photos, I have never liked pictures of me anyway, since I was a teenager really.

Over the last ten years, my weight has fluctuated quite spectacularly, I went up to 21 stone, and then found I had difficulties with concieving and was strongly encouraged by the fertility team to lose some, or risk it never happening. So I lost 5 and a half stone, then got pregnant, went back to 18, then lost another 5 while breastfeeding and healthy eating after the birth of my eldest daughter.

I had decided that I would stop losing when I got to 12 st 7lb. This is well within the normal range of BMI for my height. When I was 12 st 10, just 3lb away, I found that I had become pregnant again with my second daughter, and along with that had overwhelming cravings for cake. (Thats my story, and I am sticking to it!)

Second daughter was born 4 years ago, and I weighed 16st 10. I had really horrible post natal depression after she was born, and the weight just went back on. So I found myself, in January this year, back at 19st 3lb, staring down the barrels of 20 stone again and decided then and there that I refused to ever see that number on the scales again and so I had to do SOMETHING and I had to do it now.

As it was at that stage just over 9 months to our tenth wedding anniversary, I decided that I would aim for that as a goal date, as I wanted to look slim and sexy for my husband. Hubby is lovely, he really genuinely has never cared what size I was, but he knows that I am not happy when I am larger, or more realistically, I am larger when I am not happy, and so he has been very supportive.

The first couple of months of the year went great, ate healthily and the weight started falling off again. Then it got to around April time, and I found myself losing my mojo a bit. "A bit of that wont hurt", "I will do better tomorrow" started to creep back into my justifications as to why I was spending the day eating rubbish instead of sticking to my healthy eating and weight loss goals.

So I decided I needed something to make me focus, and at that point in time, decided I needed a group or some form of support, and made one of the bravest decisions I have ever made, to join Slimming World and attend regularly.

What an eye-opener that proved to be! I hardly slept the night before my first meeting, I was so scared about having to go into a room of total strangers and get weighed and I had heard a lot about all the clapping and was terrified of that, I had next to no self-esteem and certainly didnt want people focussing on me. But I knew that if I didnt do it, I would just slip back into the late night chocolate feasting, and cake bingeing, and so I went.

I have found it remarkably easy, Extra Easy even.

I couldnt believe it was possible to eat so much and still lose weight successfully, but it was, and it is, and I am SO pleased I made the decision to go. 14 weeks down the line, I am 2st 10lb lighter than I was when I walked in there, and just 1st and 6lb away from that elusive 12st 7lb target I originally set for myself all those years ago. 38lb, in just 14 weeks! I cant believe it myself, just sitting here looking at the figures.

So here we are now. 10 weeks till the WI before my wedding anniversary, and 1st 6lb required to get there. Thats 20lb, or a loss of 2lb a week. No small feat and will require plenty of determination. Even if I dont make it, I will still be probably 6 stone lighter than I was when I started back in January.

I shall be documenting the next ten weeks as they happen, provided I remember to update.

For the record, I am mostly following red days, with perhaps one or two extra easy days during the week. Wish me luck, I am going to need it!!

Right, I have decided that what this plan needs is for me to stop faffing around with half hearted attempts at exercise and get stuck back into it. The exercise bike makes a USELESS ironing board, and I have spent so long being scared that Bob was going to shout at me for not showing up when I put the biggest loser wii game in the player that it was getting silly.

So today I have set up a new fitness program on the BL, amazingly since the last time I logged on to it I have lost 21kg. I chose Jillian as my trainer, because shes EVIL, and tonight once the kids are in bed I shall be proper kicking her ass. Its a shame she wont be here to stand on my thighs in person, but I might make DH put on a Jillian wig and act all bossy or something. Anyway, what we do in our own time is our own business

Now, I appreciate that this might start impacting on my weight losses, but I DO need to tone, and I still reckon I can knock out 2lb a week with exercise, if I have been pretty consistently losing 3-4 without it.

We shall see anyway. If I end up slowing RIGHT down, I might review things.

Good luck! I shall be following your diary and willing you on

Awww, thanks chick with the hawt shoes!

On the subject of shoes... I took the girls to town this afternoon to get their school shoes ready for restarting back in a few weeks, and just happened to fall into Game while I was there, where they just happened to have a special deal on where you could get Wii Fit Plus and EA Fitness Trainer with the resistance bands and weird leg strap thing for £30 for both. Given that Wii Fit Plus is £15 at the cheapest possible option anyway, thats not a bad deal. I really DO have no excuses now.

Oh gawd. I have just put myself off prawns. I was having some low syn seafood sauce with prawns on scanbran for my tea, and one of the prawns had a big poo sticking out of its bottom. I feel sick. I didnt eat it, obviously, but urgh.

Dry scanbran anyone?

Originally Posted by MadameLaMinx

Oh gawd. I have just put myself off prawns. I was having some low syn seafood sauce with prawns on scanbran for my tea, and one of the prawns had a big poo sticking out of its bottom. I feel sick. I didnt eat it, obviously, but urgh.

Originally Posted by MadameLaMinx

Dry scanbran anyone?

I think maybe you've just put me off prawns too for life! Ughhh!

Just calling in to say wow, how amazing have you done?!?! Your weight loss is fantastic so far, and your story has inspired me (and your diary is a hilarious read ) I'll be following your diary and your 10 week target challenge good luck, I'm sure you can do it! & good luck with that exercise - I'm also jumping back on the exercise wagon, but it's so hard to get some motivation!! xx

Originally Posted by MadameLaMinx

So today I have set up a new fitness program on the BL, amazingly since the last time I logged on to it I have lost 21kg. I chose Jillian as my trainer, because shes EVIL, and tonight once the kids are in bed I shall be proper kicking her ass. Its a shame she wont be here to stand on my thighs in person, but I might make DH put on a Jillian wig and act all bossy or something. Anyway, what we do in our own time is our own business

Haha! Brilliant - that almost made me snort tea down my nose!!!

Good luck for your challenge and well done on your losses so far! x

Thankyou both!!! It is hard to get motivated Geordie, but its a mental block more than anything else, certainly for me! But I have a finite amount of time at my disposal so I dont have time for excuses any more!!!

Spanx, your diary makes me laugh so often, I am glad I was able to return the favour.

Off to the Minx in laws for tea today, hope she has made something nice and SW friendly! Will report in later

Well... she tried.
"I am making this healthy casserole" she said. "I just need to fry this chicken first and then pop it in with the other things" she said, while slapping great wadges of chicken into the frying pan which had more than a reasonable amount of oil in it. Despite me giving her a George Foreman grill and her having frylight in the cupboard.

*bangs head on keyboard*

*and again...*

*and once more for the body magic*

So it was a chicken casserole, with chopped up bits of bacon in it, and some potatoes which seemed to be a little roasted... I only had one of them though. And some rice which she insisted I had "because there wasnt much in the casserole"

*waves goodbye to red day and calls it extra easy and counts the syns from the fibre plus bar and the oil*

She did, for dessert, pull out muller lights and fresh berries for me and her. And a strawberry cheesecake and arctic roll for everyone else...

*bangs head on keyboard in frustration at the lack of arctic roll*

I LOVE Arctic Roll. *cries* *heartfelt sobs of grief*

But I was very good, and didnt have any cheesecake or any arctic roll and I did enjoy the muller and berries, they were almost identical to the ones I ate for breakfast...

Then I went for a walk to the shops a) to minimise the damage, b) to get some sweeteners because she only had sugar and she forces tea/coffee down your neck like you are going to dehydrate if you dont get one every 30 minutes and I cant do unsweetened tea, and c) to bang my head against various hard items along the way.

"Why is your face all covered in bruises?" She exclaimed when I returned. "The heavy tears of joy I shed on the way to the shops at the deliciousness of the meal" I replied.*

I swear, if I dont have a good loss this week, its her fault. ALL her fault. NOT RESPONSIBLE. NO.

Im only having 5 syns tomorrow.

No actual other food, just 5 syns.

I am going to do sloth, envy, pride, wrath and lust. I shall skip over the greed and gluttony ones because they would be counter productive. Message for Hastalavegan. PRIDE ON 3! PRIDE ON 3!

So today I was up at silly o clock to get the little one ready to go meet her new paediatrician. She possibly has a social communication disorder or some other developmental delay but no-one is going to put a name to it just yet. Given that my eldest has problems in this area, this is not unfamiliar territory, I can only hope that this time around we have a more successful time with school and the LEA than we had last time.

Anyway, not dwelling on that at this stage. Long road ahead.

So I have finally got my wii finger out and had a bit of a go on it today with the girls. Have done marching band (I have no rhythm), cycling, some weird game where you add numbers up to ten by smacking the right numbers with your hips, and I might have a go on something else when I recover from the jogging bit. Babyminx thrashed me at the jogging that we did two player, but she was sitting on the couch with a sore knee and not actually running where I was actually running, so I am not too ashamed of that.

When I logged on it told me my BMI had dropped from last time, so thats all good. (I set it up on Tuesday.) I know its not an accurate weighing scale and it thinks I am a couple of lb heavier than the SW ones, but thats on carpet with an inaccurate wii scale, so I am ignoring that anyway. It was nice for it to say my BMI had dropped a bit more though. Havent actually weighed since WI (Go me!).

Tea will be Salmon a la oven, I had tuna for lunch, with scanbran. Still cant see me ever eating prawns again. *shudder*.

Eldest got his exam results (AS level) today and has done very well so hes off out for the evening with his mates to celebrate. Huzzah for him!

Things all went a bit squiffy yesterday. I WAS going to have salmon but then DH had to go out to find out why my mothers hall ceiling had partly collapsed and was dripping water. So while he was out I made a red day schoolboy error and had some mushy peas and ham, with pepper and vinegar. MUSHY PEAS ARENT FREE ON RED! DOH. 1 syn per 28g and I had a 300g tin. So I had to turn it into an extra easy and syn my second HexB instead. Fortunately I had stuck to 1/3 superfree for the other meals so it could have been worse, but THEN DH turned up with a portion of salt and pepper chips, so I ended up having about 6 of them too. They smell so nice. I need to find a SW friendly recipe for them.

So today I have gone back to red, will be avoiding the mushy peas, and have done a reasonably lengthy session on the EA Fitness Trainer. I am very impressed, it really does give you a thorough work out, and I chose low impact! Burnt off 121 cals on that, and I even ache a little bit!

Further to the earlier post, I DID adapt a recipe for SnP chicken/chips and have posted it up in the recipe forum for any fellow lovers of the takeaway version.

I also walked to the supermarket which is 1.6 miles away (not such a big deal coz I have to go past there to get to my SW group and I walk there and back each week) but today I decided that rather than call MrLaMinx for a lift back with the shopping, or a taxi if he is busy, I would WALK home again.

I had two of those big heavy duty reusable shopping bags made out of something resembling rope, and two small tied carrier bags on the top of the shopping in the reusable bags. In those bags were... Twelve muller lights, a four pack of chicken breasts, 4 litres of apple juice, a packet of sausage rolls, some fat free fromage frais, 2 pts of semi skimmed milk, 1 pt of skimmed, 6 bananas, a bag of onions, a packet of fresh chillis, a cucumber, 2 packs of baby plum tomatoes, a lettuce, two punnets of strawberries, two punnets of blackberries, a hairbrush and some nail varnish (a girl needs her shopping perks), a carton of sea salt and probably one or two other things that I have forgotten about. Its like the Generation Game except I was the conveyor belt.

I got about 200 metres down the road and thought "This was a bad plan", when the ropey handles started to wear a hole through the palms of my hands. However, I was nowhere near a bus stop and felt a bit stupid ringing for a taxi from halfway down the road away from the supermarket, and so I decided I just had to keep going. So I did. I pulled my coat sleeves down underneath the ropey handles and I walked the 1.6 miles back home again. I did intend to carry the shopping upstairs and stand on the bathroom scales so I could see exactly how much extra weight I had been carrying but frankly by the time I got home I was so knackered, but pleased to have completed the task that I just headed for the kitchen to get a drink before I totally passed out. I reckon there must have been a good 5 stone of shopping spread over the two bags though, and I was carrying that around with me ALL the time. Admittedly it was a bit better spread over my body and not dangling off the ends of my arms, but it was a revelation to realise exactly what I had been doing to myself and the strain I had been putting myself under by being so overweight.

All in all, a day of reasonably good levels of exertion, and more importantly, I didnt give up and take the easy way out.

Loving your diary MadameLaMinx! Hilarious! Keep posting - I can see it's gonna be a regular stop for me...X

Thanks Krupskaya! Call in any time

Todays project was called "Turn my bedroom from an allergic trigger into a haven of tranquility".

Our house is small. People who say "I have no room to swing a cat" should be grateful that they have the possibility to swing a mouse. When we moved in here, it was me, DH, and DS, and it was about bearable. Since then, there has been the addition of DD1 and DD2. For the purposes of sanity, we gave up the largest bedroom, which is not largest by definition, only by default, to the two girls, so that we had somewhere they could play, and keep their toys. DS resides in a caravan in the back garden, which he thinks is quite cool. He could have had the box room, but he is 6ft 3 and the usable space in the box room is 6ft square. It doesnt take a maths genius to work out that he doesnt actually fit in it.

So, anyway, DH and I moved out of the biggest bedroom when things started to get silly in terms of space, into the back bedroom which is considerably smaller than default largest, but slightly larger than default box room.

What this means is that our bedroom has a chest of drawers that we cant open properly coz the bed gets in the way, a couple of bookcases, and some bedside cabinets. There is about a foot of space either side of the bed.

and what THAT means is that its near impossible to move in there and because we have little space to store anything, our inner slobs get greatly indulged and the clutter keeps on piling until you have to equip yourself with a safety helmet, crampons and rope in order to get in and out of bed.

and what that means is that its an absolute dust magnet.

To add to all this, at least one, if not more, of our cats quite regularly make their way in there from outside and sit on our bed to get some peace.

Which would be great. If I wasnt allergic to dust and cats.

I dont go to bed to sleep, I go to bed to sneeze. You may be asking yourself "Why do they have cats if she is allergic to them?" Well, thats because in a former life DH was a bag lady with a house full of 100 cats and its come through with him to this reincarnation. Much as it would be better for me personally to rehome them, we have a responsiblity to them, and I certainly dont want to break DHs heart by getting rid of them. Besides, I quite like them. And on a short money week, they make a nutritious and free meat source.* So I sneeze and have a runny nose, a lot.

Anyway. Now and again I will get absolutely fed up with the clutter and high levels of allergens polluting my sleeping space and so I will go in and give it a good blast through. What this usually consists of is me faffing about, lying on the bed and reading old magazines I found under the bed, and looking busy whenever someone comes upstairs.

Not today though! OH NO! Today it consisted of me faffing about a bit, actually putting things away and throwing things out, cleaning from ceiling to floor, putting stuff up in the loft, and watching episodes of the Aus Series 3 Biggest Loser while I was doing it. I have a clean room! With floor you can stand on! (You can kind of step about a bit too, but I wouldnt describe it as walking coz that would probably indicate taking more than a couple of steps and thats an idle fantasy). But the floor is clear, and hoovered, all books and magazines are away or on shelves and the mattress is hoovered and everywhere is dusted and I totally win.

Ok, it was probably a 3 hour job that happened to take 8 because I kept getting distracted by weigh-ins and eliminations, but I got through a fair chunk of the outstanding episodes I hadnt watched!!!

Decluttering the Sky box an additional bonus, I think.

Today was not such a great day. It could have been worse, but it wasnt the best day ever. As usual after a cleaning frenzy, I felt quite poorly, raking all that dust up when I am allergic to it generally makes me feel the day after like I have the flu. Started out ok, had some fruit and yogurt, and then the girls started being all scrappy and disgruntled and that gave me a migraine, so I had to retire to bed, and spent half the day asleep. I havent felt much like eating at all, so my total food consumption today has been poor since I got back up again. Hope that doesnt mess my WI tomorrow up. I am not expecting a miracle week of weight loss, far from it, but a loss would be nice, after the salt and pepper chips and the minx in law not very healthy healthy casserole.

Going in a bit early to WI tomorrow coz the C doesnt like sitting there by herself and once she weighs me I can help with the WI and pay-ins. I usually do the puter and someone else does the WI for the first half of the session but it depends on who shows up. I also get off the puter when the girl who normally does the puter shows up from work, which is nice coz I can have a bit of social time too.

Headache seems to be coming back, so its painkiller and bedtime.