Sorus's Mulled Wine Musings

Sorus

Going for it.
Hi all

Well I made a brief introduction in the, um, introduction section, but now I guess it's time to get started on a proper diary.

I started the Slimming World plan a couple of weeks ago. I have roughly a couple of stones to lose. I don't actually know what I weigh in pounds cos I've weighed myself in kilos. Deliberately. I know I only have to multiply this figure by 2.2 to get the pounds - which even I could probably do in my head - but I'm blanking it out. I attach too much emotion to weight in stones and pounds. Kilos is just a figure. As and when I lose weight I will then be brave and work out what I actually weigh in a format that means something to me. But that moment is not yet...

But I know by my clothes that I'm at least a couple of stones overweight. Possibly even 3. I have been overweight since time began but the last year I've really piled it on.

Partly cos I gave up smoking 20 months ago and partly due to a back injury making walking - my normal daily exercise - impossible. But my back is much better now but I'm not helping it by having a stomach the size of Wales in front of me. So Things Have To Be Done.

I started 2 weeks ago and in that time both I and my partner have had a birthday and we've been to Bath for 3 days. ie numerous meals out. Not been easy. But last Tuesday at the end of my first week I had somehow lost 4 lbs. Not holding my breath for my 2nd weigh in tomorrow - frankly if I've stayed the same after the visit to Bath I'll be pleased.

Today have had an Extra Easy day.

Bitesize shredded wheat for breakfast.

Left over roast beef, carrots, cabbage and sprouts for lunch. Small bit of gravy - about 3 syns.

Supper: chilli made with mince with fat drained off, red onion, garlic, Tesco taco beans, red kidney beans, yellow and red peppers, tins of tomatoes, chillies, 2 Tbs Blue Dragon sweet chilli sauce (3 syns spread over several portions). This has made a vast amount and there is loads left over for lunch tomorrow and for freezing.

Had more bitesize shredded wheat than I should've (will teach me to read book properly) so have counted the extra 14gms I had as syns - 2.5.

Will probably have an apple for supper in a min cos I know how to live dangerously. Will report back tomorrow with result of weigh in. Mini goal is to get into the 70s (kilos that is, not pounds!)
 
Last edited:
Have woken annoyingly early. Far too early to weigh myself. I could lose another half a nanogram between now and 7.30. So I will wait.

Have changed title cos I realised I'd given my witterings an almost identical title to someone else's diary - sorry MadFerret! So it's now Mulled Wine Musings. Because it's the mulled wine season. And even though I can't have any just the thought of it - and the smell of it - cheers me up immensely. In my house the mulled wine season is from now to about - ooooh - mid-April at least.
 
Have lost a pound and a half! Thrilled. Considering half my meals this last week were meals out I'm dead impressed.

Off to meet daughter for coffee this morning. Just typing that feels weird. Until a couple of weeks ago she was still living here, now she's moved temporarily into a flat overlooking the harbour. She's 18 and on a gap year so everything is an adventure to her but in my mind she's still somewhere around 14 and I miss her making lots of mess and lots of noise.

Then after I've shouted at some builders who will inevitably have parked in my private parking space I'll be off to Truro to have face electrocuted. Sorry, CACI'd. My vain attempt to hold back the years. This ageing process is a bummer.

Having a red day today. Have just had bacon, eggs fried in fry light, tomato and 2 chipolata sausages (1.5 syns each). Lunch will be sandwich made with Hex B bread allowance and Hex A cheese allowance. And lots of tomatoes. I love tomatoes. Dinner? Don't know yet.
 
Well dinner was a bit of a disaster. Did a shop in Sainsbury's today and was thinking about what to have tonight and decided on fish. I'd read somewhere on here that Bird's Eye cod in butter sauce was 4 syns. I could have that with loads of steamed veg I thought.

So back home, cooking high fat, high carb meal for son (there are reasons for this - I'm not just a terrible mother!) and I bung the cod in butter sauce for me in the mike. Thought, hmmm, I'll just check the syns as this is Sainsbury's own brand, not Bird's Eye.

7 syns. 7 syns!!! Crikey - 4 was bad enough - if I'd wanted to use 7 syns I'd choose something a bit more exciting than cod in bleeding butter sauce! But it was already cooking and veg were nicely steamed so it was done. And now I have 3 left in the freezer that I'll probably never use.

And this got me thinking. I don't have a book of syns cos I'm doing SW online. Yes I have a print out of syn values but I don't carry it around in my handbag. So I thought: Why oh why don't SW do an iphone app for syns? Then wherever I am I could check before I buy. I use my iphone for just about everything else - it seems almost weird not to be able to do this.

And speaking of SW online - my god the website sucks. A 5 year old could've designed it better. The content is good - nothing wrong with that - but it's totally unintuitive. You can't find anything. The online diary for instance is under 'getting started'. Well I started 2 weeks ago. In 4 months' time when I'm still going this I'm still going to have to click on 'getting started' just to fill my diary. There are other examples too. It's just a really badly designed website.

Moan over. Still pleased that one of my 5 spare tyres is slightly less pneumatic than a fortnight ago.
 
Morning everyone. Well I made a big mistake last night - I watched Delia. What was I thinking of? Now I want to rush out and buy molasses to blacken my ham and make christmas crackers out of christmas pudding and some sort of weird pastry.

Btw - to anyone else who watched it - how many takes do you think it took her to put the ribbons round the crackers without them breaking? I reckon at least 50...

Today I will be shouting at a few more builders and it's generally shaping up to be a potentially stressful day. But in SW land I will be having an Extra Easy Day! That will be my mantra... 'I'm having an Extra Easy Day. I'm having an Extra Easy Day. I'm having......' You never know - it may even work.
 
Evening all. Well this is Day 16 for me and my 2nd Extra Easy day. When I last did Slimming World - many millions of years ago - there was no such thing as Extra Easy. And when I read what I could have this time round on EE I wondered how on earth it would be possible to lose weight on it. And I still think that.

I love EE. I don't like milk so only having one each of HexA and HexB is no hardship at all. But it seems to me I can eat just about whatever I would normally eat when I'm not on a diet! With ok, admittedly less fat, cos I do tend to be a tad over generous in the olive oil dept when I'm not watching my weight.

Today I have had 2 poached eggs on 2 slices Nimble wholemeal bread (HexB) for breakfast. For lunch I had a baked potato filled with tuna, sweetcorn and 2 Tbs of extra light Hellman's mayo. Gorgeous. For tea I've just had left over chilli from Monday night (about one syn for the sweet chilli sauce I put in it.) Oh - and I had a cappuccino this morning which will be some of my HexA. Don't eat/drink the cocoa on top. I drink gallons of black tea during the day so no milk there.

Is there anyone out there who has, or had, roughly the same amount of weight as me to lose - ie a couple of stones - who has lost weight following EE? I'd really be interested to hear.
 
Good morning diary.

Well today is cooking day! And sadly not remotely SW friendly cooking either. There will be lots of Nigella involved, possibly a little Delia and maybe even a soupcon of Jamie.

I have my OH's family (ie 2 brothers and their wives) coming for dinner tomorrow night. I have been with my OH for over a year now, yet as far as his family is concerned, I am invisible. It's bizarre! We live half an hour apart so I don't get to see the rest of his family that often but when I do I admit I find them very odd!

They're perfectly pleasant but whereas my family will talk to my OH and ask him questions to find out a bit more about him my OH's family just act as if I'm not there. It usually makes me giggle - cos it is strange - but sometimes it upsets me. And I'm not sure why. :sigh:

Anyway - tomorrow is lovebombing day. I will be cooking sumptuous (hopefully) food, plying them with Nigella's 'poinsettia' -prosecco and cranberry mixed together - and I will, provided I don't get too plastered before they even arrive, generally aim to be the most wonderful hostess in the universe.

If that doesn't work I'm going to give up.

So today is going to be a tad difficult in that I'm making chocolate brownies and chocolate sauce, pavlova, chicken in beer, canapes etc, etc. But I shall resist, dear diary!

Yesterday I had lunch out (not good, but not terrible either - chose something pretty sensible) and then a large glass of wine at staff party. Was definitely over syns yesterday. But hey ho.

Did manage to get on treadmill which I've been very lazy about recently. Yesterday I treadmilled along to:

Long Road to Ruin - Foo Fighters
Meet me halfway - Black Eyed Peas
Love etc - Pet shop boys
I'm so excited - Pointer sisters
One to another - Charlatans
Living for the weekend - Hard Fi...

...amongst others... for about 20 mins, and then I did 10 mins listening to Amy's Honeymoon by Julia Llewellyn. Talking books are a treadmiller's godsend! Wanting to hear what happens next is usually what gets me back on the treadmill. Stephen Fry may credit listening to Anna Karenina for his weight loss but I need something a tad frothier...
 
Emboldened by the fact I have more or less stuck to the SW plan for over 2 weeks now (something of a miracle for me) I decided to try on a few pairs of jeans that have been gathering moth balls in my wardrobe. And I was shocked! Shocked at how far away I am from fitting in them. Some of them I can barely get over my knees!

So... my goals will be fitting into various pairs of jeans, culminating - hopefully - by my 50th birthday next November, in my fitting into my favourite Levi size 12's with NO muffin top. The lack of muffin top is important!

But quite how much weight I've piled on has got me thinking. I got into my favourite jeans only 2 years ago. I remember clearly because of a memory tied up with Christmas 2007. And then I remembered where I was then - emotionally - and it wasn't good.

I'd just come out of an emotionally abusive relationship. Not blaming my partner at the time cos it takes two to have an abusive relationship - one party has to be willing to accept abuse and that person was me, back then. Probably because of the stress this relationship caused me I was thrown back into a debilitating phase of grief for my son. He died 14 years ago now but the grief never leaves me. I just learn to manage it. Two years ago I wasn't managing it.

So what got me thinking was - do I have to be miserable to be slim? Do I have to smoke 40 fags a day (which I was doing at the time) to be slim? I really don't want to be that way. I want to be happy, and a non-smoker, and slim.

Or slimmish.
 
Good morning diary. Well today's the day. If Nigella's chocolate brownies don't thaw the ice then I'm going to give up.

Despite cooking all sorts of beyond tempting things yesterday I stuck to plan 100%. Tonight might be a different matter but will do my best... Will probably need to have 3 million syns in alcohol alone to get through it.

Saw a great Christmassy play last night and sang some carols so am feeling quite festive. Still haven't put the decs up though. That'll be next week's excitement.

People are moving in next door today. I'm gazing out from my office on 3, yes 3, of the biggest pantechnicons Pickfords have to offer. Hope they're going to be nice neighbours. Everybody else is round here. If the new owner is the man I can see gabbling away to a removal man then I'm disappointed. He looks about 80. And quite frankly someone a bit hunkier and sexier wouldn't have gone amiss.
 
I must be having some sort of nervous breakdown. I am seriously contemplating inviting 40 of my closest neighbours round for drinks on Christmas Day. I blame Nigella's 'poinsettia'. It is, quite frankly, a miracle drink.

OH's family duly arrived last night. Handed them a glass of poinsettia before they'd even got through the door. Within minutes I heard laughter. Lots of. Blimey. Didn't think I'd seen any of them smile before never mind laugh.

And then ensued a stormingly successful evening. I am now in their eyes a domestic goddess and I've decided they're actually very nice, normal people, rather than weirdos who hate me. Result all round.

So this poinsettia (prosecco, cointreau and cranberry) is going to get another airing, possibly on Christmas Day. What affect will it have on the neighbours? Can't wait to find out.

Now - Slimming World wise which is why I'm wittering away on here - well, things didn't go terribly well last night it has to be said. In fact one might say they went disastrously. But... it was Only One Meal. That's what I keep telling myself. Like I keep saying to myself Christmas is Only Two Days. So there is no reason I can't stick to the plan the other 29 days in December. In theory...

Really, really can't see why I can't have 100% week starting tomorrow. Apart from possibly one meal on Wednesday.

So that's my goal. 100%. All the way.
 
One night of mischief diet-wise balanced against facing/dealing with your demons seems to me to be a good deal. So what if you were off plan, at least now you know that your OH family are nice people, they know you are a good person .... so all is peaceful, well worth your little deviation from the true path of SW-ness ;) :D

I think December is all about being as good as you can be in the circumstances, but accepting that it is a difficult month for all slimmers. Do what you can, but enjoy yourself when there is a special occasion. What gets put on can be taken off again!

Good luck with the rest of the month, and I was glad to read it all went well last night! :)
 
Thanks Ozzie, and yes I'm with you on the not-beating-yourself-up front if things go a little awry in December. I think of losing weight as a journey not a race. Some parts of the journey will be nice and quick, others much more slow and ponderous. December is definitely a slow and ponderous month! But it doesn't matter - as long as I get there in the end that's all the matters. It is important to have a life as well!

Today is going to be a red day. Have had bacon and eggs for brekkie. Lunch will be chilli and coriander king prawns on warm salad leaves and tea is going to be a lamb steak, mint gravy and lots of veg. Son will have lots of buttery crushed potatoes to go with his. :sigh:
 
Sorus I've just found your diary and have to say what a great read as in the tone and friendliness of them - are you a writer by trade???!! Glad the out-laws evening went well - I know the feeling of being made to feel invisible by OH's side xxxx
 
Thanks Devon Dumpling! Love the name! No, I'm not a writer but my Dad and brother are. But thanks for the compliment. :)

Good luck with your own weight loss journey. Can see you're doing really well!
 
Just got back from hospital. I have a bottom that needs 'further investigation' apparently. Can't wait. Three children and a history of IBS and constipation led to the need for an, um, delicate operation last July. Won't go into details in case any of you are eating your tea. Suffice to say it was horrible, horrible, horrible. Wouldn't wish the op on anyone, even Gordon Brown.

The NHS has taken this long - bless - to give me a follow up appointment. And this long to tell me that all is possibly not hunky dory in the bottom department so they want to shove a camera up my arse.

To console myself when I got home I had 2 Laughing Cows and 15 grapes. And then I realised grapes weren't, perhaps, the best choice.
 
To console myself when I got home I had 2 Laughing Cows and 15 grapes. And then I realised grapes weren't, perhaps, the best choice.

I know what you mean about the grapes but I'm not sure that the Laughing Cows were such a great idea either, I now can envisage them, pointing the finger and mocking you - damn those laughing cows! *shakes fist in futile rage* . :p ;)

Seriously though, I hope they get you sorted out and good luck with all the procedures, I know it can't be easy going through it all, no matter how light you are making of it here. Great attitude you're showing!
 
Thank you Ozzie! Though I must admit I generally don't worry about my own health. Every single ounce of worrying I do goes, and has gone, on my children. Having lost my eldest child in an accident and with my youngest child having cystic fibrosis I sometimes think I'd be quite happy to step off this mortal coil, just so I don't have to worry any more! Then I realise how stupid that is cos my youngest still needs me so there is no escape. :rolleyes:

Anyway - on a brighter note - today is weigh day and I have lost another 0.8 of a kilo. ie 1.75 pounds! Making total weight lost to date around 8lbs. Yay! Just need to repeat that another 3 or 4 times and I'm sorted. :D Simples!

Today is going to be a green day and I've had bitesize Shredded Wheat for brekkie. Will be having baked potato with tuna (hexB), sweetcorn and 1 Tbs extra light mayo for lunch. Tea will be 'pasta misto' - ie pasta, tomatoes, onion, red peppers, kidney beans and mushrooms (delish).

Last night I was hungry at 9pm so had 2 boiled eggs with sea salt and garlic pepper on the side. I'm getting quite fond of my boiled eggs! And they really do fill a hole. And free!
 
Hi Sorus, thought I would repay your kind compliment and take a look at your diary. I did SW many years ago and loved it - really enjoyed both days but unfortunately lost no weight afte week 1! You have done really well - is that 8lbs since you started? Is that 4 weeks ago? Well done. What is your target?

You certainly have had your share of sadness in life losing a child and now your youngest having CF - I can see why you are a worrier - me too. Some of us are just born that way I think and little can be done to change it.

I loved reading about the outlaws and you have now got me interested in Nigella's Poinsettia! I am having the neighbours round on Sunday - this could be the very thing!

Anyway nice to meet you through the site and good luck on your continued weight loss plan.
 
Last edited:
That's great about your weightloss this week! You're doing so well! I see I'm going to have stiff competition from my weightloss buddy!

I seem to have hit an early plateau but I'm not worrying about it, just plod along and it will start to come off soon! Failing which, there is always the gym up the road which glares at me every time I drive past it .... on the plus side unlike my house it has aircon - yayyyy I'll be cool! on the downside - I have to excercise - boooooo I'll be hot! A dilemma!

Anyway, enough of my witterings, it's bad enough that I fill my own diary with them, without cluttering up yours :p :D

Good luck for the week ahead!
 
Clutter away Ozzie and Hoe! It's nice to have some company in this otherwise completely self absorbed diary. :)

Yes I've lost 8lbs in 3 weeks. Not kidding myself that it'll continue at anything like that rate. Though would be nice!

Today I met one of my new next door neighbours. Unbelievably it turns out she's the local SW consultant! I didn't know that because I don't go to class - I do it online. Mainly because the last time I went to an SW class I couldn't cope with the happy clappy stuff and people moaning that they couldn't have 10 cream cakes a day...

And the fact the consultant was incapable of pronouncing Muller Lights correctly didn't help. To this day in this house, and everyone else in this town who went to the SW class ten years ago, they are known as Mulner Lights! I know it sounds ridiculous but I felt I was in a class of 12 year olds half the time. There were many others like me who felt the same, but we all went because I do believe the group stuff is good, and works. But it would be nice to be treated like a sentient human being!

Anyway next door neighbour seems really nice and I'm sure wouldn't treat me as if I have the IQ of a retarded amoeba so I may well try her class after Christmas. Will probably need extra motivation in January. :sigh:

After a nice long chat about red days and green days she invited me over to her garage. As you do. She has tons of SW books in there. How handy is that?! So I bought a couple - and have saved on postage.

She did say she'd put on a stone since becoming an SW consultant. Que? She said it means people can see she's 'human' and admitted she doesn't stick to the plan most of the time. Right. Didn't like to say anything but surely SW consultants have some sort of obligation to demonstrate the diet - sorry food optimising plan - works? Or am I being very unfair?!
 
Last edited:
Back
Top