Tracey's healthy yummy lovely journey

Hi hun how are you? You haven't been updating much lately so I hope everything's going well and your managing to stay on plan and enjoying your new pad! Hope you had a lovely time in Birmingham for your Step Dads birthday xx
 
What does bold mean Tracey lol?! Also, is it ok if i follow you on twitter? Couldn't help but notice your name in the tweet from Nigella (go you!) Good luck with the flight tomorrow xx

Of course hun, Yay for new twitter friend :D I was so delighted by Nigella's response! haha!

Ditto what do you mean by bold!? Is it Irish slang for naughty? Lol xx

Oh girls, this is so funny! Yes bold is another way of saying naughty. You would never think linguistic differences occur :)

Hi hun how are you? You haven't been updating much lately so I hope everything's going well and your managing to stay on plan and enjoying your new pad! Hope you had a lovely time in Birmingham for your Step Dads birthday xx

I know hun, I have been so quiet! It's down to one thing and that's the fact that I have been completely off-plan. It's been about two weeks now that I haven't been on plan and the weekend away was just the cherry on top (not literally, more like the chocolate on top) and now I am officially back on track and can't wait to do my food diary and catch up with you all! Nice to know I'm missed :D


Hi Everyone,


I'm baaaack :)

So my plan to be good before Birmingham never actually happened. I had a brilliant time over there for my stepdad's 50th! Lots of girls times with my sister, mam, auntie, cousins and friends. It was such a laugh! OH was mainly with the men watching football lol! Ah it was just brilliant, and my stepdad had a brilliant birthday which is the most important thing. Food wise I wasn't good as you can imagine. Birmingham shopping centre has a Krispy Creme so we went there both days :confused: baaaad Tracey! I was in holiday mode though, and in that situation I always will be so it's about understanding that and making sure that I can get straight back on track when I get back. And that my friends, is exactly what I am doing right now.

We got home yesterday about 2pm and straight away we went and did a bit of a food shop! It would have been so easy to make it just another day of being off-plan but we decided to start the way we mean to go on. We're re-joining Slimming World on Monday and I want to really try and get rid of the pounds I have gained over the past two weeks. We don't have a scales yet so I have no idea what I have gained but I suspect it's about 6/7 pounds. I plan to have an excellent week this week and I am really looking forward to Monday already.

I posted a pic earlier of the Lasagne OH made last night. It was made with chopped tomatoes, carrots, peas, sweetcorn, mixed beans, peppers, quorn, garlic, spinach, fresh tomatoes and topped with cottage cheese. The cottage cheese works surprisingly well, especially when drowned in cracked black pepper! We had it for dinner last night, lunch today and dinner again tonight so it's been a great way to get loads of superfree in to kick-start this golden week!

We are loving the apartment. It's been a bit stressful at times because our wachine machine isn't working, the storage heater wasn't working and our toilet kept blocking so it can be hard to get past no clean clothes, being FREEZING in your home when its -3 outside, and constantly having an overflowing toilet, but we are still loving it. Hopefully our washing machine will be sorted tomorrow and then we will be SO happy! We plan to go to Ikea on Saturday to get a few bits so I'm really looking forward to that.

Work is stressing me out BIG time. It's not a job I enjoy, and it's not what I want to do for much longer, but today made it worse! In my office there are basically three of us, and then the owner. One of three of us is a part time worker so she is only there half of the time. It's a very lonely and negative place to work. I also work in sales which I never ever wanted to do. A few months ago we got a new member of staff who was a manager. It brought us from 2 staff to 3. Things got so much better when he started. The place was more organised and from a work point of view it was a lot easier for me to just get in and do what I had to do, because he was helpful and he dealt with a lot of the bigger issues. Well today he handed in his notice! He is leaving us at the end of next week and my job is going to be very difficult from now on because of it. I'm paranoid writing this but my boss is very hard to work with and I am under so much pressure all the time. The worst part is now it's just me, the part time lady, and the owner (boss). It's such a lonely office and there is no social element at all! OH talks about his friends in work and the laugh they have and that makes such a difference to him. I have nothing like that. Just on my own in a big office all day long like a performing monkey trying to get sales, sales, sales. It is so not me! So yes, I am currently re-assessing my options and I know that what i want to do is work with children and teach drama etc. I think ultimately it will be childcare that I go in to and eventually move on from there, educate myself all the time and move up to being a Montessori teacher, and then hopefully move in to Play therapy and drama therapy! This is the plan and I really intend to make it happen. We've just moved in and work is crazy busy at the moment so I am staying put for the moment but I am looking at my options and hopefully within the next few months I will be happy in a career. Vintage pockets, let's do it together :eek:

Today's Food Diary -

Breakfast - 2 slices of WW wholemeal bread with Philadelphia light with garlic and herbs & a banana.

Lunch - homemade lasagne packed with superfree vegetables and quorn, passata, and light cottage cheese. Absolutely gorgeous! Had this with spinach leaves and carrot sticks with a little bit more philadelphia light.
A WW yoghurt and a pear.

Dinner - Another slice of homemade lasagne, home made potato wedges which were gorgeous.
a tablespoon of coleslaw (3), big pickled gherkin, ketchup (1.5).

Snack - Tesco Light Choices chocolate mousse (4) I had this upon recommendation by my cousin who also does SW. She said to put it in the freezer and it would be like ice-cream. Oh that it was, so lovely!

Hex B - 2 Slices of WW bread
Hex A - Philadelphia Light with garlic and herbs and some light milk in one cup of tea.

Syns - 8.5/15


:D YES! My first proper day of being 100% on plan in about two weeks. Absolutely delighted with myself! Roll on tomorrow!
 
Hiya lovely, how's co-habiting going?? 1 week tomorrow til we move in and I am sooo excited, we opened a mutual account today - all starting to feel very real now!!

Xxx

Sent from my iPhone using MiniMins
 
Hiya lovely, how's co-habiting going?? 1 week tomorrow til we move in and I am sooo excited, we opened a mutual account today - all starting to feel very real now!!

Xxx

Sent from my iPhone using MiniMins

Wow, a joint-account, how exciting :) my OH is just transfering money in to my account for bills and rent etc! We got our first bill today haha!- the real world eh?

You must be so excited! Have you been buying a few things? We are loving it!

X
 
Yesterdays Food Diary


Breakfast - 2 WW toast with laughing cow light and 2 tablespoon of jam (1) a banana

Lunch - savoury rice (1.5) spinach leaves, carrot sticks, a WW yoghurt and an apple. Packet of french fries crisps (4)

Dinner - noodles (1 for a little oil) quorn, mixed veg, chickpeas and a fried egg. This was lovely!!

Snack - light choices tesco chocolate mousse (4) i got a recommendation to freeze these and its like ice-cream and its my new favourite sweet treat.

Syns - 13 syns
 

Attachments

  • image-3175695566.jpg
    image-3175695566.jpg
    497.9 KB · Views: 38
I would give anything to not have to be up for work in 6 hours. Genuinely feeling depressed here! Grrr


Today's Food Diary...

Breakfast - 2 WW toast and 2 laughing cow light, 1 tablespoon of jam (1)

Lunch - leftover noodle dish (1) with spinach leaves and carrots. Packet of rancheros (5), WW yoghurt and a pear.

Dinner - not good and very random. I made homemade veg soup packed with superfree so I had a big bowl of that. Then OH came in with chinese and I had half a spring roll (3), a couple of chips (4), BBQ sauce (1) 1 prawn cracker (.5) and some boiled rice. All guestimations but I ate feck all really.

Snack - light choices tesco chocolate mousse (4).

Syns- 15.5

Not too bad actually and I ate loads of superfree!

Goodnight one and all :) x
 
Wow, a joint-account, how exciting :) my OH is just transfering money in to my account for bills and rent etc! We got our first bill today haha!- the real world eh?

You must be so excited! Have you been buying a few things? We are loving it!

X

Yeah I think we've bought just about everything we need (few bits e.g. A nice clock an nik-naks like candles will have to wait til we're in and have been paid again haha!

We've decided to transfer a large chunk of our wages into the new account and use it for everything, bills rent food shop and leisure, and just leaving the leftovers in our personal accounts to accumulate, which means we will hopefully end up with a nice chunk of money! I feel like we are taking some BIG steps in our relationship and I LOVE it!!

Glad you guys are loving it too, can't wait to compare notes!! X

Sent from my iPhone using MiniMins
 
That's not too bad at all. I've yet to type up my diary for the last couple of days but my navy boy took me out for dinner last night and I dread to think of the syn value lol.

I best get my fat bum out for a run later ;-)
 
Yeah I think we've bought just about everything we need (few bits e.g. A nice clock an nik-naks like candles will have to wait til we're in and have been paid again haha!

We've decided to transfer a large chunk of our wages into the new account and use it for everything, bills rent food shop and leisure, and just leaving the leftovers in our personal accounts to accumulate, which means we will hopefully end up with a nice chunk of money! I feel like we are taking some BIG steps in our relationship and I LOVE it!!

Glad you guys are loving it too, can't wait to compare notes!! X

Sent from my iPhone using MiniMins

Sounds like a plan hun! Looks like you have it all figured out :D

Yeah we had loads when we moved in too, but the temptation to buy more is so hard to resist. We are going to Ikea on Saturday to get the rest of our things and then we should be set! I hate the curtains in the living room and while i love the room i feel its very bland and plain looking so OH is getting nice purple curtains today off a colleague. She bought them and doesn't want them. Happy days! So betwen then and some nice pillows for the couch i'll love that room a whole lot more. I also want to get those canvas pictures, you know the big ones that are pics of nature etc? A big one in the living room and one in the bedroom would be perfect :D looking forward to everything being sorted by Saturday night so we can chill on Sunday!

The best part has actually been staying on track with SW. Now that there are just two of us we always know whats in the fridge/freezer and can plan accordingly. My fav treat at the moment is freezing those tesco light choices chocolate mousse! So nice :)

Ah you must be so excited! Next Friday will fly in. Have you started packing yet? I found that a bit stressful but my advice is to dump loads!! It'll just accumiliate to crap in your new home and will take up space. I threw out loads!!

Excited for you :D
 
That's not too bad at all. I've yet to type up my diary for the last couple of days but my navy boy took me out for dinner last night and I dread to think of the syn value lol.

I best get my fat bum out for a run later ;-)

Thanks hun, totally could have been worse for sure! Oooh who's your navy boy? Sounds like something from a movie ;)
 
Ha ha I call him my navy boy as he's in the Royal Navy. We are in our 4th year of being together and got engaged in Dubai last year when I flew out to see him. Just in the process of buying a house and selling my flat! Eek!
 
Ha ha I call him my navy boy as he's in the Royal Navy. We are in our 4th year of being together and got engaged in Dubai last year when I flew out to see him. Just in the process of buying a house and selling my flat! Eek!

Wow, that sounds so exciting!! So he's living in the uk now is he? Best of luck with the house buying! X
 
I'm alive!! Hey everyone :)


Things have been so hectic lately so apologies for my quietness. I'm back now, back with more motivation than ever! Life has been so busy. My work is insanely busy at the moment so days are just running in to eachother at this stage. In other news.. I GOT A DREAM JOB!! I am so so excited and still a bit in shock if I am honest. It's all happened so fast and I just feel so lucky and blessed. It's like a dream! It's a crazy sort of unbelievable story. I have been miserable in my current job. I do not like sales, i never applied for a sales job, and my boss is a bit of a nightmare. He is so up and down. You never know which man you will get. He is also extremely condecending and arrogant in many ways.

Anyway, bottom line I'm in work last Friday night in the midst of my pensiveness. Im thinking about how much I wish I was doing my dream job, which is - a childcare worker. Eventually I want to be a Montessori teacher and itMs taken me a long time to realise that. To get there I would need to do a course so I have been focusing on that and trying to make it happen.

Anyway, so i'm in work and my sister texts me telling me a new childcare centre has opened up locally. Huge chain. Amazing state of the art place, one of 10 in Dublin. In that moment, as I sat there in work thinking about what could be, I had a moment of insoiration, a surge from within, and I just went with it. I sent an email on the of chance that they might give me some work experience or some advice at the very list. I described my experience working with young lids, my educational experience and my employment experience etc. that was at 4.15pm. At 4.19 pm I got an email from the MANAGER thanking me for applying for the position (eh, WHAT position?) and inviting me to inteview. So I interviewed, the very next morning. This was last Saturday! It was a long intense interview and I was completely out of my depth but I was honest and I was me! She offered me the job on the spot! It was like a dream. The money I am on is on the upper scale in childcare based on my "experience" and basically they want me to be heavily involved in the setting up of after school drama and singing lessons etc in the centre as well as childcare during the day. The place is absolutely out of this world. Completely state of the art and a dream to work in i'm sure. I feel so incredibly blessed. I never imagined an opportunity like this would happen, and all because of a impulsive random email? Pure luck and good timing. I want to sing and dance with gratitide, I have been so blessed.

So i handed in my notice on Monday and it did not go well. My boss was very shocked. Three days earlier one of 4 staff handed in his notice too. It's putting him in a terrible position and

I suppose I should mention food... I have been okish. I went to my weigh in on Monday night for the first time in a month and I gained 4 pounds. Totally expected. I just want to get back to being really good again. I am still determined to get to my goal weight by the summer! I have snacking too much lately though, stuff like peanut butter which I should NOT be having but I haven't been able to resist. Today i just bit the bullet and threw it in the bin. Well OH did, and he also poured washing up liquid in to it haha! Ive been coming home from work and having 4 ryvita with peanut butter on it, and thats after i have already had my healthy extra b that day. So its all bad bad! I will be putting a stop to it now though. For absolute sure!

We're having homemade nandos tomorrow night for dinner. I can't wait! We're marinating chicken in nandos medium marinade and we'll have it with SW chips and vegetables. Gotta be really good for the next 5 days. I'm happy about it though because I want to find a way that the plan just fits in to my life. That's the best way of doing it I think.

Goodnight ?
 
Congratulations that sounds amazing I'm SO happy for you! And don't worry about your boss do what makes you happy. Honestly chuffed to bits for you! It's all coming together for you. What an exciting year!!! Xx
 
Wow! Congrats on the job and good for you.

Should have said on my post, the ship was in Dubai for a couple of weeks break from pirate hunting ;-)

His ship is Portsmouth based so commutes across the Solent when it's in port :)
 
Nice to see you back and certainly sounds like it's been full on for your lately- HUGE congrats though on the new job, that's great news! :D Im kind of in the same boat as you with regards to SW- I've been finding it a bit hard lately. Starting properly from today and i'm taking every day at a time with little rewards for odd days. For example, if i do a 100% day today I'm letting myself have an extra treat in the form of clothes / make up. One day sounds like nothing, but it will be my first one in a while. :rolleyes: xx
 
Thank you so much for the lovely words everyone, I am over the moon with my new job offer :D I have high hopes for this. I feel that while a job is a job and to a certain extent we all dread work on some level, I want to actually enjoy the work I do. I want to be motivated and passionate about what I do and have pride in my work. It's impossible to do that when you don't believe in your job, or you are working in sales which you never wanted! So all is set in stone for the 11th February. I'm nervous and excited all wrapped in one! For the first week I will be out in one of their new school for a week of training. I am actually SO excited about this because I am not from a childcare background so I want to learn everything. This week will be devoted to learning all the different aspects of it. At least this means that when I move over to my permanent place I won't be completely clueless, and I will have built some confidence. I have to wear a uniform which I find kind of daunting. It's a tracksuit from what I gather. It's obviously completely practical because it's hands on work with children so it's appropriate clothes for that, but I already look quite young so I feel a tracksuit will make me look like a little kid haha:cry:I never wear tracksuits or runners, unless I am exercising, which is not so often... On the other hand it will be really handy to not stress out about what to wear to work each day. I'll have to make an extra effort with my hair and stuff now so I feel attractive each morning!:p

Food wise things were BAD yesterday. I had a really weird day. I felt sort of emotional, drained and a bit anxious about the future. My good friend moved to Canada yesterday with her boyfriend so part of me was feeling like I would love for OH and I to do something like that, but then I thought about the amazing opportunity I have been given career wise. I started to have mixed emotions of feeling trapped because the opportunity is so good and I could never leave etc, and then the other part of me is saying RELAX, take it all as it comes, EMBRACE the opportunity and give it your all, and what's for you won't pass you by. So this funny mood lead me to an diabolical day of food. I'm talking two packet of crisps, chocolate, pastries, cakes, and chinese food (the bad kind, all deep fried). I can honestly say I felt rotten after it all! I was in a worse mood going to bed last night, and I firmly believe it was because of the unhealthy crap I had put in my body. I seem to always do that! It's comfort eating I know. I'll only do it when I know I don't have to go to a weigh in soon, and I justify it by planning to 'make up for it'. I just shouldn't happen. It's binge eating! I'd more so enjoy one bar of chocolate, eaten slowly with a nice mug of tea. This is like shoveling crap in my mouth like there is no tomorrow. I am making a mental note to not let this happen again, it's so bad!

Speaking of weigh-ins, I won't be able to make Monday's one. The college I work in has classes starting on Monday so we have to go to the registration evenings from Mon-Wed. If I reeeally wanted to I could probably make it, but I have decided not to. I am going to try and be as good as I can be between now and then and just start getting back in to good habits. My worst habits at the moment are snacking. Just randomely have like four ryvita smoothered in peanut butter. I lie to myself and tell myself it's a healthy snack to avoid guilt, but it's not. I have a few things coming up over the next few days so on the days that I don't I am going to try and be extra good, and on the days that I do I am going to make the best choices that I can make. I am determined to not let this be one of 'those' times where I lose control and end up back in square one. I need to shift this weight once and for all. And I will!

Things I definitely won't be having for at least two weeks - peanut butter, biscuits, cakes, crisps (unless 5 syns or less), wine. I have no excuse!!

Re-commitment, here I come! I have lovely parnsip and carrot soup made at home which I will be having tonight, and then for dinner we are having home-made nandos chicken, veg and slimming world chips. I feel better now that I've spoken up..
 
Oh Tracey CONGRATULAAAAAAATIONS on your amazing job offer! You must be so thrilled! I can totally understand your reflection on feeling trapped, I feel that way too sometimes especially at the start of what could be a life changing event. But like you said just embrace your amazing new opportunity and focus on the present! You're thinking too far ahead lol, it's not like you have a real and tangible option to move country, I'm assuming you're thinking of what could be? There's time for everything especially with you being so young! Sometimes realising our dreams can be quite scary, but take it a day at a time and soon enough you'll grow confident in the fact that you're where you're meant to be. And if new and better opportunities come your way in the future, you'll deal with it then! Congratulations again, I'm so happy and proud of you!
 
Oh Tracey CONGRATULAAAAAAATIONS on your amazing job offer! You must be so thrilled! I can totally understand your reflection on feeling trapped, I feel that way too sometimes especially at the start of what could be a life changing event. But like you said just embrace your amazing new opportunity and focus on the present! You're thinking too far ahead lol, it's not like you have a real and tangible option to move country, I'm assuming you're thinking of what could be? There's time for everything especially with you being so young! Sometimes realising our dreams can be quite scary, but take it a day at a time and soon enough you'll grow confident in the fact that you're where you're meant to be. And if new and better opportunities come your way in the future, you'll deal with it then! Congratulations again, I'm so happy and proud of you!

Oh honey, thank you so much for the lovely message. It made me so happy and it really made a lot of sense to me :)

You are right about realising our dreams. It's odd because I spent so long dreaming about a job like this, imagining what a dream it would be to have an opportunity to move in to the field I am passionate about. Then I was miraculously given the chance. Pure luck, pure good timing and a total and complete blessing! Then it's like as soon as that happens I begin to worry, panic, feel a lot of fear and be generally anxious. It's such a life-changing thinh for me, like huge! I just want it to be as good as I imagine. I don't want to be the kind of person who wishes their life away. I want to enjoy all the wonderful experiences I have been given.

Thank you so much for your lovely words :)
 
Back
Top