Pig

This weekend I was a p-i-g! Because I'm so close to Xmas goal, I let myself slack off a bit this weekend. Or a lot!

2 bottles of red wine, 1 bottle of white wine, 5 pints of beer (Bud and Coors Light), lasagne, chicken tenders , chips and Coke, pizza, Galaxy Minstrels, Lucozade, and my normal Chinese (salt/chilli shredded chicken) with chips instead of boiled rice. WTF!!!
I think it's because I've been doing well and curbed a lot of cravings and sub consciously decided that I was going to have a treat weekend. Seriously though, I way overdid it and will just be happy not to have put on weight today. A week of soup and smoothies beckons.
To put a positive spin- I'm ready and kind of glad to go back to my normal 'weekday' habits. I feel better in so many ways when I eat well. It's an achievement to WANT to eat healthily. So my little holiday from the diet has shown me that I'm starting to enjoy my healthier lifestyle and that eating crappy food won't enhance my life in ANY way! It did taste damn good though!! :P

Anticipation

I'm sitting in the office at my Mum's work helping out for a few hours and wearing my size 14 trousers! :)

I was so annoyed because I missed my delivery from ASOS yesterday and went in to the post office with the slip to pick it up today and was told they don't do package collection on Saturday! Grrrrr! It's a post office.... POST office! What's the point of being open if I can't pick up my damned post?!!?!So now I've to wait til Monday and I'm very anxious to try these size 14 dresses on and see if they fit and if they look in any way nice!

Also on Monday is my weigh-in. I've been cheating and weighing myself at the gym and apparently I've lost 4lbs since Tuesday but it's not official til Monday.

The gym is going well. I've been 4 times this week including swimming twice as well as my usual mixture of weights and cardio, weight machines and free weights with fitness ball. I'm trying to remember to keep my core engaged as much as possible too. Food-wise I've been doing good this week too- mostly healthy meals and snacks and generally low-calorie.

Yesterday, though, I relaxed for the day and had some treats. I'd a pint of Coors Light, over half of a homemade pepper and chorizo pizza (I went light on the chorizo and cheese and heavy on the fresh chillis) as well as half a bag of microwave popcorn and 2 packets of Banshee Bones which are my weakness (at least they're only about 100 calories per pack). I also had some chicken and veg soup and a couple of apples with peanut butter as well as water, Coke Zero, 2 cups of green tea and 2 double expressos.

Saturday night is looming which means white wine and X Factor. Tomorrow I'll probably sleep all day, eat something low calorie like soup (surprise, surprise) and then get my usual Chinese takeaway of (dry, battered) salt and chilli chicken and boiled rice- cos I'm badass like that! And then it's Monday and my weigh-in and Asos dresses! Can't wait!

On my soup diet

So I was meant to be on a soup and smoothie diet but I didn't buy my fruit so had soups and a W W frozen dinner as well as some snacks.
Today I ate:

*Veg and chicken soup: 115 cals
W W Spag bol 306 cals
1 slice Hovis Nimble wholemeal bread 48 cals
*Mexican chilli soup 135 cals 604
Half a packet of sugar free Polo mints 40 cals
Granny Smith apple x 3 198 cals
*Veg and chicken soup 115cals
Activia fat free forest fruit 58 cals

2 green teas**
2 peppermint teas
Double expresso
Water

1015- wow that's low! And I'm not hungry! I'm totally not doing this daily but I want to start changing my eating patterns. I 'm doing 2 days to kickstart a healthier routine and then might do a day here and there on the days I'm not working out. Any more and I'd start going crazy missing real food. (I'd also probably faint at the gym.) On my gym days I'll be aiming for 1300- 1500 ish.

*Soups are Tesco own brand. Half a carton is a portion and, although they're a little high in salt, they are really low in calories while being quite filling. They're chunky so I add a little water, pepper and chilli and puree them because I hate the chunks. I know pre-made soups aren't the healthiest but they're crazy handy, on special offer at the minute, taste good and there's no difficulty calculating calories.

Also plan to get a good workout in tomorrow. I skipped the gym because I was busy today and my muscles were sore from Tuesday's workout- think it was the fitness ball exercises with weights that did it. I'd a nice swim afterwards too, which I hadn't done in a few weeks. I want to get back into that habit so will be trying to get a swim in tomorrow as well as a good weight/ cardio mix.
** Throw away your condoms peeps- you're protected!(Click on the pic to read more.)

Birthday Belly Blowout

• I'm so badass! I've not calorie counted today and neither have I finished eating! It's my birthday! Screw it!
• I had strawberries and green tea for breakfast as my stomach felt a bit wonky so didn't want to eat much.
• Then I went and got my hair done. It took 3 to go from blacky-brown to blacky brown with golden(yellow) highlights. (I got a base colour but I can't see a difference really except for the extra shine.) Ha ha! That sounds utterly vile but it's actually nice! In the daylight it's quite bright and the golden-ness kinda clashes with the green of my eyes in a good way. I also got a trim and she thinned it out loads to make it more manageable and give me my waves back as my hair was so heavy that it was drying a lot flatter than usual. It feels sleek and glossy and looks brighter and makes a nice change!

Before and feeling nervous (I'm such a ham):
After (this is indoors with flash- outside in daylight it's brighter and lighter):

• By the time I was finished at the salon I was starving and ate a packet of onion rings, a mini cottage pie and a Milky Bar desert! Haha! Three course meal! Fuck it though, I've been very good and it's my birthday.
• I've just eaten some extra garlicky home-made garlic bread, heavy on the garlic and I will shortly be chowing down on some pizza!
• Tomorrow I'm having lunch at the Chinese with the girlies! As long as I avoid the fried rice, the foods I like there aren't too bad, calorie-wise. That's good as I'm pretty sure I'll be having some beverages after! Not too many tough as we'll be celebrating on Saturday!
  
• It's my birthday and I'm a p.i.g.!!! :P
• Come Monday it's back to the diet!
  

New week!

So after a weekend with a little too many treats, the week begins again! I've just finished a yummy salmon fillet and baby potato dinner- will have veg as a snack in a bit! I'm not eating healthily all the time but it's nice to eat something that you really enjoy that isn't going to go straight to your beer-belly!

Pissed off today though because I couldn't go to the gym and may not be able tomorrow either. I think I've been overdoing it though. I hurt my left ankle 2 months ago and it's still not right and I think that I've been working my legs too hard because now my left hip and knee are giving me hassle. I was actually in pain after my workout last night. Thank God for the jacuzzi!! If I go tomorrow I'll just do crunches, arm weights and swimming. In the meantime, I will ice my knee and ankle and take some anti-inflammatories and hope for the best. If I'm not exercising I'll have to cut RIGHT back on food and I will NOT be happy!! It's my birthday next week though so I wanna be looking as well as I can.


One thing I need to work on is 'treat' mentality. I have a tendancy to overly reward myself. For example, my sisters and I were meant to go out last night but we changed our minds. I'd already considered that I was going to have a blowout calorie-wise because of all the booze so, when plans changed, instead of going 'oh fab, i stayed on track', I went 'oh fab, now I can have a Chinese'!! That's ok, I guess, but only occassionally. Also, if I am eating Chinese again, I have to put a ban on fried rice because it really doesn't make that much difference to the meal if you're eating really spicy chilli chicken and it is just LADEN with calories. So, yeah, stop with the treats, Claire! Thing is, I know I can still have treats as long as I keep count of the calories. So, starting from tomorrow, I'll be trying to keep track of all my food and exercise. I've started well but if I want results I have to take it up a notch!!

Weighty stuff

So I have talked briefly in past posts about the fact that I've allowed my weight to creep up. I have said loads of times that I'm going to do something about it and either I don't commit or I do it half-assed/cheat.

I won't go into specifics but I need to lose 30+ pounds and I WILL DO IT THIS TIME!!

I've been eating a lot more healthily, though I still have off-days and allow myself a junk night once a week. I have also been at the gym 5 times a week for the last 3 weeks, usually spending an hour working out and then an hour swimming. I haven't lost much weight but I can see and feel a difference around my waist and bum. I've started as I mean to go on and am really enjoying having a more healthy lifestyle! I'm still pretty unhealthy though. I love crisps, fizzy drinks, Chinese takeaways, wine and fags but now I also love eating 5 portions of fruit and veg, drinking 2 litres of water, lifting weights...


It will be more difficult,though, when I start up at work again as it will be harder to make the time to work out, I won't have company (my mum and 2 sisters use my gym) and I'll be living away from home which means my food supply won't be as varied (the fridge is always soooo full at home because there are lots of us). But hopefully the 6 weeks I have left will be enough time for me to have formed lasting habits and enough of an appreciation for the good stuff to keep up my good habits. I have a tendancy to allow myself too many treats,though, so, from today on, I'm clamping down firmly on that!
Wish me luck!!