Missing Mojo

Today has been uber-tough!

I couldn't sleep last night, so I spent the night cooking.  I diced up a fruit salad, tossed together a salad and special dressing for dinner today, and made a fantastic vege-bolognese sauce. It smelt so good... I so wanted to sit and eat the lot!

My eldest daughter came to visit today with my future son-in-law... and I cooked for them too. There was chocolate and cream cake in the fridge, and then my youngest went to the local shops and came home with cheese and huge bars of Galaxy chocolate (my favourite!) as well as cookies and biscuits.

The world went in slow motion as I watched her unload the shopping bag full of those scrummy goodies!

BUT... I was good. I mean... I was REALLY good! I stuck to my salad and didn't touch the chocolatey goodness of biscuits :)

I do feel quite proud of myself. What really chuffed me today is the comment that my future son-in-law made when he came inside the house today...

"You're half the size you were a few weeks ago!"

I'm not... but I liked the fact that there seems to be a difference that people can notice :)

Right... off to stare at my size 12 jacket hanging on the wardrobe door (motivational push) and sup on a hot chocolate  - Options of course, with less than 40 calories :)

I also have to get my head around the fact that I really need to exercise... get the fat burning and the muscles toning! I just don't seem to have the push to get myself going... sometimes I lay in bed thinking that the following morning I'll get up and be all energetic... but it doesn't work that way in reality! Beacause of the rheumatoid arthritis I have, I wake up feeling achey and tired and just about ready for more sleep, rather than jumping around and losing weight! Hopefully soon I'll get my mini-trampoline back and be the right weight to use it (15 stone - which is 210 pounds - or less). I miss that little trampette... it's perfect, as there's no impact on my joints.

Oh, and if anyone likes a salad dressing with zing, here's what I use (bear in mind that I love the taste of vinegar!)

2 tablespoons of vinegar

2 teaspoons of lemon juice

a pinch of sea salt

a LOT of fresh-ground black pepper

a good pinch of cayenne pepper

quarter teaspoon (or more - to taste) of dried garlic powdered granules.

Shake it up in a jar and leave for an hour or so... then pour over salad and enjoy.

The Nearly-Wobble

This desperate dieter nearly had a wobble this evening - and when a lady my size wobbles, it aint a pretty sight! *lol* In all seriousness though - not even two weeks in, and I'm already at point where I want to stuff my face with anything - and I do mean ANYTHING! I have two packs of caramel snack-a-jacks, and although they're a good choice for a diet snack, eating all of them at once is a definite no-no! It's okay though - I sat and thought about what was really wrong, and what I really wanted... and the answer was simple - I needed to crunch on something. So, I took the boring but better option and had some raw carrot batons. AND I even shared them with the dog too (carrots are her favourite!)... How I ever managed to get so big with my begging dog around is a bit of a mystery to me :)

So, crisis averted.

However... part of me wasn't satisfied, and I felt I had to do something useful and constructive.

Hubby had been shopping earlier and got some bargain vegetables - leeks, carrots and spinach. Carrots and spinach are now dry-roasting in the oven with a bit of rosemary and garlic, and the spinach has been steamed to a pulp. I'll whizz it all up when it's all cooked, and Hey Presto! I'll have soup for the freezer. Okay, so it'll be really gross looking soup - but it'll taste great.

Unfortunately, finding bargain veggies has been one of Hubby's gifts lately... and I have enough curried carrot soup in the freezer to last me a month already!  Blending all those carrots has turned my blender orange, and also my large jug. Still, I can't complain when there are going to be about three months worth of soup in my freezer that costs less than £1.

Bless my amazing family - they are all behind me (well, my backside is plenty big enough to hide all of them! - joking!), and although I am doing this mainly for me, part of me wants to do this to make them proud too.

Oh... nearly forgot ...

I actually took some very unflattering photographs of myself (front and side views).

I can't post them yet - I am too ashamed of how awful I look! I know I started this blog because I didn't want to hide any longer, and to get everything out in the open... but trust me on this, those photographs cannot be seen just yet. I am making a promise to myself that I will get the photographs on here - probably before December, and I'll be taking photos every week too! I just need some time to get my head around the blunt truth of how I really look before sharing it with anyone else.

OMG! Is That ME???

Sometimes the weight kinda creeps up on you... stealthy little sucker that it is! A little bit here, a tiny bit there... and before you know it, the person staring back at you in the mirror is a stranger. Who is this fat broad ('broad' being a very apt word!)? Where did she appear from? Oh, yes, you notice that bits are a little flabbier, that the face is rounder, the bingo wings a bit more prone to slapping about whilst you're cleaning the kitchen... but it's just 'Rubenesque' or 'curvy'... right? Then 'Rubenesque and curvy' suddenly become obese, fat, lardy... and just plain unhealthy.

The trouble is, weight goes on so easily  - like butter slipping in a hot frying pan - but getting it off again is so much harder!

I've been here before. I've been skinny, almost perfect, and hugely obese many times before - it's a never-ending cycle. I've just come to terms with that. Realised now, after so many years of riding the waves of skinny-to-fatty, that I will always have to be on a diet to stay at a healthy weight.

UGH!

What a horrible thought!

But it's not to say that chocolate will never pass my lips again... it's just that it will pass my lips a LOT less often than it has in the past. It will have to become a RARE treat, rather than a daily excuse to cheer myself up. Because it really doesn't cheer me up. Oh... okay - whilst I'm eating it I feel fantastic! but afterwards I'm overtaken with guilt and questions of "Why did I just eat that?".

So...

On Monday the 10th of July, 2012, I decided that I had to start making good choices. I had to change my life.

I want to be here when my grandchildren have children. I want to be around when my husband retires and we get some 'us' time...

I don't want to die young.

So... I've put my photograph up so people who know me now know the real me - the fat me... the ugly me. I'm not saying fat is ugly - fat women can be - and are very often - absolutely stunning. Just not this one. This one looks old and tired and unhealthy. She is NOT a pretty picture!

She is also ... Oh dear, I can't believe I'm admitting this on the 'world wide web'... On Monday the seventh of July, 2012, I weighed in at seventeen stones and eight pounds.

Yep... you read that right.

17 st 8 lb

that's a total of 246 lb

Is that really me??!!

Well, no. At least it won't be me for much longer. Because I have the mindset, and I must have the willpower.

I will no longer be this person!

Wish me luck!