Tag Archives: Weight loss

Progress Report – 10.9.19

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This week’s progress report will cover the last two weeks (I’ve been trying to organise an actual timetable for my posts and changed my mind about the best time to schedule updates). Ordinarily, they’ll be a recap of how I’ve been getting on over the last week. But anyway, here’s what’s been happening over the last couple of weeks.

Week 1: 1.5lb loss

This was was first week ‘post cruise’ (for more about my recent cruise, click here) and the last week of my long summer holiday before going back to school.

Ordinarily, I would’ve used the ‘just back from holiday’ excuse to avoid exercising and continue eating rubbish until I’d been for my first weigh in. But this year was different. Before I went away, I booked an appointment with my PT for my usual timeslot on the day I got back to help me stay in the habit of exercising.

Because I’d exercised, I also didn’t feel like eating rubbish so I called into the supermarket on my way home from the gym to pick up some stir fry for my dinner and some eggs for breakfast. I then took time in the evening to plan my meals for the following week and shopped for them the next day.

The last week of the school holidays usually sees me making the most of the last opportunity for a while spend my days sitting and reading whilst eating chocolate and biscuits. I still took the time to do some reading and watch some of the new series of OITNB on Netflix, but I made sure I still went to the gym and rather than buying a big bar of chocolate and kidding myself I’d make it last for the week, I bought a small bar of chocolate to eat at the end of the week.

I also spent some time doing some decluttering and tidying of the house which helped to keep me a bit more active than usual and distracted me from craving the aforementioned chocolate and biscuits.

Week 2: STS

This week saw my return to school following a lovely, long summer holiday. I used the weekend before going back to school to plan and shop for my meals for the week ahead so I was good to go on the food front.

My challenges this week were sticking to healthier eating at school and changing my exercise schedule to fit around work.

On the first couple of days back at school, we always have sauage or bacon batches and pastries for breakfast. I always (over)indulge and this can be enough of a trigger to get me thinking that I can’t resist the temptation to eat unhealthily at work. But this year, I had a little word with myself. Although I enjoy bacon butties and breakfast pastries, it was more important to me to break the habit cycle of eating unhealthily at work. So I had a really filling, healthy breakfast before I left home and rather than having a bacon butty and a hashbrown when I got to school, followed by whatever was still left at breaktime, I just had one hashbrown and I tracked it. I used the same approach with the pastries. Rather than helping myself everytime I went into the staffroom until they were gone, I chose one, tracked it and enjoyed it guilt free.

One of my other stumbling blocks at school is indulging in dessert every day. Lunch is provided on training days and there is always some kind of hot dessert with custard. Up until now, my philosophy has always been to never refuse free food. This time around, I made the decision in advance to refuse the free pudding and instead take advantage of the free fruit. When we went for lunch on the first day back, the new caterers had not provided a hot pudding – only fruit. Bizarely, even though I’d decided not to have it anyway, I was really annoyed that it hadn’t been provided! My friend suggested that I was actually annoyed that I hadn’t had the chance to not have it. I felt much better the next day when it was offered and I was then able to refuse it so she was probably right.

I’m very pleased that I still went to the gym twice this week. During the holidays, I’ve been going first thing in the morning to get it out of the way and this is definitely my preferred time to exercise. However, as I’m not willing to get up any earlier than I already do to enable me to train before work, I’m now having to go in the evenings after work. I made both of my timetabled sessions this week even though I’d had to stay at school a bit later than I was hoping to on both evenings. I’m just hoping that I’ll be able to keep this commitment up when things start to get busier as we get into the swing of the term…

What are your top tips for fitting exercise around your work schedule? Let me know in the comments section.

Thanks for reading,

FFF

You can’t lose weight while you’re on holiday!

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Or so I’d always told myself. But it turns out I was wrong (Ssshhh! Don’t tell Mr FFF – my official line is that I’m always right!). On my recent 14 night cruise, I somehow managed to lose 2lb! And no that’s not a typo. I actually lost weight whilst on a cruise where food and drink were available 24 hours. I’m still in shock. Last year, on an almost identical cruise, I put on about 7lb.

So how did I do it? Did I deprive myself and eat only lettuce leaves and plain, grilled fish whilst sipping water? No. But I did change my mindset towards the way I ate whilst I was away.

On holidays past, I would pretty much eat whatever I wanted, whenver I wanted and would justify it to myself by saying that I deserved it, after all I was on holiday. The thing is, for me, as for many others, it always seems to take longer to lose weight than it does to put it on. And, I’m lucky enough to go away at least a couple of times each year. I realised that my ‘enjoy it while you can’ attitude effectively meant that I was only ever gaining and losing holiday weight.

This realisation, coupled with my latest attempt to lose the weight for good, lead me to review my mindset towards holiday eating before I even packed my suitcase. I knew that there would be wall-to-wall food and drink available if I wanted it. I also knew that, while lots of the options available are at the less healthy end of the spectrum, there would also be plenty of healthier stuff too. So I decided to make the most of having healthy food freshly prepared for me at each meal.

I mainly ate omlettes, bircher muesli and fresh fruit for breakfast. For lunch I would generally load up on the various different salads offered in the buffet and add some chicken or fish to them. At dinner, I generally opted for the fish or chicken options and avoided anything that came in a creamy sauce. I didn’t eat like a fitness model all the time though. I had a dessert every night – but I didn’t have a dessert every lunchtime, just once or twice. I also ate breakfast pastries a couple of times, but not every day.

We also chose not to get the all inclusive drinks package on this cruise. There were several factors that played into this but the main one being in the past when we had a package, we sometimes felt like we were drinking just for the sake of it. I still drank wine with dinner almost every night and enjoyed several cocktails, but it was in moderation.

I think that exercising regularly also really helped. I went to the gym on every sea day as well as the one port day when we’d decided to only get off the ship for a couple of hours. In the past, I’ve had good intentions about exercising whilst on holiday but they’d usually stayed at that – intentions rather than actions. This time, I’d decided in advance that I would continue to get up early and go to the gym before breakfast. This would then give me the whole day to lounge around or take part in the activities offered. Although there were a couple of times when I was tempted just to lie in bed, I reasoned that, once I’d been to the gym, I could spend the rest of the day lying on my balcony reading if I so wished. Exercising first thing also helped me to make healthier choices with my food as I always feel like eating more healthily when I’m exercising regularly.

Better than the view from my local gym.
Proof that I was actually there!

The funny thing was, I didn’t feel deprived at all. I felt lucky that there was such delicious, healthy food being prepared for me for every meal. And I enjoyed being up early and in the gym when there were only a few other people about. Sitting on my balcony afterwards with a cup of tea and enjoying the peace and quiet was also something I really looked forward to each day.

So, it turns out I’m not always right; it is totally possible to go on holiday, enjoy yourself and still lose weight.

Thanks for reading,

FFF

How do yo holiday? Do you follow your usual eating and exercise habits or do you use the time to do as you please? Let me know in the comments section.

Week in Review – Week 4

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I can’t believe that tonight was my last weigh-in for January!

Despite not having the best week tracking-wise and having two social events, I’ve lost 0.5 lb and I’m happy with that all things considered.  I’ve now got 1.5lb to go to reach my first mini-goal of 7lb.pakorn

The Good

I’ve had two social events this week.  The first was a curry for my dad’s birthday on Thursday night.  I didn’t feel like having a ‘healthier’ option dish so instead I had curry and split a portion of rice and a naan bread with Mr FFF.  But I pointed (sort of – more about that later) what I had and didn’t finish it all.  The result was that I went home feeling satisfied but not feeling as though I was about to burst.  I also chose to drive rather than have a couple of drinks as I thought that this would be a good way of balancing out the food choices a little bit.

On Saturday, Mr FFF and I were at a property investment seminar all day.  It was one of a series we have been going to and I know from previous experience that it is wall-to-wall buffet food.  I prepared myself for this mentally in advance and told myself that I wasn’t going to deny myself all the good stuff but that I also didn’t want to come away feeling bloated and like I’d blown my chances at losing weight for the week.  As a result, I did have a little of everything but just chose larger portions of the healthier salads and fruits and smaller portions of the less-healthy cakes and biscuits than I’d normally have.

Having had such a good time at Zumba last Sunday, and knowing that I’d got two social events coming up, I decided to go to another Zumba class on Friday night.  I took my kit to work with me so I could go straight from there (note to self, don’t leave gym kit in boot during sub-zero temperatures).  As the clock ticked towards 5pm, I didn’t feel much like going but I knew that once I got there and got started it wouldn’t be that bad.  As it turned out, I enjoyed it even more than I had done on the Sunday and I’m planning on going again this week.

The Bad What I’ve learned

I’ve been continuing to work on developing my mindset this week and one of the ways I’ve done this is to listen to another podcast.  This time the topic was about how focusing on the things we do do wrong or the ways in which we fail leaves us stuck in the rut we are trying to get out of rather than helping us to find a solution to our problems.  You can listen to it here if you’re interested.

This really resonated with me.  Often, in the past, I’ve become really hung up on all the things I’ve ‘failed at’ in regards to my weight loss: not tracking accurately; having a binge; not going to the gym etcetera, etcetera ad infinitum.  The result is that I feel bad about myself, berate myself for my failings, feel even worse about myself and then decide that the only thing that can comfort me is diving mouth first at a large bar of chocolate.

But listening to this podcast, I realised that I’ve probably been going about this all wrong.  So I’m trying to accept the blips in my weight loss journey in a non-judgemental way (hence the renaming of this section of the post).

Last week I said I was going to aim to track all week again.  This went out of the window somewhere during mid-morning of day 1!! As I’ve said before, I’m currently finding staying on track to be a mental challenge.  I think this week my mind was thinking, “I’ve got 2 social events coming up this week with loads of food involved so I can use them as my excuse not to track.”  It was also my mind being a self-saboteur and doing it’s habitual ‘I can’t stay on track for more than a week at a time’ routine.

Previously I might have viewed this as a failure and given myself a hard time about this leading to a negative, self-sabotaging cycle (see above).  But instead, I thought back to the message in this podcast, acknowledged that this was simply a habitual way of thinking and decided that I would still try to track the next time I put something in my mouth.

The result was that I physically tracked some things this week and I mentally tracked most things.  It has also helped me learn that not tracking for one meal does not mean I have to throw in the towel completely for the week.  It has also highlighted the fact that when I physically track rather than just tracking in my head, I have more chance of losing more weight.  I’m going to try to remind myself of this as I go through this week.

Thanks for reading,

FFF

What ‘failures’ do you dwell on and how can you try to turn these into positives to learn from?

 

 

Week in Review – Week 3

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Weigh-in number 3 tonight and after last week’s little blip, I’m pleased to report that I lost 2lb – thereby proving my theory that when you stick to the plan and track, it works.

That brings my total loss to 5lb now and leaves me only 2lb from achieving my mini-goal of losing 7lb.  My aim is to reach that goal in the next two weeks.  For this week, I’m just going to try sticking to the plan for another week to make it two weeks in a row.

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The Good

Last week I set myself the goal of tracking everything for 4 days.  I’m pleased to be able to say that I did in fact track everything for the whole week!  I feel really pleased with myself for that.

I went to my yoga class on Wednesday and found that it had been cancelled.  I was really disappointed but rather than going home and flaking out on the sofa, I went home and put on an old Davina workout dvd and did 30 mins of pilates instead.  It wasn’t as good as an hour of yoga but at least it was something.

After last weekend’s disrupted exercise plans, I decided to take charge of things again.  I invited my sister to come and do some kind of exercise on Sunday as I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks.  I suggested Zumba or swimming but she wasn’t up for either of these options and suggested a walk instead.  I checked the weather and it was forecast to be dry so we agreed to go nice and early.  However, my sister unfortunately had a slight personal emergency (nothing serious and everything is fine now) so messaged me to say that she wouldn’t be able to go after all and suggested that I go to Zumba instead.  So I did.  It was hard, sweaty and I looked something like a baby giraffe throwing my somewhat gangly self around the exercise studio, but it was great fun and I plan on going back again next week.

Mr FFF took me to the cinema on Saturday night to see Split which was a great, if disturbing, film with a fantastic performance by James McAvoy.  He decided to eat at the cinema but I’m not keen on their offerings in terms of the low ratio of food satisfaction and quality to Smart Points and nutritional values.  So I ate at home before we went – tuna sandwich with red onions and peppers served with homemade potato wedges.  We also decided to take our own popcorn with us as we always find the stuff on sale at the cinema tastes stale.  This helped me to control my portion size as the bag we got was smaller than the box I would’ve had otherwise.  And it was tastier.  We also got some sweets (Mr FFF was a bad influence, although it didn’t take much any persuasion to lead me astray) but I let Mr FFF eat most of them and I pointed what I had.

 

The Bad

I feel bad about not having done any yoga this week – maybe I’ll look at some routines on youtube or something so that should my class be cancelled again in the future, I’ll be able to keep up my practise.

I didn’t get/make chance to plan my meals this week before going shopping.  I decided I had 3 options:

  1. Just get stuff for that day and the following day then go shopping a couple of other times in the week.  I thought I probably wouldn’t have time to plan meals and go shopping during the week and that this option would lead to a reliance on takeaways.
  2. Just get a load of ready meals.  This would have been fine in terms of allowing a certain number of points per meal but I still want to steer clear of as much processed food as possible and I know that ready meals don’t really fill me up very much.
  3. Plan in my head as I went round the supermarket.  This was the option I went for.  It was a little bit disorganised but I was able to use my knowledge of which foods to go for and which to avoid to help me plan simple meals that will see me through the week.

Although I wouldn’t want to shop this way every week, this showed me that it is possible to stay on plan even if I haven’t been able to plan ahead as I would like to.

I haven’t dedicated as much time to working on my mindset as I wanted to this week although I have done a little bit.

I’m going to keep the same targets for this coming week, but I’m going to up the tracking goal to tracking for the whole week.

Thanks for reading,

FFF

What do you do to help develop a positive mindset to making healthier choices when it comes to food?

 

 

Week in Review – Week 2

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Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at freedigitalphoto.net

Weigh-in number 2 tonight.  I wasn’t expecting good things this week as, although I’d planned my meals carefully and followed my plan, I didn’t track snacks or extras so I have no idea whether I stayed in my overall budget or not.  The result is, I’ve put on half a pound.  It’s not the worst thing in the world, although I am pretty peeved with myself about it.  But, I’m drawing a line under it and moving on.

The Good

I went to my yoga class again this week.  I’d also arranged to play badminton on Sunday instead of going swimming.  This wasn’t my idea but I enjoy badminton and thought it would be fun.  I was astounded to find that I was extremely annoyed when the person whose idea it was cancelled it on Sunday morning.  By that point it was too late for me to go swimming and I was annoyed that someone else had been able to ruin my exercise plans.  Mr FFF suggested that we could do some circuits in the garden but a) it was persisting down with rain and b) I don’t enjoy circuits at the best of times.  I must admit to feeling sorry for myself for about five minutes before deciding to go for a walk and to do some yoga at home.  This turned out well in the end as I was able to listen to a motivational podcast whilst on my walk.

I’ve been eating plenty of freshly cooked foods with a good amount of fruits and vegetables and very limited amounts of processed foods.

I had a takeaway on Friday night that was unplanned but I convinced Mr FFF that we didn’t need to order enough for 4 people (as we usually do) and pointed what I had.

I replaced some one chocolate-based after-work snack with fruit.  Ok it was only once, but that’s a small step towards developing a healthier lifestyle right there.  Admittedly, a very small step, but still.

 

The Bad

As I mentioned earlier – I didn’t track my snacks and treats this week and I still had quite a bit of chocolate.  Why did I do this?  The simple answer is, I don’t know.  I really do want to eat more healthily and lose weight.  What went wrong?

As I sat down to write this post, I initially gave myself quite a hard time about this.  I berated myself for the fact that I’m only on the second week of my renewed efforts to lose weight and yet I’ve already veered off track.

It was at this point that I got the phone call to say that my badminton session had been cancelled.  So, I decided to take a break and go for that walk.  The podcast I was listening to was titled Your Eating Habits: What They Are, How You Get Them, and How to Change Them and I thought I might be able to get something useful out of it. 

Previously, I’ve always thought of habits to be based around actions (having a biscuit with a cup of tea; always putting grated cheese on pasta dishes etc) and I’ve done quite a bit to change several habits over the course of my weight loss journey so far.  Interestingly, this podcast also talked about habitual thought patterns and I realised that this is exactly what applies to me in terms of my mindset to staying on track – it’s become a habit for me to think that I can’t keep up my motivation beyond the first week of an attempt to live more healthily.

This reflection made me realise that I have neglected my mindset development over the past couple of weeks so I’m resolving to make that a big focus this week.

The Plan for Next Week

I’m going to begin work on breaking my habit of thinking I can’t maintain the motivation needed to develop a more healthy lifestyle.  I’ve set myself 2 small goals in relation to this:

  • to track EVERYTHING I eat for 4 days
  • to read something or listen to a podcast to develop a motivational mindset every day for 4 days

I’m still working on replacing some chocolate-based snacks and treats as well.  As the idea of replacing chocolate with fruit last week wasn’t really doing it for me – there’s no comparison really is there! – I’m taking a different tack this week.  My trigger times for chocolate, biscuits and other sweet treats are when I get in from work and in the evening after dinner.

When I get in from work, I’m going to try a totally different routine.  I’ve examined this habit (as suggested in the podcast I mentioned earlier) and determined that the reason I eat chocolate then is to relax after a busy day.  So, what I’m going to do instead is have a cup of fruit tea (I got some delicious ones for Christmas and they spoil the taste of chocolate and biscuits) and read for 20 minutes before I get on with making the dinner and other household chores.

With my evening trigger, I’m going to replace the chocolate and biscuits with yogurt, honey, granola and seeds.  This is something I wouldn’t normally choose because of its high points value (no low fat yogurt for me!) but because of this it still seems like an indulgence but at least has a slightly higher nutritional value than chocolate.

Thanks for reading.

FFF

How have you successfully ditched bad habits and created new ones? – all advice gratefully received.

 

Week in Review – Week 1

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Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So, tonight I had my first weigh-in since getting back on track and I was delighted to find that I’ve shed 3.5lbs!

I’m really pleased as I’ve put a lot of effort into making healthier choices with food and exercise this week.  I think the real test will be this week though.  In recent months, whenever I’ve had a ‘getting back on track’ phase, I’ve struggled to last much past the first week.

However, I’m still feeling different and more committed to making changes this time around.  I’m also taking inspiration from one of my fellow Weight Watchers this week.  She has lost 83lb in 9 months and said in our meeting tonight that once she got started on her journey, it got easier and easier as she was seeing results and her momentum picked up like a snowball rolling down a hill.  That made me remember feeling a similar way during my first round of weight loss with Weight Watchers.  I really want to feel like that again so thanks to that member for reminding me of it.

So, what has worked and what could have been better this week?

The Good

Planning out my meals and shopping in advance has helped me to stay on track with my meals this week and I’ve repeated this for next week.

I went to both my yoga class and swimming this week.  I was pleased to see that I’ve somehow mainted a good level of flexibility in the yoga class.

I have eaten quite a bit of chocolate this week, but I’ve pointed it all.

 

The Bad

Although I’ve pointed all of the chocolate I’ve eaten, I have eaten quite a bit of it and I know that this is not the healthiest choice I can make.  With this in mind, I’m going to conciously try to make better choices when it comes to snacks.

 

The Plan for Next Week

My small weekly goal is to get rid of some more weight again.  I’m not setting a figure on how much – given my recent track record, I’m happy with every ounce I shift!

The slightly bigger goal I’m aiming for is to get rid of 7lb in total to earn a Silver 7 sticker – I haven’t seen one of those bad boys for a while .  When I achieve this, I’m going to treat myself to some new earrings that I’ve seen.

To help me achieve these goals, this week I have again planned all of my meals, shopped for the necessary ingredients and I’ve prepared my lunches to take to work for the week in advance.  I’ve also booked in time to go to my yoga class and to go swimming again.

I’ve got no real social engagements planned for this week so staying on track should hopefully be relatively easy.

 

I’ll let you know how I get on.

FFF

How did your weight loss journey progress this week? 

Let’s Get This Party Started!

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The results of my first weigh-in of 2017 and what I’m going to do about it.personal-record-cover

Start Weight: 13st 12.5lbs

Goal Weight: 10st 12.5lbs

Pounds to get rid of: 42

Mini-goal: Lose weight this week!

So I had the ‘dreaded’ first post-Christmas weigh-in.  I say, dreaded, but actually, I was looking forward to it.  As I explained in my earlier post, this year, I’ve been really excited to get back to focusing on where I want my body to be.

Despite that, I must admit I was still a bit apprehensive about stepping on to the scales to find out what I’m currently weighing in at.  I can’t say I’m happy with my weight, but, importantly, I’ve decided not to give myself a hard time about it.  There’s no point.  What’s done is done.  I can’t go back and change it.  But what I can do, is change what I do from now on.

I’d like to lose about 3st.  As it’s been a long time since I was down near this kind of weight, this is only a loose target at this stage.  As I get closer to it, I’ll reassess my goal.  I’ve decided to think about it in terms of ‘pounds to get rid of’ rather than ‘stones to lose’ for 2 reasons:

1) I don’t want to lose weight – psychologically, I might try to find it again! (as my good friend Darren at Team Achieve explained in one of his blogs some time ago)

2) I don’t know why but 3st seems to be a lot more unwieldy to me that its equivalent in pounds.

As I restart my weight loss journey, I’m going to be focusing on 3 main areas each week to help me lose weight: eating healthily, moving more and developing a positive mindset.

In the past, I’ve usually only focused on the eating and moving side of things but I’ve been ww-weekly-card-week-1doing a lot of work around mindset during the past 8 months or so and I’ve come to realise just how important it is to take care of this aspect of ourselves.  As I’d already decided to work on these three areas, I was pleased to find out at my meeting last night that Weight Watchers will also be focusing on all three of these areas during the coming months.

Eating Healthily

I know from my past successes that meal planning is a vital aspect of making healthy eating choices.  As I’ve been off work for two and a half weeks for Christmas, I thought this would be the ideal time to get back in to planning my meals.

However, unexpected things came up and I found that every time I scheduled some time to plan my meals for week 1, something happened that meant it got pushed down the list of priorities.  By 30th December, I was starting to panic about this slightly.  I’d decided that I wanted to shop on New Year’s Eve, so that I was ready to make healthier choices straightaway on January 1st, and I still hadn’t had chance to sit down and plan my meals.

Then I noticed an email in my inbox telling me about the BBC Good Food Healthy Diet Plan for January.  I had a quick look and, although I didn’t have time to sit and work out the Smart Points values for each of the meals, it was clearly all fresh, healthy food options with all recipes and even a shopping list provided.  Winner, winner, healthy dinner! And breakfast and lunch too!  So I printed the shopping list off and dragged Mr FFF round Asda feeling rather smug with my trolley full of curly kale as everyone else was stocking up with party food.

I didn’t fully stick to the plan on January 1st or yesterday – that had never been my bbc-good-food-amended-plannerintention – and I only got round to working out all the Smart Points values today.  What I’ve done is to work out the Smart Points values for each meal.  I then actually cut the meals out and rearranged them to better suit our schedule for the week.  As I didn’t use the lunches on day 1 or 2, I’ve also ‘bumped’ them to next week, so I’m already ahead of the game there.  Get in!

So far, all of the meals I’ve tried have been delicious.  I’ll definitely be making them again.  The only thing that tripped me up a bit is that I’ve had to work out the Smart Points using the recipe builder on the Weight Watchers website rather than using the nutritional information provided with the recipes.  This is to take account of those foods which are ‘zero’ pointed (hence the scribbled out and re-written points values on my planner!).

 

Moving More

Now, I’m not the biggest fan of exercise.  I know it’s really important and really good for you both physically and mentally.  And I know that when I get into it, I do enjoy it.  But I’m definitely not a natural gym bunny.  I’ve had several periods in my life when the only contribution to my weight loss efforts that has been made by my gym membership is that I’ve had less money to spend on chocolate and wine!  However, I’m determined to move more.

I’ve learnt from experience, and the words of others much wiser than I, that, if I say I’m going to exercise every day, or even every other day, it ain’t gonna happen.  Not for much longer than the first week or so anyway!  So instead, I’m making a much smaller, easier to achieve commitment: I’m going to exercise twice a week.

I’m going to go to a yoga class and I’m going to go swimming.  I’ve chosen these activities because they are activities that I enjoy and I’m actually looking forward to going to.  I haven’t arranged to go with anyone as I know that the first time they can’t make it, I’ll use that as an excuse not to go myself.  I have mentioned my plans to a couple of friends who’ve said they want to exercise more but it’s a case of if they decide to tag along, great.  I’ve treated myself to a gorgeous new swimming costume and a new hoodless zip-up top.  Believe it or not, one of the things that has put me off going to yoga in the colder weather before is that all of my long-sleeved exercise tops had hoods which are extremely irritating when you’re trying to concentrate on your downward dog let me tell you!  So now I’ve got no excuses.

 

Positive Mindset

I’m going to continue reading a book I’ve begun using to help me to develop a more positive attitude to my weight loss efforts.  So far I’ve found it very enlightening but I’ll review it fully once I’ve finished it.

I’m also going to take time to interact with others on social media to share tips, experiences and motivation.  If you want to join in, please like me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter using the links on the right.

I think I’ve rambled on more than enough for one post.  Sorry if it has been a bit long-winded today, but I’m honestly brimming with enthusiasm for getting back on track.

Thanks for reading,

FFF

What are you planning on doing to help you on your weight loss journey this week?

 

New Year, New Start v20.17

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And in the words of Coldplay, “I’m going back to the start”.

Wow! Where did 2016 go?  Looking back at my blog now, it has been almost a full year since I last published a post.Empty road to upcoming 2017 against the big cloud

There are many reasons for this that I won’t bore you with now but, in a nutshell, 2016 has been a bit of roller-coaster year for me:  I took the plunge of leaving a job with working conditions that were making me miserable.  After a brief career change, I’m back working in the same career but in a different place and I’m much happier for it.

The upshot of my turbulent 2016 is that my weight loss efforts took a nose-dive and my weight has crept up pretty much to where it was when I first walked through the door of Weight Watchers over 13 years ago.  I spent some of 2016 giving myself a hard time about this before realising how pointless that was.  I’ve been doing a lot of work around personal development and being more accepting of myself and I came to realise that I simply wasn’t in the right frame of mind to focus on losing weight for the majority of 2016.

Thankfully, I’m in a much better place now and I feel ready to take the bull by the horns and get my body to where I want it to be.  Whilst the numbers on the scales and my reflection in the mirror may suggest that I’ve gone right back to the start of my weight loss journey, I realise that this isn’t actually the case.  I’ve got a lot more of the tools and skills that I need to lose weight than I did when I first started out on my journey – I’ve just wandered off course slightly.

As I’ve been glancing through my previous ’new year’ posts (here & here), I’ve asked myself “What is different this time around?”  I’m not sure I know the answer exactly, but I do know that I’m really looking forward to getting back on course this time round, which is a bit of a strange feeling.  I feel as though I’m really ready to make sustainable changes this time.  This has got me thinking about seeing the whole ‘back to my start weight’ as a positive:  I’ve been thinking back to how successful I was when I first stepped on to the Weight Watchers scales and how I acheived that success.  This has given me the reassurance that I can do it.

With this in mind, as strange as it may sound, I’m quite looking forward to stepping on to the scales at my weigh in tomorrow.  I know I’ll have put on weight over the Christmas period, but there’s no point in berating myself for.  What’s done is done.  The thing I’m really looking forward to though, is marking my successes over the coming weeks and months as I work to make my body fitter, healthier and stronger.  I can remember how fantastic that feels, and I’m keen to feel that way again.

I’ll let you know how I get on tomorrow and what my plan of attack for the week is.

Thanks for reading,

FFF

How are you feeling about your weight loss journey as we head in to the new year?

“I will not find comfort in food.”

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Filed under All Things Weight Loss

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love food.

Woman meditating

Image courtesy of Marin at FeeDigitalPhotos.net

 

Sometimes this is a good thing – I love cooking fresh meals from scratch and planning healthy menus.

But sometimes, it’s not such a good thing and I find myself using food to deal with my emotions.  That’s right, my name’s Fat Fighting Foodie and I’m a comfort eater.

In the past, I have let this emotional reliance on food sabotage my goals to become fitter, healthier and more comfortable with my body. But I’m currently making a big effort to address this.

If I’m honest, comfort eating has probably been both my best excuse and my worst enemy in my weight loss battle.  Time and time and time again, I’ve dealt with being stressed or bored by scoffing bars of chocolate (usually family sized) and slabs of cheesecake to make myself feel better.  Ironically, it’s only ever made me feel worse as I’ve usually crammed it down my neck at lightening speed (I swear I could break world records) rather than taking the time to enjoy it and have then felt guilty at having lost control.  I would usually then conclude that I’d ‘blown’ my healthy eating for the week and so I’d eat rubbish vowing to ‘get back on track’ following my next weigh in.

So what’s different this time around?

As I mentioned previously, I’ve got a new mantra that I stole from the TV show ‘Fat: The Fight of My Life’:

“The purpose of food is to nourish my body and mind.  I will not find comfort in food.”

Unfortunately, I’m currently having a stressful time at work and a week or so ago I had a particularly hard and emotional couple of days.  I had to nip in to the supermarket on my way home from work for some cat food (for my cat – I’m not that extreme in my efforts to curb my emotional eating that I have substituted chocolate for pet food).  It was cold and dark and I knew that Mr FFF wasn’t going to be home for a few hours so I’d be going home to a cold, dark house.  As I walked through the doors of the supermarket, the urge to head to the bakery section was strong.  I could almost taste a chocolate-covered donut.  I reasoned with myself that I could work it into my points,but knew that, in reality, I wouldn’t – that’s not how comfort eating works for me, there’s no point if I’m not going to try to cheat myself; the guilt’s just not the same.  So I dug deep and reminded myself of my mantra.  I thought really carefully about the donut, and all the other stuff in the bakery section.  Would they nourish my body? No.  Actually, they wouldn’t even taste that nice compared to home-baked stuff.  I decided it wasn’t worth it and would only set me back further on my weight loss journey.  I still needed comfort though.  So I thought about what I could treat myself to that would be comforting but wasn’t food.  The result: I bought myself a nice, new pair of pyjamas.

When I got home, instead of sitting on the sofa, mindlessly stuffing my face, I ran myself a nice bath then got cosy in my new pjs and caught up with Mr Selfridge.  And do you know what?  I actually felt a lot better for having done that.  It might seem pretty obvious, but I’m so used to the cycle of feeling fed up–>comfort eating–>feeling worse that it actually felt really empowering to not comfort eat.

So for me, so far, that mantra is working and I hope it continues.  It’s going to be tricky as work is likely to be stressful for a good few months, but I’m hoping that the more I practise saying no to comfort eating, the easier it will get.

Now, I can’t rely on buying pyjamas every time I want to comfort eat as I’d soon be bankrupt (although I suppose it would be good for the textiles industry) so I’ve been trying to think of other sources of comfort.  So far I’ve come up with:

  • adult colouring whilst listening to music
  • having a bath
  • playing a computer game
  • watching some tv
  • working on my blog
  • reading other blogs

I reckon I’m going to get quite a bit of practise at resisting comfort eating over the next few months though, so if you have any other ideas for alternative sources of comfort, please let me know.

 

Thanks for reading

FFF 

 

 

Menu Planning: KISS It!

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Filed under All Things Weight Loss

As the name of my blog suggest, I LOVE food.  I love cooking it, reading about it, shopping for it, watching programs about it and most of all, eating it!KISS

My love of food often serves me well.  But when it comes to menu planning and staying on track, it can sometimes become a bit of a hindrance:  In my efforts to avoid getting stuck in the rut of having the same things to eat week in, week out, it can take me ages to plan what to have as I scour my numerous cookbooks (51 at last count.  And that was after a massive cull!) for inspiration.  Having spent a lot of time and effort planning what to eat and having shopped in advance for ingredients for the week, I often find myself in the situation where I can’t be bothered to spend an hour in the kitchen after getting in from work.

So I’m trying to address this issue by taking a different approach to my menu planning.  I’ve decided to taking the KISS approach: Keep It Simple Stupid.  My thinking is that if I plan to have meals that are simple to make in the week,

  • I’ll save myself time in the planning & cooking stages,
  • I’m more likely to stay on track rather than ordering a takeaway
  • I’ll throw less food away
  • I’ll take more pleasure in cooking fancier dishes when I’ve got the time to take my time and enjoy it.

What I’m eating

So, over the past week or so, I’ve enjoyed: a salmon stir-fry; jacket potatoes with various fillings; Tuna & Pesto Pasta (simple recipe coming soon); Bacon, Mushroom & Tomato Pasta; cheese on toast; beans on toast; bagels with soft cheese; and a variety of soups that I’ve made in batches and frozen to take to work for my lunches.

So far, I’m finding that it’s making it easier to plan meals and to stick to my plan in the week.

I also used the KISS strategy when out shopping at the weekend: I hadn’t had chance to plan the meals for the week but I knew the kind of things to buy so that I’d be able to work the points in.  I nearly came unstuck when my husband said that he wanted shepherds pie for Sunday dinner.  He was happy with a ready made one but I knew that would work out to more points than I’d be happy to spend and I didn’t have the time (or inclination) to make one from scratch.  So instead, I got myself some pork chops and had one of those with some potatoes, veg and gravy for 8 Smart Points.  Simple

What are your go to KISS meals?  I’m always looking for new inspiration.

Thanks for reading,

FFF

 

PS The link in this post is to an old recipe with Pro Points values, it will still work out well on Smart Points as you only need to count the bacon and pasta (and oil unless using spray oil).  I hope to get round to updating my recipes to show Smart Points values soon.