Staying Focused

Over the last few weeks I feel like I've been struggling. Not struggling to stay on plan, but struggling to see the wood for the trees. My weight loss has of course slowed down from when I first started Slimming World, which of course it was always going to, and recently I've felt like I'm doing the cha cha cha (as my group members call it), going backwards and forwards with losses and gains - this isn't actually true when I look at my progress, but it feels true, and when so much of losing weight is psychological it can play a huge part in whether you stay on plan or not.

As you can see, it's not like I gain ALL the time, but there are a fair few in there, and much as it feels as if I'm slowing down massively, perhaps I'm not when I look at the chart. Strange what our minds do isn't it? I feel like I've been focused on my 8 stone award for ages now, when in reality it's just been 3 weeks. Sometimes you need to take a deep breath, and a time out and appreciate the journey you've already completed, rather than frustrating yourself for not being THERE yet. So that's what I'm determined to do right now. Take stock, celebrate what I've achieved so far, and try and relax a wee bit rather than putting pressure on myself!

So what have I achieved so far? 

I really should stop whinging shouldn't I, and let myself feel proud and happy of my journey so far. Which I shall :)

I shall get onto Monday now, as you've sat through enough of my waffle for one day :)

As you know from yesterday's blog, I weighed in last night, and so woke up just in time to pick up Hague from the station and didn't have anything to eat until after weigh in and I tried something a little bit new, a SW friendly version of a Malayan curry, which is my favourite, but of course very high in syns from the take away!

I fried off some Quorn chunks, courgettes, mushrooms, pepper and onions for a little while, until they were soft and just added in a tin of tomatoes and a tin of Asda chickpea dahl and let it simmer away whilst my rice cooked. When the curry was off the heat I stirred in my secret ingredient...

According to the syns online, all multipack Activia 0% yogurts are syn free - so I would presume that covers the summer special flavours too! It worked though, and I thoroughly enjoyed my fake-away. I had dessert as well.

Got to keep my energy up on these night shifts! With that eaten it was time to head to work, my 8th day straight! Luckily, only one line was running again, and so the only real hazard during the night was staying awake! Due to me enjoying "proper" green days again, lots of HeB snackage made it's way into my bag of noms.

I enjoyed the new magazine as well, although I'll have to have a closer look at some of the recipes as nothing really leaped out at me. I also thought I'd have some Scan Bran as a bit of a change with the biggest bowl of salad ever for my lunch. I was literally eating it for my entire lunch break! As you may have noticed, I seem to have managed to have no syns today. It certainly wasn't planned, I'd taken in some Crispy Fries and an Activia yogurt, but was just too full, and so they came home with me! 

Food Diary

Free Food
rice
Asda chickpea dahl
chopped tomatoes
mushrooms
courgette
pepper
onions
Quorn chunks
Activia 0% fruit yogurt
banana
grapes
lettuce
beetroot
radishes
spring onions
cherry tomatoes
cucumber
carrots
apple

Healthy Extras
A - 6 Laughing Cow extra light triangles
B - 5 Scan Bran
B - (split) 2 Bear yoyo's, 1 Benefit bar

Syns
Not a one!

Even though I didn't have any syns, I certainly didn't feel deprived, and I'll be honest, it certainly won't hurt as we're heading to the Great Yarmouth Beer Festival on Saturday and methinks I won't be keeping within my syns then! 

I can't wait! Nom!

Money Raising and Money Grabbing!

Sunday - What a day! Starting at 5.30am, and lasting for 25 long ol' hours before I could hit the hay once more - except for a nap, they don't count right?

So why on earth was I up so early on a Sunday morning? Well I have my broken body clock to thank for that one, as I'd set my alarm for 7, but my brain decided that a whole hour lie in was more than enough after my week of earlies, and so I got myself up and showered and treated myself to a cooked breakfast before heading to The Parentals for the Race for Life.

I may only have been planning to walk those 3 miles, but I needed fuel! With all of us gathered at The Parentals, we then headed off to the Norfolk Showground, in sunshine! Such a relief as all week the weather has definitely said it would be soggy! I had, of course, dressed up for the occasion - any excuse ;)

This is me, my Mum and my Sister, just arrived at the showground and raring to go! Whilst everyone else prepped with some doughnuts, I stayed strong, and joined in with the warming up, and was rather intrigued by Zumba, maybe I shall have a look for the game on the Wii as it looked quite good fun!

So here's one more shot for you of our team, just about ready for the countdown to start!

I had decided to walk it quite quickly, and I managed to keep up a reasonably steady pace, and finished in 48 minutes and 48 seconds, the fastest I've ever managed. Bloody ached at the end though lol, and once again willpower was in force as we were given cakes as we crossed the line, but I gave mine to my Sister and waited for snackage. So here we are, at the end, with our medals on display :)

All with pink faces this time to match our outfits lol! The adults managed it in around 48 minutes, whilst our two little gymnasts ran around in just 29! We think we've managed to raise over £1000 as well, so once again, thank you all so much for your donations!

With the excitement over, I needed something to eat, and I'd brought some supplies with me, which I ate in the car on the way back to The Parentals.

It wasn't enough to fill me up though, and so when I stopped to get some petrol, I also got some supplies from Tesco, reduced carrot batons, which were the perfect noms for the drive home.

I dread to think how many portions of veg were in there, but I only counted three :) As I'd said yes to overtime, when I got in, I needed to head to bed, and so had myself a 4 hour nap to try and prepare for my shift.

When I was awake once more - feeling knackered and very, very achey, and also very hungry, and so the leftover pasta bake from the other day came to the rescue for dinner.

Perfect to fill me up ready for work :) Plus about 6 portions of veg! And so off I went, on my money grabbing exercise! It wasn't so bad, only one line was running - but that also meant that we only had the standard three breaks, as the line had to be stopped for us to get them in!

I was rather peckish at my first break, as it was later than normal, and so put away all those lovely fresh strawberries, plus Graze noms and a couple of Bear yoyo's too! So another 5 portions of fruit to add to my tally, and plenty of energy to get me through until my meal break.

Now, as you know, I don't like to have pasta twice in a day normally, but this lunch had been taken in by me on Saturday and not eaten, and so it seemed silly not to have it today. Along with the new flavour of Activia yogurt - banana and toffee, which is divine! For my last break, I had my usual noms...

I was really starting to struggle by now. Sore and so tired, I couldn't wait to get home and get into bed. As I'd been out most of the day I decided to let The Menagerie upstairs with me :) And so I settled down to sleep, at long, long last!

Food Diary (Sunday)

Free Food
eggs
LM rosemary and red onion sausages
mushrooms
tomatoes
banana
beetroot
spinach
macaroni
onion
pepper
courgette
carrots
strawberries
cucumber
cherry tomatoes

Healthy Extras
A - 40g reduced fat cheddar
B - 2 Benefit bars
B - 2 packs Bear yoyo's (4 yoyo's)

Syns
Graze noms                   7½
milk in coffee (1)            ½
Activia yogurt                2½

Total syns                      10½

Now, just to add to the confusion of a blog about a day that lasted forever, and is about Sunday, when it's Monday, I shall tell you about weigh in....yes, weigh in....told you it was confusing! As I'm working a 12 hour night shift tomorrow I can't make it to my normal group and so off to the Peggotty Road group I headed. I wasn't feeling very confident. I'm sure everyone that goes to group can sympathise with that feeling....like you weigh several tons and you're bound to have a gain? Well that's how I felt, however, the scales know best, and they showed a 4lbs loss! Very happy with that, as now I've got rid of last weeks gain and am once more within touching distance of that very elusive 8 stone award, with just one solitary lb to get rid off! 

So there we go, my super-mega long day, my Race for Life, and weigh in, all in one rather long blog :)

Earlies and Eurovision

I seem to not have blogged since Wednesday! Don't worry, I've not fallen off the sparkly purple bus, I've just been a tired ol' thing and bed has won over blogging I'm afraid. I'll be honest, it was close to winning tonight too, but I'm struggling to remember what I ate when already! :)

So back to Thursday, yet again the day followed a rather predictable pattern, me grumping about getting up early and the machines actually behaving themselves once more! My food also followed the same pattern - just call me Ms Groundhog! I think you can tell I need to go shopping my the condition of my bananas!

After discovering that my Bear yoyo's count as one of my 5 a day for each roll, they were quickly added to my menu again :) It was my last rice pudding too :( As Hague was working til 6.30, I figured I might as well get the shopping out of the way before he got home, and so I had a quick snacklet before heading out, courtesy of my Graze box.

I then battled my way around Aldi and Asda, and then got myself home and fed!

As Aldi had Jersey Royals for just over a quid, I'd treated myself and had them with plenty of veg and the last of my leftover mac n cheese. Lovely lazy dinner :) I followed it up with a little discovery from Asda, someone posted on a FB page about Activia lemon and lime yogurts, and I managed to find them in Asda! Yay! 

Highly recommended, they were absolutely lovely, really tart. I picked up some pineapple and coconut ones as well, so might try a Malayan curry with those another day.

As always after an early dinner/late lunch I got peckish again and so I did myself a few mini quiches so I didn't wake up hungry.

With that eaten, it was bath/bed time :(

Food Diary (Thursday)

Free Food

banana

summer fruits

kiwi

apple

asparagus

beetroot

jersey royals

pepper

onion

gherkins

radishes

eggs

mushrooms

spinach

Healthy Extras

A - 40g reduced fat cheddar

A - 45g Feta (in the quiches)

B - 35g Jordan's unsweetened muesli

B - 4 Bear yoyo's

Syns

Rice pudding                 2½

Graze oatbakes             5½

Total syns                      8

So Friday, an easy day at work as only one of my lines was running, with three of us there it was a tad boring, but I can't really complain about that. It meant that my breaks were a tad longer! I also had an email about the 5 a day challenge, a progress report as we're now halfway through, and our team is winning! I was rather pleased about that :) I was also rather pleased that my sponsor form had two more names on it - every little helps!

I'm sure you won't be overly shocked by my work noms....

Back to muesli to day though, but not much else changed, except I had a cup of tea instead of coffee as the engineers had brewed a whole teapot and only a couple of them had appeared for their break :) I'm all about the variety ;)

As I had actually managed to buy potatoes slightly bigger than grapes at Asda I treated myself to a jacket potato, although I think I may have gone slightly overboard on the accompanying salad!

The spud was stuffed with chive cottage cheese and my HeA of cheddar, utterly delicious, I've missed jacket potatoes! Obviously with the mountain of veg, it was a while before I fancied any dessert.

Acttivia yogurts were on offer in Asda too, £1 for a 4 pack, I may have bought lots :)  I know they're synned, but they're gorgeous, so I don't mind splashing out some synnage on them. Plus some more yoyo's to up the old fruit and veg.

With no Hague as he was heading up to Barnsley, I whiled away the evening with a long soak and plenty of music blaring out of my docking station, but all too soon I was peckish again and so yet more veg was prepared.

This time with some Feta and pasta :) Then once more it was time for an early night as Saturday brings no respite from my stupid alarm.

Food Diary

Free Food
banana
summer fruits
apple
fat free natural yogurt
Activia yogurt
radishes
beetroot
lettuce
spinach
tomatoes
cucumber
fat free cottage cheese
potato
pasta
onion
pepper

Healthy Extras
A - 40g reduced fat cheddar
A - 45g Feta
B - 35g Jordan's unsweetened muesli
B - (split) Benefit bar and 2 Bear yoyo's

Syns
Crispy Fries                   3½
milk in tea (1)                ½
Activia creamy yogurt   2½

Total syns                     6½

And so finally we reach today, which started at 4.30 once more, I wasn't expecting us to be called off, but I checked my phone anyway, nothing, and so off I headed. Luckily, when we arrived none of the lines were still running, so I had high hopes for an early getaway. Didn't stop me having a bit extra to eat on my first break though as I was already hungry.

Quite familiar, but with an added lemon/lime yogurt. Yum. As we'd been told we should be away before 10, I didn't have anything else to eat. We were there until nearly 11 though, and so I was starving by the time I got home. I decided to pick up some Aldi sub rolls when I was shopping as TOK highly recommends them and so I had one of those for my lunch/brunch type meal when I got home.

I had planned on having the eggs inside the roll, but didn't have the room after stuffing it full of onion and mushrooms! TOK was right though, they were delicious! Well worth the HeB and 3 syns, although as I'd had a Benefit bar already I am just going to have the lot as both my HeB's instead :) It made a nice change actually.

After stuffing myself with that little lot, and feeling rather chilly on the sofa I decided to head up for a wee nap, after all, I just couldn't risk falling asleep during Eurovision could I? I was very good, and set an alarm and so only had 2 hours, so not so bad. I had to succumb and put the heating on when I got up though. Seriously, it's bloody May, how about some warmth please?

It was back to enjoying some tunes and chatting to TOK for a while, before I started to ponder dinner. I had a right case of the CBA's, but managed to sort myself out a pasta bake. Plus another mountain of salad, it'll almost be a relief when this challenge is over lol!

It was another low effort job. I just chopped up a couple of peppers, onion, radishes and a courgette and roasted them off whilst the macaroni cooked and I microwaved the Quorn lamb strips with a tin of tomatoes, then I just threw the whole lot in a dish, topped with my white sauce and cheese and put it in the oven for 20 minutes. Tons for dinner, and tons left for work next week :) By the time I'd eaten it it was almost that time....

What can I say? It's definitely a guilty pleasure of mine. A cheese-fest from start to finish, craptacular songs, bizarre choreography, even more bizarre outfits and lyrics and the wonderfully sarcastic commentary from Graham Norton. I love it, although if Greece don't win, I'll demand a recount!

Only at Eurovision could you have a song called "Alcohol is Free" sang by guys in skirts, sounding like Madness fuelled by Ouzo. Perfection.

Anyway, I had my noms at hand whilst I enjoyed the "music" and tapped away at this blog.

So with my noms eaten, the last song about to start (Ireland) and the time getting on, I'd best finish up eh?

Food Diary (Saturday)

Free Food
banana
Activia yogurt
mushrooms
onions
potatoes
eggs
macaroni
pepper
courgette
radishes
garlic
spinach
beetroot
cucumber
tomatoes
fat free yogurt
grapes

Healthy Extras
A - 40g reduced fat Cheddar
A - 250ml semi skimmed milk
B - 60g wholemeal bread
B - (split) - 30g wholemeal bread & Benefit bar

Syns
2 Quorn sausages                    2
tbsp HP sauce                         1
Activa creamy yogurt              2½
16 Mikado                             8

Total syns                               13½

As it's now gone 10pm, and I have yet another early start tomorrow, I should really think about heading to bed soon, but as the reason I'm getting up early is for the Race for Life, I shall take this opportunity to ask just one more time for sponsorship. I know several of you have already been incredibly generous, and I would genuinely appreciate even a few pence if that's all you can spare. 

Thank you xxx

Sponsorship Link

I can't wait to take part tomorrow - all dressed up in pink, and alongside my Mum, Sister and Niece, as well as their friends. It'll be a wonderful day, and I'm hoping to get around in 40 mins or less. We shall see, but it would be fabulous to come home, log on to our sponsorship page and see us at our fundraising target!

Trying to Focus

Only a quick blog today, as it's already past 7.30 and I need to get myself bathed before heading to bed! After last night's upset and ranty-ness, today has been a day of trying to re-focus and not let myself get too depressed about what happened yesterday. I decided to focus on the good things and the first good thing happened as soon as I got in the car - Queens of the Stone Age were playing on the radio, definitely a very good thing, and a very rare thing too on Dev's show on Radio One, not complaining though. As it put images like this in my head.

Closely following on to Good Thing #1 was Good Thing #2, a full rainbow stretching across the sky as I drove to work - I love rainbows and so I took this as another positive thing for my day. 

Then I arrived at work...

For a twelve hour shift...

Really couldn't make anything good out of that at all I'm afraid, but due to some kind of miracle the machines were behaving themselves. They continued behaving themselves all day long, and it's been a fair old while since that last happened, so the general behaviour of the machines is now officially Good Thing #3. 

As always during a long shift, I took plenty of snackage in with me, and had my standard banana during my first break - with the now obligatory black coffee. 

Someone made disparaging comments about my poor banana as well, but that's a pretty damn near perfect banana to me, delicious and ripe :)

As there were three of us running the machines - I'm training someone again, although this one seems to actually have a brain, so it's a much more pleasant experience, he also keeps calling me darlin', which is quite sweet, but a bit disconcerting as he's also about 12 -we had our fair share of breaks, which as I'm trying to find Good Things shall call it #4. I waited until breakfast before having anything else though, and this delicious box of noms, consisting of rice pudding, kiwi, muesli and summer fruits. So nice, and really filling, so nice I'm having it tomorrow too :)

With nothing to report on the line, I shall skip quickly over my next break....

....and go straight to my second meal break, which was rather lovely.

The leftover Quorn lamb Greeky type thing from last week which I'd frozen, topped off with Feta, plus an Activia yogurt and a rather swanky can of Pepsi Max - the clementine was left for later. After my lunch I had the pleasure of Good Thing #5. One of the managers at work, who I don't see particularly often, asked what on earth I'd been doing as I looked fantastic, he couldn't believe how much weight I'd lost and said I'd done really well. Always a good thing to hear, especially when you're looking for Good Things.

I think my next break can also be classes as a good thing. Yesterday my Graze box arrived, this one was a normal one though, with a variety of noms, and one of them was a little box of afternoon tea, which I thoroughly enjoyed, despite me taking my tea in the tea room at work, rather than a cute little tea shop.

I had a blend of assam and Kenyan leavea (whatever that may mean) and some banana bread - which was utterly delicious and just 3 moist, sweet and nommy syns. Definitely worth of Good Thing #6. The clementine actually got eaten this time too. Rejecting it twice would just have been mean.

With tea eaten, it was back to the line for the final stretch, which I had to get through without TOK, who had kept me company for nearly 9 hours, for she is amazeballs, but I got through it and at 5.54pm I was sitting in the car and just about to set off for home! On this shift, dinner has to be quick, and I had half formed an idea in my head which sort of turned out how I wanted it to.

A big pile o' veg, covered in Stilton and topped with 2 poached eggs, it was so close to being another Good Thing, but I overdid the eggs. Still it contained 7 of my veggies for the day. Yep, 5 a day challenge is still going strong! With that eaten, I somehow found myself eating my last fudge Muller dessert whilst firing up the laptop to write this very blog :)

Food Diary

Free Food
banana
kiwi
summer fruits
apple
orzo
Quorn lamb
tomatoes
aubergine
sweet potato
spinach
clementine
butternut squash
beetroot
asparagus
courgettes
mushrooms
onion
cherry tomatoes
eggs

Healthy Extras
A - 45g Feta
B - 35g Jordan's unsweetened muesli
B - 30g Stilton

Syns
Rice pudding                            2½
Activia yogurt                           2½
Banana bread                           3
Fudgey dessert                         4½

Total syns                                 12½

So as it's getting late, I need to get myself into a nice hot bath to soak away the aches of the day, and ponder on all the Good Things that happened today. My disappointment of yesterday seems a bit easier to cope with now, although I'm still annoyed, I'm not so upset - I think my Good Things helped, but not as much as all the amazing tweets, comments, messages and texts I've had. Every one of them helped to cheer me up and put yesterday's disappointment behind me, so thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

Devastation and Decisions

Today has not been good, in no way, shape or form can today even vaguely declare itself as anything other than a totally and utterly sh*tty day. I'm not sure whether to document my day as normal, or just let my feelings out in a big ol' grumpy rant instead.

I think the rant might win.

I'm just back from weigh in, which I was hoping was going to make up for the utter crappiness today has bestowed on me so far. I knew the odds were slightly against me, as it was earlies, so I'd eaten, and I'd also had the wonderful surprise of coming on two days early too - but there is always, always that glimmer of optimism when I step on the scales, well today, I was greeted with a gain of 3½lbs. Now, I know that I struggle to lose on earlies, but 3½lbs is just gutting, utterly gutting. I've gone from being within touching distance of my next award to being 5lbs away, at the very, very best that's another week to lose, and more likely two. I hate going backwards, I hate going backwards even more when I've been 100% on plan. I know people are being nice when they say "You'll get that next week" I know they're being supportive, but I wanted it THIS week - I've been on plan, I'm eating tons of superfree. I have gained for no good reason and it's really hit me hard. It may be the hormones but I'm in tears at the moment. We didn't stay to group, I was umming and aahing anyway as I worked late, but the gain hitting me so hard was the final straw. I couldn't bear to sit in group and hear about people losing despite eating crap, put on a happy face when I felt so angry, devastated, frustrated, confused and upset. 

Maybe I'm overreacting, but this journey is so important to me, and I don't take it lightly. I've had my fair share of "undeserved" gains, and also a far few when I've had a day off plan. I don't get away with playing with the plan, I have to stay fully on board, and as I've said before, I don't find that hard - but a gain, and a large gain, after a good week, again, was just too much to take today :( Already I've had lovely, kind, sweet supportive messages on FB and Twitter - so thank you all - and the true measure of my determination is what I did when I came home.....

I had my totally on plan dinner. Not pizza, or crisps or cake, but chilli with sweet potato and normal potato chips topped with LowLow. Believe me, I'm hideously upset, but turning to food didn't even cross my mind, so I guess that's one bright spot right there....food was not my first thought when I was struggling not to cry. Progress from a year ago that's for sure.

Anyway, before dinner, and before weigh in, was the rest of my craptacular day - so I shall recap.....

Alarm at 4.30. Joy. Headed to work to be greeted my machine alarms, one after the other, taking it in turns to play up and generally be utter b*stards. This was compounded by being asked to work an extra 4 hours, of course I couldn't do that due to weigh in, but agreed to stay until 4, so an extra couple of hours or so. The whole day was a nightmare, with machines just playing up constantly, no amount of coffee keeping me awake and then the early and unprepared for arrival of star week. More joy.

Foodwise, the day consisted of these delights.....

Plus several more coffee's. Which probably contributed to the headache that appeared too. Jeez what a day, and jeez what a whinge! 

So what now? Well I have made the decision that I've been wavering over for a while, I shall be going back to "proper" green days, with two of each Healthy Extra, as I have just as many unexplained gains now as I did following the full green plan, so as of today, I'm back on green days. Apart from that, nothing will change. Maybe I'll change up what I'm eating a wee bit, maybe I'll have a look over the last week to see if anything has crept in, but I'm pretty sure it hasn't, I'm careful about protecting my losses, but it can't hurt. As for tonight, I shall enjoy another Benefit bar as the second half of my second HeB, and I might treat myself to one of the white chocolate Muller lights desserts Hague found today, and then bed, and hopefully sleep and I can wake up to a new week and get working on losing this 3½lbs. Again.

Food Diary

Free Food
apple
banana
clementine
kiwi fruit
Activia yogurt
sweet potato
potatoes
veggie chilli
  chopped tomatoes
  baked beans
  kidney beans
  sweetcorn
  mixed peppers
  chillis
  carrot
  onion
  swede

Healthy Extras
A - 60g LowLow
A - 60g LowLow
B - 2 Benefit bars
B - 35g Jordan's unsweetened muesli

Syns
rice pudding                                2½
Crispy Fries                                3½
Muller light white choc dessert     5

Total syns                                    11

Sorry for bestowing such a total pity party on you all today, but I felt it was important to be honest with you all. Sometimes, most of the time in fact, I can take these gains on the chin - but obviously today wasn't one of those times. I wish I knew why it's affected me like this, but we've all been there right? I shall not let myself fall off the wagon, I shall not linger on this too much longer, but it's been quite cathartic to be able to blog about it, and hopefully it'll be easier to let go of the upset now.

If you've made it this far, thank you for sticking with me. If you're in my SW group, sorry I wasn't up to staying, and I'm sure you all understand, and I'll see you in a few weeks (shifts are not being kind). Otherwise, I'm just sorry! Hopefully I'll be happier tomorrow, but seeing as a 12 hour early shift looms, don't hold your breath!

x