Weigh-In Wednesday (Femina)

Whoa... last time I weighed in was THREE MONTHS AGO. Bad cowgirl!

Last time: 71.9
Today: 72.6
Difference: 700g gain

Of course that's not an entirely accurate picture since in the last three months my weight has gone up and down a fair bit. I got up to 74kg at one point, which was more than enough to make me take stock and reign in the munching a little bit!

In exercise news, I have cancelled my gym membership because I was hardly using it and I can't really afford it. Plus my reasons for going to the gym have changed - I joined initially when I was at the tail-end of several months of depression and exercise was more of a depression-management tool than anything else. And it was great for that. Now, however, my mental health is loads better and the gym just isn't doing it for me. Instead, I have just bought a treadmill (it's being delivered next Tuesday) and hopefully the fact that I don't have to go out to exercise - in fact can exercise in my PJs if I want - will help me to be more motivated.

The food is another matter. Hmmm...

Wisdom Teeth Weigh HOW MUCH??!!??

Well I didn't weigh-in last week because last week hardly existed in my little world, but I must say the scales this morning were encouraging:

Last time: 74 kg
This time: 72.6 kg
Loss of: 1.6 kg

Total loss: 3.4 kg
Way to go to goal (68kg): 4.6 kg

They must have been some pretty weighty teeth! I've been eating wrong food and not exercising. Maybe I should get another lot out and see if I can duplicate the results (or not).

Sabotage! (Givinya)

I sent Mister de Elba for three grocery items, then immediately smacked my head. He can't say No to his temptations (because he doesn't have to) and his temptations become my temptations because he brings them into my kitchen!

"He's going to come home with two blocks of chocolate," I said out loud. And he didn't. Good man.

"And a packet of corn chips," I continued. And he didn't. Awesome.

"And at least three packets of biscuits." And he brought home four.

My only defense against eating crap is not having it in the house. Then he brings it into the house. Doesn't he love me? Apparently he must love me so much that he wants more of me - much much more.

I got mad, but kept my cool as I said, "Honey, I'm going to need you to take every pack of biscuits to work - I can't have them in the house, I need you to help me not pack on the weight."

"Okay," he said.

So please explain why today there is a pack of Mint Slices in the fridge, a pack of Caramel Tim Tams in the cupboard, and the packs of Monte Carlos and Custard Creams were both emptied out into a giant biscuit tin and placed in our cupboard.

Mr de Elba is not taking my weight loss seriously. Maybe I should show how seriously I am taking it by throwing the whole lot in the bin.

Manda

I am also back. Thanks, girls! Last week, on the morning of the day I came across your recommittments, I stood on the scales and thought, 'I wonder when I'll go back on skinny cow?' A mark of how long I've been MIA is the fact that I loaded the blog page and stared at it, wondering, 'how do I sign in again?'

My plans have changed a little over the last month or so. I continue to aim to lose weight, but I am equally concerned now with developing good eating habits.

(Are you rolling your eyes? Stop that! Let me expand on it a bit first).

My biggest goal remains to break the hold food has in my head. This doesn't simply mean gluttony - it refers to the way I idolise food, waiting for the next morsel, daydreaming about dinner, an so on.

My housemate is obsessed with a book about Intuitive Eating. The thoery is, your body craves things it needs (or at least it will, once you start listening to it). So eating what you crave when you crave it - and not eating more than what will satisfy you - teaches you to eat the way your body needs you to. I'm not 100% sold on the theory, but it's not a bad idea: eating only what you need to eat, knowing that if you're hungry, you can get more later... satisfying cravings by having a little, rather than defying them by eating lots of other foods you don't crave.

So now, I'm eating when I'm hungry, and I'm eating the things I'm hungry for. Sounds simple, right? Well, in all my previous food habits (eat all you can and don't care about the consequences / eat exactly what will fit into the Weight Watchers plan and never anything else / eat mostly what will fit into the plan but be a tiny bit more relaxed) this has never occurred to me!

Weight: 71:8

Goal: 70

Weight to goal: 1.8 kilos

Time to get to goal: as long as I want! As long as I'm eating good food that I want to eat, I'm not too fussed about the timing.

Count me in, too (Femina)

Well, what now? I guess this is the bit where I make excuses about where I've been and what I've been doing, and make sensible food-and-exercise plans. As it happens I have no real plans at the moment but I need to get back on track, wherever that track might be, so publicly declaring my re-allegiance (is that a word?) to Skinny Cow is where I'm starting. Step one - check.

So... I'm back! Yay! I have had some messy things going on over the past three months and chocolate has been my friend. As has bacon. And the occasional hash brown. Mmm, and sausages sometimes too. Ooh, and hot chocolate. Turns out my mother was right... some friends only pretend to be your friend but really they are bad news. Sigh. I now weigh more than at my last OSC weigh-in but still less than when this whole thing started so I suppose that's a good thing.

My goal for this week is to plan meals, shop and cook. I have plenty of junk food in my house but nothing that would make a nutritious meal so that's my first step. I recently bought a meal planner notebook so I'm going to start utilising that. I am generally pretty good at the meal planning thing so that might be a good kick-start for me. (Yeah - here's hoping.)

Exercise goals will come next week. One step at a time for reluctant little cowgirls. :)

I'm back, Cowgirls (Givinya)

Inspired by Hippomanic Jen's recent post, I too am back at Skinny Cow.

Three weeks ago, I lost something huge, like 7kg or maybe more. This is how:

Giving birth to one stinkin' cute baby boy. Joseph Samuel is his name, and he accounted for 3.105 kg of the extra 14kg above my goal weight. See? Not all my fault.

Losing weight while flat on back

And the night after my caesarean as I lay helplessly flat on my back, I lost another 6kg or more. I have never lost so much weight so quickly while doing so little. How? you ask. I peed. And peed. And I peed and I peed and I peed and I peed and I peed and I peed and I peed. Well, I had a catheter in, so I didn't know I was peeing, much less how MUCH I was peeing until a midwife came for a chat and said upon leaving, "I'd better empty your bag - it looks like it's going to burst."

My bag? Oh yes, the catheter thing. Going to burst? Well, I had been very thirsty since the caesar, no - since falling pregnant late last year. And admittedly I'd had a lot to drink that afternoon in between feeding little Joseph. But also, I assume I'd retained fluid I hadn't noticed in my tissues, and it was all a-comin' out.

She emptied the bag into what looked like a two-litre jug, then emptied the jug. She emptied the bag again into the same jug, and emptied the jug again. Then she emptied the bag a third tine into this jug, not quite full this time, but lemme tell you, this wasn't the only bag-emptying-into-jug thing they did for me over that 20 hours.

I think I must have lost at least 6 litres in fluid, hence 6kg. While lying flat on my back.

And I've lost other bits and pieces of weight over the last 3 weeks, then gained it back with the incessant drinking you do when you're breastfeeding. And the breastfeeding itself - let's just say that parts of me are definitely making up some of the extra weight that's still on me.

ANYWAY.

Return to Skinny Cow

Here I am, back at Skinny Cow. And weight-wise, it's an interesting time of life for me - twice before I have seen that I crave the most amazing amounts of food when I am feeding a baby, and the promise that "the weight will fall off you when you're breastfeeding" turns out to be no more than a FABLE for me.

So now, the rubber hits the road.

What will I eat when it's 2pm and I am craving 4 chocolate biscuits, 7 marshmallows, 1 whole chocolate cake and a drink of hot Milo with sugar?

Will a banana and an apple REALLY cut it?

Plan of Attack

Current plan of attack: I don't want to keep any/much bad food in the house. And I want to eat leftovers instead of junk when I'm craving, as they will be filling and healthy.

Good luck, me.

Undutiful Porker returns to Skinny Cow again

So it was a really good idea to get back on the wagon.

It's a pity that I didn't, really.

However, I have been paying a bit more attention to healthy eating and I've rowed a couple of times during the last few weeks. And I thought about going for some walks with the Little Black Dog.

The exercise was mostly spurred on after my pre-admission phone call from a nurse asking questions about my health issues and any medication that I'm on. When asked about my level of fitness I did confess to being at the bottom end of the fitness range. She needed more information:

Her: "Do you walk for half an hour each day?"

Me: "Well, that's my aim, but I haven't been meeting it for the last few weeks."

Her: "If you walk up four flights of stairs would you be breathless?"

Me: "Is there anyone who wouldn't be breathless walking up four flights of stairs?"

Her (somewhat impatiently): "Yes!"

And although I didn't challenge it at the time, I'm certain that even when I was at my fittest (during high school when I rode my bike for 5 km to school and back about 4 times a week) I would have been breathless if I tried to walk up four flights of stairs.

Even when I was at college and walked everywhere and did indeed have four flights of stairs to climb to get to my room I was breathless at the top of them.

However, at least the hospital know how out of condition I am. You would have thought that they could have worked that out when I confessed to my height and weight!

I work best from a position of strength. I'm 1.4 kilos down since my last weigh-in. Or maybe exactly the same weight, but I took best two of three attempts.

So I rowed this morning and feel all good.

I had a balanced breaky that include fruit and milk and toast and I feel all good.

Then I finished off the packet of cheese Twisties that lured me yesterday at the supermarket.

I have to work on my just-say-no control mechanism.

Onwards and downwards.

What part of "Forever" do I not understand?

Well, you remember how this whole Skinny Cow thing started?

I had blogged on my site that I really needed to do something about my weight. I was going to slowly but surely get fitter and start eating less of the right kind of food (and obviously much less - or approximately none - of the wrong kind of food). It struck a chord with a number of people and so the Skinny Cow Co-operative was born.

And I was doing really well until Christmas time, where I started to bounce and bit and then the wheels fell off for me entirely in about March. *sigh*

So here I go again - only 0.6 of a kilo off my original starting weight. I've put myself back into First Grade Weighloss and am trying to summon up the strength to get back on the wagon.

The fact that I'm trying to summon up that strength does not bode well. You see, I will need to be entirely committed if I'm to get back into shape. I'm wondering if the thought of being a model for our Church's Fashion Parade in October is sufficient to get me back to 68kg.

I want to get back to 68kg.

At this point I'm not aiming for much beyond that, because that is the weight the wheels always fall off. Between now and then I need to get my head around it, but it's a good starting aim because it is achievable.

I will have to ignore the winter allure of custard and steamed pudding desserts every night, and the temptation to eat more because it's cold.

I'm guessing that in the week following the 19th August I might manage to lose heaps of weight. That's the date I'm getting all four wisdom teeth out and I'm guessing that eating is not going to be pleasurable for a bit.

So enough of the whinging!

This week I will:
1. Allow myself two desserts and two other naughties.
2. I will row three times
3. I will do a half-hour walk three times.

Weigh-In Wednesday! (Eizelby)

Last time: 70kg
Today: 67.25kg
So: a loss of 2.75kg!

The last time I weighed in was over two months ago, so the amount is not impressive, but my lack of commitment to posting here reflects lack of commitment to weight management.

May and June were tumultuous months. I spent a few days sick in bed eating nothing but ice chips which helped with weight loss in May (I got to a little less than I am now), but once I got back onto food I dropped the ball and didn't care what I ate, walked less due to the cool and rainy weather, and generally wasn't living in a healthy way.

However, inexplicably, in the past few weeks I have been WANTING to eat better. I have been CRAVING vegetables and fruits more than ice cream! That never happens. I think my body has finally gotten fed up with my terrible eating habits and has decided to teach me good eating habits itself! Awesome! Weather has also been better and, due to my healthier diet, I have more energy to walk.

I am also finally getting on top of my low GI eating. I love that I can eat what I want: no cutting out chocolate, I eat it almost every day, just in little doses. That way, I avoid the sugar cravings. Cutting stuff out that I really love and crave always ends up doing more damage later on.

The end is in sight!

A Moment of Weightlessness / Moment of Truth

It must be my turn to hold the fort for a bit, I just hope that someone comes home soon!

My gain since last week equals zero.

Unfortunately my loss since last week also equals zero, and I'm hoping that this is the moment of weightlessness before my weight plummets to the floor.

I was looking at my trendy spreadsheet again. So many goals (good, achievable goals) that I've let slide by pretty much since Christmas. I know that if I go back to my 'normal' eating pattern I will slowly climb back up into the mid 70s. Am I okay with that? Not really.

So:-
1. I will row three times this week. Started off already with 25 minutes this morning.

2. I will walk three times this week. The LBD will be very glad about that, and it does do wonders for my mental health.

3. I will allow myself 2 desserts and 2 other miscellaneous naughties during the week.

4. I will try to eat more good food despite the apparent conflict between the government's 2 & 5 programme and avoiding itchy spots (i.e. fruit apart from pears is pretty much out on a daily basis).

To a certain extent, it is the conflicts between all the different schools of thought that trips me up with respect to good eating. Food apparently needs to be low in sugar, fat, salt, and carbs. It needs to have no artificial flavours, colours or preservatives. Fresh may indeed be best, but it also needs to be low in the naturally occurring food chemicals that cause itchy spots. It needs to be Australian grown/made/owned, but also inexpensive. Also, apparently one serve of meat is plenty, four serves of grains are necessary, and 2 serves of fruit and 5 of vegetables are what we should have each day.

Is it any wonder that I am going through a phase of hating food shopping?

It doesn't help that my herb and shallot garden is struggling through the cold weather. I need these to make food at all interesting without going to the shops every two days. Maybe I need to bring the pots inside?

Off to make chicken soup... and a sponge cake (oops). I'm trying to get my sponge-making ability consistent. It has egg in it, so it must be healthy, yes?

The Good News Is...

... in the last few weeks of no exercise and not the best (a.k.a. spectacularly dreadful) eating pattern I have not put on 7234.8 kilos.

How would I have put on 7234.8 kilos (which, by the way, is actually 7.2 tonnes!)?

Well, I hit the zero instead of the decimal place when I was entering today's data into my trendy spreadsheet.

The resulting answer didn't look quite right to me.

Let's just say that it really puts the 1.5 kilos that I really put on into perspective.

Weigh In Wednesday (Femina)

Last time: 72.3kg
Today: 71.9kg
Difference: 400g

This means that the enormous amount of Maltesers I ate yesterday hasn't hit the system yet. Maybe they won't... they were fundraising Maltesers after all and it seems wrong that my generosity should cause me to put on weight!

That's it from me today. No plans, no goals for the moment. I'm concentrating on other things in my life for a little while so any weight loss or gain will be by accident, not design. I guess it's a good experiment to see what happens when I eat reasonably normally (apart from the Maltesers) and don't exercise. I'll be able to find out if my 'normal' food regime is too much.

Manda is forgetful and sorry

So, given all your activity of late, I doubt you'll remember one of the things I said in my last post: "I'll keep you updated on my progress." I certainly forgot it completely!

I've been chugging along, splurging more than I should but still less than I used to. I've got a nice winter-belly-baby going, but the rest of me is the same. So, let's pretend I haven't neglected my posting promise for the last few months, and start over.

Last time, I weighed: 71.1
Current Weight: 71.6
Weight change since last time: a gain of 500 grams
What I'll do now: Stop being such a food pushover.

You know when you finally learn that
when your housemate/husband/girlfriends offer you that piece of cake/chocolate ice cream/Cadbury creme egg, you are within your legal rights to turn it down
and you feel liberated, like suddenly it's actually your decision?
I learned that two years ago, and instituted a No Sugar in Public Rule (NSPR), which basically meant all my sweet things were sweet things I actually wanted to eat, and fit into my food points. It worked wonders (the decision being already made for me) and I lost more weight than usual. But I seem to have forgotten again.

But now I remember. This week, when my housemates offer me junk, I have often turned it down. Watch this:
Georgeous housemate: I'm going to have a crunchie.
Other georgeous housemate: Oooh, me too! Manda, do you want one?
Me: No thanks.
O.G.Housemate (cheerfully): Yeah, I thought you wouldn't.

WHAT?!
What just happened? Are things turning around? Am I finally getting to a point where I'm actually going to do something about my Winterbaby?

(Note: this is the first step of many that must occur for me to get to my goal. It doesn't matter how much I turn down from others if I pig out alone.)

Oh, and one more thing:
Modified, realistic goal for winter: 68 kilos. That means I have to lose just under three kilos over the next two months.

Whoops, and one more note: I am holding off on the NSPR for the moment - just turning down more of the 10 desserts offered to me in an average week.

I'm baaaaaack

Hello everyone!

So impressed to see so many of you here and powering on!

I, on the other hand, have not been powering on.

But it's time for (another) fresh start, I even bought scales this week!!

I am reasonably pleased with the fact that I weigh about the same as I did when I stopped all this, haven't lost anything but haven't really gained either...that's good.

Let's see where I am at on Wednesday, hey?! Wish me luck :)

I don't want to talk about it!

I did weigh-in this morning. Now at 72.2kg.

I'm claiming that I built muscle mass this week. I rowed 4 times.

I'm claiming that sawdust has a high calorific content, because I've been madly sanding.

However, it is possibly due to a couple of days eating my head off. I need to stop eating (well, okay, slow down with what I'm eating - not stop altogether).

New week, new start. Going to a child's birthday party tomorrow. Chances that any good intentions that are floating around my brain will be transformed into actual self-control at a party?

... Mmmmm?

Weigh In Wednesday (Femina)

Yes, I know, it's not Wednesday but I did weigh myself on Wednesday; I just didn't get around to posting.

Last week: 72.3kg
This week: 72.3kg

Difference.... zero, which means NO GAIN. Nope, it's not weight loss but maintaining my weight for one week is a bit of a win for me right now.  It's all good.

Bustin' Outta the Fat Pants

On Sunday I decided that maybe, with the baby so jolly big now, I might try my old Fat Pants on. Lovely tailored black slacks in a gorgeous fabric: large size. I haven't worn them for ever so long, because they sailed off me and hit the floor about two years ago. And I've believed that my girth hasn't changed all that much since then.

I wasn't prepared for the fact that they would be so tight on me. Okay, so of course I was going to find the zipper a bit tight with Thingamababy sitting large and unmoveable down there, but it was the butt and thighs that shocked me. Squeezy fit, with no chance for the zip to go up at all.

And yet, my overall weight sits around 71kg.

So I guess I'm still losing unwanted pieces of me from my upper arms and around my neck (yay!) while all things baby-related continue to blossom at a frightening rate. I currently look to be about full-term. I am 26 weeks tomorrow.

I'm not dieting at all, and am eating quite well for the baby, trying to stick to healthy foods and limit bad foods. In order to do this I cook up a vegetarian meal for dinner about 4 nights a week, and have lean meats the other 3 nights. This hasn't been working well. Adding a bit of bacon or chicken does not a vegetarian meal make. (But - "Yum!")

I have also had NOTHING sweet in the house except a packet each of Ginger Nuts, Scotch Fingers and Shredded Wheatmeals. You know you're trying to wean yourself off sweet stuff when you leave Shredded Wheatmeals as one of the final biscuits in the house. However this has only driven me to consume much more Milo than reasonable, and we've nearly run out of the Ginger Nuts and Scotch Fingers.

The children have been very challenging so tonight I decided to self-medicate with chocolate. We did a quick trip to Woollies for chocolate and the behaviour there was so appalling that I think I will never go back. Even when they're having a treat bought for them, they carry on like they are King and Queen of the World and they have passed an edict outlawing discipline in all forms. Disgraceful.

But good news here: after not-much sweet stuff for a while, a small chocolate binge was all I needed. It helped.

Weigh-In Woe (Femina)

I was all prepared to avoid the weigh-in indefinitely but decided to put on my Big Girl Pants and be brave. Hmmm... "big girl pants" has a different connotation on a weight loss blog, doesn't it? I meant my "grown up girl pants" but that doesn't have the same ring to it. Anyway, I digress...

Last time: 71.0kg
Today: 72.3kg
Difference: 1.3kg gain

Ouch.  What can I say? I have eaten lavishly of things that should be eaten sparingly and eaten sparingly of things that are good and healthy and should sustain me.  This feels like real weight gain too, not one of those "gosh, I'm heavier this week - I wonder why?" gains.  I haven't exercised - heck, I've barely moved at all unless it's vital. Even when I don't go to the gym I usually walk a fair bit but it's been cold and rainy and I've been lazy... and I'm feeling the difference in my body, which might be an incentive to start moving again.

After today I have 6 days off work. At least one of those days will be spent catching up on sleep but for the others I am planning a couple of day trips here and there and lots of walking.  And maybe I'll cut down on the hot chocolates too.  Maybe....

Weigh-In Wednesday (Eizelby)

Last time: 69.5
Today: 70
So: a gain of .5kg

Blurg.

Okay, this might look bad, as my last two have been gains, but on the bright side I've been eating like a teenage boy and I've only gained half a kilo in three weeks.

Somehow this number gives me hope! I'm not going to list a bunch of promises I probably won't keep, not for now at least, but instead will just say this: last night I had a light dinner after a heavy breakfast and lunch, and went to bed with the strongest desire to eat the bag of cookies stashed in my cupboard. I was awake for two hours thinking about those cookies. At one stage I even had my hands on the bag ... but I woke up this morning having not let even one pass my lips. Hooray for slight progress!

Weigh-In - Why Not? (HJ)

Last week may have been a little bit of a scales blip. Or that I did eat less and certainly less bad stuff (or at least less frequently). Or the fact that I only rowed once lead to atrophy of the huge muscle mass I acquired last week. Take your pick.

Last week: 72.2
This week: 71.0
Loss for the week: 1.2 kg (which is pretty impressive for very little work and a tad of self-control)
Total Loss: 5.0 kg

I must get back into rowing. It makes a difference.

And the LBD would appreciate the odd walk, too.