cabbage soup, the baby food plan, grapefruit diet !!!!!!!!!!!!

So another week another 'celeb' on the cover of a magazine telling us all how they have dropped 2 dress sizes in a month (yeah right) by doing some ridiculous diet. This really gets on my nerves for so many reasons. Just this week Lily Cooper (nee Allen) has lifted a lid on how these 'new amazing' bodies are achieved and I for one wish that many others will follow suit and the people at the source of these stories will either do the right thing and either fess up or shut up. Reading article after article about 'my amazing weight loss' is at the very least damaging to the self esteem and at the worst down right dangerous. I speak as someone who has struggled with being overweight and as a mother. Ok my daughter is still young but already I can see her looking at the way people are perceived and how body image is widely used as a measure of popularity, she is ten. For gods sake at ten I don't think that I ever worried about how body looked, maybe I worried about the fact that everyone in my class had a shell suit apart from me, but i certainly didn't care what my body would look like in one, and clearly neither did anyone who owned one !!! She knows I worry about my weight but as I have taken the time to explain to her, for me to be this size is not good for my health and I hope that by eating a balanced diet and working out I am showing her a healthy way to make adjustments to my size. If she came to me in ten years time and told me she was doing one of these ridiculous diets I would feel that I had failed her. Of course I hear you say, why don't we just not buy the magazines etc. Well thats just not going to happen. We are humans, and with that seems to come a desperate need to know whats going on in other people lives. I know I am probably one of the nosiest people around and I love nothing more than to settle down with magazine to read. I just wish that reality was actual reality these days. Since the big reality T.V boom of the early 00's there has been a constant supply of things to watch and read about other peoples lives. originally this was a dream come true for me. Before the realest things we got were watching crime watch, city hospital and Michael Burke on 999. But now even reality has become boring and to keep the interest going the powers that be have invented the unreality genre. Yes TOWIE, as much as I love you, you are at the top of that list. Everything in unreality world is perfect and that includes bodies. Don't worry if the body isn't perfect yet because in the blink of an eye it can be. We can nip, tuck, plump, fill, shrink, expand, crop, edit, and if all else fails lie our way to perfection. Which is ok if thats what you want but at least be honest about it, don't dupe a nation of women (and men) into believing that eating baby food has helped you shrink for a size 14 to a 10 ( thats if you were ever a 14 in the first place)Look at Fern Britton she had a gastric band fitted and lied about it for what ever reason. Fern says she didn't feel the need to tell the world, fine but don't lie when asked. Its not fair on people who think they are doing the same exercise as you and aren't getting the same or near to the same results. When Fern came 'out' of the surgery closet Most people applauded her, I did too. It is hard for her that she had to tell everyone when she didn't want too but Fern must have realised that it couldn't stay a secret forever. Another thing that annoys me is air-brushing and picture editing, If you have lost weight either quickly or a massive amount there is normally a surplus of skin. Nowhere in the pictures of celebs do we see this, and nowhere in these diets do we read about how to deal with this. So where does it go ? Cutting room floor, surgery floor ?? who knows ? I do know from my changing room experiences that most of the ladies at the gym have some form of baggy skin if they have lost alot of weight. You wouldn't know it when they are dressed but its definitely there.
There are a few people who SEEM to yo yo in size throughout the years, some celebs are serial yoyo'ers but the is one in particular that stands out to me. I don't want to be a bitch about her as i genuinely like her, and enjoy watching her on the T.V but my goodness this woman has made a career out of putting on weight and loosing weight but all the time actually not really looking that different on the telly. Honestly one day i was reading about her 'new amazing body' in a magazine and at the same time looking at her on the T.V and laughing because it was like watching two different people with the same head (not the same chins though)
  I know I for one am just going to stick to what I'm doing, trying to eat well and exercising and really I don't think there is any other way to do this weight loss thing without piling the pounds back on after or setting yourself an unrealistic target. It may take longer, It may be hard work but the rewards and benefits are plain to see. Baby food tastes horrid and cabbages make your bum smell anyway.
Thats me all done with nappies and the next one I change will probably be my grandchild !!!!! frightening thought. Back at the gym this week and didn't put any weight on in the week I had off. Which was a shock.Had a bit of gym rage which I will tell you about in the next post as this one has been so long already. Off to see take that tomorrow !!! Major excitement.

Pump up the jam

As i mentioned in the last post, I tried out a body pump class and loved it. Well this week I have done three !!!!! total addiction. Luckily I did get tickets for the Olympics but had I not, then there is a fair possibility that I would be trying to gain access as a competitor in the weight lifting. Its great and is as hard or easy as you make it yourself. If you don't know what body pump is I will try to explain. Basically its an hour long weight lifting class, proper weight lifting moves. Not just a few bicep curls. Multiple reps working out the chest, back.triceps, biceps and abs with lots of squats and lunges thrown in for good measure. Sounds hard doesn't it. That's what I thought and that did put me off slightly but I started with a low weight on my bar and kept that weight on for the whole class. Now I have a slightly heavier weight and gradually add more or take some off depending on which muscle group we are working on. I see some women in my class with their bars fully loaded and some who seem to just use a very light weight every time all the way through so it is suitable for varying abilities and fitness levels. At the end of the class we do a quick cool down and it is then you realise how hard you have worked as my arms were shaking so much i couldn't manage a press up. The next day I do feel a bit achey, but I have to say I do kind of enjoy this feeling. It means I know I have worked hard and that makes me happy. So that's the class for me,. Who would have thought it eh, I'm turning into (shock horror) a bit of a gym bunny ! I cant help it though and I do find I am having to restrict myself from talking about it too much as I don't want to become boring. When I'm talking to people now and they start saying how they want to lose weight and diet etc I do find it hard not get too pushy about how the gym can help them. As I know from being that person who talks and thinks endlessly about doing it, I know nothing will make you do it unless you really want it and have reached the point where you are ready to. I cant believe how much my life has changed since I started writing this blog. At times the thought of giving up has been almost overwhelming but nothing is as overwhelming as the thought of going back to the place I was in before. Being afraid to go out the house because of being fat is just not going to happen to me again. I am aware, I'm not there yet and I am still overweight, but I am doing it. I will continue to do it. Even when I stage where I am happy with my body (if anyone ever is) I will still do it. The gym has become my way of life now and I feel a bit special about it. The staff all know me, There are people I pass in the corridor who I say hello to, and yes there are women, who I talk to, in the changing room, while I am getting dressed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Although not in the nude, I still get changed behind closed door. Life hasn't changed that much !

Things are starting to shrink !!!!!!

Ok first off, again. Big sorry I have been a little slap dash in updating. I had some laptop troubles. I am not the most technically minded person and I had to re-install windows and then try and get everything back to how it was. Absolute nightmare but I think its all done now. Apart from I cant seem to turn the sound on, but I'm sure I will work it out somehow. I am rather proud of myself though as I never thought I would see the day where I  was going all technological. It had to be done as I was waiting on an email from a job I had applied for. Its a week past the closing date for applications and I haven't heard anything so I take it I haven't even managed to get an interview, again. Cant help being majorly upset about this one. it was a job I really wanted, working with care leavers. So its something I feel very passionate about. Oh well I will keep trying. I have decided now that this is the path I want to take for work, having spent nearly all of my working life teaching riding and mucking out/grooming/ feeding etc horses I feel its time for a change. I do feel really lucky that I have been able to do a job that I have loved but now I have the two children and I am not getting any younger, its probably time to stop playing with ponies. The only thing though is that I really struggle doing jobs that I don't love. Don't get me wrong I am not in a position to be turning down work, and at the moment I will take anything that comes my way. I also need to think of the future. We still have no savings, no pensions and desperately need to move to a bigger, non damp house. Would be great if  the kids didn't have to share a room anymore as the girl is finding it increasingly difficult to get any privacy and at her age now its important for her, and a job on the till at tesco isn't going to fund all that. One night just before the laptop packed up I applied to do the first part of a degree course haven't heard anything back yet but its focusing on the areas I want to end up working in and getting the chance to achieve a qualification in this field will be brilliant. I do worry that when I do eventually find something that I wont find the time for the gym anymore. See I have been a working mum before full and part time and there is no way I would have found time then and that was only with one child not two !!!
  Back to the actual topic, this week I'm really feeling a change in my body. I am so happy that the tummy is finally starting to shrink, its so funny all my stretch marks (there are alot and very wide ones too) are starting to fold in on themselves. I am really hopeful that I wont be left with too much saggy skin. After watching embarrassing fat bodies for the last few weeks and seeing what people have to go through to get the skin removed makes me worry that I will end up with skin hanging everywhere. I feel so much better than when this whole thing started and I have a bit more of a spring in my step. This week I tried out a body pump class, which is basically aerobics but with weights. It was brilliant and will definitely being doing it again ( on Monday in fact) I have only been doing a little bit of running and the ankle was a bit twingy the first few days but is feeling ok now so I am starting right from the start again with just a few mins walking then a few running. I'm using the elliptical cross trainer alot. Its so much better than the normal ones and gives such a good workout that I'm just not as worried about the running as I was. I have also been doing alot on the bikes in preparation for a 45 mile bike ride in September that I have signed myself up for. its for the princes trust, which is a cause I feel strongly about. So that's all for now and I absolutely promise to keep on top of this blog now.

long time........No blog

I'm so sorry, I haven't updated for a week or so. The world has been conspiring against me. It started about three weeks ago, a slight niggly pain on the inside of my right ankle which felt sore to touch almost like a bruise would. Other than that it didn't hurt so I didn't worry about it. Except a week later when it was a bit more tender and still no bruise came out I started to realise that maybe I had done something odd to it. Then it started hurting alot, especially after going to the gym and I was developing a bit of a limp. I decided to battle through but everyone was telling me to rest it, as the days went on and it got more and more swollen I decided not to run on it but still do everything else. Still it got worse. We went out for an evening with some friends (doesn't happen often) and as much as it pained me to do it I even wore flats !!!!!!!!! Lots of alcohol was drunk. The bill for our food and drink in the restaurant was £689.38 !!!!!!! between 6 of us. Good job we weren't paying and it was a treat from one of our rich friends. No dancing was done, but when we arrived home and I sat down to take my shoes off as I touched my ankle I noticed it didn't hurt. Fab I thought, its fixed. Then I looked at it. Balloon wasn't the word, the whole thing was three times the size of the other ankle. I think the drink must have numbed it because it certainly looked painful. The next day I knew that something was really wrong when  the swelling was growing even more I thought the skin might burst on my foot. So on the Monday off I went to the polyclinic. This is a brilliant facility as A&E is always busy here and going to the doctors with swelling in my ankle like this would have only ended up with him saying  I should go and get an x-ray. I saw a lovely lady doctor who after a bit of manipulation came to the diagnosis of severe tendonitis. She prescribed painkillers, support and a brilliant spray called bio-freeze. Thankfully she said I was ok to carry on with some light work in the gym but no running untill the pain was gone. The spray is amazing although a tad pricey but I really feel this has aided the healing process so much so, I have managed a light four minute run yesterday when just over a week ago I could barely walk.
  So you would think I'm back on track one little hiccup and it was all systems go. No, as if to adding insult to injury literally the boy child came down with a sick bug so he couldn't go to the creche for 48 hours, fine thought I will not be beaten. I went in the evening instead, untill 48 hours later the girl child came down with it too, swiftly followed by me !!!! This is always a pretty horrendous thing for me, I have a phobia of being sick so it was all very dramatic and I was completely shown up by both my children who dealt with their sickness in a very matter of fact way. Whereas I sobbed, cried and hyperventilated my way through it. I couldn't eat for three days after but I did make the gym on Sunday. I lost 5lb this week and I only went twice !!!! Every cloud has a silver lining.
 My woes haven't ended there though. Today the car failed its MOT ! but to be honest I was expecting it as I knew my brake pipes had a bit of corrosion. However it does mean no gym till it comes back from the garage. Not to be beaten and keen to keep off the 5lb I'm exercising indoors untill then.
  So there is my three things and lets hope there are no more for a while.
I just want to talk about slimming pills for a bit. I have read alot this week and seen a few things on the telly about people buying pills online and becoming ill after suffering nasty side effects. I know what drives people to buy these things and take these risks as I have been there and perhaps if I ever had the money in my account to buy them I may have done (sometimes being poor is good for your health) Its that sheer desperation of just wanting to get rid of the weight in the quickest easiest most pain free way possible. The results are what pulls you in. the guaranteed loss is far more dependable than a diet or exercise. Look at me all this hard work and I'm not shifting half as much as I would like too. But in reality deep down we all know the only way to loose weight is too eat less and move more. Sure it might take longer to achieve results and you might be tempted to give up. You probably will give up a few times before you get it right. The sense of satisfaction you get from people saying how well you are doing and noticing the change in your body has to be one of the best things ever. I feel so proud of myself when anyone says anything to me and to be honest I wouldn't feel that if I had achieved the same comments from taking a pill. Weight loss is a massive industry and we fuel it. As with every industry there is always some unscrupulous vultures waiting in the wings to rip you off and con you. They don't care if they make you ill or permanently damage you, so please don't buy them. Just eat less, move more. Simples xxx

When the going gets tough.............

The tough KEEP going !!!! So proud of myself this week. I silently set myself the challenge of going to the gym everyday, and I have done it ! even though the last few days I have sat and questioned why I am doing it and reasoned with myself that I dont need to go everyday etc I still did it. This is no easy thing to achieve as I am the queen of talking myself out of doing stuff when things get a bit hard. It hasn't been as easy as I thought, partly down to the gym being re-furbished and all the cardio equipment was moved into the sports hall. Except not all of it as they didnt have enough power supply and also it wasnt the whole hall either, just a quarter. Its funny how you get so used to things being in the same place and there was a real sense of everyone being really disorientated. No music to work out to and the treadmills facing a brickwall instead of mirrors, (which are great for spying on other people) made every mintue on the treadmill feel like ten. Also I couldn't use my normal (favourite) treadmill as they didnt move it over. They have three different types there and the one I was using for most of the week seemed to make my shins hurt alot more and the temptation to do less running was very high. I did enjoy watching the other classes going on in the sports hall at the same time as I was killing my thighs on the stepping machine and cross trainers. The over 50's tap class definately brightened my day up as did the badminton clubs warm up routine. Lots of old men skipping around whilst reaching up to touch their heads, and one lady who who took the little jog across the hall very seriously and sprinted before anyone else had even started made me laugh out loud. For two of the days my daughter was away on a residential school trip which meant even though I had no school run to do I was still up and out the door at normal time, as much as I would have loved the chance to slob out indoors taking it easy. Today the equipment had all been moved back in and as if they just want to make us all even more disorientated everything has been completely changed around. Im sure I will get used to it though.
  So I sat and worked out a run down of what I have done this week and lookimg at it on paper I feel really proud of myself
Run 14 miles
Cycled 18 miles
Cross trainer 3 hours
240 crunches
180 bicep curls with the free weights
then add on to that the other weights I do and it all looks even more impressive
270 reps seated row
270 reps tricep and bicep press
270 reps leg press
 All looks good dont you think ???????

   So why the hell have I not lost any weight this week ???? not a pound, Gutted ! I'm hoping that either  the scales have gone wrong due to them being moved about in the week or that I am just being impatient and next week there will be a big drop.
    What I have decided to do for next week is do two days on and one off as I am pretty sure I couldnt maintain a full week long term and I really only did it to test myself just to check if I really had got more dedicated and I think I have. Which is handy given the fact that the daughter came home from the school trip with the biggest stinkiest black bag full of dirty clothes so I now not only have all the chores I have been meaning to do this week but didnt because I was in the gym I will also have an extra few loads of washing. Brilliant

Back on Track and Dad

Amazing, thats how i am feeling tonight ! I have been to the gym loads this week and have Paid alot of attention to the food intake and I am feeling pretty damm good. Even my arms are starting to get the tiniest amount of definition to them. Which is nothing short of a miracle. Since the beginning of time i have never been able to 'flex' my biceps and show of a bit of muscle. Funny because i have spent most of my life riding, mucking out, grooming etc horses. i mean i could at one time easily carry up to ten bales of hay on a wheelbarrow so I'm no weakling. Now as I'm doing alot more weights all of a sudden I'm seeing a little bit of muscle. Pathetic thing to get excited about but if your ten year old daughter has bigger biceps than you its time to worry.
Lots of gym next week I am finding it much easier with the running and can easily manage between 10-15 minutes of solid running and once my heart rate goes down to normal I run again for as long as i can. By the end of the week i am hoping to have got my run up to about 20 minutes. My style of running is certainly interesting and has definitely caused some looks from the serious runners that are so good at the treadmill they can look at other people without fear of wobbling into the side rails and flying of the machine itself.
        I bumped into my Dad in the gym today i haven't seen him for a since  I first started out on my fitness plan so it was good to hear him say i was looking like i had lost weight. I have a strange relationship with Dad. He brought me and my sister up as i have mentioned before so i should be close to him but I'm not. He wasn't the easiest person to be around and still isn't now. When i think back i could apportion alot of the blame for my weight issues to him. when i was young i wasn't a great eater and he used to force feed me. There were times when i was being sick and he was still shovelling food in. I can remember one awful day were he was insistent that i eat a boiled egg (which i didn't like) and it got completely out of control he wanted everything on my plate eaten and of course the feel of the egg in my mouth combined with the taste and smell meant i was gagging away, eventually the inevitable happen and i was sick. On my plate. An hour later the plate was clear. I have never eaten egg since that day and have never boiled an egg either. If someone eats a boiled egg near me I have to leave the room. As i got older into my teens i would hide food everywhere and anywhere i could. It almost became like a defiance thing and in the end I just didn't eat. As i mentioned before my Dad was heavily into running and I wasn't so many a time i would get called fatty or lazy. This only fuelled my problems further and whether it was a control thing for me as he was so domineering in all aspects of my life or if i had developed some kind of phobia i don't know but these problems continued on until i became pregnant with my daughter. When i did start eating again my metabolism was all over the place and i just gained weight like there was no tomorrow. Also i have a real problem with leaving food on my plate, hell not just my plate either but the kids plates or any plates with leftovers on. I think that comes from not being able to stop eating until the plate was cleared. Still i cant be to harsh, i am a parent now and i know how frustrating it can be when the kids wont eat, although i would never force my kids to eat my Dad was just trying to do what he thought was best for me in the long run. My sister on the other hand was a star child. Ate what she was told to eat and ran when she was supposed to. None of this done wonders for my self esteem. But it would be to easy to heap all the blame on him i have to take some responsibility for myself.

falling off the wagon !!!!!

Well, there we go. I fell off the exercise wagon a bit. I think it was a combination of the daughter having an extended Easter break (extra week) and no club at the gym for her meant it was going to be harder to go and i had a bit of a cold. To be honest i could have worked through it but at the time i did feel awful. I didn't go to the gym for a whole 7 days !!!!!!! I was so cross with myself but it wasn't to hard to get back into it again. so all back to normal now and working really hard to get back to the level I was at. Managed a 12 min run today and am settling into a good routine again. I have decided to give the rpm classes a miss for a while, I'm not sure if they were what had upset my little routine in the first place with being confused about the amount of weights and cardio I was doing.
 I have weighed  myself a few times since this whole process began and after the initial 5 pound loss in the first week I seem to not really be doing much more, although my body has definitely changed shape and things are feeling tighter in general. So I'm going to look into changing the eating habits and see if that makes a difference. I think maybe keeping a food diary might help me to see where I am going wrong. Obviously I do need to be really careful because this is where I start to become obsessive. Starting tomorrow I'm going to write down everything I eat and drink throughout the day !!!! scary thought but needs must. One of my friends is getting married in august so i have a proper date to aim towards now. By the wedding i want to be feeling really good about myself, I know by then I'm not likely to be anywhere near the final result but just to be able to enjoy a day out in a nice outfit without constantly worrying about being fat will be great.
I'm keeping my days nice and busy so that removes the temptation of coming home after the gym and vegging out on the sofa. I must say though tonight I'm exhausted, so its an early night for me. I cant not wait to crawl into my lovely bed and will be having a little smile to myself because i know how hard I have worked today.