Example week of TJ's food

Hello!

Here's what I put together to send to Maximuscle.

I couldn't copy and paste the tables into here so have saved the docs as image files.

Please note that this isn't *exactly* what I eat every single day - well, all the food is my usual intake, but sometimes I'll do dull/lazy things like eat half a Promax Diet Meal bar as a snack in the morning and then half in the afternoon and sometimes I can be just plain boring with my snacks and lunches and eat the same thing day after day - ha!!

Also, aside from the weekend where I meantion post-workout shakes, I haven't included the nutrition I take in after a workout where I'll have a protein shake or bar, this is *just* my regular intake with no adjustment for exercise level.

So, without further ado, here's a week's worth of my food! (please click on pics to enlarge)

Monday



Tuesday



Wednesday



Thursday



Friday



Saturday




Sunday




Oh and I haven't gone into any detail about my drinks either but during the week I tend to have a cup of coffee with skimmed milk first thing, then herbal tea for the rest of the day and when I get home I drink 0% alcohol lager (or Faux Beer as it's affectionately referred to my house!) and BarleyCup which is a caffeine-free drink made out of barley, rye and chicory... it's too tasty for words!



So there you go! If anyone has any questions about any of the food pictured do give me a shout!

TJx

Have you met my friend, Will?

Will Power that is...!

Sorry, that was about the lamest cheesiest thing I've ever written

ever!!

I did find that smug mode was initiated several times throughout the course of Wednesday though

here's why:

AM: arrive at venue for all day pension systems event (yes, I could hardly contain my excitement either!) - have coffee, no biscuits

Break: boss gets me coffee, pops a shortbread finger on my saucer... which I remove - boss then eats

Lunch: look forlornly at the mass of bread and deep fried offerings on the buffet table (ciabatta rolls, spring rolls, crispy duck, potato salad, filo pastry parcels etc - not a salad leaf in sight!) - opt for 1/4 of a seeded brown bread sandwich with egg and one with tuna, a little bit of duck and a teeny amount of potato salad - NO deep fried pastry rolls/parcels for me!

sit down, eat offering, then whip out the strawberry Maximilk (wasn't bothered about the looks I'd get, I was already out of place having turned up in jeans, a sweatshirt (albeit a nice smart one) and my goretex MBTs - nobody told me anything about business dress, we don't have that where we work!!) and poured it into a glass... whilst the remaining people on my table went and refilled their plates, at least once, often twice!

Post Lunch: very dismayed to see zero fruit - except those on the shortcrust pastry and custard cups. The puddings looked very nice indeed but I knew that I'd feel shit if I ate them as I didn't *need* to, and I had a Promax Crisp barfor afters in my bag as well as Promax Diet bar in case I got *really* hungry

I was prepared. If you fail to prepare, you should prepare to fail. I didn't fail, I didn't stuff my face with deep fried products or cave into the lovely pastries, and BOY did they look tasty. I had what I needed with me to ensure I wouldn't get hungry as that would diminish my willpower

Dinner: I did the classic 'food shopping when hungry', which is always bad as you end up buying the whole supermarket. However, I don't buy rubbish foodstuff (unless specifically requested by my boys) so I ended up getting a veritable nibble feast for us consisting of corn on the cob, mini pots of low fat homous to have with carrot batons, celery, cucumber etc... a pot of giant cous cous and chickpeas.

The boys had opted for pizza, and there was some macaroni cheese they wanted to share too... fine! I had 2 halves (one red, one yellow) of a pepper stuffed with cous cous, quinoa (cooked with a chicken stock cube for flavour), baked in the oven and sprinkled with 25g mature cheddar.

Plus of course we had the obligatory mixed leaf salad with cherry tomatoes... very lucky that both Joe and my son are as much salad freaks as I am!

So I felt very virtuous, and I didn't even have a nibble of pizza.

But I didn't feel like I was 'missing out', which is a new experience for me. You see, since I started to see real results to my body, it's given me the momentum to continue along the same route that I've been taking.

I think that's what I needed, to see evidence, physical evidence that my efforts were paying off. Now I can get into clothes that I haven't worn for over a year, I actually *like* my body now (and I'm not just saying it, I'm so chuffed with how I look right now :-) ) and every time I walk past a shop window or mirror etc and catch sight of my reflection I feel happy with what I see - I'm NOT uncomfortable in my own skin (as well as clothes!) as I was a few months ago.

It's such a lovely feeling, like a huge relief really. I know there are parts of me I'm still working on and want to change, but I also know that that's GOING to happen, not that it 'might'.

So I don't 'need' to snack on junk and fat just because it's there and everyone else is. That's not to say that I'll *never* eat another calorific dessert when I'm out for a nice dinner, but I don't feel like I'm missing out if I don't do it just because it's 'there' and everyone else is... in fact, quite the contrary, I feel like I'm gaining - gaining more of a sense of self-worth and every step is a positive move towards an even-more improved me :-)

TJx

competition pictures and reflections on my progress and transition towards a new me

I started writing this post yesterday but I ran out of time had to nip off as was working a half day, it was my and Joe's anniversary, aww. Had a fab day/night, will tell you all about it later :-)

So, here's my progress this year in pictures (click on all pictures for the larger size):

In February I took some pics of me in a bikini which I thought I quite liked (the bikini that is, not the photo subject - it looked good on a hanger anyway!)



However, as the year went on I got more caught up with writing about losing weight and less about doing everything to ensure that I did! I didn't take any pictures of me in a bikini during these times as I felt so bad about myself. I wish I had though, they'd have been better (or worse, depending which way you look at it!) than the ones above!

These pictures below were taken on my actual birthday (23rd May) when we were in Dublin. I was so gutted when I saw them as I'd aimed to lose a significant amount of weight by my 30th birthday but all I'd done is gained more!



The reason for this was that although I had the right ideas, I didn't have the right practices. I was doing everything right when it came to training and I was eating healthily and well. However I was still drinking quite a bit of alcohol on week nights and my portion sizes were just way too large.

I also wasn't entering ALL my food in my online food diary with Weightloss Resources, it's the little things you eat, like the odd chocolate here, or spoonful of peanut butter there, that add up to a lot come the end of the day!

These are some of the only pictures I have of me during that time, I was so ashamed with my backwards progress that I deleted all the pics that I took and had access to! It's only because Joe's so insistent on never deleting a picture that I have the ones above!

Anyway, enough of that. Having hauled my arse into gear these past couple of months, here are some comparison pics of my face and body:







And here are some of the actual pictures I submitted in my Maximuscle Body of 2009 entry. I didn't know what sort to take so I took some pics of me in a couple of dresses as well as bikinis





I'm not 100% thrilled with the bikini ones as I was still feeling a bit puffed up from all that alcohol on Friday night, what a div eh? Because of that and the fact that I'm not very tanned you can't really see my muscle definition, particularly around my abs, but it is there, I do have visible, and a flat tummy that I'm really proud of!!

Grr, so annoyed at myself but I'm only human and still learning as I go along.

So, looking back over the last 7 months:

What I did wrong:

I don't want to dwell too long on negatives because actually I've done really well in the end. However it's important to learn from your mistakes and I made a lot of them at the beginning of the year!

I think my biggest error was in thinking that this would be easy. Even if I didn't voice it, that's what I kidded myself into thinking. It wasn't, it was bloody hard work, I couldn't carry on with my previous lifestyle like I thought I'd be able to and I had to make sacrifices when it came to food and alcohol. It wasn't until I came to realise this that I began to see real results.

Tara from Figure This has written a great post entitled 'How To Lose Weight'. She says that many people struggle to lose weight for a number of reasons, and on her list I really identify with the first three:

* lack of belief in one's ability to lose weight.
* lack of discipline.
* lack of knowledge.

Read the rest of the article if you can, it's really good. I think I identify with the first point more than anything. I didn't believe in myself enough, or in my abilities. I was approaching this in a half-hearted manner because I didn't really truly deep down believe I had what it takes to make such a huge difference to my body and my life.

It wasn't until I remembered a poem I knew as a child, which I ended up posting on here one day that I realised I wasn't going to succeed if I didn't start believing that I could. You've got to think you're a winner before you can become one!

I started to visualise my success, how I wanted myself to look, and the feelings I'd get when I saw my reflection and liked that I saw. Those feelings I have now, when I get into our mirrored lift at work, or walk past a shop window and catch sight of my reflection - I am really pleased with what I now see, I don't think "eugh" and it doesn't make me feel miserable.

It's the best feeling in the world :-)

What I've done right:

* I've not given up, even when things didn't go to plan at the start
* I've never lost sight of my goals
* I've totally overhauled my eating habits and changed my relationship with food for the better, and forever
* I've not reverted to old effective but destructive methods, not once, not ever, that's just not a part of me and who I am anymore
* I've not isolated my family during this but have included them in my healthy new lifestyle (interesting healthy meals, cycling, swimming, running, activity holidays etc)
* I've learnt so much about exercise, nutrition and general health, and have loved it so much that I'm going to continue doing so and am making it part of my current and future study goals
* I've succeeded in my goal of feeling confident enough to enter the competition

Above all things, I now AM Slimmer, Fitter, Stronger and Happier :-)

TJx

Friday night didn't go quite according to plan

it started off well - I got home from work and went out for a speedy 3 mile run. I felt fantabulous, really full of energy and hardly taxed at all - despite the fact that half the route was up-hill. I guess that losing over a stone in weight is going to do that for you right? I mean, previously it was like the equivalent of me running with a huge heavy backpack on - doesn't make for fast or easy times!

So, I sat down at my PC with the intention of writing a frank and honest account of my eating issues over the last 18 years.

What actually happened was that I got a little carried away with the rather tasty red wine while waiting for Joe to get his arse back home from the Empire Casino, resulting in the intoxication of me, by quite a large margin!

I started to write my piece, but it's a really difficult subject to talk about and I didn't get very far to be honest and it didn't exactly 'flow' unlike the red wine!

One productive thing that came out was that I *finally* wrote to my Uncle in South Africa - something that I've been avoiding doing for a long time.

You see, I found out earlier this year that after spending many years searching for my biological father, that he had in fact died back in 2005. Although I had always suspected that that might have been the case - I used to joke all the time that he'd "probably drunk himself to death" - to have it confirmed was quite a bitter pill to swallow and affected me more than I thought it would.

I have no memory of my real dad. He was raised in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in Africa and came over to England in the late 70's and met my Mother. I was born in 1979, and, although they weren't married, I was given my father's surname: Shankland.

My Mum doesn't talk much of her memories of Kevin as it was a horrible time for her. From the sounds of things he'd been psychologically disturbed by the part he played in the civil war during which he told her that, aside from killing soldiers he had also killed women and children. Having recently watched Blood Diamond, I can see how that might be the case.

My mother tells me that Kevin was a violent and twisted alcoholic with a sadistic side - nice father material eh? Apparently he wasn't always like that though, he just deteriorated over the few years he and my Mum were together. I have a picture of him from 1978, he was a good looking man, though apparently by the time they'd split properly - i.e. my Mum had had a restraining order taken out against him and changed our surnames by deed poll, oh and moved because he left her in so much debt we had to move to a smaller place - he was hugely overweight from all the alcohol and associated bad eating.

All that aside I wanted to find out for myself what had happened to him. I didn't have the happiest of childhoods to say the least, and I never really felt wanted. I am an only child (my Mum has never been particularly maternal and my stepfather didn't want any children) my Mum has no siblings and my stepfather's only sister lives in Canada, as does my maternal granddad.

Having no brothers or sisters, aunties, uncles etc can make you feel like your world is quite small. I always hoped that Kevin had got his act together and sorted himself out, found somebody who made him happy, gave up alcohol, had more children and that I might have half brothers and sisters somewhere, and that I'd meet them and finally really feel part of a family.

I found out this year, through managing to contact Kevin's brother (I didn't even know he had a brother! My Mum says that she doesn't remember him much, just that he came over to the UK once or twice and would irritate her by speaking Afrikaans with Kevin, which she didn't understand!), that Kevin died in January 2005. He'd been living in Dublin for a while after he and my Mum split up, then he moved to Newcastle. He was living in Newcastle while I was with my last boyfriend, who was actually from there! I had visited the city that he was living in and I never knew it :-(

My Uncle says that Kevin joined him in late 2004 in Johannesburg where he lives with his partner. I have a picture of him while he was there, he was huge, he looked so unhealthy and older than his 50 odd years.

He died in his sleep of a heart attack, he was only in his early 50's but had already had a hip replacement and heart bypass surgery. He died penniless. While alive he lived off the state, on benefits paid for by my taxes. He NEVER sorted himself out, he never got it together, he DID drink himself to death, as I'd always joked he might have done.

What a waste. It makes me so angry to think that I managed to sort myself out. I didn't finish school, I moved out of my parents' place when I was 15 and had a child at 16 years old! But I got it together, I went back to college, I got myself qualified and got out there into the working world instead of sitting at home scrounging off the state like so many of the women in the mother and baby hostel I lived in did - and still do!!

I'm so disappointed that he threw his life away, that he never got help for himself. I have a friend whose father went the same way, but he still lived in the family home, she says I shouldn't think that I could have done anything to change how his life turned out but I can't help but think that if only I'd found him sooner, that he'd known that I was interested in knowing him, in helping him and that he had an amazing grandson, that maybe things might have turned out differently.

I don't know, I'm still dealing with this I guess. It's just hard to take how final death is and that I'll never get to ask him all the questions that I wanted to.

In any case, I wrote back to my Uncle who was kind enough to send me those pictures of Kevin. I sent him the pic I had of him from 1978. I would like to go and visit him in Johannesburg at some point in the future, it sounds like he sorted his life out - after doing security work in Iraq he is now setting up a company that makes safety nets for swimmers - presumably to keep away sharks? I'd love to go to SA, I've always been fascinated by the South African accent, for some reason I really like it, maybe I *do* remember him... just a little.

TJx

huzzah!

Phew! I was getting a little worried as I'd not heard from the OU regarding my "Introducing health sciences: a case study approach" course!

But here it is, in its glory - my course website and study planner - hurrah!



I can't wait to start, it's going to be awesome! Case Study 1 is "Water and Health in an Overcrowded World". here's the full list:

Case Study 1: Water and Health in an Overcrowded World.
Most people now live in a very different world to the one in which we evolved. Rapid urbanisation and changes in human lifestyles means we inhabit a ‘human zoo’ that, despite many benefits, incurs many costs to health and happiness. We focus on the global shortage of clean water that exposes over a billion people to infectious diseases and chemical pollution.

Case Study 2: Pain.
This case study presents an integrated account of the neurobiology and psychology of pain. It considers the common properties of pain triggered by injuries and the pain of events such as divorce. You’ll study the anatomy and function of the nervous system combined with psychological processes such as classical conditioning to understand how effective drugs, surgery, placebos and cognitive therapies are in treating pain.

Case Study 3: Alcohol and Human Health.
Heavy drinking increases the risk of life-threatening diseases; accidental injury; psychological impairment; and addiction, but moderate intake may have some health benefits. You’ll explore not only global health statistics, but also the chemistry of ethanol: how alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream and its effects on major organs, behaviour and memory.

Case Study 4: Screening for Breast Cancer.
Mammography screening using X-ray imaging to detect early breast cancers occurs in most wealthy countries. This case study examines the physics of mammography, the rationale for screening and the risk factors for breast cancer, and explains how normal and abnormal cells are distinguished in diagnostic tests. It considers the benefits, efficacy, costs and drawbacks of screening.

Case Study 5: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Forgotten Killer.
Permanent loss of lung function due to COPD affects millions of people worldwide. In richer countries, most are older cigarette smokers, but in poor countries, younger women and children exposed to indoor smoke from cooking fires also suffer. This case study explains the science of respiration and treatment, and the effects of COPD on people’s lives.

Case Study 6: Trauma, Repair and Recovery.
Traumatic injury causes millions of deaths and disabilities globally and cases are rising as road traffic increases. You’ll look at how the body reacts to tissue damage, focusing on limb fractures in younger and older people. The psychological – as well as the physical – effects of injury are considered in the context of variations in access to emergency and longer-term care.

Case Study 7: Visual Impairment: A Global View.
Partial or total loss of sight affects millions of people worldwide. Many cases are preventable or curable, but simple interventions are unaffordable in poorer countries, where even the lack of clean water is a significant threat to sight. This case study explains sight loss and corrective treatments through the anatomy and physiology of the eye and the physics of light and lenses.

After this course, if I want to go on and get the Certificate in Health Studies (which I do!) I need 30/35 points from the the list of optional courses they provide. I'm already almost 100% sure I'm going to take:

* Understanding human nutrition (10 points)
* Human genetics and health issues (10 points)
* Challenging obesity (15 points)

in that order :-)

I'll also most likely take:

* Understanding cancers
and:
* Understanding cardiovascular diseases

and I'm quite tempted by Elements of forensic science as I'm ever so slightly obsessed with the stories that Tess Gerritsen writes... I've read all her crime fiction books bar the latest one which I've not seen on shelves here in the UK yet - will have to keep an eye out for that!!

These courses won't be part of the Certificate in Health Sciences, instead counting towards my Open Degree. I'll have to draw up a plan for that soon (when I say 'draw up', there's an electronic form on the OU website that does it for you!) as I need to pick a certain amount of level 1, 2 and 3 courses to get the right split of points for the Honours BSc Degree.

It's all hugely exciting and I'm just *so* glad I embarked on this whole weight-loss journey! It's taught me so much about food, nutrition, people and, most importantly, myself!

If I hadn't set myself this goal of entering the Maximuscle Body of 2009 competition there is NO way I'd be studying health and nutrition now. I'd still be studying for a degree in Computing with Business and feeling thoroughly miserable, stressed and without direction. I'm so glad that for once I've had the courage to decide to study something that interests me, rather than go for my usual approach of picking a subject that I know I'm good at, so I therefore think it *right* to pursue. I'm quite happy and willing to study various other business modules as well as computing (after all, that is my job!) along the way to reaching my degree, but now I've got the flexibility to mix it up a bit and add topics that I feel passionate about, like nutrition, like health issues, like cancers and other diseases - ALL those topics have personally affected me and are of importance, as well as interest, to me.

Whatever the outcome of this competition, I feel very positive about the changes that have taken part in my life and I look forward to beginning the next stage of my journey :-)

TJx

Well, I passed...

It's great news, but not surprising as the course was continually assessed and I got over 90% for nearly every assignment - so I figured I'd at least passed!

Two things bug me though

1) Where the hell is the mark for CM4 41?!



It's a computer marked assessment FFS!!!

I'm really pissed off as the living, real-life tutor I had got all my assignments back to me within a few days, 2 weeks tops, but I took this *months* ago... it was a multiple choice test, marked by a computer... so why don't I have my results yet?!

I don't know how my score was calculated, but if it's just a simple average of all scores then it's pretty obvious that I only scored a paltry 84% in the computer marked test... ahh well... this leads me onto point

2) I don't know what I want to do next :-(

This was me taking my first step on the way to a degree in Computing with Business. I thought it was what I should do as I'm pretty good with computers despite having no real training.

My academic background is just extinct really... I left school and home at 15, only completing a handful of GCSEs and then had a child at 16 so didn't go on to do A Levels.

I did go back to college when my son was very small and completed some word processing and spreadsheet courses so I could at least get secretarial work - my first job however meant that I had to come off government single-parent benefits and I couldn't afford to travel, pay rent etc with the wage I was on so had to go back on them... soul destroying :-( I opted to have my benefits paid into my bank account as standing in the benefits and dole queue in the Post Office can deplete your morale in a big way!

Still, I didn't want to live like that and be another single parent state-handout statistic so completed more secretarial-based computing courses (I learnt to touch-type using chat rooms though, how sad is that eh?!) and enrolled on a foundation course in Business Studies to give me a way into university.

Unfortunately I realised I couldn't afford to go to uni so finally found a job at a Norwegian oil company as a secretary/administrator to their pensions department. After a year or two of this I realised that I couldn't take dictation and type other people's letters for the rest of my life without going slightly mental so I asked if I could join the department as a pensions administrator, which they agreed to, hurrah! It was great timing as my friend was keen to get out of pensions so we more or less swapped roles.

People soon realised they could come to me with their computer-use issues and I got more interested in what was going on behind the scenes of the pension software I was using.

The department was not a nice place to work, the people there was just odd and there was a lot of bitchiness and back-stabbing unpleasant behaviour. It really wasn't a healthy place to work so I resolved to get the hell out as soon as I could.

I managed to get a job as a 'systems specialist' in the pensions department of a fairly big retail company and discovered how nice it was to work with 'normal' people (as normal as people can be who work in the mysterious world of pensions, it does things to you!). Unfortunately my friend Caroline didn't leave the company until she was made redundant and the effects of working for such a destructive bunch of people have been lasting :-(

I worked quite happily in the other retail company for a while, my colleague and senior left so I moved up the ranks and took over the maintenance and report-writing side of the system, using the pension software's language - chrysalis - bizarre VB like stuff. I really enjoyed that but disliked how closely guarded the software provider was. You could not modify the system in any way shape or form... all you got was a package, and that was it... it was a one-size-(is meant to)-fits all, and was very clunky and frustrating!

The company went through a take over from an Icelandic consortium and started making people redundant left right and centre - very similar to when I was at the Norwegian oil company who decided to shift their head office back from London to Oslo - we worked in a 7 storey high building that was more or less empty when I left!

Then the company decided, in its wisdom, to move the pension department to Glasgow!!! Why? Because 'financial services is based there' and they said they thought it would make sense. In reality, wages are a lot less in Glasgow than London and they didn't want to continue paying us all so much. They gave us the opportunity to relocate, but everyone was a bit fed up with the company and, if you've got children or responsibilities here, you don't want to uproot yourself to the other end of the UK!

Fortunately, a few opportunities came available. One was working for the Church of England. I went for a job interview one day and got offered the job the next! I was overjoyed and flattered too a little, but I didn't get the best vibe from the people there. They were very nice but we just didn't gel.

The company I work for now has its head offices just down the road from my old ones. And I remember walking past one day and realising they were there and thinking "how funny would it be to go from one huge retail giant to another".... a few days later I got a call from an agency saying there was a systems analyst role going within the pensions department here - luck? Hmm, I think it was a little more than that :-)

The day of my interview was completely nuts! They weren't due to start interviewing till the following week, but I had to give an answer back to the CofE by the Friday and it was Wednesday at that point. My agent managed to wangle an interview for me here and I came in on the Thursday morning, with the dress in my hand that I was planning to wear for my current company's xmas ball, and met me now boss. He's the most wonderful warm, lovely, charismatic fellow around. He's got four kids - legend - and I was disarmed by how agreeable he was. We had a long chat, and then he took me to meet the big boss who was also lovely, if a little eccentric, but that's due to a) a very high level of intellect and b) working in pensions for too long ;-)

That interview was a little less informal, and I actually felt like I was being interviewed, but it also went well and I explained to him my dilemma with the Church of England. He explained his - they hadn't interviewed any of the other candidates for the role!

I went back to work for a couple of hours and then got called back to this place and met first with a dude from our actual IT systems function - who gave me a logic test to do - nightmare!!! It was about 20 years old and utterly irrelevant to my job! I sweated and cursed my way through it though, although not completing all the questions (I later found out that the questions I did complete were all correct - super!), and then met with one of our deputy heads of pensions here. She was nice and that went well... I then met with the assistant head of Personnel and after that was finally free to leave!

As you can imagine, I was very relieved to step into the party dress and relax for the evening... however it was a little surreal as I was hoping with all my might that I'd be leaving that awful company to work for its largest competitor! I couldn't help but chuckle when the chairman stood up after the meal to give a 'rousing' speech which included the phrase "Death to our competitors, death to [my company's name]" - twit.

The next day I got the phone call from the agency to say that I'd got the job, I was overwhelmed.

I can safely say that I've never worked for such an odd organisation. But I mean that in the best possible way. This place is quite unlike anywhere else really... it's a democracy, we all have a say and we all have an equal share in the profits. I feel incredibly lucky and honoured to be working for such a wonderful organisation and I can, hand on heart, say that I never want to leave it.

My job, however, is a different matter :-(

which is how this post started.

I don't like my job, I don't really like programming, but I'm good at it, which is why I do it, because I think I should, because I don't have anything else behind me to back me up, no qualifications, no experience other than in pensions IT!

So I don't know what my next step will be, study wise. I know what interests me, sports, fitness and nutrition, but I don't know how to apply this to my professional life without leaving my wonderful work place :-(

I know that some people reading this might not have a lot of sympathy for me, and I'm not looking for it at all. I have been very poor, I lived on £28 a week when I was pregnant, the first year of my son's life was spent in just the one room in a mother and baby hostel, I lived in council accommodation for over 11 years and I'm fully aware of how incredibly fortunate I am to have a well-paid job, to work for a good organisation who cares for its employees, to have a lovely child and boyfriend... all these things I can safely say I thank God for on a daily basis. But I'm being honest, as I always am on this blog, and it troubles me that I'm sitting here typing this instead of working!

I adore my boss, I know he stands up for me when I don't produce the work as quickly as I should, and I love our little systems team, but I don't love my work and I find it hard to focus and concentrate.

I'm sorry, I need to get on and actually do some work. I need to think about this over the weekend and not during work time, I just wish I knew how to switch off and put my 'work hat' on, I guess it's the same disorganised chaotic pattern which has plagued my eating over the last 18 years too, I need to sort my shit out and get my act together once and for all, I feel like a fraud here, like I'm living a lie, being paid for nothing. What a waste :-(

Friday's musings...

felt a bit ropey yesterday... Joe and I had a lovely meal in the end on wednesday night and an indecent amount of red wine to go with it to boot :-)

I felt hungover and tired yesterday, and didn't sleep well that night, but do you know what, I couldn't give a shit!

I've been so wrapped up in my own projects at the moment, take No.1) my body facelift No.2) my play, plus the fact that work is really busy at the mo... and then add to that Joe's own endeavours - his mammoth race in 2 weeks which has taken him away from me on weekends - last weekend he did 188km and 4000m of climbing in the yorkshire dales! and you have a recipe for strangers!

so actually, it was really nice to just chill out for an evening, you know? We went to the pub, ordered mussels to start, which were yummy, we shared a portion and I managed to avoid the lovely breadbasket that came with it. Then for our main we had sirloin steak and I asked the waiter to swap my chips for french beans *polishes halo* :-D Joe was really impressed, so much so that he told me, which was sweet and meant a lot. He said he's been very impressed with how well I've done and how controlled I've been. For example, on Tuesday night I came home after rehearsals having not had dinner beforehand... they had sat down with pizzas (a rarity in our house and always something like 'sainsburys taste the difference super-duper thin crust something-or-other' :-D) but I didn't have any! *considers whether that qualifies for a second halo...*

The thing is though that I actually don't have any desire for food like that anymore. It's actually quite odd!

If I've not had time to make lunch at home and have had to go down to our canteen and get something there it will invariably be from the salad section, perhaps with some poached salmon fillet or a grilled chicken breast too - and none of the salad items I buy have mayonnaise... I look at the sandwiches that are out (which are always yummy waitrose ones!) and they just seem to have lost their appeal to me! I have no desire at lunch to eat a doughy stodgy sandwich with some sort of processed meat and mayonnaise etc... it's a most strange, but not unwelcome, phenomenon!

So yes, anyway, back to my first point before I went off on a tangent...

I had a lot of fun on Wednesday, and I don't regret it a bit, even with the hangover!!

See the way I look at is that I want this journey of mine - to lose weight and shape up - to be my last! I want to get to a point where I look and feel really good and then stay at it, forever! Obviously there will be times when I put on a bit of weight, indeed as you get older you cannot help but make gains... but I never want it to be anything as substantial as it has been over the last couple of years - over 2 1/2 stone is an awful lot for me!

However, the only way that I can make this experience a permanent one is to do it realistically, with all that that entails.

Some people can completely change their diet and lifestyle, and perhaps they need to, but I don't think it's something that I'll be able to maintain if it's too restrictive, and too much like hard work to continue with indefinitely. If I'm honest with myself, if that's the case I'll just not bother! Besides, what's the point?

Although at the moment I'm rarely drinking (to put this into context, Joe and I used to drink at least a bottle of red wine between us every week night and then more so on the weekend), I'm not going to say that I'll stop entirely. I do go through periods where I don't drink at all for a few weeks, it's something that I've done for a few years now, but I've never thought that I'd never drink again because it's something that I enjoy and definitely not something that I see as a problem in my life... although perhaps that's why I have periods of abstinence... to remind myself of that? it's a tricky one... I recently learned that my estranged biological father drank himself to death four years ago, it was a sad end to a frustrating search. My stepfather drinks too much, I think my own mother does too, but just to keep up with him, lol. It's a tricky one indeed.

sorry I've gone off the point again, hmm. ahh yes, sorry I'll try and summarise properly

if my new lifestyle is not something that I can realistically see myself maintaining over a very long period of time then I don't think it's worth undertaking.

since I was 12 I have dabbled with diets and disorders and the result has always been that I get back whatever I lost, with interest, and I want to break that pattern... hence the Broken YoYo

so I am approaching this with caution, and respect, and apprehension, and very small baby steps because I feel like this really might be last chance saloon for me. I'm 30 years old for goodness sake, I have a teenage son!! I really need to learn how to eat properly, it's about bloody time really.

I don't want to lose all the weight I want to in a month... I don't want to resort to stupid methods for fast results only to find that they're just not sustainable.

I want to change forever, embrace this new manner of thinking about food and myself, and move forwards, and never look back.

I want to be a good mother to my son, that's been my biggest concern for his entire life, not doing the best for him and him looking back when he's older with a sense of regret and unhappiness... I know this fear is brought on by my disappointment in my own parents, I have never met a more selfish pair of people (sorry). They live in the same city as us but have never made an effort with my son. My Mum hasn't cooked me dinner since I was a child.... simple things eh? Even when I was a single mother for so many years, they weren't there for us. Still, it is them who will suffer for not having the relationship with their grandchild that they could have had. I have seen more kindness and selflessness, and genuine affection from Joe's parents in the short time that i've known them then I ever have from my own parents, they treat me like their own daughter and I am so grateful to them for that. But then that also results in my being resentful towards my parents as it only highlights plainly and painfully their shortcomings.

eughh!!!!!!!

this has turned into some self pitying diatribe!!!!

pathetic, keep losing my point

I was trying to say that simple things like eating dinner together with my family is very important to me, pretty much because I never did it with my own. We all ate at different times, me when I got back from school, my Dad when he got back from work and then my Mum whenever she got back later that evening... even at weekends we didn't have meals together, I had appalling table manners (as pointed out by one of the friends of my Mum's I used to get shipped off to during the school holidays, grr, it's amazing what sticks with you throughout your life eh?)

So for me it's important that we all eat the same thing, which is easy as I do most of the cooking :-)

I don't want to follow a diet plan that eliminates the rest of my family... So I'm not going to start cooking meals that are so far-fetched and elaborate that my son won't eat them (which would probably be tough as he does eat just about everything, and yes that includes salad and green vegetables, he's good like that :-) ). But if it's too complicated it won't be something I do often, it won't last, and it'll be a waste of money and time.

So I'm trying to make changes to my diet that are going to become permanent, but not difficult to maintain. The worst thing in the world for me would be to get to my final goal and go... "err shit, so what can I eat now?!!" and be terrified that I'll have to 'watch what I eat' in a negative way, for the rest of my life for fear of gaining a pound!

I want to instill good and worthwhile principles into my every day eating habits, I want to learn good habits, I want something that's going to last. I don't want a faddy diet, I don't want something unsustainable, and I don't want something that my family can't share with me as they are the most important things in my life.

and so, in the same vein, I want to be able to let loose sometimes, but within boundaries that I have learned and put up on my own. Yes, on Wednesday I drank too much red wine... BUT, I didn't eat the bread and chips, I didn't smother my steak in high fat sauce... and, most importantly, the next day when I felt a bit rough, I didn't immediately go to our canteen and grab a bacon sandwich which would have been the perfect panacea for the old me.

no. I'm going to enjoy this and it's going to be something that I do for the rest of my life. It's going to take a while, and I'm not sure if I'll ever be entirely free of the diet demons that have plagued my life for the past 18 years, but I'm going to get there and I'm not going to feel guilty when I overindulge once in a while, because I know that I'm on the right track and nothing's going to shift me off it.

Binge Eating Disorder (BED)

My b/f recently ordered Sky+ HD... he could 'justify' this because we have a ridiculously large TV, and it's never been 'used to it's full potential'. I rather cynically agreed... MY GOD the pictures are super stupid sharp!

I have to concede that it might have been a good (although not necessarily needed) purchase

anyway, we have 'anytime tv'... the sky box autonomously acquires programmes and films which we can watch anytime we like (hence the rather unambiguous name ;-) ) and one of these was a program called 'Secret Food Diaries'. It was about a lady called Danute Kostzanowska and her struggle with her Bing Eating Disorder (BED), it was really fascinating!

Now, I feel compelled to watch things like this because I really want to get a better understanding of matters like these. Especially BED because, if I'm entirely honest, I've been pig-ignorantly dismissive of people suffering from this. Mainly due to my own eating problems. I've known about BED, especially through the wonderfully supportive 'Eating Disorders' message board at Weight Loss Resources. But, because my own issues meant that I either didn't take the food in, or if I did, I disposed of it as soon as possible... I just thought that people with BED were just greedy scoffers!

That's awful isn't it, now everybody reading this probably hates me, but as I'm being honest about everything else on here I might as well detail what has been a bit of a prejudice... but mainly borne out of ignorance and cynicism, nothing more sinister.

Anyway, this programme was a complete eye-opener. Basically Danute (pronounced 'dann-oo-ta') has had an awful relationship with food for the past 30 years, starting as far back as her early teens (which is classic, I know from my own experience!), she had been an air hostess and basically starved herself to remain at a very thin 7 stone. She then met her son's father, but he left her when her boy was a baby... from that point forward she completely lost confidence and self esteem and cut herself off from family and friends and turned into a binge-eating recluse and weighed more than 13 stone at the time of filming.

Still, doesn't sound like something that would inspire too much sympathy from someone like myself who has been through an awful lot too. However, what became shockingly apparent was the fact that her BED was real, a proper disorder, and had full control over her.

There were certain foods, like chocolate, sweets, cheese, crisps and pasta would 'trigger' a binge, and once she was in the grip of it, she was literally powerless to do anything about it! She called these foods 'danger foods' and refused to keep them in the house. In actual fact all her kitchen cupboards were more or less bare, she had vitamins and a couple of tins of spaghetti as emergency food for her son if she hadn't bought dinner.

Because of not keeping any food in the house, it meant she had to go shopping every day for each meal, which she'd let her son eat on his own as she couldn't bear the thought of eating in front of him.

Once in the supermarket, odd things happened, she was unable to make simple decisions and was sent into a panic once confronted by any choice she had to make, be it as innocuous as deciding between a large pack of grapes or a small one!

she'd buy a few items, then go home... eat these, then go out, buy some more, come home, gorge on what she's bought... then go back out and buy more! She had no control and was in what looked like a state of panic.

after the binge, she was upset and vitriolic, she said that she didn't even taste the food, but just wanted to stuff it down, she just looked devastated.

along came 'eating disorders expert' Mary Wood, who I judged immediately as being overly (and perhaps needlessly) dramatic. However, she was great because she was so passionate about what she said, and he recognised that Danute had a 'real' problem, that she couldn't control or overcome on her own.

For the first time ever Danute was taken seriously! Later in the programme, and as part of her journey to recovery, Danute visits her sister and confesses to her problem. It was shocking how dismissive her sister was, she came out with things like "well, it might feel like a big thing to you, but to me it doesn't seem that way"... helpful eh?! She even tries to give her a huge bar of chocolate to take away with her, refusing to accept that this might be the worst thing you could give someone with BED!

anyway, I could talk about this programme for ages, it was a real eye opener... It was like she was never actually hungry, she never ate because of that, she ate because of an emotional necessity. When Mary left her on her own for a week she basically stopped eating because she was so terrified of anything she ate triggering a binge!

I really liked the slant that Mary took on the matter, how Danute was in fact punishing herself with food... she was just stuffing it down, even though her body didn't want it, she was bullying herself into eating so much and feeling dreadful about it afterwards.

I'd never thought of it that way and I guess that's what completely differentiates BED from just simple comfort eating. There was absolutely ZERO comfort present when Danute was binging, she looked like a frightened rabbit caught-in-the-headlights, gripped by panic, which resulted in a sort of feeding frenzy... it was really sad to witness and made for uncomfortable viewing!

Mary gave her back the control, by first introducing the old 'washing up liquid on the food trick', which is such a simple yet amazingly effective way of immediately halting in its tracks your desire to snack/pick/scoff what's on a plate. I heard about it from another Mum years ago... you know when your child has finished their meal but left something on their plate... just the odd chicken nugget or chip... just the one won't hurt... well, douse your plate in fairy liquid... that instantly changes what's on it from being the most appetising food present to the most revoltingly unappealing substance ever!

Mary took Danute shopping, to buy four days worth of food, she'd never done this before apparently! She's always been terrified that, by having the food in the house, she'd just eat it all. She got her to plan her shopping, and then ensured she only stuck to what was on the list.

She took her out for dinner and showed her that people weren't looking at her, they weren't concerned with her food choices and that it was okay to eat. Lastly, Danute called her old girlfriends together and went out for a meal with them. She admitted to them what had been going on, it was really emotional.

Talking about issues like these helps so much, it's empowering. The more you talk about it, the less of a scary nasty secret it becomes, and it loses its power and control over you.

She also started eating meals with her son, which was so good and made him really happy too. Previously he admitted he'd peeped through the crack in the door and watched her gorging herself on chocolate, I can only imagine how horrified she felt when she heard that.

It was so important for Danute to introduce some sort of normality around dinner times. I know first hand how lonely it is when you have to eat all your evening meals on your own. When I was a kid, my Mum had a very well paid job as a management consultant with a top company called Touche Ross (now Deloitte), and wasn't around much at all really.

In fact we just never ate together. I'd come home from school, either heat up a tin of something, or defrost a meal my Mother had made for me on the weekend, and eat that by myself on the kitchen bar. My Dad would come in later and make his own dinner and eat that in front of the TV in the front room, my Mum would come back later and cook herself something if she hadn't eaten out.

I remember vividly as a young child staying for holidays at my Auntie Joan's place and having her feel she needed to constantly apologise for my 'dreadful table manners' when eating in company, and making the excuse that my family never ate together at a table... excruciatingly embarrassing!

what strikes me about eating disorders, is actually how much about disorder they are... that's the word, 'dis-order'. Not having a healthy relationship with food, not having any structure to your eating.

What I liked about Mary's methods was that she didn't focus on 'healthy eating' per se, she first addressed the structure of Danute's eating. She started off by making sure she ate 3 square meals a day. It was telling that Danute said after her breakfast "for the first time I feel naturally full, not sick full, just happily full"!

I've started eating breakfast, as soon as I get to work I have something. It really does mean that I don't get to late morning and want elevenses!

It's so important to introduce some sort of structure and normality and to look at food just as it is - fuel! It's the tastiest fuel going, but that's essentially all that it is. Yet so many people have this emotional attachment to it. Yet in Danute's case it was so symbolic, she knew something was missing in her life, felt there was a void there, and was desperately trying to fill it up.

I could go on all night about this but I doubt anyone's read down this far! I do tend to ramble somewhat...

I finally just wanted to say that I find it really concerning that eating disorders, such as BED, are not taken seriously...

anorexia: just eat something!
BED: just stop eating!
Bulimia: just don't do it!

What I'm concerned about is the fact that someone like me, who should be really sympathetic as I spent many years in the grip of serious eating problems, and who might never really 'properly' recover (it's like being an ex-smoker or alcoholic, it never leaves you), can be so ignorantly dismissive of it and not recognise it for what it is - a really truly serious problem - what hope does anyone suffering have with being taken seriously by the rest of the population of 'normal eaters'?!

No time, no time!

I'm not sure if it's something in my nature, but I do have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew!

I've not done any serious training for weeks, and I'm starting to get withdrawal symptoms!

There are excuses reasons though:

• I have a zillion and one things at work I need to complete by the end of February (i.e. this week - gulp!), we have a new big boss and the concept of deadlines has been introduced... it's a scary thing to go from such a laissez-faire place to one that operates like an actual real-life office!

• I was ill for nearly two weeks, this and hurting the back of my calf have put paid to my Flora London Marathon aspirations :'-( (I had planned to do my first marathon before I was 30 but this looks unlikely... fortunately I got a place via the ballot so can defer it til next year when I should be slimmer, fitter and stronger! ;-) )

• I have recently discovered that I have parts in two plays! one of which is in Pride & Prejudice, I'm going to play Charlotte Lucas, which I'm very very chuffed about as it's the part I auditioned for :-D I think she'll be a great part to play as I think she's probably the character that develops the most throughout the play... she starts as a shy girl, 'on the shelf' as it were at the oh-so old-age of 27(!), but then capitalises on her opportunity to escape poverty by marrying a somewhat nauseating specimen of a man, and then proceeds to find ways in which to keep him occupied so that she can enjoy her new, more comfortable, life!
• the first play will be performed in the last week of April, and P&P will be in July, so from this point until then I will be learning lines and rehearsing!

• I am studying with the Open University (OU) for a degree in Computing with Business as they are both areas that interest me greatly. I sort of bypassed the whole 'leave school, go to sixth form, go to uni' thing by leaving school at 15 and then having a child at 16 (seems I've spent a lot of my life defying convention!) not that it has prevented me from getting a good job, but then I am a pretty determined and ambitious individual!
• However, I'm only in the very first part of my degree journey, and it's bloody tough! Finding the time to just study, let alone complete the coursework is very tricky indeed and so many of my assignments are completed in the 11th hour, oh dear! I'll get the hang of it one day!!

So there you go, excuses for lack of activity on the training front. However, in my defense, I have cycled to and from work over the last 3 days, and will probably do so all week if I can.

I was greatly looking forward to getting back to the gym tomorrow, but have just realised that I have a training day out of the office tomorrow, followed by a play rehearsal in the evening...

no time, no time!!

First Post

Well, an imaginative title as any I suppose!

Me

I guess I should start by telling you a little about myself. Well, it will just be that, a little...

I live and work in London, am aged between 26 and 35, have a good job, great family and friends and am pretty active - I run, cycle, swim (when it's a little warmer!), climb, trek and, most importantly, love weight training.

However, despite my relatively active lifestyle, over the last couple of years I've gone from a slim size 8-10 at around the 9 stone mark, to an uncomfortable squeezed-into-jeans-and-only-those-with-lycra 12-14... well, 14 plus if I'm honest. This is pretty heartbreaking, not to mention damn annoying for someone with such an extensive collection of (too small) clothing as myself!! I do recognise however that I've totally done this to myself, I've watched the weight creep on at a steady pace, and not done anything noteworthy to halt its advance.

I probably fall into the same category as a large percentage of the population of women who find it very difficult to lose weight without resorting to something drastic, like crash dieting, daft eating plans that promise speedy results etc... my problem is that I'm a victim of my environment and lifestyle (oh poor me)... I expect everything to be delivered now, right now, right this minute... immediately! and that extends to my (somewhat warped) ideas of how long it should take to lose weight... i.e. not long at all!

Of course, I know that that's not going to happen unless I get a big tube to suck all the fat out of me, so I guess I've got to work at it.

Previously, if a slimming method didn't deliver results within a week I'd give up, and then just continue to gradually increase in weight and size. The hilarious thing is that if I'd just persevered with whatever method I was using, I'd have lost *all* the weight by now.

So, I'm going to adopt a method and stick to it, and this will be tied in with a goal other than the obvious losing-weight and looking great (like it!) outcome I'm hoping to achieve.

I want to enter the Maximuscle Woman Body of 2009, and win it too! I realise that this might be more challenging for me than a lot of other women as mother nature pretty much overlooked my chest department and instead decided to liberally apply all fatty tissue to my butt and thighs, oh yes, I am the typical pear.

I am aware that last year's winner (who looks absolutely fantastic now, have seen her before and after pics on the tube and she's done amazingly well!) has the typical pin-up look (e.g. tan, blonde hair and big boobs), and quite a lot less muscle tone than some of the other Body hopefuls, but I'm willing to dispense with my cynicism and give this a bloody good try! After all, I shape up pretty well if I put my mind to it, I find that I can put muscle on pretty easily (*far* more easily than I burn fat, grr), and I'm not bad looking to boot ;-)

The Products

I'm going to be using various Maximuscle products, not because I want to be a walking advert for the brand (as this won't help my pocket unfortunately!), but because I'm a bit of a nutrition geek. I've done a fair bit of research on the slimming tools available to me and I think that the nutritional quality of the Maximuscle range is far superior to that of others I've found. Plus, as I intend to be training pretty damn hard between now and September, I need a protein and vitamin rich product which will sustain me physically and support muscle generation as well as recovery.

I was rather alarmed to discover just how much of Slim Fast's carbohydrate volume was made up of sugars!

I will also be using the Weight Loss Resources website as it has an absolutely amazingly comprehensive database of foods. The online food and exercise diary is superb and enables you to really analyse every food item you consume. You can customize your target ratio of protein, fat and carbs, and see how well you're doing in attaining that target.

Anyway, that's enough background on me and the tools I will be using to hopefully reach my goal. I will be posting regular updates and pictures detailing how well (or not!) I am doing.

BFN