Drinking in the day is neither big nor clever....

Monday again. Yeesh. Is there no end to this relentless merry-go-round of fun weekends giving way to weekdays of work? Er...no is the answer.

That said, I am currently 'working from home' whilst the nice man from British Gas does his thing with the boiler. When I say 'man', I obviously actually mean 'teenager' as this particular gas engineer is quite possibly 13 years old. Hmmmm. Still, turns out he is on a bituva health kick and trying to cut whole milk out of his life. Good job, I said, as we are a strictly skimmed milk household and if you want a cuppa you're gonna have to go cold turkey.

But enough of this chitchat - how was the weekend, I hear you ask!

Well it went a little something like this......

Friday went as planned...gym straight from work, and home (sans alcool) to cook a lovely meal of lamb meatballs in tomato and vegetable stew type affair, with rosemary new potatoes and greenbeans and savoy cabbage. I weighed/pointed the extra lean minced beef and it was 21 so I cunningly mixed it with some mint and garlic and made 21 meatballs which I grilled whilst making the sauce. Spuds were weighed in at 5 points (to share with Mr Husband) and veg was free - just a sprinkling of coriander leaf (from a JAR not fresh - one is not Jamie poncey Oliver you know!) over it to flavour.

So I had eaten 9 points during the day which left 12 for the evening. Now, in days of yore I'd have immediately gone 'EXCELLENT! 7 1/2 for wine now what can I eat around that?' but not today, no siree. I had 6 of the little meatballs (6 points) and 2 1/2 points worth of potatoes, lots of veg and Pellegrino with lime. For dessert I had a WW Black Forest bar for 1 1/2 which was just enough after all that food! So total for the day was 19 points which left 2 to spare and I'd exercised - so all in all went to bed feeling super-smug and, more importantly, full (but not Christmas Day full) of nice food!

Saturday then, dawned bright and clear. I whizzed round to see Incredible WW Guru (IWWG for future reference...you know who you are) as we are conducting an experiment. It's no secret I find weekends hard (on account of my party lifestyle - BAHA!), so I am now changing my get-weighed-day from a Tuesday to a Saturday. The hypothesis being that if I get weighed early on a Saturday, I am thus up early and right by the gym so that puts paid to that excuse, AND the weigh in will help me control my saturday nights better. I'll keep you posted...

With the help of IWWG, I decided to aim for a loss of 5% of my body weight, which is 9 pounds. This short term goal is to help me with my insanely unrealistic goal setting of 'I wanna be a size zero in 3 weeks'. Short term goal to aim for and nothing other than that, and then review. Remember SMART objectives from that bloody Management Diploma? Never before has this applied so beautifully to my life....Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timed.

Specific - I want to lose 5 % of my body weight, which is 9lbs
Measurable - I will know when I have achieved this by regular weigh ins each week.
Achievable - I know I can attain this target by following the plan
Realistic - I have not aimed for the skies, set my sights on something fairly easily attainable so that I am encouraged and spurred on to the next goal with a sense of accomplishment.
Timed - I will do this by 5 week's time. Sat 14th March weigh in.

See! It works beautifully!

Ok. So I left IWWG's casa full of renewed hope and vision and actaully 2lbs lighter than when I weighed in last Tuesday - but that doesn't count.

Headed for the Gym and on account of the fact that they had the re-run of 'Shipwrecked' on the telly rather than Sky Sports News, I found that I was still there 600 calories later!! After deciding this was quite enough I went for a wind down swim and had a rather funny 30 lengths which took half a bloody hour rather than my usual 20 minutes because of Tankini man, in a speedo, wanting the blinds closed.....long story. Suffice to say I nearly drowned myself twice on account of all the laughing.......

Homeward bound and I confess I had to have a little nap on account of having exercised BUT I felt amazing for it and all those endorphins had me buzzing! When I got in I had 2 crumpets (2 points) with one extra light laughing cow cheese triangle (other cheese triangles are available! lol!) )1/2 a point) plus a cuppa (with skim) and a lovely WW mini roll (2). Dinner time rolled around again. This time I went for Chicken Tagine and lemon couscous for 6 and a half points - recipe was for two and there was loads! I also warmed some pitta up at 2 points each - I had one. Mr Husband also enjoyed said meal and pronounced it 'not diety at all' so that was a success! Defo make that one again. Instead of dessert I waited till around 8pm when we decided to watch 'American Gagster', whereupon I had 2 175ml glasses of Shiraz rose and not a sip more (4 points) and went to bed again smug as a bug in a rug...if a little discombobulated on account of having missed the end of what turned out to be a good film but a faulty disc (bloody lovefilm!). Points total= 17 1/2 (when factoring in milk ion tea etc) Good eh!

And so on to Sunday! Johnny (best man and all around top bloke) suggested lunch at the Slags. PANIC STATIONS! But I haven't been the gym! But I need to dye my hair! But I haven't achieved all my goals for this weekend! But I haven't allowed for this in my points for the day!

Then I pulled myself together and realised that it was 10am on a Sunday and I hadn't eaten a darn thing yet so points were all in tact! My good behaviour and wise choices were not ruined- all would be ok!

So off we went to the 3 slags, allbeit not having gymmed or dyed but determined to succeed......

After a careful perusal of the menu I decided on the chicken skewer and salad with no dressing and balsamic on the side. Chicken was skinless and was actually half a chicken! So I ate one piece which was your average sized chicken breast so I allowed 3 points just to be on the safe side, and gave the rest to the gannetts..er..I mean boys. There was coleslaw on it! Which the menu had neglected to tell me - but on whipping out my Eat Wisely book I discovered that 1 tbsp of coleslaw is 1 points so I allowed two points and gave the rest to the boys. Salad was fine and surprisingly both plentiful and fresh. There were potato wedges with the meal BUT there were 3 in total, cooked in their skins and I must confess I ate them BUT allowed 3 points for them. So 8 points in total. I had a white wine spritzer - dry wine (less sugar) 175ml measure (2 points) in soda (no points) with lots of ice to make it a tall-lasts-a-long-time drink. And then a latte with annoyingly skimmed milk as they did not have skimmed (BOOOO!!!) so I allowed 2 for that, making 12 points total. And then ANNOYINGLY! I had another bloody glass of wine! There was so much fun being had that I completely lost the plot, thus adding on 2 more points to my running total of 12....up to 14 now and it was only 4pm!!!!

DAMMIT!!! Quick ,quick rethink your evening meal plans...I had been going to make a gorgeous ww recipe lasagne for 6 points BUT was sleepy after drinking in the day (hence the title of this post) so allowed hubby to cook a feast of baked potato (3) and beans (2) making 19 total. I was so annoyed at myself. But at least I stayed within points - but a word to the wise, don't eat a baked spud at 9pm - I slept worse than I have in ages - too stodgy for words!!

So though I stayed in my limit I shouldn't have gone for the second vino, instead of thinking 'haha I have conquered it ' my new mantra is 'baby steps'


And thus I began again this morning with 30g of porridge oats made with water and a dash of skimmed milk for 1 and a half points.


babysteps...babysteps...babysteps...babysteps...babysteps...babysteps...babysteps...babysteps...babysteps...babysteps...babysteps...babysteps...


laters BFP

PS if you read all this you deserve a freaking medal!