Wednesday 3 June 2009

"Give yer 'ead a wobble, love"






Dudes, I'm REALLY struggling at the mo. I need help! Last night I was up .5lb (which was not an official weigh in so doesn't count -HA!) but I've basically blagged it this week doing pseudo-counting and a lot of guessing. So suffice it to say I am not holding out much hope for a loss on Saturday - which is sooooooo frustrating and yet I have no one to blame but myself. After such a great weekend and such a great loss last week (4.5lbs thank you very much!), I think I've relaxed too much. AND I ALWAYS DO THIS! I've been sacking off my lunch time swims in favour of strolling around town in the glorious sunshine we've been having of late, and Rich is away at the minute so rather than hammering it in the gym without worrying that I'm neglecting my poor hubby, I've been sitting on my bum lounging around watching waaaaaaaaaaay too much 'The Hills' and 'Gilmore Girls'. I am at the point where I'm actually annoying myself! It's like 'Come ON you doofus, you're just self-sabotaging! Snap out of it'! How do I break it? Is it just a question of sucking it up and JUST BLOODY DOING IT ( I always thought that should be the Nike slogan - more emphatic, don'tcha think?!)?? Or is there a secret formula I'm missing????

What do you all do when you're in this random place? HELP ME!

We talked last night at ww about what we personally each need to do to ensure weight loss this next week. For me it's pretty simple, let's face it I have been doing this for 3 bloody years on and off - I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have to :

PLAN - TRACK - EXERCISE

These 3 factors all combine to give me a weight loss - a fact that I am recently re-discovering as my body continues to return to normal functioning after the DP. I can and do lose weight now whereas it seemed like a bloody lost cause at one point!


Ok, so PLAN: I am not one of these super-organised ww members that can plan an entire week ahead and stick to it. That said, I am most definitely a creature of habit and am border-line OCD about my routine. I tend to plan my eating on a day by day basis. By this I mean that I start work at 8:30am and use 8-8:30am at my desk in the peace and quiet before the onslaught of the working day and subsequent demands upon my time, to plan out my following day. So I’m planning a day ahead in actuality. I prepare my lunch the night before so I know what I’m eating points-wise and also food group wise. For instance, on weekdays I am quite boring for breakfast and will have one or two Weetabix with skimmed milk depending on levels of hunger. It’s quick, easy and.……ummm….how do I put this? It’s effective at keeping things in regular working order, if you get me?! (Ha!). Then I always find I am ravenous at about 11am so I will have a banana or more lately I have been having 2 slices of pineapple to keep me going until lunch. Though I have an issue with bananas as I think they’re a lot of ww points for what you actually get to eat! Even a little tiddly banana on my ww scales comes out at 2 points and let’s face it, it’s gone in a flash! (Seriously do not know what I did before I had those scales! Get them if you haven’t!) Then on a good day (read, not this week), I swim from 1-2 and then eat lunch back at my desk. Lately it is consisting of salad plus either salmon, laughing cow lights, tuna mayo OR ryvita and laughing cow. I also have a yogurt and occasionally a ww choc bar (Rich toffee or caramel whip) in the afternoon or a banana at about 3 before I head to the gym straight from work (again, on a good week, again read not this week! GAH!)

So that’s a typical day – all very controlled and contains enough food so I can go work out and not pass out from hunger.

So what happens when you get home? I hear you ask!!??

That must be it?!






When I’m ‘ON IT’ I gym it straight from the office and then get home about 7pm where I get dinner ready and do my weights programme either still in my sweaty and thoroughly minging gym stuff OR (as fully validated and advocated by the one the only MizFit) I shower and do a PJ workout in front of the tv! Then I eat and by this time it’s probably half 8! I wonder if maybe I eat too late sometimes but if I don’t I can’t fit it all in!

I guess the weekends are my biggest downfall – not so much Fridays now I’m clerking at a ww meeting on Saturday am, but that still leaves Saturday and Sunday to go crazy and often it stretches into Monday if I’m honest, especially with all the blimmin’ Bank Holidays we’ve been having lately.

The crazy thing is I KNOW all this! Writing it down - or rather typing it- only makes me see it all the more clearly! So, I need to PLAN on a weekend is essentially the key to success. Memo to me

Next one: TRACK

I am quite good at this - it appeals to the ‘Monica’ in me. I made an A4 ww tracking sheet myself because I think the ones they give you in the meeting are stupid.




See here!


















I like to write in the same blue pen and note the points in red (Er, hello nerd alert!) I also note my weight for the week and any danger points like if I am going out or having people round or whatever. I note things like my water in take, milk allowance and how many points per week on alcohol. I track Monday to Sunday and then file the sheet in my pink file on my desk at work so I can look back over the weeks when I am stuck for ideas of points values for things I’ve worked out. The pink file comes home with me whenever I go off on holiday from work so I can keep up. I am such a geek I know, but it helps me stay in control!




Here is the pink file in situ on my desk at work.













My MAJOR thing is abandoning tracking on the weekend. Funny that eh? (NOT). I have noticed I am better at Saturdays since Rach started her Saturday meetings (Rachel thank GOD you started this meeting!!!!), but Sundays still pose a problem. Often it’s the only day of the week Rich and I get to see one another, so we’ll often go out or lunch or dinner or get takeaway or have a gorgeous (full English) breakfast with the Sunday papers or have dinner at my parents’ which is just the biggest error ever! It wouldn’t be so bad if we did just one of those things once a week but sometimes it’s all bloody 3! That’s the danger of having parents you get on well with and count as friends! AND it all revolves around eating! GAH!

So how do we combat the occasional excessive eat-a-thon?

EXERCISE!

This I am (usually) good at. I get on a roll and then start to see results and feel like a million dollars. Then I get ill or something happens to throw me off course and I am, frankly, buggered if I can back on track! WHY WHY WHY!??

Last week I was discouraged because I couldn’t run as far as I had been before 2 weeks of being bed-ridden, this week however I am just being bone bloody idle! I continually talk myself out of exercise .

‘Oh I can’t swim this lunch hour because I’ve got to go to the bank so I don’t go overdrawn and will have to use my lunch hour for that’

‘Oh I’ve got a meeting at 2 that I can’t have wet hair for’

‘Oh I can’t go to the gym straight from work, I’ll go home first and then go out again later.’ - LIZ! This NEVER HAPPENS stop lying to yourself you giant doofus head!

Enough is enough. I have got to JUST BLOODY DO IT!

As they say in my beautiful home town :

“GIVE YER ‘EAD A WOBBLE, LOVE”


And finally, on a topic entirely unrelated to diet and weight loss, on Saturday I did my nails with this gorgeous sparkly red nail polish by Barry M. Think Dorothy's Ruby Slippers in 'The Wizard of Oz' and you've got the vibe. It's utterly gorgeous! However, it chips very easily (I need to get some top coat I think, or some new shiney), so I needed to re-do them by Monday. So I got all my stuff out and sat down to re-do. Can I get the bloody stuff off? NO I CANNOT! It's like frickin' cement! So now my nails are oh so trampy looking - which is obviously GREAT for a young professional. Not.


Check it out! Classy, no?!
GAH!
So dudes, hit me up in the comments - I need HELP!!!!!! *Not so much about the nails, that'll happen on its own! Just FYI.
xoxoBFP

9 comments:

Sal said...

Dude, a very funny and honest post - loving your work!!!

Ok here's an idea. The next time you want to bin off exercise you have to text me your reason. I bet once you've written the text and thought how daft it is you won't send it and you'll get your arse to the gym.
the weight loss you had last week was great but how many times do you want to loose that same couple of lbs?
As far as the whole weekend 'celebration' mode with food I like Anna's post from a couple of weeks ago about still having seperation in her mind about having fun and ww. Bitch cakes wrote some good stuff a couple of weeks ago about visualisation too.

But seriously dude - text me.

Jen, a priorfatgirl said...

Great idea of writing everything down, I too have to write in the same blue pen for everything.

We can either complain and not do it or complain AND DO IT. Like ripping a bandaid off, just do it and it will be over with.

Sounds like to me you have a perfectly good reason to go to a salon and get a manicure!

Brianna said...

I love the pink notebook idea! I usually keep a spiral bound journal and pre-plan what I think I'll eat (usually don't stick to it completely, but that's okay b/c my real tracking goes into WW Online) and then I use the back page of each menu page in my journal to make a to-do list and to write what I'd like to accomplish at the gym for the day. It makes me feel less losery whenever I do this. When I fly by the seat of my pants so to speak, I have a harder time sticking to points.

I say get back to planning, even if it means that you put aside an extra hour or so at the beginning of each week. Also, what helps me feel less ravenous is when I eat every 2-3 hours while at work. I eat the same amount of points, but just sort of space it out like this (remember, I work nights):

0000- Luna Bar
0200- Turkey Sandwich, Apple Sauce
0400- Watermelon
0600- Greek Yogurt

When I do this, I don't go home and eat everything that isn't nailed down!

skinny me! said...

It sounds like you're doing amazing!!!!! You were down 4.5 this weekend right? Don't pay attention to the scale...tooooo much. Last night before I went to bed I weighed 166.6....this morning when I work up it was 146.4 Who the hell knows why our body does the things it does? But letting .5 sabotage you is not worth it. I have gotten past going out for dinner as much, by cooking low fat versions of some of my fave foods. Do you have the book Eat, Shrink and Be Merry?? They have low fat versions of all the yummiest foods and the recipes are fabulous. On mothers day, rather than going out for an expensive meal I cooked butter chicken for my parents and they loved it!! Does you mom know about your struggles? Maybe she can include a couple of healthier options with the Sunday dinner? Talk to her.

Could you cook yummy meals with your husband instead of going out for them? Cheaper too! You can make a huge batch and freeze half. I have sacrificed my social life a little over the course of my weight loss, but ultimately this is more important right now, so meh...its ok.

Unknown said...

What can I say? Your typical work out routine puts me to shame. I think we could all use a Sal to text off to - very good idea!

cherry-pops said...

Lizzie!

I have that nail varnish by Barry M. You want two coats of the red stuff, maximum! And a top coat. It will last for a long time. There is no other more hard wearing varnish than that, but yes the trouble is you can't actually get the blasted stuff off very easily.

Persistance is key! Keep at it! lol.

Chizzle.

Unknown said...

It looks like you know the answer, don't you? Print out this post and paste it to your fridge, your mirror, your steering wheel, where ever you need a reminder of what you need to do.

Anonymous said...

As I have said before Self Pity City is lonely!

You know this is a tough week as you have just had a FAB weight loss and you are hovering over a stone zone. POWER through it you dont have to eat nothing and run a marathon everyday to get a weight loss. We are not after huge chunks everyweek just a loss Liz doesnt matter what it is the little losses add up and the consistency of those losses would be - how would you say 'SMUG'?

Keep ON IT girlfriend

Rachel xxx

Elaine said...

I too cannot figure out how you fit so much exercise into your day. I am totally impressed. Not what you want to hear in the way of motivation, I'm sure. I swim after or before work most days. The fact that you swim, and then go back to the gym after work, and then do a workout at night besides, how??? I also have to say that I love your Britishisms, and had to look up much of what you wrote. Bung. Mange tout. I do like that you use 'in situ.' I use that a lot too. You are a pretty cool person, it seems. I think you are doing great! Keep up the workouts. Don't be a 'weekend warrior' as the folks at WW call it.