khestral41

Back again! Had another busy month which was further complicated by my husband having to be away from home for long periods at a time. I've also been picking up extra shifts at work... we're seriously short staffed with people leaving, sick leave and annual leave resulting in lotsa' vacant Div 1. shifts that need to be filled. thats left me a few hours a dew days a week to work on my comic... ghhharrrrh! I'm never going to get back into a routine! on top of this I've had to spend a lot of mum time with my eldest son who is going through more then his fair shair of teenage issues which topped off this week with him getting into major trouble at school for cyber pranking on the school computers. Actually his practical jokes are bloody clever but they haven't amused our school principal and the boy is now PO about his suspension from school computer privilages. He was terrified of how his old man was going to react but Wayne is having a hard time being the 'responsible parent' about this as it's definately the sort of shinanigins he used to get up to. (At least Ryan isn't running a black market for smokes and alcohol on the school campus.... yet.)

In weightloss news I stayed stable at 65.5 kilos for two weeks over the end of May. A bit disheartening to see the scales stubbornly refuse to display anything lower. But then again I did decide to relax a bit munch as I felt over the middle weekend... I LUV crackers and french onion dip, hard jubes and chocky! I kept up my walking and even did another 12 km walk, this time without the three days post of hip pain. So in a way I'm glad because this fornight proved to me that I can splurge a bit without paying for it in the waistline.

The other cool thing is that last weekend my partner, who had been away on long service leave for the last eight weeks, rocked back up to work and made a big toodoo out of my shrinking butt :) This is the first time anyone at work has mentioned my reducing size as I haven't told anyone outside my immediate family that I'm activily getting fit. Wayne also finally told me last week how apparent my weight loss has become. Lotsa' compliments from the man. :)

It's not an offical weigh date but this morning when I jumped on the scales I found I've dropped to 64.7 (about 142 pounds). That means I've busted my goal of being 65 by my birthday by a whole month! So I'm to update it to 63 kilo's ( just under 139 pounds) to give me something to aim for.

SW. 76.5
GW. 55
CW. 64.7

I decided to challenge myself with walking today and covered double the distance by walking to the river from my house instead of driving there. 12 kilometre round trip (about 7 and a half miles)! I managed it easier then i thought I would although the step gradiant at around the ten k mark was a killer. I'm feeling pretty good right now but my legs are already twinging warning me that they'll be getting me back by evening. During the walk I was thinking about this insane idea to train as if I'm going to do OXFAM. Oxfam is a charity event involving walking teams of four which runs over 48 hours and 100 kilometres. (62 miles). It actually is physically do- able by us ordinary non elite athelitic folk believe it or not. Veg, one of my brothers, his wife and my sister Robyn did it about 4 years ago and in 37 hours. Mind you you should have seen Veg's feet at the end of it. I would not have believed friction blisters could get that big and I thought I'd seen it all. Gail, on the other hand, had nary a mark on her feet but then she covered them in profilactic band aids. Brian has been running marathons for 20 years but that didn't mean we didn't abuse him for selfishly jogging to the finish in a show of atheletic superiority and then jogging back to where the rest of the team were dragging behind just so that they could all pass the finishing post together. Shame on him... he should have colapsed in a whimpering heap like the rest of them. I and Jackie, Brian and Gails adult daughter, took the sensible approach to team participation and run the support crew side of things: Getting the pizza's, administering the leg massages, setting up the tent in pitch black negative degree celsius weather up the windy summut of Mt. Donnabuang.

Now when i say I'm going to look at training for Oxfam doesn't mean I'm seriously thinking of doing it. For one thing training literally takes almost all of your free time... 8 hours of walking a day twice a week and the rest, I don't have that kind of time available. But I'd like to work up to doing 25 km (about 15 miles) in one go with a veiw to eventually covering 50 kilometres in a day. one day. :)




SW. 76.5
GW. 55
CW. 66

Just got up. Quite pleased to see I've dropped another kilo (2.2lbs) over the week seeing as I've relaxed on the eating side and apart from grazing at night, which I still do but with a bit more forethought. All the walking is paying off. :)

SW. 76.5
GW. 55
CW. 66.5

So after going to the Doc about one painful problem that will remain unmentioned and being told that I have a temp of 38.5 (read fever) and gee that explains why all I've wanted to do all week is fall into a coma AND getting through a course of AB's that have rendered me once again human internally as well as externally.... pff pufff puffff...

I have gone back to walking again, this time around the section of the Barwon River within walking distance... beautiful scenic walk by the way if any of you are ever across here I'll take you on a tour. The dogs are enjoying the new course and our council have thoughtfully posted doggy bags and bins along the pathway which deals with the unmentionable inevitables of having dogs.

My little pedometre, which I remembered about and unearthed last week from it's dark little hidy hole in the bottom of my important bits of junk that I can't throw away box, is doing a tour of duty snapped to my waste band keeping count of the number of steps I take, the kilometres I cover and the amount of calories I'm burning based on my weight. Heres the nutty maths I was playing with on my walk this am: each walk is over 6 km long and I burn up about 420 cals. Rounding it down to 400 cals and taking into account that each kilo of fat equals a little under 8000 calories I've calculated that doing this walk 4 times a week over the course of a year burns well over 10 kilo's of fat!

I spent a good chunk of hours today going over the last two chapters of this current season of terinu. I'm finally happy with it. A few scenes need some decent dialogue nutted out but basically the flow and the timing and the logic behind it all seems to work fine now. I'm now confident to go ahead with the story boards. In fact I've already finished some of the scenes already. For anyone thinking that the ending of this arc will bring some resolution for the characters.... BWAAA HAAAA HAAAA!!!!

The last four weeks have been mad. We've had no less then three sets of friends/relatives from overseas staying over one after the other, not to mention various birthdays and other events. I haven't picked up a pencil in ten days which is the longest dry spell of drawing I've had in six years! That's probably not a bad thing. Getting my head yanked out of my sketch book and being made to actually interact with other people on a social level has been as good as a holiday, abett an exhausting one. Last weekend, fer instance, we met up with our Singapore connection Wilfred and Su Tan and spent a warm but mildly overcast afternoon in Melbourne having a BBQ with a bunch of people from Wilfred's World of Warcraft guild. With all the talk about 'instances' and 'epic gear' I'm sure the other park goers thought we were from another planet! later that night we drove back to Geelong and I had the immense pleasure of surprising Wayne with a Birthday dinner with a whole bunch of family and friends at the Bali resturant near our house. We had the banquet meal which consisted off lots and lots of little trays of portions of different meals served one after the other... a good way to get a sample of the menu. I am now in the habit of letting myself eat just about anything as long as it's not to excess so I chugged into all the offerings, including the deep fried stuff, without the guilt.

Last week I decided to make an appointment at the fitness club I'd been eyeing off on my walks each morning. This morning i went for my free test run of the equipment. I've been a member of a gym several times in my life and almost always hated it. My philosophy towards excercise has evolved into 'there is no point trying to set the habit of doing something regularly if you don't like doing it.' IT's impossible to keep being motivated to go to a gym when everyday your mentally searching for excuses not to go. My last effort mid last year I slogged away at the excercises for 6 weeks and last a grand total of half a kilo (about a pound)!

So what made me go back this time. Well for one thing this is a ladies only gym with the equipment designed for women (+1), it's walking distance from my house (+2), it specifically caters for working women who don't have much time... the routine is only half an hour long (+3), it's cheap... about 59$ a month as apposed to my last gym that totally about 200$ a month! (+4). Plus I'm becoming increasingly aware that as the fat melts away the musculation underneath leaves a bit to be desired. Not that I want to look like a fraggin' body builder. I did say to the smiling chick who took me throught the machines that my weight loss is under control... i'm doing this for toning. I was strangely reassured that the gym chick wasn't a perfect super model pin up and actually had a bit of flesh on her bones. Nothing worse then being coached by Miss Bicepes 2007 who is so into her gym addiction she is out of touch with the rest of the slightly lardy population. the fitness club is pretty small, only one largish room with the warm up bikes recessed into one corner and the equipment lining the walls in track order with a low wide step infront of each one for the 45 seconds of on the spot running between each 45 resistance training session. The whole routine in governed by a taped female voice commanding you to 'change' every 45 seconds. I'm willing to give it a go and see if I don't hate it less then past experiences.

Bin doing a bit of reading at work during the quiet spots in the night, specifically researching the whole weight loss/ fat obsessed mind set of the modern era. And what I've learned is starting to make me rethink this whole diet caper. For instance i didn't realise that a lot of the data about how weight effects health actually comes from researchers who have a vested interest in keeping the multimillion dollar diet industry going. Frighteningly enough when you read the actual research data and NOT the conclussions the picture of overweight/ obesity immediately means big increased risk in diabetes and heart disease is all... BULLOCKS! You have more risk of being unhealthy if you are mildly underweight. The only time you are in danger of contracting a weight related disorder is if you are severely morbidly obese! And yet still these buggers write conclussions to their research citing the danger of being overweight which is completely contrary to the data they present. To make matters worse they tailor their sample groups of people in such ways that the figures are artificially inflated. Even the world health oganisation takes it's stance from a panel of experts who all have a vested interest in the weight loss industry. They're reasoning being that these experts have experience with obesity so they must be the best people to talk to :0 !!! It's a con... it's all a huge con.

Conclussion from the research i have done: There is NO increased health risk at all from being overweight or even mildly obess.. nitch naddah nothing!

So if we aren't losing weight for our health then why are we losing weight?

You could say vanity. But it's a bit more complex then that.

At present in this western World it is politically incorrect to discriminate on the bases of race, sex or religion. Yup it still happens but thats human nature. The thing is us sensitive new age people do make a conscious effort to be particularly nice to people of different racial backgrounds, people who have medical disorders (with the shameful exception of psychiatric disorders) deformities etc. But somehow overweight people are still open season. there is a nasty smugness that exists in which people, when confronting someone bigger in the belly then they are, that they, at least, ain't THAT fat. As if being bigger then usual wasn't just a fact on ones silouette but somehow alludes to some terrible flaw in the bigger persons self discipline and personal pride. there is a terrible preassure to be thin today which i think is unique to this age. Just check out the soft buxomous ladies posing naked all they're fleshy glory in renaiscance paintings... the beauties of their days and yet today they would be considered a tad obese... better watch that colesterol... have you checked for diabetes... hey I read of this great new diet in Womens Own where you eat nothing but citrus fruit for three days a week. It's enough to make you cry into your Krispy Kreme donut!

BUT YOU'RE STILL ON THIS DIET KICK PETA!

Actually... I'm not. Not the way you think of diet. I'm sort of more on a healthy living kick. Healthy living for me means going for a walk... which I LOVE doing anyway now that I've convinced myself that I HAVE to make time for myself. Healthy is eating what I like when I like but not stuffing my face with binging. And healthy is doing away with soft drink which, after two months, I seem to have lost the taste for anyway. I have chocolates still from easter. My kids get some occassionally just to get rid of them. Yup, I'm eating them too, but not a whole box at a time. I still eat fried chips... but I don't make it my main meal. I still eat take away but now days i find they taste a little boring, I prefer to make something myself. I eat up until the time my stomach starts to say... 'okay that's just about full now' and then stop before I get to the bloated stage even if it means leaving stuff on my plate. I carry my trusty water bottle round everywhere and I keep a couple of extras cooling in the fridge. It's amazing how much all those little unconscious sips add up to.

Yup I'm still counting weight watcher points but it's become more of an exercise of interest then a strict regeime. sometimes I'm over, sometimes I'm under. I don't care as long as I'm not hungry.

SW. 76.5
GW. 55
CW. 67.3

Jumped on the scales a day early as Monday is going to be frantic. My weight loss jumped forward this week to 69.5 kilos. :) That means that not only did I reach my little goal of being under 70 for tomorrow night, but also I am no longer clinically obese! And I've only ten kilo's (22 lbs) to go before I'm back in the healthy weight range. 15.4 lbs down in just over 6 weeks.

We took some relis of Waynes down the Great Ocean road for some bush and rainforest walks, including walking over the Otways Fly (a 2 kilometre stretch of raised walkways that take you through the tree tops of a subtropical rainforest... breath taking but not for those afraid of heights.) Waynes reli's, who are the same age as us, puffed and panted and had to take breathers while I bounced along up and down the climbs like a seven year old. Those long walks are paying off.

Kids are back at school now so we're pushing forward with remodeling our garden... espcially important as we're hosting Christmas for the masses this year. We're leveling and clearing everything outside... which is going to cost about 4 thousand on it's own with all the trees that need to be removed. Then theres the decking and pegola which will be large enough to seat 8 people and have a full barbaque platform with room to spare. Some native garden beds and a round piece of lawn in the centre. behind the back of the house will be a raised vege patch on railway sleepers and the garden shed. There will be a paved space reserved for Kyra's basketball hoop as that thing gets a lot of use from all the family. Around the side of the house we're building a carport. can't wait... I've had enough of having that mess outside.

SW. 76.5
GW. 55
CW. 69.5

The school holidays have left me with no time to add to this journal and barely any for the comic. But I made the decision to prioritise weight management so the spare hour I've squeezed out of the day has gone to walking and... because I can take the kids along with me for this one... swimming.

I was never a strong or very fast swimmer but like all Aussie kids I was taught how to survive in water before the age of ten... a must in a hot country surrounded by the best beaches in the world. :) I haven't swum for years though and thought I might be able to manage a couple of laps before collapsing. I 'managed' 12! Which worked out to 600 metres or well over half a kilometre. I did have to vary my strokes and take a breather every two laps but I did it! *0*

Weight loss has slowed down considerably; logical after the big drops in the first three weeks. Last week I waved 600gms goodbye and the week before a mere 300. But down, however slowly, is good. And half a kilo a week is the recommended safe amount in any case. I was hoping to be under 70 kilos by the time I get back to work next week but I'll be happy now just to be close. I'm going to set my next personal challenge for the end of April at 68.5 kilos and see how I go getting there.

Official weigh in this morning when I got home from work: 71.6 kilos. ( 158 lb.)
*Happy Dance!* That's another 1.5 kilos conquered this week! (3.3 lb.)

That means... given that my conservative guestimate starting weight was 77 kilo's, based on the fact that I had begun watching my intake and walking 5 times a week for ten days before I got the courage to stand on the scales... that I have lost over 5 kilos (11 lb) in less than a month. :)

We've been doing the reli thing all weekend. I was at my brothers house for tea on saturday afternoon , my inlaws on Sunday morning and the rest of my family including my cousin and her partner visiting from England on Sunday arvo. Eating wise I behaved myself scarily well... scarily because it wasn't at all hard. I simply did not feel like eating any of the desserts laid out and the meals my brother dishes out are always low fat as he is very heath conscious... (he is 50 years old and has been running marathons for the past 20!) The smorgasboard style luncheon we had at my eldest sister's place the next day wasn't a problem either... it comprised of different cold meats with a variety of salads. I picked the ones without the high fat dressings and only a taste of coleslaw and potato salad. I munched on the fruit platter for afters and only fancied one tiny bite-sized cup cake. The thing is I didn't feel even the slightest urge to hog into the trifle or cheese cake or any of the other yummies. Maybe my subconscious is reprogramming my appetite. Possibly I could have been inspired by one of sisters, the one I am closest to, whom was always a bit bigger then me but now that she's back into jogging is model thin. I love her to death but I just can't be the fat one out of the two of us. *_*

But it's not only at the party that my appetite is flagging. Over the past week I seem to have lost the desire to eat. In fact I'm finding myself well in the black points wise come evening and have had to chug down a yogart or some such to make my totals to avoid going into starvation mode. I hope this is only a temporary thing with my metabolism coming to terms with the changes. It's a bit much when it takes thirty minutes to chew my way through a banana.

My work uniform is starting to feel a little loose on me. It was getting too tight around my shoulders and forearms and across my stomach... so much so that I was planning to go shopping for another couple. But now it's quit comfortable with heaps of room. At this rate I'll be in my size 12 uniform tops before the start of June. :). (12 to 14 are considered medium sizes in Aus... I plan to be back in 10's before this is through.)

SW. 76.5
GW. 55
CW. 71.6

I've been keeping away from junk for most of the week. Go me! Friday night is games night so the consensus was pizza, mainly because Wayne really fancied pizza. We ordered pizza hut on line to save having to go out and get it in the Good Friday madness. I stuck to my principles and ate just two slices of BBQ chicken pizza and one small rib. Usually I'd eat three pieces, at least a couple of ribs and a couple of slices of garlic bread washed down with a can or two of coke. I'd prepared for it by eating lightly all day... not 'not eating'... I still had my usual breakfast, but stuck to fruit and salad plus my ultra yum light crackers with eggplant spread. (Yes it's true... I didn't believe eggplant could actually taste good either but somehow Kraft have managed it with their Deli Spread range.)

I thought today would be another challenge in food choices as we were set to go out to a BBQ down by the beach with friends of ours but they've had some bad news so they decided to have a quiet day at home to deal with it. They knew someone who was in a bad car accident on Thursday who had been taken to hospital with head trauma. Last night they were told that this person had severe brain damage. The decision was made and carried through this morning to turn off her life support and she passed away a few minutes later.

It kinda' puts things into perspective a bit doesn't it. I mean this couple was only driving out on a day trip and decided to take a detour to the Berry Farm on the way when some idiot, who didn't stop at the intersection, collected them. Life is too short already and you don't know when if some moron is going to snatch it from you. I think about the deaths of my parents and my brother in particular as he died in a motor cycle accident a few years ago and my heart bleeds for what this lady's family is going through right now 'cause I know it's pain at its very worst.

We'll take the kids out for a picnic anyway becuase life IS too short regardless and despite the sadness the sun is still shining and will continue to shine everyday whether we see it or not.

The heat didn't let up.

Two am and it was still 38 celcius ( 100 fahrenheit ). The boys didn't settle until almost midnight and Kyra ( seven years old: the youngest of my brood )was still teary with exhaustion, unable to sleep near one am. Wayne helped her with a cool shower and she managed to sleep for a few hours after that. But by 4 am she was back in our bedroom awake and distressed. I turned up the air con in our room and made her a bed on the floor beside my side of the bed with a whole heap of thick doonas folded over and piled on top of one another and after a little while she fell asleep again. Sleep for me however was pretty much over. With sleeping during the previous day after a night shift I just didn't need a full eight hours more so soon. So by 6 am I decided to go for that walk I missed yesterday.

Very quietly dressing so as not to disturb the rest of the family I debated whether to take Loki and Ember with me. Decided against it as the devilish duo tend to get hyper when they know they're going for a walk and that would certainly disturb the early morning peace.

So slipping a door key into my walking shoes I tiptoed out the door and into the dark stary early morn. The temperature hadn't dropped at all. At 6:15 it was still very warm with a warm breeze blowing. But without the baking sun beating down it felt pleasant. I headed round my usual 6 km circuit starting down Church St. It was still night but a thin spectrum of blue, yellow and mauve lined the eastern horizon. Down bellow the hill the lights of the city marked it's place before the bay. It felt peaceful. I've decided that I really enjoy early morning walks. Though I don't know if I'll be able to make a habit of it, I don't get enough sleep as it is and that's not usually for lack of ability. But a walk before anyone else wakes up does ensure that I fit in exercise into my routine. Have to see how I can go about managing an earlier bed time for myself perhaps.

I was surprised at how many people where out and about jogging or power walking like myself at that time in the morning. Either they're uber dedicated or like me they just couldn't sleep.

Fun part of the day over I had to get kids up and dressed and then drive them to school and wayne to the station and then I had to attend a work training session for three hours. After that I had a burst of energy... enough to wash the car at one of those drive throu do it yourself car washes. After that I rewarded myself with a 6 inch sub from Subway and a low fat yougart they sell. Finished the sub but the yougart's still sitting here as I don't feel hungry at all. I'll put it away till after the kids get home.

Right now I'm feeling pretty good. Next I'm going to script the current page for my comic and post it.

I've just woken up a early after a night shift. I don't feel the least bit like eating although my itake for the last 17 hours has been pretty minimal... about a quarter cup of grapes and a small amount of tuna sushi a work college brought in for me. (We buy each other sushi whenever we bring it to work for ourselves because we're both such sushi addicts.) I've drunk about 750 mls of water in the space of ninety minutes and forced some canteloupe (rock melon) down as thats the only thing I could envision swallowing. I'm trying to talk myself into eating a diet yougart 'cause I'm sure I need the protein and cals but it's just not working.

This is daft. :(

I know people may think... wow how lucky, you're deliberately setting out to loose weight. (I refuse to call it dieting... 'diet' means short term calorie reduction and I want my habits to change permanantly! ) But I KNOW that if I don't eat now by eight oclock, even after eating a good dinner, I'm going to feel like I'm starving... it's a weird rebound thing my body does.

Most of all I want to go for a WALK!!!

But it's stinking hot out there. And I mean it's currently 40 celsius (thats 104 fahrenheit)!!!

I can't come at the thought of doing any kind of indoor work outs... it's too friggin' hot, even inside the house. Only the bedroom and computer room has working air con since we're waiting til winter to get the living room air con repaired because it will cost only half the price of doing it now. If I had the car I would go to the pool for a swim even though I swore I wouldn't go to the pool until I'm 65 kilos because I'm so self conscious about putting on bathers. But right now I'm itching to do something!

Fraggin' heat wave! *Throws empty water bottle at the sun.*

Yesterday was a test of my good eating resolve. We went out to a smorgasboard dinner at a local pub. I had my usual walk despite the heat. I really need to start wearing a hat though. I was very careful with eating during the day which wasn't hard as I actually don't tend to feel hungry during the day. At the bistro I made a point of thinking before I put anything onto my plate about the fat content of the food. No fried or battered food including chips, nothing with butter or cream. I went for the roast beef as it I haven't eaten red meat for a few weeks (not a big fan of it but I need the iron). I was sure serve myself only enough to fill the size and thickness of my palm. I also had two very small chicken wing segments and several small flat pieces of grilled fish. Had a scoop of chop suey and a variety of steamed/ boiled veges to fill up the plate. Actually the only difference would of been in the quantity of meats I stacked on the plate and the fact I didn't include anything fried. I did grab afters though, again only about half of what I'd normally eat: a scoop of pink mousse, a two inch square piece of cheese cake and a two inch square piece of banana cake.

I worked a night shift that night and was't at all hungry. Although I knew I had to eat something so I packed a few things for night time lunch break, a low fat cupa soup and tuna with water crackers. Packed some grapes as well but was too full to look at them.

I have to go to a work internal education seminar to learn about a new assessment system the government are bringing in. I've been given the night off before hand so at least lack of sleep won't be the reason I start to nod off. Don't know if I'll remember to weigh myself amongst all that so I jumped on the scales for the official reading today after getting out of bed instead. I knew I'd be heavier then my usual post walk weight as I reckon I dump between 400 and 500 mls of water during that walk in the heat after taking my kids to school last week (last weigh in). 73.1 !!! *Happy dance!* It means post walk I'll weigh about 72.6 -.7. (Must stop weighing myself post walk as it really isn't acurate, just fun to see the numbers dipping so low.)

Bored yet. lol! You know I'm writing this just for myself so I can track my own eating and exercise habits. It's a tool to stay on track and self teach myself just where I need to correct my habits to maintain a healthy weight for the rest of this life span.

BTW: Smashed my original mini goal weight by almost two kilos and I'm still only half way through the month. I'm re adjusting it again to make it a clear 72 kilos in weight by March 30th.


SW 76.5
GW 55
CW 73.1

I jumped on the scales this morning post walk after taking the kids to school and the numbers stopped on 72.9 kilos. Whooo Hooo! I know it's going to fluctuate a little through out the week but now I can't wait to see what next Mondays official weigh in comes to. It's gotta slow down a bit though... 3.6 kilos (almost 8 pounds) is a lot to loose in ten days. If I was a resident at work we'd be ringing the dietitian*.

I was dying for a chocky last night so I made myself up a jarrah hot diet chocolate fudge flavour. Hit the spot very nicely and only added half a point to my taly.

Starting Date: March 2 2008
SW 76.5
CW 72.9
GW 55


*Barwon Health policy: If a resident looses more then two kilos in one month the dietitian department needs to be notified.

My first weekly weigh in and it looks pretty good. Although a sneak peak at my weight on saturday showed just about the same. I've decided to weigh myself for recording just after I wake up after a day sleep post night duty on Monday. I've had a few slip ups over the past week... an episode of clinkers which a friend brought along to munch during our gaming night on saturday. I ate ten and found out later that it amounted to three points, which doesn't seem so bad until you add the other 2 points of lollies I ate. My other slip was KFC though I limited myself to one piece of chicken (skin pulled off first) small chips... (chips are the worst I found out afterwards... 6 1/2 points!) and a potato and gravy. I drank a third of the soft drink that came with the meal before switching to water. My husband brought the KFC home after I asked him to buy me something low fat and salad-ish as he was grabbing take away for the family. He said there wasn't anything on the menu there that was diet conscious!

Other then those two slips I have been pretty militant about what I eat and I have kept up my 6 kilometre walks routine every morning with the exception of today as I worked a night shift. I would be going for a walk right now only it's very hot outside this afternoon. I don't have transport to get to the pool for a swim. I'm considering perhaps renting or borrowing an excercise bike for days like today when it's difficult to leave the house. If the weather cools down enough by seven I'll try to go for a walk then.

Noticably in myself I feel I have more energy and my body doesn't feel twenty years older when I first crawl out of bed in the morning. I managed to complete two inked comic pages and two full pencils this week for my web comic, clean all the stuff that had been accummulating in my bedroom (have to attack the drawers next) and cleaned out my daughters bedroom. (On top of night shift work, motherhood stuff, general cleaning and washing and cooking around the house.)

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I've now been on 'warm up excercising' (moderate walks over 4 kilometres on fairly level ground for three weeks). The last week I've upgraded to 6 km of brisk walking which encompased several rises and slopes including the kilometre hike up Herne Hill near the end which I have done every day. This takes about an hour. I prefer to do my walking in the morning as soon as possible to avoid the midday heat. I find I'm looking forward to this part of my day routine, I certainly enjoy it a hell of a lot more then gym work or aerobics which I simply can't stand. (I know some people love it and good for them, they're both great forms of excercise.) I think what it comes down to is the solitude. I prefer to exercise alone. I push myself a lot harder and really enjoy it if I don't have the niggly feeling of social claustrophobia I get when I'm around people. That makes me sound antisocial doesn't it. I'm not, I love having a gang of mates around and going out with a group to dinner or to the movies or just out where ever. It's when I want to throw myself into something, like serious exercise, or drawing or writing that I find being with others off putting and it's very hard to switch their presences out of my mind because I know I have a tendency to ignore people entirely (not deliberately, I just don't see or hear them) when I'm zoned into something.

Eating wise... I'm having no problem staying away from sabotage foods as long as I know just how calorie laden they are. For instance... I love fried dimsims but I won't touch them with a barge pole at present because five of them would make up my entire points allotment for the day. I had some clinkers (crunchy fruit flavoured lollies with chocolate coatings) last night when Ang (a friend) opened her pack. I didn't bother to check the point allowance for them until this morning when I found that 3 clinkers equals 1 point. I had 10. Keeping in mind that my allowance is 20 points a day. Thats a fairly big bite out of them for a few lollies. I think clinkers will feature very rarely in my intake over the next 6 months :).

On the whole though, I'm not particularly missing the foods I've decided to avoid. For all my concern over cola I haven't opened one can all week and I've had no inclination to either. I made allowances to have one on Friday night but when it came to the crunch I realised I didn't actually want to drink the stuff anyway and refilled my water bottle.

Food wise the trick now is to make sure that the fridge is stocked with salady stuff and low fat protein alternatives to have for lunch to steer me away from grabbing something quick and easy like dimsims or pot noodles. And to plan meals ahead. We're having taco's tonight which is good as we serve them banquet style so people can grab what they like and make up their own. I don't actually eat the shells, I prefer having a flour tortilla and setting everything out on my plate like a salad. I don't have sour cream though I do like cheese. Plan is same amount of meat and bean filling, only one tortilla, more salad and less cheese.

So much for the slow weaning off from coke. Nope it's GOOD news. I've gone cold turkey and it's not been a problem! I haven't had a can for two days and the only time I felt like one was during dinner time, but it wasn't hard to ignore. I'll have one tonight because it's our games night, but only one instead of the usual two or three. Apart from a cup of tea in the morning after my walk and shower all I've drunk is water so the water strategy is working.

I didn't have a visit from the munchie monster on Wednesday but it popped it's ugly head around the door last night. I ended up eating 2/3'ds of a Boost frozen yougart thing which was only about 280 kJ and one bite out of my daughters red licorice and that seemed to placate it. otherwise my diet has been all good stuff.

I've stuck with my hour long six km march each morning after dropping the kids off, even walked in the pouring rain this morning. It was warm and rain doesn't bother me, it's such a novelty here anyway. I don't feel tired, even after doing that last kilometre up Herne Hill which i live on top of. I must be some degree of fit despite the extra kilo's. :)

Nuther cool thing. I snuck a peak at the scales this morning and found my weight was hovering around the 74 kilo mark. Whoo Hooo... already beat my goal of 75 by the end of the month!!! I'm going to readjust the goal to 73 kilos just to given me something to aim for.

I'm really hoping to be down to 65 kilos by my birthday in July. That's my medium range goal.

For anyone not into metric here are the figures:

Starting weight: 169 pounds (76.5 kilos)
Current weight: 163 pounds (74 kilos)
Goal weight: 121 pounds (55 kilos)
Weight to be by my birthday: 143 pounds (65 kilos)

I'm now writing everything I write down and calculating the number of points. I like the weight watchers system as it's very easy to keep track of just how much I've eaten without fiddling around with odd numbers of kJ. I know this system works well for me because everytime I've stuck with it I've had no problem loosing weight.

I've made up my own simple table to record everything I put into my mouth which is very incentive building in itself. It's a lot harder to sneak a chocky when you know you have to fess up on paper AND record the damage in the number of points. The little lie 'this bit won't hurt' just doesn't stand up to that kind of scrutiny.

I'm aiming to coming in just under my perscribed points limit every week: ie my points for each day following the WW method is 20. I can add 5 more if a go for my 6 kilometre speed walk which takes me almost exactly one hour. I don't want to have too many points left over, I find if I have more then 10 in the black for the week my weight loss actually slows. I put that down to too little intake equals a slowing of my metabolism.

I'm keeping each week long food diary sheet stuck to the filing cabinet behind my desk chair along with the book and time table for working out the points so theres no excuse not to record.

Now for the bad news. Night time hunger struck as it always does. I elected to stay up and watch the old Flash Gordon movie with Wayne and Ryan (yup... shoot me now for bad taste: but I'd only had 3 hours sleep in the last 30 so I blame exhaustion making me deluded.) Anyway after the persistant munchies monster nagging me for over an hour I spooned out a small bowl of canned fruit and made myself a diet hot chocolate. And then went and spoiled it by nibbling on sweet coated peanuts. What I should have done was just go to bed!!!

The rest of the coated peanuts went in the bin this morning. Evil things.

Night time munchies are going to be my biggest challenge. I'm going to have to figure some better stategies for dealing with them.

It's march 4th here and technically I started on my road back to a healthy weight about ten days ago. I don't know what my starting weight was. Frankly I was too afraid to climb up on the scales. I know last year around August I weighed in at about 74 kilos and i know I've added to that since. Last night at work i finally decided to see what the weigh chair said and while everyone else was occupied I slipped into the bathroom and jumped on. The reading was 76.5. Okay, 2.5 kilos in 7 months isn't devastating, particularly considering the amount of junk I've eaten (mainly at night time before bed). But still a little depressing after remembering how proud i was to get down to 60 just four years ago.

There is also the thought that given how much walking I've done in the past ten days i must have lost something before that weigh in.

So this is what I've got to work with and this is the goal:

Age: 41
Height: 156cm
CW: 76.5
GW: 55
Amount to loose: 21.5

Time frame: I believe I can realistically reach my goal weight by next Christmas so that will be my target date.

Mini Goal: March 30th Wt: 75kg

Strategies:
Cola: Coca cola has crept into my life. From not touching the stuff I now drink up to three cans a day. I believe this is related to working night shifts as I constantly feel jet lagged adjusted my day night cycle twice a week. Coke helps to wake me up and keep me going. i don't think it's ralistic to cold turkey this so I'm going to start by cutting down to one can a day with a veiw to weaning off altogether. I crave it most with my evening meal so this is going to be my danger time.

Snackfood/ chocolate: Same story as coke. Though i'm not a huge snacker in some respects (a block of chocky will last me a week and I've never eaten a full marsbar in my life), chips, on the other hand, are my mor-ish tempters. I will look to substitue them for rice crackers which i like almost as much.

Fruit/ veg: Increase intake. Nuff said.

Water: Drink it before anything else and keep a bottle of it at hand at all times to stave of thirst that may send me hunting around for a can of coke.

Excercise: I've started a walking habit consisting of an hours walk in which i cover six kilometres at a fairly brisk pace. As an added incentive I've recently read Cesar's (the Dog Whisperer from the tv show) book on dog training his way which strongly advocates that excercise in the form of walking is the best way to convince your dog that you are the pack leader which he believes will cure most behavioural problems and make your dog a much more contented animal. Whoop whoop... I get thinner and my dogs become better balanced. Not that my dogs have any really troublesome behavioural problems. But I'm sure they won't complain. My dogs are both schipperkes, by the way. A 3 year old boy named Loki and a 2 year old girl Ember.

I have been aiming to walk my six km route at least five times a week and so far in the last ten days I've only missed two due to the impossibilty of finding a free hour between work and mother commitments so I think I'm doing pretty well so far.