Next goal almost met

Today is Willow's birthday, she is the big 5. Makes me a little sad to be honest, she starts school at the start of Feb after the summer holidays finish. Feels like she is too grown up!

My challenge to myself was to be at my next mini-goal of 78kg by her birthday. Today I weighed in at 78.1kg so pretty much made it. Not bad considering we had her birthday party on Saturday and I couldn't help but eat some of the food. But we had sooooo much left over, which I promptly gave to the neighbours who have 8 kids living there at the moment. They were very grateful but I was more so, not having the temptation in the house.

So next goal? 75 I guess, which for the longest time was my end goal. But now that I'm this close that is being adjusted. I have a wedding on the 15 March, so being 75kg by then would be awesome.  It seems like eight weeks should be plenty of time to lose 3kg, but its hard to really stay true to plan all the time now. Too long on the weight reduction train! But yeh, that should be completely doable. 75kg here I come.

This is my beautiful girl in her fairy outfit, and the cake I made for her. It was a fairy princess themed party although Oakley went as a superhero as he was the only boy LOL. I dressed up too but silly me I didn't get a photo!

Xmas goals met, what's next?

So my two goals I wanted to achieve before Christmas was to be in the overweight BMI category and to reach the 70s decade. Friday I made it to BMI less than 30 wo0t, and today the scales told me 79.8kg yefuckingha! Which means all the weight I gained earlier in the year has gone, and I'm within 5kg of goal.

But now that its this close, I know my goal will change, if I get there that is.

To date I've lost 116lb or 52kg. I've lost a person. I've lost more than both my kids combined, and probably my kids plus four cats LOL. I've lost 40% of my body weight, I'm almost half the person I use to be. Yet I still feel so damn fat. Well, I guess I am LOL.

So next goal?

I'm not sure, mini-goals are getting hard. 78kg by Willow's birthday (14 Jan), that would be 55kg lost.

75kg before I return to work? I know it should be easily doable, but god it feels so far away at the same time.

So lets just focus on 78kg.

The numbers they are a tumbling

So I just finished a 90day challenge, it was just what I needed to get myself motivated. Today is the 1 Oct, so in the past twelve weeks I have lost 10.3kg (22.7lb). Even more so I am finding myself less focused on the numbers and more on the health. When I've jumped on the scales its just been as a nod to see that yes I'm doing the right thing.

I think I'm really building some better habits, but who can say if they will stick? Food will always be my weakness, I love to eat. But I am finding myself reaching for fruit over cookies, stopping and thinking actually no I'm bored not hungry.

I am 84.7kg, 79kg was the weight I got down to last year before going to maintenance. So my goal is to get under 80kg and reassess. As long as the motivation holds I'll try to keep losing, really what I want is 72kg.

I have two weeks of teaching left for the year, yay!

I have no idea what week I'm on!

Just a little check in, I've lost a little over 8kg (17.6lb) putting me so close to my next mini goal of 10kg reduction. Its down to that really slow loss though, I'm not at dedicated but its because I have to be realistic with life (lots of social engagements, including celebrating 17years with my wonderful husband!). Current goal is to lose these 2kg by the end of October.

Wish me luck!

Nine weeks (of weight loss, not pregnancy!)

Weighed in today, 17lb (7.7kg) reduction in nine weeks. Pretty happy although I cannot shake this fear that any minute now my motivation will disappear again and I'll be back to stuffing down a donut without even tasting it.

I guess that is one of the problems with losing a substantial amount of weight, regaining, relosing, gaining yoyoyoyo. I always feel like I'm one bad day away from losing control and going fuck it binge time.

I'm super tired, I've been working on my teaching portfolio all evening. Life seems to be really annoying sometimes!  LOL. I mean, I'll have a week where I have very little to do and then suddenly I'm crazy busy. Can't we just have a nice even level of stress!

But I wanted to write something here, trying to stay connected and have a record of this crazy journey we're on.

Motivation holding

Its almost been a month "on the bandwagon" and I am still feeling positive. My loss at my last weigh was .3kg, less than I hoped for but I'm staying positive. Part of me puts it down to TOM because I ate really well. But also I realise that after so long of weight battling WL is never predicatable as much as I'd love it to be. I could be perfect all week and gain, only to lose next week. So I'm taking it in my stride and looking forward to getting on the scales on Monday.

What I'm not looking forward to quite as much is a kids birthday party tomorrow with lots of tempting birthday food, plus on Monday a morning tea shout. But I thinking knowing that I weigh on Monday helps me to stay a bit more on to it when it comes to the weekend when I'd normally lax.

I've returned to 3fc, trying to be active on the forums again. I found it motivating to be part of a WL network like that, but it can be time consuming as well.

Two posts in two days!

I just wanted to write here because I'm super proud. I lost another 1.6kg this week (3.5lb) bringing my total loss to 5.1kg and 5% bw reduction. My next mini goal is 10%bw reduction which is 4.9kg away. I'd like to hit it by the end of August but that might be a little unrealistic, I'm certainly well on track though.

I have a busy day today, seven hours of teaching plus I need to do about three hours of marking, so it will be a taking work home kinda day. Plus I need to work on my teaching porfolio, I keep putting it off because I don't have a meeting with my supervisor until mid-August. But I know From mid-Aug until end of semester I will be so chaotically flat out I really do need to get my butt moving on my studies.

Will the world stop turning just for a day

Don't you hate that feeling of playing catch up? Some days everything seems to go wrong because you just don't have enough time to stop and correct something, catch your breath before moving on.

This is me at the moment, today in particular was insane until about 30min ago when I realised I had actually got to the top of Mount ToDo. Its a nice view, but I suspect I won't be here long!

Life for me is full on, not only family and work, now I am studying again (post grad studies in tertiary teaching) as well plus trying to really stay on focus weight wise. Exercise has been what I gave up, but its temporary and I'm ok with that. Focus is on diet and so far its working. Of course in saying that I'm only starting week 3 of being focused again so yanno how this ride goes.

Still, feel confident that by the end of semester I'll be back down to my adult lowest and fingers crossed this time I can maintain. I just need to watch my stress and boredom levels.  My life seems to be one or the other, too much or zero free time.

It appears blog land is empty, all my old usuals have disappeared/privatised. I don't have time to look for new friends though, but hopefully I'll keep writing, it helps with accountability when I write here.

Kismet?

I just got an email from my nutritionist that I stopped seeing last year.  Is it fate that I get the message when I've decided to return to weight loss?  Am I ready to go back or will I be throwing money away?  Today I feel determined, on the weekend it all goes to hell.  And the scales, well I managed to put on 0.1kg.

My jeans are tight, this isn't cool.  I refuse to buy larger sizes.  I am going to lose more weight because dammit I've done it before I can do it again.

Dragging myself back on the wagon

So its been about seven months since I last posted anything.  At that stage I had decided I had finished my weight loss journey and was in maintenance mode.  Well, that didn't go so well, maintenance became "oh well its Christmas... oh well we're on holiday... oh man what a hard semester".  And the result?  Today I'm 90.6kg (up 11.6kg from my lowest) .  Yep, ninety point six kilograms.  That's 199.7lb, I'm only just under the 200lb mark.  God that is depressing.

I knew I had put on weight, my clothes were a bit tighter but I thought it was about 5kg and holding.  Then I saw a photo and went omg look at my face.  So I dug out my scales which I had hidden away and watched that number flash at me.

So now here I am, trying to shed the kg and the bad habits I have fallen back into.  But my god it is so hard.  Weight loss fucking sucks.  Seriously.

Anyway, went to the gym and really enjoyed it.  I hadn't been in six weeks!  It really has been the semester from hell for me, and the last half was just so insane I couldn't make time in my day to exercise.  Up at 6:30 to get kids and myself ready for work, then home at 5:30 to organise dinner. Then around 2hr of marking every evening after the kids went to bed.  But we have been hiking with the kids in the backpacks most weekend, so a little bit of exercise.  Hopefully next semester is calmer, it generally is the easier semester teaching load wise.

My current plan is no plan -LOL-  I have a vague idea that I should be able to go to the gym 3x a week for the next four weeks until classes start back.  Once uni is back, first half of semester I should be hitting the gym 2x if I'm organised enough and do work at home.  Because I exercise during work hours when uni is on, Wed and Thu I don't have classes until 10 so I can get a work out in before hand.  But at the price of skipping admin/marking work so I'll have to take it home.  Second half of semester all bets are off, that's when insanity kicks in with so much grading.

Food wise, I've started drinking green monster smoothies for breakfast which I'm loving.  Then its just watching the cals the rest of the day and trying to not eat anything after dinner.  Avoiding sweets, really that is my killer.  Tomorrow I have to make nomnom with my daughter for a party.  We're making cookies and cream fudge, and probably some cookies.  The kids are going to their first disco on Friday and spending the night at my sisters place for the first time.  So hubs and I can go out for dinner and movies.  So yeh, resisting the temptation of the fudge?  Picking better option at a restaurant and not eating popcorn.  This is my life..  wish me luck

Hi ya'll

Well here we are halfway though November, wow the year is almost done.  And today is my little man's birthday, he is the big 2.

I haven't been around much, even though I'm on break I just found I've not had much time.  Its amazing how busy life can keep you.  But on the weight front I'm maintaining, things have been good. I've found a semi-balance point where my weight seems stable and I'm mostly happy.  I say mostly because the last two weeks I've eaten badly, one of the things I hate about this time of year is the abundance of junk.  There are always get togethers, we have conferences or training sessions with too much yummy food, last Friday I was given an award (for being so damn awesome) and of course it involved an abundance of bad food and because it was in my honour the people organising were a little pushy about me going and eating and making sure I had a lot.  I actually left a lot of my plate and felt a bit bad about wasting the food but my hips thanked me, Xmas parties are starting too so that means I need to invoke a bit more self control.

As always its so easy to make excuses as well, last week I had the kids home for the whole week so I didn't get any exercise in, I used them as my excuse as to why I couldn't go to the gym or for a swim.  But really I should have at least gone walking (we did a few short walks but at toddler pace so not much really).  The previous week my sister was in hospital due to an accident and with going up to see her or waiting around for family members to show up I only made it for a couple swims.  I've not been to the gym proper for three weeks now. But this week I was craving it, Sunday we went for a walk with the kids in the back pack which was good and I swam a couple times.  I wanted to go to the gym today but forgot that I had booked in to give blood - DH and I both give blood together its like a weird date LOL

My plan is to work out at least four times a week for the rest of the summer, except over Xmas/NYs when the kids are home.  The other thing I need to commit to is getting back in to healthier snacks and not eating after dinner.  Those back sliding habits will be back-side making habits!

Pics pics pics

Today some of my students wanted to take a photo with me, as this is the last time I will teach them.  Its interesting to compare this photo to the photo taken in 2009 also in the lab.

Then there is this photo in 2010, again I ballooned and never noticed I got that big.  You can barely see my eyes! Compare to one taken last week in a dress my sister bought for me to celebrate weight loss.

And because I can't help but show my cuties, here is Oakley going for his first rollerskate on Sunday.  He was all about just let me go Mum I wanna do it by myself.

Peek-a-boo

Thought I'd better throw some words here.  I'm super busy as semester draws to an end, I have one more week of teaching and then we're in to exams, so as of next Friday life slows down yay.  I have graduation for our students on Wednesday and I'm quite excited about it because this year I'm not going to be ducking the cameras :)  The following Wednesday I have to chair a conference and that is pretty much the last thing in my diary for things I have to be places I have to be.  Such an awesome feeling to know that its almost summer, almost holidays woohoo.

Weight wise I'm in maintenance, I've done enough.  A year and a half and I just do not have the drive anymore, and I'm ok with it.  I'll post a pic of moi soon, but until then here is my fav quote at the moment, had to make it in to a pic to inspire.

Hope everyone is good, I'll do the rounds in a week or so.

Mucho love
jitters aka wiggly aka brydget

My name is Jitterfish, and I'm a sweet-a-holic

Its so obvious really, but to be honest I've only just realised I truly am an addict when it comes to sugary treats. I cannot have just one, and if I know they are there I cannot control myself.  I always joked about being an addict, but its with a big ol "duh" and a little bit of liberation that I realised that I am an addict.

Now just how to deal with it.  For one not having it in the house. I now know that even when I get to goal this is going to have to be the norm, if I have the junk I'll eat the junk.  Lucky for me I'm not to fussed for crisps, I've very much a sweet tooth. It means the kids have to have very boring cookies that I don't really like, not a bad thing I guess. This will get more challenging as they get older though!

Guess I'm lucky I don't like alcohol as well, bright side right?

A mixed victory

Fridays are my hardest day of the week, its the day I'm always off plan and eat crap.  Today was no different.  It started with a cookie eaten quickly with guilt, and of course not actually enjoyed so why why why did I do it?  Then I felt good about myself when at music I only had a cup of tea and didn't partake in the choccie bikkies on offer.  Lunch was good and then the danger zone, Friday afternoon.  I eyed up the kids cookies and told myself no, and then my eyes spied chocolate buttons.  There was a moment of "aw shit" LOL. My sister had come over on Wed and made cakes with the kids and I thought she had used all the chocolate up or taken it home.  I lasted about two hours before a crinkle could be heard from the pantry as I opened the packet and ate some buttons, then some peanut butter.  Because nom nom choccie and pb!

Then as I contemplated "should I eat them all at once to get rid of them" (y'all know that idea, eat it so its not in the house!) it occurred to me that if I didn't want them in the house to avoid temptation then it was so frickin simple, get rid of them.  I poured them in to the sink, ran the hot water and watched (with almost tears) the chocolate melt away.

So I feel a little proud and a little disappointed.  I wish I had the will power to have chocolate in the house, chocolate buttons are great mini-treats for the kids.  But I just have no control.

Found the map again, we're back on track

I've decided to keep up the weight loss :)  I thought about it and figured yanno my hormones have been messed up for 4+ years now, what is another couple of months? In all honesty I think I was just looking for an excuse to stop, and an excuse to eat cake and crap!

As you ladies know it can be such a tiresome commitment. Sometimes weight loss becomes all consuming, and last week it was like that.  Partly I think because I had my period which is a horrid time for me, and all I wanted to do was feel sorry for myself and eat as much crap as I could get my hands on. I hate those days when it seems like you can't stop thinking about food, eating a meal and all ready you're thinking about when you can next eat and what you're gonna have and are there any cookies in the house.

I'm trying to decide if I'm going to go to the gym soon or not.  I had planned on getting in a cardio session today even though I've already been swimming this morning.  But I'm going out to dinner tonight FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 3.5YEARS WITHOUT KIDS.  Yeh, first time in that long, amazing right?! My sister is baby-sitting and Neil and I are going out for Turkish.  Then next weekend we're going out again because its out 16yr anniversary and Debbie (who looks after my kids during the day) is going to look after them for us.  So exciting.  Err... I digressed... yeh so to gym or not?  My muscles are kind of tired from swimming (current pool so its harder than normal swimming) but I'm pretty sure I'll eat more than I should tonight so I'm thinking trade off.

Plus, if I stay home I have to keep marking -LOL-  I've only got about 15 essays to go, amazing really I've churned through them this break, I'm actually going to be done before semester starts back on Monday which means I will have a week before my next big lot of marking arrives which makes a nice change.  My students have on the whole written really well this time around, my overall average is higher than it should be if I care about the curve but I don't - I believe that a student should get the grade they earn.

So time to go tie on my trainers then.  After a quick round of blog catching up that is.

A journey pause?

I might be stopping trying to lose any more weight.  My Dr has suggested I stop trying and let my body just maintain for the next six months or so due to period and messed up hormone issues.  I'm not sure how I feel about this.  On the one hand I want to listen to Dr advice.  On the other its just a possibility that the weight loss has messed with my hormones and that giving my body a good break will help it reset.  Part of me wants to take advice purely because I'm actually really sick of trying to lose weight.  But I'm soooo close.  If I could stay on plan I could slog it out and be at goal in two months.  What's another two months right?

Gah.

I was on some hormone pills to try and sort things (really irregular and painful periods) and that didn't help.  And when I lost 10cm around my booty and some around my arms that is an oestrogen storage site so it is all linked.

Its so easy to use this as an excuse and just say ok I'm done.  But what if I can't maintain and I gain?  Honestly I'm scared I'm going to gain all my weight back because while I've made some life style changes I still have no will power around sweets etc.  If there is chocolate in the house it is in my mouth!  So if I haven't made permanent sticking changes what will happen?

A loss

I lost 1.5kg (3.3lb) of fat these past three weeks.  I almost said "only", but then remembered this pic.  1lb of fat, ewwww-ick.

I realised that I had been eating too much rice, I was suppose to be having 80g COOKED as a serve, but I was doing 80g RAW.  ooooops.  It equated to around 2-3x the amount, and given that I was eating that twice a day um yeah.  oopppps -LOL-

Jake was ok about the loss, but we had expected 2.1kg so there was a slight look of disappointed parent about him.  I will have that as the loss for the next weigh in.  In fact I'm hoping for more, I'm aiming for 3kg to make up for the not quite hitting goal last time.

Within 10kg to goal, man I've been so close for so long. If feels like forever. But I'll get there.  And super exciting Neil and I celebrate our 16 year anniversary in three weeks and at that time I'll weigh the same as what I weighed when I met him.  Booyah!

Back to essays.  Argghhhh.  The next six weeks are going to be a nightmare of grading.  And I will not use food as a comforter/mindless eating/distraction.  I've made a schedule to ensure I get exercise in and I even have house cleaning on there are distraction LOL.

Procrastination station

I should be reading essays but I can't face another one.  The topic is fun, resurrecting the woolly mammoth, could we do it and if we did what would the impact be.  But I just read a dreadful one so I need a break.  I am resisting the urge to snack, dammit I hate this time of year!  I have six week ahead of me of marking.  Essays will take me about three weeks and then right about the time I finish then the next round comes in (reports this time), plus I have my weekly marking that never ends.

I had a stressful day, that combined with the marking really makes me want chocolate.  I'm fighting every day at the moment to stay on plan, sometimes I win, sometimes I don't.  I see Jake on Friday and I'm a little nervous.  I'm not weighing myself so I don't know if I've lost, I fear the reprisal if I haven't -LOL-

Ok, back to the next one...

All the small things

This morning I ran in to an old friend, I've not seen her in around 5 or 6 years or about my peak fat period.  She didn't recognise me!  She was so blown away she couldn't stop saying how good I looked, what an inspiration etc etc.  Yep, pretty damn stoked with that reaction!

My weight doesn't seem to have dropped, I'm trying not to obsess on that.  Pretty sure TOM is about to show (I'm not exactly regular alas), and I've been mostly good.  There have been a couple of cookies though that made it past my will power barrier.  But I did stand up to chocolate cake and candy on Monday which made me feel pretty awesome.

I have to go buy new underwear, size small.  Say whaaaaat!  Yep, I bought medium just a couple weeks ago, bought a few pairs, and now they are slowly slipping down, yanno that feeling!  Not too bad if I'm wearing pants, but I wear a lot of skirts for work so really not comfy.  And when exercising really bad.

Arms are tired today from working my guns on the rower.  Inspired by watching Olympic re-runs.