That was the week that was

It began with a weekend of not much, though I did manage to take David bowling on Sunday morning, we won't talk about my score, I'm getting worse instead of better.

Monday was supposed to be my first day to myself with nothing in particular to do in ages, instead I ended up with Caitlin at home with a lurgi. I spent the day sorting out my bead collection into some new storage containers, fun but of dubious importance in the hierarchy of stuff that needed to be done. Monday afternoon I went for a parent/teacher interview with Tom's teacher (who happens to be someone I've known since we were kids), she gave him glowing reports in pretty much everything except for his handwriting - which leaves much to be desired. Ah well, he's left-handed and barely ever picks up a pencil voluntarily, it'll all come good eventually.

Tuesday saw Caitlin still off school so she got dragged off to Weight Watchers - I weighed in the same as the week before, I'm really struggling to get back on track with both food and fitness.

Wednesday I was at the school all day, craft group followed by canteen duty. Then dad came over for dinner. By the time we'd finished eating the world was spinning and I was burning up, Caitlin had shared her lurgi with me.

Thursday I skipped beadmaking class with the intention of staying in bed until I had to get up to go pick the kids up from school. Then I got a phone call at 9:00am from the previous P&C president to ask if she could come over and drop off all the files and stuff I'd be needing to do the job. So there went my snoozing plan. Once she'd gone I plonked myself on the lounge and watched Dr Who dvds for the rest of the day. I was feeling almost human by the time I went to pick up the kids. Then I had to take Tom to soccer training. And he wanted me to stay. So I stood around at the oval in the rapidly cooling evening air for an hour. And came home with my lurgi nicely recharged.

I decided it wouldn't be a particularly good idea for me to cook birthday dinner for Adam's mum what with the being diseased and all so we took her out for chinese instead. She's had another bad fall, this one's left her with a probably cracked rib and a doozer of a bruise on her forehead. She seems to have lost weight again too and Adam's pretty sure she's drinking a bottle of wine a day (which, given that her liver is dodgy, is actually much worse even than it sounds). I find it enormously difficult to deal with having her around and I feel guilty that I'm not more loving towards her, but I don't know what to do or say. I feel like I'm failing both her and Adam in this.

Today I was at the school till almost midday working on Uniform Pool stuff, I'm so looking forward to offloading the last of my responsibilities there and going back to being just one of the normal volunteers who can bugger off when they've had enough for the day rather than being obliged to stick around to the bitter end each week.

Mum got back from her month long trip to Europe this morning, she spent a few hours with my brother's and sister's families before catching a train out our way. I picked her up from the station and we had a quick cuppa before going to get the kids. When Tom saw her in the playground he was so overjoyed that he burst into tears! Which, OMG so gorgeous :) Mum was pretty blown away by that I think. He said to me tonight as I tucked him into bed "Mum, you know sometimes people get so happy that they cry?" I asked, "Is that what happened when you saw Grandma today?" "Yeah."

My day finished off in theme with the rest of the week when I got a call from Tom's soccer team manager to say he was stuck at work and wasn't going to make it home in time to go and pick up the team's new shirts, which they need for their first game tomorrow, from the clubhouse. It was supposed to be a matter of walking in there, telling them which team I was from and grabbing the pre-packed box of shirts. HAH! Nothing so simple, when I got there 3 other mini's team (under 8's and younger) parents were waiting twiddling their thumbs watching as other team's shirts were collected in a matter of 30 seconds while people made frantic phone calls to try and find someone who could interpret the labeling on the mini's boxes. The labels didn't match the team names you see...

Half an hour later I finally got my box. I headed home hoping that the dinner I'd left coking in the oven would still be edible. It was, phew! Proscuitto wrapped pork fillets baked with red onion and apple apparently doesn't mind being cooked for 15 minutes longer than it should have been.

I'm still feeling a bit worse for wear and I'm really hoping Adam gets home in time tomorrow morning from his sleepover at Crash's place to take Tom to his soccer game. But I won't be holding my breath.

There was something I was going to tell you....

...now, what was it?

Errr, let's see.

• I gained 0.2kg this week.
• Our iinet connection was installed today against all odds, which, YAY! But in the process the phone socket in the kitchen for our Optus cable land-line was sacrificed so now the answering machine/base station is plugged in to the socket in the study downstairs and we're using one of our secondary handsets instead.
• I sold two necklaces last week, so there's another 2008 goal ticked off.
• David and I went bowling on Sunday morning, my scores were 96 and 69, the symmetry is nice at any rate.
• I washed the curtains that hang right next to the dining table. They were filthy. The washing made very little difference *sigh*
• Caitlin has announced that she wants to go horse-riding. My subtle campaign of pushing horse books over fairy books has paid off. Now all I need to do is get myself down to riding weight so I can go with her.
• Tomorrow is photo day at school. I should probably get Adam to clean their shoes. I wonder if I've got clean decent looking uniforms for them all....

Um, yep, that's about it.

Me and Dave day

I did something today that I used to think I never would. I let David stay home from the school swimming carnival even though he was in perfect health and hadn't actually asked to not go. In past years I've been well aware that Dave didn't really want to go. He was certainly never going to do anything so radical as enter an event, or, you know, get into the water or anything like that. But I was never much bothered by the idea of him sitting around all day doing nothing, not even able to talk to his friends (given that they're not in the same sporting house and the kids have to sit in their house groups), any suffering on his part was well worth not having him underfoot unnecessarily. Then last night I found myself saying to him, that if he'd rather not go he had the option of spending the day with me instead. Like he was ever going to choose to go to the carnival - HA!

I suppose it's something to do with him having turned into quite a pleasant human being whose company I rather enjoy. Who'd've thunk it? That and I'm a bit over the whole come along and cheer for your team/school spirit thing.

So he came with me to Weight Watchers (I lost 0.3kg, still heading in the right direction), we wandered in JB HiFi for a bit (he pointed out all the cool games he'd really like for his birthday and I bought a Whitlams CD), we had some lunch (KFC for him, beef pho for me) and went to Games Workshop and retrieved the paints he'd accidentally left there on the weekend.

Then we went clothes shopping. I made him try on a whole bunch of pants and tops and we found one shirt, one hoodie and one pair of pants in Myer that were ok but it was jeans we were really after for him and nothing in the Myer or Target kid's sections came even close to fitting. So we headed off to Just Jeans where he eventually ended up finding a pair of mens jeans that fit nicely...if you didn't pay too much attention to the 30cm of excess length in the legs. Then in a fit of being realistic I decided that taking them to a tailor to be altered was a really good idea, which we duly did and they were done within the hour which meant we could pick them up before we came home. Much better than having them sit in my sewing to do pile for 6 months. While waiting for the alterations I dragged Dave along to Target so I could try on some jeans myself, I've had one pair self-destruct and another looking like they're on their last legs this last week. Got 2 pairs and they were 20% off too which was nice. Next was a quick grocery shop, dump a bunch of stuff in the car and then dash back to pick up the altered jeans.

After all of which we had no time left to go home and had to head to the school to pick up Caitlin and Tom. I think maybe Dave was regretting foregoing the carnival by the end of the day. At least he got some exercise, we must have done the length of Hornsby Westfield multiple times - I can certainly feel the effects of all the walking tonight!

Caitlin was over the moon, she'd come 1st in the 25m kickboard race and 3rd in the 25m freestyle race, she reckons she'd have done better if she hadn't forgotten to take her goggles with her. The first ever sporting win of any kind for any of my kids :) Perhaps she'll consider entering some of the 50m races next year.

The afternoon consisted of prodding kids to do homework, taxiing Caitlin to dance classes and cooking steak and kidney. All of which went surprisingly well. The homework all got done without any yelling on my part, I fitted dinner preparation neatly in between car trips with Caitlin and my dad came to dinner and was suitably appreciative, none of the kids were rude about the meal (though Tom was the only one who ate everything) and there was just enough left over for me to stick a couple of lunch-sized serves in the freezer for later.

And now I am tired. Sleep sounds good....

Still doing the Weight Watchers thing

It just went a little haywire there for a while. For most of February I'd been feeling really down, overwhelmed by the smallest things, unable to get going on anything much, grouchy, stressed, wanting to spend my days curled up in a corner in denial of reality and generally pretty unpleasant to be with. Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, in the last few days the grey clouds have lifted and life is good again. It's weird but it's good, I wish I knew why 'cause then I might be able to do something if things go bad again.

I was trying on clothes this morning and found myself grinning at my own reflection and thinking "you're ok girl, we can do this" (apparently I became plural for the purposes of self pep-talking), which may have something to do with recording a 1.1kg loss this morning after several weeks of gains due to out of control binging, or maybe it's just because I suddenly feel like me again. So here I am almost back where I started and very oddly feeling pretty damn good about myself, my body as it is here and now, and life in general.

I also had one of the people I weighed tell me she loves coming to the meeting because I and the other staff are so wonderful - that helps with the ego boosting too ;-)

(If you're wondering what happened to my weight loss ticker, I got sick of looking at it every time I blogged so I stuck it right down the bottom, it's still there and I'm still updating it but you have to scroll all the way down to see it.)

Weigh-in week 18

Much to my astonishment I stayed the same this week, I was sure the indulgences of Saturday night would show up on the scales but all the frantic cleaning, cooking and general running around getting ready for the party must have compensated nicely for the beer, mango daiquiris and margaritas ;-)

Tonight was our last session at the anxiety clinic with Dave, I've been very pleased with what we've learned and achieved in the last 10 weeks, there's still a long way to go but I do feel better equipped to deal with things now and more importantly Dave seems to have a good understanding of the tools he can use to work through stuff himself and to accept that there's some point in continuing to do the exercises we've been doing. We've agreed to work on his writing over the holidays beginning with a daily blog post so I'll probably be blogging daily too - won't that be fun for everyone!

Tomorrow is party day at the kids' school and I'm immensely grateful that the teachers seem to have decided that the kindy kids will be just fine joining in on the sausage sizzle with the rest of the school and I therefore don't have to spend my day producing food or setting up and decorating for their party the way I did for Dave and Cait when they were in kindy. I think I'll spend some time wrapping presents instead. Or possibly sleeping, I'm still in deficit from the weekend :P

Tinsel take-over & weigh-in week 17

I'm down 0.2kg this week for a total of 8.1kg. If I maintain over Christmas I'll be satisfied but I'm still going to try and lose at least 1kg over the next 2 weeks.

I found the tinsel and lights for the tree but the Advent calendar is still AWOL. The kids are quite pleased with their decorating endeavours and I am refraining from re-doing the job - not least because I simply can't be bothered :P OMG the TINSEL!!!!


Alright, I confess, I may tweak a couple of things....

Weigh-in week 16

I lost 0.1kg over the last two weeks, which I am insanely happy about. Last week I sort of stepped on the scales and then bounced off again before I could really read what they said, but not before glimpsing the wrong digit in the tens spot - YIKES! - which would have been a gain of nearly 3 kg. So, I must have lost that again in the last week and um, yeah, pleased I am :D Total is now 7.9kg gone, I want that 10kg loss back before Christmas.

Sleepy

Hello. It's Tuesday. I usually weigh in on Tuesdays. But not today. I decided I didn't need to know :P

I cooked beef stroganoff for dinner. I cheated and used a packet recipe base. It was good.

I am tired.

Which would account for the short sentences.

*snores*

Weigh-in week 14

I copped a gain of 0.7kg this week, total loss back to 7.8kg. Things should be better in the next couple of weeks with Adam not traveling so I should be back to the 10kg mark pretty quickly. There's no way I'm reaching my 15kg mini-goal by Christmas though, ah well, it's not a race and I'll get there eventually.

Weigh-in week 13

I managed a loss of 0.9kg this week which brings me back to 8.5kg lost. I'm going to stick with Core for a couple more weeks at least, I'm feeling much more relaxed about my eating so it seems to be working quite well for now.

I was at the school for half the day today. I'm getting a bit sick of that place :P I'm there most of tomorrow too but Thursday I get all to myself and I'm planning on doing some Christmas shopping so I've been working on my gift list, it's hard! I need inspiration. Anyone got a brilliant idea or two for an autistic 9 year old boy? My nephew has his birthday in December as well so I need double pressie ideas. The only things I know for certain he likes are Bananas in Pyjamas and Adam's little red convertible, when he comes to our place he collects the Bananas dvd from the bookshelf and, when thwarted by his mum in his attempts to watch TV, heads downstairs to the garage and sits in the car. Maybe he'd like a car racing type game. Hot Wheels track or something.

Thinking differently & Weigh-in week 12

There's this thing that happens when every thought you have about food is about restrictions, when there's a moral overtone to decision making, when all the time the idea of failure is lurking in the back of your mind. It drives you slightly nuts.

I was starting to feel like I was fighting with myself all the time, it was all about what I shouldn't do, what I couldn't have, what I ought to avoid. Switching to Core has helped a little, much less of the counting and calculating and having to assess whether I could "afford" to eat even something that I knew to be perfectly healthy. It wasn't enough though, I could still feel the rebellious me waiting for a moment of inattention, poised to spring into the driver's seat and take me careering down the path of binge eating, takeaway dinners and a total lack of vegetables. This past week I was VERY distracted apparently and it has been less than wonderful on the food front. The scales at weigh-in this morning showed just how bad, 2.5kg gained. Bugger. That brings my total back to 7.6kg lost. Plus, I felt really crummy.

So I've been mulling it over and I think I'm beginning to find my way towards a solution, these aren't new ideas, but this is the first time I've felt the truth of them rather than just giving a token nod and not actually taking them on board.

I need to turn it round so that I'm concentrating on positives instead of negatives. I need to convince myself that there is no forbidden food, that I can in fact have whatever I want, whenever I want on one proviso - the food I eat must be feeding hunger and not just emotion.

I want to get to the point where I only eat food that will make me feel good for longer than the time it rests in my mouth. It must be the food my body really needs. Otherwise there's nothing to be gained by eating it. I need to be engaged in a process of finding the right answer to my body's and my mind's demands for comfort.

There are questions to ask myself before eating: Am I actually hungry? Will this food satisfy this hunger? Will I feel good 20 minutes after eating this food? If I can answer yes to all of those questions then well and good. If the answer to any of those question is no then the next step is to work out what's really driving the urge to eat and find other ways to satisfy that drive, because if hunger isn't the problem, food won't fix it and I just end up with something else to feel miserable and stressed about (or possibly even physically sick, which NEVER helps).

In the spirit of baby steps, this week I plan on concentrating on the first question, "Am I actually hungry?", and see if I can't get my head around the whole listen to your hunger signals thing. It's something I haven't been willing to tackle up to now, so I'm feeling quite excited to discover that I'm ready to go there.

I want to gain health, fitness, energy and enjoyment of physical activity for its own sake. I want contentment, peace and to have enough emotional reserves to be the mother, wife, daughter and friend I aspire to be. I want to spend more time feeling capable and less time floundering around barely scraping through the day.

And I'm going to have those things.

Weigh-in week 11

For the last few days of this week I'd been trying to not get too excited as each morning my wildly inaccurate scales hinted to me that good things were happening. Well, I needn't have worried, I've lost 3.5kg for a total of 10.1kg :D Switching to Core seems to have been a good plan!

My focus for this week is to get some regular exercise happening, I'm aiming for three 30 minute walks in the week and sit-ups every day.

Weigh-in week 10

I gained 1.9kg this week, but at least half of that was the yummy birthday breakfast cooked for me by Adam. I've switched to core and I'm happy to say I had no trouble what-so-ever staying on track today. I ate well, drank about 2.5L of water and walked from one end to the other of Hornsby Westfield several times over. Feels like a good start to the week.

More birthday reports tomorrow, I need to take a photo or two!

Weigh-in week 9

What happened to week 8? Well that would be the one where everything had gone pear-shaped and I gained 1.6kg taking me back to 7.5kg lost. I was convinced I was heading for another gain this week but when I hopped on the scales at my meeting this morning I was astonished to see a LOSS of 1kg with a total loss of 8.5kg.

Weird. Nice! but weird.

Weigh-in week 7

Woot! Lost another 0.9kg :) Brings me to 9.1kg gone, dare I hope to reach the 10kg mark next week?

Adam's car is probably in the shop till Friday. Poor boy, having to do without his little red toy. He wanted to go visit the leather supplies shop and sailing bookshop place sometime this week, I might take pity on him and drag the kids around to do some daddy shopping one day. It's not like we have anything else planned and I'd quite like to see the leather place.

I went way over my 4 hours on the computer today, and I'm up well past 10pm too. Hmph, it's holidays :P I'll behave the rest of the week, need to make sure I'm out of the house for the larger part of the day - better plan some stuff to do with the kids.

Breakfast
lg skinny cappuccino - 2pts
Lunch
Tom yum soup with mushrooms, shallots and tuna - 4pts
Dinner
grilled barramundi, greek salad and 2 chips (stolen from Adam's plate) - 7pts
mango gelato - 1.5pts
Snacks
muesli, yoghurt and maple syrup - 5pts
milk for tea - 0.5pts
banana and apple - 2pts
2 Allens snakes - 1.5pts
Water
~2L
Exercise
Nil
Total points for the day: 23.5

Weigh-in week 6

This morning I decided that this was the week to switch to summer shoes AND to eat breakfast before going to my meeting. So with sandals on my feet and an egg and bacon muffin and cuppa tea in my tummy off I went. AND I WEIGHED IN 2.5KG DOWN!!

*ahem*

Total lost is now 8.2kg and my jeans keep falling down :)

Weigh-in week 5

A loss of 0.2kg today for a total of 5.7kg gone, bloody miraculous I call it considering how the second half of last week went. I'm going to go back to tracking here in blog-land I'm afraid, seems work best with the keeping me honest thing. I shall endeavor to include witty anecdotes (or something anyway) with every post in order to break the monotony.

WWC Wk3 Day1&2
The focus is on 2 fruit and 5 veg per day this week. Monday was ok with 3 fruit and ~4 serves of veg. Today I've had 2 fruit and 6 serves of veg.
Breakfast
Large skinny cappuccino - 2pts
Lunch
Tom yum noodle soup with prawns and a banana - 7.5pts
Dinner
2 teriyaki chicken kebabs, rice and stir-fry veg with hoi-sin sauce - 10pts
Snacks
milk for tea - 0.5pts
pear - 1pt
sugar for coffee - 0.5pts
vegetable & barley soup - 1pt
Water
~2L
Exercise
Nil
Total points for the day: 22.5

Weigh-in week 4

This week I lost 1.1kg bringing my total lost to 5.5kg. Oh yeah, I am so on my way down again :D

WWC Wk2 Day2
Walking today so far consists of 30 minutes on the treadmill, 2.8km, 0 incline, while watching Lost Season 1 Ep 11. I may get back on later tonight to finish the episode!

Weigh-in week 3

Phew! I lost 0.4kg :)

Yep, that's pretty much it for now.

Weigh-in week ummm....

I think I'll call this week 2. I hit the highest weight I've been, since starting back in Feb '06, on Aug 14, but since then it feels like I've finally come out of some kind of fog and have re-committed to getting on with things. So, week 2 and I have a loss of 2.1kg to report, with which I am rather pleased. I tracked every day for the first time in months, I drank my water and I did a few walks plus a very energetic session of bowling and hey, guess what? It works! Who'd've thunk it?

Bought myself a new watch today as the old one needed a new battery, pressure testing AND repairs to the winder so in the end it was almost certainly cheaper to get a new one.

Still not getting enough sleep, need to keep working on that one.