Confessing and a new start

It's obviously been a very long time since I last posted on here and even longer since I have done any sort of update on whats happening with my weight loss and so I think it's about time I came clean, confessed and started keeping this blog again as it DID help me and I found it fun to do.

And so to my confession, I got bored of the diet food, started trying to add different things into my diet, stopped weighing the food I was eating as my meal of the day and found excuses for everything I could to myself and those around me that were trying to support me. Luckily I snapped out of it this year and have started again but I will say, I don't regret that cheesecake we shared over Christmas ..... it WAS worth it!lol

Anyway, I didn't put on that much, only half a stone which over all these months isn't really that bad (especially as that included Christmas!) and I'm really pleased to say that I've managed to lose it and another bit on top as well and so I've now lost a total of 48.4lbs YAY!

The biggest thing I found to help me with this is to use a smaller plate. I now have most of my meals on a sandwich plate, it really does make it so much easier to have control over your portion of food when you don't have much plate to put it on! Also, eating slower, chewing smaller mouthfulls of food properly before swallowing and increasing the volume of water that I drink has helped as well. I know these are all basic steps that we are all encouraged to take when we start dieting and like most people I couldn't see what difference it would make but it does, it really does!

Finally, the most amazing change has happened in my fitness. I started back on the treadmill in January, slowly at first and gradually increasing the amount I do, I now do 2 miles most days and I feel so much better for it, my shape has changed a lot and my skirt size has reduced by another 3 sizes which I'm absolutely over the moon about, top size is only down by 2 but it's all headed in the right direction and WILL continue to now!

And so onto my new start, well as I said above I'm exercising a lot more than I was now and I am still kind of on the Slimfast plan, when the weather is cold though I switch out the lunchtime shake and have a bowl of soup instead, it's comparable on the number of calories but very warming and filling so for me this works well, only time will tell though I guess but I know it'll keep going as it has the last couple of weeks, I'm determined it will! I do expect a blip next week ...... I have a night out coming up which I fully intend to enjoy as I know it's only 1 night and I can lose the weight (if any) I gain from it over the new few days by being good again!

The Night before Christmas by Scarlett Bailey

I received a copy of this book after applying for one from the Ebury Women's Fiction Facebook page last month and very happily I was one of the lucky few to receive a copy.

All Lydia's ever wanted is a perfect Christmas...

So when her oldest friends invite her to spend the holidays with them, it seems like a dream come true. She's been promised log fires, roasted chestnuts, her own weight in mince pies - all in a setting that looks like something out of a Christmas card.

But her winter wonderland is ruined when she finds herself snowed in with her current boyfriend, her old flame and a hunky stranger. Well, three (wise) men is traditional at this time of year...

Christmas is just about my favourite time of year and so when I saw this book and read the synopsis I just had to get a copy and read it. It has all the elements that you'd expect from a Christmas story, lots of family troubles, arguments and the odd stolen kiss. Alongside the main story there are some nods made to the more traditional Christmas stories, there's the boyfriends (past, present and possibly future too) there's the heavily pregnant woman due to give birth and the modern favourite of being snowed in at a remote location.

The description of the setting is wonderful, a remote house outside a village in the Lake District with a colourful history all of it's own! But, what made this book such a page turner for me was that all the characters are so well written, you get to feel as if you know them and can sympathise with them and what they are all going through. You want to keep reading just to make sure that everything turns out OK and that our Heroine gets together with the right man in the end and that all is well with all of her friends and their relationships too.


It all works together to make for a great read and I really do recommend this for anyone especially with Christmas fast approaching us now, it's a great Feel Good tale

Legacy by Danielle Steel

I was sent this book as I'm part of the Transworld book group (see here for details)

I have to say right here that I chose this book purely because of who the author is, I have read many Danielle Steel novels and have loved each and every one of them and being given the opportunity to read this one as part of the book group was not something I could pass up.

A tale of love, courage and family, interweaving the lives of two extraordinary women - a writer working in the heart of modern academia, and a daring young Sioux on an unforgettable journey in the eighteenth century.

Someday is Brigitte Nicholson's watchword. Someday she and the man she loves, Ted, will clarify their relationship. Someday she'll have children. Someday she'll finish writing her book. Someday she'll stop playing it so safe... Then something happens that changes Brigitte's life completely.

Struggling to plot a new course, Brigitte agrees to help her mother on a genealogy project - and makes a discovery that reaches back to the French aristocracy. How did Brigitte's ancestor, Wachiwi, a Dakota Sioux, travel from the Great Plains to the French court of Marie Antoinette? How did she come to marry into Brigitte's family? Brigitte decides to travel to South Dakota and Paris to follow the path of this exceptional young woman who lived so long ago. And as she begins to solve the puzzle of Wachiwi's journey, her quiet life becomes an adventure of its own.

A chance meeting and a new opportunity put Brigitte back at the heart of her own story. And with family legacy coming to life around her, someday is no longer in the future. Instead, someday is now.

As with all her other books this is a novel about overcoming adverse situations, about being totally knocked out of the life you're living and overcoming the odds that have mounted against you, doing your best to rise to the challenge and seeing where life takes you next.

When everything in her life changes Brigitte is a lost soul, not knowing what she wants to do nor being as engaged in writing the book she was so passionate about before. With this lack of enthusiasm and motivation she goes home to her Mother who enlists her help with tracing back how their family arrived in the America's and who came. After visiting the Mormon Family History Library she discovers Wachiwi in her ancestors and so begins her fascination with this young Sioux woman and how she came to go to France and seem to live out her life there.


Part of this book shows Brigitte's travels and how she finds out about Wachiwi and changes the course of her own life in the process and alongside this we also get to read about Wachiwi and how she came to go to France and what her life had been like all those years ago. We follow these two strong women who forge their own destiny once their formerly safe lifestyle is stripped away from them, the similarities between these relations separated by many generations is striking but maybe this courage to keep going is a family trait that Brigitte inherits from Wachiwi.

Even though I am slightly biased due to loving all of Danielle Steel's books I really have to say this one is amazing, such a strong storyline and as well written as all of her novels are. You easily get swept away with the plot, eager to see where the next twist will take you and hoping always for the happy ending which doesn't always come for the characters in her books and I'm not going to spoil anything by saying if either of the women in this story get their happy ending!