Now and to come!

Well, as expected I put on a little over my Birthday and Easter but not much and my fitness is getting better and better all the time. My skirt size has gone down again which I'm really happy about especially as we have an event to go to this weekend and I hope that I might give some people a surprise, well, maybe anyway. It's amazing how much of a difference it makes wearing the right sizes compared to my old comfy (very baggy) clothes, still there's a long way to go before I'll be clothes shopping, I have a good stock that I didn't ditch as I put on the weight, they'll do till I'm happy with myself

As for other highlights coming up, I've got a few review products I'm waiting for which is good. Some cleaning products which are always good to try out, these ones are 'green' so I'll be interested to see how they compare to my usual chemicals!lol Also there's some baking goodies (I know, I know diet but a little is OK to have!) not just cakes but also different types of breads as well. I've a couple of books, one is here but since I've just started a new one, it'll have to wait a couple of days till it gets started!lol and the last one I know of right now is (look away gents!lol) some sanitary products which are always handy, it'll be interesting to see what they send as a selection to sample ..... and if there are any gimmicks with it, I remember one a few years ago that came with test tubes, it would have been a good idea except the items in question lengthened instead of widening!lol

Anyway, that's my quick update for now, more to come soon from me now I have things lined up to tell you all about

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!

Where's the year gone?

 

I just realised it's August tomorrow, where has this year gone? I know we've done a lot this year, from the compers meet up in January and starting our diets to going up to Sheffield to watch the snooker and going to York this month to get my bag but still, it's gone very quickly!

I realised as I am writing this that I haven't started to make my Christmas cards yet this year, I'd better get them started soon, I need to make 30-40 this year ..... I still have time, I just need inspiration although I have had one in mind since I got some bits from the after Christmas sale at the craft shop. I'll make that one first as I know exactly how I want it to look and I have everything I need ...... somewhere!lol

 

And for those of you looking for a diet update, I haven't actually lost any Lb's for about a month now but I have noticed my shape changing quite a lot, and I've dropped another jeans size which I'm really pleased about so I'm not too fussed right now. I have changed my diet a little this last week as I've been having some mild stomach problems, I'm now having a bowl of porridge for breakfast instead of a slimfast shake as it's about the same calories but a load more fibre. It seems to have helped with my stomach, I'll see what affect it has on my weight in time but hopefully it wont do me any harm!

  

Another week closer to Christmas :-D

And it's another 2lbs lost on the diet

Something I noticed over the weekend is how I see myself, I still struggle to see the weight I've lost even though I know I've lost a lot (jeans that I couldn't get on at Christmas are now too big for me) but I've figured out why, or at least I think I have. Because I'm mostly still wearing the same clothes, they're quite baggy on me now and I see the outline of me where the clothes hang which is making me look quite a bit bigger than I am. Luckily I have a good stock of clothes that I've kept from when I was gaining the weight to use as I slim down but right now the next size down (which is quite a few sizes down from my biggest) are still a bit tight. So I'm stuck, do I wear uncomfortable clothes slightly too small  which make me look fatter than I am or do I wear baggy clothes which hang loosely and make me look bigger than I am .... it's a tough choice but hopefully I wont be stuck in this area for much longer. With the way the weights coming off and my shape's changing I cant see it being much longer till the smaller clothes all fit me comfortably and I will be happy again ...... for a while at least

 

It's back & a well overdue update

YAY at last! for the last 2 weeks every time I've tried to log in here and update on my diet I haven't been able to sign in but that bug seems to be fixed now *touch wood* so I can write my update on how the diets going and my other fab news!

I'll start with the diet as that's the best news really, I've lost another 4lbs since I last updated this so I've now lost 34 lbs (nearly 2 and a half stone) since January 10th when I started the Slimfast plan. To say I'm happy with this would be a huge understatement, I'm thrilled. Everything is getting so much easier for me and I'm finding so many things so much easier to do, I'm so excited about what the future can bring now but I know I have to do this sensibly this time so that i can keep the weight off. Hopefully by next Christmas I'll be maintaining at a level I'm happy with :-)

In other news I've finally won a designer handbag! Anyone who knows me even a little bit will know how excited I am about this, I cant wait to go collect it! Yes, I didn't read all the T&C's properly when I entered but Dave is being lovely and driving me up to York to collect it, really good job he doesn't mind driving as we have a lot coming up over the next month!

 

YAY - I'm Back

After a lot of faffing about this week I found out that something had gone wrong with blogger and I haven't been able to get in here and share all my news ...... and now I'll have to have a think and try to remember what it all was!

I know one thing was I've passed the 30lb level on my weight loss which is good and also we were on TV ...... well, we know we were but it's doubtful that anyone else would have known it was us

See what I mean!lol But we did have a good time and I came home with a cuddly red Welsh dragon which is very cute and I got Michael Vaughan to sign my program when we saw him walking around in the dry bit. The last memento of the day started to show itself in both of us last night, all the rain and wind has given us both nice colds so there goes all our plans for this weekend as we don't want to share this particular reminder! 

Books Books Books Books! :-D

Time for another diet update, I've just passed the 2 stone weight loss mark, I'm so impressed with Slimfast right now. I know I'm losing it very slowly (average 1 lb a week) but that's the right way to do it and I'm seeing vast improvements in my fitness and flexibility which will help me to exercise more and keep it off and get rid of more as time goes on.

I have an agreement with Dave that for each stone I lose I can order some more books from Amazon and this time I added to it with a voucher I won and ordered 6 that I've been wanting a while, just checking with them and the books are in Bristol right now, hopefully I'll get them tomorrow

    

I was going to write a review this week but I find it really hard to write a review on a product I really didn't like, especially when I know others do like them, it makes me think there is something wrong with my taste buds!lol All I will say is that I'm sticking to my slimfast, it's working and doesn't taste like unflavoured sawdust like a certain other companies diet bars do.....

  

It's been a while!

I know I meant to keep this going but things like holidays got in the way but hopefully now things will start getting back to normal again for us and I can get back to writing this more often. I still need to sort out the spare room properly but I'll get there with that, it's been on hold the last month as well but at least I have the shelves sorted out now to put the boxes on once they're filled!

As for my diet, well, there have been some ups and downs over the last month or so, I've lost a total of 25.4lbs since the 10th of January, which although isn't amazing I'm really pleased with it and am determined to keep going with it and reach my target, yes I've finally set myself one!lol I haven't set a weight I want to get to, I just want to be able to buy clothes in a normal shop again, I think that's totally achievable as well by next summer :-) And those fried breakfasts while we were in Sheffield were totally worth every mouthful ;-D

And so onto whats happening now, well, I've been back on the slimfast for over a week, my weights nearly back to the lowest it's been this year (0.2lb to go so fingers crossed for tomorrow or Friday!lol) but that is all going to change for 2 weeks. I've been asked to change what I eat as part of a study for 2 weeks and after looking into it I decided to accept the challenge and applied, I just heard back that I've been accepted and the items I need will arrive tomorrow! I'll let you know how it goes but wont be able to say what I'm doing sadly but hopefully it'll all help out anyway :-)

My journey into comping!

I’m trying to win an iPad 2 in the iSave, iWrite, iPad competition from PlayPennies.com!

Five or six years ago I became aware that some companies online gave out freebies, mostly small samples of their product for us to try before we buy. I joined a website that used to collate all the freebies and had a lot of fun there, made some friends and received quite a few things through the post. After a while there one of the friends I'd made told me about sites that list online competitions and I was curious, I'd been doing the weekly magazines for years and only ever won a set of make up brushes from Take A Break many many years ago! So off I trotted to the Competitions Time forum on MoneySavingExpert.com, to say I was shocked and totally overwhelmed would be an understatement! There were so many companies offering prizes ranging from stationery and promotional materials to houses, cars and even a boat!

So I had a look around and read some of the posts and started entering a few each day, a couple of weeks later I found an email from one of the magazine's online websites saying I'd won a prize from them (a pet poets calendar and book) I was amazed at how easy it was and started to enter a few more. Before long I was spending hours and hours online each day entering competitions but the wins kept coming, sometimes I'd have an email or telephone call telling me I'd won something but other times things would just appear in the post. It felt like Christmas most days when the postman delivered and I found myself getting more and more hooked as the more hours I put in the more things I won.

 At first I won things for us, then I started winning the Christmas and Birthday gifts for our family and friends, they knew how we'd got the gifts and seemed to be happy with them as everyone was getting much better gifts than we could have afforded to get them by buying them. This year has been more difficult so far though, a lot of people have started comping recently, some see it as a quick and easy way to make money when they see people winning lots of things and if you're lucky it can be but it can also be a lot of hard work, the trick to it is to not mind, to hope you will win something but to not rely on it and to make friends within whichever community you are a member of, seeing a friend win something when you have had a dry spell really does help keep you going and hoping for the comping fairy to smile down on you again.

I view my wins as all bonuses, lovely little surprises that turn up every so often and you can see how my winning has been going on my Kims Wins blog if you're curious. I've also just recently helped my Fiance's Sister's fundraising efforts by donating some of the things I'd won to top up her sponsorship when she ran the London Marathon and if you would like to sponsor her she's also doing both the Great North Run and Great South Run later this year for the Guide Dogs her sponsorship page is here.

So after hearing all that you probably want to know how come this is money saving, right? Well, in the past 3 years I haven't had to buy any toiletries as I've won loads, far too many for one woman, but they make great gifts don't they ;-) I've won things that we would have purchased anyway (a TV, Wii & Sainsbury's Vouchers) And I have a mountain of laundry detergent which I'm working through still not to mention all the cereal and just don't get me started on iPods, I think everyone we know has one of them now!lol I even won the Slimfast that I've been using to help me lose weight! So if you have a few spare moments I'd say try out a few, the only competition you really cant win is the one you don't enter ;-)

White envelopes we like!

What a way to start the weekend that was! When I collected the post Saturday morning I saw this

Now we all know instinctively what this means and I was so excited opening it and after flipping the envelope open I could see the top of what was unmistakeably a cheque poking out of it. Reading the accompanying letter I discovered the £100 was for winning a su-doku prize from one of their weekly issues :-) So that's a little bit more to add to the house fund, not much I know but it all helps :-)


The diet's still going well, I've lost another lb this week so I'm back on track again after my birthday. We're seeing a lot of family and friends at the end of this month that we haven't seen for a good few months and I have to say I'm a little nervous about it! They all know we're dieting so I'm wondering if they'll notice the loss and if they say they have ....... will they just be saying it as it's what you say when you know someones on a diet! Oh the joys of being paranoid!lol

Oops!lol

Well, I know I'm late again with my weight loss update but (as I expected) I put on a lb this week, it was my birthday though and the cake and wine were well worth it ;-)

A few of us seem to have lost our luck recently, it's a shame when that happens and it can make it hard for some people to keep going with the entries when there is so little return but thankfully I have some wonderful friends online and we all keep each other going when times are lean because these times do happen, they don't last forever, you just have to try and keep going for as long as you can and hope that the tide turns again :-)

Hopefully one day soon the comping fairy will be spotted headed our way again though and she'll smile down on us all :-D

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Another Week.......

.....Another diet update!

Well, I've been on the Slimfast 1,2,3 plan for 10 weeks now and everything still feels like it's going well for me, I cant see any difference looking in a mirror but can feel it in some of my clothes. I've lost a total of 25lbs which works out at 2 and a half a week which I'm really happy about, yes, I'd love to lose more and get down to my target quicker but I've done that in the past and I've always ended up putting it all (and more) right back on again. This time I want it to stick and that's part of why I'm enjoying this diet plan I think.

I get to have 2 milkshakes and 3 snacks each day alongside a main meal. I know some people worry that it wont be filling but it is, or it is to me and the snacks you can have aren't restricted to being their own ones like you are with the shakes, you can have any snack up to 100 Kcal and some, like fresh fruit would be quite a lot of snack to fill that number of calories!

......and now for something completely different!

 This week I read on Splodz Blogz about the moon being the closest it's been to us for a while (here) so I took my coolpix up to Dave's telescope (hopefully one day he will find the D ring for the DSLR again!lol) and snapped this pic :-)

Snacks!

Most of us love to snack but the majority of snacks are our waistlines worst nightmare.

Some that claim to be healthy are just low fat and loaded with sugar instead. Others which are healthy are tasteless and mostly textureless but there is a middle ground which some products fill quite nicely.

There are the Slimfast and Weightwatchers snacks which are really nice and most are under 100Kcal which fit nicely into the diet I'm doing which allows for 3 100Kcal snacks a day, but there are also a lot of other foods that can be snacked upon which fit into this sub 100Kcal category.

Most of the cereal bars fall into this category as well and some, like the Sainsbury's White chocolate and strawberry are really delicious and inexpensive. Many yoghurts also fit this area too and if you really want low cal, make a jelly (sugar free ofcourse!lol) and perhaps top it with a sugar free whip to make it feel like a trifle!

But then there comes a time when you just fancy something simple and easy and that's where I fell back to today, one of my favourite things to snack on when I was growing up..

a Golden Delicious apple :-D

Nom nom nom!

Some days I really wish I didn't love to cook! I'm being assaulted by smells from the kitchen and even though it doesn't look that good right now

 I know it will be when it finishes cooking but it keeps tempting me to go and have a nibble .... I have to resist as it's not even finished yet, all that's in there are the mushrooms, leeks, chicken, tin of tomatoes and the spices, still needs peas, tomato puree and either potatoes or rice but they go in later once all this lot have shared their flavours around!lol

I actually really love this dish, it's so simple and uses nearly all of my favourite veggies and I can adapt the spicing of it to suit what mood I'm in, today's has got a curry feel to it with loads of chili as well to make it a little bit hotter (good for clearing the sinuses!lol) I just wish it didn't smell so yummy so long before it's finished cooking!

Wooooo 21 today!

Well after a quiet couple of weeks with the diet it's kicked off again this week, 4lbs down which makes for a total loss of 21lbs :-D

Not sure what I've done differently really but I am feeling a lot more energetic these days and clothes are fitting which haven't for a year or so so I'm really pleased and raring to go with losing more.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to not do more right now but I know from past times that when I've tried to do too much I've ended up hurting myself and being laid up for a while really demotivates me so I know I have to be good and just plod along. Hopefully by the summer I'll have lost enough and have become strong enough with what I am doing that I can add in some more regular exercise to my days but on a good note, the house is nice and shiny, well, housework is a great way of getting rid of excess energy and since it has to be done anyway, doing a good job with products that need a bit of elbow grease kills two birds with one stone :-)

And in Pokemon news, I won my 5th Gym badge this morning, I'm playing on the White version and I'm not rushing through it, I'm playing at a steady pace and enjoying it, my team are all lever 35 or above right now and seem to be working well together but I think I'll need to add a water pokemon in soon, really feels odd not having one but it's been working for me and especially with not being able to fish yet! Oh well, I'd better keep going, I have a feeling I should be getting the Black one in 2 weeks time ;-)

Diet Update & the PS3 move!

I just noticed I haven't reported in this week on my progress well, it's another 2lbs gone so I'm really happy with that :-D

We've also recently received the move system for the PS3, I had assumed it would be much like the Wii and can be playing sat down without much activity needed for most of the games, I was so wrong!

You have to line yourself up with the camera to play and it tells you off if you go out of vision, yes, you can be lazy with it but it is so much fun and I found I got quite competitive when playing against Dave. I'm mostly playing Sports Champions at the moment, I'm getting quite good at archery and the gladiator battles are really good fun.

I used to enjoy games like Street fighter before controllers got more buttons than I have fingers to use them and this takes me back to that but it's better as you use 2 controllers, one as your shield and the other as a sword/club. It makes controlling the character very easy and makes you so much more involved when you see your character doing what you do, I can see it being good therapy against bad moods too ;-)

My little hobby

A couple of weeks ago I finally agreed to a challenge for this year, most of the ones that were being proposed around weren't ones I really wanted to get involved in, I don't like to make a list of things I want to win, there are things I'd love to win but I really don't want to tempt fate!lol So I agreed to one a friend suggested on her blog and I set myself the hardest challenge of a win a day for the year so this year I need to win 365 competitions and they all have to be items I want as well, no entering for tickets for things I'd never go to then just because they're giving away thousands of them!lol

 It's going OK so far, up until a week ago a was behind by quite a few days but it's picked up a little and now I'm just about there and my lists can be found here if anyone is interested :-)

The other bit of good news is my weight, another 1lb lost, I know it's not much but it's better than a gain so I'm happy with it and now I have a target to work towards, we've been invited to a family wedding in the summer and I'd really like to be noticeably thinner by then, well, either that or behind the camera anyway!lol

One Down

Well that was a busy few days wasn't it!lol I took the weekend offline as much as possible to spend it with Dave since it was Valentines Day on Monday and had a really lovely time with him, hopefully he did with me too ;-)

Dave's sister gave me a link last week to a website (http://www.fitday.com/) to track my weight loss for me, I've started using it now and find seeing the graph slowly working it's way down (yes, I backtracked and put my old weights in too) is good motivation to keep going!

Anyway, I know this is 2 days late but on my weigh in on Monday morning I found I've now lost a stone since I started on this Slimfast diet, I'm so impressed and keen to keep going with it, I'm really not finding this diet a struggle at all, I guess it's all the snacking that allowed with it really and it's fun cooking properly again, luckily Dave enjoys the things I can cook :-D

So that's one down ........ and I'm not saying how many more to go!lol

Diet!

Like most of you I'm on a diet now, I started in the second week of January as I wanted to make sure as many temptations (Christmas snacks) were out of the way as possible when I began.
I decided to try the Slimfast system again, I'd done it many years ago and had had a little success with it and I am again so far and I'm really pleased, clothes are starting to fit better and I've hauled out the next size down from the airing cupboard as an incentive to get into them quicker.

So far, I've been on slimfast 4 weeks and have lost a total of 10lbs but I know I have many more left to go but as an added incentive, here's my before picture, this was actually taken on a very enjoyable evening last month when I finally got to meet up with some friends I'd met through MSE and Twitter

Yep, that's me in the red on the left, hopefully not for much longer though :-D