THE BRICKS OF LIFE

This week has a positive one which is always good.

I think it's slightly too big now...

I have managed to get out and walk quite a bit, which always makes me feel so much better, especially if it's a pretty walk. The less it involves busy roads the better. Walking has always been my chosen form of exercise (along with dancing around the house a lot of the time).
While you are doing Change 4 Life, you are offered a free six month gym membership, and certain exercise classes, but they all involved travelling to get there, which wasn't for me. So walking and dancing it is then. :)
As you may already know I have been struggling with my weight since I was a child and have tried all of the slimming clubs and all of the fad diets, but nothing really worked in the long run.
During my recent weight loss I must admit that as well as physical exercise I seem to have also been exercising my mind. In the last seven months I have been doing a heck of a lot of thinking. Not always a good thing, but you do find out a lot about yourself that either you didn't know, or you had conveniently "forgotten" about and put in that Filing cabinet in your brain. :)
I was having a long conversation with my son recently and saying that if you have a good foundation in life, all the experiences you have are like bricks that build upon that foundation. It all makes for a balanced and complete life.
That would be in an ideal world, but for many of us it's not like that. 
We have a rocky start and have some bad experiences. We try to change things and fail and this knock us back big time. 
I know with myself I can go back as far as I can remember and see things that shaped the first half of my life, good and bad. Those foundations were not as strong as they could have been and I did not have a lot of confidence building experiences, but being aware of that can be a great start.
There are things you can change and things that will always be the same, but knowing that helps you to change what you can and accept what you can't.
I am really hoping that all this thinking I have been doing has not only worn out my brain :) but also helped me to discover why it is that in the past I have failed with my weight control.
It's not always easy to face what has happened to us in life, but in the end it is those things that make us what we are.
It's that old saying - we only have one life, there are no rehearsals. So change the things we can. It's got to be worth a try, if we really want to.
If those bricks bother us, we shouldn't let them. Throw them away and put new ones there in their place.
And my positive week ended well as I had lost another three pounds. That's 78 altogether. I'm getting there...

TWO THIRDS OF THE WAY THERE AND THE WATER'S CHOPPY

It's been just over four weeks since I last updated my blog and what a strange four weeks it has been. With it's ups and downs it has been an emotional roller coaster and at one time I did even question what was the point of losing all this weight. That seems such a silly thing as I write it down, but at the time when for whatever reason you feel low you start to question what you have achieved and only see all the negatives in life.
This has been the time in the past that I have given up. If all the problems in life are still there, then what what was the point of losing weight. But problems in life will still be there whatever you have achieved for yourself. The point is that if you feel better or more positive in yourself you find that it becomes easier to cope with whatever life throws at you. For me losing weight is not only a physical thing but a mental thing.
My emotions determine what I do sometimes in a life changing way, and I know I have to conquer some of my emotions to make myself a stronger and more positive person and sometimes not so self-destructive. A lot of us look for some magic cure to give us what it is we need, whether it is losing weight, getting fit, stop smoking, biting our nails... the list goes on.
I know that with losing weight, many of us are looking for that magic diet and will often think that someone has that answer that will make everything so easy and simple. Over the last thirty years over 200,000 books have been written about weight loss. You can't help thinking that if one had the whole answer, would we need the other 199,999!
We need to look at ourselves and with a bit guidance do what is right for us.
Why are we the way we are? And if we want to do something how can we try to change things?
With the food it's a case of portion control, balance in what we eat, cutting down on fats and sugars and not too much denial. If you want to eat it, then eat it and then adjust what you eat afterwards.
With the mind it's looking at your own self pride and worth. You have a value, and sometimes we need to remember this. Self value can be something that not only helps us, but also makes us a better person for our family and friends.
I have now lost a total of 75 pounds which is great, but that does not mean that there are not issues that I have to learn to deal with. However, with my new found confidence I know I can do this.
My life, like so many others, will always throw problems at me, small and large, but there is nothing that can't be sorted with a little help and support, and with self value and self confidence.
So, 75 pounds lost and another 37 to go. I had better get on with it. See you next time - and I'll try not to leave it so long this time.  

MORE GOALS THAN ENGLAND :)

Getting ready for Henry's party.

It seems such a long time since I last wrote an update on my blog. It's not really, but we have now been away for our Grandson's first birthday party and what a lovely weekend it was. Yes, I did have my cake, and party food, and saveloy and chips, and a glass or two of Proseco and do you know? It was wonderful!
I seem to have so much more energy to enjoy the preparations and the party and even have some left for a walk to the park afterwards.
It is hard to believe it's a year since Henry was born, and six months since I set my first goal of losing four stone by his birthday.
Now it is time to set my next goal, which is to lose another two stone by Steve and my tenth wedding anniversary in October. That will then be 84 pounds in total lost.
It's a funny feeling when you have achieved something, you can sometimes feel a little deflated when the time comes, a bit like the day after Christmas, a special occasion or your wedding day. It's like you have worked up to something, then it's there and gone.
The difference with my situation is that I still need to lose weight, so I need to find the motivation to carry on.
Well, all the larger clothes have now gone. Bagged up and taken to the local charity shop. I did say to Steve, what will I wear if I put the weight back on? He said I wouldn't, so there you go - the old me is gone.
I must admit I did feel good last Saturday at the party wearing a new dress. I am beginning to like what I see in the mirror and in photographs, and it was lovely to mingle and talk with friends, family and guests I hadn't met before with a new found confidence, rather than wanting to sit at a table and hide with a plate of food and a drink.
I have inspired my daughter Jal to lose weight too, and I must say she looked gorgeous in a beautiful new blue dress she had bought. I was so proud, and you should have seen the birthday cake she made.
The next day we went for a long walk along the seafront at Southsea, something I would have struggled with before the weight loss. We talked about the differences that losing weight have made to us. She mentioned to me how much we talk now about fashion and make-up, something we never did when she was growing up, and how it feels so lovely to have these chats about "girly things".
So now it's time to get back to the straight and narrow, so to speak, and carry on where I left off. And the first step is my regular Thursday weigh-in. The result? I've lost another two pounds this week. That's a total of 65 and a half pounds so far. Will I make my next goal? I hope so, and I hope you will continue to follow me on my journey.

PRAISE WHERE PRAISE IS DUE (IT HAD TO BE SAID)

Before I start this weeks blog, I would just like to say that I have reached my first weight loss goal and lost 3 and a half pounds this week, making a total before our grandson's first birthday party of 62 pounds. The cake awaits :)
Having just set my next goal, I feel there is something I need to get off my chest before I start towards it.
Life isn't always easy, and choices may be limited but it is up to us how we cope with the situations we find ourselves in.
Sometimes things that bother one person, another person would not find a problem, but quite often the choices we make do affect the ones around us that we love for better or for worse.
I have said before that back in 2002/3 I lost ten stones in weight whilst taking medication (now withdrawn from the market) to help me do this. It was a complicated time in my life and when I lost weight it did give me a kind of confidence that I had not had before.
At this time I did something I would have never done before and asked a man I knew from a shop I went into if he would like to go to the cinema with me. Within the year we were married and this year we will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. Still as much in love today as we were then. (Okay, time to stop the soppy music!)
Now the point I am trying to make is when I first met Steve I was 11 and a half stone. He knew I had lost weight but we had not really talked about it. It's not something you talk to a man in a comic shop about :)
The rest is history. Over the next couple of years I put the weight back on and then it stuck around the 21 stone mark until the start of this year. My weight has never bothered Steve and he and my family love me unconditionally, but the way that my health started deteriorating did really bother them all.
As much as they told me, I dragged my heels because I was in denial. Sometimes we are, but if we want change we are the ones that have the choice to do it and how we do it.
I had been offered surgery and medication again but for me personally I did not want to do it that way. Steve has since told me that he was quite relieved that I decided to try to improve my health and even though my size has never bothered him, he has got quite excited about how much my weight has gone down and he is the one (along with my daughter) who nags me to go out and buy smaller clothes. I have had a lot of support from family and friends, but Steve is the one that puts up with me when I get stressed, cry and feel down; goes without certain foods because he knows I don't want to eat them; puts up with my moaning when we go out for a long walk and I don't feel I can do it. I am the one that decided to give it a go one last time because I wanted to live, but I could not have done it without my family and friends and I could not have done it without Steve. We have gone full circle and hopefully by our wedding anniversary I will once again be the woman he married, just ten years older.
I am so thankful for what I have and grateful for the fact that Steve helps me proofread my blog and enables me to get it onto the web.
Right! Enough of the Oscar speeches. Four months to go, back to the weight loss. My next goal - October 16th!

MORE THOUGHT FOR FOOD

Last time, I left you with the thought of a large slice of birthday cake, a reward for what I have achieved so far this year! That will be in a couple of weeks time at our Grandson's first birthday party, and I can't wait. I am looking forward to seeing everyone, enjoying the excitement of the day and helping to make the food for everybody.

I am not a bad cook, I have always enjoyed cooking and learning about foods from all around the world. It makes our planet seem such a smaller place when you realize we all have so much in common. We all eat, but the question is do we think about what we eat and does it matter?

When my two children were at senior school, I spent a short time as a school governor. The area I was assigned to was Home Economics, which was great because I always thought how important it was to learn how to cook. For whatever reason it does not always happen in the home and often Home Economics at school was our first experience of preparing and cooking food, and knowing what goes in it, which is something we seem to have lost.

Sadly, the government of the time decided that other school subjects were more important, and Home Economics was cut right out when it came to choosing exam subject options. I thought at the time that this was a bad idea. Over the years we seem to have forgotten what good food is.

When I used to teach Indian Cookery to adults in the early 2000s, a lot of the students thought it would take a long time to cook a meal from scratch. They soon discovered that they could cook a quick and healthy meal in no time at all.

We are bombarded with quick food, takeaways, microwave dinners, and there is nothing wrong with that in the greater scheme of things, but food seems to have become such a mystery. Most of the time we do not think about how much salt, sugar or fat there is in certain foods, which is something we need to do if we find we have put on weight and want to have healthier eating habits.

While I was attending the first twelve weeks of Change 4 Life we looked at food labels and it was mind-blowing the hidden salt and sugar that was added to processed foods. Even so-called low calorie foods can contain higher levels of sugar than we might be led to believe. 

I heard on a TV programme recently that just an extra 100 calories a day over our recommended daily allowance can result in us putting on a stone in weight over the course of a year. Such an easy thing to do!

I saw "Masterchef" on the television the other week and I heard food described as "fetta cheese foam", "apricot stew", "beetroot fondant" and "beetroot paint". I feel terms like that can make good food sound elitist, expensive and time consuming.

What we need to do is think about the food we would like to eat and think how we can change things.

There are lots of good, quick recipes out there. We CAN make food cheaply, that looks good and is tasty without adding the extra fat, sugar and salt.

Obesity is becoming an increasing problem in many countries and it seems to me that one of the reasons is that we are eating far more processed foods than we used to.

There now seems to be whole generations that, for whatever reason, have not learnt to cook the basics and have become dependent on quick alternatives that may not be as good for us as we believe.

It won't happen overnight for any of us but let's start to think about just what we are eating and if we do spoil ourselves now and again, do it with food that we really enjoy, not with something that will "just do".

Those of you that drive would not dream of putting the wrong fuel in your cars, but we do it to our bodies quite often.

I hope this week I have given us all some food for thought, an idea of what we can change and what we can achieve step by step.

Until next time, I'll leave you thinking and, maybe, looking at those food labels. :)

REMEMBER TO PAT YOUR OWN BACK

This week I was going to write about food, a subject close to our hearts (some of us more than others), but, because of the way I have felt this week, I feel I need to write about another subject - "Me". When I started this blog, one of the reasons for doing it was to write down what I was thinking and get it all clear in my head. Now I've reached the half way stage of my journey I need to be a bit self indulgent, so I ask for your forgiveness in advance.

It is now my 24th week since starting "Change 4 Life" and it is now becoming a way of life. This is a good thing because it needs to be a way of life if it is going to be for the long term, but for me there is a "tiny" down side.

There is a tendency to become complacent and with it comes the negativity.

When I started "Change 4 Life" and was attending the initial twelve weeks there was a part of me that thought "twelve weeks, what can I learn in twelve weeks?, Is twelve weeks enough?", but knowing I could go back for support and to be weighed weekly helped me to get my head around this new concept that was so different from the slimming clubs I had been to in the past.

So far it has worked, and worked far better than I thought it would, but here I am in my 24th week feeling a little apathetic for no reason that I can see, other than, perhaps, I am feeling a little stale.

Keeping up the motivation and enthusiasm for a long length of time is not always easy, but I think to move on I have to selfishly look back at what I have already done, and hope that it also helps those of you out there who also have a struggle with what you are trying to achieve.

So far I have lost...

55 1/2 pounds

7 inches from my bust

8 inches from my waist

10 inches from my hips

gone from a UK dress size 26-28 to a UK size 18-20

and even my feet have gone down a shoe size!

My first goal was to lose four stone before our Grandson's first birthday. He was six months old when I started, and is one year old in three weeks time. I only have another half a pound to reach my target.

The icing on the cake, so to speak, was when I went to see my doctor for a medication review and found my Diabetes blood results showed that my sugar levels have dropped down almost to normal levels. My doctor was very pleased and my medication has been reduced. So much has happened this year so far, and sometimes it is difficult for me to take it all in and realize just how much I have benefited. I have so much more energy, can walk a lot easier, and can climb hills with much less difficulty, very handy, given that I live in such a hilly area.

So why do I get so down about a pair of size 18 jeans not fitting?

It is so easy for me to be negative with myself, a "skill" developed over many years growing up and living  with negativity. If I am to succeed this time, it must be something I can conquer. I have so much love and support now and I need to be more positive about the next part of the journey. Writing this I have realized how proud I am of myself and what I have achieved so far. I am told all the time by my husband and family how proud they are of me, but now I am finally beginning to be proud of myself.

As my weight loss starts to slow down I will plan the next changes I will make and set myself a new set of goals. At the moment I look forward to my grandson's birthday and being able to try to keep up with him. And who knows, maybe even a slightly larger slice of birthday cake. 

TO PERCEIVE OR NOT TO PERCEIVE...

I wasn't really sure what I was going to write about in this update. Sometimes I do know, but sometimes I have no idea until I try to write it.

This time I started with one idea and then had another idea. So now I've got two ideas but still unsure of which one to go with. A bit like you feel in life sometimes, not sure what you want to do, or what you should do, or even what you think others want you to do.

In the end, this weeks blog is about something that just provoked a strong feeling in me.

I'd read on the internet a couple of weeks ago about a woman who had gone to the BAFTA awards last year to accept an award, and was unhappy that she had been criticised for the way she was dressed. 

She wrote an article about it this year, just before this years BAFTA ceremony, to say how unhappy she was. I don't remember the whole article but what I do remember was that she was saying that because of her dress size (an 18 to 20 UK size) she could not get designer dresses and had gone to a department store to get a dress. She loved the look of it and as she was a comedienne she thought it shouldn't matter what she looked like anyway. After all, the award was for her work, not what she looked like.

Now there is a part of me that agrees with this and a bit of me that doesn't. I remember another comedienne who is also large in size (although she has lost weight over the past few years) but even at her biggest she always looked good and appropriately dressed for where she was.

Sometimes, especially in the media, celebrities are expected to look a certain way and depending on the occasion dress in a certain way. It is what is expected. And there is a good chance that if they looked different then it would be commented on.

In real life, we wouldn't dream of going to a wedding in jeans and a t-shirt if it is a formal do, so whoever you are, the occasion determines how you dress. If you choose to be different then have the confidence to carry it off or know that next time you might be hurt by the comments of people that don't really matter.

Of course, when you're a celebrity, they say that any publicity is good publicity, so it did get her noticed again this year. I do feel for anyone who is hurt by other peoples comments. People are so free to comment about others, especially when it comes to appearances, behaviour or how someone sounds. If you see someone who is really large eating in public, we might think "look at them, do they never stop eating?". We may see someone who is unstable in walking or has slurred speech and assume that they are drunk, when in reality they may be unwell or even have had a stroke. 

I know that I have had times in my life that just because I was large I was made to feel stupid, or not good enough to get a job, to wear a certain dress style, or even allowed to have a valued opinion.

We have the right to be who we want to be, and if we are whoever we are at a certain moment in time, we should be given the dignity and respect we deserve.

There is a saying "You can't change how people treat you, or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it."

Know what you want and how much you want it and even though there are times you feel it's not going to happen, keep going because if it matters you WILL do it.

I once attempted to do A-Level psychology but I never took the exam, there was too much pressure in my life at the time. What I took from it was that things are very rarely what they seem. You never know other people's reasons for why they behave the way that they do, but if you are happy with what you are doing that's all that matters. If not, then do what you can do to  change it - but because you want to, not for someone else.

Next time, less of the heavy stuff. I will be talking about FOOD!