Lost 1.7lbs this week. I'm really delighted as it feels things are back on track. Just thought I'd share it with you all.

I went into our local Cancer Research charity shop yesterday and picked up this gorgeous silk deep cerise Monsoon dress for £15. It's really beautiful, but 2 sizes too small. I'm using as an incentive to lose weight. I want to wear it for my son's birthday in February.

Well, the optimism in my last post soon proved to me misguided and I have managed to put on lots of weight (up from 177 to 190!!)However, I'm still trying to get back on track and I do still think I can do it.

Since much earlier this year I have been part of an email WW group and we have emailed all our results wach week. Yesterday I took over responsibility for recording all of our progress and I've made a wiki for us all to use. I'm really excited by it because everyone is really supportive and I hope the site will make it even easier for us to focus on our weight loss and help each other along. I'm also hoping that it will help me get back on track, after all, as leader, I can hardly say each week that I have put weight on can I?

As many of you will know, I have had a few really bad weeks on this new way of living. My diet has been awful and exercise has been almost non-existent! I've said a couple of times that I was drawing a new line and restarting, but never really did. The problem was my head, it just wasn't in the right place. However, during the last week, I've gradually realised what I want. Although I haven't put on loads of weight (about 5lbs), my clothes felt tighter and I could see it in my face and on my stomach. I hated the way I felt and looked and I knew I don't want to go back to the way I was once before.

Yesterday really was my new beginning and I've had a good couple of days. I've stuck to my calories and I've exercised and I remembered just how good I feel when both of those things are being done. My head seems to be back where I want it (metophorically of course!) and my determination has also returned.

Hopefully, this will be the last entry which says I'm trying again. I know there will be days when things don't go as planned, but I don't intend for there to be whole weeks of it! :)

Just thought I'd put a couple of photos of my grandchildren on here

The older one is Taylor-Ann, who is now almost 5 months old. She is scrumptious. She's already crawling and has a real mind of her own. But she makes me laugh so much. The baby boy is Riley, who was born on the 9th September. He is so sweet and he looks just like a little old man. I am a very lucky woman.

You may have noticed that it's been a long time since I blogged about how things were going - the reason for this is because they have been going dreadfully!

I was really shaken to the core by my shopping experience and I've been wobbly ever since. I really thought I had this losing weight malarky sorted (silly, I know) and was confident that the new way of eating and exercising was now a way of life. However the past 3 weeks have shown me that I was wrong. I've put on a few pounds, but more than that, I've lost momentum. I keep saying to myself, "start again" and then choose to stuff myself stupid on rubbish instead. I've been eating sweets as though there is no tomorrow and I've even begun to drink full-sugar coke again!

Tomorrow though, I'm starting again properly. Tonight I am going to cook some food for my lunch tomorrow and Tuesday, as lunch is one of my downfalls and then I am going to speak to my daughter who, because she is not currently working, is the main cook in our house and make sure that she either cooks my food without all the extra fat and sauces she is so fond of, or that she lets me know that what she is cooking is not suitable for me so I can plan what to cook instead.

I've got into the habit of popping into the newsagents at Clapham Junction Station and buying a bottle of water and a bag of skittles every evening on the way home and so I will now make sure that I fill my water bottle up before I leave school and I'm not going to take money to work so that I can't buy rubbish on the way home. If I don't have money on me I will also have to walk home from the station which will mean that I get some exercise and save £25 a week whoo hoo.

Wish me luck - I really need it. I'm not sure that I can do it again, but I am so going to try.

My daughter Natalie, me and Charlie, my soon to be daughter-in-law

At midnight 5th Sept, my daughter, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law and I joined 3 of my daughter's friends on this walk.

It was a brilliant night. We soon broke up into two groups as myself, my daughter Natalie and my sister-in-law, Val walked much faster than the others.

I felt such a sense of achievement, when you consider that in February I walked 2 miles on 2 consecutive days and then couldn't go to work the following day as my ankle and foot was so swollen, it's amazing how much fitter I am now.

I was really proud of my girls - especially Val, as she had not walked more than 5 miles before. Val is the person who inspired me to lose weight this year as she lost 4 stone last year.

If any of you live near enough and would like to join us next year just let me know (and in fact, if you don't live near, but want to stay over at mine, you are very welcome to and we would love to have you)

I thought that I had been dealing with the difference in the way I look these days. I can see in the mirror that I am not the same as I once was and I have been revelling in the changes in my body. Which makes my mood this evening very difficult for me to understand.

I went shopping today - all I needed was a pair of shoes and a couple of reasonably smart looking tops to wear at work when I return next week. I didn't want to be long and so I was going into the good old standby of Evans. I love their "comfort" range of shoes for work, they are smart and comfy, just right for standing on my feet all day and I thought I would be able to pick up a couple of tops whilst I was there.

So what happened? Well, first of all, I tried a couple of size 18 tops on and they were huge on me. Well that was quite nice, although not totally unexpected. However, I could only find 4 size 16 tops in the whole store and I didn't like any of them. Then, I tried on the shoes I liked and despite having brought a similar pair several times, today they were like boats. I knew my feet had gone down from a size 8 to a 7, but the width of my feet has shrunk considerably too!

All of that should be making me feel good about where I am, but all of a sudden I feel disorientated. I don't know what size I am (I guess I'll be different sizes in different shops), I don't know what size shoe to wear and most importantly, I don't know where to go to buy clothes. After so many years of just having one or two shops available to buy from, I now seem to have hundreds and I'm over-whelmed. I don't know what styles suit me. I'm worried about ending up dressing too young, but at the same time I don't want to dress too old.

My daughters think I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but I really do feel quite emotional about it all. I came home with nothing at all, but I will need to go shopping again before next Thursday, so I need to come up with a way to deal with these emotions.

Does anyone have any wise words, or am I just being a bit of a drama queen?

I've had a great week. As I said I was going to, I've been tweaking the amount of carbs I have been eating. I have restricted the percentage of carbs in my diet to between 35 and 40% for the last week and I lost 4lbs! I have also felt less bloated and I can really see the difference in how swollen my stomach is.

On Wednesday I did a 11 mile walk along the thames. It was so beautiful, although it was very hot and I hadn't taken a hat! I still haven't managed to walk the 13.1 miles that I will need to do to complete the sponsored walk on the 5th September. But I'm feeling confident that I will this week.

My 4lbs off means I have lost more than 4 1/2 stones now and I'm now 12st 12lbs. I'm sooo excited and pleased.

When I first set up this site, I really did feel as though I was a desperate dieter; I had shockingly high blood pressure, high cholestral and had just found out that I had lost some of my sight in one of my eyes due to the blood pressure. I was also borderline diabetic. I knew I had to lose weight and in someways it didn't matter to me how I did it.

Now however, I realise that over the months my focus has changed, now it is not primarily about losing weight, although I am still losing weight and have a target in mind, but instead it's about being healthy and happy with myself.

Over the last few months I have discovered a real love for walking and so exercise has, for the first time ever, become part of my life. I may not do it every day, but I do it more days a week that I don't. I've even signed up to walk a half-marathon to raise money for a local hospice; something I would never have considered when walking the 10 minutes from work to the station was so difficult I couldn't walk and talk at the same time. I have also started walking for about an hour an evening most nights with my ex sister in law. She only lives a couple of doors away and we have always got on, but sometimes months used to pass without us seeing each other. She lost 4 stones about 18 months ago, but hadn't exercised. So it's great for both of us. We are even going out socially too, which is brilliant.

The other thing which has changed is the way I look at food. When I last lost weight (about 3 years ago) I ate lots of complete rubbish, but managed to lose weight because I kept within calories. This time, gradually, but definitely, I have started to be more concerned about the types of food I eat and aiming for good nutrition as well as staying in calories. I think this has really helped because now eating properly is the focus rather than losing as much weight as possible in the shortest amount of time. My weight loss has slowed to about 5 pounds a month (some months a little more, some a little less), but I am no longer stressing about why I'm not losing 2lbs a week, instead I can see that my skin is clearer, I'm less bloated and I feel better in myself and I know exactly what I'm eating - I feel in control!

I don't think losing weight on its own will make me happy, but the changes in lifestyle I'm making are and so it is all connected. I see this as a journey without an end - I'm not on a diet anymore, instead I'm eating well and exercising for pleasure. I am enjoying the journey and long may it continue