During the week between Christmas and New Year I went to Tesco and bought myself a really nice pair of trousers, which I wore to work the first day back on January 5th, which was the day after I started my diet (first day was a Sunday, but I weigh in on a Saturday). They were not snug, but they certainly were the right size and were not loose in anyway. Have a look at how big the trousers are on me today!

It's been a tough week this week. As I said earlier in the week I got gout and it has bothered me all week. I have done absolutely no exercise since the start of the week and even just walking at work has been a struggles. Added to that, I became a bit lazy weighing things out and found that on a couple of days I went over points - although luckily, I managed to save enough points over the week to cover these.

So you can imagine how delighted I am that when I weighed in this morning I had lost 1.5lbs and reached my 10%. It also means that I have lost 25% of the weight I want to lose! whoo hoo.

The gout is a little better this morning and so tomorrow I will start walking again - today, I'm just going to walk around the shops and look for something non-edible as a treat to myself for reaching my 10%.

I have yet another attack of gout. It started last night. I'm so peed because my walking and exercise has been going so well and now it will be on hold for a few days again - my problem is I usually lack motivation and so I am going to have to keep my interest going without doing the actual exercise. Wish me lukc - I will need it.

On Saturday I went out for lunch with friends I haven't seen for ages. I was really worried as it wasn't a chain restuarant and I didn't know what they would serve. When I got there I saw there was only a choice of 6 meals and most of them were cooked in butter. So I ordered the caeser salad, but without the croutons, parmasan and dressing - so I ended up paying £9 for a bit of lettuce and some chicken :(

I was feeling very virtuous until everyone else ordered ice cream and I thought "Well what difference can a scoop of ice cream make?" - the trouble was it wasn't one scoop, it was three! And it was the most delicious homemade stuff. Not sure how many points it was but I really cut back for the rest of the day. Thankfully I'm not a big drinker so I was happy to have lime and soda.

Saturday was my 7th weigh in and I lost another 2.5lbs - I'm estatic. I hve only another 1lb to go before I reach my 10% whoo hoo

This is nothing to do with my diet I am just seeing if I can blog
directly from my new iPhone x

Sent from my iPhone

As I said in an earlier post, I have never exercised in my life. Since I started this diet I have been doing the wii fit and also for the past 3 weeks I have been walking as much as possible. I also have the aim to walk 10000 steps a day, minimum. Tonight I had only done 8500 at 10pm and so I decided I would take a walk around the block (takes about 10 mins and would take me over that magic number. But then I thought why walk, why not jog? This is because I really enjoy the free jogging on the wii fit. My daughter said she would come with me and so off we went. I onkly managed 3 short bursts of about 90 seconds or 2 mins each, but I did it and I felt really proud of myself.

I do have to say that the wii fit jogging bears no relation to actual jogging. I can do 40 mins on the wii fit and still be able to breathe, albeit rapidly. However, those short bursts tonight raised my heart rate into the high exercise bracket! I'm going to try and do it each evening until I can keep it going for longer and breathe properly.

Saturday started so full of promise. My sixth weigh-in and I lost 2.5lbs, bringing me up to 21lbs and taking me down into the 15s. I was so chuffed.

The morning was great and then late afternoon disaster struck. I don't drive and I wanted to go and buy some shelving from Argos and a friend of my eldest daughter said he would take me. So far so good, but then on the way home he made a detour to the KFC. Now this is my favourite takeaway and because the nearest shop to me is about 5 miles away, I don't ever have a chance to get it. So 3 chicken portions, 3 hotwings, half a portion of chips and some coleslaw later, I found myself 7 points over for the day. Drats, drats and yet more drats.

Now the thing is, I found I didn't even enjoy it that much (well, except for the hot wings, which I loved) and then the fat in them meant Ihad a really upset tum all night. So I paid dearly for that moment of poor decision making and I don't intend to do it again lol!

Today was the day I had to try and make up for it. I went for a 4 mile walk and during it two wonderful, amazing things happened. The first was that I walked up the side of a really steep hill - just before Christmas, I went to Guildford, which is a town near to where I live. Guildford is really hilly and I struggled to get to the top of the high street - I was really suffering and had palpitations and sweats. So walking this hill was such a triumph. The second was that my family wanted to go to the top of a tower in this park. There are 99 steps and my first reaction was that I would never do it. But I did! And I didn't stop and I whilst I was slightly puffed, I could still hold a conversation when I got to the top. For all those people who doubt that the Wii Fit is proper exercise, I would have to disagree. Since I have been doing the free jogging and free steps my stamina has improved out of all recognition. Whoo hoo.

I'm going into week 7 with confidence and the hope that I can lose 3lbs this week so when, on Saturday, I meet so friends I haven't seen for a few months, I will be under 220.

This is the top of the hill I climbed up - it's difficult to see just how steep it is from this.



This is the view from the tower - see how high up it is!

A few weeks ago I sorted out all of my wardrobes and sorted all my clothes into those that fitted, thosw that were still too small, but should fit when I lost another 7 or so pounds and then thse that I needed to lose more weight to be able to wear them.

Today I tried on those that had been that 7lbs too small and guess what? THEY ALL FIT - I'm so happy, I've gone from a size 26 to a large 22. I have some 22s that are stilll too small, but they seem to be the ones which are not from specifically "large" shops. For example my 2 Jeff Banks tops. The only exception to this are the Sainsburys clothes which are still too small, even though the Tesco and Asda ones fit comfortably.

One of the Jeff Banks tops is the one that I wanted to be able to fit into by my birthday in May. When I first started this diet there was a good 3 inch gap where the two front edges didn't meet. Today I can get everyone of the buttons done up - I just couldn't sit down in it lol. I suspect that by May it may even be a bit too big. As the title of this blog said whoo hoo!

Today for the second day running I went for a long walk back to painshill park. It was amazing how much snow had disappeared overnight and although it was still cold, there was bright sunshine. My daughter, Natalie, and I walked for 4 miles before we headed home.

The only problem is, when I combine this with the 6 miles I walked yesterday, it means my poor feet are in a bad way! I have quite weak ankles and have had physiopherapy on them in the past and the walking up and down hills has made the muscles around my ankes hurt sooo much that now I am finding it hard to walk at all. Trust me to overdo thing, but when I was actually walking it was easy to ignore that my feet hurt as I was enjoying it so much.

Lesson learned I suppose - next weekend, one day walking and the other day something else.

Whoo hoo - today was my 5th weigh in and I lost 3lbs - I'm so pleased. It means Ihave lost 18.5lbs since January 4th. I spent 2 hours today walking in Painshill Park, which is a restored 18th century landscaped garden. It was stunning and I managed to walk over 16000 steps, which was an added benefit.

Here is one of the photos. The rest can be seen here

It's one month ago today that I started this journey towards a fitter, thinner me. The highlights have been:
1. Giving up Coca Cola in all forms
2. Being able to get back into some of the clothes I was wearing 18 months ago when I last lost weight and dropped 2 sizes
3. Not cheating once and not actually wanting to cheat.
4. Becoming more organised about my eating - I have taken lunch to school everyday and have cooked every evening
5. Having a sneaky feeling that I might just actually like aerobic exercise, especially jogging on the wii fit! Never thought I would say that in a hundred years lol

Bring on month 2!!

Had a snow day today. School was closed because of the snow (I'm a teacher) so I didn't have to go to work. Just as well as there were no trains running and I take 2 to get to work.

My youngest daughter, Sarah, was also home for the day and so we walked my eldest daughter, Natalie, to work. We then spent about 21/2 hours walking around my home village taking photos and just enjoying the walk. Although we took things slowly so we didn't slip over, my leg muscles are killing me. I think it's because I had to pick my legs up quite high (I'm only short) so as not to get totally buried in the snow. Also, because I had to keep struggling to keep my balance.

I'm off work tomorrow too, but I'm NOT walking out in it again lol

Here are some of the photos I took on our walk

The weekend stated well with a 2lb loss for the week. So that was 15.5lbs in 4 weeks - I've never lost so much so quickly before. I'm feeling very optimistic - not just because of the weight loss, but because of the choices I have started to make. Not once have I felt that I couldn't control what I am eating - which is a really new feeling for me.

Today I had a great day out walking in Windsor Great Park - I went with my daughter, a friend of hers and her friend'd daughter. We had two dogs and walked for two hours. It was really lovely, despite the bitterly cold winds and the occassional snow flurry.

Here are a couple of photos of the day