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

I only lost half a pound this week, but I have to say that I am actually pleased with that. After a great start to the week, it all went down hill on Wednesday. I haven't been sleeping very well (I suffer from insomnia and when I am on school holidays my sleeping pattern becomes dreadful) and that really affected me and the decisions I made on Wednesday. I just couldn't be bothered and made some very bad food choices. I felt really resentful about dieting and focused on the fact that I feel really good now and so it didn't matter if I stopped losing weight and instead maintained. Deep down I knew it was just tiredness that was talking and that I wasn't being totally rational.

Now it would have been okay, except on Thursday I did exactly the same thing again. On Thursday I got Pizza delivered and ate a whole one to myself. The only saving grace was that in the "bad old days" I would have had a large pizza with garlic bread and chicken wings but I "only" had a regular pizza and no side orders.

On Friday morning when I woke up I gave myself a really good talking to and wrote a journal entry in my daily dieting diary exploring why I had over eaten and thinking about what I can do if the temptation strikes again. I realised that over the past few months there have been numerous times when I have been really tired, which can make me weepy and take things out of proportion, but that I have managed to not allow it to sabotage things by considering my goals and the reasons for why I want to be healthier and slimmer. So, I have put the following things in place:

1. I got myself a really beautiful notebook and this is going to be my new journal, which is not replacing my dieting diary, but will supplement it. I'm going to include pictures of myself at different stages, pictures of clothes I like and hairstyles etc and inspiring quotes and I'll write down compliments I have received etc. There will also be pictures of my grandchildren (or at least grandchild for now as the other two are not born yet) as one of my main reasons for slimming is to be a fit grandmother and I will put in anything else that inspires me. I can slip this in my bag and when I need motivation it will be there for me.

2. I am spending tomorrow cooking so I have lots of lovely meals ready and waiting so I don't have to cook if I am tired (my excuse for having the pizza)

3. I have persuaded my sister-in-law who lives 2 doors away from me that we should go for a walk every evening

4. I'm going to try meditation to see if that will help the insomnia

5. I'm going to plan all my meals for the next week - I've never done this before as I have always resisted the idea of not being spontaneous, but I think it might be really helpful and if it works then I shouldn't have the excuse to make bad choices.

Pleased to say that both Friday and Saturday were better days and on the plus side I have exercised 6 days out of the last 7.

Today I started the day with 50g of porridge with stewed pears and cinnamon. Lunch was 100g (cooked weight) of brown rice with 80g of chicken breast and assorted roasted veg. Dinner was homemade spicy bean burgers with a salad and I had snacks of 2 oat cakes with cottage cheese and 3 brazil nuts. I also had a banana bread Nakd bar. This evening as I had spare calories, I sucummed to the glorious taste of a Flake bar, eaten with a hot cup of tea - Perfection :)

Calories used 1348. I only earned 110 calories through exercise today and so I had just 42 calories left over at the end of the day.

Today I ate 1545 calories and earned 659 (after background cals were removed) from exercise.

Breakfast was huge:
1. Scrambled egg (1 whole egg and one egg white with skimmed milk) with salmon and roasted tomatoes
2. Porridge made with skimmed milk and topped with stewed apricots

Snack 1: 6 brazil nuts
Snack 2: 1 Banana Bread Nakd bar (ummh delicious - tastes like bread pudding my great granny used to make when I was a child)

Lunch was a grilled chicken breast with spices, 100g of new potatoes baked in their jackets, 1 tsp of clover, salad with low cal dressing

Dinner was 100g lean rump steak with baked mushrooms and tomatoes and courgette cooked in 1/2tsp of clover. This was followed by 100g of Greek-style natural youghurt with stewed apricot

After a slow July in terms of weight loss, August seems to be going much better. I lost 2.5lbs last week and another 1.5lbs at today's weigh in. I'm only 1/2lb away from having lost 60lbs and 1.5lbs from having lost 25% of my starting weight and so I've spent this morning reviewing what I'm doing and where I am going.

Food wise, I am eating much more healthily, but there is still room for improvement. I want to reduce the proportion of carbs I have in my diet, especially in relation to protein. So I'm aiming for a 40: 40: 30: split between carbs, protein and healthy fats. I hope that will help me to be less bloated and stop craving sweet things. I have pretty much cut out processed carbs but hope that by focusing on the amount of carbs I'm eating I will get rid of them completely. I want to increase the amount of protein because I am starting to do more weigh training and protein is good for that.

Fitness wise, I am starting to really enjoy exercising each day - I think I could still be doing more, especially as I am on holiday, but I am earning about 600 calories a day (after background calories have been removed) and eating at least half of them, so even if I don't do more then I know that I am fitter than I was before and that I am doing enough to enable me to eat a reasonable amount of food a day without getting hungry.

Target wise, I set my original target at 10st 5lbs, which was a total loss of 99lbs. I picked this because it was the heaviest I could weigh and still have a BMI which said normal rather than overweight. However, I am beginning to think that I would like to reduce that down even further to about 125lbs or 8st 12. This would mean that my BMI was at a really healthy point and I should be a size 10 or thereabouts. For now, I'm sticking to the original target as an interim one and I will assess how I feel and look when I get there.

Breakfast was 50g of porridge oats made with 100ml of skimmed milk, topped with pears stewed with cinnamon - ummh yummy


Snack 1 was an apple sliced into pieces and with 10g of cashewnut butter spread onto the slices (forgot to take a picture doh!)




Lunch was 2 seed crackers with pineapple cottage cheese and 1 piece of light rye bread with 50g of sardines in water, followed by a Banana Bread Nakd bar


Snack 2 was 6 brazil nuts (again no photo - must remember to take pictures of EVERYTHING that goes into my mouth!)





Dinner was thinly sliced carrot, courgette and leek with garlic lightly cooked with 2 tsp of olive oil and topped with a salmon fillet with 7 thai spices. Follwed by 100g of greek-style low fat yoghurt topped with stewed apricots and cinnamon (I love cinnamon!!)








Snack 3 was another naked bar

I have been looking at what I eat and trying to make it as healthy as possible. I have pretty much stopped eating refined carbs. The only bread I eat now is rye bread or wholemeal pitta - this has really benefited me as I think I have a slight whet intolerance. It als means that I don't have butter or marg anymore. However, I still eat loads of complex carbs and I want to reduce the number of teose I am eating and increase the amount of protein. I am not going on a low carb diet, just shifting the percentages around a bit. Also, I seem to have cut too much fat out of my diet and so I want to add more nuts and olive oil too. I thought that one way of focusing on these changes would be to photograph everything I eat - If there is going to be photographic evidence of my munches then I want it to look good as well as taste good. So for the next week, at least and maybe longer, I am going to post photos of what I ate the previous day.

It's been ages since I updated my blog, I missed blogging throughout the whole of july, and that's sort of symptomatic of what July was like for me dieting wise.

I've had a real struggle to keep on track. I lost and put on the same 2lbs about 3 times! I was never widely off course, but was rarely fully on it either. I think the problem was that I have started to feel okay about my current weight. I've had lots of compliments, I can shop in "normal" stores and I know I'm much fitter, so the impetus to stick firmly to the plan was missing.

However, August is going to be so much better - I'm fired up again, because if I feel like this now, how much better will I feel when I have lost the remaining 42lbs? (ONLY 41lbs!!! That's less than 3 stones to go, which I know I can do). Also, I've signed up to walk a half-marathon on Sept 5th and so I have a really important short term goal to aim for. I've done 2 12 mile walks in the past 10 days and I'm aimming to do 2 5 mile walks and one 10 mile walk a week for the next fortnoght and then up it to 2 8 mile walks and one 13 mile for the following 3 weeks.

If anyone feels like sponsoring me you can do it here I'm doing the walk in aid of our local hospice where my Uncle and Aunt received treatment before they died.

Thought I'd share my inch loss with you all (although I still don't have a waist to speak of!!)

Starting Now Loss
Bust 52" 43.5" 8.5"
Waist 48" 38" 10"
Hips 53" 43" 10"
Thighs 26" 21.5" 4.5" each

And here is a picture of my weight loss over the past 25 weeks

Today was weigh in 25 and I lost 2lbs. That takes me down to 192Lbs, so 52lbs gone in total. I am so thrilled because I have had some real struggles over the past 4 weeks. I have never totaly fallen off the wagon, so to speak, but I had stopped really trying to lose weight and was just playing at it. I think I had just become lazy and a bit bored and it was only that eating healthly had become a habit which prevented me from piling lots of weight back on. However, I seem to have come out the other side as I am back counting points and calories (still can't decided which of these methods is best for me and so I am doing both) and the weight is continuing to come off. The rate has dropped off a bit, but I'm even alright with that because I have come to terms with the idea that there is no quick fix solution and that whether is is another 6 months or another year until I reach goal doesn't matter - it's the long term that is important.