Fatgirl slim

Thank you all for your lovely comments on my last couple of blogs.  I went for my riding lesson and really enjoyed it, although my legs are still aching and I have some nice bruises!!  I just have to find out now whether they will let me have lessons, or whether i’ll have to lose more weight first.

My eating this week hasn’t been great, the junk has crept in most days and I don’t mean 100 or 200 calories.  I know what i’m like and I should know better, but if I buy anything to keep in the house it ends up being eaten within a day or so.  So I bought a box of small ice cream bars - should have easily lasted me a week, but no I ate them in one night!  I don’t beat myself up for walking to the shop to buy a small chocolate bar or something, but I need to remind myself I can’t keep anything in the house with the intention of eating it slowly over a week or so, it just doesn’t work with me.  Yes I know I should have more self-restraint but I don’t.  So for the last couple of days I haven’t let myself go near any shops so I can’t creep in and buy a treat. 

 Anyway this week is a new week, i’ve weighed in and am just so glad I didn’t gain.  I need to be strict about not eating over 1500 on any day.  My flatmate goes back to work this week, so doing my exercise at home can become a habit again, rather than trying to fit it in when she’s not around.  For a month or so anyway before my timetable changes.

I have three medical appointments this week, but hopefully everything is on track for me to return to uni in Oct.  So now all I have to get sorted is moving (my flatmate is trying to sell the flat) and my money as I haven’t had an income over the summer and will have less funding this year as i’m repeating some study.  I don’t usually ask this, but please keep me in your prayers.  After getting my health sorted I don’t want a lack of finances to stop me completing my degree.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I lost 3 lb this week and got my second red star, which was a nice surprise.  We have a public holiday here this weekend, so my town is really busy as everyone comes to the beach.  Im looking for little sanctuarys to hide out in!

 This week ive also booked a riding lesson - I used to ride all the time, but haven’t had lessons in years.  So I called up this riding school and had a chat with the owner.  It was all looking good until I had to disclose my weight.  I’d looked at other schools and I was over their weight limit.  Apparently I was also over this one’s weight limit (well above their weight limit were the words used).  But the owner was nice and said that because id ridden before and I was only having a half hour lesson, they’d let me go anyway and see how I get on.  Although I am only allowed 30 minute lessons for now, until I lose some more weight.  I’m looking forward to it - should be therapeutic as well as exercise (I think i’m going to find muscles I forgot I had!).

 Have a great weekend everyone.

So I did it - I went and had my hair done it looks great (mind you with prices like that i’d expect it to be goldleafed!!!).  And I hardly felt silly at all.

 Now being on a bit of a roll I then got on a bus.  OK I know that sounds pretty normal.  But since being ill ive avoided public transport ( about 8 months) incase I got hot, dizzy & faint (i’d feel very stupid passing out on a busy bus in the middle of town).  So with my heart pounding and knowing that I wasn’t feeling ill just anxious I caught the bus into town. 

Before I write the next bit I just want to say that I respect there are people here with many different beliefs, and I hope you respect mine.  So this bus journey was followed up by me finding a local church who had a healing session taking place.  I have never been to this church or met any of the people, but I went and had my healing and someone very kindly came and chatted with me when they realised I hadn’t been there before and invited me to sit with her should I go to anything there again.

 I have to say i’m feeling quite good about myself today, now ive just to got avoid rewarding myself wih anything more than 100 calories (in the past this would have justified eating a take out and/or a tub of half-baked Ben & Jerrys) but today im bigger than that - rice cakes or a 100 calorie eclair will be enough.

 Sorry for bragging, but it im proud of myself and wanted to share.

 I hope you’re all having a good day - weight wise and in every other way.

 (((HUGS)))

This isn’t weightloss, but for me its all mixed up together.  Since I was in my teens ive had a confidence problem (I think it started when I changed schools at 11 and how I looked, what I wore and what I did was commented on).  Although ive always believed ive been big all my life, looking back at pictures of me at school I’m not as big as I thought I was.  I guess that when the weight really started to creep up 5 years ago I already saw a fat girl in the mirror so didn’t see much difference.  I have to psyche myself to go into town or the beach and I hate shopping on my own.  I can’t even consider going to the cinema (theatre) or to a show on my own.  Ive not attended friends birthdays or weddings because I won’t know people and have to walk in on my own.  I just think people will look at me and laugh or make comments.  

This is even crazier when you consider the work I do where im meeting and dealing with new people all the time and that I used to work club and event security and had to deal with hundreds of people a night - but there was something about wearing that uniform or being in work mode that meant I belonged and that made those things easier.

Ive missed out (well backed out if im being honest) of a lot of things because im scared people will judge me, and therefore won’t like me - yes the rational part of me knows this is crazy.  Like ive just commented on someone elses blog I didn’t see myself as attractive and picked up and dated the wrong guys for the wrong reasons.  (Apart from one or two I must add).

One thing I avoid with a passion is the hairdressers, not just because I sometimes don’t like the styling, but because I don’t feel that I belong in the ‘fancy’ (high street) hairdressers.  I look at the girls and feel that because they look fashionable and usually young and slim that again I will be judged.  Ive been lucky to meet several friends who have been hairdressers, so ive often  been able to avoid this.   Well today I put my big girlie pants on walked right into one of those hairdressers and booked my appointment.  And guess what no one laughed - most people ignored me and the one or two that looked at me smiled.  While I was on a roll I took myself into the library and joined that too (yep ive been putting that off - another of my weird paranoias - walking into the unknown).  And next weeks goals are to actually attend the hair appointment, arranging to visit some riding stables to look at starting riding again (yep have to psyche myself to make these phonecalls too). 

So along with my weightloss journey im also on a self discovery journey.  Ive been carrying around all this extra baggage for almost 20 years and its time to drop this baggage along with the weight.  Ive already arranged counselling for Sept to work through some of this before I return to school.  So not only will I be slim, fit and healthy but i’ll be a lot less neurotic too!!! (okay maybe a little less neurotic - can’t change too much or my friends will have withdrawal symptoms and a lack of entertainment).

Ive been feeling down on myself over the past couple of weeks, but today I got back on my healthy eating plan.  Then I come on here tonight and read your blogs and just by reading what some of you have written i’m feeling renewed motivation, inspiration & commitment.  Im in the christmas challenge to be 199 in 2009.  But having just read Don’s blog (thanks for the inspiration Don) im going to challenge myself to make 210lbs by 6th October for the start of term.  I want to go back to school looking and feeling the best I have in years.

So thank you all for your motivating & inspiring words - this is why I love sharing this journey with you all!!

I don’t blog too often as I don’t feel I have much to say -my day are pretty mundane at the moment as i’m not working.  But I have lost the motivation that I had when I started.  I’ve lost 18lbs, but since I was feeling tired a couple of weeks ago i’ve stopped exercising and the chocolate has crept back in daily (even with my planned days off).

What seems to work for me is starting with a strict regime - cutting all the junk, sticking strictly to my diet plan and generally making this my top priority until I can fit it into my daily life naturally.  So as from tomorrow my intention is to get tough with myself again, to keeep the scale going in the right direction.  I know in my head that I want this, I can visiualise myself slim, but somewhere between my head and my mouth it all gets mixed up.

 Tomorrow starts with a doctors appt and then food shopping, so I need to ensure that only the right foods get into my trolley and none of the chocolate or icecream - not for the next few days anyway.  And I need to start blogging regularly again to keep myself accountable,  Here I go again……

I had this email sent to me today and thought i’d share….. I think the Alen Strike words are so apt!

Well this week has been a kind of off week for me, not just with the eating & exercise, but just letting things in general get to me.  Im not beating myself up about it - I obviously needed to go through this.  But unlike all my previous attempts, this is not a reason to now give up.  I am 12lbs lighter than when I started this journey at the end of April. 

So this week i’m coming back harder and stonger, the way I did when this first started being strict on my food (I have to be or I excuse all the small ‘treats’) and the exercise.  It also helps that I have hospital follow-up appointments this week, so it feels like things are starting to move in the right direction - towards a fit and healthy me.

I commented on another blog about what kept me from getting completely fit and healthy and the answer is fear.  Fear of the unknown.  I know I want to lose weight - there are so many gains to be gotten.  But it also brings the unknown - do I honestly want to be noticed, or do I prefer to remain ‘invisible’.  If I get to the weight want, will I then have other failures at all the things I want to try.  While this fear of the unknown has stopped me from trying certain things in the past, ive also got through these unknowns before in terms of my job, moving towns, making friends and generally trying new activities.  And whats the worst that can happen?  I stay as I am now.

I know I want this - fit & healthy here I come!!!!

Well Annie & the rest of the Heartbreakers here’s my attempt at the challenge!

Since 2003 I’ve tried a few times to seriously lose weight.  After a successful start these have ended due to either changes in my life (moving to shared uni accommodation, moving jobs) or due to me becoming frustrated when the scale refuses to move or the clothes don’t get any looser.

 Finding this site has made this time different.  Before finding buddyslim, I had already started changing my eating and exercise habits.  But having a lot of other people available who are, or have, gone through the same thing provides support that my friends and family just aren’t able to.

Seeing the ones who have completed or are completing the initial part of the journey and have lost the weight provides inspiration.  I was looking at the before and after pics thread yesterday and they show it really can be done.  I found t a shame that a couple of the people are no longer members as I would have loved to have been able to ask them about their experience, but I understand that they have been here and done it and I guess felt it was time to move on.

 Joining a challenge group has made me accountable.  Although I hated doing it, having to admit too someone else that you have gained weight really makes you examine where you are.  Before I would have found a weigh to deny the weight gain to myself.  And offers a support network where not only and we all trying to lose weight, but we are all working towards the same set of subgoals.  A great big thank you and even bigger hugs to the heartbreakers.

That doesn’t take anything away from the rest of my buddies, who are a great support.  I haven’t been very supportive to my buddies over the last week or so, and it was so nice tonight when I logged in to see a message checking up on me.   It was just the right message at the right time.  You don’t even get that support at weightloss groups.

Blogging is a new experience for me, and has turned out to be so valuable.  Reading other peoples blogs and seeing in writing people going through exactly the same experiences makes me feel more normal.  I enjoy reading the blogs and trying to be a good buddy where I can.  I also enjoy putting my thoughts and feelings into words not necessarily to have it commented on, but just to get it out there.  But making those words public, rather than privately journaled, again means there’s no hiding from the negative.  And of course its nice to get rewarded for the positive. 

Although I don’t like the food journal on the site, what it has done is proved how important for journaling is to me, its led me to logging my food and exercise - not every calorie, but an overview of the day.  This certainly helped after dinner with friends, as I just adjusted my food for the next couple of days to make up for it.

 I’m looking forward to continuing this journey with you all. And thank you all for your support so far - I honestly couldn’t have done it without you all!!!

Following on from yesterdays blog I hit asda (walmart) today with my berry lipstick and gold scarf.  I always get up and do my hair and makeup, and currently live in a pair of gold pumps, but I did feel self conscious with these couple of new additions.  But the world didn’t stop, no-one tried to run me over with their shopping trolley and security didn’t remove me.  And afterwards I felt really good about myself, and a bit more ‘put together’ than usual.  Roll on tomorrow…..