Dentist - Horror Be Gone!

Well I had a dentist checkup today and if I haven't said it before I will say it now - it is so nice to be free of the fear!

You may remember a while ago I blogged about being scared of the dentist and then the joy of finding a nice one that I was able to go to. Well about 2 years on and roughly 6 checkups under my belt I can honestly say how nice it is to have a regular dentist that doesn't fill you with fear.

Thank you kind dentist!

Where Have I Been?

Hello All,

I have been away for ages! Guess what .... I got that job I spoke about in my last post! Woohoo.

It's actually been going quite well there and its a lot better than my first impressions. So that's where I have been all this time, working lol. It's taken me a while to be able to blog and work! But I do like the blogging so thought I would get back in to it.

So what has everyone been up to these past 9 months? :-)

An Interview At Last!

I finally got an interview yesterday, yay me! Took about 18 months mind you, I have had other interviews of course but they were all with agencies and that doesn't really count in the same way I don't think.

I have to say I had checked out the company beforehand and didn't really seem to keen on them based on their website (very industrial etc) but after not working for 18 months I can't be picky so I popped my CV in the post anyway and heard back fairly quickly.

The interview was surprisingly ok, normally I get terrified about these things. I'm pretty sure the reason for this is that I wasn't that keen on the company so wasn't too worried about the outcome. So there's a tip everyone, if you don't want to get nervous about an interview then apply to places you are not keen on!

The interview itself was quite a long, hammering one, lots of 'give me an example of when' questions and few role play scenarios (in a non rude way of course). And actually I came out of the place feeling a little bit more warm and fuzzy about it, which is a good thing in case I do get the job.

Overall and excellent introduction back into the world of interviewing. Let's see where it leads!

My Grandmother Thinks I'm Fat

Ok so that's not strictly true lol, she just mentioned this morning that my calorie counting has clearly gone out the window as she watched me chow down on 3 biscuits in a row. Sigh, why do I lack the essential willpower??

On a happier note however I tried snowboarding on the weekend for the first time! What a crazy sport but I could really feel the muscles working. My brother and sister have been snowboarding and skiing for a while and really wanted me to try it out with them so my bro bought me a lesson at the place he does, Tamworth Snowdome. http://www.snowdome.co.uk/ Here is the link if anyone is interested, it's an amazing place and they do have real snow on the slopes.

Bit Creaky

I did the best walk I've done in a while today, about 2 hours, in the rain! I felt a bit creaky when I got back but I'm sure it will be worth it.

Scales wise I haven't been back on since my last post. I'm not going to weight too often as it might just depress me.

I would love to hear how anyone else out there is doing?

xx

First Weight

Well I bit the bullet and got on the scales - 11 stone 13 lbs!!!

Gutted, I've put on about a stone over Christmas, that is unbelievably although I'm not altogether surprised. But I fell like at least I know where I stand now and can do something about it.

I've created a spreadsheet in Excel where I can log my weight and things like calorie intake and any excercise that I do which will hopefully help me keep track of things.

In other news the snow is melting at a rate of notts now so this should make it easier to get out and about, but it is slightly sad in a way as I did enjoy taking the dogs out for a walk and running about the fields in the snow.

Job Situation

Well I still haven't got a job and it's been almost exactly a year now. I never would have thought I would have been unemployed for so long at the start of this.

Up until now I have been fairly chilled about not working obviously having the odd moment of fear now and again but not all the time. Now however it's starting to be so that the fear is always sort of there in the background.

I think I might be in a vicious circle at the moment, no one now wants to give me a job because I've been out of work for so long and it looks like I'm a bit of a slacker. I sent out another application this morning and I actually wrote a little extra in the email saying how keen I was to get back into a job etc, I wasn't sure it didn't sound a bit drippy but then I'm not generally getting any reply's anyway so I thought it was worth a go.

I think being at home so much is just giving me extra time to eat my way through everything in the fridge as well!

Good Start - Crumbled At The End

Excellent start to the day today, I had Shredded Wheat for breakfast with chopped up bannana and I haven't done that in a long while, over Christmas it was mostly choc bics! Ok so I did have a few bics with my morning cuppa but at least we are moving in the right direction.

Then for lunch cous cous with some chopped up tomatoes and feta cheese, still good, still healthy.

For dinner - jacket potato with chick peas and salad, excellent, excellent.

Then it all went peet tong. It started with some of the leftover choc cake from yesterday's Sunday lunch, and went into a further slide with some Quality Streets from Christmas. One of each of the flavours I like I had, oh and I might as well go the whole hog and admit it - I had 2 pieces of the choc cake!

Honestly I think there is actually something wrong with me. Things need to change dramatically on the food front. I have identified the danger time for me though I think, later in the evening snacking. I can do well all day and then crumble at night. Unbelievable. I must make serious efforts to sort this.

Christmas / New Year Meltdown

Well I have had a great Christmas and New Year but I have totally fallen off the wagon with regards to eating healthily.

I dread to think of the amount of calories I have consumed over this 2 week period and even though we are no into the 3rd Jan things haven't slowed down. Just yesterday I went out with my Grandma and Sister to the Harvester ( www.harvester.co.uk great food by the way) and ate so much I'm sure I could feel my stomach expanding. I think the thing that gets me is their salad bar. It sounds all innocent, being salad and all but they have some great stuff in there, potato salad and lots of yummy sauces, that it would be enough for a whole meal on it's own really.

Anyway just like most other people I'm going to make a concerted effort now to eat much healthier and eat much less! Although as today is a Sunday and we have family around for Sunday lunch and I've already seen a big choc cake in the kitchen, maybe I had better start tomorrow!

For those that were wondering, I havent even thought about stepping on a scales.

Gemma's Back

Had a fun day today meeting up with a friend Gemma who has been away on hols. We went out to lunch at Pizza Hut which was yummy!

It's been ages since I've worn anything half smart, what with being in Nepal and being an unemployed bum lol so I had to scour the back of my wardrobe to find something half decent. I found a few pairs of jeans that I had all but forgotten about and were way too small for me. Imagine my joy when both pairs fit me perfectly! It's a good job actually as since I've started loosing weight most of my old jeans don't fit me anymore, which is a fab feeling. It gave me such a spurt on to know that my new healthy eating / exercise is working. Sometimes you really need a boost like that I think. Gemma even asked if I had lost weight without me mentioning my efforts at all so it's defo working. Overall it all seems to be coming together nicely.

I was so inspired that I took the dogs out for an hour long walk to exercise off some of the pizza!

Recipes

Hey, well I am trying hard to stick to my healthy eating even though I don't always manage it! I have had a few slip up's since I've been back from Nepal and it's kept my weight at 11 stone exactly.

I have found an excellent book from the library, it's a recipe book with high energy foods but with a low GI so they aid weight loss, health and vitality.

So far I have tried one recipe out of it - the Morning Muffins and I thought they were really tasty. The stats per muffin are:

kcal - 212

fat - 5g (0.6g saturated)

protein - 5g

carbohydrates - 39g

I will give you the recipe if you fancy trying them out but one word of warning - it says to use chopped apricots and it really does mean this. I forgot to chop mine and so some muffins ended up with whole dried apricots in them and some ended up with none! Not ideal.

You will need:

170g dried apricots, coarsely CHOPPED

170g unsweetened museli

250g self-raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

250ml unsweetened apple juice

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

100ml honey

1 large egg

A 12 hole muffin tin lined with 12 paper cases

This recipe makes 12 and takes 12 minutes of prep time.

-Put the apricots, muesli, flour and baking powder in a large mixing bowl and stir.

-In a separate bowl, mix the apple juice, oil, honey and egg.

-Fold into the dry ingredients, but do not over mix.

-Spoon the mixture into the paper muffin cases.

-Bake in a pre-heated oven at 190C (375F) Gas 5 for 20 minutes, until golden and risen.

-Remove from the oven and serve immediately, or transfer to a wire rack to cool.

-Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

This was a really easy recipe I thought and the muffins do taste great if you like that sort of thing. I realise it's not for everybody though as only me and my Mum actually liked the one's I made. I like to have one for breakfast every now and again as they are quite dense so nice and filling.

The author of the book is Rachael Ann Hill and her website is http://www.rachaelannehill.com/ there is loads of info on this site about diet, fitness and health and you can check out the best-selling author section if you want a link to her book.

Another 2lbs Down

Hey All,

I've decided Friday's will be my weight day. Before Nepal I was weighing kinda randomly with no structure but I've decided now im back to do things right and only weight once a week. As yesterday was Friday I weighted and I was so happy to see I had lost 2lbs more! Im now 11 stone exactly.

Im still amazed this is working to be honest as I haven't started the gym up since i've been back and I was wondering if that would be a mistake. All I have been doing so far is controlling what I eat by:

Cutting out butter.

Making sure I eat 3 meals a day rather than snacking on fatty foods.

Only snacking on fruit between meals.

Making sure I eat a healthy wholegrain cereal each morning.

Keeping an eye on the calories in foods.

Drinking less sugary drinks and drinking more water.

If I find the weightloss slows or stops them I will probably go back to the gym but since I don't have a job at the moment im trying to avoid that expense where possible. Instead I have been walking wherever I can, even taking the stairs instead of lifts lol.

Back from Nepal

Im back!

I had a great time in Nepal and guess what - I lost more lbs! I really can't believe it but im 11stone 2lbs now which is nearly a stone lighter than when I started. Im double shocked that I managed to loose extra weight in Nepal, especially as anyone who's been there will know that their stable dish is Dal Bhat (kind of a curry).

I wasn't really thinking at all about what I ate over there since I didn't really have any control over it. We did a fair bit of moving around with the volunteering so the only thing I can think of is that I must have been doing more exercise without really noticing (the best kind of exercise if you ask me).

Anyway whatever the reason im really happy and just hope I can keep it up now im back home.

The pic is the view from the monastery where I was teaching English, it was a beautiful place as you can see. For breakfast everyday at 6am we ate monk break (kind of like pita bread) with butter and jam, then at 12am and 6pm we had Dal Bhat each day alongside some lovely very sweet tea, so you can see why I was sure that if anything I would have put on weight!

Nepal Calling

Hey All,

Only 2 more days until I leave for Nepal now! I have been keeping up with the gym and swimming and eating healthily so I feel like i've prepared myself as much as possible. Im not really sure what it's going to be like out there as i've never been anywhere like it before but this just makes it all the more exciting.

I am feeling a little tense at the lack of control I will have regarding what we will eat (oh this shows how far I have come!) and the fact that I wont be able to get to the gym but im hoping the general activity of volunteering abroad will keep my in ok shape at least. I've heard they eat a fair amount of curry's over there and I do have to admit im looking forward to trying real curry's from Nepal :-) and im sure even have a go at cooking them ourselves.

xx

More Cracking News

I have now lost half a stone! Woohoo :-)

Im so happy about this people. Since my last post i've decided to take more drastic action and have joined a gym, which i've been going to every other day and swimming in the days in between. It's a dramatic increase in excercise for me but actually im loving it. I used to go to a gym before and I had forgotten how satisfying it can be to get your arse working!

It's taken me 10 days to loose the half stone which I was even surprised at, I had expected to loose a few lbs at the most. I don't expect things will carry on at this speed but it's nice to get a really big kick start.

To help things along even further im eating roughly 1000 calories a day. This might not seem like much to some but as pretty much everything I eat is now healthy its plenty for me to be going on with.

Few lbs Shifted

Good news I have shifted a few lbs with my detox :-) im chuffed to bits. I feel like this is the kick start that I needed and im now determined that more lbs are to follow!

As it was Sunday yesterday we went to a beach in Swansea and walked for miles so I feel this will have done some good as well. However this might have been counter balanced by the slightly unhealthy picnic we had, but hey ho, you have to live as well I figure and it was a fun day out. We took our 2 dogs and they were so funny in the water!

Detox

The weight loss is not going as well as anticipated and im not totally sure whats going wrong as im defo eating alot healthier than I was. So in light of that I have decided to try and kick things off with a detox.

As of today I am having a few days of only eating fruit and drinking water (apart from the first essential cup of coffee in the morning), or fruit tea. So far it's only 10.25 so it's going alright at the mo. I had a bowl of sliced nectarine, strawberrys and cherrys for breakfast which was yum but I can tell I will get fed up of it pretty quickly. Plus fruit never really fills me up, im always left with that slightly tummy rumbly feeling, especially with apples for some reason. But then I guess the point of a detox isn't to feel full all the time.

I just hope it works and that I start to shift some lbs pretty quickly!

Criminail!

More bad news all - I have criminail. Im sure some of you have seen the adverts 'don't be a criminail, get curanail' http://www.curanail.co.uk/ For those that don't know, suffice to say I have a fungal nail infection on my big toe.

I hot footed it out and bought some Curanail as soon as I realised (£19.99!) but due to my nail varnish obsession I might have had it for sometime and not realised. The box says it can take up to a year to heal but luckily it's only a once weekly treatment so shouldn't be too bad to keep up with.

I highly suspect I caught this from a friend I was staying with recently who had a fungal nail infection AND athleats foot but she swears blind it's not contagious. All I can say to that is hmmmm, sounds like a pretty big coincidence in that case.

I got chatting to the lady in the chemist who sold me the Curanail and she was merrily telling me about her own fungal infection and how she had had it for yonks but not treated it yet! Apaprently she was waiting for winter when she didn't have to wear open toe sandles etc and so could go without the nail varnish. I don't know about you but as soon as I realise I have something like this then I want to get rid, sharpish!

Eating Healthly - No Weight Loss!

I cannot believe I have to report this but after all my eating healthly for a few weeks now there has been no further weightloss. I really can't even believe this. maybe I haven't always been that hot on the excercise side of things but I have been eating so much more healthly than my normal diet! I actually was feeling better in myself as well and even managed to get a pair of old boots on that I hadn't been able to do up until recently due to my fat legs but clearly things arn't going as well as I thought, damnit. I had avoided weighing until recently as I had thought that if I weighed too soon and hadn't lost anything then it would put a downer on things for me - well this is exactly what has happened :-(

Week Days - Better

As I suspected yesterday and today have been much better diet wise. Yesterday I managed to get on my bro's MyGym which I find such a work out! I didn't manage to do the whole hour video but im going to hopefully build it up over time until im flying through it. It says to do that workout every other day at the most so I have given it a rest today but I have managed to keep my calorie intake fairly down. Today I had:-

Breakfast - shredded wheat
Lunch - salad and a handful of blueberries
Dinner - chicken stirfry