Fixated On Shaping Up

Finally! After a very up and down time since we came back from holidays, I finally got back in my groove, got my head back in the game and managed three weeks in a row of losses! This string of wins took me back to where I was when we went on holiday in July. As you can see from my graph above, I finally hit my lowest weight since joining Slimming World just over a year ago.  I was particularly chuffed to finally get back under 20 stone, back under where I had been before the holiday but also to crack on.  Been a long time since I was particularly happy with my journey.  But, I'm back! We went to a christening recently, and posed for this selfie above, and it made me think back to the bottom half of that photo. Our second date, early February 2006, we went to see a movie and then wandered to a little pub where we hung out for hours.  I like this comparison, mostly because we both look happy in both pictures, but also because I think, although we both ...

I'm back, sorry. Life got a bit hectic during the exams, and holidays and stuff.   I posted this on my instagram earlier this week. ' Time for a  #reboot . I've got complacent it is time to  #refocus . I should be miles further down the road on my  #slimmingworldjourney  than I am. I should have smashed my  #holidaygain  but I haven't. Not starting again because that would negate all the effort I've put in so far. But I'm going to sit down, reread my book,  #focus  on  #foodoptimising  and get my arse in gear.' I've hit a plateau.  I lost over 8 stone before my holiday.  I'll talk about that later on, but since we got back I have massively not been able to focus.  I found myself doing what a lot of people seem to do, start 'guesstimating'portion sizes and syn values. I've always worked on the basis that because I get more syns, I'm male and fat, I will always be under, but when I think about it properly,...

This weeks post isn't really about me, and my 'journey'.  So this week I hit 95lbs total loss, which I'm pretty proud of, not at the goal yet, but pretty solidly on the way.  This week I want to talk about my wife, and the battle/journey she has undertaken.  Around the same time as I joined Slimming World, my lovely wife Caroline was diagnosed with PCOS, or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.  She will hate me talking about her here, but it is a big part of our lives, and I wanted to acknowledge it.  For the layman, PCOS affects the way your body processes insulin, how it burns fat and how it produces eggs.  I'm obviously not an expert but that is a very simplified version of it. It means that it is harder for her to lose weight, but much easier for her to put it on. So, this week I was ruddy delighted to be crowned as Couple Of The Year at my Slimming World group.  I may have lost 95lbs but Caroline has fought her way to 36lbs lost in the same tim...

So, I hit a few bumps in the road of my Slimming World journey. I was back on it, still am, but then a lovely friend came to stay with us, and we ended up getting pizza delivered.  Although we got vegetable, meaning at least a touch of speed food, I still ate four big slices of pizza! I only ate 4 slices!  That week I had been utterly on plan, finished the week on plan, went to weigh in, lost 1lb.  Although I'm pleased with a loss, for some reason this utterly bummed me out, way more than my Maintain.  Not really sure why, although it probably had something to do with helping out with the weigh in, and weeing where I ranked on the list for Slimmer Of The Month, the system shows you total weight loss that month, and mine was only 4lb for November. Considering how well I had been doing, only having a 4lb month properly affected me. Well, the picture above kind of tells you what happened next! I left the meeting to head to work, stopped at the shop and picked ...

Well, I seem to have foolishly to agreed to double my workload in my day job.  This is mostly fine, I'm good at my job, and I mostly enjoy it so once I get my head round the ins and outs, hopefully life will settle down a bit! My week. Over the last couple of weeks I seem to have never been at home, and have only seen my wife while she was asleep, and vice versa.  I've had to cover shifts for my staff, plus taking on the admin for two other schools, not to mention going to visit the schools, one of them near Middlesbrough and one of them near Sunderland. Yup, super practical! It has not helped my food life... I started last week badly, with a KFC. I enjoyed it, I earned it, I don't regret it.  The rest of the week however, sort of collapsed around me. Another week where I wasn't particularly bad, KFC aside, but because of the way that it unravelled means I couldn't make the best choices, couldn't optimise as well as I wanted. We went to the Theatre to...

I weigh in on a Tuesday evening at 5pm, and I spent all weekend thinking I hadn't done well at all.  I stepped up the speed on Saturday, after a supermarket shop after work, and was really strict with myself Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.  I set myself a target of 4.5lbs this week, which would bring my 2.5 stone award, but I went into the meeting resigned to not getting that, but vaguely confident I would do a pound or two.  I had to double check the readout on the scales when it said I lost 5lbs!  I've been talking for a few weeks now about being unfocused, about me not doing anything bad, but feeling like I wasn't truly living up to the Slimming World mantra of 'food optimising'.  I rarely get anywhere near my total allowed syns for the day, but still feel like I could do better.  The main problem for me is that I'm inherently lazy.  That's how I got fat in the first place, I'd always rather have a sandwich than make a proper meal....

As you might have guessed by the title of this weeks entry into this blog, I have had a fairly stressful week. Work has been pretty intense over the last couple of weeks, and I don't seem to have switched off. This is not that unusual for me, I tend not to switch off much anyway, I'm one of those people I'm afraid. My problem is, I care about my job. I like it and I want it to be successful, so I'm always 'on'. The downside is that it means my eating schedule tends to be a touch erratic.  I don't feel like this week I did particularly badly, I didn't come 'off plan' but I probably didn't optimise as well as I could. I definitely didn't drink as much water as I should. Had a few nights where I ended up having to have a Mugshot and a yoghurt for my evening meal. Not terrible, but not nearly as much speed as I should be having.  Hopefully I can get back on it this week.  I have set a fairly high target this week of 4.5lbs, that would...

So, it has been a pretty successful week for my Slimming World 'journey'.  I'll start with the highlights shall I?   I lost 4lb, taking me to my 2stone award in only 7 weeks, so I'm pretty happy with that.  I was also Slimmer Of The Week, and in fact I was also Slimmer Of The Month on top of that.  So, yeah, that was nice! Running out of room on the back of my Slimming World book for stickers, I'll have to look into another sticker delivery method. My week was a bit random this week. Although I had aimed to be 100% good, the first few days since my weigh in were continuing the theme of the last couple of weeks.  My work schedule was all over the place and actually a bit stressful. Lots going on, and I was in and out of all three of my schools, I couldn't get into any rhythm or routine.  I kind of thought I had blown the whole week on Saturday morning. This was my breakfast. I had to be at work super early and thought I would catch my local Sainsbu...

You'll have to bear with me, I'm very tired and at work late again. I should probably explain the title of this weeks blog? I woke up in a bit of a funk today, so this meme summed up my day... Juvenile I know, but it did make me smile, and my lovely friend Julia  suggested it should be the title of this week's blog entry. So there it is. In terms of diet, well this week I lost 2.5lbs, not as much as I would have liked, but I can't complain too much, a loss is a loss. It means I have lost 24lbs in total, in 6 weeks.  Not to sniffed at. To put that into perspective, that is more than this... So yeah, that's a shit load of weight in only 6 weeks. Every time I lose my focus or think about a KFC, I have to think about how much I have already lost. I don't see it, but my wife thinks my face looks slimmer, I don't buy it! Speaking of KFC and buying things, I have to get off the bus for work to this sight every day... In case you can't see that c...

During week 5 I lost my focus a bit. It's not that I did badly, I still lost 2lb! It is more that I didn't pay close attention to the details.  I was looking at my food and working out the syns, but I don't think I made good food choices, it was more 'I'll have a cereal bar, that's only a few syns' rather than making food which is actually good for me. Also, pretty sure I didn't eat enough speed or drink enough water. I was a bit disappointed to only lose 2lbs, but a loss is a loss so I can't complain too much, but I was enjoying losing 4-6lbs a week, that felt like I had achieved something.  I know, I know, I'm doing well, it just hasn't felt like it. Not sure why! My lovely wife is away at the moment, and I'm working random hours, so my focus has been a bit all over the place. I targeted myself a 4lb loss this week, and my weigh in is on Tuesday, so we will see how it goes. In other news, I got all proactive this week.  I got ho...

So I hit my 4th week as a slimmer! After what felt like a not very successful week, I was delighted to discover I had dropped 5 more pounds this week, making it 19.5 gone. I was also named Slimmer of the Week for the second time. I felt like this week I was a bit all over the place. I was never in any real danger of going over my syns but I don't feel like I was particularly disciplined.  I realise I'm describing a contradiction but that's just how it felt this week, so I was pleasantly surprised to lose the 5lbs.  I have spoken to my consultant (and friend) Tracy about the whole certificate and slimmer of the week award. I'm not someone who needs the validation of acknowledgement of my weight loss to inspire me, but I understand some people need the push.  It helps some to have a smaller, short term target. Speaking of targets, this week I will be creating my own inspiration wall, based on my favourite thing, professional wrestling! My starting weight was close...

As I write this I'm about two hours shy of my first weigh in at my Slimming World group.  Bit nervous but more in anticipation than anything else. Been pretty good this week, taken it seriously, although I'm still getting my head round eating anything other than salads for lunch! I hadn't told my wife I was joining, mostly in case I chickened out and didn't actually do it. Well, that and I wanted an in person reaction rather than over the phone! She is very happy and has been super supportive, as I would expect, she generally is, she is even joining in with me, not so much with the meetings but with keeping track of Syns and eating better. So, week 1 has been an interesting one, I jumped in with both feet, breakfasting on fruit and yoghurt most days, salads/jacket potatoes for lunches and proper grown up meals at night. Snacks have been pretty much fruit based, although the odd pack of Walkers Sunbites have crept in (they are delicious although generally not that ...