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,...

After the giddiness of being half of the Couple Of The Year last week, I was brought down to earth with a bump as I gained 3.5lbs at weigh in.  I'm very much not a happy bunny this week. What I thought was a pretty good week, turned out to not be the case.  We had our lovely in-laws down to visit for most of the week, and it is always nice to see them, but it has thrown off my food patterns this week.  I have found myself picking up a meal deal sandwich a few times, and I have definitely eaten too many carbs this week.  I'm pretty annoyed with myself. You know when you are pretty sure you have had a good week, but then it turns out that although you didn't join in with the Chinese takeaway, or even eat anything really bad, you still ate too much? Yep, that was me this week. What a knob! So I pouted a bit, had a bit of a sulk, made one of my favourite pre-Slimming World dinners and pretty much got over it, in theory.  I had my signature sand...

Hey folks, so, yeah, I've been terrible at updating this recently. Sadly, work exploded in December and I'm just now getting life a bit more back to normal. So, in the time I was gone, I've pretty much stayed on plan and I'm currently sitting at 6st 3.5lbs down. I can't really complain, but my weight loss has slowed right down over the last month or so. My own fault, I've been not drinking enough water, and not having enough speed food. Don't get me wrong, I'm still doing a hell of a lot better that when I was this size... I've got a bit complacent I think, so this is my kick up the bum. All the water, more speed food.  I've found myself snacking more, in part because I get bored working from home so a snack is a nice distraction. That being said, my snacks are usually fruits and cereal/hifi bars so it could be worse. In the old days, not that long ago, I'd have scarfed most of a 2 litre bottle of Coke and a packet of biscuits witho...

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...

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...

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...