Merhaba!

That's Turkish for 'hello'! Kurdish is Hroj Bosch (phonetically)! We added to our Turkish vocab whilst we were away and now have a few words of Kurdish too. It was a lovely holiday - the place was a bit brash so it was a shock at first, but once you can ignore the restaurants serving 'chicken luggets', fishfingers, egg on toast, English breakfast (in a Muslim country!) and 'lorry driver's menu' (I'm not kidding), there were some lovely places to eat. And the scenery was gorgeous and the people friendly, thrilled we spoke a little of their language and keen to debate politics with us. I even have a faint tan... Bf has a convincing tan. And he was lovely all holiday - it was all very loved-up which was particularly nice after his crotchetiness of late.

I didn't do much shopping (there was alot of tat but not much else) but brought back a 'little' something in the form of 10lb of unwanted extra blubber. Usually in that time I'd put on over a stone so I guess I have to be thankful for small mercies but it still makes me heavier than I've been for a long time - nearly 2st heavier than the end of LL and 2st7lbs heavier than my lightest weight last summer. And critically, 2st heavier than my freak-out weight (the weight above which I can no longer be rational about weight loss and my appearance generally). So, now I have to address this. I tell you this tough, I am not going on another holiday that is spoilt for me because of fretting about my weight. As it was, you'll remember the swimsuit trauma before I left and I can say I actively avoided wearing it whilst I was there - only swimming twice because of feeling so dumpy and frumpy. That would make it c£20 a wear. That's not good sense on any level.

I did have baklava (oh god I love baklava) or an ice cream every day I suppose, but the actual food out there is pretty healthy - no creamy sauces, no mountains of chips - and they'll tell you if you are ordering too much. In fact, if you get chips you get about a dozen which I think is really good - it's enough to enjoy but not an absurd amount. Of course you often get this with mash (which I always left) or rice (which I always ate) AND bread (sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't - it depended on the bread).

So, I did my Circuit of Hell today (before I weighed in actually), having checked the weather forecast and decided that cycling would not be a good idea (and I can't work out how to put my light on at the back). And I'm starving! Part of me is thinking that I'll try to diet without the calorie counting but I don't know if that's really a good idea as it does make me sneak in extra stuff, 'subliminally'. But this is my plan and please, any advice is SO SO welcome.

Food -
During the week:
breakfast = porridge,
lunch = soup mainly and fruit,
dinner = pick 5 low cal evening meals and rotate (I'm thinking: prawn stir fry, omlette and salad (one whole egg, one egg white), fish and veg, soup (again) and one ready meal). Piece of fruit and square of chocolate
snacks = cereal bar mid afternoon, 100g 2% Greek yoghurt with 2 dessert spoons compote mid-morning (during the week)
Weekend (will have to be a bit more fluid):
breakfast/brunch = scrambled egg, baked mushroom, baked tomato, slice seedy bread OR peanut butter and wholemeal muffin for breakfast and salad/soup/cottage cheese for lunch
evening meal = healthy but more relaxed with a couple of glasses of wine. Probably stewed fruit for pudding (I love this, weirdly) or Skinny Cow ice cream bar

Exercise - well, cycle as much as I can, walk where I can otherwise (including fitting something in at the weekend wherever possible and weather allowing) and Circuit of Hell 3x.

What do you think?

Of course, I came home with helva and Turkish Delight so my weekday pudding will be a slivver of helva until that's used and then 2 cubes of Turkish Delight - all instead of the chocolate square.

My loosest winter work skirt is decidedly tight - it was a struggle to get it on today.