Boing....boing....boing

Seriously.  It’s getting ridiculous.  I lost the holiday weight - and another ½ lb would take me into the next stone back and then, booooiiiiing, I’m back up over it by 1.5lbs.  Am I ever going to get there?  I mean, yes, presumably yes, but goodness it’s wearying. 

We were away for the weekend which meant a dinner out and a breakfast out.  I did particularly well with dinner.  I ate very small portions and gave the rest of it away.  I even ate half an éclair and stopped as I wasn’t enjoying it.  I did less well with breakfast.  Not the full English, which I really don’t like, but they wouldn’t substitute scrambled for poached egg in a Benedict and unless I’m prepared, I tend to panic and make a random choice.  In this case, a bacon sandwich – which was okay, the bacon wasn’t great (I dissected the sandwich and removed all the bacon fat – not through virtue, but through preference).  I had two freshly squeezed red grapefruit juices though, which is just liquid calories, and had a mini pain au chocolate.  So, I guess that accounts for my 1.5lbs on in two days.

I don’t have a single social thing until Friday – and that’s a party which I’m assuming has no food, so I should be able to manage that.  I’m hoping to get rid of that 1.5lb and it would be lovely to get out of this stone bracket that I’ve been in since 13 July.  OMG, I wish I hadn’t looked that up, that’s ridiculous.

It doesn’t help that work is pretty stressful at the moment (and not in a good way) AND our acting head of the team brought in a big drum of Hallowe’en sweets.  Sugar is disastrous for me – I seem incapable of eating just one or two.  Then I try and compensate when it comes to dinner.  I must stop this or we’ll get to mid-November and I STILL won’t have reached a new stone bracket.  I’m taking my shock and using it.

As I mentioned, I had a fill a couple of weeks ago and hoped it would exact a jump-start in the weight loss department.  It didn’t.  And I still don’t have any sensation of being fuller – I’m doing this entirely through calorie counting.   I need to cut the sweets and keep my resolve and self-control up, it’ll be Christmas before we know it and that is feasting season.  Even eating less and being careful, I doubt I’ll do any better than STS, so I need to do all I can to get it down before then.

Ho ho ho.

Back to life, back to reality

I’ve been back just over a week – we got back last Thursday.  It was a great holiday (British Columbia, Washington State and Oregon).  We caught up with friends in BC – and made some more friends – at the beginning and end of the 2.5 week holiday and travelled around Washington and Oregon in between – lots of wine tasting.  I was pretty good with food – I just stopped eating when the portions were big and I continually asked myself whether I was enjoying/still enjoying it.  If I wasn’t, I stopped.  Sounds soooo simple, doesn’t it?  Actually, it was quite hard.  And we pretty much drank every night (except a couple of nights when I was driving us back to whichever hotel, whereas usually I only drink one night a week (because of the calories).  Not much sweet stuff though – the desserts were generally not tempting enough and/or I was too full. 

I didn’t take the bigger pair of jeans because I weighed my case and it was WAY overweight (sigh, even my CASE is bloody overweight).  In fact, I couldn’t even pick the case up to weigh it, so I panicked and took stuff out.  The two pairs of jeans I took were absolutely fine.  I was nervous to wash them when we got home in case I then couldn’t get them on, but, well, they needed washing since I pretty much wore jeans the whole time I was there – with just a few of the hotter days in a linen skirt.  But again, it was fine.

Even so, I was dreading getting on the scales.  Well, you would, wouldn’t you.  Gloomily, I predicted 7-10lbs.  So I was VERY pleasantly surprised to have ‘only’ put on 2.5lbs from the day before we went, and a total up of 4lbs from my lightest weight (on this diet), at the beginning of that week.  Of that, I have lost a little (1.5lbs).  BUT.  (And there always is a but, unfortunately).  I have had a second fill.  That means I’ve been on fluids only for three days.  I thought this would give me a sharp loss (I’d really like to get into the next stone bracket down) but I’ve not lost so much as an ounce.  Rude.  Today I’m on soft food (and will be for three days), but will have eaten a bit over my calorie count of 1000.  The last couple of days have been c780-ish.  I’m still under when you count my exercise (which is just walking), so I’m trying not to worry about it.

Another thing I’m trying not to worry about is brunch with friends on Sunday.  We don’t get to see them much so no way was I going to pass up on the opportunity, but a) I’m still on soft food and b) calories.  I don’t like English cooked breakfasts in any case, so easy to resist that.  I have looked at the menu, intending to have yoghurt and granola or porridge.  Well, they don’t have that.  I’m going to go for an omelette with cheese, mushrooms and herbs.  I think that will be okay in terms of getting it down with no drama involved.  Not too sure about calories but I’ll just have to be careful with my other meal.  Fingers crossed I see a (downward) shift on the scales soon.

Have good weekends!

Wrong direction

Okay, I’ve been sulking.  I’m stuck on a plateau, putting on and taking off again the same sodding lb.  This means when it’s off, I’m ½lb off getting in to the next stone down and when it’s on, it’s impossible.  In the last month I’ve lost 2lbs.  Even for a birthday month, that’s pretty poor.  This morning another chubby lb joined it – I am going in the wrong direction.

I’m kind of torn.  On the one hand, my surgeon said I’d lose 3lbs in the first three months (I haven’t).  Then the company say most people lose the most weight in the second year, once the right fill level is established.  Since I’m failing at the first, I’m hoping for the latter – although I’d rather take some more weight off in the next nine months please.  I am not good at waiting at the best of times.

Of course there’s always a risk that you get what you wished for.  My next fill is the Tuesday after we get home from holiday.  I have to go back on liquids and then mush following that in any case.  If the fill suddenly kicks in, I may not be able to eat much. 

Still, as that comes after the holiday, it might be a relief.  I am absolutely determined to not wreck everything in the course of two and a half weeks, but I know I will be eating differently and drinking more.  Incidentally, is it acceptable to share a main course in the US?  It’s just that I reckon if I ate a third of a pasta dish, say, and gave P two thirds, that would be about right for both of us – but if this is considered rude, I will have to accept wasting a lot of food in some of the more everyday places we’ll eat (we’re going to a couple of nice restaurants in Walla Walla, one of which we’ve been to before, and their serving sizes are fine).   I really hate the feeling of being overly full – and I need to remember that when greed kicks in, if something is delicious.  I’m thinking of the amazing diner in Cle Elum where their mac and cheese is delicious but larger than a family size portion from, say, M&S.  And it comes with garlic bread!  P had meatloaf there and it came with the amount of carrots you would give a large family with a roast.  I’ve never seen so many carrots on one plate!  They’re famous for pie (the pudding kind), but does anyone make it that far?  I can’t imagine so!

I’m running on 90% nervous energy.  I have a lot to do before leaving tomorrow.  I absolutely don’t know if it will all fit, as I can’t make my brain stop panicking for long enough to have any sort of coherent thought.  If only I were someone for whom nervous energy and stress translated into a metabolism running at warp speed.  If only…

Assuming I don’t successfully claim asylum in Canada, or am taken down with the whole of the US (although West Coast has to be pretty safe, right) in a Trump-related incident, see you in October.  Fatter, I know, but determined to get on and lose that weight and more.

Consequences

I lived well – but not too well.  I definitely didn’t eat more than a third of things I wanted to.  I would say I ate like a ‘slim person’ but only if that person was eaten alive by jealousy when looking at her husband’s portion of fish and chips versus her own.  With further thought, I am retracting that plaudit!  I also had one instance where I overate – P had made his carbonara on my actual birthday, and I absolutely love his carbonara.  I told him to give me a small portion – when it arrived, I knew it was too big, really, I could have taken a third out and it would have been about right.  And then I ate three small macarons – really because I didn’t know how to count them MFP the following day.  Obviously not a good reason.  Anyway, I felt really, really ill.  This is a salutary lesson for our trip to US and Canada.  Ideally, I eat roughly half a UK portion – I think it will be closer to a quarter in the US and probably Canada too.  I really don’t want to feel that ill again.  I do hope these are not famous last words and I remember the (hours of) pain…

I steeled myself to get on SoD on Tuesday to start afresh.  I didn’t manage this every day of the weekend, as I should have done, mainly because I didn’t want the feelings of failure and misery which attack me when the scales go up, to spoil the weekend.  I anticipated as much as a half stone, just to prepare myself for the worst.  Reader, it was a single lb on.  Now, clearly I’ve dodged a bullet – or at least I have for now.  Not yet convinced that it won’t come back and bite me on my lardy arse.  So WI this week was still +1lb.  I’m still teetering just above the next stone bracket down.  I’d love to get there before my holiday (in two weeks’ time).  You know, Reader, how gratifying it is to see a stone down on the old SoD.

I have a couple of social things in the next couple of weeks – one should be okay, the other is potentially a tricky one.  The first is dinner with P tonight.  We’re going to a fish restaurant so it will be a modest affair (in terms of calories) – we usually have a seafood platter between us.  I will have a glass of wine though – and we’re meeting in a bar first, but over the course of the week, this is a manageable ‘splurge’ I think,  and I am at least doing quite a bit of walking today.  The other is the Harry Potter afternoon tea (I KNOW!) with one of my best friends.  Cakes and sarnies are not compatible with a diet at all.  It’s just before the next but one WI too, so is likely to skew my result.  As ever though, it means battling my ‘perfect’ versus ‘nothing’ approach: that really, really strong temptation that, since I’m not ‘doing it’ a bit, I may as well not ‘do it’ at all.  It causes me a ridiculous amount of mental anguish – it’s a constant refrain going through my head and it’s exhausting.  Even my fish supper tonight is tempting me to have something naughty today – as I won’t be able to fill out my MFP diary.  It doesn’t help that trying to wrestle a very drunk husband into bed last night, means I have not had anywhere NEAR enough sleep that I need and I’ve not slept well at all this week anyway.  So I want chocolate.  And I so want chocolate.  Deep breaths.  And there are cookies in the office – not ones I like, admittedly, but I so want one.  Or two.  This is why I need to just take deep breaths.  So.  Tired.

Ups and downs

I have been grimly hanging on by my fingernails. Because I know I am having this week ‘off’, I have been overwhelmingly tempted to start early.  My inner voice has been driving me mad, ‘you might as well’, ‘why not’, ‘what difference does it make’.  I have hung on but it’s been really tough.

I had an official loss of 2lbs last week – and since then I’ve lost another 1lb.  I almost didn’t get on the scales this morning as I had a pretty indulgent lunch yesterday with a friend and was afraid to see the result – even a longer walk and a very careful breakfast and dinner would not save me, I thought.  So I was very surprised – and delighted – to see 1lb off.  I’m hovering just above a stone drop – you know how tantalising that is, I know.

I think I am going to try and still weigh myself every day – even with this weekend of hedonism.  I hope it will keep the planned treats from sliding into a weekend of gluttonous excess.  And work is not great at the moment and I’m trying not to leap from planned hedonism into crazy and chaotic comfort eating.  I am not a brave person and I will find the daily encounter with SoD terrifying.  I will have to force myself into it and I will feel anxious beforehand and probably depressed afterwards!  Still, I have Tuesday off and will use that to leap aboard the wagon with nary a backward glance.  It would be nice to be in the next bracket down before holiday (3 weeks tomorrow) and I know I will have to lose the weekend weight.  And I know that post-holiday, I’ll be back up in this bracket again.  But still.

Actually my weight loss pattern – if there is one – is that I dip down, bounce up to where I was pre-dip and then have to put a few days in before getting consistently back to the dip.  Of course, all bets are off over this weekend.

And thanks for the jeans advice.  I think (all of) you are right.  I may even wear the uber-baggy pair to fly in as they’re so loose and comfortable.

All in the jeans

So, dear Reader, I want your advice.  Well, I always do, but this is very specific question.

Lesley asked about clothes.  I can’t say I’ve seen a massive difference (and I’m having one of my ‘stuck’ periods – which will move in the wrong direction post birthday).  I can fit – just - into a couple of skirts and dresses that I couldn’t before.  Of course this is nice, but I am definitely teetering here – a couple of lbs on and they would be too snug.

The biggest difference is jeans.  I’ve always worn jeans a size smaller than the rest of my clothes (and a good couple of sizes smaller than the comedy bosom allows) – not because I wear cystitis-risking super tight jeans, but for some reason, I always need to go down a size in jeans.  I had a favourite pair of jeans – they were Evans but they were lovely (yes, I’m shocked too).  Pale-ish denim girlfriend fit with navy embroidery on. Much nicer than it sounds.  They’re still okay-ish on the waist but the legs are ridiculously baggy.  Then I bought a pair from Boden to replace them – as far as possible –  in the same dress size.  They’re snug but they fit – I can do them up without having to lie on the bed and they feel okay.  Ditto same size plain, straight jeans from M&S.  Same size from Monsoon?  (I bought a pair with little silver stars on in the sale in a fit of ridiculous optimism)  Can’t even get them on properly, far less do them up.  Even far less breathe in them.  It’s very confusing – and worse, it dilutes the pleasure at getting down a size as there are these hangovers to a larger size.

But my question is this: in terms of packing for holiday, do I pack the Evans jeans?  I won’t be on a strict calorie controlled diet in Canada/US.  I will be trying to eat small portions (even by UK standards, by American standards it will be positively miniscule – and wasteful (middle class guilt)).  But still.  I go in three and a half weeks’ time.  I’m assuming I’ll be roughly this size/weight as I’ll put on over this weekend and then work at getting the weight off again.  I know that there’s a theory that would say taking the smaller jeans (not the Monsoon’s, obviously) would be way of forcing abstention  – but does that really work?  Or is it just a way to ensure misery (and crushing of internal organs!)?  What do you think?

Diet v fun

Now, where were we?

There is too much going on at the moment, it is making for a stressful dieting time.  So, the family evening out was not too bad – and thank you all for your interest/concern!  I managed to get to the far end of a rectangular table, next to my lovely sister-in-law and opposite my nieces – as far away from the evil SIL as possible.  She sat with my two brothers either side of her and flirted with them.  She was delighted with where she was.  It obviously all went too well, as my brother has invited us all to his for Christmas – and then chased when I hadn’t responded in a couple of hours.  Quite apart from it being FAR too early to talk about Christmas, you can imagine my horror!  This is one I absolutely have no intention of being bounced into, Arctic Cloudberry!  I think he’s trying to avoid having his wife’s family over as they are all appalling.  Last Christmas they – including his mother-in-law - all danced on my brother’s glass dining table, screaming at the tops of their lungs.  And broke it.  And as the chav-in-law HAS to surpass anything her sisters could do (which, to be fair, she is quite open about), each Christmas gets more and more over the top.  My brother has to redecorate, Fortnum hampers were bought for everyone attending and enormous trees were bought and tensions ran very, very high.  The girls were screamed at and reduced to tears (they begged to go to my mum’s), my brother was screamed at and huge fisticuffs broke out.  It sounds exactly what I never want to experience.

Anyway, we had my stepson and his girlfriend over for dinner on Saturday.  I drank very sparingly (and was proud of myself) but I ate too much.  I am not sure whether the band played a part – I’m assuming so, as it wasn’t huge amounts and I felt very, very unhappy and ill and full.  The band is hard to work out though as this is the only time I’ve felt anything from it.  But I’m taking that as a salutary warning as we descend into outright hedonism by this time next week.

My weight had gone down a pleasing amount, but I put on 3lbs over the weekend.  Meaning my loss for the week was 1lb.  I’m still not back to the weight I was at this time last week.  Sigh.

Tonight we are going to P’s cousin’s surprise party.  I definitely find that the more people there are at an event, the more stressed I feel about going.  Neither of us is particularly looking forward to this, admittedly, and by Friday we’re both pretty tired out.  We have to go south of the river in rush hour, which is going to be torturous, since we can only get there by car – it will take about an hour to travel what should be a 20 mins journey, but we have to be there in place by 7pm latest.  And it’s in a football themed venue.  Lesley will guess how thrilled I am about this.  Anyway, we’re going and will do so with good grace (outwardly at least!).  We won’t be drinking – and, if I can help it, I won’t be eating either.  I imagine there will be a buffet and this would be hard to calculate, calories-wise and not something worth postponing weight loss for.

Then on Sunday we’re going to friends for a barbeque.  This will be nice – and shouldn’t be too bad in terms of calories (it won’t be burgers and sausages, I understand it’s smoked chicken.  And salads) but I’ll be being careful.

Next week various birthday things start.  I’m really trying hard not to let it be the start of an avalanche, continuing up to the holiday (in 4 weeks’ time- but you know how these things can deteriorate if you (I) don’t keep a grip).  I have a lunch with a friend (and managed not to make it either dinner and cocktails or afternoon tea, so I’m quite pleased with myself, relatively), dinner at my mum’s on Thursday which will be her super-sharp lemon meringue pie and then we hit the weekend.  Friday we’re going for cocktails and dimsum at Yauatcha.  Saturday we’re going for tapas.  Sunday we’re going to the seaside and will have fish and chips (not sure how this might affect the band – will be a small portion).  Monday (my actual birthday) we’re just having local dim sum.  Dim sum and tapas are easier to have smaller portions of – there is some method here.  But, let’s face it, I’m going to put on weight.  I’m looking forward to the celebrations, but I’m determined to be disciplined in all other meals next week, to minimise the damage.

I’ve been meaning to post about clothes.  Will do that next week.

And yes, Arctic Cloudberry, family is what you define as family: this is a refrain of my husband’s – that it’s him and me and (mumbles) and sometimes my mum, depending on how she is behaving and how generous P is feeling.