What a difference a week makes...168 little hours

As I mentioned last week, the past few weeks have been the hardest in the plan so far. I mean, seriously. Not only was I lacking in motivation, I wasn't even trying to pretend that I wasn't eating sh*t. I suppose that's a good thing though? I was very obvious about it so perhaps I don't fall into the realm of a secret eater...Small victories.

Anyhoo, I spent the last week getting myself whole heartedly back into the plan. This involved more than one trip to the supermarket where I had to stop myself from buying any muffins. Or cake. Or pretzels. Basically, baked goods. I told myself that I needed to get back to only eating the filling and healthy stuff (Weight Watchers new simple start ) before I could trust myself to only have a set amount of any baked goods. The only exception was two Pepperidge Farm chocolate pecan chunk cookies and I still don't fully comprehend how I stopped myself from eating the entire packet- other than they belonged to my mum and she would have been less than happy had her treat foods disappeared without her even having had one. 

And it worked. This week I lost 4 lbs. I'm still not quite back to where I was before I slipped (have another 5 to go) but it proved to myself that I can still do it, my body has NOT just stopped losing weight, I'd just stopped caring and that couldn't be allowed to go on even one day more. Hope you enjoyed that musical interlude! So as I go into my second week back on track, I feel confident that I'm doing the right things and am back in the swing of things. I'd love to blame stress (and no one would blame a final year university student with deadlines looming etc.) but I know that this just happens. It's so easy, when you aren't even half way yet, to be frustrated. The end is not yet in sight for this so it's not always so easy to focus on the small goals that happen down the road. 

In other news, I was back in the gym today with Jemma- have I said I love her, because I do...*Public apology, sorry I was so pants at the deadlifts today. Also, sorry that I wiggled my hips to make the pull-ups easier. I will not do that again* and there was pain. MY BUM is aching. This is what I need to remember, it's not just that I'm going to have a bit of muscle ache tomorrow, the disaster that is my coccyx does not respond well to being lazy only to have to exert itself and then I pay for it. 

And finally, I've completed my first week of daily selfies. I've nearly forgotten to do it on 5 of the 7 days but they've been done. Only 358 left to go...

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Coping with outside forces OR 'The dinner party means my 'Diet' is over'

Months ago I started a series of 'myth busters'. Apparently- and I don't know when- I abandoned that. Since I'm making an effort to get back into the swing of things blogging wise, I thought that I'd go back to that as a starting point. Since I was out for a lovely meal today I figured that this topic would be the best one for me to do now so, without further ado, here we go!

The dinner party means my 'Diet' is over
If you'll allow me, I want everyone reading this to take a second and think about any time they've been on a diet. Now, given the statistics that 37% of UK women and 18% of UK men are Dieting most of the time (not including people who have been on a Diet at SOMETIME- which I couldn't find) I think it's fair to think that people will either know from direct experience or from just existing around other people in this Dietcentric world of ours. Does this sound familiar. 'Diet starts on Monday'?
Many people who go on a Diet will build themselves up over a week promising themselves that their Diet starts on Monday, only to fail on Tuesday and then repeat. Cycles of Monday start ups that are doomed to fail when people then have some kind of outside force in the week, causing them to break their diet and need to start all over again. The only difference is, unlike people who are changing their lifestyle, this starting again does not happen at the next meal or the next day but the next Monday. Hmm.

Despite the fact that I've been losing weight now for over a year, I still get the 'where do YOU want to eat, what will work for your Diet?'. Whilst I appreciate the concern and the consideration of my dining companions I know that this comes from a preconception that either I am, or should be, only eating a lettuce leaf. I won't lie to you, today was hard. As I mentioned in my last blog post, I'd been struggling recently and I am finding it harder (as I get myself back on track this week) to fend off my cravings. I should stress, however, that it is not this meal that would have caused me to go off track and need to start all over again. On the contrary, I didn't have alcoholic beverages, I only had a small amount of the nibbles that were brought out (those who know me personally will appreciate this- I left behind an olive...that NEVER HAPPENS), I ate slowly and mindfully and despite the little voice in the back of my head screaming 'Get the tarte tatin! Get it. Get it! GET IT!' I didn't have dessert. No, the 'dinner party' in question was the takeaways I was feeding myself with over the last week before I came home. I hardly tracked, if at all, on those days and was trapped in a cycle of 'no breakfast, store bought sandwich for lunch and then ALL THE FOOD for dinner'.

Or you know, don't...whatever.

Not only is that not cost effective, I felt physically awful. Until I rallied, got my shit together and tracked- then my body was all about calling out for the pizza and chow mein...

But I digress. I've said this before, I'll say it again and I'm not alone in saying this. I am wholly in control of what I put into my body. The diet, both big D and little d, is only over when I say it is and I am just not okay with giving up over a pack of Papa John's jalapeno poppers.

A whole year later

Hello readers. I'm sure I've lost a lot of my viewership considering how remiss I've been at writing this. I'm crap- don't you worry, I know! But, it's been a year. A YEAR, so I couldn't go a day further without getting on my laptop and writing something- anything- to sum up this last year. And hopefully break down the whole 'oh I haven't written in a while, no one cares' thing.

A few stats:
74 lbs lost (that's 5 stone 4 lbs; 34 kilos to translate)
5 dress sizes
41 inches across my body
11.5 points down on my Body Mass Index
5 trips to charity shops with old clothes
50 Weight Watchers meetings
10 silver sevens
One 10% key chain
One half marathon
Two races for life

It hasn't been easy, and I still have miles to go before I sleep, but simply writing those stats down has reminded me how much I have achieved in the last year. I won't lie to you- in the last few weeks I've slipped; lots of work, deadlines, running in my university union elections (I didn't win- oh well) has all made planning difficult. I'm going home tomorrow for the Easter holiday (which, if you're a finalist at university, is NOT actually a holiday) and am filled with renewed vigour. I live in the knowledge that Jemma will be there to beat me up if I don't come to the gym, I'll be getting in all the foods I need to help me succeed and I'll be reunited with my Weight Watchers family (something I always look forward to; it's amazing seeing people who started with you and how far they've come).

To keep myself on track, and to actually document the change my body is going through, I've decided that I'm going to challenge myself to a daily selfie. Every day of the next year I am going to take a picture of my face and then put it into a timelapse video to see the change. I'll also post the images daily to twitter which (I hope) will encourage me to keep doing it, even when I really don't want to. In honesty, I've come closer to giving up in the last three weeks than I have in the entirety of the last year. I can't let that happen. I wan't to continue to have stats like ^ that so that this time next year I'm thinking of how much I've accomplished, not wishing I hadn't kept going. I hope to hit 100 lbs lost in the by October (which if I pull my finger out is more than achievable) and I'm checking the Virgin London Marathon page daily so that I am in there the moment the ballot opens for next year. I think my obsession with marathons comes from the weight loss. It sums it up beautifully. It's not about being the fastest; whether you run it, walk it or end up crawling over the finish line, it is the finish and the journey that gets you there that is important.

And finally, a comparison. The last picture of me pre- weight loss and my first of this year's selfies.

Me in March 2013 and today 04/04/2014