And with this, we’re back among the living. Sort of. For the past week, everything in our household just ground to a halt due to a particularly nice bout of stomach flu. Neither of us had ever experienced something like that in this severity and it hit us very hard. Let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty – I’ll spare you the details. We’re all somewhat weak yet, but things are definitely improving.

Tomorrow marks new beginnings for me. I will officially exit my maternity leave – induced state of hibernation and start studying for my Masters in earnest, which seems to require a great deal more organization and scheduling than I had previously anticipated. Hopefully the plans and lists that I have drawn up this weekend will help me get back on track quickly. For the next few months it will be Educational Science for me day and night. Luckily, my chosen topics are quite interesting, so I hope I’ll at least manage to procure a little enthusiasm for what I will be doing over the next while.

Also tomorrow, I will weigh myself and assess the cortisone damage to my body. I very desperately need to focus on my weight loss again. Something or other seems to always get in the way of that particular goal and it just really needs to stop. I’ll just have to accept that life is messy and chaotic and times – but that does not give me an excuse to constantly derail my own efforts to live healthily. The general plan is to reduce portion sizes, not buy any junk, drink more water and increase my fruit and veg intake. I’ll take it one day at a time.  The hardest thing right now will probably be to deal with my sugar cravings in a sensible fashion, so I will focus my energies on that particular thing for the next little while. I keep reading that said cravings become less frequent and will be less intense after about two weeks, so I am hoping to make it through that period of time without giving in to temptation.

One thing I am quite worried about at this point is my overall level of energy. Because of the cortisone treatment, I have been extremely alert and productive over the last few weeks. Now that I am off this stuff, I am beginning to feel my concentration waver again and my general worn out feeling is returning rather unpleasantly. I will see how things progress in that area, but I have the distinct feeling that I will be talking to my GP about this very soon.

Off to deal with a huge load of paperwork that needs to be mailed tomorrow. Joy!

Things in my head have not been great recently and I just have not been in a blogging kind of mood.

I have been feeling overwhelmed, what with all the job hunting and the lack of disposable money. We have been running a very very tight ship for the last wee while and have not been managing very well.

Right now,  we need to look into how we are doing things and what we need to change in order to move forward again – because right now, we are feeling stuck in oh so many ways.

So I compiled a little list with some explanation on what I would like to do (the Lassie will probably want to write her own). (more…)

Last Month a new gym opened up almost around the corner from our apartment. I checked it out and it had all these brand new machines, sleek setup and Les Mills body course series things (if you’re a fan of Dietgirl, she might have mentioned Body Pump and Body Combat, that’s Les Mills). As is usual, you have to pay 20 Euros starting fee and then 19 Euros per month on a one year contract.

The monthly fee at my current gym (McEvil) is 17 Euros. I know it’s a teensy bit more for the new one, but hey, this new gym is two trains and three kilometers closer to home than McEvil! The catch is that I tried to cancel McEvil to join this new gym. I asked one month before my contract was rightfully supposed to end if I could cancel when it ended. The gym girl said:

‘Sorry, but you have to give six weeks notice to cancel your contract and since it’s now four weeks until your contract ends, your existing contact will be extended for another six months, meaning you won’t be able to quit until August’

White noise…Red Face…Hulk MAD!

That’s exactly how they get you! Read the small print, people, don’t fall for it like I did.

So a week or two go by, I have had my aforementioned look at the new gym like a kid pressing his nose on a candy store window and I finally just had it with McEvil.

I was training one night and as I was doing my stomach crunches with my back on the bench, I could see and hear the section that’s blocked off (up to head height) for the women to use their own weights. The section is there so the women will always have these weights (seems the other gym members would take them?). Anyways, three guys walked in – yes, into the women section -  and they started talking. I couldn’t hear all they were saying, but at some point I heard a loud sniff and a grunt.
Pardon the pun, but that’s where I draw the line.

It happened in full view of the trainers, who just kept doing that thing where you overly avert your eyes.

I won’t have this kind of thing so close to me…I mean, it’s a powder! What if it’s pushed into the air and I ingest it! Or I use those weights (not that I am allowed) and then for whatever reason transfer it to my mouth!

No, I won’t stand for it.

Wanting to cancel my membership right away, I at first said that I was moving back to the UK – they said that they want written letters from all sorts of places, so that’s a bust!

Thankfully though, I have *cough* suffered a back injury *cough* which has stopped me from being able to go to the gym, according to my doctor. Hopefully this will get me out of McEvil.

The downside to this is that I can’t go to the other gym until McEvil confirm that I have canceled, moneywise it’s just not doable.

With all this, I have fallen behind again terribly and I don’t feel good at all. I need the gym back As Soon As Possible!

The scale read 118.5 kg/261.2 lbs yesterday. This would mean a loss of 0.5 kg or about 1 lbs for the last week. I seriously need to stop obsessing about numbers so much. It’s not doing me any good, especially considering all the other stuff that’s going on in my life right now. So instead of getting discouraged by my weekly weigh in, I will pay more attention to the overall healthy eating – snacking continues to be a problem, although we rarely have any ‘problem’ foods in the house anymore. It’s more a well worn habit that I need to break with.

I have taken a couple of very bad ‘before’ shots a few days ago. I am hoping I will be able to take progress pictures not too long from now. I can’t even remember what it felt like to be in the double digits – all I know is that 1997 was the last year I saw something below 100 kg on the scale. It’s depressing, really.

Anyhoo, the Laddie is at the gym again tonight and I will have to take care of some paperwork now. A lovely way to spend a Saturday evening, no?

I have been staying away from the blogging thing recently, cause I feel ashamed. I am a fraud, weak and stupid.

BUT! Somehow I managed to muddle through without a gain. The alarm bells have sounded and I hear them loud and clear!

What happened was that we had a birthday party and other people’s birthdays -  heaps of cakes and sweets. Cakes and sweets that managed to sneak into my belly!

Ok, it’s not like they grew legs and jumped into my mouth, but I fell victim to the “Oh, it’s only one little thing”. Ha! One little thing plus 100 other little things…the math is depressing.

So I am back to eating my fruit and meals…Nothing more (nothing less, either)!

The gym is super, yeah! Oh, who am I kidding? I am bored and my mate at work says I should not read while on the recumbent, because it takes 10 % of the effort away. He does not realize that taking a book from an overweight and hungry guy on a bike could have a disastrous effect!

I have changed a few things up, though. I have rowed 2000 meters, once. I have not been able to surpass the 1000 meter mark since. My rhythm on the rowing machine is totally off, so that’s something I need to work on.

I am doing stomach crunches on the bench now, too, with my legs up and my hands behind my head. It’s bloody hard, but I get it done!

Other than that, the only other thing that’s changed is that my foot got a blister – Now I am paralyzed from the toes down!

I hope it will heal soon.

I am not feeling too great right now, so just really quickly: On Friday, the scale read 119 kg/262.4 lbs, which means I gained 300 grams or 0.7 lbs. Not too happy about that, but I am not surprised. This number also means that at my last weigh in, the lower weight was the correct one. Yay, sort of. At the moment, I am generally doing really, really lousy, so I’ll just leave it at that before I start whining and bitching until the internets explode.

The weighing process was a bit confusing for me this week. I first weighed myself right after I’d gotten up – and saw a weight of 119.7 kg/263.9 lbs, which would have brought me back to my weight of January 30th. I was a bit rushed on Friday morning, as I needed to get to a dentist’s appointment. I like my current dentist, but I hate what a visit with him entails – I hate, hate, hate needles! Anyhoo, after my appointment, I felt much more relaxed than I had before and could finally use the bathroom *ahem*. When I got back home, I weighed myself again to confirm the number I’d seen earlier in the morning and strangely enough, the scale read 118.7 kg/261.7 lbs, which would mean a loss of 1.6 kg/3.5 lbs since last week. I am not sure which number to trust now – I reweighed myself about four times with the scale in different places during both weigh ins and the results never deviated from what they had been to begin with. I guess I’ll just have to see what happens next Friday.

The Laddie and I have both been doing quite well with our food and water over the last little while. Valentine’s day was a bit tricky – we most certainly ate more than usual and did not pay any special attention to our total calories, but we’d planned for all of our foods, so we’re fine with how things went.

I will have to bake cake or cookies again tomorrow, as I’ve promised to bring something to our baby playgroup on Tuesday. Since there’ll be about 10 to 12 other mommies who will eat what I make, I don’t think I’m in any particular danger of overindulging or taking leftovers home with me.

I’ve finally managed to read a few things about portion sizes as well and have basically decided to pay more attention to serving sizes specified in recipes as well as the ones displayed on food packages. One thing that the Laddie and I are already doing is to measure out one portion each for next day’s lunch as soon as we’re done cooking, so we’re less likely to overeat – in the past, that kind of thing definetely was an issue.

As far as exercise goes, the Laddie has unearthed my (somewhat light) dumbbells – my mission for this coming week is to start using them three times a week, or rather whenever the Laddie goes to the gym. Hopefully I’ll be able to figure out the correct use of these things and settle into a weight lifting routine.

I am not sure if I ever said that before, but I want to lose 30 kg within the next year. When you consider that I am 126 kg right now, it does not seem a lot. But when I talked to my Gran about it, she said (as sharp as ever) that I would be losing 5 stone and I would be 15 stone at the end. WOW! I am 20 stone now and I want to lose 5 of that! That does seem like a mountain to get over. Again, looking at it in kilos, I just need to lose 500 g a week, which does not seem too daunting.

Last week’s weigh in for me is a little conflicting:

Calendar Week 5
Week 3
126.00 Kg
277.20 lbs
19.11 stone

That’s a gain of 200 g from last week.

Ok, not a lot and it turned out when I got to Monday morning, my weight was back to 125.8 kg. So I am cool with it.

I have to say though, the gym is freaking me out! After a little email to Dietgirl, I got a confirmation that I should in fact do my stretches while doing my workout. See, in McEvil (the gym), they have this tiny little poster with the basic and advanced stretches. But when the gym is crowded, I feel like an idiot in the middle of these experts who carry on without even looking at the poster.

At the core of my Fatboy freakout is the number of people at the gym. I never wait too long for a machine, but it freaks me out that I might have to. Here are some thoughts that run through my head when I am getting to the gym:

‘Christ, it’s packed! I will never get a machine’

‘They are all staring at me…Why are they staring?’

‘Do I have something on my face?’

‘Why is that guy posing in front of the mirror without a shirt on?’

‘Is it necessary to hog the bench?’

‘God man, put something decent on!’

‘Why are you putting on make up for the gym?’

‘That guy in front of me is pulling a lot more than I am, he’s HUGE!’

‘Why are they staring at me?’

‘Look at me, Jabba the Hutt on a recumbent’

‘Why do I pick this machine by the mirrors?!’

‘Look at those idiots on the reverse butterfly, they will get themselves injured’

‘Must finish my 45 minutes…only 30 minutes to go…5 minutes take too long!!!’

Last week it was crowded again and I was in the changing room, getting my gear into a lower locker. Now, we guys honestly think that the ladies changing rooms are like something from Road Trip, where all the girls are naked, everything is steamy and kinky and everyone’s putting lotion on each other. If you gals think a similar thing happens in the mens changing rooms, I would like to inform you that it’s not like that at all. Far from it.

Some dude walked up to me from the shower and almost thrust his goods into my face! I nearly stumbled back in horror and felt like screaming ‘Put a towel on man, for Christ’s sake!’. I still have this issue with nakedness in the changing rooms and it’s nothing to do with my fat. I am not what you would call your typical British prude, but I have a reason that has controlled me for far too long now.

Back in High School, after football I would make up stupid lies, like I was scared of showers (not the water, but the mechanics). Eventually after some crying and hyperventilating, I was let off with the shower, as long as I got the worst off in the bathroom sink and got the rest at home. My parents to this day don’t know that this went on – not that they’d be interested in the least.

Unfortunately this is something I will probably never really be comfortable with at all. But I will not let someone elses bits n’ bobs stop me from going to the gym!

I have a promise to keep that’s far more important.

Today’s weight: 120.3 kg/265.2 lbs. Fantastic, a gain! Marvelous feeling, that. Now I am right back where I started. So the question is, where did I go wrong? It’s relatively simple, I think:

1. I baked twice in the past week, Muffins one time and Chocolate Fudge Cake the other. Both things were intended for other people, but I ended up eating too much of them myself. I wouldn’t say I binged, I just had more than the tiny sliver of cake and half Muffin that I suppose I should have had. My body is never, ever forgiving when it comes to sweets.

2. Other than my daily walk with the Munchkin, I am not getting any exercise. I would like to start strength training at home, but I really need to get myself sorted out in other areas first. I’ve been trying to integrate all these new things and habits into my life over the course of the last few weeks and at times felt a bit overwhelmed by it all, between mommyhood, work, uni and money issues.

3. Lactation consultants in the weight loss section of my forum told me that certain hormones are making my body cling on to the least bit of fat for all dear life. My body ‘knows’ it has to provide for our Munchkin and in order to do that, it takes whatever it can get and stores it. So essentially I should be happy to be losing weight at all, if I do lose any, at least while I am still nursing. Bugger.

4. Because I am forever the procrastinator, I have failed to look up portion sizes, again. No excuses there, I suck.

All that being said, I seem to be getting into the swing of at least some things healthy. I am drinking my water (although I think I should potentially up my intake to 2 liters per day. I keep reading conflicting things on that one), I am eating fruit and veg, I am cooking from scratch and I am having a healthy breakfast every day. I have bought and mixed Quinoa pops (unsweetened), oats and mixed seeds. A bit of this mixture I am adding to a small tub (150 grams) of low fat yogurt every day. This week I’ll need to start adding fruit to that as well. My snacks are usually plain rice cakes or fruit.

My goals for the next week are to be less obsessive about numbers for the moment, advice brought forward by my lactation consultant. I will continue to focus on an overall healthy lifestyle and will finally read up on those portion sizes, dammit.

Hey there!

I tried to give the Lassie a little bit of blog time before I told you how I got on at Friday’s Weigh In. To be honest, part of me was incredibly nervous about the result, because I had worked really hard not to give in to temptation and always do a full workout at the gym.

Calendar Week 4
Week 2
125.80 Kg
277.34 Lbs
19.81 Stone

Thats a loss from Week 1 of:

3.4 Kg
7.48 Lbs
0.7 Stone

I had a lot of people congratulate me at work and a few people giving me pep talks about how that’s a lot and not healthy and how I should not be eating that pasta. While I was imagining my pasta over their heads, I explained that when you’re as big as me, it is normal to lose a lot to begin with.

Your body starts to shed the toxins and water that you were retaining for that “rainy day”. I knew it would be a lot, but did not think of something like three and a half kilos! That’s three and a half sacks of potatoes or three and a half packs of sugar!

I do feel different, but obviously don’t look any different at all. The feelings I have been having are all in my stomach. No McBloated feelings anymore. I also don’t really trust what’s going on down there, either. I am so unaccustomed to being hungry that I don’t trust myself to know when I really am.

So I have resorted to eating little and often and then watch my portions at my meal times. I can’t really go wrong with that, can I?

The gym is awesome! I walk in and hop on the recumbent bike for 10 minutes, then do 35 minutes on the weights. After that I am back on the recumbent bike for 45 minutes.

I watched which distance I go on the recumbent and I found that I go about 22 km at a time! That is a heck of a distance. But I won’t be going any further, not until my course changes.

As for looking thinner – well, I will keep you all posted!