The scale today read 119.7 kg/263.9 lbs. That’s a 1.3 lbs loss. Not great at all, but I will take it. I know I would have lost less than that or nothing at all if it weren’t for the breastfeeding. I still have a serious issue with chocolate and I desperately need to find a way to work this out. As of today, there is no more chocolate in the house. I have noticed I feel extremely deprived whenever I ban chocolate completely, so I need to sensibly reduce my intake. For now, I will try to have a cup of hot cocoa whenever I feel I absolutely need to have something. Hopefully I’ll eventually be able to change long-standing habits. I know it is unrealistic to say that I will completely wean myself of sweets, I just need to learn to exercise moderation.

This past week has been quite difficult for me. I’ve had a headache almost every day and can only assume that it’s something to do with the Munchkin having trouble sleeping at the moment. It doesn’t look like she’s teething, so maybe it’s a growth spurt that’s causing her restlessness. Unfortunately for me, the headaches get so bad that I can literally do no more than crawl around, occasionally drinking water to try and stay hydrated. Today was another headache day, but luckily it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been and I did go for a walk with the Munchkin.

Other than my insane chocolate consumption, I have been doing really well with food. The Laddie and I have continued to watch our portion sizes, I have had my 1.5 l of water per day and ate veg and fruit on a regular basis. I have yet to figure out appropriate portion sizes – some internet research should help me out there.

One thing I’ve rediscovered this week is that most low fat dairy products are absolutely vile. I wanted to start having plain yogurt for breakfast, mix in some fresh fruit and oats and thus have a nice healthy brekkie very day. Well, we went to get some 0.1% fat yogurt and by God, did it taste horrible. Same goes for rubbery low fat cheeses, I have to say. So I’ve decided we’ll stick with our 1.5% low fat, organic milk and buy regular cheeses, etc. and just try and eat smaller amounts of everything. I really can’t stand the somewhat artificial, bland taste of the low low fat stuff. Also, I need to consider that our daughter will eat with us relatively soon. I just don’t want to introduce her to this kind of food. I am hoping that she will manage to have a healthy attitude towards and a ‘normal’ relationship with food – food that’s as close to its original state as possible, whenever possible.

My continued goal for the next week is to find ways to deal with my sugar cravings without going cold turkey and feeling totally deprived. Also, I have to sign up for the weight loss corner of my online nursing forum, as I was told by a lactation consultant to be careful with how I go about losing weight, since all my waste products that I might be flushing out of my body will go into my milk, thereby affecting my Munchkin. So I’ll need to get some advice on how to handle my specific weight loss situation. Hoping for a good week!

“And I would climb 106 steps to fall down at work!”

I worked it out. To get to the 5th floor at my work is 106 steps. Now I go up twice a day, once in the morning and once at lunch time. Then I climb down them twice as well again once at lunch and then in the evening. Up 212 and down 212… Do they cancel each other out or something.

I’ll be honest I don’t like going up!

Anyways back to work!

I am a little late with my weigh in, so I won’t keep it back any longer!

Calendar Week 3
Week 1
129.2 kg
287.04 lbs
20.50 stone

287 pounds is quite a lot! I never thought I would get so…Big! It’s quite draining to consider that you’re carrying two people around with you – and for what, too. Sure, that Big Mac tastes good, but the price of my gluttony is way too high.

I suffer from sleep apnea, which takes a massive amount of energy out of me, even before I start the day. I can fall asleep before you can say Doughnuts. This is taking a negative effect not just on my relationship with the Lassie, but also on my ability to be a good father.

I am going to be brutally honest here, our sex life has somewhat stalled and I know it’s all my fault. One thing with the the apnea and thus the lack of useful sleep is that while I am always tired, my head is clouded. My thought patterns are way off, where I can only think of the immediate things that are happening. Thus I am always talking about pointless things. Not because that’s all I think about, but rather that’s what is in front of me, or reminded me of whatever at the time. It’s not the case that I am not thinking about sex at all, but rather I am not thinking about it at the right moments, when I should be. Also, being tired all the time does take a lot of the energy out of the proceedings and I am way too selfconscious of that. It’s like my “leave the lights off” sorta issue.

Then there is tiny Munchkin. I feel like I am failing as a father to her, because again, I fall asleep very easily, even when I am playing with her. One time the Lassie was taking a rest because of a migraine and I was with the baby. She was getting upset, so I took her in my arms and rocked back and forth to try and get her to calm down. Of course, the rocking action calmed me down a little too much and by the time the tiredness had overcome me (and it is really instant) the Lassie was in the doorway, looking at me asleep, holding the screaming Munchkin. The Lassie informed me that our daughter had been screaming at the top of her lungs for the past fifteen minutes. As she thought I was with her, comforting her, she did not come to check on us sooner. I have never felt so ashamed in my entire life. A failure beyond imagination. My face hurt for about a week after that. Like some strange psycho I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and punched and slapped myself in the face, partly as some form of self-punishment, but also to fight the tiredness. Not my finest moment.

My work also suffered. I would fall asleep at the keyboard for only a split second, but it was enough for me to worry about being seen. I would sneak off for regular toilet breaks to try and power nap. But it kept coming back.

What can I do about all of this? Get off my FAT arse and do something about it, that’s what!

I already had my gym membership, so I went on Friday night, determined to make a change for the better.

Because this post is getting rather long, I am making a ‘read more’ link, so I can tell you what went on on Friday, without you freaking out over the length of the post (I got carried away with the reasoning, I guess)

(more…)

As I expected, nothing’s changed, really. My weight today is 120.3 kg/265.2 lbs. I am absolutely not counting the 0.2 kg I’ve apparently lost, as I am pretty sure that is just the scale messing with me and the amount is hardly worth mentioning, anyway.

TOM is here and I have not been able to deal with this situation in any kind of reasonable manner – I got the Laddie to get chocolate for me twice over the last few days. Before that happened, however, I tried to deal with my cravings without giving in to sweets. It’s a bit saddening to think of all the calories I could have saved if I had eaten what I wanted to begin with, instead of trying to deal with my cravings by finding ‘healthy’ alternatives. You’d think after years of ‘dieting’ I’d be smarter than this. I somehow need to come up with a better way to handle this kind of situation. It’s gotta be possible for me to get through this time of the month without overindulging. At the very least, I need to learn to appreciate one small portion of good quality chocolate every once in a while and stop gobbling piles of Milka with wild abandon as soon as fancy strikes.

Honestly, I don’t feel like myself when cravings like that hit me. I like to think I have control over what I do or don’t do. Yet, every month I turn to that overused, worn out cliché, blaming TOM for mindless overeating. I have to work this out somehow. Perhaps it’s a start to deal with the iron deficiency I was recently informed of having. I am hoping that my constant tiredness, lack of energy and general blah attitude towards a lot of things can at least partially be attributed to said deficiency. Of course, never sleeping for more than two consecutive hours at night isn’t exactly helping, either, but our Munchkin will start sleeping longer when she’s ready for it and that’s just all there is to that.

Other than my chocolatey issues, I’ve been doing quite well regarding my other goals. I have significantly increased my water intake to 1.5 liters every day. Organic fruit has been my snack on most days, too. Eating more veg wasn’t really so much of an issue, as we’ve been trying to incorporate a lot of that into our meals every day, anyway. Just yesterday we had a beautiful dinner of wholemeal pasta with butternut squash and spinach, thanks to the Laddie’s inspiration. He’s really responsible for bringing us back on track with home-cooked, healthy meals. I have to admit that most of the time I just can’t be bothered to cook in the evenings, after a Munchkin-intense day. As a consequence, the Laddie has taken over the kitchen, always trying to come up with new, funky and healthy recipes. He’s putting me to shame, really – he works long hours and yet still manages to cook and take care of the dishes at night.

As far as exercise is concerned, all I am doing right now is to go out for a walk with our Munchkin every day. There are a lot of things for me to figure out yet – one of them has to be the incorporation of some sort of at home exercise into my day. There is not even a question of me attending a gym at the moment. We don’t have the money for it and that’s that.

In terms of portion control, we’ve absolutely cut down on what we’re eating. Still, I think we need to figure out exactly what a ‘normal’ portion should look like, as we’re trying to wing things a bit too much at the moment. Right now, my goals for the next week are to work on not giving in to my sugar cravings ALL THE DAMN TIME, figure out appropriate portion sizes and to have a healthy breakfast every morning.

I was walking through the store, feeling like Rambo. One person would look at me wrong again and I would cut them open with my bank card.

‘I can do this’ I thought.

I got to the sweets aisle and picked something up for the Lassie and stopped. It was my turn! Do I pick up some Rolos or will I have a break, have a Kitkat?

In my head I thought, ‘No, I am not going to do that’ and I walked away. I swiftly made my way to the vegetable section, picked up some carrots and sped off to the fridge for some sour cream. Not the healthiest choice, granted, but it was better than chocolate!

In the end it’s about choice. Do I choose to stay Fatman, or do I get proactive and become Jason Bourne, minus the mad assassins chasing me?

Here are some choices I have made recently:

• Drink two liters of water a day without fail.
• Instead of a warm meal in the evening, have my warm meal at lunch and bread with spreads for dinner.
• Have three pieces of fruit per day.
• Go to the gym three nights a week.
• Cut out unhealthy habits, like taking the tram one stop to my work instead of walking.

I will certainly be adding to the list, but so far, so good – I will be sticking to this!

Today’s weigh in reveals a hefty 120.5 kg/265.6 lbs. While I am by no means happy with this number, I suppose it could have been worse. It’s 15 kg/33 lbs less than I weighed before I got pregnant, so that’s something. Friday will be my official weigh in day from now on. I am still struggling to set myself an ultimate goal, as I do not want to be unrealistic. For now, I think I will aim to get to 80 kg/176 lbs and then see what happens.

Geez, to be in the double digits again…the last time I remember being under 100 kg was in 1997, after the German version of a Fat Camp. After six weeks, I’d lost 30 kg/66 lbs back then – not exactly the thing you should do, by any means. Needless to say, within a year I’d gained back all the weight I’d lost, and then some. This time around, things have to be different. I don’t want superfast weight loss that I can’t maintain, I need to get fit and healthy in the long run.

There are so many reasons why I want to lose weight, but there’s one thing that’s always at the forefront of my mind: My family. I need to be healthy not just for me, but for my child and husband as well. Ideally, I’d like to spend at least the next 500 years with my most favorite people on earth and for that I want to be happy, healthy and active.

How to go about all this is still a bit of a blur to me, to be honest. I will need some more time to somehow organize myself, but for now, I will always weigh in on Fridays, to make sure that at least I am not gaining any weight while I am figuring things out. So far, the Laddie and I have already switched to home-cooked meals only, we’re trying to eat organic as much as possible, we’re reducing our meat consumption and we are making an active effort to cut down on portion sizes. Also, we’ve effectively stopped buying the mountains of chocolate that we used to consume on an almost daily basis. We’re both aware that we won’t be able to keep away from sweets for all eternity, so our general rule is to only buy one bar of something at the check out when the cravings hit.

Right now I am focusing on drinking more water and eating more fruit throughout the day. Regular meals and exercise are also still big issues for me, but I need to make absolutely sure I don’t try to do everything at once and then get overwhelmed in the process.

So, here’s my plan for the week:

- Drink at least 2 litres of water per day

- Increase fruit and veg intake

- Continue to watch portion sizes

Let the losing begin, I say!

Ok, I can’t say diet in the title, cause it’s not a diet at all – I’ll explain.

J.O. (pronounced “yo”, cause we are in Germany) means Jamie Oliver. On and off for the last week we have been trying out the recipes from his book “Ministry of Food” (available at Amazon.co.uk). I have to say, we have been pleasantly surprised by the results.

Two things are noteworthy here:

I took one of our speed meals that we have been known to buy and compared it with a J.O. recipe.

Fatty Speed Meal (Remember, full of E numbers and other junk)
Chicken Nuggets: 2.99 €
Oven Potato Pockets (filled with cream cheese): 2.49 €
Packed Salad: 1.69 €
Dressing: .99 €

Total = 8.16 €

Ok, not one of our finest moments, buying this crap, but bear with me.

We are going to assume that we have some standard ingredients beforehand, as we should always have them (like eggs, butter and flour) so there are no prices for those items.

Garlic Chicken with Salad

Chicken: 3.42 €
Butter
Breadcrumbs
Eggs
Flour
Garlic
Dried Parsley

Salad: .99 €
Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar

Apple Crumble

Cooking Apples: .88 €
Sugar
Rolled Oats
Wholewheat Flour
Butter
Water

Total = 5.36 € !!!!

Yeah, what a difference. It’s cheaper, healthier and you are using the stuff you normally have around the house. I just bought three things! The one thing that was debatable was the parsley, but that was only 1.69 € and we will use it for other meals.

Second, the J.O. meal is damn tasty and that’s no joke. How many frozen breaded chicken things have parsley and are seasoned properly? NONE!

Not to mention the Apple Crumble, which was divine!

So, one of our New Years resolutions is to eat nothing but meals prepared from scratch, inspired by Jamie Oliver and the likes.

Another thing I noticed on the subject of food: I wrote a post a while ago, about the dangers of Coke with the ugly sweeteners – One Week Cokeless!

Well, Mythbusters did an experiment to find out what makes the Coke and Mentos thing work (put some Mentos into some Diet Coke and watch it flow like a fountain. They found that in Coke it’s the fizzy carbonating stuff, or really C02 and the sweeteners! Please check out the movie and they will explain it further. But if mints, sweeteners and fizzy water can do that…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMXPOqovSBs

Then is that one of the reasons why drinking too much Coke makes you feel weird in more ways than one? Bad Coke, bad.

I was browsing a bookstore (Thalia), looking for something to read for myself and the Lassie, when I stumbled upon this little gem!

The fabulous Shauna, strategically placed between ‘You are what you eat’ and ‘Skinny Bitch’!

It still amazes me to see a physical book from someone, who – like the rest of us – spilled their written guts onto the internets.

I would have picked up the book right then and there, but it was the German copy and I…well, my German still sucks Schnitzel.

Don’t worry though, Dietgirl! Amazon assured us that an English copy is finally on its way.

For the past few weeks I have gone a little daft on coke. The thing is, at work they supply us with drinks:

• Coke.
• Fanta.
• Lift – fizzy apple drink.
• Sweetened apple and orange juice.
• Apollinaris fizzy water.
• Vio still water (made by Apollinaris).

We used to get Volvic still water and this fizzy water called Ambassador, but due to costs they turned to slightly cheaper versions in the Apollinaris brands. I have tried to drink both waters, but to be blunt: they taste like toilet water. There just is a taste to it that makes it almost impossible to drink, even when it’s mixed with apple or orange.

So I resorted to drinking Coke all the time for a good few weeks. I have to admit that I drank a lot and I started to feel bad for it. Always needing to use the toilet and feeling bloated and horrible. I also thought I would end up having diabetes cause of the sugar overload, but I was not continuing to find out.

About a week ago I said “no” – No to Coke and No to fizzy ‘bad for you’ drinks.

I have forced myself to try and drink the Apollinaris water and so far, it’s working. But what has alarmed me are the after effects. I have lost a little weight, I am a little more grumpy than I used to be, I am actually openly thinking about Coke, like it was a light addiction and my energy is super low, like I need sugar.

I’ll be honest, if a supposedly “soft” drink has this kinda effect on your body, then it should never be up for sale. But then you wonder.

What about Diet Coke or Coke Zero. No sugar, right?

They use a chemical called “Phenylalanine” as part of the sweetener. Now this is an amino acid and is in fact an essential part of your diet. But this stuff taken in large doses in excess of 5,000 mg a day is dangerous. Here is a short list of what this can do to you:

• Nerve damage.
• Nausea, heartburn and headaches.
• Phenylalanine is a neurotoxin and excites the neurons in the brain to the point of cellular death.
• Emotional and behavioral disorders.
• Hypertension and/or migraine headaches.
• Extreme thirst.
• Weight gain.

Now, just before I tell you the rest, you gotta know what the symptoms of phenylalanine deficiency are:

• Apathy
• Confusion
• Decreased alertness
• Lack of energy
• Loss of muscle
• Lowered appetite
• Memory troubles
• Stunted growth
• Weakness

It makes you feel like it’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. Well, phenylalanine is found in high protein foods like milk, meats and nuts – also, you can get it from bananas and asparagus, to name a few. These are obviously healthy foods and should be a part of your normal diet. But when I consider my intake of phenylalanine through non natural sources, then I get worried that I could be getting way too much.

Let’s say my normal intake would be a glass of milk, a pack of nuts and a banana. I will feel fine for the day. But what happens when I drink a liter of diet Coke and chew some gum? I am over the limit. Now, I might not have enough phenylalanine in my system to kill brain cells, but then how do I know what this crap is doing to me?

Then I think back to the story of the woman who died in her apartment. They had to have a wall removed to get her out. It was discovered that she drank liters and liters of diet Coke, constantly chewed gum and all sorts of other stuff. I know it would have been a heart attack and her weight that killed her, but you can’t help but wonder if certain chemicals in the Coke contributed to her frame of mind, making her look for more comfort food.

Often I hear fit and healthy people say “once you get fit and healthy, it’s easy to stay that way”, maybe that’s partly because they don’t have these or other chemicals in unhealthy foods pulling at them any more.

However, I also think back to the girl in a radio competition, wanting to win a Wii. She was to drink a load of water and hold in her bodily functions for as long as possible. The woman died of water poisoning!

Can too much of a presumably safe and good thing kill you? I guess so! As always, moderation seems key.

I got up at 5 am, or as I like to call it, “5 asleep time”! I was planning to leave straight away, but I realized that I did not prepare everything as I should have done the night before. To my credit, I did pack my bag the night before, just not got everything, like shower stuff.

I finally trip out the door and make the train station at 5:30 am….15 to 20 minutes behind schedule

It was a strange experience on the train. Everyone looked like they were in a bloodless version of a zombie movie, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. It was a stark difference to the rush “get out of my freaking way” hour.

After changing trains, I have to walk half a mile to get to the gym. I could take the bus, but then that’s like ordering a super sized burger meal and insisting your getting a diet coke, cause you’re on a diet. If I power walked it, maybe I could consider it part of my workout, but what I do in the gym is what I am told to do and if there is something extra I do, then that is only a bonus…not a replacement.

Climbing the stairs to the third freaking floor, I notice it’s 6 am and I am in trouble. Two hours of workout and then getting changed into my gear, then out again, shower and then that half mile to the station, only to get another train! I am not going to make it to work on time. To top it all off, I get to the floor and the door is shut. Oh crap, the door is closed…They are closed! All this for nothing. Well, silly me forgot that my gym is a 24 hour gym and there is a slot for my membership card.

I get on with my workout. Focused on the task at hand and no messing around. I struggle with the stretching, though. It’s the move where you take one foot with your hand (bent at the knee) and then push your knee back and your foot up high to your butt. It looks like a move from a MC Hammer dance. Anyways, my calves are quite beefy (I like to walk), but my upper leg to my thigh is like a sack of potatos under my skin. I thus can’t bend my leg enough to grab my foot with my hand.

To be honest, I am fine with all the workout maneuvers, except all these stretches I have to do for ten minutes. All the weight machines are even at the lowest weight and I am struggling, yet I don’t feel embarrassed. Maybe it’s because I am protected by a clump of metal. Maybe it’s because people around me are struggling, too. Or maybe it’s because the stretching is a physical sign that I am grossly overweight.

Needless to say, the gym was empty, because I am the only silly sod that had the smart idea to go in a 6 am! By the time I get to my final 45 minutes burn, people do start to shuffle in, looking just as unhappy as I did when I got in. But you guys got at least one more hour of sleep than I did!

I leave for the shower and it’s gotten a little more busy, but I am happy with my workout and the fact that there were not so many people to witness my beached whale on a bike action. I proceeded to fly like the wind to get to work on time.

8:30 am is when I get into work. I did not rush the workout that much, was 20 minutes behind and still I get into work half an hour early. Well, better early than late!

The rest of the day I was strangely in a good mood and upbeat. I felt better about myself and I felt like I had more energy, even though I expelled a lot of it with two hours of pain!

I’ll be off to the gym again on Friday. Tomorrow morning! Let’s see how this goes now…

Will I be just as happy, will I maybe start to manage the stretches better, or will I be eaten by the bloodless zombies on the train?