Catch Up time

Hello :)

Yes I know other than my challenge blog posts (well done to all the participants) I've been AWOL - apologies.

Life has been busy, I moved house and have had lots of visitors staying. My mother in law has been here for the last two weeks and flew home today, so I will be resuming normal service again shortly :)

So what have I been upto...

We took my mother in law to South Lake Tahoe for her 60th birthday and had lots of fun, we got there on the Friday afternoon and it was 99 degrees, when we left on the Monday it was 55 degrees, heavy rain and there was snow showers expected. Such strange weather. We had the heat the whole weekend we were there, which made it even nicer, we went to a Renaissance fair which was awesome, although not sure Dave was too impressed, as I got them to arrest him for walking off and abandoning me (they have lots of people in character walking around the event acting things out) and they put him in jail and he ended up getting drenched in the water barrel - those of you who are my friends on Facebook can see the photos from the event.

The biggest news for the last few weeks, which I'm sure that most of you would have read on twitter on Facebook, was that Dave and I became permanent residents of the US. We now have our green cards, so you are stuck with us for at least the next 10 years :) and it also means I'm now allowed to go and get a job (which is a scary thought after not working for almost 3 years). Although first I have the fun job of going to the social security office to get issued with a social security number - for those of you in the US - you know what a mundane task this is (much like a trip to the DMV!!). 

As most of you will know I signed up to do the Susan G Komen 3 day, 60 mile walk this September, which I was really looking forward to and had just started the official training (until the day I fell off the treadmill!!). Well unfortunately I am longer going to be taking part :( For those of you who didnt know, I have two herniated discs in my lower spine, I recently had an epidural injection to help with the pain, which worked great, but the last few weeks I have been in some pain again :( I went to see my spine doctor last week and he has said that he thinks I will need a second epidural injection soon, but there is no guarantee it will work, and there is still a good chance I will need surgery on my spine/discs, which can have a long recovery period. I discussed the walk with him, and he advised me against doing it with my back in it's current condition, as he said it would put too much pressure on my discs and possibly do more damage :( So I am no longer taking part. A special thanks again to everyone who did donate to such a great cause. I am still planning to do the two 5k walks next month, which my doctor said shouldn't be an issue as long as I stretch plenty and take it easy. So I will be doing the Do Life walk on July10th and The Color Run on July 14th.

I'm still busy sending and receiving postcards through Postcrossing, I have sent a total of o 20 cards and have received 16 so far, I look forward to the mailman coming each day now in case he has a postcard for me :) It's interesting hearing from people all over the world. I plan to make some kind of collage out of them when I get 20. Not sure exactly what or how, but there will be photos.

Weight watchers - erm........ well...... I haven't pointed in weeks :( and as a result I have gained a total of 5lbs in the last three weeks, taking my total weight loss since the beginning of the year to a measly 6.8lbs. So I now have no excuse to get back on track, I have no more visitors planned until October, and nothing else planned that I can use as an excuse to not track. Plus I joined my local gym yesterday and plan to start swimming again and attending aqua aerobics classes. Feel free to harass me on twitter and Facebook, and any other ways to keep me on track - it will be much appreciated.

Oh and I booked tickets to see The Lion King in SF for my birthday in November :)

If you have made it to the end of my lengthy blog post - pat yourself on the back you deserve it :)

Week 19

Finally the scales are heading back the other way - so I think the medication was to blame for my recent gains. I haven't tracked my food this week, but have been exercising lots. I weighed this morning and lost 4.4lbs this week - taking my total loss since the beginning of the year to 11.8lbs, still just under 7lbs away from my lowest weight this year, so hope to be back there very soon.

From today I am starting to track weight watchers points again :) I haven't done it in a long while and have been guesstimating, so need to re educate myself again.

Today is day 3 of my first week of my training plan for my walk in September. Monday was a rest day, although I did end up cleaning the house from top to bottom which took up a good part of the day, yesterday was a 3 mile walk, which I did walking around a local lake. Today is 30 mins cross training, so I plan to go on my exercise bike this afternoon for 30 mins. I am also walking up the huge set of steps near my house once a day, there are 152 steps in total, I've been walking up the middle part which is 75 steps. The top part is super steep, also the bottom part includes a steep slope before the steps, I did it once the other day and thought I was dying!! I'm sure it will get easier with practice.

I went to check out my local YMCA yesterday, it is nice, but I'm not sure I'm ready to go back just yet, so am going to let my membership expire at the end of the month, then maybe in a few months I will rejoin and start back at my water running classes. In the meantime I have lots of exercise equipment I can be using at home

My physio is going well and they are really pleased with my progress and I have a 30 minute strengthening program I do twice a day which is really helping.

I'm addicted to my fit bit at the moment, and love watching my progress and receiving my weekly stats. 

My daily steps target is 10,000 which I am going to keep for now, and my floors climbed is 10, but I'm going to change this to 15 as I am always walking up stairs. These are last week's stats.

Week 16

Going to make this a quick post, as I really need to get on with the packing!! For those of you who don't know we are moving house in two days, well 38 hours to be precise!

This week was a strange week, my appetite reappeared, Which resulted in lots of overeating of not very healthy food this week, as a result on Sunday morning the scales showed a gain of 6.4lbs!! This gave me the motivation to rethink things, and I started making healthier choices again and also started packing which involved more exercise, and less chance to snack!!

The result this morning was that I stayed the same, which I was really pleased with. I'm going to try my best to stay focused throughout the move, plus my little sister arrives on Monday for 12 days, and we are going to Vegas for 3 days!! At least Vegas will involve lots of walking - must remember to charge my fitbit before I go. 

That reminds me, I got my 50 miles badge today with fitbit, which means since I started using it I've walked 50 miles. Which sounds great, but then I thought about the 3 day, 60 mile walk I'm doing in September and that scared me a bit!!

 

 The boxes and packing tape are calling. Have a good week everyone x

Nearly forgot, don't forget my summer challenge starts next week

Week 15

It's Weigh in Wednesday again, I had another week where I haven't tracked, but I have hardly eaten again - I'm still really bloated since my epidural, and can't seem to eat much. I guess though technically this is a good thing, as I'm not starving I'm eating three meals a day and having the odd snack, most of which is healthy. One thing I did notice is I went to the movies today and normally I can eat a medium kettle corn on my own with no problem whatsoever (I've even been known to eat a large one on my own!!), today I got a small kettle corn and I was barely able to eat half of it before I was full, so maybe my stomach has shrunk. One of my issues is eating portions that are too big, so this could be the boost I need to get my portion sizes back under control.

Down to the nitty gritty, the number on the scales... I actually got on and off five times as I didn't believe the number it read 274lbs  (I haven't been this light in a long long time) - which was a loss of 5.8lbs this week. My weight watchers app did tell me off as it said over the last few weeks I have lost more than the recommended 2lbs a week, but over the whole 15 weeks my average loss is 1.2lbs.

My new graph is looking good, and my total weight loss since January is now at 18.2lbs.  I seem to be in very little pain the last few days, so am starting to exercise again. I think I may actually hit 10,000 steps on my fitbit today too.

Don't forget about my summer weight loss challenge starting in a few weeks.

Week 14

It's that time of the week again. Now I have a confession I did weigh in yesterday morning before I went to the hospital as I wasn't sure how well I would be today (more on that later). The scales showed a pleasing loss of 2lbs yesterday, so I thought, yeah I'll take that loss, then after the hospital we went to ihop for breakfast (the red velvet pancakes were so good!). As it turned out as the medication kicked in I became less hungry as the day went on, so this morning I decided to see what difference the scales said.

Let's just say I'm glad I never recorded my weight online yesterday or blogged about it as today I was 3.8lbs down :) So I took that as my official weight for the week - as today is my official weigh in day. So my total loss is back at 12.4lbs. still not back at my lowest weight since I restarted but I'm getting there. Must go and move some pebbles over in my glass jars :)

I haven't really done anything different this week, Ill be honest I haven't tracked, but I know I haven't eaten much as my medication has been making me nauseous so I haven't been eating (guess being sick has it's plus sides too!). For those of you not up to date with my ailments I have a herniated disc and a second partially herniated disc :( which has caused really really painful sciatica down my right leg. I've been living off vicodin, which I think my body is now immune too!! My doctor wanted me to have surgery on my back to relieve the pressure, but I wanted the non surgical option, so yesterday I received my first epidural injection. Came home with stronger painkillers and antibiotics. I last took a painkiller about 21 hours ago, and so far it's looking good, my pain has been a lot less. I am still taking it easy as I have been told not to do much this week, the epidural can take up to 3 weeks to have a full effect, so hopefully I will be improving day by day. Which is good as I'm going to Vegas in 3 weeks time :)

In other news we are looking to move house :) We have given our current landlady notice and submitted our application for the new place. Should hear back in the next few days, so keep your fingers crossed for us. Then it will be all the fun of packing and moving. Which for me is something I love, as I love organizing things, and making lists and planning.

Looking forward to this weekend as I'm going to my first ever fitblog meetup which is being hosted by Marlene , I'm looking forward to meeting her along with Marisol and the other fitbloggers who are attending. It should be a great get together, with lots of yummy healthy food :)

A big thank you to Dacia for hosting Monica's Birthday Challenge. I ended up with a loss of 0.43% over the challenge, which I guess is better than a gain. The winner will be announced on Saturday or Sunday, so good luck if you are in the challenge. Also don't forget to sign up to my Summer Challenge which starts on May 12.

Thanks for reading and hope you all have a great week.

Week 13

I was hoping to be able to report a good loss this week, and Sunday morning the scales were looking really good with a 3.8lb loss, but by the time weigh in day came this morning, that wasn't the case.

I did still have a loss this week of 1.6lbs, taking my total back to 8.6lbs, which really isn't that great in 13 weeks when you consider the huge amount of weight I have to lose!

Looking at the chart you can see I was doing well, nice and slow and steadily losing, then I got my holiday head on and had the three weeks of gains, and now its finally heading back down and hopefully it will be on a nice steady slope down again.

So, the big question is why am I not losing faster? I think the basic truthful answer is I'm not trying hard enough! I could reel off a whole bunch of excuses as to why but that won't change the fact I need to try harder. At the moment I'm stuck at home unable to exercise and get out as I'm in severe pain with my herniated disc, hopefully next week Ill get my epidural injection and the pain will ease and I'll slowly be able to get back on track. The problem is being stuck in the house makes me bored and bored = eating when I'm not hungry. My fridge is full of lots of healthy snacks but once I get super bored then I just want unhealthy snacky foods. I am really missing my water running classes, and looking forward to going back to them in the next few weeks.

I know I need to up my game, my sister will be here in less than 4 weeks and we have a 3 day trip to Vegas planned, and yes I plan to have a few drinks and hit the buffets, but I believe I can do that in moderation, and hope that I will be well enough to do lots of walking to counteract the extra calories. 

Part of the problem with my herniated disc is the fact I am so overweight, so I need to REALLY try hard and change my eating habits and whole lifestyle, or even once this problem is fixed its likely to return if I don't lose the weight. Each year I have my annual health check and it comes back good, my bloods etc are always normal, and the Dr says that eventually my weight will affect my health and I need to focus on losing weight before it becomes an issue, but I always just carry on as normal. Maybe this current issue with my back is the wake up call I need. As right now the pain is unbearable and I would give anything to have it fixed.

So time to put the past behind me and move on, I have everything I need to make this work, I have an online weight watchers membership including a cool app on my phone, I have a gym membership, I have an exercise bike and treadmill at home, and of course I have my gorgeous two westies who love going for walks, so I have no excuse not to exercise (except for the pain at the moment - which should be fixed soon).  I am the one who controls what I eat, I do the grocery shopping, so only have myself to blame when the unhealthy food makes it into my kitchen. I decided when I came back from England that we wouldn't order take out food between then and when my sister arrives (total of 4 weeks) so far one week in and I'm pleased to report no take out food ordered so far :) (its all about the baby steps!) I have also signed up for an organic fruit and veg delivery service called Albert & Eve, the first box arrives today, so I am looking forward to trying some new fruit and veg, as I do tend to buy the same fruit and veg each week!

I want to say a big thank you to all off my friends on twitter, you are a great support and I'm looking forward to meeting some of you at the fitblog meet up next weekend. I'll be bringing a nice healthy ww spinach and cheese quiche.

I set myself a first goal of getting to 275lbs, and my reward was going to be a fit bit or a Nike fuelband, I decided on the fit bit and have purchased this and it should arrive any day, but I am going to be good and not use it until I reach my goal, so 8.6lbs to go. I'm hoping that will be a great motivational tool to help me increase my exercise too, as I think when I use it I will be shocked to see how little I do actually walk!

I started these weight loss jars a few months back, as you can see only 8 pebbles have made it into the pounds lost jar :( They sit on the side in the kitchen as a constant reminder to me, I hope to be transferring a lot more pebbles very soon

As some of you may know I am going to be hosting a summer weight loss challenge starting next month. So far I have had 12 people sign up, hopefully we will have a lot more people sign up between now and then, and it will be a good motivational tool for everyone who takes part. There will even be prizes too :) I have contacted a few companies and so far Pop Chips have come forward and offered a prize to the winner. So if you like prizes make sure you sign up and tweet and post about it to your friends too so they can also sign up.

Thanks for reading my lengthy post :) Have a good week everyone xxx

Week 8

Weigh in Wednesday is here again :) I stuck to the same philosophy as last week and ate all my weekly points this week (early on!) and this week ate 5 of my 34 activity points, didn't get as much exercise in this week as I did last week as I was in a lot of pain with my leg, but started physio yesterday so hope to be able to do some more exercise this week.

Using my points this week definitely works for me as I lost another 1.4lbs this week, taking my total loss to 16lbs since January 18, and I got my third 5lb star :)

I'm now 1.2lbs away from my 275lbs goal, which hopefully I will hit next week, although I still havent decided whether to purchase the fitbit or the Nike+ fuelband, at the moment the deciding factor is that the fitbit is readily available the Nike+ fuelband is out of stock. 

Thanks for reading my blog everyone and good luck to everyone else weighing in today.