The Curvy Goddess

Fitting Exercise In Your Life...

As part of this whole changing my life weightloss thing I know that in addition to changing my eating habits I also need to be more active.  Sure no problem, I can do - can't I?

Well actually no, thing is I find exercise dull, on your own it is so boring, dull, dull, dull, DULL!  I like stuff that involves little movement like reading books, watching films and surfing the web (and I suspect typing does not count as exercise). 

So exercise with another person is infinitely preferably because well then you can talk to them and even better for me it brings outs my heavily repressed aries competitive streak which actually makes me exercise more. 

Problem is though the other person you play against actually has a life, they don't exsist soley to be your exercise buddy (bloody selfish if you ask me). 

So what am I doing again?  Oh yes exercise...

I count myself very grateful for a few things. 

One, despite being able to drive I no longer own a car (evil black holes of wasted money!!!) and I live in a very car unfriendly city (love you Brighton).

Second, I have to walk everywhere.  Sure I get the bus when I have to go far.  But town is only 25ish minutes away.  Work is only 10.  I live up a big hill too, oh yes brighton has many hills, steep crazy hills.

So I walk lots, sometimes very far or several times a day.  Is this enough?   It seems not.

Not sure how a person like myself, inactive for the majority of my adult life is now supposed to be gradually more active, I don't have masses of sporty friends (damn me for not making friends with Jocks!  Not that we really have jocks here in the UK).

Anyway if any of you out there have any ideas on how I can do more exercise, do let me know - answers on a postcard or well here...

Tomorrow

When I was little (in terms of age not size) I loved Garfield.  He comforted me because he was always mocking diets and how he viewed himself.  Garfield's ideals of sleeping all day and eating nothing but lasagne did and still do appeal to me.

Last week was a bad week and I have eaten and drunk a lot of things that I have should not have.  I am so close at the moment to saying fuck it.  But then I have strange moments of catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror and thinking I should be bigger, my face is fleshier - isn't it?  Or I go shopping with my best friend who tells me that the size 16 dress I have tried on is too big (and around my bust of all places!!).

I am really bored and fed up of dieting, but I don't want to stay this size, despite the positive comments from the people I care about, I still feel fat.  I still feel huge.  I want the belly that I have always had to be flat and to know what that feels like.  So I am just gonna have to shut up with my whining and get on with it.

Back to Garfield, one of his funniest comments on dieting (in my opinion) is about when they are started...  Of course you will be thinking surely they always start on Monday - Garfield's most hated day of the week...  Actually most diets are started 'Tomorrow' (sadly though I can't find a link to it).

I am back on the wagon as of tomorrow :-)

Wanton Pie Eating

At the moment I am struggling big time to diet.  I am doing quite well at maintaining my weight, despite eating some bad foods - I have sense enough not to eat more calories than I can burn off.

I am fed up of low gi foods - well the stuff I know how to make anyway.  I probably need to inject some inspiration and new receipes to my diet.  I would love to hurl sweetner, lentils and chickpeas at Rick Gallop.  I am just so sick of all food.  Even the foods I am currently 'cheating' with have lost their sparkle…  I just want to eat all the foods I shouldn't.  On Saturday I ate pie, chips and gravy - it was wonderful.  I want cream cakes and jacket potatoes.  I know that eating all of those sorts of foods will zap my energy and send me into a little summer slump.

But I am so f**king fed up.

I don't want to cook.  I don't want to expel any effort - I've been doing this since last september, do I have to keep at it forever?

Equally so I just want to be at my target weight now, with no effort and preferably with a grand to blow on clothes.

I still have 41 pounds to go and getting rid of them seems more difficult than some kind of mythological quest.  But I am not after the holy grail, just to get to nine stone.

I am no where near to my two month weightloss target.

Something has to change, but I am not sure what or how or why…

Grrr, Grrr and more Grrr.

Something Has Clicked...

Yesterday something odd happened. 

As per usual at the weekend and at the start of this week I was bad, eating sugary foods again and needing them quite badly.

But Wednesday I literally woke up feeling "I can't eat sugar today", I won't do it.  And I didn't, yesterday was my first full sugar free day in ages.  And today I have survived too.

I can't quite explain it, but I have essentially decided that one I am not addicted to sugar and secondly that I must not eat it or I will quite simply continue to not lose weight.  That might sound a little over the top, but I am at point where if I do not watch the calories along with following the GI diet, the weight will not go.

However I am glad to be feeling this way - I really hope it lasts because I am still so far away from my goal weight and I really want and need to get on my way to it. 

I keep thinking, if I was to be utterly ruthless and up my exercise too, I could be there in five months.

That doesn't seem so bad...

Back to the Diet

Despite the empty Mars Delight wrapper on my desk, this week has been a good week for dieting.  As per normal I have found dieting during the week at work easier and the weekend has seen some bad food choices.

It seems that my structured working week forces me to plan my meals and at the weekend I let that all go.  Plus the weekend seems to include at least one pub lunch/dinner, at which I find it difficult to choose something healthy, because even the healthy options ain't low gi anyway...

Bad Rachel!

Anyway bad behaviour aside I have lost 1.5 pounds this week - only half pound back to 11.13.  Have decided to set myself a mini goal of getting to 11.5 over the next two months so that when I go back to my doctor I will be three stone lighter than my starting weight.  That means losing 8 pounds in that time - which I think is more than managable in the time I have set myself.  And!!!  My boyfriend should be handing in a completed draft of his phd thesis this week (please god let it be over with after 7 years!!!) which means I may have a squash buddy again, which will hopefully make the weightloss a bit easier.

This coming week though shalt eat low gi at all times even at the weekend...

Post Holiday Reflections & Back to the F**king Diet

Urgh...

I am not sure that going away on holiday was such a great idea for me.

I have come back to delightful grey british weather, which is all the more 

depressing after a week of very, very sunny Malta.  All I want to

do is hide under my duvet, watch Greys Anatomy/Lost/Heroes/24/Ugly Betty

and eat.

Work is busy, friends are sad and I have to diet!  I really, really

don't want to diet after eating all I wanted on holiday, plus wine,

which until my holiday I had not wanted to drink...  And I have hit a

first.  I have gained 2 pounds from my holiday blow out, which is the

first time I have gained any weight since starting my diet since

September.

A stone back that would have devastated me, but to be honest now I don't

care.  I loved every minute of eating tasty food in Malta.  I am

starting to understand why now dieting seems to be nemesis of permanent

weightloss, my eating habits pre-diet were much better than how I feel

now - I just want to eat crap pure and simple.  I am sure that hardened

dieters would know this, but myself diet virgin until last September,

this really surprises me, I always expected that a good diet would make

me a more virtous eater.

Anyway, some how, despite all of this I now have to find a way back to

eating healthly and back on to the GI diet, as per usual hardest of all,

giving up sugar is proving to be tough, driving me slighlty more insane

than usual.

So far I have taken the step of eating loads of satsumas and clearing my

wardrobe.

The wardrobe sorting I am actually quite proud of, I have successfully

managed to throw away some more favourite worn out jeans and possibly

got rid of all of my old sized clothes.  Yesterday a couple of carrier

bags fully of old clothes went to charity, another couple wait to go.  I

have a big bunch of stuff to sell on ebay, I'm gonna try to list at

least 10 items a week.  So in a few weeks time, my wardrobe should be

much more empty...

Anyway the theory behind the wardrobe clearing is that I will only have

clothes that fit me or are a bit too tight, I'm hoping that will keep me motivated to diet...

Birthday Week

Last week was a weird old week...

Had a job interview, managed to stay confident and focused throughout the interview but didn't get it.

Felt quite low about that and everything else in my life, but especially my weight - why is everything such a long and tricky process?  Can't I speed it all up?!!!

Next morning I get up and weigh myself.  The scales for sometime now have said 12.1.  That morning they said 11.13.  I am finally in the 11S!!!  Yay!!!!

Last Thursday though was my birthday and I had planned since starting this diet way back in September to ensure that on my birthday I ate all the foods I wanted - especially a jacket potato - which according to the GI Diet is the epitome of GI EVIL.  Especially with butter and cheese.

I won't go into masses of detail here - sparing the dieters reading this any pain...  But I had a great day the highlight of which was going to a tea house here in Brighton - it was adorable - tea pots and chintz all around.  When I move out my shared house at the end of august I will invest in the most garish and beautiful tea set and invite people round for tea!

My boyfriend brought me for my birthday a tarot reading because I love all that stuff - I actually read the cards myself, but I do enjoy having mine read for me...  Anyway the reading itself was quite emotional in terms of dieting.  Apparently I am stuck in the past and I can't do anything positive until I let go...  Interesting really because much of my reasons for dieting are because of the past, because I gained a lot of weight when I was with someone who made me miserable and because at school my weight prevented me from having any self esteem.

Perhaps it is time to let go all of that and lose weight for more positive reasons like that I want to be healthy and when I get to my target weight I will have the mother of all shopping trips.  I think also perhaps hardest of all, I need to somehow separate my self esteem from my weight because I know the truth is that my weight doesn't have to mean that I am a failure or a bad person or that I can't be successful (despite what a lot of the news seems to suggest).

It is tricky.  Losing weight is so much more than just losing pounds...

A Month Since I Last Posted - ARGH!!!

Apologies for my lack of posting, I can't believe that it has been over month since I last posted, it doesn't feel that long ago! Mainly because I do have a couple of draft posts about clothes lingering, they aren't quite polished or ready yet though.

Anyway time for a recap.

At present I now weigh 12 stone and 1 pound. March was another month of good intentions not amounting to much. I don't feel sad about it though, what I have discovered over the last couple of months of pissing about diet wise is that I am capable of maintaining my weight. The good weeks when I stick to the GI diet, I lose weight. The bad weeks where I stick to the GI diet 60% of the time, eat some calorific meals and eat one chocolate bar (we are talking a twirl here, not huge bars of the stuff) a day, I maintain my weight. That really is great to know, that I can essentially be a little naughty, eat tasty food and not gain weight.

But, and yes there is always a but, what I really need to do now is lose weight. I want to and need to be losing 1-2 pounds a week. Although I like being much lighter and I love all the supportive comments I have been given about my achievement to date. I am not happy with my body, I still have a big tummy, flabby arms and legs. My BMI is still in the obese range - I'm nearly at the 'overweight' stage but in terms of health, all of this is still not enough. I am almost a size 16, but still there are several shops that won't let me shop in them! I need to get real and most importantly I need to stick at dieting.

So this week I have again started dieting, in the strict sense of the word! I have filled my freezer with quorn and chicken. I will eat lots of soup. I have got quick and simple lunches so that I can't be tempted in the supermarkets to buy more than a sandwich. I think I will also reread the GI Diet book to re-familiarise myself with its principles. I'll deal with giving up sugar again (for the millionth time!). Most of all I must start to lose weight every week, no matter what amount so that I can move closer to my goal, it is still some distance away, but I must at the very least be headed for it.

Nine stone me here I come.

I've lost half a foot...

Yesterday my boyfriend told me with much glee that I had lost over half a foot off my waist.

It seems that another 1 and a half inches has disappeared from my waist, bring the total so far to 6 and a half inches.  My waist currently measures 35.5 inches, so I am now only half an inch away from a safe waist measurement, in terms of diabtes that is.

I am now quite intrigued as to what my final waist measurement will be when I eventually get to my target.

My current weight is 12.3...  Must carry on!

Bluergh...

Been having a crappy week.

Have been constantly craving and occasionally eating shit food.  Feeling quite generally fed up and sick of dieting.  All I want to do is eat chocolate and big greasy chips.

I understand that dieting is not always a quick process.  It feels like it will never end right now.  Nothing seems to be able to motivate me, I just feel miserable about how hard this is.

But tomorrow is another day and next week another week.  Have organised playing badmington next week and been researching gym memberships.

Will go now and have a blueberry binge.