The day of reckoning... Weigh In!

So today it was weigh in day.  I spent ages exfoliating (tmi I know!) and selecting the lightest clothes I own to wear to the meeting.  I don't think I've been so nervous in my life.  Thankfully all the hard work effort and 0 point soup has paid off and I am 8.5lbs lighter than I was a couple of weeks ago :-)  Happy days, and my first silver seven!  Go me!

I was beginning to waver a bit and the takeaway down the road has been calling my name.  However this has given me some newfound enthusiasm to go forth and lose this weight once and for all!  If you're considering signing up to WW or commencing any healthy eating plan just do it.  You have nothing to lose but weight and you will lose plenty of that!  Rightio, this is a short post, I'm going to get my dancing shoes on and go out and celebrate.  Have a great day people.

Mmmmmmm Soup with ZERO ProPoints!

I dragged my behind out for a walk today to explore the far off areas of my little bit of the world.  I found some lovely shops and stumbled across a beautiful little deli, selling the reddest tomatoes I have ever seen and oranges with the leaves still attached!  This delicious smell lured me inside and the source of it was a big pot of amazing aromatic soup.  Of course all posh deli's have prices to match their levels of swishness and this one was no exception.  As delightful as it smelled there is no way this Yorkshire lass is paying £4 for a pot of soup!

At home a scan of my cupboards and fridge revealed a half full bag of carrots and a big butternut squash.  I chopped these up and added half a chilli and two cloves of garlic.  The chilli and garlic aren't necessary but add extra flavour and depth.  Bland soup reminds me of baby food, the taste, texture and colour are practically identical so adding extras makes it taste 100% better.  To also add flavour to the soup, get your spices out.  I added generous spoons of cumin, turmeric, coriander and mustard seed, which is basically curry powder.  I popped this in the oven for 30 mins to toast the spices and slightly cook the veg which gives the soup a deep roasted flavour.  Amazing!

 

Orange Goodness pre roasting!

You may have noticed I haven't peeled my butternut squash.  DON'T, life is too short!  It is perfectly edible and is not noticeable at all when blended up.  When the veg is softened pop it into a pan with enough boiling water to cover.  Bring to the boil and then simmer until the veg is soft.  Blend this until you get a beautiful dark orange soup.  Pour into a bowl, locate spoon. Enjoy!

The finished product

Five things I hate about being fat.

I was in town the other day and walked past a Greggs, then a Burger King and a Krispy Kreme shop within about 30 seconds.  Burger king I can take or leave but I had a slight pang for a sausage roll when walking past Greggs.  I almost cracked when I got a whiff of the doughnuts though but was saved when I caught sight of my reflection in the gleaming glass door of Krispy Kreme!

My reflection, possibly the thing I hate the most about being fat.  I know I'm not ugly, but I'm soooo aware that my potential prettiness is disguised by the 12 stone odd of excess fat I'm carrying.  The why am I doing this post I made the other day started this, but here I'm going to think about the things I hate the most about being fat.  These will become my reasons to lose weight and I will refer to it everytime I contemplate visiting just eat, just having "one more" portion or sugar in my tea!   These are in no particular order, just random musings.  Do you agree with any?

Plus size clothes.  Is it just me or are they all just bobbins?  Evans seems to make clothes for chavvy teenagers or 60 year old women.  On the rare occasion I find something that I like I need to remortgage my house to afford it AND THEN it only lasts two washes!  Grrrrr rant over.  I cannot wait for the day when I have more choice in what I wear.  To be able to by clothes because I love them and not because they fit is a dream!              
                                                                                     
 Plane Seats.  Not only am I fat, I'm also almost six feet tall.  Plane seats are my biggest nightmare.  I live in fear that I'll be asked to get off, or pay for two seats.  Now I can normally just manage to squeeze into a seat but its no fun for me and I hate it if I'm sat next to someone who I don't know.  I love travelling and seeing the world and with the rise of cheap flights its soooo accessible.  However generally the cheaper the plane the smaller the seat and I'm not even going to risk squeezing my fat ass into a cheapo airline seat.                                                                                                                                                                      
Exercise.  I know how good exercise is for you and believe me, if I've done some I feel amazing!  However I hate how much it hurts, how much effort it is.  I'm not talking about running marathons here, just simple things like running for a bus or climbing the two flights of stairs to my flat.  I also really love to swim.  I used to live in a house where there was a private swimming pool - incidentally I was my lowest weight ever at that time.  I long to don my swimming costume and 

High Heels  I love shoes.  There I admitted it.  I probably love shoes more than chocolate.  My fave are Carrie Bradshaw esque high heeled lovlies.  However since I put on weight I find them almost impossible to wear.  They HURT!  My ankles scream in pain, my little toes almost sob and the balls of my feet waver under the agony of the pressure of all my mass bearing down upon them.  I think the second I get to goal weight I'm going to get a pair of these and wear them 24/7.

Goal Shoes!

Snoring.  This one is embarrassing.  I hate the fact that I snore, I don't dare sleep at anyone elses home.  And spending the night with a new man fills me with terror.  Lying there trying to make sure I don't fall asleep before him and then feeling the inevitable nudge and a crushing whisper of "baby you're snoring," is possibly the most devastating thing on earth.  I've spent nights with men to wake up and find them asleep on the sofa.  No more!

Cutting it out...

I've mentioned WeightWatchers before in the blog but not really discussed my reasons for choosing this diet when there are a million and one others out there.  Earlier I had a comment from a lovely lady called Echoburning.  She made a comment about the Atkins diet which made everything click, let me try and explain it.

I've talked about the million and one diets available.  I've probably tried about 99% of them.  Most of them worked... for a while.  They worked as long as I followed them to the letter and didn't deviate from the rules and regulations they stipulated.  These diets all work on a system of deprivation.  As long as you are "good" and stick to the rules you will lose weight.  However if you are "bad" and eat a forbidden food or make a couple of wrong choices then the pounds lost will come back twice as fast as they disappeared.

Banned!!!

The whole A-Z of diets from Atkins to the Zone work by cutting out a food group, brainwashing people into thinking a particular food is bad.  I've been a vegan and stopped eating all animal products.  I went through a phase of not eating white foods.  Most significantly I've spent the past couple of years on a variety of diets that banned carbs, some banned white rice, some all carbs all together, some forbade fruit and non of them allowed bread.  These type of diets are simply not sustainable for the long term.  The second you start to eat the banned foods then the weight will come knocking.

As a result I'm scared of carbs.  Its laughable isn't it.  A 6ft tall 25 stone Yorkshire lass who is terrified of a piece of bread.  I think the months spent on diets where carbs were forbidden made me crave them more.  I'm only human and that old saying about always wanting what you can't have is soooo true.  I can give or take chocolate, but put a loaf of fresh bread in front of me and I could inhale the whole thing in ten seconds flat.  I'd start a diet, deprive myself of carbs and crave them until I inevitably cracked.  I'd eat the bread, feel happy for a minute until the "why did I do this, I hate myself"  feelings would start.  I've spent years in this circle and needed a way out.

I think I've found my solution in WW.  Finally a diet where nothing is forbidden.  I love the fact that you can eat what you want as long as you monitor it through pro points.  I now need to work on the issues I've developed with carbs and learn to control myself when I eat them.  Fingers crossed x

What's Cooking...

I have a passion for jam, I don't know why, its just one of those things that I really love.  However all that fruit and sugar is just sooooooo calorific that it is banned from my house.  I'm following the Weight Watchers diet at the moment you may have heard that they have totally changed the points system round and introduced ProPoints.  I'm quite excited about propoints they seem to have some "science" behind them and have taken into account how the body processes food.  One big positive is that fruit is now free - I used to hate having to point an apple!  Pointless when you could have a bag of crisps for the same amount!

Anyway back to the jam.  Imagine my excitement when I found a post in the WW forum about 0pp jam!  I had to have a go.  I went to the shop last night and got all the bits.  Here is how to do it.

Stuff you need

1 box of frozen fruit

1 sachet of sugar free jelly.  I used the Hartleys one in strawberry.
Pan
Wooden spoon
Clean jam jar, or even a a plastic container will do.



1.  First put the fruit in a pan and warm on a low heat until it is starting to lose shape.
2. Then mash the fruit using a potato masher.  Nb.  My jam has lots of "bits" in it from the seeds.  I don't mind this at all, the fibre is good for you but if you hate bits then I think it would be fine to sieve the mixture at this point.

It should look like this after mashing.

 3.  Leave the mix to cool a bit then add a sachet of sugar free jelly and mix well.
4.  Pour the mix into a jar and place into the fridge to set.  It might be advisable to leave the mix to cool if you have a glass jar.

5.  Leave in the fridge overnight or for a few hours to set.

ZERO point Jam :-)

I had some for breakfast this morning with yogurt and some divine Dorset cereal muesli.  It just added some extra sweetness but is slightly tangy.  It works well with yogurt too.  Kind of like a homemade fruit corner.  Delicious!

I think this jam would be free on Slimming World too, 0 syns people!  If you are calorie counting then the fruit has 165cal, and a sachet of jelly 32 so for the whole pot just 197 cals.  Amazing!

So, why am I doing this?

Honestly "why am I doing this?" Is a question I must ask myself 100 times a day.  Everytime, I step in the kitchen and struggle not to put real sugar in my tea, or pop to the corner shop and practically have to pull my arm back from picking up a Mars bar, I question is it all worth it.  

The thing is I like, in fact lets be honest I love food.  I love to shop for it, cook it and most of all eat it.  We can kid ourselves that all food is equal and if prepared correctly it tastes the same, but low fat margarine and butter are in totally different classes.  Lets be honest, the most delicious things are the things that are so bad for us.  Of course the the easy option would just be to stop eating but that is foolish and rather bad for you (believe me I've tried!)  So I'm trying to change my habits and relationship with food.  Once upon a time I would "treat" myself with chocolate or a takeaway, misguidedly thinking that I was doing myself some good.  Recently though I've faced up to the fact that I need to "treat" my body in different ways.  Ways that will benefit me physically and mentally.

We all know that being fat is dangerous, unhealthy, unattractive *insert negative word here*  While some people say that being fat doesn't bother them it really does bother me.  I hate getting out of breath while walking, I hate how wobbly I am.  I want to walk into normal shops and pick up any outfit without having to squeeze into it.  I can't stand the aches and pains I get and the fact that air travel terrifies me incase they ask me to get off the plane!  This list could go on and on.  These are the reasons why I am doing this.

Do you have a good reason why you are doing this? 

*Waves* Well hello there people!

Hi there!  Thank you so much for popping over to my new blog.  I'm a twenty something lass in Manchester UK.  I've had issues with my weight for as long as I can remember.  It's been getting worse recently and I have decided to get my backside in gear and sort myself out.

 

I've tried every diet going, seriously - I'm a diet addict.  I think I'll do posts about them all in the course of this blog, do subscribe to be alerted when I write something.  In addition I'll keep you updated with my dish of the day.  Basically what I'm cooking and eating everyday.  I have a horrible habit of convienience meals and a reliance on the dreaded takeaway.  No more!  This here little blog is going to keep me accountable.  I have a million and one passions, some I'm more passionate about than others.  In addition to dieting, I have a million and one other interests so expect me to babble on about those too.

Anyway, I may have said enough - I'll leave the long posts to later in the week.  Please do say hello if you are reading, I don't wanna be all by myself!