The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl

Comeback Kid

Dudes! I'm afraid of being hit over the head with a bag of frozen peas if I admit this to you, but there's been some positive developments in the dreaded Hurty Knee Saga.

It's been two years since the initial injury and a year since I reluctantly gave up all forms of cardio except very low impact, in-a-straight-line stuff in the hope of calming the knee down and strengthening the surrounding muscles. So finally on Monday I felt ready to try an RPM class again (the Les Mills answer to Spinning).

It was bloody brilliant. The music was rockin', the pace was relentless and the sweat was drippin'. And finally I could do the Standing Up In The Saddle bits without my knee screaming. I'd forgot how uncomfortable that seat is though, even with padded shorts on. It felt like I'd been hit in the groin with a mallet.

Anyway, that was Monday morning. Monday night we went for a two hour walk along the sea and today was a two hour walk up a hill, and (so far... fingers crossed... chucking salt over my shoulder...) my knee still feels good!

:) :) :)

Woohooooooooo! Let us all rejoice, for now you shall be spared from my incessant bitching!

Now I must find a way to persuade Gareth that it would be a real tops idea for us to invest in a spin bike, just like the lovely Mistress Kek has just done. Out of bed and straight onto the bike in her PJs, how's that for an exercise commute?

. . .

In other news, I bought some new undies today. Nothing saucy, mind; just practical everyday boring ones in a multi-pack. They're a size 12. Holy crap!

. . .

Now let's talk about the weather. The sultry Scottish summer drags on! Today we were dog-sitting these two wee stumpy barrels, Tibby and Toby and took them for the aforementioned long walk in the hills. We'd only been out for ten minutes when it completely chucked it down. It was that special kind of rain, so heavy that your trousers are instantly glued to your thighs and you can't see a thing because your eyeballs are being gouged by the horizontal raindrops.

But by the time we got to the top we had dried out. You can see the dogs were still so cranky about it they refused to look at the camera.

Five minutes into the descent it kicked up again, even heavier than before. Everything turned slippery and sludgy and just bloody marvelous. The dogs waded around with mud covering their stubby little knees, turning around every now and then to give me the stink eye.

In the spirit of that recent entry about capturing the moment, here's photographic evidence of us poor creatures (click to see bigger version). It's the precise moment I stopped feeling cheery about the new undies and instead kind of disgusted because they were glued to my skin. Is there anything more revolting than the feeling of cold, heavy, sopping clothes clinging to your body?

But at least the rain stopped and the rainbows came out. AHH SCOTLAND. You gotta love it.

Downsizing

I'm amazed at the subtle difference of focusing on what I can do instad of what I can't. Before I would have looked at a 20-minute stretch DVD or 60 leg raises as a cop-out but now I see it's what my body needs right now. So I am just getting on with it instead of fighting against it and being cranky for not being able to do something more Hardcore.

It also amazes me how long I have to beat myself up against a brick wall before I come to these realisations. I seem to be particularly dense when it comes to my body. Just say I was learning to speak English, I would be perfectly content with learning how to say "goodbye" and "hello" and wouldn't smash things up because I couldn't read the complete works of bloody Shakespeare. Yet I have spent the past year or so being frustrated as hell and refusing to accept that you need to walk (or limp) before you can run. Thankfully for you, long suffering reader, I have finally made my peace with that.

. . .

Sam Breach is the author of scrummy food blog Becks and Posh and also happens to be on Weight Watchers to shed a few stray pounds. She posted an entry listing what she ate over the past week. It's a beautiful example of how you can eat the foods you love and still lose weight. There's mushroom and parmesan pizza, croissants, wine, sorbet, sausage - but all in small, controlled portions. Sam eats such delicious and wholesome food but in a very mindful way. And she lost 1.5lb this week, proving that you don't need to give up foods you love or cut out carbs or only eat green things or live off fat-free sugar-free taste-free overprocessed diet shite. Hurrah!

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Another one for my Can Do list - Pay More Attention To What You Put In Your Gob. I'm halfway through my GFG Challenge and I'm right where I started! My waist and boobs have shrunk in a minor way but that's about it. Why has this happened? I haven't adjusted my eating enough to compensate for the lack of exercise. I eat healthy food but tooooooo much of it.

So these past few days I've been scrutinising my intake to see where I can improve.  I like Sam's aforementioned Quality In Small Quantity approach. If you look at her brekkie last week, she'd have a dab of avocado on one slice of toast, whereas I had half an avocado on two pieces of toast. Or even a whole avo if I was feeling particularly gluttonous.

I don't think I need to do anything dramatic, just a few tweaks and pay more attention to my portions. I'm also tracking my food online with both Weight Loss Resources and Nutracheck, using a free trial of each. Still trying to suss out which site I like best. Tracking on paper isn't working for me right now; I had just been writing stuff like, "porridge" or "soup" without really quantifying anything. It's been a nice slap in the chops to really see what I'm putting away.

With less calories available, it's been interesting deciding where I'm willing to spend them. There are some foods I just won't compromise on. Like plain natural yogurt - it's full fat Yeo Valley or nothing. I'd rather eat it less often than gag my way through a daily pot of mealy low-fat stuff (aside from Fage Greek, of course). And I refuse to eat canned tuna in brine or springwater; it looks and tastes like cat food. Fair enough if it's disguised in a pasta sauce, but if I am having it naked on toast (the tuna, not me) it has to be in olive oil. It has more calories, so I just eat a smaller amount.

That is my overall theme, eating less. Today I had a baby can of tuna on toast, and at first felt kind of lost and cheated to see just one slice of bread on my plate. Don't slices of bread always come in pairs? No, you big pork, they do not!

And what do you know, one slice filled me up. Sometimes I think I still see myself as a sturdy 350lb who needs to fuel her flabby furnace with lots of food. I have to remind myself I am no longer that size, therefore I need less. Part me resents the hell out of that and feels entitled to an extra Weetabix in the morning or a sly bucket of fried chicken. But noooo! Must eat less!

Heal Your Knee And Your Ass Will Follow

Greetings! I have emerged from beneath my rock after a small break. I get so much sanity and solace from having a blog but every now and then I feel a little smothered by it. Instead of writing about things I needed to just focus on doing things instead.

I have the attention span of a gnat today so I will steal Lainey's Bite Sized Chunks format!

Cutting Edge Technology
Here is my current favourite piece of exercise equipment:

Yes it's Canada's National Parks by R. D. Lawrence. I put the book on the floor then stand on top of it and perform endless sets of step-down thingies for my knee. Kind of like a one-legged squat for the weak and hopeless.

Priorities, Man
Last week it dawned on me that my Fat-Fighting priorities were all out of whack. They were:

1. Lose more blubber
2. Increase fitness
3. Heal my knee

I was wondering why this didn't seem to be happening but then realised that logically they can't really happen in that order.

First of all, I acknowledge that eating right is the best thing I can do to get to my goal, but the key factor in maximising my motivation to do so is exercise. It makes me feel good, strong and purposeful. Ever since I've been unable to do much exercise my motivation has never been as strong. So until I properly tackle Item No 3, I won't be able to do No 2 which will further assist with No 1.

Does that make sense? I have been fretting about No 1 and trying to speed that up by doing as much of No 2 as I can, but often pushing too hard (eg. ill-advised knee push-ups, swimming lessons, etc etc) which makes No 3 even worse. It's hard when your head says GO but the body says NO. I need to learn to listen to the body.

So I turned the list upside down and have been dedicated to Healing The Knee. Thanks to Wilma's helpful email I made up a wee Knee Program. I am doing my physio exercises like a mofo, icing the knee when it gets tender and generally being extra careful. It's not quite what I had in mind when I started my Going For Gold challenge, but I don't see how I am ever going to move forward until I stop this endless cycle of Hurt Knee > Feel Miserable > Exercise Too Hard > Hurt Knee Again > Feel Miserable-r. I've been doing this for almost 18 months, pushing too hard too soon and setting my fitness and flab-fighting goals backwards, so for now the Knee Comes First.

Do's and Don'ts
Along with reassessing priorities I've also decided to stop focusing on what I can't do. Cannae run, Spin, row, jump, swim, squat, kneel. Moan moan moan! The negativity makes things even worse. But what about what I can do? Walk. Stretch carefully. Do upper body weights. Pay closer attention to what I eat since I am not moving as much. I have to accept this situation and work with it, not against it. I have been making things even harder than they need to be.

Pilates
I started Pilates at work again this week! We stopped the class over the summer and I really missed it. Pilates is one of those things that make you wonder, is this doing a bloody thing for me? But when I stopped for a few months I noticed my posture getting lazy and my stomach getting sloppy. So it's good to be back again. Next week I will have to modify some moves, coz the plank irritated my knee, but I think I can do it on my toes again. I like the idea of having Abs of Steel, even if they are hidden under 27 levels of lard!

Winter Fayre
I made the last Spinach Pie of the season this week. Filo pastry and greenery just seems too airy fairy when it's dark outside! I'd also gone off yogurt and muesli for brekkie, far too summery. But this week I was mad for hot stewed apples with yogurt and a couple of big spoons of raw oats and sunflower seeds on top. A pinch of cinnamon and you could almost kid yourself you were eating apple crumble for brekkie. Almost.

I've gone soup daft, too. The latest favourite is very lazy and based on a WW Zero Point recipe. You just chop up a couple of onions, zucchinis and carrots and throw them in a pot with a can of tomatoes (I prefer passata) and the equivalent amount of vegie stock and some mixed herbs. I like it because you don't need to fart around sauteing things. It's easy to clean the pot! Anyway, you just simmer til soft, chucking in a can of butter beans towards the end for some protein. Then blast it smooth or eat it chunky. It's also nice to chuck in an old Parmesan rind while it's simmering away, makes it taste faintly cheesy. As long as you remember to remove it before you blend!

Enough rambling for today, I'm off to make the paella for dinner. Hope you are all going great guns out there in fatblog land!

Kneecrap

I'll be away for the next few days so if you get a spare moment please send me the following message by ESP:

CHOCOLATE BARS ARE NOT A MEAL!

Thanks, comrades!

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I'm a wee bit guilty of censoring lately. I'm just at the point where I don't feel like writing if it's going to be something whiny. There's nothing worse than going away for a few days and leaving a woe-is-me essay at the top of the page, creating a fabulous impression for any first-time visitors.

That said, I need to rant about my frustration with my stupid knee. I've cocked it up again! Pain, crunch, grind, kapow!

Not that it was ever fixed, but it was getting somewhat better.

How about a quick recap! A Kneecap Recap. Haw haw!

May 2005 - First hurt knee during The Great 5K Training. After my race saw a physio once, who put it down to overuse and weak quad/hamstrings. Stopped running, did Spinning instead, did not go back to physio because I saw stupidly myself as Fat Wannabe Athlete who didn't warrant medical attention. Big mistake!

May 2006 - Knee worse! Particularly bad after attempted comeback at Body Combat class. Grinding noises like plunging your hand into a box of Rice Krispies. Saw doc who sent me to lovely sports physio who basically gave it the same diagnosis as the 2005 dude. But now it had a name, patellofemoral maltracking. Treatment: More exercises and banned from all weight bearing activity - no running, no Body Pump, no Spinning classes with heavy resistance. Basically I'd been making my knee worse for almost a year, so we had a lot of work to do to calm it down.

July 2006 - Knee not better. Limped for a week after doing a set of pushups. Cue depressed blog ranting and raving and a total ban from ANY cardio.

August 2006 - Knee finally FINALLY getting a little better. Was determined not to screw it up so exercised cautiously and wore sensible shoes. Could now walk up and down hills with minimal pain. Could sit at desk without knee cramping up. Could move to standing position without knees catching painfully. Could to kneel to scrub bathtub without pain! Not that I did that very often. Hehe. Could also resume cycling for the almighty duration of twenty minutes!

September 2006 - Physio and I part company for four weeks, with me to continue building up my exercise and him aiming to discharge me at our next meeting. Hurrah!

October 2006 - Did two swimming lessons and one aqua aerobics class in attempt to get variety. Knee felt alright after first class, since I didn't actually swim anywhere. Starting hurting day after second class. The following week during the aqua class I felt it twinge when we had to "run" down the pool and when we did kicking drills. Remember thinking at one point, I should stop. This ain't quite right. But then... Surely it's nothing! I'm in an aqua class and we're the only ones under 75! It can't hurt me!

But by the weekend I was limping. Knee horribly tender to touch. It was like the bad old days -- couldn't sit longer than five minutes before it ached and seized up when I tried to stand. Painfully slow to walk down stairs. Couldn't sleep on my side coz it was agony. Blah blah blahdy blah.

So I went to the physio last Tuesday and he was just as crestfallen as me that he wouldn't be dismissing me and my creaky knee after all.

I had a minor breakdown and blubbed, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME, will it ever get better, will I ever Squat again, will I ever walk down a hill again, did I need surgery? But he felt there wasn't anything more sinister going on than the patellofermoral thingy, and rather that the swimming - particularly the breastroke kick - and the pool running re-aggrivated it. It was the only thing I'd done different in the four week break, and I'd had weeks of minimal pain before that. Seems the knee is still sensitive and the lateral movement was too much. But he assured me it was an acute episode and I have not undone months of work. He even offered to treat me for FREE until it calms down again. How noice is that? He is a true Prince amongst Physios I tell you.

I dunno why I didn't write about this before. For starters, I was quite embarrassed for hurting my myself doing Granny Sports. I only tried swimming because after all these months I was so sick of plodding away on an exercise bike, I thought my knee was ready for something different.

Second, I hate being a whingy git as it may read like a flimsy excuse for my mediocre results in the Going For Gold challenge. It's affected my morale more than I've been willing to admit. I froth with jealousy when I read blogs of people running and kicking and general MOVING. Since I started physio in May, I've been losing and regaining the same three kilos. There's not much room for error with your food when you're not doing as intense cardio. It's just been a very frustrating time.

Thirdly, every time I write about my knee I get people emailing me with alternative diagnoses, which are always well-intended but I feel bad because there's always more detail to these things than what you can express in a blog entry. I really have had various medical opinions and feel confident we know what's wrong. It's a common as muck knee problem, just a bit of bitch to heal.

A week later the ol knee is already feeling less tender and easier to move, but I'm taking it slow. Mr Physio says I am really going to have to focus over the winter and do my exercises every day. Consistency, grasshopper! I need to build up the muscles around the dodgy knee, they are so pissweak compared to the left leg.

I am also to stay oot of the pool and stick to cardio "in a straight line" for the forseeable future. Zzzzzzzzzzz. So it's back to simply walking on a flat surface, cycling with low resistance, and upper body weights.

This whole entry was inspired by the lovely Smaller Sue who's having knee woes of her own. I really admired her positive attitude in that post, so I decided to have a wee rant and think things through and figure out how to get through this. Thanks for the inspiration, Sue baby!

So no more shortcuts, no more premature "comebacks". It's been 16 months of this dodgy knee shit and I am so tired of being patient, but I need to be so now more than ever.

Right Time and the Right Place

I felt like a fraud when you all congratulated me on resisting the Mars Bar Ice Cream last week. The only reason I resisted it was because it wasn't what I really wanted.

What I really wanted was a Marks & Spencer Vanilla Chunky Giant. Which is like a Magnum - chocolate coated vanilla ice cream - except not as sweet and cloying. But M&S was closed by the time I puffed up from the train station, so I couldn't get one. Had I dared to shove past the security guard and barge to the freezer section before they locked the doors, I would definitely have bought one. The Mars Bar, with its extreme sweetness and flimsy chocolate, didn't seem an adequate substitute at the time. So I'm not really a beacon of strength for turning it down; just a fussy, spiteful git.

It really helps to cultivate a certain fussiness with certain foods. To be choosy with lofty standards. I remember when the right time for food was ANY TIME and the right food was ANY FOOD. Now I like it to be the right food, at the best time of day or week, consumed in the perfect locale with the planets in correct alignment...

The best example is chocolate. Green and Blacks is now my preferred brand. I try not to eat it between Sunday and Tuesday, because that's too close to Wednesday Weigh In, thus I wouldn't really be able to relax and enjoy it. So Wednesday night is good. Or I like to eat it on a Friday night, when I know the working week is behind me and there's nothing else I should be thinking about and I can sleep in the next day and wake up at my leisure and think fondly, How about that great chocolate I ate last night. And I like eating it on the couch when Gareth is beside me; he's usually reading or on the laptop and there's music on and everything's peaceful. That's why I get cranky if I get a chocolate from the vending machine at work, or eat M&Ms in the dark at the movies, or a few stray squares when I know there's a phone call to be made or some menial task to do. It has to be mindful consumption. If you're only meant to eat a tiny wee portion of chocolate, well then you have to pay attention to the moment! If you eat chocolate in the dark, how do you even know if you really ate it? Did it really happen?!

One of my favourite times and places is the train on a Thursday evening, when I've been in town looking at the shops or getting a haircut. I get one of those tiny bars and a magazine then tell myself I can't start eating until after the first stop. Then after that I break off a little bit more after each stop and the 35 grams are finished just as I get to my station. Sweeeeeet.

Looking at my spreadsheet, I've eaten a lot less chocolate this year since I started making it a real treat. Methinks I need to treat toast with the same reverence!

. . .

Last week was much better. I ate reasonably and the scale was down a few pounds today. I'm not going to record anything officially because it just a bit too dramatic of a loss. I have been all feverish with a cold, eating less and just drinking tonnes of water so everything is out of whack. I can just tell that the big dive in numbers isn't a proper loss, so I am going to kick on this week and see what happens.

I had a great exercise week too! A big cheer to Marla for suggesting wall push-ups while my knees are dodgy. They were surprising gruelling! Perhaps more so than the knee ones.

I managed a slow, easy bike ride on Saturday, with no knee pain! I have lost so much fitness though. I tried to convince myself that two months of next-to-no cardio had NOT entirely replaced my muscles with gelatinous bulk, but now I'm more than a little bit disillusioned. I was sweating and pedalling my pudgy legs out during that bike ride, surely I was flying! But then Gareth passed me with his legs rotating as slow as molasses and said, "Isn't it nice to be outside? This is so relaxing..." Hehe.

All was going great on Planet Knee until Monday when I wore some slip-on sandals that really seemed to hammer my knees walking on the pavement to the station. I am going to have to stick to boring, sensible shoes as every time I wear something remotely dainty my knee ends up all tender and sore again. I spoke to the physio about it and have got some different kinds of exercises to do now, which hopefully will help my strength levels. It's such a slow, tedious process and I'll bore you no further with the details. Rest assured I am doing all the things I need to be doing.

Well I am feeling more snotty than entertaining or insightful today so I will just slink off to bed... til next time, comrades!

Honorably Discharged

Well that was a slightly longer break than expected! The Mothership ended up staying an extra day, then last night I was too busy moping around watching Wimbledon to do much bloggin'.

It was great to see Mum again. It had only been eight months since I was in Australia, and she never feels that far away with the phone and emails, but it's always nice to get face time. It's also kind of weird, seeing a body attached to all that voice and text. She did her usual disconcerting thing of just STARING at times, as if she couldn't quite believe we were in the same room.

She also insisted that I was much slimmer than October, and her fella chimed in too and said I must have lost a stack more weight.

"Not really," I replied. "Maybe five more kilos if I'm lucky".

It's probably closer to eight or nine kilos, but the visible difference is most likely due to how bloated I was the last time they saw me, when I'd been eating my way around Australia for three weeks straight.

But still. It was lovely of them to say so. Even though it reminded me that my loss since then averages out to like, one kilo per month. Good lord, it's taking eons!

. . .

I'm pretty happy with my eating while Mum was here, a few too many chocolate biscuits but och well. I have reserved three fun size Cherry Ripes from the bag she'd brought over, which I will only allow myself to ration out once I'm in the 70s! And (un)fortunately she couldn't find any small bars of Cadbury's Triple Decker (milk/white/mint) so I haven't had to try and stay away from that.

I'm back on track now, so woohoo!

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Dudes! I made my book writin' deadline this month. 2002 is done! Well, the very shitey first draft of it, anyway. So it's onto 2003 for July. Baby steps...

. . .

I've been discharged by the Neck Physio. I'm a little sad because he's a nice bloke and I enjoyed the painful manipulations on a perverse level! Yesterday he did some bizarre maneuvers on my back to banish a mighty muscle spasm and it was excruciating! But it's all feeling so much better now. He says my posture has improved and I am no longer bobbing around like an emu. So now it's up to me to keep managing things. Rest, exercises, stretches, heat, etc etc.

Meanwhile the knee WAS feeling so much better, until I stupidly did my Cathe Gym Style Chest & Triceps DVD last week. You start off with a drop set of push-ups, a set of 16 then a short break, then 14, 12, 10, 8... etc etc, until you're down to one excruciating 4-count push up. 72 in total.

I could only do the first two on my toes before flopping to the floor like a theatrical footballer, so I did the rest on my knees. Didn't even occur to me until I'd finished the set that perhaps that wasn't the best idea. The Knee Physio had told me right at the start to avoid kneeling but with the other 457 things I have to remember to do or not to do with all my stupid various hurty body bits, I FORGOT. Then walking round the cobbled, hilly streets of Edinburgh's old town on Tuesday didn't seem to help either. ARRRGH. So I've been resting and icing to calm it all down again. Methinks I will do the pushups by rolling out on my Swiss ball, or skip them altogether for a wee while.

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Trousers! Pants! Slacks, if you're an old fuddy duddy! Whatever you call them, they're those things you put on your legs so the world doesn't have to see what you look like in your undies. I sent Mum a last-minute text asking could she look for some pants for me in Oz since the ones I bought in October are getting too big. Why pay £20 ($50 AU) at H&M in Scotland if she can pay $20 (£8) at Katies or Sussan or similar in Oz?

The Mothership came up with the goods. Three pairs, each on sale for $15. They are far too tight to be worn in public but with a few more kilos off I'll be in business.... SIZE TWELVE, baby! (US 10) When was the last time I could get into a size 12? When I bloody was twelve!

Bon weekend, lovelies.

Old Gold Chocolate

Ten days! Ten days of good behaviour in a row!

Woohoo!

I've been muttering to myself so often during these ten days that people must be wondering if I am a deranged serial killer. But don't lock up your children and pets, folks! It's just harmless dialogue between me and my brain so we prevent each other from eating anything stupid.

No official weigh-in this week coz the results would be skewed by my extreme bloatedness. But if I keep this up there could be a positive result next Wednesday. The Mothership arrives this weekend but that shouldn't be too bad as she's healthy eater herself, althought she's bringing me a stash of Aussie chocolates! I will have to lock them up until further notice. I am still in that fragile state where I feel I could be undone by just one mini Cherry Ripe, so methinks I should steer clear for now.

Other news in brief!

Neck News: Responding well to better posture, exercises and a groovy little wheat bag that you heat up in the microwave then slap onto your hurty bits.

Knee News: Seems to be improving *touch wood* and physio says one more week of rest and boring quad exercises *touch wood* then I should get on my bike and pedal *touch wood* in a low gear sans-hills for ten minutes and see how it feels. Since I've had this injury over a year he says it's very important to take things very slowly, so I don't end up back where I started yet again.

Writing News: Warning! Only read on if you're interested in the boring and laborious writing process.

ARRRRRRRRRGH! I still have 2.5 months of 2002 to finish by tomorrow night. ARRRGH! Too much World Cup watchin', I tells ya. And 2002 has proved such a dirty bitch to write about. Six months of the 2002 Dietgirl archives are missing due to a database failure so I have to write so much of it from scratch. You may be gasping, she's not writing the whole thing from scratch? Well no, of course I'm not. I have tens of thousands of words already written that capture the moments so much more vividly and accurately than my shitty memory could. It's a great starting point. Some of it is useable as is, but soooo much of it is messy, disjointed, and poorly-written so it is a stinkingly mammoth task to give it structure and continuity. Plus there's bazillions of gaps and inconsistencies in the story, so there's bazillions of words to write and re-write.

I decided to stick with a diary format. But not in choppy "10st, 3 gins, 45 cigarettes" Bridget Jones sort of way. Proper prose but keeping the diaryness. I tried to do it all "novel-like" but got so mixed up with my tenses I nearly threw my iBook out the window. I think the diary format is the way to go for a long, rambling weight loss journey because it keeps things immediate and personal and allows for dramatic mood mood changes every five paragraphs, which is how it is when you're trying to lose blubber. I know there's a few writerly/edity types out there so if you have any better ideas let me know. But gently, coz I am 34K words (of shite) into this and fairly committed to the format, hehe.

HOLY SHIT I better go and get on with it. Another sub-par entry but I will be back when the Mothership departs on Wednesday. Take care, groovers!

Medium Rare

Well helloooo, dear comrades. It looks like I've developed a once-a-week blogging pattern lately. Consequently this is going to be long. If you want, you could just read a paragraph each day, and pretend I'm a proper, dilligent blogger!

. . .

Oh the joy of lifting heavy objects! These week I've started upper body weights again, hurrah! I went a bit lighter, just to be on the safe side. But it felt brilliant to be sweaty and exhausted. And I'd missed the delicious smugness that comes after a good workout.

I've been wearing my pedometer too. What a wake-up call that was! I'd been overestimating how much I trot around. I assumed my work walks would easily take me up to the hallowed 10,000 but it's more like 7000. D'oh! So I've been squeezing in some lunchtime and evening walks. I reckon I need more like 20,000 steps if it's going to make up for the lack of Proper Cardio.

I'm still avoiding the scales, at least official weigh-ins. I hop on most mornings just to suss things out, and it's been hovering around the same number, give or take a pound, for a few weeks now. My eating was swinging from angelic to diabolical for awhile there, but I've reformed now.

. . .

In other news, I bought a bunch of new tops from H&M last week... size Medium! After years of seeing multiple X's on my labels, I was happy enough to graduate down to a solitary L. But an M! From a Normal Shoppe! That rules.

. . .

So... my injuries. I am sort of resigned to the fact that things may never be 100%. It's not like you can pop a pill and be cured. Backs and knees and shoulders are tricky buggers. You can never completely rest them. You can stop your high impact sports, but there's still all those other hours in the day where you still have to sit in chairs or sleep in a bed or walk to the shops. The body never stops working. All I can do is manage these injuries and do my best to work around them and not make things worse.

Knee Report: Cutting out all cardio seemed to help the pain and it's a little less tender. The sports physio seemed to think this is progress, and wants to give it another week of rest, aside from the knee exercises. He says realistically, the grinding sound won't go away. It's just getting the knee to a point where I can exercise without pain. I am beginning to wonder if I'll ever get to that point.

Shoulder Report: As I mentioned in the last entry, I had an assessment by an NHS Physio (NHS = National Health Service, ie long waiting lists but free). The NHS Physio seemed to think the problem orginates in my neck, not my shoulder. He actually said I had a neck DEFORMITY.

"Dude!" I squeaked, "Isn't that a rather strong word?"

But the neck is weak, grasshopper. I can't turn my head to the right half as far I can turn the left. He pointed out how crap my posture was; how I seemed to cock my head to the right when I talked to him. On reflection, this is something I have done for a long time. Like a TV journalist does when they are pretending to be in deeply interested in their interviewees. The Hmmmmm position.

I admit I tend to favour that side, like scrunching the cordless phone on my right shoulder or leaning on that side if I snooze on the train or writing with old fashioned pen and paper. The dude had a scientific name for it that I can't recall, but basically it was something about some nerve being sort of squished on the right side of my neck, and this explained all the numbness and tingling in my neck, arm and hand. Not to mention the horrible headaches on that side of my noggin'.

He did a lot of tests, and my yelps of pan at various intervals convinced him this was indeed the cause. But why did it get suddenly worse? More hours at the computer, more shithouse posture. He didn't use the word shithouse, just the word terrible. Which sounded more terrible than shithouse, methinks.

I had my second appointment yesterday and he performed some serious manipulations. I had been working diligently on my posture since the last visit, but he still noted my tendency to tilt my head forward and round my shoulders. What can I say? It's the legacy of being obese, I'm always trying to take up less space!

So my posture is an ongoing project. I've found a weekly yoga class just ten minutes walk from my house! Once my knee is up to the bending, I'll be cracking on with that. In the meantime I have oodles of neck exercises to do. And when I do my upper body weights, I've been watching my posture in the glass reflection of a painting in the living room, for lack of a mirror. It was a shock to see my rounded shoulders and lazy stomach! I haven't exercised with mirrors since I left my Fancy Gym in February 2005 and it's evident I've been slacking.

But the main mission is to improve my everyday posture. Which means careful use of computers! To balance work computering, blogging and frantic book writing with the need for REST! And sunlight and fresh air! It's a challenge, I tells ya!

ARRGH the book. I am so behind schedule for this month. I will have to clear the calendar for this weekend and write like the clappers in between madly cleaning the house in readiness for the Mothership Visit on July 2! Woohoo!

Hope you are well and excuse the Dear Diaryness of this entry.

How To Let Go

Sometimes I wonder if I am a positive person, or if I am just faking the lifestyle of a positive person. Can you consider yourself a positive person if you have to constantly remind yourself to be positive?

I've been hiding from this website because I feel like a fraud. People sometimes write to say I am honest and inspirational and determined and positive, and I feel guilty as I've not felt like any of those for a wee while.

Over the past month I tried to dilute how bad this injury crap has made me feel, so not to come across as a self-pitying whiner. But last week it all boiled over and I was not a nice person to live with. I stomped around, mentally composing entries full of anger and frustration and general woe. I stopped short of actually writing them, because after a few hours and perhaps some perspective from the Scottish Companion, I'd simmer down. I'd sniff out the positives like a truffle pig, then go back and edit out all the venom.

Then on Saturday around 3AM, I finally sat down at the keyboard and exploded! In the textual sense. About 800 words of pure rantage.

I knew I was being irrational and I knew other people had terrible diseases and all manner of proper tragedies. I knew that I had lost perspective on a trifling sporting injury. So I ranted to imaginary readers, begging them not to write and tell me to get over it or I would just cry. And as much as I'd appreciated everyone's medical advice and exercise tips of late, I wasn't looking for that today. I just needed the world to let me vent. RAH!

I'll go through the rubble of the entry and give you a quick summary.

First I wrote about how the lack of exercise was making me feel down. I'd been off "full schedule" for over a month. I missed the structure it gave to my days, I missed the sense of purpose, the sweat, the spreadsheets. Most of all I missed the happy chemicals in the brain.

Then came a dozen paragraphs re my frustration at not being able to take advantage of the good weather and ride my brand-new bike.

And how it's all my fault because I neglected the knee for almost a year.

And how I've been consumed by anger at myself for not listening to my body or my head for so long.

How I valued the opinion of others above my own my brain and pain, because I assumed they knew what was best for my body more than I did, since they were skinnier/smaller.

How I therefore started exercising again too soon and caused further damage.

How didn't take myself or the pain seriously.

Like how I never went back to the physio I saw last June, because in my fat girl paranoia I felt like I was wasting his time. After all I was just a fat chick flirting with exercise, not a legitimate sporty person. How could a big lump like me possibly have a real injury?

Hmm, what else?

How I was frustrated because I'd gained a pound. Only A Pound but that meant yet another month had ended with no progress, making three months with no significant loss.

How these last 6 kilos are proving the most difficult and stressful than any of the other 70-something already gone.

I almost edited out that sentence, as I don't want to insult people who have far more left to lose. Five years ago I would have killed to be where I am now. But as someone who has filled the shoes of Staggeringly Obese, Obese, Still Pretty Fat and Almost Healthy Weight all for extended periods of time, I can honestly say this stage is somehow the most overwhelming and frustrating of all.

Thankfully for anyone still reading, I ran out of steam after that. I hit Save Draft and headed for bed, not before seething with bitterness until about 4AM.

Saturday morning I got up and forgot about the computer. I ate banana on toast, watched the MotoGP qualifying, kissed the Scottish Companion goodbye, then hopped on a plane for London.

A ridiculous seven hours later (thanks to the joys of public transport delays), I was walking through Hyde Park. Previously I'd only been to London in the winter, so I lapped up the grassy breeze, the trees, the rollerbladers and roses; the kamikaze insects splattered on my sunglasses.

Quite simply, I could feel my body and brain finally begin to chill the fuck out.

There's something about being in the Big Bad City that always brings perspective. All those people from all over the planet, so busy busy busy getting on with all kinds of lives.

I caught the train back home yesterday, for variety. It was the most blissful four hours I've spent in ages. No computer, no phone and a quiet, near-empty carriage. Just me and the sandwiches, grapes, trashy magazines, Gareth's iPod and a tiny wee bar of Green and Blacks chocolate.

Looking out the window at the English countryside in its green and glorious Englishness, I decided it was time to give the boot to all the crazy anger and anxiety I've been dragging round for weeks.

I even sniffed out a few positives from this injury debacle:

1.  It's a learning experience. I sure as hell won't ignore my body again.

2.  It makes for a small, albeit tedious sub-plot in the Dietgirl story.

And speaking of which!

3.  The enforced rest has given me more time to write! I met my self-imposed deadline for May of completing the first draft of 2001. I cut it a wee bit fine by finishing at 11.45 PM on May 31, but I did it! Baby steps actually work!

I've also dragged out my old pedometer. Walking shall be my main exercise until the knee improves and I will obsessively count my steps, cannily satisfying my need to be obsessive about numbers.

Maybe this is what being a positive person is - the ongoing management of the way you react to life's little challenges. You can shit your pants for awhile, but then you try to sift through the shit and salvage the good stuff. I mean, surely no one is positive about everything straight away? Don't you have to mull it over awhile and then decide how you'll deal with it? Or maybe there are genuine 100% cheery optimists out there, always on duty. If so, I'd like to punch them all in the face.

Pep Talkin'

It's been a week of ups and downs. The first down was weighing in and finding out I'd gained four pounds over the previous two weeks. If you don't mind I won't be updating the weight on the sidebar because it's too bloody depressing, and I am determined to reverse it as soon as possible.

Admittedly my eating hadn't been perfect, but the real killer has been the drastic reduction in my exercise. I'm just not burning the same amount of calories. My cardio is restricted to bike and elliptical trainer on doctors orders, which can get mighty tedious no matter how funky the tunes are on your iPod.

And I miss my weight training so badly. I'm strictly forbidden to do lower body weights, and looks like upper body weights are out for now too - I did Cathe's Pyramid Upper Body last weekend and was in agony afterwards - screaming shoulders and back - and not in that pleasant, smug muscle singing way. It seemed to exacerbate the problems I've been having. After a week on holiday I thought I was mended again, but as soon as I got back to work and computering again, things started to hurt. Despite being extra vigilant about posture.

Even Pilates is a bitch. Between the knee and the shoulder, the simplest moves feel awkward or painful, like the all-fours box position (kneeling hurts), or the most basic face-down "swimming" move where you simply lift your arm off the floor (poor mobility in that bloody shoulder). I'm so busy trying to arrange my body in the least painful configuration that I forget to do my breathing and stomach contractions properly, which is the whole bloody point of Pilates.

So I definitely need to speak to the physio, yes indeedy. But can I just vent for a minute?

ARRRGH! ARrrghhhh! AaaarrrghHHH!

So that's why I haven't written here all week. Have just felt too bloody demoralised and didn't want to come here just to whinge.

I am sick of the sound of myself! I missing feeling sporty and strong. Instead I feel flabby and paranoid. I'm convinced my biceps are deflating and my stomach is one jiggling, untamed tsunami of flesh.

But I did say there were Up moments this week! It's been raining all week, which hasn't helped my mood, but there was a brief chink of dry yesterday in which I was out on my bike. I felt so much more comfortable with that machine, I wobbled less and I even went down a hill and enjoyed it! Okay, it was hardly Everest. But it was slope in the park that I used to whinge about when I had to run up it, so I will count that as progress. I had such a great time. This could be my saviour!

I need to stay positive, instead of moping about wishing I could get a transplant for the entire right side of my body. I need to get through this. I need to find ways to burn calories without causing further injury. I might need to eat less to compensate. But I can't keep letting things overwhelm me and let even more pounds sneak back on. It may take longer and I may have to do it differently than I'd planned, but I'm too close to the end to screw it up now.

RAH!

Don't Like Hills

The shoulder is much improved! Thanks to rest and ibuprofen and stretching and paying attention to my posture, I'm no longer in agony. I even cranked out 1300 words of Book yesterday with no major problems. As I said in the comments of the last entry, it's no good me doing all these bloody Pilates classes and yoga tapes if I'm not going to put it into practice in everyday life.

Today at the physio we focused more on my Dodgy Knee. What Dodgy Knee, you may ask. Well it's the same ol knee I injured during my running training last year. It's still giving me trouble almost a year on, I just haven't been boring you with the tedious details. It seems ridiculous that I could still be having problems from such a brief flirtation with running, but it's true. While the pain eased the general grinding and sporadic aches never really improved. And because I'm a bloody idiot, and got used to the sensation, I never got round to doing anything about it til now.

I don't want to go into too many details, because it's impossible to accurately describe almost a year of various pains and attempts at healing and medical advice in just a few paragraphs, and it's always open to misunderstandings and assumptions and that can be frustrating. But in summary, it turns out the knee is still in very bad shape. The exercises my last physio prescribed were apparently doing more harm than good, and my attempted Running Comebacks were premature. And some of the things I did thinking they were Low Impact were actually too much impact.

Arrgh. Arrgh. So. It's going to take some fixin'. I've got 4-6 weeks of therapy coming up. No lower body weights, no squatting, no kneeling, no rowing and running is totally out. I've only to do the most teeny tiny exercises, like tensing my quad and releasing. Six sets of ten. Exciting. And after this time if it doesn't respond I may have to be referred to the dude that has the camera thingies they stick in your knee to clean out all the debris that may be floating around in there.

Which of course freaking terrifies me. I don't want anyone digging around inside my knees! I will do these exercises and rest and make every attempt to avoid the digging.

You have no idea how angry and frustrated I am with myself right now! I am so crap at listening to my body. All this past year I have been so obsessed with getting fitter and smaller that I just neglected to properly treat this knee. Since the crippling pain had gone, I thought it was okay to have the freakishly loud grinding. I didn't do this out of misplaced martyrdom, I just stupidly got used to it and got busy with my weights and kickboxing and lord knows what, all the while making it worse.

Anyway, I'll stop my whinging. The upside is, I'm in truly excellent hands. And I am determined to be a good, responsible patient this time. I've learned my lesson.

. . .

At least I have full blessing to cycle. I got my bike on Saturday and it RULES. We rode seven miles that afternoon and I had a ball, when I wasn't crapping my pants with terror. I had my fingers poised over the brakes the whole way, just in case, and when we got back my hands ached from gripping the handlebars so hard. Nearly fell off coming back into our driveway, upon realising too late that I lacked the balancing skillz to do a hand signal.

On Sunday we went to the park where I was humiliatingly overtaken by a swarm of six-year-olds. Then I discovered my fear of descents most definitely applies to bikes as well. Anytime there was even a hint of a downward slope - say, the distance between the top of a Mars Bar to the bottom - I would freeze and dismount and whimper, "I don't like hills! I don't like hills!".

It's a learning curve, I tells ya.

. . .

So Gareth and I are away tomorrow for a couple of days to see my beloved Radiohead and have our first non-wedding-related break together! Huzzah. I promise to return refreshed and ungrumpy. Take care, dear comrades!

Sporty Spice

Yesterday my GP said I was, "obviously a very sporty person". I almost snorted, but mostly I wanted to drop to my creaky knees and kiss his feet. He made my day.

He also agreed that my shoulder is screwy. I got a physio referral but the appointment isn't for a couple of weeks and I don't think I can wait much longer. Been calling round today, trying to get a private appointment but having no freaking luck at all. The back of my hand and under my collarbone are all tingly/burny and it feels freaky I tell you.

(Update: Just got an appointment for Monday. Huzzah!)

He also gently pointed out that my posture was appalling and that was certainly not helping. Even sitting there in the surgery, I was slumped in the chair, my shoulders bunched up around my ears and my back curled. You know what it is? I sit like I still weigh 350 pounds. I sit like my chins blend into my boobs with no defined neck, like there's still that giant wall of flesh between my spine and the back of a chair, like my arse and stomach is a vast moat surrounding me. I looked in the mirror and you could just see it in my posture, me in the middle of the chair with all the space around me filled with invisible fat.

I might try walking round with a book on my head.

. . .

Another 0.7 kg (1.5 lb) surrended before the scales yesterday. Hurrah!

The Scottish Companion and I are heading off for a couple days next week, so there'll be a fortnight before the next weigh-in. I must be strong, grasshoppers! I do not want a repeat of the Portugese Pounds.

. . .

A huge thanks for the comments on the last entry. Lots of great cycling anecdotes and ideas. And a particularly cheers to Nic who has provided me with something new to obsess about: online rowing. And then Anna emailled with some excellent tips on rowing technique. Cool. How dull would life be without the internet?

. . .

So it's May. A third of the year is gone. OH DEAR. A third of 2006, people! What a slap to the chops that is.

One nice thing is I've now successfully and religiously tracked my food for four straight months, something I've not done for years. And I am detailed, man. My spreadsheet gives me the horn.

Here are some fascinating statistics for you! In the first four months of this year, I have consumed, among other things:

• 23 cans of tuna
• 96 apples
• 57 almonds
• 54 bowls of porridge
• 9 chocolate digestive biscuits
• 205 cups of tea
• 5.5 glasses of wine
• 1 serve vegetarian haggis
• 53 pieces of sushi
• 480g of chocolate

I don't know why I get such immense satisfaction from knowing this information, but I do.

Stickability

Wednesday Weigh-In: 0.7kg (1.5lb) gone.

So I've now finally lost my Portugal Pounds. 6 weeks to lose 6.5 pounds. So much for the idea that Holiday Gains are temporary! That said, I've only been working really hard for half of those weeks. I still want to take it up a notch this week, and get both exercise and eating right in the same week. I want this loss to stick. I want Virgin Territory next week! Woohoo!

. . .

I cannae type no more, cap'n. My shoulder is killing me. In fact, the pain starts in the side of my neck then shoots down the side of my forearm, through my wrist down to my freakin' thumb. My good ol dodgy right shoulder again. Not sure why. Maybe too much furious writing/typing? Maybe I pulled a wrong move with the weights. Och well. I have a date with some ice and ibuprofen. Rest, rest, rest.

In the meantime, please chat amongst yourselves. How's life treating you today? What's been happening?

Stacks On!

My motivations have subtly changed. In the aftermath of the Shitty Twix Incident, I was reassessing my reasons for wanting to bust the last of this lard. It slowly dawned on me that Busting Lard in itself is not enough motivation anymore. Fluctuating numbers on the scale no longer scare me shitless. The threat of not fitting into my wedding frock won't keep me away from the vending machine. The lure of a smaller clothing size isn't that strong.

These days, the above motivations are more likely to trigger internal dialogue like, "Who cares what the numbers say?" or "I can just buy more squishy-in undergarments" or "There's nothing wrong with being a size 16 anyway". Those motivations have sent me to the Hot Roll Man for a scone or to Marks and Spencer for some cakes. Those motivations had me thinking I can get away with being this size, and got me wondering how much crap I can get away with eating before I started stacking the weight back on.

(Incidentally, the Scottish Companion loves the Australian phrase "stacked it on". We were watching an old episode of Kath and Kim recently and Kath was telling someone that Kim has "really stacked the weight on". Now if I ask him should I have a chocolate bar or a bacon roll he'll say, "I dunno, you'll stack the weight on!". Hehe.)

This past week I have eaten absolutely beautifully and there was no stress or fuss about it. Why? Because I started looking at food in terms of how it would affect my health and fitness. I've been struggling with this Stupid Knee and I am desperate to maintain my fitness and eventually get back to running. So if faced with a plate of cakes at work, as I was FOUR TIMES this week, I thought, "Will this shit make me feel good?". And I'd think, well no. I'd end up with one of those awful post-sugar binge headaches then slink home and sit on the couch instead of going to the gym. THAT stopped me from eating rubbish, instead of thinking about the scale or my wedding dress. This was inspired a lot from something Julia wrote this week, incidentally.

I went to the physio last night and it's a confirmed case of worn-out overused runners knee. Plus my quads and glutes are quite weak so I will need to make them stronger. It is going to take time, patience and dedication. If I want to get back into the running I will need to be consistent and take care of myself, not just some half-assed stretches before bed. So this is my goal! To strengthen my bod! And eating well is a part of that. If the weight comes off, that's a bonus.

The closer I get to a healthy weight the more important I think it is to look beyond the scale. When I was pushing 160 kilos I had to look at the scale, because measurements didn't change that quickly and fitness was a non-event. That cursed contraption was the only guage I had of my progress. But now I have to think beyond that and decide how I want my life to be. What's going to work in the long term? Training for the 5k taught me that having a specifc non-scale goal helps me feel balanced and motivated to be healthy. And I think a lot of the commenters were right, the Shitty Twix Incident was about post-race I Deserve It-ness. But I quickly moved on and now I am focused on my goal of getting a stronger and run-worthy body.

I know this approach works for me, because while I've only lost a few kilos since I got married, I have shrunk. I went jeans shopping on Monday and got into size 16s in five different Skinny Person's Shoppes. I almost died from shock that I actually had choice and didn't have to grab whatever fitted. In the end I went for the ones that weren't so low cut that my arse crack showed when I sat down. Mwahaha.

Now after saying I'm not concerned about the scales, I will post my Weigh-In Wednesday results, just in case anyone's been following along at home!

Wednesday Weigh-In - Week Twenty-Two

last update: 15 June 2005

original start weight: 159.2 kg (351 lb) on 17 Jan 2001
original start bmi: 53.4

fresh start weight: 95.9 kg (211.4 lb) on 12 Jan 2005
fresh start bmi: 32.2

current weight: 84.5 kg (186.3 lb)
current bmi: 28.3

result this week: -2.2 kg (4.8 lb)

loss in 2005: -11.4 kg (25 lb)
total loss since 2001: -74.7 kg (164.6 lb)

initial goal weight: 75 kg (165 lb)
distance to goal: 9.5 kg  (21 lb)

I'm now below 85kg which is when I told myself I'd take a new progress photo. My mum recently emailed me some really bad Before Pics so I'll post them too so you can compare and contrast! As soon as I get round to doing the pics. Stay tuned, groovers!

Snap Crackle Pop

I have met some bloody brilliant people via this blog, and Argy is no exception. Ever since she first emailed me a year or so ago, I have always been besotted with her lush, sensual descriptions of her cooking, salads and fresh herbs. Every time she'd write about her dinner I'd ask her for a recipe. She recently sent the most killer wedding gift -- a handmade recipe book. She also sent this kickass Tupperware container/salad spinner thingy that keeps your salads fresh for days and days. Then she bundled up some herbs that she'd dried herself - oregano, basil, sage, thyme, mint, dandelion - as well as homemade sundried tomatoes. Oooh delicious, I tells ya. The dried herbs you buy in the supermarket cannot compare to the ones dried by Argy on her balcony in Athens. And the tomatoes are so full of flavour, the Scottish Companion and I were just eating them straight out of the box. Thank you, foxy lady!

. . .

My wonky knee now issues a creaking, grinding sound and plain old walking is sometimes painful, so I'm going to see a physio tomorrow. It sounds like a textbook case of Runner's Knee and a need for new shoes but I still want to get it checked out. Consequently I've not run since the 5k and have become antsy and worried my new muscles will dissolve overnight. For a non-impact workout I'm using the stationery bike at the gym which bores me shitless. I'd go swimming except I don't have any swimming gear and OH YEAH, the small obstacle that I can't bloody swim. I am thinking of trying an RPM class, the Les Mills answer to Spinning. I've heard it gets you truly sweaty. Can anyone vouch for RPM?
. . .

Dear Dieters of the World,

It has come to our attention that carbohydrates are getting all your attention lately. For example, if you fall into a bag of Doritos after work; or binge on a tub of ice cream or a family-size pizza, you have been referring to these incidents as a "bad carb binge" or "carb blowout" or similar. Sure, refined carbs are bad news but where there's refined carbs there usually lurks US GUYS as well. It's a team effort! Nine times out of ten we have had our finger in the pie and we want recognition for our role in keeping your ass fat!

Sincerely,
Saturated Fat

. . .

Thank you for brilliant your comments on the last ranty ravey entry. And don't be apologetic for any hints or tips, they are welcome! Deep down we all know that we know what to do to lose weight. Lord knows I should know that I know after four and bit gruelling years! But there are just some days when it goes tits up. For example, I know that I should stick to High Quality Chocolate, but sometimes I crave that sneaky interaction with the vending machine. I had the most brilliant, funny email from a girl named Rachel, who said on the subject of the sub-par Cadbury Twirl:

"By the time any of us has had the internal debate in our heads, no matter how good the chocolate, in those kind of circumstances it’s never going to live up to the ridiculous level of hype we have attached to it by that point. A Twirl will always be just a Twirl - not the route to world peace."

Damn straight. So what can I take from that experience?

1. Accept that there is just going to be crazy days like that now and then.
2. Vent about it on blog immediately afterwards. Demons begone!
3. Get back on the wagon as quickly as possible

(I am pretty sure I have come to these very same startling conclusions on this site at least a dozen times now.)

So I am back on the wagon now. I have tied myself onto it with rope and stapled my mouth shut. I don't know how I worked the stapler with my hands bound up like that, I guess I am more flexible than I thought. It feels good to be eating healthily. It's this endless cycle of:

1. Eat healthily
2. Brief moment of eating rubbish, temporarily forgetting/ignoring how good eating healthy feels
3. Remember how crap the rubbish eating feels
4. Resume healthy eating.

But the upshot is the Unhealthy Eating phase get shorter and less damaging each time.

. . .

SC is in Libya til Wednesday for work. Libya! How crazy is that? I am surprised by how fiercely I miss him. Last year between his travels and mine, we were apart for about three months, but now we're married and I'm mopey with him only away for just ten hours thus far.

I told him I was going to eat heaps of meat while he was away, all the lamb and mince and steak I've been craving during the past three months. Maybe I would just put a whole pig on a spit in the backyard. But now the Meaty Moment has arrived I've found I'm really not that fussed. I have enjoyed the vegetarian diet, it's much less messy to cook and I am really, really lazy, don't you know. Plus we eat fish at least once a week so it's not proper vegie anyway.

Still, I often think of lamb. I saw a sheep in a field yesterday, snoozing in the sun, and I thought, "Mmm, roast lamb." Perhaps it's time for some flesh after all.

Mints of Satan

Things I have learned this week:

1. SMINTS are evil
I thought I'd get a wee box of mints to distract my tastebuds between meals at work. I try to avoid them coz of all the weird ingredients but I was really horrified to read the label and see they contain hydrogenated vegetable oil! That evil gloop in something so tiny and innocent as mint? Is nothing sacred?

2. Don't eat a whole tin of baked beans for lunch
Especially when you're at work. We get our groceries delivered Monday afternoon so sometimes we've run out of stuff by Monday morning. The salad stuff had died so all I had was a wholemeal pita and one tin of beans. OH GOD. I had to keep running from the room to fart. Then I'd let one out now and then as I walked home. Luckily the streets were deserted, or had I just killed everyone with my vile fumes? Hmm.

3. My reading comprehension skills are shite
When I go running I write Julia's instructions on a post-it note. Last Sunday's schedule included 15 x run 2' walk 1'. But I wrote down run 15 x 3' walk 1'. So that adds up to an extra fifteen minutes, which may not sound like a lot but when you're starting from absolute zero in terms of running fitness and slowly building up - this was huge. We'd also been on a two-hour hike earlier that day. I somehow managed to do it, plus the extra 1km straight run after that, but my legs were absolute jelly and I was so red-faced it lasted for hours and SC's parents thought I had severe sunburn. I was hobbling around all week. Only the next day did I realise I'd written the instructions wrong. D'oh!

My right leg, particularly my knee and shin, has been giving me trouble ever since. It comes and goes but whenever I started to run, go up and down hills or stairs it would hurt. Felt sort of grindy and weird. I've had twinges there since I started this whole running thing, but I didn't know (and still don't) if it was classed as soreness, a slight ache or outright pain. I've never been good at judging pain. Growing up on a farm there was no place for wimps, so if I told Mum I had a sore leg she'd say, "Okay, I'll cut it off for you!". She wouldn't let us have a day off school unless we were, quote, "Dead or dying".

So I tend to ignore aches and pains, but this has backfired on me over the years. Like a few years ago ignored my aching shoulder and forearm to the point where I could not move my arm at all and I was bawling from pain. I didn't want to wimp to my boss that the mouse and repetitive web work had struck me down but in the end I had to have time off work and months of physiotherapy for something that could have been okay if treated earlier. Sigh. So anyway now I am consulting with Julia and have rested the past two days except for a Pump class and today is Active Rest with a stint on the stationery bike. Hopefully I haven't royally screwed things up.

4. Brown basmati rice rules!
I like zapping some leftover rice, then stirring in some extra-virgin olive oil, black pepper, lemon juice, Herbamare and a wee tin of tuna. For some reason that all goes together beautifully. I wish I could just live off dishes like that. You know, random things chucked in a pot.

5.  It's time for new jeans
My jeans are sufficiently baggy to pass the Put Them On Without Needing To Undo The Zip And Button test. Woohoo! It has taken so long! I bought these stinking jeans in November 2003. I've decided to put off the purchase until July when my sister and friends will be visiting for the wedding party; that way I can shape up a bit more and buy the best fit possible. Huzzah!

. . .

So this week I've either lost 0.7 kilos if you go down from two weeks ago, or lost 2.3 kilos if you count it from the Freaky Bloatfest of last week. I put a fresh battery in the scale since it started flashing Lo! on Monday so it should be accurate. I am really happy with the result and just goes to show, if you don't eat biscuits with your cup of tea IT ACTUALLY MAKES A DIFFERENCE! If I just stop before snacking and ask, "Do I need this? Could I choose something healthier?", it actually adds up to less calories consumed and better results. Well, derr!

Wednesday Weigh-In - Week Nineteen

last update: 25 May 2005

age: 27
height: 173cm (5'8")

original start weight: 159.2 kg (351 lb) on 17 Jan 2001
original start bmi: 53.4

fresh start weight: 95.9 kg (211.4 lb) on 12 Jan 2005
fresh start bmi: 32.2

current weight: 86.2 kg (190 lb)
current bmi: 28.9

result this week: -0.7 kg (1.5 lb)

loss in 2005: -9.7 kg (21.3 lb)
total loss since 2001: -73 kg (160.9 lb)

initial goal weight: 75 kg (165 lb)
distance to goal: 11.2 kg  (24.7 lb)

Get Some Pants

I don't have to go to physiotherapy anymore. Apparently I am all cured, she even joked that I must have had a "back transplant", because it had improved SO much so quickly. She said it was all due to my hard work and willingness to change. She says she gets so many people that waltz in expecting a miracle cure without them having to do anything, without them having to change any bad habits.

I was very flattered but said to her, after this weight loss shennanigans, what's one more change in my life? I can handle anything now. Ha ha.

She also told me that I should buy some new pants, the ones I had on were falling down. That made my day!

Funny how change becomes easier the more you do it. Back in January I felt paralysed with fear, I felt trapped in my body. I felt totally incapable of improving my situation. I just simply couldn't see how I could possibly ever feel any better than I did back then. Which was pretty damn crap.

But little by little things changed. The key for me was starting out small. First thing was to get into the kitchen and throw out all the junk food, and organise the room so it felt more inviting. If your kitchen's clean and organised you're more inclined to cook, as opposed to cruising by Macca's for a Quarter Pounder meal.

So after that I felt more prepared to start to change my eating habits. Mine were in a shocking state so I went to WW.

Once I'd learned good eating habits, I began to tackle the exercise thing, starting out with just huffing and puffing my way around the block.

I promise you, your confidence will grow and you'll just want to do more and more. It gets addictive, this change thing.

If the big picture overwhelms you, begin with some small changes. Rome didn't become a fat ass in a day. You can't expect to overhaul years of bad habits all at once.

Start small, but dream big. Big fat lardy dreams.

Runs With Puppy Dogs

This is what you get for writing long, rambling entries about what a champion weight loss supastar you are, being so smug and wise. It is now a few hours before my weigh-in and I feel like a total PORK.

Sometimes you can just feel it in your bones that you're headed for a non-pleasant rendevous with the scales. Right now my ovaries are starting their monthly rat-a-tatting, it's the dreaded Week Before where I am a moody shit and want to make love to a family block of Cadbury's Dairy Milk.

And surely it's not water I'm retaining. It feels like wet cement. So be prepared for an onslaught of Cranky Dietgirl entries over the next little while.

Of course I am not one to blame my problems on my women's troubles. That's what contributed to me nicking off from many a dieter's forum online, I got sick of people reading memebers blame everything on "T.O.M." or "Aunt Flo" or "The Great Red Sea Of Hell" (I made that last one up). Fair enough you can expect to gain a little then but too many of them seem to use it as excuse to not exercise or eat a pound of peanut butter. For me, exercise really helps. The aching muscles after a good workout ensure you don't notice the pirahnas gnashing away in your womb half as much!

Anyway. I don't dig those online forums. Too many silly abbreviations. OP=on program. TOM=time of month. FF=fat free. LF=low fat. ALILNAWDWBC=ate a litre of icecream last night and washed it down with a bucket of chocolates. Etcetera.

I am also cranky because I haven't done enough exercise. I was SO fired up at the beginning of the week after the great loss on Monday and an inspiring new copy of Slimming magazine (I am so going to be in that magazine someday! Just you wait. Slimmer of the Year 2003). I was all ready to start some light weight training and step up the cardio a bit, but my stupid injury reared it's ugly head. I have some screwy bits of back and shoulder thanks the Korean Sweatshop I work in, or should I say Prestigious Web Company, from rather repetitive work. I am having physiotherapy for it and thought it was improving. The physio was pleased with my weight-loss and exercise regime, but told me I needed to build some muscle, and in particular get some strength in my back. She told me to keep up with the rowing machine and showed me some exercises to do with free weights. I should have known better, really, because on Friday I couldn't even lift my coffee cup, my shoulder/arm/wrist hurt so severely. On Saturday I thought it felt a bit better so I got the most teeeeeeeny tiny one kilogram weights and attempted the exercise. AAAAAAARGH! I felt like my arm was being ripped from the socket. I almost cried.

On Sunday (yesterday) I couldn't even hold onto the arms of the cross-trainer machine with my right hand, it's not at all strenuous, but with the gammy shoulder it was hell. I ended up doing some light stretches and my sister showed me some easy moves from her Pilates class.

But I was CRANKY! So cranky, I tells ya. Why? Because I am FINALLY getting my health in order and I am just RARING to go! I desperately want to step up my exercise and  just simply can't bloody do it at the moment because of my STUPID arm. It sucks that sitting on my arse at work ended up getting me injured. Sigh. Heal! Heal, you damn body!!!

It's amazing how I am just craving to do more. Last night I was out walking the dog, very awkwardly as I had to hold the leash in my left hand. It was right on dark, about 5.45pm, very quiet on the streets. Suddenly I just got this overwhelming urge to run. So I gallumphed down a slight hill. I lasted about 20 seconds before I started coughing and sputtering. Classy. But I felt a little rush and had a sudden spring in my step. The dog went crazy, bouncing up and down, probably because it was the most vigorous activity he'd ever seen from me.

We went around the corner and I decided to head back as it was a bit too scary and dark to stay out. Near the top of the hill I stopped, squinted in the blackness to see if anyone was around. Nope. So I said to the dog, "Let's go, boy!" and started jogging up the hill. That felt a bit too jerky, so I sped up until I was full on running! It felt fantastic! I felt like I was flying! I felt so alive! I had a huge grin on my gob. The dog barked happily and I raised my hands in the air and cheered as if I was bursting through the tape in the 100 metres final. But finally my big lump of a body had had enough and I stopped, breathing hard. Then I looked around to see how far I'd jogged. About 20 bloody metres.

Oh well. Ya gotta start somewhere.