The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl

The Honeymoon Is Over

After spending the majority of this year faffing around with weddings, the fun is officially over. Now it's onto married life. Sorting out the spare room, mortgages, fixing cars, deciding whether or not we should buy a tumble dryer. Borrrrrrrring!

The other night I dreamed my mother told me that all the guests had bitched about me at our Aussie wedding. About how I claimed to be this dazzling weight loss success story, swanning around in books and fancy magazines, yet I didn't look any different from when I left Australia. They'd all expected me to have been far smaller. In fact, it was obvious to everyone that I still needed to lose an arseload of weight. Basically I was a fraud!

I woke up so upset and angry that I almost called my mother to see if it was true. Then I remembered it was just a dream, fuelled by paranoia and guilt, since Id accumulated some extra pudge in Australia. I was so overjoyed on the first day of the trip when I bought three pairs of pants (that's trousers to you Brits) in a size 14 and a bunch of tops in Medium. Woohoo! I nearly wept with glee, I never thought I'd ever see a 14 on the label. But after three and a bit weeks of rolling around in the succuclent Australian food baskets, the pants got extremely snug.

But I have no regrets. Ohhh I loved every mouthful. I had made a pact with myself only to eat the things I really wanted - the stuff I'd truly missed while living in the UK. The only problem it turned out I'd truly missed a helluva lot of stuff. Kingston biscuits, Cherry Ripes, Cadbury's Top Deck, Vietnamese food, Baker's Delight, sausage rolls, fresh orange juice, mangoes, cheese, Jatz crackers, Smith's chips, $20 giant sushi platters, papaya salad, sweet potato chips, cheap avocados, Turkish banquets, fish and chips on the beach, al fresco cooked breakfasts, juice bars, Milo, steak sandwiches, pineapples from a roadside stall, luscious non-greasy pizza, fresh and lean burgers, passionfruit cheesecake, roast pumpkin, astoundingly good hot chocolate, multigrain English muffins, fruit smoothies, chocolate wedding cake, my grandmother's caramel slice...

Oh man. I could go on, but I won't. I'm all emotional just thinking about it. Sniff. It's not the delicious meals themselves so much as the gobsmacking freshness of it all. And eating outdoors with the sun on my skin. And eating with much-missed family and friends. And eating because it so bloody cheap! Every time we go for a meal in Scotland I end up cranky because we have paid so much for what often is a crushing disappointment, £25 for a pathetic sliver of meat in a piddly sauce that tastes like it came from a jar.

Okay I am making it sound worse than it is, but my memory is currently tainted by oodles of happy Australian memories. I do love Scotland, really I do. I'm sure I'll get over this soon!

As bloated as the menu sounds above, I am reasonably happy with how I ate. I was content to refresh my memory with just one sausage roll, one piece of wedding cake, one Cheesymite scroll from Baker's Delight - as opposed to multiples. Except for my grandmother's caramel slice. I ate about six bits of that. Oooh it's so tasty! And she cuts it into tiny wee inch squares so you kid yourself you haven't eaten much. Evil old dame.

But like I said, back to reality. I was back at the gym within two hours of getting off the plane. Have you ever lifted weights after flying for 28 hours? I almost fell asleep in the squat track, which could have lead to some permanent damage. I also kept my weights as heavy as my last class - which was four weeks ago. Oww oww oww. I was crippled for the rest of the week, so it's only tonight I'll be properly back into the cardio. I have gained just under three kilos so I've got some serious work to do in order to de-snug those Size 14 Pants O' Joy.

I'll write more about the trip soon, and I promise to scan that Cosmo story!

The Right to Party

This weekend I learned that there are more important things in life than your big fat Boeing 747 arms. Friends, family, love, cake - they are more important than the arms.

Actually, the arms aren't totally bad these days. It's amazing what weights and running and regular moisturizing can do. Considering what extra-large lumpy loaves they used to be, they have shrunk and shaped up far more than I ever believed possible. I doubt I'll ever have the confidence to strut about in a strappy top, but I recently I have been buying cap sleeve t-shirts coz that's all I can bloody find, and they actually look alright.

Anyway, what was I saying? The arms. Saturday was our Scottish Wedding Party and it was a stinking hot day. Hot for Scotland, that is. It may have been in the high twenties, but it was even hotter inside our wedding venue. We had a ceilidh, in which there is a band with fiddles and accordions and everyone does crazy dances. It is bloody great fun.

I rocked up in my wedding dress, all nervous that I didn't know 60% of the guests and that no one would have a good time and I would be held personally responsible. It's amazing how much panic you can work up in your mind. But at least I looked pretty good. The dress fit soooo much better than when we eloped in Vegas four months ago. I may have only lost a couple kilos on the scale since then but I can breathe in the damn thing now! The Scottish Companion's mother gushed, "You look lovely! You have definitely lost a lot of weight, the dress sits so much better now!". I laughed but she looked horrified when she thought about her words, "Ooh! Not that didn't look good before! Oh dear."

Still, I felt self conscious about my wobbly arms and tried to disguise them with my shawl-wrap-thingy as I greeted our guests. But as soon as the dancing started I realised I'd have to abandon it. It was just too stinking hot! After just one dance people were sweat-slicked and stumbling off the dance floor to the bar. I was handing out all the cards we'd recevied with wedding gifts, so folk could wave them in front of their faces like fans. I downed a gin and tonic for dutch courage, chucked the shawl on the table, then didn't spare a thought for my arms for the rest of the night. I mean, really. Who gives a shit about my arms? People were there coz they were my friend or SC's friend or some grey-haired stranger that SC's folks knew and they wanted to celebrate our marriage. Plus dance and get drunk. They were too busy having fun to be bothered with my arms. So why the hell was I bothered? Wasn't I there to have fun too?

So I did. As much as I loved running off to Vegas, having a big party with all our friends was even better. All those happy smiley partying people around us finally made it sink into my brain that we were married. And I was really chuffed about that. And even though I was quite nicely sozzled for most of the night, I was also chuffed to realise I felt comfortable in my skin. I chatted to strangers and friends alike, I danced when the dancefloor was practically empty. I just felt happy and grateful to be alive and well and to know a whole bunch of lovely people. I don't think this Lard Busting Journey is so much about busting lard as it is about busting insecurities and fears, gaining perspective and learning how to like yourself... and just to like life, really. I used to crawl through my days like a slug, both in body and mind, numb and listless. Not anymore.

So two weddings down, one to go.

...

All that partying led to a gain on the scale this week. I'm back up to 87.1 kilos. Ooh er! What can I say, not only did my sister and I get reacquainted with each other, but also with some brownies and chocolate shakes and burgers and chips and sausage rolls. I had a great time, but now with just ten weeks til I fly back to Australia it's time to get my arse into gear. I am not going to set dozens of lofty goals, but instead just one: Track Food Every Single Day using WLR. If I can do this, everything else usually falls into place.

...

I just have to share some a recent Woohoo Moment. Today I am wearing a t-shirt from John Lewis and it is a size 14. I bought some 3/4 gym pants and they are a size 14. I bought some little padded bike shorts online for my RPM class I got the 14/16 and they were too big so I sent back and got the 12/14 which fits perfectly. Now this means sweet bugger all since everything else I own is a size 16 and fits just right. I have some size 16 undies my Mum sent from oz that are way too tiny. Sizes are weird and inconsistent. But holy crap, I have some stuff that has a 1 and a 4 on the label! Do you know the last time I had something in a size 14 was my Year 10 formal dress? Twelve years ago! So even if it means diddley squat, I do like to look at those labels and shriek, "Woohoo! There's a 1 and a 4 on there!".

Incidentally I got fitted for a new bra the other day since the cups were swimming on some of my old ones, and I was a 34DD! What the hell? Last time I got measured in December 2003 I was 38C. I was coughing and spluttering indignantly at the Measuring Lady for daring to give me such a hefty measurement. She had to explain to me very patiently how it all works. I must be the only person in the world who didn't realise that the cup sizes change along with the band sizes. So the cup of a 34DD is smaller than the cup of a 40DD or 38C. So I had shrunk and she wasn't implying I was a fatass. You learn something every day, I tells ya.

Feel Our Power

Would you cop a look at all those ideas for workout DVDs in the last entry? Thank you SO much to the groovy groovers who posted their favourites. Feel free to keep adding your comments, other people seem to be finding it handy too. I had no idea there were so many out there.

. . .

You may remember me mentioning the lovely Julia, who has in the past sent me sporty clothes and helped me get started with running. She has just started a blog herself, as she's aiming to blast away 5 stray post-baby kilos in the next 5 weeks. She's also training for a marathon! 5 days a week! She needs a cheer squad so why not head on to Five in Five. I give it 5 stars. Hehe.

. . .

Speaking of fabulous people you meet via the internets, I have to talk about Jillian again, San Francisco hostess-extraordinaire. You may recall me mentioning how Scottish Companion, my then-fiancee, did not know that I knew Jillian through Dietgirl. I just told him we'd be staying with This Chick I Know From The Internet. As the big day loomed I just couldn't seem to bring myself to tell him the truth, still feeling strangely embarrassed about the site and the fact I'd kept it from him for so long. Jillian told me she'd go along with whatever I decided, she and her hubby were even training each other to call me by my real name and not Dietgirl, ha ha!

Finally when we were sitting in Amsterdam airport waiting on our connection, I decided to 'fess up. We were tired, disheveled and barely coherent, so the timing was perfect!

"Hey Scottish Companion," I said nervously, "I have to come clean about something."

He turned paler than his already pale Scottish Complexion. "Oh?"

"I didn't meet Jillian through my blog. I met her through this other blog I have. It's about losing weight and stuff. And I've had it just as long as the other one. And I put in about the same amount of time on it. And people read it just as much."

"You are kidding me?"

I babbled on about being sorry for not telling him and blah blah blah, but he just said, "Jeez you had me worried! I thought it would be 'Wedding's off'. The last time a girlfriend said she had to come clean about something it was REALLY BAD! This is totally cool!"

So I told him a wee bit more about it and how there's all these groovy diet blogs and it's really motivating and blah blah blah. He couldn't believe I'd managed to keep it quiet for so long but he thought it all sounded very cool.

Anyway 12 hours later we sat in Jillian's SF kitchen and I told her that it was okay, HE KNEW THE SCORE! She seemed relieved, hehe. And as she prepared some verrry delicious salad plus soup with teeny tiny alphabet pasta in it, she told SC how she'd been reading Dietgirl for ages after someone at her Weight Watchers meeting mentioned it, and that it had been a fun and inspiring read. Well I tell you what, it was SO freaky to hear a real live person talking about this site, a person you'd only just met knowing all this stuff about you. It was like it finally dawned on me that the website was a real thing about a real person that people actually read while sitting down in front of their computers with a coffee. Until then I think I'd naively thought I was just tapping out my rants and raves and they just sort of floated around in the ether and some otherworldly beings left comments now and then.

And she talked about how she'd witnessed Dietgirl slowly transform from being very large and lonely and struggling with depression to someone significantly smaller and happier and about to be hitched. And I sat there thinking, "Holy shit! She's talking about me! I did all that stuff that she read about it! So that's who I've been writing about all this time! And now I am on the other side of the world about to eat her soup with teeny tiny alphabet pasta in it. How freaky cool is that!?"

Later as SC and I were drifting off to sleep at the jetlagged time of 7.30 PM, he snuggled up behind me and told me he was so proud of me and just amazed and awed that I was doing something that was helping and inspiring a lot of people. I squirmed and was too mortified to speak for awhile. But here's what I said to him and what I want you to all know.

"Well, hold on there tiger," is what I said, "I'm not like Oprah or anything. I am but one drop of oil in the large, vast deep fryer of inspirational bloggers out there."

I read a helluva lot of diet, health, fitness blogs, whatever you want to call them. It's the first thing I do when I get to work every morning (what a dedicated employee). Every day, without fail, there will be something there to make me think or smile or cry or giggle. Some  of you inspire me to run, some inspire me to cook some aduki beans, some inspire me to like myself more, some make me stop my whining and get on with it. No matter what mood I'm in, there'll be someone feeling the same way or someone who'll say the write the perfect thing to snap me out of it. This blog palaver has been the most important tool I've had while busting this lard. Not those bloody Slimming magazine stories where they say, "I walked the dog and ate fun-size Mars Bars and lost a steady 1 kilo a week!".

No, us bloggers are all in it for the long haul and share our ups and downs. We share information and inspiration and understanding. Think of your non-blog circle of friends out there in the Real World. How many of them are on Lard Busting Missions? How many of them understand your freaky struggles with Whole Pints of Ice Cream and love/hate relationship with the scale? How many of them are interested in talking about squats and omega-3s and calories burned?

So I just thought we should all stop and think for a wee moment about how cool this stuff is. It's only since I met Jillian and confessed to SC that I think I really fully appreciated just how important it is. So lets all gather in a big circle, group hug then hump each others legs like overexcited terriers and thank your chosen deity for bringing us the technology. RAWK!

Only Fools Rush In

Arrgh! I wrote a bigass entry in my email program and it CRASHED before I saved the draft. So now I have to rely on my memory. Do you know how unreliable that is?

First of all... I'm back! I'm married! So now I am finally at liberty to tell you what went down with our connubials. We eloped to Las Vegas. Twice! Complete with Elvis impersonator! You can read all the wacky details on my non-fat blog, starting right here.

Thank you so much to the groovy groovers who sent us wedding gifts while we were in the USA! Amazon doesn't give you contact info so if you could email me so I can chat properly that'd be tops! So a big thanks to Veronica (handblender!), BethK (fondue set!), Celina from Washington (Vertigo DVD and George F Baby Grill!) and to the anonymous soul who sent the egg poacher thingy!

This may sound like an odd collection of goods but this was all stuff we really wanted so it was so bloody cool to come home all post-holiday depressed only to find PRESENTS! Thank you kindly for your good wishes.

And now for an update on the fat.

. . .

Wednesday Weigh-In - Week Nine

last update: 16 March 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: 89.3 kg (196.5 lb)
current bmi: 29.9

result this week: +0.6 kg (1.7 lb)

loss in 2005: -6.6 kg (14.6 lb)
total loss since 2001: -69.9 kg (153.7 lb)

initial goal weight: 75 kg (165 lb)
distance to initial goal: 14.3 kg  (31.5 lb)

. . .

You may recall my goal for the last three weeks of wedding/honeymooning was to simply STAY IN THE 80s! With a 0.6  gain I am at 89.3 which I am happy with. I will have to be really careful this coming week, but overall I am pleased with how things went.

After being so vigilant for the preceding six weeks, I was shitscared about travelling to the USA - land of super sizing, bountiful buffets and Peanut Butter Cups. How would I resist? The first four days of the trip were a BREEZE, thanks to my lovely friend Jillian. Jillian is a brilliant Dietgirl reader and we have been emailling for ages. More on that soon. She kindly offered us a place to stay when she heard we were coming to San Francisco. We took over her lovely guestroom (complete with deck) that she'd dubbed the Pre Honeymoon Suite.

And what a Pre-Honeymoon is was. She cooked us yummy food (her salads rule) and took us wine tasting and sushi-ing. She even took me to her pilates class on the Monday before the wedding. It was one of those yoga/pilates combos (yogalates? poga?) and I tell you, my abs were SCREAMING for the next FIVE DAYS. It was such a good class. I literally could not suck in my stomach on the wedding day coz it hurt so much to breathe in. Ha ha!

Anyway, all this combined with my grim determination to fit into my dress meant my pre-wedding behaviour was great. Post-wedding down at Las Vegas my eating went a bit shite. I ignored the salad bar at the buffet and had some stodgy stuff. And there was apple pie with cream and giant breakfasts - I was on my honeymoon after all! But unlike my previous holiday all-you-can eat binging I largely felt I was in control and sane about things.

Even with this moderate approach I felt the old Sugar Insanity take hold of me again. Plus raging PMS. After Vegas we headed back to San Francisco for another five days, where I told my new husband that I was going healthy again, and he was to remind of this vow if I thought about straying. My resolve was pretty rubbish. The day before we left I was going ON and ON about ice cream.

"I want ice cream! I must have ice cream!"

"You told me to tell you that you don't need ice cream!"

"But this is supposed to be a HOLIDAY and I haven't eaten anything good."

"But what about the restaurants?"

"We didn't have DESSERT in any of those. Dessert is good. The dinner stuff is just dinner. It doesn't count as something Good."

"Didn't you have dessert at Greens?"

"We SHARED a dessert between FOUR people and I only had like two bites."

"Wasn't it four?"

"I had THREE, tops. I just want something SWEET!"

"Oh."

"And I really wanted to go to Ghirardelli for the apparently Famous Hot Fudge Sundae but we didn't end up going and I'm still spewing about that! I have not had my treat quota!"

"But we shared that bar of chocolate in the park today..."

"That was DARK chocolate with nuts and raisins. All those antioxidants, that's health food!"

"What about the chocolates we ate on the bus to the Grand Canyon?"

"I ate that because the only other thing available was a banana that cost ONE DOLLAR. Plus tax. And it was crap chocolate. It wasn't something I was BUSTING TO HAVE."

"So..."

"So it doesn't count. It's only a treat if it's something you really, really wanted. Can't you see the difference?! Jeez."

Now I am back home and the PMS psychosis is over. I have started tracking my food again and I am all fired up to get lard busting. Since I didn't go too crazy with the food in America, I don't feel like I'm completely "starting over" like after my holidays this year. This time I feel calm and in control.

However, I am still thinking about that bloody Sundae. Someday I will go back to San Francisco and it will be mine, all mine!

Wednesday Weigh-In - Week Six

I'm late, I'm late! Sorry for the lack of update yesterday. I have come down with the mother of all colds so spent the day in bed sneezing and wheezing and feeling sorry for myself. I am still weak as a kitten and struggling to stay awake. My friends and colleagues have all had cold or flu over the past two months and I thought my healthy lifestyle had spared me from the same fate. But noooo! Rudolph Red nose right before our freakin wedding!

Anyway, here's this weeks stats.

last update: 23 February 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: 88.7 kg (195.2 lb)
current bmi: 29.7

result this week: -0.8 kg (1.7 lb)

loss in 2005: -7.2 kg (15.8 lb)
total loss since 2001: -70.5 kg (155 lb)

initial goal weight: 75 kg (165 lb)
distance to goal: 13.7 kg (30.2 lb)

Can you believe it after 4 years and one month of Lard Busting, I am finally classified as plain "Overweight" instead of "Obese"? Those damn BMI people really know how to make you feel like a pork.

And now I have now FINALLY hit 70 kilos lost, which blows my mind. I've almost lost a whole Scottish Companion! I've lost 140 tubs of margarine! I have lost as much weight as what I'd like my goal to be!

. . .

I owe people emails and replies to comments and I have been quite slackety slack on other people's sites as well. Here is my humble apology and I vow to catch up after the connubials! I also have to say a HUGE thank you to Julia for sending us a CD, and to MR (what is your email?) for sending us a GIANT FOUR SLICE TOASTER and Donna for sending us a groovy silicone oven glove from the wishlist/wedding register thingo. SC hasn't had a toaster in his house for three years, and I set his oven glove on fire after trying to grill bread, so you can really see how a new toaster and oven glove were gratefully received!

Someone anonymous sent a copy of "How To Steal A Million", one of my fave Audrey Hepburn movies. I would love to know who you are so I can say thank you properly, so please chuck us an email if you're out there!

. . .

You may have been wondering why I have been so cool, calm and collected about the wedding. That would be because we are actually having three weddings. Sorta.

As you know my family is in Oz, his family is in Scotland, and we have to be married quick sticks otherwise I'll be deported. We were busting our guts after he proposed trying to organise a venue in a ridiculous short time with no money. And meanwhile it was looking incredibly dodgy and expensive to get any of my people over here, especially my Ma who is the principal of a small school and can't really just pack up and leave at short notice. Our only feasible option seemed the register office, which has a crowd limit of 30. It just felt so WRONG and rushed, like he'd knocked me up and we had to get wed to make it look proper. We were both stressed and panicky and dreading the hell out of the wedding instead of being excited. Where's the joy in that? Eh? EH?

Suddenly we came up with the genius idea of running away, just the two of us. It has all happened so fast we felt the need to escape, say our vows together and take some time to digest what we're really doing, time to reflect. THEN in the summer we will have a wee party here for the Scottish crowd. Then in October we will be visiting Australia, so what better time for an Oz celebration. This way EVERYONE gets to celebrate, and we have time to plan decent events. They will both just be casual parties, but at least people will actually be able to be there, and not have to remortgage their houses for airfares! We of course talked it all over with our folks first, and they are cool with it happy we found a compromise that suits our style. Best of all me and SC get to do something that WE are finally happy with and finally excited about.

So it's not that weird really. We're simply having the wedding and honeymoon BEFORE the receptions. Just a slight reordering of events! And I will get to wear my dress three times, is that not value for money?

There will be photos for all three occasions, and full saturation coverage on my blog, so you the reader also get plenty of value for money too. Woohoo!

We head off tomorrow and won't be back until March 12. So this is the last Wednesday Weigh In until 16 March. In terms of my lard, I am aiming to stay under 90 kilos. I don't want to stack in on! But at the same time I'm not eating lettuce for dinner.

I will be sneaking online whenever I can, hopefully with photos. Thanks to you all for being soooo lovely, hilarious and supportive over the past few years. I am deliriously excited about everything that's happening and it's been great to have you along for the ride. So speak to you soon!

Puffy

So much for the Water Disguised As Gin plan! The barmaid poured my water into a gigantic pint glass, so there was no hiding the fact I was teetotalling. "Why are you drinking WATER?" everyone demanded, "It's your night out!"

I ended up with one real gin and tonic but somehow made it last the whole night. Saturday night I had two and half gin and tonics and another pint of water which is a miracle considering I was out with seven of my work colleagues who are quite enthusiastic about their drinking.

Finally, Sunday night! The calorific dessert my friend had planned turned out to be a banoffee pie - a rich crust filled with bananas, sticky caramel and whipped cream. Holy crap. I had a small slice and my head was throbbing - it was sooo delicious but sooo rich! The main was a delicious spicy lime and lentil soup, but I passed on the accompanying hunks of fresh white bread and butter, and also skipped the wine. All in all I was really pleased with how I handled the weekend.

I tried on the wedding frock again. It still fits but there's some dodginess getting the final inch of zip up. I am so bloated from those lentils today, so will have to be really careful about what I eat for the next ten days. I'm not trying to lose weight, I just know how easily I puff up. Can anyone recommend what foods to avoid? Aside from lentils. My stomach is still groaning and I am one big fart just waiting to happen!

. . .

I thought I'd be freaking out about the wedding by now, but I haven't had any time for that yet! I'm moving to Chez Bagpipes tonight so I've been busy packing my stuff. And going out on the town. And going to the gym! I put my weights up at Body Pump yesterday. I'm up to 20kg for the squats which is really good for me, hehe.

So I'm not freaking out, but I'm freaking EXCITED! I cannot wait for next Thursday. Whoa, what? Next Thursday? NEXT WEEK? OKAY maybe it is time to freak out. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

(NB: Come back on Wednesday coz I will tell you all about what's going to happen)

. . .

I had a comment in the last entry (hi Skinnie Minnie!) about skin. With 69 kilos gone you'd think I'd be a saggy baggy mess, but so far I am happy with how things are looking. Luckily I started lifting weights about September 2000, just 9 months into the Lard Busting Journey. There's been patches of months at a time when I didn't do this, but if you look at it over the four years I've done it more weeks than I haven't. So this seems to have helped a lot, exercise in general really helps.

Most of all the fact that is has taken me so damn long to lose this weight has probably given my skin time to adjust. It's not been a sudden and dramatic loss. My stomach is lardy, as are my upper arms and thighs, but it's all still fat there, not skin. I am never going to have one of these super sleek taut bodies - I was way too obese to ever recover fully - but at this stage I don't think there is going to be any great globs of skin. Let's see what happens anyway, I still have a long way to go, and I will definitely be upping the exercise to help things along as much as possible.

If you're quite overweight and reading this, please don't let the fear of skin deter you from losing weight. Just start exercising as soon as you possibly can and make sure lifting heavy objects is part of that!

Wednesday Weigh-In - Week Five

Here we go again!

last update: 16 February 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: 89.5 kg (197 lb)
current bmi: 30

result this week: -1.1 kg (2.4 lb)

loss in 2005: -6.4 kg (14 lb)
total loss since 2001: -69.7 kg (153 lb)

initial goal weight: 75 kg (165 lb)
distance to initial goal: 14.5 kg  (32 lb)

. . .

My weekly hop on the scales is so precise it borders on a religious ceremony. I do it as soon as I wake up. I take the scale into the bathroom, because the floorboards in my room are uneven. The bathroom floor tiles are black and white like a chessboard, and I place the scale on THE SAME tile every week. Then I go to the loo, then I wash my hands, then I strip off, then I get on the scale. I make a note of the number. Then I weigh myself four more times to make sure it wasn't an accident.

If I deviate from this routine I'd feel like it was cheating somehow. At least I know I am starting from the same place each week - naked with empty stomach. I fear this week's weigh-in, however, is not a true reflection of the past week. I won't go into the details, but lets just say last night's vegetable chili was having a rather dramatic effect on my digestive system this morning, and the ensuing evacuation may have made the numbers go down more than usual.

So this week I SHOULD be jumping up and down because HOLY FREAKING SHIT, I'm an 80s Girl! But I will wait and see what happens next week and celebrate then if applicable. I had some champagne and pizza on the weekend so I'm just not sure how I could lose so much in a week, even if I did walk around London for six freaking hours with only twenty minutes stop for lunch. Hmmm.

Anyway, even if the scales go up next week, let us just pause and reflect that I saw a number on the scale that began with 8. It has taken me for-bloody-ever to reach this moment. I became a 90s girl about August 2003. And I have not weighed under 90 kilos since 1994. Eleven years ago! Holy moly. I can't believe I've lost eleven years of lard.

It's tempting to go a bit crazy for the next two weeks before the wedding. After all, the dress is damn fitted and if I gain an ounce it could all explode! EXPLODE, I tells ya. But if I cut my calories too low, I won't have enough energy for the gym, I will feel like shit and my skin will look rubbish. So I am going to stick to my usual regime but be extra careful to lay off processed foods and refined carbs.

I also need to make sure I don't drink too much. Nothing puffs me up like alcohol! I have a night out on Friday, another on Saturday, and dinner at a friend's place on Sunday night who said she is planning some calorific dessert to wow us all. So my plan for the nights out is to sneak to the bar and get glasses of iced water with a wedge of lime or lemon, so I can pretend I have vodka or gin. I can alternate that with real drinks. They'll all be so drunk before long they won't even notice what I'm doing.

As for the Sunday Night Cal Fest, I will just make sure I be extra healthy and wholesome during the week so I have some calories up my sleeve for Sunday. Plus plenty of exercise! Woohoo.

So that's the plan, just remind me to stick to it!

Fat Girl Freakout

Hello groovers. Happy Valentines! A big slobby kiss to you all.

So I got the wedding frock! I will stop short of describing the actual thing because I have a sneaking suspicious that the Scottish Companion knows about the site.

(Incidentally, I will have to tell him anyway, because en route to the honeymoon I'll be staying with Jillian, a kickarse chick I met through here! I am dead excited about that, but at this stage I told him we met "through my blog" but neglected to specify which one. Time to come clean, methinks.)

ANYWAY. You know what it's like when you shop when you've lost a bit of weight. Your brain struggles to catch up with how your body has changed. When I arrived in London on Friday night, my sister showed me a picture of this dress she'd found and thought could be a goer. I immediately said sulkily, "Well, it's too slinky, it's sleeveless and there's no way I can get into anything from that shop."

Sis rolled her eyes. "How about we LOOK and SEE."

"Fine, fine."

So we rocked up to the wee shop and I peeked in through the window, and declared we couldn't go in because the shop was empty THEREFORE the saleslady would annoy us and I would be humiliated IN MY UNDIES when she flung open the curtains to see the dress wedged somewhere around my gut.

"You told me the dress is also at the big department stores, why can't we go there so I can hide amongst the masses?"

"Nooo!" She insisted we were better off in the smaller, quieter shop; and we were just LOOKING anyway, there was no pressure. She marched inside and started riffling through the racks. She pulled something out and I said, "Oh, it's a skirt?" It looked to small to be a dress. But no, it was apparently a dress.

I started getting that Fat Girl Freakout feeling. Do you ever get that feeling? Where your heart starts pounding, your throat burns and tears spring to your eyes, because your Fat Girl Sense detects pending embarrassment and bludgeoning of self esteem. There was no freaking way I was even going to attempt to get into that! Especially not with that blonde skinny saleslady bouncing around the shop like a frisky puppy.

"Can we just go?" I begged. "Would it be so wrong to get married in jeans like Brittney Spears?"

But my sister was insistent. I was getting panicky. I flatly refused to try it on, instead I managed to persuade HER to try it on instead of me. "To test the sizes," I explained. The biggest size was a 16 and it looked nothing like any other 16 I'd ever seen. So my sis got into the cubicle and got into the frock. It was way too big for her.

"I think you should TRY," she said firmly, "There is no harm in TRYING!"

I made her patrol outside the cubicle and not let anyone in. I stepped into the dress. I was gobsmacked as it slid up over my hips... THEN my guts... THEN my boobs!

"Shit, I think this might work," I whispered.

"It's not working? Oh well, at least we tried."

"Noooo I said it MIGHT work!"

"WOOHOO! I knew it!" She threw back the curtain and jumped up and down grinning and zipped me up. It look a great effort, but not because I was too fat for it, just because it was a close-fitting dress. It fit just fine. It had little straps, but they were detachable and it looked better without them. It was evident I was going to need some seriously manipulative undergarments to make a better shape, but it actually looked pretty nice. It was sleeveless, but my arms didn't look too much like Boeing 747 wings. Especially after we added the sheer and totally subtle stole thingy. It flattered the arms without looking like serious camouflage.

"Quick, quick," I squealed as my sister danced around gleefully, "Help me get out of this now so we can go buy it before the dress changes its mind and won't let me fit into it anymore!"

My sister is such a gem, she really did find a great dress. I absolutely love it, and did not see anything else all day long in all of London that appealed half as much. It's a style that I've always loved, sort of warm and vintagey, but it's rather fitted and obviously sleeveless and a size 16 so there is no way in hell I would have ever even picked it up if it wasn't for her persuading. I dunno if I was happier about finding a gorgeous wedding dress or the fact that I got it from a Normal People's Shop. Ha ha!

That said, crikey people! If I eat ONE mouthful of anything remotely unhealthy between now and March 3, if I can one ounce, I could be seriously in trouble. Mwahaha! It fits perfectly well right now but one false move and POW! So if that's not incentive to keep up with the gymming then I don't know what is. Huzzah!

So Many Bodies

Just dandy, my period arrived last night so now I will head off to London all grumpy, bloated and full of loathing. Just perfect for a grueling weekend of frock shopping!

Oh well. I am determined to remain calm. Thanks for you all your suggestions by the way! As my sister said, it is going to be a Try-On-athon, I will just have to keep going until something works. I'm not altogether too worried. If I don't find the perfect dress this time around, I'll get something fancier for the Oz wedding in October! That's the beauty of having your families scattered all over the planet - you get to have two weddings WITHOUT having to find two different husbands!

I am just BUSTING to get the altar. I'm so much more focused on that than the dress stuff. I just want to get the ring on my finger, I am dead excited about that. I can't believe I get to marry him! I know we'll have a blast together. I am so relived and freakin happy that he wants to do this, that he thinks we're worth all this trouble. I get all teary just thinking about it. He is just such a sweet, lovable dork; he has a way of phrasing things that makes me laugh til my guts hurt. I love it when I stagger in from the gym all red-faced and stinky, he'll give me a hug and kiss regardless and say, "How was the Body? Which Body was it today?" And I'll say if it was Body Pump, Combat or Jam, and he'll always say, "Oh yeah. So many different Bodies, I can't keep up."

. . .

There is a book currently screaming up the UK bestseller charts called I CAN MAKE YOU THIN, by hypnotist Paul McKenna. From the gushing customer reviews on Amazon it sounds like the advice in the book is perfectly sensible, nothing new at all, but could the title be anymore stupid? But it's selling like hotcakes, so I guess people are walking by and seeing that title and saying, "CAN YOU? Can you really make me thin? COOL!" and then buy the book. Oh well.

Have a good weekend, groovers!

Wednesday Weigh-In - Week 4

And here we go again. Four weeks went by pretty bloody quick, eh?

latest update: 9 February 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: 90.6 kg (199.3 lb)
current bmi: 30.4

result this week: -1.2 kg (2.6 lb)

loss in 2005: -5.3 kg (11.6 lb)
total loss since 2001: -68.6 kg (150.9 lb)

initial goal weight: 75 kg (165 lb)
distance to goal: 15.6 kg  (34.4 lb)

There's some little milestones to celebrate this week. I'm now in "onederland", as the pound watching Americans call it when you crack the < 200lb mark. And I've hit 150 pounds lost, which is good because that's how much I said I'd lost in my bio for Erin's book. The book comes out in May, so I was hoping I'd get to that point by then. So now there's all the more incentive for not gaining weight - I don't want to be a liar in print!

I had a cracker of a week, overall. I planned every mouthful at the start of each day using Weight Loss Resources' groovy little Food Planner. Then I add in whatever exercise I've planned to do. That way I see how many calories/fat/protein/carbs etc I'm set to scoff, then I can decide whether I'll be eating too much or not enough, and I chop/add snacks as appropriate. This week I knew I was going out for lunch on Saturday so I cut back during the week and piled on the exercise. Sunday morning SC had a sudden craving for fish and chips, so we had the oven-baked kind for dinner that night. It was still way over my calories but I'd cut back on breakfast and lunch to compensate.

I know I must sound like some sort of control freak, but planning is, and what always has, worked best for me. I am not doing anything extreme here. You'd think we three weeks to go to the wedding I'd be drinking SlimFast and nibbling on seaweed in an attempt to drop a size. But I just couldn't be arsed. I feel happy and optimistic and level-headed with the way I've been eating.

I had the bread and the fancy French butter at the restaurant on Saturday, but skipped on wine and picked a vegetarian main and a fruity dessert. I'm trying to strike a balance, to shed my old extreme behaviours. If I am mega-healthy for the vast majority of the time, I can afford to eat out or have some fish and chips once in awhile. I'm not panicking, I'm not in a rush - I am just enjoying logging my weight here and at WLR every Wednesday and watching the numbers inch downwards.

Maybe I am speaking too soon, it's only been four weeks. But I feel like my head is finally in the right place, I've come to terms with the fact that I know what works best for me and that it's all about focus and hard work.

I have some freakin' huge challenges this coming week (London, baby!) and the week after (my hen do - aka bachelorette party to you Americans) and of course the wedding and honeymoon after all THAT. Yet I'm finding myself looking forward to the challenge of all these events and seeing if I can handle 'em without with a sense of balance. Bring it onnnnnn.

The Great Frock Hunt

Holy farking shit, Batman! I just entered the Race for Life! It's a very popular fundraiser, a 5k race in aid of Cancer Research UK. I've signed up for the Edinburgh event on June 5.

That doesn't sound like very fair away at all, eep! But I really need to shake things up and find new ways of getting fit. Training for the 5k should be fun and hard work, and the Good Cause factor will keep me motivated and full o guilt ;) I'll get cracking once this wedding and honeymooning palaver is over.

I can't believe how bad my wedding procrastination is that I would rather sign up for running races than go dress shopping. I did have a wee look on the weekend but soon got cranky with how SLEEVELESS everything is! I'm not even looking for a wedding-y type frock - just a nice fancy dress that you could wear for a formal do, you know? But it's all either tiny wee straps or no freaking straps at all, so all the world sees are my pale wobbly ham-like limbs. And I don't want one of those wrap-thingies to hide my arms coz with me it always looks like I am obviously trying to hide something AND I am really uncoordinated and don't need additional "bits" to worry about.

I'm off to London this weekend to visit my sister and hit the shops. I have a grand budget of about £200 including dress, shoes, accessories and/or Bridget Jones-esque magic squishy-in undies. Oh dear.

I am dreading this big style. It's all such a hurry, and it's the wrong season to be a looking for something for a size 16/18 person who wants to hide both legs and arms. I just have a sinking feeling we will run around town for two days and I'll end up in some frumpy sack, whatever I can force my flesh into. I hate shopping. ARRRGH.

Nevertheless, it could have been worse. I seem to have lost a few inches over the past four weeks. My grey trousers that threatened to disembowel me mid-January now fit perfectly, as does the jumper that was skin-tight and itchy. My undies aren't digging into me anymore. I've been gymming like a mofo this past three weeks, including three Body Pump classes last week, so I'm feeling quite good.

I'm so reluctant to post these things, the Little Changes I've noticed. Last year I so rarely did it, coz I thought I'd jinx myself if I shared some success and I wouldn't lose any more. But the only way that will happen is if I stop eating healthily and/or stop exercising. So from now my tactic is to give you guys FULL DISCLOSURE! There's no point skulking around. I need some accountability. Meanwhile, unlike last year, I've decided not to mention my weight-loss efforts at work, coz they'll only try and feed me cakes.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Bloody hell, life is moving so quick at the moment. Four weeks from today I will be Mrs Scottish Companion. March 3 is the big day, mark it in yer diaries, kids! I guess that means I should hurry up and find something to wear.

Anyway, apologies for yesterday's hasty entry. I usually write my entries at work and post them when I get home, but work has been too crazy for that. So instead of a nice coherent entry you're stuck with random ramblings!

I was pretty happy with the 0.6 kg lost last week, but I need to be careful on the weekends. I did my very last shift of my shitty second job on Saturday, and had a few chocolate digestive biscuits and other rubbish, my reasoning being, "I'll never be here again with these FREE COOKIES!". By Saturday night I had no energy and a throbbing headache. It's amazing how quickly bad food makes me feel bad. I got right back on track though, which is progress.

There is so much change going on at the moment my head is swimming. There's the whole marriage thing and before that the moving house thing, the finding a frock thing. Then the applying for the visa thing. All in the next month. But as sad as this is going to sound, the change I am most flustered about is the Gym Change. I got hold of the timetable for the Council gym near SC's place and it's alright I spose. It's just not the smorgasbord of classes I've been spoiled with at my current place. I could go on any day or night and there'd always be something on. If I missed Pump on one night, rest assured there's be another in a day or so. With this place there's only two Pumps I could make, one Body Combat and one Body Balance per week. And no Body Jam.

Waaaah! My current gym is great coz the classes are scheduled so you can do a cardio class followed by Pump, or vice versa, so you can get in a great cardio and weight training session in one visit to the gym. As I've said before, I thrive on being told what to do - in the exercise sense. I like the classes because they push me to my limit, whereas on my own doing running or some cardio machine I often get bored or lazy.

Looks like I will have to get over that if I want to get fit. Let's look at this as an opportunity to shake up the routine and push myself harder without the use of a shouty instructor. But if anyone wants to buy me a PERSONAL TRAINER for a wedding gift, knock yourself out! People keep asking us about gift registers but we don't need towels or ice buckets or casserole dishes. Hehe.

How're you all doing?

Modus Operandi

A big hello to the anonymous person who emailled me re the last entry and told me to Get Over It and Move On.

Well, DERR! I did! That was the whole point of the entry! Here's the sentence with the big clue: "I am SO over it, all that anxiety and stress and excuse-making. I ready to move forward." But it would have been a bit of a pointless entry if I had not explained to you what I was getting over in the first place.

As I also said in that entry, I'm back on track and this here new entry is about my plan of attack.

First thing I've decided to do what I did waaaay back in 2001 - weigh in weekly and post it on here. Put it in public every week, good or bad, instead of updating only every few weeks when I've had a decent result! Mwahaha. Some seriously accountability is needed. Since Wednesday was Back On Track day, that will become Weigh Day. I might even get myself a blow-up doll and dress it up like a Weight Watchers Weigh Lady, and teach it say, "You coulda peed half a pound", "Did you drink all your water?" or "Well maybe it's coz muscle weighs more than fat" and other banalities.

Fitness wise, I am sticking with gym classes for the next six weeks or so. Soon I'll be moving in with SC and away from my Fancy Gym, so I want to do all the Fancy Classes while I still can. I will have to take my pampered ass to the local council gym once I make the move, but I always knew I didn't belong at such as posh place anyways. Och well.

Since this new gym won't have as many interesting classes, I've come up with some new challenges for 2005.

• After the wedding it's back into the running and I'm going to do the Race for Life 5K in June. It's for a good cause so this means I will have to guilt-trip myself into action.
• Learn to ride that freaking mountain bike without crying like a big baby! Did I tell you about that last summer? I can't find the entry/ SC tried to get me to have a go on his mountain bike and of course, I freaked out coz I hadn't been on one since I was 11 and forgotten how. Rather, convinced myself I had. Made a huge deal about it and got self-conscious after pedaling three metres and cried. Long story. Anyway, I will learn to ride that damn bike come summertime.
• Try SC's kickboxing class that he's been pestering me about for ages. It's 90 minutes - the first half grueling cardio and strength work like skipping and press-ups, then you get into the sparring. It ain't Body Combat - you get to kick and punch REAL PEOPLE. He says it is a grueling workout and really helps the ol fitness levels. I say kicking the crap out of each other once a week will help to iron out any tension in the relationship. I am scared coz he is quite fit and so are his friends, but the other part of me is curious and really loves to KICK!

If I can get these done in 2005, then 2006 will be about me learning to swim again, since I seem to have lost the ability to do more than swallow water and snort it out my nose when I try to do some laps. How the hell do you forget to swim? I guess I am the same moron who forgot how to ride a bike, so anything's possible!

Anyway, the food. I am finding it much easier to eat well without my sister. My tastes are much simpler (okay, lazier) so I am making less complicated meals with fewer ingredients. I'm sticking to around 1500 cals per day, as recommended by Slimming magazine, but increasing that slightly (1750 or so) if the body sings FEED ME on an exercise day.

So today is Day 5 and I've handed some dicey situations really well. I had a good chat to SC and told him about my Hell For Leather approach and he's been really great having healthy food at his place and coaxing me down from the ledge when I went into crazy sugar-withdrawals (mixed with PMS) on Day 2.

I'll be back for Wednesday Weigh Day so stay tuned! How's your week going?

The Awful Truth

In the spirit of honesty and disclosure, here are some of the excuses I used for eating extremely poorly over the past six weeks or so:

• My sister is leaving, we'll never go out to [insert name of any number of restaurants] together again, so what the hell!
• It's the staff Xmas party so I'm having a bacon roll for breakfast with the rest of the guys!
• Soon I'll be moving into Bagpipe's place which is twenty miles from the Fancy Chocolate Shop so I am going to buy two bars and scoff them down even though I'm about to go out for a boozy lunch with friends
• It's my mate's farewell dinner so must celebrate with triple vodka and cranberry and handfuls of chips
• It's Christmas Night and I just worked all day and now I'm in an empty house so I deserve a Thai Takeaway
• It's our Belated Xmas dinner so I will make this huge Heart Attack In A Bowl Butterscotch And Banana Trifle even though I could easily half or third the recipe since it's only the two of us eating it and we'll end up sick on the leftovers.
• It's Xmas and it's cold outside so I will have another glass of port (and so on until I had drank the ENTIRE BOTTLE over six day period)
• Poooor me at work on New Years Day and the shops are closed so I will have to eat these chocolates/ cheeses/ mini quiches/ samosas/ cookies that they're offering me, then go back for more when noone is looking!
• Bagpipes is in the bath so I will sneak a handful of Cadbury Roses chocolates from the giant tin his Mum gave him even though it's rubbish chocolate coz it's THERE and he'll never know if I stash the wrappers in my handbag!
• My future is sooo uncertain and this situation is sooo stressful that I may as well have cheese on toast for dinner and a block of chocolate for dessert!
• I just got engaged so I'm having the scone with butter and jam for breakfast, bringing in cakes for my colleagues and THEN go out for a three course meal with more wine.

The diet books always want you to pinpoint your triggers, to figure out the reasons for your poor choices. But I seem to cover every single one of them. Loneliness, boredom, frustration, anger, extreme anxiety, happiness, mindless intoxication. Secret eating, boozy eating, lazy eating. I've done it all, baby.

All I know is that it started with a couple of tiny Celebrations chocolates, you know those seemingly innocent mini versions of Mars Bars and Maltesers and other cheap, sickly candies. A colleague gave me a box as a gift and I opened them and told everyone in the office to go for it. I stayed away all of half an hour til I thought, "Maybe a little tiny Milky Way would go down nicely..."

Once the cravings were kicked off by those crappy chocs, all I could think about was food, more more more, I craved the textures and the feeling of it. Once again, I just lost that ability to stop and think. All my steady, consistent gymming and sensible eating went out the window. I just didn't let up for weeks and weeks. I just stopped thinking about what I was doing, completely. The voice that knows a whole tub of Ben & Jerry's is not a dinner had fallen silent.

Needless to say I felt like shit. Not only had I been consuming a truckload of fat and sugar, my body was also trying to deal with alcohol, something that had never been a problem for me before. I kept laying on the couch at SC's place (after yet another bowl of leftover trifle), so bloated it was bordering on painful. No energy, no self esteem left. Moaning out loud, "WHY am I doing this to myself? Why don't I stop?!". I kept postponing the "Back On Track" date as different opportunities to eat crap food came up. It got so bad that when SC put his arm round me as he slept, as he does very often, I had to move coz it felt like a log had fallen on me, all heavy and painful on my tortured gut.

So yeah. My eating has been atrocious. On Wednesday morning I decided it was time to face up to reality, so I hopped on the scale. I weighed 95.9 kilos. In the morning. In the nude. Last official weigh-in posted here in November, I was 92.4 in clothes and heavy gym shoes!

Good lord.

I'm a disgrace, kids - this I know. And you will probably be disappointed especially if you have looked up to me as some sort of weight loss success. But now that I have definite plans for my future, goals and dates, I am SO over it, all that anxiety and stress and excuse-making. I ready to move forward. I have done some damage but this past week I did a lot of writing and planning and goal-setting and got ready to rock.

SO, the first thing I did was to sit down and work out my motivations.

Health
I've never, ever felt so shit from a period of bad eating before. Maybe it's the contrast from normal eating/exercise and shock to the body, coz when I was 150 kilos I don't remember ever feeling so ill and in actual pain. Headaches, stomach aches, bloating, insomnia, moodiness, crying from feeling so miserable.

Diabetes is rampant in my family, and I am petrified I will end up with it if I keep doing this. So I am back on track for my health, both physical and mental. I will also go get a diabetes test just to make sure, it's been two years since the last so it can't hurt.

Vanity
A wedding is the mother of all vanity goals! And looks like I'll be having a few of them. Weddings, that is. There'll be a shindig in Scotland and then a wee party in Australia - we're planning to visit in early October. The Australia one is what really has me motivated. I'll have all my friends and family in the one spot, and most of them won't have seen me for anywhere between two and five years. COOL! So I have nine months in which to be looking my foxiest. Never mind showing off the new husband, I want to show off ME! Dietgirl's Triumphant Return To The Homeland!

Ha ha! But seriously, can you blame me for wanting to be dazzling? Short of landing at the party in a helicopter on top of a red carpet, the most spectacular entrance I can think of is to just be looking sexy as hell and actually having some freakin' confidence, instead of being the occassional-joke-cracking wallflower they remember. As added motivation, I've lined up a photographer already. One of my favourite Aussie photobloggers has agreed to do the shots! I am so excited as I love their stuff to bits. It may be a couple years before I see my friends and family again so I want photos to remember the day by, and it wouldn't hurt if I was looking decent in 'em!

So yeah, I gotta say, the vanity motivation is strong.

Insane Competitive Streak
I want to be at my goal by this time next year. The Five Year Plan, baby. I like things to be wrapped into neat little packages. So I will be going hell for leather in 2005 and tie a big red freaking ribbon around the whole project by 2006.

Next entry I'll write about my specific goals and methods for the fat busting. But for now, a BIG FAT LARDY thanks to the stacks of groovy groovers who commented or emailled about me and Bagpipes getting engaged. I had no idea there was so many people reading, and you were all so funny and genuinely happy for us, it really made my day. I have saved every single comment notification emails in a folder called ENGAGED! and printed out all the emails and put them in a file called WOOHOO. This is the sorta shit you look back on in fifty years and think, ahh, humanity rules.

And The Bride Wore Blubber

What a difference 24 hours makes! I finally have some news, groovers. He proposed this morning! I said yes! 

Can you believe it? I'm going to marry Bagpipes, as Airlie called him. Are you excited? I'M EXCITED. I wanted this so badly, it felt so right. The turning point for me was during SC's Rawk Concert when I looked up at him and swooned and knew I never wanted to be with anyone else. But I never really told anyone that marriage was my desired outcome - as opposed to deportation or a work permit - coz I am always afraid if I say things out loud they will never happen!

Anyway, I am saying it now. Woohoo! It took SC a few more months to realise that was what he wanted too, and I have to tell you I have never been so happy in my entire life. Proposing to someone in bed at 2.02 AM is a little different, but to me it is perfect and I will never, ever forget it. The tone of his voice and the happiness when I said yes and the way my whole life just seemed to fall into place. I was so stunned and shocked and kept saying, "I'm so stunned and shocked!". He said to me so sweetly, "Well that's what you get for being so nice to someone. For letting someone just be who they are and encouraging them and loving them. And for being a chick who likes MotoGP."

My eloquent response? "I'm so excited I could SPEW!"

Let's get back to the fat for a moment. You may have guess what I'm going to say. That I am slightly annoyed with myself for not busting some lard last year and eating like a pork over Christmas, as I will be a rather dumpy bride on a budget. Not that we have made any plans yet, but I ain't going to be looking my best! I have 11 weeks til my visa ends, so we'll be getting hitched sometime before then - not much time for a miracle!

But you can't turn back the clock, and as I said the other day, I don't begrudge 2004 and all the fun I had instead of focusing on my weight. I never thought I would feel so relaxed about the whole thing, but I am just so happy that SC and I are going to stay together that the other issues pale into insignificance. I am sure I will scrub up reasonably well, somehow :)