Am I looking slimmer? I'm not sure...

Photos from when we first arrived in the USA...



and some newer ones

How did I get here?

Today we went to the mall and I was happy I remembered to look for Shauna Reid's book 'The Amazing adventures of diet girl.' As far as I know, this is what inspired my friend Bryher to write her blog in the first place. If you haven't read it and are trying to lose weight I highly recommend it.


She still keeps a blog here.
And Bryher's equally inspiring blog is here.

So, I thought I would write about how I ended up here, trying to lose weight.

I think as a child and a young teenager I was not really over weight. Certainly as I got older into my teens, I was curvaceous, but when I look back now I don't think I was as big as I felt at the time.

Once I started university and had a lot of my own money (well not a lot, but enough!) I would do things my parents would otherwise not give me money to do or even I wouldn't ask them, mostly they were making my food choices by being responsible for the groceries.

So think lots of snacks for lectures and popping to the corner shop for chocolate, buying reduced easter eggs as snacks...I've always been more of a sweet eater than savoury. I guess I just let myself have what I wanted when I wanted, as no one was stopping me!

So after almost 3 years of uni, myself and my then boyfriend Daniel decided to get married in August 2002.

My Mum sugested we go to Weight Watchers, and I was kinda like, well ok then. I didn't see myself as big or horrible but agreed it would be a good idea to lose some weight before the wedding.

I was shocked to get on the scales and find I was around 14st 13lbs (209lbs) and was happy to give weight watchers a shot. The first week I lost 7lb and was really chuffed.

I then found The Dream Dress. Kinda like in a movie, the first dress I tried on was 'The One'. I mean I am still in love with this dress 7 years later. It was just perfect, pretty straps, amazing bead work, gorgeous train. Wow. I love my dress. Can you tell!

Anyway the dress was, of course, too small. Can we order it in a different size ,we asked? No, it was one of a kind, we were told. It's ok, i said, I'm trying to lose weight for the wedding anyway...
They said it might work if we put pannels in the side to make it bigger. I was like um...and ruin the beadwork! No!

This gave me my biggest ever motivation to lose weight. I wanted my precious dress to fit, plus, you know the wedding night was an incentive too...

I was focused. I stuck to weight wacthers rigidly, but it didn't feel ridgid. Nothing was banned, as long as you counted it in your points.

I began on April 18th 2002 and at my final weigh in before the wedding on August 24th 2002, I got got down to 12 stone 9. 2 st 4 lbs in 4 months.

I went to my final dress fitting, not sure if i had done enough, but low and behold, I had. No side pannels. No big adjustments, my dream dress stayed intact.

I had such drive, determination, and really little choice if wanted my dress to go unchanged.

I'm writing about this to try to find that drive and motivation again. The weight steadily crept on, through out the years. I suck at willpower. I've lost bits here and there, as you can see below, but I still weigh more than that first weight watchers meeting.

I'll keep reading Shauna, and Bryher, and I may keep writing like this too. It's theraputic.

Weigh in 12

Well it's good news but I think only because I am STILL suffering with this tummy bug!

Weight 220.2
Loss - 2.2lbs
Total Loss 12.6lbs

spring break kinda bombed

Ive been sick the last 2 days with a stomach bug. It's HORRIBLE

so there has been no exercising and not much eating.

I just want it to be done with.

Spring Break Day 2

This was a weird day...very lazy, very bummed out after talking to my Nan who has been in hospital since February after a stroke. She was crying and asking me to come home.

Thanks to Daniel's encouragement I still exercised and we went for about a 40 minute walk, our usual route we have if we go for a long walk.

I think I only managed one bottle of water so need to step that up!

spring Break Day 1

Well it wasn't really spring break as it was a work day in school.

I managed to leave into to catch a shoing of the movie 'the wrestler' - snack free. We went to subway for lunch before hand and i had had a bagel for breakfast so not doing too bad at all.

I managed to stick to my exercise and water bid,, went out to buy the water last night. I got 24 0.5l bottles I find it much more likely that I will drink it in this way. I have a bottle beside me right now!

I went by the gym in our apartments but it was pretty busy (only one treadmill) so I jogged/walked around the apartments for a little while.

I'm glad I did it, it turned out I left my debit cad at the postal office today so I had to go back for it and really didn't feel like going out AGAIN to exercise but I didn't want to write here that i failed on day 1!

Tomorrow I don't know what the plans are yet but I want to get the exercise part put of the way sooner rather than later.

Bye for now

here's to Bryher

If I haven't said it before, please check out my friend Bryher's blog.

This weekend she was featured in 'fabulous' magazine that comes with the news of the world. I'm hugely proud of her and starting to think I should put more effort into this blog and it might help me.

Her blog is www.bryherhill.com and you can see the finished article there.

I guess I'm actually quite relieved this week to have not put on. But 10.4lbs in all this time is not great.
People do seem to be noticing, especially parents at school which is nice, but think how much better I could do if I was really trying!?

This is what I think I will do.

As it is Spring Break, I'm going to go out and buy some bottled water. And drink it!

As a teacher it is hard to 1) find the time to remember to drink water and 2) it is difficult at times to get to use the bathroom the day is so full. I'm hoping if I can make it a habit this week I can figure out a way to keep it going.

Secondly I have no excuses for not going the the gym. So this is a big one for me. I'm going to try to do SOMETHING in the gym from Monday - Friday this week. Even if it is just running for 15mins.

I think I need to use this blog kind of to be accountable.

I have to be honest, living here is very much about eating out. Not just junk/fast food but restaurants and all that stuff. I like to go out when I can afford to but I will have to try to control this if I can.

So, I will try to update tomorrow as to how it is all going.

xxx

weigh in 11? or not...

I have not weighed in the last few weeks, I have been very absent minded with the fire that happened to my house in the UK and stress at work

I weighed today and I weigh exactly the same as the last time I weighed. So I'm glad I didn't put on but frustrated with myself that I haven't lost much.

I guess only i can address that.

weight 222.4
Loss 10.4