Get. In.

Hello, hello, hello and welcome everybody to my formerly thrice-weekly blog which now appears to be my once-in-a-blue-moon-but-more-commonly-on-a-Friday blog.

So anyway, this week has been rather non-eventful.  I mean there's really not been much to report of anything, it's all work and very little play.  I've also gone back on the wagon and sobriety really isn't the most cheerful of mindsets for anyone, especially when you can't even substitute it for doughnuts or chocolate cake.

I hadn't really given a great deal of thought to the diet, particularly, and in fact, as my weight loss has been so hit and miss over the last ten weeks or so, I was quite convinced that if anything I'd've put weight on this week.  Especially when I realised that I've not been eating nearly so much veg as I should be eating.  "Oh well," I thought to myself, "There's always next week, I'll try harder then!  I've still got another six weeks to lose a dress size, no big deal."

Imagine, then, my surprise when the scales declared that I'd lost 3 1/2 lbs!!

The llamas were chuffed.  They're all ready to go with this week's fiesta, so without any further ado - hit it, lads!!

 

***AAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIBAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!***

 

¯ La cucaracha, la cucaracha, dah dee dah de dah de dahh...!  ¯

Whew!  That was great, boys!!  Just the job!

I was delighted with that result.  I honestly didn't expect it.  I thought my weeks of losing big numbers of lbs were long gone, and that it'd be a slow and boring, pleasure-free road to box off my last three stone, half a pound here, a pound there... I thought it'd take me The Rest Of My Rotten Stinkin' Life to do it.  But now - now there is hope!  Now there is a little bright, cheery spark in my heart that says, "Come on, Spevvo, you can do this!!  You're probably not really too far now and you'll be legitimately skinny rather than just relatively skinny in comparison to your former spherical physique!"

I mean I have to do it and I have to do it soon.  The time left is reduced.  I've done all right so far, like, and aside from just not stressing about things and following the plan as best as I can, I'm not 100% sure what else I can do.  More fruit, more veg, I don't know if I've ever recommended green tea and a slice of lemon, but trust me, it works.  It's an acquired taste but it's a taste well worth acquiring.  It'll all come off eventually.  I'll soon be svelte.  I'll achieve voluptuous rather than rotund.  I'll wiggle in all the right places.  This will happen.  Because if it doesn't, I think I'll cry.  Which won't be a remotely helpful reaction and it won't even make me feel better about it but it's the one thing slightly more positive than jumping off a tall building.

The thing that cheered me up the most was that finally, Andrea the Consultant told me that I was really doing well.  She said "You're disappearing before my very eyes!  You must feel great!!" I genuinely didn't think she'd noticed.  A couple of the ladies in group have come up to me and been like "Good grief, you can really tell you've lost weight, you're looking good!" which is really nice, but it was great to finally get a bit of a high five from the lady in charge.  She's never been discouraging or dismissive, I'd like to make that clear, but I just genuinely didn't think she'd noticed, and that because she hadn't said anything I mustn't actually look like I've lost any weight.  Which obviously is a stupidly warped thought process, I mean for chuff's sake I've lost 60lbs now, I must literally be the only person on earth who hasn't really noticed the difference in me!!  In fairness, I avoid reflective surfaces like the plague and whenever I look down at myself all I can see are my bosoms and my hair so I suppose the fact they're still very much there isn't too much of an indicator about how well I've actually done. 

So, I went home and had a yummy Slimming World tea of sirloin steak, new potatoes, and fried mushrooms and tomatoes.  It was fabulous.  My sister is officially the best cook in the world.

This weekend I'm going to a party on Saturday, which will be great.  I'm still on the wagon and I'm the designated driver so I'm going to have to do the Being Sober While Meeting New People thing, which is a little worrying, but the people I do know who are going are fabulous so I'm sure it'll all be great.  The only problem is that nowadays I only have clothes for work and clothes for the Kingdom Hall.  I have no other items of clothing, and as I'm an anti-social sod, I definitely have no party clothes.  I'll probably end up going and looking really overdressed.  But at least I won't be scruffy!!

Join me sometime next week.  Definitely on Friday, when hopefully I'll be even closer to my 4 1/2 stone shiny sticker!!

Sleeves Firmly Rolled Up

Normally, as you know, I get pretty narked when I put weight on after a week of being good.

However, this week, I've put half a pound on, and although the llamas haven't come out for a celebratory fiesta (although to be fair they had two fiestas last week so they could do with a break), I'm really not too worried about it.

This is good because I've taken into account that for the first couple of days since my last weigh in I was still a bit wobbly on the diet before getting back on it properly on Monday so I haven't really had a week of being good, I've had about four days of being good.  I've also taken into account the fact that I've drunk a lot more water this week, mostly due to the fact I've walked everywhere.  I've walked about four miles a day over the last week, which doesn't seem like much but it's more than twice as far as I usually walk, so for me, it's loads, and I've probably developed a teensy tiny bit of muscle.  Not to mention the fact I've worked full-time which always screws up my diet plans, and I more often than not end up skipping breakfast altogether, which isn't ideal, I know.  But still, I know why I've put on, and that's less frustrating than being really good and still putting half a pound on.  AND it means that I'm finally starting to get a bit of perspective on weight loss, realising that it can't always be a constant thing and just because I put a bit on, it doesn't mean that I'm a bad person or a failure.  Which is quite a revelation.

However, at the same time, it's also a bit scary because not being too worried about a weight gain can make you complacent.  And I'm not skinny enough to get complacent!

Andrea The Consultant gave us all the New Members' talk again.  It's not just been me that's been a bit screw-uppy, everyone's gone a bit off the boil.  It's apparently only 16 weigh-ins till Christmas, which doesn't worry me too much because obviously I don't celebrate Christmas and I've no plans around that time anyway other than to eat my own body weight in chocolate and to drink enough alcohol to make Georgie Best, Oliver Reed, Keith Moon and Robert Newton all applaud my stalwart efforts. 

But it's only seven weigh-ins until the Michael Nesmith gig, and that does worry me.  Even though it shouldn't, really.  I know if anyone said to me this time last year I'd be able to wear a size 18 dress to go and see Michael Nesmith in concert, I'd have laughed at the implausibility of both suggestions.  So, really, in that sort of context, even if I don't lose another dress size between now and then, I'm still ridiculously thinner than I was this time last year - AND I'll get to fulfill a lifelong ambition and actually be in the same room at the same time as my favourite Monkee.  I mean, it's all good.  Even if I put four stone on between now and then, the fact I'll be there is incredible enough in itself.  Not that I will, of course.  I've come much too far now to go back to how I used to be.
 
But now I'm here, two or three dress sizes to go until I get to target (I probably won't reach that decision until I've lost the next two dress sizes!), and it somehow still doesn't feel like I've done nearly enough.  I know it isn't a race.  I'm not trying to be thin for an event or because someone else is losing X amount of stones and I want to beat them to it.  I'm losing weight because I don't want to spend the rest of my life not doing things because I'm too fat to do them.  And if it takes me a year to do it or it takes me 18 months to do it - fine, so long as I do it eventually.

But I still want to get it over and done with as quickly as I can so I can make a start on maintaining it!!

It isn't an impossible ask to drop a dress size in 7 weeks.  In fact, it's quite reasonable.  I know I can do it.  So I'd best get on with it, really, hadn't I?!  I've not got time to mope - I've got lbs to shed!

Join me again at some juncture next week when I may have some sort of an update for you.  But if not I shall update again on Friday when hopefully, fingers crossed, after a whole week of being good I'll finally have a result worthy of a fiesta from the llamas!!