Mamma mia, I'm still here! I'm actually a little surprised to still be here... After starting this blog so optimistically (much like a diet, huh?), a number of calamities befell me, namely the loss of my job. In many ways, this was not a great loss seeing as my boss was as dim-witted as she was pig-headed and my new supervisor quickly became her favourite pet (New Supervisor also talked incessantly about her pet rabbit and made me want to vomit a little every time she opened her mouth, but any hoo...) I didn't think this was a big problem at the time, but now it's five months later and there's still no new job in sight. It's making life a little difficult, especially as my husband is in the same situation. Thank god we live in the UK. If we were in any other country in the world we would almost certainly be stinking up a gutter by now.
I wandered idly across my blog today, deciding that I had failed to post in so long I should probably delete the damn thing... and found two comments winking at me! My goodness (I thought to myself), someone has actually been here! I then searched further and found that not one, but two kind souls had tagged themselves as a fan on Blog Catalog. The blog's also been rated as 4/5! Thus, I decided to resume my rantings. Because everyone likes to rant :)
For my next post, expect witty banter on the tribulations of sticking to a diet when you no longer have a job-routine (boo hiss!)
Monday 8 September 2008
Wednesday 2 April 2008
Are All Gamers Skinny?
So Easter has been and gone. A dreaded date in the diary for any dieter, only slightly behind Christmas due to the abundance of chocolate eggs. But I can hold my head up high this year because I ate just one egg; and that was only because they were marked down after Easter Monday and my husband begged me to buy them (what can I say? He knows my weakness for cheap chocolate goods). I am getting worried about him though, he seems to be eating more and more crap. The line between concern and nagging is a thin one for any well-meaning wife to walk. Plus, it's really, really hard to say no to a doughnut when he's waving it in front of your face (doughnuts aren't too bad under the WeightWatchers points system, but ya have to stick to just the one).
It wasn't just willpower alone that got me through the extended Easter break unscathed. I don't know if I should admit this because I might as well tattoo "geek" across my forehead, but in the interests of providing proven diet tips, I'm going to 'fess up. I'm a World of Warcraft player. That's not geeky in itself. It's an entertaining, absorbing game, enjoyed by millions of people around the world. I think I crossed a line though when I played for an entire day last week and forgot to eat lunch. Am I turning into this guy?!...
So there you have it. If you want to eat less, then play more (it doesn't have to be WoW, Lord of the Rings Online or Guild Wars would work too). But may I say in my defense, the rain over Easter was near torrential so I couldn't go outside anyway. Yes, still a geek. I can also quote whole chunks of Buffy the Vampire Slayer!
Oh, and I should probably make it clear that skipping meals is not a valid diet choice. Gotta take us geeks with a pinch of salt (the reduced sodium kind, of course!)
It wasn't just willpower alone that got me through the extended Easter break unscathed. I don't know if I should admit this because I might as well tattoo "geek" across my forehead, but in the interests of providing proven diet tips, I'm going to 'fess up. I'm a World of Warcraft player. That's not geeky in itself. It's an entertaining, absorbing game, enjoyed by millions of people around the world. I think I crossed a line though when I played for an entire day last week and forgot to eat lunch. Am I turning into this guy?!...
So there you have it. If you want to eat less, then play more (it doesn't have to be WoW, Lord of the Rings Online or Guild Wars would work too). But may I say in my defense, the rain over Easter was near torrential so I couldn't go outside anyway. Yes, still a geek. I can also quote whole chunks of Buffy the Vampire Slayer!
Oh, and I should probably make it clear that skipping meals is not a valid diet choice. Gotta take us geeks with a pinch of salt (the reduced sodium kind, of course!)
Wednesday 19 March 2008
They Made Me Eat It!
The week started off well. I was watching everything I ate, right down to a piece of turkey I nicked from the fridge on Tuesday because I couldn’t bear to wait for dinner (my stomach is an ill-evolved creature, when it wants something it whinges and gnashes its teeth). Then I encountered my fatal diet flaw… OTHER PEOPLE! Take, for example, my husband. He’s a kind, considerate bloke and often makes the dinner when I’ve been at work all day. This is unbelievably great… except he makes man-size portions. You could plaster a wall with one helping of his mash potatoes.
So what to do? You love your spouse’s cooking. They’d be upset if you said you didn’t want to eat their offering and crept into a corner to nibble on celery instead, plus it smells so good. I find my husband responds to good old fashioned reason. I explained that I was back on the diet with a vengeance and he helped me measure out a girly-sized portion of mash and turkey on our cheap plastic scales. No fuss, no muss. It’s all about the portions.
That’s why I’ve been more successful with WeightWatchers than anything else I’ve tried. Not that I’ve tried many things, truth be told. I flirted with the Rosemary Connolly diet at university and counted calories for a while when I was much younger (my mum bought me a special notebook I could log my calorie intake in… The whole enterprise lasted a fortnight). With WeightWatchers though, you don’t often feel as if you’re missing out because as long as you stick to recommended portions and don’t go over the day’s points quota (an amalgamation of the calories and fat in food), you can eat just about anything. Case in point, I had enough points left over last night to treat myself to a jammy doughnut :) Eating just one is a major improvement too, normally I would munch down half the bag (can’t let them sit in the fridge and go stale, that’s wasteful!).
Do you think I should ask WeightWatchers to pay me for all this advertising?!
Finishing on the other people as diet flaw theme, my boss presented me with a bag of chocolate bunnies today (yes, I’ve just realised that I’ve picked up my diet the week before Easter… Good move!). But I only ate one! Most people would think this was a sweet little present… but I’m quite certain my boss can’t stand the sight of me so she must be secretly plotting my diet downfall, cackling in her office and rubbing her little hands together at the thought of me gorging myself on cheap Easter treats. Then again, maybe I’m over thinking this.
Today I Want: Ice cream with chocolate chips and syrup (not a dinky little cone, a super-charged, mountainous bowlful that will take a good half an hour off my life).
Today I’ll Have: Half a tub of low-fat natural yoghurt with a heaped tablespoon of raisins.
So what to do? You love your spouse’s cooking. They’d be upset if you said you didn’t want to eat their offering and crept into a corner to nibble on celery instead, plus it smells so good. I find my husband responds to good old fashioned reason. I explained that I was back on the diet with a vengeance and he helped me measure out a girly-sized portion of mash and turkey on our cheap plastic scales. No fuss, no muss. It’s all about the portions.
That’s why I’ve been more successful with WeightWatchers than anything else I’ve tried. Not that I’ve tried many things, truth be told. I flirted with the Rosemary Connolly diet at university and counted calories for a while when I was much younger (my mum bought me a special notebook I could log my calorie intake in… The whole enterprise lasted a fortnight). With WeightWatchers though, you don’t often feel as if you’re missing out because as long as you stick to recommended portions and don’t go over the day’s points quota (an amalgamation of the calories and fat in food), you can eat just about anything. Case in point, I had enough points left over last night to treat myself to a jammy doughnut :) Eating just one is a major improvement too, normally I would munch down half the bag (can’t let them sit in the fridge and go stale, that’s wasteful!).
Do you think I should ask WeightWatchers to pay me for all this advertising?!
Finishing on the other people as diet flaw theme, my boss presented me with a bag of chocolate bunnies today (yes, I’ve just realised that I’ve picked up my diet the week before Easter… Good move!). But I only ate one! Most people would think this was a sweet little present… but I’m quite certain my boss can’t stand the sight of me so she must be secretly plotting my diet downfall, cackling in her office and rubbing her little hands together at the thought of me gorging myself on cheap Easter treats. Then again, maybe I’m over thinking this.
Today I Want: Ice cream with chocolate chips and syrup (not a dinky little cone, a super-charged, mountainous bowlful that will take a good half an hour off my life).
Today I’ll Have: Half a tub of low-fat natural yoghurt with a heaped tablespoon of raisins.
Sunday 16 March 2008
Farewell Free-For-All Weekends
Enough is enough. I've struggled with my weight for years. I was wearing a UK size 16 when I was 12, which was an upsetting realisation for my dad whose job it was to take my sister and I shopping for school uniform every year. I'm now 25, not morbidly obese but well on my way; and have the livid stretch marks of a pregnant woman. Which is very disconcerting when you've never had a child. So the time has come to take matters in hand.
I'm not a yo-yo dieter, I love my food far too much to suffer and deny myself. I did have some success with WeightWatchers before I got married. I lost two stone, fitted the dress I'd optimistically bought off the peg; and looked beautiful. Then came the honeymoon. Only a week half-board in North Africa, but the buffets went on and on, the portions were huge, the drink flowed freely... and it's been all down hill from there. That was three years ago and I'm back to the weight I was on returning from university, a time when I lived on Burger King and enough rice and pasta in one sitting to feed a family of four. I was very naive back then. I remember eating huge slices of a pizza I'd made myself, feeling guilt-free because the entire block of cheese I'd covered it with was low-fat. They really should teach you about portion control at school :)
I've let the WeightWatchers life lax recently. Financial worries and disappointments at work have led to an "I don't care any more" attitude... and the stretch marks continue to grow (they're so red and prominent on my stomach, I look like I've been mauled by a small yet ferocious tiger). I know my husband will love me whatever I look like, but that's not the point, is it? I'll never look like Kate Moss (and good god, who would want to?), but I can at least feel healthy.
Tomorrow is Monday, the start of a new week and the start of me back on the WeightWatchers wagon. Will I succeed? Will I fail and eventually have to be airlifted out of my own bed in an industrial harness? Only time will tell; and this blog will record the results!
Is any one else blogging about their personal weight loss mission? I'd love to read about it and swap links :)
I'm not a yo-yo dieter, I love my food far too much to suffer and deny myself. I did have some success with WeightWatchers before I got married. I lost two stone, fitted the dress I'd optimistically bought off the peg; and looked beautiful. Then came the honeymoon. Only a week half-board in North Africa, but the buffets went on and on, the portions were huge, the drink flowed freely... and it's been all down hill from there. That was three years ago and I'm back to the weight I was on returning from university, a time when I lived on Burger King and enough rice and pasta in one sitting to feed a family of four. I was very naive back then. I remember eating huge slices of a pizza I'd made myself, feeling guilt-free because the entire block of cheese I'd covered it with was low-fat. They really should teach you about portion control at school :)
I've let the WeightWatchers life lax recently. Financial worries and disappointments at work have led to an "I don't care any more" attitude... and the stretch marks continue to grow (they're so red and prominent on my stomach, I look like I've been mauled by a small yet ferocious tiger). I know my husband will love me whatever I look like, but that's not the point, is it? I'll never look like Kate Moss (and good god, who would want to?), but I can at least feel healthy.
Tomorrow is Monday, the start of a new week and the start of me back on the WeightWatchers wagon. Will I succeed? Will I fail and eventually have to be airlifted out of my own bed in an industrial harness? Only time will tell; and this blog will record the results!
Is any one else blogging about their personal weight loss mission? I'd love to read about it and swap links :)
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