Yuck

What is it with spiders? Why are people afraid of them? I mean, that is includes me, but still. Most of them are fairly small, sit quietly in the corner and the chance of them swallowing you whole are pretty slim, but still.

As of late, they seem to be following me around. It’s a conspiracy, I tell you. Last Sunday, I walked to a restaurant which is a good hour’s walk away from where I live. Nice and sunny weather, lot’s of people sitting on the adjacent tables on the terrace. Out of nowhere, a woman shouts “SPIDER, SPIDER” (well obviously the German word, but whatever…). Well, we’re outside, and there’s a spider, big deal. But wait, what is that in the glass of apple spritzer? Upside down, a spider swimming in the juice, with legs just big enough to touch the glass on all sides. Okay! I’d still recommend the restaurant though.

Then yesterday, dinner time. You know those little round cheese containers, that contain 8 corners of cheese? I had eaten two corners last week (I think?) and it’s been sitting in the fridge ever since. Got it out, opened it, saw six corners of cheese, saw a spider, closed it, dropped it. Ew.
And yes, dammit, my fridge is clean! Examining the container, it has two little holes on either side, probably for the machines that pack the things so they can lift it more easily. The damn thing must have crawled in through that before I put the container in the fridge last time.

I decided breaking with the habit of using an image in every blog entry today – couldn’t think of anything but a spider that would thematically fit. Then now just after typing this, I found the posting too boring and decided to use a random image instead, so there you go. It’s got something of spider legs though, don’t you think?
Also, I’d like to wish Lalio good luck with her weigh-in today. And yes, this has no relation to entry itself whatsoever.

Rollercoaster

There’s two things that are currently like a rollercoaster in my life, and those are the usual suspects – weight and work.

Despite my best intentions and efforts, my scales were showing a rather drastic gain on Monday. Yes, I had more alcohol than I allowed myself, and yes I ate more than during the week. Not as badly though as on similar occasions in the past. Quite proud of myself, the Monday morning weigh-in result was more than disappointing. The idea at the moment is to not eat anything that doesn’t have a label on it that tells me how many calories are in there. Of course, this is bound to end up in a ready-meal-fest, but so far it’s working out taste-wise and weight-wise. I guess, like with most things in life you just have to know what to pick.

Anyway while I have the weight thing under control again, work’s a bit out of control as of late. With one of the bosses on vacation, and other people having to take over for the work he’s doing we’re quite understaffed, and on top of that, we’re desperately trying to get yet another project. So, after one or two rather normal or even quiet weeks, I’m back to tense and tired…

Friday 13th

Weigh-in day. Even if I gained over the past two days according to my scales, this is still some sort of victory, because of two things: Compared to Monday it’s still a loss, plus yesterday I attended a funeral – which is basically like a birthday, food-wise, just worse because everybody’s in that sad mood which, and feeling down is a good way to overeat.
However.
I skipped any kind of cake there was and maybe had only about two thirds of what I could have eaten – still more than normal, still more than I should have (for one meal), but better than ever before during those kinds of gathering. I walked out full, but not stuffed, and a 200g gain can be attributed to a number of things – maybe it isn’t even a gain.

For the next few days, I’ll remain silent on the blog as I’ve got a few guests at home, three to be precise, who will be “crowding” my apartment – especially if the weather forecast is right. Rain, rain, rain…

Just My Luck

I had to leave class a few minutes early last week and as I did I handed my raffle tickets to one of my friends in group, the first thing she tells me when I see her today is that my ticket won the raffle for her. Then we get to the end of the class and it turns out that I was also joint Slimmer of the week last week and missed out on the basket, sticker, certificate and magnet, which are all things I like to put in places to remind me of my successes. And that was all on top of those silly scales telling the PDA I was half a pound heavier – I have since found out that it is a bug with the display since the new system was implemented and that the half pounds don’t display for people tipping the scales over 20 stones, one more reason to get below that figure then!

Ah well it seems that I didn’t need the extra inspiration, and knowing about the half pound bug I decided that from now on when I step on the scales I will see it as the extra half and when I am told otherwise, like I was this morning, I will be pleasantly surprised. So  the scores on the doors are ** drum roll** 2.5 lbs off!! so that not only takes me to my pre holiday weight but another half pound on top, so I am pretty delighted 😀

Morgenmuffel

For the past two days I’ve been waking up with this absolutely horrible mood. Well that is in fact, I had to very much convince myself to even get up in the first place.
I’ve always been somebody who has a bad mood randomly, for no reason (well maybe there is one sometimes that even I’m unaware of… – anyway). And yes, just talking about too many random unimportant things after I just got up after too short of a night may very well make me hate you for the rest of the day.

So, I’ve had exactly that mood the past two days’ mornings (fortunately no one was around :D), but like five minutes after getting up it turned around to be quite the opposite. Here I find myself puzzled, looking forward to the rest of the day.

In other news, weight wise, the scales have not failed me, spotted the weigh-in day, and lept for half a kilo – but from the looks of it it only lasted one day.
I’ve made it a habit now to keep one of those weight trackers up to date. If weigh-in days are going to be annoying, I want to at least be able to see the downwards trend on a chart.

Undecided

Is what my scales were this morning. The result could have been anything between great and frustrating, bouncing up and down by about 0.8kg no matter how I stood or where I put the scales. Maybe it’s allergic to the highly humid weather that we’ve been having the past week and a half.

Since it’s weigh-in day and I have to put down something, I decided to go the middle way (even if the result that the scales showed more often was slightly lower).

124.5kg, with the weekend temptations ahead isn’t exactly awesome progress, but it’s progress. 🙂
For once, there’s no birthday or party or event planned, so if I am exposed to too much food and beer, it’s nothing but my fault and my fault alone. This line should come back and haunt me on Monday in case I fail. 😉

Sweet yet still Sour

Well ordinarily I would have been extremely happy about my 3.5lbs loss at this mornings weigh in, however the same thing that happened at the end of the last target happened this morning.

I stand on the scales woohoo, 4lbs off just about to jump off the scles and do my happy dance and then the weigher behind the desk says “well done 3.5 lbs off”. I am still standing on the scales at this point so I ask her what the PDA says, indeed it reads 0.5lbs higher then the scales. I desperately hold back the expletives (being the summer holidays I am surrounded by small people) as I am told that the PDA is final. Oh well…

It is funny but it has taken some hours to mentally turn the brilliant loss I had this week back into a positive thing. Funny how the brain works, being depressed as if I had actually put on 0.5 lbs this week. Sod it, SOD YOU SCALES!! I LOST 3.5 LBS NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU TRY AND FOIL ME AND MAKE ME FEEL BAD YOUR NUMBERS ARE GOING DOWN, SO HAH!!

Ah yes that feels much better, and I am also back safely on the right side of the 300 lb mark, never to get on the wrong side of it again!

Calm days

I’ve done two long walks on Saturday and Sunday of an estimated 10km each, exploring the forest and hills around where I live. Well, I already knew these places but it gives me great pleasure to rediscover them and explore new routes and narrow paths to hike around.

Yesterday I needed to go shopping, not a big amount just a few daily supplies – and since the (or rather a) shop wasn’t too far away and I didn’t expect to buy anything that was too heavy to carry, I decided to walk there. So all in all, shopping took a little longer, but hey…

I consider myself to be a rather hectic person. Always worrying about this and that, trying to fit in as many things into as little time as possible. Being effective, that kind of person. Now quite obviously this generates stress, and I’m rarely able to slow down despite realising what’s going on.

The past two days have been different – yes, they have been planned out completely, but it all seemed… slower, more relaxed. Not that important. A lot more enjoyable. I’ve had this happen a couple of times, but never two days in a row, and it’s hard to describe and even harder without sounding like a moron. Work hasn’t really changed, but it still seemed easier.

In an examination in March last year they discovered that my blood pressure was elevated, not an alarming amount yet enough to put me on pills to put me back to what is considered good – they never really seemed to do anything or much. Because of that and because I don’t like the idea of having to take a pill every day for the rest of my life, I decided to experiment and just not take them for two weeks. Or rather, this was even doctor recommended at some point, to see how I fare without them, but intended to happen when my blood pressure is normal with them. From the looks of it I won’t be taking them anymore, as the last two days have been 130/80 and 125/75 respectively. Obviously I’ll continue to observe, and if the weather permits, I’ll continue to walk. I’m so glad the crosstrainer broke.

All Carrot No Stick!

Suddenly my motivation seems to be an unstoppable tidal wave, everything has fallen back into place and I am in weight loss mode again. This is of course only good news, being motivated makes it a lot easier to not have pizza cravings in the first place let alone have the will power to say no.

I have put Slimming World onto a shelf for the moment, I am still going to classes of course I like getting stickers although I have not told my consultant that I am not following the plan. Instead for the first time in my life I am actually just counting plain old calories. No complicated Syns or Points to work out and no food is free food, if it passes my lips it has a value.

So why the change? Well given my past battles with Binge Eating a diet that tells you that you can eat as much as you want of certain foods is both a gift and a nightmare. It is a gift, because if I am taken over then I can direct myself to better choices but the nightmare comes when I have no sense of portion control. So say a recipe serves 4 people, but it has zero syns I can often find myself eating all 4 portions because I can. This is the reason why I think in the past I have had 100% weeks and not lost weight because although I have followed the rules I haven’t stuck to the plan.  Still not making sense? Well a normal thin person has some kind of shut off mechanism that allows them to know when they are hungry and when they are full, someone with BED doesn’t always know when they have eaten enough, they just know they could eat more and sometimes even when it is physically painful they will carry on eating.

Counting calories is therefore helping me to contain that feeling, for example I have just finished my lunch it was delicious and sufficient, however I know that given the chance I would eat it another 2 times over. The other advantage of counting good old fashioned calories is that in the UK all food has to display the nutritional info on the packaging so there is none of this, oh I’ll eat it now and work out the points/syns later. I know there and then that eating that will mean I can’t eat anything else the rest of the day.

The downside is that I am not cooking myself at the moment but instead eating ready meals, for two reasons, the first is that as I just mentioned I know exactly how many calories should be in the meal and secondly being a single person it is an extra hassle cooking a recipe for 4 and limiting it to just me. The main thing to mention though is that I have been doing this for 10 days and I am still on track and enjoying it and as long as that is happening and I am losing the weight I will continue with this path. I’ll let you know how I get on tomorrow as it’s Wednesday again!

Resurfacing Memories

With the crosstrainer still broken, I needed (nay, wanted) to stick to my promise to go on walks instead. It didn’t work out often during the week due to the weather being horrible, but I managed on Saturday. It started off with an innocent uphill walk like last Sunday, up to the very top where you have a beautiful view over the valley where the city is, and over to Stuttgart. Made me wish I had a decent camera, the one that the iphone has is just a catastrophe. Oh well, my birthday is in October, maybe finally I’ve got an idea when people ask me what I’d like.

Anyway, once up there I wanted to turn right, basically going the same way as last week. Remembering that a bird decided to crap on my shirt down that way, and also that repetition is boring, I turned left instead. I grew up not too far from here, and in that direction were some fields and places where my father and I often had walks when I was a child. One reaching that place, finding it had changed indeed over the past, what, 15 years, I decided that the quarter where our old house is wasn’t completely out of reach and headed in that direction. And just kept walking and walking…

It’s funny how associative memory works, seeing these places I hadn’t visited in years suddenly brought back memories that I didn’t even know I had. The basement garage I was once trapped in, stories my father told me on those walks, the fence that “grabbed” the handlebar of my bicycle forcing a rather spectacular descent, the garden of a former friend with all the reeds, … I could go on for about an hour, especially if I was standing there right now. And it all made me aware of how long ago it has been, yet some things still feel like they had happened just yesterday. Some places changed tremendously in the past 6 years I hadn’t been there, others remain like I remember them from the time I was little.

And after what seemed like a whole day, I arrived back home, with more memories still popping into my head. And there, I realised that it was only 11:15 so I hadn’t even been our for two hours. I walked quite fast, and after the initial hill (which is about 150m or so higher than here) it’s all flat or been going down slightly, so… this must have been around 10km.
And it was awesome. I’ll certainly be doing this one again!