Thursday 15 January 2015

dietdevil: The feisty one can vote!

dietdevil: The feisty one can vote!: So today M turned 18!  I am not sure how that happened..........it seems like only yesterday that she was a noisy little person giving me s...

The feisty one can vote!

So today M turned 18!  I am not sure how that happened..........it seems like only yesterday that she was a noisy little person giving me sleepless nights..............oh wait, she still is!
 
I am handling it a lot better than I thought I would. I do not feel in any way redundant as a mother as I actually think that my kids are more demanding as they get older. If all goes according to their life plans, they will both be flying the nest this September so I am grinning and bearing the unpaid job of being their PA for the time being.
 
So what can I say about Martha?
 
She doesn't look like me but we definitely have similar personality traits - she is feisty, quite opinionated, a bit of a softy underneath it all and a bit of a madam. She also likes food.....the big difference being that she can eat what she wants and is tiny.
 
 
 
I am told by many that she has an excellent sense of humour and is 'really funny' , To be honest, this revelation may escape me a bit but I am not doubting it in any way.
 
She can now drive, she can now vote ( not UKIP ) and she is hoping to go to Bristol University to study law later this year. She can cook, she bakes beautiful cakes, she is well spoken , she is beautiful and I am very proud of her.
 
She will always be my baby and if she reads this she wont be happy.....but simply, that's how it is.
 
Every time she goes off out in the car I think to myself 'she's too small and young to be driving' but she is living her life and she has her whole life in front of her and this makes me happy. I am aware she likes to party  too and the odd thing is that I don't really worry about her on that score as she is more than capable of looking after herself.
 
So that's today's very mushy blog.
 
And one final word for all you younger Mums out there.................time really does fly, and they will be grown ups before you know it.
 

Wednesday 14 January 2015

Baked potatoes and Buddies.

So it would appear that I haven't blogged for a while. I am going to rectify this right now as I have missed spouting out my musings and I am sure some of you have missed me too.......haven't you?
 
In keeping with the original subject of this blog, I am still going to fat club and after having been at target for almost a year, I went  a bit mad last  week and decided to lower it by another half a stone.
 
TODAY I DID IT..... STICK A FORK IN ME, I AM DONE!
 
I am now around the weight that I was prior to getting pregnant for the first time in my spring chicken days. This was 23 years ago.  I can't go any lower because I like food and I would be miserable..... and I have loads of nice new clothes that I want to keep wearing. Thank you Ebay.
 
I have a few words of wisdom for anyone wanting to embark on a weight loss journey. I have written them in list style so it makes it easier to read whilst eating doughnuts etc.
 
1. All 'diets' work if you stick to them.
It doesn't matter if you do Slimming World, Weight Watchers, Atkins, 5:2, or cabbage soup. Everyone has their preferences and as long as you follow the guidelines you will shed your weight. You will not lose weight by eating the same sort of foods that made you overweight in the first place.
 
2. Some clothes are never going to fit you.
I bought a lovely silk tunic style top in September 2013 - a Joe Brown's one. It was a little 'snug' back then and 16 months later and 3 stone less of me, it still doesn't fit. It is still hanging in my wardrobe waiting to be rehomed.
 
3. Your diet is your business.
There are always going to be 'experts'  out there ( ie, friends that have never had a weight problem ) that will think they know better. Ignore them - they don't .
 
4. It's ok to buckle and have a pie.
You can never be 100% good all of the time. If you want a pie, have a pie. You'll probably wish you hadn't had a pie,  but sometimes you just have to. You're only human.
 
5. Don't think once you are at target you can eat lots of pies.
Obviously you can have the odd one ( see above ) .....but in my case it's best to avoid the tasty little buggers and just keep my eye on the ball.
 
And that's it really. No biggy, just common sense.
 
Today, after the euphoria of another target certificate a group of us went for lunch.
 
 
The common bond  about these people is  that we are all book group buddies and buddies in real life too. Leanne was also there but she chose to abstain from the photo and took it instead. We laughed, shrewed, chatted and ate baked potatoes and generally spent a lovely couple of hours in each other's company. It is now a bit of a habit to do this on a Wednesday after our weigh in and we all actually manage to stick to being fairly well behaved too. They ALWAYS give us several slabs of butter with our baked potatoes and we always hand it back ( some of us more willingly than others) and I don't know if everyone in the whole world knows this yet  but I am having a dry January again so I washed my lunch down with a delicious lime and soda. It was very 'refreshing'.
 
So what next for me?
 
I am going to carry on as I am but I shall be sneaking in the odd treat here and there. A couple of people have asked why I am still attending fat club if I am at target , and the reason being is that I am still up for the odd recipe and cooking hint but most of all, I genuinely like going. It is motivating ( amen) and everyone in that room can feel your pain when things haven't gone as well as you'd expected. It sounds horrendously cheesy, but it's true.
 
And of course, there's the baked potatoes to look forward to afterwards.