Let me eat cake!

In a further 'I have a wonderful husband' post, just to make sure you know how lovely he is (and maybe to make you sick a little), I post the following:

Yup. Today my lovely husband made cupcakes. Yummy! And delightfully put them in alternating coloured cupcake cases. Ah, the things that make me happy... ;o) While he needs to learn some piping skills (he'd be the first to admit that too, so I'm not doing him down, promise!), they looks very tasty. Especially that lovely large one two from the right... ;o)

From the top! On a cool plate he bought in New York. I don't care that they don't have perfectly formed piped icing. They look delicious.


Post script - and taste it too! Yum! ;o)

Getting back on track...

Haven’t blogged for a while, but with starting a new weight loss and fitness regime, I feel I ought to have somewhere to record my progress, and this is what this blog was supposed to be...

A lot has happened this year so far… Far too much to put in one post. To sum up though:

• I got married. This was brilliant. I had the best day, the sun shone and it was just fantastic.
• We didn’t go to Tokyo on honeymoon. Bastard BA greedy scumbags… (don’t get me started on this, I’m still very upset about it)
• We did go to New York instead. Which was brilliant. We got upgraded at our hotel, ate in a couple of fantastic restaurants (including 3* Daniel), ate lovely cupcakes that we travelled across the city for, and had fun with a stuffed knitted green dinosaur at the top of the Rock…
• We moved. Three times. First Flâneur moved to a flat in a new city in January, then I moved to join him there in April when we got back from New York. Then we moved everything to one flat in June. At one point we were renting three flats at once, and I couldn’t recommend that less! This was all very stressful and expensive, but at least we now live in one flat together.
• I got a new job. And now commute for 50 mins by train every day… Ah well, at least I’m not spending every other weekend travelling up and down the country anymore.

All this has not exactly made it easy to keep off the weight and keep up the exercise. I can’t remember the last time I went to the gym and my weight has crept back up to X-1 stone and 5 lb! Not good. Not good at all.

But now things are settling down I can finally start to sort this out. Finally I can try and get things back on track! Thanks to RF mentioning it in an email, I have started to watch what I eat by keeping an online food diary with Nutracheck (http://www.nutracheck.co.uk/). I have toyed with doing this before, but hadn’t found one that was as easy to use or as cheap. It took a while to get used to, but they give you a five day free trial, which was enough for me to realise that it could work. It’s quite an eye opener if you give it a go. You may sit and think (like me), I eat quite healthily, I don’t over eat, why am I not losing any weight? And then you write it all down (you have to be very honest) and you realise that actually you eat far more than you thought, calorie-wise, don’t exercise nearly enough, and that there are definite areas where improvement could be found! The things I like particularly about this online food diary are:

• You can easily create your own recipes. So if, like us, you make most meals from scratch, you can find out how many calories they contain based on the ingredients, rather than guessing. We even did it for some oaty biscuits Flaneur makes (which are quite calorific it turns out…).
• If gives suggested Food Swaps. So you can find similar things that have fewer calories and fat. For example I like a biscuit or two with my morning coffee. This week I have ginger snaps rather than bourbons, thanks to the food swap! (this feature can be amusing however, when what it wants to swap is already pretty low in calories and fat, and what it suggests instead is something with the same number of calories!)
• It shows you (very clearly) how many portions of fruit/veg you are eating.
• It lets you copy stuff easily into another day.
• It lets you easily add in exercise from a very comprehensive list of options (including exercise DVDs and the Wii fit!)

One downside might be that the database doesn’t contain a lot of foods from M&S, which is unfortunately where we do most of our food shopping (not because we are posh, but because it’s closest and we don’t have a car). There are probably some other plus/negative points too, but those are the ones I’ve got so far.

So that’s the eating getting under control (hopefully). I’ve done my first full week using it and I have lost 3lb. So far so good.

Now onto the exercise! Taking the train early every day doesn’t help. Living where we do doesn’t help (not great for running outside as there are no green spaces nearby and not really gyms that close by). Gyms being very expensive also doesn’t help (the nearest one to us is a Virgin Active, and tragically I cannot afford their prices). I did try and run outside with Flâneur a few weeks ago (ok 6 weeks ago), but to get the right distance I had to work out a very convoluted route that took us through some dodgy looking areas, so we abandoned that. He has since worked out another route that involves running round the block 3 times (the block in question being about a mile). Me, I don’t enjoy this so much and always feel like I’m holding him back when we go together as he’s quicker and fitter than me. And then it hit me. I was actually missing going to the gym. Missing it! I didn’t realise it had had this effect on me, but I realised that I had to go back. So I did a lot of looking around and found that my best option was Pure Gym. There’s one in town that is only 10-15 mins walk from one of the stations and then only 20 mins walk from our flat. They’re quite good as it’s only £15.99 a month and there’s no contract to tie you in, so if it doesn’t work out I can quit whenever. So on Sunday, I joined. And then last night I went. And I must say, it was great to go back. It was hard, very hard, and I didn’t do a lot (don’t want to push it on the first go after such a long gap), but I did enjoy it and now today I don’t ache (very much) and have a great desire to go back. What I did was:

Treadmill:

2 mins walk at 5.5 kmp
5 mins run at 8 kmp
2 mins walk at 5.5 kmp
5 mins run at 8 kmp (oh. my. god. this hurt.)
2 mins walk at 5.5 kmp
2 mins cool down at 3.3 kmp
Total: 18 mins, 2.2km.

Cross Trainer:

20 mins on manual setting, going around 6.5kmp, swapping from level 1 to level 4 and back every 2 mins. Around 3km total.

A good slow build up. I had wanted to do 30 mins on the cross trainer, but it hurt too much and I thought it best not to over do things. It also took me about 6 mins of relentless movement on the one setting to realise that it would be better to chop it up into chunks of different levels, and that really made the time past.

I shall try and ramp it up each time I go, but it certainly feels good to be back.

Latest update

After a slightly rubbish week for exercise last week, I am determined to make it better this week. After a good start last week at the gym, my life then ran away with me and I managed no other time to do any serious exercise. On Tuesday evenings I teach an evening class in Palaeography, so no chance for doing anything on a Tuesday night. On Wednesday I had an appointment with my dress maker (very very exciting. Fabric is all chosen, design is being finalised, and she wont really start work on it until the new year, giving me loads of time to shift a bit more weight). On Thursday there was a do on a work, which netted me some much needed flexi time. I had considered running home from the office as I had all my kit with me and it's nearly 2 miles, but after a couple of glasses of wine that was so not happening (did help me power walk home though)!! I suppose I could have done something on Friday, but I was way too knackered by Friday... ;o)

On Saturday Flâneur wasn't really up to going for a run as he's still pretty bogged down with a hideous cold. It was a beautiful day though (at that point!) and he had promised to get cheese for Wastrel and SAM who we were visiting that evening. So we decided what the hell, we'll walk to Waitrose. It's a good 5 mile round trip from our flat, but it was a really nice walk and we got some lunch in a coffee shop on the way home, so it wasn't so bad. And the walk will have done us both the world of good!! When we got home I spent the afternoon making apple chutney with apples from W&S's apple trees. There were about 2 or 3 different types of apple and it made a lovely sweet and tasty chutney. I was very pleased with it in the end. The last batch of chutney I made (with apples from their last house) I thought was a bit too vinegary, but this stuff was much much better, in my opinion!

Chutney made we then headed on up to The House (W&S's place) with BC and HH, armed with two jars of said chutney and a truck load of cheese. It was Halloween and Wastrel and SAM had done a wonderful job of making their house spooky and full of creepy things! It was really superb! A warm welcome and a tasty green drink (orc's blood, apparently) greeted us and a good crowd of guests. I was pretty tired and flakey and headed to bed around midnight (but did appreciate the brazier and toffee apples before going). Flâneur slunk into bed around 3:30, having joined in apple bobbing and poker and more wine, and declaring my friends a bad influence before snoring away... I'm sure he needed no influence or arm twisting to stay up! To say he didn't look so great on Sunday would be putting it mildly and he was nearly entirely responsible for us going to bed at 9:30 last night! Yes, I know, 9:30!

So, back at work today (boo hiss) and then was off in the gym this evening. Oh, and today was my weighing day... I was X-2 stones 9lb 7/8. Which is ok. Not great, but better than last week! And means I'm back to having lost 3lb in four weeks. Which is not so good... But hopefully it will pick up from now on. And if I really am going to keep weighing myself on a Monday (rather than Sunday), well I was actually X-1 stone 0lb on the Monday (the day after the official start day when I weighed X-2 stone 12lb and some). So that would mean I've actually lost 5 pounds, which would be much better. Who's adjudicating this thing??

Anyway, yes the gym. It was a bit quieter tonight (perhaps the students are away?) and I got to do both the treadmill and the crossramp without any waiting around. I was extremely pleased with my treadmill performance tonight. I didn't think it was going to be that great as the going was pretty tough at the beginning. I thought I was going to have to stop and walk at one point and decided I should at least try and do 10 minutes before walking, and as I wasn't sooo bad at that point, I just kept going. So after my initial 1 min of walking while I fiddled about with the settings on the machine I managed to run for a whole 25 minutes, straight! Go me! Over two miles... I was doing it at 7.7km/h too - gently upping the speed. I'm looking to get to 8km/h soon, but need to do it gently rather than ramp straight up to it. I think that's sensible. I don't want to go up in speed but loose my time in doing it...

So my stats for tonight are:

Total work out time: 68 mins

Total calories burned: 767.6

Total distance walked/run/strode: 8.18 km

Woo hoo! Better than last Monday, just, and when you add the fact that I walked to work this morning (in a good 35 mins), hot footed it to the gym (a good 20 mins) and then home again (another 20 mins) I ended up having exercised off a lot more calories than I had eaten today (before dinner). Which is good for weight loss at least!

Right, I'm off to stretch again now before my legs seize up!

Most bizarre

When I stood on the scales before my shower, after the gym, I mysteriously had lost those two pounds I was whinging about earlier. How did that happen?? This morning I weighed X-2 stones, 11 lb and 3/4. That was at 7am. This evening, I weighed X-2 stones, 9 lb and 7/8. That was at 7pm. How does one drop 2 pounds (or thereabouts) over the course of the day? Weird. I have eaten:

Breakfast:

1 muffin with poached egg

Mid-morning snack:

1 bag of Pret-A-Manger salted popcorn

Lunch:

1 Pret-A-Manger Italian chicken salad (which was delicious)

1 apple

1 pear

Pre-gym snack:

1 banana

Post-gym snack:

About a dozen mini twiglets (a great whole-grain snack!)

So it's not like I've eaten nothing today. I have, on the other hand, drunk over 2 litres of water. Perhaps, as I said earlier, this is the key. Maybe gone now is any water retention I had. Perhaps whining and getting a supportive boost helped? I suspect not, but I should look on the bright side that I am back where I was, and I suppose I should just be pleased.

Gave myself a pretty tough work out at the gym tonight. I wanted to see if I could run a distance this evening, rather than an amount of time. The answer? No. I am better trying to run a certain amount of time on the treadmill I think. I was trying to run for 2 miles, as I nearly did that last week. I managed 1 mile before I had to walk for a bit. It was too tough. I probably hadn't stretched enough when I got to the gym though. As I've said before, it's not a short stroll to the gym! But I did manage 16 minutes flat out at 7.6km/h, 1 minute of walking and then another 10 minutes of running, which is still pretty good (and 1 minute more of running, technically, than last week). With a five minutes walk at 5.5km/h and at 3% to cool down, it was tough, but good. I even managed the cross trainer too. And ramped that up a bit. Again it was a tough work out, but I felt I needed it and it felt good to do. Here are the stats (the boring bit):

Total work out time: 68 mins

Total calories burned: 753.4 (marvellous!)

Total distance walked/run/strode: 8.13 km (astounding!)

I'm pretty pleased with that, and generally feeling happier. Baked potato and salad for tea and today has turned out to not be so bad after all!

Happy happy...

Back after a fabulous weekend away I was a little trepidations at getting on the scales this morning. We arrived up at the house on Friday night to lovely cooking smells as Wastrel was cooking up a delicious chilli. There were 10 of us for dinner and it was no mean feat considering her family had just departed that morning and both her and SAM were a little hungover and exhausted for entertaining a different 10 people the night before! I was mightily impressed with them both, I must say. Dinner was delicious and there was good chat and wine. I have become something of a light weight when it comes to alcohol as I don’t drink so much or so often any more, so I made sure I only had a couple of glasses so as to not over do it. (There are also a large number of calories in wine, which is not good for those of us watching our weight!). The chilli and rice was very filling so I didn’t feel that I was being virtuous when I had just a small slice of cake and single spoon of ice cream – I’m not sure I could have fitted more than that in! More chat and gift giving made for a very lovely evening and as we were all pretty knackered a fairly early night as we all toddled off to bed around 11:30-midnight! Oh, so old…

On the Saturday we were all up fairly breezily and out of the house by about 11 to go for a walk. We wanted one that was around the hour/2 hour mark and coincided with a pub for lunch. We had been recommended a pub (the Meikleour inn) by one of the neighbours and it had been suggested that there would be two walks for us to do – one to a Neolithic dyke and the other down to the river. When we got there, we found the first walk and set off. It was very flat and fairly pleasant, but nothing much to write home about. We did walk for about an hour, but it wasn’t quite the sort of walk we had been expecting. On enquiring at the pub we found that there was no second walk as you couldn’t get down to the river due to it all being private property. Bah! We had a little wander round the village (including taking in a very odd little craft fair that, in Flâneur’s words, smelt like a jumble sale). In the end we decided just to cut our losses and go to the pub instead, and get lunch earlier than intended.

It was a perfectly pleasant pub, with a nice local ale (which, to the scorn of some of the others, I had in a half shandy!), and the food was nice enough. I think those of us who went for the more traditional pub grub – the fish, the scampi, the burger – had a better eating experience as the meat for the others wasn’t quite cooked how it was requested. I had the battered fish and chips, which was very lovely, but a little naughty while I’m trying to lose weight!! Saturday afternoon and evening was then spent playing games before eating yet more food. They had got a lovely big bit of pork in to roast, and it was delicious (especially the crackling, hmm….). Having had a fairly big lunch I did make sure I just had a little of dinner, rather than a greedy amount, but I think I ended up not applying this to the roast potatoes. Which were yum. Ah well, in for a penny… HMcM had made a cake – her first – so we had that for dessert with yet more of the ice cream (which I passed on. Not the cake, I had cake and very nice it was too).

The real killer of Saturday night though was the booze. I haven’t drunk that much wine for a very long time… We were playing poker (10 of us again!) and my glass just kept getting refilled. And then there was whisky… Oh my poor head. I did not bad in the poker, getting in to the final four with Coco, HL and Wastrel. Coco and Wastrel had A LOT more chips than HL and I, who were down to our stake and about a pound. I had decided that I was going to just play with the winnings and not my stake when I got up to that amount, but a fit of bravado, a stupid thought and too much wine made me go all in on a pair of 9s and I lost it all to Wastrel… Ah well, it was fun and I don’t regret it! We didn’t get to bed until around 3, 3:30 and even though I had stopped drinking wine around midnight and had been drinking plenty of water all night, I felt pretty dreadful yesterday. It didn’t help that I barely slept due to alcohol headaches and period pains, but I have not been hungover for a while and yesterday I remembered why not. Urgh. Last night Flâneur and I went to bed at 9 (asleep by 10:30) and boy was ever an early night needed! I also haven’t slept through the night for a few months now, and it was bliss! If only I didn’t need to be totally exhausted to do that…

But, as yesterday was supposed to be a weigh in day on this challenge but I was away from my scales, I did it this morning. As I said, with a little trepidation after the excesses of the weekend. I was more than delighted when I saw the results:

X-2 stone, 9 lb and ¾

Hurrah! Happy happy happy… This officially means that I have lost a grand total of 1 & ½ stones over all so far, since starting all this in March/April of last year. Woo hoo! It’s taken me ages to get to this point, but it’s great to see it finally drifting down rather than the dreadful plateau I had been used to of late. It also means that so far in the challenge, after 2 week, I have lost just over 3 pounds, which whilst not being as much as I would like, is a really good start.

Off to the gym tonight, got to keep up the good work! (Especially as the weekend’s calories are probably just taking their time to distribute round my body!!).

New Challenge

Or what Flâneur calls a ‘foolish bet’. I like to think of it as not foolish, but a kick up the backside… Which is why I call it a ‘challenge’ rather than a ‘bet’. Basically Wastrel has set herself, BC, Coco (CMcM), and myself a weightloss bet, as we are all desirous of shifting the pounds and clearly need some sort of incentive to do it! You may recall Wastrel and I have done one of these before and it didn’t work out so well for me… I think this is why Flâneur refers to it as a foolish bet.

Anyway, the bet (or challenge) as it stands, for me at least, (there are slightly different terms for the others who had already been partaking of one of these and are on a double or quits), is that I must lose 1 stone (14 measly pounds) in 11 weeks.

As I weighed in at X-2 stones 12lb and 7/8 on the morning of 4 October, by 19 December I must weigh in at at least X-3 stones and 12 lb (and presumably some ounces).

Eek!

I’m not very good at these things…

The forfeit, for not loosing 1 stone is to lose TV (hell, hell!) for 6 months! 6 months…. Swoon… I am lucky, that I do have a bit of lee-way in that if I manage to lose 8 pounds or more then the forfeit will be only 3 months. Well, that’s alright then. (Sobs quietly). Flâneur (unhelpfully) suggested that he could take the TV to Manchester with him. To say I was not impressed with this would be putting it lightly.

It’s quite an incentive to do well, I must say, particularly with my dear love away most of the week from January… Although I’m sure I will be all the better for relying only on the radio…. But far far better for losing that pesky stone!!

After consuming vast quantities of cake on Sunday (it was my birthday and lovely Flâneur made many fabulous items of baking for afternoon tea (for as many people as we could seat, so sorry if you didn’t get an invite it wasn’t personal, just practical). It was fab, and I got lots of lovely gifts and had a fabulous time), I am off to what I like to think is a fairly good start now.

On Sunday I was helped in that I was so full of sugar that we had barely any dinner (just some oven chips, which are surprisingly good for you). On Monday Flâneur and I both had a day off so we started the day after breakfast (two boiled eggs for me, a bacon sarnie for him) with a run. We did our usual 2.4ish mile route and managed it in 30 mins 29 seconds (well, 30 mins smack on for Flâneur who always sprints off on the final straight home). I was very pleased with it all as we were pretty much doing 5:1 run:walk ratio. Hurrah! Getting slowly better… Slow being the operative word! I think we’ll need to up the distance soon, but perhaps when we’ve upped the running time a bit more. We then wandered around town (at least another 3-4 miles of walking), getting some converse trainers and walking shoes for me, and a suit and some running shoes for him. Finally he has his own running shoes and will not be borrowing an old pair of mine. We went to Run 4 It on Lothian Road and the man in there was so lovely and helpful, making Flâneur walk and run on a treadmill to assess him and then suggesting some good shoes. He came away with some Saucony shoes and a hole in his bank account! ;o) We did have lunch out, which was not so good, but only a light dinner of salmon and spinach (in low fat crème fraiche) with pasta. Oh, and a slice of carrot cake. That’s healthy right? Oh… the carrot cake… hmmm…

Today, against my better judgement, I got up when the alarm went off at 6:15 (well, after 5 minutes of psyching myself up), had my poached egg breakfast and then went to the pool! For the first time in a month… And it was really really busy. Which I don’t like. Boo… There were a couple of annoying slow people in my lane, which made me think that people in general just don’t swim in the appropriate lane in that pool. I was swimming in the first slow lane, and to be fair to the slow people, there was no where else for them to go. The people in the other slow lane are much faster than me and should probably be in the middle lane. We should probably all just shift across one. I feel bad when I overtake people, like I’m hustling them or something. Anyway, I managed my 40 lengths, even though it was hard, and did it all in the very respectable time of 31.53. Hurrah! I thought it would be much slower than that. Checking back in my spreadsheet the last time I went was 1 Sept and my time was 33 mins. Double Hurrah! My time today was on a par with the sorts of times I was doing back in July when I was going much more regularly. Phew.

Anyway, I’m rambling today and this is long enough. Check back in on my progress reader(s), cheer me on, chastise me when I’m failing… I know Wastrel will be, well checking up on me at least!! ;o)


* apologies for all the asides and asides to asides… I’m very tired today and my brain keeps wandering off…

Not achieving goals...

Yup, I am officially rubbish at them. The appointment with the dress maker is on Monday coming and I have failed to lose five pounds (and am unlikely to do so by then). In fact, I've pretty much failed to lose any and mostly put one on. Harumph. I have now lost that one again, putting me back at my start point, and if I'm very good I may loose another one by Monday (finger's crossed) but that will mean I have lost a grand total of 1 measly pound in 4 weeks.

Ok, so I wasn't trying my hardest, I must admit, so have no-one to blame but myself. In fact even after the lovely meal Flâneur cooked for Wastrel, SAM and me last week (stilton stuffed pork wrapped in Iberico Ham with little boiled potatoes and aspargus cooked in butter, followed by lots and lots of cheese, wine and port), I managed to be 1lb lighter the next day. How does that happen?? Delayed reaction, I know, but even so... I have been pretty rubbish on the exercise front, failing to get up and swim, failing to go to the gym after work, even failing to get up in time to walk to work most days...

That was until this week! Ha ha! I realise it's only Wednesday, but even so, this week is already going better than the last two-three put together I think!! Admittedly I've had a bit more energy this week and not been quite so dog tired, but I also made sure that I just did stuff anyway as it always makes me feel better in the long run. So on Monday I managed to walk to work and went to the gym after work. At the gym I managed to run a whole 15 minutes on the treadmill without dying (at 7.5km/h), walking for 2 minutes at the beginning at 4km and 4 minutes at the end for 4. I was most impressed with how quickly I managed to recover, not just my breathing, but my heart rate too. The gym had great equipment that has integrated heart rate monitoring bits (I realise lots of gyms probably have these, but it's still fairly new to me for them to either work or be anywhere near accurate). I get a bit obsessive at checking my heart rate, partly to pass the time, and by the end of the run it was way up in the 160s. But after a couple of minutes back down to walking it went back down to the 120s. I was pretty pleased with this. Then it was on to my usual routine on the cross trainer. (See previous posts, it never seems to change!). In total I exercised for about 53 minutes and burned off around 550 cals. Pretty cool.

Tuesday was a bit of a wash out as I managed to neither walk to, nor from work, but we shall gloss over that... Tonight, however, was a lovely sunny evening. The sort that cannot help but put a smile on your face and a skip in your step (got to love September sunshine). So I thought we should go for a run. When I got in Flâneur was in the process of running a bath, but I managed to persuade him to come out for a run with me anyway (he could always put more hot water in when he got back). I'm glad I did as I think it probably did us both some good! He's still not had any holiday this year (I'm sure that's not legal) and it's really getting to him, so anything I can do to distract him helps. Even if it is going for a run! I felt really great on the run tonight and think all the gym work is helping. I certainly felt much much better than last time we went and we managed to up our run/walk ratio to 3:1 for most of the run. Hurrah! At one point we even did 5 mins of running. This is a big deal for us, so I'm very chuffed! I did nearly want to die on the next stretch of running (which is up hill in a gentle but steady and killing way), but who cares, I had just run for 5 whole minutes!

Yes, I know I can do more than that in the gym, but it's entirely different having your pace regulated and running on an entirely flat surface that is the treadmill. Anyway, I am extremely pleased with myself (and with Flâneur, who came out despite not really wanting to) and now just waiting for these endorphins to stop flooding my brain with that post exercise euphoria so I can collapse on the sofa in peace!!

Sister Act 2

Yep, I’m back in the habit (boom, boom). After a fabulous weekend where I ate far too much (more later) I was back at the pool both yesterday and today. Phew. Partly this is in reaction to the large amount of food eaten and partly this is because I really needed to get back at it having been away from the pool for two weeks.

It was tough going and I felt like a lead weight for the first 10 lengths or so, both yesterday and today… Yesterday was worse as I thought ‘I’m never going to get through all 40 of these...’ so difficult it seemed. But as usual it picked up around the 20 mark and soon the 40 were done and not in too bad a time, either (32.55.94). It was very quiet in the pool, which is lovely, with just a few other slow swimmers to start. A couple of them looked like they were just about saving themselves from drowning, so dreadful were their attempts to do front crawl, and one old chap joined the lane, forcing me over to the next lane as he swims so sloooowwwly… But luckily the other slow lane wasn’t so busy and I even had it to myself for the last few lengths.

I had to stop myself from slowing down because of this (no-one else there to push me to swim faster!), but by the end of the 40 I felt pretty good and because there was no-one else in the lane I thought I’d give myself two lengths of backstroke to finish off. These weren’t recorded in my time, but a nice way to wind down after the 40 lengths of breaststroke. I swim backstroke faster (and possibly better) than the breaststroke, but can be a little erratic as I fail to swim in a straight line. This is why I will only do it when there is no-one else around… I do enjoy it though and it can be quite a work out so it’s a good thing to add on when I can. Today was pretty similar and again after my 40 lengths I was able to fit in the two of backstroke, which was great. Not such a good time (33.40.93), but I figured the important thing was I went.

I did want to stay in the pool yesterday though. It was partly a general reluctance to go to work after a nice long weekend and partly a love of the water and an enjoyment of what I was doing. It was so sunny yesterday that work was the last place I wanted to be going when I got out the pool. Particularly, as I said, after a nice long weekend.

Wastrel and SAM had decided to mark the longest day by holding a BBQ on Sunday and a vigil (of sorts) on Saturday night to see in the longest day. Flâneur and I imposed ourselves upon them on Friday night, along with RSL and Wastrel’s brother and thus the feasting started. Wastrel and SAM’s neighbour but one had seen a deer nibbling at his garden and, we were told, ‘shot it out the bedroom window’. Their direct neighbour then butchered said deer (you’ve got to love the countryside) and a chunk of it was then given to W&S. This was lovingly cooked for us into a Venison Wellington, which was delicious, accompanied by yummy roast spuds and asparagus. Yum! I tried to not eat too much of it, but failed by taking seconds and eating goodness knows how many of the little crispy potatoes. Hmm… Ah well I thought, it’s all tasty…

On Saturday Wastrel had organised some activities for the six of us and up early(ish) we went off to the Hilton at Dunkeld for a spot of shooting. We were split up into two groups, Wastrel going with the boys as the tallest girl, and RSL, SAM and I in the other group. We had a really great instructor who was patient and made sure we knew exactly what we should be doing before loading any shells into the gun. My brain still freaked a little every time I went to pull the trigger, but we all managed very respectable scores from the 25 shots we got.

Next was lunch in Aberfeldy (a huge venison burger and chips for me) which was surprising quick… followed by boating and fishing on Loch Tay. Mostly this was boating with line dangled out the back (with a good 20-30 mins of poor Wastrel trying to untangle the lines that RSL and I had managed to mangle good and proper) as we failed to catch anything at all. But it was a very pleasant afternoon and lovely to be out on the water. I’m just a water-baby me.

Wastrel’s brother had declared earlier (and whenever asked what he wanted to do) that we should have afternoon tea so we piled off to Kinnaird Hotel after handing the boat back. It’s a beautiful country house hotel and very relaxing. We had to wait a bit for tea, but it was worth it when it came. It really put some of the Edinburgh hotels to shame. Between two there were 6 fingers of sandwich, about five different types of cake and shortbread. I think we should have had scones too, but were told they were all done for the day. It was all delicious and (nearly) all demolished too. Definitely recommended.

(Image taken from Kinaird Hotel website)

We hightailed it back to the house from there to meet HAL and BC who were joining us for the next bit of the weekend. BC stayed all too briefly, as he had work stuff to do, but it was nice to catch up with HAL who has had a manic few weeks with work. A brazier was lit and more food put out (cold foods this time, which I really should not have looked at let alone had two helpings of having already eaten 3 meals that day… Urgh) and we sat outside enjoying the warm night air, the warmth of the brazier and each other’s company. There was chat, singing and eventually we all turned in after a lovely, tiring, sunny day.

Sunday, then, was the BBQ itself. We awoke to a beautiful day and I helped SAM in the kitchen with salads and stuff while Wastrel, HAL and Flâneur made an effigy out of bread and hay to be burned later (a sort of wicker man who was named ‘Woodwood’ for obvious reasons). The party proper started at noon and we were soon joined by an assortment of friends and neighbours of Wastrel and SAM’s (where it was nice to finally put faces to names). There was more good food (we are always so spoiled when we visit), piñata to bash, and an effigy burned. The sun shone, my back burnt and a good time was had by all. Thankfully just when we were all getting just a little too roasty toasty with the heat of the sun (we live in Scotland for crying out loud, not the South of France) the clouds came over to cool us a little. Most folks left by 6 and those of us remaining wandered down to the pub in the village for dinner. Like we needed dinner…. By this time my poor stomach was groaning from all the meat I had consumed over the weekend (we live a relatively meat free life usually) but that didn’t stop me having lasagne for tea…

I was quite surprised when I got home on Monday (after a lovely walk in yet more sunshine at Little Glen Garr and a delicious lunch at Gleneagles Hotel) to find that I had only put on about 2lbs with all this excess. And while that sort of puts me back to where I was two weeks ago, a healthy dose of swimming and vegetables this week will hopefully put me back on track. No regrets though – I’d do it all again without hesitation! ;o)

Feeling Great!

That’s always a good start to the day, isn’t it? I work up earlyish and thought – I don’t feel too tired, I can lie in a bit longer, and I’m quite prepared for the day ahead. Which hardly ever happens! No doubt the day will come back to bite me in the backside, but at least that’s a good start.

I also stood on the scales, and while it didn’t show me 2 lbs gone from last Friday ( :o( ) I did see:

X-2 stone 13 lb

So exactly 1lb lighter than last Friday. But seeing as I went up to X-1 stone and 1.25 lb on Monday, that is kind of 2 and a ¼ pounds since Monday…* Which I’m delighted about! Just goes to show that the eating more sensibly (a lot more fruit and veg, a lot less crisps) and moving around more (I have walked to work 4 days out of 5 and walked back all 5, and I aint strolling when I do that, plus the run on Monday, swim on Tuesday) really does have a positive effect.

The hunger I have experienced this week has not been so much fun, but my stomach just needs to get used to a more sensible amount of food. For too long it had expected lots for lunch. Not any more!! But don’t worry, I’m not starving myself, just eating more sensibly and probably about the amount you would eat!

So, today, the sun is shining, the Yen is climbing (making our honeymoon next year cheaper) there is a skip in my step and I’m wearing a skirt I’ve not worn in ages because it hasn't really fit properly for about 2 years. :o) I am a happy lady.



*Don’t worry, I know that I’m counting this 6 lbs in 3 weeks thing from last Friday and therefore have another 5lb to go in the next two weeks…

Plodding along

Well, the weight-loss challenge isn't go so well so far.  On Friday morning I weighed:

X-1 stone 0 lb.

This morning I weighed:

X-1 stone 1 lb 1/4oz!!

Yup.  The start to my weight-loss challenge was to put on 1lb or so, rather than loose anything.  So I had to do something to kick start this thing.  Eating lots of lovely fish on Saturday night (a lovely meal out with Wastrel, SAM, Flâneur and HAL) clearly did not help as much as I'd hoped.  All the other rubbish I also ate over the weekend probably didn't either.  

So today, Monday, I have had a much better food day:

Breakfast: a multigrain bagel with a poached egg

Snack: a portion of blueberries 

Lunch: a small salad (no dressing, basically just rocket, spinach, watercress leaves with cucumber and four pomodorino tomatoes) with houmous and two small toasted pitta.  Plus a bag of Frazzles because I was really hungry!!

Snack: banana and an apple (about an hour apart), followed by another small toasted pitta when I got home

All not bad going so far, I don't think.  Healthy (apart from the frazzles, but they do only have 110 cals per bag), and a fair few of my daily portions of fruit/veg, which is a miracle!!  

To make the day even more healthy I also walked to work (35 mins or so, 1.9 miles) and then walked home again (about the same).  And then when I got home, guess what?  I actually went out again (after consuming the small pitta) and dragged my carcass out for a jog/walk kind of a run.  This is basically always what I mean by a 'run'!  It helped that it was nice and sunny out...

As I've not run for (quickly checks back in old posts) about 5 months and have pretty much done no real exercise to speak off for the last two weeks due to a hideous cold, I thought it was best to take it easy.  It's always so depressing that I have to start back at zero again because I never keep it up... I went for my usual route (2.41 miles according to mapmyrun, 2.7 according to my i-pod!) and did a 2:1 minute jog:walk ratio.  I made sure I kept that up consistently throughout the 'run', which I figured was better than pushing myself too hard and discouraging myself from going again!  I did about 10.5 reps of this to cover the route making a total of 32.40 minutes.  Which I'm pretty chuffed with as looking back at the last run I did (17 Jan) that's a pretty similar time.  Yay!   

I looked suitably bright red when I got back, sweaty, thirsty, but I felt great!  My muscles will stiffen up over the course of the evening, guaranteed, by I remembered to stretch them out before going out (treated my walk home as a warm up) and then again when I got home, so hopefully they wont be too bad.  I'm hoping to get back to the pool tomorrow too, seeing as my nose has finally stopped running.  Go me!  ;o)

Hat-trick

No nothing to do with football or millinery, but rather a note to the fact that I actually dragged my self out of bed 3 times this week to go swimming before work. Well, on Thursday Flâneur tried to drag me, literally by the ankles, but I was getting up anyway, so it doesn’t count as coercion.

I failed to go at all last week while off on leave, despite us setting the alarm early one morning… I just couldn’t do it! Thankfully Flâneur didn’t try to make me and let me just drift off back to sleep. I did manage to put about 3 or 4 pounds on over the course of the week (1 week!!), but it seems to be edging off again. Why does it never come off as quickly as it goes on??

That’s the problem with weeks off though, you loose your routine and all your good intentions go out the window (well, mine do). Although we walked quite a lot during the week, it just wasn’t enough to counteract all the extra eating I seemed to be doing… And having done well with my Easter chocolate (not getting much and then making it last over a few days, rather than scoffing it in one go), this was then scuppered by the future sisters-in-law giving us more!! I tried to let Flâneur eat most of it, but still managed about 100 grams in one day. Urgh.

We did manage a good day on Sunday to try and make up for it though. The weather was beautiful and we decided that we should be out and about in it, rather than stuck inside in our dark flat. We had wanted to picnic during our week off, but the weather stopped us, so it was nice to have an opportunity to pack some sandwiches into our picnic bag and head into the park. We had fruit kicking about that we hadn’t been eating too, so we put that in to make it a more virtuous lunch. We had been intending to walk in the park anyway, but decided that rather than going our usual route through the valley between Arthur’s Seat and the Crags, we’d go up, and (taking frequent breaks for me to catch my breath, Flâneur is something of a mountain goat when it comes to this stuff) we got up there in not too bad a time. We were so near the top that I declared that it would be rude to come all that way and not get to the top of the Seat so up we went! It was a glorious view (through all the other folk up there) and very satisfying to get to the top. The picnic was eaten half way back down and a thoroughly good day it was.

And then back down to Earth with a bump on Monday as I was back up at 6:30 to go to the pool and then back at work. Man I was grumpy that morning!! Still, I managed a fast swim (very surprising as I felt like a lead weight for the first 10 lengths), which I kept up on Tuesday and Thursday of this week too! There were some annoying people in the pool, but it didn’t seem to make any difference to my times. There was one girl whose breast-stroke technique was really lovely, text book stuff, but boy did she swim sllloooooowwwwwllly…. I ended up nearly swimming on top of her twice and eventually ended up swapping to the other slow lane (the one with the scary faster people in it!) to stop myself getting truly infuriated! I think that’s why my time was so good on Monday – I was forced to swim harder and faster for the last 8-10 lengths by the pressure of other people!! She was back on Tuesday, but we managed to keep enough of a distance between us that she didn’t bother me so much. Yesterday was fantastic though. A really great swim. By the middle of my 40 lengths I really felt ‘in the zone’ and it was just me and the water and I was just cutting through it without much real thought. Beautiful. Another annoying person (who didn’t know what stick to the right of the lane meant and nearly crashed into both me and another swimmer), but it didn’t seem to matter. Just me and the water. Bliss. Rather than bore you with all the stats (which I buggered up on Monday anyway) here are my over all times for the three swims:

Monday: 31.54.82
Tuesday: 32.20.15
Wednesday: 31.52.53

Top quality stuff. Very happy. :o)

Easter Weekend

Easter Monday and the pool is shut. And yet I felt a bit listless this morning - I think I actually missed it! Heavens! Am off this week, so getting out to swim might be something of a challenge, but Flâneur is determined that I should head out at least one morning this week, if only so he doesn't have to put up with my tetchiness from lack of a good swim!!  ;o)

I'll need to do it though - I'm sooo close now to falling on to the other side of a stone number, sitting as I am around X-1 stone and 0-1 lb for the last week or so...  So frustrating!!  I really really want to get to that next number down.  Not sure I can afford a treat for getting there this time, but I'm so close now that maybe an incentive is needed!  Especially as I'm back on the chocolate now.

For the last 9 years I have given chocolate and sweets up for Lent.  Not for a particularly religious reason, but I like the opportunity it gives me to test my will power over a six week period!  Temptation is often put in my way (the year I was in Dublin the girls on my course tried to persuade me the St Patrick's day didn't count...), but it's important to me to not let any small slither of the sweet stuff to pass my lips regardless of the excuse for a 'day off' it.  We're talking will power here.  And every year it's quite hard, but I do manage it.  

I am determined this year, however, not to fall off the wagon with the huge whump that I usually do once Lent is over. So no cheap chocolate for me now... or something...  I don't miss chocolate so much after the first couple of weeks, especially as most of it is just so sweet and sickly. But what I like is some good quality chocolate and all that I really need is a little of the good stuff every now and again. So out with the Cadbury's and in with the specialised stuff!  Particularly Amedi. Yum! Flâneur was given the instruction just to get me a small Easter egg, preferably not one of the sickly usual ones. He always tries to get me a nice one anyway, so my little Charbonel and Walker egg with three of their champagne truffles was just superb!  I did eat it all yesterday, so maybe that stone marker will be a little further off yet...

I got him some mini eggs from Coco de Bruntsfield, a lovely little Edinburgh chocolate shop.  They do some lovely lovely interesting flavours in good quality chocolate, and I picked us up a bar of their rose and cracked black pepper 64% chocolate too, which was tasty. It's nice to just have a couple of squares of something really nice rather than stuff my face with something that is largely unsatisfying! But I'm sure there are readers out there who will disagree with me...

Chocolate is not the only food that has been consumed lately though (and I've still not finished all my Coco champane truffle mini eggs that Flâneur also bought me, so spoiled!). On Friday we had HAL and BC over for dinner, where I cooked (for once!). Knowing that we wouldn't have an Easter dinner on Sunday, I did roast lamb, cooked to the recommendation of the Butcher, who was much nicer than the last one I dealt with. He suggested rather than stuffing it, which had been my intention with the lovely piece of shoulder than I bought, I marinaded it over night with fresh garlic and rosemary and salt and pepper and a little oil. So simple, so tasty! And a really lovely piece of meat... Did the good old roast spuds, with asparagus and green beans...

Hmm... making myself hungry here!  It all worked very well and we finished it off with a Lemon and Prosecco cake that Flâneur had made (and will make again! God it was good... and light!) and some dessert wine that I had been given as a birthday present last year (Quady Elusium Black Muscat, just delicious!). We had good chats on a variety of topics and had an all round good evening! HAL and BC left after midnight, so I think they had a good time too!  

On Saturday we were out at RL's for dinner - and it was a proper dinner party! With people we didn't know so well and everything!  As well as meeting the fabled G, RL's boyfriend of 6 months, we were joined by two other of her friends, one whom I had met before briefly when living with her and the other who I had not. We'd not been to R's flat either, which I really liked.  It's not massive but has good character. Loved the living room (which will be R's bedroom when the flat's owner comes back from NZ next month, which is almost a shame as it's a great living room) and it's nice to see her somewhere with central heating again!!  We'd been expecting a heavy dinner again (hence no plans for a big Easter Sunday dinner), and were pleasantly surprised to be served fish! Both as a starter and as a main. It was all so good. She'd gone to so much effort, and we had a really good time. The company was great, the conversation flowed and so did the wine.

God my head was fuggy on Sunday morning. I really just can't drink more than a couple of glasses of wine anymore... Especially not white! I can't remember how much I had, but I wasn't much use to anyone on Sunday!  We didn't get home until after 2 either - can't do those sort of late nights either! urgh... Still, it was a great evening and we really should do it more often...

Swim little fishie, swim…

Yes, I’m still doing it, I’m still getting up early and heading out to the pool to get my kilometre of breast stroke in before work. Phew, but it’s hard sometimes I can tell you. Not necessarily the getting up, I’m getting used to that and going to bed earlier certainly helps, but, oh, ok the getting up… Some mornings it’s just impossible. But thankfully, I seem to do ok on enough mornings to make a difference at the moment…

Last week I managed to get my backside out of bed and go to the pool twice. Monday I already blogged about, but I went on Thursday as well. This was not such a good swim time wise (I’ll put all the stats at the end so as not to bore you), doing the km in 34.00.97. But the important thing was I went. Flâneur was back on Friday morning and I went to meet him at the airport at the hideous hour that his flight got in, so Thursday morning worked as training for getting up early too… ;o)

As well as having missed him tremendously and wanting to see him as soon as possible, I always like to be met at airports when I travel alone and therefore believe that other people might also want a friendly face waiting for them when they’ve just come off a long and boring flight on their own. He’d also had a nasty twist to the ankle while away, so I thought it might cheer him up to see me at the airport when he got back and I could also help him with any bags if the ankle was still bad.

We had a nice relaxing weekend, chilling out on Friday (gave me a chance to get started on his washing), until he fell asleep on me around 8:30pm… Saturday started out relaxed and then we headed out to LS’s wedding in the afternoon. They had decided on a Humanist ceremony, which I must say I had had my reservations about. Stories of hand holding, hippy type affairs (God that makes me sounds old) had me wondering what to expect, but it was actually really quite lovely. The celebrant was very charming and warm and it was frankly miles better than the dreadful civil weddings I’ve been to in Scotland which can be extremely unromantic and legal (By this particular law of Scotland of this particular date blah blah blah). Maybe it’s just one bad experience, but they always seem short and sharp and just a bit of a let down to the romantic in me. There were two readings and we all said a Celtic blessing to them at the end and it was all about mutual trust and respect. The bride looked beautiful in a very classic style sparkly gown and very simple hair arrangement and both were beaming the whole day (which you’d hope!). There was plenty of bubbly sploshing about and the food at dinner was much better than I had either expected or it looked! We did spend most of dinner just talking to each other though, as everyone else at the table knew each other and didn’t seem to want to engage us in conversation, even though we did try. Ah well, it’s often the way when you don’t know so many people at weddings… but a bit of an effort from the other people at our table would have been nice.

Poor Flâneur’s ankle had swollen quite considerably with all the standing around before and after dinner so he was unable to join in the dancing, but I had a good boogy with TS and a couple of other collegues before we sloped off home around 11… It seemed a shame not to stay later but some of the other people we knew had left and poor Flâneur was still jetlagged and sore.

Quite a busy end to a busy week. As well as my swims I went out for dinner to The Kitchin with Wastrel and SAM, a lovely lovely treat from Wastrel. Tom Kitchin was in the kitchen too, which seemed like a special treat, and the food did not disappoint! I had new season asparagus wrapped in parma ham with scallops, followed by saddle of rabbit with stuff…. and then an apple sorbet with champagne sauce. Hmmm….all sooo sooo tasty! Good food, good chat and a good time had by all. Thursday night I was out again this time with all The Girls to La Favourita, which is a nice Italian restaurant, when it isn’t full of lots of very loud people. Which is was on Thursday. Lovely company, nice food, but a shame I couldn’t hear most of the conversation. I was also bloody knackered, so happy to sit and listen to what I could hear and join in when I wanted to. I sloped off home when they all went for a drink after dinner as I needed to do a few bits and pieces before bed and then get an early night for the early start on Friday.

And so on to this week and back to the swimming. I managed to get out of bed both yesterday and today for my morning swim, today being randomly easier than yesterday. Going to bed around 10 last night probably helped… I have now joined the university sports centre too, so don’t need to worry about having enough swims left on my voucher (got Thursday’s last week free as the girl didn’t check my card when I went it, result!). I certainly am still enjoying it and was delighted yesterday to see my quickest time yet (33.07.81, nearly the same as the first swim of the year, which was in a smaller pool, you will recall).

The pool is a little quieter as the university is on holiday and I managed to get into a nice rhythm with another girl in my lane so that neither of us was bothering the other. I like it most when it’s like that. Today was a little different as it was mostly me and this bloke who swims at about the same pace until we were joined by this deeply irritating guy who I’ve seen there before who swims with a float and just kicks his legs. He is the most inefficient swimmer I have seen in a while – rather than neat, steady kicks he almost thrashes in the water which means that he not only goes quite slowly, but if you come up behind him you get tons of spray in your face. Which is what happened this morning. Most of the time he’s ok because he’ll wait and let you turn and go off ahead because he knows you are quicker, but on at least two lengths I was trapped behind him, forced to go a bit slower and to tilt my head away from the massive splashes. Sigh. I ended up swapping lanes to the other slow one, which was a bit quieter, and finished my lengths in peace. I don’t usually like to use that lane as it tends to attract faster slow swimmers than me, but it was just one other girl who was not so fast, so it wasn’t so bad.

I was a bit sore this morning and seemed to be going quite slowly so I was extremely surprised when I looked at the final time on the SportsCount and saw 32.47.81! That’s the first time I’ve been under 33 minutes in this pool and coming close to the times I chalked up in the local one. Woo hoo! I had been trying to improve my technique a bit this morning, having found a few tips online yesterday and maybe it actually paid off! Goddamn, get down to 30 mins and I’ll have to add another 10 lengths… Knackering!!

So the tedious stats for the last three swims are:

Date: 02.04.2009 / 06.04.2009 / 07.04.2009
Lengths: 40 (1000m) / 40 (1000m) / 40 (1000m)
Time: 34.00.97 / 33.07.81 / 32.47.81
Average: 51.02 / 49.70 / 49.20
Fastest: (1) 40.11 / (1) 38.88 / (1) 39.30
Slowest: (32) 54.77 / (14) 53.94 / (10) 53.27

It’s not quite the table I would have liked (quite difficult to make out sorry) but if you squint you can really see the progress over the last three swims. Very excited about getting my first lap in at under 40 seconds now, but I should probably aim at consistency over the 40 rather than a very speedy first lap and then slowing down through overexertion! Something to work on…

Hmm… I really ought to blog more frequently, then you wont be stuck with massive posts like this!! Ah well...

Lazy slug...

That is what I have become.  I haven't even checked back on this thing to see when the last time I actually did some exercise was.  It would be too depressing.  I have been walking a bit (though lazy, drag me from bed mornings mean not as much as I should be), including a nice long walk last Saturday with my Flâneur, Wastrel and SAM, the latter of whom had come down for dinner the night before.  But other than that - zilch.  I haven't even been to the pool, and I love swimming!

Eating has been a bit of a theme as I cooked a lavish three course meal for my Flâneur for his birthday on the 19th.  It was a little stressful as I had chosen to be a little bit more complicated than my usual "shall we have pasta...".  I made goat's cheese and red onion tarts to start (served with some salad to pretend it was healthy), following by shoulder of lamb stuffed with an apricot stuffing (which was much nicer than I had anticipated).  Was a bit pissed off that the annoying butcher, who pointed out it's called shoulder in Scotland when I asked for neck (which I'd seen used on Masterchef, how was I to know that's what 'the English' call it!), that he had said to me - oh if you're stuffing it, with this piece you wont need to tie it.  Well that was not true and as I checked on it part way through I realised it had sprung apart and the stuffing was starting to char.  So I had to take it out the oven and try and tie string round a hot piece of meat in a desperate attempt to make it cook properly.  Anyway, this was accompanied by dauphinoise potato (recipe on the potato council website, of all places), and asparagus (cooked in butter...hhmmm...).  By this time I was pretty well stuffed as we just don't eat that much anymore, having cut our portions down quite considerably.  But we weren't done, as I had decided to have a go at making chocolate mousse.  

The recipe for the mousse came from Jamie Oliver's "Happy Days" book, and apparently served "4".  As I wanted some for the next night too, I thought I'd do half the mix again and therefore have enough for 6.  Six piggies that would be!  It was a huge amount of mousse that I put into frankly the most enormous glasses I have (they're champagne bowls), and there was still some left over to make two other reasonable sized portions.  I felt really quite ill half way through, but ploughed on none the less.  ;o)  Maybe this is why I am so large....

All this was washed down with some very lovely Californian Zinfandel and some yummy Prosecco.  Hmmm....  Thankfully had taken the next day off, boy did I need it.  My tummy felt a little sore.  Spent most of it cleaning the flat though.  Just don't get the chance to give this place the clean it needs what with working and everything...

Had a lovely visit from Wastrel and SAM and was very pleased that my Flâneur was cooking and that he was doing fish!  He did a fine Japanese spread including gyoza (yummy), sake glazed salmon, greenbeans with a soybean paste and toasted sesame topping, Japanese potato salad and of course, rice.  Washed down this time with a nice Sake and green tea.  Oh, and of course, finished off with Mousse.  That's what we all were - fished off by mousse!!  Only SAM and I managed to finish ours.  Urgh...

So, yes, eating has been a real feature of the last two weeks, but not really exercise.  On the plus side it is now Lent, when traditionally I give up chocolate and sweets.  It's been pretty tough these first few days as I begin to realise just how much of a habit it has become!  This is the 9th year (I think) that I have done this and usually by Easter I don't really want chocolate, so hopefully this will be a real chance to cut right back.  I shall have to just make sure I don't gorge on Easter Sunday and therefore fall with a bit fat bump off the wagon...  Flaneur is under instructions not to buy me more than 1 Easter egg and to make sure it's a really good quality one...  

Lent should help with the weight loss though which appears to have very frustratingly stalled.  Not exercising probably has something to do with that, but I am bumbling along still at the X-1 stone 3lb mark, sometimes a bit lower, occasionally a bit more (v. depressing), but mostly just at the 3 mark.  That's still my stone marker, but it would be nice if it went down a bit, at least to get me into the X-2 stage... Sigh!  Am determined to get back to the exercise this week coming though - I will be at the pool on Monday, I will!!

On the sewing front, I did finish the front of my quilt, which was very satisfying.  Sorry no pics at the moment - have to down load them from the camera, which involves using a different computer...  Anyway, it doesn't look much different from the picture of it all laid out on the floor!  It's blooming massive, but looks great.  I'm really really pleased with it and now just need to get the wadding and backing fabric and finish it off.  It really hasn't taken me half as long as I expected...

Update

Was at the doctor on Friday morning, who was singularly unhelpful. Not my usual GP and not sure I'd want to see her again. I was expecting at least: maybe it's a virus; if not: you need to get better sleep, here are some leaflets; but instead I got: maybe you've been overdoing it, everyone gets a bit sluggish every now and again! Goddamn her. I felt like she wasn't taking me seriously at all. I was a little overwrought with the whole thing, it having been a pretty big deal for me to go to the doctor about it, having been kept waiting 30 mins for my appointment and still being tired, that I'm afraid to say I did blub a bit in her surgery. When asked if there was anything worrying me, I nearly snorted: yes, this!

Anyway, I think she felt guilty because now she's agreed to do some tests, just to rule a few things out. I'm to go back for blood tests next week, so we'll see what happens. I'm feeling much better this week, so maybe whatever was working on me has worked it's way out, but I'll feel more re-assured after the tests.

On the upside, I had a lovely weekend away in Perthshire with my five best pals. We had a lovely relaxing time chez Wastrel and SAM, with good food, wine and company. A delicious fondue and champagne awaited us when we arrived, which started the weekend perfectly. I was also able to give SAM her belated birthday present and another apology at missing last week’s fun. Saturday was spent getting up leisurely, then heading out to a spot of historical interest nearby, only to find that it was shut for Winter. Blooming Scotland. Someone joked that that should be on the posters that greet you at the airport: Welcome to Scotland, Closed until April. Brilliant. But we spent a good amount of time wandering around the graveyard looking at the unusual names of the local deceased, before heading to the local pub across the road. This was quite a find as the food was really nice pub grub. I had haddock and chips. The fish was really tasty and the batter nice and light. You got a fish and a half and initially I thought I couldn't eat it all, but that turned out to be a foolish thought - of course I could! Although in the end I was prevented by a blasted migraine. Thankfully I had my Sumatriptan tablets with me and was able to stave it off to just a mild headache, but it was annoying none the less. I had really wanted to finish that fish!

Back at the house Wastrel gave me a much appreciated massage (she is a qualified therapeutic massage person), which was both relaxing and soothing for my head. Meant I slept well that night too. Thanks so much!! We played a game designed by the multi-talented Wastrel for HMcM's Christmas a few years back, and then ate delicious roast lamb with trimmings. Hmmm... lamb, one of my favourite meats. Yum. Oh, followed by Sticky Toffee Pud. Delicious. Possibly not so good for the old diet all this fine dining, but you need to indulge every now and again or your life just gets too dull.

Sunday was again a leisurely start, culminating in lunch in Perth at this lovely little French place (you'll notice names escaping me totally today), which did just delicious food. I had a 'salad' (ha!) Paysanne. More potato and bacon than lettuce, but that was the point. ;o) HL and I then hightailed it off to the station for the train back to Edinburgh leaving RF, Wastrel and SAM with the Perth shops. Well, the ones that were open. It wasn't a bad journey back to Edinburgh, even though the train was quite busy, and HL and I had a good chat about life and plans and our boys. It really was a lovely weekend but it was good to be home on Sunday evening. Even better that my dearest had made the flat look immaculate, having done a great job cleaning and tidying after having had his friends over on Saturday. The challenge now is to keep it that way! Ha!