"A kilo of meerkats arrived for me today,"...

...I said last night, and that's when TMM just nearly wet himself laughing, calling me a "tiny moron," but his tiny moron, so that was okay. :-) No, they are not at all paleo, but I ordered them to try, as a fuel for my long runs, before I decided to go mostly paleo and I refuse to waste them. I love jelly meerkats! They are even nicer than jelly babies. But I darn well better earn them, as they're pure sugar and about 350 cals per 100g. It's not good for my will power, to have a bulk amount arrive. I brought them home from work without opening them and divided them in to 100g bags. Then I hid them in my "running" cupboard, where I keep my hydration tablets and sports nutrition stuff. TMM laughs at me because when we moved in to our house, I had a wool cupboard. Now I have a candle cupboard and a travel mug/flask cupboard. And none of this includes "Terry Corner" which consists of an organized mess of techie stuff and other running accoutrements, as well as my guitar things. It's not really a mess. I know where everything is in it :-)

TMM and I had a bit of a walk on Sunday to get a little exercise in.

I haven't run quite as much as I'd have like this last few days. I fell on Thursday and hurt my left calf and my right hip. Damn, I'm gonna be held together with K T tape if I'm not careful. I didn't do my planed fourteen mile run on Saturday, so I feel a bit behind in my training. It's nothing I can't make up, and the rest was necessary. I did 6.7 km yesterday and nearly 12 km this morning, so I'm back at it, but I'm keeping an eye on my hip especially (the calf is better) I think I'll have a rest day tomorrow.

I'm consciously eating different things to try to vary my nutrition. So I made popcorn yesterday with coconut oil and seasoned it with sea salt, fresh black pepper and dried garlic, which I crushed in a mortar and pestle.

It was only afterwards that I remembered that corn isn't at all paleo. But hey ho! It's not the worst thing I could eat, and the whole paleo thing will come back to me as I do it. In total though, I was happy with how I ate yesterday, a big omelette with peppers and scallions for breakfast, raw veg for lunch, avoided the meerkats altogether and homemade beef stew for tea. Some home popped popcorn and a bit of extra dark, organic chocolate as a treat later on. In total it came to about 1800 cals and I'd earned 400, so I was still 100 in the green. I'm going to be feeling my way with how many of my exercise calories to use, but it's all a learning process.

Today I had 25g each of almonds and walnuts, as well as my cinnamon and coconut oil coffee on the train on the way to work. I had meant to have eggs again, but time got away from me. It's Parkinson's Law. The task expands to fill the time allotted. Even though I was up a wee bit earlier, I didn't end up with any extra time to eat. If fact, I faffed about so much, I was a bit later than usual. Still, it was nice to have nuts for a change. And I bought baby sweetcorn and tender stem broccoli to have with an apple and plums for lunch. Mixing it up a bit and getting different nutrients. It's all good. And, big news. I haven't bought DFM for a couple of days!!!

My big idea to meditate while running was a partial success yesterday and this morning.

And that's what I expected so I'm really chuffed. I managed a minute or two at a time of clearing my mind before general mental flotsam and jetsam materialized. It made me smile this morning as I considered, here I am, forty-eight years old, running eight miles before breakfast, eating healthy and meditating. Then it struck me, if I'm thinking these thoughts, then I'm not meditating! Darn and blast, and back to the drawing board. Teehee. I just need practice :-) Even with the stop/start nature of my first foray, it made me mindful of my breathing and my footsteps and introduced a nice flow to things, which I enjoyed very much.

A change of attitude

This week, I've upped my calories and still lost two pounds. I'm not complaining. It gives me a comfortable zone within which to work. It also bares out what some of my FB chums were saying about me not eating enough. I've started eating more and obviously fired up my metabolism. Excellent Smithers, as Monty Burns would say. 

I finally have the body I've always wanted. It's a healthy weight, strong and fit. By no means is it perfect. I would need to go under the knife to get rid of my loose skin, the result for getting morbidly obese and losing over one hundred pounds three times now (and the rest in between) and my age, but it's in the best shape it can be in without surgical aid. And you know what, I actually like it. I can forgive the flaps and folds, even when I'm hearing my bingo wings slap about under my top as I run. (That happened a couple of mornings ago, and it took me a wee while to work out what the noise was. Teehee.)

Yes, this is me now. This is my healthy, strong, fit body. So, what am I going to do with it? I'm darn well going to look after it, that's what. I'm going to be good to it and kind to it. I've been letting sugar get a bit of a hold on me lately. Ironic, when I'm finally at goal, that I would risk it all just for a sweet fix. I think I might need to go cold turkey on the processed sugars, and by that I mean give up my fat free yoghurts and my sugar free sweets, as well as my DFM. They all train my palate to want sweet stuff and I'd really like to get away from that.

To that end, I'm definitely thinking of eating "clean" and going down the paleo route. I will absolutely still be tracking on mfp though. I need the structure and discipline of keeping a food diary. I'm considering yoga and meditation. I could only benefit from a more holistic approach and I love the idea of using my morning run as a meditation. It's a matter of being able to tune out my thoughts, but stay aware enough of my surroundings to stay safe. I've done it before for brief spells, using my breathing or footsteps as a focus. I'm going to give it a go again in the morning.

I'd really like to eat more slowly than I currently do, and to stop thinking of food as a treat, but as the stuff that fuels my body. It doesn't mean that I can't enjoy it, but it's primary purpose is to keep me functioning. I don't want to suck the joy out of food. It's one of the loveliest. social activities you can partake of, to eat with others. And I enjoy eating alone too. But I'd like to learn moderation. Eat the things that are good for me, in healthy amounts. It goes against my gung-ho nature to practice any sort of restraint in things I enjoy, but I'll give it a go.

Today has been a good day for food. Bacon, scrambled eggs, mushrooms and low fat sausages for breakfast. The low fat sausages aren't a good paleo option but they were in the freezer and I don't want to waste food. We went to Caffè Nero where I had dark chocolate covered coffee beans and salted popcorn. Both aren't too bad for being overly processed. The two cups of coffee that I had there were the only ones I had today. I had frying steak with onions and carrots for dinner and 300g of grapes for afters. TMM and I went for a walk so I earned a few extra cals. My total intake was just under 1600 cals. I am in the green.

Adjustment period

I've had a few days on my new calorie allowance and it's hard to get used to. I'm not complaining.  Believe me, this is the phase I've wanted to be at for over twenty years, so I'm not going to say I'm hard done by. It's just that I've been on 1200 cals for a year and it's not easy to give myself permission to eat the 1550 that mfp now has me on, and believe I'm not going to gain. It's only been a week. It'll just take some getting used to.  I would like to use the extra cals wisely, i.e. not all on treats, at least some of it on real food :-)

After a couple of weeks of gaining a half here and losing a half there, I'm back down to my low of 143.8lb. Having just finished my moons, this weekend should be my first real indicator of how my body is starting to settle in to this new era. I'm actually looking forward to weighing myself on Sunday (so long as I stay on track)

For the longest part of this year, I told myself that I was buying myself a green Gretsch guitar as a reward for getting to goal. But I have three guitars already. I really don't need another one, regardless of how pretty it is. Then I thought I'd get myself a Samsung smart watch, but would I use it enough to make it worth the price tag. Treat/reward or not, I'd still like to get good use out of it. Also, I tried one on in a shop. It was genuiniely enormous! I had a fairly delicate write before I lost weight, not its' positively skinny. The watch just looked wrong. So I've decided instead on an expensive hair appointment.I never go to the hair dressers. Actually, I've been twice, in my entire forty-eight years, so it will be a real pampering session. I think a change of colour is called for. Something extreme! I'll keep y'all posted :-)

Moving forward

I'm currently surfin' the crimson tide, and it's not due to end till Monday, so I doubt that I'll get a true sense of what I weigh this weekend.  I'll weigh myself on Sunday as normal though. I need to keep monitoring the situation, to stay on track. I ran for nearly an hour this morning, so that was nearly 600 cals added to my daily total.

Not my fastest, but if I sustained that pace throughout the marathon, I'd finish in about 4 hrs 50 mins. I'd be pleased with that!

That photo is a bit of a contrast to various others that I have. I don' thin I'll ever tire of comparing then and now (there are a lot of thens!)

I felt good when this was taken. I was dressed up and out for dinner with family. It was a great night. My face is entirely different though, to the one above.

This is going to sound so obvious, but it's actually just struck me. I'm here. The place I wanted to be, my destination, the reason for all my attempts over the last twenty plus years, is here and now. Now is my time to enjoy the feeling of success. I know I posted a couple of days ago that I was finished losing, but it's sort of only just hit me. I've finished. Wow! When I walk down the street these days, if some one looks at me twice, it's not because they see a sweaty, self conscious, uncomfortable, overweight person. It may well be because they don't think much of my sartorial choices that day (not every one is going to like a grey bowler :-D ) but it won't be because they think I'm fat. Again, wow! 

The first day of the rest of my life

View from the train window this morning

A favourite phrase of mine to use when asking if someone is in their right mind is, "What colour is the sky in your world?" Today, everything, not just the sky, in my world is rosy :-)

Having posted yesterday that I was going to start a maintenance plan, I got so much support from my FB chums that I was grinning all day. It's one of the brilliant things about talking to people with the shared experience of how tough trying to lose weight is. When one of us is doing well, the rest of us are happy for them. And the advice and help when things aren't going so well is just as good. Unfortunately, I'm not so great at telling everyone when I need that help. I usually huff in a corner by myself, then get my head out of my ass after a while and come back to 'fess up.

MyFitnessPal diary

It's pretty weird to look at my diary on MFP and see a daily calorie allowance of 1550. After 1200 a day for the last eleven months, it feels like a lot. Not that I'll have any problem using them :-) My issue will be using them sensibly, and distributing them fairly evenly throughout the day, rather than gorging on them at night. I also have to work out what to do about the calories earned through exercise. It seems extreme to try to eat them all. I don't know if I should use them in order to stop losing. I'll just have to find my way. I have over twenty years of conditioning to reprogram. Up till now, I've tried to avoid using them, in order to aid losses. Maybe I'll use them if I really need them? Save them for when I have a meal out to have a nice dessert? The world is indeed my lobster!

This is today's activity in my diary

• Breakfast: three egg omelette, with chicken, scallions and mushrooms.         Coffee with coconut oil and cinnamon. 450 cals
• Lunch: Homemade broccoli soup. Chopped raw veg (Pink Lady apple, carrot, celery, cherry tomatoes) 230 cals
• Dinner: TMM's homemade bolonese with carrot strips instead of pasta, with 10g of vintage cheddar. 780 cals
• Snacks: Black coffee x 5, Pepsi Max x 2lt, sugar free extra strong polos. 85 cals

                         Total for food today = 1545 cal

• Exercise: 5.4km run, 36 mins, 360 cals earned 

I'm pretty much bang on target for food, and it was well distributed throughout the day. I have used no exercise calories (thus far!) It feels like it's been a good day. One thing I'd like to do is try to get away from eating so many sugar free sweets. It would be great to make DFM* release its grip on me too. Beyond that, eating "clean" would be the ideal, to get away from dairy, wheat and processed sugars altogether. But one thing at a time. Let's not go mad here Terry! Try getting used to your new routine for a few weeks first, you dopey tart!

I have to say, the idea that I'm not trying to see a loss at the scales this week definitely feels like it has eased the pressure. Of course, it doesn't hurt that I have 300 extra calories in the daily bank, but it's mainly the lack of needing a loss.

That's it. Day one of maintenance is under my belt and I've genuinley been smiling all day.


* DFM = Dark Fizzy Master = diet cola

Stick a fork in me. I'm done!

This feels monumental. I've never been here before, I've never said this before.
                                I'm finished losing weight.
This photo is the main reason.

I got very excited this morning when I had what I consider to be a massive NSV* After my shower, I found that a bath towel, not a bath sheet but a standard towel, wrapped around me completely. There was a time when even a bath sheet would not have come close to covering me. So there I was, wrapped in a towel that's one size up from a hand towel! I could have cried. So I took a photo. I took a couple actually. I looked at it properly later. I look thin in it. Not just slim, actually verging on skinny.

Now, a lot could be down to the angle (though I still look thin in the other pics, which are all a little different) and the bathroom had this whole steamy, soft focus thing going on. But even taking that in to account, I can quite clearly see bones. My collar bone and the top of my rib cage, above my poor saggy boobies, are visible. So numbers on the scales be damned. I'm done. I will formulate a plan for maintenance and continued fitness, but as to losing more weight? If it happens naturally, if my body wants to go down another pound or two, as I learn to adjust my caloric allowance and as I research my needs for my basal metabolic rate, then it can happen without me yearning for it.

I know this means that I will stay a little above my B M I range, but if I was to cut away the excess skin and flappy bits (not the good flappy bits, you understand. Fnarr, fnarr!) that would near enough account for that extra poundage.

The other reason for deciding to get started on stopping losing (that's a clunky sentence, but I really like it) was a telly programme that I watched last night, "Super Slimmers: Did They Really Keep The Weight Off?" It was about people who'd lost vast amounts of weight, sometime very quickly, and it asked what their chances were of keeping it off. In short, not good! As a whole, the programme was depressing as fuck. Apparently, we all stand a very small chance of maintaining our losses. And if that's the case, it's tempting to say, "Well, why bother?" But as one doctor/researcher pointed out, we all start these diets deciding or hoping that we'll be the one to buck the trend. I certainly did. And the fact that this is at least my fourth big weight loss attempt (with out even considering the myriad smaller ones) is testament to the fact that I am the very personification of the rule, rather than an exception to it. So far. 

And that's the point. I refuse to believe that I'm stuck at twenty stone for the rest of my life, or yoyoing between ten and twenty stone. From today, I will be the exception. I have to believe that, otherwise I might as well just have knee replacement surgery and go on diabetes meds right now.

This very positive thinking is a bit at odds with my recent behaviour. I've had a funny couple of weeks. By which I mean funny, peculiar, as opposed to funny, haha. My blogging has been non-existent and of late, even my participation in my Facebook group has been limited to skulking in the background, silently stalking. Reading posts, but rarely commenting. My behaviour in my running group has been a little more interactive. I've continued to post about some of my runs, with photos. I'm particularly proud of Sunday just past, when I ran thirteen miles, a half marathon distance, amidst strong winds, a hail shower and some stunning scenery.

I ran the coast, between my house and my in-laws. You should have seen my MIL's face when she answered the door to my puce, sweaty wee dish :-)

                                      

As far as food is concerned, I've been up and down. The week before last, I wasn't particularly healthy or unhealthy, but I ended up with a small gain. I was gutted. Getting to withing half a stone of my chosen goal weight, but then gaining, was frustrating. Then last week I probably had my worst week yet, and I ended up fearing that I was going to lose all control and start a downward spiral that I'm all too familiar with, I went over my allowance every single day last week, and though I also exercised a lot, it never made up the deficit.I was really annoyed at myself.

I didn't make things any better by the weekend. In fact, in a perfect act of self sabotage, I went on a binge on Friday and Saturday, ate about 6000 calories each day and did it with full premeditation. I knew I would feel like shit come Sunday and did it anyway. This was different to the two planned days at Christmas. Everything I ate this time was unplanned and nutritionally void. I'm ashamed and disgusted with myself at the huge quantities I consumed. I don't mind that I'm human, and slipped off my plan for a while, but my greed and inability to moderate myself shames me,

I feel that I need to list everything, so it's clear that I'm not exaggerating. I also think it will go some way to expunging my feeling of guilt, The one positive is that, for the first time ever, I kept a note of everything I ate on MFP. So I know exactly how heinous my crime against my body was. I cringe to write it all down, but here goes, in chronological order...
Friday:
            My usual coffee, cocnut oil and cinnamon    55 cals
            Corned beef slices 200g                                    450 cals
            Caramel Squares x 4                                         940 cals
            Pain Au Chocolat x 6                                       1135 cals
            Jelly Babies 180g                                               600 cals
            Large Sausage Roll x 2                                     820 cals
            Cadbury Dairy Milk Caramel 120g             570 cals
            Milk chocolate raisins 100g                        475 cals
            Jelly beans 100g                                               350 cals
            Mum's chicken, potato and veg dinner      730 cals
                                                                            ------------
                                                                             6125 cals
           
Saturday:
           Scrambled eggs x 3                                           200 cals
           Smoked Salmon 100g                                          170 cals
           Ben & Jerry's 500 ml                                          1095 cals
           Haagen Dazs 500 ml                                           1130 cals
           Burger on brioche with bacon and cheese      550 cals
           Chunky chips x small bowl                                 250 cals
           Ferrero Rocher x 16                                            1170 cals
           Co op triple choc cookies x 4                             980 cals
           Pringles 180g                                                        960 cals
                                                                              -----------
                                                                             6505 cals

With no exercise on either day, I think I can safely say that when I decide to fuck something up, I do it big style. And it's no surprise that I was not at my peak when I did my thirteen mile run the next day. Still, I got up on Sunday, slapped a smile on my face and a padlock on my gob, and ran for two hours twenty minutes, earning 1450 cals. I ate within allowance (allowing extra, on-the-hoof fuel for the run) and was generally feeling more optimistic, though still scared about my lack of control.

I weighed myself on Monday morning and was devastated to see it said 153lbs. Well back into the 150s. But at least it was still just in the ten stone bracket. Given what I consumed, it could have been worse. That didn't make me feel better though, as I got ready to go to work. I was letting myself get depressed about it when I found a little perspective. My clothes still fit me, a new UnderArmour jacket arrived and fitted perfectly. I didn't look any different. Then there was the fact that Helbells told me that a heavier than usual exercise session makes the muscles retain water to facilitate recovery. So who's to say that 153lb was my true weight? And lo it came to pass. For the last two mornings, I've been back down to 145lb, just one pound higher than my lowest weight. I'm happy with that.

And so I come to my decision, my bold, and if I may say so myself, pure genius, move to go on to maintenance. I've never looked, or more importantly, felt better in my own skin (despite how loose a lot of it is!) I'm healthy and fit. I ran a half marathon distance a couple of days ago FFS! Many people thinner and younger than me couldn't do that! I find myself genuinely feeling that I'm at my goal. I have to be careful that I won't end up dissatisfied because I didn't end up at the original number I set, 136lb, that I'm not settling for a "consolation prize" goal weight. But this isn't set in stone. I can change goal after a while if I feel like it. But for now, I'm here. I've arrived. Goal.

In celebration, my blog title has changed, as I planned once the loosing portion of this experience (I refuse to use the word journey) was over. I like the new title. I like it a lot :-)

I feel as if I can finally move on to the next stage of this weight loss thing. This is the hard part

Here's to keeping it off


* N S V = Non scales victory i.e. anything that makes you feel you've made progress with your weight loss, that's not the numbers on the scales. For me, a biggie was getting my socks on without having to sit down to do it, and lift my foot on to the opposite knee, by hand. Or running up and down the stairs without getting a red, sweaty face. Or sitting in train seats in comfort (there's a possibility I've mentioned that one before :-D ) Or the favourite, looking and feeling good in clothes, and even going down sizes. All great NSVs. I'm sure everyone has their own special one, maybe that no one else would even think of.