still fat

Fat Club last night, put on a pound. Boo. Not surprising as I haven't been pointing and haven't been being mindful about what I eat. As of today I am starting pointing again. It's sooooooooooooooooooooooo boring. Boring boring boring. I can tell I'm on a diet, cos I'm drinking options drinks again. New flavour whoo, tastes just like a bounty bar in a mug.

Hello Robin, nice to meet you. I'll put you on my blogroll as soon as blogrolling lets me.

'that' question

O asked me The Question this morning. He already knows that to make a baby, daddy gives mummy a seed. Now he wants to know how the baby gets inside mummy's tummy. So I told him (in age-appropriate lack-of-detail, obv). Oh, he said. Then, can I have an ice-pop?

In diet news: things were not so good yesterday. Had to catch a train at 6.45 am, got up a little late so not enough time for breakfast. Grabbed a couple of bananas and thought that would see me through but the train was delayed and my tummy was rumbling and I ended up snacking innapropriately from the on-board shop. At least I was kept busy all day and had little time for eating biscuits during coffee breaks. Plenty of fresh fruit on the lunch buffet, which was good except that the apples were a horribly bland and mushy variety ick. A not-perfect but could've been worse purchase from M&S did for my tea. So not too bad a day. Not getting any exercise this weekend, tho - cried off bike ride so I can catch up on my studies. Which I'd better get back to, I spose

touch my buns

Thanks to everyone for the nice comments yesterday. DG is not the only one to have commented on the effect of cycling on my gluteus maximus. I was at the doctor's this morning for a smear test and the nurse remarked on how muscley my bum is.

Am feeling positive today about eating right. Won't be able to go to belly dancing tonight tho, cos I have a meeting booo. And I have to go to a conference all day tomorrow. But I have plans for a bike ride this weekend, at least.

fatclub night

Weigh in tonight, and I've lost 4.5 lb. And I wasn't even pointing! This week I've been concentrating on sticking to normal eating patterns. I think the loss is due to 2 things. Firstly, a lot of it will be water. I have been eating so much salty rubbish recently, now I've cut back on the rubbish my body probably notices the difference. Second, I've cycled about 75 miles in total in the past week. My average speed is just under 10 mph, so that's seven and a half hours exercise.

For the coming week, I'm still not ready to point everything yet. I'm going to work on getting my fruit and veg intake back up, keep on working on the water, and keep on exercising. Pointing the week after, maybe.

keeping busy

Busy busy busy here.

Saturday: Bike ride, with our new cycling companion so now there's 3 of us, and we did 40 fairly flat miles.

Sunday: Father's Day so we took the bikes on the train and cycled the 10 miles along picture-book English country lanes to see Dad. We were planning to cycle back to the station but summer thunderstorms hit and we got a lift back instead.

Today: Lots of work to get through. While I've been in binge mode I've been in the habit of going out to buy cr@p before starting any work or study. I thought of doing that today, then I made myself think about it some more, and eventually talked myself out of it. After school O and I cycled to his gymnastics class - a lovely 9 mile round trip through the beautiful heart of Shameless country I was helping out with the mats, and one charming little girl kept commenting on my large stomach. She even asked me if I was having a baby. Sigh.

the awful truth

yes Jude, I went to FatClub. I got weighed and actually it wasn't as awful as it could've been. I weigh below (just) my heighest weight from last year so tho I have gained nearly everything back I lost, I've not gone over what I weighed before it all started. Must be the excercise that's doing it, as I have been stuffing my face for months now.

I'm breaking myself back in gently to FatClub mode, tho. This week I'm not going to point things, I'm just going to work on getting my eating back on keel and reverting to something approaching normal healthy eating patterns. Our FatClub leader used the Women's European Championship as the basis for a rather strained extended metaphor likening dieting to football, but she did end with a suggestion I found really useful: that we should issue ourselves with dieting red and yellow cards. Red for something you must definitely stop doing and yellow for something you need to be careful of or limit. These are mine:

• RED CARD - mindless eating
  I will be mindful of what I eat and drink, and I will stop and think before eating
• YELLOW CARD - limit wine and nuts to Fridays only
  somehow this has crept up to several nights a week, from now on it will be limited to wine and pistachios on BB eviction night only

So far I am not doing too badly, have been eating normally and drinking plenty of liquids (not all water, lots of sugar free squash), went belly dancing and have two long bike rides planned for this week.

Other news: O saw me looking at stuff on ebay and asked what it was, I said it was a power rangers duvet cover. Since then he thinks that PR Duvet Cover is another PR series, like PR Ninja Storm or PR Dinothunder, and has been asking his friends to play PR Duvet Cover with him. It is very sweet and very funny, I just hope none of the other kids laff at him.

who needs feminism?

We're all equal now, right?

Yeah, right. That's why I had these conversations yesterday with 2 different women, about my own age, who I really expected better of

Neighbour: I was just wondering if O's daddy knows much about computers
Me: No, not really
Neighbour: Oh, OK, it's just that my son's trying to fit this new doo-dad to his computer and he's not sure he's doing it right.
Me: Sorry, O's daddy doesn't know much about computers. O's mummy has installed new hard drives, set up a wireless network and fixed most computer problems she's come accross but hey, what would she know about it?

OK so I didn't say the last bit. And she did at least look embarassed when the gender of our household geek was revealed. Tho I didn't fit the doo-dad (he'd bought the wrong thing, he needed a thingummy instead).


Me: so, we all cycled 25 miles yesterday, O did really well on his trailer bike
Friend: yes and well done to R for cycling all that way and towing the trailer up hills
Me: umm, R wasn't towing the trailer, I was

Gah. Where did I put that t-shirt?

fun for all the family

This being National Bike Week, I made O and R come on a guided ride to Styal. It was 'only' 25 miles in total. That's the furthest O or R have ever cycled. I towed O on the trailer bike and feel like I've ridden twice as far, particularly as my seat post slipped down without my realising it - my knees and bum are paying for that now.

I have done sort of ok-ish trying to get myself kick started to losing weight again. Of the three things I said I would do:

• no crisps - I have actually managed to keep this up! I haven't overcome my passion for salty snacks (there have been nuts) but I've said no to crisps all week.
  
• drink 500 ml of water a day - I've done this about half the days this week. Some days I have omitted to get the water bottle out of the fridge at all.
  
• go to belly dancing and do 1 other excercise - did go belly dancing, but didn't to any other (the bike ride falls into this current week not the past week). I was going to go swimming on Friday evening but ended up going out to eat pizza and drink wine and listen to music instead

My aims for this week are going to be:

• stay off the crisps and limit other salty snacks
• drink 500 ml water a day
• do 3 exercise events this week (bike ride today counts as one)
• go to FatClub on Wednesday

every day in every way ...

Back to baby steps. Again. 3 things to do this week:

• no crisps
• drink 500 ml water every day
• go to belly dancing (not been for weeks) and do 1 other excercise

Am trying to be positive rather than dwelling on how cr@p I've been lately. I might even go back to FatClub next week (can't this week, have a meeting on Wed eve).

Went on a bike ride today, something else I haven't done much of lately. 42 miles to Pemberley. There were hills (some I had to get off and push up) and now my bum hurts. But at least I can ride 40+ miles now - a few months ago doing 13 miles killed me. I need to at least keep up my excercising, even if everything else is out of control.

an omen?

This morning I received a card from Fat Club, teling me I could re-join and not have to pay for missed weeks. I haven't been to FC for about 2 months now. I have been stuffing my face with anything I can lay my hands for about 2 months now. I know I'm using food as a drug right now. Question is, will going back to FC help me regain some self control?

In other news: O has got chickenpox. He's not actually that ill now, not after the first day of fever and such, now he's just spotty and itchy and bored of not being allowed to play with anyone (he's in quarantine till Tuesday). Trying to keep him amused with games and puzzles and such - today we built our own volcano Most unfairly, he is hogging the freeview box to watch C bloody Beebies all day long, when I should be watching Big Brother live streaming on E4! The sacrifices we mothers make for our kids ...

didn't we have a lovely time

Had a fun and busy couple of days with Trin and girls visiting us. Spent Tuesday morning in teen goth heaven, went bowling in the afternoon and had a fun evening with a house full of kids (during which O came up to me to ask if I'd "sexed anyone?"). On Wednesday we just hung out and had lunch in the cafe. I tried to learn to do scoubies but small girls laffed at my efforts. Danz is scoubiemeister and was giving masterclasses in the cafe. O is a in love with Danz, because "she speaks in a beautiful way and she can make scoubies".