Breathing room

I've done nothing about my weight and the comfort eating (and corresponding girth expansion) continues apace. However, I bit the bullet and dragged myself to a doctor today. Burst into tears in her office and have come home gratefully clutching anti-depressants. She also wants me to start seeing a psychologist once the meds have kicked in and I'm feeling like more of a functioning human being again. I'm a bit ambivalent about that but we'll see next year.

So, my weight loss goals have resoundingly not been met and I have to accept going home for Christmas much larger than last year. It will be painful but if I'm being honest with myself I just don't see myself making any progress on that front until I've got out of this fug I'm in. Hopefully 2016 will be a little brighter.

End of year slump

Hello? Anybody out there?

I'm making my rather sheepish return after dropping off the face of the blogging universe. Partly it was due to my trip to America, but mostly it was indeed due to spectacular failure on the weight front, and consequent return of very very low mood.

I have so many things I want to get off my chest actually, but I don't know where to start.

I enjoyed my holiday up to a point, but the fact I was overweight, frankly, ruined a lot of it. I felt self conscious, miserable, disappointed, embarrassed. I felt horrible that we'd spend all this money on a great holiday and I wasn't enjoying myself because of how I looked. I felt really fucking jealous of all the thin people around me. I wasted hours in shops trying to find clothes that would make me feel better and looking longingly at all the nice clothes I would have bought if I'd been thinner. What a horrible waste. 

It wasn't all bad. We had some amazing meals, we saw some cool things (and geeked out with civil war battlefield visits) and caught up with old friends. But the fact is, I would have had a much more enjoyable holiday had I been thinner. 

Not that I did anything about that upon my return. I tried for a few days, but never managed to stay on plan for more than a day.  Then I had a rushed and stressful work trip and binged to make myself feel better, and that has continued ever since. I've put on a lot of weight, and can only fit into a few of my clothes. I'm going on a girls weekend way next week and I'm really not looking forward to it. Earlier in the year when we planned this I imagined myself thinner and happier, relaxing by the pool and shopping for nice clothes with my friends. Instead I'll be sweating in jeans and the few black stretchy clothes that fit me, and feeling horrible. 

And I'm dreading more than anything else going back home at Christmas and being bigger than ever before.

It's also more than just body anxiety at the moment. I'm lonely. I hate my job - it somehow manages to be a combination of boring and stressful, difficult and unfulfilling. I have to travel a lot and I've become cripplingly anxious about flying, especially since we always have to fly cheap airlines. I am depressed. But I'm reluctant to go and see a doctor because I'm afraid they'll bring up my weight.

I don't know what my plan is, really. I know, rationally speaking, that it's hard (or impossible) to make changes from a place of self loathing. I know I need to tackle my depression. But it all seems very overwhelming and impossible, and the only thing making me temporarily feel better is food, and the panic and revulsion I feel shortly afterwards is horrible but still not enough to motivate me to stop and pull myself together.

I have to travel again this week which is not good for healthy eating. Perhaps I can just try not to go overboard, and focus on getting a plan together when I'm back home next week.

Weekly check-in

Last Sunday I carefully planned out my meals and fast days for the week, and felt pretty smug about it, until about 4pm on Monday (my first fast day) I cracked for some unknown reason and basically stuffed my face. Due to lack of calories previously that day ended up at a reasonable calorie total but every day thereafter, no matter how well I started, ended in disaster. Looks like my motivation has disappeared whence it came, with no rhyme or reason. And it's so frustrating because every night I'm angry with myself and upset, every morning, I'm resolved, and it just dissipates entirely. I can't even blame PMS.

I weighed myself this morning (which I guess is worth considering a victory in itself) and I put on 2 pounds. I'll now have to lose 11 pounds in 3 weeks to meet my very modest, un-ambitious weight loss goal for the US trip. Sigh.

Today unfortunately I have both lunch and dinner plans. Tomorrow I'll have to begin again. Again. 

Weekly update

My weigh-in this morning indicates I'm down a measly 0.8 pounds! I'm quite disappointed by this, even though I know weight loss isn't linear. I was hoping my blow-out of a day last Sunday wasn't too detrimental, especially as I'd been really good the rest of the week, but alas, it was not to be. I need to start being more careful about what I eat on meals out. To be honest, I'd probably be more ok with this if it weren't for the looming holiday. Then after that it will be the trip home to see family at Christmas... I know the pressure is self imposed but these artificial deadlines do make me more anxious to lose weight faster. I'm hoping next week to get a solid 2 pound loss at least.

I'm going out to dinner tonight but hopefully it won't be too damaging. We were going to do Japanese food which is pretty good diet-wise (although not really low-carb wise) but my friend has hurt her ankle so it might end up being takeaway at her house instead. H is away for the weekend which historically has (a) made it much easier to stay on plan or (b) led to horrific binges, depending on my mood. Hopefully the former, this time. Next week I have a lunch out but no other social engagements. I'm hoping to do 2 fast days (strictly, this time, since I've gone a couple of hundred calories over in my last attempts). 

As for the diet plan, if anyone's interested, I've decided on moderately low carb - I'm not restricting any fruits or vegetables or legumes, while steering clear of bread/rice/pasta/potatoes for the most part but not worrying too much when I'm eating out. I might introduce the occasional low GI carb (farro, polenta, etc) sometimes too. I'm also making sure my meals have a good amount of fat, as I've become convinced that it's necessary for satiety and fending off that horrible diet deprivation feeling. Seems to be working well enough so far.

Progress of a sort

On Saturday I finally got back to the weight I was more than a month ago, before my tumble off the wagon. I felt pretty good about that, and only had to tamp down a moderate amount of annoyance at myself for backsliding in the first place. But then yesterday we had plans to go out for both lunch and dinner and I didn't do too well at either of them. Waaay too many carbs and calories.

I'm trying hard to just draw a line under it and move on, because I know, I KNOW, it's so hard to do well if I'm too busy hating myself. Counterintuitive though it may be, it really is easier to make changes if I'm happy enough with myself already.

Goals for the week - 1 fast day, and no self-loathing, and much positive thinking. 

Adrift

I feel a bit lost at the moment. I've been trucking along in a very inconsistent fashion. Some days, especially on social occasions, I go way over calories. Other days I'm counting. I tried to do a fast day on Monday but didn't quite manage to stick to 500, and got to 720 calories instead.

I did weigh myself last week and I was down 6 pounds which makes me think the previous weigh in was a bit of an anomaly due to water weight or something. So it's not as bad as I thought, but still 4 pounds up which is annoying.

I just can't seem to get into a groove. I keep changing my mind about whether I should do low carb or not, and if so, how strictly, and how many calories I should be aiming for, or if I should even count calories at all. Or only count some of the time, as I've done this week.

I'm also torn between wanting to be really strict and knuckle down before my US holiday (6 weeks away) or try to be more moderate and avoid a sudden crash and burn loss of momentum.

I'm weighing myself next on Saturday so I guess I'll reassess then.

I've written here before about not really feeling like I've found my people. I have friends here, but the people I'm closest to and I like the best all live in other cities. It's lonely. And it's been particularly obvious of late because my friends here have become obsessed with health and fitness and weight loss. One girl, formerly a size 8, now size 4-6, talks constantly about it with our other 2 friends, size 4 and 6 respectively. I can't really join in the conversation because I don't go to their exercise classes and I feel too embarrassed to discuss weight (one admitted recently to another that she used to weigh herself 2-3 times a day. I also do not want to be reminded of that kind of disordered obsession which has never helped me in the past). And I would find such discussion tedious in the extreme at the best of times, but when I'm sitting near them a size 16-18, it's also so fucking awkward! They don't tend to include me in the conversation which I don't if it feels better or worse, but either way, hanging out with them recently has been both highly embarrassing and highly boring.

Maybe I need new friends.

Quite an achievement

Not a good one, though.
Since travelling for work for some reason I've found it impossible to get back on track. I even had a plan and everything, to stick to low carb for a couple of days and worry less about calories, then ease back into it. I couldn't manage that either! Anyway, the upshot is that in 3 weeks I've put on 10 pounds. TEN POUNDS! Jesus wept.
I guess the good news is that today I sucked it up and got on the scale to discover this appalling fact, so perhaps that will give me the kick up the (ample) behind I need to start again. What a fucking pain though. And how bloody tedious and predictable of me.
I am determined to get rid of this ASAP and get back on track. Watch this space...

Back(ish)

Motivation, where have you gone??

In Thailand last week I did not remotely stick to the diet. Then when I got back on Monday feeling tired and unwell and grumpy I ended up eating pasta and cake for dinner. I planned to ease my way back into the diet by eating low carb on Tuesday and not worrying about calories, and I just about managed it by the skin of my teeth. But then yesterday felt even harder, and I ate a huge amount of tortilla chips plus way too many calories. And it wasn't like I just said "fuck it" and threw in the towel - it was SO. HARD. yesterday. It's a miracle I didn't eat my way through my entire fridge and pantry.

Low carb food doesn't sound appealing, I can't be bothered cooking, I can't summon enthusiasm for meal planning, I don't want to go grocery shopping, nothing is particularly inspiring. In short, the diet gods are not smiling on me this week. Perhaps partly it's hormonal, partly it's stress/general discontent, but whatever the reason I need to just get over it.

Anyway, on that sunny note, plan for today is smoked salmon for breakfast, chicken and cashew stir fry for dinner, and who knows what for lunch. I think I have to force myself to the supermarket and find something that looks easy and reasonably healthy. And just hope that little motivation switch in my brain comes back online shortly.

Tired

Fear not, I've not fallen off the wagon or anything, but I do feel quite tired - physically and emotionally - which is making dieting a little harder.

I'm quite stressed about work this week as I have to give some presentations at a big meeting, and I'm worried about both having a good enough grasp on the concepts and also the presentation itself, as I detest public speaking.

My in-laws came to stay with us on the weekend, and although they are (mostly) well-meaning, good god they are hard going company. Their main takeaways from a 6 week European trip were about all the little mishaps that they encountered, and boring minutiae from the lives of other people they met on their cruise. Add to that the fact that my mother in law just never, ever, ever, stops talking, and this  mild-mannered introvert was at the end of her tether by Sunday night. Luckily H also finds them a bit trying and doesn't mind if I vent a little, and encouraged me to go and seek quiet when I could.

Anyway, they've gone now, but I've woken up with a terrible cold, and dieting, while it doesn't seem impossible, just seems like a giant pain. I'm staying on track (and actually did quite well over the weekend) but for now I've ditched my 2 fast days. I think I'll probably reintroduce them as they do speed up weight loss and I think I need them to compensate for meals out, but this week and probably next week I'm giving myself a break.

I don't know how the low carb thing will go with work travel - most food is provided, and there'll be limited options elsewhere, so I think I just have to do my best but not beat myself up if I eat some noodles some days. I'll try to just focus on keeping calories down.

Patience

I've been doing pretty well this week. Our holiday for the wedding had some nice parts but was predictably, horrifically, anxiety inducing when it came to dressing up, being photographed, and generally just being out in the world as a fat person every day. I don't think I realised how much I hate just being in public. I mainly work from home and so can usually avoid being out much, apart from forays to quiet streets to walk the dog. I hate being out and having to deal with choosing an outfit and feeling self conscious, because feeling self conscious is basically my default mode.

Anyway, luckily I managed not to backslide despite not staying remotely on plan on holidays. I've done well this week, and I've lost 10 pounds in the last 5 weeks. I know objectively this is a good result, but the fact is, it's also not noticeable at all. My clothes are still tight, nothing looks good. I know I just have to keep the faith, but I would love to have a bit of a boost right now. I guess with the amount of weight I have to lose - 50 more pounds to get back to a healthy weight category - it's going to take a lot before I see a change.

Steady as she goes

I've been doing remarkably well on this low carb diet. I'm coming up on the 2 week mark and I haven't wavered once. I've lost a fair amount of weight. I'm not feeling too deprived, and I've been exercising pretty good restraint. I'm starting to feel like this is a diet that could stick (with some modifications - I resent not being able to eat legumes, and I don't intend to forego pasta entirely for the next 6 months to a year - that's just crazy talk).  So I'm feeling a little tentative optimism, the problem being, I've been here loads of times before only to prove myself wrong. I go weeks, occasionally even months of commitment and steady progress, only to trip up, lapse, and gain everything back. This often comes after a big even like a holiday, which is why I'm viewing my upcoming trip to Japan with more trepidation than excitement. Never easy to diet on a holiday, and the land of rice and ramen isn't exactly designed for low carb living. I'll have to travel for work next month also, which I'm already feeling anxious about.

I tried on the dress I'm planning to wear to the wedding and it zipped up this time - but actually, I think it was just a question of awkwardly trying to do a zip up myself that prevented it fitting last time. It's wearable, but not great - which is pretty much the deal with most of my clothes. God, I remember when I used to enjoy clothes and feel great about something I was wearing - I'd love to get those days back and bloody appreciate my figure rather than constantly trying to make it better.

Buoyed by the loss on the scale and the aforementioned deceptive zip success, I tried on some of my other clothes - not in a smaller size, mind, but the size 18s and 16s in my usual rotation that had been feeling a tad snug. Turns out, they're still snug. Pride goeth before a fall indeed. Ridiculous of me to think that 11 days of dieting would magically shrink me, but now I feel quite downcast and disheartened, beyond all rationality.

Tomorrow is lunch out, which I shall have to negotiate as best I can. Apart from that, just keep plodding along and hoping for the best, I suppose.

EDIT: Oh god, I just tried on more clothes. What on earth is wrong with me? I now know that a dress I wore in March is MUCH tighter than it was then. This news is in no way helpful, and has just made me even more miserable. I think I have to put a moratorium on clothes trying-on until at least the beginning of August.

Current status: obsessed

I've become quite fixated on this low carb diet I'm doing. There seems to be a stage on every diet where I become absolutely obsessed with reading everything I can about it, reading online forums, planning meals, and calculating my potential weight loss. It's like I'm completely uninterested in anything else, which has made it fairly easy to stay on plan, but I'm also worried it will burn itself out too quickly.

We also have to go out for lunch on Saturday at a meat based restaurant (good for the diet) at their "endless French fries" brunch (not good for the diet). Hopefully I'll be strong enough to refuse. Part of my anxiety about refusing, to be honest, is the scrutiny it will inevitably draw from my dining companions. I HATE disclosing to people I'm on a diet. The idea that someone knows I want to lose weight is horrifying to me. The idea that I will lose weight is, although welcome, in some ways also terrifying because then PEOPLE MIGHT NOTICE IT. Honestly, that idea makes me shudder. I do desperately want to lose a significant amount of weight, but I want everyone around me not to notice it happen. Too much to ask?

Low carbing it

So, I did not do well at all while in Singapore. Something about travelling - even the airport/plane trip part of it - seems to lead to uncontrolled eating, or at the least absolute inability to even roughly stick to a plan. When I got home late Monday night instead of just going to bed like a normal person, I did the whole "you've blown it anyway so why not go out with a bang" binge, consisting of giant bowl of ice cream and a huge bag of chips. Idiot!

With the wedding trip just two weeks away, and my planned dresses not even zipping up, I am in dire straits. I'm planning to do a combo of 5:2 and low carb, which has been working ok so far (for 3 whole days! My goodness, what willpower!). On the non fast days (I refuse to call them feast days because, I mean come on) I'm trying to stick to 1200 calories (although I got to 1300 today - there's that amazing willpower again!)

I don't think I could maintain this long term - I love carbs, and 1200 feels a little too restrictive, but maybe just for 2 weeks I can manage? I've been googling weight loss constantly and came upon the idea of a fat fast - low carb but with a hellish twist, where you eat 1000 calories a day but 80-90% of that has to come from fat. The idea is it shoves you quickly into ketosis and your body becomes super efficient at using fat for fuel, and it's supposedly good for people with very slow metabolisms. Sounds pretty awful but maybe doable for a few days - if I were convinced it actually worked scientifically. I haven't read convincing enough proof - so the search for the miracle cure continues.

I used Seren's tip and changed my scales to pounds so I would have a less clear idea of where I was, weight wise, but then when I was putting it into some bullshit weight loss calculator thing online it did an instant conversion and I was mildly horrified with what I saw. I was headed back to my highest recorded weight ever, which is just beyond demoralising and mortifying. Anyway, I'm weighing myself again on Saturday, and we'll see how I go.

Planning panic

One of the things I hate about dieting is the way it makes me so inflexible. I have to plan my weeks so carefully, taking into account any social activities, and although I am determined not to let it negatively impact my social life, the fact is, having no plans makes it much easier to stay on plan, as it were.

This week I was planning to do my fast days on Monday and Thursday as usual but a friend is unexpectedly in town Thursday so we're going out to lunch. I can't fast Friday as I have other lunch plans, plus another birthday lunch on Saturday AND Sunday. All of this is enough to send me into a tailspin. So I'll have to fast tomorrow, but it means my planned meals are out the window and I usually like to have my fast days organised with military like precision well in advance. 

Anyway, it isn't a big deal - or rather, it shouldn't be a big deal, but it is. Four social occasions in a row and an unscheduled fast day are making me quite anxious. And I hate that the normal vicissitudes and indeed pleasures of life have become so anxiety ridden for me. More so than before, as now I have to deal with fat girl wardrobe freak out AND trying to diet while dining out freak out.

Oh well. I guess it's good news that I'm keeping on trucking.

Plodding on

Sadly, after a week of brilliant dieting, I plummeted into a calorie and self loathing free fall, the cause of which is still quite mysterious to me. The less said about it the better, but I do think it's probably not unrelated to my mood generally, so I'm going to have to do something about that.

We had a weekend away with friends this week which I wish I could have just enjoyed but was, frankly, ruined by the intense feelings of self consciousness that dogged me. It doesn't help that my friends are all SO thin. Short shorts and minidresses and backless tops galore, and I felt downright repellent in my enormous jeans and baggy tops. Seeing myself in photos with them is torturous.

Anyway, I managed to get back on track today with a fast day. Raw zucchini, beetroot, spinach and feta salad for lunch; seared salmon with miso vegetables for dinner. 

On Saturday week we're going out to lunch for a friend's birthday; I'm hoping that by then I'll at least feel as though I've made a dent in things. My larger goal is to get down 8 or so kilos by the time we go away at the beginning of July for a friend's wedding. It won't come close to bringing me to an acceptable weight but surely a bit of difference might stop me feeling as horrendous as I did this last weekend.

On weigh-ins and hangovers

Dinner out on Wednesday was a mixed bag, diet wise. I did fairly well on the food front - it was an Asian restaurant so I managed to eat pretty healthy things like salads and steamed fish, and minimal rice, although I did pick at a dessert that really wasn't worth the calories. The wine front, however not so much, and I woke up with a bit of a hangover on Thursday. I think I would have been more sanguine about that but it wasn't even as though I had memories of a rollicking good time to make up for the hangover - truth be told I was pounding the wine at dinner because I wasn't having that great a time. I felt very much like I didn't belong, due to both my looks and my feeling of general disenchantment with life. I mentioned a while ago that I got made redundant from my job last year and I've been struggling to find a new job, or even an idea of what new job I want. My old friends from work have moved on to amazing things in amazing places, and I'm treading water. My friends here (and their friends, who I was with at the dinner) are in many ways very different people, and I feeling a bit like I don't have my tribe, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, so a hangover on Thursday meant dieting was particularly difficult. I desperately wanted to just eat piles of buttered toast and bacon - but I managed to resist, which I should really give myself some credit for.

I've been very apprehensive about weighing myself again. Last time I forced myself to do it in the hopes it would kick start my motivation but it just left me feeling utterly miserable and lacking in the will to do anything. Obviously once you start a diet though, you need that kind of feedback to keep going, so I bit the bullet and did it this morning - not too bad I guess - I'm the same weight I was last time, so although I feel disappointed I didn't magically defy the laws of physics and drop a few kilos, at least I've managed to maintain.

Another fast day today - planning on coffee with a splash of cream mid-morning; charred asparagus and boiled eggs for lunch; and Cajun prawns with vegetables for dinner.

Upswing

I'm a little reluctant to write about it since it seems such a fragile, delicate thing, but it seems like (touch wood, hushed voice) my motivation has returned. Magically, like that mysterious switch has been flicked on. I don't know if it was Lesley's pep talk or some freak of my psyche, but yesterday I did a fast day and managed quite well - I was definitely hungry and I did want to eat but it wasn't like that feeling where it's a permanent battle, requiring every single ounce of your mental energy, not to dive into buttered toast or cake etc. And I even had cake in the house! Granted, I'd eaten about 10 pieces in the previous two days, but I did freeze the remaining couple of pieces and they remained undisturbed in the freezer yesterday. I wasn't even tempted! 

Even more gratifyingly, I seem to be managing to count calories and stick to plan today, and I'm busy planning out meals for the week. This will be somewhat difficult as we have a lot on -a good friend who no longer lives here has come back for her wedding, so there are two dinners this week plus the wedding itself on Saturday. I'm hoping to just maintain some perspective. The meals out won't be on plan but I must remember that they won't ruin the diet; I must also not look at them as a chance to have a calorie free for all.

Anyway, plan for today was porridge with apple and pecan for breakfast (not particularly enjoyable to be honey - I decide to eat porridge maybe once every 5 months, and every time I do I remember why I don't eat porridge); smoked salmon and multigrain toast for lunch, and for dinner, steak with a raw zucchini, rocket, feta, and mint salad.

Once more into the breech

Well, here I go again. Not much has changed since the last post - not lost any weight, still feeling miserable. Part of the reason I haven't got back into the swing of things has been a full month of travel - part holiday, part work, part family visits - and I am one of those people who finds it inpossible to stick to a diet when I'm out of my routine. Not that I can blame it all on circumstance - there are certainly days I've been home and could have got myself into gear, and I sure didn't need to go so overboard at Easter. But that's par for the course really.

I tried to get back into it today with a fast day but fell off the wagon. At least a failed fast day is much, much better than a regular day. I just wish I could regain the motivation I had a few months ago. Honestly, I don't understand why it's such an elusive and mysterious thing. I want it just as badly as ever, but it's like there's a switch in my brain, and I have no control over when it goes on and off.

I don't even know what I should do now, to be honest. Calorie count tomorrow, then back to my regular fast day Monday? Fast tomorrow? I know I'm not in the right headspace but that seems to be admitting defeat. 

I don't know how on earth to get back into it, I just know that I have to.

Shock

I weighed myself this morning.... Jesus Christ, I cannot believe how much weight I've put on in the last few months. I'm starting not just all over again, but all over again and then a HEFTY amount more. I know I had to bite the bullet to weigh myself and get this thing started again, but god. Pick don't know if I feel motivated so much as miserable. I actually have a hollow feeling in my stomach about it, and all I want to so is crawl back under the covers and hide. What a complete fucking idiot I am, why can't I just make weight loss stick. 

On hold

That seems the best way to describe my weight loss efforts. As predicted, the move was not conducive to healthy eating, and there was a hell of a lot of takeaway food and unhealthy snacks consumed. We're still in the process of unpacking and sorting out annoying details (like nowhere to hang our towels or our coats) and I've simultaneously come down with some kind of virus that has sapped my energy and motivation. All these are pretty poor excuses, but I haven't given up entirely. I'm hoping tomorrow I can get back on track somewhat - at the least, back to tracking - and then start a fast day on Monday. Trouble is, the week after that we go on holiday - and I am the absolute worst at sticking to diets when my routine is disrupted. First things first though, eh? Tomorrow. 1800 calories. I can do that.

Food photos

I finally figured out how to add photos to this thing. What a brave new world of amateurish, poorly lit food photography this opens to me.

Fast day meals:

Smoked salmon with shaved onion, dill, Greek yogurt, capers, sesame seeds, lemon, smoked salt.

Vegetables cooked with gochujang, boiled eggs with rice seasoning and sesame seeds:

New leaf

Yesterday didn't go as well as I'd hoped, unfortunately. I made some low fat banana bread to use up some bananas and buttermilk, then are rather too many serves. I was just over maintenance level calories which is not at all what I was aiming for. But I'm still thinking baby steps here, so I'm trying to tell myself to count it as a win because I didn't completely throw in the towel and I still tracked everything.

I'm a little apprehensive about my second fast day today. Once I get into the swing of it  I hope I'll find it a bit easier to get through but it does feel awfully hard to get through the day on so little food.

Plan for the day is coffee with a dash of cream this morning, then smoked salmon for lunch, and a vegetable and cannellini bean stew for dinner. Clocks in around 600 so a bit over, but - again - baby steps. I also want to get back into spreading my meals out more - ideally on a fast day you're to have one or two meals only - but I think at the moment I just have to do whatever I can manage.

We're moving apartments this weekend so I'm a little worried about how that's going to translate, food-wise. I guess I'll just have to play it by ear and do the best I can.  Really I should be more preoccupied with how little prepared we are, since the flat is full of crap and we've not sorted or packed anything.

I'm very excited about our new place actually, it's much bigger, it's quieter, and it even had a little outdoor terrace! The only thing I'm disappointed about is the tiny kitchen. Actually the kitchen itself is a reasonable size but the sink is bizarrely tiny and the stove top also rather wee. One of those stoves where you think "ooh! Four burners!" (A luxury in tiny sized HK apartments) then realise that those four burners are squished together so you could only have 4 pots on at a time if they were rather little. Anyway, we shall see how it goes, I'm sure I'll make do.

I'm quite liking the idea of moving house and starting a new diet also. Psychologically it just feels like it will be a nice fresh start.

Keeping on

Well, I managed it! Not a triumph by any means, but I stumbled though the day to grand total of 800 calories - a little more than I'd wished, but it's silly and counterproductive to beat myself up for eating 800 calories when if left to my own devices it probably would have been closer 8000.

This morning I didn't measure out my breakfast carefully enough (bread, goats cheese, coffee with a splash of cream) but I did tally up what I think is a fair estimate on myfitnesspal. As Lesley said, writing everything down is crucial so I'm going to try to be strict with that. Promisingly, I'm feeling reasonably optimistic, and still fairly motivated, so wish me luck.

I'm not sure what my lunch will be, but it will be something vegetable heavy, then tonight pasta with roasted cherry tomatoes and crab.

Wednesday will be my next fast day - it was going to be Thursday but now I've agreed to go to drinks that evening. Fast day plan TBD, watch this space.

New year musings

Well hello there.

Radio silence has, indeed, meant a complete and spectacular tumble off the wagon. I've put all the weight on and possibly more (too scared to get on the scales this morning although I intended to). I'm absolutely miserable but have still found no willpower to dig myself out of the hole.

I'm hoping today will be a fresh start for real, this time. I'm trying a somewhat modified fast day - aiming for roughly 600 calories, not going to be bothered if it ends up around 700. I'm also planning to go back to calorie counting (to 1500-1600) tomorrow, for my non-fasting days. And a proper fast day on Thursday, which I'm actually going to plan ahead for this time.

Breakfast today was coffee with milk, lunch was 2 boiled eggs with some vegetables stir fried in gochujang, all topped with a bit of Japanese furikake rice seasoning and some black sesame seeds. I've taken to following on Instagram the owner of a cafe in Bristol who posts some impressive and inspiring fast day ideas, so hopefully that will also prod me a little.

I've now to see the dentist this afternoon, which I'm dreading. I haven't been in literally years. My teeth desperately need a cleaning and I'd love to get them whitened too. I've been meaning to do something about them for years but I find when I'm overweight I'm so less likely to bother with anything else related to taking care of my appearance, which probably just makes things worse.

Anyway, here's hoping today is a success, and I can finally start plodding my weigh (oops - rather apposite typo there) back to the straight and narrow (narrow also being the operative word...)