Losing the gut

I told you a couple of weeks ago that I had signed up for a twenty week weight loss programme with Motivation Weight Management Clinics. Well I'm now getting to the end of week 3, and when I weighed myself this morning, I had lost a total of seven and a half pounds to date. I'm delighted with that result, and hoping to have the next seven pounds down within the next month.

I'm finding the programme fairly easy to follow. I have upped my protein intake, cut back drastically on carbs, but not cut them out totally, started drinking approx 2 litres of water daily, and given up the chocolate, cakes, biscuits, crisps and general crap that I had been stuffing my face with all Christmas. I've also given up alcohol for the moment. This was the bit I thought I would find most difficult. Not that I'm a raging dipso or anything, but alcohol and socialising usually go hand in hand for me. That is whenever I do get out, which is not all that often these days since we live in a one horse town where even the horse has fucked off to find livelier pastures.

So last Saturday night presented me with my first opportunity for partying since I started this programme (don't want to use the word diet, it just sounds too much like punishment). One of my old Uni buddies was having her fortieth birthday party in a hotel in Galway, the city we went to college in. Now there's always been this association with Galway and getting tanked to the lugs, but this party was going to be different for me, with sparkling water my chosen tipple for the night. When we got there, a waitress was pouring wine for everyone as they arrived. John grabbed a glass, and straight away I was tempted to have just the one. But as I was driving, I wouldn't have felt comfortable even having one drink, so fizzy water it was for me.

Then the buffet was rolled out. The usual party food, sandwiches, cocktail sausages, vol au vents, that kind of thing. I had the foresight to suggest we went out for dinner beforehand so that we would be full up with healthy option type food before we hit the party, so I wasn't in the least bit tempted by the nibbles. The one treat I allowed myself was a slice of the most orgastric chocolate birthday cake I have ever tasted. Divine.....mmm.... Then the DJ started up and we were all dragged out on the floor to get the dancing started. Now dancing in stillettos has never been a talent of mine, but dancing sober in stillettos was even more like hard work. But the DJ was brilliant and really got the craic going. After a while I got John to run out to the car and fetch me a pair of flat shoes I had brought as backup. Much better. I danced and danced for at least two hours solid. I hadn't danced that much in years! So I definitely got my exercise in for the day, if not the weekend.

The great thing was the next morning I woke up with a clear head, rearing to head to the leisure centre. I swam for twenty minutes, and then we relaxed in the outdoor hot tub for a while. Bloody freezing when you step outside in January in your swimming togs, but so warm when you get into the tub. So all in all a really enjoyable and healthy weekend. And I proved to myself that I can party my socks off without touching a drop of alcohol, so I now I don't feel like I will have to live like a hermit until I finish this programme. My next weigh in is tomorrow morning. I will report back here regularly on my progress.

The big freeze, New Year's Resolutions and a New Kitteh on the block

You know that saying careful what you wish for? Well we got a prime example of it in the last few days. As I'm sure most of you know, Ireland regressed to the Ice Age over Christmas, and it's only in the last couple of days that we're beginning to thaw. Temperatures went down as far as -8C, which for us is bloody cold. Strangely enough, our little town didn't get the snow until Saturday, and we were beginning to feel a bit left out, watching the rest of the country on the news under several inches of the stuff. The inner children in us were longing for a good old snowball fight.

We hadn't got over to visit my in laws, who live a 40 minute drive away all Christmas, because the roads were just too icy. John had been talking to them every day, and it had got to a stage that their water had gone on the blink. So last Saturday we decided icy roads or not, we'd get in the car and drive over, even if we had to go 20mph all the way. Halfway there, it started snowing. Shortly after we arrived at the house, parents in law arrived back from a trip to town to bring home one of the cats from the vet. They have what I could only describe as a tribe of black cats in their yard, mostly feral, who would make great extras for a Hitchcock type movie. Anyway one of them came out the wrong side of a fight a few months back with what we guess must have been a dog or a fox, and she lost more than half her tail as a result. It got infected, and the poor thing was in pain, so mother in law got some sort of trap from the vet to catch her and bring her in for treatment.

She was released from the vet with instructions to keep her indoors. Now I knew there was no way in hell that my parents in law were going to do that. As far as they are concerned humans live indoors, dogs and cats live outdoors, end of. She was very distressed from being in a cage and travelling in the car when they got her home. I opened the lid of her cage to pet her and calm her down, and within minutes she was purring and nuzzling my hand. So I took pity on the poor little thing and after working on John for a couple of minutes, declared that we would take her home to care for her. So we loaded her cage into the back seat of the car, and off we went into the snowy night. Driving on a windy crappy road in the snow at night can be a stressful enough experience, but when you have an extremely traumatised injured cat providing the soundtrack, it's pretty headwrecking. We stopped off at the supermarket en route to buy her a bed and some extra food, and by the time we got home it was 7pm.

Once in the house, I went to fill the kettle. No water. We checked with our neighbours, and their water was fine. Ours had frozen over because we were out of the house all day. D'oh. That was Saturday, it's now the Friday, and it still hasn't come back. So we've been showering in the gym and filling our water tank in the attic via a hose from our next door neighbours. On top of that, we both came down with colds this week. I am still smothered with it. Yuck.

We made a little safe haven for the new cat in the sun room, and managed to smuggle her in without our own two cats noticing there was a new resident under our roof. Little by little I started to gain her trust, to the point I got her to sit on my knee. When she does this she purrs like an engine, then she claws me to ribbons in happiness, and drools profusely. Nice. Yesterday I spoke to her vet who told me that what's left of her tail needs to be bathed three times a day. Ever since I have been having great fun and games trying to get at her tail, and every time I get near to clean it, she tucks it in under herself. Our cats have begun to cop on that there is a house guest in residence. So far there hasn't been too much hostility which I'm surprised at really, they are normally extremely territorial when it comes to their home turf. So I don't know yet if we'll keep her or try and re-home her. Whichever way, I'm not sending her back to her original home as she will only get booted out the door again, which is a pity because she has great potential to be a really affectionate lap cat. But I'm afraid that I am on the slippery slope to becoming one of those witchy old cat women if I keep her and then have three of them.

Anyway, enough pussy talk (fnarr fnarr). I gained quite a few pounds weight in the last month or so, between Christmas and a post ectopic pregnancy comfort eating binge, so I decided to do something about it for once and for all. I signed up and paid up for a 20 week weight loss programme with Motivation Weight Management Clinic. Two of my brothers did their programme and had great success with it, one of them lost three and a half stone last year (49 lbs) so I decided to give it a go. I want to lose around two stone (28 lbs). So far on the first week I was down 4 lbs. My sister in law has very generously booked us flights to visit her and her husband in Dubai in March, so my aim is to be down at least 14 lbs by then. I was doing well on the exercise front until this cold hit me, and now all I want to do is curl up in bed with a hot water bottle. But hopefully I will shake it off before too long and will be back up on the treadmill soon.

So there's my New Year's Resolution. To be back in size 12-14 by Summer time. And hopefully I will then go and undo all my good work by getting pregnant and actually carrying it to full term.
I'd better go now, I have to play Florence Nightingale to the furry amputee. Here kitty, kitty.....

I'm bringin' sexah back

There must be something in the air in the IF blogosphere in the last few days, since some of us have taken to exercise all of a sudden. May is extolling the benefits of walking (albeit reluctant extolling, and walking with "a face like a bulldog licking piss of a nettle" (love it!), while Womb for improvement has come over all zen like and gone back to yoga. The health kick buzz has also descended upon Chez Jane & John here in the arse end of Midlands Ireland.

To tell the truth, we've been members of the leisure centre in the one decent hotel in town since we moved here around four and a half years ago. When we joined, we were a year away from our wedding, so our mantra was "We are not going to look like fat skobies (chavs, trailer trash, whatever) in our wedding photos". So four nights a week we were down at the pool, swimming away to beat the band. I was determined to get into a size 12 Audrey Hepburn style little number for our wedding, which I managed to do after much pain and sweat.

I was trying to lose the weight gained while spent backpacking around Australia for 3 months the previous winter. I've started reading "Eat, pray, love" by Elizabeth Gilbert this week. It's about a 34 year old divorcee who embarks on a year of solo travel in 2003 in search of her inner self. Which is a little bit of a coincidence, since in 2003 I became a divorcee, and later that year, at the age of 34, I chucked in my permanent pensionable job at the bank, got out my Jesus sandals and rucksack, and hightailed it off down under for 3 months on my own. If I was to write a book about my adventures and travels, it would be a lot less spiritual, and more likely to be entitled "Eat, eat, drink". I literally lived on beer, nasty deep fried food and ice cream for three months. When I returned to my soon to be fiancé, there was an extra stone and a half of me to love (that's 21 pounds for my readers across the Atlantic). And I wasn't exactly a stick insect to begin with.

Anyway, I digress...Since our wedding both of us have battled with a yo-yo-ing weight issue. We both gained at least seven pounds on our two week honeymoon. That's what you get for going all inclusive. There's this inner voice telling you "F*ck it, we've paid for this, let's get our value for money" which results in you gorging yourself on food and drink. I went on a health kick in the month leading up to John's brother's wedding the following year, but once that was over I fell off the wagon with a resounding thump once more. That Autumn, I became pregnant for the first time, and was barely keeping my eyes open with the tiredness, let alone getting out for a walk. With the result that the pounds started to pile on. Then I miscarried, which kicked off a comfort eating frenzy that continued for at least 3 months. By that stage I had reached my heaviest ever, tipping over 12 stone on the scales, and for the first time ever in my life I was clinically overweight. Eeeeekkk!! This is the girl who used to be known as Twiggy for all of her childhood and teenage years, or just Skinny Bitch to my sister. I used to wear size 8 jeans when I was 16 for God's sake! Now I was reaching for size 16!

From there on a cycle of half hearted health kick, lose 3 lbs, get pregnant, put on more weight, miscarry, comfort eat carried on. I tried during the Summer to get on the wagon once more, but I just couldn't get myself in the frame of mind. My hormones were all over the place with Clomid, injections, disappointing blood tests, resulting downer, blah de blah de blah, that I just couldn't get off my arse and do anything about it. The past few weekends we have been saying "Ok, starting Monday, we are going back to the gym", but we've always found excuses not to. So last weekend I went down town, purchased a pair of shiny white trainers and some tracky bottoms which cover my ample bottom in as flattering a manner as possible, and we bit the bullet and went back. You always feel sheepish walking in there when you haven't been in over six months. Especially when you have been paying €45 a month not to use the facilities. Making donations if you will.

But this time I'm determined.
Because I am sick of having a muffin top in my favourite jeans.
Because I have a wardrobe full of relatively expensive clothes (Coast dresses, bustiers and the like) that don't fit me anymore.
Because I'm sicking of seeing myself in photos with three chins and a face like a full moon in a fog.
Because I'm sick of going shopping and struggling to find clothes that look halfway decent on me.
Because I'm sick of (to paraphrase Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy) the fact that my arse is the size of a small country.
Because this weight makes me look every bit of my 39 years, and I am vain and like to think that I don't look a day over 34.
Because I want to start my next pregnancy (and there will be a next one, God willing) a stone lighter, so that when I gain baby weight I will not end up 16 stone post pregnancy.

So here goes, **gets up on the stepper machine without having a coronary in the process**.....I'm bringin' sexah back.....do do do....