DJ time

Some very exciting news, my boyfriend (who creates his own mixes on his decks at home) has been given his own guest spot on a local radio station! It's currently being aired as we speak and looks like its going well so we'll have to see what comes of it, how exciting! 
I've included the link to his soundcloud page just below here so you can have a listen if you like?

Crash2Desktop

In other news, I weighed in last night for the final time using my 1st countdown voucher (you can purchase 12 weeks worth of classes in one go for the price of 10, gives you an added incentive to go back I guess if you've already paid) and I lost another 2.5lbs for a grand total of 32.5lbs since I started in January. I also got my third slimmer of the week in a row but didn't manage to get slimmer of the month which I was a bit gutted about, but then there's still next month! I'm not going to class next week as I'll be down south visiting the folks with S so I've taken a week's holiday and will weigh in again on Monday 8th April when I hope I will have lost 3.5lbs at least so I can get my 2 and a half stone award AND my club 10 award (that's when I've lost 10% of my starting weight) 

As you may remember I also mentioned I was starting a challenge on Sunday which will run for 50 days where I have to run, walk or cycle at least 5km per day, every day for 50 days. I figured this was a good challenge for me as its around 3.1miles which is perfectly doable for me at my level of fitness (or lack thereof!) I will obviously be walking it as I don't want to set off any seismic sensors with running and I'm not sure a bike would take my weight right now! The challenge itself is for charity, Comic Relief in fact, and there was a donation style entrance fee, I could have chosen to try to get more donations but at this stage this one is just for me, maybe in the future when they run another one and I join in then I'll try to get some more sponsors but for now my initial donation will do. I've included the link below in case anyone wants to have a peek and maybe think about joining up themselves?

5x50 Challenge 2013

I'm dreaming of a white.... Easter??

It's officially Palm Sunday today, in other words its one week till Xmas and this is what I've had to contend with all weekend:

As you can see, quite a lot of snow has fallen here in the West Midlands, but weirdly enough not a lot has fallen in Wolverhampton but these pics are from Burntwood which is only about 12-15 miles away but obviously a lot higher up as its had way more snow! 

You may remember that I walk the dog at the weekends but even he wasn't too keen at walking in very cold wet stuff, he's a big dog but in places the snow was up to his belly. 

 Leo had great fun jumping about it and even eating it but as you can see my feet kinda sunk and I got snow in my shoes, socks and in my trousers!

Now I know what you're thinking, why on earth did you go walking in the snow with trainers on? Why not wear wellies or something? Well there is a simple answer, I was at N's house and don't have stuff like that there (although to be fair I haven't owned a pair of wellies since I was probably about 10) but the snow was way over the top of my socks and you can kinda see where it comes up to on my trousers so I spent most of the rest of the day trying to get warm!


The thing is the walk that we did would normally take around 15 minutes maybe on a good day, depending on how many other people/cats/dogs we happen to bump into and how long Leo spends jumping up at them, however yesterday it took me just over 45 minutes to make the same journey so I don't care what my fitibit said I'd walked and how many calories it said I'd burnt I KNOW I burnt more because it was such hard going trudging through that amount of snow.

On a positive note I'm now back in Wolverhampton so I'm hoping that the weather doesn't get any worse and I can get back out and start racking up the miles! I'm doing something called the 5x50 challenge starting next Sunday but I'll tell you more about that later in the week.

Wii fit plus

About 3 Xmas' ago my parents bought me a wii fit balance board with the intention I would start using it once I was under the higher limit for it which is 23 stone 8lbs. I'm kind of ashamed and happy at the same time, to say that I finally opened it today and used it for the first time. However according to the little guy on screen I'm obese (well I did know that), he made my little 'Mii' character (the avatar you use on the wii system) really fat and after administering some tests he decided that my wii fit age was 53 :(( (I'm 34 remember!) N has decided this is hysterically funny but as he's not here till tomorrow he might find he's laughing on the other side of his face when I make him do it too! 

It was weigh in time last night and I've lost another 3.5lbs making a total of 30lbs (or 2stone 2lbs) so I'm still doing well and once again I've set myself a target of 2lbs, but on top of this thanks to my little fitbit I am also targetting myself to get to at least 6k steps a day and climb the equivalent of 10 flights of stairs, still got a little bit of work to do today but I'm getting there. I'm also investigating some of the wii games that are designed to get you moving more - the one that keeps being recommended to me is called Step to the beat (or Walk it Out in the US) but unfortunately even though it was released a few years ago its really expensive so I'm hoping I can grab it off eBay. 

I'm hoping I'm not overdoing the exercise side of things, I don't want to get injured or burn out or anything like that - although I suspect that's just silly with the amount I'm doing! But I just feel really inspired at the minute and when the weather is ok (if a little chilly) I've got no excuses to go out and have a walk really. Plus now the wii fit board is set up I can walk in front of the telly playing a game so definitely no more excuses! 

Walking the dog

It's the weekend again and I'm at N's again (well as always) and thanks to walking the dog I'm already up to 5k steps and ive only been out of bed for about an hour or so! Aiming for at least 1.5 lbs this week to get my 2 stone award although I still need 3.5lbs to reach my target for the month which is 7lbs. The reason I've given myself a target of 7lbs a month is that if I can keep that up I will have lost 6 stone by the end of the year but I'm already ahead of that so hopefully I could have lost 7 or more stone.

Unfortunately N is not the greatest at planning meals so no idea what I'm having later, hoping it's got a few syns in though as I'm finding I lose better amounts of weight the more syns I eat, not going over 15 of course. Still there will be at least 2 more doggy walks later as I really want to hit 10k steps today and maybe tomorrow too.

Illness :(

Well Monday went far better than expected, I was realistically only expecting a small loss but lo and behold managed to lose another 2.5lbs! So only 1.5lbs till I hit the 2 stone marker which is fantastic, and only 10lbs to go in total till I get my Club 10 (10% of your starting weight lost) which I'm aiming for by my birthday on April 18th, there's only 5 more weigh in's till then though so I'd best get my skates on! 

So as the title says I'm not very well today, I don't like not being well - and who does right? Especially not me, I get very grumpy and a bit pathetic, its only a cold and not like I'm dying or anything but I just feel blah and totally not with it. In the olden days I would have flopped in front of the telly with a load of choccie or something and just pigged out, but I've got myself moving, gone for a walk and bought enough ingredients to make a lovely tikka masala for tea, all fresh and homemade and everything! If all goes to plan there may even be a pic on the blog for next time, and it may even appear in the recipes section - but the best thing about this is it's free, as in no syns, which means I can eat loads and not feel guilty! Yay! 

This is the tikka masala I made totally from scratch, am feeling very proud of myself right now as it was blooming lovely! I'm not the best of cooks but this came out really nice, had to add in a bit more spice than was advised as we like it quite hot but other than that really happy with it, and the best of it is - its syn free! Yep a curry that's syn free! How awesome is that?! The recipe will get added later on to the recipes page but I don't have time to do it just now as I've promised my daughter we'll have a mummy/daughter night and she wants to watch Bee Movie (bless) 

Another day, another lb?

Well I find myself at Monday once again and that means the dreaded weigh in tonight! I've been as good as I can be this week considering I've had 2 chinese takeouts! Done a fair bit of exercise over the weekend which is good, should get my first body magic award next Monday if I can do enough this week, so I'm hoping I get a decent loss - well any loss will be good as I'm slowly edging my way towards the 2 stone marker! 

Just read a post on a blog I follow by another Slimming World loser (and I can say that as she's lost over 6 stone following the plan and is now at her target weight) where she was talking about quick fix diets. We've all seen them and chances are we've all followed at least one of them, you know the ones - where you only eat a certain foodstuff or you only eat every other day of the week or something like that. Well the truth is you will lose weight doing that but unless you are planning on doing that diet for the rest of your life there's a good chance that once you come off it and start eating normally again you'll put some, if not all, of the weight back on. Now I'm not saying these diets don't work, they do for some, but never for me, but with Slimming World its more of a lesson in how to eat properly for life rather than a quick fix - as my fellow blogger said, we didn't go to bed a size 8 one night and wake up a size 28 the following morning, so why should we expect the same in reverse.

 My weight has been slowly adding up since I was young, usually around half a stone a year or so (although thankfully that does seem to have slowed somewhat in the past few years) so I can't expect it to fall off overnight. One other thing is you can't compare yourself to others, no matter if you're the same size, the same weight, the same height etc, we all lose weight at different rates, for some reason mine seems to come off very slowly (a lb or so at a time) then every once in a while I'll have a massive weight loss and lose 4 or 5 lbs in one week when I've done virtually the same thing and eaten virtually the same foods! 

As for my fitbit experiment, all is going well, I seem to average around 3-4k steps a day so my plan for this week is to get in at least 5k steps a day which is a lot harder than it seems believe it or not, the only problem I forsee today is its blooming freezing and I really don't wanna go for a walk! 

Weekend again

It's the weekend again and this weekend I've taken my daughter to my bfs with me as it's mother's day on Sunday so we can spend the weekend together plus his mum can spend some time with her too. They've made some cakes and had some fun whilst N and I took the dog back to the vets to get checked out after his operation last week to get him 'sorted'. Done plenty of walking today, might even reach my first 10k on the fitbit but the food hasn't been too good this week especially as due to various issues we ended up having to have Chinese takeaway on Thursday and Friday night,  I did try to eat fairly healthily but even so it was a takeout.  I'm not expecting a great loss this week but anything would be good.

Tiredness

How unusual for me to be posting about lack of sleep! Well I've learnt a couple of things today, firstly I should never do my food shopping whilst tired, it seems I can manage to do it whilst hungry but tired is another matter, all I wanted to do was grab junk and get home for a sleep. Secondly thanks to my little Fitbit One gizmo I now know I really do take ages to get to sleep and got woken up 13 times in the night, its an amazing bit of kit, I mean I know I probably wasn't actually awake but just roused enough to be tossing and turning and therefore not getting enough decent sleep, at one point this went of for nearly 20 minutes which obviously isn't good. Following my success yesterday with uploading pics I'll see if I can take a screenshot of the sleep info from the website later in the week when its got more on there.

As for dieting well I had my weigh in last night and lost another lb which is good, obviously I'd have like more but hey as that famous supermarket's saying goes 'Every little helps' it means I've now lost 24lbs in 2 months and I'm still on target for losing my 7lbs this month (6lbs to go) I was going to try to go for a walk every day this week but I'm not sure I'm awake enough to go today despite a 3 hour 'nap' after I got back from the shops. I might see how I feel later as I don't have S tonight, she's gone to her dad's, so I can go out later at night although I don't really like going out after dark. I've only done about 3k steps so far today, I did nearly 8k yesterday but this week is sort of a test week and then the idea is to increase it so I do 10k+ a day, which is certainly going to be interesting at weekends as I barely move!

Fitbit

Got my fitbit One today, was very excited about it arriving, possibly a little more excited than you should be about what is essentially a glorified pedometer! I'm going to include some pics so you can see what you get and do a mini tech review of it as it were, well I might as well attempt to be useful on the blog as well.

It's quite an expensive piece of kit, the one I have (called the Fitbit One) cost £80 but it does come with a lot of different gizmos on it and on the website as well. Now this might have to be a bit of an ongoing review as I find out more and learn how to use it a bit better but for now this is where I'm at.

 In the box you get the One (which is way smaller than it looked on the website, its teeny), a usb dongle as the One is a clever little gadget and syncs itself automatically whenever you're within about 20 feet of your dongle (or seemingly every 20 mins or so if you're sat at your desk right next to the thing). 

There is also a charger unit, again this is a usb device but you shouldn't need to use it that often as a full charge is supposed to last around 5-7 days and it comes with about a half charge on it so you can use it straight from the box.

There is also a black wristband which is a LOT bigger than I had expected but this is so you can slip the One into it at night and take advantage of the sleep function, I won't be looking at that until at least tomorrow when I've had a chance to use it for at least one night. There's also the little clip, mine happens to be burgundy, but you have a choice when you buy it of a black one or a burgundy one, but as everything I've bought recently seems to be a deep purple-y colour I figured I may as well colour coordinate! 









So now I'm feeling dead smug about working out how to insert images into my blog and get text next to them, I just hope it posts ok! No, its ok I'm not a total technophobe but this is my first time so be gentle ;) Anyway back to what we were talking about, the ONE, so what I'm going to do now is sign off as I have a sudden urge to go for a walk which is weird cos I never have those, must be the One.

Weekend lethargy

Currently at the boyfriends house and posting on my tablet which I treated myself to a few weeks ago. I took the dog out for a walk last night and cos he'd been in the house on his own for most of the day he was really jumpy and excitable which meant I practically ran all the way,  good for the diet though,  plenty of exercise, think I'm taking him out again in a few minutes once I've finished my blog entry. 

Found some wine which is 12 syns for the whole bottle, so I had half last night and will have the other half tonight which is a nice treat. Didn't have many syns yesterday other than the wine and probably won't have much more today so hopefully will get a decent loss on Monday although 2lbs would make me happy. 

Mixed bag

Today's a bit of a blah day for me, fridays always are but today more so than normal. On a Friday I go to the boyfriend's house which, although he only lives about 20-25 minutes away by car, takes me almost 3 hours and 3 buses to get to, so its a total pain in the behind! Also today S has the day off school (stupid inset days) which means she's knocking round the house being bored and stuff, the only saving grace is as she's quite independent she left us in bed this morning so I didn't get up til half ten! 

Still feeling super motivated food wise although I am kinda craving something naughty, we had home made burgers last night which was a little naughty I guess (even though they are free on Slimming World)but it's not like I had them with bacon and cheese or even a bun (yes, my burgers were naked!) I had them with a load of salad. I could seriously sink my teeth into a doughnut or a big slab of chocolate but then that's how I got this way in the first place so I'm trying NOT to do that. On the plus side I will get plenty of exercise at the weekend in the form of dog walking, my boyfriend has a massive one year old Staffie called Leo who is absolutely gorgeous but needs to be walked for a good half an hour at least 3 times a day and then at least one long walk a day, it's a shame I don't get over there every day, would be very good for the diet!

Also been looking at buying a Wii U in the past few days, we have an original Wii but we can't get any new games for it as its chipped or whatever and the new games won't work so I figured a new one might be nice. Guess I need to start saving! Maybe that'll be my treat for my Club 10 (when you lose 10% of your starting body weight) although I still need to lose another 13.5lbs to get to it.

Android app

So I thought I'd do a mega quick post just to try out the Android app for Blogger mainly to see if it works.  I'm not likely to be doing a lot of blogging from my phone but it's definitely a handy app to have.