There has to be a logical explanation

(This is a REALLY long post. Grab a coffee and settle down for the evening!)

Right. After being a complete emotional cripple for the last few days, I decided that there just MUST be some logic to it all.

When you consider that people have walked the earth for thousands of years without being obese; that obesity as a disease is relatively new in about the last 50 years or so, and the internet has been going for at least 20, then someone somewhere must have the information I need.

I cannot begin to imagine what it must have been like before the internet, even given the fact that I have only had it for 10 years this January. What on earth did we do before? How did we find out information? Whatever those skills were, I don't remember them and haven't needed them since I had the internet.

I cannot begin to imagine how thios planet would be had the library in Alexandria not burnt down taking with it, to a vast extent, the whole intelligent worlds information. Thank goodness the internet cannot 'burn down'.

But it can feel like it when you are searching for things with no end to the information, but it not being the thing you want/need. You can start to think of yourself as unique to this problem you are facing when you return 1,285,935,959,280 google results for "food addiction", when what you want needs to be much faster and easier to solve.

I went to slimming world on Monday as you know. I spent the rest of the day looking up counseling services for drug addicts, alcoholics etc trying to find some strategies to stop me overeating. I read a pfd file on alcoholism which was really great. I could completely relate it to my food addiction and it got me to thinking about cutting out all the foods I crave and staying off them.

I can easily cut out the foods I want/crave/need/must have for about a week, but after that.. forget it! I still needed a strategy to help me cope in the long term. the article about alcoholism talked about peers and family and support at groups, and obviously the lovely people who wrote back did suggest just that... over-eaters anonymous and the like.

But this is me... right? I am not good at just telling people "I am a fuck up" face to face, and this is the only place where I do admit an awful lot of things I never would because I am semi anonymous. This IS my group therapy, if you will. I started to think of another possible solution.

do you remember than I had NLP suggestion back in the summer with that wierd woman who spoke in a really odd Yorkshire accent and whistled through her bad fitting false teeth at me (Beryl Reid's clone!) about avoiding "the hard cheeses and the fatty foods, the greasy foods" etc that I DON'T eat a lot of and I considered her a quack and the therapy a load of shite?

Well, years ago I had analytical hypnotherapy for a few horrible issues back when I was at college. This was the thing I needed as it really helped me. So I decided to have a look into it further. The NHS provide hypnotherapy on prescription in some cases, not that I was going to go to the doctor, but I thought I might try and find a therapist that worked with the NHS and privately. An NHS practitioner would have to hold certain qualifications and be, well... good!

I found three women who I felt good about. Their photo's were nice. One I didn't call because on her website she said how you needed to be careful about fakes and charlatans and you need to make sure that they have the right qualifications bla bla and that she did have these particular ones she was talking about... which, I don't know... makes me kind of think that SHE is a fake. I don't know why, but someone who tries to put me off other people for one reason or another must have an agenda... cant really explain it, but that's kind of how I felt.

So I rang the other two. One still hasnt got back to me, but Rachel did and she looked nice, my age, and her voice was nice and I felt at home. I think I couldnt take that other NLP lady seriously because she had a neckercheif, was fat, looked and spoke like Thora Hurd or Beryl Reid and her voice just totally grated each time her teeth whistled. *Shudders* I couldnt concentrate and she hadnt listened to me as she tried to put me off foods that I dont eat... kind of pointless really.

So I have an appointment - 45 minutes FREE consult on Friday. That's more professional I think. Then if I want to go ahead, I can book a session at a later date. I like that idea.

In the evening after I got back from work, I still had some wine and some chocolate and some prawn cocktail and some pickle with my dinner and DH and I tried to find out the things that I wanted to eat the most.

It is sauce. Any kind of sauce at all.

My Mum once said "Its better for me to have 2 teaspoons of sugar in my tea, than it is to give up sugar and find myself eating a packet of biscuits or cake every day". I completely understand this, and this could be my downfall. She tried to give up sugar in tea, but found it elsewhere and instead of eating 30 extra calories each cup of tea when was having tea and a slice of cake so about 300 calories. She put ON weight by giving up sugar in tea.

You cannot have sauce on its own. You cant sit down to a dish of pickle. I looked at the pig out foods I bought on Sunday, and I bought prawns - because I love the cocktail sauce! I brought smoked salmon - because I love the dill sauce. I bought Doritos - because I love the tray of dips.
I buy curry and suck the chicken or prawns and spit them out on occasion simply to eat the sauce!!!!

What new madness is this????

I think of the times I have had a few slices of cheese so that I can eat salad cream. Made mashed potato so I can eat daddy sauce (brown sauce) or pickle. Then I think of the times that the cheese/cracker/mash/Doritos is finished and I pour a little more sauce on my plate and lick it off my finger. A particular favorite of mine when I do that is sweet chili dipping sauce.

Ok, there are a few exceptions. I love chocolate minstrels and biscuits and other things, but biscuits feature much less in binges. Minstrels feature quite a bit. Doritos feature a lot as so all kinds of sauce with something. I order at least 2 or 3 curry's a week for example and when we have a Chinese, I order 2 POTS of sweet and sour sauce and pour it over a carton of seaweed and then all over some Singapore noodles or chili beef.

Ok, so I need to eliminate the following in my diet:

Salad creme
Brown sauce
sweet chili dipping sauce
cocktail sauce
tomato sauce
pickle
balsamic vinegar and olive oil
dips - salsa etc
salad dressing
curry
Chinese
Dorito's

When DH & I were considering this list I said "maybe I will find I have to stop other things too. I might find I am starting to have gravy with everything etc..."

Yesterday I began to wonder if there were any foods that food addicts clearly need to abstain from - a NO GO list if you like. I found a lot of info but the main things that cropped up were
CHEESE, MEAT, SUGAR, MILK, CHOCOLATE and often foods containing E621.

Cheese - Now, I like cheese quite a lot, but I don't have it that much in everyday (non binge) eating. I might have a few grams grated on something, but seeing as I used to love it grated on beans on toast - which I cant eat anymore with the band - or on a jacket potato - again not that often I have that - I don't eat as much as I have in the past. The only exception to this is when I have a few slices in the evening with SAUCE which has been quite common as a binge food.

Meat - well I really cant tolerate too much meat with the band, so that's limited and I have never been a big crazy fan. I could easily be vegetarian in fact and never eat meat again. Its not something I hate or love. Its just... meat.

Milk - Hmmm. I drink a lot of milk I think. I have milk in coffee and I have maybe 6 cups or more every day. I know people talk about coffee having side effects etc, and I am probably addicted but hey - coffee dont make you fat so I dont give a shit. Milk however, has a lot of empty calories at about 70 cals each cup. Its a lot of calories to use because of a drink. I dont use milk in any other way. I dont drink it as a straight drink or stuff like that. I dont think this forms part of my addiction to food, but it is in chocolate and I do have a lot of coffee... So I had to weigh it up. do I drink coffee for the coffee or the milk. well I know its for the coffee because if there is no milk in the house I still drink coffee black. So think that's put the milk issue to rest.

Sugar - Well, maybe this forms the addiction. There must be a lot of sugar in all those sauces... and chocolate certainly has a lot of sugar, but I don't add sugar to things. Being brutally honest, I think If i was addicted to sugar I would add it to coffee, tea and porridge and cereal if I have it, want cakes and biscuits and sugary foods like sweets etc a lot of the time, and this is NOT what I do or want. I cut out sugar in tea when I was 12 because I hated it, and I cut sugar in coffee about 6 years ago because if wasn't refreshing me. If someone gives me sugar by mistake (rare) I cant actually drink it as it tastes weird. I do like biscuits and cakes, who doesn't! But I don't crave them, need them or dream about them. Looking at the sauces, some don't contain sugar at all, and on most its quite a long way down the ingredients list.

So I was starting to get rather disheartened. I was not going to find anything to help me and seemingly no one had the same problem with condiments. (ha ha! A condiment complex!)

The last on the list of addictive foods, kind of like a side issue for some people it would seem was E621. I had no idea what it was. Its Mono Sodium Glutamate or MSG. I have head of it. I thought it was a salt or a nutrient or something.

Its got a recent researgnce and is called Umammi in Japanese which translates as flavouring. I was intrigued.

Well just have a look at www.msgtruth.org for MUCH more info.

40% increase in appetite
Inability to lose weight even when half starving yourself
Added to the food chain since 1940 in greater quantities - parallel with obesity rising

Its in EVERY SAUCE. Its in ALL TAKEAWAY FOODS Its in CHOCOLATE its even sprayed onto our crops, in practically every frozen, packaged, canned and processed foodstuff on earth.

Its even in skimmed milk.

Obviously you need to do some serious research on this subject because most people sensitive to MSG have proper real medical reactions like shaking, palpitations, headache, vomiting etc. I don't get any of this but every single food I crave and love is high in this shit. Its name is covered up and disguised so sometimes there is more than one ingredient in the item you are eating that has MSG in the ingredient!

I was interested to see Bouillon cubes (oxo and stock cubes) and packet soups, tinned soups, prepared meals, tinned tuna and other things I also eat very regularly that have MSG in.

I am sure there are a lot of additives out there, and they are all "safe" for the majority of consumers, but some people are sensitive to certain things. When I consider that I have tried to lose weight time and time and time again and then more something is FAT FREE, or REDUCED FAT or DIET or VITAMIN ENRICHED the more MSG in has in it. If you remove the fat, you take away flavour so they must put it back in in some way.

MSG used to be made from seaweed. Its now mainly manufactured from GENETICALLY MODIFIED BACTERIA.

Ok, I spent the day looking into this yesterday and all evening after I got home from work. I KNOW that this is my problem. I just know it is. I read the articles about Bees leaving hives near fields sprayed with Auxigro (MSG) and about the "Food addiction you never knew you had" which just makes me feel SO MUCH BETTER.

I finally found out the common denominator of my binge foods, and I can avoid them.

Randomly, if I take a benadryl and red bull each day I can stave off the effects of any miniscule amounts of MSG I ingest by accident. Benadryl combats the histamine release from MSG and red Bull contains Taurine - Taurine is blocked out of production by high MSG doses. Taurine is required for efficent fat absorption & solubilization. Studies also showed that dietary taurine supplementation help renal disease - & I have problems with my kidneys right now don't I!!!!

For me, this is such an amazing breakthrough and by reading through the pages of many website I can see that a lot of my health problems are probably being exacerbated by this stuff.

I am going to try to eliminate MSG from my food by sticking to the following detox plan for a week and then gently return to normal and try to keep msg at low levels and see what happens.

I think that eliminating MSG and having Hypnotherapy to help my emotional state and cravings could be what I need. Its bizarre that I should be able to eat so much food and put on only a pound and then be good and lose nothing. From the studies of MSG on rats, that is just what happens to some susceptible individuals.

You just get fatter and fatter and crave foods containing it more and more. Its what makes me eat on past the stop signal. Its what makes me eat when I don't want to. Its keeping me fat.

Hey, I don't know if this really is the key to all my worries. It really does seem a bit too easy and unbelievable to be that simple. All I know is this stuff rang serious alarm bells when I read it through and all I could do was sit here feeling angry that this could be the reason why so many people are obese these days.

If food tastes good, then you buy more. Why don't the governments ban cigarettes or alcohol even though they damage peoples world? If they don't ban those, then they aren't going to stop a bit of GM bacteria that's "completely safe" to eat from being added to your tomato ketchup.

Oh, did I tell you they also put it in vaccines..?

Watch this space.

Pity Party, My House, 2pm

This is mine, you bring your own stuff!

Yeah baby, yesterdays pig out fest was huge. It was awesome in craving lustfulness and I now feel... Shit.

I have a problem. I really REALLY have mental issues.

I went out yesterday with the sole intent to buy foods. Foods for shooting up with. I spent £30 on this mess, and I felt sick afterward. I completely indulged in chocolates, prawns and wine and all that jazz and didn't really feel significantly better for it.

I bough a slush magazine and hired 5 DVD's, watch 3 of them whilst eating shite and had no one to watch me do it.

I dont want to say I needed it, but I kind of did. DH and DS were at Top Gear Live and the MPH fast car show all day, so I went to church, came home googled Ikea and thought it was a bit far, so decided to slob out. Then I realised I had about 9 hours before DH & DS got home so I went shopping for pleasure foods. I bought all of the above photo plus some other bits and bobs. I still have the biscuits and the salmon, but the rest lies in my large intestine.

I even managed to cook a roast dinner alongside watching the 3 DVDs and eating like a hog. I didn't have any roast lamb though as I felt too sick. Later on in the evening I ate a peshwari naan bread with some mango chutney. Peshwari naan is a naan bread filled with crushed almond and coconut and sugar paste and is delicious. When fresh i cannot eat it, so if you out it in the fridge for a day it goes hard and brittle. I can eat it then as it disintegrates enough to get past my band.

I went to Slimmingworld today and put on a pound. So that is 2 pounds in 2 weeks that I have gained. This is really not bad. I still cannot tell you about the stress in my last week, as I just cant go there right now, but lets just say I ate enough shite this week to gain 1 stone (14lbs) let alone 1 pound!!! stress can be a good weightloss aid sometimes, but I could do without it to be honest.

So, slimmingworld was awful. I was really trying to assess what the heck is wrong with me, and what the hell I am doing to my body and my life. I just cant work it out. I know I need some professional help but when you have a group full of crack and heroin addicts and they say how they stole to feed their habit and they lay out of it in a gutter, and then I say "yeah man, really needed some chocolate buttons so like went down the shop and ate a whole bag" it kind of doesn't really hit the same shame mark does it, although I feel EXACTLY like a crack addict right now.

I wish people could take it seriously but the minute you say you are addicted to food people immediately brush you off and go "yeah I love chocolate too" and that is NOT what I mean. I am crying out for some kind of help here.

I actually came home and filled in a 'alcoholic or not' questionaire and in my mind replaced the word 'drink' with 'Food' and it told me I was very alcohol (i.e.food) dependant!! There is no questionaire out there for food addicts and we dont get the same gravity of consideration but I am DESPERATE.

The band is good, but my head is MESSED UP. There is a woman out there with a blog called lap band for the mind. What a cool title. I need one of those. I think its called a friggin lobotomy!

I am out of control and freaking out and I seriously don't want to do this to myself.

I have to face up to this and I have this morning been doing some research into overeating, bulimia, compulsive food addiction etc.

After reading certain things about drunks, and druggies, I have decided that I need to completely eliminate the foods that I am addicted to. I know that I have a dependency on certain foods, and I have never considered it before.

I am addicted to spicy foods. I must have curry at least 2 times a week, and often 3 times. I would have it every single meal if I could but I cant afford it. I am not addicted to home made curry, but any curry bought in a jar, or from the shop I crave.

I am addicted to sauces - tomato and brown , salad creme and also pickle if I don't have that.

I am addicted to chocolate and also to a certain extent red wine.

I can do without all of these things one at a time, but I have NEVER in all my dieting years had a diet exclusive of my addictive foods.

Every time I think of a food "oooh I really fancy that" I am going to write it on a list. I will then exclude this food from my diet.

So far on my list I have :

Chocolate
Red wine
Cocktail sauce
Tomato Sauce
Salad creme
Rolo Deserts
Curry - all kinds from shops/take away
Chinese - all kinds from shops/ take away

I actually feel proper weak and freaked out just writing this. Funnily enough I feel worst about writing down salad creme, and I am not sure why because I don't use this food too much... interesting. Anyway, this HAS to be done and I must do this for my own sanity. In fact, I am amazed that these foods are my addiction foods... they aren't all that exciting are they!

I also must stress that I am not giving them all up today. I cant do that. The stress is too much and I need my drugs just for a bit longer, and I know that sounds hopelessly tragic, but I just do.

I am also going to have some analytical hypnosis done, that woman I went to back in the summer was crap so I am going to find someone right for me, maybe who is reccomended through the doctor. Once I have found someone I am going to give them my list and then start on with the plan. Maybe I will start sooner, I just don't know. I need to do this in my own time.

If I don't get this sorted, I am going to end up a bulimic binge eating fatty whether I have a band or not. The band has stopped me to some extent as I seriously haven't got any other control right now, so I am thankful for small mercies.

I want to make it clear that I do not want to do this to myself, I try and stop and cant. I am on a spiral into destruction that I cant seem to stop even if I want to, and I wish i could just lock myself up and throw away the key. Looked into the possibility and it would cost me £2K at a retreat for a week... NOT likely to be doing that.

If I ever get right in the head I might look into getting some kind of retreat that is not so expensive up and running. I would like to help people like me, but seeing as I cant even help myself I think we will start with me first.

One thing I have never done is pray about my food problems. I always think "how can it be God's will that I lose weight?" and its not. His will is completely different and running on a much grander plan than that... but then I did think "gluttony is written about in the good book, as is suicide - both of which I am committing if I don't get this under control" so maybe I could pray about it and see what happens. Worked for my smoking. I new I could never personally go back to church if I smoked. It was not caring for my body and hurtful to others, so I proper told God that if he wanted me back, then he would have to stop me smoking like a chimney... and I quit the same day and haven't had a single craving as yet - 6yrs out! Sometimes I rely too much on my own insignificant self.

I cant do this right now

This afternoons snacks: Biscuits (half a tin) and an order of Shredded chilli beef takeaway.

I am heavily using right now. I can't stop myself. I don't know what the heck is going on in my head but I just need my drug. I crave it, need it, think about it and have to use it all the time. I am a mess and I am overdosing daily right now.

There is a heap of crap going on with my life right now that I just CANT talk about any more than I already have, but I will once its resolved. I have talked the problem to death with everyone and it will not help the situation. Its just some bureaucratic jobsworth giving us a nightmare that is basically a never ending catch 22. They HAVE to back down as we cant do anything else. Until that happens, the only thing that helps me is food.

I put on 1 pound this week, and that is simply amazing considering the amount of food I have consumed.

I don't care right now. .

Chilly

Its a bit Brrrrrrrrrrr in blighty right now. Especially when you are in the caravan. this is our little cosy abode for another week. Once you are in and the world is shut out its actually quite pleasant, if a bit random to be sleeping on the front garden. HA!

Its a cute little pop up trailer in actual fact. It completely folds flat to just above the height of a bicycle, and you can tow it easily with a small car. It has a wardrobe, cooker, fridge, cupboards, lights and plug sockets and underfloor heating too. We bought it from a guy about 2 years ago for just £500!

Garage work is progressing nicely as you can see. The window is in and the plaster board has gone it. right now they are bricking up the front ready to clad the front wall. Its gonna be fabulous. Its already as warm as toast!

The caravan is just to the right in this picture so we have to sneak out at night and jump in, and then in the morning quickly hop it back cross the grass inside again before anyone sees us in our PJ's!

This is where I live! Our bedroom is the front right, Charlotte's bedroom is front left. DS's was and obviously will be in the conversion and Sue is in the back bedroom. When you go into the house you go into a porch, the stairs are behind a door in front of you, and the front room is the full length of the house. The kitchen is on the left hand side of the back of the house and through the kitchen you go to the Utility room and from there into the office, which was part of the garage originally too.

Here is a plan:

I know its not particularly interesting to anyone else, but I like to have a record. My blog is a great diary tool and I have used it lots of times to look back and find out when, what and how I did something or other.

So, back to topic... The scales seem quite positive, but obviously weigh in will be Monday. I just hope I can keep a grip until then. I am really really wanting chocolate big time and treats and things like that. I will have to have things like prawns and olives with extra garlic to try and keep me away from chocolates. Right now I REALLY want one of those big purple versions of the chocolates that you get in Quality Street. Its the BIG purple one with caramel and a hazelnut inside. Oh MAN I really want one. Thankfully I have no idea how to get my hands on one, so I am safe... for now! I love the way they tickle your throat. I must have a craving for caramel as well as chocolate because last night in tesco I succumbed to a rolo yoghurt (more of a desert than a yoghurt, but anyway) and also a piece of millionaires slice. Both have a layer of chocolate and then caramel. Must be a strange phase I am going through. I counted both on My Daily Plate so that I didn't go over the top, but this week I have been scraping the top of my allowance every single day. That's not going to be great for weightloss. Mind you, 1800 cals a day should help me lose 2 pounds a week, so as long as I stick to 1800 and NO MORE, then I will hopefully do what it says on the tin.

TTFN

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

So slimmingworld revealed the news that this week I lose 2 pounds.

I am really pleased that I have lost 2 pounds, but like I said before, I would be lying if I said i was completely happy because of yesterday saying I had lost 4. Yeah. That would have been much nicer. I was feeling really ticked off all morning, and when I got home I found out why I put on 2 pounds over night... and was ready to KILL.

Dreaded flaming curse again!

I seem to have it all the time! I just get over one bitchfest and spot covered face picking session when it seems like it was only 2 days ago I finished the last one -but yet it really was 28 days ago. Time whizzes by.

If you have periods for approximately 35 years of your life... then you have 13 a year which doesn't actually seem very many... but when you add it all up you will have had 455 of these sods. Now I think that 455 weeks out of my life is more than a bit skanky and bad. That's near as damn it 10 YEARS feeling like death for no good bloody reason.

considering we have a debilitating condition that will disable us for 10 years (ok tongue in cheek a bit), I reckon someone needs to make a charity for research into funding for Period sufferers and get some tablets to cure our moodiness and stroppiness and outright horribleness. I don't want to be an evil witch every 3 weeks that's for sure and I could sure do without any extra pain in my lower back right now thank you very much.

But no, its a fact of life and part of being a woman so instead of getting anything worth a shit from a doctor to cure PMT or PMS for good, we should learn to embrace it. PFFFTTT!

Roll on menopause. Menostop in fact! A bloody pause is no good to anyone (pardon the pun!).

Anyway, enough of chipe about something that ain't ever gonna change in the foreseeable future of the universe.

I have lost the 2 pounds that I had picked up, lost, picked up again bla bla over the last few weeks, so I am still sitting at 28 pounds lost. Grrrrr. But, because of said curse, I should find that if I sit tight and keep to what I am doing, next week should be big time great!

Today so far I have had a couple of yoghurts, some chicken noodle soup, 2 crackerbread and 2 popadums. I had my meals delivered today from Wiltshire Farm Foods, so that will be a great help. I am having my first one this evening and its 300 cals. So tonight that means that I can have some chocolate (-this is what I mean... the scientists could get their heads together and get us a patch or something to stop this bollocks! I am pretty sure it would be easy if they actually tried).

So, band is great.

Want a couple of pics of the new garage conversion done properly this time?
Back in February's posts you can see the effort hubby put in and what it looked like and how proud we were. Well it took them 2 hours to destroy EVERYTHING in that room. They had completely gutted it back to normal by 12pm when I got home from slimming. Marvelous. Anyway, its gonna be great when its done. Here you are:

This is the view from my front room... Hard to imagine Warrens whole entire decorated bedroom was here this morning.


and a horror shot from inside. They put up a couple of the old bits of chipboard we used to cover the hole where the new window will go...


and the outside shot as it was left today. This will have the window in on Wednesday, and be completely clad with uPvc ship lap fascia.

How does my body smite me?

Starting to get annoyed with my stupid body. How is it I can weigh 17 stone (238) fully clothed, in the evening the other day whilst loaded with food and drink... then weigh the next morning at 16st 11 (235) and think "yeah baby... tomorrow is going to be S K I L L!" and eat only 1200 calories of non stodgy food all day - which was the lowest calorie day of the entire week - and then I hope on this morning and its 16 stone 13 (237) a measly 1 pound difference between 6pm food loaded and 9am empty?

Does it wait and silently titter to itself and take great delight on Mondays?

I have worked really hard this week and I know in the long run its good, but for fuck's sake.

Also did loads of extra exercise yesterday as we had to move DS room out of his room and into the front room for the builders to start work. Didn't break a sweat but it was 4 solid hours of moving, clearing and rearranging.

This body of mine will seemingly always have the last laugh.

I will probably put on weight when I am dead so the coffin they fit me with at the beginning of the week is too ruddy tight on the day of my interment and they have to just fling me in the hole!

Official weigh in later... slimmingworld isn't until 10am. They go electronic at my place this week and I expect it will take the dozy fen folk a while to work out how to turn it on and stuff and then we will have to be there for about 6 hours. They are a bit odd the people in my slimmingworld class... I think I have mentioned it before, but there is practically a tangible barrier between our village and the village where we go for slimming. Its one road that separates us and about 8 miles. The air must change... a bit like James Herbert's - The Fog. There is a fen folk fog that turns everyone a bit nuts anywhere north east of where we live and they end up talking with a real yokle accent - any one with this accent over our way we just know came from that way. I have never known an area like it. We obviously have an accent to them too, but what I mean is this sudden stop of any accent. If you live in Newcastle you will have a particular accent but it sort of merges and gradually changes into a more Yorkshire accent as you come down the country, and if you travel east it gradually changes into a Wales accent, and that changes into a Liverpool accent and that changes into a Manchester accent and that changes gradually into a Brum accent and on and on and you can wander around the country like this gradually slipping accents and there is no perceptible cut off point until you come to Fenland. There is a sharp and distinct point from Fenland to all other counties around it. Its like a little island of accent. They are also a bit odd in lots of other ways too...

Anyway, this is frigging pointless talk, so I is gunna stop now.

just listen to this to get an idea of what I mean
http://www.archive.org/details/Suitcase_401

hmmm interesant

I couldn't resist...

I came downstairs 5 minutes ago (18:00) and the new spanky scales were doing that noise that angels make in heaven; that continuous harmonious "ahhhhh" that accompanies wonder, awe or insight dawning.

Yeah, ok, it was in my head but they were calling me man!

So, picture the scene: DS and his friend H are in the living room base camp made from the dog blanket, dog basket, my dining room chairs and his duvet cover (!) shrieking with delight at being on the high seas and making a pirate video... The two dogs are their able ship mates - not particularly willing - and there seems to be the scattered remains of chewed up cork stopper out of the 2p jar (which is huge and we use as a door stop) everywhere I tread. There is a spilt glass of root beer (onto that little delight later!) with the wii fit board lying perilously close to its Armageddon (jumping dogs and rootbeer explosion in this case), the sofas don't seem to have cushions, and everything has gone to heck in a hand basket.

I am about to lose my mind when I hear the "AHHHHHHhhhhhhh" of the scale angel.

Its 6pm. I am fully clothed. Fully loaded with the days food so far, and also drinks etc. I am also holding the phone. A quick double check that the coast is clear and I hop on baby!

17 stone exactly (238lbs)

WOWOWOWOWOWOW

This is most timely news, and most fantabulous. Seeing as this was my weight last Monday morning at slimmingworld... I must therefore have lost lard! So, sans food/drinks on Monday morning will be a very interesting little result to broadcast on my return.

YES!

Oh yeah, and if you live in the UK and HATE not being able to get root beer (other than poncy sugar laden swank bottles from random herbal shops that cost a couple of quid - each!) then head down to Sainsbury's for a bottle of Carter's semi diet root beer. I say 'semi-diet' because it still has sugar in it, but its quite low and you can drink a lot without it amounting to a crisis. Its only 67p - yes, that's right - SIXTY-SEVEN PENCE for 2 LITRES!! Now that's what I call a result - hence I am not crazy mad at the sheer waste of rootbeer on the floor in my front room from the extroverted and rather highly charged pirates.

Oh, and I have tiles throughout. Clever huh? *cheeky wink*

Wot?

Surely this cannot be right.

This is where I need a COPY AND PASTE tool on this stupid blog thingy!

So now I have to keep minimising, reading the other page, and then maximising and typing it in here. GRRRR. (And no one tell me there is a new version of windows now either as I KNOW that you can have 2 screens open simultaneously side by side. I know. I don't have windows 7. double GRRrrrr)

There is the bloke who claims the following:

Weightloss counselor and physician Dr. Micheal Dansinger says "One could drop as much as 20 pounds in a week following a very ambitious eating and exercise plan, devoting more than 7 hours per week to vigorous exercise."

I am pretty sure that's not possible unless you weigh 400lbs to start with and starve yourself and flog your body to death at the same time.

Sounds hardcore.

anyway, things are going ok with the band right now. I am loving having the daily plate thing on board again. I can waste hours of my life on the computer. Oh, i do! Ha!

So far today I have had a few olives throughout the morning and for lunch I made scrambled egg (again!!) with 1 egg and sloppy, and half a can of baked beans in tomato sauce. It was nice. I think egg on its own just doesn't get chewed well enough before you have to swallow... its not the right consistency in the first place is it. So a little bit of egg, then a few beans and things went great.

I am enjoying the shakes still, but trying to get into some kind of pattern where I don't necessarily have to have a shake for lunch as well as breakfast. Will be nicer in the lifestyle type of thing, and also on the wallet!

I have managed to have a solid lunch, go slowly and chew to death every lunch this week since Wednesday and had no major problems. Long may it continue.

I have changed my eating around a bit... had a few too many glasses of wine this week as we have a box in the cupboard that holds several litres and its just too easy and tempting. Its all gone now, so no more. I am just not going to buy any. DH is not going to have any more beer either as its such empty calories, and I really want to keep on track.

Looking forward to seeing what Monday brings - weight wise but also building wise.

Builders start Monday! YAYAYAY!!!!

Cant wait. Means 2 weeks sleeping in a caravan, but hey!

The daily plate slash livestrong blaat

This is a post all about The daily Plate, now known as Livestrong.
I Had a few interesting emails from people, so thought I would write down what I know, or what is given to me by livestrong and therefore know!

according to their charts a person who is about 238lbs (moi!) and wants to lose 2 pounds a week (or more please) can eat the following:

1833 cals
they should get this from and NOT EXCEED the following MAX daily allowances (100%)
60g of fat
274g carbohydrates
45g protein

If you look on the previous post next to each item it has a percentage. This shows that I at X% of my daily allowance in that nutritional group.

If I eat within the above proportions, I will achieve weightloss.

As I lose weight, the calorie allowance gets lower, and the nutritional allowances will change, but will still be roughly 15%fat, 12%protein and 74% carbs. There are also other important elements in the diet like fibre, and Livestrong does chart these too, but I couldn't be bothered to go to all that effort.

As you eat through the day, you chart each food. You type into your plate the food you ate - for instance today I had some pate. I type in "Tesco Liver and bacon pate" and there it is. I click and add it to my plate and type in how many portions of it I have eaten.

It can be a little pesky, because you might have measured in grams, but the person who listed the item might have listed it as oz without a conversion, or they could have listed a portion as 100g, and you only had 20g. Both of these is easily remedied. A simple gram to oz conversion sorts the first, and with the second is a little harder.

When you add a food to your plate, it automatically puts *1* portion on your plate. If 1 portion was 100g, and you only had 20g, then you had 0.2 of a portion. So that's what you do. You change the 1, to a 0.2 and then it will log it perfectly for you.

"What if I make a lasagna?" I hear you cry... well that's cool too. You either log each individual item in the meal and how much you had of each (1 onion in dish, 4 people served, so I had 0.25 of a portion bla bla) or you 'Make a Meal'. If its something you often make, then the best thing is to create a new meal by adding all the ingredients in the programme, and then saving it.

If you add this to your plate it will also add the WHOLE thing as a portion, so again here you must be careful. If the dish serves 4, then when you add it to your plate you must change the portion to 0.25 if it served 10 people, then you change it to 0.1 of a portion.

If you honestly cannot be bothered, then just manually add the calories.

I wish I could cut and paste to blogger because it would be so much easier. Its a real fag not being able to do that. What I might try is a screen shot and show you what I see, but it will be so small I am not sure how it will turn out.

Basically Livestrong (or the daily plate as it used to be called) is a great tool for helping me keep track. I can see when I eat too much fat, see when I nail my protein target and also if I am drinking enough water. Its also great as it charts your weight on a graph and also give you access to loads of (sometimes obscure) daily exercises that it calculates how much you have burned off. It takes into account your weight and calculates that for example doing the following :

Sailing on ice (?) or water (competitive) for 1 hr would burn 540 cals

Reclining - talking, writing or reading burns 108 cals per hour

Sanding floors with a power sander burns 486 per hour

Sex (vigorous) burns a measly 171 per hour. (per hour? HA!)

I think I will plump for reclining and chatting - less like hard work! So its a useful tool to have when you might think you have blown your days allowance, you can add these activities to your daily plate and get a Net calorie count. I always set my activity level to naff all so that I can track things when I do them. So if I take the dog for a half hour walk, I can track it because I set my level to sedentary (lying of bed eating chocolates mode!) and don't feel like I might be cheating or counting something twice if you know what I mean.

I would recommend it as after all it is FREE, and if you do upgrade, its only £25 a year which is nothing. Upgrading unlocks some useful features and allows you to look back over time and stuff which I think is useful, but its perfectly workable free to be fair.