Standing still again…22nd September 2016.

I was so excited.

I got back to my lowest yet – and then happily looked forward to the continuing trend – downwards ever downwards.

Except that didn’t happen. As the scales stopped my body decided that was enough for now – and I am stuck again.

I tell a lie. I’m actually up a few pounds again because I had a blowout on Tuesday evening – wine and chocolate and biscuits – so good – and so bad that my body has been in freefall for the last two days dealing with the sugar rush.

I wonder will there ever be a day when I am fully “cured”? If I were an alcoholic that night of bingeing would have started an avalanche of  more of the same. I didn’t do that – but I had some extra carbs yesterday, and tonight had more protein than I wanted or needed – bad habits coming back.

It is so bloody annoying when you try so hard and the scales stay stuck. I did however on a more positive note finally join an exercise class – a pilates one with some friends from work – I enjoyed the first night and have tried to focus on my core all week since – well when I think of it!

So I will try again to shift those few pounds again and see if I can get the slow boat moving again – don’t hold your breath any of you for fear you might expire in the process!

I’m too tired to post a longer entry – I did make some nice – non sweet – food at the weekend but I haven’t the energy to post the pictures – I made a gorgeous vegetable dish but I need to be in my full health to write it up – it is a dish that takes four hours to prepare but my God – it is worth the work! Called and Italian gateau – it’s truly yummy. I will post it up at the weekend. For now it’s time to sit back and pray for Friday!

 

 

Free at Last! September 9th 2016.

I finally managed to get back to where I was in April – those ten pounds that have dogged me forever finally gave up the ghost and as the scales began their final glorious inexorable descent, I dared to believe that this time my journey really is a different one.

In fact I am now down three stone and a quarter of a pound – that’s a very important quarter – it suggests the descent is not yet over.

Before this I have often lost weight successfully for several months – the story every dieter can tell you – you get a burst of enthusiasm, diet madly and lose maybe a couple of stone – that’s quite easy to do if you have seven or eight to lose. And then you have a bad week and the scales go in the opposite direction. And again. And again. And slowly but surely you watch helplessly as those dreaded scales remind you of the failure you feel inside – that you are just fat and nothing you can do will change that.

It’s not true though! I can tell you – this time it’s not true! I have managed to hold the gain at ten pounds forever it seemed – without giving up the ghost altogether – and there’s a very good reason for that – the food I am eating. The reduction of carbs is significant – but the complete removal of sugar is empowering. It has even resulted in a clean bill of health at the dentist’s yesterday – no decay since last year – I told her and she was impressed – living proof of yet another benefit of giving up sugar.

If you had said to me a year ago that I would be quite happy to have lost only half a pound from April to September I would have laughed. I have always set great big goals for myself – projecting big losses into the very near future – planning a stone or two in a month. Now I have no such expectations. I would like to lose six and a half pounds between now and September 30th but I’m okay if that doesn’t happen – that will get me into a new stone – one I haven’t seen for a very long time. I hit a plateau – and boy it was a big one – it stretched forever – but it’s gone and new adventures lie ahead.

If even one person seeing my story gets to change their story then I will be happy – the weight loss journey is as unique to each one of us as our DNA – and yet each is made of the same ingredients – a mixture of hope and despair – the trick is to make sure the hope hides the taste of despair long enough for you to believe in yourself – you can do this! I can do this!

Bant!

I had a friend at work bring me some freshly pulled rhubarb this week – and I was delighted to see that it is very low carb so fine for me to eat.  I love rhubarb and I love crumble so I went on the hunt to find a crumble recipe – and came across a link somewhere for a crumble topping that included flax seeds – I didn’t have any so I just made my own version of the recipe and it was lovely.

 

Banting rhubarb crumble

Heat oven to 160 fan.

Ingredients

• rhubarb – eight stalks approx
• 25 gms xylitol – or more to taste
• 1.5 tblsp ground chia seed

Mix these three together – chop the rhubarb and place in pot with the xylitol and  ground chia, and coo on a medium hob until melted and soft through. Set aside.

• 100gms ground almond
• 35 gms dessicated coconut
• 1/2 tsp each of all spice and mixed spice
• 10 chopped pecans – optional really – I added them one day, not the next

Mix all dry ingredients together

• 50gms melted butter
• tsp vanilla extract

Add the vanilla to the butter then mix into the dry ingredients and keep mixing until the butter is fully absorbed into the dry mix. Pour the mixture out onto a parchment sheet on an oven tray and pat down so it is flat.

Cook for about 16 minutes and then check – remove from the oven when the sides start to crisp.

Leave to cool then put some rhubarb into a bowl and crack off a piece of the topping and crack it over the fruit. Serve with freshly whipped cream.

Truly divine!

I made it again this evening and accidentally put xylitol into the topping as well – it tastes so sweet! Not a good addition! You could add hazelnuts or buttered nuts – think I mentioned those before – I heat some butter in the pan and throw in the packet of Lidl nuts with some spices – they would be lovely with it I’d imagine too. Macadamia are too soft and would burn easily – hazelnuts might be a bit too hard – play about and see what works for you.

 

 

If I can do this anyone can – you owe it to yourself to banish sugar from your life – try it for a month – you will be amazed.

Orla

 

Almost back there! September 3rd 2016.

I said I’d post when I was getting back to my best weight again. Well today I am two pounds off that. It has been an enormous struggle not to lose the run of myself over the summer and just give in to – well basically – laziness in terms of eating patterns and let it all go. I let go on the last three days of the holiday in Spain in June and since then I have not had a full week when I stayed completely banting pure all summer. I really have tried to stay on track and remember how far I have come. My biggest fear is that I will do as I have always done – get so far and then just go back up. My ocean – my fear of losing sight of the shore!

Not this time. I am in my busiest time – I’m back to school and it is hectic and chaotic – I have about twenty things to do at any given moment – I’ve been making out sheets for a workbook we are making for our second years all evening and I was busy all day before that – but – but – I am on a banting roll. It is so much easier to stay in focus and on track when busy. I had five of the ten gone  when I posted last time and I played about with that for weeks – last Monday I headed into work with seven on and my yogurt tub in hand. I haven’t looked back.

I also set up a challenge on my Facebook page – Banting in Ireland – very small – I challenged myself to two things – no eating at night after 8.00, and just two meals a day. That seems difficult to do – but honestly – ask my mother – I was never a breakfast person so banting allows me to wallow in that luxury – I hate eating in the morning and now I don’t. I have my lunch at work at 1.00 and then dinner at about 7.00 and that’s me done for the day. I had a great day yesterday – dinner was simply a big beautiful lump of fresh salmon, simply baked in the oven with olive oil drizzled over. Before that I had eaten a pot of Greek yogurt with some nuts I had prepared last week – tell you in a minute – and some blackberry compote – Mary at work brought me some fresh berries from her garden and I boiled them with a small bit of xylitol and then added ground chia seed when I took it off the heat. The combination of the three is really spectacular. The nuts are simple to make – I bought a bag of Lidl mixed Nuts and heated about 1.5 ozs of butter in a small frying pan then threw in the nuts and added a big dash each of mixed spice and all spice. They taste great – not greasy at all and they really up the fat content of my food without adding to the protein quantities which is where I am going wrong.

When I stood on the scales this morning I was delighted. Five pounds down – and I felt amazing. I got up at 5.30 one morning this week because I had so much energy – I sound a bit manic but it’s not that kind of energy! – and worked like a demon all the way through till 11.00. My energy levels are high, my skin is glowing and today I got into my skinny summer jeans that I only managed to wear once last May and then reluctantly put aside because they just didn’t fit. I’ve been in them since 9.00 and I’m still in them 13 hours later – a real sign of success!

My next aim is to get down below the next stone – that’s big – it’s ten years coming. I never thought I’d see this weight again and it is a real barrier to get below where I’m at – but you know I do my best work from now to December so I’m going to make it. I don’t know if I will get to my ideal weight by next May which is my fiftieth but I will be closer than I am now.

It’s funny. I’m a totally different shape now. I was so heavy before but couldn’t see it myself. Now however I see my weight but recognise the difference in my shape. I met a past pupil today who told me I was looking really well, and I said thank you – no explanation of “Oh I have loads more weight to lose” just – thank you. I can buy clothes easily – I just don’t have any money to do it with! Children have that effect, not that I am complaining for one second! But it’s wonderful to just step into a shop and not feel like the assistant’s eyes are boring into you willing you to understand the message that there’s nothing there to fit you. I will never forget that feeling – I have felt it too often. It happened once a very long time ago in Madame Kay’s in Dundalk for any of you that know it – the shop assistant actually said the words “I don’t think we have anything here to fit you Madam”. First off I was 24, and secondly I was actually looking for a Christmas present for my much skinnier sister. The shop is long gone, but the memory lingers and it can be difficult to shake off that feeling. I wonder will it ever truly disappear…

I’m on the cusp of the next step in my journey. I feel like it’s going to happen this time. I’ll let you know how it goes. My goal is to be into the next stone for October. I still haven’t taken the running challenge… That’s a tough one…

I’ll also post a few recipes the next time. I made a few new things but I’m not eating much sugar at the moment so I’ve no interest in posting about them!