22/06.2

 Original recipe found here

the emmm base?

https://www.sweetashoney.co/spinach-pizza-crust/

So I was looking for low carb alternatives for pizza bases I've had some tummy problems with my IBS so thats why I was looking

I found this and I thought it was insane but gave it a go anyway, instead of normal cheese I used the protein cheese bringing down the total points by loads!

A mere 2 SP for the whole receipe!! I had half and I'm so full!!

Its clearly not pizza, but surprising lovely to eat...! I dare you!!!

22/06

So, I said I wouldn't weight in this week with all my IBS issues and they aren't over with BTW, I'm not fully recovered but, I have been fairly strict with myself and I haven't been eating anything which really could irritate it... So I went along to weigh in anyway!

So the lady weighing us in today was a stand in not my regular coach (she was lovely) and I explained that last week had been horrible that I had bloated everything and the pain I was in no shape to come to weightwatchers but I've been really good this week and it did pay off at the scales and she looked at my weight history she saw where I started at and "Wow! You're doing well! How long has that taken?!" and she looked so happy when I said the 22nd September last year, And she asked how! its really confusing hearing a coach say that and I just said sticking by the diet very closely and walking. Although there has been other things and will be that has been the back bone to it.

So yes, I am still a bit sluggish and not at my best but I am getting better and I hadn't really decided whether or not I was going to weight watchers until last night. Where I figured I took weigh in as a pressure point and I was loosing the weight but I thought it would put too much pressure on me and stress me out more if I thought I was going to stand on those scales and see a bad number! So taking that stress away for the rest of the week has helped and deciding last minute just to go really worked out, because I love going.

Right so I do have to go and get my daughter from school soooo here are my figures, I think I'll write more later about food etc.

Weight loss this week:-2 1/2lbs

Weight loss total: 66 1/2 pounds (or 4 Stone 10 1/2 pounds!) 

Posting

Hi Everyone,

Many of you know I've been on weight watchers before. It was years ago well, while Yasmine was a little younger then Joseph. I went for a couple of months.

I actually did okay with it at the time I lost maybe a stone and a half but then I had this excruciating pain in my tummy one week, it was awful, I stayed off work I ate nothing but crackers all week, weight loss wise I lost nine pounds that week! At the time the leader of the weightwatcher group seemed to minimise the pain factor and joked with me "at least you lost" and I know it was meant to motivate me, I know she was trying to help but seriously I would rather put on all the weight I just lost then deal with that sort of pain ever again.

It was the Monday after the meeting I went to the doctor, who diagnosed me with IBS.

And for weeks I struggled with what it was, with the pain with everything I struggled, and bless my team leader at work at the time recognised I was struggling and although knew I couldn't get the time off work I needed to sort it (sick notes are not all that easy to come by!) she did refer me on to the occupational health nurse within the company.

I went to the occupational health nurse and it just so happened the nurse has specialised in IBS and the treatment thereof. Honestly I don't know what I would have done at the time, I had got no help other then the drugs they gave me at the beginning which by this time were dwindling somewhat and the doctors were telling me "You just need more fibre in your diet." let me tell you at the time at weightwatchers they really focused on high fibre food and I told the occupational health nurse this I showed her my food diary from weight watchers at the time and she basically told me what she knew about IBS.

Yes, sometimes a lack of fibre can be a cause of IBS.

Sometimes a lack of liquid can be a cause of IBS.

Sometimes eating too much chocolate or drinking caffeine can cause IBS.

Sometimes eating too much fibre can cause IBS.

Sometimes eating too much fruit can cause IBS.

Sometimes eating high grained foods such as brown rice, wholemeal breads and wholegrain pasta can cause IBS.

Sometimes eating refined foods white pasta white rice and white bread can cause IBS

Sometimes the sweetners used in sugar free foods can trigger IBS.

Too much fat in the diet can trigger IBS.

Sometimes too much stress can trigger IBS.

Basically ANYTHING can trigger or "Cause" IBS.

Well, you can imagine this was not exactly welcome news. "Anything?" I asked.
"Yes, and what you've experienced with the doctor, is very typical because unless you study IBS directly you do just think people need more fiber in their diet but its so much more then that."
"Basically, anything can trigger it yes." she said "but there is something you can do about it.

She was glad I kept a food diary because it meant I was used to noting down what it was I was eating. So she asked me for two weeks to note down everything I ate and take notes as to the foods which I ate the day before any bad spouts of IBS. We could focus on trying to figure out what was causing it.

So, at the time I found that red onion (something I still pick out of my salads when I see it when I go out) peppers (Which is a bummer I loved stir frys, though I can now tolerate peppers in small quantities now) If I had more then 3 slices of brown bread in a 48 hour period (this is also why I don't eat sandwiches all that much!) But I gave up eating white pastas, breads and rices long before this point, I don't have them unless I'm out somewhere have takeout etc (Come on I'm not crazy!) and more then 3 slices of pizza in a 24 hour period, oh and All Bran. (the last one I actually love to eat but the little grains can get stuck in your gut triggering the pain, bad times man bad times!) this took months to work out but by the time we had figured out what my triggers were I hadn't been to weight watchers in weeks, lost all motivation because every pound I had lost had gone back on again. So I didn't go back.

I think it was maybe a month or two before I fell pregnant with Joseph I went back to the doctor explaining I had IBS and that I was constipated again, in a bit of pain and he prescribed me some drugs which were meant to help. Stayed on them three days, it only made it worse, so I've never gone back to the doctors with it since! That convinced me, they really can't help I have to do it all myself and I'll only ever go back if I'm in the pain I was the first time.

Why am I sharing this now?

Over the last month or so my stomach has been a little awful to me and where it is no where near the pain I felt back then, I know its my IBS playing up, so this epiphany has happened after a night of basically no sleep again...(!) My stomach has been growling and rolling around and around I've basically been ill all night not able enough to do much and you want to know something? Because I feel bad I just want to eat bad stuff. Its true, chocolate being the huge source of comfort and I know it doesn't help (Although it doesn't trigger my IBS it also doesn't really help when its happening!)

And I know....

But honestly, I'm bloated to high heaven, luckily my clothes still fit I've not put on in reality I think what I have put on will go straight back off again once the bloating and constipation goes away! and really I think I can still turn this around!

But, just for a couple of weeks I'm taking myself out of weigh ins. I'm cutting back on the "extra stresses" and being a mum at home, luckily now I don't have the same kind of stresses as I did working in a call centre and still being a mum (I'm not saying being a stay at home parent isn't stressful in its own way but its different to working) So I do have a plan of action.

1) I have been walking a lot lately, and while I think its doing my body overall good to walk, I think I'm going to lower my goal from 10k (just over 15,000 steps) to round about 11-12,000 steps. This will still mean I get t take part in my sponsored walk over three months and as I said I really think the walking has helped but I think it is taking up a lot of time which maybe is one thing which is stressing me out.
2) Where I'm cutting out  the organised classes I'm taking, I think I'll stick on the old dance and Yoga DVDs this will keep up my fat burning and help calm my stresses and help stretch me out a little too... (We don't want my muscles stressing out do we?!)
3) Food diary needs to come back into play! Figure out what is causing the pain and cut it out of my diet again.

I don't want to do what I did last time and freak out and have a hard time and since I figured it out with IBS I've not had any serious triggering until now, so its obviously something I've started to do again recently and I've just not noticed which is easily done! (Or even something which didn't bother me before has started to bother me, because the fun thing with IBS is that something can trigger it one day and the next day be fine and something which has never triggered it before can set it off for the first times years after first diagnosis! Its like a gut roulette!
Hopefully having a plan will mean one thing... That I'll be able to get back into a regular sleep pattern again and my tummy will stop playing up at night, because lets face it I've never been a great sleeper but I NEED my sleep!

SO I didn't go to weightwatchers on Friday but I decided to focus on something good.

So, this is a t shirt which a friend got me some years ago now, but it never fit, I was too big to wear it! Stuffed it in the back of my wardrobe and forgot about it until I cleaned out my clothes of all the huge things on me now, where I found it, I have been wearing it for a few weeks because I'm kinda proud of the fact it fits, And where it's a little tight for my liking on a general term, it still fits and its giving me a little motivation to loose more so it can fit a little looser.... So yeah all good things.... Oh and the red trousers I have on here, mum gave them to me at the beginning of the summer, they only just fit.... they are now being wiggled up when I walk so they don't fall down they are loose on me!

So for a little while at least, my posts will be very non scale related.

But the good news is, I have no intention of coming off my diet, I just have to take a grasp of what I'm doing! So not weighing in for a couple of weeks but focusing on getting better....

Sponsored walk

So I'm also giving myself a challenge to help me keep fit and going (especially over the weekends I'm terrible for not doing any exercise over weekends!)

I've signed up to do a million steps between the 1st July-30th September for Diabetes UK.

I know it sounds a lot but I'm pretty confident I can do it!

You'll notice there's no a button on the bottom of my blog (scroll to the bottom) for Just Giving, click on it to sponsor me to add to my total for Diabetes UK.

Both my dad and my sister has diabetes so really any amount would be a real boost to it and it would really mean a lot to me.


love

Lorna x

8 June 2018

I have been so rubbish in writing this blog!

But here I am again, still on this journey, last week I didn't make it to weightwatchers, I had no sleep in the week and honestly the scales were not being my friend, so I didn't go, but I did go this week.

This week we talked about why? Why did we start weightwatchers.

I knew I had to lose weight, There wasn't one moment which defined it, just a few things happened, when I had Joseph  I was obviously referred to the anaesthetist team, I had an appointment with them to discuss what would happen if I needed them(these are the people who would give epidurals or C sections in an emergency), the doctor was lovely and we talked about it. When I was in the middle of contractions on the day I gave birth to Joseph a member of the team came in the room and was really rude in reminding me of the "high risk due to my weight" and was talking to me as if it was a certain that I would need them any second, and I'm not kidding they were rude, so rude my husband not on gas and air and high on morphine agreed with me when I asked if the doctor (I said it was a man he said it was a women so that's how far gone I was) had been rude. The midwife who had been in the room all the way through agreed too and said "I don't know why they made it sound like you'll need them you're doing beautifully" She even said a little later I made it look easy! But I remember thinking at that moment "if i ever have another one, if I can prevent them from being in the room over my weight I will!" it was that bad. With Yasmine, they had come in reminded me and even added 'don't worry, its just to remind you we're here if you need us' but they were rude! But I also believe in giving my body the chance to recover after having babies before I try loosing weight, I was also breastfeeding Joseph so loosing weight immediately just would have been impractical.

Then another time Yasmine was asking about weight and I think maybe someone might have said something to her about me being fat again these things on their own, it wasn't enough really, but my mam gave me another nudge, it was late September going into October I thought it would be a waste of time because it would very soon be Christmas but I went along anyway, it was a relatively new class and I did something I don't normally do, I forced myself to be sociable, to be involved, I even became one of the volunteers to help with the shop.

It helps that I get along so well with Claire, and they now encourage chat on Facebook groups, so we can talk about our meals we can compare notes we can learn from each other.

I can't tell you what pushed me to go, but I'm glad I am, and I suppose it is for my kiddies I'm doing it in a way, to be an example to them to teach them if you want to do something and you're determined you can but it also its for me!

Weight loss this week:-4 1/2lbs

Weight loss total: 64 pounds (or 4 Stone 8 pounds!) 

25/05/2018

So I've had a horrible horrible May!

At least weight wise I have!

So I had all these goals and I've stuck to none of them!

Goals to others inspire and help to me they just make me flop. I don't know if this is a me thing or others find it too... but never mind, I'm not upset and I'm going to talk about why.

In late September when I started I was umming and arhing about if I was going to bother starting weightwatchers, I hadn't had my birthday then there was bonfire night then all the Christmas stuff! But, I thought at worse there would be a couple of pounds off which I wouldn't have off in the first place. So I went. I lost a ton of weight in that time and always always I was looking on a weekly bases of what I could do rather then the long game because I wasn't planning on it working until Christmas, so I was concentrating on what I could do there and then.

I also realised how hard I've been on myself of late and I don't think that's helping.

I was walking home with Yasmine and Joseph  on Wednesday and we live up a really steep bank. It was hot I was pushing the pram and I felt my asthma start, it should be no surprise the pollen was out I have hayfever and one of the things which sets off my asthma is pollen. So I get to a point and I feel so weak I can't push the pram, Yasmine notices and pushes the pram for me until we get to a bit of greenery just a couple of streets down from ours but we can sit for a minute and it gave me the chance to take my inhaler.

Me July 1st of last year and me today

Whenever I went to my asthma check up or whatever they would point to my weight as being "the factor" in having it, so much so that I haven't been to an asthma check up in years, I got sick of hearing it and at the time actually I didn't believe them that my weight had an adverse effect on my asthma, I had it for years before I was overweight and it was  the same. But as we were getting to that greenery I was just about walking it out and I remember thinking "I'm fat, I'm fat and thats the reason why I'm having an asthma attack." And I really got really upset about it because I felt as though I had been working so hard at loosing weight, the last month has been awful in loosing anything and I was low, very low almost at the point of tears, because in that moment, inside my head if I looked down I would look like I did the end of September last year. Thats how this thought caught me. Then I looked down. And I realised, that actually no, I was not at the same point I was in September of last year. Heck the summer of last year. I am not in the same place, and you know something all last summer I didn't have an asthma attack. My asthma like everything else in me is effected by my weight, I'm not going to sit here and lie about the effects your weight can have on serious conditions like asthma, but I am not asthmatic because of my weight, but my weight if not monitored and brought down may one day have an adverse effect on my asthma.


So the last couple of weeks as you can see have been hard, my weight has been up and down my current stone mark like a yoyo, I'm not even kidding. Its my ladies time of the month so I'm naturally retaining a lot more... Last week I was at Yasmine's assembly at school, so I didn't get weighed in.

So on wards ever onwards, I will do this... I think I have the hang of the summer eating and I'm going to talk about that as well on this blog (not on this post but definitely on the blog)

I can and I will!

Star Wars Day!

 Hi Everyone,

I know its been a little while, again last week I didn't go to weightwatchers, but you know it was my time of the month (I was naturally heavier, and I didn't want to look down at the scales and see I'd put on three pounds when I KNEW it was my time of the month, I knew that was the reason but I think motivationally it would have put a downer on the week!)  I had zero sleep and I had a really hard time of it for some reason. Its not the best excuse in the world but I know I've had on and off weeks later and for no reason either. I have (hopefully) done something about it which I'll go into later. 





Thankfully it didn't 'dampen my spirits' for too long and this week I've really been going at it. 
Those of you who know I invested in a fitbit at the beginning of the year. I've used it ever since, but I seriously love it! 

Its a very easy fitness tracker and although there are some things I need to put in manually and its a few little niggley things, I can live with it! 

I go to aqua aerobics on a Thursday morning. I have to take the watch off because its not water proof (You can get water proof fitbits but this one isn't) Even though I manually put in the aqua aerobics (this I don't mind) and it records the burned calories etc. It doesn't record that you've walked in this period. which sucks when you're trying to prove you are moving every hour to it, so then I have to go back in and say I've done some walking at the same time. I feel like I'm both falsifying my steps and not because I am doing them, IN THE POOL! 

You can see as well that I walk A LOT! My daughters school is about a mile away from our house so to walk there and back its 2 miles. If I do this twice a day (which granted I don't always do, there are times Phil will drive us) thats four miles without anything else. four miles for me adds to about 10,000 steps (because I'm so short!) So normally I have pilates on a Monday night and the walk from the sports centre to my house (depending on the route I take) can be anywhere from 1-2.5 miles. So basically I walk EVERYWHERE around my home town that is. There's one exception is walking UP the hill (anyone who lives here knows that Stanley bank is brutal to walk) and all the little villiages around the town are of course down the hill from it.  I don't mind walking down the hill, or even up it to my house (which is about half way up) but I wouldn't walk from my mam's all the way up to the town, I would have an asthma attack! Or at least not all in one go, I haven't yet, maybe I will one day but not yet!

You can see on here too I've done some training with the fitstar programme (anyone with a fitbit, some of them are premium but I would recommend them) The front of my thighs have been hurting since that session on Tuesday! 

I think my exercise has a huge impact on my continued weight loss. I'll be honest, September-December those first three months I just did the diet really, I did some exercise but it wasn't like this. 

I think as much as we like to loose the fat weight we need to gain muscle weight at the same time, that's not to say we should look like bodybuilders (but hey if that look floats your boat you go for it girls and boys!) but some definition to our bodies, slowly building up our strength I think its very important. 

So I have a friend who does read my blog who is also doing weight watchers and she's had a really hard time with it, in fact a few people shall we say, and she was saying she didn't want to think about it that it was hard (and it is I won't invalidate what she said to me at all).

So, I want to write today a little bit about it. I've not had 100% weight loss every week I've been going. (hard to believe I know but true) and some weeks are hard, some months are hard and you feel like you can't keep going.

So, whichever diet (because I don't think this is exclusive to weight watchers) you're on, I want you to consider this.

Damage Control. 

Just two words, where you've had a bad week and you know you've put on there's no denying it. My mum often calls it this, and our leader even says it 

"Imagine if you hadn't been trying"


There are days which will go inevitably wrong. Don't let them ruin the weeks the months (for some people years) because its when you stop trying and you just let it all pile back on, that where the problems will start and not for people on the outside looking in (because you know I think sometimes we think people are judging us when they aren't) but for you looking from the inside out.

 I have friends from all over the world, all with different body types all at different weights and heights and sometimes you think "they don't need to loose weight why are they on a diet?" and I've heard people say it about other people to me, and my reply is "You have to be comfortable in your own body." I've had a friend for many many years (she's the mother of some girls my own age and I've known her the same time) and she agrees completely she's never (or I can't remember) been overweight, but she agrees "You have to be comfortable in your own body) and that is important! Its so important to remember and I hope I'm teaching my daughter right on this, often she said "(this person) does it." (often when I'm trying to tell her not to do something) and I say to her "I don't care what (this person) is doing, it doesn't matter to me what (that person) is doing, that's between (that person) and their mammy/daddy. It matters to me what you are doing." And in that, I don't want her looking around at other people's behaviours and comparing herself to them, she is a good girl, she really is very good, but I don't want any of her behaviours to be influenced from around her, and I know there always will be some I'm not stupid to that but at the end of the day most of the time it will be only herself she'll have to answer to, and I think in teaching her this its help re-enforced it to me. I on;y have myself to answer to. 
And it must be lovely to hear it from others that you don't need to be on a diet, but you know if that person is not comfortable in their own bodies and they have found a way to make themselves more comfortable, with the exception of too little or where eating disorders might be triggered (and none of the people I've read about who has had an eating disorder has been comfortable in their bodies while the eating disorder was active, is that the right term?) I say go for it! 

Stick with it!
Go for it!
We can do it!!!!

So, to avoid not this whole on again and off again thing from happening I have set myself some goals for May.

On the Weight Watchers app they put on there blue dots when you've had 13-28 SmartPoints in a day, this is to encourage us to use our points system healthy and to track what we're eating. So I've set my first goal to have a whole month of Blue dots!
Second is every weekday to meet my steps (I've set it to 12,000 steps)
Third is to loose a pound each week (or at least try to!)
Off to a good start!

Weight loss this week:-3 1/2lbs

Weight loss total:60 pounds (or 4 Stone 4 pounds!)