Anyway, in the spirit of ‘did-do’, here’s some of the things I did get done this weekend:

Laundry – washed, hung out, brought in, ironed, put away

Food planning – planned the week’s meals, did the food shop

Cleaning – swept the kitchen/dining room/hall/downstairs loo, hoovered the lounge/bedrooms/study/landing/stairs

Dusted the lounge and hall

Cleaned the kitchen

Washed the car

Kissed my husband a lot (sorry, it’s important for a happy weekend!)

Went to church

Made a lovely lunch

Made pitta bread (on the second attempt – using the breadmaker for dough and forgot the water the first time!)

…and went to a family barbecue with the in-laws!

I think we can call this weekend a success Yet another busy week coming up, think we’ve got something on every night – I need a week off already! Only 2 more weeks, then we have some time off.

I’ll leave you with a photo of one of my favourite people, who I ran into at the barbecue – my 6-month-old nephew!

Gorgeous, isn’t he?!

Have a great week.

• Risotto
• Green apples (or red apples, or pink apples, or any apples for that matter)
• Greek salad (minus the olives)
• Fresh, crusty bread
• Pasta
• Sweet potato
• Fruit salad
• Green and Black’s chocolate, especially Maya Gold
• Toast and honey
• Roast chicken
• Hummus
• Grapefruit
• Yogurt
• Mozarella

Exercise I genuinely love to do (but can’t at the moment because of the sore back, but will soon I hope)

• Bodycombat
• Swimming
• Walking along the shore
• Cycling

…I don’t think I’m going about this losing weight thing right. Last week I ate so carefully, I wrote down everything, I counted calories, I constantly felt like I was just taking the edge off hunger but was never comfortably full, I was hungry again about 2 hours after meals. I lost nothing, zip, nada, not a pound.

This week, I weighed myself early (working nights this weekend and usually have breakfast before I come home, so no chance for the naked-empty-bladder-empty-stomach thing) and I’m down 1.5lb. This week I counted less and ate more of what I wanted.

Maybe the settings on my calorie counter thing are just too low for me? Maybe all this stressing out over whether or not I can eat popcorn with my friend when we go to the cinema if I have also had a yogurt after dinner is not sustainable for a life which involves being slim and not ending up in an institution.

I’ve just bought a book which I’m hoping might help with this balance thing. I don’t think I can face feeling peckish and unsatisfied for the rest of my life.

Meanwhile, thanks to Shauna and Roni, I’ve found some great new blogs…check out the side bar. Have a great weekend, do what you love, and pray that I get some sleep at work so I can enjoy tomorrow’s promised sunshine!

Onto the food…a quick post tonight because I am very drugged! Now I know I promised you pictures, and I even TOOK THEM, darn it, but I don’t know where the cable is to upload them from camera to laptop and Andy, king of cables, is out for the evening So you are just going to have to trust me that I took them, accept my apologies that I didn’t upload photos today, and not judge me for being hopeless with cables!

B: scrambled egg on toast, extra toast with honey, half grapefruit, OJ

L: basic salad (spinach, carrots, cucumber, tomatoes) with flaked almonds and drizzle of olive oil, pot of 2% greek yogurt (LOVE that stuff!), tropical crunch granola (LOVE that stuff too! first time trying it), strawberries and grapes

D: stir fry with tiny amount of brown rice, half a chicken breast, peppers, courgette, carrot and baby sweetcorn in ginger, sweet chilli and soy sauce. Plus organic fruit yogurt for pudding.

Snacks: Apple and mini babybel in afternoon, 3 x shrimps after dinner (oops – the pink foamy ones) and later I’m going to have a small granny smith with some yogurt.

Total cals: 1684

Man, it’s been 2 days eating healthy like this, I feel good but can’t shake the feeling that this is never going to make a difference, I’m going to be stuck being fat forever…I really need some motivation! Off to read some blogs of people with more willpower than me to try and find some!

Today’s food:

B: 1.5 eggs scrambled with wholegrain toast plus small apple, half a banana and glass of OJ

Snack: half a nakd choc orange bar

L: risotto with red pepper, peas and mushroom, with 4 sticks asparagus; strawberries and spoon of half fat creme fraiche

Snack: one ‘bear’ fruit yo-yo

D: apple, blueberries and 2% greek yogurt with apple crumble granola, plus 1 piece of wholegrain toast and honey

(yes, I went to waitrose and stocked up on healthy snacks for lunches, trying some out today!)

Total: 1650 cals

…it’s not that exciting to read, is it?! Maybe I’ll take photos instead?!??!?

While we were away we did some sightseeing, visited a few museums (plus York Minster which I think is the most gorgeous building ever), but mostly Andy and I relaxed and read books while the others ran around with the kids. But I think the thing we all did most was……….ATE!!! My goodness, this family knows how to indulge on holiday! It was my first trip away with the in-laws and I have to say they don’t hold back! I think I ate enough to feed a small army most days, and that is not including the obligatory tray-bakes that were brought along. It was great fun, but by the end I was craving vegetables and feeling like a whale!

So I was dreading the Sunday weigh-in today…and rightly so. I’m up 2.5lb on my pre-holiday weight and in a disastrous new stone bracket.

Now, I’ve been reading food blogs for a while now, and lots of healthy living-style blogs, and I’ve always thought how nice it would be to be able to eat like that, but because most of the blogs are American I don’t know what half of the stuff they eat is (EVOO, anyone? Cilantro? Garbanzo beans? What?!??!?), and a lot of the other stuff we just don’t get here in the UK (squashes mostly) so I’ve always just admired from afar. I know this is a poor excuse for not eating well, but people, I need snacky things! Healthy ones at that. And mostly the stuff mentioned on these blogs is not available.

BUT I have recently come across a really good BRITISH HEALTHY BLOG!!! Now don’t get excited, I know there are hundreds out there, not least Dietgirl who I have been reading for years (I’m counting her as British now!), but I had not come across any about whom I thought ‘wow, I want to eat like you eat!’. Anyway I’ve started reading this blog, and after reading a few entries, I thought, why can’t I eat like this? There’s absolutely no reason. None at all. It’s totally up to me that I eat rubbish and feel sluggish and am overweight. It really doesn’t help that I’ve been off work for ages with a crazy back thing (although don’t worry, I seem to have a very mild version) and a lot of back pain so haven’t been able to exercise, but really there’s no excuse for eating like Homer Simpson.

So, to this end, I have decided it’s about time I stopped faffing about and got on with this business of being healthy and getting to a healthy weight. Yes, I know, that’s what this blog is supposed to be about, but I’ve still been wasting time. So, starting today, I’ll be posting what I eat, plus exercise when I can get back to it (might try swimming at the mo), with a rough calorie total, and weigh-in results on Sundays. Haven’t quite worked up the nerve to put the MASSIVE number of my current weight up there, but in due course I may reveal it!

Also I promise to put some photos up here at some point, all words is well dull.

So that’s it! I’ll try and write about stuff here more often (it’s a good outlet for frustration) and post what I’m eating as often as I can. And hopefully, at LONG FRICKIN’ LAST I’ll start to see some progress!

So, well done, you are still alive after 27 whole years! Feels like a long time, huh? Here are some things I hope you have learned over this time, and some advice I have for you – listen to me, I know you pretty well

• All in all, you are doing okay. Think of how blessed you are, stop wanting everything to be perfect.
• There is more to life than what size your clothes are.
• Cut yourself some slack. I know you feel like having been ill/injured and off work recently infers some kind of character weakness on your behalf, but it doesn’t. Everybody gets ill. Stop worrying.
• You don’t have to like running just because everyone else seems to. Exercise is supposed to be enjoyable – you love swimming, boxing and weights. Do these things. They will make you much happier about working out.
• You love salad. Eat it every day. And well done for learning to like oatcakes – you will not regret it!
• Read more books – you love to read, but you neglect it for internet faffing. Much like you are doing now! Go and READ A BOOK instead!
• There is NO RUSH to have a baby. You feel like there is, because of all the babies other people are having, but just because they are having babies doesn’t mean you have to RIGHT NOW. Wait until you are ready to give up being spontaneous, sleeping in, having a tidy house, having a quiet house, and being able to give the baby back! It’s a massive commitment. There’s plenty of time.
• Take more photos. You’ve got a great camera and you enjoy taking pictures. However, don’t look at life through the camera lens – don’t forget to appreciate the things you are looking at, as well as trying to get a good shot.
• Buy fewer magazines. You seem to crave them, but you are not sure what it is you are craving, and most of them are crap. Andy is right about celeb magazines – they will rot your brain. Listen to him.
• Actually, in general, listen to Andy. He loves you, he wants the best for you, he knows you sometimes better than you know yourself, and he listens to your mad ramblings. He is eternally sensible, wise and lovely.

I think that’s enough for you to be going on with. You are a simple creature really, I don’t want to fry your little brain! Essentially, my message is: relax. Everything is alright. Don’t worry.

Have a great year.

With love,

Self/You/Me.

This week I have all the meals planned, lunches planned and I’m going to try to make porridge – the quest for a breakfast that will stop me wanting to eat anything and everything by 10am is never ending! I’ve tried porridge once before, made with water, but it looked and tasted like wallpaper paste (no, I haven’t tried eating wallpaper paste, allow me the simile please!), so I’m going to try it with milk and see if it’s a bit more palatable. I’ve got some of the flavoured Quaker stuff so I’ll have a bash tomorrow morning.

The weekend has consisted of sleeping too late on Saturday (I blame my wonky body clock after overnight on-call this week), doing the shopping for the week, watching three glorious rugby matches (love love love the Six Nations!), watching the husband play drums with his band at their gig (he’s amazing – yes, I’m biased, but really, he is), and today doing lots of chat about the marriage course we are doing – we missed this week’s session due to my night shift, but we borrowed the DVD to catch up. I swear we talked for hours about it all! It’s turning out to be a real eye-opener and helping us build a really strong marriage – totally recommend it.

So now, I’m sitting on the sofa, with the kitchen tidy and the lunches made and the husband’s shirt ironed, feeling content and vaguely positive about this week – it might be a tough one for us as the husband is having a corneal transplant on Wednesday and so will be in hospital for some of the week, and out of action for quite some time after that. I think I’m more nervous than he is, but it helps that he’s had one before and knows that it will make a big difference to his life and his vision – makes it much easier to put up with temporary pain and discomfort.

My plans for the week include BodyAttack tomorrow, maybe a swim after visiting the husband in hospital on Wednesday, and hopefully something on Thursday or Friday too, depending on how the patient is getting on.

I honestly don’t know if anyone is actually reading this, but it kinda helps to state my goals on ‘paper’ like this, along with my weekly weigh-in results – makes me more accountable. So I will continue to spraff here occasionally, even if it’s only for me!

Experiment number one: flapjack with almonds and cinnamon.

Pretty much what it says on the tin, it’s my normal flapjack recipe (my mum’s flapjack recipe) but I ran out of oats so substituted the last wee bit for flaked almonds, a few chocolate chips left over from the husband’s birthday cake (which all melted but still added to the flavour!) and some cinnamon. I’m loving cinnamon at the moment, it’s flavourful and warming and full of antioxidants, yum. So – a success (and 2.5 points per flapjack by my calculations).

Experiment number two: Seeded Flatbread (from a great website I’ve been dabbling in called 101 Cookbooks)

Not so successful I’m afraid – I think I used the wrong kind of yeast, I used some stuff in a pot rather than a sachet so it turned out as a very nice but rather disappointing kind of cooked dough…I love the idea though, and today went and bought some proper yeast, so I will try again!

Experiment number three: Blueberry Oatmeal Pancakes

One of the blogs I read regularly (thank you Dietgirl) linked to this recipe which we tried for breakfast on Sunday. Success! These pancakes were awesome – oaty and just the right amount of sweetness. I reduced the sugar and butter a bit and packed it full of frozen blueberries, and we ate them with sliced bananas and a bit of maple syrup – delicious! Will definitely be making these again. It does kind of depend on whether our local supermarket stocks buttermilk, but they were filling and satisfying and actually reasonably healthy, plus with all the blueberries and banana counted as 2 of my 5-a-day.

Felt like a lot of cooking! Just to top it off, today I made some wholemeal seeded bread, which is in the oven as I type!

I’m working overnight this week, and rumour has it that I might even get to sleep a bit, so I’m hoping I’ll manage to do some fun stuff this week rather than just work and sleep, as is the usual night-shift pattern.

Lastly, this week’s weigh-in was not as disastrous as I was expecting – because I was ill, I basically sat around a lot and ate whatever I fancied and whatever was not too hard on my sore throat (ice-cream!) so I was expecting a gain, but in fact it was exactly the same as last week, so that’s a relief. I weighed again today just to check, and was down a pound, though I’m not tracking that because it wasn’t Sunday Weigh Day!

Wish me luck with the shift tonight, hopefully all will be peaceful and I’ll get some rest!

Firstly, I really like my life. No, I really like my life. My husband is incredible, I (mostly) love my job, my family are great, my in-laws are also great, we have a great house, and things are good.

But we could be healthier. In body, mind and spirit. I want to grow old with my husband, to see my nieces and nephews grow up (and maybe my own kids one day?!), to be able to live as full and helpful a life as possible. And to do this I need to change a few things. I read this article today, which got me thinking…

I need to lose some weight. Actually, a fair bit of weight. I need to exercise more – I love some kinds of exercise (swimming, boxing, weights…) and loathe others (running! – but I’d like to be good at it) but I’m rubbish at making time for it, and since I’ve recently moved jobs to one with decent hours I should really suck it up and make time.

I could eat better. In general, we eat really healthy meals – lots of veg, lean meat and wholegrains – but the whole thing is kind of undone if you then eat marshmallows and chocolate between meals!

I am bad at switching off from work. I am the queen of at-home worrying, I am very good at stressing about the smallest things, and it can’t be good for my longevity.

I could use my time better. Less time on trash, more quality time with the husband, more time on healthy habits.

I’m sure there are more thoughts, but that’ll do for now.

So, I’m starting to do something about it, and create a few more healthy habits. I’ve joined the dreaded Weight Watchers (yes, I know, but I need the structure), I’ve started going to a BodyAttack class on a Monday evening, and am trying to fit in a BodyPump class too. The husband and I are doing a marriage course, and are trying to build in quality time each week to spend together, and as soon as the clocks go forward and this miserable winter is over (only a few weeks to go!) we are going to try to do more walking and cycling and other fresh-air things in the evenings.

So I’m going to use this blog to update on these habits, and as some accountability as I try to get healthy. Of course I have to get over this darn ‘flu first, but hopefully it won’t take too long. Wish me luck!