Challenge Week 2

Hiya,

So I got through the week with no iced coffee.... amazing! Exercised 5 days out of the week too! Including a 10km walk around the river on Thursday night. Other than that though I didn't really do much different. Struggled with dinner a few of the nights and was quite ill on Wednesday night. PB'd up dinner and then had excrutiating backpain all night - didn't feel stuck though. So weird. I did lose 500g though which I'm pretty happy with.

Friday was GB's 35th birthday. To celebrate he went out in the morning before I woke up and ran 21kms. The equivalent of a half-marathon. Fricken amazing. Another goal of his ticked off. We both took the day off from work which was nice. We took a walk down to Tomato Lake and had a coffee (my first iced coffee in a week!), then caught up with a friend for lunch in the city at The Lucky Shag. After that we toodled off to the movies and saw All About Steve. We were the only ones in the cinemas which should have twigged us to the fact it was shite. Lordy bigordy what a big pile of stinking dog poo that movie was! After that we had a quick drink at our local pub then got frocked up for date night. As it worked it out it was his turn to organise it! We went to The Old Swan Brewery and had a couple of drinks at the bar. Yummy argentinian chardonnay! Checked out the menu there for shits and giggles. It's basically a grill - lots of steak. One of which was a 900g steak of which the cow was hand reared, grass fed, wrapped in bubble wrap, lined with gold and cost $110!!! Wowzer! We went to dinner at the other restaurant there called Zafferanos. We had a table overlooking the river which was gorgeous.  They had one of my fave cocktails on the menu (and is quite hard to find) - a Jo Jo Ivory. So I started with one of those and GB had a Martini. It was a pretty pricey restaurant (thank goodness for the Entertainment Book!) but the food was delicious. I had the red emperor which was a special with carrot puree, lemon buerre, and scalloped potatos. Sooooo nice. One of the nicest pieces of fish I've had in ages. GB had a mixed seafood plate which he said was awesome too. Then, because we're slow learners, we had a look at the dessert menu. GB decided he wanted cheese so I got the pannacotta e torte with caramal bananas (YUM). About a quarter of the way through I thought I was going to vomit. Not because it was stuck - because I was soooooo full! Both of us ended up leaving about half. Oh well!

The festivities continue today with lunch with his parents and catching up with his mates for drinks this afternoon. He doesn't know that I've organised a surprise lunch with all our friends at the Millbrook Winery tomorrow! Going to have to squeeze in some exercise somewhere so I don't put on 2kgs over the weekend!!!

Anyway - confession - already blew my no ice cream challenge for Week 2 by having a choc top at the movies yesterday - oops! But I will go saturday to saturday with no ice cream I promise!

Hope all are well!

Em :)

Challenge begins!

Week 1 Day 1. No iced coffee so far, but I have only been awake for a couple of hours. Oh yeah and I had a choc thickshake from Macca's on the way in. Geez I'm seriously useless. 400g loss in the past week so back into the 70's for the start of the challenge. I'm really going to look at portion sizes too. I'm sure I've been going way over the 1/2 to 1 cup rule.

Very excited for GB. He's decided to enter his first ever triathlon. As I've mentioned before, he and two of his friends are doing the Busselton Ironman Triathlon in December but he's decided to try it out himself in a sprint triathlon on Sunday. It's a 750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run which he can piss in separately so I'm sure he'll string it together ok. He borrowed his friend's expeno racing bike the other day and stacked it riding to work. I think he broke his pinky finger too! Plus grazed his leg down one side. Mostly just his pride injured though I think.

The fill I had last week has had some effect. I'm not as hungry as I was which is awesome and I'm feeling restriction kick in earlier which is good too. Still feel like my portions are too big but I'd rather try to work with that myself than get more fill in at this stage.

Hope everyone is well!

Em :)

Fun with Canon EOS 5D!

I mentioned a few posts ago that we bought a digital SLR camera and were taking a few lessons. Well thought I'd post some pics we took the other night in East Perth. Some are pretty good for beginners I think!!

[gallery]

Spring into Summer Challenge

The Spring into Summer 6 Week Challenge starts over at the We Are Slimming forums this week. I'm keeping my Friday weigh in's so my challenge will actually begin this Friday. I've set my goals though. I've decided to have overall goals that I want to achieve and also weekly goals of things I want to do but don't think I'd be able to keep up for the entire 6 weeks. Baby steps as they say! Anyway I'll be updating my progress on the forums and here.

Overall Goals:
- Be in the 77's
- Exercise 5 days per week
- Drink at least 1L of water per day
- Clean out top drawer in bedside table
- Run 5kms without stopping

Weekly Goals:
Week 1 - No iced coffee
Week 2 - No ice cream
Week 3 - No cheese & Complete the John Hughes Big Walk 15kms
Week 4 - No chocolate
Week 5 - No coke
Week 6 - No snacking between meals

Go me!

Fill 'er up!

Just back from the doctors. They were running about 35mins late mind you! The waiting room was packed! To my joy just after I got there, a mum with two young boys came in, one of them screaming his box off. He wanted a dummy you see and mum didn't have one. Then he wanted to ride a tractor (WTF?). Then he wanted the dummy again and then to ride a tractor. Dummy. Tractor. Dummy.Tractor [my head explodes].  Think GB and I may have to rethink this whole having kids caper.

Anyhoo, when I finally got in to see Bowater, he said I was looking much better than I was before to which I replied "amazing what happens when you sleep through the night and don't throw up every meal! But I'm not happy". I explained to him the situation and he nodded and said that he's had the same conversation four times today. That for some reason it actually seems to get harder to find the right fill balance towards the end of "journey" than whilst you're on it. He wished he had some reason for it but he hasn't worked it out yet! So he offered me 0.5ml which I said I was reluctant to go to because I was worried about going back to the night reflux, PBing area which he understood and so we settled at 0.25mls and will review it in 4 weeks. According to his scales I've put on 1.6kgs since seeing him 7 weeks ago. I've actually just realised I've made my next appointment for 5 weeks time but oh well. To be honest, if I don't see an improvement in a couple of weeks I'll be pounding on the door for an earlier appointment anyway. I hope this fill has put me back into sweet spot town though.

Actually I did feel restriction nearly immediately (sort of). I was super hungry going in there, tummy rumbling and all that, and as soon as the fill was in, nothing - felt like I'd eaten! Awesomesauce.

Date night tonight and my turn to take GB out for dinner. I'm sooo broke though so we're off to Siena's in Leederville (Thank you very much entertainment book voucher!) which is BYO. Might start at The Oxford for a couple of bevvies before dinner. Going to have to be careful tonight though - got to get back into the habit of tiny bites and chewing - something which lately I haven't needed to do and so have slipped back into "normal" eating.

Have to gloat about some exercise feats this week. On Tuesday GB decided to run to his friends place (18kms!) and ride his bike back so that inspired me to thinking, "Maybe I could run a bit today". So after work I drove down to Burswood and took off around the bridges. It's usually 7kms but I took a shortcut (hehe) so it was about 6.3kms according to my iphone app. Anyway I ran my little heart out. And by "ran", I mean I shuffled ever so slightly faster than my usual walk speed! I had a strong head wind pretty much the whole way (How does that happen when you're going in a circle?!). I slowed to a walk 3 times for 300-400m each time but that meant that I ran just over 5kms all up! Amazement!

Then yesterday, GB had run to work (he works across the road from me) but was too buggered to run home so he took my car and I walked to the gym (about 2.5kms), did 30mins on HR trainer on bike at the gym, then walked the rest of the way home (about 6.5kms). All up it was 1hr50 worth of exercise and nearly 800 calories burned according to my HR monitor watch - which admittedly isn't too accurate. But my heart rate when walking was averaging around 130 which is pretty good.

And gorgeous weather in Perth finally! Going to dust of the bikes and take them for a spin tomorrow I think!

Have a super weekend,

Em :)

Countdown to Fill time

I'm hanging out for a fill.. I needs it .. I wants it...

Here's why - I'm hungry an hour after I've eaten, I wake up hungry, all I can think about is FOOD, I can't stay out of the fridge or cupboard, I'm eating too quickly, I'm eating too much, I'm eating too much crap and (and here's the clincher) I'M PUTTING ON WEIGHT!

So you can see I really do need a fill - all the signs are there.

The question is - how much?

In the back of my mind still remains the horribleness of everything I eat getting stuck, of night reflux, of waking up choking, of spending more time than I ever care to in the toilet, of being to frightened to eat anything at anyone's house or going out to dinner. I never want to get back to that stage again. But I clearly need some fill. I just want enough to control the hunger and portions but not so much so that I can't drink water again. I'm still 1 ml down from having the 2mls removed in August so I definately don't want 1ml in. I'm thinking somewhere between 0.25ml and 0.5ml. I guess I'll see what Bowater says about it.

To get back into the right frame of mind I'm joining into the "Spring into Summer" 6 week challenge over at We Are Slimming starting next week. If anyone else out there is interested, make sure you head over there and sign up! I'll post my goals and results here as well.

OK well I'd better do some work.

Cheerio chaps!

Recipe - Spicy Chicken Thighs Noodle Salad

Hey kids,

Thought I might share one of my fave recipes from Bill Granger. This makes 4 "normal people" serves. I usually make it with one chicken thigh each, and use EVOO (instead of vegetable oil) and don't add the sugar. But even if you had it as is, one serve would be about 380 calories.

SPICY CHICKEN THIGHS WITH CUCUMBER AND CASHEW SALAD

SERVES 4

3 TABLESPOONS FISH SAUCE

FRESHLY GROUND BLACK PEPPER

3 GARLIC CLOVES, CRUSHED

2 LARGE RED CHILLIES, FINELY MINCED

2 TEASPOONS SUGAR

8 BONELESS SKINLESS CHICKEN THIGHS

2 TABLESPOONS VEGETABLE OIL

 CUCUMBER AND CASHEW SALAD

3 TABLESPOONS LIME JUICE

3 TABLESPOONS CASTER (SUPERFINE) SUGAR

200G VERMICELLI NOODLES

2 CUCUMBERS, HALVED AND THINLY SLICED (I use lebonese)

SMALL HANDFUL FRESH MINT LEAVES

4 SPRING ONIONS THINLY SLICED

2 TABLESPOONS CASHEW NUTS, CRUSHED

 Whisk the fish sauce, pepper, garlic, chillies and sugar in bowl.  Put the chicken in a separate bowl and pour over half the marinade.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes (keep the rest of the marinade on one side).

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat.  Add the chicken, in two batches, and cook for 3 minutes on each side, or until it is cooked through (Note from Bill -"Sometimes, I put another frying pan on top and weight it down with a couple of tins to make the chicken really thin and crispy" - This actually does work!).

While the chicken is cooking, add the lime juice & castor sugar to the marinade that you set aside.  Stir until the sugar has dissolved to make the dressing.

Pour boiling water over the vermicelli and leave for a minute or so until soft.  Drain under cold water, place in a large bowl and add the cucumber, mint, spring onions and cashews.  Add the dressing, toss well and serve with the sliced chicken.

Yum!

Sad Panda

Yep this is me all right. Back over 80kgs. Remember the times I was sick of seeing 78? I miss those days! I know I have no-one to blame except myself though. My eating is out of control. Far too much chocolate, cheese, wine and coke. I'm always looking for food. I did get back to exercising this week though after a couple weeks off, so imagine the damage last week! I've started swimming again. GB is training for the swim leg in the Busselton Ironman so I'm going to try to swim once or twice a week with him. Unfortunately I took the crap goggles on Monday which kept filling with water which made getting into a rhythm pretty difficult as I had to keep stopping to empty them! Did cardio at the gym twice this week and then last night walked home from work (about 7.8kms in 1hr10mins) I "jogged" about 2kms of that. Hamstrings are sore today.

So next Friday will be fill day for shizzle.

Going to a friend's engagement party on Saturday night. Bought a maxi dress from Jeanswest and some new far too high heels to wear with it. Will try to remember to post pics. If I still fit into the bloody thing.

GB and I and two friends started a DSLR course on the basics of using a Digital SLR camera. Learned all about F stops, focal length, shutter speed - information on which I have retained nothing! But doing location shoot on Sunday so looking forward to putting it into practice and hope it all sinks in there. If I get any nice pics I will post them.

Also, on Sunday October 18 I will be participating in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Walk to Cure Diabetes, an event that raises money to fund vital research into finda a cure for type 1 Diabetes. If you would like to donate (donations over $2 are tax deductible) please visit my personal walk website.

OK off to catch up on all your blogs now.

Anyone wondering where I've been?

No? Well ok then! Just a quick blog to say that I am still alive (as anyone following my twitter can attest to!) just been super busy with work and then a few days off last week. Have been eating and drinking up a storm so much so that I haven't looked at the scales for two weeks. So disappointed in myself. Barely exercised apart from pilates and the occassional walk too. I pissed off at myself that after all this time I still can't say NO! Anyway I've got an appt to see Bowater on the 16th so will get a fill. Probably just 0.25ml to try to control the mind hunger as I don't want to get to that vomitty/refluxy stage again. Had a massive PB/vomit last night after gorging myself on chips. CHIPS I tell ya! What a farking moron. Seriously.

Have been suffering from asthma/hayfever for the past 4 or 5 days and I'm pretty sure it's developed into a cold (just to top things off as if it wasn't bad enough feeling like shit psychologically, now I have to feel shit physically too). Completely blocked sinuses and soooo tired. Lovely. Anyway going for a swim tonight - hope I don't fall asleep in the pool and drown. Bought new bathers and boardies too.

OK will see what the damage is on Friday and promise to report back. Hopefully by then my pity party will have disbanded.

Em