I also have muscles, on my thighs and arms, for the first time in my entire adult life – which would go to further explain the no loss thing I am sure.

I am going to try and stop worrying about it, and just stick with what I am doing knowing that overall I am becoming healthier, and that’s what counts

If you’re like most people, your reaction to these diet/ fitness obstacles is guilt. You feel as if all your hard work has been for nothing. “I blew it; I was doing so well. Oh well, I might as well enjoy this weekend and start over on Monday.” Or even worse: “I just don’t have the motivation or will power to start over and be successful. I quit.” Feeling defeated, many people discontinue the healthy living and return to their old routine until some mythical time in the future: “Maybe this spring will be a better time to start over again.” This kind of scenario is a perfect example of the diet mentality at work.

An all-or-nothing attitude is why so many people have so little success; we choose structured programs because they relieve us from making choices for ourselves. A properly designed program makes sense, but expecting to stick to a structured eating and exercise plan for an extended period of time without ever deviating makes no sense at all. In fact, this is so unrealistic as to be a set-up for failure. If you begin to change your habits with the assumption that any deviation from your plan will ruin it, you might as well not even begin. Life is full of unplanned obstacles, distractions, and temptations. Your best approach is to prepare for them, keeping an open mind and maintaining a positive attitude.

It’s very important that you begin your healthier lifestyle with an understanding that there will be days when you will stray from healthy eating and exercising. Before you begin, tell yourself that no matter what happens, rather than abandoning your new lifestyle, you’ll resume your healthy habits as soon as you can; it is equally important that you feel confident, not guilty, about doing so. What- ever the temptation or obstacle is, keep in mind that it’s not wrong or bad to eat fattening foods once in a while or to miss a workout. Just remember to resume your healthy lifestyle. If you keep moving forward and you don’t let guilt and discouragement stop your program all together, you’ll eventually have improved eating and exercise habits.

With this approach, there is no such thing as cheating. When we feel we are cheating, we often punish ourselves; we make ourselves feel guilty, frustrated and defeated. Replacing the negative concept of “cheating” with the idea of “straying from healthy habits” takes away the all-or- nothing emphasis on right and wrong. If you treat every deviation from your plan as a failure, you won’t get very far

Substituting the idea of a brief straying away from your plan instead of feeling guilty, and learning to return more and more quickly to healthier habits, is more realistic. It’s also easier and more enjoyable.

In the non-diet approach, all foods are legal. There are no “good” foods or “bad” foods. You must believe this. Sudden changes and/or drastic restrictions of high-fat foods when you have a preference or craving for fat will result in feelings of deprivation. No one can or should go through life depriving themselves of foods they really enjoy. You must learn how to make gradual healthy changes to the foods you love while experimenting with and learning to appreciate new flavors and textures.

A recent survey showed that more than 75 percent of people feel guilty about eating so-called “bad” foods. The greatest obstacle to adopting healthy eating habits is guilt. Attaching a value to foods only makes you feel bad for eating them. When you do decide to eat a high-fat food, enjoy it. Don’t beat your- self up over it. Just make a special effort to eat low-fat the rest of the day. Remember, there is nothing wrong with splurging now and then. It can even be good for you if the satisfaction of a higher-fat meal that you’ve been craving helps you stick with a low-fat lifestyle the rest of the time.

If you’re having a special diet meal that’s different from what the rest of your family or friends are eating, you’ll feel as though you’re being punished. In order to be successful in changing your eating habits, you must look forward to and enjoy each meal you eat. This doesn’t mean that you have to learn to like rice cakes and celery. It means you must learn how to make simple changes in the foods you love.

Perhaps one of your favorite meals is fried chicken, a baked potato, and salad. Small changes in how the food is prepared can turn this traditionally high-fat meal into a low-fat well- balanced one. Simply marinating a skinless chicken breast in sweet and sour sauce, rolling it in bread crumbs, and baking it makes the chicken a lot less fattening than if it’s fried. Instead of butter or regular sour cream on your potato, try low-fat or nonfat sour cream or a reduced fat ranch dressing. Try using a non-fat or low-fat salad dressing rather than a regular dressing and adding as many vegetables to your salad as possible for their additional flavor, texture and nutrients. Any or all of these changes drastically reduce the amount of fat in the meal without sacrificing flavor or feelings of satisfaction.

Healthy eating patterns can only occur when you’re enjoying all the foods you eat. If you’re eating low-fat foods just to be healthy but without enjoying the flavors and textures or how they make you feel, this most likely won’t be a permanent change. However, if you begin enjoying healthy foods, you’re far more likely to stick with healthy eating for life.

Many people also enjoy eating out but associate this with being “bad” or eating “illegal” foods. Fortunately, it is very possible to eat a healthy, low-fat meal in a restaurant. You don’t need to forego your favorite foods or eat before you go out with friends or family. The same decision-making process occurs whether you eat at home or go out to a restaurant. Many people think that they have two options when eating: eating for taste and pleasure or eating for health. As you learn and practice healthy eating techniques, these two options will become one and the same. Good luck and enjoy all the wonderful benefits of a healthy, active lifestyle.

The main features I like at ExtraPounds.com are the weight logger…which does exactly what it says on the tin, but also creates graphs and tickers and the like for you. It’s great to see your progress and watch that little graph heading down and down. I also enjoy the member group for the UK members, as it is mainly an American based site – it’s nice to hang out with some fellow Brits some times

A few days ago however I finally found the site, MyVirtualModel.com if any one else is interested…and I had a lot of fun with it, I found myself sat imagining what life would be like if it was really that easy to lose 50% of your body weight in just a few moments lol

I ended up making this little image – that’s me at my start weight, looking like a big heffer. Me at my current weight, looking like a little heffer. Me at my goal weight, looking aiiiight and me at my absolute ideal weight, looking like a little thinny!

Most women would probably enjoy this but not me, I hate having to look ‘nice’ – as odd as that sounds, I just always feel out of place at weddings and the like – like people are looking at me thinking what is she doing here, even at 4 stone lighter I still feel like that…I don’t think it’s down to my weight 100%, though that’s certainly a large part of it, I just don’t feel comfortable in general – I am not a girly girl, I am happier…thin or fat…in jeans and a tshirt or hoody.

Seriously, I am glad that I did it as I have to get back into doing it…but it confirmed that I really don’t enjoy exercise and I didn’t miss it one iota while I was away.

45 minutes seemed more like 1hr 45minutes and I only burned 300 calories, I’d normally burn around 400 – 450 in that time.

Plus I am hopeful that that one pound will slink right back off again when I get back into being a 100% good girl, the shock to the system may do me well in the long term.

Tomorrow I am hopping back on that elliptical for the first time in two weeks, and to be honest I am not looking forward to it one little bit!

Eep eep eeep

I am still behaving on my diet, though I did have two chocolate covered pieces of toffee last night at 33 calories each, naughty naughty hehe

I am not enjoying being away from my scales though, it’s been five days now since I weighed myself and that’s probably the longest I have gone without a weigh in in almost 2 years…and it’s still another 4 more days before I am home. Argh

I guess it makes sense that you get bored of certain foods sometimes, but it’s annoying because I am a creature of habit when it comes to my weight loss. I have a bowl of cereal every day because I know that it’s a nice, easy, healthy and filling low calorie meal. I swap between corn flakes, weetabix, rice crispies and shreddies and even bought a few new ones to try out instead but to no avail.

Now I have to experiment with finding something else with the same benefits. Hassle Hassle Hassle.