Call me Yo-Yo

Hi all,

I cannot believe it has taken me so long to update, during November, if I was writing, I was doing to for NaNoWriMo so my blogging kind of got lost. Sorry!

I'd love to come on here and say that in the four weeks since I last posted, I've managed to reach my weight goal, which was only 7lbs away. This isn't the case, because I've hit a rough patch of yo-yo dieting that's driving me crazy.

My health has been rough again, I came down with another virus, so that is definitely affecting my ability to workout, but my eating has been crazy bad recently too.

Ever since getting into the 8st's, I've been yo-yoing between 8st12 and 8st13, with my last weigh in putting me at the higher number again. I need to step it up and get myself motivated again, because I am so close to reaching my goal, but I just keep on wasting time bouncing between a pound gain and a pound loss.

I've been trying to do as much exercise as I can, but being unwell has really made this harder, so I'm barely doing anything. The worst thing, though, is that I've gone off the rails with my eating.

I'm talking, going over my calories most days. Eating chocolate cake, ice cream, pies, chips, and basically nothing that could be considered a wholefood, which is what I'm trying to stick too!

There's one month left of the year, and I need to lose 2lbs a week in order to reach my goal by the end of 2015. I'm not all that confident (hence my more realistic goal of getting there by mid Feb when I go on holiday with my family), however, I am going to try really hard to get back into exercising and eating right.

I haven't come this far, to give up now that I'm so close. I just need to remind myself that more often.

I'm going to try and be much better at keeping this site updated. I've been bad recently, and I want that to stop. So I'm throwing that into my goals for December list.

Please comment below if you want to share your weight loss/fitness journey, and share this post if you like it.

Quick Little Update

Hi all,

It has been a while since I wrote anything on here, and I am so sorry for that. I honestly don't have much of an excuse, I just haven't been blogging even though I have a bunch of posts to do, not just here but on all of my sites.

Anyway, I wanted to post a quick update, because things have moved along since my last post. I was sort of in a bad place when I last wrote. I was feeling unwell with my health condition, and it wound up with me having a virus for almost two weeks, which made my POTS symptoms so much worse.

I'm all over that now, though, and I'm back to having a good mix of good and bad days with my health. I am still collapsing a lot, but some days, like today, I make it through the whole day without a collapse. Yay.

I've been stepping up the exercise more. Specifically, I've been doing a lot of blogilates on YouTube. I love these videos because they provide great toning, they're really challenging, and I can pick the areas to target. They're also great, because most of the exercises are done on a mat, and it's always best for my health when I can workout in a sitting or lying position.

I've also been doing cardio with my treadmill whenever I'm up to it, and using the bike machine too.

I'm getting a lot stronger, which I love. Exercises I couldn't even do one of a few months ago (lower leg lifts, cheerleader L's, push ups, etc...) I can now manage to get through the whole section of them in the videos. 

Last week, I lost 4lbs, which was incredible. I was aiming for 3, because that was what I needed to lose to get into the 8st's, and getting 4 was just so unexpected and exciting. So I'm currently sitting at 8st12lbs, just 7lbs left to go to hit goal, and my aim is to reach that by the end of November.

As far as November is concerned. I'm going to be keeping up with the pilates, by following the Blogilates workout calendar for the month (arm days are tough!), and I'm also going to keep up with the cardio, and to the Journey to Splits Challenge by Blogilates, which gives you stretches to do each day, to work your way towards being able to do the splits at the end of the challenge. I'm pretty excited to increase my flexibility.

So, that's where I'm at right now. In a pretty good place, even if my diet could be better. I'm sticking to calories, but not always with the best kinds of foods. My health, is as always up and down and unpredictable, but it's good to be back to just dealing with POTS, and not having a virus on top of it.

Hopefully I'll have another positive update for you after my weigh in on Saturday. Until then, I hope whatever fitness goals you have, are going well. I'd love to hear about your weight loss/fitness journeys, so please leave a comment, and don't forget to subscribe to my site for updates on my journey, and if you like what you're reading, please share. 

Bad Health Days

Hi guys,

I'm kind of having a bad day today with my health. I've had a pretty good run recently, a few days in a row where I had no collapses, or only collapsed late in the evening after a full day of doing stuff. After a run like this, it's easy to trick yourself into thinking you're healthier than you really are. Then it all sort of hits you again.

Last night, I had a bad fall while cooking dinner. I hit the ground hard and hurt my shoulder. Then this morning, it's not a good day.

I haven't had a collapse yet today, but I wouldn't be surprised if I did. What I'm dealing with this morning, is some of my other symptoms I get with my Postural Orthistatic Tachycardia Syndrome. 

I woke up feeling tired, and as the day has progressed, I'm getting more and more exhausted. It's not just a normal tired, it's kind of hard to explain. It just feels like every muscle in your body is tired, you can hardly keep your head up and your eyes open. You feel completely wiped out, and if you try and do anything, even small things like walking to the front door to get the post, you feel exhausted.

On top of this, I've been getting chest pain all morning, the kind that doesn't go away with my inhaler. I've had a bad headache that's increasingly getting worse, and my shoulder still hurts from the fall yesterday.

I think with my condition, it's easy on good days, to want to push yourself to do more because you know that you may not be able to do anything the next day. This comes at a price though, because maybe doing more yesterday, has resulted in me feeling so much worse today.

All I can say, is that today I am truly feeling the limitations of my illness. There's so much that I'd like to get done, but I can't get up and do anything, and even sitting down and writing is hard. I've been trying to write the novel I'm working on, but I can't concentrate because I'm just so tired.

I'm hoping that I'll feel more energetic tomorrow. For now, I think I need to go back to bed.

Recipe | Pumpkin Spiced Latte (Skinny Fit Style)

Hi all,

Autumn is here, and with it comes the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, which I am a little bit obsessed with. At Starbucks, a Tall Skinny Pumpkin Spice Latte with no whipped cream is 200 calories. This isn't too, and I'll admit that when I'm near a Starbucks, I'll most likely go inside and grab myself one. However, my closest Starbucks is around twenty five minutes away by car and I don't drive. I, also, don't always have the money to splash out on a latte when I want one.

So I thought I'd try my hand at making my own latte. This recipe is one which I figured out simply by putting the ingredients I thought would work together, and mixing them in the best way I could think of, and I was pleased with the results. It doesn't taste exactly like the Starbucks drink, but it's really tasty, and less calories too!

If you track your food on MyFitnessPal, you can find this under Pumpkin Spice Latte (Skinny Fit).

It's quick and easy to make, and the perfect drink for autumn. So here's how to make one in your own kitchen.

Ingredients

Serves 1 | 139 Calories

150ml Skimmed Milk (You can use other milks, dairy free milks etc, but it may adjust the calories per serving)

2 tsp coffee granules

1 tbsp Pumpkin Puree (canned)

2 tsp Coconut Sugar (You can use other sugars if you prefer, however you may need to adjust calories)

1 tsp Cinnamon

1tsp Nutmeg

Method

Mix together the milk, pumpkin puree, coconut sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Blend together in either a blender or whisk it until all the ingredients are combined.

Put this mixture in the microwave to heat it for around 45 seconds.

While the milk mixture is heating, make up your coffee, you'll want to fill your mug about a third of the way with coffee. Mix it well to dissolve all the granules.

Once the milk mixture is heated, pour it into your coffee and stir.

If you want to add a little extra spice to your latte, then go ahead and sprinkle some nutmeg and cinnamon over the top.

Also, at this stage, if you want to add a little extra treat, and some extra calories! You can add whipped cream before dusting with the spices.

Enjoy!

Catching Up With Me

Hi all,

It's not been a great week, or at least, it hasn't been a great weigh in this morning. All of the pie, chocolate, and coming way off healthy eating, has caught up to me. I gained two pounds this week, and I was so unhappy.

It wasn't entirely unexpected. Towards the start of the week, I'd been overeating a lot, with all the wrong things. So even though towards the end, I was within calories, and tackling some pilates and cardio, I sort of knew it wasn't going to be enough.

Having said this, I was hoping to stay the same, and expecting to gain a pound. Gaining two has really disappointed me. I hate being bet back on my journey, especially when I'm so close to goal, and by now I should know better, than to eat pie and chocolate, and go over my calories.

The only positive out of gaining weight, is that it's refocused me, and given me the kick I need to realize, I cannot get away with bad eating for long.

I'm still unable to eat a lot of foods because of my tooth, so I'm sticking to ultraslim for now, but instead of then going over my calories with soft snacks and unhealthy dinners. I'm determined to keep things healthier this week, step up the exercise, and hopefully undo the damage I did this past week.

Shakes, Headaches, and Too Much Pie!

Hi all,

I'm still on my mostly liquid diet at the moment. I have a dentist appointment of the 24th, and I'm hoping soon after that, I'll be back onto solids.

As of right now, I can manage shakes, soups and soft foods. Which is where I've hit into a problem. One of the foods, soft enough for me to handle, is pie, and if you've read previous posts of mine, you'll know that pie is one of my biggest weaknesses. I can't say no.

I love pastry, and fruit pies are one of my favorite things to eat. However, following the diet plan I'm meant to be following, I'm not supposed to eat pie. So it's bad enough that I'm eating it, worse still that I'm eating so much of it. I have a slice of pie pretty much every day, some days more than one slice.

So far, last weigh in I lost another pound, leaving just ten to go. However, since then, I've spent the weekend going way over my calories, and yesterday eating an alarming three slices of pie! This is the major issue I need to deal with.

As far as other food goes. Mostly I've been having Tesco UltraSlim meal replacement shakes, which are tasty and actually do keep me feeling full. So that's a positive. I've been having these mostly for my breakfast and lunch, and then having a soup, mashed potato or some other soft food for my dinner.

Another negative, is that I've been getting a lot of really bad headaches recently. I don't know if this is because my diet is just a little weird at the moment, or because I'm coming down with something, but my usual everyday headaches, have been getting more painful, and while on my proper diet I had some days without headaches, now I'm not getting those days.

So a few ups and downs recently. I need to get my head more focussed, get rid of the pie, and lose those last ten pounds.

A Strange Diet

Hi all,

It's been a while since I last posted anything here, and this is in part due to the fact that despite my best intentions, I have not got back onto my diet properly.

In fact, for the past week or so, I've been on a very odd diet. One born out of necessity. The necessity being a really bad toothache. I haven't been able to eat solid food in a little over a week, and I'm still in the process of having multiple dentist appointments, and antibiotics to fix this problem.

As a result, my eating habits have been a little odd. I've mostly been sticking to soups, smoothies and very soft foods like scrambled eggs for the past week, and in terms of weight loss, it's been going good. This past week I lost two pounds, taking me to just eleven pounds left to go to reach my goal weight.

My course of antibiotics runs out tomorrow, so I'll need to head back to the dentist to get some x-rays done, and then finally get the treatment I need. So it's still going to be a while before I can eat solid food.

In light of this, I've decided to try out Tesco's Ultra Slim Shakes. I figured since I'm drinking most of my meals anyway, I may as well try out these shakes, and see if it'll help me shift the last eleven pounds.

The downside of this, is that although my weight loss has been ok, I haven't been able to exercise at all because the pills I'm taking for the infection, make me feel really unwell.

So, I'm hoping that by this time next week, I'll be back onto solid foods, and back on the treadmill.