I'm famous!!!

I logged onto my facebook account late last night to find a message from a friend of mine informing me that my pictures were on a website I frequent a lot. I had no idea that they would be posted there or that I would be on the main page of the site. I sent my photos in as part of a competition but didn't realise that everyone would see them!

If you would like to check it, the address is: http://www.thebiggestloser.com.au/before-and-after-sonya.htm

I was absolutely thrilled and read the comments posted about me by other people telling me how well I had done. I was very proud of myself but also super excited, I had never had people telling me that I was a star and that I had inspired them. Tony also put up a link to it on his webpage http://www.trackking.org saying how proud he was of me in such a public forum. He had many of the people who play the game say how good I looked, how I should be modelling his t-shirts etc. The exhiliration and sheer impact of those comments means I feel like I am somebody now. I am no longer worthless, ugly, fat and disgusting. All of those feelings inside of me and all of those thoughts when I looked in the mirror no longer exist. Today I walk proud with my head held high.

I also had someone I hadn't seen for a while turn up for Sophia's soccer match and they asked me who I was, I just giggled knowing that I had turned the corner and no longer see myself as unattractive. I am beautiful inside and out.

Until next time,

And the scales went up......

Okay, I have to admit that this maintenance thing is a little tricky. After being on the program 2 weeks I have had the scales tip the wrong way and I gained 1.7Kg. I am not going to let it break me however and I have come up with a plan to rescue the 4 weeks of work I have undone in one week.

I think back over the last week and I know where my downfall was. I overate on some days, wasn't exercising as much, pumped too many weights and had some of the symptoms of my IBS return (that's Irritable Bowel Syndrome for those not up with the term) which showed me that I had not drunk enough water either. So it was a bad week but one I shall put behind me.

On the other hand it also taught me something. It taught me that even though I had lost so much weight up until now, it didn't mean that being human and putting on a little weight was such a big deal. Before I used to let it get to me, even if the scales moved 100g in the wrong direction.

For me however, I just see this as a new challenge and I know that I will overcome it. Maintenance I have learned is knowing when enough is enough. This is why it is called Maintenance because you fluctuate during the period you are maintaining. I look forward to getting on the scales next week and seeing if I have managed to undo the damage. Here's hoping I am successful.

Until next time,

Jean-a-licious

After a very trying start to my morning (in which I discovered that I forgot to renew my script for the pill DOH!!!), I got going with Sophia to her charity soccer match. The weather was beautiful and the nerves were a plenty. The girls played well together as a group even though it was the first time they were playing opponents other than each other. Sophia booted the ball nicely at one point that sent the ball flying through the air for 20 metres, it was a beautiful sight and a proud mummy moment.

After the game we took off to the local shopping complex to buy school clothes for Sophia and jeans and trackies for me. After doing the school shopping, we tackled the next task of jeans. I went to the one store that sells jeans for all shapes and sizes and leg lengths, Jeans West. I tried on 10 pairs of jeans, all of varying colours, designs and looks. I settled on 2 pairs of skinny jeans as I liked the way they fit. I couldn't believe that I came home with size 12 jeans for my body, it was too good to be true! I also managed to hunt down some nice trackies that will keep me warm and are long enough (I seem to have that problem with a lot of clothes!) and came home feeling wonderful, almost floating.

I would love to know within myself how I could get to a point where my appetite ruled my existence and I didn't care what went in. I have tried analysing my journey to see where the break occurred. I am still struggling with it but have seen so many positive signs within myself that I am happier now with how I look. Watching The Biggest Loser has certainly opened my eyes. I can relate to the negativity of being overweight and getting teased, I was constantly picked on for being different because of my height. It is so hard to be going through the hardest time in your life and have someone judge you and tell you that you don't fit in. I still feel like I don't fit in anymore. Through Weight Watchers I have made some amazing friends but yet again, I am not going through the same thing anymore, I am at goal and they aren't quite there yet. I feel a sense of loss with it, I feel that I should have slowed down. I feel like I am over the top at times with my zealousness to get things done, get things finished. I was never competing with anyone to get my weight down but I feel very different to how things were when I wasn't at goal.

How can you be a role model for someone or an inspiration for someone if you are doubting whether you have gone in the right direction because there is no one who you can relate to within your peer group??? I've always wanted to be friends with people who I can relate to and who I can measure up against, but there isn't anyone I know. I would love to be able to compare myself with someone because being who I am now is very scary and I could see how easy it would be to go backwards. I only can compare myself to how I was 18 months ago, that is all I have to go on and it seems surreal.

Maybe I will get the answers to the feelings I have someday.

Until next time,

Weekend Woes.......

Okay, so, just because I am on maintenance, have changed my employment status to "part time employee" and now have less time on my hands than before, I seem to have slipped a little. I forgot to track yesterday and today and blew my points. I have tried to get the amounts of food I ate as correct as possible as I don't have any idea how some of the food has been prepared but I've given it my best shot and that is all I can ask for.

I was supposed to be baptised this weekend but because of Sophia's soccer match tomorrow, I have postponed it. This upset me greatly last night and I think that led to my downfall a little. I try very hard not to eat my feelings but having TTOM and dealing with emotional issues, my resolve has crumbled a little and I haven't felt good about myself. I have questioned so much that is going on and wondered where I stood in the grand scheme of things. That said, tomorrow is another day and I will get there, even if it means scaling back my points for the day.

I did however get to see my brand new 1st cousin Sia who is the most adorable baby and so quiet too! She is an angel and I got to change her nappy. It was funny as I was asked if I still remembered how to do it (I've only not done it for 11 years!) but I did it perfectly, it was like riding a bike, I remembered everything. It felt good changing a nappy but boy was I glad about handing the baby over to my auntie for a feed. My childbearing days are definitely over and I don't want more kids, that stage of my life is gone for good.

I also went and bought clothes for myself for the first time since I got to goal last week. I ended up with a pair of size 12 pyjamas and three tops for winter in size 12. It was nice getting things from the normal section and finding that I had no issues with fit with them but some of the tops that were a size 12 were not really a size 12, they were smaller in size and I resent the fact that we do not have a standard size here in Australia, it means finding clothes is a traumatic issue for so many women. When will they get it right??? Women all over Australia don't want to walk into stores to find that a size X in one brand is a size Y in another. It isn't fair for our self esteem and it certainly isn't fair for our wallets either as some brands have charged more due to requiring more material for clothing. Designers need to get with the program!!!!!!!

Oh well, guess I will reverse the damage hopefully before weigh in next week.

Until next time,

Yeah Baby!!!!!

Okay, so another day, another weigh in. Just the results were not what I was expecting though!!!

I've lost a whopping 25 Kg!!!!!! I lost 400g today which means I've conquered my mountain for March and I'm definitely in control. Whilst I thought maintenance was going to make me balloon, I've proved myself wrong (yet again) and the surprises keep on coming.

I feel like a new woman!!!! It also helps to find your work pants that are size 14 are too big to wear and you almost fit into the size 10 on the rack but buy the 12 for comfort!!!!! That felt totally awesome yesterday.

Things feel great, I am on fire and the week is just going to get better I reckon!!!!

First day at my brand new job was fantastic too and I love where I work, the drive is peaceful and I feel refreshed once I've been up in the Barossa's intoxicating beauty.

Until next time,

Why is Maintenance So Hard????

Okay, so I've hit goal and I am now on maintenance, but why is it so hard???? I've got four extra points to eat and I am finding it difficult to stick to them!!!! I thought this was meant to be the easy part but I am actually struggling with it!!!

Okay, I must admit I celebrated the first couple of days, have been really sick with a cold and although I have gone to the gym, I felt worse than ever on the weekend. I've been running around here, there and everywhere and have still felt reasonably awful so decided today I wasn't going to the gym because my body needed some sort of rest. I have been watching what I eat like a hawk today because yesterday was a complete blowout as I ate a tiny piece of mudcake for a birthday and then had a sensible choice for dinner among the options when we had Chinese which did not include the old favourites of dim sims and spring rolls (I should have just had a sandwich at home methinks!).

Today has been good to me so far though as I've received news that I start a new job on Wednesday (thanks Derry!!) at a winery in the gorgeous Barossa Valley, which is only 30 minutes from home but in the opposite direction of going to the city. It will be nice and peaceful driving there with nothing but rolling hillsides of vineyards to go past instead of being stuck bumper to bumper at 20 sets of traffic lights to get into the city. My biggest problem now is what do I wear?????!!!!!! I tried on my suit pants that I would normally wear for work previously but since my waistline has shrunk considerably, the pants no longer fit and look ridiculous on me!!!! The only suit I have is a jacket and skirt combination that I wore to the interview last week but I don't have any tops to wear underneath it really that look nice enough nor do I have winter shoes to wear with a pair of stockings seeing as the weather has done an about face and we are experiencing rain and cold wind. It is definitely a nice dilemma to have though!!

I think I need to look at maintenance from a different angle this week and try to figure out how to achieve a good balance without going overboard. It was easy losing weight because there was a steely resolve to get to goal but now that I have reached it, relaxing a little has taken on a life of its own and I'm now having to re-evaluate how to cope with those extra points seeing as I didn't have as many as I do now even when I started. I guess that is why we have 6 weeks to manage our weight. The other hard part about maintenance is the fact that I am not allowed to lose any more weight either so if I don't use up the points then I will not really be maintaining.

Oh well, I guess on Wednesday I will see if my week has had a positive or negative effect on my weight.

Until next time,

I DID IT!!!!!!!

I got to the Weight Watchers goal!!!!!!

Was hoping for a good loss and I lost .9 Kg this week. I am thrilled!!!!! This means I now weigh 80.8 Kg and I am in the healthy weight range. Now to tackle the personal goal of 74 Kg and see how we go, not far off!

Was nervous as anything as I stepped on the scales but it was all over when they were writing on my card that I had weighed in at 80.8 Kg. I got the monkey off my back and conquered a mountain this week, I feel triumphant!!! There is nothing better than getting your first maintenance book.

I also had a job interview today and felt quite chuffed when I was told I had the right qualifications for the position, you don't often get feedback like that so I felt really positive about it. I was told that they would get back to me very soon.

On a more personal front, I am writing my personal story of what my life was like before I became a Christian, what led up to becoming one and how I have changed since then. I'm looking forward to writing it and will be sharing it at my baptism which is coming up soon. I have felt a real positive change in my life recently and it is all for the better.

I never thought things would turn out for me this week, pity I can't say the same for my stepkids' mum. She was struck down with two brain aneurysms and required emergency surgery this week. She is trying to recover but the doctors are unsure of how much brain damage she has sustained as they've had to heavily sedate her due to her thrashing about. I feel sorry for my stepkids as they are unable to see her but hopefully things improve.

This will be an interesting week methinks! Let's hope that it starts off being the best week it can be!

Until next time,

Girls Night Out!

I have never had so much fun ever with a wonderful group of ladies!

The day started out with a hard slog at the gym in order to prepare for my night out so that I didn't abuse my saved points too much. I walked a whopping 6.9Km on the treadmill before heading home to eat lunch and get ready for a very long overdue haircut at the hairdresser. I had to take Sophia with me as she needed a haircut also but had been begging me for 12 months for streaks. I discussed it with Tony and we agreed it would be okay for her to get a couple of streaks put in.

After arriving at the hairdresser I discussed the issue of funds as I wasn't prepared to spend a huge amount of money on getting my hair done. I was also paying for 2 of us and the streaks Sophia wanted. Ended up getting a fabulous deal and Don did the most amazing job with my hair giving me blonde highlights in my very dark hair on top, leaving the bottom the original colour I dyed it the night before. Sophia's streaks were in reverse, they were all underneath allowing for regrowth which made her hair look totally sophisticated and grown up.

I then flew home to find I had 10 minutes to get ready and I managed to get everything done (hair, makeup and clothes) in time but forgot two items in the process because I was flustered (more on that later). Sharon arrived to pick me up and we headed off to the city. I knew I was in for an interesting night when Sharon and I were getting on the tram at the casino to have some guy say that two of the seats were really hard to sit on (which bewildered us to say the least).

We arrived at the restaurant to find Derry, Joanne, Jo, Karyn, Tanya and Tina waiting for us outside. We greeted one another and went in to have dinner. I was a very good girl and stuck to the rule of one cup of steamed rice only along with a serve of cold rolls and beef with Thai black bean sauce. The food was delicious but the icebreaking conversation was good too!


After dinner we were met up with Dee who had been to a Fringe show who then came along with the rest of the group. We decided to stop at Cibo for a coffee which we enjoyed as I realised whilst eating dinner that I had forgotten to take a cardigan of some description and was freezing!!! I braved the cold because it made me happy to know that I could finally feel the temperature the way it should be felt! Once we left Cibo the group split up into two apart from Tanya and Karyn who left from Cibo's to go home. Those of us wanting to see the hotel where Joanne and Jo were staying went in one direction whilst Dee, Derry, Sharon and I took the tram back to the casino.

At the casino we waited for the others arrive and almost lost each other! I was nervous though as I had chosen to walk through the dance floor to go to the toilet and wasn't sure how other people would react towards me trying to get past. It was a nerve wracking experience but I managed to get through and got to the toilet with no trouble. I was shaking however which just showed how much I still thought of myself as overweight. It is definitely something that needs working on!

Once everyone arrived (except Tina as she needed to catch a train), we decided what to do next and unfortunately everyone started leaving! Sharon decided to go home at 11:30pm and took Dee and Derry home. That left Jo, Joanne and myself to have fun as I did not feel like I was turning into a pumpkin and I had only danced to one song.

Jo, Joanne and I hit the dance floor after acquiring Smirnoff Ice Black bottles to drink from and started to show off our dance moves. We were having a lot of fun drinking and dancing but we were finding a number of guys were creeping us out. The majority of these guys hailed from one particular ethnicity which we all knew was a recipe for disaster when discussing it together. We decided we did not want to be assaulted in any way and fought very hard to protect ourselves from them. We did have a few laughs regarding the old man who wore an outfit that reminded us of a horse racing jockey to whom we asked where he had left his horse!

The other laugh of the night was the white haired old man who tried to get jiggy on the dance floor with any lady who would pay him attention. We wanted nothing to do with them either and formed a tight circle of our own, saving each other from getting swarmed on. We saw a friend of Joanne's and also a mum of a child who plays soccer with Sophia in our travels and she joined us on the dance floor with her friend to really get into the spirit and the laughs became frequent as we watched each male try to make a pass at one of us. My funniest moment was at around 1am when a man decided he would target me and flexed his muscles. Seeing as I was taller than him by a good foot I decided I would show him who was boss and flexed my own bicep, to which I changed into an upper cut punch and then proudly held up the wedding rings around my neck. It was priceless and very funny but the laughs didn't stop there.

I must say that Jo is hilarious when drunk as a skunk and Joanne is funny too. The larger than life personalities of all 3 of us coupled with alcohol made for some very funny moments (such as Jo falling over onto my bag!), particularly at the water cooler in the Junction cafe when we tried to get water. I don't think Joanne quite knew that she had overfilled the glass and hence why it kept spilling as she remarked on how badly made it was!!

At 3am however we started to wind down a little, we hit the dance floor for the last time and I really let loose. Unfortunately I ended up with two guys, both 6 foot 6, trying to keep up with me on the dance floor and making utter fools of themselves as I exercised enough to keep my points tally going.

After departing town with hugs and a kiss in tow via a taxi I managed to get home in one piece (no thanks to the bad taxi driver) only to find I had forgotten to take a key and Tony in bed snoring!! I tried phoning both his mobile and the house phone, yelling at the upstairs window and knocking on the door. At 4:15am Nicola answered the door rather bleary eyed and tired of which I was grateful due to being very cold, soaked with sweat around the area where I wore my belt and walking around with blistered feet from my new shoes. I went in quietly and got organised for bed before turning out the light.

It was the best night with a lot of good memories and I look forward to the next one!!

Having woken up 4 hours later for church, I can honestly say that at 1:41am on Monday morning I am honestly tired but getting rid of visitors is harder than it seems when you don't want to be rude.

Hopefully I have broken the 700g monkey on my back this week, fingers crossed for that and also the job interview I have on Wednesday!!

Until next time,

Upset.....

I wasn't going to blog this week's result because I was really upset about it but I decided I should so that I could own it and get even with it.

This week I put on 500g which doesn't seem much in the grand scheme of things but I expected to lose weight, not put it on. So putting on weight means I am further away from goal than before and I don't want that to happen. I have now got 700g to go until I hit goal. As I sat in the meeting on Wednesday night feeling very angry with myself, I started to think why I put weight on. The only thing I could come up with was that I had not exercised enough.

So I've decided that by getting mad I am also getting even. Yesterday I went to the gym and walked for an hour on the treadmill. I then did 30 minutes of weights and another hour on the treadmill. The walking I did alone added up to 11.2 Km walked. I felt really good afterwards and even managed my points really well. I am determined to get to goal this week, even if it hurts just a little bit.

To make myself feel better about everything I am going out on Saturday night with the girls from Weight Watchers who all have 30 or more kilos to lose. I have already chosen what I am having for dinner and will just work off what I eat on the dance floor later on. It is going to be nice partying with people who understand where I've been but it is also going to be nice letting my hair down knowing that I am a lot skinnier than I was 4 months ago when I went out with Tony.

I am determined to get there and will make a huge effort this week to attempt to crack the goal line. There is no failure with my weight loss, only challenges which make you stronger and keep you motivated.

Until next time,

Nervous.......

It is the night before weigh in and I'm seriously nervous. I know it is only 200g but the thought of failure just kills me. Up until now I have been happy plodding along at my own pace but it is starting to become reality now. I wish no one had said anything to me, I would have been better off not knowing until I had done it. I've tried so hard not to sabotage it by eating the wrong things, I've exercised a good amount this week and I can feel myself getting stronger just by how little I am feeling the weights I am pushing on the machines and even just lifting myself using the ab bench is a lot easier than before. I know in my heart that I have done well, even just to get this far but it is still a frightening prospect that I will not have lost any weight. Particularly when I weighed in on Saturday only to find that even though it was a morning weigh in purely for my leader's sake, I was 100g heavier and I started panicking. I just hope that it has all evened out and tomorrow night I will get on the scales to find I have lost the 200g and all the stress was for nothing. It is hard though when you get close because you start to think "what if I slide backwards?". You've been overweight for so long that the prospect of being healthy and maintaining your weight is not achievable or seems to hard to get a handle on. I hope that I manage to get there.

Until tomorrow,