Restarting the blog - Slimming World style ;)

You may remember my blogs or in most cases, you won't! I did about 3 entries and stopped! I haven't given up on the weight loss though! I am now a fully fledged Slimming World Member!

I joined Slimming World on the 18th September, weighing in at the dreaded 15 stone 12.5 pounds and needing severe help.. yes I had lost weight on my own but I was struggling, I was fed up of calorie counting, I was giving in to all the bad things whether it be takeaways (Pizza & Chinese being the worst culprits!!) or scones/baguettes.. you name it, I was probably eating it!!

I have been on the Slimming World plan for 5 weeks now, I have lost 1 stone 0.5 pounds in this time and I am loving the plan, I can more or less eat what I like (though I haven't had a takeaway in 5 weeks!) and I don't feel like I have to starve myself in order to lose weight! Perfect plan in my eyes.

I am hoping to lose another 2 pounds this week and if I achieve that, I will have lost 3 stone in total since I started to lose weight. That thought really blows me away..

I hope to start doing blog entries more frequently... they may not be the world's best but it is good to look back hopefully when I hit my target weight (10 stone) and see how I got there...

Dealing with Cravings

One of the hardest things about embarking on a diet is the need to try to find a way to deal with the cravings, that is one of daily battles that I face. When I started on the diet, I was all fired up and was focused on the figure on the scale changing that I didn't find the cravings that difficult to avoid.

That seemed to change last Friday, all day, I had this nagging voice at the back of my mind saying, how nice would a Pizza & wedges be and I tried to avoid it but I eventually caved in and before I knew it, I had the pizza delivery man right in front of me and I have to say as bad as it was for my diet, it was lovely!

That is a challenge that I still face each day, when I am at home and not in work, I find it more challenging, I have the fridge and cupboards available at any time and staying focused and not giving in is something I feel I have to work on. Last weekend, I found myself literally snacking on an entire bag of mandarin oranges! I know it could have been something worse but I still felt I let myself down.

I have learnt that you will have some days good, some not so good but the moral of the story for me is to pick myself up and keep going.

The dreaded first weigh in

I thought it was about time, I covered the dreaded first weigh in, the point when I decided to start the dreaded diet, lifestyle change, call it what you like! As they say in the "diet" circles, the best time to step on the scales is first thing in the morning after you have made a short pit stop to the bathroom... I thought if that does me any favours, sure why not?!

I hopped on the scales and saw my weight, I am roughly 5"4 in height and I was looking at the amount on the scales, it was 17 stone 10 pounds to my extreme embarrassment. I even tried to weigh myself a few times in the sheer hope of the figure dropping but alas, no chance. I started an excel spreadsheet to track my progress and this has come in very handy so at least I can see the good weeks from the not so good.

This was now my starting point. I am following a low calorie diet with a focus on smaller portions, more fruit and vegetables in my diet and for exercise, I am walking several times a week, sometimes twice a day! This is a long road I have ahead of me but I am slowly seeing progress and that to me still amazes me and gives me the motivation, inspiration to keep going!

My background and why I created this blog.

I bet you are asking yourself, who are you and what made me decide to create this blog well sit yourself down, grab a drink and let me explain all about it!

My name is Emma, I have had an on off battle for many years with my weight. I suppose you could call me a yo yo dieter.. I have struggled since I was roughly 13 or 14 with my weight, I think the catalyst was my Grandfather dying. He was my best friend, he lived with us and when he died, it felt like my life ended so that set me on a path of overeating, comfort eating and effectively piling a lot of weight on.

When I was somewhat younger (I am now 36 for my sins..), I signed up with Weight Watchers and lost over 3 stone. Unfortunately slowly but surely, I gave up on the daily dieting and watching what I was eating and ended up putting that weight back on and ended up trebling it. I had slowly given up caring what size clothes I fitted in to, what food I was eating and had got into really bad habits.

I have now decided enough is enough and my life will get better, I will get healthier so I am embarking on a healthy lifestyle which involves low calorie eating, cooking good meals for myself, exercising (mainly by walking) and drinking water. 

I hope you will enjoy my blog posts as I plan to talk about my experiences with weight loss, reviews of products I am using, where I am starting from and my journey all the way to being flabless and fabulous!