This is coming to you whilst I am full of that old 'joy of spring' stuff.Here we go, six of my current best
- The first stone is gone and there's a few more to go. Let's see how we are doing this time next year. After all I once lost four stone with Weight Watchers and everyone told me I had overdone it and I looked a bit ill. Yes, I do look gaunt, I agreed and thought I would put maybe half a stone back on. I regained it all and much quicker than it had taken me to lose it.
- I've just hung the laundry outside for the first time this year and was overjoyed to see a couple of buds on the peony bush that I planted a few years ago and which has yet to flower. All I have to do now is cut down the Rosemary that is threatening to swamp it. I think I need to buy some loppers that aren't blunt. (the photo above is what the flower should look like).
- We're going out to a lovely restaurant for Sunday lunch and I am going to enjoy a good meal but still be careful. This means no lovely bread that is always put out. You can usually tell the French tables by the fact that they don't fall on this glorious pain and have to have their basket refilled. They have control and wait for the proper food.
- All my current clothes are now too big. This means I can move down to the section of things that have been tight for quite a long time. All women will appreciate how good this feels (and maybe a few men as well). Of course now I cam cursing the fact that I gave all my tiny clothes away when we left the UK. I could have been back in them next year.
- I haven't had a biscuit for about nine months. I couldn't find the post where I blogged that I had become quite addicted to a few with every cup of tea. That is history now and they say that it takes 28 days to break a habit. I reckon I am definitely cured.
- It is nine years this year that I gave up smoking 20 Marlborough a day. If I can do it then anyone can. I didn't use patches or gum or any of those aids. I turned to food and as someone who had always battled with their weight and used smoking (and other stuff) t0 squash the appetite, it was inevitable that I then became a little porker.
43 comments:
No biscuits for 9 months?! That cannot ever be a good thing!
;-)
Well done for all those good things you have done to promote a healthier you. You have given yourself mileage in life. The fact that I have managed to keep from floating about on the Daily Mail website to catch up on celebrity gossip for all of three days is the best I can offer. I worked it out that an hour a day times by seven days, meant a whole working day lost to nonsense reading. So, after 27 days I should have become non-addicted, you say. So: 24 days left to go!
Bravo FF, slowly does it. Now Spring is here I have started to hang the laundry outside. Crusoe has been front-lined, and I have taken to getting up and wandering round the garden in my robe, checking out what is budding.
XX
Losing stones sounds much more meaningful than losing pounds and ounces.
Even more than your weight loss, I admire your peony success - gorgeous! Now just beware the storm that knocks the flowers about just as they bloom. Or perhaps that won't happen in Bretagne?
Hurray for you and your weight loss. You have a determined will!
Spring stories here: snow heaps are getting fewer and fewer and the sun is shining. Also, we have long light days now too!
Spring stories? My tulips are out and when the sun shines they glow with a fiery red.
I just chucked out the garden table, one I loathed so now I HAVE to buy another. :)
Well done on the weight loss!!
Congrats on all yr success - and especially determination that's all paying off!
Yes, you're quite correct about the Lola Award over at my place! Firstly, I know yours is an award-free zone & secondly, my Lola Award is for recently discovered blogs & I've known you, dear FF,and admired yr blog now for, oooh, ages!!
Must rush now! Enjoy the Spring!
In haste,
XOXO LOLA:)
Congrats on the closet full of baggy clothes!
Steve - the thing is that I don't even fancy them any more. Still, never say never ...
Vera - you need to replace one habit with another. I used to read the DM every day and now just pop in occasionally. However, my daily read now is the Guardian (I'm already an avid poster on the talkboards but just read a hard copy weekly - Guardian International). The paper's online site is just marvellous and has totally different stories from the copy that is delivered each week.
Did that make any sort of sense?
Dash - We've Strongholded the girls. I gave up Frontline last year because it didn't stop the girls getting caught with fleas.It turns out that the solution is weaker now it can be sold otc in pet shops - instead of just at vets.
I'm so looking forward to that fresh air smell on the bedding again.
Pobox - you intrigue me. You don't have a blog but you come and see me. Don't you want to have your own little page in the blogosphere? Hey, here's an idea? You weren't my anonymous poster from the other week, were you?
Frankie - I love peonies and for the last four years have been very disappointed that our healthy looking shrub has not flowered. I'm now on bloom watch.
Ladyfi - I want all your snow to go right now. It's been a very long winter for you
Sarah - I love going to buy new furniture for the garden. We need a couple of new sun loungers and I will spend a long time mooching around for the right sort.
Nora - I hope being an award free zone doesn't sound rude. I'm still looking for a phrase to describe it to give people a laugh
willow - I could pull my trousers down yesterday without undoing the button and zip. Go me - such little things can make me so happy.
Well done, losing a stone.
2.5 lbs is all I lost the first week and it's stayed like that. I can't seem to get going.
That's a good start! I hang my laundry out to dry too - isn't it great when it smells like the sun when it's dry?
Mona - the diets I have begun and failed would make a full book by me. I hate to tempt fate but I just feel 'in the zone' atm. Good luck with getting into the moment
Bindu - I just hope it's dry. I hate that washing round the house look. We have a laundry room in the basement but it is very cool in there and nothing dries.
You are doing absolutely brilliantly and I am most proud of you!! I know just how hard it is to lose weight (am struggling myself at the moment) so am now doing a wee happy dance on your behalf!!
I loved this post....so much positivity just jumping out the computer at me :-)
I just went and collected our bin from the front of the house and for the first time in what feels like forever I didn't need to put my coat on...blue skies and sunshine here today and it's lovely!!
C x
Carol - Thank you so much, sweetie - I've just got to stick at it for about a year to lose all this nicotine substitute blubber. Isn't it funny when one suddenly has a wake up moment - like 'where did all this fat come from?'. It's like one has eaten oneself like this during a bit of a trance.
I've gone out a couple of times now without a coat or jacket and it is glorious to feel the sun again.
xx
Our grafted weeping cherry tree is just about to bloom in gorgeous, white blooms.
I have my house back after months in the hands of the builders - and it is sunny enough to have dinner on the patio. Spring has arrived.
Well done on the weight-loss...a stone is excellent.
Today is day 6 of no smoking for me..and because we are pretty hard up at the moment I can't turn to food to compensate...which is just as well.
Oh FF! I'm so jealous! Of losing a stone - not the smoking. Funny, I always imagined you thin anyway. Its funny how you get an image of people.
Bless you xxx
This is all terribly impressive...congratulations on the fabulous weight loss and the cigarettes! And I absolutely adore peonies...easily my favorite flower. Extremely jealous that you have them at your fingertips. I have to wait for them to come to market!
No, I wasn't an anonymous poster. About having a blog, - no, I don't think so. I don't care for Blogger's format - the followers and limited web tools - those sort of things. Plus I don't have that much worth sharing.
Spring...my jasmine smells divine and it's starting to climb the trellis. That suggests a certain sort of ...permanence .
Stone...I think I used to know what that was. Please explain again to this ignorant American. And congratulations...I know the battle of which you speak.
Those old clothes. Don't give them a second thought. You'd probably hate them now anyway and you deserve the delicious reward of buying one new thing at a time...as you move down the sizes. Congrats, FF!
No biscuits for 9 months!!!
ouch
but then you do have your new figure.
What joy it is to buy smaller and smaller jeans.....
Spring has definitely sprung around here.
Blossom overload all over!
Good for you! I've been watching your Weight Watching updates in the sidebar and cheering you on (quietly so as not to distract you from whatever you're doing -- I've found it works better for me not to think about the diet or I start to want things I can't have).
Peonies! I love them. But they are very hard to grow, or so I observed when my parents had them in their garden. They got too top-heavy and flopped over on themselves. I'm lazy and don't want to have to stake them :P
I do admire your fortitude on losing weight...after a couple of weeks in Central America avoiding fried chicken, tamales, nactatamales, bealeadas, etc....I have not dropped a pound!
Spring...well, the equivalent here is the start of the rainy season which decided to start today while I was shopping...I can't claim to be a drowned rat..more like a drowned peccary!
You've done really well. It isn't always easy to take control but you are doing it admirably.
I'll have to really think about the Spring stories as I think I've either put on weight or my jeans have shrunk.
The lighter evenings, more sun and the buds and flowers popping up are probably the things that are contributing to the feel-good factor.
Enjoy your meal.
Bravo! I am so thrilled for your success, FF. By next year when I plan to make it to France, we'll go have biscuits and tea together knowing that we can both afford to eat them and be the envy of all who can't.
Ah Spring! Yes, a good time.
And though there is less of you to love (because of your weight loss), we don't love you any less.
Paul - did you graft it yourself? - I am ever so impressed. That's real grown up gardening and I envy you your beautiful blossom
Dumdad - a close friend I used to have was Mother of the Chapel at the Express and I would sometimes go out with her and her fellow journos. Gosh, they could put the drink away and it was like sitting in a permanent fug of smoke the whole time. Of course I had to do my bit towards it.
Mark - Isn't it lovely when the workmen leave, the sawdust is finally swept away and one can relax just with the family around again
Ayak - you should be rightly proud of yourself. Those first two weeks are crucial and extraordinarily difficult. You are doing very very well.
Jen - I've been thin and I've been fat - much fatter than I am now. I've never been a steady weight for years at a time - the classic yo-yoyer, that's me.
Laura - well, at my fingertips is a very generous way of saying that I've got a small bush ('oo 'er missus) with two buds on it. Let's see how many the final tally will be. I won't pick them though - I'll still buy them at the florist.
POBOX - how nice to see you here again. Never mind about having a blog - you can take over this comment column instead. You could have 'Thought of the Day by POBOX' instead
Delana - well I'm jealous of your jasmine. Twice I have tried to grow it here but I don't think it's hot enough. It is one of the most gorgeous smells in the flowering world.
And you're right about not liking my old clothes that would eventually fit me. Poor Mr FF, when I finally lose this weight there will be a lot of expenditure I feel.
ewix - funnily enough I don't miss biscuits. I have the odd small cake or waffle as a treat and eat loads of fresh fruit, figs, dried apricots now. It's like my taste buds have completely changed
CT - oh thank you for spotting and mentioning my weight updates. I reckon by announcing it like this and documenting it so frankly, there is a chance I might even stick to it this time.
Peonies seem ever so hard to grow-bloody expensive in the florist shops.
tfitw - welcome back and I hope you had a good time. Now that takes discipline - resisting all those lovely foods whilst on your hols. I might have weakened.
Ken - it's astonishing how a bit of sun and the spring flowers blooming can make such a difference to one's state of mind - plus the lighter evenings (although I am someone who wishes they wouldn't artificially mess around with the time)
Angie - I do so hope you come to France. I don't think we'll go for tea and biscuits though; how about a lovely meal somewhere instead?
Oh wow! You've lost a stone! That is fabulous. Well done you and good luck with the rest - sounds like you're on a roll now (but not rolls of fat, arf arf!!)
I also recently hung out some laundry for the first time this year - so love that !!!
Well done Mme Fancy, that is absolutely brilliant. A whole stone! I have been laxand evil lately and ma now heaving myself back on my particular diet wagon. And 9 months without a biscuit! Attila made some just now - but I only had a couple of broken crumby bits.
Hoorah! Well done you
Well done, FF!
Enjoy your weekend and that Sunday lunch!
Just threw six new porcelain plates for some friends of mine. We'll see what virtues follow on the heels of that.
Yesterday, two of our chickens started laying. It's like a little bit of Christmas every day after work.
Oh you're doing really well with the weight loss. I think I've found what you lost though :( I need to go on a diet or I'll end up diabetic like Werecat. I love Peonies too, we've got two bushes in our garden.
Hello Selina and welcome to the blog. Thank you for leaving such a lovely message
Alienne - if someone were to be here now and make biscuits I would not be able to resist. It's only because I am not buying them (well only boring petit beurre for the bichons) that I have not indulged.
Thanks Lu sweetie
e - thank you very much. I'm already trying to make myself not order a dessert. Let's see if I have successfully programmed my brain to just desist and then watch my fellow diners with big 'starving' eyes.
Larry - hurrah for you and your six plates - and your chickens with their eggs.
Den - My mum was diabetic so I could have a tendency. In fact every time I read anything medical I think ' oh, that could be me' - I really need to avoid medical sites.
Well done you. I sometimes think life is too short to diet; and I sometimes think it is too long to diet! Either way it is hard!
Sounds good to me! :)
Mark - for a long time I kept telling myself I was fine as I was, that I wasn't *that* big, all the usual. The thing is that I feel happier lighter and certainly healthier. About three more stone to go and then I will be very happy indeed.
Angie - thanks sweetie
Yay! Great list, I too have hung my washing out for the first time these few days. I have run out of things to wash ;) Kids think I'm barking, but there is a vague satisfaction in it :)
Sub - yes, but isn't it boring going to collect it and trying to fold it without it touching the grass.
Congratulations. Apparently there is a chemical in the brain, which tells thinner people when they are full. This chemical becomes depleted in fatties like me. However, by switching medications, I have regained some of that chemical and have very slowly lost weight since September. It is a new joy to fit into the jeans I bought for myself four years ago. Spring upsets me. At first I turn into Moleworth, ("Hello birds, hello sky"), but then I miss the winter and dread the hot, humid days to come. I am a 'winter person', although I like the baby squirrels and enjoy other people's enthusiasm.
Well done on the weight loss, Mark. I know exactly what you mean about this sensation of fullness that us fatties have missing. When I sit and eat with thin (well, slim) friends they stop when they are full and I can still keep going because it is all so delicious.
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