WEEK 9! Finally....

Hoooorrraaaaayyyyyyy! FINALLY! I'm down! half a feckin pound but geez I nearly kissed my leader.. after two weeks of drugs, painkillers and no exercise allowed (slight tangent - You know I secretly thought I'd love the 'no exercise' rule but it SUCKS!)  I'm not sure what I would have done if she had said I stayed the same! On my birthday week too.. Yes people, I am another year older and clearly no wiser and only things that last a long time now are the hangovers! Still much fun was had and to all my pals who sneak on here for a read.. thanks for all the antics and my voice is on its way back so I'll demand a rematch!!!

Second last week of the challenge!!! Just take a look.. everyone is down.. 9 weeks ago we were all heavier than we are now.. be it 2lbs or 20lbs its all a step in the right direction! Paddies weekend looms.. when we get all sentimental in our pints (of water of course.. ahem!) about our little green island here! But fear not .. the next challenge is already being set in motion and its a good 'un to get us through the bank holidays!  Awesome losses everyone.. I swear had it not been for this challenge three weeks ago I'd have driven to the crisp factory and just given them my passport and gone to the dogs... so for all the emails.. and tweets and FB messages.. You've all kept me on track ... so ta like!

There's a baking post up over the weekend for all the 'whip up a cake in an instant' fans! Cheating but DELISH!

Well done everyone.. last weigh in next week make it count!!!

Doll x

Continue Reading

DUST anyone?! DUST?!?

We all know that episode of 'fat fighters' on Little Britian when 'Marjory' lists one of the low point foods as DUST! Well I've found the product in question and dear lord.. dust looks rather good! They are neither crisp nor popcorn and original is the only 'flavour' (lets use that term loosely) that I am aware of...

PLUS all that air you pay for in crisp bags, these are even worse I HAD to take a pic to show you! Now I think I understand how guys feel about push up bras...

Just go and have a packet of crisps or a bag of popcorn and DO NOT torture yourself with these! 

2PP per bag.. 

Continue Reading

WEEK 8 - Weigh in

Still a no show here at Doll Towers.. the lack of exercise on doctors orders till this chest infection is gone means I'm on stand still.. a bit crap but at least I'm not gaining weight! Yeah?!  News this week... Miss JoJo got into the bridesmaid dress and is thrilled skinny with herself! AND Mr. Q received his 50lb loss cert in class... AMAZING losses... I'd have given up long ago without you all!

Lots of new posts in the pipeline.. one for all you bakers out there too!

Doll x

Continue Reading

WEEK 7 - Weigh in!

Urrghh! This flu has me beaten! I stayed the same AGAIN this week.. my leader said its the lack of exercise and all the cough bottles I've been downing! Full of sugar and upsetting my system! I'm hooked on them I think! I may need a different kinda meeting! Still I'm slowly on the mend and my appetite shall appear any minute now! You've been warned!

Good news on the losses this week! 

*drum roll please*

Miss Zed has reached her goal weight! 

*applause* She has done SO well on all the challenges!! Amazing!! 

AAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNDDDDDDD......

Mr. Q is the first to cross the stone mark in this challenge -16 pounds so far .. fantastic!!!! If you need some motivation... read his last guest post on here... it'll put a fire in your belly! 

Everyones had an up week so proves we're all human but we've all just chalked it down, put it behind us and started anew! You only fail when you don't get up! All the summer stuff is starting to appear in the shops.. let use the next month wisely to shed a few more pounds! 

I'm off to Scotland with my flu to drink hot whiskeys and chase rugby boys... it'll get my exercise program back on track! ;P 

Remember my maths (!) and if I've forgotten you.. post a comment below and I'll get it all sorted on Monday! 

Have a fab weekend 
Doll x

Continue Reading

High point pots!

You may have spotted these in the Supermarket near the soups in the fridge section... These are a kind of ready made meal from Cully & Sully... the good thing about these are the ingredients.. there's very few additives and the veg are all present and correct.. and I tried the Chicken Curry one and I didn't have to go looking for the chicken! These are emergency dinners... the 'I'm running late.. just back from the gym.. STARVING! Both Chicken options come in at 8 PP if you have your zero PP veg all set you can make a yummy dinner... The Pasta version is double that at 16PP! For the same portion size! Use your smarts kids!

Doll x

The Cheeky Chicken Curry is 8PP for the 400g tub

A Mighty Mexican Chilli Con Carne is 12PP for the 400g tub

The Scrumptious Pasta Bolognaise is 16PP for the 400g tub
DOUBLE both the chicken varieties!!!

A Comfy Chicken Casserole is 8PP for the 400g tub

Continue Reading

...it's the size of the fight in the dog!!!

A truly AWESOME post by guestblogger Mr.Q... if this doesn't motivate you on a Monday I don't know what will... x
 

 It's not the size of the dog in the fight, 

it's the size of the fight in the dog! 

by @quinlivan

It has been 23 weeks since I re-joined Weight Watchers, and I can honestly put my hand on my heart and say that it has changed so much inside me. I received my 7th Silver 7 a few weeks ago – yep, nearly 4 stone gone! Today, I had 2.5lbs to go to my next Silver 7. When I stood on the scale I was down 1.5lbs (yay) but I was still disappointed. 1lb off my 8th Silver 7 was all I kept telling myself.

I left the meeting feeling deflated because of that 1 bloody lb that was still clinging on – that 1lb I had just assumed I’d have lost. Another life lesson learned: To assume is to make an ass of you & me. I left the meeting with this odd feeling of disappointed in myself but by the time I arrived home (5 mins later), I had re-evaluated everything!

Let’s rewind back to August 2012 when I weighed over 19st – the idea of losing 4 stone weight sounded as challenging as climbing Everest. I was comparing photos of myself recently. The one on the left was taken at a family christening in August (about 3 weeks before I started on my weight-loss journey). The photo on the right was taken at my better half’s birthday in January (hence the cake in the photo).

 

A few people have asked me: ‘How are you doing it?’ and ‘What’s the secret?’ which is actually quite difficult to answer because there isn’t a single thing that I can attribute it to without discussing my entire thinking on any form of goal-setting.

Here comes my philosophy (on life):

Life is a staircase. Regardless of what step you are on, you always want to be a few steps ahead. Taking career for example: I have friends who know what they want and go get it. One friend in particular is so confident of her own skills that she pushes herself and will go for a job interview despite having a job that she already enjoys. Why? It keeps her on her toes.

When I think of my career, I know where I want to be but the end point is so far off/out of reach that I don’t know how to get there. The solution: Take it one step at a time!

This is how I approached my weight-loss. I started off with my birthday as my target. It was over two months away so I set myself up a nerdy Excel chart and plotted my weigh-ins against my target weight-loss (2lbs a week). As long as I was weighing in under my target, I was on track and the end goal was in sight. My goal was to be 2 stone lighter by my birthday. I didn’t set my goal by picking the weight I wanted to BE on my birthday – rather how much weight I COULD lose by my birthday.

Take a 2lbs-loss a week approach (which Weight Watchers promise you will lose per week if you stick to the plan) – This is something that has helped me immensely and if you are interested in doing something similar I would be delighted to share mine with you. From my chart below you can see my Target Line (dotted red) has a red x every 7 weeks (7 x 2lbs = 14lbs). My target is REALISTIC. As you can also see from my chart, my weigh-ins were recorded weekly (blue line) and my line swerves up and down close to the target line at a couple of points.

  

 
The important thing to take from the chart is this… Even in those crap weeks where you are up or the weeks you feel you have worked so hard yet only lost ½ lb – this chart was always be there to remind me of how far I had come AND that in the grand scheme of things – I wasn’t willing to throw all my hard work out the window over ONE bad week.

This chart is my life saver! Going back to my ‘Life is a staircase’ motto – I hope you can see how it actually is. Whatever step you are on – and whatever step you want to get to - don’t set yourself unrealistic or unachievable goals, as not reaching these won’t help your motivation. By having a better understanding of every step on the weight-loss staircase, you’ll know where you are at all points along your journey!

This leads me on perfectly to my second tip:  Break every goal into sub-goals. I don’t know if you can remember back to my first post on Skinny Doll but I said I had climbed Croagh Patrick with a gang from work last June. I was the only one of the 26 of us who didn’t reach the top. In fact, I didn’t even make it halfway. That was crushing. Here is a post from my Facebook when I was still on Croagh Patrick:

 

What did I do… Once, I started losing weight – I decided to tackle my mountain again. And on December 30th (which was wet, windy and absolutely freezing), this happened:

 

I made it to the TOP of Croagh Patrick! It was hell… It was so cold I couldn’t feel my fingers for half the trip. I fell/slipped so many times I lost count. The difference this time over the last time I tried was simple – I broke my journey into smaller stages. Instead of just walking until I got too tired or wanted a break – I would set myself a smaller goal like picking a marker (a rock or a tree) and once I would get to that location, I would treat myself to a rest, a cigarette or a snack!

I can’t look at the big picture when I am wrecked, that is what put me off and made me call it a day on my attempt last June. By seeing the climb as a series of successive markers, I made it slowly but surely up to the church that sits at the top of the mountain.

I have applied this same approach to my weight-loss. My original milestone was my birthday, then once my birthday was over I set the next milestone as Christmas. My next milestone is Paddy’s Weekend in March. The reason I picked these as my milestones was so I can reap the reward waiting for me once I hit them.

I have never set myself large numerical goals such as ‘I want to lose 5 stone’. Instead I’ve set milestones along the way to break the giant journey into smaller ones that I can see coming in over the horizon as opposed to ones off in the distance. By planning in the shorter-term with a long-term approach to weight-loss has helped me get to where I am now – standing 8 steps closer to my goal. I often look back down the stairs to where I have been though, just to bring a smile to my face.

I was recently clearing out my wardrobe and I found a shirt I had stuffed in the back since last summer. I tried it on over the weekend and just wanted to show you the difference…  

Tonight on my drive home from the meeting I remembered something… It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog. Be honest with yourself; set yourself realistic goals broken into milestones along the way. I am still in the middle of the fight *shakes fist at that 1lb sitting between me and my next Silver 7* and I know it’s going to continue to be difficult but I also know I have the fight within me to keep fighting. Not to use that overused cliché but I honestly can’t sum it up any better: If I can do it, you can too.

Continue Reading

WEEK 6! Weigh in....

Hello lovers!

Last week I had a few messages and emails that people have been up and losing motivation but my finger wagging and nagging must have worked as all the pounds you found last week have magically disappeared! We all have those weeks ... but the best thing about you all is that you've gone through them, enjoyed the fun and games that went with it.. and are all firmly back at it!!! Birthdays, christenings, work parties, boy trouble, pancake day, valentines, geez even a phone call from your mother...  can lead us down the path of destruction where we think the only thing in the world willing to listen to us is a tub of ice cream! BUT, if you give up and stay there then the only person you're letting down is you.. and you're worth so much more!!! So I'm thrilled to see the emails and tweets that people are back at it... and those weeks WILL happen again.. I guarantee it... trick is to not give up on yourself and enjoy life without all the guilt.. noone expects you to be a size 6, your loved ones want you to be teh healthiest version of you so you're sticking around for a while!

Whatever about telling someone else you love them today... stop in the mirror and with a cheesey wink.. say it to YOU first! Its not easy but do it often enough and you'll believe it .. cause its true!

I stayed the same this week.. not surprising with the flu and the swimming pool being full of little people with mid term... tangent... is it just me or did we not have mid term when I was in school?!?!?

Thing is, I know why I stayed the same.. I didn't track.. I let the lemon teas and lemsips take their toll with all the side orders going untracked and my exercise was practically nil... still I'm back on the mend and a fresh new week on my tracker app!

Today is the day of luuurrrvvveeeee... Like all the other holidays we have... its only one day so don't go crazy... and if your loved one supports you they'll put some money towards a new pair of trainers, (which can almost cost the same price as a bunch of flowers!) A voucher for Boots, M&S, Monsoon, whatever your fav shop is, to get yourself a NON foodie treat... and if you're heading out for din dins.. and you know the restaurant you're going to ... next break time.. instead of trolling through the funnies on Facebook.. go to Justeat.ie or what ever is the equivalent where you are... all the menus for ALL the restaurant in Ireland are on there.. and you can go through it and choose what you're going to have before you even leave the house! You'll know the sauces that are there, the sides on offer, etc... and the only thing you'll need to consider is the specials! That way you'll already have a good idea of how many ProPoints are in your meal.... what dessert you can share... (its the day of LOVE remember its ALL about the sharing!) and more importantly, how many PP you have left over for wine! Later, to burn off the calories... well, apart from the obvious, for the saucy minds amongst us ;P .. how about a rosemantic walk at the weekend!!! Its just another day to some but if you buy into it all, then be aware of how it can effect your weekly points...

I love you all... and hope you have a very Happy Valentines Day

Doll xxx


Chart below.. remember my maths... and if I missed you ... shout! x

Continue Reading