Goal achieved ladies and gents. I have made it finally!

So, most of you will be aware (on account of the fact that I haven't stopped talking about it for a month) that I have been desperately trying to lose weight for my brother's wedding, which is now in 10 days. My desperation for this was mainly down to having a bridesmaid dress that was WAAAAAY too small for me and I have never been close to being able to zip the damn thing up. Seriously, I don't know what I was thinking in buying it and assuming it was my size, I definitely was dreaming of some fantasy body I had at the time.

Anywho, I hit a state of panic just over a month ago where I realised that, unless I did something drastic, I was not going to get into this dress for the wedding and then I would have to turn up naked or in jeans or with the dress on but masking tape strapping the gap between the zip together. Whichever way it went, it wouldn't look very good for the pictures. So, I took the pro-active route for once in my life and got a gym membership. Since then, I have been attending the gym almost every day whilst eating next to nothing interesting to ensure no embarrassment for the wedding.

Something beautiful happened on Thursday guys. I decided to try the dress on again and... IT FITS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not kidding, I have never been close to getting into that dress all the other times I've tried. I have to admit, I was beginning to think of this day and feel sick with the unnecessary pressure I had inflicted on myself by setting this silly goal far too close to the wedding.  But, my competitive nature won out in the end and I DID IT. Sure, there are spanx involved, but the most important things are A: I don't look like I'm bursting out of the dress when I wear it, and B: I can sit down in the dress and not struggle to breathe. Huzzah and hooray!

I would show you pictures, but I'm guessing the whole dress thing should probably be saved for the day, so instead I thought I'd show you a before and after picture of my total weight loss this year. The first picture below was taken at Christmas, the second picture was taken this morning:

And this is me just before I started working out and then me today. 

I am so happy with that... I can't even begin to tell you. Huzzah for exercise! And believe me, that has never been a phrase that I thought I'd say. Sure, I'm hungry all the time and knackered, causing me to sleep for 13 hours on Sat night (so blissful!) but I'm also what the kids call 'healthy' and people have stopped calling me jolly now which... well, aside from the connotations attached to that, I'm quite upset about because I kinda liked being jolly. I'm still going to continue with the diet/exercise regime however, I have another stone and a half to go and then I'm at my ideal weight.

But the most important thing is, I can now think of Older-Brother-Glyn getting married now without suffering from stress induced palpitations, which I'm sure we'd all agree is a very good thing.

Peace out my lovelies.

Fitness and aliens: Because one can't exist without the other.

Salad... Salad... Salad... Porridge... Salad... Salad... Tuna... Salad... Salad... Apple... Salad... Salad

...

I miss real food.

I'm also going through this process at the moment where I'm getting on the train after work to head straight to the gym, and falling asleep so suddenly one might assume I'm narcoleptic. Let's face it, at this point, I probably am. It's making the train journeys a lot quicker in my mind, but as it has been happening whilst I'm playing Pet Shop Saga on my phone, I have on several occasions almost lost my phone as it dropped out of my hand whilst I dropped off to sleep. Also, I have it on good authority that my sudden narcoleptic tendencies are high amusing to watch. I have caught many a fellow traveller suppressing smirks as I jolt back awake and wonder what the hell is going on.

Once I'm at the gym, I'm awake again... well, almost. It takes about 5 minutes of Cross Trainer work out before I'm raring to go but once the adrenaline kicks in, I'm all 'exercise is cool!' and then I hate myself a little bit because my very uttering of those words goes against a lifestyle I have been finely attuning for 28 years of my life.

I do find it interesting that my approach to exercise has now done a 180. When I started, I had all this competitive energy inside me, whereby I was determined to lose weight, so I was going to go to the gym and work out for hours and hours and hours and nothing was going to stop me. As such, I would get on the Cross Trainer, enter in 30 minutes of exercise into the plan and begin with a smile. It would be at roughly the 5 minute mark, when I was sweating far more liquid than my body could hold and my face looked like someone had pressed me up against the sun, that I would lose all of the afore mentioned energy and quickly change the 30 minutes to 10 minutes and convince myself that that was good enough. As of last week onwards however, I have been dragging myself rather reluctantly to the gym whilst every part of my body is begging me to go to sleep instead, arriving at the cross trainer and deciding that I'd just do a quick 20 minutes this time, and do more when I feel more up for it. However, this time at the 5 minute mark, my body wakes up and starts celebrating as if it suddenly discovered that exercise was exactly what it wanted, despite the hours of protest beforehand, and next thing I know I'm doubling the time from 20 minutes to 40 and raising the level higher and higher, finding my energy levels only increasing as the minutes tick by.

I've heard the rumour that people react this way to exercise, but I never believed it and I certainly never thought that I would end up being one of these people. I feel like I've just discovered a new planet full of Aliens and instead of them ostracising me, they have accepted me as one of them... Oh my days, I'm in Avatar. I'm a tall blue woman with hair that plugs into weird animals that fly... that's pretty much all those things were right? Is it racist for me to call them things? Do I call them people? But is the word 'people' a name that is only applicable to human beings? Argh, can you imagine the Politically Correct red tape we would have to go through if we ever did find another habitated planet? We've barely got to a point where we can accept everyone on our own... There would be all these fights because they want to celebrate their Christmas in July and we'll be all, "But that's cray, cray! I'm going to bomb your planet now!" Their leaders retaliate with, 'Well I'm going to bomb yours right back!' Which we then say is completely ridiculous and, by merely mentioning it, the Aliens clearly don't have the right state of mind to run their own planet. And then Armies will be sent in on the pretence that they are there to protect the citizens from their leaders who are clearly working against them, but then stay for ages and we later find out they've been stealing all their magical immortal juice that they have in their waters instead of doing that whole 'bringing peace' thing... or something...

Yeah, people say that it would be awesome to meet other alien species, but if our history is anything to go by, I really can't see that meet up going anywhere good...

And that, ladies and gents, is how you go off on a really long winded tangent.

You're welcome.

Peace out my lovelies

The proverbial wall has been broken... huzzah!! Take THAT laziness.

So, due to a combination of having a social life and being a little bit sick, I have not been able to go to the gym for almost a week. Last night was the first time that I could go, and to say that I had lost the drive to go would be an understatement. Also, the amount of sick/social life activities meant that my body was highly underfed and overtired, so much so, that on the train to the gym yesterday I closed my eyes for just a moment and woke up a whole four stops later... three times. It's a miracle that I didn't miss my stop. I really didn't want to gym it last night, I was ready for a nap of the most epic proportions and this seemed like pretty much the opposite of that.

However, today we are now only 3 weeks away from Older-Brother-Glyn's wedding. To say that I'm beginning to feel the panic of my impossible task of weight loss, is putting it mildly. I'm beginning to think that spanks is the way forward for that final push and so have begun to look into the purchasing of this. All that being said, I pushed through my spontaneous sleeping and went to the gym anyway. Boy, am I glad I did.

Ladies and gents, that moment that exercise people talk about? The bit where they push through the wall and start to feel really good after a gym session instead of just feeling knackered and hating their body? I experienced that last night. Don't get me wrong, the first ten minutes I spent on that cross trainer, I seriously thought that I was going to collapse into a state of unconsciousness, but the final 30 minutes (just as Big Bang Theory began) something glorious happened: My body, for once in its life, decided that it would respond well when I tried to do something good for it and perked up more and more as the exercise continued. I do believe I hit my 'break through the wall' moment.

Yes, I was only meant to be on the cross trainer for 20 minutes, but suddenly I was filled with all this energy and instead of feeling I should do more, I wanted to do more. So I did 40 minutes in total, followed by 30 minutes on the treadmill and then some serious stomach crunches. If I hadn't been running on excess energy, I could have done more, but I chose the side of 'Don't push it and probably get some sleep', gave myself a quick weigh, did a little dance as I hadn't gained any weight over my week hiatus but actually still managed to lose 1lbs and headed home feeling better than I have felt in a while.

Thanks to pushing myself to do it, I am now back in the headspace of wanting to go to the gym every evening again. I'm looking forward to my session tonight and have somehow managed to find some form of new adrenaline. I do believe I'm beginning to enjoy this exercise milarkey... now, if I can just work out how to stop watching Kyle XY until early hours of the morning so that I can actually get some real sleep then I'll be laughing... dammit Netflix you've thwarted me again with your "Looking at your recent watches, we think you'd enjoy..." recommendations. I swear I'd be the most well rested individual on this planet if Netflix had never been invented... sure I'd be as bored as hell, but well rested all the same.

Peace out my lovelies

The Wall versus The Benefit... The Wall is winning

People keep on telling me that doing all the exercise I'm doing will really start to effect my general fitness. Apparently I'm really "going to feel the benefit" any moment now... if that's due to happen, it hasn't happened yet. One-And-Only-Daniela and I went to the gym yesterday and practically collapsed a mere 40 minutes in, which led to us giving up and going home. This kinda sucks as we've been staying for at least an hour and a half up until now.

Now, I've also heard of this thing called "The Wall", which apparently is something that we also all have to hit before we start to get to the 'feeling the benefits' bit. This is all well and good, but I've been repeatedly hitting this wall now for about a week. In fact, I'm pretty certain that I've set up camp in front of this wall and am calling it home, which just adds further insult to injury as I hate camping. I'm knackered and am beginning to wonder if exercise might be the first thing that I am unable to become obsessed over... yes, that might sound weird coming from a woman who has spent almost every day at the gym for coming up to 3 weeks, but it is getting harder and harder to find the energy to continue. What worries me is my biggest trick that I play on my brain to get me to go (having One-And-Only-Daniela going too) has now been taken away from me as she going off on holiday for 2 weeks and all that's left as a push is my own will power... ah pants. I have no will power. I lost it years ago. I am a woman who lives her life on vices, OCDs, obsessions with fictional characters and story lines, and the need to consume Big Macs on a weekly basis. (Good news on that front, it's been about a month since my last Big Mac... maybe there's hope for me yet.)

Yes, my dieting is still going strong. Although my body appears to be upset with me for not giving it enough processed food. I'm finding myself staring down my healthy meals for about 10 minutes before I can bring myself to eat them, all the while my brain is screaming at me to get something more interesting to eat... On the odd occasions that I have given in and gone for a plate of chips or a burger, I can barely eat it... so I'm in this weird place where apparently food of any type is going to cause protests from one part of my body or the other... sigh.

So, as a result of all this, I decided that I need to start to make the gym going a more interesting thing. As it stands, I have one beautiful technique that gets me to do the main bulk of my cardio without wanting to give up... we have TVs built into the machines, I happen to arrive at the gym just in time for The Big Bang Theory's double bill on E4+1 to start. I watch, I laugh, I look to see that 15 minutes of my workout has already gone by... man, I love that show. But I'm going to need something else to add some spice into it soon... I just don't know what... there really is very little you can do with a set routine built by Trainer that takes up all the time available between you arriving and when the gym begins to close...

I do weigh myself every day and have now dropped a whopping 7lbs in just under 3 weeks. But even this is starting to lose it's excitable reaction from me. I weighed myself last night, saw that I'd lost another lb since Sunday and, instead of getting all happy in the fact that I'm still going in the right direction, I found myself shrugging and wondering how long it would take for me to get into my bed... This sodding wall won't come down.

This is about the time that I start to give up on trying to be fit. However, I am also ridiculously competitive, and I've set myself a goal now, one that I have to reach. I have just over 4 weeks to go until I need to be at my goal weight, which I predict is another 6lbs to lose. I'm definitely ahead of time at the mo, I won't lose out on it... I won't... although KFC have just brought out this Brazillian meal and it looks so good. Argh life is hard sometimes!! ... Hi, I'm Lisa, the queen of complaining about first world problems.

I'd like to think that, in a week's time, I will be writing on this thing telling you that suddenly exercise has become amazing; I have developed the ability to get to the top of the stairs without feeling knackered, I'm able to do 45 crunches without spontaneously crying and my inability to sit up without help is far behind me, along with all my excess fat; but I'm not seeing that happening... ah well, one can dream I suppose.

And my grumble post is complete. Sorry it sounds so pessimistic... ironically, I'm having a pretty good day today. I bought tickets to see Jake And Amir's If I Were You show in London and everything... maybe I just need a nap. Excuse me whilst I crawl under my desk inconspicuously before anyone notices.

Peace out my lovelies

A Plum's guide to exercise boot camp

The days that Ed Sheeran decides to bring out new albums should be deemed as a national holiday. I'm not going to say much more than that, as I'm saving it for Friday, but once again the Sheeran has left me a crumpled mess with his musical genius. Is he actually capable of writing a bad song? The answer to that question is no... no he is not.

In other news, sorry I didn't do a Fancy Things Friday last week. Father, who normally resides in Ireland, surprised me by being in the country with a break in his day for lunch. As such, he came down to my area of work and we had dinner! Huzzah, free food!! As mentioned before, my lunchtime is usually the only time that I have to write these blogs. Especially now, as I'm spending all my evenings in the gym at the mo...

Did I mention that I've lost 6 pounds in 2 weeks? Hells yeah. The other day, I even tried the dress on again and I'm so close to fitting into that shizzle.

As exciting as it all sounds, I'm struggling to see it today. On Saturday, One-And-Only-Daniela and I managed to spend over 4 hours in the gym. In amongst that time, I met with my trainer (whom I shall simply call Trainer) who gave me a new regime and then offered to give both myself and One-And-Only-Daniela a half hour 'boot camp'.

Now, I've never taken part in a boot camp of any kind before. Mainly because it looks like hard work and a lot of people shouting at you whilst you sweat and cry and pray for the moment it is over. Some people respond well to that, although it's not exactly my idea of a good time. However, he sort of sprung it on us last minute, and we were positioned just outside a yoga class, so I know that he wouldn't be able to shout at us too loudly. As such, in some bizarre moment of insanity, I agreed to the torture.

Okay, now if you ever find yourself in a situation where you are signed up for a boot camp type session, let me explain to you a few tips on the survival of this, whilst also keeping some part of your dignity...

1. If a person asks you to do a certain exercise and you don't really understand what that exercise is, don't try and work it out for yourself... ask. 

So Trainer brings over little plastic steps and promptly announced that we were going to start the session with an exercise called 'Burpies.' I, not knowing what these were, immediately started to allow my imagination to run wild. Suddenly, I found myself getting excited that there was a possibility of losing weight and exercising just in the simple act of letting air escape my mouth. Now, I know that I am technically a lady and so society deems it impolite for me to do this, but let me tell you, I drink copious amounts of Pepsi Max, like stupid quantities. As such, the need to burp does tend to come to me frequently. Not only that, but it is such a satisfying feeling to burp sometimes, I can't help but enjoy it. I do tend to limit my work burps to a quiet ladylike release, and save all my awesome manly belches for alone time in my room.

All that being said, when the trainer suggested this, I immediately began to wonder why it was that this was going to be a boot camp. I was certainly going to sail through this first exercise with flying colours. I was just about to excuse myself to replace my bottle of water with a fizzy drink, so as add more oomph to the exercise and really sail forward as teacher's pet, when I spotted One-And-Only-Daniela groan and bend over to touch the step. I briefly wondered if this was a new method of burping that I hadn't heard of but suddenly realised that this wasn't the case as she jumped backwards, forwards, stood up straight and jumped on the step, then back down again.

It was at this point that I decided to ask Trainer to explain to me what a burpie was. He did, and let me tell you this, it is a little bit more strenuous than letting out a good belch.

2. Do NOT gloat/look smug about how well you are doing until you are aware of all the exercises you will be asked to do.

We did about 15 minutes of cardio type exercises to start off with. I have to admit, I lasted quite well with these, having spent almost every day doing cardio workouts for 2 1/2 weeks. I had the edge on One-And-Only-Daniela at this point. I tried not to gloat, and certainly didn't say anything out loud, mainly on account of the fact that an angry One-And-Only-Daniela terrifies me, and if we were to fight, she would totally win. Having said that, I couldn't help but allow a small smug smile on my face. Mainly because One-And-Only-Daniela is a hell of a lot thinner and generally fitter than I, so to deal with these exercises a little better than she could felt quite good.

Needless to say, One-And-Only-Daniela did notice the smug look on my face as I sailed through these exercises. She promptly asked if there would be mat work after that, and my face shortly lost its smugness. Now, I know what you're thinking, mat work sounds a hell of a lot easier. All that lying on the ground and stretching etc... maybe so, but let me tell you this, my abs and general stomach area is, quite simply, broken. It has ceased to work. One-And-Only-Daniela, on the other hand, does daily ab exercises and is the queen of these exercises. The last 15 minutes were all mat based.

One-And-Only-Daniela jumped down, all excited about what was to come, and I simply threw a withered look at Trainer and warned him that this would not go well for me. He threw me an encouraging smile, and said that he was sure it wouldn't be as bad as that... he was proved wrong.

3. When you are having a session one-to-one or two-to-one, there is no chance of hiding in the back of the class during the boot camp and pretending you're doing the exercises, whilst really having a little nap every time Trainer turns their back on you. 

Trainer was generally nice to me throughout this whole ab workout. There was a little bit of "Come on Lisa! How are you going to fit into that dress if you don't do the exercises?" and "Stop being a wuss and start working, Daniela's doing it!" But generally, he recognised that my physique wasn't quite on par with One-And-Only-Daniela's and so deviated towards helping me out a little bit more.

Looking back, I didn't totally suck on the exercises as a whole. I generally managed to do the excruciating 3 sets of 15 of crunches, double crunches, side twists and others, however, it was the last exercise that broke me.

Basically he gave us both a round bag each that we had to hug to ourselves  whilst laying on the floor (so far, so good). From this position, we then had to hoist ourselves up to a sitting position and back down again... 15 times... x3... ahem.

To say I struggled with this task would be an understatement. In actual fact after he yelled 'go' at us, One-And-Only-Daniela was up and back down again before I had managed to work out how to move a single muscle. It was as if my entire body had ceased to work. My brain was sending signals down to the rest of me to move, but my head appeared to be the only thing that knew how to comply. It wasn't that it hurt so I didn't want to do it, no... I couldn't physically do it. My body just said no.

Trainer tried to help. He placed his feet over mine to keep my bottom half levered down, but nothing would happen. On top of this, he tried (and failed) to keep a straight face as my own face strained and scrunched and contorted in my attempts to simply sit up. Eventually, he leaned forward and held onto my arm, pulling me up into a sitting position... even with this, the whole thing still hurt like a sonofabitch. But I managed it... probably about 3 times... all with his help pulling me up.

After One-And-Only-Daniela had finished her 15 and I had done my highly impressive 3, Trainer threw me a withered look and shook his head sadly.

"Looks like I'm going to have to get you the Pink Bag." He said, taking away the 'grown up' bag from me. He came back with a much smaller bag, all cute and pink, and weighing half the amount the previous one had.

A small part of me wanted to feel ashamed, especially as One-And-Only-Daniela was now laughing heartily at me and muttering something about how I now had the wimpy 'girly' bag, however I was too knackered to care and just wanted the whole experience to be over. At least with this one, I would have a fighting chance of keeping up with One-And-Only-Daniela... I had never been so wrong. All that this meant was that the ridicule and disbelief over my non-functioning body just got bigger.

I laid back down and attempted to sit up once more. Once more, my body laughed heartily at the notion, incidentally causing the rest of me to go into a state of hysteria where I now couldn't stop laughing at the ridiculousness of not being able to do this very simple task. Once again, Trainer had to stand on my feet and pull me up to sitting position. He attempted at one point to let go midway up, but my body just simply fell backwards in defeat. It was around this point that he looked down at me with a look of sheer dismay.

"This is completely ridiculous. How are you not able to sit up? Everyone can sit up on their own, babies can sit up on their own."

"I told you my abs were broken!" I responded. "They have been cushioned underneath a nice blanket of fat for so long, they've become lethargic and lazy."

One-And-Only-Daniela by this point, was probably on her 5th set of 15 and laughing my struggled attempts. Once the whole ordeal was over, she asked to borrow the pink bag, as she wanted to see what I struggled with. She took it and did another 15 easily.

"Lisa! It's like holding air!"

"My abs are broken!" I shouted, once again. Why was no one listening to me when I said that?

Guys, I think you can all safely guess that I hurt a lot today. I hurt a lot yesterday and still went to the gym. Although we both only lasted about an hour and a half that time. I slept for 13 hours on Saturday night, and still felt as if I hadn't slept in a week at the gym on Sunday. But it's starting to show on me now, which is awesome. 4 1/2 weeks to go... maybe by that point I'll be able to sit up without any help at all... it's the dream.

Peace out my lovelies

I relapsed, but I'm back on my way to recovery.

I totally didn't post anything yesterday. This was because my normal lunch of 'salad at my desk whilst typing this blog' was interrupted by 'visiting the east end for a meeting and popping in to have lunch with Old-Work-Buddy-James' instead. The whole thing was awesome. Yes, there is a chance that I broke the diet yesterday to accommodate this, but I kinda knew that would happen when we arranged the meet up.

You see, there were a great many things that contributed towards the weight gain I achieved over the past couple years, however, one of the key factors was the sheer amount of times that Old-Work-Buddy-James and I would eat in fast food restaurants for our lunch. I mean, it happened almost every day... or at least close enough. Thus, when we met up yesterday and immediately gravitated towards the nearest Burger King, it felt so natural, we didn't question it.

Having said that, my natural inclination to become addicted to anything and everything in my life appeared to also apply to the act of eating greasy burgers. Since treating myself to this one off burger meal, I have been finding myself craving pizza, kebabs, Mcdonalds, KFC, and all other kinds of processed fatty foods. Last night, when I prepared my lowly bowl of Tuna (this time only able to use one can instead of two, due to all the calories eaten earlier in the day) I was no longer excited for it's salad cream/mayonnaise goodness. I was hungry and I wanted to munch down on something that had only been cooked whilst swimming in fat. Thankfully, I didn't succumb to this, but guys, this is hard.

With the food aside, it was really good to catch up with Old-Work-Buddy-James, even if I turned up ridiculously late to the time I said I would meet him. This was down to the complexity that is the District Line on our London Underground system. Apparently, there is a point that it reaches, at about halfway down the line, where you have to get off the train you've been travelling on, cross to another platform, and then get on a train going in the same direction. If you don't do this, you will find yourself on a train that is now going back the way it came. This was news to me, and there is one particular train station near where I have to get off, that I ended up visiting at least three times before I managed to work out how to travel in the correct direction. Of course, Old-Work-Buddy-James saw all of this as some elaborate, yet false, excuse for my just being generally lazy at getting to where we were meant to meet... highly frustrating.

But we did manage to meet up and have a fairly decent chat before we went our separate ways, back to our now separate jobs... which felt weird, as we've never eaten and then not ended up back at the same workplace... which really shouldn't feel weird, as we haven't actually worked together for coming up to 8 months now (has it really been 8 months already??).

I am currently dealing with mild withdrawal symptoms from the processed tasty food today. It's nothing serious; just a little bit of shaking, some vomiting and an irritable mood, nothing I can't handle. And despite all these symptoms, I am standing strong, going back to my grey porridge for breakfast and eating my simple tasteless salad whilst typing this... One day, someone is going to figure out how to make a Big Mac that tastes just as it does now but is also the most healthiest thing you can eat, and that person is going to make a fortune. (Mental Note: Patent that idea before anyone else can... Mental note to mental note: This may prove to be a little difficult due to Big Mac being a name brand already, but believe in yourself and you will find a way around it. Mental note to the mental note's mental note: You may not be able to find a way around it.)

Peace out my lovelies

How to prepare a really lazy but high protein dinner after being in the gym... I am using the term 'dinner' incredibly lightly here.

I don't understand why the world is built in such a way that all the amazing tasting food is bad for you and all the food that is supposedly good for you is bland... Before everyone jumps onto their high horse and starts suggesting to me recipes of great tasting food that's cheap and easy to cook, I am aware. I have researched it fully, and spent a ridiculous amount of time searching through SORTED Food's website for something tasty and fun. There is plenty to be cooking, but I am currently living in a house where I share a kitchen with three other guys and very limited kitchen utensils to use for cooking.

On top of that, my usual laziness for cooking has been increased. Before, the thought of coming home from work and then putting something together from scratch use to make me immediately want to take a nap. However, this laziness has only been increased over the past couple of weeks since I have begun attending the gym after work every day. This is good for the losing weight shizzle, and I am doing fairly well so far. Plus I'm no longer coming out of my gym sessions looking like I've been sunburnt terribly:

I know, hella sexy right? That was taken after my second workout at the gym. However, now I'm finishing my sessions only soaking with sweat, as opposed to blending into my pink top... this is progress people.

But, as I'm putting all my focus on the workout aspect of the weight loss, I am leaving hardly any energy for the cooking part. So I have devised a diet of the same food every day to make my exercise and food go together. This is Porridge, Tuna Salad, and then two cans of Tuna in the evening. The first two are prepared by my work cafeteria, and the last I tend to do myself. It's very fancy. Basically, the recipe is thus:

1. Take two cans of 'tuna in spring water' out of your cupboard.
2. Desperately search for the can opener that works, as opposed to the three others in the drawer that probably do also work but you can't, for the life of you, work out how to use them.
3. Finally find the can opener after spending 10 minutes only picking up the ones you can't use and screaming "Why are you even in here??" at them until the frustration is out.
4. Open the cans with the correct can opener. This should preferably be done in the sink, as there will be spillage involved and who can be arsed to clean that?
5. Once both cans are opened, put the can opener in a place where you know to find it, as you will be needing it again tomorrow night.
6. Using the lid of the can, pressed up against the side, (or a sieve, if your posh), drain the tuna of all the excess spring water.
7. Take the tuna over to a bowl and empty the contents into it.
8. Take a moment to feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of tuna that is now in your bowl. You will have to eat this soon, and quickly wonder whether this, coupled with the tuna in your salad earlier in the day, will eventually result in mercury poisoning, should you eat this repeatedly for the next month.
9. Push that thought from your mind, filing it under something that 'future you' can deal with, should it come up.
10. Grab and fork and stab at the tuna repeatedly until all big chunks are now pretty little flakes. NB: If you have had a particularly stressful day, this can be used as a good release, should you need it. Feel free to use as much gusto as you would like, the Tuna is already dead so it's not inhumane at all.
11. Take a bottle of light mayonnaise and light salad cream and squirt both generously into the bowl with the tuna. You want to make it an equal amount to each other, with perhaps a tiny bit more of the mayo.
12. Don't recoil at what you've just done. I know that mayo and Salad Cream together have never worked together before, but when applied to tuna, all previous rules are thrown out of the window. This will, most definitely, become the most beautiful thing you've ever tasted. Not to mention the only way you will eat tuna in the future. Trust me, I've done field testing on this particular subject. People are adamant they are going to hate it and then collapse into a heap of heaven when they actually experience the taste.
13. Use your stabbing fork to mix this concoction together. Take a few tastes every so often to judge whether you have got the balance of mayo and salad cream right. Trust your taste buds, they know what they want, and the first time you taste that perfect balance, your mouth will spend the rest of its life trying to  get that taste back.
14. Take your bowl to wherever you want to go to eat your tuna.
15. Eat your tuna.

Yup, that's how I cook. And Yup, that's what I constitute as cooking.

Now I know I've contradicted myself by saying that the fattening food is the nice food and the healthy food is bland, and then gone on to talk about the taste sensation that is Tuna, mayo and salad cream, but trust me, when this is all you plan to eat for the next month, that shizzle is going to get bland again.

Not to mention, porridge and tuna are both dank and grey looking. Salad has a bit more of a chipper upbeat look to it, but it still doesn't hold a candle to a cake that looks like this:

So, that's about as far as my culinary expertise will take you on this blog. You are very welcome.

Peace out my lovelies.

I've never realised how complicated and freakin' dangerous dieting is, until now

Up until this week, I always just assumed that to diet well you just needed to cut back on what you ate. I thought it was simply all about the calories, and as long as I didn't go over the allocated amount, I was officially losing weight.

To be fair, I was actually losing weight when I thought this, so I guess there's some truth in it, but apparently that will only take you so far before your weight plateaus and you need to start to get more creative.

It's no secret that I have been attending the gym lately. I'm nothing if not an obsessive girl, and this is my new obsession. I have been every day since last Wednesday, with the exception of Sunday. Last night I was set up with a cardio work out that lasts a couple of hours, and I was fully accepting of it. When someone gives me a set structure to abide by, I thrive. I work it into my own routine and I can do it until the cows come home. (Mental note: Come back to that phrase another time to fully explore why it is that cows coming home is an applicable metaphor for this sentence.)

What has completely flummoxed me however is the diet side. I do not understand that part of this whole 'losing weight' thing at all. You see, I found out last night that I wasn't eating enough calories but I also needed to be cutting down on the food that I was eating although I needed to eat more, just less of what it was... this cycle of conversation went on for quite a while with my trainer as I tried to get my head around it, and even longer with my work colleague today. However, after hours of feeling my brain smack itself against a brick wall, I think I've managed to work it out.

Basically, I need to be eating 1200 to 1400 calories a day in my diet. Anything under 1000 calories eaten will mean that the exercising will start to eat away at bits of my body that isn't fat as it won't have any of the correct things to eat away at. This will, apparently, result in my body weight plateauing and no weight loss happening. All well and good, except that I always thought I was eating well, but it turns out that I'm lucky to be consuming 800 calories a day, let alone 1200. Initially, this sounded like awesome news, as I do love me my food so maybe this meant I could go back to eating some of my old food favourites.

However, before I could get the word 'Mac' out after I uttered 'Big' I was given the most appalled look in the world. Apparently this was not an excuse to eat any food I'd like. This was an instruction to make sure that I ate better food. When I mentioned what it was that I was currently eating, I was told off once again. (Last night, there was a lot of resigned shaking of heads coming from my new trainer.) I had far too many carbs in my diet, although not enough food. This was about the time that my brain stopped working. And then when he began on the fact that I needed to buy steamers and food processors for the food I should be eating, I became light headed. I do not have the money to be spending on fancy tools for eating food. I have since learnt that I am able to buy high protein food without restocking my kitchen with gadgets and machines, and do this fairly cheaply as well.

I have the beginnings of a possible diet forming in my head, thanks to further explanations and help from my work colleague and Oldest-Friend-Cafrin, who went through this whole thing last year. But I am ultimately facing two massive changes/problems.

1. I need to find a way to add calories to my diet in a way that won't involve spending more money that I currently am on food.
2. I need to find a way of doing this with food that's good for me, which means that it's going to be lower in calories so I will have to eat even more of it in the day to make the calories up.

In summary, I have to find a way to eat more than I want to and not have it be fatty at all. Why are our bodies so complicated? WHY???

Also, salad without any mayo or dressing is the most depressing meal of my day, which is annoying as the dressing/mayo would have upped my calories to closer to where I need them to be for today, which would have been ideal except the diet police say that's wrong... you see the problem I'm having trying to get my brain around this?

It's actually got to a point where I'm terrified of eating anything. What if it has just a little bit too much carbohydrates? What if I eat it and don't reach my protein quota? I don't want my exercise to cause my body to start eating itself instead of the unwanted fat in it. And we all know that I'm an amateur cannibal as well as my body having a mind of it's own, therefore it will not need much convincing to go this way. What if, by cooking a pork chop the wrong way, I lose out on protein and then my body accidentally eats my heart? Don't look at me like I'm crazy! I was told that the body starts eating the muscles when there's not enough calories to work on, the heart is the most juiciest muscle in there! Of course my body is going to go for that first! Why do I feel like I'm dicing with death every day I try to lose weight? WHY WOULD ANYONE SAY THAT THIS IS GOOD FOR YOU??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aaand I've officially worked myself up into a frenzy now. Excuse me while I go and calm me down.

Peace out my lovelies.

An unfit person attempting to be a gym enthusiast... there are hours of material I can bring out of this one.

I'm definitely one of those people who finds a theme to talk about and sticks to it...

To say I ache at the moment would be grossly underplaying the pain occurring all over my body. Not to mention, there is a muscle in the back of my thigh that spasms every 30 seconds and the feeling is quite bizarre. My reason for all this pain? I am still doing the whole exercise thing.

Yup, ladies and gents, I have attended the gym for a total of 5 solid days in a row, with a small break yesterday where I nursed a hangover from a particularly dance orientated night in central London.

On Friday night, I attended a Legs, Tums and Bums class, thinking that it sounded like a fun and peppy title, so therefore the class would also be fun and peppy. However, five minutes into this class, I realised that not only was I drastically mistaken about the type of class I was attending, but in actual fact, this class might actually have been created by the devil himself.

Don't ask me how I did it, but I did manage to get through the entire class without dragging my pained body out the door. Sure, there were times when the rest of the class went ahead and squatted without me, whilst I pretended that my hair had fallen out of my clip once again, and so needed fixing, but I inevitably joined back in again, despite my body's many, many protests. Also, the instructor for this class was from the 'tough love' category when it came to her style of teaching. If you started to give up, she would scream at you about not falling behind, calling you out from the front of the class and saying over and over "if it's burning, that means it's working! Don't stop now!" It got even worse than that, if you stopped for a particularly long time then she would come and find you. Any time she came anywhere near to where I was, I found myself pulling some hidden adrenaline out from arse and using it just to make her turn around and not shame me in front of the rest of the class, I'm thankful to say that it worked... which was probably her plan all along.

I attended this class alone, but about halfway through, when I had well and truly changed colour to a shining red all over my body, and was, shall we say 'glistening' from head to toe, a girl in her 20s, no bigger than a size 10 came sauntering over to me in between exercises. I was, at the time, gulping down a gallon of water and trying to stop myself from falling into uncontrollable tears. I remember seeing her and thinking she was so lucky, she was completely pale faced, barely a bead of sweat on her and she seemed completely at ease. I knew I looked ridiculous next to her, which was confirmed when I glanced in the wall mirror in front of us. As such, I was torn between ignoring the hell out of her so that my envy wouldn't grow any more, and wanting to reach out to her and make conversation to A: find out her magical secret, and B: have a friend in this class. I decided to go for somewhere in the middle, and I offered her a friendly smile. She returned this smile with a pained one of her own and groaned.

"This has got to be the hardest thing I've ever done." She said. "I'm completely out of breath and don't know if I can do it for much longer!"

I rolled my eyes and muttered something like "Tell me about it", all the while thinking to myself that if this is what she looks like when she's completely knackered, then I don't even want to think about how intimidating she looks when she's not "completely out of breath." I caught myself comparing our looks once more in the mirror, my entire body had turned a shade of deep red and there were 'glistening' patches all over my top. My hair was matted to neck and my much bigger body type looked awkward and unstable next to hers. I resisted the urge to punch her in the face for being so naturally pristine in the face of exercise, realising that it probably wasn't her fault, if anything it was my fault for being so unfit to begin with. Before we could continue with any further conversation however, the screaming teacher pulled us back into another exercise routine and a further part of me died inside. However Perfect-Girl, as I'm now calling her, decided that exercising next to me for the rest of the class was a good idea, so I had that comparison to look at all the way through. One day, when exercise isn't so foreign to me, I might be able to get through one of those lessons without coming out looking like I'd spent 15 hours sunbathing with no lotion, and then I can intimidate everyone else with my relaxed face and normal skin tone... that's the dream...

Saturday, I went to an Abs attack class in the morning with One-And-Only-Daniela. Although this class wasn't nearly as strenuous, and was completely based on our backs, lying on the floor, there was something about it that I found even harder. One-And-Only-Daniela, on the other hand, being a gal obsessed with toning her abs, sailed through the class, whilst I usually got through about three of each exercise before collapsing spread eagled onto the floor and asking myself why the hell I was putting my body through this... then I thought of the bridesmaid dress, and a new push ran through me, forcing me back into the stretch the rest of the class was doing... at least for a couple of seconds before I remembered why I had stopped in the first place and collapsed once more.

Being the hardcore exercisers that we are (at least that we've been this week), One-And-Only-Daniela and I came back to the gym later that day and spent a whopping 2 1/2 hours doing cardio. This, I liked. I saw an instructor who briefly showed me around and booked me in for a proper programme (happening tomorrow), then told me that I should be doing cardio for an hour and a half, at least four days a week, in order to reach my target. However, after that, he left me to get on with it and that I did. One-And-Only-Daniela and I then spent the next few hours doing some hardcore cardio and, now that no one was yelling at me or looking over my shoulder, and there was a TV built into the machines so I was able to watch Big Bang Theory whilst exercising, I was able to do it all easily. (Side note: I also watched some show about a bunch of American girls all competing to marry Prince Harry, only it wasn't actually Prince Harry because Prince Harry would never do a show like that, instead it was a look alike, only none of them knew that and all thought they would end up as princesses. It was the most bizarre and riveting TV I've ever watched. I'm going to find that show properly and watch the hell out of it, then you can be sure that I will talk about it here. I mean, seriously? There's so much A: wrong and B: amazing about the whole concept.)

To end everything off, One-And-Only-Daniela has gone and got herself a gym membership at my gym, which is amazing as she lives on the other side of London and it's such a trek for her. But, as we both need other people to spur us on when a new trend of ours starts to fade away, we realised the necessity of being each other's wingmen in the gym. She's meeting me after work today and we're going for a session. Which is excellent as, considering the way my body feels right now, I would have totally chickened out and gone home instead... you watch people, I will become an exercise God... and that bridesmaid dress will fit me so perfectly, people will write songs about it.

Peace out my lovelies.

A Plum's guide to the 'can't be arsed' brain versus the 'productive' brain when it comes to the gym

Okay, so this week has been very 'losing weight/exercise a lot' orientated in my posts. I'd like to say that I'm going to deviate from this now, but I'm not. Sorry. I have more to say on the topic.

For those of you not caught up, I came to realisation last weekend that I am, in fact, gaining weight instead of losing it, which was the opposite of what I was trying to do. I am very much on the 'curvy' side, putting it delicately, at the moment. This is something that I've normally been too lazy to sort out, but Older-Brother-Glyn is getting married in two months and I have a Bridesmaid dress that currently doesn't fit me. As such, I panicked and decided to do something about it.

As a result of this, never have I had to implement my previous CBT skills, learnt last year (click here for background on that), as much as I've had to this week. The long and short of it is that, upon having this realisation that I need to lose weight and quickly, I was overwhelmed with the sheer amount of work that would be involved in getting me down to my needed weight. Immediately, 28 years of habit kicked in and I began to shut down. I knew I had to do it, in order to ensure I didn't end up with a serious wardrobe malfunction on the day of the wedding, but I found myself habitually pushing the problem out of my mind and ignoring it completely.

This, ladies and gents, is the exact reason why I haven't really achieved all that much in my 20s. Any time I'm faced with a challenge to better my life, I tend to just go ahead and sabotage it instead. If this was the situation this time 18 months ago, I would have pushed the problem away and not thought about it again until I reach the point of morbidly obese and am suffering from heart problems (which kinda is what happened...).

However, my ignoring of the issue this time only lasted for a couple of days. I kept on getting waves of adrenalin that told me I should be doing something about this issue, and then would squash this down with all the reasons why I couldn't do what needed to be done, such as "I can't really afford to join a gym" or "If I'm really good at the whole not eating thing, then I should do it on that alone... oh look, a KFC! Oh go on, just this once." However, after I posted about the whole swimming idea, I spent the next 48 hours executing every CBT technique I knew to make sure that it actually happened. And then, once I had been, I realised that, with the right amount of budgeting for the month, I could actually afford a membership at the gym. So I joined yesterday. I went back last night and used their gym facilities instead of the pool, I only lasted for about 30 minutes before I collapsed into a heap, but I had started what I needed to do.

How did I do this? Well, putting on my CBT hat, I felt the 'can't be arsed' attitude kick in and immediately challenged it. I asked myself why it was that I was having this reaction? Was it a justified reaction to be having? What if I thought about it another way? So I did.

I looked at the cost, which I had previously decided I couldn't afford and worked up a budget, only to find I could afford it. Reason for not doing it no 1 was eradicated.

I thought about the embarrassment I'd feel being in a gym at my size, also what if I wasn't exercising right? I called the gym, they set me up with three sessions with a trainer, which happened to be included in the membership price, and I have my first one of these on Saturday. That trainer will give me an exercise plan to get what I need and if I keep to it, I won't look as flabby and unfit as I do right now.  Reason for not doing it no 2 was eradicated.

I looked at past experiences with gym memberships and how they never lasted because I eventually just give up. Do I really want to commit to a membership if I'm not going to use it? So I looked into their membership and saw that I didn't need to give notice for cancelling the membership, I can do it as soon as I don't need it anymore, therefore it won't be binding me to them. In terms of making sure I continue to use the gym... this is where my techniques became less CBT and more trickery, and this is also where the title to this post comes in. I have put into place the following tricks to ensure I attend the gym.

1. Avoid any chance to crash out of an evening before I go to the gym. 
I have invested in a gym bag and I have kitted it out with everything I need for the gym. I take it with me to work so that I can go straight after work before going home. So far this technique has fooled my 'can't be arsed' brain for two days in a row. I am feeling silently confident for future foolery.

2. Make preparations for when the novelty of going to the gym begins to fade (usually at around the two week mark).
My 'can't be arsed' brain is usually overpowered by my productive brain for the first two weeks of any gym membership. For those two weeks, I am the exercise God. I exercise the shizzle out of all gyms. However, at around 2 weeks, my productive brain is so knackered from all the productivity, it passes out in a comatose state and suddenly my 'can't be arsed' brain has all the power. It never fails to happen, no matter what.

However, this time round I am entering into this membership expecting this to happen. Therefore, I have put plans in place to combat it when it does. Mostly, these plans involve getting as many people as possible included in my gym activities. I have already made plans with two friends for separate occasions of swimming, I'm going to look into classes and invite the shizzle out of anyone else who wants to come.

Additionally, I have Oldest-Friend-Cafrin, who is by far my most experienced gym friend, instructed to send me regular pep talks at certain points to spur me on. Most importantly, I am using my biggest quirk to my advantage; that is my OCD for sticking to any routine I create. For something to end up qualified as a routine in my life, I have to have been doing it regularly for about a week. My plan is to make the 'go to the gym every evening straight after work' routine embedded in my psyche by the end of next week. Once that has hit my OCD radar, I am all good to go. The only way this can happen however is that I need to make sure it is a similar plan every evening, I can't deviate, otherwise it becomes sporadic and won't register on my OCD levels as a verified new contender for my neuroses. Yes, I do have some borderline mental problems, but the important thing is I know how to manipulate them to get what I want... I am totally in control of that shizzle... for now.

3. Create a realistic goal that doesn't sound so daunting but still has enough pressure to make me competitive about it.
Although I have joined gyms in the past, this is the first time that I have done it with such a short term goal in mind. I have a deadline I need to reach and so, at the moment, I am only considering my gym membership until then. Most of the time, when my brain's gone all 'can't be arsed' in the past, it's been because I've had nothing to motivate me and the task of losing all the weight I need to just seems like too much work. However, this time it's different. I'm not trying to lose weight to a model level (I do actually like having curves), I have just one goal, I need to go down one dress size. That's it. That's all I'm focusing on. And on top of that, having a due date gives it just the right amount of edge that has my competitive nature kicking in. Now, I might very well decide that exercise is the thing for me after the wedding and keep at it (pigs could fly), but right now I'm not thinking about that. I have until the end of July. That's all. Lose one dress size in two months... It's going to happen people, I just know it.

If I end up writing on this thing in a couple of weeks' time, saying that I gave up because I couldn't be arsed, you all have my permission to slap me round the face hard. Then throw me over your shoulder and march me back to the gym, screaming at me until I finish the exercise I need to do. Seriously, do it. It needs to be done.

Peace out my lovelies.

A plum's guide to swimming.

Last night I became a woman on a mission.

You see, I have this habit of making large sweeping statements when it comes to exercise, and then never seeing them through. It's basically what I've done my entire life. So after I posted yesterday's post about my plan of starting back up with swimming again, I inevitably started to feel the classic "Can I really be bothered?" feeling that usually swiftly follows any plan I have that involves physical effort.

By the time I had left work, I was tired and irritated for no apparent reason. The last thing I wanted to do was to go about trying to find somewhere to swim which would then lead to having to wash my hair afterwards, which I'd only just done and that was even more effort to add to the list of tasks for my evening, when all I really wanted to do was to curl up in bed and watch me some Doctor Who.

However, as my train pulled up to my stop, a flash of the bridesmaid dress I had to fit into (in less than two months) went through my mind and I knew that this wasn't just something I could do that was good for me, but actually a necessity that needed to happen. With that realisation, I felt another wave of determination and I wasn't going to let it fade away this time. In order to keep this determination alive, I had to put into place a series of tricks to keep my mind on point and not let my laziness take over. These tricks all amounted to one important thing to ensure that I went swimming last night: Under no circumstances was I to go home first. No matter what, I wasn't to step foot in my front door, as to do so would definitely result in my crashing and not wanting to get up.

So I went straight to Primark, bought the cheapest towel, hairbands and hairbrush available and then to Sports Direct to buy the cheapest Swimming costume. All bought, all complete. I now had everything I needed for a swim, and with each purchase, I had felt my determination grow. I couldn't back out now, I'd spent money on the cause. So I googled my closest swimming pool, got on a bus and headed off; feeling very pleased with myself.

When the bus arrived at the local community pool, to say that I was underwhelmed by the whole look of it would be an understatement. It was a run down looking brick building that, if it hadn't had the graffitied sign on the front, announcing it was a pool, I would have assumed was condemned. I got off the bus and tried not to think about the many diseases I was going to get, or the amount of pee I was going to ingest. Instead, I once again pictured my bridesmaid dress and figured if I got some form of stomach bug from this whole experience, it would only help my cause. Having said that, my enthusiasm for the whole swimming thing was beginning to waver, and I forced myself into the building.

The first thing I noticed was the amount of parents hanging around and the screaming sound of kids coming from the pool area. I snuck a look at the pool and saw it full to the brim of kicking kids with floats. They were obviously having a class and therefore the pool was shut to anyone else... I'm not going to lie, I was fairly happy with this news. I had found my out and it was completely not my fault. If anyone asked, I would be able to say that I had tried but that other things had got in the way, I was guilt free.

I checked the timetable, fully prepared to justify my not swimming by finding a time when it was free and rescheduling my exercise for then... the only problem was that this particular pool seemed solely designed for kids and no one else. There was only 'break of dawn' adult swim sessions and there was no way I was going to be able to drag my arse out of bed for that shizzle.

I left the pool and began my search for my bus stop to take me home. Thankfully, I had a 15 minute wait until my next bus... as such, this gave me enough time to once again remind myself of the bridesmaid dress and the need for my exercise to happen. So I called around the next nearest pools to me, only to find that they needed me to be a member before I was allowed access... by this point, my competitive nature had kicked in. I had wasted most of my evening on this search, I was not going to fail now. I was kitted and ready to go... and then I found one. A sparkling leisure centre who were elite enough to guarantee a clean and pretty pool, but not so elite that they don't allow non-members like myself in. Huzzah! I found the place and I went to it...

Things that I have found from my swimming experience:

1. Swimming costumes really aren't as unflattering as one might think. In fact, they're more the other way. They suck everything in and holds all flab under it in place... so impressed was I, that I'm considering fashioning one to wear underneath my dress on the day of the wedding.

2. Remembering how to swim again after a while of not doing it is no problem whatsoever. Having the stamina to be able to swim to the extent I used to 14 years before, is going to be more of a problem. Just because I was once the queen of the 50-60 laps without breaking a sweat, does not mean that I am capable of this feat now. Apparently, I have become less fit than I was at that time. Apparently, my youthful exuberance and energy is not quite as strong as it was when I was 14. As such, what ended up happening was I would swim one lap and then award myself myself with a little rest of floating in the water. Also, even with this regime, my leg cramped up after 45 minutes which apparently wasn't going to get any better if I "swam through it" so I had to get out after that.

3. I've never been a fan of goggles. They hurt, especially on the hair when you have to take them off and the rubber strap gets all tangled in. Also they're another expense that I'm trying to do without. However, once I had come out of the pool, I soon remembered why it was that I had always reluctantly wore them anyway. To say my eyes were bloodshot doesn't even cover it. There was no white left in them. I looked possessed by some form of demon. Also, when my eyes get wet, they change colour from 'sort of green' to 'the greenest green you have ever seen'. This is something that I am generally proud of, and it's a shade I wish I could have all the time, but with the red surrounding on this occasion, all it did was aid to the 'possessed by a demon' look I had going on.

4. I had been joking yesterday when I said that I would invest in a nose plug for the swimming pool. After last night, I'm beginning to think about it seriously. Yes, I will look ridiculous with them on, but no more ridiculous than I look when I dunk my head under the water and then come scrambling back up with arms flailing, stopping mid swim, and gasping because all kinds of nasty feelings were shooting up my nose. Chlorine may keep that water clean, but it is a bitch on my facial regions. Also, I then ended up sneezing all the way home as my body rejected the chlorine that had somehow managed to stay hidden in my body. Twas most annoying.

5. Trying to go back into swimming as if nothing has changed in 14 years will resort in my underarms feeling like the world's strongest man has grabbed me from under my armpits and yanked me into the air. This pain is a good thing, it means the swim wasn't a complete waste of time and I did in fact workout in some way, but man do my arms hurt now. Also, although the front crawl was an easy one to pick up again, when I tried to attempt the breast stroke to give my armpits a rest, I struggled a lot more. Mainly due to the issue in point 4 and the fact that every time my head dunked under the water, it was faced with another shot of chlorine right up the nasal passage. I'm going to have to get used to that experience again.

I left that place, feeling fairly pleased with myself. I had managed to force myself to swim again and I shall continue to do so and it will be glorious.

Peace out my lovelies.

I have a weight loss plan! I shall not fail!

I'm gaining weight people... I have a bridesmaid dress to fit into and I'm gaining weight. Needless to say, the past couple of days has led to a fairly freaked out version of me desperately searching for something my budget will allow me to do that constitutes as exercise and doesn't involve any outdoor stuff... I'm very much an indoorsy type of girl. I've researched gym memberships and have found one fairly cheap near me, although once I worked out how much everything would cost after I bought some workout clothes to go with that gym membership, I soon gave up that dream.

Then today it hit me... in my teens, when thigh gaps were a way of my life and I used to stroke my flat youthful belly with pride, I was a pretty kick arse swimmer. I am 100% a waterbaby... in the literal sense, I was born on a tiny island just off England called Guernsey, and spent my first years living on an even tinier island next to it, called Alderney. For an idea of scale, here's a map.

You might not be able to read it, but that teeny dot above Guernsey and Sark? Yup, that was home for me for the first 3 years of my life. I genuinely believe that my first years being surrounded by all that sea has had some kind of deep seeded effect on me. There is nothing more soothing for me than listening to the ocean and being anywhere near the water, despite the majority of my life being spent in our Capital city and away from the coast.

Seriously, when I was little and we used to go on holidays to Devon and Cornwall (both coast based places), I used to spend ages sitting in front of the ocean and convincing myself that I could control the waves. Yup, I was that special child who would sit on her own for hours and be able to entertain herself. In these instances, I would call out to the ocean things like 'make the waves large' or 'make the waves small' and, the way I remember it, 9 times out of 10 the waves did exactly as I asked. Now, I appreciate that this probably wasn't the case and my memory has warped it over the years, but whatever happened, it happened enough times to mean that I well and truly convinced myself I was in charge of the ocean... which, of course, led to my believing that this meant I was secretly a mermaid and that King Triton was waiting just under the surface of the water for my return home, which then led to my insisting on swimming with my feet crossed over for about a year, so that I could get used to the feeling of swimming with a fin... I'm sure none of you will be surprised to know that I spent my childhood obsessed with the movies The Little Mermaid and Splash. I scared easily as a child, but water was never one of those things that scared me. I freaking loved the stuff.

When I got older, and my parents had to work over the weekend, they would drop me and my brothers off at our local swimming pool for a couple of hours and I would swim lap after lap. Then I got older still, worried about what the chlorine would be doing to my hair, knowing that if it dried it out any more than it already had 'I would just die' and packed in the swimming.

With the exception of the odd holiday, I haven't really done it since. Therefore, I have discovered my solution to my losing weight problem. I shall swim, I shall swim and swim and swim some more, and it will be glorious. I shall become an olympic standard swimmer the likes of which will make Michael Phelps look like a beginner. I have found a swimming pool near me and I have located a swimming costume that is cheap and cheerful. I shall try to ignore the fact that it is a public pool and therefore likely to be pee ridden, I shall just keep my mouth closed and may even invest in one of those nose plugs, and then I shall look at myself in the mirror and laugh at how ridiculous I look in said nose plug. This is the plan. The glorious life changing plan that will save me from having to resort to going to my brother's wedding naked for lack of dress that fits. Tonight it begins, straight after work... I should probably shave my legs first, thinking about it, but straight after that!

Plan made!! Wish me luck!

Peace out my lovelies

Salad and a formal apology for the worst thing I have ever done.

I'm eating a lot of salad at the moment... Like a ridiculous amount. It's my lunch Monday to Friday every week. I'm officially sick of the stuff but I'm determined to keep eating it. Why? I have a bridesmaid dress that I need to fit into in a month and a half and I am beginning to panic... It has been my goal dress, and has pushed me in my incentive to lose weight, I'm almost in it, I'm so close. But as I can't afford gym membership and am allergic to outside exercise, I'm stuck with just eating healthy to lose the weight. Plus, you know, no one needs to see me running at them in the street, arms flailing and stomach heaving from the lack of fitness. It would leave the strongest of people with post traumatic stress disorder from that experience.

As a result of no exercise, the salad has become a necessity otherwise there is going to be a serious wardrobe malfunction on the day of Older-Brother-Glyn's wedding... it won't be pretty.

In other news, I have a few grammatical pet peeves in my life. Things that I see in other people's punctuation that evokes a stronger reaction out of me than if I were to be shown live open heart surgery. I get sick, I jerk away from the sentence structure with an involuntary spasm, and then the OCDs kick in, and every part of me wants to fix the text so that it reads correctly. Of all these pet peeves, there is one that stands higher than any other. It is a common one, but an important one... the correct use of your/you're,  and their/there/they're. It makes me want to cry if it's used wrong. I know it sounds pretentious and like I should really find something more substantial to do with my life, but when you're a person who spends their daytime proofing and correcting doctors' letters, and evenings and weekends writing blogs, books and short stories, you begin to become obsessed with certain things. I've also not made a big deal about it in the past because I am fully aware that my grammar in other areas is not entirely perfect. To be honest, I have a tendency to fudge my way through most grammatical rules, guessing and pretending as I go, so I have no leg to stand on. But there are a few (mainly apostrophe based) that I take very seriously indeed.

That being said, you can imagine my surprise when my cousin-in-law, who is currently reading my second book (have I mentioned I've written two books? Utopia and A World Reborn, both available on Amazon? I have mentioned that? Okay.), has made me aware of not one but two occasions where I have not only made the your/you're mistake, but have also managed to miss this your/you're mistake in the 15,000 times I read through that thing... how, how??? There have been a great many things that I have done in my life that has left me ashamed and not proud of myself, all of them pale in significance in the face of this however. This is the worst thing I have ever done, and I offer my sincere apologies for any hurt it may have caused to those who might have already read it. I will be correcting this mistake in the future, you have my word. Citizens of Earth, I will right this wrong. I will make things okay again, I promise this to you. It is unacceptable, I am a fool, and there is no other excuse for it. Please accept my humble apologies and maybe one day you can all learn to trust me again...

Peace out my lovelies