Don't take the box with you

I'm sure I'm not the only one that does this but I would have thought I had realised the dangers and would stop testing myself this way. My worst time of day - food wise has always been late afternoon, as with so many of us out there. I was doing pretty well and recognising this, always make sure I have a planned afternoon snack. Usually a cup of coffee and a couple of Paradise Light biccies. Then when I'm preparing tea I have a glass of wine and a few almonds or cashew nuts. I have actually amazed myself that I can take a "few" put the lid on and walk away. That's pretty major for a picker like me. Sometimes instead of the nuts I have a small bowl of rice or corn crackers instead. There are so many yummy varieties out there but my absolute favourite is the Apero, Honey & Dijon Mustard. Earlier in the week instead of filling my usual little bowl I grabbed the new box, a glass of wine and my book and settled down for a good read and a small snack. Haha - 20 minutes later and the whole box was gone- DH & DS3 did take a few but it was me that had the majority of them. Every time I would seal the box I left it sitting beside me so of course I just kept eating. Oh and did I mention that before I took the box I also had TWO of my normal portions of nuts!!! I am glad that my binges are on "low fat" treats (nuts are good fat so that must put them in the low fat category!) but boy it shows me how easily I could break out. I have been frustrated that I am see sawing between 65 and 66 kilo's and just can't shift that last couple to get down to 63 but it's easy to see now that I am being honest that all those little extra's do add up. If I am serious about getting there I know I have to address this and really make an effort to stop nibbling. This week I went back to my lowest of 65.6 but really this means I have only lost 0.3 in total this month and I've lost that 4 times!!! February is going to see me crack this - watch me - kick me if I don't please! LOL

We did survive the heat, unlike some of the poor families that were without power for 24 hours, that would be awful. We had a fantastic day at the beach last Saturday. It was so hot but we had a ball and the water was just beautiful. When DS2 was younger he & I used to snorkel a lot but now he's 17 he doesn't want to come to the beach anymore. DS3 has snorkeled a lot off the beach but Saturday was the first time he and I went to the end of the jetty and snorkeled. It was awesome and we both loved it - one of those special memories - why can't they stay 11 for ever???!!! Poor DH though, near the end of the day we were having a walk along the beach when DS3 challenged him to a race. DS3 won the first but DH wanted another shot - not a good move!! He really pushed, he really wanted to win but his hamstring didn't co-operate and went on him. He won't be doing that again. It's still playing up 5 days later.

I hope you are all enjoying your Australia Day holiday. We are hot here again with 39 but it will be cooler tomorrow. I had promised DS3 that we would have fish and chips on the beach today. We used to do that a lot but of course deep fried fish and chips is not something I like on the menu these days. Anyhow I made the decision that we could all have them and I would have to be an exercise demon to make up for it. I have ridden my bike 2 x 45 minutes, done 1 hour of beach walking and 40 mins walk after tea. This has meant a total today of over 23,000 steps - wow. It's amazing really how some days the exercise is easy, today was one of those days and so I don't feel as guilty about the fish and chips which really weren't worth it anyhow!!! DS3 enjoyed it though and that's what it was for.

Now it's off to bed and hopefully I won't suffer tomorrow from the exercise today.

I'm melting

For those of you that don't take much notice of the weather forecast, it's hot in Adelaide. Very, very hot and it's going to get worse. So far this Summer I was doing just fine with lot's of beautiful days in the low 30's. I was actually feeling very smug and thinking that as I was so much slimmer it was so easy too cope with the heat. I was wrong!!! Now we have had a few days of very hot, around 40 I have had enough. I am sitting on my lovely leather computer chair and my legs are really sticking to it. Maybe it's not real leather???? Tonight is definitely the worst it's been. We are lucky in Adelaide that we mainly have a dry heat which I much prefer to the more humid cities. I am not moaning too much as I know I am lucky that we do have air con albeit evaporative cooling that doesn't cope too well when it gets muggy like today. Goodness knows how we will sleep tonight. It's forecast for 42 tomorrow and we are probably going to give the beach a go - surely it has to be cool in the water. I'll let you know.

On the weight front I was surprised to see the scales go up again this week - just a little bit but I have been good. I think my body is quite happy around this weight so I am going to have to really push to lose the last couple of kilo's. I will join the WWA 'Africa' challenge - maybe this will help.

Have a great weekend. Think of us at a birthday party tomorrow night at a house with no airconditioning!!!!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone – if there is anyone still checking my blog after I went AWOL!!!
Reading my last post it looks like I went to the mall to do my Xmas shopping and never came back. In reality that mad hecticness( is that a word) of pre Xmas organisation just took over everything so I didn’t get a chance to do a wrap up like lots of the more organised bloggers did. Over the holiday time I spent very little time on the computer and am now only just getting back to normal life – whatever that is!!!
I hope you all had a great holiday season and wish everyone the best of luck with their goals for 2006.
We didn’t go away over Xmas but spent 2 weeks at home having much needed R & R. We work in our own small business so this is the only time DH & I get to have holidays together when the business is closed. The weather was kind so he got his wish for lots of golf and I got my trips to the beach. Although we only live minutes from our local beach it is very rocky so when we want to swim we go this one which is about 15 minutes away. It’s really beautiful don’t you think? This is DH & DS3 playing beach cricket.

The real highlight for me was a morning boat trip that DH & I went on together. Although we have lived here for 15 years we had never been out on the water along the coast. We went out on a Catamaran that conducts dolphin cruises along the coast. We had a fantastic 4 hours in beautiful conditions. The boat sails past the area where we live so that was really great but of course the best part was the awesome dolphins close up. We were the only locals on the trip, everyone else was from overseas!

In the background of this shot below you can see smoke in the sky that was from a grass fire that was burning as we were going past. It looked like it was pretty bad but as the vegetation was low there was nowhere for the fire to go thank goodness. Within 30 minutes the firemen had it out.

In this next picture you can see Hallett Cove (where we live) in the background. This area around the cliffs is a conservation park and there are some great walks that we regularly do. The council have built boardwalks and steps up and down the ravines which are really challenging.

Usually I tend to walk to the beach and back which is not too bad but today DH & I did my normal 1 hour walk and then continued up and down the ravines for another hour. We were knackered and boy can I feel it in my legs this afternoon. For the first time ever we saw a brown snake on the path – that freaked me out as you can imagine. We are going to friends for tea tonight so we had to earn lots of bonus points!!!
I actually have been pleased with how I did weight wise over the holidays. My aim was to reach goal by Xmas but that didn’t happen –close but not quite there!! I did relax over the break but didn’t go totally crazy. I did discover that a couple of ‘bad’ days would put the weight up but then a couple of ‘good’ days would drop me back again. I can sure see how I get out of control and how easy it would be to revert to bad habits but that was why I started this blog – to hold me accountable – and hopefully help others on their journey. DH has now decided he would also like to shed 10 kilo’s so it will be good to do it together. I am nearly at my goal and then I would like to try and lose a couple more to give me some leeway so I will keep on trying.

I’m looking forward to continuing this year with my blog friends. I certainly won’t be a daily poster but I sure will try and update at least weekly. Good Luck everyone and have a fantastic year.

Added 16/1/06 - I eventually got the photo's loaded after heaps of attempts. The only way they would work was by selecting no layout option. I will certainly look for a better alternative as that certainly wasted so much time - I could have been reading other blogs instead!!! Anyhow hope you enjoy. :-)