Dave's diary - back on plan, back on Minimins

Hi all,

Phoned Slimming World earlier, spoke to the very hepful Kathryn Briggs who has basically put me into the lottery/draw for the Slimming World team so now I have a double chance of a place in the London Marathon :)

Speaking of which, I just did the noobs version, 5.7 mile jog around the town. Felt better than ever on the way around, not puffed at all, no leg aching, it's all good. Amazing how far things have come for me in such a short amount of time.

A year ago at a very unfit 24+ stone if anyone would have told me I would be under 17 stone now, and registered in a 62 mile bike ride and hoping for a place in the London marathon I would have dismissed them as crazy!!

Just goes to show how resilient the human body is, and even if you think you have used up all your chances to improve your body/fitness there is always another, all it takes is some focus and determination, Minimins and Slimming World ♥

Thank you all for helping to make my journey the fun enjoyable and successful trip it has been, and I hope you'll all stay aboard the ride until we reach the destination ... it won't be long now :)
 
Well done Dave on everything you've achieved. I have no doubt that if you're selected for the London Marathon to represent Slimming World you'd manage to do it because whatever goals you set yourself you always manage to see them through. Maybe losing weight has been your hardest challenge before but it really just needed the right plan to come along for you, which it has.

Your last post is just brimming with confidence and happiness that all is right in the world with you :)
 
Dear Diary

I felt compelled to write as I had been bumped down to page two and I can't have that lol.

Things are going great, I've been 100% and looks like I should (touch wood) pick up my 7 stone award on Tuesday :)

I went for another jog yesterday, same 5.7 mile route, and although I struggled from the off I did complete it in about the same time as usual of one hour. Probably more of a fast stroll than a jog lol. I can't cope with consecutive days of jogging yet so today is a day off and I will get back on it again tomorrow.

I really need to get cycling, I haven't been back in the saddle again since my 25 mile ride, and my 62 mile ride is getting closer and closer I really need to get some practice in!

On Sunday (next week) I am travelling to Swansea for my Union's annual conference, and I will be there all week. My breakfasts lunch and dinners are all supplied by the hotel, and I doubt there will be any choice to speak of. Also, Union events always end up with lots of alcohol time. It has all the makings of a train wreck for my weight loss, but I have come up with a plan to minimise the damage:

> Meals are supplied, and I have little/no choice in them, so nothing I can do. Which also means no point worrying! I will make sure that if I do get an option then I go for the healthiest, and I will also make sure I don't eat too much.
> I will be having brekky on the Sunday before I go, and taking lunch and some fruit with me for the journey.
> While there, I will make sure I have plenty of fruit and mugshots, etc in my room so I can keep topped up on syn free food. Because of my lack of say in meals I can't measure or weigh anything, so for the 5 days I am away I will forget about HEa's and HEb's, and forget about syns too. Bear with me lol ... I will have the meals I am supplied with but no other syns. Any snacks I have will be syn free/superfree. I will apply the rules of EE wherever I can, but shan't fret if it's impossible.
> I plan to NOT drink. I can't see this being very popular with any of my fellow delegates, but I am there to do business, not to ruin my weight loss!!
> I have checked it out online and found the details of a SW group, quite close to my hotel, which actually meets on my usual evening, so I will take my things with me and attend that meeting. Will keep me out of the bar on the Tuesday night lol, but also help keep me focussed. I am also just looking forward to seeing the new people and how a different group runs.

I am feeling confident that my plan will if not keep me losing that week, prevent me from putting too much on. It's not all that often a week like this happens and I'm not gonna worry now that I have my plans in place.

ttfn ♥
 
Dave you are a real inspiration a lot of people me included would just say sod it and use it as an excuse to eat and drink.
Good luck this week at WI
Jayne x
 
How exciting about the double marathon chance.

If you are doing a 5.7 mile route in an hour your not doing a shabby jog time at all!!! took me ages to eb able to do that far in an hour !

Sounds like you have a good plan for the conference. Would be nice if you could get your 7 stone award this week to keep the motivation high to do the best you can BUT I also know you are one of the msot determined SW I know so even if the week doesn't go as planned it will be 100% on plan the minute you get home.

Also congrats on the man of the year nomination, and hope you can be nomimated next year too when you are at goal !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

7 stone -----98 pounds that is a whole teenager !! Incredible
 
Thanks ladies for you comments, and thanks for the good luck wishes ... they must have paid off!

I weighed in tonight at 16 stone 9lb, a loss of 6lb for the week!! To say I am happy is an understatement I am over the moon :)

I picked up my 7 stone award, and am only 2lb away from reaching my 7½ stone award already which is great.

We had our first weigh in tonight with Expressway, and I have to say it looks impressive. Will make things a lot easier for our Consultant, which means she will have more time to lavish on us haha.

I have been jogging a few times this week and I am convinced it makes all the difference so far as weight loss goes. I went today, which I am certain helped me achieve such a good weight, and I plan to go tomorrow too. I am yet to manage two consecutive days, but I figure that even if I end up walking part of it anything I do is good for me so what the heck!

I sooooooooooo need to get cycling again, in preparation for my 100km (62 mile) bike ride next month, but never get the time. Have already told the wife that once I am back from Swansea I have to dedicate all my days off to cycle training until I have done both my rides.

Then never again haha.

Hope you're all ok, having a good week, and you have good weigh ins.

ttfn ♥
 
WOW another amazing weight loss! Maybe you will get your 7 1/2 stone award while you are away !

Hope the business trip goes well and you manage to stay as close to plan as possible.

Teresa
 
Hi all

Well, I am in Swansea. Technically that is ABROAD!!

Since Tuesday I have been 100% on plan, and remained on plan properly until I arrived today. I had brekky before leaving the house and brought my lunch and some fruit for the journey.

Sadly that is where my 100% will have to end until I get home late Friday night. There is no point in me stressing or panicking about the plan when I don't get much choice for my meals, don't know the ingredients, and can't measure anything.

I am operation damage limitation. If I do get a choice I will make the right one. I won't be eating any more than I feel I need to. Any snacks between meals will be superfree fruit. I won't be having any desserts. And I won't be drinking. Sounds boring I guess but actually I don't mind any of that. I would rather stay more or less on plan.

Dinner tonight was a choice of cod in parsley sauce, beefburger and chips, or a baguette. Choice of the year it wasn't! I decided none of those were particularly great nor that tasty so didn't have any of it, and instead went out. I ended up eating in a casino, and went for the best option which was cod in batter, new potatoes and mushy peas. It was meant to be chips but I swapped it. Which makes up for me not leaving the batter :) Only syns before arrival were 2 so I reckon I am actually still on plan for today. And as I am going to bed after writing this that is 1 day down, 4 to go.

I have already asked, and Weetabix is available for brekkies, so I shall have that with semi skimmed milk and sweetener if there is any - nothing if not. I would normally use all my 250ml semi skimmed milk allowance with my brekky for my HEa but as I can't measure it I shall just have what I need and save the rest for a few cups of tea through the day. Not 100% accurate, but I reckon pretty close to it.

I am on the top floor (Penthouse?) which is Floor 7, and other than to bring my heavy case up and then take it back down on Friday I shall be using the stairs every trip. Body Magic :)

I have worked out two options for attending a Slimming World meeting this week. Both are tomorrow evening (Monday). One is 18:30 with Mandy, the other is 19.00 with Alicia. Do any of you know either of these consultants to recommend one? If not then time will decide depending on what time I get away from the conference tomorrow and get ready. Both are about the same length taxi ride away so I have no way of choosing otherwise.

Today I have bumped into about 40 or more people who I haven't seen for varying lengths of time from several months to 4 years, and all of them have been saying how great I am looking and how amazing the transformation is. But then when we are in the bar and I have diet coke and they are on the beer they think I am stupid haha. I wonder if they even realise the irony!!

On that note, I am going to climb into my lonely looking bed, and have a quick read up of some bits in readiness for tomorrow.

Until then ... ttfn
 
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Day two ...

Brekky was quite straightforward as was hoped. I stuck to my 2 Weetabix with semi skimmed milk (checked it was semi skimmed). There is sweetener in small packs for using in tea/coffee but nothing on a grander scale so decided to go without any as it would have taken a dozen packs to cover my Weetabix haha. I had a banana on the tea break.

Lunch was a buffet style affair, and hopefully will be the same all week! I had a jacket potato (no butter), some beans and a couple of chicken drumsticks (no skin). Then I had some grapes and a few strawberries.

I'm not sure what I will be doing about dinner tonight. I will be going to my weigh in about 18.15 and probably not back until about 20.15 ish. Maybe the restaurant here will still be open, and if not I can no doubt get something from down town. Will worry about that later.

Fingers crossed for my weigh in tonight, I reckon I deserve a good result, but it doesn't always work like that does it lol

Hope you're all enjoying being on plan, and getting good results, back later with weigh in results :)
 
Don't know if I'm too late. Just reading Funcurls diary and she goes to a group run by Alicia and I know she lives in the Swansea area. Good luck and enjoy your week.
 
Looking forward to hear about your weigh in! i admire your determintation to do the best yoou can while on this conference and your attitude.

Keep up the good work

Teresa
 
Flying visit ... I am quite disappointed with the weigh in result tbh, I put on half a pound.

In fact, I can only assume that gravity is stronger up here in Wales haha.

I have been good this week. In fact I have been amazing!! Despite this weigh in I am certain I will get the weigh in I deserve on Tuesday when I get back to more familiar surroundings.

It was great to meet consultant Mandy and her class, and I'm very grateful for the lift back to the hotel from one of them which saved me another £8 taxi!!

Would love to stay and chat, but my belly is telling me it's most definitely dinner time :)
 
Sorry about your weigh in ! But stick to your plan and i bet it will show up next week. You did have a very good loss last week.

Keep at it ! Keep smiling

Teresa
 
Thanks ladies your comments are much appreciated.

Last night after posting on here I went down to the restaurant (sorry, the Brasserie!) to see what my options were for dinner. It was ever so posh in there lol. The only one I liked the sound of was a chicken dish. It was chicken and chorizo sausage in a deliciously yummy and no doubt synful sauce, runner beans, potatoes. As it was the only option I thought I'd enjoy, and I was feeling very hungry and it was of course my free option so far as £££ is concerned, I went for it instead of hunting around town for something better. I reckon that other than the sauce it was all free, and I would have had all my syns to play with. So I would say that Day Two ended and I was very happy with how things are going away from home, all things considered.

Day three began as yesterday's did, Weetabix and semi skimmed milk. Again I just had the milk I needed (around 150ml at a guesstimate) and I shall use the rest more or less with sporadic teas throughout the day.

I was disappointed at lunchtime, walking into the restaurant (yep, just a restaurant - no posh brasserie for lunch hehe) and seeing things were different from the previous day. Yesterday it was as if a SW consultant or member had supplied the lunch, and today was far from it. Choices were sandwiches, wraps, samosa type things, sausage rolls, chicken goujons, and lots more, mostly all awful options! But I found a couple of things which ticked my boxes and ended up with 3 chicken drumsticks (skin removed) and a big pile of cucumber and mixed peppers. Doesn't sound much but I felt surprisingly full. But having said that I came up to my room to write this and complete my good diary and forced myself to have a satsuma anyway lol.

Dinner tonight is an indian, which I have to say I am looking forward to. All of the delegates from District One (pretty much the entire South of England, about 25 of us) will be going together. And of course indian is my all time favourite meal. Should be a great night. Syns wise of course, it is a proverbial train wreck! BUT, as I have been so good and will be conitnuing to be so good for the rest of the week too, I am going to enjoy it for what it is. I am having a chicken madras with pilau rice. I reckon that is within my daily syn allowance. Or close enough anyway lol. I am also going to have a couple of popadums. Only two though. I would LOVE to have a naan bread but at 20 syns I have decided it just costs tooooooo much! So my popadums are a meet in the middle option instead. I won't be drinking alcohol either. Not the perfect meal diet wise, but the perfect answer I think to the situation all things considered.

Anyway, we are resuming conference at 13:30 and I have 7 flights of stairs with my name on, so I'll be back later :)
 
End of Day three, and a quick update before I go to bed and catch up on some much needed sleep :)

Well, we had the indian ... and OMG it was every bite as tasty as I hoped it had been! Interestingly it didn't actually taste much like any madras I had ever had before, but delish it was. But I am getting ahead of myself a little ...

When we arrived at the indian, I found out we were all having a starter. Well of course, that wasn't part of my plan at all, but to be honest I would have felt very odd and really not part of my own group had I sat there without one while everyone else was tucking in, so I decided to join them. I picked the best choice I could find, which was tandoori chicken. I seemed to be chicken cooked in an oven with some herbs and spices. I took off as much of the skin as possible and just ate what was left and the cucumber/lettuce that came with it. So not too bad.

For main I had exactly what I always do have - if it ain't broke, don't fix it! - chicken madras with pilau rice. And as already stated, it was very tasty. I had two popadums as well, which was also part of my plan, and managed to avoid the naan bread, despite there seemingly being a spare one floating around that ended up getting binned! Were my colleagues being a little mean perhaps? who knows. Syn wise I am no doubt over for the day, but not by half as much as it could have been.

I am very very happy with how the meal went, and indeed with how Day 3 overall has gone with regard my eating. Again I think I have made some good choices, and I hope the weigh in Gods are paying attention because I will be expecting a standing ovation from them Tuesday when I weigh in lol. Kidding, of course.

But on a more serious note, something VERY strange did happen. Bear in mind that I am a train driver, and everyone on this conference is a train driver, and also members of a trade union. Conversation and actions usually end up around the typical neanderthal guy stuff with plenty of mickey taking and ribbing thrown in for good measure.

But against all the odds, and certainly not something I would have ever expected ... about a dozen of us spent almost the entire meal talking about Slimming World plans, exercise and the like! I am still struggling to believe it now, very surreal lol. Of course all train drivers work shifts the same as me, all of them spend all their working day on their bum like me, and all of them are faced with the temptations of x,y, and z fast food outlets all day long, just like me. The railway is very overweight in respect of it's drivers in general, and it's no real surprise. I think they were glad to see that it is not only possible to lose weight and get fit, but that it is enjoyable to do and actually quite easy too. And considering some of them saw me as recently as only a month or two ago I think even the speed with which changes can occur has surprised and impressed some. A few of them have a couple of stone or so to lose, and they now know they could achieve it by the summer if they applied themselves and focused on it.

I wouldn't be surprised if half of them ended up joining SW!

Seems like this wasn't as quick a visit as I had envisaged, I seem to be making a habit of that lol. It's coming up for 02:30, and I am sadly up at 07:00 to get ready for the day ahead so it is good night from me.

ttfn ♥
 
Hi stivesliz and welcome to my diary and Minimins too. I agree about this site I have found it a revelation. Great for recipes and ideas, correcting you about errors you could be making on plan (smoothies, anyone? haha) and of course be a superb source of support on our journeys. I love it and tell all my friends about it.

This is Day four, brekky was same as it has been all week, and no doubt the same as it will continue to be for my last two days as well. I thought I would miss the full english and continental options as they are on offer and being eaten in front of me every morning but I get into the dining room and before I know it have my weetabix in the bowl and am eating them! I'm lucky I guess. I've just had my lunch and I had vegetable lasagne with boiled potatoes. Only the sauce is likely to have been syns and I didn't have a large portion. The alternative was a chicken in a white wine sauce, but it wasn't much of an alternative as I don't like white wine lol. I chose not to have the buttered roll and butter, of course.

Dessert was a choice of chocolate fudge cake with cream, or chocolate fudge cake without cream. Decisions decisions! Of course I didn't have any, and have instead come up to my room to write this and I will grab a banana in a second too. I am going to sneakily count it as my superfree for the lunch :)

I have also had a word with the staff here and they a
have assured me that from dinner tonight onward there will be several fruit bowls out with all the meals too. Victory :)

I am now about halfway through my week away from home. Food and drink wise, hand on heart I can say I am very very pleased with how things have gone, what I have had to eat and drink, and how I have managed the decisions I have had. I have enjoyed myself, been a part of the group almost seamlessly, and yet pretty much stuck to plan as well or even better than I had anticipated would be possible. I have no intention of messing it up now!

And in the event I weigh in Tuesday and show an increase, I will NOT be upset. Because I know that this has been an extraordinary week as opposed to an ordinary one, and that any increase would have been SUBSTANTIALLY higher were it not for my efforts.

Having said that, I would love a good result of course hehe

Hope you're all on plan, focused, and planning ahead, and imagining the times in teh near future you will be at target :)
 
Hi all

My choices for dinner last night were red snapper somethingorother, tagine of lamb, or vegetable tagine. I decided that being in a posh restaurant isn't the best time to try something new, especially if it is seafood and generally speaking you don't like the majority of seafood, so red snapper was out. I don't like lamb, which left me with the vegetable tagine. Apparently it is a Moroccan dish. Well, they can keep it! Not my cup of tea at all. I had a little bit of it, but not much. Luckily, I had had a starter (tomato soup - it was that or toast with pate. I gave the roll away) so wasn't exactly starving at that point.

I went to a charity gala night, which had the biggest buffet you've ever seen. I didn't have a plate of anything, but grabbed a few slices of cucumber as I went past the table just to stop me from grabbing anything else. I wasn't hungry, but because it is there right in front of you and everyone else is eating around you for some reason you feel quite drawn toward it. I did also end up having two skewers or what looked like satay chicken. I know the satay is gonna be a lot of syns (if indeed it was satay, it just tasted like plain chicken tbh) but I figured the chicken part of it would be syn free, and it was probably a better option than the pork pies and sausage rolls.

The one thing I have been very naughty with this week is sleep. I keep going to bed at 02.00 or even later (03.30 this morning) and getting up again at 07:30 or 08:00. Tonight I have to get to bed much much earlier as it is definitely starting to catch up with me. I know people say you can't catch up with sleep once you've missed it, but I've always disagreed lol, and will prove them wrong again later haha. Having said that of course, we leave tomorrow at close of conference, and it is the last time I will see many of these people for years, so I may end up going with the flow (yet again!) and having another late night.

Anyway, conference restarts at 09.00, and there are two Weetabix with my name on! Back later :)
 
Jackets are back!!

Just back from lunch, and my smile was ear to ear when I walked into the dining area and saw piles of jacket potato stacked up waiting for me. At last, a straightforward meal!! I had the jacket with beans like the other day, but decided to mix things up a little and had a couple of slices ham rather than a couple of chicken drumsticks. Living life on the edge should be my middle name eh? lol I am also glad to report there was a load of fruit, and I was more than happy to tuck into some grapes and strawberries for dessert. Happy days.

I am now only one dinner, one brekky, one lunch, and then whatever I work out tomorrow evening after conference on my travels, away from getting home, and getting back to normality. I have had a great time here in the conference, have been very proud of some tough food and drink choices I have made, but I am REALLY looking forward to getting home again.

Back later, and fingers crossed for dinner!
 
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