Thanks for your congratulations Kimberly. I strongly suspect that my weight will be up today - but that doesnt matter. I suspect that it will take me a couple of weeks to get to 147 - but I certainly have it in my sights.

I am sure that you will be having a lovely Friday.

I took no offence to being called a Brit - it is in fact true. It is simply that within the context of being patriotic - I thought that I would make the distinction.

When we have forms to fill in - I make sure that I write England and English for things like nationality. You would be surprised how many forms have
Nationality:
British
Irish
Scottish
Welsh
Other

I tick other and write English. That box is clearly designed for individuals of foreign origin - but I use it.

It annoys me that the Houses of Parliament in London has MPs for the whole UK and everyone gets a say in the rulings made there. All the rest have their own parliaments but there is not one for England. They get a say over themselves and a say over us. On top of that too many rules come from Brussels these days for my liking.

Every so often I get sick of the mainstream parties and vote UKIP because I think that the sooner we get rid of the Brussels layer of legislation the better. For one thing - it takes away our control of our borders as everyone has the right to be here. We should be determining things like that for ourselves.

The Welsh Assembly's still pretty weak, though, isn't it? That's an interesting point you make about the lack of English "home rule." I suppose it's a legacy of the nineteenth century when England pretty well decided for everyone else. It's cool to get your perspective on these matters (I'm an American whose post-grad work is focused on Victorian England, so I'm always interested in your systems).

Sophie

It is better to have something which is not perfect than have nothing. At least you have something that can be improved and developed.

It really doesnt matter about the history of the situation - we live in the here and now. Decisions were made in London - but MPs were and are elected from constituencies covering everywhere.

If these places now have their own parliament and we are expected to consider the houses of Parliament in London as our equivalent - those other places should stop sending MPs to London. We even have to contend with a Scottish Prime Minister! It seems that they make rules for us but we dont make rules for them.

This fragmented approach has led to inconsistencies whereby for example personal care for older people is provided free to people in Scotland whereas in England people get billed for it. This has a severe detrimental effect to the estates of the English elderly whilst the estates of the Scottish elderly are less depleted. Naturally many English view this as unfair. We all pay the same taxes and should expect the same benefits.

The Brussels fiasco is a rediculous situation all of its own. The only positive that I can say is that at least we didnt change currency.

Thursday 03/04/08

I fully intended to have a second handful of shreddies - in fact I mentioned that fact in a posting - but I managed to distract myself and get on with making the meal which meant that I only had one sinful plate. They are yummy.

General Data:

Morning walk = 7.1 miles
Round the block = 5 times
Extra exercises = none
Weight = 10st 9.8 lbs (i.e. 149.8 pounds)
Steps = 28,132
Distance = 10.87 miles
Remembered to take normal vitamin / supplements
Continued my creaming regime – missed one bio-oil massages
Continued ankle exercises

My Food / Drink:

Basic eating plan

1 banana
3 weetabix, sweetener, 350 ml skimmed milk
1 handful honey shreddies
1 kiwi fruit
1 glass orange juice
1 pear
1 pear
1 apple
40 grapes
2.5 litres of cold water
some diet cola

Breaded plaice, tin of baked beans
4 plums

I can't believe that you are so close to that 147 mark already Margaret!
You really are inspirational. Not to many people could, or would for that matter, hold so strong for so long a project.
When I think about how I don't "feel" like going to my classes or just gettting some exercise in I remind myself of how you don't even let rain slow you down.
In fact I was thinking of you this morning. As it is drizzily here and I was thinking how I wouldn't want to walk in this. At the same instant that I had that thought I also had the above thought of how you don't let the weather dictate your exercise.
If we all had your determination I do believe there would be no need for this site!
Your AWESOME Margaret! And I can't wait to be there when you post your 1/2 way mark! You certainly deserve all the KUDOS you get!

Wow, Omega, how do you manage to walk so much? That's incredible, and taking a few notes from your eating plan, because it is obviously working for you! 144.2 pounds lost you should...throw yourself a big party or something, I would! Anyway, great job, you're an inspiration!

Yey for the new low!!!! Under 150!!! That is huge Margaret!!!!
I wish you good luck eating octopus this week !! I think you would enjoy green tea if you gave it a chance, but tae kwon do is not bad either (I am informed this week!!).
Have a great weekend, Camy

Wow Marg, look at that!!

A NEW LOW!!! Congratulations!!

This is really exciting, honey! I'm so proud of you! This would leave you what? About...20-25 more pounds to do? Considering all that you've lost, it's a cakewalk. It will probably be the most difficult weightage to get off, but you know what, you've gotten this far, you can thrive on. This is so awesome, Marg!!

Happy Friday!

Thanks for visiting and for so many congratulations on the milestone.

Dawn

Even with my determination - I can assure that we need this site. It certainly saved my skin last September when I was plateauing and couldnt find a way out anywhere. Believe me - there is nothing worse than a plateau with no information and knowledge - well into a long term project. I actually dont know how anyone can lose a large amount of weight without a resource like this.

Carrie

Welcome to my diary. I built my walking up from nothing. It is the secret of my weight loss success. I started off with virtually no steps (I hardly ever left the house) and built up from that. In my initial walks at my biggest weight I would just go out and walk round the block which is about 0.6 miles. I was actually really proud of that achievement and it used to take a while. People say that for walking to be of any benefit you have to walk quickly. When I started I couldnt do anything quickly. I walked at my own pace - and together with sensible eating - I did see a reduction in my weight. I built my walking up. Every few days or every week I pushed myself to walk further. I did some walking every day - each time trying to walk at least as far as the last time. Not only did the distance build up as my stamina improved - but I speeded up too.

I now devote a reasonable chunk of my day to my walking - but it has been worth it. I have had some really excellent results.

Camy

I dont think that I will actually eat octopus this week. The Tae Kwon Do videos will be my chosen poison. I actually think that the chopsticks joke idea would have been less time consuming. I eat so much fruit that it would be just one meal a day and I ate a meal with chopsticks a week ago.

Rae

I am doing nothing that you and many others havent done before me. It is huge and amazing that we can actually do this thing that I am sure that many of us thought was impossible for us - to actually turn ourselves into normal sized people. It will be huge to hit 147 and be half the woman I was and enormous to get down to a normal BMI not too many pounds later. It is the milestones that keep us going.

It is an interesting point that you raise about the last pounds being the hardest. It is something that we often hear mentioned - and we all see a slowdown as our project enters the deeper stages. I can understand that as we move a lighter body mass around it will expend less calories than hawling our bigger selves from A to B so our exercise is less effective. I also can see how our bodies will have got more used to our eating plan so will have adapted how it functions to run off that amount of calories. The thing is that I have heard people say - the fat is more settled. Well that is the part that really gets me wondering. For ages I have been melting pounds that I have been carrying for over twenty years. Surely those pounds must be just as settled as any that I want to lose. It will be interesting to see how much further things slow down as I go on and how things react to the changes that I make as that happens.

Take care
Love
Margaret

Well I'm in agreement with everyone else! Awesome job thus far. Not everyone's weight loss stops or slows. I visited another site before I found this one and I checked back on a few people and one lady went from the 300's to 120 (she's 5"1'). She just ate 1200-1400 calories the whole time, lots of veggies veggies and more veggies and just a bit of exercise, and the weight just fell off til it was all gone.

What again did you start doing differently to break your September plateau?

Thanks for the explanation about English v. British. I would be highly annoyed by that situation too, and like you, would write in my choice if necessary to take a stand, if just a little one. My sister's husband and mother-in-law will be duly impressed with my knowledge next time I visit them in FL (grandma--as she likes to be called by everyone--is currently staying with them to help with the 5 month old). They are from a nice place called Beverley near Hull (which I also found nice but understand the rest of the country finds it a pit). My sis lived in Bermuda and then England for the past 15 years, so she always calls it "home" and goes on and on about how the products are better, the shops are better, blah blah blah, "at home, this and that". They did have a far smaller house when they lived over there, but then again they bought that on their own and dad helped them with this one.

Hi Claudia,

I wasnt on the forum beforehand so I wasnt listing every food that I was eating for this diary so I havent the records that I have now so I have to go from memory.

I rearranged my food and brought in more cereal - starting my weetabix. Previously I had been having a meal involving some lean ham or other cooked meat and salad without dressing at the time that I now have my weetabix - as I get in from my morning long walk.

I dont have anything before my morning walk and might have my banana while I am out.

I also rearranged my fruit and had less fruit pretty much cutting out grapes and brought in raisins. In February's slowdown I actually reversed this successfully.

I know that I made no changes to the main meal aspect of my food plan at all - I still eat from a selection of meals that generally have all shown a decent track record of weight loss.

I also increased my walking in September.

Total Mileages For Month:
August....... 295.89
September.. 335.63
October...... 350.18

I could not say when I tried to get my main meal eaten by about 8pm - but it might have been around then. It was sometime last summer. Before then we tended to eat our meal quite late.

I should add that I still eat things like fruit quite late on - I certainly dont stop eating everything by a set time.

That is an amazing story about that lady. I strongly suspect that she is in the minority - I am sure that most people hit problems along the way. Having said that - I dont know how she coped day after day on that kind of calorie range. I think that my stomach would think that my throat had been cut.

If I were you I would get a bit sick of a sister saying that everything was better somewhere else. I would tend to think "if it was so good - why arent you living there now".

Having said that - I would prefer to live in the north of England where I am from than round here where my husband is from. I suppose that means that I am inconsistent and illogical at times!

Your sister is lucky to have a good mother in law. Mine is a witch. After over twenty years of marriage she still tells my husband that he should leave me. Last time I went to her house the first thing she said when she saw me was "why did you have to bring her along".

You and your sister are both lucky that your father is able to help you to live in nicer homes. Many of my friends are Greek and in their culture the parents have to buy homes for their daughters when they marry. Naturally they benefitted from it themselves when they were young. Many of my friends have daughters in their twenties now and it certainly seems to cause some financial problems for the parents.

Take care
Love
Margaret

I found this post back from 11/24/2007 and couldn't help but notice your current ticker and thoiught i'd bring it to your attention.. (This was on Allyphoe's diary)..

Check out the BMI mentioned here ... 26.5 and you could only DREAM of it??? Sweety unless your ticker is wrong, you have made that dream a reality!!! CONGRATULATIONS FOR MAKING YOUR OWN DREAMS COME TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!

Margaret - you are a true inspiration. I can't wait to see you at goal, because I know how hard you have worked at this work in progress!

Blancita posted how on another site a lady just ate less and never hit a plateau. Oh how I wish that would happen to me too. But some of us just aren't that lucky. I read about success stories in magazines all the time - it's always eat less and move more. However, one article did say that that "formula" didn't work for her and she had to keep tweaking. I think she added more protein and fiber to her diet, plus lots of exercise.

I see how much you exercise and I'm just astounded. I know that if I truely wanted to lose all the weight, I know that I would just have to work my butt off like you do. Like I said an inspiration to us all!

LOL! Actually its my fault that she moved. I kept pressing them cuz I wanted them to live closer. Sometimes when things are going poorly I have to grit my teeth as I feel the blame of them having moved. But there have been lots of good times too, its just hard to relocate. She's a creature of habit, so she tends to not want to leave places and she just really liked England, the English, the products, the health system, everything except her small house and she prefers hot weather having been in Bermuda so long. She was always around British people there too (including English, Scottish--tons of them relocate there--and I've met a few Welsh people there too, matter fact, as soon as you mentioned your patriotism for England I recalled how the Scotts and Welsh are about their homelands but I never heard that open pride about England so you are totally right).

Well I cannot believe your MIL is so blatantly rude to you. No wonder you decided not to see her for a while. That sounds like a good idea. No doubt she'll hate you even more now that you're half your (and probably her) size. He he.

Thanks for visiting and your congratulations.

KunoichiEmi

I have indeed got down to the BMI that was mentioned in that old posting. On 24th November I weighed in at 12st13.6 i.e. 181.6 pounds. My BMI at that time was 32.17. Many of my dreams are indeed coming true. My weight is one that I havent seen in over twenty years. On today's weighing (10st9.4 i.e. 149.4 pounds) I am 2.4 pounds away from half of my start weight.

Sweatpea

I do work hard for my weightloss as many of us do on this forum. I am fortunate in that I am able to devote quite a lot of time to my project as I am not trying to hold down a full time job or look after children. I know that I need to do the walking to make it all happen for me. I tried to lose weight too many times over those twenty years by counting calories and I really didnt get too far. Every pound (which was a really struggle to get off) went straight back on the moment that the project was abandoned. That is why I consider calorie counting to be such a danger area for me. I am inclined towards having high expectations of myself and lose control when I feel that I have let myself down. Exceeding a specified calorie total was always considered to be a major failure and one that I never coped well with. I am much better off trying to stick to a healthy repetitive diet.

The thing is in my terms you arent really too big. I think that there is much motivation gained from having lived in extreme morbid obesity. I have to escape from somewhere that you have never been. This is what drives me to walk quite as far as I do.

You have to remember that I have PCOS working against me and need to exercise and act accordingly. I am sure that with a more normal level of regular exercise you will get exactly where you want to be.

Claudia

So you lured your sister home. I am not surprised that you missed her as sisters are often close. I am sure that you missed each other - dont feel blame as I am sure that she wouldnt have done it if she hadnt missed you too.

I dont know whether my MIL knows about my weight loss. I have avoided seeing her for much of the past year. She needs her groceries delivered each week and we organise it all over the internet. She is short and skinny and will still weigh less than me. She certainly is unique.
When hubby and I first met she invited me to tea - then withdrew her invitation when she heard that I was a northerner.
When hubby and I got engaged she said "can't you find yourself a nice girl instead".
She gave us (i.e. her youngest son) a washing line for a wedding present.

I cannot say that we have ever got on well. She doesnt get on well with her other daughter in law either.

Anyone reading this will probably suddenly realise what a good MIL they have compared to mine.

Take care
Love
Margaret