Sunscreen/moisturizer in the winter especially on your face and a richer moisturizer will help a lot - especially when going from heated buildings to cold outside to heated cars etc...

just keep your face moisturized and if you can stand it- sleeping with a humidifier helps too from what i understand.

Hi Mal

How right you are.

I am trying to force myself to remember a light moisturiser in the morning and a heavy duty one at bedtime. I need to start to feed this skin now that I am 48. It is so easy to forget when I have spent a lifetime letting my skin fend for itself. I know that I am punishing it enough this year by taking that layer of fat away (slowly).

Love
Margaret

Hey Margaret,


Congrat on just about or reaching the one hundred pound mark! Thats incredible. I really do hope I can pull it off... I think I am going to start doing weights although...

Thanks for stopping into my diary. The things you tell me about not giving up are so ...they just reach me and when I am feeling blue I read my diary and I see your words, everyones words and I know I can't give up...

thanks so much hun ...

and congrats again...

love yas
always
natalie jo

Hi Natalie Jo

Thanks for your congratulations. It may sound wierd to an American - but the 98 pound target that I have reached is one that means more to me than the 100 pound target that I am close to. That is because I was brought up to think in stones and pounds. I always convert everything into that. I started at 21 stones and I am a sliver under the 14 stones line. I have lost a third of me. Also each stone marks a new beginning.

I weigh myself every day. I was delighted on 25th March because I weighed myself and for the first time I was under 20 stones. My husband said I was a "teen girl" because my weight started with 19st. I am now a stone away from stopping being a "teen girl". It will be truly amazing if I can get below 13 stones.

We all reach those moments of weakness when one path is to give up. I have been there so many times in the past (remember at the start of the year I had got to be a very big 47 year old lady - this is something that you can avoid being) - and I kept taking the easy "give up" road. I promise you - it did not lead to my happiness. I got to the stage where I stopped leaving the house (except once a week to buy groceries).

I know how it feels like hard work - in truth a mountain to climb (and as PCOS ladies we know that we have it tough) - but if we stay focused and watch our food, exercise like an athlete (albeit for me just walking extreme distances) and keep believing - we can all get to where we want to be. It will take time (and it isnt fair) but with each other's support I am sure that we can all get there.

Then of course we will have to watch ourselves like hawks for the rest of our lives - but this is in the realms of maintenance and we will worry about that when we get there.

Take care
Love
Margaret

Wednesday 17/10/07

It had rained heavily overnight but stopped and it was dry and quite bright (but chilly) when I went out for my walk. The rain made the leaves very slippery underfoot - and a few people commented on this.

Having learnt of the “America on the move” virtual walks in Mal’s diary – I signed up to do the UK National Trail. I cannot see me improving my stepcount in the way that the website seems to suggest. I will be quite happy to keep an average 30,000 steps a day.

General Data:

Morning walk = 6.3 miles.
Round the block = 5 times (on two laps my husband came too)
Extra exercises = none
Weight = 13st 13.6lbs (i.e. 195.6 pounds)
Steps = 31,037
Distance = 11.51 miles
Remembered to take normal vitamin / supplements – plus Echinacea
Continued my creaming regime – missed a bio-oil massage


Food / Drink:

1 banana
3 weetabix, 1 heaped teaspoon of sweetener (a level teaspoon is apparently 1.9 calories) and the (large) bowl topped up with skimmed milk.
19 grapes
pork loin chop, tin of baked beans, dessertspoon applesauce
2 large handfuls of raisins
2 litres of cold water
some diet cola
1 wine gum

Hi Margaret

Heh...I'm right with you there. Just a few days ago I went from 183 to 181lbs and that was HUGE for me because it's the difference between being 13 stone something and 12 stone something. I've been in the 13's for a couple of months and it felt sooo good to finally see a 12!

I've been reading through your diary and I am floored by your dedication. How you've managed to keep up all that walking through one of the wettest, miserable-est summers in living memory I have no idea. I hate rain so much you'd have to force me out at gunpoint


Many, many congratulations on losing a third of you and I have no doubt that you will be joining me in the 12's - you are one determined lady!

Hi Avenue

Thanks for visiting my diary and for your supportive comments. Congratulations on losing the weight and stopping being a "teen girl". I shall pop over to your diary and see what you have been up to.

Take care.
Best wishes
Margaret

~*Have A Goal Reachin' Thursday!*~

Sounds like you have some more great goals set up!

*Way Ta Go!*

Thursday 18/10/07

Fine but chilly weather for my walk.
Only a fifth of a pound away from the 100 pound lost milestone.

General Data:

Morning walk = 6.3 miles.
Round the block = 4 times (on one lap my husband came too)
Extra exercises = none
Weight = 13st 12.2lbs (i.e. 194.2 pounds)
Steps = 30,019
Distance = 11.13 miles
Remembered to take normal vitamin / supplements – plus Echinacea
Continued my creaming regime


Food / Drink:

1 banana
3 weetabix, 1 heaped teaspoon of sweetener (a level teaspoon is apparently 1.9 calories) and the (large) bowl topped up with skimmed milk.
1 glass grapefruit juice
200g chicken, half a cucumber, 5 tomatoes
2 large handfuls of raisins
2 litres of cold water
some diet cola

*You're Almost there!!!!*

Thanks so very much for your support at my diary..

Your sweet replies/thoughts are so helpful to me Margaret!

Lots of good advice as well.

~*Have A Goal Reachin' Friday/Weekend Sweetie!*~

Thanks Stacy,

I got there on today's weighing - will post later when I paste in my diary day. I fully expect to trickle back up. You do this at times when you weigh yourself every day.

I was 13st 11.8 pounds this morning - i.e. 193.8 pounds.

One of my old schoolfriends who was at the reunion phoned up this morning. We had reckoned that we were a similar weight when we saw each other. We are much the same height. She weighed herself while we were on the phone and she was 193.6 pounds this morning. We couldn't get over how similar our weights were.

I hope that your Friday / weekend is goal-reaching too!

Take care
Love
Margaret

Hey Margaret,
Its been raining here today... went for a bike ride. Was nice!
But I wanted to walk to, but I don't know what I did...but Its like I can feel the back bones moving in my lower back ... and they are heavy and they hurt... so I am going to walk tomorrow. After my class, I shall go for a walk.

You may have inspired me to go get a pedometer .. I think I need the motivation...
I am through the roof. Somehow my sister was capable of losing fifty pounds since June. But me only twenty. So I am kind of dismayed, that I wasn't capable of doing that.

What should I think?
maybe I need to work harder

I am also replying to this journal entry because you mention eating one pork loin chop .. we are having pork tonight... maybe I will only have one ..hmm

well love yas girly ...
your diary always gives me good ideas!
and the stone thing is cool ...
I just look at the pounds ..and it can be depressing .. to think I am going to stay in the 200s for at least a year... ugh... stones is probably a much chipper way to take the weight loss in ..and not be so prone to giving up .....

thanks hun for your inspiration


love yas
natalie jo

Hi Natalie Jo

I am sorry that you are having problems with your back. I hope that it feels better soon.

Definitely get a pedometer - it is the best thing that I have got this year. Wear it all the time like I do. When you see how many steps you do it challenges you to do more and also makes you feel good. I certainly do not look like an athlete but no-one can take away the fact that I now have a stepcount of an athlete. Skinny folk have to admit that (despite appearances) I do more exercise than they have ever done.

As far as your sister is concerned - you cannot compare apples and oranges. Is she a PCOS lady like us? If not - then she would find it easier to lose weight. We have to be really focused or it just does not happen. But we can focus and we can make it happen.

As far as stones are concerned - it is the way that we always look at weight in England. It is how my generation learnt weight in the school - the youngsters use Kg now. Whenever most people talk about weight here - they think in stones and half stones. Everything fits into a nice 7 pound boundary. This means that if you are looking to lose weight you get a nice milestone where you see that you have achieved something every 7 pounds. And I cannot tell you how much lighter I felt when I got under 280 pounds and became a "teen girl" since the stones no longer started with "twenty". It was a major celebration and my husband and I talked about it a lot.

Take care
Love
Margaret

Friday 19/10/07

Fine but chilly weather again for my walk.

General Data:

Morning walk = 6.3 miles.
Round the block = 5 times (on two laps my husband came too)
Extra exercises = none
Weight = 13st 11.8lbs (i.e. 193.8 pounds)
Steps = 32,848
Distance = 12.18 miles
Remembered to take normal vitamin / supplements – plus Echinacea
Continued my creaming regime – but only did one bio-oil massage and forgot my morning moisturiser until after the long walk - oops


Food / Drink:

1 banana
3 weetabix, 1 heaped teaspoon of sweetener (a level teaspoon is apparently 1.9 calories) and the (large) bowl topped up with skimmed milk.
1 glass orange juice
120g smoked ham
dry pasta, tin of chopped tomatoes, quarter onion, courgettes, 7 olives, sauce
2 large handfuls of raisins
2 litres of cold water
some diet cola
1 wine gum

It floors me that you walk over 6 miles in the morning. I barely make it from the bed to the teapot.


What exactly do you take as vitamin/mineral supplements? I take a one-a-day vitamin for women but I've been thinking I need to take something else....