Well, I’m still studying!  One exam down, three to go - 5th, 7th and 12th of May.  I’m getting there with revision.  I cut it too close this year and am definitely maintaing more organisation next year - I know to learn, plan and organise now so that all helps!  Also more work is done throughout the year in Senior year so it wont be as last minute.

However, the continual anxiety and adrenaline is taking its toll on my weight loss efforts.  The scale has gone crazy!  I went from 153.2 to 149.8 in a day and got my bracelet, but then shot up to 154.6 the next day when I had eaten within my calorie allowance and had vegetables and no snacks!  It’s crazy - I don’t know what’s going on with my body which is quite weird.
So right now I’m trying to focus on studying, getting that over with, keeping my water intake high and using Bio Oil to work (slowly) on the stretch marks.  I’m still using free weights and doing sit ups and crunches every night.  Something will happen soon.  I’m just looking forward to being able to not use my brain for a while!

I am absolutely gutted that Stirling has deleted her blog Does anyone know why?  I miss her - she was being my inspiration!

Warning: Rant ahead

I haven’t been able to blog much recently…  My Junior year exams start on Monday.  These exams account for 50% of my overall graduating grade.  Now, I am spending 10+ hours every day studying, memorising, blah blah.  I am happy to sacrifice remnants of a social life for this short time so that I can prepare myself the best I can for the exams and know that I did my best.  I have my summer to enjoy life.

I am doing everything I can to help myself, drinking loads of water, getting fresh air every day, taking regular breaks, eating healthily including fish oils and B vitamins which are meant to help memory consolodation.

I HATE it however, that the drunks I cannot control.  Sleep is one of the most important factors in memory consolodation.  I am getting little enough as it is through anxiety, adrenaline and cortisol causing a never ending nausea.  Now I have DRUNKEN IDIOTS shouting, laughing and cavorting outside my flat.  And a girl on the ground floor who slams the main door as she goes in and out, never mind it’s midnight.  Police don’t care, and this isn’t the kind of neighbourhood where you want to shout out the window to shut the f*ck up.

Normally, I could let this go, but in an already stressed-out state this is tipping me over the edge.  I need to learn stuff people!  I need my sleep!  I hate these drunken idiots!

Sorry.  Rant over.  Only safe place I can do it!

Weight Today: 153.6lbs (-0.8lb)

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Well, when I’ve not been writing I’ve seen my weight go down to 152.4, then back up to 154.4 and today I’m sitting at 153.6lbs.  It was nice to see that much closer to the 140’s, and is giving me a lot more encouragement to continue.  It’s difficult at the moment, because all I do all day is study (and I mean literally, all day), but I know it will be worth it once the exams are over.  At least I hope so!  Either way, I’m putting my best in, that’s for sure.

My mum’s still AWOL on this blog, I don’t know if she’ll be coming back to it.  I spoke to her on the phone the other day and she had gained a couple of pounds and wasn’t too happy, but I hope she doesn’t become too discouraged and give up.  So at the moment, I’m plodding along towards goal solo.

Since I am studying all the time there’s not much to report.  Will brought his free weights home from his dads and calipers etc so when we get a free moment we’re going to work out our body fat percentages, and he’s going to teach me how to use the free weights properly without doing my back in.

It’s starting to get sunny now - but still quite cold.  I’m trying not to think about it or I’ll never get anything done!

Weight Today: 154.4lbs (-0.8lbs)

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I’m pleased with this better loss today!  I’m glad I’m back on the right track.  I’ve not finished the day (obviously) so don’t have calories to put on here, but I’m tracking them on the Daily Plate.

Work today was loooooong, I am so tired!  Partly because of my awful sleep last night.  I woke up at around 4am and started panicking about exams and how little time I have left to study and could not calm myself.  I know that logically, there are worse things to life than failing exams but I have been working so hard I don’t want to!  Also, while I’ve had a relatively short life so far, all of it has been working towards reaching the pinnacle of my academic career.  These exams are half towards my final grade, I don’t want to screw up.  So I’m not sure when I fell back asleep, but the last time I saw the clock was 7.15.  Sigh.

So I’m off to do some more studying now, joys!  It’ll be worth it in the end though - it better be!

Weight Today: 155.2lbs (+/- 0lbs)

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Ok, so no weight loss again today, but at least it’s not a gain I suppose.  I won’t have time to update later, hence the early post minus calorie intake.

I’m leaving for uni in about 30 minutes (once my face is all prettified) to do some studying in there since I’m doing testing today - only one person though which is a bit ridiculous.  It’s murder trying to get people to take part once March is over.  We’re also going to visit my boyfriend’s parents tonight.  We’re having tea at his mum’s, so I will be guesstimating calories for that, but I haven’t seen her in ages so I wasn’t going to say no.

I hope everyone’s having a nice Friday, take care.

Katy

Calories Today: 1435

Weight today: 155.2lbs (+1lb!!)

I’m really gutted with the weight gain today.  I ate less calories yesterday and drank more water, did all those muscle exercises and gained a whole pound.  My graph on Daily Plate is like up down up down zig-zag across the same amounts.  Was down with that today…  DP says I should be eating 1390 calories a day to lose 1.5lb a week.  I’m not expecting to lose that much but since I seem to have such an out of whack metabolism I think I need to aim for that to lose around a pound a week. I’m hoping the scale will be better tomorrow.  I also take measurements tomorrow and will compare them against a couple of weeks ago to see how I’m doing there.

Today’s exercise was 30 minutes of My Fitness Coach cardio workout.  I got loads of studying done today and I’m making steady progress.  I’m avoiding the facebooks of my class mates because everyone is getting very “headless chicken” about exams like ‘have you done this?  I’ve not done as much of that!  Oh no I’m really behind! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!”.  Needless to say it’s getting a bit ridiculous.  It’s also placing far too much undue stress on me.  If I’ve learnt anything from Psychology (and I’ve learnt quite a bit) I know that a little stress can give you extra motivation, but too much puts high levels of cortisol in your system, which slows the metabolism, decreases new memory forming and recall skills.  Not good for dieting or revision.

How is everyone else doing this week?

Calories today: 1,420

Weight today: 154.2 (-0.8lb)

I’m down on calories and on weight today!  I googled how many ounces are in a pound since I don’t know imperial - 16oz in a pound I thought there was only like ten!  I can’t complain with the loss over the 24 hours, before Christmas I was losing that in a week!  However, I’m not getting my hopes up, I’m just doing the counting and the exercises and seeing where it takes me.  I’m also getting in my 64oz+ of water each day and am feeling so much better for it.  I can already see my skin brightening.  I had been drinking a lot of diet coke and read that the aspartame can cause digestive and skin problems, which I’d been experiencing.  All this water’s making me feel much more healthy.

So exercises today:

• 4 x 25 reps abdominal crunches
• 2 x 10 reps abdominal bicycles
• 2 x 10 reps push ups
• 2 x 10 left leg side abductions
• 2 x 10 right leg side abductions

I have to say, those side abductions KILL your bum muscles!  In case you don’t know what they are (and I didn’t till I started My Fitness Coach), you lie on your side propped up on your elbow.  The leg touching the floor is bent behind you to support you and stop you rolling back.  Your other leg is lifted slowly up to about a 60 degree angle from the floor, held for a second, then slowly lowered.  It’s easy doing it quick but as soon as you do it slow you really feel the burn!

What I’ve decided to do with my exercises is do My Fitness Coach Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and these muscle exercises Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays with Sunday as a rest day.  That way I mix and match a little.  Also, I’m not setting any rep goals or anything because I don’t want it to become a chore.  I know that building up muscle means you burn more calories at rest, and while these muscle exercises won’t get me any muscle quickly no exercise is going to make me any fatter!

Also, no idea when my mum will be blogging again, she’s gone a bit AWOL with it.

Hahaha so since that last post I’ve done a complete 180.  I’ve been reading other blogs, chatting on the forum, searching the net and thinking about my own attitudes and I’ve decided to go with calorie counting today instead.  Ridiculous no?

Yes, but for decent reasons.  It’s not as easy for me to cheat on this, which - with exam stress coming up - I have to take into account.  I’m completely accountable on this and using the Daily Plate to track my calories (and also using the DP app for my iPod Touch).

So today, I’ve had a total of 1645 calories.  That’s including an allowance for 4 measures of Southern Comfort (which I may not have) as I’m going out for a friend’s birthday party tonight, so I wanted the allowance there, just in case.

I’d like that number to be lower though.  I’m totally stuffed after tea and now I can eat more responsibly so will attempt to make headway at that tomorrow.  No my fitness coach today, but by the time I’m hope, I’ll have racked up 100 minutes of walking today which I’m pleased with.   Studying is also going well, back to the grind tomorrow!

Spring is coming!  Happy Easter to all of you who celebrate, I hope you’ve all had a lovely day.  I feel summer is really approaching now, it’s been lovely and sunny today and I love when the light extends into the later hours.  It’s light until 8 or 8.30 now, soon it’ll be light to dusky all the way up to midnight!

We’ve both been away to the Isle of Mull for a week (my mum and I) and I didn’t keep track of food sorry!  Also, I’ve been writing in my journal a lot, which is why I haven’t blogged as much.  With the return to the mainland I’ve also returned to the Paul McKenna program.

His ideals are similar to intuitive eating and there are many, many positive reports from people who have successfully lost weight on his program.  There are four essential rules:

• Eat when you’re hungry, not at “meal times”.  If you’re not hungry that’s fine!  Eaten tea and a couple of hours later you’re hungry?  Eat!
• Eat what you really, really want not what you think you should.  That’s right - anything!
• Eat consciously.  You must put your cutlery down between every bite and chew slowly, savouring the taste and texture of every mouthful.
• As soon as you start to feel, stop.

It sounds incredibly simple, doesn’t it?  There are a lot of people who don’t do too well usually because they don’t follow the rules quite right.  Like, they’ll eat what they want (chocolate!) but not stop when they’re full, they just keep eating.  He also recommends increasing your weekly exercise by 90 minutes a week once you start the program and listening to his relaxation CD.  I listened to it for the first time last night.  Some who have used it say they don’t remember much of it as they are self-hypnotised.  I didn’t get in that deep, but my body felt very heavy and I did “wake up” as it were, feeling very refreshed and relaxed.  It is just supposed to help you reprogram your subconscious so you don’t have to do it all yourself.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading as well and I think some of the digestion problems I’ve been having are due to the aspartame in Diet Coke.  I usually drink absolutely loads of it and had begun to wonder if I was lactose intolerant (I won’t give you the gory details but it wasn’t brilliant).  Anyway, while I was in Mull and drinking a lot of water (and little to no DC) the situation improved loads.  Also, I know that drinking lots of water helps reduce water retention so that might help me kick a couple of pounds pulling me in closer to getting my bracelet and reaching 10st 9lbs (first mini-goal).

Holiday saw me putting on a bit and I weighed in at 11st 0.25lbs on Saturday (was travelling on Friday so couldn’t weigh).  I’m hoping that being back on plan will see a more positive change on the scale next Friday.  Some people have fantastic results with Paul, losing 4+ lbs each week for the first month or so, but I’m not expecting anything that drastic, anything around 1lb and I’ll be happy!