Careful, Veggie, you never know - it might make you start smoking!

DH has got the one to make you sleep which has worked for him and - going by the orders thing on Play.com - I think he has bought me the Change Your Life In 7 Days one for me or an anniversary pressie. Bless him - he knew I wanted the 'latest' PM one but I think he's got me the wrong one. I wonder what will happen if I listen to it (bearing in mind that I'm very happy with my life as it is)!!

Frus - I hope you're feeling better. I used to ask those telesales people to give me their home number and I'll call them back when its inconvenient for them, like 2.30 in the morning. They used to hang up on me! There is a website where you can register to have your name taken off their calling lists at tpsonline.org.uk/tps/ After you've registered it takes about two weeks to kick in but it has worked like a charm for us - no more sales calls just as we are about to sit down to dinner.

Hi all, what a day. I got to work at 8am, I don't start until 10, I went up to my "safe office" and guess what, new carpet. Sigh. So I found the manager on duty and read the riot act. Went to the gym and lifted weights (could have done with the punching bag!) and then went back to the office.

They found me a safe desk for a day, and have found me a permanent place in an office which will not be carpeted, and that will be available for 4 weeks, in the mean time they are going to power hoover and try and sort the carpets out.

And they'll pay me two hours overtime for coming in early and being proactive!

I joined the telephone preference service, it only took a couple of days, I have a link at work that our telemarketers use, and i can check if it works. I used to get really annoying calls on a Sunday, hate that!

nearly home time, haven't been able to jump on the internet today, too much going on!

I'm on TPS too, I have a right go at people if they call me.

Interesting developments at work. I seem to have been promoted slightly. Unfortunately it's the kind of promotion with more work, no change in job title and no pay rise til pay review in May

Basically at the moment there are three of us and I'm the most junior. The bloke in the middle (the bosses husband) is leaving, and they're recruiting below me. I'm going to be second in charge and groomed for associate (which is more of a badge of approval bestowed by the firm than a reflection of the work you actually do), and I get to have control of my own files with the boss just having overall strategic supervision - at the moment my work is still checked fairly carefully by the bloke who's leaving. But associate appointments are only done once a year, as are pay reviews, so there will be no change on those fronts until then. Overall it should be good though, the department will be a better place to work without a married couple in charge, and more responsibility and independence has to be a good thing.

Your work developments sound promising, hopefully you get rewarded in May! My pay review has been decided, but they haven't told me what my increase is, so it will be a surprise for April! The end of February is bonus month, so that will be interesting.

I was in bed by 9pm last night, the return of the asthma knocked the stuffing out of me. But am up early and ready to try out my shiny new gym!!! How exciting!!!!

Howdy!

Lucky YP and Kykaree getting pay rises!

I'm WITH the tps... that's the most annoying thing!

Feeling slightly better today, but still a bit blonde! (just spent 10 minutes trying to sort out some measuerments )

Morning everyone! Well done on the pay rises - the drinks are on you then! I'll have a red wine.

I'm just listening to DH disassembling the bathroom. Great. He only gets one day off a week and he has to take out the shower before the plumber starts work next Monday - so instead of having a nice day out I'm looking at a building site. (I wish he'd told me yesterday that he was planning to do this - before I'd polished and hoovered up here!) I am really looking forward to getting the new bathroom suite in, the current one is a weird 80s sort of pale coffee colour and the shower blew up on Christmas Eve (its taken this long to find a plumber who has got any free time to do the work).

Must be something in the air - I was in bed by 9pm last night. I slept through until 6.30am when the alarm went off and I STILL feel tired. It was a struggle to motivate myself to walk the dogs this morning.

Wow! I just worked added up my miles for the last week and the total was..... 58.5 - no wonder I'm feeling tired, I don't think I've lost any weight though but I'll wait until the ritual weigh-in on Saturday to find out for sure.

I've been to my sparkly new gym. It's very good, lots of space, and of course all the equipment is new. I tried a few new things, like a stair climber that looks like an escalator! And a groovy thing that looks like a cross trainer but your legs go sideways, like skiing, it's called a Cardio Wave. And I tried the Power Plate, a thing that vibrates, and you can do various moves on it, it's very cool. And there are fit balls, millions of em, and a huge area to use them on. Boy I had fun.

And I swum and had a spa and a quick blast in the steam room. I love it!!!

And there were fat people there, and thin people, and everyone in between. I'm glad I've made the switch.

Oh the Power Plate... Oh I wanna try

My Mother's had her diary out! I weighed 12 stone 4lbs on my 12th birthday!!!! So I haven't been this light since I was 11 years old!

Come to Manchester for a visit and I'll take you with me!! It's very strange, and makes you talk funny. I did squats, bicep curls and lunges on it. It'll be interesting to see if it makes a difference. Something has to, I don't seem to be losing weight, yet again, no idea what's going on!?!?!?!

I have no idea what I weighed at any given age, except 90 kilos when I got engaged when I was 21, which is what I weigh now.

Fancy being lighter now that you were at 12, that's just weird!!!

Wow that gym sounds fantastic, Kykaree! I live in the sticks and the nearest gym is a tiny one - all new and well equipped - about 8 miles from here. I see it when I go swimming as it's in the same building and what puts me off is it really does seem to be populated by stick insects and 17 year olds... I have had a 3 month pass to the pool twice last year and it included free gym membership too, but I never did the induction because the thought of all those twig people put me off! I wish someone could talk me into going there as it's daft that I don't - literally wouldn't cost me any more than I'm already paying, to swim!

I think it's the thought of the induction, too, as the only people who seem to work there are about 12 - I've got pants older than most of them! I think someone should start a chain of gyms specifically for fatter/older people where folk like me wouldn't feel so intimidated!

Well done on the promotions, everyone.

2frus - that's actually such a cool thing, to weigh less than when you were 12! I never weighed myself my entire childhood/adolescence/20s, except for once when I would have been about 18 - I was six and a half stone! (Not down to any conscious keep-fit regime, just a stepmother who starved me. Not a diet I'd recommend!) And when I was 19 at university, I know I weighed around 9 stone - but as one of my best mates had had anorexia and at that time bulimia, scales were banned from our house!

And Sarah, I bet you have definitely lost something on weigh-in day this week, after all that walking!

TELL ME ABOUT IT!

I've got her to check what I weighed at 11... I'm waiting for the results!

reply to kykaree's post above -----------------------------------

Yeah I suppose it is cool as well, but still plain FREAKY!

Sarah, even if the scales are nasty you KNOW you've been good and increasing your health (and your dogs') with all that walking!

UPDATE - I weighed 10 stone 6 when I was 11... quite a way to go then, another stone and a bit!

Ky, Oh that gym sounds WONDERFUL! Somewhere like that within walking distance might even persuade me to make a fool of myself in public. (I get so hot and red.)

Frus, That is REALLY nice.... in a strange kind of way!

PhatPhoenix, Yup - I feel EXACTLY the same. I did get inducted (or is it induced) at the teeny tiny gym at my local swimming pool but it was full of very sweaty muscle popping men all about half my age!

I was a stick insect right up until I was 18, I was 5ft 6 never went over 8 st. It was easy because Mum was such a dreadful cook and she wouldn't let me even try.

After a huge row I left home at 18 and found out that I loved cooking but, better still, I loved eating. I went up to 12 st but most of it slid off on its own after I got engaged and went to live back home to save up to get married. A year later, when I was 20, just a couple of months before my wedding, my older brother told me I was looking 'fat' (at 9st 8!) and so I panicked and went to my first diet class who told me the only way to lose that weight in time for my wedding was to eat 800 cals/day. That was it - I've been dieting pretty much ever since.

Sarah - you know what to do. DON'T DIET!

I have to - nowadays if I don't maintain some kind of control over what I eat I just get bigger and bigger. I tried the 'no diet' approach (you know, the body is self correcting so if you eat what you like but only eat when you're hungray and then eat it slowly then you will lose weight) and I gained 2lbs a week.

No it's still not a "diet" it's a way of life... healthy eating for THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!