ARGH! Sorry to hear of the weigh in frustrations guys! Keep at it, you'll be due a whoosh soon I hope!

MM - when are you done for the summer?

All this talk of roasts is bad, but the smell coming from my kitchen is worse as my mum puts the finishing touches to the roast beef and trimming I won't be eating, wahhhhh!!!!!!

Going to have a glass (half a bottle!) of wine later though, to celebrate FINISHING this semesters work OH YEAH!

Then, out for lunch tomorrow with uni lot, at a mates for tea on Tuesday then out for takeout and wine on Saturday plus lunch out on Friday.... I'm starting to think busy uni weeks are good for me!!!!

Jose, where are you from originally?

MW - well done on teh walking!

1 hobnob? ERM, not happening here, I eat my biscuits by the packet, or should that read unless on a binge, I don't eat biscuits!

Happy Sunday eve all!! Has anyone seen the movie on channel four at 8? or on film four at nine? Dear john or Premonition? I'm not great at watching films but wouldn't mind giving one a whirl tonight!

Hello lovely Losers!

Am delighted to announce that I've hit the 5 stone marker

70lb. 31.8kg. 5st. 32.7% of my starting weight.

I've tried really hard with food (loads of superfree) and it's paid off. Quite a surprise since the last few weeks have been mental and trying to resist the urge to munch junk has been overwhelming at times. I've not done any exercise either - and it's not likely to happen with that rain!

Still, I'm a seriously happy chick today. Keep at it everyone. You WILL get there - if I can after all these years, then so can anyone. Never give up xx

Whooooooooooooop! Well done Ellie, what a great start to the week for The UK chicks massive!! Well done well done well done! In a stones time I'll be able to join you in the 'elite' club, and your post makes me believe I can, so THANK U!

Elliemar well well well done my lovely!!!

Fantastic, Ellie! Gonna be a little while before I catch up with you, but good to have something to aim for. I hope you did a silly little dance when you got off the scales.

Mountain walker - I think I'd go nuts if I didn't weigh every day! For a start it helps me to resist junk, since I always know if I eat that, there's not enough time to work it off before next weigh. Also I'm a tiny bit obsessive about the numbers at the moment, but not in an unhealthy way, it's just that, well, it's raw data! It must be collected and put into a pretty spreadsheet! And then I get to look at it all nice and neat, and see patterns! One day, there may even be graphs. Can you imagine how long it'd take to gather enough numbers together to make a really pretty graph if you only weighed weekly?

I actually finally got round to dragging all the information out of my food/weight tracking notebook and putting it in a spreadsheet yesterday. It's pretty cool. Turns out some of the assumptions I'd made were totally wrong. For a start, it feels like I lost the first stone pretty quickly and subsequent ones slower - turns out to totally not be the case, which bodes well for the future!

I think it's because I have so much weight to lose that I have decided to go for fortnightly. As I have been overweight most of my life and very overweight a good part of it I have always found getting on the scales very depressing!
I know what you mean about numbers and charts though. I am keeping a log of miles walked/minutes spent exercising and calories burned which is very satisfying! I walked 15 miles last week, the most I have done in a long time mostly on the flat though!
Despite being overweight I have always been a mountain walker.....hence the name ....but broke my leg on a charity trek in Iceland( the country not the shop!) that's when I went from overweight to very very overweight. My journey now is all about getting back up the mountains but my injury left me with arthritis in both knees made worse by my weight of course. So I have to get a good few stone off before I can head for the hills!
People are motivated by different things I guess. I have an OS map of my favourite mountain up in my kitchen as a reminder of my goal!
Does anybody else have a picture or anything else as a reminder of where they want to be??

Scales always used to be depressing, but then, they always used to be showing me just how much worse things had got since I last stepped on them. Now that they're showing how much better I'm doing, I get on with them a lot better. The trick, I find, is not to stress about the day to day numbers, but to look at the overall pattern (although I still find myself stressing about the little numbers anyway at times). And I worry that with weekly weighing, what if my weigh in happened on a randomly-higher-weight day rather than a randomly-lower-weight day?

Arthritis is a bugger to have to deal with. My sympathies. My dad had to retire at 39 thanks to arthritis. He insists on walking anyway, on the grounds that if he doesn't his knees will just seize up completely. Doesn't look fun, but his persistence is inspiring, as is yours!

Where I want to be is with a baby in my arms. So no pictures of that to keep me going, but the boyfriend will happily remind me who I'm doing this for if I'm having an unmotivated day. And when I've reached target, I want to get a big chart done showing the journey, possibly with cartoon illustrations of high points and naughty moments along the way, and stick it on the wall as a reminder of the effort I've put in (and to remind me never to have to do all this again!).

WOW, well done Elliemar, that is amazing!! Well done!! What have been the best changes since losing that weight?

TC, I am from San Juan Puerto Rico. I have lived here some time, it is my home, but I still like food from my country. Though I also like English food. Believe it or not I actually love nearly all food hehehehe.

MW, I think it is brilliant that you always kept up the mountain walking. I like walking, just around town and things, but I have never kept up the stamina so I find myself aged only 20 and struggling to walk long distances/gradients. I can't wait for this to change and get more enjoyment of walking.

I have realised the exercise for me is swimming because it causes me no pain. I went again today and due to it being a Monday, no kids, and no one shouting rude comments at me this time. It was great, I hope to build it up. I am quite happy today, it has been nice.

I suppose an image that shows me what I want to be is my friends. I want to be like them, just like... 'normal', you know? To be young and able to buy all the fashions and feel invincable, not like a wheezing, creaking old man.
xxxx

Brid,
What a wonderful image to have in your mind and a great motivator.
Joselo well done for going swimming even after your experiences the other day.....but mid week watch out for little old ladies hogging the lanes!!!
Just walked up to pick up kids and knee started aching....all this talk of arthritis I expect!
Hang in there guys xx

Elliemar - ..... If I could record a video and post it on here right now, it would of me jumping around screaming your name!! I'm sooo proud of you!!! Congratulations!!!

Glad to see everyone else having good days. I wish i was. This unemployedness is starting to grate on me. I'm soooo freaking bored and skint!! I've just applied for a till job in asda, and even doing that was a hassle!! My computer would co-operate with me, and then they decided to throw some maths questions in too... Gah!! Wasn't so bad tho. Actually, was quite easy, was just the hassle of it. So I'm going for whatever job I can walk to at least and my nearest Asda is about 1 maybe 2 miles. So, IF I were to get it, that would be a great work out lol

In the mean time... I'll just keep plugging away at it I suppose.

Best of luck Lozz!

I am resisting a very strong urge to get a takeaway pizza right now. Don't worry, I am winning! I also had a box of cupcakes left over from yesterday's bad shopping trip. I ate 3 and I am considering burying the others in the garden to stop me eating them, maybe I'll get a cupcake tree!!! heheheheee xxxxx

Did you bury the cake in the end, Jose?

Weigh in tomorrow, looking good, keep being down 0.2 each day... but the boyfriend has asked for a chip day today. I'm going to investigate the possibility of having less chips than usual, and try to keep the mayonnaise to a minimum, but be prepared for much wailing and weeping tomorrow.

Thank you for all the encouragement - it really IS one of the best things about this forum. This journey is a darn hard battle and sometimes you feel like you're a bit of a diet bore with your RL friends as it does rather consume you. Coming here means you can ramble to your heart's content

Lozz - loving the vision of you jumping around - great exercise! And fingers crossed on the job hunting front.

Joselo - hope you buried that cake. I throw things in the bin and pour a bit of bleach on them so they are well and truly beyond saving

You asked what the best thing has been about getting this far. I've been thinking about this. I used to hide in corners and hope noone noticed me. Now I march in with my head held high. I used to nip into Evans (& hope noone saw) and just grab any old thing in my size (bursting out of 20s) to make do. Now I go out with my friends (something I always avoided) and happily reach for a 12 and it'll fit. It's incredibly liberating and feels amazing. It's done wonders for my self-confidence and I guess that's probably the greatest change. One of my friends commented on how much happier I am these days. I have lots of energy too, whereas I used to lie on the sofa and just want to munch.

Brid - what diet are you doing? Have you tried Slimming World chips? Par-boil the spuds (maris pipers are best), cut into chip sized bits and give them a good shake in a colander or something to rough them up a bit so they go nice and crispy on the outside. Pre-heat oven to 200-220 (mine is an electric fan oven so needs less heat/time), squirt a baking tray and the chips with some fry-light and pop in the oven for 30-40 mins until chips are golden. Munch happily!

Hey guys, just checking in on my favourite thread

Congrats Ellie, you are SO close, well done you! What you have described about going shopping with friends and grabbing a size 12 is something I am really looking forward to. I feel rather self conscious picking up a size 16 or whatever. And going into a boutique shop or even somewhere like TopShop is just rubbish as they don't have much in my size.

I just noticed that you started off around my weight too, and your goal is the same as mine hope I will follow in your foot steps soon!

I've just completed my exercise for today and am now watching an episode of Man vs Food. Have any of you seen this show? Maybe a bit tempting for some people to watch but it turns me off food a bit to be honest. The portions are horrendous. Only in America!

I have been really really tired today, just exhausted. I don't know why, I have feeling a bit like this recently.

BUT I had one of the best days yet diet wise. I dsicovered that if I don't buy crap, I won't EAT it, hahaha, obvious really!!
xxx