I've started being really religious about tracking everything I eat and drink again. I just realised that I simply wasn't eating enough, some days I wouldn't even hit the 1200 kcal mark with the food I was consuming. I thought that I really need to start tracking it again, just to make sure that I'm eating enough in comparison to the amount of exercise I'm getting in.

And I've synced my UP app with MyFitnessPal now, as MFP takes the activity data from UP and moves it into it's own database. It then recalculates how many calories I still need to hit my budget (you can of course add your exercise to MFP manually but I just let my UP deal with that). As I only sync my UP band with the app roughly twice a day, I might think that "oh I haven't  exercised enough today for MFP to take it into account, I can stick to my 1380 calories today" and then later on in the day after syncing MFP just throws a new number at me. I seriously feel like I'm eating like a horse at the moment. I just don't feel hungry after having lunch and dinner, so eating some snacks just to hit my calories is such a task for me. I mean sure, I could go for more calorie dense options at lunch and dinner, but I'm far too concious about the fat, sugar and salt in everything to do that on a regular basis.


Just look at this! I tracked my dinner like usual and was all happy about myself, just thinking that I only need about 300 calories to hit my budget. Then I synced my UP with the app and MFP fetched that data instantly. Well, my calorie budget has gone up by 300 calories. Now I need to figure out what to eat to consume another 637 calories tonight. I honestly feel like I'm eating way too much right now, but I'm really trying to git the budget this week to see, if that changes anything for my weekly weigh in. I've been under my budget for a very long time and my body is probably preparing to plateau because of it, so I feel like it's really important to mix things up and see how it goes. Fingers crossed.


Other than that, it's been another productive day for me. Despite only needing to be at uni 13:15 today, I got up before 8am (without an alarm clock!), did some housework, watched Biggest Loser and went for a lovely, chilled walk. It's been quite a gray day today, but there was just something so stunning about it. In a way it just made the sea look like it wasn't even there and made everything look nearly black and white. I swear I have not retouched this pic at all, that's just how gray it really was today! You can really tell that it's finally the end of summer over here, which in all honesty I'm happy about. :) We had a wonderful, long and warm summer so it's about time for autumn to make it's way in.

I swear I'm going insane soon if this ankle doesn't start healing. I have a strong feeling it's just a strained tendon as I can really feel the pain in a specific spot now when I move my ankle. It's just frustrating. It was such a beautiful day today and I've been stuck indoors. There's no way I can completely rest my ankle either as I do kinda need to walk during the day. Argh.

But I've suffered today!! In two ways actually, one pleasant and one not so pleasant thing haha! Our Schnauzer puppy decided to be a cat today and wanted to climb on my shoulder when I was holding her so I have mad scratches all over my chest now. And to the more pleasant suffering - squat challenge! Today's goal was 60, which wasn't too bad when I split it into two sets of 30 reps.


Other than that, it's been quite a slacky day. Just talking to a friend, playing games and chilling. Also entertained myself by putting makeup on and taking some pictures. :D Such a tart but oh well. And just because, a picture of my daily fluid intake. Coffee (with sweetener, no milk) and water is the only thing I drink during the day. No point drinking my calories.

Ever since I was a kid I never liked cottage cheese. I just found the texture of it so disgusting that I could barely finish a spoonfull of it. I was like that with a lot of things, but over time most of these food dislikes have disappeared (tomatoes, cheese, gherkins, onions..). And as of today, so has the dislike for cottage cheese! :D

We had a tub of the stuff in the fridge and I just simply got curious. One tiny spoonfull later I was hooked to the stuff. It was absolutely nothing like I remembered. And it went so well with my lunch today as well.


There's one flaw in my meal - the processed fish. I would've preferred to have some fresh salmon with it all but couldn't find any so had to settle for the fish fingers. It was amazingly good though. :D Fish, couscous, garlic peppers, mixed salad and cottage cheese. On top of that I also used ketchup and sweet chilli sauce. According to MyFitnessPal it all added up to 584 calories, leaving me plenty for dinner. :)

Exercise wise my day consists of a long walk and a front of the body workout. I'm so addicted to walking lately, it's so sunny and warm outside that I just want to make the most of it while it lasts. Because you know, the English summer isn't that brilliant.



And to finish off this post, a picture of our two Schnauzer puppies Coco and Oakley enjoying the sun. :)

So I was checking something in MyFitnessPal and it kinda made me chuckle. I tracked my lunch earlier and apparently half a pizza takes away 2 147 483 648 calories from my budget. :D Funny bug, the whole thing was just going spastic. Had to redo the entry for it to work properly again.


And yeah I'm aware of my screen being cracked, works fine so not going to spend over 100 pounds to fix it. :D

later edit: never noticed the minus there so changed the wording a bit haha!

I read a gaming forum daily, and the health & fitness forums over there never stop to amaze me with the amount of dribbling idiots post there. Now, I'm not saying I'm an expert with all this stuff but there's two things that constantly come up.

"Don't ask for advice here, go to a professional website."
I mean what? Just because it's a gaming forum, it doesn't mean that people don't know what they're talking about. This is just stereotyping, not every gamer in the world is an overweight nolife who lives in their mum's basement. You get as many idiots on any website you go to, posting on a bodybuilding forum doesn't make you an expert.


"It's all or nothing."
There was this thread about Coke Zero and if you should drink it or not. A lot of people seem to have the all or nothing mindset, where you must always drink water and eat salad and never have anything that's considered bad for you. Being healthy is a lifestyle, you are allowed to treat yourself every now and then. It's not about banning all the delicious foods you love and never even looking at them again. Unless you go absolutely mad and stuff your face with 5000 calories, you'll be absolutely fine. And seriously, out of all the sodas you could drink, Coke Zero has to be one of the best options out there...


And just to ramble about my own issues for a bit! :D For the past few days I've really struggled to hit my calories. I want to stay above 1200 every day but I've cut down on so many calorie dense foods and drinks that I'm not hitting my targets anymore! I know how incredibly important it is to eat enough when working out so I'm just a bit annoyed. I just can't help it, I'm feeling constantly full so eating extras outside lunch and dinner are a real challenge at the moment.

I seem to be watching my food more than ever. We went out to Brighton today to celebrate my brother-in-law's birthday. We had dinner at JB's American Diner, quite a "standard" American place if you ask me. They only really had burgers + some steak, a few wraps and salads. None of the wraps and salads really tickled my fancy so I went for a classic beef burger.

Now here's a little secret. I couldn't enjoy myself. I kept thinking about tomorrow's WI and if this meal is going to affect it in a negative way. I also had chicken strips, two bottles of cider and a few sips from my other half's Milkyway milkshake. Well over my calorie budget without even doing the math. I know it's so perfectly OK to have 'cheat days' every now and then, but having it the night before my WI just makes me so nervous. So nervous, that during the day I barely had anything to eat. I had two cups of coffee, a pot of yoghurt, a small Kit Kat and a bag of crisps to keep me going until dinner. No proper breakfast or lunch.

I'm gonna be absolutely honest, not losing weight or having a gain tomorrow will upset me. I know it's normal but still. I'm going down, not up.

For someone who's used to having snowy winters, English winters are miserable. It's always so dark and damp and it rains a lot. I've been waiting for today for so long! It's been snowing all day and it should carry on til evening, yay! The amount of light you get when there's snow on the ground is just amazing. I feel so much happier today!

On the downside I've caught a cold. Which really really sucks. I'm meant to start Body Revolution on Monday and I really don't want to be ill. To mend my cold I made a nice lot of spinach soup and couldn't resist throwing a few croutons (mediterranean flavour, yum!) in there as well. Maybe not the best option considering I shouldn't eat 'empty' carbs, but I need my comfort food!

Looking for an up to date review of Noom? Please have a look at my updated version! - 15th Jan 2014


So remember me being all happy about Noom a few days ago? Well, it started annoying me. The forums were constantly down and even when they were up, I could only open one thread at a time and after that it would freeze. Also being able to only track 50, 100, 150 and 200 calories for most of my meals was very irritating, I'm too OCD to just have rough estimates!

So I downloaded MyFitnessPal. So far it looks so much better in every way. Doesn't seem to have a forum but I think I'll live without one. :) And instead of just saying 'coffee' or 'low fat milk' I actually get a proper database of food sold in the UK supermarkets. Very happy with this! And instead of Noom's rough estimate of 50kcal my morning coffee is only 20kcal. Makes me feel a bit less guilty about inhaling all this coffee.

Today is also my last workout before WI and rest day. Still trying to decide what to do. It's raining outside so it'll definitely be a Jillian workout, just don't know if I want to do 6 Week Six-Pack just to keep going with it or pick another dvd to get some change.

First of all, sorry for the awful quality of the pic. I'm just too lazy to get my camera out so I take pictures with my phone. :D

Anyhoo! I enjoy a nice, filling lunch. And I tend to lean towards the simple and fast options (before I started my weight loss journey it'd be chips with something I can just stick in the oven and forget about it), and today's lunch was definitely not an exception!

I was starving after my walk so I just wanted to eat - and fast! All the crisps and cakes in our cupboards were shouting my name, the temptation was awful! I'd quite like to call this dish a warm salad, but don't think it'll quite go as one. I fried a small chicken breast in a drop of olive oil, seasoned it (my usual spices for chicken are paprika, chilli powder and turmeric) and added half a tin of choppes tomatoes. To this I then added a small amount of couscous (I rarely measure it, I just go by eye) and a splash of water. I forgot to add sugar to the tomatoes (takes away the bitter taste) so instead I used half a teaspoon of sour cream to make the dish a bit creamier. After the couscous had soaked up all the liquid from the tomatoes and water, I threw in some peas to give it some colour. Oh and to give it a bit more kick, sweet chilli sauce.

I love colourful food. Just look at all those colours. Oh and, Noom only estimated my lunch at 250kcal. Not too bad. :) I'm taking the calorie counter of this app with a pinch of salt though, it's not designed to count calories to the millionth.

So I've gone down to eating about 1200-1400 calories a day. I've stopped eating crisps, cookies and cakes (oh and believe me, it's so difficult with my other half munching them like there's no tomorrow!) and that alone has dropped my calorie intake by tons. I'm very proud of myself for having self discipline for once.

I found this weight loss app called Noom last week. I wanted to find a nice alternative for Weightwatchers because I simply can't afford the subscription of it at the moment, and based on all the reviews Noom seemed like a good option. It's free to use but you can unlock extra features by going pro on it. Think it's like £20 for a year to unlock all the cool extras, but I'm sure I'll manage with the free version for now.

Thanks to Noom I'm very careful with what I eat every day. The app gives me a calorie budget for each day which changes depending on my activity (and I'm guessing my weight as well). At the moment it's giving me such a motivation boost, I'm very OCD when it comes to stuff like this so keeping to my budget is a fun challenge. It's really made me think what I should put in my mouth and what to leave in the cupboards.

But one downside to all this weight loss business. I'm getting insane headaches in the evenings! I know it's simply because my body is trying to get adjusted to the new diet plan with less fat and salt, but my goodness it's so irritating. I had the same problem when I did WW last year so I know it'll pass eventually. Hopefully by next week.

I've decided to post progress pics every month or so. So at the start of Feb I need to gather up my courage to post my 'before' pics and then post comparison ones. I think this is what I failed on with WW, I only measured myself every week but never took any pictures to see the changes, when I looked in the mirror after losing 10 kilos I honestly couldn't tell the difference and it was quite depressing! Everyone kept telling me that I've lost weight but I just couldn't see it.