Our younger dogs just love charging up to the bed in the mornings. They're just so incredibly happy when you wake up (or well, when they decide you should wake up) and go absolutely insane. One of them will just run around the bed, lick your face like there's no tomorrow and if you try to hide under a blanket, she will start digging furiously. The other one just literally flops on your face and starts rubbing his face against your cheeks and forehead. It is honestly quite a bizarre way of waking up. But then again, I wouldn't have it any other way. :)

I really wanted to take a few pictures with the dogs, but from the dozens of pictures I took they all were either blurry with the dogs moving around like whirlwinds or just out of focus. :D So the only picture I approved was with Oakley looking like he wants nothing to do with me!



Anyways! Progress pic time! Very pleased, huge difference to a month ago. :)

Yup, despite having a terrible weigh in this morning, I didn't let that stop me at the gym. On the contrary, I pushed myself even more. Spent about an hour at the gym today, had a leg day today! Quick warmup on the treadmill (3min walk - 5min job - 2min walk) followed by two different leg machines, a quick ab set, squats, backwards lunges and stepper to finish it all off. My heart rate absolutely sky rocketed on the stepper, I hit 190 at some point.


It was wonderfully quiet at the gym as well! Barely anyone there, was very nice to be able to do your sets without thinking that somebody is waiting to get on the machines and so on. Also managed to snap this picture during my cooldown, my (very blurry) other half in the background. :) I find it so incredibly important to stretch properly after doing a workout, I just end up being stupidly sore the next day if I don't.

It's been such a pleasant day in other ways, too. :) We had some family around and I got a chance to take pictures of all five dogs of the family again. I can't say it enough, photographing animals is such a rewarding thing to do. You can't tell a dog to pose or sit still, you're forced to think very quick and be ready with the camera or the moment is gone.

Right, let's get this request out of the way first. I got a very nice comment about my calves on this post and he also requested me to take some pics of me flexing my calves. Well, I thought that it's a good time to get some progress pics going at the same time!

The pics on the left were taken 5th of May, so there's a good few months between. As I have been staying clear of doing high impact workouts, the muscle growth isn't massive, especially in my arms. I'm more tanned than anything else haha (and of course my legs are still as pale as a dead chicken, I just don't tan down there...!)! Oh and I really miss being a redhead, can see the pink hair in those arm pictures. *sob*





In other news, today has been a lot about food. It was definitely what I needed, got some bad news today and I just wanted to block it all out and spend some time with the family. The sun was out, dogs were messing about in the garden and the smell of grilled meat filled the house and the garden. Absolutely delightful.





And this is what my plate looked like (kinda..)! A buger, a hot dog with a sweet chilli & pork sausage, fried onions and plenty of salad. I did go for seconds, I had two more burger patties, one sausage with the bun and a bit of tuna steak with salad and onions. I feel happily full now. And for pudding my mother in law made some very delicious gooseberry fool - funnily enough tasted more of rhubarb than gooseberry!



As the afternoon was spent worrying about various things, I only managed to go for a walk after dinner. I do think I made the right choice here, as it was nice and cool and very quiet. And the sunset was so beautiful. I'm so glad I take my phone with me everywhere, I would've missed this incredible shot of the sunset otherwise. The nature is such a wonderful thing.

I love days like today. It really takes a while for a person to notice their weight loss, in fact it wasn't long ago when I even mentioned it in the blog (the video post). Well that's finally changed! I happened to walk past a mirror after I took a shower this morning and for the first time I just went "Oh my god I can see the difference!" to myself. It really made my day start off brilliantly, still in a really good mood about it.

Lunch was a nice mix of my favourite things. Pasta, salmon, sweetcorn, peas, beetroot and a bit of grated parmesan. Very simple, very quick to make and really healthy (pasta was wholewheat + a small handful of normal pasta to top it up, didn't have enough wholewheat pasta in the cupboards! :( ).



I really like the top I was wearing today. However, it is slightly seethrough so I need to wear another top under it. HUGE mistake... It turned out to be very hot outside despite it not really looking like it (lots of clouds when I left, windy etc..) so wearing two tops really made me sweat like a little pig. And I couldn't really take the pink top off and just finish my walk in the white top as it's slightly seethrough as well (as in, you could see my pink sports bra through it and bras showing through tops is something I can't stand). Need to buy a skin coloured sports bra so I get rid of that problem.. :D







I can never get fed up with the fact of how wonderful dogs are. They are always so happy to see me come home, doesn't matter if I'm out for 10 minutes or all day. I always have three happy dog faces greeting me when I come home. Especially the younger ones just split in half because they're so happy that someone's home.


I was talking to a friend about my weight loss so far and how much I've still got to lose. He was so impressed that I've lost 8kg already, to me it's always been "oh I'm slow, couldv'e done better". In all fairness I am more than happy with what I've managed to achieve so far and will be over the moon if I manage to drop another 8kg by the end of the year. :) That'd bring me below 70kg, can't even remember the last time I've been below that number.

Somewhat slacky day again. Had my dear friend over most of the day so my exercise for this day includes a walk with the dogs. I will probably go for a "proper" walk after dinner has settled to make up for it.


Didn't actually take a picture of lunch (or my afternoon snack for that matter)! Pancakes with bananas and maple syrup for lunch + wholewheat toast with the same toppings later on in the afternoon. I was just so hungry, lunch didn't fill me up the way it usually should.

Anyways. Our boys really loved running around in the park today. The puppy we have is too small to go for long walks so unfortunately had to lock her up in the kitchen before we left. The cries were heartbreaking! Need to do it though, don't want her to develop arthritis or any muscle issues. It was a bit miserable though, raining slightly and the sun was nowhere to be seen. :( Luckily the sun is out now so my evening walk should be nice and pleasant. ;)


I did something a bit out of the ordinary for dinner! I mean I'm a rather skilled cook and I'm not scared to try "different" things, but I usually just cook the familiar things. I decided to go with chicken stir fry tonight. Fried peppers, carrots, onion and garlic in sesame oil for a few minutes, added chicken, seasoned with various spices (a bit of cayenne pepper, Chinese 5 spice, paprika, salt, pepper) and boiled noodles. After it was all in the wok I poured a bit of soy sauce and sweet chilli sauce on top to give it that extra kick. Should've cooked more, it was delicious!

Back home! This is going to be a very long post haha. A highly enjoyable weekend with family, it's lovely to get out of the house every now and then.

We left quite late on Friday, it was probably around 8pm. As we have been looking after the dogs for the past few weeks, we had to manage to fit all three in a van. It turned out to be a lot simpler than we thought. A cage in the back on top of a bench so we could put two furry ones in there and the third one was in the foot space at the front. 

I'm never good with long travel, though. I always start feeling very sleepy after about an hour, and this time was no exception. Constant yawning and incredibly heavy eyelids kept me company for most of the way there. It's a two hour drive over to the other half's brother's house.

As it was pretty late when we arrived, we didn't really do much. We fired up the Wii and did some Wii Party. Wii is probably the most entertaining console you can have when playing with more than two people. And as it turns out, I am amazing at the game in the picture. It's about chopping vegetables as quickly as possible. You wiggle the Wii remote up and down, I guess all the punching bags I've done with Jillian have made my arm muscles good. :D





Dinners are always the unhealthy ones when we go over. KFC, curry, McDonalds, pizza... You name it, we've most likely had it for dinner before. :D I was so happy to find out that KFC does salads with some of their popular chicken options. I always used to go for the spicy Zinger burger and was so happy to be able to pick the Zinger salad. :) That with a diet Pepsi and a small bag of chips, not too bad in my opinion! Could've dine without the chips but there was an extra portion of chips in the bag so went for it anyways.

Now, it's not a secret that I love mojitos. Tesco actually sells these mock mojitos (non alcoholic). Two of those after dinner while we were playing Wii. Yum! In all fairness it was just empty calories but you've got to live a little every now and then. 






I actually got rather bored at some point and started looking into my phone's camera a bit better. I've actually had this phone for over a year now and I've only just realised that it actually has proper settings. Well done me. From now on all the pictures in this blog will be a bit more vibrant in colour, hooray! I've used a pretty similar setup with my camera, it's nice to get rid of the slightly washed out pictures I've had to put up here.





Our puppy stuck to me like white on rice the entire weekend. Every time I'd sit down she would jump up on my lap and snuggle up. Maybe she just was a bit confused and unsure about the new surroundings, but it was lovely. Coco is such a beautiful little puppy, can't wait for her to be old enough to have puppies.

And we had curry for dinner! I went for chicken tikka masala, wasn't the best curry I've had in all fairness. I like my curries with a lot of sauce so I can dip the naan bread and just drown the rice in it, it's just the way to do it. Wasn't the best tasting tikka masala I've had either. I mean don't get me wrong, it was still lovely! Just doesn't compare to the one I usually order. :)



The way home was incredible. The views on the way were just so breathtaking. I've seen these views tens of times by now but it always amazes me. It's just such an unique country. The pictures don't really do it justice, though. You really need to be there to appreciate it.



As much as I loved this weekend, it's so clear that my stomach can't handle this much bad food in one go. It has been aching like mad since earlier tonight. I love it how our bodies tell us when we are stuffing ourselves with something we really shouldn't. Back to healthy eating tomorrow, I'm sorry tummy. <3