Vanity.. My Favourite Sin

I made a point in my last post of not putting a single photo of myself... I didn't want to spoil the surprise that I had somehow managed to kick butt in the big butt department!

So, here goes...

Me.

Where's the champagne?

There's my JC!

"Vanity is definitely my favorite sin. Self-love, the all-natural opiate."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv9zXUd55Sw

Happy Saturday!

She's back... Pt 2

Aaaaaaaaaand here I am again. Two in one day! For those of you who ever try to reach me via text, you'll know what a feat this is.


So I will just pick up right where I left off..

I started my new job in May, at the company owned by The Boy.


I started a role in the Marketing team, writing blogs and tweeting and all sorts of other fun things.

I made a few new friends this year, all of whom are a hell of a lot of fun!


One of my new friends is Champagne.








I told you Champagne was my friend... But you will note from the glasses that I had actual friends as well who like drinking the champagne with me.
The best thing about the fact that I really enjoy drinking champagne? It goes right to my head and I don't need to drink much to have even more fun.

Even when cooking, I stayed on the healthy side of things. I finally cooked a steak for myself which didn't feel like the sole of a boot!
Those vegies did taste as amazingly crisp and yummy as they look, too.

Sometimes I slipped... Everyone has bad days.
Luckily for me, the restaurant that makes this amazing dessert is far enough away from my house that I would have to have a pretty long conversation with myself before I could justify going there and eating it every day like I really really want to.

Friends and family are having babies, which is awesome, because I get to buy really gorgeous gifts for them!

I finally grew my own nails back, which meant I would save a heap in nail technician appointments.. right? Maybe not...

I sometimes started my day with a huge giggle... It's nice when other people are as into being Grammar Nazis as you are.

I took my first trip to Brisbane, which was absolutely gorgeous.

We also travelled to the Gold Coast - again, gorgeous!












So I guess now that you're caught right up to the first week of September, you must be wondering how I've been going with my Jenny Craig?


I went to my first meeting in ... I can't remember, maybe 3 months, today.
I haven't stepped inside the door for ages!

I have to admit, I have been pretty bad. Cocktails, yummy food, naughty food, lots of food, ice-cream, chocolate, champagne, McDonalds, nachos, beer, champagne, and sometimes a few glasses of champagne... I wouldn't have been surprised if they told me I put on weight.

But I have been pretty good, and trying to spend more time outside, as the weather gets better...

You might remember my goal to get 30 kilos off?



I have lost...




34 kgs.

GOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!


So now I have officially reset my goal with my JC consultant, and made a promise to myself that I will not miss a single week, and that I will blog about it as I go.
I have a number I want to reach now, and the work I've done so far and a whole lot more will get me there...

So jump into the comments section, tell me about what you've been eating, what you've been doing and of course what amazing times you can see ahead.

I want to leave you with some words that really made me smile this week - if you want to share something inspirational, please do!

"...we have a huge suite of problems globally but nothing can be achieved by negativity.’’

She's back.. Pt 1

Well, well, well. It's been quite some time, hasn't it? There's nothing quite like more than a year between blog posts to really keep things interesting.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I could write about in these blog posts, and man it'll be a cup of tea and a biscuit's worth of reading if I remember everything I thought I should mention.

Maybe I will start with a list of things that have changed since I last blogged, and we can go from there.

I left the Bank I worked for, after a lovely time spent in the big city branch with amazing people.
The two beautiful girls you see here were my CSMs, Karen and Louise, and they taught me a hell of a lot about what it means to be a good boss, friend, listener, and most of all that I could do whatever I wanted in life.
Thanks Lou and Kaz!

I fell in and out of love with the Jenny Craig food I had in my freezer - after all, it still tasted good but I had spent so much time eating things which tasted... well ... more like the kind of thing I used to eat. Lucky I have some really great friends who support my goal to lose weight (and share their wardrobes, maybe ...?). So sometimes when I needed to be kept on track, they'd get in the trenches and eat Jenny food right along with me. Thank you, Emma x

I tried hard to be motivated and when the weather was good, I walked in the park.. Twice.

I took a trip with The Boy and his family... What an amazing time! New Zealand, via a 13-deck cruise ship, from Dec 18 until Jan 3, was a heap of firsts:
 - First overseas trip
 - First cruise
 - First time spending Christmas with a significant other
 - First time not spending Christmas with my mum (I cried)
 - First time to New Zealand (I hope not the last!)
I spent a LOT of time eating delicious food, and surprisingly enough I returned to Australia with an extra 8 kilos ... Not happy.

Whitney Houston died, and I spent some time behaving a bit like this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2xzWbRwOio
(not really, but man that video cracks me up).

I celebrated one of my best and favourite birthdays, with some of the most wonderful people in the world.
I wish every day could be as fun and special as a birthday, it's not like being a kid any more but you do definitely get to feel special.

I tried to stay motivated to do my Jenny Craig program to the best of my ability. But even Instagramming motivational cards couldn't stop me from enjoying some of 'the good things'.

What can I say... I like food, cooking, drinking, celebrating, living, and laughing...

We travelled to Fiji for our anniversary .. I was very spoilt and ate like a demon!

So overall things have been pretty amazing, and so if you care to, you can continue onto the next post...

Tricks and treats

So.

Remember how I didn't gain any weight after being a fatty fat-pants?

Hmmmm.

Yep.

I more than made up for my efforts.

This week is a record HIGH on the fat scale - I gained 2.8kg! I not only gained back what I lost bu a bit more again.

You can imagine I'm feeling super about this right now - not.

I'm consoling myself with the fact that I have a fantastic couple of weeks coming up - the new job starts after a week of finishing the course I started all those months ago, there's a ball in Sydney to go to with my wonderful man and best of all it'll be Spring soon and I'll be able to start walking in my lovely leafy neighbourhood.

So I'm not going to keep blogging on about how fat I am, but I will tell you this - the man has agreed to spend the week eating JC meals with me.

So 3kg loss, here I come!

Colour me surprised!

Alright, so to be brutally honest, I had a fat weekend.


In fact, I had a fat week.


I managed to be Jenny-riffic for breakfast and lunchtime, but only managed one night of dinner.
Mainly this is to do with the fact that I discovered I can actually put together a not totally inedible meal - and also because I got really stupidly lazy.
I just didn't care - we were away for the weekend and in a way I had left my motivation at home.
By the time Saturday afternoon rolled around, I'd eaten my way through a number of things that I really shouldn't have (and they tasted GREAT!)


Sometimes (ladies, support me here) you just can't - can't - stop yourself from eating what looks really good. There are just certain times, ah, of the month, that make that totally impossible.
Combine that with a lack of willpower to be good and no motivation as I was feeling quite good about how I looked, and there was no chance you could have convinced me to be food-conscious.
Keeping in mind, I am now part of a domestically blissful home where I can live out my Betty Crocker dreams and be, in general, a bit of a kitchen queen, it's all the more difficult to be enthusiastic about the food that I've got frozen in the freezer.


No offence intended - we all know I LOVE JC! and also love the food - but seriously, Cajun spiced chicken with leafy Mediterranean salad? You'd want to eat it too.


I suppose I should also tell you I recently rediscovered a skirt I bought for work - when it arrived it didn't fit; even if I tried to pull it up from the bottom or down over my head, it would not go on.
No way, no how.


So when I tried this skirt on, late Tuesday afternoon, I found myself being pleasantly surprised at how it slipped on and zipped up OVER my pants.


It's almost too big!
Oh joy, oh rapture!


Clothes that are too big!


Nothing in the world can make me feel as good as fast as trying something on and it not fitting because it's too big!


You wanna see?

So ... not to be up myself - but I look good!

Right?

I should.

After my fat week - I lost 2kg.

2.

Kg.

Two.

I couldn't believe it.

Steph couldn't either.

So this means I can just keep hammering through the bad food right?

WRONG!

I have 3 weeks to get to my goal - 30kg by 1st Sept - and by God, I will do it.

So no more badness (or at least, much less).

I need something to keep me motivated - tomorrow's Friday; I'm bound to figure it out by the weekend.

Well ... What Can I Say?

So it's been a reeeeealllly long time since I blogged.

A ridiculously long time.

I can't catch you up on everything that's happened - it's just so much.
I can only summarise.

- moved house
- moved in with the Dream Boy
- started the management course I've been wanting to do for 2.5 years
- realised the management course wasn't actually right for me
- took a new job working for the same company
- finish my old job in three weeks

Current weight loss to date: 24kg.

I have discovered since the recent co-habitation that I enjoy being domesticated.

Ask anybody who knows me and they will tell you this is a lie.

Well, people - be surprised.

I have a new favourite book.



So now I've agreed with Steph that I'm allowed to make two JC-friendly meals a week to sate my need to impersonate Nigella Lawson.

Let's see how this goes, shall we?

By the way - I am going to be blogging more often - but no promises, ok?





I'm busy being in love.

So now what?

So now it's June and I've spent some time thinking about how I can get back on track.
I've been out to eat and just had steamed vegetables after my Jenny meal; I haven't gained again in the last few weeks. I'm at a total loss of 21.7kg and let's face it, I'm pretty happy with that.

But...

I'm struggling.

I have the worst food habits, combined with no exercise habits, and I can't help myself.

All the good influences in the world; friends, my JC girls, 'the boy'...

Everybody wants to help me and I can't help myself.
My motivation was gone, and then it was back when I fit back into my work pants which I couldn't wear for about 2 years.
I also got a new pair of jeans which were 2 sizes smaller (3, if you think about the fact that I was wearing the biggest size and they barely fit) but now after a weekend of being 'naughty' and a struggle upcoming this week with a work course held at a venue where I can't heat up my food, I don't know what I'm going to do.
I want those jeans to get too big, not too small, but I can't seem to get my head back in the right space.

I need some inspiration.