Week 19 WI

And finally got my 10% off!! Woohoo :)

Only lost half a kilo, but it was enough to get my 10% and drop me into the next stone bracket, so lost a point too...
I really want to try and stick to points from now on, as I've been a bit lax and do notice I'm not losing as fast as others who are probably much more disciplined than me :p

So my updated results are:
Loss this week: -0.5 kg / -1.1 lbs
Total loss so far: -10.9 kg / -24 lbs

I am getting impatient, so really need to see the numbers go down to stay motivated...

Week 18 WI

I guess all the walking cancelled out the extra chips and hotel biscuits, so am quite happy about this week's result even if it's only a small loss:

This week's loss: -0.2 kg / -0.4 lbs
Total loss so far: -10.4 kg / -22.9 lbs

Still haven't reached my 10% but am sure I can get there next week. Which also means dropping a point as I will be in the 14's, yippee!!

Good luck to everyone else for their WI and hope you all have a great Easter Monday!

A weekend in Bristol

Just got back from a really nice weekend away with Anne. We went to Bristol by train (first class, hehehe) and spent 3 days there.

Friday was quite rainy but we got lots of walking done, visited the Clifton Suspension Bridge and spent a few hours at Bristol Zoo... I just love the animals :)
Then had a gorgeous dinner at a random Greek restaurant. If you're in Bristol, check it out, their food is divine: Entelia.

Saturday was gorgeous and we took the train to Bath for the day and completely milked our 2 for 1 sightseeing bus tour tickets. The tour guides on the busses were so nice and gave us lots of interesting info we wouldn't have had otherwise. I treated myself to fish & chips for lunch, but got the healthy-ish option of cajun grilled salmon instead of fish in batter, which was yummy. I of course absolutely adore chips with malt vinegar, so no healthier option there, ahum!

Saturday night, after relaxing back at the hotel for a few hours, we went out to The Shed for drinks on the the terrace overlooking the river Avon, followed by a really nice dinner. I had the Scottish smoked salmon
followed by a thaï green vegetable curry. Yummy :)


Today we took day passes for the ferries and went up and down the river all day, stopping off at the SS Great Britain, the one thing I absolutely wanted to see. It was really, really worth it, absolutely amazing! I love maritime history, especially stories about ocean liners, so I was in heaven. The museum and the ship are beautifully presented and there is just so much to see and read about... and of course the ship itself is the highlight of the tour. I am completely awestruck by how well it has been restored and how amazingly the interior has been reconstructed to give us a glimpse at how it must have been in those days. I even got quite emotional walking through the 3rd class quarters. This is a picture of the engine room:

I wonder if any of my ancestors immigrated to New Zealand on that ship, as there were quite a few Armstrongs listed in the passenger records. I will ask my mum next time I speak to her... Also, the whole visit to Bristol was a bit of a pilgrimage for me as it is where my mum went to university, so it was really strange discovering the city and imagining her living there all those years ago (well, about 40!).

We finished off the day with a nice late lunch on a sunny terrace overlooking the water and I actually got a bit of a sunburn. So now after this really nice weekend I'm back in London for the last 3 days of my trip and wondering what to do with the time I have left as the course is over and I don't have any other obligations... I think I'll try and get a ticket for Priscilla Queen of the Desert or Mamma Mia and maybe go to Tate Modern. Fill up on culture before heading back to Brussels ;)

Week 17 WI

Goodbye 10 kg!!!! Yay! A week later than I hoped I made it past the 10 kg lost :) On to my 10% which I will achieve by next Monday!
I am really pleased to see the scales going down again as I have been really good. Okay, I had a few glasses of wine last Thursday, but apart from that I've been angelic ;)

So the results are:
Loss this week: -0.9 kg / -2 lbs
Total loss so far: -10.2 kg / -22.5 lbs

It's weird because it seems like a lot and not a lot at the same time... I mean, 10 kg is heavy... more than a 6-pack of water... and that's all weight I'm NOT carrying around with me everywhere I go anymore. On the other hand, I'm only a quarter of the way there... it seems like a long road ahead.

Which brings me to mention what an inspiration my fellow bloggers have been to me so far. It is great to see people who are 60 or 100 lbs down the road and are living proof that it really is an attainable goal :) You rock, girls!

Week 16 WI

Well, I was just going to skip this one, as I am completely gutted by the result of a week of sticking to points and walking 3 miles a day: I gained back a third of what I'd lost last week.

So unfair, but there you go...

Anyway, this week's results are therefore:

Gain this week: +0.5 kg/+1.1 lbs
Total loss: -9.3 kg/-20.5 lbs

So much for my 10 kg and 10%... but I'm determined to get them over the next couple of WI's. I also have the impression I get bloated at Anne's... no idea why this is, but my fingers are all puffy and I could well be retaining water which would explain why I gained. Maybe the floor heating? Hmm.

Despite the gain, I did have a minor NSV: my size 22 trousers are getting way too big for me, and I tried on one of my old size 20 trousers and it fit :) So I must be doing something right!

Oh, and I got a haircut this week at Toni & Guy - first time in 8 months!... feel so much better :)
Here's a quick shot of it :)

Week 15 WI

Yes! Last week was a great week, and it showed on the scales :)
I stuck to points every single day, clocked up 22 activity points - which I didn't use - and could feel my clothes getting looser, so am really pleased it has resulted in a nice loss.

So, the results for week 15 are:
Loss this week: -1.5 kg/-3.3 lbs
Total loss: -9.8 kg/-21.6 lbs

Woohoo! On top of this good result, I also got my 3rd silver 7. It took me 2 weeks to get the first, 4 to get the second and 8 to get this one, so I am determined to get the next one in 4 weeks again.

Also, this means I have some nice little goals to look forward to in the coming weeks, namely to get my first 10kg off by next WI as well as my 10%, if not next WI, then the one after. I'm aiming for 0.7kg loss which would take me to just 0.1kg away from 10% loss. Also, next WI I should pass the 1/4 way mark: 10 down, 30 to go!

I wanted to have a visual of my progress, so made this chart:
The red line is my goal, the blue line my losses plotted against weeks... Hope to see that line going firmly down over the next few weeks :)

Happy to report...

I am really happy to report that I have managed to stick to my points so far this week!
I'm back in Brussels for the weekend and peeked at the scales this morning, and it seems I'm down 1.3 kg / 3 lbs from Monday, so I'm guessing Anne's scales - which I've been weighing in on for the past 2 weeks - are slightly higher than mine. Very good news :)

I'm really enjoying London, and am starting to find my way around Sainsbury's and M&S for lunch and dinner... have discovered the "count on us" and "be good to yourself" ranges and really enjoying trying new things and finding the healthy options out there - so much more choice and variety than here in Belgium!

For lunch I usually have either a healthy choice tortilla or some sushi or some chicken tikka bits from Sainsbury's, with a huge portion of fruit - mango chunks are my favourite! That sees me through to the evenings, and if I am peckish in the afternoon I can buy a banana or an Alpen bar at the school cafeteria - which is great :)

It does make me realise how little options I had up till now at work - if I was hungry in the afternoon and hadn't thought of bringing something with me, all I had to choose from were Mars bars (bleh!), M&Ms (yum, unfortunately), a bag of crisps and other similar niceties... I seems society in general doesn't really help people make healthy choices. TV ads are always for the foods you can't eat, or else for the "miracle" products promising to make you thin (usually also full of stuff you don't want to be putting in your body, like aspartam). And vending machines are full of high calorie, low filling snacks.

If there was a fruit vendor on every street corner instead of a newspaper stall full of crap, we'd be healthier people, I figure.

Anyway, on this rant, I'm off to enjoy the rest of the weekend and will report in after WI on Monday :)
Have a great weekend!

Week 14 WI

Well, I kinda cheated for this weigh in. I refused to believe what I saw on the scales yesterday, I was retaining water, my fingers were all puffy, and I really didn't want to register a gain for the past week, so I weighed again this morning with a much better - and more realistic - result.
I guess I'll find out next week if I was right to do it or not...

So, weekle results are:
Loss this week: -0.5 kg/-1.1 lbs
Total loss: -8.3 kg/-18.3 lbs

I'm basically still where I was 4 weeks ago, which is slightly demotivating, but I'm determined to get it going down again.
I'm walking an hour every day, which has to count for something, and I am determined to stick to points this week.

Life in London

So, as I mentioned in my previous post, I have been in London for a week now and am nicely settled into Anne's great spare bedroom and my TEFL course.

This past week has been amazing - probably one of the best weeks in my life (except holidays of course ;)).
It's a mixture of the doing something I'm really enjoying, learning new things, meeting new people, doing more exercise and feeling I'm moving towards a goal that's gotten me feeling so psyched.

First of all, the course is great. There's 10 of us in the class and we have 2 really nice teachers, Ray and Jack. Ray's a jolly red-haired Irishman, while Jack's a quiet, well-spoken English lad. Can it get more stereotypical?

The other people on the course all seem really nice. Most of them are doing the course with the intention of moving abroad, to Spain, Japan, India or other places. A few are doing it to move back to their home land after living in London for several years. There's a nice mixture of Brits and foreigners, with me being somewhere in the middle of the two.

Last week we sarted off softly, with no teaching practice, but lots of other really interesting classes and exercises about how to structure and prepare lessons, how to manage a classroom full of student, English grammar, peer teaching and Welsh - yes, the whole class took 4 lessons in Welsh so we could experience it from the point of view of a foreign student. Freaky experience. But I can now say "Hello, pleased to meet you" in Welsh ;)

For the peer teaching, we had to each give a 5-minute class to 4 of the other students, on any subject we wanted. I chose - for some obscure reason - to teach them to make origami fortune tellers. I had a really good time preparing the short lesson and found it very comfortable "teaching" them, got some good feedback from everyone and from the teacher, so I hope once we start teaching real students next week it'll continue like that.

We also had a class on learning styles, which I found really interesting. I was already familiar with the NLP-based types of learning styles: visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. But I was convinced I was a very strong visual learner. After doing the test, it would seem I am just as much a kinaesthetic learner as a visual one. Auditory on the other hand is not my strong point. In one ear, out the other... :)

Tomorrow we have to hand in our Unknown Language Journal, documenting our experience learning Welsh. I still have about 1000 words to write tonight, but am already really pleased that I actually already started it on Thursday and got 1200 words on paper - take that, my inner procrastinator!

So, so far, so good. Tomorrow we will meet the student we're going to be teaching and have a first 15-minute session each, animating an activity with them. Then Tuesday the serious stuff begins. I'm lucky, starting with a reading activity, as some people got grammar revisions on their first day!

But I'm looking forward to it all, and really glad I made the decision to quit my job, take the course and start out on this journey...

Week 13 WI

I'm almost a full week late posting my weigh in results for week 13, but it wasn't much to write home about as I had a stand still. At least according to Anne's scales.

So, results for week 13 are:
Loss: 0 kg / 0 lbs
Total loss: -7.8 kg / -17.2 lb

In the meantime, and more importantly, I have arrived in London and have completed the first week of my course, so I'll be posting a bit about that in a few minutes.

I've been walking to the course every morning and walking home every evening, it's a 30 minute walk one way, so I'm really pleased with all the extra exercise I'm getting. And Bart was just over to visit this weekend and we've been walking all over London, at least 2 hours a day yesterday and today. Which just about makes up for the afternoon teas at Costa's :p