I'm back

9641
Originally uploaded by wraggy

2 weeks in lanzarote are over. How sad. Life is slowly coming back to order, although various parts of my house have fallen apart in my absence.

Blogs a plenty in the pipeline.

emms x

weird science

I'm starting to notice how certain foods affect me at the moment. When I'm being really active and getting up early I'm definitely more hungry, but also - if I eat a candy bar, I really feel the crash afterwards and it just aint fun.

Saurkraut is nice - I've never eaten that before and it is pretty cool.

Apples - man they taste SO good. They have to be cold and really fresh, I like Braeburns the best. I've never noticed fruit tasting so good in all my life. I'm still a fan of the biscuit, never fear, but I'm enjoying the apples too!

best week ever!

These are my star charts. Yes they look like something a kiddy has to make them eat their tea. I know. But last week I got 21 stars out of 21 - I am a true ninja. This meant that at every meal I ate considerately, took my time, waited till hungry and stopped when full. I regularly get a 19 or a 20 but never before a 21!!!

Now 21 constantly is a little unachievable, and I don't think I'd want to become someone who behaved to puritanically, but I went a week and did perfect!

4 early morning gyms under my belt. 2 in a row this week. I'm proper tired now. Need to get some RnR

Weightloss is not yet apparent but I'm feeling hellishly good. Reckon my pants might fall down soon.

everything is crossed.

How wonderful

Originally uploaded by wraggy

A photo of me communing with my friends daughter Esme at a picnic in leeds.

what a great shot.

I'm in that crazy pre holiday frenzy - what to pack, where to pack, what needs doing or getting, how many shoes to take. (I have far too many).

Trying to keep my mind on work as I have a few things to get settled before I leave.

Can't wait though.

3 early gym visits down. I am a legend. Hoping to go tomorrow, although 2 days in a row seems a little nuts. The moment of waking is still as awful as ever but the desire to work out and lose weight is a great motivator. The little stones stuck to my snooze button help too!

......

I was in there at 6:50 am today. Must admit I'm feeling super sluggish, but I did it!

O M G

Went to see Adrian yesterday.

Today I got up at 6.30 and went to the gym.

OMG. Like O. M. G.

Its time to face facts. I've got the food thing pretty good, and I love to exercise. I just don't seem to find the time to do enough. As I told Adrian it was impossible for me to get up early and go to the gym then as I'm just not one of those people that get up early and go to the gym. Sleep is far more important.

So Adrian asks "how important is weight loss to you?" and I say "more important than ANYTHING in the world!"

So why the hell can't you get up any earlier? He prudently responded?

When you put it like that it suddenly makes sense. I thought it was a bit stupid to get up and go in the morning when I could be snuggled up. I also am a slave to my snooze button.

But no more. Last night I glued small pebbles to my snooze button, so that when I blindly reach out to press it I'll feel little sharp stones. This is a message to myself that to stay in bed and be comfy - although nice, is not helping me to get any thinner.

I have also taped a small Yellow poster to my wall pointing out the fact that needing to stay in bed being more important than anything in the world (which at 6am feels pretty true) is an A F L - an abject fucking lie. Apparently the most important thing in the world (sorry Jon) is getting thinner. So lying in bed is actually damaging my chances of succeeding.

Now don't get me wrong I still didn't want to get out of bed, but as I lay there I did think - well getting thinner is better than an extra hour in bed... and I actually like going to the gym. So up I got.

Well, several hours later- I'm feeling chipper. I know it's that first day feeling, and the plan is for the next few weeks (as holiday is imminent) to aim for 2 early visits a week, which will then increase to 3 and then possibly 4.

As i sat driving to the gym (the sunny morning did help) I felt very happy. I was dancing along to the radio and I felt great. I am carrying that feeling in to the day.

Brimingham for a conference tomorrow and thursday, but a gym visit is planned for friday.

Fingers crossed.

evidence

http://www.flickr.com/photos/memmsy/sets/72157619598220894/

photos are good.

I'm feeling fat and like I'm not getting anywhere at the moment. I'm still plodding on but no visible weight loss.

Went shopping for holiday clothes today and although the sizes I picked fitted (mostly - jeans are always tricksy) I just looked shit in everything I tried on.

Fat people (and some thinnies) really don't suit shorts. But how the hell do you stay cool on holiday? Self image is a little bashed today. Don't want to be waddling around all holiday looking like some whale woman. Which I will be.

Ho hum.

On the plus side, I decided to organise some of my flickr photos, and have made a little set of weightloss evidence portraits. Admittedley some of them are also nice pictures, but between the first and the last there is quite a difference.

This has cheered me up.

Wheely impressive

Originally uploaded by wraggy

So, Audrey my BIke is out again! Hurrah.

Vic came round on sunday with her BEAUTIFUL new bike. I am very jealous. So Vicky, Jon and I went on a little exppedition to my local park.

This was my first bike ride since last summer, and I was shocked at the improvement in my fitness. Although we were pootling and stopping and starting, the distance I covered was more than double what I could manage last year.

I wasn't fatigued at all and my legs were quite happy with it. I must admit my derriere was more than a little tender afterwards, and I think in general this will always be a problem while I am larger as a great amount of body weight is given only one pressure point - my nethers!

I was planning on a bike ride on tuesday (we are having a heatwave and it was way too hot to go to the gym) but I was feeling really drained by the weather and couldn't face going out.

So last night I went out as it had cooled down. Rather than looping the park several times I actually cycled on the roads that surround the park and cycled half of the parks circumference then cycled in to the park and round about it.

I didn't stop apart from to walk my bike thorough a couple of kissing gates, and did it all in about 30 minutes. I checked on a map today and it's at least 3.5 miles.

I'm really pleased. I'm glad to see the improvement in my general fitness, as even when exercising, if you switch type it can be surprisingly difficult regardless of how good you are at something else. I just wish I had a rack on the back of my car and could take my bike around with me!

Soon I might actually be able to use it to take me somewhere rather than just go in circles!

on hypnosis part 2

So people often look at me funny when I tell them that I visit a hypnotherapist. This conjures (get the pun) up 2 thoughts mainly - 1 that someone waves a ticking clock in front of my nose and something magical happens and 2 that I will cluck like a chicken when someone says the 'magic' word.

Ok. Well belief is important and infact it is vital for the success of therapies like this - but what you beleive in can be many different things.

Hypnosis is infact a little underwhelming - especially for all you watch swinging people out there. It is about relaxation, taking time out and allowing the brain to look at things in a different way. I've come to understand that hypnosis is a tool that allows us to clear away all the crap that clutters up our behaviour - conditioning, emotion, social surrounding and enables us to see something for what it really is.

Let me take this a step further, by saying that anything that anyone does during the process of a hypnotic trance they do entirely by thier own choice. So those people you see stood on stage biting in to an onion, ....well, they entered in to the spirit of the occasion, allowed themselves to trust in the entertainment value of the show, clearly want to be seen as different or 'special' and therefore are comfortably able to move forward with the act at hand. When that onion is placed in thier hand - they know on some level it's an onion, and that yes ok - it might leave an after taste, but more importantly, they know that realistically, no harm is going to be done.

Quite a different scenario would be to take that person and ask them to eat something dangerous or set themselves on fire. I think that the person in trance will think about it! But they are still there aware and intelligent, although relaxed and happy, and would just look straight up and say SOD OFF!

We are always ultimatley in control of our actions.

So what's it like in a session? Well, you lie there and think about things, you relax and drift away. You let go of all the little niggly things (as best as you can) - but oddly, you are still just there. In all the sessions with Adrian where we have done trance I've always thought - "is this it??" as I knew that at any moment I could choose if I wanted to to sit up, open my eyes and walk out.

The only thing was I had to choose to do this.

When we went to see Derren Brown last month there was a section where he talked about the audience getting to experience trance situations. There was loads of loaded language and bits and bobs before he got to the business of supposedly putting us in a trance. He explained it wou;ln't happen to everyone and that didn't matter.

Now I was not expecting to do anything - but I'm open to suggestion (I wanted to watch the show and enjoyed it very much) - I'm not frightened of trance states as I've done it before, and I regularly meditate. I was pretty certain that nothing (initially) would happen that I didn't want to engage with.

This is the key. I CHOSE to put myself in a positive situation for the trance.
So much so that I actually felt my eyes closing well in advance of the business of putting the audience in a trance.

He explained that our limbs would get heavy, we'd feel the need to swallow some more, we'd be really happy and comfortable and that some of us would want to stand up (he used this to pick his subjects for on stage tricks. Fortunatley for me I think I was physically a little too impractical for him to wield!)

So..... I was comfy and happy, my eyes were shut and I'd sat myself in an open position with my knees bent and my palms resting on my thighs. As did the rest of the audience. After a while he talked about how we might want to stand up, and sloooowly rise from our seats very gently. As I sat there, feeling pretty good, I just thought to myself "I don't really need to stand up,,,, well, theres no reason not to stand up... well I could just ...."

and before you know it I was stood up. My heart was pumping a little harder and I felt a touch of euphoria! I was stood up by choice I hasten to add, but not quite in the same way as choosing what pants to wear in the morning! The choice sort of 'comes upon you'

I stood there, lolling around - aware of noises in the auditorium and eventually all those who hadn't stood up (about 90% of the audience) opened thier eyes to look around. Normally I would have been crippled with self consciousness to know that everyone was looking at me, but I didn't really give a monkey's. I was comfortable. Standing up was goooood! I could hear whispers and titters (most people in the audience did seem to think that Mr Brown actually is some sort of Demon Warlock!) and I could hear all of this, but still not moving stayed there comfortably.

Shortly afterwards we were brought out of trance and down I sat. Now I realise trances can be much deeper than this, but I was quite happy and refreshed and well aware of what had been going on. I just wasn't interacting on quite the same level as everyone else (I was wafting around 2 ft up!)

Ok, it's all about choice, but then.... someone asks - 'but how did they get that man to stand so stiff that he could be laid between 2 small chairs, flat as a board and support his own body weight? '

Well, and I'm sorry to disappoint - but the volunteer just did it himself.

Hmmm you ponder, but if anyone tried this right away now it wouldn't work. And you'd be right. This is where the value of the trance comes in.

Subconsciously - and consciously when posed with a task, THOUSANDS of parameters go through our minds. Will it be hard? Will it hurt? will I like it? Will it make me popular? How likely am I to die doing it? Will I offend someone? Is it practical? Am I strong enough? etc etc etc ...... practially ENDLESS numbers of spears leap in to view, a bit like a full kerplunk game.

The purpose of a trance like state is to remove all those plastic sticks so that the thought marbles (please humour me) can pass freely. If all of these paramaters were removed and your brain simply received the 1 message ------ "Tense all our muscles right now and don't let go" That is what the body does. It doesn't need faith or confidence, it just takes the order.

Now depending on the level of trance or suggestibility the less or more kerplunk spears get removed, so that one task might be achievable but another one less so.

So anyway. The point in this was to explain my experience - nothing more. I hope it was enjoyable to read.

I now think very carefully about the kerplunk spears that I can remove, but know there are often lots that I have very little control over - and this is where something like hypnotherapy / CBT activities help me to see things from a new angle without strange personal plastic sticks trapping my marbles.

Here endeth the lesson

Another day dawns

That's my first post that is. It's from the 19Th of May 2008, so this blog is now officially 1 year old! Happy birthday little blog.

Wow. That has totally snuck up on me. I'm quite impressed that I have managed to post regularly throughout the year and I have really enjoyed the process. It has helped me immensely with my journey and is a great way to look back on things.

So much has changed, and so much hasn't! It's weird really as massive change over a long period of time is so hard to document. When I started this I'd never lost weight in my life, whereas now I consider myself as someone who is a successful 'loser' - and still going.

By the time I'd started blogging, I'd still not done any proper exercises in my adult life. That is just crazy to think about. Especially crazy as yesterday I went to the gym early and decided to skip class. After my weights circuits I couldn't get a free cross trainer, so just went to my class as well! (I'm paying for it now).

I look back through all the photographs on the blog and can clearly see a difference and a large improvement in my body size and how healthy I look.

My relationship with food has been revolutionised. I still have stuff to learn, and habits to kick, but never the less I'm changed for life.

Anyway, thanks for coming along with me. Here's to another year of blogging. I may not have lost all the weight I want to just yet, but it's not the end result that is the goal I need to strive for - it's staying on the journey!

Other things happening in my life

• I am getting a new car. Like brand new. It will be silver.
  
• My lovely Jon walked all the way across Scotland and has come home thinner, browner and more relaxed than I've seen him in a long time
• Vicky and I are going to Lanzarote in a bit - to eat fruit, drink wine and get a tan!
• Vicky's sister had a little baby - called Charlie. He's cute
• My salad leaves have grown v. well, but my tomatoes look really sad and puny - fingers crossed for the potato harvest in a month or 2!
• Angels and Demons sucked, but Star Trek was great