Food / Health / Weight

morning work break…

Has anybody else, like me, been on a diet, on and off, for about 15 years now!! I can only remember once in that time actually being happy with my weight. When my sister got married, I was her only bridesmaid, I suppose that pushed me to do something about it…I worked hard for a year, lots of time in the gym and a very extreme diet (mostly rice cakes!!)

To my credit, I did look fabulous 😉  Trouble is though, once that was over and I started to eat properly, the weight came back pretty quickly.

To be fair, you can’t live on rice cakes, it wasn’t a long term solution! Plus all that time in the gym was time away from my young kids too….

Fast forward…. for the last 6 months I have been excercising about 4 times a week, I’ve been eating relatively clean, bar the odd bad day. I’ve given up drinking for the most part. Anyone want to hazard a guess to how much weight I’ve lost…..

zero, nil, not a flippin pound!!!

It’s extremely frustrating. At least if I was seeing the benefits I would have a little motivation. To top it off I have a serious case of IBD which seems to be getting worse.

swapping tea for hot water…

What I need is a personal trainer, a dietitian and a chef. Sure while you’re at it you may as well throw in a butler and a maid too!!! If I could go back and tell my 25 year old self how much harder it is when you’re, well lets just say 35+, I would tell her to put in the work now and not put it off!!! I saying all of this, I am not deeply unhappy with my body, I know I just feel better when I am a little less wobbly and a lot more healthy.

I have a wedding coming up in October maybe that will push me to work hard over the next few weeks…. maybe an online food diary might generate a few tips! Wish me luck 🙂

Life changing so fast…..

Haven’t written anything in a while but I felt like today I wanted to write how I was feeling…..

My eldest daughter started secondary school this morning. The emotion of it all has been building all summer….. firstly we had ‘leavers mass’ with primary school, the kids sang a song about their hopes and dreams and all the mammies sobbed for their little babies all grown up. The kids were excited to be leaving, the biggest in the school being made to feel like they were the most important people in the school ever. Treated like kings and on top of the world.

Fast forward to uniform shopping and it’s all very exciting (and expensive!!!) The books are covered and new pens and pencils all labelled and ready.

Suddenly, a couple of days before, she’s nervous – now I’ve been nervous all along but hid it well (I hope!!) 

She asks me to promise that everything will be ok. We have ‘a thing’ in our house, you can promise and that’s fine but if you make a pinky promise, that’s serious shit!! You cannot break a pinky promise under any circumstances!! So I promise that everything will be ok. Then she asks me to pinky promise!! Panic…..

How can I ‘pinky promise’ that everything will be ok? Of course I hope it will, that she will make nice friends, that she will be confident, work hard and do well in school. In reality, I have no control over any of this. I had to let her go at the school door this morning and figure out how to do all of the above on her own. In primary we know all the kids, we know all the mams and dads, we know the teachers, it’s all very relaxed and friendly. This is new territory for all of us, we won’t know all the girls or their parents, we’ll rarely get to speak to the teachers.

So I ‘pinky promised’  that it would all be fine, cause I’m sure it will be…. I hope it will be……

So this morning comes, she’s nervous, I’m overly chirpy. The uniform is rigid and new and too big. We get to the school and anxiously await the arrival of a familiar face. The friends arrive and she’s smiling and happy and confident. Then the principal comes out and ushers them all inside. She looks back and I know she wants a kiss or a cuddle but she won’t, not with all her friends there, so off she goes, without looking back. And that’s it, my little girl off to begin a new adventure….

oooohhhh I feel better already, this is like free therapy….. 🙂