Desperately seeking the real Auburn

Hi everyone! I'm home at last! Well, actually, I got home in the early hours of this morning - 5 o'clock to be precise - after (a) getting lost on the motorways between the airport and chez moi, and (b) having the car break down :banghead: Awful, awful day, but we made it back in one piece, that's the main thing.

But now on to the more serious matters... the challenge! I couldn't weigh myself properly in Spain as my mum's scales don't match mine, so I guestimated 81.9kg on the Friday morning weigh-in, and was rather put out to find myself this morning at 82.2kg. Not good. My chances of elimination have risen, of course, but I still have a number of days ahead. I've got myself back under control today so I could still be in the running... but we'll have to wait and see.

You know, Kimberly, I did end up having something to drink at my mum's birthday on Saturday but I also did some exercise! I've avoided all junk food as well since the beginning of your challenge, so that has to count for something!

Yes, Angel, in an ideal world I would have been strong-willed and I would have exercised! But if I was strong-willed, I wouldn't be where I (unfortunately) am today!!!

BTW, Margaret, I got a pedometre, which is firmly strapped onto my leg so it will be interesting to see how that pans out in the next few weeks.

7 January: today's eating and exercising:
WEIGHT: 82.2 (let's call it water retention!)
Breakfast: slimfast drink, lowfat yoghurt
Lunch: mixed indian-style vegetables, lentils, a small potato, rice
Dinner: home-made vegetable pizza (with stacks and stacks of veggies)
Snacks: -
Drinks: 6 glasses of water, a cup of tea
Exercise: 30 minutes
Pedometre reading:
 
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Hi Auburn

I am sorry about the nightmare journey home. You did well not to pour yourself a stiff drink on getting in.

You are doing great. Lots of people seem to have succumbed to temptation once - although I havent checked out which teams they are in. All that you can do now is make sure that you do not do so again and try to get your 5 hours of exercise in. I have done mine and I know that you can do yours.

You are not the only one who's weight is currently up. My weight is a pound up (I am retaining water). All we can do is eat healthily and exercise and hope that the weight comes back down. It often does very quickly - so we can just hope that it does that.

TACTICS: We can probably make our weight be seen in the best light by
a/ weigh both Thursday and Friday and choose the best weight for challenge purposes (Kimberly has confirmed that we can use either day's weight and we do not have to be consistent).
b/ make sure Wednesday and Thursday we drink a full 2 litres of cold water. I think that this will be a little more than you have been having unless you are using very large glasses.
c/ try and avoid anything too salty or spicy. They can make you hold water.
d/ consider when to weigh. The lightest that I can ever get weighed is when I weigh on absolute empty. I normally pee, walk 6 miles, pee again then weigh. Obviously - if you can poo too - all the better. All very, very basic stuff - but it might just save your skin in the challenge.....

Take care
Love
Margaret
 
Yes, Angel, in an ideal world I would have been strong-willed and I would have exercised! But if I was strong-willed, I wouldn't be where I (unfortunately) am today!!!
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glad you're back home! 0.3kg isn't too much to be worried about. it will go soon enough! i love journeys like that which justdon't go to plan but then again i better do considering the amounts of times its happened to me. its a mini adventure i think lol!
talking about strong willed...you didn't have any junk food away from home. i lost bonus points for 1 day for eating 'bad' calories! i don't think you'll be eliminated though. just excercise like a machine the next 3 days. hehe.

;-)

x
 
Hi Auburn!
I'm visiting the diaries of those who are in the nys-vday challenge with me. :D

It's great to see someone else usings kgs! I always get confused with lbs.

It sounds you had fun at your mum's birthday. I love spain, I've been there 4 times and always had a good time.

Good luck with the challenge(s)!
 
Hello Margaret and thanks for all your very strategic advice! I like the idea of making sure that I'm really on "empty" - I can see that I'll be weighing myself several times on both Thursday and Friday! :smilielol5:
In fact, I didn't succumb to the stiff drink on the motorway-journey-from-hell, but I ended up buying some M&Ms at a service station. What with the tiredness and the moral at rock bottom, I needed a little something to keep me going. So, in terms of the challenge, I've retained my bonus points for Friday and Monday, but lost them for Saturday (booze) and Sunday (chocolate). I'm going to work hard on the exercise to try to catch up. I'm lucky that junk food is rarely part of my downfall, and I find it fairly easy to avoid sweets. My problem has always been centred on fatty foods, lack of exercise, and the demon drink! :banghead:

You also mentioned about drinking water and avoiding spicy food. I tend to drink 5 or 6 largish glasses of water a day (about 1.5 litres) so I'll have to up that. But tell me, does the water drinking really work? Unfortunately I love fairly spicy food. Nothing too hot: you'd never get me eating a vindaloo, but I often add a bit of paprika, cumin seeds, ground corriander or curry powder into my dishes. Are these spices really dangerous for weight-loss?

Hi Angel, I didn't see that you'd lost points for "bad" calories. Well, it seems that a lot of the people in the challenge are finding it tough-going. I guess if we could easily avoid junk food, sweets, alcohol and if we could exercise our backsides off for several hours a day, we wouldn't be part of this forum!!! But you seem to have done fine in the past couple of days. Did you read Margaret's tips to me in an earlier post? Both you and I could do with learning them off by heart, I think!

Hello India and thanks for visiting my diary. I will pop in and visit yours later today (if you've got one, of course!). Yes, the kgs versus lbs is confusing unless you've been brought up in both systems. I'm originally from Britain so my first system of weights was stones and pounds (which those on the other side of the Atlantic don't usually get - but I'm not sure about those "down-under"). Here in France they use kgs so, seeing as my scales are in kgs and have been for the past 11 or so years, I've got quite used to those. However, most people on the forum tend to work in simple lbs, so to really keep track and compare, you need to "translate" your kgs into lbs. I usually post in all three systems (yeah, I'm tri-lingual!!!). Do you know how to convert? It's 1 kg = 2.2 lbs. You'll soon get the knack of it!
 
Hey, it's okay, Auburn! I think almost everyone has had a slip up or two. I haven't had any slip ups (which I find amazing because I loove sweets) but I'm having trouble getting off my butt and exercising.
 
Hi Auburn

As far as saltiness goes - that has definitely made my weight go up. The Friday before Christmas we had roast pork and for the first time in ages I had the tiniest bit of crackling to nibble while dishing up. I didnt put any on my plate but did nibble a bit the size of a fingernail. As you know - my food is very repetitive and the only real variable tends to be my evening meal. The next night I had pork and vegetables again cut from the same joint. It was basically identical except that I had no crackling. My weights for the 3 days
Fri 12st 5.8 lbs
Sat 12st 6.2 lbs
Sun 12st 5.0 lbs
I really do put the temporary gain down to the salt on the crackling. If it was the fat of the crackling it would have stayed longer.

Everyone knows that I swear by salmon. I also tend to get very good results when I eat other fish too. Baked mackerel tends to be good for me. Tesco does a mackerel in a spicy marinade which is enjoyable but instead of losing weight when I have it I tend to get a temporary slight gain. As with the salty example my weight is back to the previous days weight or lower a day later - but in the first instance it goes up. The most likely explanation that I can think of is that the spices do what the salt does. It is enough to make me steer clear of anything too spicy just before a challenge weighing.

I certainly think that the water drinking helps. I always try and get in my 2 litres every day. I notice that Avenue has just endorsed the concept of drinking water in Tabithas diary. I would definitely drink my water on the day before a challenge weighing.

Take care
Love
Margaret
 
Auburn said:
Hi Angel, I didn't see that you'd lost points for "bad" calories. Well, it seems that a lot of the people in the challenge are finding it tough-going. I guess if we could easily avoid junk food, sweets, alcohol and if we could exercise our backsides off for several hours a day, we wouldn't be part of this forum!!! But you seem to have done fine in the past couple of days. Did you read Margaret's tips to me in an earlier post? Both you and I could do with learning them off by heart, I think!
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i have for one day but the rest have been fine so far. thats true the hardest bit is giving up the bad foods especially after christmas and new year but i think everyone has done really well so far.

Margaret does have a lot of good advice. she has helped me come a long way.

hope you have/had a good day!

;-)

x
 
I give you kudos for doing as well as you did. Honestly, if I had lost a day's bonus pts from eating something of the forbidden, I'd probably have made the most of it and ate and drank the forbidden the whole rest of the day. :D

Sorry your trip home was also rotten. Having the kiddies with you probably makes it worse. :(

I like spicy food and have never had any negative effects from it on the scale. I make my stirfries spicy nearly everytime, (including vindaloo! ooh I love it!) and have had good success with them. I have heard that spicy food boosts your metabolism. The salt and lack of water, however, is not good. Margaret is spot on there. Sodium makes you retain water, and so does dehydration, surprisingly. When the body is dehydrated, it hangs onto whatever water it has, causing retention. When it's properly hydrated, it gets rid of the excess.

Good luck with the weigh in!!
 
Too much sodium can definately have an impact on the scale, it can stay in your system for 72 hours! I got some new equipment recently and I had to go out of state for training, and we learned that having too much salt really affects the body by not allowing the good things to get into the cells and the bad things to get out. That in turn causes your body to carry extra water to dilute the salt...or something like that! That is why you need to drink more water when you have too much salt, I guess it helps the body flush it out so you won't retain as bad. I am no scientist, this company was just trying to get the point across to us not to let our clients get too much sodium. A minimum of 500 mg and a maximum of 2300-2400 mg.
 
Thank you to all of you for your advice on salt and spices. I realise that I'm really quite ignorant of some of the basic weight-loss procedures! Iwannabething: 72 hours? I'm amazed! That explains a lot!

Lindsey: thanks for your continuing support. I'm really in admiration of your determination and, despite the fac that you claim to have trouble motivating yourself, you seem very focused to me.

Angel: you're right, Margaret is becoming a bit of a guru for me - and I've only been here a month!

BB: I'm relieved about the spicy food. I would have trouble eating the range of vegetables that I do if they were boringly bland and boiled! I like a bit of spice in my life!!!

Well, I think I've bombed out of Kimberly's challenge (BLS) and I'm doing badly at the New Year's - Valentine's, so all in all it's a bit of a disaster :(
What's more, I'm not convinced that my scales are truly accurate, but I'm nervous about buying others in case they immediately add on 20 lbs!!! Oh, I don't think my scales are lying about the trend: when I put on weight, I really have - it's not just the scales. But I'm not sure that the figures are right. Anyway, I'm feeling a bit fed up. I'll get back to the diary later.
 
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Hi Auburn

I think that treating yourself to some new scales is a great idea. We did that in March and hubby found a really good set on the internet. For us it was very important that it went up to a high weight because we wanted to weigh hubby and most home scales do not go above about 22 stone for some reason.

Since you weigh every day - you would be able to keep records as I do for how the different food that you make relates to variations in your weight. That way you can see whether there is any impact based on a host of things. I find that cheese and spices cause my weight to inexplicably rise. Phoebe (allyphoe) tells me that she finds the same with popcorn. The calories can have nothing to do with things - but it can put you off - especially for the day before a challenge weighing.

I was sorry to see that you were eliminated from the biggest loser challenge. I do hope that you are going to continue with it in the parallel contest. The nature of the contest is such that almost everyone will be eliminated before the end. Just about everyone will be competing in that parallel contest before too long. It is great that Kimberly decided to run a parallel competition. I do hope that you have remembered to eat your fibre today!

You do say the sweetest things - but I would never consider myself to be a guru on any subject.

Dont think of anything as being a disaster.

I did manage to get a slight weight loss at the end of week 1. It was only about half a pound though. I am only a fifth of a pound less than I was on New Year's Eve. We all have slow weeks for weight loss at times. Often it comes just before a better week - if we just stay on track.

Weight loss can be a little demoralising at the minute because a lot of people put on quite a bit of weight over Christmas and during the first week back they have been losing those splurge pounds. Splurge pounds do tend to come off comparitively easily. Dont be demoralised by comparing yourself to others. We cannot hope to compare ourselves with them if we didnt put on much over Christmas. Let's face it - you were on holiday in Spain and so the holidays have only been over for you for a few days. Kimberly lost 5 pounds bringing her back to her weight before Christmas. The Krinse (V) lost over 10 pounds - but again - bringing her back to her weight before Christmas. There was quite a competitive advantage to putting on a few pounds - if you lost them at the start of the challenge as they did.

Good luck in the parallel contest.

Take care
Love
Margaret
 
Thanks Margaret for your very long and encouraging reply. I've been feeling a bit down over the past few days, not just because of the weight but due to various things, mainly outside the sphere of my control. Anyway, tomorrow is another day, as they say.

I'll definitely be in the parallel challenge. Just after writing this post, I'm going to pop over and see how it's all going. I'm so pleased that you're still in it (but I knew you would be!). I hope you're right about those surplus pounds being the easiest to lose. It's true that I was pretty disappointed that I'd worked so hard at Christmas to keep the weight off, and that I'd succumbed to only a few temptations in Spain, only to find that once home the weight seemed to be actually piling back on. There's no justice in the world sometimes!

I've bought the new scales, got my pedometre up and running and have eaten well today. The scales show a slightly higher weight than my old ones, but that's OK. I'll survive! They also indicate body fat, which is a bit frightening. The only downside from today is that I didn't get a chance to exercise. The evening's not over, though, so I might get something done before the day is out.

Today's details:
Weight: 82.6 kgs (new scales) = 36.5 kgs fat :ack2:
Food: banana, apple, bread (lots!) + lowfat spread, lowfat yoghurt, light-fried potatoes, veg (spinach, green beans, carrots), brown lentils
Drink: tea, 1L water
Exercise: pedometre =

I'll be back to update this later
 
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Hi Auburn

I am sorry to hear that you have been feeling down. We all have times like that. I hope that soon you will be able to see whatever is troubling you in a new more positive light.

If you are good with your food and try and do some exercise - the weight loss does happen - it just doesnt always happen at the time that we would like it to or that we feel we deserve. Try to remain focused and the rest follows.

It looks like you had quite a decent amount of fibre to eat there - with all that fruit and veg. That looks like contest points to me.

It is great that you have new scales - there is often some discrepancy when scales change so do not worry about that. I have never stood on scales which discern your body fat. I hate to think what they would have said when I was 21 stone. "Help" probably.

I am sure that you will love your pedometer as much as I love mine. I keep looking at it and then decide to walk to another room and add a few steps.

Take care
Love
Margaret
 
Hi Auburn,

I really was sorry to see you eliminated. :( But I do hope you'll join the 2nd chance thread. I know I will once I'm eliminated. It will hopefully keep you motivated.

Don't give up! We all go through bad times. Life has its ups and downs, as I'm sure you know. Just think how proud you'll feel if you stick with the program and lose those unwanted kilos. It isn't easy, but you CAN do it if you really want to. :) It took me 35yrs to learn that. :rolleyes:

LOL@Margaret's scale saying, "help!" :smilielol5: I'm sure mine would've said the same thing, as it was saying almost 20stone when I started.
 
Thank you Margaret and Kimberly for your kind words.

I'm finding it difficult to stay focused at the moment because of several things, but one irritation in particular. Without going into the boring details, I've been studying for exams which I'll be sitting in April. These are fairly major tests with a ridiculously low pass-rate - something like 10%! It is very rare for people to get these exams first time round, so normally candidates have a go one year and fail, attempt again the second year and get a near miss, and then finally pass the damn things the third time round.

This year will be my first attempt but, as I'm working only part-time this year (and I'm back to full time work from September), I've been studying pretty hard, just hoping beyond all hope that this might be my lucky year. But here's the hitch. Apparently these exams are going to be scraped. Arrrrgh! This means that this year will be my one and only chance of sitting them. It's really depressing because, as I said, it's highly unlikely that I'll pass first time. I was counting on this year being a "trial" run and building up my notes and experience for next year. Instead either (a) I give up now, knowing that I've only got a 1 in 10 chance anyway, and I stop wasting my time, or (b) I decide that I've already put in lots of hard work and I can't stop now. I've gone for the second option, but it's frustrating. If (when) I fail, over a year of work will have been for nothing - yeah, except my personal fulfillment, I know!

Anyway, this is one of the reasons why I've been feeling a bit miserable, a bit unfocused and too easily led astray. It's also why I've been sitting on my fat backside, reading, studying, taking notes, etc instead of getting out there for my walks and to the gym. Yeah, excuses, excuses.

However, it really helps to know that there are people out there who are interested and supportive. Really, it's wonderful. I would have really let myself go over the past few days if I hadn't had this forum keeping an eye on me! Thank you!
 
Hi Auburn

I can certainly understand your concern about these exam changes.

I cannot pretend to know anything about the French education / qualification system - but am curious:
Are there any opportunities to transfer to another examining body / institute?
Are there equivalent courses possibly at another college?
Have you asked your course leader / lecturer / head of department if they can suggest anything?
Is it possible to influence the college into changing this decision? - I am sure that there will be many other students that are similarly effected.
Is there a a union for students that you belong to or could join?

I know that you will feel that you have excessive pressure on you to make this year's attempt count by passing. No matter how hard you study you are still going to eat - so try and eat healthily. If you take a break - try and incorporate a little exercise. Exercise can help deal with stress and our bodies work better (including for studying) if we run on quality fuel. We may want to dive into comfort food - but sensible eating and exercise could make your studying more effective.

Good luck.

Take care
Love
Margaret
 
Hi Margaret and thanks for your concern. In fact, these exams are national ones. I'm a teacher, therefore a civil servant, and to get into and eventually be promoted in the French education system you have to sit competitive exams. There are two levels of exams: the first simply allow you to be a teacher at school level. The second set of exams increases your chances of getting a post at university level (in addition, you get more pay and other benefits).

In fact, the system is pretty ridiculous - academic qualifications are NO indication of good teaching ability, and I think that the government is waking up to this idea. They are on the point of obliterating most of the previous teacher recruitment structures to put into place something new. What, we don't know yet!!!

My personal problem is that I have already put a lot of time and effort and, indeed, money (books, etc) into these particular exams, so I can't just give up now. I totally agree that a change is necessary, it's just that I wish they had given us a two year warning!

Anyway, I do take your point. I have to eat, so it might as well be healthy eating. And I know that exercise is a good stress-reducer. In fact, since my earlier message I've been feeling more positive and have been thinking about how I can listen to some of my courses on my i-pod while exercising. That way I won't feeling like I'm losing time! Do you listen to an mp3 or something when you're out walking? I've got friends who swear by those little pocket-sized radios when they're exercising.

Thanks again for dropping by. You're an: :Angel_anim:
 
New start. Positive frame of mind. Focused.

17th January: today's eating and exercise
Weight: 83.1kg / 182.8lbs (36.4kg fat!)
Breakfast: bread, lowfat spread, apple
Lunch: rice, mixed veg (green beans, carrots, spinach), potato, lentils (brown, red), lowfat yoghurt
Dinner: salad (lettuce, raw veg), rice, small bit of cauliflower cheese, spinach (in a creamy sauce - ooops!)
Snacks: protein bar
Drinks: 2L water (YEAH!!!), couple of cups of tea, 1 glass of fresh orange juice, 1 small glass of wine
Exercise: 30mins walking
Pedometre reading: 10,296 steps

I'm pleased about the quantity of water I've drunk (2L - it's almost a first!) and the fact that I did a bit of exercise)
 
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Auburn,

I am glad to see that you are off to a fresh start.:jump: Sometimes that is all we can do. It looks like you are doing great so far today! Keep it up!

I don't know why, but I almost never look to see where people are from. I can't believe you live in France! It must be so beautiful and everyday must be just filled with romance! That is how I picture it anyway. My dad's side of the family came from France and I took French in HS and a bit in college, but I wish I would have learned more. I actually used to work for a woman from France and she had pictures up all over the Center and her house was beautiful...just like a movie with all the intricate feminine details.

I can't wait to go to France someday, there are so many places in Europe I would love to visit, but France is at the top of my list. My old boss would tell us stories about the C'ote D'Azur...wonderful!
 
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