Being Number 1

My first blog in a while…. I’ve had a really crazily busy few months, a new job and running my own business has meant that my working day now starts at 4.15am and finishes anywhere after 6pm. Now don’t get me wrong, because I run my own business, I will NEVER complain about being busy and am grateful for each and every one of my clients. However I got a huge wake up call the other day, when I realised out of all the things that were a priority in my day, I wasn’t one of them!

  I’ve spent the last four months accommodating everyone and anything. Just before I went on holiday, there was a moment when I honestly thought I was going to be really poorly. 

  Ironically a trip to Las Vegas, a city that NEVER stops and is pretty much 247 helped me slow down and take stock. 

As I got on the plane, I realised that they last time I’d picked up my Kindle was months ago and I was only a few pages into a book that I had been dying to read. Yet reading is one of my favourite things to do! As a child, I devoured book after book, getting the train to uni, I read anything I could get my hands on. These days I have a bookshelf full of books that have perfect spines. (I believe the sign of a true reader is one who has a bookshelf full of books with cracked spines and well-thumbed pages)

Some of my favourite, well read books!

  I wondered why on earth I wasn’t doing the things I enjoyed? In Las Vegas, we walked for miles, in and out of the different hotels, various tourist attractions, museums, bars, restaurants and we laughed…. we laughed a lot! They were those proper belly laughs that leave your face in a permanent state of happiness.

  BUT, there’s always a BUT isn’t there? It was whilst I was away, I became aware that one of my friends, had done something that really upset me. As I moaned to my sister over a glass of wine and a bowl of dubious looking nuts, I realised that the best thing to do was to mention it.

  I think I fall into the “old reliable” category with some people. I don;t hear the word "thank you" as much as I should, it's expected I can wave my magic wand and make stuff happen, or some friends don't realise that a text every now and again to see if I'm OK, would be nice.  I think some people see my generally positive outlook on life and they think it / I don't matter / wont mind!

Well all fat people are jolly, so even if it does make me sad, I wont be sad for long!

So I decided to say something, the response, was something along the lines of “sorry your upset, but we only invited 35 of our closest friends”.

  It was a bit of a wake up call, because I realised that over the last few months, I hadn’t even made my own top 35, so why should I make anyone else’s?

  I’d planned and cancelled gym trips, because someone needed something from me, I’d sacrificed time cooking and planning healthy meals and eaten toast because I was too tired to cook anything else and there’s certain family members who have forgotten what I look like!

  So I’ve decided its time to start putting myself first for a change, which is really why I’ve started writing the Slinky Blog again. Blogging helps me focus on getting fit and healthy and reminds me what I’m trying to achieve.

Lovely Las Vegas

It’s been quite a few weeks; everything has been really busy, in some ways that’s been good and in others not so good. Either way my diet has suffered and I found myself slipping into old habits. In the run up to my holiday, unlike normal people who panic diet so they look great on holiday, something in my head thought “screw it, I’m still fat, I’ll still be fat on holiday, so I’ll worry about it when I get back!

  I went on holiday to Las Vegas, which is an amazing place and as it turns out, a place where actually anything does go. If you want to drink beer and gamble at 8 in the morning, you can drink beer and gamble at 8 in the morning and no one will judge you. If you want to dress like a female member of Kiss and stand in the street with your boobs out, apparently that is also acceptable. I’m not 100% sure I would get away with either of those things in Mansfield.

Grand Canyon selfie

  Las Vegas is very much a place of excess, which is actually no good if you’re on a diet and easily led. I am both of those things, so despite my best intentions, the first morning I ordered fruit and yogart for breakfast (yay me) the second the gloves were off and out came the pancakes and then the next morning the waffles and so on! I could offer an excuse as to why, but the truth is I like pancakes and I like waffles and I never eat them at home! 

  If you’ve read the Slinky blog before you’ll know that a few months ago I was hypnotised into believing that sugar tasted like poo and smelled like dirty toilets, which worked and I didn’t touch anything sweet for ages, even sitting in meetings with cakes right in front of me and going out for afternoon tea, where I only ate sandwiches and genuinely wasn’t tempted by the cakes, but in Vegas all bets were off and my sugar addiction came back in force.

  Pancakes and waffles for breakfast, chocolate puddings, ice cream, these really lovely little petit fours served in one of the best restaurants I’ve ever been in (Picasso in the Bellagio hotel) and then I even started eating the little hotel chocolates they leave on your pillow and they are always really horrible chocolate!

Chocolate pudding

Petit Fours from the Picasso restaurant

  So now I’ve been back a couple of weeks and by the time I set foot on English soil, despite having one of the best holidays ever and loving every square inch of Vegas, I felt so bloated and horrible, that I knew it was time to reignite the Slinky diva in me. Out came my DNA fitplan and for the first time ever I made a shopping list as opposed to wandering aimlessly round the supermarket looking for stuff I might like.

   Sugar has once again been knocked on the head and if I do get a craving I’ve started tapping. (Tapping is where you tap different pressure points on your body and it helps break the craving, it also works for my panic attacks) I’ve also reduced the carbs I eat, because according to my DNA I do not respond well to them, but I’ve decided if I want I can have carbs once a week.

  For my first weigh in, which was Tuesday, I’d lost a pound, not a huge amount, but at least it’s starting to come off again and I feel so much better and although there have been a few sugar cravings. Someone posted a picture of a Nutella cheesecake on Facebook the other day and I found myself trying to come up with legitimate reasons I could make one, but I soon snapped myself out of it. The carbs I haven’t really missed at all. Hopefully next week a few more pounds will have disappeared!