A Triple Threat

Four and a half pounds OFF this week, I think that’s the biggest loss I’ve had since the first few weeks of starting Weight Watchers and I’m very proud of myself. I was asked what I’ve been doing differently and at first I said nothing, but then I thought about it and actually I have been doing stuff differently. I’ve basically been sticking to the plan, quite rigidly. I think when you’re on a diet for a long time, bad habits start to creep in, you might not count a bit of mayo you have on your salad, you sneak half a biscuit out the tin, because how much damage can half a biscuit do? This week I’ve stopped this, no more half a biscuits, I’ve eaten the whole biscuit and counted it!

Rich Tea biscuit, 1 Weight Watchers prop-point

  I’ve also been drinking more water and because I sometimes find water bland, I’ve been adding cucumber, mint, lemon and lime to it and drinking a couple of these everyday. It tastes lovely and is a bit more interesting than water!

So this week I’m a happy Slinky!

  When it comes to my Slinky mission, I’m quite realistic, I know ultimately in total I want to lose about 10 stone; this will take me down to a healthy weight, well within my BMI. Dress size wise I’ll probably be a size 12 and I’ll still have my curves and my boobs. That is what I’m aiming for. Whether it’s because I grew up in a household where we watched films starring the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Margaret Lockwood and Bette Davis, but I think a woman should have a bit of meat on her, just maybe not as much as I have at present.

    I remember my Mum saying to me once that if I was careful with what I ate, then I could always be a size 10 and I think growing up a size 10 was as the Beautiful South sang about perfect. Then at some point in the noughties if you were a size 10, you were chubby and being a size 0 was what was considered beautiful!

  Models, celebrities and those girls who like to think they’re famous because they once bumped uglies with someone slightly famous, all seem to strive to have a “perfect body”. But as I flick through the pages of a magazine, it seems the perfect body involves having various bones sticking out of you; collarbones, spine and ribs and boobs are a big no-no! I always wonder how they’re not in constant pain? I always think if I looked like that and my dog jumped on my knee, Cyril could cause me multiple bone fractures!

Me & Cyril

Whenever a magazine does a feature on how much a celebrity weighs, I always look at their height, that way I can try and put it into perspective as to what I would look like at that weight. At my skinniest ever, I was 9 and a half stone and I’m 5ft 6, I felt I looked a bit like a lollipop head (my head looked too big for my body) Victoria Beckham is apparently 5ft 6, (if I ever meet her, I’ll get her to take her heels off and stand back to back with me so I can measure) She is famously a size 0 (UK size 4) and knowing how I felt at 9 and a half stone, I think if I were a size 0, I’d just feel like I’d turned into Jack Pumpkin head.

  However, in my opinion, there’s a far worrying trend started to sweep celebville. It now looks as though if you’re a size 0, you’re likely to be subjected to chants of “who ate all the pies” as celebs now strive to be a size triple 0! Apparently “thin is in”, but it’s really annoying as triple 0 sizes aren’t readily available! I say that’s not annoying; I say that’s a good thing!

  Now don’t get me wrong, I know (because I have friends who genuinely have this issue) that there are some people that struggle to put weight on and remembering to eat is a problem, not because they don’t want to, but because food isn’t important and they’re busy doing other stuff. I just think that to go on a diet so extreme that it could affect your health is bonkers.

  However slowly my weight is coming off, it’s coming off and I’m not harming myself in the process, I am re-educating myself when it comes to eating, I’m learning not to use it as a crutch for everything and I’m discovering forms of exercise I actually enjoy so in the words of Ol’ Blue Eyes I’ll do it “My Way” and by that I mean follow the Weight Watchers plan!

It's a 10 From Me

Another pound gone this week and if I’m honest I was a little bit disappointed because I’ve worked really hard and not a drop of alcohol has passed my lips since New years Day! Still a pound off is better than a pound on, I think sometimes I have to remind myself that my Slinky mission will be a long one and that nothing good ever came easy!

   Lucy and I set ourselves the challenge of not drinking till our mid month jaunt to York. To be honest it’s not been as bad as I thought, but then we have filled our weekends with trips to the cinema. So far we’ve seen “Last Vegas” (very funny) “Mandela; Long Walk to Freedom” (generally brilliant and it stars Idris Elba, who I love  and it made me shed a tear) and “Delivery Man” (just a story really, but a chance to perv at Vince Vaughan) 

  We also went to see “Peter Pan” with the Hoff, which was brilliant, apart from the slightly weird child who sat in front of me. She reminded me of the girl from “The Exorcist” maybe because she kept spinning her head round! She seemed more interested in me than the Hoff, she spent so much time staring at me, I almost felt obliged to sing her a song so her parents at least got some of their money’s worth!

  I also watched “Pretty Woman” for the first time in ages too. I love this film! I remember going to the Regent cinema in Kirkby with my Mum to watch it, because she loved Richard Gere. The Regent had cinema tickets that still said a shilling on them, even though it was 1990 and a bucket in the middle of the aisle to catch the water that leaked from the ceiling, but the building looked as though it belonged in a Hollywood film!

  “Pretty Woman” is one of those films that has gone down in history for many reasons, firstly there’s the shopping scene “big mistake…huge”

There’s that amazing red dress

And of course the fact it has a happy ending!

  Watching the film yesterday, when Julia Roberts does find a shop assistant that will be nice to her, she says “oh you’re a size 6” (UK size 10) and lets face it, she’s pretty perfect. Julia Roberts has a new film coming out soon, “August: Osage County” and she still looks exactly the same.

  Last night when I got home, I was flicking through a magazine and their front cover was full of pictures of really skinny stars and the headline “A Detox Too Far” the article inside was all about certain Hollywood stars and how they were living on diets that consisted of 300 calories a day or only drinking juices and exercising for up to 10 hours a day. Whenever I read articles like these, I always like to see how tall they are, so I can put it into context compared with my height and weight.  

  I’m 5ft 6 and when I originally got down to my goal weight I was 9 stone 10, for a few reasons I ended up dropping a few extra pounds and for a while I looked like a lollipop head (my head was FAR too big for my body) and I knew I didn’t look healthy or very good.

   Although I have a way to go on my slinky mission, I reckon my goal weight will be 10 stone 7, at this weight I know I’ll keep my curves and yet look healthy, I’ll also be a size 10 / 12, and I will be over the moon with that!

  Some of the actresses in this article were the same height as me, and the experts were speculating that they weighed anywhere from 6 to 7 stone. The images were such a stark contrast to Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman” who looked glossy and healthy.  I started to think about celebrities who's style and bodies  I did admire and the thing they all had in common were a few curves! 

  For me, however much I want to lose weight, I'd rather do it a pound a week and stay healthy, than live on 300 calories a day, I know it would give me massive food mood and after a day (if I lasted that long) I'd just end up stuffing my face with chocolate!

  

Katie ♥ Matt (IDST)

I’m going to hold my hands up; I haven’t made it to weigh in this week for a number of reasons really. 

1) I’ve been in London for a few days and the timing of the trains meant we missed the morning meeting 

2) We had an business meeting, which meant we couldn't attend t the evening meeting.

   If I’m doubly honest I’m also pleased because although I wasn’t naughty whilst we were away, I wasn’t as good as I could have been, there were a few cocktails and a scampi and chips incident on Monday night after we came out of the concert, I can’t lie, I really enjoyed them!

Katie & Lucy London selfie!

  Still it’s back to my Slinky mission and today it was back to my morning porridge and fruit, I think a treat every now and again is fine as long as you go back to the diet straight away.

Breakkie of porridge grapes and banana

  Lucy and I went to London as we had tickets to see Matt Goss. Anyone that knows me well (or is even just a casual acquaintance) will know that I LOVE Matt Goss, I have done ever since I was young and in some ways I consider him my first love because he was the first boy I wanted to be my boyfriend. In fact he’s the reason I wanted to be a journalist, I remember watching a behind the scenes programme about “Smash Hits”, which was my favourite! The programme showed the journalists heading off to interview popstars and it dawned on me that if I became a journalist I could one day meet Bros!

 I did become a journalist and one day I did get to interview Matt Goss. I think out of all the people I’ve ever interviewed (the clanging you can hear is me dropping names) Michael Buble, Gary Barlow, Olly Murs and JLS. Matt Goss is the only time I have ever been at a loss for words! There was him and me in a studio and he said “would you like me to sing for you first”, I said yes and then all I could do was stare at him, because deep inside I knew my 12-year-old self was screaming her head off! I remember thinking I’m going to have to explain why I’m staring, I explained what a fan I was and his exact words to me were “would it help if I hugged you” I thought that’s not going to help at all, but I REALLY want you to touch me! Truthfully the interview was a mess, because I could barely string two words together, but I felt like my years of university and 3.30am starts had all been worth it! 

  It's always weird when you get to meet someone who's poster adorned your bedroom wall and I had Bros posters EVERYWHERE! My Dad even drank copious amounts of Grolsch so that I could have bottle tops on my shoes. I realise that statement will mean nothing to anyone below the age of 30!

   My love for Matt hasn’t dwindled at all over the years and seeing him perform on Monday reminded me that I really am capable of achieving whatever I want. Alright at 12 years old deciding to become a journalist so I could meet my favourite popstar was quite a statement to make! I think as I then became a fan of NKOTB, BLue, Bon Jovi and a million other bands, I wanted to pursue my ambition because I like talking to and meeting people, whether they're famous or not and I have only ever really wanted to do something that involved me entertaining, whether it was through the written or spoken word. Back in the day Kirkby girls didn’t work in radio, in fact the radio station my career started with didn’t even exist, so I’m not really sure how I ever thought I was going to do it, but do it I did!

  What it’s done is remind me that even though my weight loss might not be as quick as I would like, I am achieving something and I am getting there. It’s easy to let comments such as “you probably wont ever lose all your weight” or people who just generally try and knock my confidence get to me. I know what I’m capable of and I know however crazy what I want to achieve may seem, when I really decide I want to do something I find a way to make it happen! So even though it took me 15 years to meet my idol, I did it, I'm just hoping it doesn't take me 15 years to get to goal! I've just always been slightly sad that there's no photographic evidence, because I forgot my camera, I like to think Matt and I will ways have studio B at Mansfield 103.2 to look back on (well I will!)

Matt Goss or Mr Trinder as I like to call him ;)

I Get Knocked Down.....but I Get Up Again

So my holiday naughtiness resulted in a weight gain of 3 ½ pounds last night. I’m not too down hearted about it, even if our Lucy did only put on half a pound all the time we were away! It’s not an insurmountable amount of weight to re-lose and I am focused on what I’m doing, so I’m sure next week I’ll be woo-hooing as I get off the scales.

 To keep me out of trouble (for trouble read fridge) I bought a couple of magazines on my way home and I reached the conclusion that actually you just can’t win! Over the years I’ve had a whole myriad of abuse, such things as  “my boyfriend thinks you’ve got a big bum”, to which I replied “well he clearly doesn’t think at all if he’s dating you” (high five on the comeback) And my favourite,  “you made sandwiches for *****” the last bit of abuse was slightly more involved and from a woman who I lovingly called Vile Scabby Fanny (or VSF when I was e-mailing friends with various tales of her craziness) The long and short of it is, everyday she made sandwiches for this person, sometimes lovingly placing them in front of him with an accompanying packet of crisps and other times throwing them at him without a word. It became quite a past time to see what it would be! This one day she walked in with nothing and stormed past, when questioned about the lack of sandwiches, she merely replied that she’d heard “that slag Katie has made you sandwiches” I wouldn’t mind, but I’d never even made him a brew let alone a round of sandwiches.

  My point is that the magazine (edited by a woman I might add) was full of abuse and it just made me think that celebrities must pick these up and just want to cry – they get a huge  amount of ridiculing, even if it isn’t sandwich related.

  The articles were things such as: some girl from “Geordie Shore” was moaning about how much weight she puts on during the show – well they do drink their body weight in Jagerbombs (300 calories a time if you’re interested) so it’s going to take its toll!     

Chloe Madely was criticised for tweeting a picture of her amazingly flat stomach, apparently she’s promoting a bad body image because she’s TOO SKINNY! I think she looks great and have tummy envy!

Posh Spice had been spotted out in the same outfit twice – yes you read it correctly twice! How very dare she go out in a pair of jeans and a black vest top on more than one occasion. I love Victoria Beckham, I think she looks great, plus she’s a working mum of 4, maybe some days she just needs to get dressed and get out the house quickly before one of her kids puts sticky fingers on her.

  There was a whole section on Jennifer Lopez and her “Britain’s Got Talent” outfit, I must admit I did think she was channelling her inner Cher circa “The Turn Back Time” video, but hey if I had that body, I’d go to the supermarket in that leotard thingy (do you call it a leotard or is their a more fashionable name?)

  Then my favourite type of article “how insert name of reality TV star here lost 3 pounds on a heartbreak diet”

  The bashing wasn’t just reserved for the women in fairness, they did a piece on how former heartthrobs had got less hot – Mr Big now has a belly and a beard, John Corbett (SATC Aiden) now looks like D’artagnan and Matthew Perry now looks older than he did in “Friends” (well it did finish 9 years ago and I’m sure we all look older than we did then!)

  By the end of the magazine, I felt a bit fed up, it would appear that it doesn’t matter what you do, someone always wants to criticise? Why? I’m not sure I even know the answer, or indeed if there is one. So this is what I’ve decided to do, I’m starting a grateful journal and everyday I’m going to write down 5 things that have been good, even if it’s just something as simple as I saw a robin in the garden.

  I'll leave you with this song, it has some great lyrics, that Baz Lurhman chap knows exactly what he's doing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI

My grateful journal