Chapter 11 - Chocolate Santa gets murdered

It was just another manic Monday. The day didn´t begin well at all.  I overslept a little and was finally half way to work, when I realised I´d left my laptop at home........a quick detour back home and then rushed to my meeting. The day progressed into a mean Monday with anything that could go wrong, indeed going wrong. I gave up at seven thirty and headed home, frustrated. It was then, after eating some of last nights vegetable leftovers that I saw him on the shelf. 
Santa Claus with his colourful foil wrapping, his ribbon and the jingly bell,it was almost as if it was ringing for my attention. Without hesitation, he was in my hand and undressed, his head smashed on the kitchen table and bit by bit, he was gobbled up, except for his feet. Dark chocolate Santa  - you were the victim of my frustration this evening. Sorry. 


I´m feeling sorry for myself now. Not for Santa. Not only do I feel sick after eating Santa right down to his knees, I´m disappointed with myself for giving in and being so weak.  I´m off to bed now to sleep off my chocolate fix. Hopefully I won´t feel so sick tomorrow. 
Good thing is - all the Christmas chocolates are now gone. But its only 75 days until Easter Sunday when the chocolate bunny bells might start jingling in my direction. Until then I have to work on my willpower and ways of dealing with manic Mondays. Chocolate is not the answer!  Sweet dreams! 

Chapter 10 - Year of the Rabbit (...or was it rabbit food?)

Kung Hei Fat Choi! 

Today is Chinese New Year and marks the start of a special year of favourite animal – the rabbit.  Rabbits have been my favourite pets since childhood– with Mr Snuffelupokos, Silver and Forest, all of which were funny characters who brought much joy into my life.  The only thing I have in common with rabbits right now is the rabbit food diet which I am eating. Plenty of carrots, vegetables and seedy things, albeit in the form of muesli.  Or maybe the way I had to jump around like a crazy animal at zumba tonight.

Chinese New Year resembles yet another new start this year. I have decided to boycott the Chinese takeaway Mr Wok downstairs in my works building and choose more healthier alternatives. I heard  a rumour yesterday that they are even closing down soon……but I don’t think it has anything to do with me avoiding them at lunchtime for the past four weeks.

New Year. New healthy me. With or without rabbits or Chinese food. 

Chapter 9 - Fit in February

My scales showed a measily minus of one hundred grammes this week.  Not a good wake up welcome on the first day of February. Let´s think optimistically - at least one hundred down is better than up or nothing at all.  Week 4 maybe wasn´t as easy as I thought. Perhaps I fell into euphoria and kidded myself that everything was working so well that I didn’t think it mattered that I didn´t drink enough on some days, or that I ate 9 points worth of chocolate one day, even though I was still within my points allowance. Fooling ones self that everything is going hunkydory obviously doesn´t work. 

I felt really grumpy today. I needed some new motivation so - new month - new luck. My new motto is getting fit in February. I really do need to kick my bum a bit more and do more exercise.

After my first zumba class last week, I will be going again this Thursday. I´ve ordered some DVD´s to groove around the living room at home and I´m eagerly awaiting the parcel. 

Tonight I took part in a power walking course, which will take place every Tuesday. A personal trainer guided us around the city park and I liked it a lot. I must admit checking out the participants at the beginning and worrying whether I was going to be the fattest. Luckily I wasn´t.  Apart from fact that it was freezing cold and my sports jacket has now shrunk and become very tight since I wore it last,  it was great and I felt much better afterwards. Thanks to Steffi, who found the newspaper article about this course. It´s much better having a fixed time and appointment. I would NEVER have ventured out into the cold on my own. 

I´ve checked out the times of the swimming baths and might try an aqua fitness course at the weekend. My clothes horse has once again found its previous life of an elliptical trainer, waiting for me to step on and watch tv or read my trash mags. I just need to DO IT! and stop finding excuses. 

Chapter 8 - Cake Mathematics

Today is a bitter cold but sunny Sunday. I already went for a long walk,  did the housework, a huge heap of ironing and even baked a cake.  A cake for guests, which unfortunately can´t make it over anymore.  So now we have cake (or now precisely remainders of cake) looming in the kitchen.

After returning from a walk around the block to the postbox I returned to a house smelling like the magical witches house from Hansel and Gretel. My house smells of chocolate chip vanilla cake, making it almost impossible to cut it out of my mind.

In an attempt to get to grips with the cake I decided to get out my icing writing tube and divide the cake into 2 portions. One tiny corner equalling 1/9 of the cake for me and the other 8/9 for DH – or anyone else who cares to drop by today…….

After enjoying my tiny piece of cake with a coffee, I worked out the points, expecting it to be around 6 or so…….but noooooooooo…..this tiny piece of cake had 10 – yes TEN –points. The whole cake has 90 points. That’s around 3 days worth of food.

I need to stay away from the cake. I´m sure I can do it! With a little bit of luck, my workmates might find cake on their desk tomorrow.

Chapter 7 - Surviving Sweden

At least once a month we have an obligatory trip to Sweden. Now when I say Sweden – I unfortunately don´t mean the beautiful country but the mega large furniture store where I regularly stock up on candles, vases, cushions and usually eat a big fat portion of Swedish Meatballs and fries -  IKEA.

After spending the morning in Bonn and buying half a market stall of fresh fruit and vegetables as well as stocking up on bagels at Bagel Brothers (before discovering they have 7+ points a piece!), we decided to drop into to IKEA on the way home for a mooch around and have a spot of lunch.

Instead of ordering said meatballs I went for the healthy option of couscous with vegetables and a dollop of sour cream on the side. DH had the meatballs. And Fries. I had to pinch one -  just one wee chip. Nothing to shout home about. My veggie dish was much more colourful and inviting than the greasy yellow sticks of potato on DH´s plate.

I survived the Meatball-trap and the Swedish-chocolate-almond-cake-trap, the hot-dog-trap and today even the candle and serviette traps. Not a cent was spent on unnecessary knick-knacks. Something has obviously come over me……….

Pics show my veggie haul from the market, IKEA lunch, my evening meal of salad, a bagel and freshly pressed fruit juice. Smaklig måltid!

Chapter 6 - Zonked after Zumba

Tonight will be one of those rare nights where I´m in bed before midnight. To say I´m tired is an understatement. I´m absolutely shattered. To top it all off I´ve got a headache developing and my feet are exceptionally sore from my new trainers. In a nutshell - I am zonked after zumba. 

Just before six this evening, I met my friend Glo and off we headed to experience the new aerobic-dancing-sensation which has now finally swept over from America. Zumba is a combination of aerobic style moves from dances such as salsa, merengue, flamenco, cha-cha-cha, reggaeton, samba, belly dancing, hip-hop and many more....accompanied by latin music. 

Of course, it all looked so easy when I watched the clips on youtube. But there I stood infront of the mirrors in the dance studio and didn´t like the reflection which greeted me. After ten minutes into the workout Glo and I went from exchanging giggles to glances of desperation. I was tempted to make an exit shouting „I´m a fatty, get me out of here“ but those of you who know me, know that I don´t give in easily – so I kept on going.

Feeling as uncoordinated as the back end of a pantomime horse, on and on I wiggled my hips, often unable to keep to the dance moves and mixing up left and right. The reggaeton music and exotic tunes, which reminded me of Caribbean cocktails and holidays long gone, kept me going and soon the sixty minutes of torture fun were over.

Before I could change my mind, I registered for another 5 sessions. There´s no backing out of this now.

I watched a few infomericals online which showed some mega-brainwashing content of women who lost 20 or 30 kilos just by doing zumba. I didn´t think it was possible. It probably isn´t. Good old QVC and the likes always have a way of making you believe the good in their anti-acne potions / vacum storage systems / milk frothers / hair straighteners and all the other things they sell by playing with your conscience. I have been a victim of brainwash TV. (I even almost presented a series of products on one of these home shopping channels in a previous job, but luckily found a presenter to do it for me....long story .....another day!)

After tonight´s sweating session, I´m still hoping there´s an inch of truth in there. Seeing sweating is believing. I´m off to search the net for a practice-at-home DVD before I fall into bed. Zumbaaaaaaaaaaaaa! 

Chapter 5 - Impatience

Tuesday was weighing day. Eager to get on the scales, I jumped straight out of bed and almost ran to the bathroom. The anticipation began, accompanied by a virtual drumroll in my head, waiting for the results of the last seven days. After the awaited Beep-Beep-Beep the scales showed me my fat percentage (ouch!) and my loss of 600g. Sure, I was a little bit disappointed, but according to WW a pound a week is perfect. A perfect result I suppose, seeing as I was out for meals with work twice last week, followed by a girly weekend drinking wine, champagne and eating pizza whilst DH was away in Munich.  I sinned for a day not counting points properly, but returned to my diet-diary the next day.

My disappointment at the mini-loss confirmed the fact that I am terribly impatient. I like things to go my way, when and how I want them.  But, I guess I’ll have to get used to the ups-and-downs of the diet journey and become a little bit more relaxed and patient. My body isn’t a machine. I didn’t put the weight on in a month or two, but over a period of five years, so I can’t expect to change it back like a scene from Harry Potter by waving my carrot sticks and shouting “Wingardium lipidosa! “

The magical thing about the minus 600g was it brought me to a total weight loss of 4kg.