Days 132 - 134

I've come to the conclusion that I'm rubbish at CD when the boyfriend is around. He had a whole week off work this week and we spent a couple of days together, Wednesday and Thursday, between his two weekends away catching up with friends and family. On Wednesday, my eating went horribly wrong, I had a giant burger with salad and chips so the next day, I was completely out of ketosis. On Thursday we went for a look around the Science Museum which was excellent fun and a great distraction from my rumbling stomach. I ate too much that day too but I did manage to stick to a no-carb diet and thankfully, it was enough to get me back into ketosis.

This morning I woke up with that familiar energetic feeling and a distinct lack of hunger so today has been a perfect SS+ day I'm pleased to say. I've had quite a busy time which also helped keep the diet on track but I really have to figure out a way of sticking to plan when boyfriend is around. It's not his fault really, but I need very little encouragement to stray away from the diet. If I say I really fancy something or I have a really strong craving or I really miss a particular food he'll always encourage me to have it, he is always quick to say 'Go on, eat, it'll be OK'. Nine times out of ten I'll tell him off when he says that but too often I'll just eat. I think I'll just have to keep my urges and cravings to myself in future. I think it's a bit of a shame though because sometimes just a little prod in the right direction or a reminder of why I'm doing this would really help me along.

Days 127 - 131

I've been a very lazy blogger lately, sorry about that!

On Friday, I bought a second hand TV from a very nice guy on eBay. When I agreed to buy it, I knew it was a 32inch, wide-screen, CRT (in dark metallic blue with a matching stand, very attractive!) and I knew it would be huge and heavy but I just wasn't prepared for the farce of getting it home in my friend's tiny car and then getting it up to the forth floor of my old, lift deprived, block of flats. Somehow, we managed to get the giant TV into the back-seat of the car and the boyfriend just about managed to fit in next to it, but we had to disassemble the stand to get it into the boot. Boyfriend and I could barely lift the TV between us but we managed to get it across the car park and up all those stairs with just 3 short breaks to allow our blood to circulate back into our fingers. I spent the rest of the afternoon shifting all my furniture around and rewiring my stereo, computer, DVD player, Freeview box and other things so they were all working together again. I had a great work out that day, I did hurt my shoulder a bit but it was much better in a few days

I had no hunger and plenty of energy all weekend and went out every day while the boyfriend was away. I did lots of walking, a few miles per day and even though my knee is a little on the sore side, it hasn't been holding me back as much as it did a few months ago. Although I'm still waiting to hear about my physiotherapy, I've had some real improvements as far as the pain goes, I think it's just happening on it's own as my weight has come down. The only problem is, it started getting bad a couple of years ago and at the time, I weighed about 2 stone less than I do now so I don't really know what set it off again, I'm still hoping I can get some physio or some sort of help with it because if I lose all the weight I am aiming to lose then find myself unable to walk, I can see the weight creeping back up again and I refuse to diet again EVER!

On Sunday I was a bit bored so I decided to get a bus over to the giant Tesco store on Old Kent Road for a bit of shopping and a change of scenery. While I was there, hitching my only fitting pair of jeans up constantly, I decided to buy a cheap pair of jeans to keep me going. I bought some cheap and cheerful, dark blue, skinny jeans in a size 18. Although the jeans I was wearing at the time were a size 18, I convinced myself that they were only too big because they had been severely stretched, I've had them for 3 years and kept wearing them for a while as I put on weight. However, when I got home and tried on my new size 18 jeans, I found they were also too big so first thing on Monday morning, I rode the bus all the way back to south London and exchanged them for the same jeans in a 16 which fit me quite well, there's minimal muffin-topping, in a few weeks they will be perfect but they are quite wearable in the mean-time.

On Tuesday evening, the boyfriend returned. I'd cooked some stewed lamb to help him recuperate from the long train journey and ended up having some with him. Apart from the fact it was lamb, it was an almost CD friendly meal, it was just stewed with some celery, mushrooms and herbs and served with a little purple sprouting broccoli. I'd like to be able to say I had a sensible portion but seeing as it was lamb, it wasn't very sensible period. It was delicious though!

Day 126

I feel a lot better today than I have in a while, in fact I feel pretty positive for a change. I woke up very early this morning after an 11 hour sleep feeling incredibly well rested for the first time in a couple of weeks. I jumped on the scales first thing when I got up and found I was below the 15 stone mark again which means that come next official weigh-in, I should be comfortably in the 14s and I can't even begin to explain how excited I feel about that! I've made a pledge to myself to play it by the book this week and see how well I can do. All the encouraging things my CDC was telling me yesterday were really starting to sink in today and I feel happy about how much weight I've managed to lose so far. It may be coming off a little slowly at the moment but it's still coming off and it'll probably come off a little faster now I'm feeling more in control.

As the day wore on I realised that I wasn't feeling half as hungry as I have been lately so maybe my difficult phase is over, and not a moment too soon. Over the last 2 weeks I was having more cheating days than good CD-er days and only the guilt of my bad behaviour was preventing me from losing the plot completely. Today I feel refreshed and positive and am starting to feel like my weight goals are achievable again. To further push the point, I decided to try on some of the clothes I was wearing at the start of this diet with hilarious results. I knew that my favourite striped trousers would fall right off so I tried on some jeans that were a little too tight when I was at my largest and they too fell right off in a comical fashion. I tried on a couple of tops too but the effect isn't so spectacular as my bust doesn't appear to have shrunk at all yet.

Feeling buoyed by my comical trouser experience I treated myself to a SS+ appropriate chicken portion for breakfast followed by a cappuccino mousse with a sprinkle of cinnamon. The mousse turned out so delicious I made my boyfriend taste it and he was pretty impressed too. I had a cranberry bar at lunchtime and because I didn't have any veg with my chicken, I dry-fried them with a few herbs and spices and turned my last soup of the day into a 2 course meal. I spread my food across the day enough to not feel deprived at all and I feel so relieved to have got through the day without even feeling tempted to cheat.

My last goal of the day is to stay awake late enough for EastEnders.... nearly there!

Days 124 +125 - Meeting with CDC

Tuesday was another struggle to stay in control of my hunger. I'd been awake since 10pm the previous evening and by time it got light, I was feeling pre-menstrual, starving and exhausted already. I had arranged to go and visit my sister on Tuesday evening so I ate some beef and salad at lunchtime then around 3 that afternoon I decided to have a couple of hour's nap to see me through the day but it went a bit wrong and I managed to sleep for 10 hours solid. I finally woke at almost midnight to find I'd managed to disable my alarm clock in my sleep.

Today has been a little easier. Even though my day started at midnight I somehow managed to stay up until my CDC meeting at 6pm. Here are my new stats:

• Weight: 15st 1lb
• BMI: 33.5

I don't feel great about the result. It's a pretty poor loss and a disappointment as I had weighed under 15st when I first woke up. My CDC refused to let me feel bad about it though and pointed out that I was around my halfway mark now which is definitely something to feel happy about but I'm not feeling it right now. Maybe after a proper night's sleep I'll feel more like celebrating.

Day 123

My suspicions were correct, I definitely have PMS now. I have had that familiar red meat craving for a couple of days and my sleep pattern has gone completely crazy, I'd been awake since yesterday early afternoon and went to sleep about 4pm this afternoon. Even though I've been in ketosis for the last few days, I've still been feeling incredibly tired (although I've been failing miserably to sleep) and very hungry but only for very specific foods so today I had a nice little rare steak and a pile of wilted spinach. Not really very CD-legal but it certainly hit the spot. I went for a nice little walk this afternoon to keep myslf awake and to try and burn some of the weekend's excesses off, just a couple of miles, nothing drastic, but I felt so tired when I got back I had to go to sleep. I was hoping to sleep for about 10 - 12 hours which would have meant I'd woken up at an almost reasonable time but I woke up at 10pm so I don't quite know how I'm going to cope with my busy day tomorrow

Also, I stepped on the scales earlier to find I've put on 2lbs since I weighed myself last Wednesday. I don't think it's diet related, I think it's more PMS related. I think when my official weigh-in comes this Wednesday it will still show a loss, just not a very big one.

Days 120 - 122

I seem to be developing bad weekend habits which I strongly suspect are a lot to do with hanging about with the boyfriend and watching him eating. Although I found some days over the last week quite tough, I seem to struggle more at the weekends. At least this weekend wasn't as bad as the last one. I made fairly sensible non-carb food choices this time and had all the CD sachets I was supposed to have, but I ate fatty meats like lamb and beef and had far too many vegetables. I think my TOTM is due very soon too, which doesn't help one little bit, but at least I don't turn into a chocolate monster like some of my friends do.

Next Saturday the boyfriend is going away for a long weekend, he won't be back until Tuesday so it'll give me a chance to try and behave a little better without someone eating things I can't have around me.

I'll get the weekend munchies under control somehow!

Days 117 - 119

Well, my keeping busy plan worked beautifully and I'm relieved to be back in ketosis properly as of today. Although I had plenty to keep me busy the last couple of days, I was still feeling quite hungry and really found sticking to CD very hard indeed.

While I was working yesterday, my lovely new client brought me a cup of tea and a biscuit but because I was busy and distracted I didn't really register the biscuit and didn't get a chance to say 'Thanks but no thanks'. As soon as I had a spare second I grabbed the tea for a swig then took a big bite from the biscuit without even thinking! As soon as I started to crunch it up, I sort of realised what I was doing by which time it was too late to do anything but spit it out. As you can imagine, there was no way I was gobbing out half chewed biscuit at a new client's home so I silently cursed myself and finished off every buttery crumb.

Today was back to CD normal, food was so far from my mind that I actually forgot to have a sachet before I went out to do some work and I forgot to take any bars or tetras with me so I didn't get anything at all until the evening. It's not something I make a habit of, I'm usually quite good at having my CD meals even when I don't want them but I was just too busy to fit everything in today. I do love a good bit of ketosis!

Oh, and my hair is a deep shade of racing green now, I love it.

Days 114 - 116

I spent the whole weekend feeling really run-down and miserable. I spent many hours sleeping and I ate lots of things I shouldn't have too, things I don't even particularly like. I'm not too sure what came over me, maybe the hard week I'd had just all caught up with me at once or something like that. I spent a lot of last week looking for a job and feeling really stressed out. Things have been really slow on the work front for a couple of months now but they always get even slower just after Xmas so I've been hunting for a boring job like cleaning, just to keep things ticking over. The problem is, because I've been self-employed for a while I don't have any recent employer references and a lot of employers don't accept references from clients for some annoying reason. I'm just going to try and hunt down a temp agency that isn't too fussy about these things, there's bound to be one, and get some boring manual work for a while otherwise the CD is going to become an unaffordable luxury for me.

I was expecting to have a heck of a job getting my diet back on track after my weekend of frivolity but today I've been feeling quite normal and I've hardly been hungry at all! I've had an almost perfect SS+ day, just a sausage over the top. I've got some work lined up for the next few days so that should help keep me too busy to eat hopefully and I am going to see a brand new client on Wednesday so I'm going to give my hair a fresh coat of green tomorrow, that never fails to perk me up.

Days 111 - 113

I've had a few tough but manageable days, I've eaten slightly too much each day but I've made sensible choices so I'm not too upset with myself just a little disappointed really. Although I've started each day in ketosis I seem to get very hungry indeed by the evening and have done a ketostix test each evening only to find I'm not in ketosis any more, consequently, my dinners have been a little on the generous side.

I'm just going to grit my teeth and keep going and hope I can pull it together over the weekend.

Also, my nifty red boots turned up in the post today. I was sensible enough to order them in 2 different sizes in the hope that one of them would fit my big, wide feet. One pair was much too big but the other pair was a little small but wouldn't cripple me and wouldn't have been too hard for me to break in, the only problem was they weren't red! They were a nasty, dull, dark burgundy colour and nothing like the lush, shiny, blood-red colour they looked on the website so they are going straight back to the shop and I'll just have to keep searching...

Day 110 - Meeting with CDC

I had a nice cheerful meeting with my CDC today which ended up being somewhat computer related much to my nerdy delight. I'll happily chat about computers for hours at the drop of a hat and I'm always glad to be able to help people with their computer related problems, maybe that's why I'm not rich yet. Anyway, here are my stats for this week:

• Weight: 15st 3lb
• BMI: 33.9

I've only lost a pound but that's still pretty impressive considering how much quiche and pork I ate in the last 2 weeks. I'm also really feeling in control of my diet now too, more than I have in a while, which is fortunate as I'm still feeling pretty hungry and am praying for ketosis to come soon.

I'm also starting to think I'm losing a bit of hair at the moment. It doesn't look thinner, I do have very thick hair anyway so it would take a long time for that to happen, but there has seemed to be lots more than usual on my hairbrush for the last week or so. I'm not upset but I am a little disappointed, I had quite a drastic haircut a couple of weeks ago, from small-of-the-back length to around shoulder length. If I'd known it was going to start falling out, I may have gone for an even more drastic cut!

Days 108 + 109 - Back on 810 kcals

Well I'm not quite doing SS+ yet as I had hoped, but I've been on about 810kcals per day for this last 2 days and I'm pretty pleased with myself because I'm starting to feel like I have some self-control again. I'm not in ketosis yet though so I'm feeling ravenous but last time I was on 810kcals, I went into ketosis so it should be coming soon.

Because of my non-CD behaviour over the last few weeks, I still have loads of sachets, a couple of tetras and even a few bars left over, in fact, I easily have enough for the next 2 weeks. My CDC is still coming over tomorrow for a weigh-in and a chat but I won't be buying any more CD stuff until the following meeting. I'm a bit relieved to be able to save the cash, after buying so many prezzies for my family I'm completely flat broke at the moment and judging by the amount of work I've been getting lately, everyone else is skint too.

Usually I'll weigh myself the day before a CDC meeting but I daren't today. I'm just going to wait until he's here if I can stand the suspense.

Day 107

Today went pretty much as planned. I ate slightly too much again but it was pure, lean, protein so I'm not worried at all. I'm fairly confident I should be back on SS+ tomorrow and hopefully I'll be in ketosis too. My distraction plan worked well too, I braved Oxford Street today and it was very distracting indeed in a terrifying sort of way. I got a refund on my cute red boots and when I got home, I ordered some similar ones (but in a wide fit) from good old fashionworld.co.uk and they were £20 cheaper too!!

Days 105 + 106

For the last 2 days, I've still been struggling to get back to the plan and failing miserably. I'm not sure why I'm finding it so difficult but maybe I'm subconsciously dreading the carb withdrawal stage. I nearly lost my mind the last time I had to go through that, I'm really no good at hunger and that's one of the reasons I ended up so overweight in the first place.

Although I have eaten more that I should have for a good CD day today, it has all been protein and vegetables so hopefully, cutting down the quantities tomorrow won't feel so difficult. Maybe I'll even be back in ketosis again soon, that would be a real relief! Tomorrow, I plan to go out for as much of the day as possible, hopefully that'll distract me from food long enough to get a grip at last.

Regular readers of my blog will know I have real trouble getting shoes that fit me and I've needed some smartish/neutral footwear for work for a while now. I bought some very cute red boots yesterday in the sale but however much I try to tell myself they will stretch a bit, I don't think I have a chance of breaking hem in without crippling myself and ruining the boots. They actually make my toes go numb after 5 minutes of wear, that'll teach me for thinking a D width could ever fit me. I'm going to spend tomorrow wondering around every shoeshop I can find in the hope that one of them caters for wide footed lasses like me.

Oh I hate shopping!