I have been absolved!

IT seems I wasn't such an animal over last weekend as I'd thought. You'll all be delighted to hear (I'm sure!) that at my Weightwatchers weigh-in on Thursday evening I'd lost 2.5lbs.

Phew!

I was sure I was destined to be an enormous hippo forever, so I'm glad that it hasn't come to pass just yet! So I've just a half a pound to go before I'll hit the half-stone gone mark and I'll get my 'silver seven'. Am not QUITE sure what that is, but I'm sure I'll find out at the next meeting. I'm slightly scared in case it's some sort of initiation procedure and I'll have to eat celery or something (the food of the devil), but we'll see!

Anyway, to celebrate actually losing some weight and not putting any on as I had imagined, I went straight home and did some sit ups, then went for a walk around the park, then.....ok ok, I didn't do ANY of those things.

In fact I went to the chipper.

There, I've said it. Yes, I bought an enormous bag of chips and chicken burger and I devoured every bite! It was like I hadn't seen food for a year, I understand there's a woman in the chipper still off on sick leave because of it. She's claiming emotional distress. She'd want to try sitting beside a slim blonde on the bus happily eating her way through five pounds of creamy chocolate. Then she'd know ALL about emotional distress!

Since I started this WW mularky I've been seeing food EVERYWHERE! And everywhere I look there seems to be young, slim, beautiful things tucking into dinners that'd put a rugby player to shame. And they're all laughing at me too, waving pieces of fried chicken and melt-in-the-mouth chocolate puddings at me...ok, maybe I'm making that last bit up but you get the drift!

Anyway, this is the longest I've ever stuck to a diet, so I think I'm going to hang on in there and see how next week and the next few weeks go. I think the family Christmas pictures won't be such a disaster this year!

Thanks for all the messages of support! (And if you haven't left me a supportive message yet, then do...remember I know where you live!)

Forgive me reader for I have sinned........

I have fallen off the Weightwatchers wagon. It is with shame and guilt that I must report that on Saturday night I ate a massive chocolate bar pushing me beyond my points limit and if that wasn’t enough, on Sunday night I ate an entire bag of tortilla chips AND drank several full-fat alcopops.

Then on Monday I went to McDonalds.

Dammit, I thought I could slip that one in without anyone noticing! It has not been a good diet week.

As regular (all 181 of you!) readers will know I had my first WW weigh-in last Thursday night and to my delight found I had dropped four pounds. After the success of that I was determined to stick with the plan and so on Friday I ate properly and even managed to have a Chinese takeaway (chicken and mushroom, three points!) without going over my points.

Then came Saturday. I was doing well up until dinner time, when I flipped out in a restaurant with friends and ordered spaghetti bolognese. And a coke. I don’t know what happened to me. I had the sentence “grilled chicken with a baked potato and salad please” all ready in my head but when the waitress came over I ordered the pasta and coke. Sigh. That alone might not have been enough to push me above my 25 points per day, but the chocolate bar I wolfed down afterwards certainly would!

I woke up on Sunday determined to do better and again, was doing well until the evening time when, while over at a friend’s house, I consumed a massive family sized bag of torilla chips single handedly. My friend looked on in horror, the chips had no chance. Again I don’t know what came over me, but I just cracked.

I woke up on Monday determined to do better and again was doing well, until I remembered I had promised to bring my niece to McDonald’s. I should have known better but I didn’t. I brought her along and couldn’t resist ordering a Big Mac and fries. It was a veritable massacre. You’d swear I hadn’t seen food in a week! The child will never be the same again. She keeps having nightmares and waking up muttering about “scary Auntie Kaz, she was so hungry, so very very hungry.”

And so to Tuesday. I stayed within my points limit and again today (Wednesday) I stayed under my points limit. I still have this evening and tomorrow to starve myself in preparation for the big weigh-in on Thursday. If I’m lucky I won’t have put back on the four pounds I lost. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

(I took this pic on my camera phone! Cool no?!)

Happy Halloween!

I AM posting this from downtown Baghdad. Well, almost.

I'm writing to you from Dublin but it's Halloween night and over here we have a tradition where people set off bangers and fireworks both in the run up to the night itself and for several nights afterwards. So since, oh about August now, we've been subjected to things that go bang in the night, but tonight it's like the Gulf War all over again. (Yes, yes, I know I'm being flippant here and fireworks aren't the same as the start of a war blah blah, so please don't email me to point this out!)

Apart from the incessant noise however, Halloween has gone relatively well for the Dunne household (we even had a party for the young-uns in the house) and there was general merriment all round. Well, Mammy and Daddy Dunne seem to have enjoyed it anyway. They're currently downstairs with a "nice slice of brack and a cup of tea". I didn't even know there was brack [fruit cake especially baked for Halloween for those of you not from the Emerald Isle] in the house, it appears Mammy Dunne had secreted it down the back of the gas fire so that it couldn't be eaten in advance of the big day. They're big on tradition in our house, so they are.

I have to say I was incredibly proud of the young people who called to the door this evening trick or treating. Every last one of them said 'thank you' when I gave them some fruit and sweets, with some even going so far as to say "ah thanks very much Missus". Yes, I'm "missus" now. I remember when I was "young wan", but that memory is now in black and white and I'm officially old. It doesn't seem so long ago since I was out there, dressed in a black sack and face paint thinking I was the best witch in the whole wide world. But now according to the kids on my road, I've one foot in the nursing home and the other on a banana skin. I'm 26, it's quite disconcerting!

The only disturbing thing I saw this evening (but bear in mind it's still early) was a group of kids being brought door to door by their parents who were drinking cans of beer on the street. (The parents that is, not the children!) I'm all for a few drinks at any opportunity, but I do feel Halloween and trick or treating is for young children and should be a family occasion not an excuse for parents to get drunk. Even as I type that I feel I deserve my "Missus" title that has been bestowed upon me and that I'm maybe old before my time, but it is something I feel strongly about. I have no problem with parents bringing their children out trick or treating, perhaps having a party in their home for them or taking them to a fireworks display and THEN having a few drinks to celebrate the night when the kids are in bed, that's absolutely fine and normal. But I DO have a problem with parents drinking in the street at 5.30pm while in charge of a whole gang of kids, I just don't think it's right. I don't have children of my own, so maybe I'm wrong but it felt wrong to see it and I know if my mother or father had brought me out trick or treating while drunk all those years ago, it would have spoiled the night for me.

Ok that's the end of my rant now, I'm off to check myself into Shady Pines with all the other old fuddy duddys! Happy Halloween!

Pic courtesy of http://photo2.si.edu/firew/firew.html