A Little Low Of Late

Hi everyone,

Its been a few days since I updated my blog so just thought I'd let you know how things were going.

Things have been tough these last few days. I've found it so difficult to battle my addictions and have failed on several occasions. Normally I'd have the ability to bounce back and just write-off that episode and continue on the diet as normal, but that has proved difficult and I've felt incredibly low.

I've told very few people this, but I feel now is the right time to explain it. Over the past few months I've been battling with depression and intrusive thoughts. To begin with I was ashamed to admit I had a problem and took on the whole male macho setting, believing it was just an episode that would pass in a few days. Fast forward 3 months, a few visits to the local mental health unit and GP's, regular antidepressants and a schedule to start cognitive behavioural therapy and I'm starting to get better.

The only thing with depression is that it seems to come and go as quick as flash with me. Yes, the last few months were spent pretty much rock bottom, but now I have much more better days than I do bad days. But when a bad day comes along, all I want to do is eat myself into a stupor, curl up and shut myself away from the world.

This week has had several of those days and all I've done is eat crap.

I'm not proud of it, and I'm not saying I won't do it again, but what I do need to do is get myself back into the swing of dieting again and increase my activity levels. This is sure to help raise endorphin levels and make me feel slightly better.

So, there you have it. The confessions of a fat bloke! I read day in day out people scolding obese people for the cost to the NHS and the drain on resources. "Stop being so lazy and just stop eating crap", "why don't you just not eat the rubbish and exercise more". I've heard it all, and yes, it sounds so simple, why didn't I think about that? Unfortunately, until you've been in mine or any other obese person's position or suffer from another addiction you'll never know what its truly like to be this way.

Motivation, dedication and the support of those around me are what will get me through this. I'm a mess, but with all of the aforementioned, I can become a little less of a mess in time.

Thanks for having a read of this. Its one of the hardest things I've had to admit to in my life!

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A Hairy Situation

A while back I posted in my Facebook group asking if people think I should grow my beard whilst I attempt to lose weight. The overwhelming response was NO!

I chose to ignore that response and begin making my face more manly! So, this brief post is just to show the progress of my beard cultivation efforts! Further update in a few weeks.

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Some Tasty Dinners!

I've been trying to get on here for the last couple of days to update everything but have been busy with a myriad of other tasks and chores! Tonight is a welcomed change to cleaning and sorting through rubbish in the house!!! That said, I have had chance to play with some new recipes and I've been pleasantly surprised at the results!

Mushy pea & Chicken curry:
The night before last we sat down to mushy pea and chicken curry. Mushy peas? In a curry?? Yep! The sound of it was very off-putting, but we decided just to trust the reviews and have a go at making it.

Like pretty much all of the recipes I make, it was incredibly easy to knock up (my culinary skills know no bounds!). I like one-pot wonders, and this is one of them. Well, almost - the rice was in a separate pot! When cooking, it didn't look much, but I have to say the aroma of the food really came together and towards completion resembled the smell of chip shop curry:

After cooking for around around 30 mins the curry really thickened up and resembled something from the local Chinese takeaway, which is good for my Chinese food addiction!!!

And there's the finished product. Served on a bed of fluffy long grain rice. Lovely! This is also what the call a super free food on the slimming world diet. This means that it has loads of goodies in it that help speed up your weight loss efforts. My rating for this recipe: 5 out of 5 stars! By far my most favourite recipe to date!

Fancy having a go at making it yourself? Find the recipe here.

Spicy sausage chilli:
Tonight I decided to have a go at another super quick recipe (these especially come in handy now I'm back at work again!). 20 minutes from start to finish and scoffed in less than 5!

I fired up my trusty wok and could soon smell that familiar aroma of onions and garlic cooking. For some reason I just seem to chose recipes full of them! I'm not complaining though as they're both very tasty! Next I threw in some mushrooms that had been expertly cut by my son (he loves to cook, or at least try). The sausage was pre-made and ready to eat, so that was promptly chopped and thrown in to the mix for a little fry!

By now I was starting to salivate as this combination of foods began to trigger the happy receptors in my brain! Sad, I know, but I love food! Throwing in a tin of tomatoes and a load of chilli powder made me want the dish even more!

The final dish was surprisingly tasty despite a lack of ingredients. It seemed to go down well with my wife and son as they scoffed it in no time! The beauty of this dish is how quick it is to make. As soon as your pasta is ready, the chilli is too.

Using the ready-cooked sausage meant that this recipe attracted some syns. 14 in total, or 3.5 per portion. Not too bad considering how filling it is!

For its sheer ease of making and tasty result I give this dish 4 out of 5.

You can find the recipe for this dish here.

If anyone does try these recipes please let me know how you get on and if you've got any suggestions for recipes let me know and I'll have a bash at them!

For now, I'm off to bed for an early night (for a nice change!). Keep up the good work folks and keep motivated!

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A Tough Couple Of Days

Today I find myself supervising my son at a children's party. As much as I love my kids and enjoy seeing them happy, the thought of a room full of them screaming and running around like lunatics makes me shudder.

Deep breath...and relax.

Being at the party hasn't helped my weight loss efforts. I can smell party food and the temptation to run along to the vending machine and stuff my face full of anything that can be defined as sugar is running at 110%.

Couple this with the lack of sleep I've had over the last few days and it would seem my motivation has been beaten to within an inch of its life! Do not worry though. Despite having a few rocky days where I've eaten some rubbish, I've managed to grab hold of that slither of motivation and squeeze it dry. So far, no deviations from the diet have occured!

I need to keep reminding myself to take each day as it comes. Rome wasn't built in a day and my journey will take many months, years even. Getting low and disheartened isn't going to do anything to help, nor is feeling sorry for myself.

So, the plan? Grab life by the proverbials and start being what I want to be! Rise above the doubt, the tiredness, the pain and just do it!

Watch this space!!

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Diet Coke Chicken: A Delicious Alternative To Takeaway

Yesterday's tea-time meal was the infamous Slimming World Diet Coke Chicken. I have to say, looking at the ingredients list I wasn't really looking forward to it. I mean, c'mon, who cooks food in diet coke? Well apparently loads of Slimming World-ers do, and they love it!

Preparation was incredibly easy. Basically chop some onions and the rest is ready prepared to cook! I followed the recipe I had found (which can be found here) and it wasn't long before the aroma from the pan started to infiltrate my nose. It smelled amazing! I was half expecting some weird smells, not sure why, but I was pleasantly surprised! Here's how it looks in the pan:

So, as the dish neared completion I saved myself some time (and hassle) by using microwavable basmati rice. Really, to save on money I should have used boil-in-the-bag rice, but I hate making that stuff!

The results of my efforts? See below:

We all sat down (me, wife and two kids) and all of us ate every single bit. I must have tasted pretty good and secretly my head was swelling from all the noises of satisfaction and comments on how good it tasted coming from them.

This is definitely a dish we'll be making often as its incredibly quick and easy to make, totally delicious and comes in at less than £4.00 to feed a family of 4. If I'd gone for the boil-in-the-bag rice.

My rating for this dish: 4 out of 5 stars. Not too shabby!!

Want to have a go at making this? Click the link below for the recipe page:

Diet Coke Chicken

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Syn Free Slow Cooker Spiced Carrot & Lentil Soup

Today I decided to try a new soup recipe for dinner. I found one for something called spiced carrot and lentil soup which is cooked in the slow cooker. Anyone who knows me personally knows I love my slow cooker and swear by it, so it seemed like the perfect choice for me!!

It's really simple to make and turned out really well as you can see from my pics (click to enlarge):

Quite simply you throw all the ingredients in the slow cooker and let it cook for 6 hours on the low setting. The smell of the cumin and garlic in the soup flooded the house, which was nice to inhale, but bad as I wanted to eat the soup so badly. Alas I couldn't as the 6 hours had yet to finish!

Once I finally got hold of a bowl of soup I was pleasantly surprised. Despite the lack of ingredients the soup was incredibly tasty! It had a really strong kick to it, which I didn't mind (put 2 tsp of chilli flakes in instead of a pinch!), but some may find too hot.

The recipe serves 4 people and is completely syn free on the Slimming World diet, so two portions have been put in the fridge for tomorrow's lunch. Eating leftovers has become especially important as money is tight!

My rating for this dish: I give this one 3 out of 5.

If you fancy having a go at making this soup you can find the recipe and instructions at the link below:

Slow Cooker Spiced Carrot & Lentil Soup.

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Busy Busy!

Well these last few days have been really busy and I don't seem to have had much time to sleep either (not good by the way!).

I've been working on a new website commission and have spent some time getting things together with that. Also been helping another client with their existing website too. In between that, I've been doing housework and spending time with the family and kids.

Up until a few hours ago I felt great. I felt life was good and I had a really positive outlook on things. Then my wife went to work and I became the sole guardian of our children for the night. Normally this isn't a problem, but tonight it seems as if Satan himself has possessed both of my kids!

The fun started when my youngest, my daughter, decided it would be fun not to eat her dinner, but instead to smear some of it on the floor and sofa and throw the remainder across the room. Fun for her perhaps, but not so fun for me who had to clean it up. Next my son thought it would be fun to give me a load of cheek, so he was promptly told off and sent to his room to ponder his actions.

After a little while I let him return downstairs where the pair of them messed around until it was bath time. The fun stepped up a gear when my daughter decided to pour a pint glass full of water all over the floor whilst I had my back turned and putting towels away. Needless to say, I saw my backside and got her out of the bath and straight to bed (she wasn't too happy with this!).

She has been shouting at the top of her voice from her bedroom for at least an hour, so I've given in and brought her downstairs. A sachet of calpol and Peppa Pig on the TV has seemed to temporarily subdued her!

Its evenings like this where I could really just reach for some crappy food and eat until I felt sick! Food is my coping mechanism. Bad, I know, but its how I've dealt with things forever and its responsible for me being the way I am. Having the strength to stop in my tracks and decide not to eat that piece of chocolate, or scoff that pack of doughnuts, or devour that piece of cake will define my future self. Unfortunately, right now and in times of stress, that strength is actually pretty weak and habit takes over.

Thankfully this time I had willpower on my side and refrained from eating junk food. To me, this was a big achievement! I hope that I'll be able to keep up this will power and motivation to help me reach my goals!

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A Happy Birthday

Today is my wife's birthday! I won't go into the details on her age, as I'm sure I'll get a clip round the head, but I'd like to think she's had a good day.

The day started with flowers, pressies and cards hand delivered by the kids to their Mammy. A wide grin erupted across her face and the birthday festivities started. True to our diet we had 2 slices of wholegrain toast and a cup of tea (using some of our milk allowance!). We then decided to have a last-minute BBQ.

Heading off to Morrisons with our Slimming World heads on we bought our food in before my wife and my mother-in-law visited Iceland for some meat (much cheaper there!). We had bought a shed-load of fruit and veg earlier in the week as we had taken advantage of the £5 free vouchers in the Sun newspaper, so I made a massive fruit salad, fruit kebabs, a big mixed salad and some chicken kebabs.

All was going really well but then I fell off the wagon slightly and ate a bun with a burger in it. Not the end of the world, I know, and I counted the Syns. Unfortunately it didn't end there. I had a second bun and a couple of slices of pizza. And some fizzy pop! I felt guilty as hell afterwards too, which I know is wrong as nothing is off the menu with Slimming World, but the issue was the quantity. The bread and pizza took me way over my daily syns.

So, tomorrow is a new day and I'm really not that worried. Yes, I've had a blip, but the important thing is that it doesn't feel like I've failed and I can continue without ruining things.

Onwards and upwards! :)

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Dan Paton's 123 Miles For Macmillan

I have a friend, Mr Dan Paton, who is on a journey of great length. 123 miles to be precise!

Dan is an avid runner and each year takes time to run for charity. This year he is running a total of 123 miles in various marathons, half-marathons and 10k's to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support. Find out more about Macmillan and the type of work they do here.

Almost everyone will have felt the effects of cancer at some point in their lives. I'd bet that everyone knows at least 1 person who has lost their lives to cancer, and knows a family that have lost someone to cancer. It wrecks lives and devastates all those that it touches.

The guys at Macmillan are working tirelessly to make sure those affected are given the best quality of life and given hope and the strength to continue.

Please take a moment to have a look at Dan's Just Giving page by clicking the link or image below, and if you can spare anything in towards Dan's journey please donate and help the fight against cancer.

Thank you everyone.

Dan's Just Giving Page

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Viewer Discretion Is Advised...

I've been on my slimming world diet for 4 days now and so far, so good. I'm already starting to feel the benefits of it by feeling more hydrated. My wife is also finding it quite good due to the wide range of food we can eat on it. The first few days were admittedly difficult, but I feel like we're making good progress so far.

So, now that you've all been reading my blog for a little while I feel its only fair that you see what I look like. Hopefully this will help explain the struggle I have with my weight. Here goes:

This is me 2 days ago at the weight of 23 stones bang-on. Sorry its a bit blurry, my wife took the picture and it looks like she's had a few beforehand!

I'll keep posting update pics when I think some progress can be seen. Hopefully future pictures will be slightly less nauseating!! 

In other news, my rubbish phone broke again! I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 and it has been nothing but trouble!!! It died on me last week and wouldn't even charge. I tried a new battery in it and it worked for 3 days then died again. It's really annoying as I can't upgrade until October time and buying a temporary phone will cost me a small fortune! I also need to find a way to get all of my user data, pictures, videos and music off it too.

It also means I'm going to be posting a little less on here and my Facebook group until the problem is solved. Its surprising how much we all rely on mobile phones these days! I miss my apps already!!!

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Site Update

I've been busy working away today at updating the blog to give it a new look and some additional resources. It's still in its early stages and will take me a little longer to get everything up and running fully, but I hope you like the face lift so far.

I'm always open to ideas and suggestions so please do feel free to get in touch if you have any ideas or comments using the 'contact me' form on the home page.

If you're interested in starting your own website or blog then I may be able to help. Get in touch and we can discuss more.

In terms of diet, things have been going great! The slimming world diet my wife and I are now doing is brilliant and it almost seems like I'm cheating it as I seem to be eating loads! I can see why so many people succeed using this diet.

I'll give a better and full update on things soon, but in the meantime feel free to join my facebook group for daily posts, tips and discussions. You can find it here.

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Charlie Walduck

I had a surprise post on my facebook group over the weekend from my friend Mike Cubin stating he had contacted Charlie Walduck via Twitter and asked him to retweet my blog. I was pleasantly surprised to find he had done so to all his followers and had also asked to join my facebook group!

For those who don't know who Charlie is, he is a fellow Barrowvian (from Barrow-in-Furness) who lost a massive 30 stone in two years. He now runs marathons for charity as well as helping others lose weight and performing as a stand-up comedian.

Please take a moment to have a look at Charlie's website, http://www.slimmercharlie.co.uk/

You can also follow Charlie on Twitter https://twitter.com/charliewalduck

Also please help me and others by joining in on my facebook group here.

Thank you to all of you who already interact on my blog and facebook pages. Your motivation helps keep me going. I hope one day to be as successful as Charlie and beat my food demons!

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A new day, a new start

Its been a few days since I last posted on my blog and to be honest, I just haven't felt like posting on here. The reason for this is that I have been feeling incredibly low these last few days and have had trouble controlling my thoughts and emotions.

I promised myself when starting this journey that no matter how I felt I would 'just keep going' and move further towards my goals. Unfortunately, this mantra has proved difficult to adhere to and I have found it incredibly difficult to follow.

Diet-wise, things haven't been great. I haven't eaten any rubbish as such, but I haven't stuck to my low-carb side of things either. I feel disappointed at myself for feeling this way so early in my journey, but I can't let it get to me. I need to jump back on that wagon and fasten my seat belt, keeping the thought that tomorrow is another day in the forefront of my mind.

So, where do I go from here? I pick myself up, dust myself down and just keep going!

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