Random day in the life of me... how boring

I have no idea if anyone cares about what I get up to in my daily life, or if they just want info about what I can do now I am banded... but I guess both must go hand in hand. If you don't know who I am or what I care about, my reactions to banding would not make sense sometimes I guess. It makes my journey unique. Uniquely boring maybe but hey that's life.

Today has been boring.

I did work with DS for the most part of the morning, he does his handwriting, Meleto, maths worksheets and spellings with little input from me, but together we have to go through the book Toe by Toe which teaches reading to dyslexics. I have found that its just good to teach how to read full stop! This is the only tool I have used to get DS to read, and its worked. It worked in about 4 months actually, but as he gets older, he needs to know harder words and stuff... so we are about halfway through that book. Its a fortune at £25.00 but the best £25 I have ever spent. If your kid is struggling to read, then GET IT!!!

Toe by Toe by Keda cowling and Harry Cowling ISBN 0952256401

Then I had to go to work. I had 10 lessons today. From 3:30pm until 9:00pm. Considering the money I get for this, people would think that this is one sweet job, but its not. Its damn hard work. I have done other jobs. Its easier to sit at a checkout for 12 hours straight that do 2 piano lessons back to back. Its in fact like have 10 separate jobs. Yes, you are doing the same thing - teaching music, but every pupil is so totally different - emotionally, socially, physically and mentally - that my mind has to do somersaults to get into mode. I guess you could say its like working half an hour at Tesco, then half an hour at Co-Op, then Sainsburys, then Morrisons, then Asda, then Tesco again, then Kwik-Save, then Rainbow then One Stop, then finally the local Corner Shop.

I have to drive to each pupils house too, so it really IS like this. Also, I don't get a chance to get myself comfortable, and then get into a routine - its BANG straight in.

"Hello there Johnny? Had a nice week? Right, play C major both
hands together for 2 octaves please..."

...whilst I scrabble for a pen, their notebook (usually under a pile of crap or the piano itself) and also concentrate and see if they are doing it right. Phew. 10 times.

Its completely exhausting. Then when I get home, I have to make the dinner. Yes. I got home at 9:30 last night, and could not be bothered in any way shape or form to cook. So I ordered pizza. I counted it all, don't worry, but you can see why the takeaway shops LOVE us. I work 3 days in the week, and Saturday. So before banding it was usually 3 takeaways a week if not more!! HA HA.

I have tried the whole Pollyanna thing, where I make a lovely wholesome soup or casserole or something so that I can eat it the minute I get in, but it just doesn't last. I am one of these people that I like to get in the kitchen and think, "Hmmm what do i fancy?" and normally its not what I made earlier in the day. Even the same with ready meals. It still takes 30 minutes to get the thing out, nuked and on a plate, where as all I want to do is sit on my (fat) arse when I get in. I would still rather flop on the sofa pick up the phone and wait 30 minutes for it to be delivered. It makes me feel good that someone else is running around for me!

I MUST get more organised and stop being so stupid about food.

Wow, that was easy to say. Lets see if I can do it. *cynical snort*

So yeah, that was my day.

I had nothing for breakfast as I was in bed.
I had 3 slices of bread made into sandwiches with tomato and salad creme for lunch
I had 3 slices of pizza for dinner.

Total calories for the day were just over 1500.

Well its weigh in time tomorrow. We shall see. I actually expect I will be higher than 17stone 5 because I really was so ill after that fill, that a lot of that loss must have been fluid. I am not setting myself up for a fall, but just being brutally honest. I don't expect to lose 2 pounds like the daily plate reckons. But next week maybe I will have. This has sort of been my trial week of getting used to it all. Its been easy peasy!

Then I went to bed.

Oh No work tomorrow... :'o(

And so the half term ends... Back to the grind.

I spent the whole time flat on my back in bed, so I feel kind of cheated, but at least I had a jolly good rest.

Next holidays - 7 weeks and counting!! HURRAH I am sure I can get through that. Then we are off to sunny Moscow...!?!?!

Our Visa's arrived stuck into our passports. Its well cool. All that Russian lettering and stuff. I haven't got a clue of what it says, but there we go! HA HA

Today has been pretty dull.

Food:
Brekkie was boring, 2 weetabix and milk.

For lunch I made pancakes for DS and me. DH was having slimfast. I thought that would be pretty terrific calorie wise, but actually it turned out fine. I made a batch of batter, and it made 12 pancakes. I added up all the ingredients and split it two ways and it turned out to be something like 540 cals which was not bad for that. Thats less than the spag bol i made the other day!! Random!

I cant actually remember how many pancakes I ate, I lost count after 2. I think it was either 4 or 5, but I am not completely sure. I know I had 1 with cheese and at least 2 with lemon... so I think its probably 4... But I took the calories for 6 right there on the chin just because it was a hell of a lot more simple!

Dinner was a super quick curry. It was made with the curry powder from Sri Lanka, onion, passata, coconut cream and green lentils and then I cooked up 6 tiger prawns to go with it. I had 100g of rice too. So that was a pretty good meal too. Haven't had anything else since 6, so that was that really. Sri Lankan curries are the best. No oil, thick sauce made with roasting the spices and adding passata, awesome - and SO tasty! I didn't have any peaches, otherwise I would have shoved some of those in too. MMMMMmmmm

So that was me grub.

I went on a bike ride this afternoon and burnt off 390 cals too!! HEY HEY

Total cals for today, 1144. After burning off 390 - net cal intake 754! Coooooool

Looking forward to Wednesday to see if I have indeed lost 2 pounds. I am wondering if it will be a true reading simply because I lost a lot of weight over the few days on liquids and little food after the fill... We shall see.

I really like the daily plate because it calculates how many cals you have burned according to YOU not just some generic female. Thats great. DH didn't burn as much cals as me HA!

Watched a film in Spanish tonight called Maria full of Grace. More like Maria full of Gear! She was a drug mule from Columbia. Its pretty shocking how people get tempted into that life really. It was a really good film, gripping. Imagine a kinder surprise egg. The toy is inside a little cartridge thingy... try swallowing some of them and you will get the idea. Not fun.

Night night peeps

Winner's Edge and Weight Loss Surgery

Hello Everyone!First let me say that I'm not a sports enthusiast and have only a vague understanding of professional sport strategy and politics. Even so, I enjoy the World Series of Baseball: have enjoyed it since I was a kid when we attended the LA Dodgers games in the early hay-day of record making manager Tommy Lasorda.So it has been with enthusiasm and wonderment that I've watched the first

Spent loads of money... again

Uhhhhh we spent loads of money today.
We bought DH a new laptop and other associated gumpf.

We sorted out the office cum classroom at home and shortened DS's desk so that mine and his fit side by side. That way, I can keep a better eye on him out of the side of my vision. He slacks off a little bit too much for my liking. We bought the new laptop so that DS can have the old one. I say old, its only about 6 months old and totally too much for whatever he will use it for, but his one, which was really ancient and outdated wouldn't run ANY of his schooling programme like http://www.time4learning.com/ or http://www.meleto.com/ or http://www.raz-kids.com/ or http://www.wizardsspell.com/

I was getting a bit frustrated at having him on my PC and me wandering about doing nothing whilst he got on with it. a real waste of my time to be honest. So this way, I am right here for him should he need help, and also I can get along with my work too.

I tell you what though, home schooling is not the cheap option it seems to be. We spend an absolute fortune on stuff. Mind you, I wouldn't have it any other way, and its still cheaper than private!

Whilst we were out I got a couple of tester pots of paint. I am going to change the colour of our bedroom. I painted it Dutch Gold about a year ago. I didn't like it from the moment of the first brush stroke, but DH persuaded me that it might look better dry. I knew by the time I had finished one wall that I hated it. So I have justified the cost to myself and the stress and upheaval and I am now considering doing it again.

I am going to go for green. I have never had a green room in my life. I don't know why I think it will look nice, or why I am choosing green, but I think it just needs to be green. Green is a fresh colour and a cool one. At the moment with the Dutch Gold its like a warm womb. It feels stifling and hot and horrible. I hate it. I think Green will be refreshing. so I have plastered a couple of squares on the wall to see what tone I want. I don't think you can get a good idea just like that anyway, but at least I can make sure it will go with the curtains!

Food today. Pretty weird.

I have had:

1 banana
1apple
9 chicken nuggets
1 french fires
2 slices bread with baked beans

I have consumed about 1400 calories so far, and am way under % on all my fat/carb/protein etc

So I have a theory about myself.
Maybe... just maybe the times I think I have blown it, I actually haven't! I know that when I ate the nuggets and chips for lunch (quite a lot for 11.75mls in a band right! HA HA) I thought, "Oh, I have blown today. Well I will go easy with supper, I can have one day off" and stuff like that.

When I actually put it into the daily plate, I realise that I probably chose wisely for a fast food dinner. That meant I don't feel guilty or starved, and I am coming in well under my 1800 target cals per day. How good is that?

If I had been on slimmingworld, I would have had like 'shed load' syns, and be feeling proper crud and sending hubby to the shop to get me some sweets or something. But slimmingworld make up their syns reckoning on having a load of free food as well. So of course you would be over budget on cals. However, I haven't had anything else apart from the above, so I am fine.

This has really pleased me. I think i can see light at the end of the tunnel.

also although I obviously don't have 11.75 mls in my band but more like 5mls, I really am getting my hopes up and thinking the band is working. I know I am not choking, or only eating a mouthful and then pushing my plate away, but I am having NO TROUBLE eating less than 1800 cals a day. Its dead easy. Now I have the tools, making sure I stick to it is simple as. Its the not knowing and our own stupid minds thinking we have done badly.

Thanks Daily Plate and thanks *ahem* band.

YAY, I'm out of bed!! HURRAH HURRAH

Got up this morning, yes I REALLY did, and came downstairs with the family.

Ok... sounds a bit good to be true, and I am sort of fibbing.

I got up at 10am when DH came home from collecting his bike. He got it repaired and had to pick it up this morning, so He went and got it. I did however get up on his return and iron his shirt and then came downstairs with him and had coffee whilst he had his breakfast (slimfast poor soul!).

So I think that was a valiant attempt at returning to the world.

I am feeling 100% today. I have been gingerly going about the daily tasks, but so far, so good!

I took DS to see the film The Seeker: The Dark is Rising.

Last night when he said he wanted to watch it I thought it sounded really scary... akin to Nightmare on Elm Street or something, especially as it being around the Satanic Festival of Halloween. *Shudders*

But it turned out to be a classic tale of Boy is rubbished by family, turns out he is a really cool dude destined to save the world, is now held in awe by his family and does indeed save the world. It had Ian McShane of Lovejoy fame and also Christopher Ecclestone from Dr. Who.
It was really enjoyable.

There were MASSIVE queue's to see Ratatouille, but there was 4 families in our screen. How cool. I really love going when its empty. But... is it me or do they pump in ice cold air to freeze you slowly to death half way through. That place is always sooooo cold! I think DS has hypothermia setting in.

Food today:
2 boiled eggs and 1 slice of bread and butter
1 packet of minstrels
spaghetti bolognese

And thanks to my splendiferous calorie counter I know that I have had 1095 cals so far today.

I am feeling good. I know I shouldn't have had those minstrels, but I didn't have anything else for lunch, so I figure I would have eaten something about that many cals anyway.

If I think about eating the bad foods, they go around and around and around in my head and make me feel guilty which makes me eat more, so I am dismissing them as my lunch. I mean, my dinner has more calories than them.

I am surprised actually at how many calories is in a standard Spag Bol. just mince, onion, carrot, tomato and pasta and its a whopping 600 cals. Maybe that's not bad, but I think its a lot compared to yesterdays chicken and jacket etc. I guess its the combination of two heavy calorific items (meat and pasta). I wll have to think about that some more. Maybe eating pasta with just vegetable sauces rather than meat will be easier for me to keep under the 1000 cals.

Not too bothered however as have been under my 1800 goal.

We are off to DH's Mum's pub this evening to do a Karaoke. Oh Joy. I cant think of a more unpleasant evening. Mind you at least its a smoke free place now, which goes a long way to make it bearable.

I will update this if i have anything significant to add, but I doubt it.

Take it easy!

Ok, here's an update, there is no way I could eat a whole portion of spaghetti, so I went for half a portion. Instead of 75g I had 35g which makes a big dent in my cal intake. I have now had only 973 cals.

After I have actually eaten this meal, It might be less, but I can only count it as a 3rd of the whole lot... so its on the over estimating side, which is good for me!

Ten Best Weight Loss Sites

Here's a great list of some of the top Health and Wellness sites. It includes the ten best sites for each of the categories of weight loss blogs, diet blogs, walking and other exercises, as well as a few other key health categories.

The list was put together by people at the Nursing Online Education Database. Enjoy and happy reading!

Gaining 75 Pounds While Pregnant

Actress Mila Jojovich has gained seventy five pounds so far in her pregnancy. This photo was taken about three or four weeks before her due date.

Most doctors tell women that the ideal weight gain for women of normal weight during pregnancy is between 25 and 35 pounds. But Milla was probably underweight at the beginning and her body may have needed to gain more than the recommended amount.