Its working

4kgs lost in the first week and I must say that I am pretty happy with that! Only another 16 to go!

It really hasn't been too hard either and I think I have been realistic enough so that I can keep this up.

Sorry I have been super hectic and not been able to write more recently but I will resume normal service soon!

x

The Aftermath of Ladies Night

Ladies night for those not in Dubai is a pretty amazing concept - free booze for Ladies every Tuesday in pretty much every bar in town! We hooked up at Horizon last night and managed with our charm and great looks to squeeze far more than the 2 free glasses of champagne each that we were supposed to have. Needless to say this morning I was a little fuzzy and getting up at 7am to go for a run and workout on the beach took some effort. I went out with Anna, a friend of a friend who is training to be a personal trainer. She is awesome and looks amazing, the fact she has had 2 kids is unthinkable! Although I ended up very sweaty and covered in sand, I felt great for doing it, in fact it was quite fun. The beach is awesome in the morning, no one about apart from a few people doing yoga and a couple of people out for a run.

I got home to my little green cooler bag from Health Factory and needless to say I was starving by this point. Today’s food looks great - omelette for brekkie and cheesecake snack already eaten today and lasagna and sea food to come!

I am going to make a point of doing absolutely nothing this evening - really need to start building in some “Dani Downtime” and I am going to try and be in bed at 10pm without falling asleep on the couch!

Bagel Fun

I liked my work with my cream cheese bagel this morning so thought I should share it with you. Kept me busy for 5 mins = keeping me out of trouble!

The Weekend

Ok, so I never said that this was going to be easy. I suppose my main focus was to still be social and not slip and end up sinking my usual consumption of alcohol. Empty calories my mum calls it. What is worse, I am guaranteed to crave something awful to eat in an attempt to get me out of a hangover.

Proudly though, I managed to go to a gathering at a friend’s new apartment (pic of his view at the side - not jealous!) and only have 2 glasses of wine. I could have quite easily polished off the whole bottle and not without some chastising from my ‘mates’ too. This early in, I can’t set myself up for failure, so, in a way my stubbornness saved me as I proved to them that I could just have one or two glasses not one or two bottles. The nibbles of crisps kept looking at me, tempting me with their deep friend carbohydrate delightfulness, but I withstood. Looking back, it was difficult at the time, but I am now proud of myself for not scoffing them - the good has outweighed the bad!

Friday was my day off Health Factory. It consisted of whole wheat toast for breakfast and then BBQ in the afternoon. The BBQ was bliss, perfect weather, good company and amazing food. I stuck to the meat and salad and avoided the bread, which amused onlookers as I used tomato slices instead of a burger bun! A little messy but very tasty. We went out at night to see a great DJ play and my plan of not taking any money out worked, and I only had the drinks that I was offered (vodka, lime and soda). So I saved money and the calories which was awesome.

All in all a great weekend, no hangovers, I remember everything, didn’t fall over and make a fool of myself, didn’t spend an arm and a leg and still had copious amounts of fun - in fact I will have to say it is up there in the top 5 of weekends!

Day 2

In work nice and early for our weekly huddle which usually ends up being a session where we chat and eat breakfast. My director was envious of my smoked salmon and cream cheese on toast and I must agree it looked a whole lot more interesting than his cereal. A hectic start to the day and meetings back to back over lunch time meant I had to plan ahead. Eating my pineapple and strawberry fruit pieces in the taxi on the way to my first meeting led to a mini disaster, where I ended up with pineapple and strawberry juice down my cream dress! Not the best, but luckily my first meeting was with a friendly client and we just laughed it off and talked about the lengths you need to go to in order to drop a dress size. She had her best friend’s wedding coming up and had this crazy 3 day diet where you could lose 4kgs. She emailed it to me and it as much as half a boiled egg on dry toast for lunch may appeal to some, I can definitely say that I will not be trying this. It’s great to think that there are quick fixes out there; hey I’ve tried most of them. Can’t say that it ever really did me any good long term though - guaranteed once I started eating ‘normally’ again, I would also pile the pounds on quicker than I had lost them plus an extra one or two on top.

En route to my second meeting, I ended up in a very fancy lift that reminded me of the fun fairs with the freaky hall of mirrors. Looking straight ahead I was met with a huge monster - I would say my reflection had easily added 3-4 stone to me, but, looking to my left and right I looked awesome. A slim line size 10-12 and looking fab! I really have no perception of how I really look and these mirror images really showed the 2 ends of the spectrum for me. What will be if I don’t turn a corner but even better how amazing I am going to look when I have reached my goal!


I am planning on heading out to meet a few friends this evening and it is going to be my first challenge to see whether I can stay off the booze. I am a firm believer in everything in moderation, but I think at this early stage I need to give my body a break from the binge drinking. I’m am going to have to lay down the law with my mates, making it clear not to make this any harder for me than it needs to be - no pressurizing me please pals!

Day 1

Needless to say I was a little bit sleepy when my first delivery arrived - 6am is not my friend, but I was intrigued to see what was going to be in store for me today and for many days to come! My health freak flat mate (who was naturally up at this ungodly hour to go to the gym) and I couldn’t quite get over the amount of food that I had been given for the day and more to the point I had cheesecake for my mid morning snack! A little menu and all the cutlery I needed were also packed inside, the meals intended to be hot just need 2 mins in the microwave to reheat them and I was away.

Normally I would have jumped straight back to bed, but not too sure why, I felt a little bit giddy so busied myself for an hour until I was due to meet up with Anna. Anna is my little bundle of joy personal trainer - we have a love hate relationship. It really helps that she is a friend of a friend, so she is really accommodating to what I really want from our sessions. After having 30 sessions with her already before this morning, the breaking point came for me last week when I had really had enough. I was getting up early doors, sweating outrageously and paying a fortune for the pleasure. My fitness has been improving but I have lost no weight/inches as I have been merrily eating and boozing away to my heart’s content. We are now doing more fun sessions on the beach which is bliss, just being outdoors before the world is at a crazy pace has really lifted my spirits and made me less grumpy about having to punish myself. I looked at this morning’s sessions as our first, starting all over again now I have the food thing all handled for me by someone else - one less thing to worry about. We had a good hour together with a 15 mins of jogging (snails pace) which gave us a chance to have a little gossip and then some toning exercises for my legs, arms and abs.

As I am becoming a lot more aware of myself and now using this blog to jot down what is actually going on with me, it has made me realise and quantify how activity like this really does put a spring in my step. I am going to really try and focus in on this and now I can look back at these words written by myself that states that working out = a happier Dani.

My meals were all great - really tasty and I wasn’t hungry at any point all day, which really surprised me (and my colleagues for that matter, who are fully aware of my moaning about being hungry pretty much at hourly intervals). They really go for the little and often approach with these meals, which, I am now slowly understanding, is probably a lot more productive than getting to a point of feeling so empty that you gorge yourself on a massive plateful and feel slow, tired and heavy after. Looking forward to the scran tomorrow now - even playing a little game with myself - not checking the menu I submitted for delivery so it is a little surprise for me in the morning :)

Tactics

So my ‘getting on with it’ tactics include:

Food - calorie counting made easy, done for you and delivered to your door step - I have decided to give the Health Factory a go at providing me with the nutrition guidance I need for this mammoth task. Every day I will get a green cooler bag of joy that will contain 3 meals and 3 snacks that have been nutritionally balanced and calorie counted in order to provide me with the total intake of calories I need per day to keep up with my hectic life and lose that weight. The menus look fantastic, if you can eat cherry cheesecake and still lose weight - I am in! With this you get around 3 choices for every meal and up to now the meal plans that I have seen have left me spoilt for choice. I love food and lots of it, but, I obviously have a lot to learn and lots of old habits to get myself out of.

Exercise/Activity - I think I am kind of allergic to exercise so I am going to refer to it as activity from here on. This can include a walk along the beach, a swim, table tennis and squash with my ridiculously competitive friend, a session with a personal trainer, a yoga class or even the Davina McCall workout DVD that I got last Christmas that has gathered dust ever since.

I need a miracle!

Getting close to 90kg's was the breaking point, long overdue, but now necessary as I am not prepared to be overweight when I turn 30! I am dizzy from the amount of yo-yo-ing I have experienced in my weight. In the past year I have fluctuated by around 6kgs.

I have been living in Dubai now for 1 year and am surrounded by beautiful people, gym bunnies and lots of humans whose job it is seems only to be drop dead gorgeous! In another direction I step out of my front door into a sea of the most outstanding restaurants, scrumptious cafes, spectacular bars and classy bistros. If I am not eating out with friends, I am socialising with colleagues and both of those occasions usually involve more than a couple glasses of wines, perhaps a bottle of vodka and a shot of sambuca or 2 for good measure.

I am on a mission to get my 18 year old figure back and at 26 I feel that this is a mission that is totally possible. At 18, I slipped a disc in my back that went undiagnosed for 4 years and in this 4 years, as I slowed down due to immobility and pain, over ate feeling sorry for myself - I gained nearly 4 stone.

Now I am a 89kg and am writing this blog in an effort to monitor my success and keep me on track to reach that goal - realistically I need to lose 20kg to be within my BMI range.

3 main factors will have a bearing on the how quickly I can achieve this goal.

What I am eating, how much booze I am drinking and the exercise I am doing.

Let's get on with it ...