Gizza Kiss!

It's my Friday today as I've booked the rest of this week off so we can go and look at some wedding venues! It's also my mini sister's 3rd birthday and a friend's birthday this weekend so I'm looking forward to some celebrations seeing lots of family & friends.

First, though, I'm looking forward to lie in as I'm still feeling shattered from the weekend and a busy few days (or weeks) at work!

On Saturday we had a friend's fancy dress party to go to in Bognor and as I was waiting for Friday's payday I had a frantic shopping trip on Saturday buying wigs & allsorts! I then had to grab Darren from work at 6 & head to Bognor where we met some friends and got dolled up:

Alcohol was consumed, karaoke was sung (badly) & I ended up being a fancy dress Hawaiian-hotdog-sheep-Kiss explosion:

The next morning we battled through headaches to go to our first wedding fayre at Goodwood Hotel... exciting stuff!

We got some great ideas, picked up some brochures & a glossy mag, looked at rings, cars, cakes & all sorts so I'd say it was a success :) I also received an email today from one of the ring companies there saying we won their draw to win £200 off wedding rings! Can't complain!

The rest of Sunday was spent seeing family & friends & talking about our wedding the whole time! Everyone seems so excited which is really nice.

We have about 5 or 6 places booked to view over the next few days, it's all very exciting! Maybe this time next week we'll have found our perfect venue, who knows!

Happy Monday

I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself this evening so I thought I'd share my good mood with the WHOLE WORLD... or at least my blog & Twitter followers.

After managing to drag myself to the gym for a pretty good calorie burning sesh even after having a crappy night's sleep and feeling fairly groggy all day, it was time for the weekly weighday ritual. And my scales brought good news!

This week I've shed another 4lbs which brings my running total to 21lbs - a stone and a half! I'm definitely feeling proud of myself and although there is still a long way to go, my goal is feeling more achievable.

Disclaimer: Okay this might not actually be me...

I've also noticed that my new jeans I bought after Christmas after dropping a size can no longer carry off their description 'skinnies', which - as nice as it is to be dropping sizes - is not going to do well for my bank balance!

J x

Calorie counting crazy

After falling off the healthy eating wagon slightly around the festive period, I was finding it tough to get back into the swing of things. Even before this I was struggling to get strongly over the 1 stone mark. When I got to 1 stone loss, I thought I was past the first big hurdle and that from then on it would start to get easier, but how wrong I was. For ages, I was hovering above and below the 14lb mark and it was getting frustrating!

This is how happy I'll be
when I hit my goal weight ;)

This is when I called in My Fitness Pal to whip me into shape.

I've dabbled with My Fitness Pal before but it didn't last long. This time I think we'll be BFFs as after two weeks of becoming a food-and-exercise recording, calorie-counting addict I've already shed some pounds and gone down a belt hole. That's an official measurement y'know.

I signed up under a new username to start afresh and entered all my details - current weight (which I later changed to my start weight at the very beginning of the 'lifestyle change' so I could keep a better note of my overall weight loss - see the badge on the right of this blog!), goal weight, how often I aim to workout, how active my day job is and some other bits and bobs. It then gave me a goal limit of 1200 calories a day... ouch?

But I've found 1200 calories a day actually really easy, especially on days when I manage to burn some 'serious cal' at the gym allowing room for a more calorific dinner if necessary.

I've definitely become slightly obsessed with tracking every single thing I eat or drink on the website - and the phone and iPad apps are amazing too - but I am definitely seeing this as a good thing! I've also noticed that the community on the forum there works really well for people to motivate each other.

So I'm pleased to say I'm well and truly back on the weight loss wagon and feeling good. Last week I lost a massive 5lbs - probably down to a shock to the system after slipping so badly, but I'm sure I can continue to push it in the right direction now.

It's weigh day tomorrow, so let's hope we see the number on that badge head up!

Who, what, where & when?

Since becoming a fiancée, I have become obsessed with all things wedding!

I've subscribed to loads of wedding blogs, bookmarked some great websites, become a complete Pinterest addict (which is a great site anyway but amazing for wedding inspiration!) and developed a stronger love for wedding-related TV.

It's all very exciting but it really makes you realise just HOW BLOODY MUCH there is to think about when planning a wedding!

Now, we don't want some massive celebrity-style wedding (has anyone seen Celebrity Wedding Planner? Jedward ♥), but we do want a fairly big deal - a  day to really celebrate love and the two of us and something for us and our guests to remember for years to come.

So we need to think about venue(s), a bridesmaids, groomsmen, registrars, colours, dresses, suits, food, guest list, invitations, favours, flowers, a cake, entertainment, and those added extras for our personal touch on the event.

Oh and then there's a honeymoon and all that comes with that.

And of course the all-important hen and stag parties (which I'm sure our friends are far more interested in)!

... and I know there's probably a LOT more that I'm forgetting, so if anyone could point me in the direction of a comprehensive wedding to-do list I would really appreciate it!

It can all be a bit overwhelming when thinking about all the boxes that'll need ticking, but before anything we need to figure out what we can afford and what date next year to settle on.

So, who, what, where & when?

Well I don't have the answers to any of these (other than the bride and groom 'who'... you'd hope anyway!) yet, but let's hope it falls into place.

Darren and I have four days off together at the beginning of February so the plan for that time is to attempt those awkward conversations with family members to find out exactly the extent of the financial help they have offered us (we need figures!), view some venues, attend a wedding fayre and decide on a date (or at least which month!)

Eek!

Here's to a year of sweating & saving!

2011 has (as every year, month, week or day does) had its ups and downs but looking back it really has been an amazing year with so many landmark moments - notably graduating, beginning my career, getting engaged, quitting smoking & making a dent in the weight loss target! I definitely didn't expect it to be such a big year at the beginning of 2011!

As the year drew to a close I was sad to see the back of it. I think this was mainly because so many exciting things happened last year and I was feeling as though there is nothing really exciting to look forward to in 2012... We're both just looking at a year of struggling to save a lot of pennies and lose a lot of weight ready for a 2013 wedding!

But once we can truly get stuck in with the wedding planning, I'm sure that will soon take over my home life and be exciting enough for me! Once things settle down a bit for us, it is time to work out realistically how much we can save and come up with a figure for our budget!

Anyway, now I really need to step away from the new toy and get myself to the gym! Happy weekend everyone :)

6 months smokefree!

One of the many pivotal things that has happened this year is that the fiance & I have given up smoking - yesterday marked 6 months of us being smoke- and nicotine-free (after having my last fix while dressed as Yoshi!)

I had been thinking about giving up smoking for a while but kept putting it off. Being the complete stress-head I was while at Uni, I really don't think I could have coped with the added pressure of weaning myself off of the nicotine sticks... anyone who spent longer than 20 minutes around me in my final year would probably agree!

As the excuses started to run out, I decided it really was time I ought to go for it and quit! The final decision was made when Darren & I were very hungover after the Bournemouth Uni Summerball & we couldn't face smoking! We had almost gone 24 hours without a cigarette & made a decision on the spot to just go for it and quit!

6 months later & we haven't inhaled the slightest bit of tobacco (other than second hand smoke.. eurgh!).

If anyone is thinking about giving up - do it! Okay, it's hard at first but get past the first few weeks and you'll feel so much better...

I can breathe now! I can taste better, I don't cough as much and I don't get chest pains anymore! It really helped doing it together with my other half, even though we were at each others' throats a lot in the beginning with short tempers!! I think the competing aspect of not wanting to be the first to fail was the main thing that kept me going anyway! The main thing I would think at times I was struggling and wanted to smoke again is why would I want to put myself through those difficult first few weeks again - because if it wasn't now I would give up some time... I started so I'll finish!

Now I barely even think about it and feel great!

Look after the pounds & the stones will look after themselves...

My life has recently been somewhat taken over by the Big Bad Gym and the dreaded task of stepping on the scales each week!

Anyone who has only known me for the past 3ish years might be surprised to know that I was once actually pretty damn skinny and a shade of 'underweight' according to Dr BMI... I never tried to be and I definitely didn't watch what I ate, but I was pretty active and religiously attended a two-hour dance group twice a week.

Since then a lot of things happened that could be 'to blame' for me putting on a lot of stone and going up a lot of dress sizes. It could be a mix of getting comfortable in my relationship, going on the pill, stopping going to dance, starting to drive, becoming a lazy whatsit and eating a lot of Domino's... So yeah... it could be something to with any of those.

Getting fit and losing weight is another of those things I've been wanting to do but putting off so I really needed my recent engagement to give me the shove it did to get down the gym and sort out my eating habits! I'm not aiming to be superskinny but I really want to just be happy with how I look on my big day... and every day after would be nice! And as someone who has lost a lot of confidence in the past few years & who really does have a strong dislike of mirrors & photographs showing myself, this is no easy feat!

But I'm on my way! :)

In 9 weeks, since starting to really focus on regularly hitting the gym & 'dieting' (not following a strict diet, just cutting out crap & eating more healthy stuff!) I've managed to shed 15lbs!

Still a long way to go (I'm hoping to lose 5-5.5 stone altogether, in around a year) but I'm pretty proud of myself so far, especially since getting past these first stone! And that's with a couple of nights out, some meals out, the odd packet of crisps & nibbles of chocolate but mostly concentrating on not snacking, eating healthier meals & getting my arse down the gym!

I'm lucky that my fiance & I are in this together so we're spurring each other on which really helps, as it did with giving up smoking (I'll get to that later!). We weigh ourselves weekly using the Wii Fit (which is spot-on accurate against our bathroom scales) which keeps a tab on our weight & BMI. It's nice to see the charts heading in the right direction!

Let's hope it continues! :)