Still going strong

So here I am, more than a month into the new year and a few weeks in into my really truly serious attempt to loose weight. I am currently down eight pounds and half an inch from every measurement!
Before thus wouldn't have seemed big enough but my heads in a better place and I am well and truly ecstatic about these results!
I also have my phone back so better access to a camera etc hence the few snaps in this post starting with NEW HAIR!!!!

I LOVE DYING MY HAIR!
and it is always a snap decision. I woke up this morning and was like "fuck it, why not!
and this is the result:

And yes I need to dye the top of my hair and I planned too. I bought the dye and everything and my dear boyfriend decided to "tidy" one day and they disappeared. I cannot find them anywhere.

I am just a colour whore. I love them, these colours in particular, if everything in my house/life were a variation of these colours I'd be happy.

I've been good for some tasty healthy meals over the last few days perhaps not including the one above but for a chocoholic I need a bit of chocolate every now and then. I can't deal with cold turkey.

 This one was definitely a bit better, some delicious grapes and bananas and a lovely chicken curry!
I'm starting to enjoy healthy eating again! It can be more effort to prep but I'd rather do that and see the scales go downwards tbh.

I've also been out and about all week with the kids. It's freezing (for ireland) at the moment here but the weather is stunningly crisp. I love this weather. Wrap up well and you don't even notice the cold. It's just so beautiful out!

My job is great and sees me in parks(above) and on beaches (right) and back in the park invariably most days. Kids love slides. "Big slide" is the phrase of the day for me most days. When I walk in every morning that's what I hear. "Sher Sher (James is only two and can't say Caoimhe) biga slide?" the "biga" is on purpose, he can't say big without an added "a" yet.

I was sick last week all week long..it was horrible. I hate not being up and about. I kept trying to clean etc but I'd get super weak and have to sit down. It was frustrating, probably more so for my poor boyf because I was like a demon. I hate not doing anything. But because of it I didn't exercise all week. In fact aside from work this week I didn't get much this week either. I was still too drained but I'm going back to Pilates tonight (god love me I wont be able to move in two days time!) and I'm very much looking forward to it. Also I am thankfully down half an inch from everywhere so I'm feeling quite bolstered about that!

In other news I watched the good wife season 5 episode 15 this week. I wont give away anything so no spoilers don't worry but let me just say bravo writers. I am a tv show person and I love a good one. I'm a battlestar fan, a firefly fan, I watch the walking dea and all the other hip shows, in fact my repertoire of shows is an embarrassing tell of how much time I spent watching tv in college but the good wife is my current obsession because...well its wonderful. Friends have tried in vain to make me watch it before this but I resisted because I'm a fantasy/sci fi kinda girl and lawyer shows have never caught my attention before but when it popped up enough times on Netflix and I was in need of a good old binge (tv binge mind you) I gave it a go. I soon had my boyfriend and myself hooked and it has been our nightly routine for weeks. Hanging on every word screaming with frustration at every up and down and most importantly getting extremely invested in the characters. It is safe to say that we are addicts. And then season five happened. As I said no spoilers here but my heart will forever be just a tint bit broken. It was so out of the blue and devastating. I honestly think it affected me more than most other bombshells from most shows including the red wedding and other such awful moments from all the greats. I have gone cold turkey. I spent the ep crying and insisting i hated the show, especially because they'd made me love it so. I have refused point blank to watch it since. I just can't. My boyfriend has told me I can have the week and then I have to push through. And I will. Reluctantly. Very very very reluctantly. So I advise people to watch it but steel yourself for pain. And I mean pain.

I also had some good news today. Mydoctor took some bloods last week and one of them was to check for diabetes. I was terrified that I had gone too far and irreparably damaged my body but thankfully it was all good news. In fact excellent news. My bloods were perfect. My cholesterol was perfect my liver, kidneys and heart functioning to the best of their ability. Most importantly, no diabetes. I think this was the fright I needed. I might not be so lucky the next time if I continue without changing anything. So I was really pleased to hear this and I was able to take a proper breath for the first time since I had the bloods.

Just because I'm in a good mood I'm going to throw in a bonus pic of my adorable little worm kitten sitting in my washing machine!

So that would be my update for the moment. I am, again going to try do this more regularly (I don't think it will ever happen) but we'll see. I'm now going to go back to pacing in my kitchen watching tv and trying to hit 10,000 steps today!

Ups and Downs

This shit is tough.

No like unbearably tough but I have bad days. Days where I cry because I get tired. Tired of watching everything  I eat and feeling guilty if I don't work out for more than two days! I know that this is mainly because of my diet and that I really need to beat myself back into a routine but it's tough.

I know excuses, excuses right? But it is. I'm at a point in my life where I never have an excess of money. I know most people don't these days but week to week it is a struggle. I only have about 25 euro a week that I can spend on food ad my boyfriend pays 25 too so we have 50 in total but that has to be for both of us and he definitely does not eat all the same stuff as I have to. So with my meager budget I do the best I can but inevitably by the end of the week we'll have a night or two without proper dinners.

I try my best every week not to let it happen but it does.

We shop normally on tuesdays so I often end up with several bad days of eating at the end and it is ruining my diet. Any weight I lose during the week I put on at the weekend.

So I'm ahead in some ways. I know my problem. I have the same routine every week. I buy food tuesday evening and I eat well and I'm good till friday and I loose weight and then saturday comes and two things happen, or three. Firstly I drink. Normally once a weekend, sometimes twice and what is affordable? Beer! so thats what? Six gazillion calories? Empty ones at that! The drinking inevitably leads to hangovers (Why I can't understand?)  and hangover leads to cravings for CARBS!!! My very best friends! Carbs and sweets! And hangovers don't exactly breed the best moods for whipping up healthy meals and going for long walks. No they lead to me eating a bag of doritos and a jar of dip and sitting on the couch all day long! Oh ye and take aways happen too. God I need to learn to avoid these pitfalls!

The next big problem is my boyfriends mother! Now don't get me wrong! I love her! She's larger than life, funny, and a great cook. We go to her house every sunday (again usually hungover) and she plies us with masses of food! She will ply us with rasher sandwixhes before our butts hit the chair and then it's "Tea? Tea? would you like some tea?No? Well some coke then! Or a glass of milk?" and then of course we have to stay for dinner. Obviously. And I say ok...just a little cause it's always so damn tempting. Of course a little in her mind is enough to feed at least four people! And if you don't eat every last bit she's convinced you hated it!

The next thing to happen is dessert "sure you'll have some won't you?Just a little!You will! and my will power on those days is just not strong enough. And she just won't let you say no! Now I can hear people already shouting "Woah!No! She's a sabeteur and evil etc etc" as people are want to do on the interweb but she's just an Irish mammy and that is the long and short of it.

So I suppose others are also thinking well if you know your problems you know how to solve them. I suppose all excuses aside I can solve them. This weekend we have my dear Paulies birthday and I'm plannig a mahoosive surprise party for him! So that means drinks and cake and other such stuff but I will try my hardest to be disciplined and to drag myself out of the hangover slump and make some damned healthy food!

I need to stop thinking of the weekend as different and to start treating it like every other day when I work my butt off.

On the upside I am feeling fairly positive but then again it is wednesday and that is always one of my high motivation days! I busted my ass off while walking to work and I sweated buckets! I was very proud of myself!

I've got a very busy evening ahead of me. However last night, after the shop, I did something I always plan on doing but never actually do. I came home, took all the veg I'd bought and chopped it all up and put it in lunch boxes and threw it in the fridge! I then prepped my lunch last night for the first time in ages and now I have a lovely quesadilla for my lunch!Woop! I feel so organized and good! And then I beat my ass in the road this morning and I'm really feeling positive.

Lets hope it lasts!

Recipe of the week: Lunch

So I did one of the recipes way sooner than I thought I would. I got home and realised I hadn't left out meat for dinner and that my dear boyfriend had gone off and gotten subway so he wasn't eating!

I wasn't feeling like a dinner to be honest so I decided to give the Cauliflower crust toasties a try. Of course as is typical of me I forgot to charge my camera and could not find the charger and had made them by the time I realised I hadn't so long story short no pics.

It won't always be like this I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it today but I really, really, really did make them! I swear!

Anyway I'm going to go ahead and give my little review.

First, the instructions were super clear and easy to follow. To put it shortly there was no bullshit about the recipe. However the process itself was a bit time consuming. My blender wasn't great and it took a while to make the cauliflower rice. I then had the surreal expierience of pouring food from a bowl onto a tea towel. I won't lie, I felt wierd. And I looked wierd and I really didn't want to explain to my housemates when they asked what the hell I was doing!

I pushed passed my thoughts that were screaming "This is not normal!You don't put food in your tea towel and then EAT it!" and I squished as much water as possible out of my cauliflower.

Now maybe you're supposed to leave it cool down first or something because I damn near got third degree burns trying to squish the water out and without gloves, opted for wrapping another tea towel around my hand and then I squished away!

I was supposed to get around a cup of water from the rice but I only got around 3/4s of a cup, probably a bit less and the mext time I'd try squish a bit harder. My "bread" wasn't soggy like I feared but I wouldn't have minded it a tiny bit crispier.

So I squished and squished then I mixed in the other things and started to form my "slices of bread" on the tray and I popped them into the oven quite convinced these were not going to work!

Anyway fifteen minutes late I took out some thngs that to my surprise actually looked quite like they were supposed to!

I used a spatula to peel them up in case they were soggy but they held up and then I buttered the less crispy side and threw in some cheese. I also buttered the outside and then I threw them onto the pan.

5 mins later they looked just like the picture from the blog!



I cut them in half and threw them on a plate and asked my boyfriend to trust me and just eat (he's not very adventurous!). One was a little more blac and it turned out that was actually nicer but it's a learning curve!

They were actually quite delish! Now I defintely wouldn't claim that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference! I mean you'd definitely know it wasn't bread and I can forsee some people having a problem with the texture...it's unusual but I definitely would try it again! Maybe a bit more salt the next time but aside from that they even got the Boyfriend Seal Of Approval.

So I'm sufficiently happy! Honestly it's a weekend thing cause it does take a bit of time but I will definitely be trying cauliflower crust pizza! So thumbs up!