Anniversary eve

Well tomorrow is my one year Weight Watcher's Anniversary. I am still hoping to achieve my goal of an even 30 kg lost . . . I am 100 g away! My effort with "operation anniversary" was only so, so. I did okay with my resolve to cut down on my alcohol--but did have some wine on Saturday night too. I have exercised 5 out of 7 days . . . but yes I did eat my exercise points, so averaged 24.5 points again rather than 22 points. Will really have to work on this in future as when I get closer to my goal weight of 65kg, I will have fewer points to play with.

On Saturday I ended up going out for lunch AND dinner! At lunch with a dear friend who I did my teaching course with, I had smoked salmon open sandwich which had spinach and mushrooms on toasted sourdough--should have asked for no butter though. Wasn't all that fussed about going out for dinner, actually, but my husband wanted to take me, so I thought I better not say no, lest it puts him off asking me another day! We had a very pleasant evening after all. I had half a dozen oysters then an entree of grilled squid with soba noodle salad which all was quite legal. I did, however, manage to consume 3 skim milk lattes in the course of the day, and three glasses of wine, so I needed to use my exercise points to cover that. Luckily I did have a few points up my sleeve because I took Charlie for a massive walk earlier that day.

All up we walked about 8km according to Mapmyrun (thanks, Alison!)--and Melbourne's spring weather lived up to it's reputation of four seasons in one day. I thought it was quite chilly when I set out so wore my japara and beanie. By the time I got to the beach, it was hot and sunny so I left my shoes and coat by the steps. I walked a km or so down the beach further, then noticed the sky was getting quite black . . . what seemed like second later the heavens opened and there was thunder and lightning! Charlie was not impressed and I was a bit paranoid because a few years ago someone was killed by lightning on this same beach. The lightning was quite close and there weren't many other things that were sticking "up" except for Charlie and me! When I got back to where I left my shoes, they had inches of water in them! We made it back to the bridge and sheltered there a while, but the rain didn't seem to let up, so we just kept heading home. As you can see from our photos we were quite miserable when we got home!






Regardless of whether I lose a measly 100g overnight, or not, I think it's worth reflecting on how I got here and how different this year is from last year. At the end of term 3 2008, I found that I had a headache for about 3 weeks, I put it down to exhaustion. When school holidays came, I said to Mark that I just had to stay in bed and rest up so that I could beat the headaches. Well, it made no difference, so I went to see the Dr. The Dr could see nothing wrong with me (except for obesity, of course) but booked me in for tests just in case. The test results could have been worse, but basically my cholesterol, sugar levels, and liver function were all borderline, particularly for my age. What the Dr says was "a wake up call" . . . I told a friend I had to do something about my health and she suggested that I join Curves, which I did. I was thrilled to find something that I could do without feeling half dead afterwards and everyone was just so friendly. (I went on to be their "Biggest Loser" two months in a row!) At around about the same time, I checked out Weight Watchers . . . finding that the only meeting in my area was at a time when I really couldn't attend, so in desperation I joined Weight Watchers' Online. I did not expect to get very much out of it, to be honest. I found the tracker quite good but the real surprise was the support and inspiration I got from the Message boards and then the blogging community. I never did find out what was the cause of those headaches, but indirectly those headaches led to me where I am now . . . 29.9kg lighter! And do you know what? 30kg is REALLY heavy!! I know this sounds stupid, but last week I bought 30kg of horse feed and do you know what, I couldn't lift it. Yet this is what I was carrying around with me all the time.

I must apologise for the negativity of my last post. Although I'm still new, I usually do find being a teacher rewarding and worthwhile. However this year has been really tough. The mix of personalities and abilities and behaviours in my grade just make it really challenging at all times. I'm toying with the idea of applying for a new job. There is one advertised . . . but I feel so disloyal, loyalty being one of my better characteristics generally and something that I'm proud of. The school I am at has invested a lot in me . . . but I've certainly given it my all as well . And there are some things about how our school works, that I really don't like. But what if I move and it's the same or worse? Plus the other school is a private school, so that's like crossing over to the dark side. But my children go to the high school part of it and it's really, really close to where I live. And what makes me think I would get the other job, anyway?? I'm in quite a quandary and this is what Mark and I mainly talked about at dinner last night . More on this next time . . .