When it comes to my weight loss plan, I’ve reached a new low (or high) – I’ve never been this heavy. We moved to a new country in March this year and I’ve put on a stone since. I’m not happy at all, I can’t even look at the photos from all the weddings we went during the summer, I look so fat and everyone else is so fit. I need to start doing something again. I’m buried with work at the moment and my confidence is at an all-time low too, so it’s going to be difficult. I’m so depressed about my weight I want to just eat crap all the time to comfort myself, which isn’t helping.

I don’t have any friends or family here and my partner works long days, so I’m in the house on my own most of the days. I have lost interest in making new friends, because I’m embarrassed of my figure. I hope I can pick myself up soon.

This calorie-counting in wrecking my head. I’m trying to work out the first thing I ate yesterday morning – a bowl of Special K with milk – and it looks like that has cost me 1100 kcal. WTF? I’ll just type up a quick list of what I ate, mmkay?

• Special K (1 cup with milk)
• A few (7?) olives (6 cal each)
• 4 potatoes (medium sized)
• 100g sweet potato
• 1 tbsp yogurt
• 1 tsp blueberry jam
• 60g chicken, in tomato sauce with onion and peas
• 1.5 cups of boiled rice
• 5 x 2cm slices of pork fillet (150g?)
• a Picnic chocolate bar (boooo!)
• a cup of tea with 1 tsp of sugar

Went for a walk around the park today, didn’t walk very far because baby wasn’t in the mood for sitting in the buggy. Spent some time with him in the kid’s play area in the park though, carrying him around must’ve given me some exercise… haha. He’s showing signs of finally starting to walk independently, so soon I’ll be running after him.

It’s nice to notice that other people find their way here. I’m a nice blogger, I’ll come for a nosey around at yours later! Now I have to hit the bed before the tiredness wears off.

Following a recommendation from Junebug, I checked out Chips, Choc Milk and Chin Up. I will be following both of the aforementioned, as well as the Amazing Adventures of the Dietgirl, whose Old Fat Jeans -pics brought a tear in my eye!

I haven’t been here for a while. Day 4 and 5 were just as the ones I have listed my food intake and exercise for, except that I had a few Maltesers and a 150g bag of crisps on day 5. That made me feel really shit about myself and that lasted throughout the weekend.

Day 6 started well but we had dinner at friends’ house and I think I overdid it a little bit with cheese and crackers. Nothing major, maybe 5 crackers with cheese on, but it left me feeling disgusting. At home I also had a 100g bag of pistachio nuts.

Day 7 was pretty much like the start of the week, although I had a full portion at the dinner, instead of the target – half or 3/4 portion. I haven’t done any exercise since Day 5, and it’s really starting to get to me.

Day 8 was otherwise OK, but I had a stupid argument with my partner – he got frustrated with me because of the state of the flat, which was a bit unreasonable because it’s not that messy – and he slipped out a nasty comment just before going out the door for his evening class. I felt tired, lonely, frustrated, embarrased, helpless, worthless and useless. I walked straight to the kitchen, made myself a big cup of tea and had two chocolate bars with it.

Needless to say, I felt even more shit afterwards, even though eating them was nice. I was a bit alarmed also by the fact that the baby put up an awful fight when I didn’t let him hold the other chocolate bar (with the wrapping still on, or course). As far as I’m aware, he’s never tasted chocolate. Why did he demand the chocolate bar? How did he know he might want it?

Anyway, we’re visiting relatives at the end of the week, and this is stressing me out big time. The last time they’ve seen me was when the baby was around 4 months. I’ve probably gained a few pounds since, and I feel a bit embarrased about that. They’re not people who would give me extra credit for breastfeeding (all their babies have been bottle fed), and I’m very conscious about my weight. They might not understand that I haven’t been able to lose weight because of breastfeeding, because they don’t see breastfeeding in any way necessary.

Dieting is a lot more difficult this week. My appetite is back not that the flu is finally lifting. Also, our financial situation has taken yet another plunge: we were hit with a massive electricity bill (estimation backlog, I presume), my expected tax refunds from 2005 were directed straight into old tax bills that I was not aware of, and I still owe the tax office a hefty sum. The tax bill has been there since 2001, but because I moved out of the country, no-one had bothered informing me.

I find that when things are depressing me and I feel cornered by my worries, I don’t care what I do to my body. I used to drink and smoke a lot, and by this I mean _ a lot _ , especially when I had problems with money or relationships. Which was nearly all the time. I just want to sit in the house and stuff my face. So far I’ve managed not to eat any extra stuff, but I haven’t been out in 3 days.

Why haven’t I been out?

I am ashamed to go outside. When I do go outside, I never know what to do with myself. I hate just going to the swings for 10 minutes. I absolutely hate walking alone, because that gets me thinking about all the things that worry me. Also, I can’t be bothered putting on make-up, choosing clothes (because most of my clothes are too small or ugly) and getting the baby ready. I also hate sunny weather. It’s too revealing: all the little imperfections no your skin, the signs of tiredness and neglection are openly on display in the bright sunlight. Since the baby can’t walk yet, it’s not great to go to the park with him either, because the ground is wet.

I feel guilty for not taking the baby out, because it’s a lot more difficult for him to get to sleep when he’s not been outside. He gets overactive and frustrated in the house.

Christmas Songs Meme: List (at least) five of your favorite Christmas songs and tag (at least) five of your favorite blog friends to keep your MEME going.

1. Fairytale of New York – The Pogues feat. Kirsty McCall
2. Silent Night
3. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
4. White Christmas
5. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

I’m sorry but I don’t have any blog friends here yet! I’m not in the process of making any at the moment since there isn’t too much to read here yet. Thanks very much for tagging me anyway, Renee.

Other Fatfighterblogs newbies she tagged were A GIRL RUNNING!, Junebug, on a mission to be my best self and token fat girl.

I just followed a link called “John’s BMR calculator” on the Fatfighterblogs site to calculate what I thought was going to be my base metabolic rate. I was asked to put in my gender, age, height, weight and my body fat percentage.

Now, I’m aware that they measure this with a pinchey thing, from between your thumb and index finger, or from your bingo wings (the bits of skin and fat under your arm). However, because there isn’t anything in the world you can’t find in the Internet, I did a quick search to see if I could find a way calculate it without measurements.

I came across the U.S. Navy Circumference way to measure your body fat, for which you need to submit your waist, hips, neck and height. This I did, and the son of a bitch gave me a body fat percentage of 35, with the note that 22 is recommended for a woman.

“The Bodyfat Percentage (BF%) of a 167.5cm female with a 35cm neck, a 83cm waist and 106cm hips is 35% Recommended BF% for a woman is 22%. “

I then look back to the first window (John’s BMR thingy) and there it says “20 is average and 35 is very overweight. Bastard!

Now I feel like I’ve just gained weight within seconds from reading that. It’s like a corset has been taken off and all my “real fat” is now hanging out, over my jeans and from under my arms.

Of course this can’t be true. There must be something wrong with the navy measuring system. My BMI is actually 25.7, and I am overweight but not very overweight. I decide that my body fat percentage is 25. There.

Now, let’s see what John has to say for himself.

Your Base Metabolic Rate (BMR) is in the area of 1269 (Harris-Benedict formula) and 1600 (Schofield formula) calories per day. (If you got the default figure of 1000 and zeros elsewhere, reload this page and make sure you didn’t input something incorrectly.) Your lean weight is about 120 pounds.

Workout program

Rule of thumb: Target a ballpark 1180-1620 honest calories per day if your main goal is fat-loss, and about 1800-2350 calories per day for muscle gain without fat loss.

Theoretical: Estimate your daily burn, then substract 500 calories daily for every pound of fat you want to lose per week. With energetic daily workouts, you’ll burn about 2200 calories daily (we’re assuming you’re at least moderately active and not totally sedentary the rest of the day).

An achievable fat-loss target for you is roughly 1.5 pounds per week.

And how many calories does breastfeeding burn? It’s about 200-500 calories per day, so I would say the amount my baby is nursing takes about 400, because he eats a lot. Assuming that my resting energy is 1480, I would say that I burn about roughly 3000-3500 calories on the days I managed to get myself and Lukas out the door.

So according to today’s googling and musings, I’m going to set myself a calorie target of no more than 2000 a day. That’s taking the breastfeeding into account. Before I can start applying the target to my diet, I will have to count calories for a while to get the hang of it because I’ve never done it before. I reckon it’s going to be easier to estimate your calorie intake when you have some sort of idea of the calorie content of the foods you normally eat, no?

Foods eaten:

• bowl of Special K with semi-skimmed milk
• a clementine
• a banana
• Muller Corner Healthy Options yoghurt
• a spicy bean burger between a brown wholegrain roll (plain, nothing else in it)
• 2 spinach and ricotta filo pastry parcels
• 4 little white bread squares (1” x 1”) filled with cheese
• 1/2 cup of chickpea and onion salad, with chilli oil as dressing
• about 10 grapes
• 1/2 a normal portion of salmon pasta (white wine, onion, sour cream)
• 1 cup of Lemsip
• 1/2 glass of red wine
• 3 big glasses of water
• 1 cup of tea (no sugar)

Things that I said no to in my head:

• 4 sandwiches, with Flora, Brussels pate and tomato (2 breakfast, 2 lunch)
• a 2nd bean burger
• about 5 more bread & cheese squares
• more couscous salad
• 2 homebaked chocolatey squares
• another half glass of wine
• 1/2 a portion of salmon pasta
• Maltesers
• a chocolate bar and 2 sugars in my evening tea

Exercise:

I didn’t do any actual exercise in purpose, but I did take a bus across town, carried Lukas AND the buggy in, held Lukas constantly from 12.30 till around 5pm and walked smallish distances quite briskly with the buggy.

On our trip to the supermarket we bought scales so that I can start monitoring my weight. I weighed myself today for the first time after a while, and it turns out I don’t weigh 74 kilos at all, I weigh 72 kilos. That halves my Christmas target then.

On second thought, I think I’ll still attempt to lose 4 kilos before Christmas. Pre-Christmas time is really just for me to see how much weight I can lose just by being a bit more active and leaving out most of the junk and comfort food. I don’t want to go on a hardcore diet because of the breastfeeding, but I do believe it’s possible to get back to my normal weight while still nursing. It might just take a little more time.

I also asked a young sales guy in the supermarket if they had any exercise DVD’s in stock at the moment. His eyes lit up and a wide smile spread across his face, as he replied: “Not at the moment, but there will be about 20 different ones in the new year. One from everyone who’s become famous this year. But only after the holidays!” Amazon it is, then.

Foods eaten:

• 1 bowl of Special K with milk
• 2 sandwiches, with Flora and Brussels pate/Salami milano (one each)
• 2 tomatoes
• 2 tbsp of baked beans
• glass of orange juice
• a banana
• 3 pints of water
• tomato-cucumber-lettuce salad
• 1 tbsp homemade dressing
• a small lamb chop, grilled
• a small portion of rice
• 2 tbsp of white wine / pesto / Elmlea Light sauce
• 2 big glasses of water
• 2 cups of tea (2 tsp of sugar altogether)
• 10 sprouts
• 1/4 avocado

Things I would have normally eaten on top of that but said no to today:

• 2 fried eggs
• 4 sandwiches, like the ones described above (1 breakfast + 3 lunch)
• 1 bottle of Coke
• 2 chocolate bars
• 1.5 servings of rice
• 1/2 cup of the above sauce
• feta cheese cubes in salad
• 4 more tsp’s of sugar in tea

Exercise:

We walked to the supermarket and back, about 2.5 miles of brisk walking and buggy-pushing. I might have been sweating but I think it was the combination of the raincoat and the sunshine on my back rather than the exercise.

Here’s what I’ve been eating and drinking so far today:

•  1 bowl of Special K with skimmed milk
• 4 pieces of bread with Flora and Brussels pate
• 3 tomatoes
• 1/2 Muller Corner blueberry yoghurt
• 1 mid-sized sirloin steak
• 2 servings of potatoes dauphinoise, made with olive oil and 0.5 dl of Elmlea Light
• 5 sprouts
• 1 gingerbread biscuit
•  4 pints of water
• 1 cup of tea and 1 cup of coffee, both with milk, no sugar

I’m still planning to eat/drink:

•  100g of crisps
• 2 pints of water

I went for a short walk (30 mins) but didn’t get out of breath or start sweating at any stage of the day.

I don’t think this is the way to lose weight, but I prefer to take baby steps at the start. Here’s what I have chosen not to eat/drink as of yesterday evening :

• 2 more sandwiches
• 2 bars of chocolate
• a waffle with cream and strawberry jam
• more gingerbread biscuits
• 2 glasses of Coke
• 3rd serving 0f potatoes

I feel a bit guilty for 2 of the sandwiches and the second serving of potatoes, but otherwise I’m pretty much where I wanted to be tonight. And that includes the half a bag of crisps.