New goal reached!

Get your party hats out and your dancing shoes on! I have reached (AND PASSED) my 5% goal! That's 5% of my entire body weight when I started! And I've passed it! Blasted it!

5% goal - 109.9kg
Today's weigh-in - 108.6kg
Total weight-loss to date: 6.1kg

I'm no longer in the "More than 30kg to lose" bracket! I'm in the "More than 15kg to lose" bracket! Huzzzzzaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!

The WeightWatchers website issued me a warning about losing weight too fast, but honestly. It's fine. I think it would be unhealthy if I were still to be losing weight quickly and not dieting as hard as I have been (not to mention hauling my guts at pilates), but as I am TRYING to lose weight, and I am... surely it's fine? Guess we'll see whether I put it back on or not. Anyway, I'm very excited, and were I not sitting in bed, typing this to you all, I would be dancing down the hallway.

Big news. One of my housemates, Lys, joined WeightWatchers last night! (She must be jealous of my soon-to-be-svelte figure.) I don't think we can convince our other housemate to join us. She says she's on a liquid diet of Up 'n' Go. Haha. Did you know that one serve of Chocolate Ice Up 'n' Go (the only one that tastes any good at all) is 4.5 points? True story! Anyway, thanks to Lys, I have discovered that Cadbury's Peppermint chocolate is 2.5 points for six squares, as opposed to delicious Top Deck, which is 3 points for three squares. DEPRESSING. But also uplifting, as I am happy to make the change to peppermint!!!

I was a bit naughty last night and had a "Heart" ice-cream at the State Cinema. I hadn't had one in so many years! I had to. Lucy and I went to see "Wendy and Lucy". Apparently it's a great big statement on being alone, coping with adversity, blah blah. I kinda enjoyed bits of it but the ending pissed me off.

Anyway! Have a great day!

Reminiscing - Gran's roast lunches

I have to tell ya, reheated vegetables at work sans mashed potato is really untasty. I'm eating broccoli, broad beans, and a selection of "frozen winter vegetables", because I devoured all the mashed spud and mashed carrot last night, and now I regret it. I mean, I like broad beans. I REALLY MISS my grandmother's roast dinners, with roast spud and roast pumpkin, all manner of other veggies but most importantly, the steamed then baked broad beans in a little triangular shaped colander thing. Oh, I miss it. Gran's roast lunches were the best thing in the entire world (apart from my mother's cooking, which is not only wonderful but free to take back to Hobart with me when I leave!), and I do miss them so. I remember how she did the lunches, because I used to go over early enough to help her serve them. I drained and mashed and helped make the gravy out of the roast pan with vegetable juices and cornflour. DELICIOUS.

I suppose it was all delicious because Gran always used full-cream milk and butter for everything. And why not? People never seemed to get so obese in those days, did they? Probably because they led really active lives, and thoroughly deserved butter and full-cream milk by the time they made it back to the dinner table from chasing sheep all day or whatever they were doing. In fact, were I to work twelve hours a day on a farm, I probably COULD indulge in roast dinners with butter and full-cream milk every bleeding day and I'd lose weight instead of gain it. How problematic for me that I will never be employed on a farm. I wouldn't really be much use on a farm. I have no muscle mass to speak of and I'm always worried about breaking my acrylic nails (which now look lovely, thank you, now that I've discovered Mona Sculptured Nails in Hobart. I do miss Bridget's beautiful, picturesque gels, but I broke my gels as soon as I looked at them - sigh).

Anyway, back to the topic at hand (though I've forgotten what I started with). Ah, bland veggies. Yes. I should've sneaked (I'm rebelling against the use of the word "snuck" for aesthetic reasons) some more of that potato salad dressing out of the fridge, just to use as a bit of a flavour creator on these reheated greens. Or made some gravy. I have been using Gravox powder in the leftover oil/juices of whatever meat I cook (no doubt very unhealthy), whisking it just in the pan, and mixing it in with the water from the potato and carrot pots. Hell's bells. Bloody delicious. I am the master of gravy now. I even taught my fabulous non-cooking mate Mikey to make it for me the other night while I was otherwise busy making biscuits. Got him to drain and mash everything, and create a lovely gravy. He'll be a wonderful cook, I can just see it. He may not see it, however, but I'm optimistic.

Back to work I go. Glad I could unload about the joys of my tasteless lunch.

Horrible day

Horrible day at work. Well, it wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't gotten into fights with customers over things they were doing wrong. Anyway, long of the short of it is that I WANT TO EAT A PILE OF MASHED POTATO WITH GRAVY, FOLLOWED BY CHOCOLATE ICE-CREAM WITH CARAMEL TOPPING AND SPRINKLES. But I guess I can't. Hmm. Dieting sucks.

Singing is hard work

My back is freaking killing me. That is all.

Oh, and I skipped pilates today in order to get in a longer singing lesson in which I was mercilessly tortured with Handel. MERCILESSLY, I TELL YE.

But, on the bright side, I have eaten basically NO points today, thanks to my vegetable consumption. Does this mean I can reward myself with ice-cream, or do that undo all the good work? Damn.

Pep-pep-pep-pepper!

I made dinner and decided to spice it up a little by shaking a bit of pepper over it. I couldn't see the pepper coming out so decided to keep shaking while I moved closer to see it falling. Should've just looked at the dish. Moron. Spiciest dinner I've ever had.

Marcella, My New Favourite Friend

Marcella just came over for a cup of tea (French Earl Grey, from Jefferson's) and she brought berry friands from Jackman & McRoss. Score. I like friends who bring baked goods. I will have to tell Alex The Cellist about the French Earl Grey tea. I'm sure he will be suitably impressed, being the tea connoisseur that he is.

Lucy and I had an amazing lunch at The Nook cafe today. Total yum. I had a "tropical wrap", which ended up being this pita bread, toasted with pineapple, beetroot, carrot, cheese... so good. Except beetroot goes everywhere! I had a pool of beetroot juice on my plate. Messyyyyyy. Otherwise, I'm sure beetrooot would be everywhere, as it's v delish! People clearly can't cope with the pool of beetroot tears that end up on the plate. And the fact that it stains your mouth and hands pink. Hmm. Actually, beetroot is high-maintenance. 

I don't feel like snacking. This is a good thing. Lucy is still defeating big dragon things on her PlayStation, so Im watching that from the couch. She's playing Spyro. Elijah Wood voiced Spyro in this, and Gary Oldman voiced some other dragon thing, so it's SUPER COOL. Occasionally I giggle when I hear him going, "Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!" as Lucy's Spyro tumbles off yet another cliff. And he makes grunting noises. This is high-quality entertainment, I tell ye. Anyway, back to this serious business of lifestyle revamping.

Perks of Pilates

My favourite thing about attending pilates sessions at Lansdowne Physiotherapy & Clinical Pilates in West Hobart, Tasmania, is chatting to Lynne, one of the receptionists, about jewellery. We can chat about that for the WHOLE time that I'm supposed to be working my ass off upstairs in the gym. Well, really. Priorities! Bonding over jewellery is much more important.

Fail.

Overall today, I ate six slices of bread, two eggs, a glass of juice, 1.5L of water, ham, cheese, a gin cocktail and a Kit-Kat. It's well within my points allowance for Weight Watchers but I am just not sure that it's all that healthy.

On the bright side, I did do thirty minutes of intense clinical pilates, and three entire hours of singing (whilst employing lots of abdominal muscle action) so maybe that's OK. Ehhhhh.

Off to bed to continue reading A Series Of Unfortunate Events, as I am yet to purchase the fifth book in The Princess Diaries series. I decided that children's literature would be my "reward food" and "secret stash", instead of chocolate and all those new varieties of Tim Tams that the bastards at Arnott's have brought out just before Easter. Yes, instead of jamming my little gob with Tim Tam after Tim Tam, I am having baths and relishing Princess Mia in the ninth grade with a delicious senior boyfriend called Michael Moscovitz. And I'm loving it. It's better than chocolate! Is it? I think maybe it is. It's working, anyway. 

Hi there! Welcome to my new blog.

This blog is for me to document my weight-loss journey. I know! How boring! Boring to you. But not boring to me, I guess, as I'm the kind of girl who needs constant reassurance and motivation. The thought of me fitting into size twelve jeans alone is not motivation enough when there is a family-sized block of Top Deck in the pantry. 

I'm a young lyric soprano working toward a career in opera, oratorio, recitals, recording -- you name it, I probably want to do it. I'm a hard-working lass, and I try very hard to be the best that I can be. I am currently a teacher of singing to my small flock, and I love nutting out what makes a good vocal sound with each and every one of them. 

If you're on the same weight-loss journey that I am, feel free to keep in touch. We all need inspiration, encouragement and support as we try to resist the almighty Maltesers in this life.