Weekly Update No28

No weight loss this week.  Quelle surprise.

Sometimes I wonder if I should give up on pretending to lose weight, but I know that I need to in order to have the surgery I want in a few years time.

Yes, this is how I started last week's update, because I need to do everything I said I was going to do last week.

My MH dropped at the end of last week.  Not because of my failure to lose weight, but that contributed to it.  I feel like a fraud and that I don't have any worth.  

On the positive side, I actually called out for help - in a way.  I put a vague status update on FB asking for prayers.  But I did get the help and validation I needed and I feel better this morning.  It's easy to pretend, especially on social media, but we all need help sometimes.  Me especially. I can't even answer "how are you?" honestly, even if I know the other person would want to hear the truth.

I am drinking smoothies for lunches, and I have been all week.  I do tend to get really hungry around 5pm, though, which is when I crave foods not conducive to weightloss, and to which I have been giving in too easily.  I need to get back to meal planning properly.  My cleaner has come back now, so my kitchen is reasonably clean, which means I don't really have an excuse not to cook more.

Love Me, Dreamy by Laura Burton

It is always a privilege to be asked to review a book by an up-and-coming author.  This is the third book I have read by Laura Burton, and the third in her Love Me series (the previous two being Love Me, Crazy and Love Me, Sweetie).

Love Me, Dreamy is another cozy romance, with a paranormal twist.
The blurb says:

Sitting on a park bench, Amelia can't remember how she got there. But when a young, Californian surfer wanders up, figuring it out doesn't seem so important. The chance meeting leads to a date and then another. Sparks fly and although she never imagined falling in love with someone so much younger than her, he's perfect. 

That is... except for the strange men in black suits who keep showing up. Are they being followed? 

Toby knows a secret, but if he tells Amelia, he risks losing her forever. With the guardians set on tearing him away from her, he whisks Amelia to another part of the world. They're safe, but not for long. Their relationship is put to the ultimate test, when Toby and Amelia stand at the top of a waterfall. With only one chance to stay alive, he asks her to take a leap of faith. Amelia thinks they will surely die, but Toby insists it's the only way to be together.

As someone who reads a fair bit of fantasy/sci-fi/paranormal fiction this book was not what I was expecting.  That's not to say it is bad, not at all.  I got through the 300ish pages in a couple of days.  It was very easy to read and very enjoyable; it was just not what I expected.  I'm not going to give any spoilers because it is worth reading, but means it is hard for me to expand on what I was expecting and the actual story-line.  I just wish we could have found out a bit more about the guardians.Who are they? Why are they there? If this hasn't happened before, why are they needed in the first place? How do they travel? How do they know?  If there was to be a spin-off from this book, that is the direction I would be hoping for.

The love story between Amelia and Tody is captivating.  Toby helps Amelia discover herself, face her fears and become more spontaneous.  He is charming, being a gorgeous surfer who seems to have fallen in love at first sight, despite their age gap, and Amelia starts to fall for him too.  They travel together across the globe, and Amelia has many new experiences with her beau, until the guardians get closer and they have to make a life-changing choice: should they jump?

For those who don't normally like paranormal fiction, don't let that put you off.  It's another well-written love story that will make your heart soar.

Weekly Update No27

No weight loss this week.  Quelle surprise.

Sometimes I wonder if I should give up on pretending to lose weight, but I know that I need to in order to have the surgery I want in a few years time.

Someone shared this video on FB recently:

I've seen it before and I do find it inspirational.  It makes me want to do more Body Grooving as clearly dancing is good for weightloss - I just need to keep going start again with it.  

I know that the issues I have are in my head.  

I know I can lose weight as I've done it before.

I know my goal weight of 64kg is achievable because I've done it before.

I need to get to the root cause of what is stopping me.  

I need to find my motivation again, and cement it in my head.  Whilst I don't have cancer, the idea of it is abstract, whereas I need to bring it to the forefront of my mind.  I don't want cancer - I've seen what my mum has been through.  I do want preventative surgery.  And to have the reconstruction that I want, I need to have a healthy BMI.
I need to stop giving a shit about what other people think of me, and live life on my terms, and dance if I want to dance.  When I took my girls to their dance lessons last week, I shared with some people about Body Groove, and we even did a dance in the hallway together.  It was fun! And that's despite some of the kids and the other parents laughing at us.  One parent who danced with me, even said that if I became a trainer and could offer classes whilst her child was dancing, she would come along - much like I did when a pt friend offered pt sessions at the dance studios a few years ago.

A few weeks/months ago I used the excuse that I didn't have any suitable clothing to wear, as it was too tight or too hot.  I have since bought loads of loose, groovy clothing that I am wearing as everyday wear, and could easily dance it, but I'm still not doing it.

And I need to rewatch all the 2B mindset videos.  I think part of my problem is that I get so familiar with stuff that I know the 'right' things to say, or think, but don't actually action them.  I'm clever enough to come up with the excuses as to why I don't need to stick to this or that this time, I'll do it next time; or I can justify why I really do want this cake/doughnut/alcohol, rather than holding out for my goals.

The Fourth Element Trilogy by Kat Ross

I love reading, and consuming new (to me) books, and I'm glad to be back in the habit. I am very glad to have read the Bible in 6 months, as I'd not done that before, but I think I will go back to reading it slower over a year, and having more time to read other stuff.  As I've mentioned before, I do enjoy reading classics, (having just finished Lorna Doone) but they require more concentration, whereas I relax the most when I can submerge myself into another world and devour the contents.  I read quickly, and love it when I find a book that I cannot put down.


Four days ago I started reading The Fourth Element Trilogy by Kat Ross. I chose this book(s) because I am working through all the books I have on my Kindle, and am trying to read them before I buy more, as I'm a bit of an addict.  Before my actual Kindle died (I now use Kindle app on my phone) I wrote on a sheet of paper (that ended up being 12 sides of A4) all the books I hadn't read yet, because my Amazon account doesn't actually register whether I've read a book yet, just that I've bought it.  (Or if it does, I'm not technologically minded enough to work out how to do it!)  So, I choose my books based on the title alone.  I decided to read this one because the title sounded interesting, and because it's a trilogy, I knew I wouldn't read it too fast - or so I thought...


The blurb says:

They are the light against the darkness.
The steel against the necromancy of the Druj.
And they use demons to hunt demons….

Nazafareen lives for revenge. A girl of the isolated Four-Legs Clan, all she knows about the King's elite Water Dogs is that they leash wicked creatures called daevas to protect the empire from the Undead. But when scouts arrive to recruit young people with the gift, she leaps at the chance to join their ranks. To hunt the monsters that killed her sister.

Scarred by grief, she's willing to pay any price, even if it requires linking with a daeva named Darius. Human in body, he's possessed of a terrifying power, one that Nazafareen controls. But the golden cuffs that join them have an unwanted side effect. Each experiences the other's emotions, and human and daeva start to grow dangerously close.

As they pursue a deadly foe across the arid waste of the Great Salt Plain to the glittering capital of Persepolae, unearthing the secrets of Darius's past along the way, Nazafareen is forced to question his slavery—and her own loyalty to the empire. But with an ancient evil stirring in the north, and a young conqueror sweeping in from the west, the fate of an entire civilization may be at stake…

So begins an epic story of adventure, romance and betrayal that leads to undiscovered magical realms and a final confrontation with a demon queen bent on destroying them all.

Given that I have read nearly 1000 pages in 3 days (as I actually finished the trilogy yesterday), you can take for granted that I enjoyed it.  It is really well written, and set in a partly fantasy and partly historical world.  The writing was really good, and I liked the fact that we were looking on things from the pov of a different culture.  I'm not going to give anything away in this review, but when some of the historical aspects come to light, I was quite pleased with myself that I had worked them out beforehand, though the identity of the young king of the enemy was a surprise to me.

Having read the books so fast, I couldn't put them down.  I was only slightly disappointed in the ending, because I felt it ended and everything was wrapped up a bit too quickly, and I wanted to experience more.  However, there is a subsequent series called The Fourth Talisman* where you can see what happens next the the characters.  I haven't bought these books yet, because I am trying to work through the ones on my list, but I look forward to coming back to this world and seeing what happens next to Nazafareen.

Lorna Doone by R D Blackmore

Every year I like to read a “classic” that I haven’t read before, partly because I want to be considered well-read and be able to join in conversations about books, and partly in case it introduces me to a genre of book that I hadn’t considered reading before.

I’ve wanted to read Lorna Doone since I was a very little girl, because a friend at my first school had an older sister called Lorna who was named after the book. I knew it was a romance, but didn’t know any more of the story.

The blurb says:

Every woman clutched her child, and every man turned pale at the very name of "Doone"'

John Ridd, an unsophisticated farmer, falls in love with the beautiful and aristocratic Lorna Doone, kidnapped as a child by the outlaw Doones on Exmoor. Ridd's rivalry with the villainous Carver Doone reaches a dramatic climax that will determine Lorna's future happiness. 

The book was written in 1869 but is set in the late 1600s, primarily when King Charles II and King James II were on the throne. The book follows the life of John Ridd from a boy who was pulled out of private school because his dad had been murdered, up until much later in life, as he falls in love with and pursues Lorna Doone. Lorna is considered far above his station, as she is a rich Doone, but also the Doones are the local criminals, and the ones responsible for the death of John’s father.

I really liked this book. It is a book that needs some concentration to get into the story, as you are confronted not only with Old English, but some of the characters speak with a Devonian accent that required (for me at least) concentration to interpret. Being originally from Bristol and holidaying often in Devon, I liked that I could place many of the locations in the story, even if some (such as “Bristowe”) have different spelling these days.

This book is a romance, but it is written from John’s pov, and there are plenty of fight scenes and politics that men don’t have an excuse to not read it. Due to the difficulty of the language, that unless the child is a precocious reader, I wouldn’t recommend to preteens (it’s not inappropriate, just the vocabulary), but other than that, this book is suitable to all.

Corsets

From Amazon.co.uk

I read an article the other day about how corsets are coming back into fashion, and that’s a bad thing for women because their sole purpose is body modification in order to look more sexy and desirable to men.

I actually like a corset. I don’t own one that fits at the moment, but I do like the style as something glamorous to wear on a night out, or even dressed-down with a pair of jeans. I wouldn’t wear one to change my body shape, but that could be because before my hysterectomy I had a ‘full hour glass’ figure. I’ve always been fat, with a belly and thunder thighs, but I have always had a defined waist that was at least one size smaller than my hips, making clothes-buying difficult. Since I’ve been in surgical menopause, however, my waist is getting wider and wider. At one point it was good because my clothes actually fit, but now I’m more like an apple stuck on a pair of fat pillars…

Rabbani and Solimene Photography
WireImage

On that article, I saw a photo of Kim Kardashian wearing a corsetted dress, and I was shocked. I’m not a follower of fashion or gossip or celebs, so though I have heard the name, and I know KK is famous for her big bum, I didn’t know what she actually looked like. It just looks really weird. Like REALLY weird. Women naturally have a sexy, curvy shape, but taken to this extreme it looks odd. I suppose, for me, it’s because it just doesn’t look natural. I feel the same about many of the filters you see on snapchat and the like, that is meant to make you look airbrushed, or with makeup on, no flaws and more attractive, but just ends up making you look not real. Do men really find that attractive? I suppose my issue with this type of look is now mainstream it is – not that women look that way, but that it’s accepted (and acceptable) the women and girls want to look that way; as if if you don’t want to look like that, you’re the odd one.

Then there’s the argument that I have in my head about such things. I genuinely believe people should be free to wear, or not wear, whatever they want. An extension to that, is I believe people should be free to modify their own body however they want. Whether it’s piercings or tattoo, whether an extreme* hairstyle or colour, etc people should be free to express themselves. So, if someone wants to modify their body by wearing waist trainers and corsets, who am I to judge? It comes down to who are they doing it for? And much like the people who say they can’t leave the house without a full face of make-up, but claim it’s not society putting pressure on them to look like it, but they genuinely want to go through the rigmarole of hair and make-up sessions every morning; are these women** modifying themselves because they genuinely want to, or because they want to feel more attractive to others, and think this is the only way to do so?

*Now DD1 is going to school in September, I’ve just spent a small fortune on her school uniform. As part of the school uniform policy, there includes a note on extreme hairstyles and mohicans are not even mentioned, whereas very short cuts or bright colours are.

**I am aware that some men wear corsets too. And also some men and women wear corsets not to primarily change their body shape, but as a way to feel pain/control, perhaps as part of BDSM. I feel more comfortable with this, than wearing corsets in order to be more attractive.

Weekly Update No26

(Yes, for those keeping count, there was no No25.)

I've been on holiday, so haven't lost weight.  No surprises there.  I do need to start thinking about what I shove in my gob, and how much exercise I'm [not] doing. My husband is calorie counting, and it's working for him - he's now halfway towards my ultimate target goal, whereas I'm still bobbling over 93kg.

Our cleaner had an operation so wasn't working for over 6 weeks. She's back now, so hopefully this'll encourage me to keep the house and kitchen tidy, which in turn will encourage me to start cooking proper/healthy food again. I having been having smoothies, but I think I need to make more of an effort to only have 1 portion at specified times, rather than drinking a whole bottle over the day (where a bottle is 3 portions of smoothies, or 5 portions of the juices!).  Calorie-wise they are not "too much", but clearly I need to consume even less, and generally be more in control.

So here we are again, halfway through the year, determining to do better.
I am convinced that half the battle is in the mind, so as long as I don't give up, but accept my mistakes as mistakes and move on, then I haven't failed.