Right back at ya!

Thanks for all your support, everyone. Below are some general responses to your comments and some emailed questions I've had.

Sleep
I don't need much sleep - five hours is plenty, six is almost too much! I do sleep better when I've had some exercise during the day - often I will sleep right through my five hours, rather than waking on and off through the night. If I have a bad night's sleep (three hours or less), I am more likely to have a 'hungry' day the next day and have less willpower. A few times I've pulled all-nighters, where I work all day, through the night and the next day too. That wreaks havoc with your eating.

Walking
My 2.5km walk in the morning takes just over 20 minutes, whereas my 5km evening walk takes almost an hour - in the evening I have the dog with me and just can't walk as fast. And, yes, I now look forward to and enjoy my exercise - and miss it if I don't do it. It took me a while to get to that stage. In the first 4-6 weeks of doing WW, my motivation was low and I easily found 'reasons' not to exercise. But planning each week helped me build the habit.

Weekends
I often struggle to eat all my points on a Saturday - I eat breakfast later, then I'm busy for much of the day with rugby, so I often don't get around to eating much from late morning to late afternoon. Sundays are less structured and if I don't plan my food I find myself either not eating enough or eating too much! I still wake very early in the weekends, but read my book or watch a DVD until a slightly more respectable hour - like 7am!

Family
I really admire those of you who are fitting in your lifestyle changes with raising a young family. Our household is just us two 40-somethings, the teenager and the dog. So I can fit THEM around my day, instead of trying to snatch some spare time when kiddies are at school/sleeping/beating each other up. So, if you are losing weight and getting fit while your kids are young - GOOD ON YOU, because your kids will get lots of benefit from it too!
My man and my boy have both been very encouraging and supportive. Here's a couple of photos of them. Mark is about to get on his flash new GSXR1000. Behind him is the house on the beach that we sold last year. Jake is playing in the family Christmas Day tennis match - a tradition we started to get everyone off their bums and out of the house! Aren't they lovely?

Seem you asked so nicely!

Jodie has asked me to post what my typical day's food intake is. So, here's what my weekdays tend to look like - weekends are a bit less organised. I've given you my exercise as well. I get 23 points per day, and I very rarely use any of the bonus points I earn from exercise.
Get up at 5.30am (or earlier because I often don't sleep that late).
Drink two big glasses of water.
Power walk 2.5km, just me and my ipod. Some days I replace this with a home circuit workout or kickboxing.
Stretch a bit and drink more water.
Plan and pack my food for the day.
Leave for work around 7.15 and get there about 7.30.
Have breakfast about 8am (if I'm starting work later I breakfast at home) - English muffin with a banana and 50 grams of shaved ham on top (4 points), or muesli, banana and yoghurt (4 points).
Trim flat white (1 point).
Morning snack - WW bar (1.5 points).
Lunch - I usually buy my lunch now. I try to vary it every day - sushi, bagel and soup or a nice filled roll with chicken. If my lunch is less than 6 points I make it up to 6 by having a piece of fruit.
Afternoon snack - fruit and yoghurt (2 points) or a Jarrah and a piece of fruit (2 points).
Top up snacks during the day - snow peas, carrots, tomatoes cut up and sprinkled with lemon juice, salt and pepper - all free. And lots of water.
Usually I get home from work about 6pm or 6.30.
Walk for 5km - just me, Moose and my ipod.
Stretch heaps and drink more water.
Dinner - if I'm eating the same as the boys, then 3.5 points of grilled protein, 2 points of carbohydrates and .5 point of dressing, sauce or cooking oil - plus plenty of free vegies. If I don't feel like having what they're having, I'll make a 6 point pizza or some pasta, chicken and lots of vegies.
I also allow .5 for the trim milk in my cups of tea during the day.
That leaves me 2 points for evening 'treat' things - like some wine or WW ice cream.
Bed about 11pm.
We are a family that likes to eat late, so that makes it easy to fit my exercise in.
One thing I like about how I've organised my food is that I can see where I'll be able to take points out as my allowance drops.
Of course, the days don't always work as planned, but if I overeat during the day (like if I have lunch at a restaurant), I can easily drop points out of my evening meal.

With special thanks to....

...the lovely Ms Beans.
Kate has inspired me to sign up for the women's triathlon next year - the one that used to be the Special K triathlon.
Just registering for the triathlon has been a major step. I think participating in February 2006 is actually more important to me than reaching my goal weight.
That's because I see the triathlon as a symbol for the changes I have made in my life.
Last year I decided to do this triathlon the month I turned 40 - which would have been March of this year.
So, I embarked on a get fit campaign. I started doing lots of walking, but made no other changes to my lifestyle (like healthy eating!).
After a couple of months of this, I suffered a severe Barbie moment while crossing the road one lovely Sunday afternoon. I tripped over my dog Moose, sprawled full length in the middle of the tarmac and broke a bone in my hand.
In keeping with a pattern I have followed for much of my adult life (until now), this became an excuse to give up.
Shortly after this I was sent to Sydney to work for 3 months, then spent the next three months travelling to Auckland every week for work.
My exercise campaign stopped. I had lots of so-called reasons - broken arm, different city, heavy workload, tired from all the travelling...
How much this has all changed. I paid my registration fee today, and ordered a size 16 event tee-shirt, because by then I'll need one that small.
The triathlon website has training programmes you can download to help you prepare. The beginners' one looks too easy for me!
I know I've still got a long way to go. But I'm really looking forward to it, and I intend to build some milestones into my weightloss journey to help me prepare for the triathlon.
When I am under 100kg, I will start swimming two mornings a week. I just need to make sure I go on different days from Jake - some things a teenager shouldn't be subjected to.
When daylight saving starts in October, I'm going to buy a bike, so I can get some riding fitness over summer.
And come February, I'll be a machine!
The triathlon will no longer be a symbol of my failure, it will be a symbol of my success.

Faster, fitter, funkier

I have been inspired by two different events recently. One was AGR's new shoes. The other was a somewhat unfortunate incident after my kickboxing workout this morning.
Until now I have been working out in a pair of stretch black pants I bought in Double Bay last year. I'm sure Maggie T didn't intend them to be workout pants, but they felt great to walk, leap and cavort in.
Thank goodness I work out at home, because when I got up from my floor stretches this morning MY PANTS FELL DOWN!
So, this afternoon, it was off to the outlet stores. I now have lovely new adidas shoes - not pink and lavender like AGR's, but baby blue and silver. And a great pair of navy blue workout pants.
When I took Moose for his walk tonight, he could barely keep up. My stride was longer, I was walking taller, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. I just know he wants new shoes too!
Now I may need to do something about the top half of the ensemble. My size 4 Platform tees are so baggy the short sleeves are past my elbows!

Cycling

Nope, not the "fit and healthy, earn those bonus points" type of cycling!
The "I'm a week late, feel as bloated as the Goodyear blimp and so low on iron I could eat a truck" kind of cycling.
Except now I'm not a week late, so I just want to sit around in my dressing gown all day and eat grilled cheese on toast.
But I won't! (Eat cheese on toast, that is.) Although I did have a piece of lemon cake today, and it was very yummy. Stir-fried veggies for dinner mean I've managed to stay within my points.
But I certainly feel more like blobbing than blogging.
Oh for the days when this only lasted 3 days! Or when I was a teenager on the pill and it lasted just a few hours! Mind you, it will still be over in less than 5 days, so I guess I don't have too much to moan about. But I will moan if I want to.
Should make weigh-in tomorrow interesting. Especially because it's been raining most of the week and colder than the Arctic wastes, so I've had hardly any exercise.
For the Aussie readers - cold in Wellington means really cold! Nine degrees today. Okay, it's not the kind of cold that freezes the snot in your nose, but it's pretty damn bitter.
And bitter is exactly how I sound, so it's time to go and find my dressing gown and watch trashy TV.

Tighter tights

Or should that be looser tights? Oh well, whatever!
This morning I stopped wearing XOS pantyhose and I now wear OS.
Another of those small milestones that give me such joy.
I was starting to look like the woman in that old ad - the one whose small daughter points to her and yells 'There's my Mummy. The one with the baggy pantyhose'.

Image

In the last week or so, I've seen a recurring theme on lots of other people's weight-loss blogs. They've lost quite a bit of weight and are starting to look and feel fantastic. Sometimes that makes it hard to keep going, because you feel so much better than when you started, and forget how far you've still got to go according to the goals you set yourself when you started out.
Well, here's my 10 cents worth on the subject.
I have lost over 24kg in 17 weeks. I'm fitter, I feel healthier, I've dropped a couple of clothes sizes, I get lots of lovely compliments from my family, friends and workmates. I can feel myself starting to think 'Wow, you've done so well, you can just relax now'.
But, let's run a quick reality check over that thought.
I weigh over 108kg.
I need to lose another 32kg to get to WW goal.
I'm fitter, but I still can't jog over 150m, and the hill to our house still makes me puff.
I wear size 20 clothes.
The compliments are from people who already know me and can see my progress.
So, instead, let's think about how a stranger would see me. Now, you need to understand that what people think doesn't matter (much) to me. But a stranger has a completely unbiased view, because they've never met me before.
So, if someone had just met me for the first time, how would they describe me?
Would they say 'I met this woman today, who was really friendly and bubbly. I'm looking forward to getting to know her'.
Or would they say 'I met this woman today, who was really big, but seems like a nice person'.
I want to get to the stage where the main part of someone's first impression doesn't have anything to do with my size.
Because when they don't notice, then I won't be noticing any more either.

My time

I'm really looking forward to the weekend.
It's the middle weekend of the school holidays, so there is no rugby to watch/manage tomorrow. The man is racing his project bike at Manfield tomorrow, so he'll be out of the house from 5am till whatever time he gets back.
Jake will work at The Red Shed on Sunday, and no doubt the man will spend all day in the garage fixing whatever goes wrong with the project bike on Saturday (or if the weather's nice he'll spend all day out riding the real bike).
So the weekend is all mine.
Of course, I won't actually DO anything exciting. There'll be the usual weekend washing to get done. And I'm sure I will work for a few hours, but I don't mind that, as it means I get to start next week feeling ahead of the game. And the supermarket shopping will still need doing.
But I can do all these things in my own time.
One thing I am determined to do, though. I'm going to finish sorting out all the too-big clothes I don't need anymore.
I'm keeping 3 things that I can use as motivation to remind me of how far I've come - my size 24 jeans, my favourite red skirt and a top.
Everything else will either be sold on TradeMe, donated to the Womens Refuge or put in the rag bin. I'll even drag out all the summer clothes that are packed up in the garage and sort them out too.
So, when I get dressed for work on Monday morning, the only clothes in my closet will be ones I can actually wear.
And they won't fit for much longer.

The wind doth blow

Those of us who call Wellington home often take umbrage at our lovely city being called 'Windy Wellington'.
But there's no denying it - this place is windy. Today we have a strong nor-wester. Anywhere else in the country it would be a howling gale - here it is merely strong.
I'm sure the number of Wellington women with short hair would be much higher than the national average. There are two basic hairstyles here - the short, tousled style where you can pretend the windlblown look is what you were going for, or long enough to tie back so you don't end up with seaweed hair.
This morning I wasn't taking any chances with my look. At 5am, this relatively warm wind is still damn cold. So I left for my walk with barely an inch of skin showing - long pants, jacket, gloves and beanie. Well protected. But, as I rounded the corner at the bottom of the hill - THE WIND BLEW MY BEANIE OFF! I've certainly never had that happen before.
Still, it's not as bad as our last house. We lived right on the beach at Lyall Bay. When a good southerly buster was roaring straight up from Antarctica across the Cook Strait, it would whip enough sand off the beach to rival a Saharan sandstorm. I quickly learned not to put my lipstick on before I left the house - it would be crusted like sandpaper by the time I got to the car.
Still, for all its weather foibles, I love this city.

I love being a loser!

A while back I talked about the June challenge we had in our office. Of the three of us, the two who lost the least weight had to buy a bottle of Veuve Cliquot for us all to share. To make things fair, I needed to lose twice as much as the other two, who are both already quite slim.
Well, I think it's fair to say I romped in on this one. Their losses of 900g and 1.5kg were seriously overshadowed by my 6.3kg loss. Even using the 2 for 1 calculation.
So, they held a very nice presentation for me on Friday, complete with Veuve, a sash and my very own tiara. I work with such nice people.
I'd just like to point out that the sash fell off because it was too big!

Tag (without running)

I got the tag list, so here's my lot:

Three names I go by:
1. JanVikiKarlaSue (Mum just runs down the list of kids till she gets to the right one)
2. Don't call me Susan
3. Sue-nami

Three screen names I’ve had:
1. Smaller Sue
2. Rugbymum
3. Control Freak

Three physical things I like about myself:
1. My lovely blue eyes
2. Nails (they're acrylic)
3. Great tits

Three physical things I don’t like about myself:
1. Freckles in cleavage
2. Ugly feet
3. Stretch marks

Three parts of my heritage:
1. New Zealand, 5th generation
2. Sweden
3. England

Three things I am wearing right now:
1. Comfy, comfy Kumfs slippers
2. Pretty pink lacy bra
3. Bright blue Platform tee shirt

Three favorite bands/musical artists:
1. Scribe
2. The Black Seeds
3. Mikee from The Loop Recordings

Three favorite songs:
1. Welcome Home, Dave Dobbyn
2. Four Seasons in One Day, Crowded House
3. Slim Shady, Eminem

Three things I want in a relationship:
1. Friendship
2. Love
3. Really great sex

Two truths and a lie
1. I'm a fantastic kisser
2. I love to flirt
3. I'm very careful with money

Three physical things about the preferred sex that appeal to you:
1. A deep voice
2. Height
3. Broad shoulders

Three favorite hobbies:
1. Reading
2. Buying bling
3. Being involved in Jake's sport

Three things I want to do badly right now:
1. Sleep for 8 hours in a row
2. Be able to wear a g-string
3. Have finished framing and hanging all my photos

Three things that scare me:
1. Flying
2. Losing the respect of people I love
3. Cutting my finger with a knife

Three of my everyday essentials:
1. Cellphone
2. Skincare
3. Love

Three careers you have considered or are considering:
1. Sports administrator - no surprise there!
2. Journalist (considered, done and discarded)
3. Executive Assistant to someone really important

Three places you want to go on vacation:
1. Maldives
2. Prague
3. Alaska

Three kids’ names you like:
1. Daisy
2. Emily
3. Molly (guess who has no girl children!)

Three things you want to do before you die:
1. Have the developers finish the house we live in so I can actually pay for it
2. Have grandchildren
3. Write a book

Three ways I am stereotypically a boy:
1. I know lots about rugby (and plenty of other sports)
2. I actually know what a swing-arm is
3. I'd rather watch sport than a soap opera

Three ways I am stereotypically a girl:
1. I love watching movies that make me cry
2. Just look in my bathroom cabinet
3. I can't throw a decent punch

Three celeb crushes:
1. Ed Harris
2. Keanau Reeves (it's the voice)
3. That really buff actor that was in Jake and the Fatman

Three people I am tagging with this list:
We're getting short of people to tag, but definitely Felicity because she's new here.
For the other two - if you've been missed out, tag yourself!

I'm not convinced about this...

I think this is another nice photo. I've kept the green theme for those of you who liked my top in the last shot.

But I'm not sure how well this shows the changes I've undergone - although it certainly shows my grey hair now that I've stopped colouring it!

But anyway, this is me now. Might have to look out some shots that show all of me, not just head and shoulders, so you can see how much the rest of me has changed.

Thank you, everyone, for the lovely comments you have been leaving.

As I was then

Hi everyone
This is a pic of me in December 2004. I don't know my exact weight then, but I'm guessing it was pretty close to the 132.5kg that I weighed when I started WW. I weigh 22kg less than that now, so some time in the next few days I will coerce someone into taking a decent current shot so you can see the difference.
This pic was taken for work and we use it in lots of our proposal documents. Everyone says it is a lovely photo - and it is - a lovely photo of someone who weighs as much as I did then. But I don't look like that now, and never will again.
I've told my boss I'm sending him a new pic to use in any future proposals, because I'm heartily sick of this one.
While we are on the subject of work, everyone I work with has been incredibly supportive of the changes I'm making in my life. Some of them have my blog address, so I'm sending out a big THANK YOU to them. You really do make my life easier, as does all the support I get from the lovely people in blog-land.

Walk week

I need a break from my exercise DVDs.
I can recite along with the instructors, word for word. I even correct their grammar, as obsessively as Meryl Streep's character in Lemony Snicket.
I am definitely over their Aussie accents, and I don't really want to feel the burn, at least not for a few days.
So, I'm declaring this Walk Week.
I know, I already walk the dog for up to an hour almost every night. But you can't power-walk with a dog.
I have to stop before I cross each road. Not that he's learning any road sense. I have to stop to hold him back from sniffing other dogs' butts. Nasty habit. I have to stop once, and sometimes twice, to pick up his poo. Who needs to go twice in an hour? That's just vindictive.
So, I'm adding in a morning power-walk this week. By myself. Just got back from my first one. It's once around the block, which is 2km. Small uphill, long downhill, nice long flat bit, nasty steep uphill to finish, topped off by the stairs up to the lounge. 20 minutes flat out.
And weather isn't going to put me off this week. Two walks a day, every day.

Spongesue baggypants

Sponge is the only explanation for it. I must have been holding fluid big time at my last weigh-in. Because this week I've lost
3.4kg!
Unless one of my boobs fell off and I didn't notice!
I'm pretty chuffed with this loss, in case you hadn't picked up on that. Even if I add in my smallish loss from last week and average it over the fortnight, I still lost over 2kg each week.
Lots of lovely things lined up for me in the next few days.

• A good friend and colleague has been working in Auckland since the end of May and I haven't seen her all that time. She's in town today so we'll get to catch up. I've really missed her. Gossiping on the phone isn't quite the same.
• A lovely man I used to work with is back in Wellington for the weekend (strange coincidence with a rugby test here tomorrow). So I get to see him for lunch today. Haven't seen him since February, so I think he might notice a bit of a change!
• I get to give my weight away - having reached my 20kg milestone I'm giving 20kg of potatoes to the Womens Refuge. Actually, I didn't just reach the milestone - I smashed it!
• I'll have special help on the sideline at rugby tomorrow. Jake isn't allowed to play this week because of his injured arm, so he gets to be my waterboy.
• My man and I will both be home this evening, having barely seen each other all week.
• And, of course, the rugby and netball to look forward to.

What a spoilt girl I am!