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A loss of .1kg (.2lb) makes for a total of 2kg (4.4lb) for the past two weeks. And that in spite of our lovely Thanksgiving dinner and a brief spell of insanity on Sunday at the Chapel St Festival in which I consumed wedges, nachos and a scoop of white chocolate and cherry and a scoop of honey baklava ice cream from Baskin Robbins (the white chocolate and cherry was meh, nasty maraschino cherries, but the honey baklava... sweet skateboarding Christ was it good!)

So it appears my system has settled down and I'm exercising again. And it feels GOOD!

It also means that I really have achieved my next goal of losing 25kg. Woo! It feels REALLY GOOD! I'm treating myself to a couple of new skins for my ladymisstree.com site from Joelle at BlogMoxie. Sexay!

So I have a plan for the holidays. It's pretty simple.

My plan is that this week's weight is what I want to be for my first weigh in of the new year. If I can still be 75kg in the first week of January, then I'll be extremely happy.

I intend to keep eating sensibly and doing exercise all the way through December. However, I am not going to deny myself for Christmas. I'm not going to go overboard, but this way I can have a little bit of everything, enjoy myself and not feel deprived. I'm not pressuring myself to lose anything for the next four weeks, just not to gain.

If, by some freakish miracle, I do manage to lose, of course I'll be thrilled. If I do gain, I will be disappointed, but I'll work it off in January. My goal is to simply maintain and enjoy the holiday season.

January, I'll go at it again, hard core. I would like to be at goal for my 33rd birthday in April (and for Beckie's 30th in May!), so I'll have around 15 weeks to lose the remaining 10kg.

I might be dreaming with this one, but I'll aim for it and whatever I manage to lose in that time will be good.

I think the maintenance is achievable, I hope being at goal for my birthday is achievable.

Something I never thought would ever be achievable? Walking into the Alannah Hill store on Chapel St, pulling out a size 14 silk brocade overcoat and it fitting perfectly. Even the button over my hips did up without pulling! I nearly died on the spot! Then I looked at the price tag. And promptly died on the spot.

I might fit into her gear now, but I don't think I can afford to!

Good: finding out that the pair of size 16 (US 12) shorts you bought are a little too big and you really need a 14 (US 10).

Better: finding a pair of size 14 (US 10) cargo pants that look fantastic (and make your arse look really hot, if you may say so yourself).

Best...?

Trying on the tiny black velvet dress you made for your 21st birthday nearly twelve years ago and finding that it fits FUCKING PERFECTLY!

I'm just walking on air. Hell, nothing can phase me now, not even the fact that the washing machine just overflowed and flooded the apartment!

I have decided that leftovers are the ultimate evil.

I usually cater meals very carefully to avoid leftovers. Because, really, what are leftovers for other than eating at a later point? A later point when you probably don't really need to be eating them?

We don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia as there was a distinct lack of starving pilgrims, Indians and the other necessary ingredients. But since my boy is a 'Merkin, we celebrate it in my household.

I made a lovely lunch for the pair of us yesterday. A tiny little roast turkey breast roll, enough vegies for two, macaroni and cheese (pre-packaged stuff that I would not let into the house on any other day), some fresh bread, a pumpkin pie I made with my own fair hands (and a pre-bought graham cracker crust and pumpkin pie filling from a local shop that imports US food), apple pie, ice cream and aerosol cream (something else that's usually never seen in my house, on pain of death).

Despite my best efforts, there was still a chunk of turkey, some of the bread, a huge bowl of mac 'n cheese, 3/4 of the pumpkin pie and half the apple pie as well as most of the aerosol cream left afterwards.

Now, I also have fabulous salad stuff in the fridge along with a host of delicious, sensible things I could have for lunch today. But no, what did I do? I ate the rest of the turkey on the still fresh bread, buttered of course, and started shovelling in cold macaroni and cheese straight from the bowl until sanity intervened.

And let's not forget the morning business meeting with my American partner who just had to have a slice of pumpkin pie because he forgot it was Thanksgiving yesterday and hasn't had pumpkin pie in ages. And what sort of host would I be if I didn't join him in having a piece? And would you like aerosol cream with that?

I could not resist the siren's call of the leftovers. I just could not help myself. I left perfectly good food in the fridge in favour of stuff that I should have thrown out yesterday.

Bugger.

Mind you, my body is still on a mindless search for nutrients at the moment. My last entry wasn't emotional eating at all. It was my body screaming for some decent food now that my digestive system has calmed down. I've probably gained back .8kg (1.7lb) of the crazy 1.9kg (4.1lb) I lost last week. I'm happy with that, the loss was unhealthy (remember, any more than 1% of your current bodyweight per week is probably a bad idea, I lost more than double that!), but if I keep this sort of eating up, I'll gain it all back and more.

Something to watch out for now that the silly season is in full swing.

In better news, I'm feeling much better about life, the universe and everything. The supplements and some St John's Wort are helping address the exhaustion and the depression and I can eat normally again. I've lost the dizziness, so I'm restarting my exercise this weekend. So it's back to our usually programming next week. Mari Winsor, look out, I'm coming for you!

Gah! Must. Resist. Eating. Everything. In. House...

What the hell is wrong with me? I've eaten a perfectly good dinner and all I can think about is eating more!

Can someone please handcuff me to the nearest immovable object before I do something I really regret?!

As I mentioned in my last entry, this week's weigh in doesn't count because I haven't actually digested food properly in a week.

It wasn't as bad as earlier in the week, at one point I thought I had lost 4kg (8.8lb), but some careful eating and some clogging up medicine meant that something actually stuck to my ribs today. So the scales say 1.9kg (4.1lb) gone, but we'll see what they actually read next week.

Even if I gain .5kg (1.1lb) over the next week, then I will have hit my 25kg (55lb) lost goal. YAY! I won't update it yet, because this is just a pretendy loss and my poor malnourished body may pack on everything I've lost just to replenish some of the nutrients I've lost over the past two weeks.

I made the fatal mistake of overindulging last night. My brother hosted a little Australian Idol party and we had pizza (six slices), garlic foccacia (2 slices) and chocolate mousse with Flake sprinkled on top.

You know what they say, a minute on the lips, a lifetime in the bathroom! (At least in my case, anyway.) It was SO not worth the agonising gut cramps I had for the rest of the evening and I nearly missed the announcement of the winner (Go Casey! You beautiful creature!) after my body decided that I was a complete moron for eating this junk and that it was going to be evicted, pronto.

I have been a much more sensible Tree today and had nice, plain, starchy, fibre-filled food to help slow down the helter skelter that is my digestive system. Yummy porridge (oatmeal) for breakfast made with water and flavoured with cinnamon and a tiny bit of sugar, some couscous and fresh veggies for lunch and plain pasta for dinner. I also had some fresh fruit for snacks.

So far, so good. No pain and it seems to have stayed inside long enough for me to derive some nutritional benefit from it.

I'll avoid dairy and anything too spicy for the next couple of days and by the end of the week, I should be set.

I've bought a stash of supplements suggested by my naturopath and I'll start downing those soon.

I'll stick to just a half hour walk each day, I'm still getting dizzy if I stand up too quickly so I'm clearly not ready for a tough workout yet.

But here is the plan. This week, I'll be off any and all medications and my digestive system WILL settle down.

Next week I want to have 25kg (55lb) still gone and the end will be in sight.

I've already got people telling me I should stop losing where I am now, but I'm not done yet. Not sure if my final goal is 70kg or 65kg (as per WW and the BMI tables), I'll find out when I get there. But it's so close now I can bloody taste it.

And you know what? I never thought I'd ever say this, but NOTHING tastes as good as being thin feels!

It was time to pull out the tape measure earlier this week. While it was not really necessary, my clothes are getting looser, it's always nice to get official validation of just how much.

Another 12cm (4.7") gone this month. My arms are finally toning up (wahoo!) and my hips and thighs are still on the downward slide (yay!).

But the shrinkage news is not all good.

How can this be so, you ask. Isn't all shrinkage good shrinkage?

My mum visited this morning and said, "You've lost weight!" But not in that perky, congratulatory tone, more like in that very worried that you're seriously ill tone.

I can slide my jeans off my hips without undoing them. The jeans I bought about a month or so ago.

I'm dehydrated, exhausted, suffering dizzy spells and I look completely wasted.

I've dropped around 3kg (6.6lb) in a week.

No, it's not my diet, I'm apparently suffering from one of the less common side effects of my anti-depressant.

Most of them are supposed to give you constipation.

I wish.

No, after pretty constant wind, gut pain and diarrhoea for a week, I went to the doctor. The doctor, after taking a stool sample (on the count of three... EWWWWWW!), cheerfully informed me that there was nothing wrong with me and told me to drink peppermint tea to settle my belly.

Another week of the same symptoms and, after attempts to self-medicate with things like Immodium, I went to a local pharmacist for some advice.

She had something I could take but she needed to know what I was already on. I told her I was taking Edronax.

A common side effect of which is, apparently, diarrhoea.

Oh joy.

You'd think the doctor might have mentioned that, non?

So yes, Virginia, there is bad shrinkage. My focus now is to get off these meds and to get my system back in order. I'm taking electrolyte and other supplements because I'm clearly getting no nutritional value from anything I'm eating and I'm on hardcore drugs to slow my gut down.

I'm also seeing a naturopath in conjunction with my therapist to find natural ways to manage my depression, because the anti-depressants seem to be doing more harm than good.

I've decided that all I want for Christmas is a couple of weeks of good health. You know, to just feel well and healthy for a while, because it seems that each week I'm hit with something new and exciting.

My next weigh in can probably be taken with a grain of salt.

Oy vey.

I hope, for your sakes and mine, that my next couple of posts are mundane, boring and not involve any sort of medical professional, whatsoever.

Finally, I received a response to one of my old posts about muscle vs. fat.

While I replied with a bit of a scathing email, I just had to respond here.

Yes, Julie, you're very clever. So clever in fact, that you COMPLETELY missed the point of my original post.

If you had been paying attention, you would realise that my post was concerned with trying to convince women of the value of gaining muscle while they are losing weight. It is people like you who bleat, "But muscle weighs more than fat!" who frighten other women into not doing weight work because they think they will get 'fatter'. Completely disregarding the fact that muscle burns fat and is healthier tissue to be carrying around and is denser and therefore makes you physically smaller than someone who is carrying less muscle mass.

No, you were too busy revelling in your own cleverness to possibly consider anything like that.

Now back away from the computer. You're clearly too stupid to be allowed to use it.

Chew on that for a bit, baby.

A little loss of .3kg (.6lb) this week. Not surprising considering the pizza incident.

Or the little incident that had me rushed off to the emergency ward of the Alfred Hospital last night...

Yesterday afternoon, I thought I only had one life-threatening food allergy.

By about 11 o'clock Sunday night, I was abundantly aware that I had two.

A couple of years ago, I was rushed to hospital in London with anaphylactic shock (the technical term for a lethal food allergy). It was not pretty and I assumed that if I avoided eating pistachios for the rest of my life, I would be fine.

Bzzzt. Thank you for playing. Next contestant please!

Last night, I was feeling a bit peckish after dinner (grilled salmon with stir fried Chinese vegetables on rice - yummy!) and I wanted something sweet. I had two mangoes ripening on my kitchen window sill and one of them was perfect.

Mangoes. They are sex in the form of fruit. If you've never eaten one before, I pity you. The weight of them in your hand, firm and fleshy, slightly warmed from ripening in the sun. The perfect shape of them, like one gorgeously shaped butt cheek. The soft perfumed fragrance. When you slice one open, it runs with sweet perfumed juice. And then the flesh, the soft, delicate flesh that melts against your tongue.

It reads like porn, doesn't it? But that's just what eating a mango is all about. They're best eaten naked, in the bath, because they're messy and delicious and should be enjoyed with utter abandon.

So I picked up my perfect mango and I sliced it open and I gorged myself on it. I got juice all over my face and hands. I sucked the flesh off the stone and scraped it off the inside of the skin with my teeth.

It was fabulous.

It had to be. It was probably the last mango I'll ever eat.

About half an hour after I'd eaten it, I felt a familar tingling in the palms of my hands. Then it developed in the soles of my feet. Then my lips and tongue started to tingle.

Oh fuck.

I knew this feeling. It would be followed by my lips and tongue swelling and welts all over my body and, if I didn't seek immediate medical treatment, death.

I told my husband and he told me to sit quietly and see if it really was an allergic reaction or just me over reacting. I had him check my body every couple of minutes for welts. I could feel my tongue and lips start to swell.

He lifted my shirt again. He told me to ring an ambulance.

All the while, I tried to think of what the hell had set this off. I'd not eaten any pistachios. Nothing even resembling them. Maybe the mangoes had come in contact with some pistachios and by scraping the flesh off the skin, I'd inadvertantly consumed some nut particles. Perhaps the new medication triggered new food allergies.

I waited for the ambulance and was whisked off to hospital where they asked me the same questions over and over again while they put me on oxygen and slammed a drip into my arm to administer steroids to fight the reaction.

By this stage, I was covered in hives, from my scalp to my feet. My skin was red and pebbled with them and itched like nothing you've ever experienced. My lips and tongue were so swollen they distorted my face and I couldn't talk properly.

I couldn't figure out for the life of me how this had happened. The nursing staff had no answers for me, they just kept administering steroids until the reaction finally faded several hours later.

For the record, it turns out that pistachios, cashews and mangoes are from the same species, a species that includes poison ivy and poison oak.

I'm a little bit fragile today. I wrote a messy, rambling entry on my other blog that you can read here, but the gist of it was this episode has really messed with my head.

I'm off to an immunologist to get to the bottom of these allergies and to ensure I carry medication with me at all times to help treat them should I accidentally eat something with pistachios or mangoes in it.

In the meantime, I need to focus on getting well and surviving all the fun stuff life is throwing me. Ah, at least it's never a dull moment with me! But if you have any spare hugs you can throw my way, I'd appreciate each and every one of them.

I know I've said it innumerable times here and in comments on other blogs, if you have a bit of a blow out, don't beat yourself up.

Well, I'm about to make an exception to the rule.

My brother regularly comes over every fortnight for a bit of a gossip. We order in dinner and I usually make pretty good choices. I also allow for the meal in my exercise and my points in the days before and after.

This week, we ordered pizza. In my head, I was going to order my usual thin-base marinated chicken pizza (so good!) and eat three pieces of it and chuck the rest (usually done just after the pizza arrives so I don't even get the choice to eat it).

OK, so I didn't order the chicken pizza, I ordered the seafood with all the cheese and the buttery garlic sauce. And it was deep pan, but that was just because the pizza place fucked up my order again. And I didn't do my usual trick of tossing out half the pizza so I ate all six slices of the damned thing.

Now, ordinarily, at this point I would be reassuring myself that it's not the end of the world, it's just pizza and the sky is yet to fall on my head.

It's pizza, not armageddon. Right?

Well, that's not the reason I'm making grumpy faces at myself. Yes, I made a bad choice. That's fine. It happens.

But the pizza was just plain BAD. It didn't taste good. Yet I kept shovelling it in. It should have been easy to stop at a couple of slices because I wasn't enjoying it at all. But it was there, so I kept going.

THAT is what is making me grumpy. It's fine to make a bad choice if you're really enjoying it. But if it wasn't even delicious, what the hell was I thinking?

Ordinarily, if it doesn't taste good, I don't want to eat it. Why would I persist in eating yucky pizza?

Now, it happened to be a couple of hours after my first therapy session (which went incredibly well) and the same day I'd started new medication (which has gone incredibly badly), so I do need to cut myself some slack.

I was clearly indulging in some emotional eating. Although I'm not entirely sure what emotional satisfaction I hoped to get from eating bad pizza. It was a double header of negativity, I didn't enjoy eating it and I felt bad after eating it.

I'll try to chalk this one up to experience, but in the future, I'm going to make sure my binges are yummy. If you're going to feel bad about eating something to excess, it might as well be delicious!

"Strong enough to walk on through the night
There's a new day on the other side
'Cause I got hope, in my soul
And I'll keep on walkin' baby"

- Relight My Fire

Ahhh, striding around my local park, old skool disco beats pounding away, my feet matching the rhythm and cheesy but inspirational lyrics in my head.

Oh, how I love thee, iPod!

I think it's this that let me enjoy a .4kg (.9lb) loss this week, despite Saturday's effort. Those beats are BRUTAL, let me tell you. Go on, go for a walk listening to The Weather Girls singing 'It's Raining Men' and tell me if you can keep up with the beat! I know I can't.

One of the comments I received after I mentioned the depression mentioned using music to help lift your mood. They were absolutely right. I throw on disk one of the 1995 Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Party Themes CD and with the Jackson Five exhorting 'Can You Feel It' and Sister Sledge joyfully celebrating 'We Are Family' and Cheryl Lynne telling me it's 'Got To Be Real', not only am I setting a blinding pace, I'm almost dancing as I do it.

I can barely keep from bopping along and scaring the little old ladies walking their dogs. Heaven forbid if I'm singing along!

So yeah, feeling pretty good right now. Some days are better than others, this one's a good one.

We were talking about cholesterol in my last WW meeting and my wonderful leader, Katherine (for whom I'm tempted to begin a major religion because she is a complete goddess) mentioned that her cholesterol had gone up after she'd lost a heap of weight too. Family history of it, blah, blah, blah.

I immediately wanted to know what she had done to lower it. Apparently hard core cardio vascular exercise had dropped her levels enough to not require medication.

She's a runner, which I'll never be with my weak ankles and bad lower back, but cycling or swimming could do the trick. I'm going to wait until I've lost some more weight, then I'll try adding some real cardio to the mix and see if it makes a difference.

And because the delicious Nurse Beckie asked, here are some photos of me on race day, complete with fake tan!

       

Wow, I didn't mean to get all drill sergeant on you there, guys. It was just something that I really responded to in Beckie's origninal post.

It's too draining to be reading blogs that contain all the things I complained about. This weight loss gig is bloody hard work and it's all I can do at the moment to be motivated for me. When someone else is positive, it's a piece of cake for me to support them. If they are going through a tough time, I have support to spare. But if someone is constantly complaining, entry after entry, and clearly not doing themselves any favours, then I just don't have the energy for them.

If you can't do it for yourself, then I can't do it for you. The key message was the last paragraph:

"Do us all a favour. Be kind to yourself. Get real about what you are doing and what you can achieve. Then go do it."

That I can get behind 100%.

But I have another agenda for this post. I wanted to share my day with you, because while people have described me as an inspiration to them, I just wanted to prove that I'm as human as the next person!

Let's just say that today was NOT a stellar day for good choices...

For the record, today was the day I went to the races.

It was pouring rain and cold, so my outfit wasn't ideal, but I was determined to wear it, even if it bloody snowed. I probably could have done with some fashionable gum boots (galoshes), especially since the marquee I was in had to be accessed by crossing the track (all churned up by hooves after three solid days of rain!), but I ponced around in my little floral sandals and somehow managed to NOT get muddy up to my knees.

The rain also didn't make my fake tan run, fortunately. I was one of the lucky ones, there were a lot of streaky ladies out there today!

For the record, I looked FABULOUS!

More importantly, I had made a deal with myself earlier in the week. I've been making really good food choices and keeping up my exercise each day, so I was going to let myself eat as I pleased today. It wasn't as much of a binge as it could have been (I managed to not go back for seconds of anything), but my stomach feels like a little distended bowling ball at the moment.

There was quiche and pasta salad, roast meat, ham, regular salad and all sorts of delicious things to eat for lunch. That was pretty good and it was easy to make smart choices with good portion sizes.

Then the desserts arrived. Individual lemon tarts with clotted cream. Chocolate truffles with fresh raspberries. A cheese platter. So I just had to have a one of everything.

Then, just in case we hadn't stuffed ourselves sufficiently, they wandered around the marquee with slices of pizza, party pies (little pies with lids filled with mince meat and gravy) and sausage rolls (sausage meat rolled up in puff pastry). Each and every one of them completely delicious.

Of course, accompanying all that was an open bar and they were serving a very nice champagne, so who was I to say no? Four or five times?

Then, once the excitement was all over, I tottered into the city (I'm really not good in heels, especially after four or five glasses of champagne) to meet my husband for dinner.

While I really didn't need to eat anything more, we split a bowl of fries, I had a beef and calamari stir fry (a pretty good choice if I hadn't eaten everything else beforehand) and topped it all off with a vodka, peach schnapps and champagne cocktail.

Then I had a Cherry Ripe ice cream for dessert when we got home.

Now, it could have been much worse. It would have been very easy to go back for seconds of everything, but I didn't. I only took small servings of everything.

I've come a long way, baby.

More importantly, I was OK with what I was doing. It was part of what I had planned. I wasn't doing anything 'naughty' so my behaviour was modified accordingly. For some reason, if I'm doing something naughty, I'm likely to eat much more than I did today. By giving myself permission to eat whatever I liked, it took the attraction of overeating away, so I made good portion size decisions.

If I'd gone to something like this before I had started this journey, I would have consumed twice as much as I did today and probably would have picked at food in the kitchen once I got home.

I've still eaten a ghastly quantity of food and feel quite ill. Not only that, but I need to swill an awful lot of water between now and bedtime or I'll be a very hung over little Tree in the morning.

I guess the moral of this little story is that we need to have days like this, we need to give ourselves permission to eat things we wouldn't ordinarily eat every so often. By giving ourselves permission, we are less likely to overdo it and we won't waste energy with recriminations and beating ourselves up for being 'bad'.

I didn't do anything 'bad' today. I ate more than I needed and I ate a lot of 'energy dense' food. I'll need to keep an eye on my eating for a while and I'll need to do a lot of exercise to make up for this. I gave myself permission for everything I did.

But I could have skipped the chips and ice cream!

Disclaimer: I'm not a real doctor nor do I have a medical background. Nothing in this entry should be construed as medical advice, it's just my own research and experience. All care but no responsibility taken. Do not use if operating heavy machinery. Not to be used as a life saving device. If symptoms persist, see a doctor.

Beckie posted a great entry recently about people's mindsets and attitudes and how they affect her and her progress.

For me, the entry also triggered the frustration I feel when I read/hear the sorts of excuses and expectations people have for their weight loss (or lack thereof).

Take my mum. Please. [rimshot] Thank you, I'll be here all week, try the fish. It's low in calories and full of omega 3 to help make your coat shiny. And tip your waitress.

Sorry about that. I love my mum, but she is the perfect example here. While she is enormously proud of what I've achieved, she can't understand why she isn't losing any weight herself.

For example, she walks her dog for half an hour every day.

You'd think that would help, wouldn't you?

What she isn't telling you here is that the dog is a 15 year old, arthritic, half deaf and blind Maltese Terrier cross who takes half an hour to shuffle and widdle her way around the block. Sure, mum's getting a half hour walk, but the effort is scarcely enough to raise her pulse. If your heartbeat isn't in the fat-burning zone at least (220 minus your age times 70%), you're probably not exercising hard enough to lose weight.

"But I only eat tiny meals!" she cries in dispair. And it's true, my mum can't eat a lot of food at one sitting.

You'd think that would help, wouldn't you?

What you aren't seeing is the choices she's making. Yes, she will have a tiny dinner, but she'll follow it with dessert. Breakfast might be two thick slices of Schwobs fruit loaf slathered with butter. She keeps lollies (candy) and crackers in the house to snack on. She orders cafe lattes with whole milk and a little cake to eat with it. I don't begrudge her the daily glass of wine because that's good for you, but with all the other sugar and fat she's consuming? Is it any wonder she's not losing weight?

I see this sort of behaviour on blogs all the time and it frustrates me. How can you realistically expect to lose weight if you're not willing to put the effort in to exercise and eat properly?

Another way to ensure I'll surf away from your site is to have unrealistic expectations.

You know what I mean, someone who thinks they'll lose a kilo (or two pounds) a week or more until they get to goal. Here's the sad truth, folks. Your body is unhappy losing more than 1% of its own weight in a week. Any more than that and it starts to think there's a famine and starts conserving energy. Which means it starts storing and hanging onto every fat cell you possess. With a death grip.

(Note: yes, I have been posting losses of over 1% of my body weight recently. However, if you average my losses since I began in February, I'm barely averaging .6kg a week, well below 1% of my total body weight. I also have no expectation of being able to maintain this rate as I get closer to goal.)

Not only that, but even if you are well over 100kg and could realistically expect to lose 1kg a week, chances are that your metabolism is so screwed up, it's just not efficient enough to lose even 1% of your total weight every week.

If you're anything like me, you've crash dieted and starved yourself and done everything short of taking a cheese grater to your thighs to lose weight. That fucks up your metabolism big time. And the sad truth about that is it can take up to six months for your metabolism to realise that you've stopped tormenting it and that it can come out and play again.

It's bloody unfair, but it's the truth. Now, you've seen my photos. I've done really well. And I'm barely losing .6kg (1.3lb) a week on average. Some weeks I lose more. Most weeks I lose less. And my losses will slow down even further as I lose more weight. That's the hard truth. It gets tougher as you get closer to your goal.

Worse still are those who make detailed calculations of what they should be losing. They work out how much exercise it takes to burn off a pound of fat and then bemoan their fate when it doesn't work out the way they planned.

Calculations are based on a perfect system, a scientist calculating how much heat is required to burn fat in a laboratory using laboratory equipment. You know yourself that your body is NOT a perfect system. You can calculate until you're blue in the face but your body will behave as it chooses and you don't get a say in that. You can give it the exercise and nutrients it needs to perform at its peak, but you're stuck with the metabolism that you have and it might be months until your body is performing efficiently.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that you have to be an angel and exercise and eat perfectly nor am I saying that any attempt to lose weight will fail, but be realistic about your behaviour and expectations.

If you do a face plant into the entire McDonald's menu one week, don't whine that you put weight on. Of course you did, now move on and work it off.

If you don't do any exercise and don't lose, well big surprise, sister. If you want the results, you've got to get off your arse and work it. If you have an injury, then find exercise that doesn't aggravate it. If it's raining, improvise something indoors. Don't give me excuses. Don't whine that you don't have time. Yes you do, you just need to find it. If you want it that badly, you find a way to do it.

If you don't lose your expected amount each week, deal with it. Your body is doing the best that it can. You can waste time and energy being upset about it if you want, but there's nothing you can do about it and you'd be better off using that energy to exercise. Better yet, stop expecting to lose a particular amount every week.

For me, if I lose half a kilo a week, I'm thrilled. If I lose more, I'm ecstatic. If I lose less, I go back and have a look at why my loss has slowed down. It's not a cue for me to whine and it's certainly not an excuse for me to eat.

I have weeks where I eat insane amounts of food. I acknowledge that I made the choice to do that and the impact it had on my weight and I move on.

I know they say to set a goal date for losing weight, but I haven't. I would like to have reached goal by my next birthday in April. Projecting an average loss of half a kilo a week, that is achievable. However, I also acknowledge that my body is an imperfect system and chances are I won't be able to sustain that rate. This is not the end of the world for me. It's about the journey and what I learn about myself and my health along the way that is more important than the goal. And I will get to goal. It might be in time for my birthday, it might not, but I will get there.

A lot of people waste an awful lot of time and energy focusing on unrealistic expectations and making excuses for not achieving them. Weight loss is simple. Less energy in, more energy out. But it's not easy. You need all that energy focused on doing the best that you can, not worrying about the impossible.

Do us all a favour. Be kind to yourself. Get real about what you are doing and what you can achieve. Then go do it.

This has been another quality rant by Dr Tree™ - Making nutritional and fitness mistakes for 20 years so you don’t have to.

The good news is that so far the Lexapro doesn't seem to be hindering my weight loss. 1.1kg (2.4lb) gone this week, which also takes me to over 50lbs lost and leaves me only 2.1kg (4.6lb) from my next goal. Booyah! Take that, stupid anti-depressant side effects!

Not only that, but my BMI is now 29, which means I'm officially merely overweight instead of obese!

But, of course, that's merely the icing on the cake...

Yep, you guessed it, race day frock photos!

       

Fear my inner glamourpuss!

"So Chenille, what do you have for us today?"

"Well, Janelle, Ladymisstree is modelling a lovely, black floral satin, backless, halter neck cocktail dress with diamante buckle detail that gathers at the hip and falls to an asymmetrical hemline. She's also wearing a lovely fascinator with flowers and feathers that are colour co-ordinated with her frock. Finally, the outfit is pulled together with delightful floral sandals with an elegant kitten heel. She'll also be wearing obscene quantities of Hollywood Fashion Tape to prevent any Fashions On The Field faux pas."

According to the current weather predictions for next Saturday, I can expect to die from either hypothermia or exposure, but at least I'll leave a glamorous corpse!