Apart from the Paul McKenna tape that I'm using to help me sort out my thinking and behaviour around my "food, exercise, body, health issues," I'm also doing a wonderful cognitive therapy program called The Beck Diet Solution. I plan to review both these programs later in the year, but I just wanted to mention right now a great little exercise that I'm doing today which I absolutely love.

Over the past few week I've been working on my Hunger Scale. Which is something I really didn't know about until McKenna and Beck. To get more details on the Hunger Scale download this great pdf from MIT Medical: medweb.mit.edu/pdf/hunger_scale.pdf Anyway, I've been working on eating at 4 and stopping at 6 as opposed to my usual of eating at 1 and stopping at 8 or 9. Now I have an idea of what portions sizes put me at a 6, I'm working on strengthening my ability to stop at 6 when I'm in eating environments that I can't control, i.e. when I eat away from home. To do this I write down what I'm going to eat for the day and at each meal I put twice as much food on my plate as well as add a few other foods that are not on my plan but are tempting. Then with all these choices on my plate I have to select and eat only the food and quantities I've predetermined I'll be eating and leave the others.

The point of the exercise is to build up my "resistance muscle" as Beck calls it = my ability to resist eating foods just because they are offered to me, just because they are on my plate, just because they're available, just because they're free, just because .... I'm to repeat this exercise as often as I need to until I can say no consistently to treating myself like a human garbage. So far so good.

In other news, the resistance belt on my elliptical machine came off last week. :( My husband put it back on and tightened the thingies that hold it in place, but it came off again when I increased the resistance from level 1 to level 3 :( He's going to try fixing it again but is quite busy at the moment and just doesn't have the time.

In the absence of my elliptical I decided to get creative with my morning exercise and use the steps that lead to my kitchen for my work out. I figured, I'd just step up and down one step for 1/2 hour and swing my arms while holding some light weights. OMG!!! Killer workout!!! BUT left me with a pulled calf muscle :( So I've had to reduced my exercise routine to daily walks until the pain in my calf subsides, which it is just beginning to do.

Good thing though that I'd bought a new pair of running shoes last week before my calf injury. My current pair is about 8 years old and as I have osteoarthritis in my knees, I really wanted shoes designed for high impact will lots of cushioning to protect my knees as much as I can when I'm power walking. Who knew that buying running shoes was such a science? I went to this great little store in Camden Town and they did all sorts of tests on me including putting me on a treadmill and videoing my feet. I was in there for quite a while, but the end result is that I got a pair of great shoes (above) that make me feel like I'm floating on air.

Oh almost forgot. Lost 900grams/2lbs this week, so I'm now 81.2kgs/ 179lbs. Yay!!!

Growing up in my family, I was an overweight kid surrounded by a mother and three older sisters who were thin and in my eyes beautiful. From the time I hit puberty, I began to developed an inferiority complex about my chubby body when I compared it to their slender ones and went to considerable lengths to make sure that they never saw me naked because I was so ashamed of being a fat ugly myopic duckling.

My closest friend in secondary school was about twice my size and she had none of the hang ups about her body that I had about mine. When I visited her she would change her clothes in front of me the way my sisters and mother did and not think twice about it. I was in awe of her complete lack of self-consciousness about the size and shape of her body.

I never grew out of those early feelings of physical inferiority, so when this self-improvement tape that I'm listening to (Paul McKenna's "I can make you Thin") to try to "fix my head", suggested that I do an exercise to make peace with my body as it is, I was all for it.

Just getting to the stage, however where I could look at myself in the mirror completely naked took lots of courage and actually doing the suggested exercise of telling the parts of my body I hate that I love them felt incredibly silly ... but after having been doing this for just a few days, I found myself thinking as I looked in the mirror this morning that I look like a brown Rubens nude. Obviously the though caught me by surprise, but it also made me feel ... beautiful just as I am. Now, this doesn't mean that I'm ready for a playboy spread or anything, but I was filled with such feelings of self-acceptance, that I blurted out to my husband over breakfast that maybe I was thinking that I wanted to start thinking about the idea of maybe walking around the house naked. He was all for the idea to say the least ... but who knows, maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and chalk the whole idea up to momentary insanity.

Anyway, weighed in today and lost 1.6kg./3.6lbs. Yay!!!

First, a big thanks to all who left those wonderful comments on my post last week. It's so great to be part of a community of people who get so many of the issues surrounding weight loss.

Speaking of weight loss, I didn't go to my counselor to get weighed in today because it's a bank holiday here today and she's off duty. I thought I'd write my weekly post anyway and then try to write another short one on Wednesday when I get weighed.

I'm really happy to report that my water drinking routine is going spectacularly and as my buddy Sayre promised, I'm no longer spending all day in the toilet. It's a miracle folks, I don't know what my body is doing with the water but it isn't rushing straight from my mouth right through my pee pee hole any more ... which is a good thing because I was really starting to wonder how I could convince my doctor to let me have a catheter ... I mean I've got things to do, I just can't dedicate so much time to peeing.

Another little miracle is that I've been on my elliptical trainer for 30 minutes every morning since I last posted. Up until yesterday, the weather has been so lovely and I've been enjoying it out there. By the way, the photo above is the view from my elliptical . Confession: the reason it lives on the balcony is that our balcony is bigger than our apartment so that's the only place it can fit. Apart from the elliptical, I've also been walking between the tube and our apartment instead of taking the bus. Depending on which tube I take, that's either 3.7kilometers/2.3 miles or 1.7kilometers or 1.1 miles.

I'm so happy with these new habits I'm cultivating that I've created a little column in my sidebar specifically to record and celebrate my lifestyle changes.

The thing about losing weight is that it brings along all sorts of little benefits, like increased mobility. Last week I went over to one of my students to demonstrate a technique. She was sitting and instead of dragging a chair up like I usually do, I spontaneously knelt down next to her AND got back up after I was done without the help of a crane. The thing is I didn't even realise that I'd done this until I was walking back to my desk and then I was well cuffed with myself!

Some of my colleagues have begun to notice my weight loss which brings along pluses and minuses. An obvious plus is that my efforts are paying off and my body is changing noticeably. A minus is that on two occasions when I've been asked what my goal weight is and given my answer. The people who have asked have freaked out, telling me that that's too low and launching into a mini lecture about why I shouldn't and couldn't possible go down to 55kgs=120lbs.

Firstly, I don't get why anyone would care what weight I decide I want to be, I mean to each her own, right? Secondly, it's not like 55kgs is bordering on anorexic ... and I didn't just pull the figure out of my ass. Based on the various weight height charts used by doctors and insurance companies, at 162.5cm = 5'3" my recommended weight is between 50-61kgs =111-135lbs. In addition, 55kgs was the weight I've felt the most comfortable at and all the doctors I've ever had, have agreed that it is a reasonable weight for me. Most importantly for me however, it is the weight range of women in my height range, who experience the lowest mortality. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather be in the group with the the lowest mortality rate that not. Now, I wasn't going to say all that as a response to the mini-lectures, because I just hate feeling like I need to justify myself to anyone. Instead, I smiled and nodded and changed the subject as soon as I possibly could. I think my strategy in the future if I'm ever asked that particular question again, will be to avoid giving a figure and simply say: 'that's in my doctor's hands'.

Anyway, on to more exciting things, I've been drinking my 3 liters (12 8oz cups) of water everyday. My little system of drinking just one cup in the hour, made things very manageable and made me realise that maybe I was struggling before because I was trying to drink too much at once. This isn't to say that I'm now a happy water drinker, it just means that for now I have found a satisfactory system that seems to be keeping me on track and my reward ... drum roll here please ... was to lose 2.2kgs = almost 5bls. this week. WOW!!! Guess my counsellor was right, I needed to drink more water. This means I've reached and surpassed my first weight goal to reach 85kgs. YAY!!!

My plan this week is to get on the elliptical for 1/2 hr M, W, F and continue walking 10,000 steps on T, Th and possibly S,S. My elliptical is on my balcony and it was so lovely this morning being outdoors in the fresh Spring air watching life return to the garden.

P.S. I'm now 84kgs = about 185lbs.

Last week was a bit giddy for me. I don't know what got into me but I went on a bit of a shopping spree the entire week. Nothing huge - some shoes, audio books, costume jewelry, hair products, cosmetics, art magazines - but enough to put a small dent in my savings. :(

Now, I should say that I'm not a shopper. I go for months and months without buying anything, and my idea of hell is any High Street or any Mall anywhere, anytime ... so I have to put my momentary insanity down to spring fever or euphoria at seeing my weight finally going down consistently or great sex (ahem) or just general happiness in being alive. I dunno but what I do know is that I have to find another way to express my giddiness ... maybe it's time to up the exercise.

Got weighed in today and lost .8kgs = 1.7lbs. I'll take that!!! My counsellor was a little surprised that it wasn't more. She says I'm not drinking enough water and wants me to consume 3liters = 12 80z glasses daily. WHAT!!! At that quantity, I'll have to move into the toilet. Let me just say for the record, I HATE drinking water ... as a matter of fact I'm not big on liquids period. I know, I know we need water to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah .... Knowing that I need to drink it for my health and well being doesn't make it any easier to get it down my throat, okay? So now I've devised a new schedule just for water drinking. 1 cup on the hour for 12 hours. Sounds very good in theory, let's see if I can get through the week.

Man let me tell you, I ♥ Spring!!! Winter in Britain is hard on a girl, especially a Caribbean girl like moi. All that dark and damp is enough to make me wish I could just go to sleep in October and not wake up until the first cherry blossom tree blooms in April ... humm ... that would be an excellent weight loss strategy as well.

Anyway, Spring has arrived ... no matter it is as cold as a witch's tit ... the days are lengthening, the sun is putting in an occasional appearance, the birds are singing, flowers are blooming everywhere and I've lost yet another kilo. Tell me, what more could a girl ask for?

This week, thanks to Rosa I dug my pedometer out of the back of the drawer, reset it and clipped it on. I set the goal for myself of walking no less than 5,000 steps everyday this week and am happy to say that I did that and much more most days. Meeting my goal did require that some days, like Saturday and Sunday when I wasn't planning to go anywhere, I actually had to take myself outside for a short walk just to get my 5,000 steps in. Made me realise quite how sedentary my life is. As the weather changes and I get lighter, I'm sure I'm going to be getting back into some of my old passions like tennis and tango and maybe I'll start kick boxing, something I've always wanted to try. We'll see. For now though I'm just glad that I've begun to get some gentle daily exercise.

My brand new ... well more like 6 month old ... wedding band no longer fits. It flew off my finger and across the room this weekend. Luckily I was indoors and was able to retrieve it. I'll have to get a ring guard to make it stay on my hand or give up wearing it or ... does anyone have any suggestions?

Anyway, we spend Easter Sunday and Monday with my in-laws. Had a great time in general but had a bit of a wobble with my food. Still managed to lose 1 kilo (roughly 2lbs) which I'm really happy about. I'm slowly inching my way to my first goal, 85kgs. Really need to find new ways though to cope with social anxiety other than talking or eating too much.