My 2016 advice to you

Happy New Year!
My 2016 advice for you:

Don't let yourself have any regrets by the time 2016 ends.

- Travel somewhere new. If you can afford it, go somewhere you've never been before, somewhere where the culture is different from yours and the world is more colourful. If you can't afford that kind of trip, go somewhere local that you've never been before. Find out more about the special beauty that your own town or city displays.

- Learn something new. You are never too old to learn a new skill or try a new hobby. Learn how to do something you have never done before. You might find out you enjoy it.

- Appreciate your loved ones and let them know they are loved, not just by your words but by your actions. Do something caring for someone you love. Spend more time giving out hugs this year.

- Live in love instead of in fear. Do something kind for a stranger. Stop making decisions based on the fear of what *might* happen, and start basing your life on love and service to others. Remember that the kindness you send out into the world will always find its way back to you.

- Do something good for the planet. Go out and spend some time cleaning up litter in your neighbourhood or at the beach, give to a charity that aids the environment, spend more time walking instead of driving places. Find a way that you can help fight climate change and then do it.

- Spend some time at the ocean. If you can swim, go for a swim in the waves. If you can't swim, just sit on the warm sand and watch the waves crashing against the shore. Trust me - it's therapeutic.

- Spend more time in nature. This world we live in is a beautiful place, full of its own special magic. Take time to appreciate the beauty all around you.

- Learn to love yourself. This might possibly be the most difficult challenge any of us will face, but it's one of the most important ones. Your body is not YOU. Your appearance does not define who you are. You have a soul, a spirit, a mind, and that part of you, that hidden part, is who you are. Don't let others who can't see that part of you define you. You know who you are; you know your strengths and your flaws, and, deep down, you know you are worthy of love. Embrace this.

- Take care of your body. While it is only the vessel that carries your soul, it can get sick and it can break down much earlier in life if it is not taken care of properly. So only put food into it that strengthens it and nourishes it, and make sure to exercise your body on a regular basis.

- Pursue your dreams. Don't let society tell you what dreams you should and shouldn't have. If your dreams don't hurt anyone else, then by all means, go after them. Start by taking small steps towards them and build from there.

- Create something. Whether it's art, crafts, the written word or something else entirely, be creative this year. It nurtures your soul, and, sometimes, it helps nurture the souls of others too.

- Be silly. Spend some time just being silly. Let yourself be taken over by a fit of the giggles, make corny jokes, and laugh a lot. Laughter improves your quality of life.

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Happy New Year 2015!

Happy New Year! What are your plans for 2015?

There is an increasing trend for people to denigrate the idea of making New Year's resolutions. This makes no sense to me as I don't see anything wrong with taking stock in the new year and looking at what we have achieved and what we still want to achieve. "Resolutions" is just another word for "goals." What is wrong with making goals? 

Some of the nay-sayers point out that many people make these resolutions and then forget about them. While it's sad that they forget their resolutions and don't make any strides towards achieving them, that doesn't make resolution-making (or goal-setting) as a whole a bad thing. Some people are better at sticking to their goals and working towards their goals than others - It doesn't matter what time of the year you set your goals; this fact will still be true.

So if you are making new year's resolutions (and it doesn't matter if you call them resolutions, goals or a to-do list), just keep one thing in mind while you do; these goals you are making are meant to be worked towards throughout the year, not just set and then forgotten.

So here are my fitness, health and Skinny Dreaming-related goals for 2015:

1. Get back down to my goal weight. I've gone up a bit in the past year and struggled to get the weight off. It's not impossible to do though; I just need to keep my head in the right place. I will achieve this by managing to:

2. Get a grip on my sugar-cravings/binge eating. Yes, I have let my control slip way too much this year. Although I managed to drop a bit of weight over November and December this year, I am still not completely in control of my eating habits and I need to get them back under control.

3. Exercising daily. this is another thing I have let slip in the past year. While I don't want to go back to where I was - with over-exercising every day - I do need to fit in some everyday fitness.

4. Finish work on "The 28 Day Fitness Challenge" book and its accompanying food journal and get them published in 2015. I meant to have these completed in 2014, but I had some trouble with the interior illustrations/photographs. I was undecided about whether the book needed photographs or illustrations to show examples of some of the exercises. I have decided to include photographs which show some of the exercises being done.

5. Think up a new challenge to run in 2015. In 2012, I ran the 7-Days Sugar-Free Challenge. In 2013, I ran the 28 Day Fitness Challenge and in 2014 (on Facebook), I ran the Lose a Stone by Christmas Challenge. What will it be this year?

What are your goals for 2015?
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Skinny Dreaming's 5th Birthday!

Skinny Dreaming has now been around for five years! Five years ago from today, I posted for the first time on this blog. It's difficult to believe that so much time has passed already since I first started trying to lose weight and decided to blog about it. I was still pregnant with my youngest son Cameron five years ago when I created this blog and started writing.

At the time, needing to lose over half of my body weight seemed like such a pipe dream, something I could attempt but would never really succeed at. Now look at me! I not only lost the weight, but I've managed to keep most of it off for over three years! This little blog that I began after a few months of successfully losing weight has had advertisers reaching out to it, got me a job writing a regular feature for a monthly magazine in the US, which lasted for over a year, and its reach has grown and grown. 

The Skinny Dreaming book, that wasn't even a thought back than and was only a faint idea a couple of years ago, now has an outline and chapter synopsis for each chapter and a ton of research ready for the writing on it to begin. What was only a fuzzy idea couple of years ago is now something that is definitely in the works. In fact, I have decided to start writing it here on the blog. during the month of April (2014), I will be writing a chapter a day, which will be shared here on the blog. You won't get to read the whole book here on the blog, but you will see enough of the chapters to let me know what you think of the progress as it happens.

  

I look at that picture of me before I started to lose all of the weight, and I can't believe that it was once ME. How did I ever let myself get like that, and how could I have waited so long before doing something about it? I was unhealthy. It pained me just to walk. I had no energy. I was a heart-attack waiting to happen, despite not being very old. I had seven children to think about and care for, so I NEVER should have let my health deteriorate so much. It was always in my hands to do something about it (just as, if you are struggling with your weight, it is also in your hands whether or not you change it).

So much has happened since then, and my confidence, as a result has grown. After losing over 145.5 lbs, I was in several magazines and newspapers. I won my district's Slimming World Woman of the Year 2010 and became a national finalist. I was featured on the television news twice. I was interviewed about my weight loss on our local radio station twice. And I was featured in the Slimming World magazine in October 2011, which got me a proper photo shoot, complete with make-up, hair and clothes. (The photographer was Paul Bueller and two of the photos on this page are ones he took for the Slimming World magazine.)
    

As a result of my growing confidence due to losing the weight, I started to gain confidence on other areas of my life, such as my writing, and I gained a belief that I can achieve anything that I am willing to work towards. My writing career has since grown and I even have an Amazon author page now. And eventually, you will see the Skinny Dreaming book there.

I've even taken up belly dancing - something I would have been to shy about attending classes for before. I am finding the classes fun as well as a good workout, and I'm even planning on joining in with the next performance my class puts on in public.

I hope that you, too, have managed to achieve the body you desire and have grown in confidence along the way. What were you doing 5 years ago?


Every person who comments on this 5th birthday post will be entered into a drawing to win a Kindle copy of the Skinny Dreaming book when it is available. A random number generator will be used to choose the winner once the book is complete. (Please leave a name and way to contact you in case you are chosen as the winner.)


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I Will Be on Sky News Tonight at 5:00pm!

Me with Mostyn Price, the Senior Cameraman for Sky News, West of England Bureau and Isabel Webster, the West of England Correspondent for Sky News

Obesity during pregnancy has been in the news quite a lot lately, especially now that the NHS is trying to take steps to help prevent the complications that obesity in pregnancy can cause, such as large birth weight babies.

Because of the NHS' latest move, giving obese pregnant women diabetes medicine even when they have yet to test positive for gestational diabetes as a way to prevent overly large babies, Sky News decided to do a feature on it, and Slimming World let them know about me, because I lost a lot of my weight while I was pregnant.

I don't know how much of what they filmed will actually be shown, but they interviewed me with some questions. Then they filmed me cutting up fruit for the kids and handing out fruit to the kids. (The kids included some of the neighbors' children as well.) Then they asked us all to play games outside, and the kids chose "Duck, Duck, Goose." If they show it, you will see my 17 and 18 year old daughters as well as me, a 40 year old woman, playing "Duck, Duck, Goose" with a bunch of younger children (mine and the neighbors' kids). I am laughing just thinking about it!

The kids were fascinated with the news van, especially when the film taken was being sent to headquarters so the big satellite dish on the top of the van adjusted to angle skyward.

It is supposed to air during the 5:00pm news and possibly again during the 10:00pm news.

Both Isabel and Mostyn were really nice. I just hope I don't look like an idiot on film!

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I'm In The Mail On-Line Today

A friend of mine pointed out to me that I am also in today's Daily Mail nespaper. It can only be found on-line at The Mail On-Line. I'm not actually in the newspaper on the stands.

Here is the link to the article.

And below is one of the "before" and one of the "after" photos that they used. All of us had to go to London by train on the 29th of December in order to have "after" photos taken of me with Robert and with the kids.



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I Am In today's Sunday Mirror Newspaper

I am featured on page 24 of today's Sunday Mirror newspaper. I haven't found an on-line version yet though.



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I'm In Today's Paper!

The article about me and my weight loss was in today's paper! It was funny because I had forgotten to ask when it would run in the paper and only foound out it was in the paper today when people kept coming up to me (while I was taking the kids to school) and telling me they had seen me in today's paper.

I found where the paper kept the photos on-line.

This is the one they used (without the background) for the article.

Here are some of the others.