Yes!!!

I was astounded to see on Saturday that I've lost another 4 lbs, which has finally brought me under 12 stone :D  I've now revised my 'before Oz' goal down to 11 1/2 stone (roughly 73kgs) which I think will be very achievable, seeing as I'm now 75.6kgs!  I am so pleased, it means I'm now 10kgs off the goal I have in mind.  Last week I was very very strict, however - I did have my work Christmas lunch on thursday, and ordered what I thought would be healthy sea bass with cauli puree and kale....well, it was delicious, but full of butter and salt.  That said, I don't feel the slightest bit guilty, and it obviously had no effect on losses!   I must add, that all my measurements went down too, which makes it doubly pleasing.
We've finally booked our tickets to Australia, we fly out on the 29th January, and return on the 22nd February.  So that gives me 6 weeks of moving up the steps beforehand....something I don't really want to do, but know I must to replace my glycogen stores (which could put on anything up to around 4 lbs or so I'm guessing), and get my body used to more food again.  So the idea is to have one more week of being super strict (this past weekend, I had curry/spicy turkey mince with veg, and tandoori fish and lentils (delicious, I might add) - then it's Christmas a week from tomorrow when I plan to eat fairly well, but reasonably sensibly (no picking at crisps & cheese!).  I'll see how I feel after Christmas, as I plan to start some light exercise, so will have to introduce carbs again.  One good thing about Step 3 of the program is I'll be able to have a limited number of ready meals (most likely M&S fuller for longer ones, and some of the Waitrose love life ones)

Food, glorious food!

The one thing I've been doing a lot while on this diet is checking out lots of different foods on the internet...I guess you could call it 'food porn'!  However, it doesn't feel like I'm torturing myself, and it's surely better looking rather than actually gorging myself, right?  :P

Anyway, there are foods I love from both the UK, and miss from Oz, to name some examples:

Sausages - these are SO much better in the UK, really high quality sausages are amazing; I'm particularly partial to the brambly apple ones.

Ready meals - These are amazing in the UK, I especially love the ones Waitrose has (especially Heston's lasagne), and M&S always have some great stuff, in particular their 'fuller for longer' range (low GI, healthy food, which I hope to use from time to time once I'm maintaining)

Jamon Iberico de Bellota - quite simply the best ham I have ever tasted, ever.  I just wished it wasn't so expensive!  If I win the lottery I will always have one of these to hand!  (replete with cutting stand and knife, of course!)  So posh that Waitrose is the only supermarket that stocks it :P

Cheeses! - The cheeses you can get in the UK are amazing:  proper Cheddar (cave aged from Cheddar Gorge!), Stilton (Surprisingly not actually from Stilton...), blue smoked Wensleydale (not easy to find, unfortunately!), proper buffalo mozzarella from Italy, and, and...you get the picture!

Branston pickle!  Delicious, used to be widely available in Oz, but it seems not anymore :(

Cheap wine! (Yes not a food, but a fair bit cheaper than Oz!)

Foods I miss from Oz:

Aussie KFC - sadly, they don't have the same chips seasoning here in the UK, and it's just not the same!  Their burgers are  marginally better too, though I see they no longer do the burger with pineapple! (boo!)  In general, I love a good proper Aussie burger too, especially one with the lot (egg, pineapple, bacon, etc) from Kermonds in Warnambool!  Aussie McDonalds is not markedly different to the UK.

Sakata rice crackers - especially the seaweed ones.  And also the huge choice of dips you can get.  In the UK you're pretty much restricted to salmon, sour cream and chives, & hummus.

Chocolate!!! - I don't really care for most chocolate here in the UK (however, this is almost certainly a Good Thing!)  But Aussie Cadburys....ooooh yummy!  Especially their peppermint block, crunchie, top deck, and plain.  Even better still:  Red Tulip easter choccy! :D  Jaffas, Peppermint crisp, violet crumble, cherry ripe...  That said, I do like Toblerone here, and M & Ms  (which probably led a great deal to me getting as fat as I did! - and something I will no longer keep in the house!)

Big Ms -   ok, so not strictly a food, but I do miss these!  If you get flavoured milk here, it's really thick (& I'm not a fan of thick shakes, for the most part!)  That said, the Cambridge ready mades are pretty darned close (& very tasty too!)

BBQ sauce - I just prefer the aussie stuff!  I haven't found anything like it here :(  that said, there are some other types of delicious sauces to be found.

Most of all, I miss my parents cooking!  (though was fortunate enough to have them cook for us during their recent stay :D  Mum's apple crumble made with stuart seedlings from the orchard, dad's pasta, BBQs, Han & John's home grown pork, etc etc etc....

Crisps (or chips in Oz!)  have pretty good offerings either way.  I like Wotsits (UK), Burger Rings (Oz), Twisties (Oz), Walkers Lime coriander chutney poppadoms (UK), Tesco's goats cheese & chilli finest crisps, cheezels (Oz), and from either country, salt and vinegar so strong it knocks your socks off!

I like Sour cream and chive (?) Pringles from either country too, though James says he hates the smell of them (humph!)  ;)  I'm looking forward to trying sweet potato crisps and oven chips in Oz (why don't we have those here?!) 

Anyway, much healthier to write it down rather than actually eat it! :P  I intend to still eat my favourite foods once I'm at goal - just in a sensible way, in moderation.

Slowing down? The dreaded 'P' word (plateau)?

So I've only lost 2 lbs this week, barely a kg!  And I know a loss is a loss, and my measurements are still reducing.....but I can't help but feel a tiny bit disappointed.  Michelle said she'd expected to see my weight loss slow weeks before now, seeing as I didn't have a huge amount to lose to begin with.  However, the great news is my BMI is now 25 and finally classed as healthy!  My initial goal is to get to 12 stone, but now I'm pretty much there, Michelle has suggested I set a new goal of 11 1/2 stone (approx 73kgs) before we go to Oz (though obviously I'd be delighted if it was closer to 70!).  The sort of end goal I have in mind is 65kgs (which is approximately 10 1/4 stone), though vanity leads me to admit I'd love to be below 10, just to have a number '9' in the front!
Last week I relaxed my food rules a bit, ate a bit more during the week (& added a bit of blue cheese dressing to my salads...which is low carb, but am wondering if the small amounts of salt/lemon juice have kicked me out of ketosis) - I'm really not sure if this has lead to the smaller loss, or whether it would have happened anyway.  I am supposed to be moving up the plans now regardless, but as an experiment this week, I'm going back to being super strict, to see what happens.  I also have the vague plan that I'm going to start some sort of exercise during the Christmas break, if we get some nice weather!  So anyway, we'll see how this week goes! :)

onwards and downwards!

Despite it only being 4 1/2 days since my last weigh-in, I've lost another 2 3/4lbs as of Saturday!  And people are starting to notice now, which is nice.  That said, I can't become complacent, as my ideal weight is a fit and toned 65kgs, and I'm quite a fair way from that yet!  I made a crab and prawn frittata on Saturday for dinner - don't think I'll do that one again, frittata tastes a heck of a lot better with salmon and sweet potato.  Last night I had the trusty turkey meatballs I've been having most weekends.  I'll probably stick to the Cambridge packs this week, with a bit of extra protein most nights (most likely some tuna with quark, chives and pepper!)  I really need to think of some different SS+ meals I can have.  Once I move onto Step 2, there's a lot more I'm allowed to cook with (e.g. onions, red pepper, etc.)  but I'd no longer be in ketosis, and that's something I'd like to stay in, really, til I'm much, much closer to 70kgs!

I do find I'm missing some foods more than others, but I will reintroduce them slowly, as per the program and in a sensible way!  There are some things though I'm not going to do again:  drink anything but mineral water or diet drinks - sugar in drinks is just wasted calories!  I'm not going to overeat carbs as I was doing - no huge plates of pasta, rice, bread, etc.  And snack foods like crisps, etc. will be for parties/when we have visitors only, not something to just nibble on because it's there...  I'm also going to make a big effort to minimise the amount of sugar I eat - this diet has really brought home to me just how much there is in the average Western diet, particularly hidden sugar in what we'd deem more 'savoury' foods.  On a different note - only 3 weeks of work until the Christmas break!  I've written out our cards, just have to send them now, and yesterday we put the tree up (with a little 'help' from Immy & Lizzy...though we've had to put the decorations out of their reach!) :)