Hello Everyone,

Great day today, I feel really well and it's now 22:54 and snowing, which is great for two reasons, a) it's pretty and b) the hated neighbours won't be about for a few days so it will be peaceful....(does hand stands and chart wheels round house!!!!!).

Have you meet Mamma over at Mamma has spoken .Well if you haven't pop over and see her, she's very sweet, rather funny and a lovely blog friend of mine. Mamma is also the mother of four strapping young men, one of whom is an American soldier on a tour of duty in Afghanistan. I don't know how she stays sane, but I think blogging helps.

Today she put up a post about not forgetting your underwear. At first reading the title, I thought maybe she had been to Walmarts and had her eyes melted by some hidious deluded female, who thought it was sexy to go out with no drawers on her backside or the smallest of small shorts, or the highest hem line equally with no underwear on. uck!!!!

But to my relief it was more to do with her weight loss. Mamma has lost about 50lbs in weight over the last year. I think that is amazing...a round of applause to that woman. I won't tell you what happened to her, you can read that for yourselves on her blog. But it's rather funny.
Mamma has inspired me to keep going with my weight loss, I have been quietly losing weight.

I say quietly as, I have never really had to diet before, so the whole idea of it was a bit daunting to me. However I have been told; rather ordered to be honest to lose weight by the Specialist I saw in November.
Funny how the weight creeps on and you don't really notice it. I knew I had put the weight on, that started a while back when I gave up smoking, but giving up work has only increased my waist line. I did ask people if I had got fat, but all I got was "a bit" and "your tall, so you can carry a bit of weight"....did I ask that?

Anyway it turns out that I had got fat. In fact when they weighed me at the hospital and the nurse told me how much I weighed, I was so embarrassed, as I was more than on the day I gave birth to Callum and he wasn't exactly a big baby at 7lb 12oz. I wanted the ground to open up. No wonder I was tired and so ill. Not exactly doing myself any favours.

I resolved that, that was it. No way was I going to carry on like that. Saw the Specialist, had a good chat about what to do, where to find help etc and came away knowing that no-one was ever going to tell me that I weighed that much again.

Did some research and found out that there are foods that can actually make the fibromyalgia worse. Which in turn means that I couldn't, wouldn't, be able to get energy, meaning more bed rest and even less movement. I took on board what the research told me and have slowly been getting a bit better. Just got over a nasty little "man-germ", but am feeling better and better.

Much more energy, not as much as I would like but hey, I will get there.
But the funny thing is., I to have a similar problem as Mamma has just encountered, which Francis (with an i) found so very funny and I was mortified. Mamma however seems to have taken it all in her stride, as she does just about everything. So knowing that she has lost 50lbs is such an inspiration to me.

Having revealed so much about myself recently, I might as well tell you the really horrid truth of my weight gain, which I'd like to say creped up on me when I wasn't on the ball, but the real truth is that I knew I was gaining weight, just didn't realise how much. Never having had a set of scales before, something that was also corrected on that fateful day.

I'm 5ft 8in tall and a medium frame and my weight was always between about 10st 7lbs and 11st; roughly, on the odd times I stood on a friends scales. If my clothes felt tight I just sort of cut out things, mostly chocolate and bacon (no not eaten together, silly you!!!) and cut down my portion size and upped my fruit in take. Never really worried about my weight as I felt good.

So I'm 5ft 8in, medium build.

November 26th I weighed......14st 1lb.
December 17th I weighed.......13st 5lb.
January 05th I weighed.......13st 6lb.

That means I had Christmas, which was a bit of a worry and oh so tempting and only gained a pound. Yay for me. I can't wait to say I have lost 50lbs like Mamma has. That will be amazing and now I know that Mamma has been so successful I won't find it so hard to stay on track.
So thank you Mamma, as always another blog buddy is an inspiration to me. You lot rock.

Also now that I have told you all that I "have" to diet and it's out there for the whole World to read, I guess I really have to stay on track. I will keep you up dated on how well I do.
Am going back to swimming soon, well when I can get back into my swim suit. I love swimming.
Francis (with an i) got my the wii, wii fit board and wii sport and wii fitness, but the Specialist says I have to wait a little while before I go mad on them and then I have to start slowly.

Did I tell you it's snowing. Big fat pure white, as big as your palm snow flakes yippee!!!!
Francis (with an i) is home tomorrow, which means I will get to go out and play in it this time.
Am gonna make a snow angel for Mel, over at Melsdream.

Much love
Lia
xx