Holiday over, it's back to business!

Gisborne sits on the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand, it has a warm almost tropical climate, pristine beaches and feijoas in abundance and boy did I take advantage of savouring the delectable sweet fruit!

I was able to spend some time with friends who I haven't seen in quite some time and of course my family and them not having laid eyes on me in a while were shocked to see my smaller figure. It was the most uplifting experience to see their excitement for me and it made me feel like all the hard slog is absolutely worth it!

One of my gorgeous friends Saina is also on a weight loss journey and told me about a woman who was quite large but then was in a car accident and packed on so much weight that she ended up being over 200kg! (440lb). She ended up in a wheelchair and needs surgery to correct her spine but operating on a person so large is very dangerous so she went on a weight loss mission and has lost over 100kg from her wheelchair! She exercised every day and even wheeled her wheelchair backwards up Kaiti Hill which is very steep and full of tight turns! Now that really does giving meaning to NO EXCUSES!!!!

Well I am back into it again starting this evening with a 5km and I am so pleased to say that I am once again 100% off bread and sugar! Life is great, I feel fantastic!!!

Barbs xx

Back in the Land of Feijoas

I apologise for taking a while between posts but I have been frantically busy trying to get my assignments done before coming to my hometown for my sister's birthday.


I am currently in the land of fruit trees galore! My parents have tangelos, grapefruit, & lemons and they're fantastic! A friend of hers at work gave her loads of feijoas and I am in heaven! Feijoas, also known as pineapple guava in South America, are a delectable sweet fruit. They're green on the outside and you cut them open, scoop out the flesh and throw them in your gob! I can eat and eat them but, too much of an indulgence will have you racing to the loo! Feijoa trees are abundant in New Zealand and yet, to buy them in the supermarket costs a fortune! $7.99 per kg, it's outrageous, so as you can imagine, I am getting my fix while I am here :)

As far as the weight loss goes, I am sitting at 108kg (237.6lb) and will not be weighing again until May 31st for two reasons:

1. I am addicted to the scale, I will get on and off that thing three times a day given the chance so I need to stop doing that.
2. I can't weigh myself anyway because the batteries in my scale are dead .... yay!!

Well that's it from me for now, I hope you are all having a fabulous week and are getting your burn on!

Barbs xx

When I cannot be bothered moving, I think of the man with two walking sticks

Last Tuesday, I really really REALLY didn't want to go out on my walk, I was feeling very lazy and wanted to sit on my butt and do something completely meaningless like play Bejeweled, but I managed to force myself outside with a crap look on my face, a bad attitude and began to pound the pavement.

I was walking along Marine Parade which is a pathway right next to the beach that stretches for 2.37km from where I start at Ellison Street all the way to Browning Street in the city. As I got near the aquarium I spotted a man who looked like he was in his mid 50's, he had two walking sticks and was dragging his body along that pathway. I watched him for a little while and the look on his face just changed my whole mood, he was smiling, it was like he was smiling because he was able to move his disabled body down that path, and even though he was going at a snail's pace, he was out there and he was doing it. Well, I can tell you that changed my entire way of thinking right then because if that guy can get himself outside in the blazing sun on his two walking sticks with a smile on his face, sweat pouring everywhere then what right do I have to complain about having to do exercise? Simply I don't, I can move, I have no injuries, I have no worries what so ever, so why the hell do I think I can be a lazy slob and do nothing?

This is the kind of thing that I want to say to a lot of people who complain to me that they "can't" lose weight or they "can't" do exercise, really when you think about it, it's a total cop out. If people would just put as much attention and energy into doing the exercise and eating right than finding pathetic reasons not to do it, they wouldn't have weight issues, it's so simple, it's painful!

I don't know why this makes me mad, I think it's more than likely because I can see the potential in people and I hate to see them throw their lives away like I did for so many years, so many years I will never get back.

So if you are reading this and fall into that habit of reasoning yourself out of doing something good for yourself, think about it, just think about how easy it is to turn the tables and be more loving to yourself, get out there and move, it's not hard!

Couscous and I can no longer be friends :(

This is devastating! I LOVE couscous, but I have found that each time I eat it, I get the worst stomach pain ever! It's like each grain is exploding in my stomach and right now I am typing this post feeling rather uncomfortable.... burp!

I have been progressively deleting foods from my diet to see how my body reacts without them and wheat being one of the things I am clearing out of my system, I'm thinking a deposit of couscous is possibly a bit alien to my digestion and therefore is paying me back with pain, dammit!

So I guess, even though couscous can be dressed up in so many amazing ways to create wonderful dishes and be the perfect side dish for my Moroccan Chicken, I cannot have it, no longer, no more, no can do boo hoo! :(

Photo A Day: April - Days 1 - 5

Here are the first five days, I seriously need to do some catch up :)

Day 1 - Play

Day 2 - Blue

Day 3 - Something beginning with A, Apps

Day 4 - This happened today, demolition

Day 5 - Something good, coffee!

Photo a Day

I have been a bit of a slack ass not posting my photos and the reason is that I haven't been taking many lately well that was until recently. I am now doing the Photo A Day by FatMumSlim so this being the month of April she has compiled subjects for every day of the month, here are the subject themes for each day.

This is a really great way to keep practising with photography and gaining more skills and techniques. Most people just shoot things in relation to the topics, but I try and stretch it a bit creatively to really get the creative juices flowing, so I will post my pics both in here and facebook for you all to have a look at.

Why not do the challenge yourself, dust off that camera and get snapping! it's great fun!

The scales are travelling down again!

Well thank heavens, the scales are on the down slide AGAIN! It's a great day! I must apologise for my lack of posting lately as I have been busy trying to get my cookbook written, which I have been doing for the past two years, yes that's right two looooooooooong years! So what has been the hold up? Well it's like this, I go through fits of being focused and onto it and then the drive fizzles out, story of my life really, and this has to stop!

Recently I purchased a book by Tim Ferriss called "The 4 Hour Work Week" and it's brilliant! I am absolutely loving it especially because I am at the part that totally makes sense to me, it's all about 'information overload'. I am so guilty of exposing myself to loads and loads of information on a daily basis all from a 15 inch rectangle plugged into the wall and sucking in info from around the globe, if it's not that, it's my overly priced iPhone or even worse, both running at the same time!

So my task this week is to try and ignore it all, just simply, switch off. I know, I know, but how, how am I going to do this? I don't have a tv any more so all my entertainment and information sources are via my laptop or phone. I will be cut off from the world, ignorant as to what's going on out there. His theory is that, as soon as you talk to someone, they will tell you everything you need to know and skip out all the crap in between, I guess this makes sense when you think about it. Am I going to do this? I don't know, maybe I will try one day a week and then two days and go from there. He says that when you do this not only do you have enough time in the day to be more productive on your projects, but you also have enough time to spend with your loved ones, quite logical really, and let's face it, a lot of us have our laptops on when the kids are home so that we can check what's happening on Facebook every now and then right? If you say no, you're lying! How do I know, because most people I know, do it.

So for the rest of the week, I will no longer have Facebook running in the background while I am trying to write my blogs and cookbook, I will log in once in the morning and once in the evening and that's it, this is going to be extremely hard, but hey, I need to do it! So expect more posts from me :)

As for the scales, I am back down to 238 pounds, woot!

Barbs xx