Walking back to happiness.

A very serious looking, post walk Froogs wearing - LA Gear t-shirt £1 charity shop, Per Una jeans BNWT ebay £8 and Reebok trainers from the Sally Army shop for £2.

Thanks everybody for your supportive and encouraging remarks and comments yesterday. So much came out into the open yesterday that I've spent today reeling. I'll come to terms with it all when I can. In the mean time, I'll just keep the door, lines of communication, my mind and my heart open.

I've always found exercise to be a great stress reliever; if I've had a tough day, then a 3.5 mile walk up and down the hilliest hills I can find leave me a lot less worried. I thought I would use this blog to share my weight loss up date. I have kept going, as best I can with a few hiccups, with my frugal weight loss journey. I'm itching to spend some money on a gym, or at least on some sports clothes but I've just not got it sensibly to spare when every penny is needed else where. I go out and stride (I don't like 'power walking') in a pair of jeans and a tee shirt. Now though, I'm doing it in a size 14 pair of jeans and size 14 tee shirt. The jeans are still a little too small and I like them to be more boot cut, but as I have hulking great legs and cankles, they look like skinny jeans!!! They will be my photo me and measure me jeans so I can look back and see 'where I was'. My weight has gone up and down a bit recently but it's settling at 12' 8lbs and I hope to get it down to 12' by August!

For those of you interested in the Dukan Diet, I'm back to making sure that no carbs go any where near me and it's no surprise, but when I eliminate them, then I go back to losing weight. It works and I've just got to stick to it!

Thanks again everyone, we'll get through this somehow...............and the diet!!!

Until tomorrow

The nearest I could make to a cheeseburger!

I searched the supermarket for fat free cheese. It obviously doesn't exist! I did manage to find some virtually fat free Quark......it said it was soft cheese. It was on offer at 50p a pot in Morrisons so I bought a couple. It was more like a thick yoghurt.

I placed a fine meshed seive on top of a bowl, put a coffee filter inside that and placed the Quark in there and left if for a day. 24 hours later, the bowl was half full of water or whey and what was left was the consistency of cream cheese. I crushed a clove of garlic and stirred that through with a sprinkle of parsley and some salt. I now have, as far as I'm concerned garlic cream cheese and no fat! I made meat balls from a burger recipe of finely diced onion, egg, some chilli flakes, cumin and paprika, formed them into golf ball sized ball and baked them on a tray with a wire mesh so the fat ran out. It was also low fat minced beef. I made the dressing from fat free mayonaise and lemon juice.

It felt really indulgent and tasted lovely. Dearly Beloved had the same with twice as many meatballs and a mound of chips! Weightloss week 1 - 10lbs! I know....crazy, and just shows how much I was stuffing my fae with yummy but fattening food previously!