Back to Business.

Hola.

 So it's been a few months since I posted. I haven't really been trying very hard to lose weight - I've had a lot of things going on. Essentially, this isn't a valid excuse, but it's the one I'm going to use anyway.

4th year has been horrifically tough. I've had some fecking awful assignments to do, a dissertation and a very challenging 6-week placement. The dissertation really did take control of my life for 4 months or so... it turned me into a person I never thought I could be. I was grumpy, tired, stressed out and not appreciative enough to the people that were around me at the time. And when you feel like that, the last thing you want to worry about is your weight. I stopped doing all the good exercising I had been doing in the months leading up to Christmas, and I started sitting in all day every day in front of the laptop. Convenience food started to become a habit as well because, in all honesty, I just couldn't be bothered cooking or looking after myself. When you're doing something like a dissertation the last thing you want is a good healthy meal - you crave all sorts of junk ten times worse than you normally do. That probably didn't help my mood any more either come to think of it.

Just as I thought it was all coming to an end, the teaching placement started. I'm talking half 6 rises, in school for 8 and there until 6 at night. It's really hard going. So of course, when I come home with yet more things to do (piles of marking, evaluations, general folder work, no fun) the last thing on my mind was standing in the kitchen cooking a diet-friendly meal. No. I practically had the local indian takeaway's number off by heart.

Top that off with my relationship of nearly 2 years ending and it has been a really, really tough 8 months. With it being so out of the blue I just had no idea what to do with myself. I'd go through complete mood swings where one minute I was fine and think of the freedom I was going to have, I'm going to do all these classes and projects that I would have otherwise said no to, I'm going to lose weight and look great and never look back; the next I'd be sitting staring into space for days on end not wanting to move from bed and just wanting to gorge on anything with a calorie count in the thousands.

A healthy mindset is half the battle when trying for a healthy body. It's taken time but I'm ready to go again. My head is down and I'm focused. So I'm starting this up again. I'll need to look back at the recipes that I posted previously, but I'll have plenty more coming your way. Including diet coke chicken, which a lot of people ask me about. I haven't done myself too much damage, but I haven't exactly kept up the good work I had done previously.

When I started at Slimming World back in September 2011, I was 12st 7.5lbs. I then got down to 12st 1lb. Now, I'm sitting at roughly 12st 4lbs. I have graduation in 7 weeks and a holiday in 14 weeks. And I'll be damned if I'm looking like this for either.

 Check back soon!
Jen x