Another one gone....

Wow - so the last time I wrote was for Mother's Day and my, what adventures I've had since then!! To help you all not get 'Mrs O' withdrawal symptoms I have been trying to share some of these moments with you all through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

However, I can now do a little catch up session for you all. As always feel free to just skip to the pictures or have a good read - the choice is yours!!

So, let's back track to the beginning of April - ouch 19 days ago!....

On the Wednesday before my sister's wedding I went back home and stayed with my lovely Nana - however, with Nanas being Nanas, this can be a spell for weight loss disaster! Nana has always loved to feed us - one of my reasons I always think that I put so much weight on as an older child / young teen as Nana used to look after us and knew nothing about portion size and just wanted to feed us lovely Irish home cooked dinners. So, when I was given this lovely breakfast below you could see why I had to be cruel to be kind with her and say no. I decided to bring with me my own red milk and my own porridge and fruit - but she would still insist on me eating lots extra - I finally gave in and scraped all the butter off the bread and ate it.....

I knew also that I wouldn't be able to point properly so I decided to just try and stick to healthier options when eating.

Thursday was a day of getting things done - like running around getting last minute forgotten things for the bride (I even managed to get a run in - get me! But as you may have seen from Facebook, my running trousers were now too big so I had to buy some new ones!)

And as any girl should be, we got pampered and got our hair done!

My lovely friend Courtney did it for us again and she even bought this special hood for Nana to set her hair! 

The Friday before the wedding was a day of decorating and hard work! I lost count the amount of times I went to Tesco to get things such as lunch for everyone, tea light holders and even a wedding pressie!

This was the venue as we were decorating it and by the Saturday it looked like a different venue! There was organza up on the walls and behind the top table was an arch of balloons. 

THE WEDDING.... 

Well, my little sister looked beautiful 

...and the rest of us didn't scrub up too badly either!

And all the hard work for not being the 'fat bridesmaid'? I think it paid off!! The amount of comments I got was amazing! People saying how well I looked and how well I had done :)

This is me and my youngest sister - you could even see my collar bone! :) 

Look at the beautiful favours - hope you all appreciate the bows - they took me forever to flipping do and then Victoria told me that they were all the wrong way!! 

On the Sunday after the wedding Mr O and I went for a full on fried breakfast - I can't remember the last time I had one of these..... Actually I've never had the bubble and squeak before so that was a first!

In the afternoon - which was pretty much all afternoon - we had a lovely family meal before everyone travelled back to their homes - check out all the Irish Brophy chins!!

The next week was just as full on as those 4 full days. I did however, finally manage to buy my WeightWatchers Propoints pack - which is amazing!! More about that later....

Unfortunately on the Thursday night we lost our beloved Ben who had to be put down - we (including Jerry) were all very upset and still trying to adjust to him not being with us anymore :(

So back to the pack I bought... 

It prepared me to get back on track last Saturday - everything all ready - lots of planning - food for the week planned - everything ... I even bought these little pots (another Sistema purchase!) that are the perfect size for putting small amounts in - so far I have used mine to put coleslaw in to add a bit of excitement to salads - I have also gone back to salads for lunch as now it is sunnier!

Even at Messy Church last Sunday I controlled myself whilst decorating cakes with everyone!

One of my ways of making sure that I have controlled my food intake is to share my meals on Instagram (you can follow me @ Missemm4 )

I have been feeling great about myself this week - I even tracked my food on my date night with Mr O on Wednesday to Pizza Express

Until Friday happened.... Ok, so I did a naughty weigh in on Friday morning - 3lbs lost :) Major happy and shows that if you plan and track nothing can go wrong.... 

But then Mr O and I had a planned day up in town on the Friday - he even coordinated his shoes to my nail varnish!!

I knew we would be having a lovely meal out but I didn't plan on going here....

Where we would then buy these....

These if anyone doesn't know are where you will find THE BEST macaroons in the world! I love this shop (Fortnum and Mason) - it's also where the Queen shops! But the macaroons are the best and are to die for. 

Now, not forgetting it being Good Friday we also went along and met up with some friends in this beautiful church...

But before we got there, Mr O and I stopped off for a cup of tea and cake....

Now, the cake was lovely, but even for me it was too sweet and sickly, I had to scrape half of the icing off!!

The afternoon then followed more eating at Flat Iron....

And to finish the night off nicely we had to have some ice cream...

I had mint choc (which was amazing - tasted like it had just come out off the plant) and hazelnut (which made me wish I had only had the hazelnut!)

So, as you can accept, when I stood on the scales for my weigh in this morning and I had gained those 3lbs back I was really annoyed with myself - but as Mr O said to me - look at all the fun we had and what we ate. We had such a great time and great experiences and memories created. He spurred me on and reminded me that my exercise in take will be a lot higher this next week too. 

So what? I have gained some pounds but look at the experiences I have had to go with it! Back on it now... How will I ever cope with Easter and all the chocolate I will be around?!!.... 

Love, Mrs O x

(Photo of my sister and I & the parents sourced from Facebook)

1 week to go....

So this week sees the lead up to my little sister's wedding.....

However here is my mini news flash on what has been happening this last week....

Firstly on the Weight Watchers front... I've lost another 1lb :)

I then came across this funny article in The Daily Mail - yes, I am an occasional Mail reader!

 I've been enjoying some more yummy lunches.....

I spent the afternoon on Tuesday back in the Shire having my hair done by my lovely old school friend.

 I then found Nana's hat for the wedding and decided to try it on!!! (In aid of helping her to decide 

which way round to wear it of course!!!)

Whilst doing some tidying up I came across this little cheeky box of chocolates that forgot to tell me they were in my home!!

I cam across these little gems from Lidls - They are cheaper AND less pp than WW's own - they work out as 1pp for 2 - YES 2!!!

So next Saturday I will be with this little baby as she walks down the aisle as she becomes Mrs Stone....

 If you knew her as we were growing up, she was famous for flashing her knickers (just like she is doing so in the picture below). Don't worry Matthew we will make sure that she wont be doing it down the aisle!!

I have also decided to do Skinny Doll's 8 week Bank Holiday Challenge - Skinny Doll is my little WW and blogger idol :) unlike other bloggers she's been there for me and hasn't let 'fame' get to her head - unlike someone I wont mention **cough Sprinkle of Glitter cough** .... 

I have seen this challenge as a great way to really focus my weight loss and zoom in on my training for Race for Life - will speak about that in the future - however, for now, take a look at her blog - it's amazing ..... http://theskinnydollsjourney.blogspot.co.uk/ 

So as this manic next week starts to uncurl itself from the diary I shall try and post next week - but it may be early or it may be late! But I shall also try and stick to WW as well... Let's see...

Love, Mrs O x

It's week 16 of the lovely Weight Watchers...

I have realised that I haven't posted my WI chart for a long time so I thought I would post that up first....

Week 1 - 3lbs

Week 2 - 4lbs

Week 3 - 1lbs

Week 4 - 2lbs

Week 5 - 1lbs

Week 6 + 1lbs :(  - 0lbs

Week 7 - 4lbs

Week 8 - 2lbs

Week 9 - 0lbs (but also +0lbs!)

Week 10 - 2lbs

Week 11 +/- 0lbs

Week 12 + 3lbs (Major :(  )

Week 13 -3lbs

Week 14 +1lb :(

Week 15 - 2lbs

Week 16 - 0lbs (but also +0lbs!)

I would also at this point like to thank all of you - all of you who have shown and given me the support to keep going. The inspiration. The words of encouragement.

I have also loved the messages from people asking me about how I am loosing weight and my thoughts and feelings on WW... When I got my first message I was gob smacked that someone asked ME about weight loss! Never would I have thought about receiving a message for my help! Usually it's the other way around!!

As you may have seen in THIS post - I received a blender for Christmas. So this week I have been trying to experiment with lots of different recipes. My sister and I have been messaging each other with our smoothie pictures - you may have seen some of them on twitter. I've really enjoyed it and it's made me more organised with my breakfast in the morning. I've not had any bad experiences with how they have turned out - just one spilt everywhere - all over my note book.... I will explain more for you in a moment. But for now... Let these juices get your juices going....

These contain bananas, frozen mango & frozen berries and then some water....

And then this one turned purple....

It has all the same as the other day's smoothies but I also added a tin of pears (I drained it before I chopped the pears up and put them in)

As I said above, one day the smoothie spilt everywhere... Everything else could be washed apart from my lovely note book that my mother in law bought me. It got ruined and ended up looking like someone had been sick all over it and then screwed it up....

This was the remains of the smoothie :(

So, it gave me a good excuse to buy a new one.... This time I decided to buy a day-to-view diary that then allowed me to combine my diary and my food diary together. I promised myself back on Boxing day (when I got the above note book) that I would write down my food diary rather than using the WW app or online tracker so that I could see exactly what I was putting in my mouth and that I wasn't actually hungry but I just needed some water instead.

I decided to write down he previous weeks (luckily only a few days to write down as it started from 1st January) so that I could relate back to any of the items I had previously written.

This week also saw a new Sistema purchase.... a new pink lunch box.... It's brilliant. And I have really enjoyed making the next day's lunch in it and it too is helping me to be more organised.

I also stumbled upon these lovely little finds in Sainsburys.... They are fab and are only 1pp

This week also saw the return to the salmon - I love the salmon!

( This meal came to a total of 6pp - 4pp for the salmon and then 2pp for the cous cous all the rest was freeeee :) )

AND LASTLY.... It was our 2nd wedding anniversary :)

So we decided to spend the night having a very not-so-weight-watchers-friendly meal of Creamy chicken and noodles. It's not a posh meal but it is a meal that holds lots of memories for me, and so that is why I asked Mr O to make it for me. 

We then banned the TV for the rest of the night and played music on our lovely new sound system - player thing and played Monopoly.

However, we haven't put the Monopoly box away since Tuesday and so we played it again on Friday night. 

This time we had a lovely nibble away at my version of the WW Nachos... They are so easy to make...

You literally thinly coat, with a brush, a tortilla wrap in some oil and then sprinkle on some herbs - I did one wrap spicy and one non-spicy, bake them in the oven for about 10 minutes. I then transferred them to a Pyrex and then sprinkled them with half fat cheese and yuuummmmmyyyy!!!

My closing question/s to you all is..... Do any of you have problems with seeing pictures? And would you like a few posts on recipes?....

Love, Mrs O x