The quest thats consumed my life

I'm not sure you all appreciate my blog titles as much as I do :)

My life has been consumed, more than normal, with trying to lose weight.  I say more than normal because ever since I actually succeeded at losing weight, all I can think about is losing more!  Since its always on my mind, and I'm feeling especially helpless as of late, I've decided to share my strategies and frustrations as a way to hold myself accountable. 

I'm feeling helpless to lose more mostly because I've been pretty much been on a "plateau" since the bout of strep throat threw me under 90kgs.  Its not really a plateau, I've just leveled out.  I can't change much more about my lifestyle.  I already work out as much as my schedule will allow, and living on my own again, I feel like Im doing the best I can in the diet department.  I don't have the best diet, but its as healthy as I can realistically get.  Its a struggle to get fresh produce in, its expensive for me to buy it and it always goes bad before I can eat it all.  I no longer eat for the love of food, its all about convenience now.  My housemate makes fun of me when I boil a half dozen eggs.  She says its odd that I eat everything in one "vessel"  ie roasting a pumpkin (squash to you and I) for dinner with nothing else, boiling eggs for snacks with nothing else.  I say its a healthy snack, and its convenient.  And why make things with more than one ingredient when something like a roasted pumpkin is more than enough food for me?  :) 

So here is what I've recently done to try yet again to get off this damn plateau:

• I bought a bike.  A bike will not only save me bus fare and time, but will also give me one more exercise outlet in my day.  I haven't gotten used to the time thing yet though, lol.  Everytime I ride I end up getting to where I'm going about 35-40 minutes early, lol.
• I cut out all fast food and fried food.   I didn't eat a lot of these before, but I've put an all out block on them now. 
• I'm attempting this week to cut out all sugar in the form of drinks and sweets.  If theres sugar in something else I eat thats ok, but no sugarey drinks or sweets.  Aussies love their sweets.  Danishes, cinnamon rolls, chocolate croissants, etc.  They are off the list!  No matter how yummy they look while I wait for my coffee.  I also stopped taking sugar in my coffee, which isnt that hard here since they dont make coffee here, they make lattes, meaning lots of milk and a little bit-o-espresso.  And no more pop.  I go through phases with pop, sometimes I'll get up to one a day then I'll stop, then I'll slowly go back up to one a day.  So no more cokes.  I did allow myself a diet coke the other night cuz I was at a bar and needed the caffeine, but diet coke doesnt have any real sugar in it.  My other loop hole is that if Im really craving something sweet I'll have a piece of toast with jelly on it. 
• Keep alcohol to one night per week.  I haven't really committed to this yet, but I haven't been drinking more than that lately anyway.  I know alcohol has sugar in it, but the one night I drink it will be my exception.  This will also help my bank account :)

So there you have it...my attempt at dieting.  We'll see if I can actually drop any kilos from it.  I don't have high hopes, but I have been about to stick to the sugar-free thing for 3 days now.  I recently read an article that people take in most of their calories from drinks now.  Which I believe is definitely true for me.  And we tend to not count the calories in our drinks.  Since I read that, I've paid more attention to what I'm drinking and as a result have been drinking a lot more water. 

Sandals on a bus