Nine Months to Target

Over  the last few weeks I have been hovering around my target of 9st 12lb and then this week I was bang on so I have switched to maintenance and thought I should do an update post!

Stuart and I had switched to Monday & Wednesday for our fast days (previously Monday and Thursday) as Stuart started playing football on a Wednesday and doing the fast day on the same day fitted better with meals etc. It appeared to work well for both of us dieting wise too. I’d often see a good weightloss on a Thursday but even after eating normally on a Thursday and usually drinking, I’d lose weight again on the Friday (I only ever counted the Friday weigh in, I know you aren’t meant to weigh yourself too often but was just curious to see the pattern).

To remind you what my starting statistics were:

Weight: 10st 12.2lb
Body fat: 16.6%
BMI: 24.4
Chest: 35”; Waist: 37”; Hips: 42”; and Thigh: 23”

and now my final statistics are:

Weight: 9st 12lb
Body fat: aprox 15.6
BMI: aprox 22
Chest: 35”; Waist: 35”; Hips: 39”; and Thigh: 21.5”

(A reminder that my height is 5’6” – body fat & BMI are aproximate as I didn’t take note of them when I weighed myself yesterday.)

So, in 9 months, a total of 1 stone off and 6.5 inches. I wish I had a decent before and after photo but I didn’t take starting photos in January and then only took photos after on days when I was feeling slim. This is the best I could do (remember I didn’t actually have a lot to lose as I was already healthy BMI). The first photos were taken on a ‘slim’ day in February and the second lot were taken today.

I’m happy with how I look and feel and as I’ve reached my target I’m now switching to fasting just one day a week. Though, to start with, I’ll still be watching what I’m eating on the now non-fast day just to see how it affects my weight, I wont be restricting myself to 500 calories and I intend to eat 3 meals a day instead of 2.

Today is the first day that should have been a fast day and it does feel weird to eat but this whole experience has taught me some better habits. Things like, when making the kids dinner, I don’t snack as I’m making it and don’t automatically finish up whatever they leave.

I’ve also enjoyed having some days where I don’t drink any alcohol. I eat a lot less chocolate and enjoy more fruit and vegetables.

As I said at the beginning of starting the 5:2 Lifestyle, it wasn’t all about losing weight it was about improving health. The overall thing I think I’ve noticed healthwise is the speed in which I get over colds. I’ve never been a ‘sick’ person and don’t tend to catch many colds/viruses so it isn’t overly noticeable whether I’ve caught less in the last 9 months but I have often felt run down like I’m going down with something but then it has gone the next day and never actually materialises. Anything that is a little more stubborn I seem to recover from a lot quicker.

On the downside, I do get more headaches on fast days but think that is when I don’t drink enough water. I have also suffered from sleep paralysis about half a dozen times (which is more frequently than previously) and it appears to happen on the night that follows the day I’ve been fasting. This can’t solely be attributed to fasting, however, because it also relates to periods when I’m having more irregular sleep patterns due to Millie waking.

Unfortunately, exercise has fallen by the weyside since my holiday in June so I do intend to get back on it in the near future. I fully expect my weight to increase a little as the fat turns to muscle but I’m OK with that because I also expect to see the wobbly bits go a little less wobbly. Like I said above, I am now happy with how I look – which means I am happy with my overall silhouette. I don’t think I want to lose any more fat just through dieting and think I need to tone up now to improve my figure further. Therefore, weight is now less important if that makes sense.

Sleep paralysis dream: The girl with no face

It's been a while since this happened but my sleep has been up the wall again over the last week - week and a half. Some of it insomnia, some of it Millie related, some of it  self-inflicted. So it is no real surprise I suffered from a sleep paralysis attack again last night. The dream started fine & not scary but the sleep paralysis always leaves me frightened when I wake.

Here it is. Feel free to analyse before I have a go at doing so later.

I am camping/caravaning with a mixture of friends & family. I can't remember much of this stage of the dream. Then the same people go back to my aunt & uncle's house. The house is very clean & modern. It's not a house I recognise in waking life but the layout of back of house merges into that of my old family home. My niece Sofia & cousin's daughter Rosie go into the garden (which is similar but smaller than the garden in my old family home...this is the house/garden that always appears in my dreams) where a few of us are already standing. They jump on something next to where my friend Jo is lying down snoozing. My aunt tells us about there being invisible things in the garden. We then noticed Sofia & Rosie are playing on a playground apparatus (bit like a cross between a seesaw and a roundabout but smaller, it bounces & goes round - there's one at the quomps playground in Christchurch) but it is invisible. Jo gets really annoyed as they were virtually on top of her & she wanted to sleep. Uncle rick is making tea inside the house. I overhear my aunt tell my mum that she is disappointed that no one was offering to help Uncle Rick & that she felt everyone was taking advantage/being ungrateful or something & I am embarrassed as they are my friends & are being rude to my aunt & uncle as hosts.

The next thing, one of my friends & I are in a shop looking for a present for my aunt & uncle. Lots of pretty crystals & shells. There is a medium you can pay to see in another room - we aren't interested but see others going in. Then a disabled man comes in & breaks down to this man me & my friend are talking to. He is desperate for some mobility assistance around his house to improve his standard of living (man about 60). I felt it was unfair that he could hardly move & was reduced to begging for help when you can tell he is a proud man whereas a different girl we knew was a lot less disabled but all the help going had been thrown at her without her having to try. I was crying for the man, my heart was breaking for him.

Suddenly I'm in bed asleep, it's dark & a woman comes in to the from & up to the side of the bed where I'm sleeping & wakes me. I'm surprised at her bursting in & at first I think its the psychic, then think its someone (a nurse) who is offering assistance to the man. I question her and ask who she is. She doesn't speak, she has no face but I can tell she is smiling. I try to reach out to touch her face to find out who she is while asking her. She doesn't reply & I can't move. I'm getting scared & don't like her there smiling but not talking to me but I can't move. I'm paralysed. Then I wake.

ETA: on my 'wake me up I can't breathe' post I wondered whether these attacks are more likely to happen on a fast day so I thought it was worth logging that this also happened on a fast day.

Spiritual Encounters

Have you ever seen a ghost or felt a presence? I love a good ghost story!

I’m full of stories but have little ‘evidential’ proof of anything I’ve seen or felt. Some are not my stories but belong to my family. There’s a good story relating to my sister. This is how I remember the story being told to me anyway.

When my sister was born she was one of a pair of twin girls. Tragically, her twin, Anita, died at only 6 weeks old. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) or Cot Death weren’t really recognised back then but it is likely this is what sadly caused her death but we will never really know.

As a family we have all ‘talked’ to Anita over the years. Even me, despite having never known her as the tragedy happened 7.5 years before I was on the scene. Anita has always been part of our family and I still strongly believe she is my Mum’s Guardian Angel. I have always felt a link or a bond with her.

Anyway, I’m digressing a bit. My sister, too, has always talked to her but there was a time in her late teens or early twenties that she wondered whether Anita was actually listening. So she asked her for a ‘sign’. The next day my sister was getting ready for work when she couldn’t find her work boots. My mum had a similar pair so my sister assumed my mum had gone to work wearing them – it wouldn’t have been the first time. Later that day when both my mum & sister returned home from work my sister joked with my mum about her going in the wrong boots, however, my mum said she hadn’t she had worn her own & proved it! They searched high and low but couldn’t find my sister’s boots. So that night my sister said she believed her twin was there could she just have her boots back now.

The next morning, while my Dad was getting ready, he found my sister’s boots on a shelf in his wardrobe. There is no way anyone could’ve put them there as a ‘mistake’ and no one would’ve done it as a joke. No one even knew what my sister had said to her twin that night.

I have stories that are my own too. Such as the sleep paralysis I’ve experienced – as many others have reported, I felt an evil presence in the room trying to ‘get’ me (it happened 3 times in one night and again the next night before I decided I was too scared to sleep & stayed awake watching the TV!). I’ve also started to drift off one night when I ‘saw’ a bright light in the room the other side of my closed eye-lids. I opened my eyes to see a face staring down at me. Frightened but realising it was probably a trick of my eyes, I closed my eyes and opened them again expecting the face to be gone. It wasn’t, it was still there! I desperately woke Stuart up but by then it had gone.

When I was younger, my Mum always used to jokingly call me a witch. I used to intuitively ‘know’ things. I often know when something bad or good is going to happen (but can’t always tell whether it is going to be good or bad). I have predicted things will set on fire (and more recently I dreamt about a fire and knew it was a premonition – although this is the only premonition dream I’ve recognised). I’ve known when I’m going to win a prize in a raffle and what that prize will be (I’ve done this a number of times – I don’t know when I get the ticket but know my number/name is the next to be called out).

I’ve heard things, felt things, I’ve even heard my own name ‘called’ by what sounded like my own voice. That didn’t scare me, it was just weird.

I studied my level 1 Reiki at the end of 2011. Just before I sat the course (but once I had already booked it) I started experiencing things such as unusual scents in strange places. Then after my Reiki course I saw, for the first time, what I believe was an angel or spirit guide. It was just a white orb about a foot in diameter  that slowly disappeared in the corner of the room. Again, I wasn’t scared, I was comforted. I have worked with angels for a while but have had no interaction or communication with them except my one way dialogue to them and through readings using my Angel cards.

I’ve often been too scared to ‘see’ anything and I’m told I have the ability to ‘see’ but they wont present themselves to me if I don’t want it. As I’m getting older and more aware, I am realising when I do experience something I rarely feel fear these days, unless its late at night and I’m on my own in the house – or I see a scary face!! Oh, and the sleep paralysis can be extremely frightening.

Everything I’ve experienced I’m sure can be explained by a sceptic but I still believe in the things I have seen or experienced and I believe them to be spiritual.

I would love to hear your stories if you have any. Do you believe? Were you a non-believer until something happened to you that changed your mind?

Wake me up, I can’t breathe!

A few times in my adult life I have experienced something rather frightening when I sleep called Sleep Apnoea. Basically, its when you stop breathing in your sleep. This is obviously very serious and is more commonly experienced by very overweight people but there are other risk factors. Bizarrely, none of which I am aware of having. More information can be found about it on the NHS Choices website. I’ve not suffered with it often enough to make me seek medical advice (about once or twice a year then nothing for a year etc) though it is something that crosses my mind each time that it happens. Like now – as it happened again the night before last.

I was dreaming – I can’t remember the dream but I was struggling to breathe. Three times I fault to breathe before I eventually woke myself up. It really is frightening.

A couple of times, it has occurred because of having a cold which makes perfect sense. But usually it occurs in relation to a dream. It is never clear if my dream is a result of the sleep apnoea or the sleep apnoea a result of the dream.

One example of a dream I remember was someone was strangling me in my dream and I was struggling to breath. On this occasion I woke up with my hand near my throat but not in a strangling motion from what I recall. Other times have been less obvious a cause, just that I am struggling to breathe in the dream.

It has occurred to me whether, rather than being sleep apnoea it is actually a form of sleep paralysis which I have also had the displeasure of experiencing. Your mind and body are in a state of between sleep and waking up. Your mind wakes up but your body doesn’t (your body goes into a type of paralysed state when we sleep – for most people anyway, when it isn’t working properly is when we sleep walk etc). Your mind can play tricks on you making you hallucinate, and you have a deep sense of impending doom or someone is out to get you. Again, its extremely frightening. You try to escape this feeling, hallucination or whatever but your body is paralysed and wont let you. Even if you recognise that you are actually still asleep, you fight to wake up by moving your body but your body doesn’t move. Again, more can be found out about this on the NHS Choices website. Well, that’s the science behind it but there are also spiritual beliefs associated to sleep paralysis like you are caught between the spirit world and our world or that it is an actual attach by something paranormal. An explanation of this latter view is found on the Spiritual Research Foundation website. I’ll let you make up your own opinion on this one.

Whatever your beliefs, sleep paralysis would make more sense (as I don’t have any of the typical causes for sleep apnoea that I am aware of) as a cause can be sleep deprivation or irregular sleep patterns.

Thankfully, it didn’t happen again last and hopefully that will be it for another year or so. Although, I suppose that all depends on Millie and whether I get sleep! I guess it is also worth considering if it could have any links to fasting as it happened after a fast day.