You have to go and check out a friend of mine – TINA! She has just lost over 25kg! I am so proud of her and hopefully we will actually meet one day! 🙂

Seeing her weight loss has really spurned me on. I haven’t seen my dietitian for a while because I haven’t made any progress. I started the Gabriel Method with all guns blazing and as usual the will to continue fell away because of two reasons. First, we are very bad at going grocery shopping. When we are both busy it falls by the wayside and with so much emphasis on fresh food on the GM it was hard to keep up. Secondly I was not getting off to the best start every morning. For me to be able to drink a big glass of water and prepare a good breakfast I have to get up at a reasonable time – 7am. I was staying up until all hours for the last 5 weeks of term and had no time off on the weekend…that cannot continue. Everything was suffering – my marriage, my health and my sanity. I was staying in bed until 8.15am every morning because I was just so tired and exhausted…then stumbling to school mindlessly drinking an Up and Go or stopping at the canteen for a horrible chocolate muffin!

So how to overcome these two problems? Now that the house will be clean and uncluttered by the end of the week (does happy dance and shrieks!) I have decided that once a week at the same time will be the weekly clean-up. Vacuuming, mopping, bathroom cleaned. Then we don’t have to think about it any other time as long as we stay on top of the tidying up during the week. Also grocery shopping same time every week too – but this might be hard as I am boycotting Coles and Woolies more and more and visiting markets and independent stores…I’ll have to plan a bit more on that. I am also going to make a table showing a list of the grocery items we normally get on one side and an empty box next to it and put it on the fridge along with a pen. A tick if we need it, then once a week if one of us is shopping without the other they can grab the list off the fridge and go. 

I have to get up earlier and put a limit on the amount of stuff I do for school. I know it will be easier next year because I will have taught all these grades at least once so I will have read most of the books. I tell you, reading Julius Caesar, Hamlet and Taming of the Shrew all at once nearly killed me! I need to plan more, too.

Anyway off to continue with the house de-cluttering! It’s going well…can’t wait for it to be over now! 🙂