The Friday Journal Its all been happening in Week 1

What a week its been.  Very much of a whirlwind really, which kicked off in great style on Monday launching on BBC Radio Suffolk from Bury St Edmunds Household Waste Recycling Centre.

It really is incredible to see how much can happen in just five days. News coming in from the households participating in the challenge includes great discoveries of local recycling facilities that will help keep all sorts of materials out of the bin.




There have been challenges too, including one household, which was trying to find a convenient Tetra Pak recycling bank. Hopefully that will be resolved.
 

The bin slimmers have also been organising new storage facilities, recycling new things and have even given me access to their bins to see if anything had been missed.  And yes, it is rewarding to find stuff in a bin that can be passed on easily for recycling and already fits in with an existing recycling routine.

Ive made a few discoveries this week too, not least that all the recycling centres across Suffolk take plastic packaging such as rice and pasta packets as well as the polythene bags, but we can also bung corks in their timber collection and their media banks will accept VHS tapes, cassettes as well as CDs and DVDs.

Thats the thing with recycling centres, facilities are always changing so if its been a while, its always worth popping in for a bit of a gander, as was discovered by one of our participants today, who drives past most days but has never been in, except for one occasion as a passenger.

Other great discoveries include improvements over the last year to council business recycling facilities in Bury St Edmunds, which now includes heavyweight items such as glass. Having met with our borough council today, Im also looking forward to more good news being announced over the next few months.  Further afield, Aylesbury Vale District Council, home to one of our families, will also be announcing improvements to their service too.

This week, our local primary school commited to taking its own Rubbish Diet Challenge and has already started to investigate how they can reduce food waste over the next seven weeks, a project thats been adopted by their eco-club, so Ill be keeping an eye on how they get on.

And elsewhere, a local cafe, The Coffee House in Moreton Hall, signed up as a Tapwater.org refill station, enabling passers-by to refill their water bottles for free and reduce the need for bottled water. I only suggested it on Wednesday and by Thursday, they were on the Tapwater map.

So what with our Ipswich bin slimmer receiving her new slim bin from the council, a compost bin on order for another and a kitchen waste caddy awaiting delivery and some reports coming in of less waste, it has been a really good start to The Rubbish Diet Challenge 2012.  And I really cant thank the participants enough, as well as others who are joining in as the challenge progresses.

But the proof is always in the pudding and we will find out more at next weeks Monday Meeting, when a new set of mini-challenges will be set,

However, in the meantime, if you havent seen it before, do check out one of my favourite videos of this week, put together by Tim Atkinson, aka The Dotterel, whos taking the challenge in Lincolnshire.  The full blogpost can be found here.

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Something interesting happening

Image via Wikipedia

Well, its been a full week since I last posted since returning from the AC/DC concert in Montreal. What a show!

I was salivating walking down Rue St. Catherine at all the boutiques and shops thinking that I just MUST come back for a weekend to do some shopping when I get down to my goal weight.

I weighed in on Monday and had a good 2 lb loss. I should hope so, since I didnt have my food with me when I decided to spend the entire afternoon and evening at the Montreal Olympic Stadium and endure watching my son pig out on pizza, popcorn and pop, while I nursed the only thing I could imbibe on the diet...water. No beer for me at this concert...

So I came in at 154 lbs, as expected. However, for the last week, Ive been hovering at the 154 and even crept up a lb (llikely due to just having eaten a full lunch and water.) Im not impressed...

Im feeling quite hungry lately after months of feeling just fine. Im checking my ketones and Im burning, but nothing is happening.

I attribute it to the fact that Ive started having the odd Coke Zero and diet Coke again, and ading the odd pinch of salt to my meals for flavour. Geez - can the salt and aspartame be that water-retaining?

I felt the need for some shopping therapy, which was timely and highly justified because I was outgrowing some of my pants for work again. Again, being the end of the season, I got some great deals at Talbots, MEXX and even tried on a designed jacket at Escada. I promptly put the $1,200 jacket back on the hanger, but came out with 5 new pair of pants. I must say my $13.45 pair of size 10 jeans fit like a glove and look great!

Size 10 - can you believe it! I still cant.

I think thats the biggest thing Im dealing with now: adjusting my mental image of myself as having been a 16/18 for the last 5 years, and 12/14 the previous 5 years to that. 10 years of being overweight. I need to reprogram my self image.

For me a big part of it is to purge my wardrobe once clothes no longer fit me, and purchase new form fitting clothing. It helps me see and feel the change. When the store clerk looked at me and estimated a size 8/10, I actually laughed. She looked at me puzzled and I told her that Im just in the process of losing weight, so for years I was always 16/18. She looked at me amazed, and when she handed me a cool, trendy, stylish and very expensive jacket in size 10, and it fit perfectly, it hit me that Im actually doing it. Im actually reinventing myself back to what I was, and wearing the styles and clothes that reflect my personality and image.

It feels so good.

It will be interesting to see what my weigh-in is tomorrow. I cant do anything more than I am: sticking to the program 100%. However, I think Ive found my own personal weight-gain culprit.

That damned salt....

I just cant live with it I guess.

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