Let’s start off with a little big confession. I had the best plan – I worked out how many days I’d be off plan in December and tried to concentrate on being spot on every other day. Then Sunday happened.

I’ve got to admit that, last week especially, I’ve been doing too much and pushing myself to the limit. Several days I had less than four hours sleep, was doing a night shift (and working hard) whilst trying to make the most of seeing my, eek, boyfriend AND doing fun things with the family.

Speaking of which, I’d like to introduce you to someone.

This is Steve, and he’s the person who was training me back in February, going on holiday with me in May and generally spending all of his time with me. Thankfully he’s now realised how awesome I am and well, we’re inseparable now.

Anyway, you’ll undoubtedly be seeing more of him, but for now lets get on with things. On Saturday instead of spending the day in bed like I should have I was out of the house by 10am to drive my brother to get his tattoo done. The place was just around the corner from my sister’s, so I hung out with her as he’d be spending pretty much the whole day there.

My sister would have been totally fine with me spending the day asleep, but where’s the fun in that? Instead (after a spot of shopping and a trip to Costa Coffee) we did calligraphy practice, and I’m really happy with the results.

Nice and festive!

In the afternoon I had to relent and went for a nap, and as soon as my head hit the pillow I was gone. The next thing I knew, it was all dark and someone was shaking me. I jumped out of my skin, and so did my sister who had been trying to wake me up for quite a while and believed that I was dead. My brother’s tattoo was finished (which looks absolutely SPECTACULAR by the way) and it was time to go home.

I managed another hour before work, but having about five hours sleep for the whole day, broken into three parts, is less than ideal.

On Sunday morning after work I slept for 2.5 hours before getting up for more fun stuff. I’d invited my sister over for family Christmas craft day with my mum and brother. It’s not really my brother’s cup of tea normally but I told him it was compulsory.

I’ll go into a bit more detail about what we got up to in another post because I’m really disorganised today and don’t have access to the photos I took.

Anyway, after popping to the shops for a GIANT Americano, Steve picked me up so that we could go to Lakeside. Lakeside is a HUGE shopping centre, which is generally hell on earth, and even more so at weekend’s. But he needed a new battery for his phone which we couldn’t get on a Sunday anywhere else, so we had to brave it.

The shops were rammed and the heating was set to ‘tropical’, so by the time it came to grab some food (from M&S, how fancy) I just wanted to get out of there. I was hot, tired, a bit stressed and damn well HUNGRY.

When I spotted the M&S vegan Christmas sandwich, well, I couldn’t resist. The thing about sandwiches is, well, they’re made of bread. I haven’t had bread for months, and do you know why that is? When I have bread, it totally sets me off.

In my weakened state I didn’t stop to consider that.

When we got back home we ended up having no small amount of wine and an impromptu little living-room party. Which was awesome, but not exactly sensible. 

Since then I’ve been craving bread like nothing on earth which has sent me off the rails. I had to skip weigh in yesterday because I just didn’t have the damn time, so I must admit it has carried on to today.

Tomorrow though, I’m going to be good. Not just good, I’m going to absolutely perfect until I go out for a birthday celebration on Saturday. I have so many things planned between now and the new year, that gains are now inevitable, and we are now into damage limitation territory.

I’m not overly concerned though. As long as I go cold turkey from now on and stay away from bread, which I honestly need to cut out of my life completely, then things should get easier again. Plus there’s no reason why I should miss weigh in between now and… the foreseeable future, so I’m all good.

I keep shifting the goalposts when it comes to my Christmas goals, and for now it’s just to stay in the 12 stone bracket, which I think I can do. I’ll try my best anyway!

Already though although I’m looking forward to all of the events leading up to it and Christmas day itself, I’m also super excited about the new year and really smashing my goals. It’s going to be bloody brilliant.

Now I must pop off and get my dinner, and honestly, once I’ve eaten a giant vegan-friendly mince pie from Co-op, I swear I’ll be good.

Scout’s honour.

Thanks for reading,

Hayley x