Category: Bloggy Stuff

After doing so well right until after Christmas, my daily life schedule took a nosedive.  My mum went into hospital with a broken hip, and ended up in a much worse state, that I’m not going to mention again today, and I lost complete control over my eating and life for a while.  It happens, and as disappointing as it is, dealing with life changes is something almost all of us have to do as we get older.  Yes, there are people who never change when it comes to weight, and it’s a fortunate thing for them, but I’m not one of them.

Now don’t get me wrong, I haven’t gained stones and stones of weight, I’ve gained a few pounds, but it’s where that weight is that had me so disappointed.

I talked about my first In-Body scan here, which tells us about our body fat percentage, distribution of fat, protein and muscle, and what the visceral fat levels are.  They’re eye opening for sure.  I looked a bit on the thin side for a while, yet my visceral fat was still borderline.   In January, I went back for my second In-Body scan, and I’d done great.  I’d managed to increase my overall muscle by 0.5kg and increased the amount of calories I could eat in a day without gaining weight by a smidgen.  A few weeks later, post stressful month or so, and I’d gained a couple of pounds, yet I LOST a fair bit of muscle, reduced the amount of calories I can eat in a day, and my visceral fat went up by a fair bit.  The shift in my visceral body fat was just not visible on the scales at all.  Visceral fat is the dangerous fat around our midsections, that can lead to fatty liver disease.  I felt incredibly deflated after that, but at the same time, finding out the information from the scan, was incredibly empowering.

I gained weight..  Ok, it’s not great, but we’re all only human.  I’ve done really badly these last few weeks, but I know what I need to do, as I’ve seen the evidence on the In Body scan from Temple Medical, that it works.  Going to the hospital most days, work, and juggling daily life, means I haven’t had the time for me.  I know I need to change that, but it looks unlikely to happen any time soon, and I need to work more too, so I’ll just wing the best way I can for now.

What I wanted to write about, was the Body Contouring that Temple Medical let me review.  I have to say, that I have been very fortunate in having the opportunity to take part in this, as body contouring involves a treatment that helps to tighten loose skin.  I’ve seen people on TV having the treatments, but actually hadn’t thought about them for myself, even though I do have some loose skin that means I cover up more than I need to in warmer weather.

What Happens

You put on a lovely stocking suit.  I say lovely, as it’s actually not as bad as I first thought it would be.  It’s a bit like thick white tights material, and seems to make the treatments more comfortable. It does, I have to say, help hold in some of the wobbly bits for when your measurements get taken.   The treatment is in two parts.  The Ultrasound, to help with fat reduction and LPG Massage, to encourage collagen and elastin

The suit is pretty see through, so I’m not going full out on the blog in that, but you get the idea from my pictures.  Just look at those rosy cheeks with no make-up on and a hot room…

For the Ultrasound, at the beginning, you sort of shimmy out of your suit on the top half and cover up with a towel, while the ultrasound does it’s job on your tummy.  The therapist moves the head around the area to be targeted, for me the belly, which creates friction and heat as it’s moved around the skin, with plenty oil.  I didn’t find the heat uncomfortable at all.  It was a lovely warm sensation for me.

The second half of the treatment is the LPG, which Jana says is known as lipo massage.  It uses suction and rollers, moved across the body in sections, to help tighten skin.  There’s more about the detail below.  Now, I’d be fibbing if I said this part of the treatment was without any discomfort at all.  I wouldn’t call it painful, but you definitely know something is happening to your wobbly bits.  I felt it more on bony parts, like upper arms and upper thighs etc, which are more sensitive.  The therapist makes her way around your whole body, rollering as she goes.

At the beginning, I doubted there would be any difference whatsoever, but the weird thing was, that at around the last couple of sessions, I suddenly realised I wasn’t ashamed of my upper arms anymore.  After losing the weight, I had loose skin on my upper arms which really bothered me.  I often used to wear a long sleeved t-shirt under a short sleeved one to hide them.  One day, I popped on a short sleeve top, and didn’t instantly whip it off again to put another one under it.  I think it took me a couple of days to realise what had happened there.

What was also interesting, was that even after my last disappointing In-Body, where I’d gained a bit of weight and lost muscle, I’d strangely had a shift in my measurements.  Although heavier, my abdomen looked better, and had pulled in, and that was my biggest problem area.  I got off lucky in the loose skin stakes, considering my weight loss, but there’s always room for improvement I think.  I did leave happier than I went in, and I know what I need to do now.

I’ve come towards the end of my treatments with Temple Medical, however, I’ll always be grateful to them for helping me see what can be achievable with a bit more work, and that it’s not all about picking one exercise and thinking that’s enough to actually be fit and healthy.

I’ll let one of the therapists, Jana, give you the official information on the treatments I had.

Temple Medical Body Contouring

Ultrasound

The ultrasound device is called Med Contour. The treatment objective is to reduce adipose tissue in the affected area.

Med Contour is a non-surgical and non-invasive US machine specializing in fat reduction and fat loss. It does this by breaking down stored subcutaneous fat.  MedContour features its own patented FDA approved dual hand piece helping focus treatments better and leaving surrounding structures (i.e. skin, blood vessels, nerves and connective tissue) undamaged. Med Contour also has its own built in lymphatic drainage system helping the body to remove toxins, excess fluids and waste from the body. It carried a CE mark allowing it to be used as a medical device.  It operates at a frequency of 1000kHz. The frequency pitch is too high to be heard therefore no buzzing will be heard/felt in ears. Heat is generated as a result of the high energy, which is an advantage as it assists with skin tightening. If temperatures of >41C can be reached and maintained, the skin will tighten in the area.

Please be aware that the heating  is a secondary effect. It is not important for the mechanical ultrasound vibrations and not by the heat. The treatment will work even if the skin doesn’t get hot.

The treatment time in a combined treatment is 20 minutes.

LPG treatment

LPG (also known as lipo massage) is an intense and deep mechanical massage using suction and rollers to tighten the skin. It works in multi direction forces to activate the fibroblasts (skin cells) to create more collagen and elastin.

Fibroblasts are dormant and repair the skin after trauma to stop infection. The collagen and elastin they create pull the skin of the wound together. The LPG activates the fibroblast to wake them up, imitating trauma to the tissue. This creates collagen and elastin for repair, hence the tightening of the skin.

The treatment also breaks down surface fat calls me

• Tightens the skin by the stimulation of the fibroblasts.
• Helps to break down surface fat.  It is worked through the lymphatic system improving circulation, which will smooth out the uneven fat storage and trapped fluid under the skin. This leaves the body via normal bodily fluids.

In summary LPG

• Enhances the surface of the skin by improving the appearance of cellulite, stretch marks and scarring.
• Increases lymphatic drainage and speeds up the removal of toxins from the body.
• LPG treatment will take approximately 30 minutes.

templemedical.co.uk

This has niggled me for a while.  I know some stat couters use it, but to be honest, it’s pretty worthless as a method of establishing follower counts these days.  I changed my RSS (think Google Reader eg) over to Feedburner a few years ago, lost all my original RSS subscribers and it was at the point where Feedburner began to wind down.

I took my e-mail subscribers and duly let them all know about my change back to WordPress E-Mail, then Mailchimp came along for those.  I’m making a change to that too, more as a means of keeping control and being able to have them all in one place for the long term.

What it does leave me with, is around 150 older subscribers I haven’t managed to find, who still have my Feedburner RSS feed directed to them.

I have no way of ever knowing who they are and Google isn’t supporting Feedburner any more, so it’s old hat, even older software, and I don’t trust it anymore.

I do know that those subscribers regularly read the posts, as Feedburner tells me they do, so to stay with me, you’ll need to do one of the following.

Old RSS Feedburner Subscribers

This was my last feed address:  

If you’re subscribed to this, your posts shouldn’t stop too soon, but they will stop eventually.  To keep subscribing, simply delete that option and resubscribe.

My New RSS Feed Address 

http://scottishmum.com/feed/

If It Doesn’t Work?

If you are redirected to Feedburner, your cache may need cleared, or you could subscribe by some of the other ways to keep in touch.

Subscribe By E-Mail

With this option, even if I post multiple times a day, you will only ever get one e-mail as a digest at a time.

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There is still the option of subscribing by simply using the WordPress Direct Subscription options.  I’ll leave one active on the blog for those of you who do prefer that, but some of you may prefer to delete your old blog e-mail subscription and sign up to the Mailchimp version above.  Even if I post three times a day, you’ll only get one e-mail 🙂

Social Media

In those little square boxes above this post on the right hand side, are most of my social media channels.  Feel free to visit me there and catch up on what’s going on.

The House of Fraser have been doing some sterling work with bloggers recently.  We much appreciate the time and effort gone into what they do while they work with us.  I’m delighted to show you the results of my recipe in their fabulous book.

I chose one of my recipes that is easy to make and even easier to eat.  Quiche is one of the most undercooked dishes around, and that’s not because people don’t like it.  It’s more to do with it being a pastry dish, and just the thought of cooking pastry, hardens the heart of most home cooks who are trying to make a meal on a budget or within a time constraint.

For me, shortcrust pastry is the one I will make at home.  I know some cooks who will go all out and make their own puff pastry, but that’s one step too far for me.  I like to keep things simple.  For this recipe, I’ve let you off easy, with the option to buy your own, as I begin the process from rolling the dough.

My recipe is on pages 40 – 45.  I’m delighted with the result and my book stands in pride of place on my bookshelf.  It’s not every day you see one of your recipes in print.

So here it is, my simple recipe for Cheese and Tomato Quiche.

Cheese & Tomato Quiche Recipe

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

  

• 700 g Shortcrust Pastry
• 250 g Cherry Tomatoes Cut Into Thirds
• 500 g Mild Cheddar Cheese Grated
• 12 Eggs
• 200 ml Milk

Method

 

1. Taking the dough out of the fridge, flour a surface so that you can roll out the dough to the shape you need. For 8 small dishes, I break my dough into two equal sections, break each of those into two again and then once again half each piece until I have 8 equal sized portions. Set your oven to 160-170C.
2. I use my rolling pin to roll the dough to a slightly larger size than I need for my flan dishes. I used to butter the dish before putting my pastry in, but now I have more professional baking tins, the ones I use for my flans (which came from tesco) don’t need greased before cooking, but I often still spray on some one cal spray or oven release spray.
3. I plop my rolled out piece of dough in the flan dish, press around the bottom and the top, which takes the excess dough off the tin. I'm never precise with this and sometimes have to take some bits that overlap off the top and fill in any gaps. You won't notice it when your flan is cooked.
4. Fill the flan dishes equally with the cheese and half the chopped tomatoes.
5. Break your eggs into a jug and add the milk. Beat the egg and milk together until it is fully mixed.
6. Fill each flan dish to about half an inch from the top with the egg/milk mix, and push the rest of the tomatoes into the top.
7. Bake in the oven for 20 - 30 minutes, or until the flans don't wobble if you shake the tray. The tops should be a lovely golden colour. When you take them out of the oven, the flans will have risen in the middle, approximately an inch or two high. They will flatten down after a few minutes out of the oven, and look more like shop bought quiche looks.
8. Serve hot, or put them in the fridge when they are cool, to eat cold on another day.

I made a decision today.  It’s mostly based around the time aspect, and more importantly, around how I feel about it.

For a few years, I’ve been a member, and taken part in some lovely blogging groups which have blog stats.  I didn’t really care where I sat in the stats, as the blog just does it’s own thing and Google is very good to me these days.

My blog went down (out of action) for a few days recently and although I’ve only dropped about 100 places in one ranking, the others are likely to tank in the next few weeks.  Yes, I know by next month, I’d be back where I was, but when I spotted the drop, I instantly began planning a couple of competitions etc to temporarily up the blog reader number.

Then I stopped myself.

To be part of a couple of the groups, I felt myself giving in to not posting many of the types of things that I would really like to, as it means that the blog was going down a more specific route than I really wanted it to, and becoming more niche than I’d like.  My blog isn’t a business, it’s a hobby, and I felt myself losing that.

Yes, I’ll lose offers from PRs that use the blog ranking places, but that’s not all bad either. Anyone who knows the blog can work out it’s level as an SEO value, and it should drop some of the spam enquiries, that some days, actually fill the blog e-mail address up so much that I can spend ages just wading through them all.

I plan to pop on my Google page rank, play with the blog and do some posts around the business that I have unexpectedly had returned after being rented out to someone for the last 12 years.  It’s going to be a busy time, and to keep up with it all, I can’t be distracted by where I sit in ranking stats.

I feel slightly liberated today without blog badges reporting my stats back to the ranking websites.  Yes, I know I will be bottom of the rankings pile by next month with no stats reporting back, but I will have my blog back the way I used to feel. There will undoubtedly be days I will regret removing them, but I don’t want to feel I can’t post things as it won’t fit into my niche.