weight loss, easy exercise, healthy food
Hiya all,
This week has been a huge struggle for me. I honestly didn’t think I was going to meet my challenge, however with yesterday’s walk I did manage to hit the weekly target!
In fact, it was the best week so far in terms of numbers! What’s more… the hill… you know the one, it’s the one I lovingly call “The Bitch”… I got up and down it twice on Friday! I wasn’t going to attempt that until March… Go Me!
So, that’s me. Good luck to you all on your challenges and journeys.
Night
Hey all, hope you are well, and prepared for the coming week.
My day has been relaxing, so the whole weekend has been fab.
We started watching The Witcher last night, this is a Netflix series. We stopped watching after episode 5, three episodes left, but it’s too late now to watch them, we’ll have to wait till next weekend!
This meant we went to bed rather late! I had a decent if short sleep, so this morning I did actually get up and go back to bed again.
We didn’t bother with breakfast other than a cuppa.
After lazing around for a while, I prepped our fruits and nuts for the week, then we went to the farm shop for our salad.
We decided then to have a pub dinner, our first choice of pub couldn’t accommodate us, so we travelled to another small town and tried a pub we’ve never been to.
For regular readers you’ll know I always intend to choose healthy, you’ll also know it doesn’t always work.
Today it did.
We started with olives, bread, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Not great but better than the smoke baked camembert I nearly ordered.
And instead of choosing a pie, or belly pork with roasties, I choose a fennel, quinoa, cranberry and chicken salad with an orange dressing.
I’ve never had fennel, I really enjoyed it!
I had 2 diet coke as well.
I thoroughly enjoyed our impulsive meal out, but I did feel bloated, so being the hyperchondriac I think I’m becoming, I now wonder if I might have a small intolerance to bread 🤣
When we got home we decided to visit quickly with mum. Mum had a knee replacement a couple of years ago, and is not at all confident with her walking. While she was in New Zealand, my cousin’s mum in law lent mum her walking stick, this helped mum’s confidence.
So Paul and I walked to mum’s to give her our hiking sticks.
Then after a quick cuppa and catch up we walked home.
As I’m still achy from yesterday, I felt like I needed this walk to stretch my tight leg muscles out.
When we got home I portioned out my salad into three pots, drained and added beans and crumbled up feta. So that’s all foods done for most of the week.
Then I sorted out supper, which was both good, and very, very bad!
I’m counting the cream as dairy 🤣
So now I’m writing this blog post, and watching Doctor Who with a nice cuppa.
I have my exercise Progression update to do as well. I’ll post that shortly.
Wishing you all a good week.
Byeee
Hey all, hope you are enjoying your weekend.
First off – WOOHOO!!!! dispite being a mardy arse this week, I have lost… 3lbs!
Excitingly, I am now at the weight I was before Christmas!
I’m sooo pleased I forced myself out on walks this week 😀
Speaking of walks… I’m currently nursing a blister, and aching hips and legs! We did a… wait for it…
NEARLY 11KM WALK!!!
Annoyingly my tracker stopped after 7k, so I’ve got both mine and Paul’s tracker below.
My tracker showed an almost 50/50 split between moderate and vigorous, so taking my time away from Paul’s time, I’ve estimated the additional activity. This means today there was 68 minutes of vigorous activity and 65 minutes of moderate activity.
The walk itself was great, although the last three km was tough going. We had some very strong winds, both against us and for us. Very little rain. Overcast. At no point was I too hot or cold.
We also stopped at my step dad’s bench. He was a wonderful man who was taken suddenly and unexpectedly from my mum and us, his passing however gave 6 others a chance of life through organ donation 🥰
He has a bench because he worked for a fab company, who wanted to do something. My mum and Bruce loved going for walks, and this reservoir was a favourite of theirs. The bench is fitting 💝
Here are some photos…
Needless to say, a knackering walk, and I’m obviously not yet ready to tackle a 10mile (16km) walk, which is on my exercise challenge training in a few months.
We weighed ourselves after the walk, so you can imagine how elated I felt 😁
After weighing my daughter and I visited for a short while with my friend.
After which, I came home and locked the door… until take away arrived!
Oh dear, ok let’s talk about my food today. It did start well!
Yeah… no excuse 😒
As for drinks, 2 cups of tea, 1 energy drink, a pepsi max, 1 Merlyn (Welsh liqueur). I’ll have either water or Pepsi max a bit later.
Oh, and sleep!
So, that’s my news!
Speak soon.
Evening all, hope you are well and looking forward to your weekend.
Work calmed a bit today, HUGE sigh of relief!
I resisted chocolates again!
Met mum for lunch and had my usual, however when it came out it was missing the quinoa, butternut squash, beans and dressing. This is the second time. Hopefully I won’t have to send my lunch back again in the future.
I really didn’t want to do any activity this evening, but I did a walk, and… I walked up that sodding hill twice! It was hard! But as I can do it, I really should do it from now on. I’ll need to amend my challenge spreadsheets.
When we got back from our walk we found our daughter waiting outside the front door. So she came in for a while, and we had a glass of welsh liqueur.
We had a nice chat, she thought it funny I’ve been told I’m too old for the implant!
Poor girls in a bit of pain, she sprained her ankle yesterday. It’s so swollen and bruised! Luckily her workmates have been looking after her.
After Amy left both Paul and I had our keys at the ready… the door has been locked to the world!
And now, at 9.45pm, I’m finally writing my blog post, which I started a good hour or so ago.
So, on to the day…
Sleep – Rubbish! Felt knackered all day!
Food – 40g natural nuts, 60g dried fruit, 1 cheese portion.
For lunch I started with a small salad bowl, a low fat dressing and a small brown roll with butter.
And then a chicken salad.
Tonight we had Friday fish and chips with some frozen cauliflower and a tiny bit of broccoli.
Fluid – 200ml of milk, 2 cups of tea, 1 glass of diet coke, 1 can of Pepsi max, 1 glass of Welsh liqueur.
Exercise – disappointingly, not a 45 minute walk! But as mentioned earlier, twice up and down the hill.
As I want to time how long it takes me to get to the top of the hill, there are three activity logs.
First one from car to bottom of hill.
Here’s my hill time. This is once up.
And here’s the rest of the walk.
So 18 minutes of vigorous activity and 19 minutes of moderate activity to go on my tracker.
I have to say, I really enjoyed the walk (after going up and down the hill that is).
It was stunning! No street lights, no people, beautiful sky with clouds and stars, wind whooshing through the trees.
I know these photos don’t show a great deal. It can’t capture the sheer contentment and freedom I had just being in the moment.
Anyway, Last Leg is on now, so I’m gonna sign off and leave you in peace
Teddy bye!
Evening all!
Today at work has been an extraordinarily frantic day! Thankfully I was in the office. I will be pleased to see the back of this week.
Unfortunately Paul didn’t get a chance to pick up salad yesterday, so I was, well… not good!
And then there was a really good moment! I grumbled in work about my need for chocolate, at which point chocolate monster manager Peter, miraculously found a bag of chocs! I scowled at the bag all afternoon!
It was not motivation that stopped me, motivation be damned right now! I don’t care about my goals at the moment!
BUT… I know I will care about my goals tomorrow or maybe Saturday.
It was determination that kept me scowling at that bag of chocolates.
Determination has been my friend today, an unwelcome friend, that friend that tells you shit you don’t wanna listen to.
But you’ll see how when I tried to listen to it, it helped me today where motivation could not.
So on to the daily report… full on honesty!
Sleep – meh!
Food – 40g natural nuts, 60g dried fruit, 1 cheese portion. Good so far, right?
No lunch as mentioned already, so trip to the food van. There were two things that grabbed my interest, cheese and onion brown sarnie not bad but just under 500 calories, or sushi type thing which I’ve never had before just under 300 calories. I could have chosen either, instead I chose BOTH!
I suppose the good thing I can take away from this, is that i liked the sushi thing, and will remember it next time I’m unprepared.
To minimise the damage, my unwanted friend stopped me having anymore teas and stopped me having that chocolate!
Dinner – gammon, sprouts, peas, sweetcorn and oven cooked spuds. I cut off all fat from the gammon, and made sure I stopped when I knew I was satisfied. So a good quarter of the spuds went in the bin.
Fluid – 200ml of milk, 2 cups of tea, 3 glasses of water, 1 chai latte (yep, my new found friend disappeared for a while).
Exercise – what I really wanted to do was have a shower, put on scruffs and curl up on the sofa.
The unwanted friend was riding my arse! My friend whispered in my head just how crap my exercise targets are this week, reminded me just how rubbish my lunch was, and told me that as I’m not giving way on the chai latte, the least I can do is go for a walk!
So, begrudgingly, that’s exactly what I did.
I s’pose I can at least say that’s one of my two 45 minute walks. And of course that’s another 4 minutes of vigorous activity, and 44 minutes of moderate activity.
So there we go, another odd day.
And my take away from it?
Motivation is great, motivation is fantastic, as I struggle with something motivation gives me a warm fuzzy feeling, that makes me feel good about what I’m doing or not doing, and allows me to think about how this thing I’m doing or not doing will benefit me in my future.
Determination, however, is a very different kettle of fish! Determination is the brutal honesty that tells me things I don’t want to hear. Determination is hard and cold, and doesn’t make me feel happy. Determination says, I don’t give a damn about what you think you want right now! I’m telling you what you need, so get of your arse. Stop drinking tea. I’m here whether you want me or not!
I hate determination, I wanted to veg out tonight.
Thank God for determination!
Hey all, hope you are well.
Today has been a rough day interspersed with some good bits!
Let’s start with a confession – I had a square of chocolate last night, it was savored in tiny bites and sucking! No yamming for me, oh no, if I’m gonna have a bit of choc I’m gonna enjoy it fully and for as long as possible!
So what happened today?
Firstly, I did not get up for exercises!
Working from home today, so thought I’d check in with the doc, start ball rolling with some of the issues. My surgery rules are you can’t make an appointment in advance, so I was calling from 8am this morning, got through around half eight after 231 attempts. Yes, you read that right, I spent half an hour and 230 ring attempts trying to get an appointment!
I was hoping for an appointment about 3ish as I also had the dentist today, ended up getting an appointment for 4.40pm.
So then work… oh my word! My phone did not stop ringing, my Skype and email did not stop giving me grief! And every single thing was an issue!
Went to dentist as my lunch break, got a clean and descale. Teeth look nicer, but quite sore now! And the worse thing, my dentist, who has helped me overcome my fear of dentists, is leaving! Luckily only for a few months, so I’ll see him later in the year.
Then back to my dining table, phone transferred back to my phone, skype and email showing me who’s boss again, then of to the doc.
And some cool news, my blood tests were a baseline test, which means my blood was checked for loads of stuff, and in my docs words, I’m tickety bo! Good cholesterol levels, no signs of diabetes, no deficiencies, no infections, nothing, all good.
I now have ridiculous pee pots for urine samples (any ideas for non messy sample collections welcome!) So next Wednesday I’ll do one sample and then two weeks later another sample. This is to see if there’s anything to worry about, given the amount of loo stops I need during the night!
Asked about the contraceptive implant… I’m too bloody old! Choices, coil – NO! injection – yep, I’ll go for that.
Men – you might want to skip the next couple of paragraphs!
Also got my prescription for diazepam, this is my once every 3 year prescription… it’s time for the smear. Now for all you normal and brave women out there, please don’t judge me on the diazepam, I simply can not cope with the smear tests!
For a bit if background, I had some severe problems a few years ago, despite countless doctor visits, blood tests, internals, ultrasounds etc etc… they never did discover what was wrong with my body. Since then I have been unable to use tampons, except for minis which are pointless for me.
And I rather hate people being close to me unless their invited!
So, back home, put work gear away and sort out dinner.
And then I thought, while eating dinner, that I really could do with some kind of exercise!
So I warned Paul I’ll be slow – my stomach feels so uncomfortable and bloated! And agreed on a walk once dinners settled.
I went to the loo twice before our walk, and needed to go again while out! Several times I needed to stop because of horrible toilet cramping!
I would have expected monthly cramping, but this month is definitely odd! Very light, a bit of cramping, coccyx pain and tummy pain, but nothing to make me want tablets!
Luckily the walk we did meant we could take shorter routes home at any time.
And now I’m home, enjoying QI on tv!
So here’s my report for the day.
Sleep – struggling today after last night.
Food – 40g natural nuts, 60g dried fruit, 1 cheese portion.
Believe it or not, there’s dates, apricots, cherries, strawberries, raisins and cranberries in the fruit. Then cashews, brazils, walnuts, macadamias, pistachios and almonds in the nuts.
For lunch I had prawn and feta salad. More feta than I should have had.
And… slice of bread and butter… AGAIN! DAMN!
Then for dinner we had garlic maggi bag with chicken, small onions, sprouts, mushrooms, baby corn and smoked garlic cloves, with oven cooked spuds, simply mixed with a glug of olive oil, a huge squirt of garlic puree and dried herbs, rosemary and oregano.
Fluid – 200ml of milk, 3 teas, 2 waters, 1 Pepsi max.
Exercise – now this is really strange. I was slow in my walk, and yet I have several minutes of beyond vigorous activity! I don’t know how, why or even when – buy that, I mean I don’t remember being utterly knackered! But I’ll count it as vigorous anyway!
So 18 minutes of vigorous activity and 19 minutes of moderate activity.
I am pleased I did the walk, I’m not doing anywhere near enough to hit my target this week, I know this, I’m hoping I’ll make it up, but at least I’m keeping active… ish.
That’s my day folks. An odd day, lows and highs, overall a personally pleasing day, but a hard work day.
Night 🤗
Hey all, hope your Tuesday has been a good day 🙂
If you read yesterday’s post you’ll know I planned to have a small bit of chocolate and a cuppa after writing up my post. I had the tea, I didn’t bother with the chocolate 😇
My choices and mood have improved… slowly… throughout the day!
Currently dealing with a very uncomfortable monthly tummy, but I’m pleased to say my coccyx and back is not giving me anywhere near as much grief as normal… happy days! In fact, I haven’t had to take any tablets at all!
I didn’t get up to do exercises this morning, even though I woke up, and was disappointed with myself for the next hour! Should have just gotten up. I didn’t make up for it, but I did do a couple of small walks this evening.
So, on to my daily report.
Sleep – it wasn’t too bad. I got up a few times, but didn’t feel too rubbish.
Food – 40g natural nuts, 60g dried fruit, 1 cheese portion. Prawn salad.
Bad choice alert!
Came home to finish my work day, had a slice of bread and butter.
Dinner – Paul cooked liver up, with a bit of bacon, potatoes, creme fraiche, stock and coriander! You’re probably bored of me saying this, but I do love the way Paul makes this dinner! It’s so tasty.
And I listened to my body and stopped when satisfied… a habit I’ve fallen away from!
Fluid – 200ml of milk, 4 cups of tea… with my halfspoon sugar! I really wanted a Pepsi max with dinner, but a good choice led me to water.
Exercise – I was a bit worried because 20 minutes before I finished work, the heavens opened. And no matter what I was determined to walk to my mums. And by walking to my mums, I then have no choice but to walk back.
Luckily the rain stopped before I left the house 😁
I took different routes to and from home, here’s my stats.
I’m really shocked that the first walk didn’t register as vigorous… I was bloody knackered when I got to mum’s!
But at least I’ve made a start on this weeks exercise.
So 1 minute of vigorous activity (yes… I am counting it!) And 33 minutes of moderate activity.
Tomorrow… tomorrow I might get my arse out of bed and do some exercises!
Anyway, that’s me for now.
Byeee 🤗
Hiya all,
Today is definitely a “meh” type of day.
I could have, should have gotten up early this morning to do some exercise. Instead I heard Paul get up and stayed, snuggled!
I felt very tired, and felt I needed the extra time in bed. And yet, the logical part of my brain knows, the exercise would have perked me up a bit. Will I listen to logic tomorrow? Probably not.
The apathy is due to me finally coming on. I was beginning to think I might need to worry, i should have finished my period last Saturday, not started it today!
The apathy might also have something to do with last night’s sleep. I’m beginning to think that I feel more tired the more deep sleep I get. I’ll start taking more notice of this I think.
Anyway, guess I should update you guys on food and fluid…
So food – 40g natural nuts, 60g dried fruit, 1 cheese portion, prawn salad. Then… a slice of bread and butter, and another 15g dried fruits!
Dinner was salmon with rice, peas and sweetcorn.
And Paul has made us Greek yoghurt with seeds and honey.
We will also be having a small bit of dark chocolate in a while. I’ll regret it tomorrow no doubt, but I’ll enjoy it tonight.
Fluid – 200ml milk, 2.5 teas with sugar, forgot to take mine to work, 1 can of Pepsi max, and I’ll have a tea with my half spoon sugar later.
Ok, so that’s my day.
TTFN
Hey all,
Quick update on this week’s activity 🙂
Very pleased with this week’s activity, I have well and truly smashed this week’s target!
Monthly meltdown still hasn’t swung into gear, but I’m hoping I can keep up the exercising when it does hit.
So that’s it for now.
Good luck to you all with your own challenges… You can do it!
Hey all, hope you are well and ready for the coming week.
First off, WHAT ON EARTH! now I am not a great person in the morning.. I need tea, and at some point I’ll actually respond to anyone talking to me. So imagine my annoyance when the following hair frizz look was staring back at me this morning! Paul very tactfully called it “big”!
We started the day relatively healthy, baked beans on toast, although there was another slice of bread and butter!
Paul took Kian with him when he got our salads, and also when he popped to tesco for macaroni and some cheese… guess what Kian wanted for dinner 😆
I prepped our nuts and fruits ready for the week.
For lunch we had some dried fruits, but also a lovely puff pastry cheese puff!
We played a couple of games with Kian, then took Kian out with his football. We decided on the walk we do after the hill, because we assumed the grass on the higher ground would be dried out a bit after all the rain we’ve had… we were very, very wrong!
Kian was a very dirty little boy when we got back to the car 🤣
We didn’t stay out for long, but at least we got some fresh air.
Assuming I was going to be kicking a ball about a bit, I stuck my activity tracker on other workout, then changed it to walking. No idea if it makes a difference!
When we got back we all had hot drinks, mine was a chai latte.
I made macaroni cheese and added diced beef (cooked before our walk), and used lactose free milk and cheese, so no tummy rumbling! I also did some frozen cauliflower cheese.
Kian liked the cauliflower cheese until he knew what it is!
Paul has now taken Kian home, he’s complaining about feeling a bit sick.
I do worry about the family sometimes, life at home can be stressful.
At least we’ve given him a nice weekend, and he spent very little time on his own playing on his switch and phone.
There will be some jelly fruits later.
I’ve had two glasses of water and two cans of Pepsi max, oh and four cups of tea.
So this was my day, again not great on food, but a bit of exercise.
There should be no issues with getting food under control this coming week.
The only worry I have is that I still haven’t come on, my body’s giving me all the signs, I am worried that I’ll fall of the wagon when I’m still struggling to get on the wagon!
Time will tell!
Good luck to you all on your journeys this week 😊
Trying to lose!