I did not have a good sleep, I think because I had alcohol, and because that alcohol was mixed with a good couple of cans of Pepsi max.
We had beans on toast for breakfast.
I also did a YouTube programme! WOOHOO! Getting myself sorted! It is a newly found strength programme from hasfit. Its 16 minutes long and actually I prefer it to my original strength programme. I’ll get the link put up tomorrow.
Here’s my activity shot for the work out.
We should have gone to see our nephew today as it was his birthday yesterday, but due to the wind and debris on the roads, my sister in law advised us not to travel to her.
So I spoke to Amy and Katie, (Amy’s poorly and Katie’s getting better) and asked them to dinner. Unfortunately, because they’re poorly they wanted “homely” food, which on questioning means Sunday roast with chicken!
So there went my plans to try my mushroom and goats cheese recipe! It’s been years since I had a roast chicken dinner.
It was nice having dinner with Amy and Katie, it’s been too long.
And after our dinner had settled we had my homemade bakewell tart!
So pleased with it, it tasted wonderful!
Paul’s prepared our nuts and fruits, and the salads are also prepped until Wednesday.
The calories have not been good with dinner or tart. I’ll need to be extra diligent this week.
So that’s it from me tonight, I’m watching doctor who now.
I had a fairly good night sleep plus an extra bit (greyed out bit).
It has been so wonderful doing everything at our own pace.
When we eventually got out of bed we chilled out for a bit with a cuppa before having porridge and honey.
I wanted to try the nasty hill. In the past it would take us (me) about 7/8 minutes to get up it. And it’s been more than two years since I did it. Today I got up in less than 6.5 minutes!
We then carried on with a bit of a walk rather than just going back to the car, below are the activity shots.
Not a strenuous walk.
Then it was off to boots for our weigh in. I was hoping for a couple of lbs off, especially as it’s been two weeks since our last weigh in.
I lost 1lb. Not great, but still a loss. In the meantime I’m pleased I’m giving my body good nutrition and starting to get back into exercise. Hopefully next week will be better 😃
When we got home we looked through cupboards for our respective cooking projects today, then walked upto the local supermarket and back again.
So, that was another bit of activity logged!
The activity logs show I’ve clocked up 4 minutes of vigorous activity – I’ll take that! And 55 minutes of moderate activity.
For the week that’s 82 minutes vigorous and 124 minutes moderate… I think I can rack up 1 minute of moderate activity at some point tomorrow… then I’ve surpassed my exercise challenge for this week!
When we came home Paul prepared a homemade doner kebab, taken from our niece’s pinch of nom cookbook. I would wholeheartedly recommend this recipe, and actually, definitely worth popping onto pinch of noms website! In meantime, below is the copy we took from Carly’s book.
Katie popped down for a cuppa while Paul was prepping, she’s been unwell, and I believe it was flu, now Amy has it 🤣.
She stayed with me while I made my first ever bakewell tart! I’m soooooo pleased with how it looks! I’ve never made a tart, and feel confident now that I could do them in the future… of course it could taste disgusting! I’ll find out tomorrow.
Here’s my first ever tart!
No soggy bottom! Did have a mishap with the icing though, I made it with 5 tablespoons of water, not teaspoons! What I should have done was chucked that lot and started again, but not realising my mistake I just kept adding icing sugar, here’s how much I had to chuck away…
What a waste!
Katie went home before I’d finished the tart.
The kebab was cooked in the slow cooker, so Paul and I had a game of chess before it was fully cooked… our games don’t take very long 🤣
I’m white… I lost!
Then it was dinner, sooo delish!
We had 1.5 pitas each! The pitas are wholemeal (saved and frozen from a couple of weeks ago) and the dressing is fat free Greek yoghurt with mint sauce.
The Tesco greek salad left a bit to be desired! Not enough tomatoes, olives or feta, a lemon dressing, no oregano!
Then it was game on! I lost the second game of chess too 😆
And then! I lost playing crib as well! Now that I’m totally annoyed at as I’ve played it for years, decades! and Paul has not!
The blow was softened with alcohol and crisps 😁
For my alcohol I’m having disaranno and Pepsi max, so not healthy but a shed load better than creamy Welsh cream!
And for crisps we bought a sharer pack of corn crisps, about 160 calories each.
If we feel peckish later, which I doubt, we’ll have some natural nuts.
Ah, what a great, much needed day.
I’m gonna relax with comedy on TV now. Right now Sandi Toksvig is due to keep me entertained on QI.
For those who read my previous post, you’ll know I was enjoying a glass of Welsh cream liqueur, and decided I would reward myself with another glass on my return.
We went for a walk, initially I was thinking of a 30 minute amble, nothing hard going. We did amble and chat. It was lovely. And we did it for an hour 😇
So this week so far, 78 minutes of vigorous activity and 69 minutes of moderate activity… YAY!
So now I’m home. Time for my treat!
It’s Friday night!
And that’s what I chose! 😂
It’s weird! About half way round our walk I just decided that there’s no reason to have the scrummy booze. I mean, what’s the point in walking and then drinking any burned calories!
Hey all, hope you are well and have a lovely weekend ahead of you.
I have to say, I’ve got a bit carried away tonight, I am just so pleased and relieved to have a weekend to ourselves I’m currently celebrating with my second glass of Welsh cream liqueur!
Ah well 🤪
I managed to have a look for a couple of recipes online today, as I feel like varying our meals a bit. So I’ve picked out a mushroom, walnut and penne pasta dish, devilled tofu kebab recipe, Paul’s picked a healthier doner kebab recipe, an alfredo sauce (healthy option) and bakewell tart!
I know, I know… bakewell tart? I hear you crying, your right, it should not be printed off and on my dining table. But. I’ve always wanted to have a go at making one, and if successful there are plenty of people who will want a slice.
I’ve never had tofu, I imagine it to be very bland, so I thought this devilled recipe sounded a good way to try it for the first time.
As for alfredo sauce, I’ve never heard of it, this is a healthier version of the heavy rich original, having never had it I don’t think I’ll notice a problem, the ingredients sound as though it might make a good base for stuff, and my initial thoughts are with broken up and poached haddock, salmon and cod and pasta, the long flat kind. I don’t know if this is right, or if Italians (I believe it’s an Italian sauce) are gonna hate me, but I’m gonna give it a go anyway!
So that’s my plan over the next couple of weeks for new recipes.
Now, on today.
I’ve just pointed out to Paul that my glass is empty. And then I asked if he fancied a walk. “Yes” he says, and then asks if I want a top up now. Obviously I said no, to which Paul asked if I’m sure… I’ll get more steps in if I’m staggering 🤣
Lunch saw me and mum at harvester, small salad bowl, no sauce, followed by chicken salad. Oh, and mum forced a slice of garlic bread on me, which was very nice, but with all that fat I only had two mouthfuls! I also had a diet coke with lemonade.
The cauliflower had a lightly spiced taste. Very nice.The chicken was fanned out very prettily, I moved it out the way so you could see the scrumminess underneath!
And then there was dinner! We forgot to pick up oven chips, so I did oven cooked spuds, but I changed it a bit. I added an onion to the spuds, a good splash of olive oil, garlic puree (obviously 😊) a teaspoon of wholegrain mustard and a good couple of tablespoons of ground cinnamon. Don’t judge me people… it worked 😂. Snd then there was the kale. Now Paul doesn’t really like kale, I love it. But we had a 180g bag of it which I meant to do last Sunday. So I boiled it, then added sesame oil to a wok to heat, drained the kale, dabbled a bit with paper towel, then lobbed it in the wok and covered for few seconds for water and fat spit to stop, then just kept it moving. It didn’t crisp unfortunately, but Paul ate it all, so I’m counting that as a success!
All in all, a tasty meal, if more oil used than I want in general.
Fluid – 200ml of milk, 3 cups of tea, a glass of water, 1 diet coke. And… well… baileys style Welsh liqueur – 2 glasses so far!
Exercise – there will be! Maybe not as strong a walk as earlier, but a walk nonetheless! I’ll post on that when done.
So, that’s me, so excited for the week to be over, so excited for a game of crib, rummy or chess tomorrow, so excited to try and bake a tart, so excited to have no commitment this weekend.
Some good news! We are kid free this weekend! So my only commitment will be to pop round and have a cuppa with my friend, then see family for our nephew’s birthday for a couple of hours… YAY!
Don’t you just love an expected bit of free time!
Had my bloods taken today, I’m quite looking forward to seeing what results are.
Also visited dentist, nothing they can do for my mouth, teeth are fine, it’s just gum disease. So I have a clean booked in a couple of weeks, and will continue as I am, but adding in flossing as I just can’t use the tepe brushes.
Nothing to report on work.
We spent a few hours round our niece’s this evening and she cooked a nice meal for us. Unfortunately Paul doesn’t like carrots, so I had his carrots and he had my lovely looking chips. He owes me… BIG TIME!
We shall leave it a few weeks and then drop Paul’s irrational hatred of carrots into conversation. That way It’ll just be convo and Carly shouldn’t remember and be embarrassed 😉
My phone and watch seem to be behaving now. Happy days!
So, to my day!
Sleep – I fell asleep on the sofa last night after writing my blog, very uncomfy. But I must have been dog tired. I even got over an hour of deep sleep in bed and only three loo stops! My watch was on charge so pic below only shows time in bed, not time on sofa.
Food – 40g natural nuts, 60g dried fruit, 1 hard boiled egg, 1 cheese portion. Prawn salad for lunch.
Dinner – a lovely piece of chicken and carrots.
A little bit of dark chocolate with ginger.
Fluid – no milk, blood tests were fasting so I didn’t have my milk this morning. 2 glasses of water, 3.5 cups of tea, 1 glass of diet lemonade
Exercise – none tonight, but we’ll do something tomorrow night.
So that’s it from me.
I have loads to catch up with on wordpress, some lovely comments too 😊, I shall dedicate some time to that from tomorrow night… (kid free 😍)
I visited my doctor for the first time, and I already feel comfortable with her.
We only had 10 minutes, as is standard for GP appointments, but I’m having a blood test tomorrow for my tiredness, and I’m bring referred for a test for the breast cancer gene. I’ll need to travel to Oxford for it, but better safe than sorry.
I’ll keep going to the doctor in 10 minute stints to get all my worries addressed.
The dentist called today as well to say someone had cancelled their appointment and would I like it. Obviously I don’t! However I very gratefully accepted.
My gums have been quite painful today, I believe that’s because I tried my electric toothbrush. Back to gentle bristles again!
I’m really annoyed with my watch and/or phone! Since using my new Samsung phone I no longer get a sleep chart, and my walk this evening has not registered at all! We’ve spent the last hour trying and failing to sort it out. Now my watch seems to have wiped what it had recorded, and reverted to my pre walk stats!
Ah well, we’ll sort it somehow. I might bug my sister, we both have the same watch.
Lunch was prawn salad. I forgot to take a picture.
There was another sneaky cheese portion!
Dinner was falafel.
Fluid – 200ml of milk, 2 glasses water, 4 cups of tea.
Exercise – a good walk! The same walk as Monday, and ever so slightly quicker!
Photo from Paul’s watch and phone.
Given this was the same walk, and almost exactly the same time, I’m going to copy the activity details, so vigorous activity 30 minutes, moderate activity 30 minutes.
So that’s me for the day, counting down the minutes until I can swallow more tablets!
Each week I’ll be posting an update on the previous week’s exercises.
This is the timetable I devised for myself to get fit and increase my activity each week over the next few months. You should see the last week! It’s almost unbelievable! In fact, I’ve taken a photo and posted it as the last pic on this post. It might change, I’ll see as I’m going.
I would like to say at this point that my target is to be able to get up Snowdon. I wouldn’t be pushing myself so hard if it wasn’t for this target. For general fitness, please remember according to NHS (which is the healthy “bible” I use) it is recommended that we do a minimum of 2.5 hours of moderate activity or 1.25 hours of vigorous activity per week and two resistance/strength sessions per week.
I’ve always written lists for myself, for all manner of things, including exercise. And then put those lists to one side and forgotten they exist 😀
As the food side of my healthy change programme has been helped by writing all about it, I’m hoping posting about my exercising will also keep me motivated and accountable.
So, here we go, here’s my first week:
So, disappointed that on week one I failed to hit my target, especially as I haven’t done anything today! ARGHH! Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the day for more exercise.
The next photo is showing where I’m hoping I’ll be by the end of these coming months.
The hill I’m hoping to get up and down is nasty. Or maybe it just is for a lazy arsed sod like me. It goes up and increasingly steep gradients, and each increase coincides with a bend in the path, which you can’t see round because the hill is actually a car-width path between fields and housing with hedges either side. I call it “The Bitch”.
Right, that’s it, tomorrow will be the day to start serious efforts to hit this week’s target!
I’m still trying to figure out my beautiful new phone… and failing! As it is, I’ve had to boot up my work laptop, because half way through writing tonight’s post, my phone deleted! It’s not even in my drafts or rubbish!
So, time moves on, and here I am again, writing with a sense deja vu!
I’m pleased to report I haven’t been hungry today even though I cut back on my fruits and the salad. I’ll keep going with these quantities, and jiggle as and where necessary. I might give up the hard boiled eggs from next week… we’ll see.
My home scales showed a little bit of downwards movement this morning. Happy as I am to be feeding myself good and healthy nutrition, I am hoping this is the start of my reboot and this will start to translate into weight loss again.
Let’s get on with the daily report.
Sleep – frustratingly, my phone is now not showing my sleep timeline! I didn’t have a brilliant night, but neither was it the worst.
Food – 40g natural nuts, 60g dried fruits, 1 cheese portion, 1 hard boiled egg. I’m working from home tomorrow so I shall take a photo of my daily foods then.
Salad – prawn salad.
Dinner was gammon (I cut the fat off), an egg (cooked with a couple of squirts of 1cal) and oven cooked chips. Paul cooked today and he added some chilli paste to the spuds. I’m not a spicy person, but actually the spuds were quite nice.
Fluid – no water, but no fizzy either. I did have my 200ml of lactose free milk this morning, and then I’ve had about 5 teas throughout the day.
Exercise – sorry to say, none today. need to get on with that if I want to keep to my targets. I didn’t quite hit my target last week. I’ll pop a quick post on about that later. I really can’t be bothered to take a photo right now!
And then the reason for the title to this post! I really, really fancy chocolate. Let’s face it when do I NOT fancy a bit of chocolate! And I don’t need the yoghurt for the dairy, I mean I’ve had my three portions of dairy for the day – milk, cheese portion and cheese in my salad! But… there’s always the possible gut bacteria benefits to yoghurt, and I really don’t do well with the yoghurt.
So… why choose?
Why not have both! Yoghurt without the honey and seeds and with a square of dark ginger chocolate crushed over the top instead?
We started the day well with beans on toast, and when the kids arrived we had a small snack of dried fruits and nuts. The children even tried cracking some of our Christmas nuts 😂
We took the kids to the local shopping centre for lunch, I had cheese and beans on toast.
When we got back home I helped Amelia make some salt dough and then she moulded them ready for the oven.
Layla then helped uncle Paul make some sausages.
By now it was tea time, so sarnies! I had chicken and cranberry sauce, and a cheese portion.
Then it was time to relax with kids TV before bed.
I read them some magic faraway tree stories. I think I’m going to buy a rupert the bear annual, I think all the kids would like those stories.
Here’s some pics from Saturday.
Took the kids a while to drop off. I finished the day with a baileys.
I got up at about 7.30ish with Layla in our room crying because Amelia had bitten her… sisters 😳
I looked on their bowls of coco pops with envy as I ate a couple of slices of toast!
The day was a busy one. Lots for the kids to do.
They started making cookies, then made coconut ices, then painted their salt dough creations, and finally marbling oils!
I do love it when kids discover a like for something, Amelia was adamant she didn’t like coconut, but after tasting the condensed milk, was more than happy to try the sweets! She’s a convert 🤭
The kids were painting their salt dough creations with Paul, giving me a chance to get on with dinner.
For dinner we had lamb, there wasn’t a lot, hence the sausages, which Paul made with two thirds lean pork medallions and 1 third pork back for a bit of fatness. The spuds where cooked in stock, and brushed with olive oil, so healthier. Then plenty of veggies, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower.
Desert was a cookie and a bit coconut ice each.
Then we all relaxed for a while, giving me a chance to show of my magic skills to a very appreciative little Layla. Amelia’s a bit too old to be amazed at an old aunt 🤣
My sister’s curious as to how I did the trick.. uh… magic, but also doesn’t want to know. Although I did say the magic is in the cards, so I couldn’t repeat my success with a normal deck 🤭
Amy and Katie came round later that evening, having spent the weekend in Kent. They were tired, especially Katie as this was her first long drive since passing her test, but it was lovely to hear they had enjoyed themselves.
Here’s some photos from Sunday.
We didn’t get a chance to weigh this weekend, however my home scales haven’t moved, so I’m assuming I haven’t lost. I’m not too disappointed because I know I’m giving my body good nutrition.
I have amended my daily food a bit though.
On to today!
I worked half day today, so had a cuppa with mum after work and then did our shopping.
Paul got our salads yesterday morning. Instead of splitting it between 2 pots, I’ve now split it between 3. With my drained beans, there is still over 3 portions of fruit and veg in each pot.
I’ve also dropped my dried fruits to 60g which is two portions.
So I’m still getting over 5 portions of fruit and veg, and that’s before dinner!
I didn’t have a hard boiled egg today, and had planned to go without this week, but this afternoon I boiled some up for the week without thinking about it…. doh!
I am still having feta style cheese in my salad, and a cheese portion so that with my milk I’ll be getting three dairy portions, even if I go without the yoghurt.
I feel run ragged and yet have done no exercise over the weekend. We’re going for a walk in a while. I’ll pop on a post when done.
So that’s me, a lovely weekend with kids and family, and in need of a holiday 🤣
Trying to lose! 