Trying to lose!

Healthy Me – My Choice of Regime – A Recap

Hey all, do you remember when you first start doing something, and you’re so totally absorbed by it, you know there’s no way you can possibly fail?

I do. I read my first post the other day. I wish I felt that level of enthusiasm now.

So I’ve decided to organise my thoughts, revisit my initial enthusiasm if you like.

IS THIS A DIET?

I have a diet, you have a diet, we all have diets from the moment we are born. When I was born my diet was breast milk, at my worst it was 3 or 4 takeaways each and every week.

To me ‘diet’ is the word given to our food, regardless of what that food is. I have had a bad diet, I am getting back into enjoying a good diet, so as I will always be eating, for good or bad, I will be on a diet.

To me the word diet doesn’t mean the same as it used to. I would in the past have linked ‘diet’ to a short term fix to try and lose weight. Now it’s simply a word.

WHAT I AM DOING

When I first started this particular journey, I stated no regime really appealed to me, and boy are there a lot! There’s the magic pill that guarantees you’ll lose loads in a very short amount of time, there’s the regimes that tell you to cut out whole food groups – Nope I love all my food too much. And for that reason, I can’t do the meal replacements like Slim Fast either. There’s fasting regimes – not for me, my life is so chaotic at times, I can’t be ruled by times. There’s teas, soups… all guaranteeing great success. There’s slimming clubs, ie WW and Slimming World – I’ve tried both. I had success with Slimming World a few years ago, but came off the boil and decided £5.95 each week was too much money to lose when I wasn’t gaining anything from it. For others, and I follow loads of you, their regimes work. Mine works well for me.

So I decided to follow the NHS guidelines, ‘eat less and move more’ this would be the way forward for me. Having not long bought a house, I really wanted to keep the financial burden as low as possible.

So I’m working towards a healthy lifestyle. In order to do this I am working on two things, and very soon to be working on three things:

Changing my diet from not so good to healthy and nutrient rich
Exercising
And shortly – stop smoking

Of course, I’ve found throughout last year that there are ways I can improve my diet as I go, and I’ve been encouraged with fitness levels I had achieved. I’ve also been quite lucky insofar as when I have a ‘bad’ week, I haven’t felt like giving up, MOST of the time 😀

WHAT IS MY REGIME?

I’ve used NHS as much as possible to figure out what to do, most of it is commonsense, and most of us already know it all, but I do find the NHS website a fantastic source of information.

DIET

Eat as little processed food as possible
Eat 200g of natural, unroasted/unsalted/unhoneyed a week (I have 40g each week day)
Eat lean meats
Eat at least 6 portions of fruit and veg every day
Eat a variety of fruits, veggies and nuts to get as much nutrition as I can
Take 3 portions of dairy every day (a work in progress I can’t seem to master)
Cut down sugar in hot drinks (i used to have 3 teaspoons of sugar per cup, I now have 1 teaspoon of halfspoon sugar)
Have healthy drinks, so more water, less teas and fizzy (a work in progress – sparodic success)
Make healthy or healthier choices when out
Eat 2 portions fish per week, 1 of which is oily
Eat 1 Vegetarian/Vegan meal a week

EXERCISE

The NHS recommends we work our bodies to a minimum of 150 minutes moderate activity per week, 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week, or a mixture of the two. And that we get some resistance/strength training in as well.

I am in a slump at the moment, but I have to say I was really pleased with my progress up to the end of the last year. For a fatty who had no interest whatsoever in exercise (in fact my main concern for years was that I didn’t want to waste my life doing exercises), I found the more exercise I did, the more I wanted to do! Don’t get me wrong I’m never gonna be a fitness fanatic, but feeling the benefits is a great motivator.

For my exercise, bearing in mind my refusal to part with cash, I was over the moon to discover youtube! I found cardio programmes, step programmes, strength programmes, even zumba programmes which I really did not mind using!

And of course there’s just plain old walking!

I started very small, doing a 10 minute step programme each evening, and as time went on I looked for the other programmes I use and build up my times and stamina.

Exercise every week day
Go for 1 decent walk each weekend

OVERALL TARGET?

Walk at a pace of 3.5 miles per hour without being knackered
Be fit enough to get up (and down) Snowdon, Wales in August
Run up stairs without being out of breath and joints hurting
Get to 11 stone (70kg/154lb)
Hoping 11 stone will be a UK size 14
Wear nice clothes
Have good fitting bras!
Feel good inside and out
Healthy lifestyle fully adopted as natural
Get to a point where I don’t weigh but let my clothes guide me

WILL I SUCCEED?

Who knows. I believe I will, I did well up to the end of last year, I’m slowly but surely getting back to the healthy lifestyle. So I believe I absolutely will, but life has trials and errors 🙂

There were good weeks and bad weeks last year, but overall, until everything went tits up, I was losing on average 1.5ish lbs each week, I am more than happy with that. It is a healthy and sustainable weight loss.

I currently weigh 15stone 5lbs (2lb loss last week). I have 27 weeks before I go away to Wales, so that will be 39lb if I keep myself motivated, that will get me down to 12 stone 7lb. I’ll be fitter and healthier than I ever remember being.

But of course, there will be rougher weeks along the way, period week is always a sod! There will be birthdays, Easter, celebrations. And there will be the weeks where I don’t lose weight, and I’ve no idea why not, there will be the weeks where I lose more than I should possibly expect and am elated, and there will be the times I put weight on and I absolutely know the reason for it, and still can’t help being disappointed!

But this is life, things happen. To my way of thinking, there is absolutely no reason to let this transition rule everything, life will continue to throw curve balls now and in the future, the good times are meant to be enjoyed.

Image result for weight loss success quote

HOW WILL I HELP MYSELF TO SUCCEED

This is a long haul – so true, so I have a bad week, I’m currently 22lbs lighter than I was when I first started last summer, and that’s with the last few bad weeks. This really is the long haul, I will remember that one week does not take away all the good weeks. I will remember to DRAW THAT LINE and start again.

Accountability – when I started the blog it was with an aim to be honest with myself and provide insights to others on similar journeys, my thoughts on this have changed, I still want to be fully honest, and if I provide inspiration on the way, that’s amazing, however now accountability is a huge benefit to writing my blog posts – there are people who actually read me, I don’t want to fail for me… or them!

Preperation – Oh my, this has been such an amazing thing to get to grips with, Paul and I have pretty much the same foods each week, dinners are never a problem providing we’ve been shopping, and as for our day time food, we usually get those prepped on Sunday, that way it’s all ready for us to take in the mornings. No diverging from the path!

Track food – yep – good, bad and ugly all gets listed on my nightly post! Sometimes I do have something I regret, but it all get’s logged.

Follow others – It never occurred to me when I started my blog that I would end up following anyone, to be fair, I didn’t really understand blogging (still don’t :D), and yet there are loads of wonderful people out there, all on their own journeys, all with their own perspectives, loads of tips, encouragement, advise and kindly words! I love following you guys! Your all great!

Take measurements – I have this problem where I simply don’t see the difference the losses make, I keep meaning to take my measurements and never get round to it. This time round I’ll start taking and recording my measurements!

AM I READY?

YES – I do feel refocused! So glad I wrote this post.

I’m ready to go, I mean there is a bag of crisps recently discovered in the cupboard…. BUT yes, I’m ready to get myself healthier and fitter!

Thank you for reading 🙂

24th Jan – a nice gentle walk.

Hiya,

We did a walk. Nice and gentle. Took us just over 40 minutes and we chatted the whole way round.

And I’ve got 2 portions of dairy. Turns out I could have had Greek yoghurt, Paul had popped to the shop to pick some up! However I’m just not feeling a bowl of food right now.

I’m looking forward to the weigh in tomorrow, I’m hoping to see at least 1lb loss. I’ll keep you posted 🤞

Now I’m looking forward to comedy TV, currently QI, and then bed.

Nighty night.

24th Jan – nutrition or less calories? Oh the decisions!

Evening all, hope you are well and looking forward to the weekend!

Nothing much to talk about with my general day, quiet morning at work, then busy afternoon.

Emergency dinner knock up.

Head and gums still achy ☹

Let’s just get to the day.

Sleep – I feel it was an ok night. I’m hoping to have a bit of a lay in tomorrow.

Food – 40g mixed natural nuts, 90g of mixed dried fruits and 1 hard boiled egg.

As someone trying not to have to weigh stuff, I feel I should explain the nuts and fruit. I know I’m not good at portion control, and I feel that if I’m not very careful I’ll eat more that the healthy amount of fats from nuts and sugars from the fruit.

Lunch – met up with my mum and sister. And here is the reason for the title of this post.

As regular visitors will know, I try not to count calories, however I do count if I feel necessary, I was going to have my usual chicken salad which is under 500 calories, but opted instead for salmon salad instead, which is just under 700 calories.

My reason for this is NHS recommends 2 portions of fish per week, one of which should be oily, but we hadn’t had any fish at all this week.

The salmon was actually twice the size we normally have, so I’m counting that as my 2 portions for the week.

I shredded the salmon through the salad.

I had a small salad bowl to start, and made sure I had no dressing or roll.

I forgot to take a photo, so the following pic is a bit pointless!

Peter, my boss, brought in a tub of chocs, I’m pleased to report not one passed my lips.. Woohoo… go me 🤗

Dinner – now, this was a bit of a disaster, and you will shortly see the most unappetizing plate of food ever taken!

I thought Paul had bought falafel which I thought we would eat tonight.

I was wrong.

So after a rummage in the freezer I found a tub of diced pork, which was the easiest to defrost given the time I started.

I do not have a microwave, so while I cooked up brown rice in water and a couple of stock cubes, I first tried defrosting in cold running water, then transferred to a defrosting plate, not enough time.

After the rice was cooked, I chucked the meat into the pan on a low simmer for a good 45 mins.

Then I added a mix of sesame oil, 1 cal spray, Chinese five spice and garlic puree to a wok to heat, added sliced mushrooms and fried, then added the rice and meat, added a big splash of soy sauce and a couple of eggs. It was actually quite tasty, time will tell if I’ve given us both food poisoning!

Now, prepare yourselves, it’s not a good looking plate!

Well, I did warn you 🤣

Fluid – 200ml milk, 3 cups of tea, 1 glass of water, 1 very small baileys.

I haven’t had enough dairy today which is disappointing, I really don’t want any cheeses because of the calories and fats, but I really do need to take this nutrient seriously as well, so I’ll have another glass of milk and a cheese portion after my walk.

And yes, I am going for a walk. It won’t be a hard or fast walk, I’m hoping for a gentle half hour affair tonight. I’ll update you on that later.

So for now, bye.

23rd Jan – WOOHOO – me and my lazy backside did it!

I told Paul I really should do a walk and immediately whinged about how knackered I am. Paul sweetheart that he is, said to just do what I feel like, to which I answered ‘no, I need to do… something!’

So we got on our boots, coats and gloves, and stepped out the front door.

I wanted to do a 20 minute walk, the route we do has plenty of options to shorten our lengthen our way home, I didn’t take any short routes!

So pleased I pushed myself!

Now I’m drinking a flat zero lemonade (I’ve run out of water, and the fizzy is a week or two old) and I’m about to make us Greek yogurt with seeds and honey. So that will be my full dairy for the day.

Right, that’s enough of my gabbling for one day.

Night 😁

23rd Jan – choc and crisp crashing, but determined!

Hey all, hope you are well, and those who are poorly, hope it’s not long before you feel better!

Ok, confession, last night I whined about wanting chocolate, Paul, bless him, remembered he still had choc coins from xmas, he gave me one!

Today I still want chocolate and crisps! WHY? Not gonna happen though, I don’t need those empty calories, I don’t need all that sugar and fat! No! I’ll be strong! Once I fully get my head to where it should be I don’t mind treating myself in small doses and occasionally. If I have those bad things now I’ll be allowing myself to fall back into bad habits, and having them all the time!

The last few days have been a lot better than the last few weeks. I’m pleased to find my bowels are behaving in a much nicer way 😆

My gums are still ok, not pain free but a lot better. I even cleaned my teeth this morning, but with a gentle brush head. I didn’t use mouthwash, I might give it a go tonight or tomorrow morning.

I’ve still got that weird groggy head, but it’s much better than yesterday.

Anyway, let’s get on with the day.

Sleep – not the worst night I’ve had, but not great.

Food – 40g natural various nuts, 90g natural various dried fruits, 1 hard boiled egg and I handy matchbox sized cheese portion. Prawn salad for lunch.

Dinner – I was home late so you can imagine my joy walking into the house and smelling food cooking, thank you Paul 😊. We had chicken cooked in a chasseur maggi bag, with spring onions, mushrooms. Oven cooked spuds and sweetcorn and peas.

I left about 4 of the spuds, didn’t even think about it!

Fluid – 200ml lactose free milk, 4 cups of tea with half spoon sugar each. I’ll have a glass of water later.

Exercise – hmmm…. well, I’m starting to talk myself into a walk, probably a short one (once I’m sure I don’t need the loo). I haven’t had any relaxation time this week, so I’m having to fight with myself. I’ll pop another post on later once I’ve done it.

So for now, that’s all I have for you.

G’night

22nd Jan – sugar!

So after my evening post I made my way to Angela’s, you just don’t go to Angela’s and not have a cuppa!

But that’s ok, I had my sugar… OOOPS!!! No sugar, my halfspoon, which is a mix of sweetener and sugar, was left on my kitchen table…. damn!

I had one cuppa with 1 teaspoon of sugar, and then stuck to water!

And while I’m here, Paul has just brought in Greek yoghurt with seeds and honey! Yummy!

A day exceeding the recommended dairy intake, and as it’s actual Greek yoghurt not Greek style yoghurt, it’s probably gonna feed all the lovely microbes in my guts, YAY 😋

I promise, that’s it from me tonight! TTFN

22nd Jan – Another good food day, and a bit of exercise!

Hey All, Hope you are all well.

Today has been a very odd day. For the past few weeks I’ve been suffering with sore gums so I’ve been using Corsodyl mouth wash and been extra vigilant with my brushing. Yesterday it was so bad I actually took some codeine as the paracetamol and ibuprofen weren’t touching it. However last night my gums were throbbing so much, I couldn’t bare the thought of brushing my teeth. This morning, practically no pain. On the times I work up through the night I was marvelling at the lack of pain, and putting it down to the codeine, however that would have worn off about 3am, and no pain after that either. Needless to say, skanky sod that I am, I haven’t cleaned my teeth today either, and yet the throbbing is at a level 1 out of 10. I might not clean my teeth tonight either!

I have had a really strange headache today, it feels as though I’ve got a hangover, but I only had one small wine on Monday at the funeral, so it obviously isn’t a hangover! And I feel so groggy! I’m sure a good night’s sleep will cure it.

And some good news…… I am finally registering with a doctor, all the paperwork’s in, I’ll be able to ask for appointments in about two weeks…. YAY.

So, on to the daily report:

Sleep – 5 toilet trips – I’m going to start recording this as well, hopefully I’ll look back and see if I can see any patterns emerging.

Food – Daytime, I had 40g of natural nuts, 90g of dried fruits, 1 hard boiled egg and 3 small cheese portions (one of which went in my salad). As it’s a work from home day for me, i’ve taken a pic.

At lunch time I had my salad. Pic below, not very pretty I’m afraid.

And dinner was a nice big spag bol. And the reason why this is a ‘good’ food day and not a ‘great’ day. The mince was from a farm shop, so wasn’t 5% fat. I didn’t use any oil other than 8 squirts of 1 cal, and with the passatta there was over 3 portions of veggies each, bringing me up to 10 portions for the day! And of course, wholewheat pasta… yummy 🙂

The main ingredients were simple, mince, 1 onion, 1 pepper, a couple of garlick cloves, 2 big mushrooms and passata, i added thyme, oregano, 1 beef stock cube, ground cinnamon and ground cumin…. I know, it doesn’t sound as if it should work, but I just couldn’t get the taste quite as I wanted it, so ended up playing against my usual herbs and spices!

Oh, by the way, I trick my daughter taught me, If you need a stock cube, and if you buy oxo or some other similarly dried and foiled cubes, squash the little cube, it’ll crumble up in the foil, then just tear the foil and sprinkle! no lumpy bits, no gravy tasting fingers 😀

Fluid – 2 glasses of water, yes, that’s 2 glasses, 4 teas (all with halfspoon), no milk – but that’s ok, I’ve had cheese for all my dairy today. I shall probably have another cup of tea later this evening, and maybe a bit more water.

Exercise – So I should have done exercises at lunch time, but I really do need to get myself registered to the Doctor, and apparently no one else can hand the forms in for me! So rather than jumping in my car, I walked there as quickly as I could (given the lack of brain power today). Apparently I did 13 minutes of vigorous activity, so I’m pleased with this, and don’t feel too guilty that I’m not going to get a chance for anything else today. FYI – NHS recommends 75 mins of vigorous activity per week or 150 mins of moderate activity, so although I wan’t to get back to where I was before fitness-wise, and of course exceed that, I don’t mind this being a small exercise bit today.

So there’s my day today. I’m now going to go and visit with Angela, take my newly replenished tub of halfspoon sugar with me, have a cup of tea, have a chat.

Good night for now, speak tomorrow.

21st Jan – an almost perfect food day!

Evening all.

Today was almost perfect food wise.

I had my usual daytime foods, 40g natural nuts, 90g dried fruits, prawn salad.

Dinner was a pork chop, oven cooked spuds, sprouts and garlicky mushrooms.

I was particularly pleased with dinner because we made tonight girls night round mum’s (it’s been weeks since my mum, sister and I have caught up) and mum suggested take away. I however said I would eat with Paul before coming round… No Chinese for me 👏

Turned out I could have eaten with mum and Chelle, mum had some dental work so Chelle took round soup. I had a taste… it was delish! My brother in law is good in the kitchen, he had made potato and leek soup. I need that recipe!

Had I stopped there I would have reason to feel pleased with myself, however mum bought us a small box chocs from New Zealand, and gave us some Christmas tree chocs, so I’ve also had 5 bites of chocs!

So I’m quite happy with myself, but not very happy.

Fluids – we’ve run out of milk so I didn’t have my glass. I’ve had 5 teas, 1 of which had a teaspoon of sugar as I ran out of my halfspoon. I’ve also had a chai latte (no extra sugar) and 2 glasses of water. Not a great fluid day, but better.

Exercise – noooo ☹ tonight has been hectic, in from work at 6.15, straight on with cooking dinner, out to mum’s at 7.15 home now (10.00).

I seriously need to kick my backside into gear. Paul and I were talking about this over the weekend, we’re going to try and dedicate time every evening, providing we have nothing on. Can’t tomorrow night as I shall be spending a couple of hours with Angela after dinner.

So that’s my day, nowhere near perfect, but a bit better than previous days.

I’m getting there, slowly but surely. I so don’t want to let myself down. I’ll get to the right frame of mind, hopefully sooner not later.

Bye for now.

20th Jan – the catch up

Hey all, hope you are well.

We’ve had a chaotic few days, but we are almost at the point of being back on track…. That sounds like something I’ve already said several times over!

Anyway, first things first, I had a 1lb weight gain last week, ticket below.

Now on to the weekend, we we’re picking mum up from Heathrow early Sunday morning, so we booked a hotel, saving ourselves the travelling.

After beans on toast for Saturday breakfast we travelled to London, and visited Kew Gardens. A bright but cold day, with a chocolate orange sponge cake and tea.

Here are some pics.

I thought the red on this trunk was beautiful

My lovely Paul giving perspective to huge leaves

I don’t know whether this is pretty or freaky!

Yes, an actual living axolotl! I want one… So cute!

We wandered over 12000 steps that day, it was a lovely treat.

We spent some time just vegging out on the bed after we checked into the hotel, obviously Paul found football on the tv! Then we went down for a nice, relaxing couple of hours in the comfy bar before going through to the restaurant.

There was a salad option, and in hindsight I’m ashamed to report it wasn’t the option I choose. No, I had pork belly with sweet potato mash and celeriac slaw.

We also had a couple of tasty wholemeal, seedy dinner rolls with oil and vinegar, and a small pot of olives for starters. I had this with a full fat coke.

I think I felt like I was on holiday!

We did however, look at the desert menu, and talk ourselves out of some wonderful afters! I could quite happily have ordered the chocolate bomb, sticky toffee sponge or the cheese board!

Then we wandered back to our room for an early night.

Now 5am simply SHOULD NOT exist, it’s a ridiculous time of day! However that’s the time I crawled out of bed!

We met mum and my aunt at Heathrow, they were looking remarkably cheerful considering there 3 flights to get home, and no real plane sleeping! We had a drink together, mostly so Paul could get some caffeine, obviously we left the hotel too early for any kind of wake up juice to be on offer.

Being early Sunday morning, we saw very little traffic home, so we saw mum into her house at about 8am.

Then, oh dear, do I have to be honest? Oh, ok then, we went to buddies for a breakfast. I had 2 pots of tea to drink, then 2 eggs, 2 bacon rashers, 1 hash brown, 1 slice of toast and butter, and some mushrooms!

Then we went home and had nearly a four hour snooze, it was much needed.

We had some gammon in the fridge but didn’t feel like a proper meal (hardly surprising given breakfast) so I had a lazy rest of day, then we had gammon sarnies.

Today of course was an emotional day, this was the day for our final farewell to Pete. We had a beautiful day for the funeral, and my dear friend was so brave as she read her readings for her husband. There were lots of tears and hugs, and some lovely rememberings from his family during the wake.

Peter, you will be sorely missed.

By the time we left the wake, we were emotionally drained. Paul, the girls and I opted for.. . KFC! I KNOW!

However, before we ate I prepped mine and Paul’s fruits and nuts, boiled our eggs, and split my salad (which Paul picked up yesterday) into three pots. So at least that’s daytime food sorted out.

Monday is usually shopping night, we had planned to do it tomorrow, however Paul has had a reminder that he’s got the chiropractor tomorrow, so I’ll be winging it a bit tomorrow.

Wednesday I’ll be popping in to see Angela.

So this is me for now, desperately hoping to get myself back into the right frame of mind. Lord I really want to see a loss on the scales on Saturday, but I’ve GOT to get my arse into gear.

Wish me luck 😊

REBLOG – You’ll Feel Better For It — Middle-aged, Free and Single

Hey all, you know when you just read someone else’s blog post, and it resonates with you more than usual? It’s that post that just seems to align so completely with your frame of mind in that moment. Well this is one of them! In fact, all the posts written by 58andcounting are such a pleasure to read! Thank you 🙂

I don’t go to the gym to get fit. Well – I do, but that’s not the only reason. Exercise does far, far more than that. And it doesn’t have to be the gym – any sort of exercise will do. You do you. Exercise helps your mind as well as your body. If you’re […]
You’ll Feel Better For It — Middle-aged, Free and Single