Trying to lose!

26th June – Ok, not the best, but some good choices.

So today hasn’t been the best, no exercise at all, instead I’ve sat around and melted! I can say though that food choices could have been a lot worse!

Popped round to see my mum this afternoon, and my sister and her children were there. It was so lovely seeing them! We’ve seen the kids only once these last few months, and that was through a window.

Some of my onion plants look more healthy than others, feeling rather proud of those green shoots! I can’t believe I haven’t killed all my plants off 🤣. My herbs still aren’t showing any growth, other than basil.

As I’ve nothing else to tell you about, I’ll get on with the daily info.

Sleep – not too bad for once, only up 4 times.

Fluid – 200ml of milk, 200ml pineapple juice, 1 cup of tea, 1 can Pepsi max, 4 glasses of water (over 1.2l) of water so far, I’ll be getting another glass shortly.

A note on the water – I’m drinking still bottled water which is flavoured. It’s supermarket own so it’s cheaper, and I really like it. I can drink this water quite happily, whereas I struggle with council pop (tap water), even if used with squash/cordial.

Exercise – no, none today. I honestly feel like I’m melting today.

Food – ok, so we haven’t been totally on the ball today, but we’ve made healthy choices… on the whole.

I asked Paul what he wanted for breakfast, his answer? Fry up! So, baring in mind we both need to keep engaged and motivated to keep going, I cooked a fry up.

BUT

It was just under 500 calories!

We had turkey rashers not bacon, turkey sausages which are just as enjoyable as pork sausages, mushrooms gently cooked in olive spread not butter, egg fried in a couple of squirts of 1cal spray not oil, 1 slice of seedy bread not 2, spread with olive spread not butter.

And I left some of mine, not much but some.

As breakfast was late, we then didn’t eat until dinner. Again, not the healthiest meal, but much more healthier than fish supper from the chippy. Oven cooked chips, peas, onion rings (wanted the nearly empty packet out of the freezer) and lightly dusted sole.

I left half the chips.

You’ll notice there’s not been much in the way of fruit and veg, mushrooms and pineapple juice this morning and peas this evening. And neither have I had my nuts (as recommended by WHO and NHS), so I’ve weighed off 40g of nuts and 75g of dried fruits each for tonight.

I’ll also have a babybel later as I’ve only had 1 dairy portion and I should be having 3 a day.

So, a failure on exercise and a failure on fully healthy, unprocessed food, but a success on making the day a much, much healthier day than it would have been in the past.

Well, that’s my day, speak tomorrow 😊

25th June – Another Fab Day!

Hey all.

Ok… first off, last night! I didn’t have the nuts as I had said I probably would, oh no, instead i had a glass of cider, a chocolate and a pineapple juice.

Now on to today.

I’ve had my feet done… and it feels great! Abigail, our foot doctor, did an amazing job, and I can’t stop feeling my lovely smooth heels! She has also given some great advise – rather than trying to get rid of all hard skin infrequently, try getting rid of a little bit regularly. Apparently the skin’s response to the former is to create thicker skin in defence! Makes sense. We’ve also ordered a cream advised by Abigail, I’ll let you know how that goes. In the meantime, I’m enjoying walking around on my new feet!

And very much welcome considering our walk today! We went round a local park called Sywell Country Park. It was a lovely walk, and I appreciated shady bits very much. But most wonderful was just hearing and seeing insects and birds. My favourites are the electric blue damsel flies.

I was glad for my sun hat, a strange thing happens to my forehead should a bit of sun touch it for a few minutes, I get weird and massive white lumps under the skin, which just grow and then crack! My family call me a Klingon when I’ve not been careful 🤣

Below are a couple of photos from my past Klingon moments!

Had a call with mum and sis this evening, not much news to swap, but good to see there faces looking back from my screen.

So… are you ready?

Here’s my daily info:

Sleep – still crap!

Fluid – 200ml of milk, 1 cup of tea, countless glasses of water, 1 can of Pepsi, 1 can of diet coke.

Particularly pleased with the diet coke, this was after our walk, I was hankering after full fat coke, Paul had a bottle of water and an ice cream, and I stuck to diet coke and no ice cream!

Food – 40g natural nuts, 75g dried fruits for breakfast.

We both enjoyed lunch so much yesterday, we repeated it today. Greek salad, bit of chicken, hummus, couscous, followed by strawberries with a tiny bit of sugar.

Dinner was gammon and egg with oven cooked spuds.

I cut off most the fat and made sure I stopped when satisfied… almost… another spud hopped into my mouth 😉

Exercise – we did not push for times today, we just enjoyed the outside!

So, there we are, a great day, sticking to my personal food regime, and getting some exercise. Hoping for another couple of good days until we are beleaguered with monsters… oops… kids again

Bye for now 😃

24th June – another great day!

Hey all, hope you are all well.

It’s so hot here today, my feet were burning on the pavement every time I nipped into the back garden! I really should wear my flip flops. But then, I’m getting what Paul calls “fat foot” never happened in England before, only abroad. So, flip flop probably wouldn’t fit 😄

Talking of my garden, still nothing from my herbs other than the basil, which seems to be doing quite well.

And the bath is gone!!! Background… when Paul and I moved in, we decided to have a shower room. We both prefer showers to baths, and we opted for not hoisting our legs over a bathtub for our showers. That was neatly two years ago, and the bathtub has been in the garden since… I was beginning to think up gardenny ideas for it 😆.

Today Paul cut it down and got it down the tip. That spot will now be our bbq spot!

Paul’s also made a great start on the hedge in the front garden, our incinerator has been burning now for about 7 hours with the trimmings! Now don’t misunderstand me, we do not have a huge garden, front or back, we’re just rubbish at maintaining… a LOT of growth!

I’m feeling a little pleased with myself, I’ve been saying for weeks I need new knickers, until yesterday I was wearing my size 24s, they weren’t flattering to begin with, now they’re just saggy! So on Monday I picked some up, nothing special, supermarket bought. I was secretly nervous about wearing them, maybe I’m not size 18, maybe I’m kidding myself, blah blah blah. They fit lovely! Chucking the old ones away after I get some more next week!

I didn’t go for a walk today, but I sweated a lot doing my housework, and it took me a good 2.5 hours, so I’m counting that as exercise.

Nothing else to chin wag about, so here’s my daily details.

Sleep – have to tell you I’m feeling knackered, have done all day. Not a great night.

Fluid – 200ml of milk, about 1.2l water, 1 cup of tea and 1 can Pepsi max.

Food – yet to have nuts, I’ll probably have them to snack on later tonight.

Homemade Greek salad, 2 tbsp couscous, 1 tbsp hummus, some chicken, followed by strawberries.

You’ll notice cream on the table, I didn’t have any, I did however have half a teaspoon of halfspoon sugar sprinkled over.

So a meat free day today. The tofu was breaded, so not as healthy as it could have been. The rice (bottom of bowl) was white instead of brown. But 1.5 portions of veggies.

So there we have it, I’m pleased with today.

We have a treat tomorrow night, a lady is coming round to give our feet a nice treat! My mum and daughter have their feet done by her, I’ve never had a foot treatment, so I’m really looking forward to it.

And on that note, I shall leave you in peace 😁

23rd June – a great kickstarter day!

Hey all, hope you are well.

So I weighed myself this morning, and was shocked as I’ve put a good few pounds on. I shouldn’t be shocked, I’ve had loads of alcohol, bbq and a chip shop fish and chips!

Well… life is life, I’m way to far into my journey to have not learned some lessons; 1) I know what to do, and I’m perfectly capable of doing so, 2) my “diet” is enjoyable and I’m never hungry, 3) my diet is great for my body, 4) I can get my fitness (such that it was) back, I just need to not be lazy, 5) I know not to give up, and indeed have not given up.

To be honest, I have absolutely no negative feelings. This old brain of mine has already kicked into gear, and helped me have a great day.

Yes I know I can only concentrate on me until Sunday, and then I’ll just try to manage, but after that I’ll have another week that’ll be all mine.

As we all know, life sometimes overalls our personal plans.

So, here’s how my days been.

Sleep – URGH! Way too many loo stops!

Fluid – 200ml of milk, 200ml pineapple juice, approx 1 litre of water, 1 can pepsi max.

Food – 40g natural nuts, 75g dried fruits, 1 cheese portion.

As Paul had done a long bike ride (50km) we had 5 bean baked beans and cheese on brown seedy toast for lunch. I grated far too much cheese, so about half went back in the fridge.

We had liver for dinner, swapping the bacon with healthier turkey rashers.

We’ve also had 1 square of dark chocolate.

All in all I’ve had all three dairy portions, all 5 (just about) portions of fruits and veg, daily portion of lentils and pulses, more than daily portion of nuts. Proteins eaten at each meal. So a good food day.

Exercise – I’m pleased with my walk today, it is true that my fitness level has dropped, it is also true I am still a lot fitter than a year ago. But the main reason for being pleased is that I got of my backside and I walked out the door.

Not sure how far I walked, my watch and phone don’t agree despite being linked, as you’ll see!

No idea if I walked 5.6km or 6.6km!

Anyway, that’s my day, speak tomorrow 👋

IM BACK!!! Kid free for a while 😁

Wow! What a week!

I’m not a gardener, I can grow weeds!

Now I have a nice bit of garden, it’s not fantastic, but it’s getting there.

Paul has done a lot of the donkey work with tidying and digging over the bald patches of lawn, I did help, but he definitely did the lions share, this week, with the help of nieces, I was able to plant out some herbs and onions…. and I have basil shoots already… so excited! As for the onions, slight error on my part, I now have 8 pots and tubs of them in my small patch of eden. As I’m new to this, I fully expect to kill some of them off, but still, hopefully a good yield anyway.

We planted sunflowers a couple of months ago, half of them, the ones in pots, have survived and are growing wonderfully!

And our bald lawn patches… there are “tufts” as Paul calls them of fresh green grass growing!

Other than gardening, we took the kids to whipsnade zoo last wednesday, had our lunch in a great thunderstorm, soggy sarnies… nice! And of course saw loads of animals. Kids loved it, as did we, but we had chippy that night. Oops.

Got some new marbling oils a few weeks ago, so that provided another afternoons entertainment for the kids.

We had the kids a day longer than usual, but Sofia behaved better than usual so it wasn’t too hard a week.

Sofia managed to have no strops, not even little strops. And as for Lilly, or as I like to call her, little miss elbows, she is very close to recognising and understanding numbers 1 to 10, and can now read a good 12 or 13 words from the peter and Jane book I got here, she is even beginning to be able to make up sentences with those words I wrote down and cut out for her! I’ll only have 1 more week with her, as she is going back to nursery, but I’m hoping she’ll definitely understand her numbers and know a few more words by then.

There’s been catching up with people too.

Saw Amy and Katie on Saturday night, which was lovely.

Had a bbq round at lou and Gwen’s on Sunday, with Paul’s sister and kids, so nice to spend time with family.

Saw my friend yesterday, it felt like we hadn’t had a cuppa and natter in years, not months!

For regular readers, you’ll know I started, and then failed, to do updates during the week. Having got on the scales this morning I wish I had made the time, I have put weight on!

However yesterday Paul and I went shopping and we’ve got only the foods we had before the virus, so this week at least will be a full on healthy eating week, which started this morning.

We went for a walk yesterday, only 3km. I find that any walking I do now makes my hips ache, with luck this will ease the more walking I do.

I went for a decent walk today, around 6km, it was slow, 1hr 22mins, but it was a good walk. Paul outdid me though, 50km bike ride 🤣

So that’s my catch up, I’ll post a proper daily update tonight.

Bye