Centarian

Sunday:

Yesterday was my Poppa's 100th birthday. (My mother's father.) A celebratory lunch was held at a country club, all the extended family from near and far plus family friends. I enjoyed catching up with family, but all these older people kept coming up to me and knowing who I was but I had no idea who they were! Darryl? Um, maybe Poppa's cousin's daughter? Or lived next door to Poppa when I was a child? Who knows? I had long conversations with two different old ladies with no idea who they were. They assumed I'd know, and I felt it was rude to ask. At least 'Evan' explained he was a family friend, and the father of a boy I went to primary school with (and a good friend of Tim's old boss, which is a crazy co-incidence as we were in another state at the time!)

I wasn't successful in finding a new winter dress before the event so I wore an old one that was too big on me but looked ok. Actually the shopping process was depressing, for some reason I looked fat and dumpy in everything I tried on, very unlike my other recent shopping experiences, even though I'm the same weight! I refuse to buy anything that makes me look like that.

Group photo of Poppa with all the sons, grandsons, great grandsons and in-laws.

 And with the granddaughters, great granddaughters and in-laws (I have my arm linked with Poppa, the only one wearing glasses).

It was also Tim and my 16th wedding anniversary, so in the evening we went out to dinner. It was a restaurant we hadn't tried before. The food was nice but we were right at the front where it was very noisy and also cold from people going in and out or the door being propped open. They couldn't move us to another table because they were full. I kept my coat on most of the time. We liked the food, but I think we'll save that restaurant for better weather or check when we book that we can be seated at the back.

Today is Mother's Day, I received some lovely presents - like slippers with inserts that you heat in the microwave! - and breakfast and lunch made for me. It was cold and rainy outside so it was a quiet day at home doing some study, watching Librarians Season 4 and trying to avoid the news (Eurovision was 5am our time and there are always spoilers about who won before we get to watch it in the evening) then in the evening - Eurovision Party! Every year we get family and friends to come over and watch with us. None of our favourite groups even made it to the top 10, I think. Oh well, it was fun.

Ten: aim high

Thursday:

I had a much better night - didn't keep myself awake coughing! - and this morning I did some thinking before I got out of bed.

The food plan I am on (designed to fix blood sugar levels) is quite strict and prescriptive, and I often fall short of perfection. You could argue (I don't mean you personally, but it seemed odd to use "one could argue") that it would be better to try a more flexible plan that is easier to stick too. Some people like to aim so low that they cannot fail, then they can build on that good feeling. But I prefer to aim high. Then even when I have slips and stumbles, I still achieve high.

It's like if I was still at school and doing regular tests and quizzes. Should I plan to get 50% and then be happy with that because I hit my goal? Or perhaps fail to achieve even that goal, as I might if I was being so casual about it? No! I aim for 100% and try hard. But when I get 90% I'm still happy. I'm not perfect, and that is a good score. Not getting 100% every day doesn't mean I've failed.

That doesn't mean I can aim for 90% as being more realistic. I still have to aim for 100% to get 90%.

I am losing weight on this diet. I need to keep aiming for perfection, but being ok with getting a few things wrong.

The other thought that followed on for this is that life is not pass/fail. A healthy diet is not pass/fail. You CAN fail a diet if you repeatedly eat all the stuff you shouldn't. But a few mistakes is not an automatic F for the whole diet, or the rest of your life. Maybe I got an A on Monday and Tuesday and a C yesterday. I didn't plunge into binging and I still ate healthy food for two of my meals.

Moving on to today, while eating my healthy breakfast I read an article in New Scientist about whether or not we need breakfast. The answer seemed to be "maybe"! If you eat breakfast, you eat more in total over the whole day, but you also move more. If you don't eat breakfast, you eat a little more at lunch time but not enough to compensate, and you unconsciously move around less so burn off less calories. Breakfast or no breakfast had no effect on weight loss. They suggested that if you were going to be very sedentary and didn't need to think much, like sitting on a plane all morning, then it would be fine to skip breakfast. But children didn't do as well at school without breakfast, so you might need it as brain food. And eating breakfast seemed to help future diabetes outcomes. Overall it sounded like it's better to eat breakfast.

But what should we be eating for breakfast? The idea of cereal being a healthy start to the day, and later of bacon and eggs making a great breakfast, were from marketing campaigns (Mr Kellogg and the pork industry respectively) so have little basis in reality. The article just said that more study was needed on this part. I'm sticking to protein plus fruit/veges.

What I ate today:
B: roast beef, cucumber, tea (back to no sugar).
L: half a steak, roast vegetables.
S: cheese and cashews.
D: spicy chicken, broccoli, cucumber.

Lunchtime walk

Wednesday:

Lovely start to the day; breakfast in the covered courtyard (I allow myself bacon around once a week) after everyone else had left. I don't usually read newspapers, but this local one was delivered so I decided to get into the spirit of the area.

I went inside to my desk and the kookaburra visited. I mentioned yesterday I was giving them cooked meat, well a lot of it was left behind so I guess they didn't like it. This morning I put out some raw meat - trimmings from my steak - and that went very quickly.

I did deskwork most of the morning while waiting for a registered letter to arrive. You'll remember settlement on our Canberra house was supposed to happen last Monday but there was a document missing, well that was all sorted out and we settled on Thursday. Today we got the cheque. As soon as it came I walked up to the shopping centre and deposited it into our account. As soon as it clears it will of course go on the mortgage for this house! It was a great relief when settlement was finalised.

It was very hot outside, but I walked the back way along a path in a very narrow strip of bushland, only a couple of hundred metres wide at most. Sometimes you walk along directly behind houses, other times you have native bush on both sides and can only see houses and streets off through the trees. I feel safe because I can see civilisation at all times (but I still wouldn't walk it at night). Much more shady than walking along the roads, and about the same distance.

It was nearly lunchtime when I went out but this time I made sure I wasn't hungry! I did buy myself a food treat while I was there - a mango. Yummy. And I dropped into the library to exchange my books. Then I walked home to a house about 10C cooler than outside, had a drink and recovered, and had a lovely lunch.

...

It turned into a very stressful afternoon. Jasmine texted to ask if I could pick her up from school as it was too hot to ride home. Timing was going to be an issue with Aiden getting home soon, so I told her to ride part-way and I would pick her up at a particular side street. Getting out of our quiet street took forever, with three or four schools within a couple of blocks of here (two private) the pick-up traffic was horrendous and there were cars backed up all around the round-about as if they were parked there. But I got out eventually by being a bit pushy and drove to the meeting place. Jas wasn't there yet. So I kept going, all the way to her school. The bike path is right beside the road, how could I have missed her? Drove back to the appointed corner, waited, stress levels rising. Where was she? Time was ticking on as well. As I got out my phone to call, she texted me. She'd gone down the side street instead of waiting at the corner, and was right down the other end!! Miscommunication there. That street is blocked off to cars half-way down, so I had to go round the block. Got there eventually.

Next challenge, the bike wouldn't fit in the car. I'd been worried about that. She's now using my old bike, so it's small adult size. I tried to take off the front wheel like Tim does, but with no idea what I was doing. It wouldn't come off. Flashbacks to when Tim broke his shoulder blade and I had to get his bike into the car to drive him to hospital. That bike needed more doctoring that he did to get it back in working order after I was done with it. With my stress levels at exploding point, I got the wheel half off which meant the bike could no longer even be wheeled along, let alone ridden. I used brute force and wrestled the bike into the back seat where it stuck out at one side. Drove home with the car door slightly open, to find Aiden waiting but fine. I was probably silly to stress so much, but I honestly don't know what he would have done if he was waiting for a long time. We don't know any neighbours and we hadn't discussed it. I don't envy Tim trying to put the wheel back on the bike, I may have left some random parts behind in the gutter.

Mortgage and eggs

Tuesday:

I think I mentioned some months ago that we were able to pay off our mortgage, which is a wonderful feeling. But it wasn't really as finished and done with as I thought back then. It's not just a matter of paying off the loan to the bank. You fill out forms and give them a paying-off-your-mortgage payment. Was that a fee to give them money? Yes, yes it was. Then you wait to hear from the lawyer. And fill out more forms, and make another payment or three. More fees because you no longer owe the bank any money? Why yes. Then you wait a bit longer for more paperwork, and fill in more forms, and then today I had to go - in person - over the other side of Canberra to lodge this paperwork with the Office of Regulatory Services. And make another payment which seemed quite a lot for their two minutes of work and the printout of one document. But I think it is all done now. The Title has been officially transferred into our names. We own this house! Yay!

Except of course in Canberra the land isn't actually sold, it was leased from the government for 99 years, presumably so they can get it back eventually if they want it, without having to fight anyone or pay any money. I'm not sure what exactly will happen in 2067. We own the house, I think, but not the land, so presumably we could take the house with us... maybe the government could demand that we get our damn house off their land! Well, I don't expect to be here (in this house) in 2067. This isn't the usual arrangement in Australia, only in Canberra. They like to do everything differently in our nation's capital.

Which segues nicely into my eggs, which I am going to do differently. I struggle to find a good breakfast. I need protein to keep me full and make my stomach happy, carby foods tend to upset my digestion first thing. I don't know how anyone can eat cereal for breakfast (like my husband does) I can only have it later in the day, like supper. I love bacon but all that salt isn't very healthy (the judges are still in disagreement about the fat content). Eggs tend to get promoted by all factions in war of the diets. But I find them boring. So this week I decided to cook eggs a different way each morning. I've started with the familiar - yesterday a little omelette with mushrooms and cheese, today poached on sourdough bread with bacon. I intend to now venture into styles I'm less familiar with. Scrambled tomorrow, then an Asian style that involves deep frying (looks like poaching, except in fat instead of water). Any other ideas? I don't know how long I will stick with it, I'm a bit bored with eggs already.

Report card:
Diet: Ok.
Exercise: Still none. Cold and raining all day.
Water: Good.
Sleep: Poor.
Mental health: Ok.

Day 6: today was harder

Tuesday:

I resisted so many temptations yesterday afternoon! PMS hit so I wasn't feeling at my strongest, but I negotiated shoe shopping with the kids and buying them a treat without getting myself anything (had my scheduled afternoon snack when we got home), and later didn't turn to food even though I really wanted to when the kids were bickering (this was probably my hardest challenge this week, I was feeling very grumpy and out of sorts), and I only ate my allotted amount of roast potato at dinner even though it was really yummy and there was more just sitting there, AND I had a healthy supper instead of the unhealthy one that was calling to me. I was so strong. I just didn't give myself a choice.

I weigh myself every morning, and I mentally prepared myself for a gain this morning due to TOM water retention. And it did go up, by 0.1 kg. Not so bad! It helps that I am not eating my usual salty carbs. Other times the gain has been ten times that overnight.

Pre-tracking is really helping. Each evening I write down everything I'm going to eat the next day. And that is what I eat. And all I eat. The only leeway I give myself is that I write "fruit" then I can chose whichever type I feel like at the time. It makes it easier that the choices for the day are already made. Decided. Done. Takes a lot of stress away.

I've also settled the breakfast issue, which has always been a problem for me. I just made a choice that fit with my diet plan, and I'm having the same thing every weekday (varies on weekends). No decision required. That is my breakfast now, so I don't even need to think about it.

So I'm still doing really well but it was a really hard day. I had another bad night's sleep, taking the mask off at 2am because I needed to cough a lot. The PMS was crushing me all day and it was taking every iota of my strength to stick to my eating plan. I've done little else today than resist, resist, resist. I read somewhere recently (can't remember who) a woman denying PMS existed and that other women use it as an excuse. Don't we all want to punch her? Try living with these hormones two days a month. I am using it as an excuse to put off things I don't want to do. But I'm not using it as an excuse to overeat. Not this time.

I finished dinner with 200 "normal" calories left plus the 200 extra I planned to allow myself at games night supper. I provided Greek yoghurt with raspberries, and some chocolate. There was some cheese and wine. Some more chocolate. And then this:

Apparently our favourite brand of chocolate was on special. Most of this was taken away again (they know I don't like leftovers left in our house) to be brought back every week until it's gone. Even so, when looking at the empty packets at the end of the night, there was easily 100g of chocolate per person consumed.

I had yoghurt and raspberries as part of my planned diet, but I served it to everyone in fancy cocktail glasses to make it special. I spent my 200 extra calories on 36g of chocolate and one wedge of brie cheese on one cracker. That was all. I felt mildly deprived late in the evening when I would have like to nibble on a bit more, but I shrugged it off.

Day six accomplished!

Birthday girl

Thursday:

As usual, the menu and daily activities were entirely chosen by the birthday person. I'll say up-front that I do not put responsibility for what I eat on my daughter - totally my choice to indulge today!

We started with presents in the big bed, then I made French toast with raspberries. Big doses of carbohydrate seem to affect me more and more these days, and two slices of sourdough bread (which doesn't sound that much to me, that's just the same as a sandwich) soaked in egg, cream and sugar etc left me feeling overfull, bloated and sleepy for hours. I am not planning to completely ban any food as that seems to put me into a panicky fear-of-deprivation mode, but I feel much better if I eat smaller amounts of wheat-based products and sugar. So breakfast was a (daughter's) birthday indulgence. Even so, I don't really want an indulgence that makes me feel like that! Still, I don't regret it - I enjoyed eating it and I am done with regrets over insignificant little choices like that.

The rest of the morning was filled with utilizing the various presents. We listened to the soundtrack from "Frozen", the kids watched "The Croods" and "Despicable Me 2" (yes, two movies in one morning!) and played with the various little girly toys like Littlest Pet Shop miniature animals that she is collecting. She had 21 before today and I must have got her another five or six.

We've tried not to be gender-biased in the treatment of our kids, presents we give them or activities we suggest for them, but it has just turned out that Jasmine is a very girly girl (I wasn't) and Aiden is a boyish boy. They were just born that way.

Then into the city (such as it is, Canberra has a population of around 350,000 so the "city" is just the biggest collection of shops) to pick up Tim from work and have lunch at our favourite Chinese restaurant. The Shan Tung chicken can vary a lot in amount of chilli, today it was super hot. But very tasty.

After dropping Tim back at work we went to uni so I could return my borrowed Biology textbook. I had read the first four chapters, I haven't done any Science for 25 years and I can see it is going to be very challenging. A lot to learn. Maybe it's a good thing I will only be able to fit in three subjects this term instead of four, don't want to overtax the aging brain. While we were there I bought my Chemistry and Nutrition textbooks and I've started reading the Nutrition one. Fascinating stuff already. I can see I am really going to enjoy the core of this course. I'll keep you posted on things I learn.

It was really hot again outside and just walking back to the car with two very heavy textbooks was tiring. Back home to relax for the afternoon, with Jasmine creating some glow in the dark stickers, then her favourite lasagne for dinner and ice cream for dessert. And then watering the garden with daddy which seemed to get more water on them than the plants.

I think my little girl had a good day.

I had some great news, my mammogram came back clear. I hadn't really been worrying about it, but it's good to know.

Comfort breakfast

Wednesday:

I woke this morning after a sad and upsetting dream that I found really hard to shake off. So I ate the wrong kind of breakfast. And felt worse. "Comfort food", stop pretending you will make me feel better. You are not really comforting at all! A big hug from a real person works much better.

Whole30 Day1

Saturday:

I have the feeling this is going to be a long post, it isn't even lunchtime yet but I wanted to write some thoughts down. I'll add more at the end of the day.

Last night I went to bed worried about breakfast. I'd made plans, a recipe for baked eggs with spinach, tomato and chilli. I thought I had plenty of eggs, more than a dozen. But by last night we were down to eight eggs, for six people. Even if the kids only had one each, that wasn't enough. I was so stressed about it that I had weird Whole30-related dreams. I dreamed my mum ate my steak so I didn't have anything for dinner. I dreamed I was halfway through a choc-coated muesli bar then realised I wasn't allowed to eat that (I hardly ever have muesli bars!) and panicked. I think there were more food-related stress dreams too. I read in the Whole30 timeline that a lot of people have these sorts of dreams - but much later in the process, around Day 12, not before you even start!

 

In the morning I abandoned my fancy-egg plans and just soft boiled them and had two for myself on a bed of lettuce with salt (a kind of pared-down poor-man's Caesar salad). My brother wasn't even out of bed, Aiden didn't want one and the others only had one each so there ended up being three left over ... all that pointless worry! My breakfast was rather boring and not at all the start to Whole30 I had planned. Oh well, plenty of room for improvement. I also had a cup of black tea, and water with a squeeze of lemon. Then afterwards I realised I hadn't had any fat, supposed to have some with every meal, so I had a few cashews and almonds.

Lunch will also need a rethink as I had planned my favourite chicken and vegetable stir-fry but only realised last night that I can't have either soy or oyster sauce (oyster sauce is full of sugar) so I'll have to change the seasoning. Did I really think I had a handle on this process?

Did 22 minutes of energetic dancing so well on my way to my goal of 30 mins of exercise every single day.

Oh, I did my start-of-diet weigh and measure, 80.75 kg and 102 cm around the waist (at belly button). Not allowed to do this again until the end of the 30 days.

Later:

Felt some sibling-rage when my brother got up just before noon and monopolised my kitchen making himself breakfast at a time I was wanting to start lunch. I think I was just really over having visitors here! Arg! Give me my house back! My mum had gone out to the local shop to get herself some stuff and bought me another dozen eggs, which would do for my husband making some muffins for him and the kids (not me, obviously) and us having the baked egg thing for breakfast tomorrow morning - but my brother was going to have ... well I don't know how many eggs. He got out six pieces of bread and said he was going to fry eggs two by two until he had had enough. I said he wasn't allowed as I needed the eggs, and also mum had wanted to leave to head home about an hour before he even got out of bed, so he settled for three eggs. And scorched my frying pan (there was NO WAY I was cooking for him, I'd made eggs for the house hours before!).

I was feeling quite frustrated and cranky and hungry, so as soon as he was done cooking I started making lunch. I was still ripping apart the raw chicken when they finally left. So glad to have the house to ourselves again after more than a week of almost constant visitors (some more annoying than others!).

Felt much better after getting some chicken and vegetable stir-fry into me. Since I couldn't use soy or oyster sauce, I added chilli flakes as well as the garlic I always put in. Not the same, but nice. Cooked in olive oil. Then half a big apple.

I'm obsessing over food a fair bit, but I do that anyway. At least I am obsessing over healthy food.

Tim and the kids and I all walked up to the fruit markets (and there is the rest of my exercise for the day) for a few things. I asked in the deli about their prosciutto as I'd heard you can get that with no sugar, as an alternative to bacon. I wanted something to add a bit of sparkle to some dishes, not to eat a slab of bacon for breakfast. Of the three kinds of prosciutto they had, they had no idea of the ingredients of one and one of the other two had sugar. So I bought a few slices of the third. At $56 a kilogram! Nearly $9 for four wafer-thin slices. Ridiculous, of course. But I will have it one slice at a time (or maybe half a slice!) crispy fried and crumbled into an omelette or whatever for that added zing.

Also bought a julienne peeler to make zoodles ("noodles" out of vegetables). And an avocado to see if I like it yet. Not been a fan in the past.

Had a banana for a snack when we got home. Tim and the kids had Turkish Delight. Yuck, pure sugar. Then I realised that I'm supposed to have protein and fat even with a snack. So ate a bit of cold chicken and half a teaspoon of cashew butter. It felt silly and counterproductive to do that, I was no longer hungry at all, and eating so much at 4pm made me less hungry for my delicious dinner.

Dinner was lovely, a big T-bone steak with fried mushrooms (in olive oil), fried leek and celery with chives, and salad. It was basically what we often had, I only had to make a few minor changes. No corn, and I couldn't use the "steak seasoning" as it has rice flour in it, but I read the label and sprinkled all the other ingredients (salt, pepper, paprika, onion, garlic, and chilli powder) on my steak before frying. It tasted pretty much the same as usual. After a somewhat fraught day, food-wise, it was great to have something delicious, easy and familiar.

We hardly ever have dessert, but I guess I do like a taste of something sweet after dinner because I would love a square of chocolate right now.

So how did Day 1 go? Despite some problems, I got through it with full compliance as far as I can tell - assuming I get through the evening! Should be ok. I feel a bit out of sorts but that has little to do with the Whole30 and a lot to do with feeling like I haven't had a moment to myself for a couple of weeks. I'll be glad when school goes back on Monday and I have six hours of peace and quiet every day. I may be a bit low on carbs and missing sugar, but I do think at this stage that isn't affecting me so much as other things.

My husband just showed me how to upload photos now, so this is me today:

I feel that it is a pretty accurate photo - this is what I look like right now. Usually I hate looking at photos of myself, and this one isn't particularly flattering, but I am strangely feeling very accepting of it. This is me, tummy and all. I don't think I've ever posted a photo of myself on this blog, so it is about time!

 



And here is a photo of my kids at the Tulip Gardens last weekend:

They are a bit far away to see clearly, but you can see how pretty the gardens are. I'll be posting lots more photos now that I know how to do it again!

Whole30 Day 1 is more or less over. I had a few moments where I thought things like "WHY can't I have a glass of milk, again?" but I'm feeling strong.

Breakfasts

Monday:

I've always struggled with breakfast. I'd been eating Cruskits with vegemite for years, but about a year ago when I got worried about my blood sugar I stopped eating them because they are high GI. Then began the search for a replacement.

I tried steel-cut oats and rolled oats and instant oats. (I found one flavour I liked so they took it off the market.) I tried other cereals. I tried fruit. I tried toast with various toppings (I rather liked the toasted cheese, but felt it was a bit fatty for every day). I went through a phase of having a cucumber every morning. I tried not eating until after I'd taken the kids to school so my stomach could wake up first, but got too hungry and made bad choices. I tried yoghurt with fruit mixed in (they took the only brand I liked off the market as soon as I found it). I tried left-overs. I tried making my favourite soup specially the day before. Even if I had time to cook every day, I don't think bacon and eggs would be a healthy regular choice, and eggs by themselves do not appeal to me at all.

Most things were difficult to worry down, or upset my stomach. I think it just takes a while to wake up in the morning.

So last week I gave in and bought Cruskits again. My blood sugar has been good lately and it was fine two hours after the Cruskits.

But I can't help noticing that about an hour after breakfast I am starving. Much hungrier than if I hadn't eaten anything at all for breakfast. And hungry for carbs and sugar. And if I have a bad morning tea, that leads into a bad lunch etc as my cravings grow and grow.

So obviously this isn't the answer to my breakfast issues.

Breakfasts

Sunday:

I have tried porridge, quinoa porridge, rvyita, and today the buckwheat pancakes from a WW cookbook. All horrible. If they were the only food available and I was starving; then yes, I would eat them. But they aren't and I'm not so I won't.

As I've said before, I don't really like cereal and I am not that keen on eggs -- certainly not every day even if I had time to cook them on weekdays -- so I am really struggling to find something healthy. I'm down to toast, or cruskits when I am feeling weak-willed.

I am toying with the idea of non-breakfast foods for breakfast. My dad is a big meat eater and for preference will have left-overs from dinner for breakfast. When he visits I try to make sure I have some left-over roast for him. Should I try something like that for myself? "They" do say you should have breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper. I enjoy a bigger meal at night but maybe I could try swapping breakfast and lunch.

Or maybe just stick with the toast, and find a few different toppings for my single slice. Peanut butter, cheese, creamed corn. Hmmm, that is all I can think of.

WW weigh-in 12: 76.8 kg; down 0.4 kg

Friday:

Incredibly, I am down 0.4 kg since a fortnight ago! My weight had crept up most of that first week, got it down a bit, then up again while we were away, down a whole kg these last two days since we got home. If only I could be consistent!

In hindsight, although we ate out a lot last week I rarely ate the whole meal. In fact, aside from a couple of breakfasts and the two McDonald's visits, I would say I generally ate around half of what was on my plate. I stopped when I was full. I only had dessert twice, hardly anything between meals, three alcoholic drinks. So I actually did really well under the circumstances. Without struggling or even thinking much about it -- even better! Instead of stuffing myself, because it was delicious or expensive or in front of me, I ate as much as I needed then stopped. I avoided the uncomfortable over-stuffed feeling I am so familiar with from the past. Go me!

The meeting today was about breakfast, renewing my committment to find something filling and healthy. I copied down a recipe for wholewheat pancakes with ricotta and berries. Only half a dozen people there today, but a really friendly and chatty meeting. Very enjoyable. And one of our leaders (the one that weighs us in not the one who talks and I'm afraid I've forgotten her name) just had a photo shoot to be in the WW magazine as a success story so that is awesome. Can't wait to see the 30 kg heavier "before" photo as she is so slender now it is hard to believe.

I did the grocery shopping and included a Jarrah hot chocolate trial pack with different varieties. I love hot chocolate but usually make it with milk and it turns out about 6 PP, you make this one with hot water and it is 2 PP. I had one (dark Belgian decadence) after lunch and it was really nice. Not watery at all. A lot of warming chocolately taste for the same PP as a freddo frog or mini Milky Way.

Speaking of water/milk, I have seen from a few sources that I should probably try making porridge with water rather than milk. I'll give it a go one day. I also bought quinoa flakes today, since I like quinoa so much, that you can use to make a kind of porridge.

I didn't end up buying the 5 kg/5% reward charm as I was only that low for one day, but I hope to get down to that again this week. And then ...

As everyone knows these days, goals have to be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, ... um ... ok I looked it up and there are a few variations but I'll go with realistic and time-bound.

There is just over six weeks to my 42nd birthday, and no major obstacles between now and then. I want to lose 5.6 kg, nearly a kg a week. I admit my past record makes this a big target, but attainable nevertheless. Aim high! 5.6 kg would take me to 72.2 kg (at WW), and my 10% weight loss.

How am I going to achieve this? In essence, follow the WW plan. Stick to my points, exercise. Fruit for snacks, lots of vegetables to bulk out meals, limited treats. In particular I need to work on: breakfast (I have a few ideas to try as I've mentioned); drinking six glasses a day -- this is a constant struggle for me; and exercise -- I want to earn 10 activity PP five days a week. Yesterday this meant 50 mins of Zumba (moderate level exercise -- the Kinect says I burned more than 900 calories which is ridiculous, more like 400 at the very most and the WW formula probably gave me 200), 30 mins of Just Dance 3 (moderate, I am slowly working on getting 5 stars in everything), and 40 mins of walking (low). Of course I could also spend a lot less time doing a higher level of intensity.

I can do this. I can lose weight, even while going to restuarants and parties. I can make time for exercise. I can do it!

Ready, set ...

Friday

Well, still no exercise; but on the upside I finished my last project! I am now free to exercise! Four weeks devoted to fitness. Of course I am not going to exercise all day, but I plan to get lots in.

I got another client last night, I had to tell him he'll have to wait for 2 months. He didn't seem to mind.

My plan is for four weeks of exercise (plus writing my novel, doing some work for a regular employer, catching up on the housework, reading every Australian fantasy novel published this year for the Aurealis Awards, reviewing books, proofreading as a favour, spending some time with the husband and children, and thinking about my nutrition), then three weeks for a client, then two weeks school holidays, then this new client, then my regular employer gets very busy at the end of the year so I will have to give them some time if I don't want to get fired -- which I don't care much about as I am getting plenty of freelance work now but it is nice to have little jobs that only take a few hours to fill up the gaps between the jobs that take a month.

This weekend my husband's family are all visiting, but I am going to go to the gym once each day anyway between all the cooking and chatting. From here on, nothing will stop me! I've had four days with no exercise and I am already feel the effects -- I'm not sleeping as well and my RSI is playing up. I am excited about getting stuck into it.

Breakfast will be my first nutrition project. I have always struggled with eating breakfast, I have to force myself. I can't face cereal first thing in the morning (although I like it for supper), never have time to cook, and sometimes find fruit a bit acidic -- so after a couple of days of effort at eating healthily I revert back to cruskits with butter and vegemite. I have no delusions that this is anything other than biscuits with extra fat and salt on top. Not good.

Last year, when for two weeks I was getting up before dawn to go to the gym, I would lay out breakfast the night before. I think either a banana (unfortunately about $13 a kilo at the moment instead of $2) or peanut butter on cruskits. Maybe sometimes a muesli bar. I didn't want to eat at 6 am but needed it for energy so forced it down in the car on the way to the gym. It seemed to work ok.

Maybe toast would be better than cruskits. Some nutritional value at least.

W32 D4 - 83.7kg

I weighed myself about a week ago and hoped that 83.7kg was a momentary abberation, water retention or something, but a few days later (and straight after going to the toilet) it was the same. Clearly just walking for half an hour a day isn't enough to even maintain my weight at the levels of food I am consuming. So on Monday I started tracking again. So far one good day, one bad day.

Something that seems to affect my food consumption for the rest of the day is breakfast. I always have breakfast, after my walk, but if I have cruskits (with the nutritional value of cardboard) I eat more and worse for the rest of the day. If I have something a bit more lasting, like toast and fruit, I do better. I've been trying to wean myself off cruskits for years, but I love the crunchy saltyness (with vegemite), and eating in the morning is hard for me. Nevertheless, something to work on to set me up for the day.