Waterfall

Sunday:

This is our waterfall working! The water looks clearer now too. Sparkling green.

I had an awesome night's sleep last night! At least eight hours of solid sleep, no restlessness or early waking, woke just before seven. Amazing!

And here is a really weird thing that I don't think can be related to Duromine, miracle pill though it is, this morning I could almost do my bra up by myself. I tore my left shoulder years ago and have had several rounds of physio (rarely doing my homework) without getting much change, I could hardly put that arm behind my back at all. I could get my thumb to the small of my back. Well today I can suddenly reach all the way up to my bra, not quite enough reach to do it up yet. Not sure why the sudden improvement, I'm sure I couldn't do that a couple of weeks ago.

I don't know if I was actually hungrier today, but I ate more. 30 calories over my limit! I'm trying not to make a big deal out of that, but I'm a bit disappointed. On the other hand I didn't actually weigh my dinner so maybe I overestimated! We had lots of family over in the afternoon, when I ate some cheese and crackers but did NOT eat a brownie, then casserole and mashed potato when I had more than I really needed. Only two bites of dessert. Two bites too many!

Twenty five: resisting

Friday:

I slept poorly with more bad dreams (but no night sweats) and struggled to get up. And struggled through the morning. I think my hormones are all over the place. I was feeling pretty headachy and tired and cranky and miserable. I had yoghurt and fruit for breakfast, and even though I was full it didn't satisfy me today. So I had some bacon (mmm, salty). And tea with a teensy bit of sugar (a third of a teaspoon). Not enough to taste sweet, but enough to balance the bitterness so it's drinkable. I might go with that for a while, but then again I might feel all energetic and virtuous tomorrow and change back. Who knows? I certainly don't.

We did the grocery shopping and I seriously considered having a "day off", a binge, just eating whatever. I felt yuck so I needed it, right? I DESERVED junk food to make me feel better. The big breakfast saved me. I think if I'd been even the slightest bit hungry or unsatisfied I would have given in. But I was able to resist. I told myself I could have some dark chocolate at home later if I wanted, but no junk from the shops. (I did indeed have a couple of squares of dark chocolate later.)

All day I had slightly bigger meals than usual and so went over my calorie budget for the day. That doesn't worry me so much. I know some people start with a strict calorie budget then gradually refine what they eat (hi Sean!) and that works well for them. I approach things from the opposite direction. I am more concerned with what I eat than how much I eat. Obviously I need to reduce calories to lose weight, but to be healthy I need to cut right down on processed food, added sugars, trans fats - and eat more fresh fruit and vegetables, healthy fats like nuts, and so on. I would rather have a day when I went over my calorie budget like today but all (even the bacon and the dark chocolate) within the general confines of the Mediterranean diet, than stick to a certain number of calories but all in the form of doughnuts and Doritos.

B: yoghurt with passionfruit, bacon, tea.
L: rotisserie chicken thigh, cucumber.
S: chocolate, tea.
D: steak, fried onion, salad.

Playing at the park

Saturday:

I am so up and down with my eating at the moment. Yesterday I was out with the kids and decided to go to my favourite fried chicken place for lunch. Not quite as greasy as KFC, but pretty bad. But they have a skinless breast with the same seasonings but much less fat, less than 200 calories for a piece according to their board, and I've had it before and it's yummy, so I figured that with that and a few chips (fries) I would be ok. Not much nutrition, but a treat I could fit into my calories for the day. Unfortunately I then ate some of my children's leftovers. I couldn't resist that crispy fried chicken. And extra salty chips. I didn't eat all of it, I threw a whole (slightly nibbled by my son) piece of chicken away so that was a small victory, but I still ate a lot more than I had meant to.

Today we took Thor out for his daily walk - we are up to 30 minutes now and he loves it - and then shortly after we came home I started feeling really down for no reason. It got worse and worse, the world seemed a horrible place and I was sad and grumpy. I finally tried eating some chocolate. And I was right, I was experiencing low blood sugar. I used to get that quite often but hardly ever these days. I'm "only" pre-diabetic but I seem quite sensitive to blood sugar fluctuations. I don't know why it happened today, I'd had my afternoon snack shortly before the walk so I shouldn't have had a drop. The only way to fix it is to eat carbs. Chocolate seems to work pretty fast.

I planned a nice dessert today, just because it was Saturday, originally, but also it turned out to be our monthaversary (we used to go out on a special date night each month to celebrate our first date, and later our wedding, harder with kids). Tim made crepes and instead of having lemon juice and sugar I made an orange sauce with fresh orange segments, and cream and chocolate. It was delicious, but we all felt very full afterwards. Each crepe is around 100 calories, plain, and we had two each; but I later worked out that each plate was well over 500 calories! And this was after dinner. So I think that was a bad decision. It is all very well to have an occasional treat or dessert but I have to work out my calories beforehand AND stick to my plan! I should have just had one crepe, not two - 280 calories is a bit more feasible.

Most of the day I am doing well, but I keep having these moments that I should have dealt with better.

Thor and Aiden having a great time at the park. I don't have any good close-ups - they were too busy moving!

Overeating

Wednesday:

I'm glad we got Thor out for a nice long walk this morning (25 minutes, long for his little legs) because it later started raining. Freezing wet day. No car, either, today, so we were pretty much stuck inside. Thor got muddy on one of his brief trips outside and I had to give his feet a wash. I let the kids watch more TV than usual, and got them to have a mini-Olympics around the house which I opted out of - I lay on the lounge with the puppy draped over me and went to sleep for half an hour. We couldn't find any free kids to come over for a play. I really should have come up with more things to do but luckily my two play very well together and come up with all sorts of games. I did agree to making and icing gingerbread men with them some time soon, but didn't have the energy today.

I am struggling with food a lot more than I expected these past few days. Being outside my routine plus really cold weather make me want to eat! Today both my lunch and my afternoon snack blew out - same food as I'd planned to eat but just more of it than I intended. I had my normal dinner but then high calorie chocolate and cashews in the evening. I went beyond fullness several times. I haven't even counted my calories for the last few hours of today. My head isn't in the right space, too many moments of "I don't care". Of course I do care, really.

I'm not depressed or anything, just not doing so well with my eating. Luckily every day (every moment) is a chance to make better decisions.

School holidays

Tuesday:

So far we have been to see a movie (Rio 2), to the library, and shopping for more winter clothes for the kids. We don't like to leave the house for long periods because the puppy is shut up in the bathroom when we are out (when he is older and it isn't so freezing out, he can be outside). I thought the movie was pretty mediocre but the kids really enjoyed it and they are the target audience, not me. I did enjoy some of the lines from the evil cockatoo, which probably went over the kids' heads.

I find being out of my usual routine a bit challenging. I didn't eat any junk at the movies but I ate too many healthy snacks (nuts and dried fruit) because it was my usual lunchtime. Then we went to our favourite Mexican restaurant for a late lunch. It is usually pretty fresh and light there but today the server put a ridiculous amount of cheese on everything, and as it was melted and fused into everything it was impossible to remove any. I compensated by only eating half of my quesadilla but still felt I'd had too much. Much as I like melted cheese, I couldn't taste anything else which was disappointing.

Yesterday I had an alcoholic drink (apple cider) and then felt relaxed enough to have a bit more chocolate than I'd planned. I will be over my calories today and tomorrow, and I've still got games night this evening to get through.

I've realised that I mainly have problems on games night when I provide treats that tempt me, it's hardly ever what others bring. So I have some nice but healthy options tonight. I'll let you know how that goes.

Thursday weigh in

Thursday:

Starting weight: 85.3 kg
Last week: 81.4
This week: 82.3
Gain: 0.9
Total loss: 3.0 kg

Bit of a gain this week, as expected. Some of that is "real" weight that crept up during the week, some is water weight from salty restaurant food yesterday. But either way, it will be gone again soon.

I went to bed last night really content with my decisions. A little holiday from stressing about food was nice, and re-energised me to get back into it. I was full of happy plans to lower my calories back to 1400 and start exercising. After a bad nights' sleep I was rather less excited about it all, I just wanted to crawl back into bed! But determined, regardless.

I think the reason 1400 calories became insufficient was because I wasn't putting enough focus on vegetables, which are bulky and filling (and very healthy) yet low calorie. I don't like vegetables much and it is a real effort for me to include a reasonable amount of them. It is something I have to work on constantly. I do best with something that has the vegetables as part of the main dish, like a stir fry or casserole with lots of flavour on everything, rather than blandly on the side where I can ignore them. I'm sure that with increasing my vegetable and water intake, 1400 will be fine.

I did the grocery shopping in the morning then the gardener came and was very noisy with mowing and trimming shrubs etc. Thor was quite worried and distressed, so I decided to take him out for his first ever walk. We went only a short distance to the nearest park. Everything was so exciting! The smells, the sounds, the smells, more smells! An old man crossing the park. Exciting! Scary! Wonderful! Not sure! Terrified! Love him more than life itself! Please let me abase myself before him!

It was quite exhausting for both of us. He slept on my lap for a while when we got home, I would have fallen asleep too as I often do these days but I was watching a favourite show I'd recorded. Then I did nearly an hour of dancing. As usual, getting started was the hard bit then I enjoyed it. I started to get quite tired sometime after the 30 min mark but I wanted to finish that section.

Calories perfect today, and lots of vegetables. Admittedly pretty much all at dinner time; but I had a salad, then bolognaise with lots of mushrooms and onion in the tomato-based sauce on top of zoodles (noodles made of zucchini strips instead of spaghetti). At least five serves of vegetable in that one meal. I'm really feeling on track, and I'm confident that one day of indulgence hasn't derailed me.

1600 is too much

Tuesday:

I've been trialling 1600 calories this week because I was having trouble sticking to 1400 all of a sudden. I've found 1600 very comfortable. But after five days my weight is not only above the last weigh in, but above the week before that! And there is no way it is going to go down again after birthday cake and restaurant dinner tomorrow. I think Thai food is pretty healthy, but it's still going to be more indulgent than eating at home. And salty, too, no doubt. I am dreading, a bit, my weigh in on Thursday.

I am still having this huge internal battle about how much to eat tomorrow. Especially with my weight going up already, I feel like I might as well take the day off dieting. But then I don't want a really horrible number on the scale on Thursday! What if I undo all my weeks of hard work? To be honest, I can't wait for my birthday to be over. I am too conflicted about it, I want to just get back to normal. Usually I love celebrations, and not just because of the food!, but while I'm working so hard to lose weight it is a big distraction.

It's a bit disheartening that increasing my calories a bit has made me quickly gain some weight back. (the Beck Diet says I should be eating even more, 1800, and still losing weight on that!) Obviously I need to go back to 1400. So it was a bit harder. Getting healthy is worth it. My calorie tracker gives me extra calories to spend if I exercise and I am going to use that. Only if I exercise, I'm allowed a few more if I'm genuinely hungry (not just feeling like I deserve food as a reward for exercise).

I'm hoping exercise will help me sleep better too. I have been really exhausted these past few days. If I exercise doesn't help I will get my CPAP checked to make sure it's still preventing sleep apnoea. I certainly don't feel rested. I am tired and snappy and doze off every day in front of the TV.


later:

Tonight instead of having my allotted 200 calories at games night, I had about 900. I need more of a strategy for this, I am so inconsistent. Well, all the food I ate was things I provided, so there is an obvious step to take there. And I was already in "birthday mode". Feel all yuck, as I always do when I overeat.

Good night all, and sweet dreams.

The French Navy

Sunday:

There is a joke that the unofficial motto of the French Navy is "A léau cést l'heure".

My husband and I were falling over laughing at this. It only works if you know some basic French.
*(Explanation at the end)

I didn't really do anything today. It's been bitingly cold and raining here most days lately, so we don't spend much time outside. It was nice, though, just being home with the family. At one point I was watching a nature documentary with my son on one knee and my puppy on the other, while my husband and daughter were out looking for birthday presents for me. Not a bad way to spend an hour on a chilly afternoon.

What I did do was stick to my food plan. I am finding 1600 much more comfortable, it isn't a struggle to stick to. We'll see how my weight goes this week. I'm prepared to struggle a bit if that is what I need to do to lose weight. But it has to be achievable or I'm just setting myself up for failure.

I have been struggling a little bit with thoughts of my birthday. I have a strong sense of entitlement, that I should be able to take the day off from dieting and just stuff myself with whatever I want. And I could do that. But I also feel entitled to lose weight, get rid of my CPAP, and live a healthier life. I don't think "just one day" of overeating junk is worth the possibility a major setback. And it might not be "just one day", sometimes it can be hard to pull it back after a binge. So I am still determined to be moderate. Eat a bit more than usual, but not too much more.

* We puzzled over the meaning of these words for a while, and why it was supposed to be a joke. The water is the hour? Something like that? What does that mean and why is it funny? Then we tried saying it out loud. "A-lo say-ler". Hello sailor! Well, we thought it was funny!

Apply the breaks!

Monday:

My weight jumped up in the middle of last week and I didn't worry about it because, you know, that time of the month. But it's still going up. Today 83.3 kg. I'm pretty sure that is my highest weight since I started this blog three and a half years ago. I didn't allow for weight gain on my daily graph so I'm now over the top of the ruled lines.

No more messing around. Taking action instead of just complaining. I'm tracking my calories and if I want more than my Calorie King app allots me for the day then I have to earn them with exercise. I'm not cutting out any food groups, just eating a bit less of everything and especially "junk" food. I'm doing the weekly shopping later today so I'll plan a fresh healthy menu. It is going to be really hot here all week, 39 Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) so it will probably involve lots of salads. And fruit.

Calorie counting

Thursday:

For variety, I'm going to switch to counting calories. I tend to think that any efforts towards weight-loss are helpful; whether it's following a specific diet or counting calories or whatever. No method is perfect but they are all useful tools. I'm not very good at being consistent so I'll just keep changing the plan whenever I get bored with the last one. I'm the same with exercise; I'll be really into using the rowing machine or dancing or whatever then after about three months be bored with it. And that is ok, I think, as long as I then move on to something else.

Calorie counting is a very imprecise tool. My understanding is that they work out how many calories are in something by burning it to ash and seeing how much energy it gives off in the process. But this would mean that wood or coal would be rated as high calorie - it doesn't take into account how the human body digests the substance. A beaver might be able to live on wood, but I think a human would have trouble extracting enough calories to live on, even if we disregard the whole issue of nutrients. You would starve to death while chowing down on thousands of calories of tree trunk a day.

But I don't plan on eating wood, and although I don't believe in a straight calories-in vs calories-out equation I think it gives a good enough approximation for the purposes of trying to manage weight. And it gives me something to track, which helps keep me mindful about what I am eating.

Calorie counting forces you to reduce fat and starchy carbs and processed foods, and eat more veges, just because of the calorie load of different foods. Tomato soup for lunch!

A New Hope

Friday:

I've had two whole days of eating cleanly -- yay! Yesterday I actually ended up only eating about 750 calories, which is really weird and certainly wasn't planned, but when you cut out sugar and flour and replace it with lots of vegetables you end up being full on very few calories. Who knew? More balanced today, with quinoa at lunch and potato at dinner, although I am a bit pissed off right now after plugging my dinner into my tracker. I had oven-baked salmon to be healthy, we don't eat fish much in this house and I had to cook something else for my husband and daughter, and it turns out my 200g fillet was 400 calories! It was quite a big serve, but still. It was FISH! It is supposed to be all healthy, damnit, not fatty and calorie-ridden.

My dietitian told me to stop having sugar in my tea six months ago and I resisted and resisted, telling myself I would cut down, buying low-GI sugar, even trying fructose instead. But I was just in denial. Yesterday I went cold turkey. "They" say you get used to it, and eventually prefer it that way. At the moment it still tastes a bit nasty. Oh well, I switched from a tiny splash of lemon cordial to a squeeze of real lemon juice in my water ages ago and I definitely prefer that now so I hope it does work out.

While in this slightly annoyed after-dinner mood I read a post from a weight-loss blog I follow and it was all about God loving us. It's her blog and totally her right to talk about her Christianity as she does sometimes, usually I think it's kind of sweet if deluded. Tonight I wanted to comment: yes, he shows his love with earthquakes and cancer, he embraces us with his bushfires. But I restrained myself. Earlier today I also stopped myself making a irritable comment on another person's blog. Hmm, seeing a pattern here.

Aside from this rant, I've been feeling pretty good. I thought I would have big sugar cravings but I haven't really. I've probably had small amounts of sugar in the soy sauce, tomato salsa, and splash of salad dressing I've had over the past two days. Anything in a bottle or jar is going to have salt and sugar. But I've cut down a lot. I didn't even put salt on my potato tonight, maybe for the first time in my whole life.

I'm never sure if tracking is a good idea for me. I get so calorie-focussed. Suddenly yoghurt, or any dairy, seems too high-calorie to fit into my day. Salmon is evil. I'm tracking for the moment because I do like doing it, but I'll keep note of how it makes me feel. I do need to keep track of carbs though.

I'm not really sure what my long term plan is. I'm cutting out sugar and flour (and salt) but still having other "white" starches like rice and potato -- in moderate amounts of low-GI versions. Chips (crisps) are my worst binge trigger and I don't plan on having any of those for a while but I will have some chocolate a couple of times a week.

I am feeling tentatively hopeful.

I wish I had weighed myself yesterday before I started, but I was up to 79.6 (or was it 79.7?) kg a few days ago. I was 79.0 kg this morning. It's a start.

Lots more walking, a possible first race

Sunday:

I did two short walks on Friday and spent a lot of time reading more about prediabetes, this fairly recent book (Diabetes & pre-diabetes handbook, Brand-Miller et al, 2007) was all about how low-GI is more important than anything else in blood glucose management. Very informative, but there is so much info out there I'll be interested to see what the Diabetes ACT people have to say. When I had gestational diabetes in 2006 they did emphasise low-GI, so I think that is the current guideline. It changes every couple of decades as the scientists find out more about how the human body works.

The other thing I did on Friday was start a really detailed food diary, handwritten instead of just using CalorieKing, with columns for protein, carbs etc. The guidelines are for 15-20% of calories coming from protein, 20-35% from fat with less than 10% from saturated fat, and 45-65% from carbs. Also 25-35 g of fibre (part of carbs). I did well on that first day, around 1600 calories and close to those percentages but with not nearly enough fibre.

Yesterday Tim & the kids went off camping for the weekend. I could have gone, of course, but camping really isn't my thing. I like my comforts! Tim's brother and father were going too, and turned out my sister-in-law went even though she is about 5 months pregnant. But I didn't want to, so I didn't. By the time they left at around 10 am I was feeling quite unwell, headachy and stomach cramps. I wasn't actually sick, just a very difficult TOM (I've had issues since I was a teenager and used to have sick days home from school every month, the pill usually helps but not these past few days) but apart from walking up to the school to vote in the local elections I didn't get out of the house.

I watched the last Harry Potter movie on DVD and had a good cathartic cry over Snape, always my favourite character. My dad called on the phone during the most intense scene and I had to choke back my sobs.

My calories and nutritional balance were looking ok until after dinner. I was lonely. I turned to my buddy saturated fat. And had nearly 1000 calories worth of crackers, salsa, camembert and chocolate. Not so healthy.

Luckily every dawn is a new day and I was fine this morning. (Tim texted to say the kids were having a great time but he had one of the worst nights sleep ever, I'm so glad I didn't go! They will be home soon.) I got out for my training walk, supposed to be 45 mins plus warm up and cool down, I did well over an hour. Up and down hills too. I planned where I was going to go, but after a while turned off onto an interesting-looking path that wound around a suburb I hadn't walked in before, so that was nice. I definitely need to ramp up the intensity of these training sessions though. And do some weight-training in between -- back to BodyPump on Monday.

While out walking I saw a sign about a 3 km (or 6 km) fun run/walk that is on two weeks from today. Will I be ready for 3 km? I guess I can just walk as much as needed. I'll just check the date with Tim before I sign up. But I don't really see any barriers. My first race. How exciting.

Thor's day

Thursday:

I struggled a bit with PMS yesterday afternoon and today. With terrible timing, yesterday I decided to start counting calories again as well as carbs. Horrible. Having to weigh or estimate every single thing, no longer being able to think "this little cube of cheese is free", having to look at the whole day instead of just the level of carbs for that meal.

When I got to the end of the day, my score sheet looked pretty good. Lots of exercise, offsetting some of the calories. The recommended amount of fruit, vegetables, and dairy. Nearly enough water. But all that I could focus on was that I had gone over my planned 1500 calories. And OMG so many calories in that chicken breast. And that tiny spoonful of rice. I should have had one slice of chicken, two grains of rice. And who eats a whole banana! Do you know how many calories in that thing? You're disgusting!

I don't think I am ready to go back to calorie counting. As long as I am gradually losing weight, I will just stick with counting carbs for now.

I bought two Pandora charms today. A turtle, to celebrate my rowing victory. And a strawberry, to remind me to eat healthily. My bracelet is looking really nice, it started off a bit sparce but it has a respectable number of charms now.

Pouring rain today, the third Thursday in a row. I was explaining to the kids that it is really Thor's Day, named after the god of thunder. So maybe that is why. Thursday is usually our busy afternoon, but I gave the kids the option of just staying home and they took it. So I didn't exercise.

Eating away the boredom

Wednesday:

I started the day well with an hour exercise on the Kinect, also practiced guitar and helped Jasmine with violin. I had a peach and a nectarine for breakfast. I sat down to do some editing but couldn't muster the mental energy. Healthy lunch.

In the afternoon I took the kids to an indoor playground that we went to last week. I sat for 2 1/2 hours and read. The one I am reading at the moment is big and slow and not very exciting. I was bored. I enjoyed a hot chocolate, which I had planned for, and later ordered nachos which I had not. I shared with the kids but it still wasn't very healthy. However, by eating a small dinner I have stayed under calories for the day so a big win there.

It was an especially good achievement because by the time we got home from the playground I was exhausted (yes, by just sitting reading -- maybe being bored is particularly fatiguing) and I really really didn't want to cook dinner. I was sorely tempted to order pizza and even looked at the home delivery menu. But I thought about how I really didn't want to eat more greasy food today and how I didn't want to have used up both of my diet-free days by Wednesday. I was strong and made a fresh tasty dinner.

Boredom is definitely an emotional eating trigger for me. Any of the sad introverted sort of emotions; lonely, depressed. I don't binge eat when I am happy or busy, and I don't think I do when I am angry. Mainly tired, bored & sad. And PMS.

The diet-free days are a bit tricky. I don't want to have a major binge and undo all my good work of the other days; but on the other hand if I just went over by 50 calories and had to call that a diet-free day I would feel ripped off, like I had wasted my chance. It's a balance.

Also, at the moment I am eating all the extra calories I earn through exercise. I would like to reduce that to maybe half. My calorie allowance is based on losing half a kilo a week, which is my goal, but I am only doing that five days a week. I need to burn a few extra to make up for my diet-free days to make sure I achieve my goal. That means not eating lots more on the days I exercise. Just a little bit more. Knowing I can eat a little bit extra when I exercise is one of my best motivations so I can't take it away entirely!

A day out and about

Tuesday:

Good day is some ways, not so good for weight loss. Jasmine will be starting violin lessons this year and we went to meet her teacher this morning, we ended up staying an hour for what was essentially a first lesson plus a chat. I learned a lot too -- important if I am going to help her with practice -- and the teacher had a young son who whisked Aiden off to play on their Wii so a good time was had by all.

Then we spent the afternoon at Questacon, which is an excellent interactive science museum we have been to many times. Indeed, when the kids were smaller I had an annual pass a couple of years in a row and we went often. There are 7 "galleries" of things to do -- all hands-on. Today's activities included seeing how hard it was to lift your own body using various pulley systems, seeing how your eyes can be tricked into seeing a black and white photo as a colour one (that was amazing), and trying to throw a ball straight while you were being whisked around in a circle.

Partly because we were out and about all day, but mostly because I have PMS, I made some bad food choices and am way over my calorie limit. Magnum icecream! Chocolate! Even a few hot chips. No fruit and hardly any vegetables. Also, although I am feeling mentally and physically exhausted (again, mainly PMS), I haven't exercised today. Oh well, hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow. And even if I am not feeling better, I need to get back on track anyway.

I've been making good inroads on the huge mound of books I have to get finished by the end of February, but it is taking its toll. And if you think reading is fun and easy (yes, ok, usually it is), try reading 64 books of widely varying quality in six months. I read around 34 in the first four months at a more leisurely pace, but I am approaching the deadline now and the second half has to be disposed of rather quicker. I've been reading nearly a book a day (by neglecting my family and my paid work) and I am now down to 15. I just want it to be over! I definitely won't be judging again for a few years.

I'm feeling very tired and rather down. There is a temptation to write a miserable post about how I should just give up, but I know that I will feel differently in a day or so.

I had quite a nice day, considering. But, ye Gods, there are still about 4 weeks of school holidays to go! How am I going to entertain them every day! Arg!

Questacon photo by CIENTEC

Soldiering on

Saturday:

Aiden slept through the night and was much better today (eating but not playing much) but I was still pretty tired from the previous night's lack of sleep. I had another nap in the afternoon but I'm looking forward to bedtime.

I stuck to my calorie limit today, even not having any of the pikelets my husband made for afternoon tea. I did some shopping in the morning but didn't buy anything bad -- unless you count low-calorie muesli bars that I got for when I take the kids out on excursions. Easy and non-squishy, I figured better than buying something when out.

I did half an hour of Kinect Dance and went for a walk after dinner, so that was good too. I suppose the walk was not intense exercise but it was all I had the energy left for and it would have been easy to do nothing at all today so I am quite proud of what I achieved.

I'll look at my results for the week tomorrow at my weigh-in. Time to collapse in front of the TV.

Another day in the sickroom

Friday:

Aiden was sick all last night and we only got a couple of hours of broken sleep. He slept most of today, only threw up twice but maybe because there wasn't anything left in his stomach. Still, he is keeping down diluted apple juice now.

Lack of sleep is one of my biggest triggers for unhealthy habits and today I gave into that a bit. My mum took my daughter out for a while today and was doing some shopping for me as well but they weren't home when I would usually have lunch and I was tired and hungry, so I snacked on crackers with high-fat dip and then some chocolate. The "snack" was twice as many calories as my planned lunch would have been. I just had clear soup and half a bread roll when they did get back with the food, but I was still approaching my calorie limit only half-way through the day. I would have had to be extremely restrictive at dinner to stay under, and I decided not to worry about it. I had intended today to be a diet-free day originally as mum was going to take me and the kids to a restaurant for lunch, but she couldn't because of Aiden being sick. It feels like a waste, spending a diet-free day on a hurried snack, but that was just how today turned out.

I also didn't exercise today, I am just exhausted. I had two naps while Aiden was sleeping. Life sometimes gets in the way and that is ok, that is why I have my five days a week plan. Hopefully I will get a good night's sleep tonight and get back on track tomorrow. I hope my poor baby is feeling better soon.

Barbeque

Monday:

I scheduled today to be one of my non-exercise and non-diet days of the week as we had friends over for a barbeque lunch to celebrate the New Year and the last holiday day of some working folk.

I had already exercised five days in a row so was due for a break, and also knew I would be spending all morning cleaning (perhaps not vigorous exercise, but tiring all the same); but as it turned out I got plenty of aerobic exercise. Everyone was keen to use the Kinnect games and lots of jumping around was done by all. People took turns so my heart-rate wasn't consistently up, but over the five hours of the gathering I did plenty and will count that as a day "on".

As far as diet goes ... well ... I didn't track throughout the day as I usually do but due to my committment to track even on my "off" days I just sat down and tried to remember everything. It came to nearly 3000 calories. OMFG! Considering my usual limit is 1340 (plus extra earned by exercising), 3000 is pretty dramatic. New clause to my resolution: an "off" day does not mean an "eat everything" day! Two meals with lots of meat (dinner was left-overs) was a large part of that count.

I just remembered a glass of milk with dinner. That will probably take me over 3000.

Aside from that, it was a lovely day. In particular, the exercise was fun rather than work. And it was nice to spend the day with friends and family instead of the everlasting reading I have been doing lately.

I have always liked the quote "moderation is for monks". Nevertheless, I need to be a bit more monkish.

Cake and yoghurt

Monday:

Ok, maybe my cake-making skills aren't quite up to the one pictured, but I made a chocolate stegosaurus and a vanilla apatasauras and they weren't too shabby at all. Somehow I forgot to take any photos of the cakes or the party -- a bit annoyed about that -- I will have to rely on my brother-in-law who took photos all day.

I felt sick all Saturday but was ok by evening and fine on Sunday. My baby celebrated his 5th birthday with nine little friends plus his sister. Apart from some organised games, the boys ran around screaming in a mob and the girls sat in Jasmine's room (with the door closed) playing with a iPad. Lots of parents stayed and chatted.

What with one thing and another I had three days in a row without exercise (unless you count hours of house cleaning) so it is going to be hard to catch up to earn my November charm. I went to BodyPump this morning and reduced a couple of weights due to last week's scare but it was fine.

Tim called at around 8.30 tonight, just after I had got the kids to bed, to say he wouldn't be home any time soon, and I immediately turned to the Toblerone. I definitely eat my emotions. Nom nom nom. I'm not mad at him, I know he's not out partying, but I get lonely. Chocolate is my friend. I was careful to get rid of all the leftovers after the party -- sending them home with family or tossing them out -- but I did have some extra Toblerone that I had bought to make the spines for the stegasaurus cake.

Someone or other said "If hunger isn't the problem, food isn't the solution." Very wise. Very deep. And, in the extremely short term, wrong. For that brief moment in time, food is comforting and loving and makes me feel good. Someone else said "You love twisties, but twisties don't love you back." Ah, but they fake it very well.

I forgot to weigh myself Sunday, with all the party preparation and people sleeping on my loungeroom floor and all; Saturday I was 79.7 kg, today I was 79.1 kg. Take your pick.

I started a new editing project today and got up at 6.30 am even though I am not yet at the frantic end of the work timeline. I was awake, as usual, so I thought I might as well get a head start on it. I am still tired in the afternoons but I am not feeling quite as exhausted as I have been, which is great.

My husband eats yoghurt nearly every day. I don't like it much but eat it sometimes because I imagine it is healthy. I find it very sweet though (we have fruit-flavoured ones) -- the ones with artificial sweetner are even worse. So today I tried some natural yoghurt (Jalna greek style). A bit tangy and nasty. I added some raspberries. Better. Not something I would eat for pleasure, but edible. I had some and felt all virtuous. Then plugged it in to my calorie counter and found that it had MORE calories that the stuff with sugar! About 125 calories for half a little tub -- not even counting the raspberries! I could have enjoyed a big chunk of cheese for that cost and still got my dairy. Gipped.

Every Monday I start using the calorie counter again. But when I crash and burn, that afternoon or in a day or so, I give up until the following week. Nothing special about Mondays. I will start again tomorrow.

photo by Jamie Anderson

Recovering

Saturday

I wasn't sure if I was well enough to exercise today, I decided not to go to the Saturday Step class and delayed a morning walk to see if I felt any better later. I felt much the same in the afternoon - ok but not great - but was determined to go for a walk anyway. But then my husband decided to take the kids to the pool, which is the same building as my gym, so I ended up going there after all.

I nearly brained a personal trainer who was inexplicably crouched behind the door to the room with the scales in it, then weighed myself at 80.0 kg. Blah. Too much binge!

I got on the treadmill but it was really hard going. I struggled to get my heart rate up, and my legs started to ache. I gave up after 15 mins and switched to the bike, where at least I got to sit down. I battled on for 22 mins on the bike before my stomach was feeling so bad I stopped. I had no energy. Obviously wasn't ready to go back to exercise yet. I am still proud of myself for trying. One of my problems in the past has been to take the easy 'no' if I'm not sure I'm ready. But this time I gave it a go.

My stats were: 39 mins (that includes switching machines); 79% in zone 0; 21% in zone 1; 91 calories; average HR 101; peak HR 114.

I will just go for a walk tomorrow, devote myself to work on Monday, and do my first gym group class on Tuesday.

I started tracking calories today. CalorieKing.com allows me 1340, plus more for exercise (although it grants me a lot more calories burned than my monitor does, I need to take that into account. Today my monitor says I burned 91 cal, CalorieKing says 228 for the same time and distance! Way more than double!). I will try to keep within that.