Double chocolate chip cookies

Tuesday:

Oh, such a coughing and a sneezing and a blowing of noses in this house this morning!

Tim had the car today so it was another at/near home day. We did some colouring-in in the morning and I sent the kids outside for a while to jump on the trampoline while I watched last night's Masterchef. Jasmine cooked us macaroni and cheese (from a packet) for lunch, then we walked/rode to the nearest park for as long as I could stand being out in the cold. Which wasn't very long.

When we got back Jasmine wanted to do more cooking so I unleashed her on the kitchen and she made double chocolate chip cookies. She has a few things she cooks but I think this was the first time she cooked something entirely by herself following a proper recipe. I just moved the trays in and out of the oven for her. She made a huge mess, and they weren't exactly like when I make them, being rather plump, but they were pretty yummy!

She cleaned up, and then while I was cleaning up her cleaning up efforts I realised I was actually feeling pretty healthy! At some point during the day I had gone from woe is me huddled under a blanket in front of the TV, to nearly normal, without noticing until then. So that is awesome. Not 100%, but getting there. Hopefully I get through tonight without the stomach cramps I've been having every night.

Report card:
Diet: Ok, good apart from the macaroni cheese and double chocolate chip cookies!
Exercise: Ok, a very short walk.
Water: Ok.
Sleep: Poor.
Mental health: Good.

Perky

Monday:

I am feeling really well finally today. It's amazing how good that feels! I thought I was over that stomach bug after its first bout but obviously I wasn't because I never got up to this happy place before it struck again. I just feel good. And even though I ripped the CPAP off half-way through the night again, I feel well-rested. I actually wanted to get out of the house for the first time in a week.

I was productive today. An hour of writing in the morning, the grocery shopping, read several short stories for an award I am judging, eventually won in a fight with my Kobo, and got out for a nice walk with my puppy and my husband who is home this week for a break between moving sections at work.

If it seems like I do the grocery shopping strangely often, I do. Whoever renovated this kitchen before we moved here seemed to think a small space for a fridge was just fine. We bought the largest fridge that would fit in the space, but that isn't very big. There just isn't anywhere else for a fridge. The pantry is already in the laundry. I don't know why, the house is a decent size. But it was an elderly couple and I guess they had different ideas than I do about storage space for food. To make matters worse, one of the shelves in the fridge recently broke so now we only have two shelves and a vegetable drawer. I checked with the company but they don't make that model fridge any more so we can't get a replacement shelf. I didn't really want to buy a new fridge when we'd only have to get another tiny one and we've been thinking of moving for a while now. When we have houseguests we turn on my little single-person fridge out in the garage (no direct access to the house, so not very convenient) and use a lot of eskies (insulated boxes). Christmas in the middle of summer here is tricky! But even with just the four of us, I shop twice a week and have to juggle everything around to cram it all in. We might just have to give in and get a new fridge.

I started tracking again today, something I haven't done for a while. And I made zoodles (zucchini noodles) for dinner - I like them but lately I've been eating pasta because I just can't be bothered making something different for me. But I don't claim to have eaten cleanly today - quite a few treat foods. Still, it's a start.

Thursday weigh in

Thursday:

Back up to 81.8 kg today. 0.5 gain. Completely reasonable since I haven't been sticking to my diet at all, not even a little bit. I've lost all momentum.

On the upside, I fell much better today, over the tummy bug. I didn't go for a long walk, but at least went up to the school twice today so that was two little walks.

And my husband is better too, back at work today.

And I did some good writing, and got a couple of other things done.

And standing in our backyard in the middle of the day was nice, the sun warm through several dark layers of clothing. Only my bare hands were cold.

There are good things every day, even if I don't have my weight under control.

Alive!

Tuesday:

Today I am totally feeling like a human again instead of a zombie snot-machine! Yay! I won't be running a 5k, but I was able to walk the kids to school and I will get back into my writing instead of staring blankly at the TV all day.

It was my twelfth wedding anniversary yesterday. Happy anniversary darling!

I did remember to weigh myself yesterday, 83.9kg (down from 84.8 the week before, my peak of 85 the week before that). I'm determined to keep that downward trend going even now my appetite is coming back.

I was thinking last night about how my beliefs about what I like eating haven't really kept up with the reality. I don't know if this is influenced by a physical addiction to some foods (it is fairly well accepted now that sugar is addictive but that is not my demon, and I've never heard of a salt/fat addiction) or if it is a psychological thing - I have enjoyed foods in the past so I expect to still enjoy them even though a big part of me knows I won't. Or is it that I am just stuck in a mental rut where I take the junk food automatically?

As an example; say I am craving some fresh fruit. I'm a bit thirsty and maybe I've eaten something fatty that makes the idea of a crispy juicy apple really appealing to freshen my mouth. Put a great looking apple in front of me beside a packet of salty fatty chips and I will likely still take the chips. Even though I don't really want them. I don't really understand this behaviour, but it needs to stop. It's ridiculous.

This is probably just classic comfort eating - using types of food that actually make me feel worse in a mistaken idea that they will make me feel better somehow.

So I am working on telling myself "I don't really like that food" (if that is true) or "I don't really want that right now."

Twenty years ago I enjoyed sugary soft drinks and cordials. Gradually I found them too sweet and started reducing my consumption. Now my favourite drink is cold water with a squeeze of lemon juice. I am not being virtuous in drinking this, I am not making a sacrifice of taste vs health. I genuinely like it the best and find sugary drinks nasty. I want to get to that place with some other foods that I still eat even though I no longer enjoy them much or enjoy but feel sick if I have too much. To recognise what I really want and go for that instead of automatically taking the unhealthiest option. Eat the apple, dammit!

Les Liaisons Dangerouses

Friday:

Much better, thank you. My husband is not feeling so good, but he went to work anyway.

Having a bit of a childish tantrum today. I don't wanna! Why should I have to? Why can't I just eat what I want and not exercise and yet be slender and healthy it's not fair!

As the Marquise de Meteul (sp?) says in Dangerous Liaisons: "You have spent your life making it necessary."

I made pasta with chicken for lunch, I ate mostly chicken but some fettuccini. And I feel so heavy and sleepy now. Not always, but carbs? wheat? something seems to strongly affect me sometimes. My stomach feels bloated and I can hardly keep my eyes open. It wasn't even a big serve.

I am looking forward to school going back and Uni starting in a few weeks to give my life some structure and purpose again. These summer holidays seem so long! And we went away before Christmas instead of after, so that is lots of weeks of just me and the kids at home. It is not really a holiday unless Tim is home as well.

Hot soup

Friday:

I don't usually make chicken soup in the middle of summer, but I was poaching some chicken last night (to make vol au vents) and I didn't want to waste all that lovely chicken broth so I added some vegetables and turned it into soup. I took it out of the fridge to heat it up for lunch and noticed a lot of solidified chicken fat sitting on top. Yum! I thought. Can't beat the hearty taste of chicken fat. So I heated it up and had a bowl. And the oily liquid slick of fat on top was horrible! It tasted ... fatty! It's it awesome that I can no longer eat a bowlful of fat! I scooped off as much fat as I could and put the rest of the soup back in fridge, next time I'll skim the fat off.

Burned my tongue on that first mouthful of hot fat, too. Ow.

I started feeling better yesterday afternoon and this time I think I really am recovered from whatever I had, I exercised this morning (JD4) without any problems other that the heat. It is really really hot today and Tim has the car so the kids and I aren't going anywhere! Just back and forth between here and the neighbour-kid's house for them, and here under the air con for me.

I've been feeling at a bit of a loose end these school holidays. The kids have spent so much time with the new neighbour that I haven't needed to entertain them much, but at the same time I can't just go off and do my own thing. I should be writing my novel. Or doing housework. Yeah yeah, don't wanna.

It's so nice to feel well again, and not have every atom of my body telling me to go and lie down. Well actually a nap would still be nice, but only because it is hot and quiet, not because I am sick.

Here's a weird thing. I usually have a very limited (slowly increasing) readership of around 20 but last weekend I wrote very boring post about feeling unwell called "Lots of Napping" that got 80 hits. Why? Does that phrase have an obscene alternate meaning I'm not aware of? Probably people just tracked back from a comment I put on someone else's post, but it was odd. Just that one post.

Pre-birthday

Sunday:

I was very careful with my breakfast and lunch, incorporating lots of fruit and low-PP soup, so that I could splurge on my pre-birthday afternoon tea. It worked fairly well; so that although I ate quite a lot of camembert and crackers I stuck to my daily PP. Um, until you add the chocolate cake. With chocolate cream icing. A slice at afternoon tea, and then another slice for dessert after dinner ... My best guess is about 10 PP per slice, so that is 20 PP over for the day. With my actual birthday yet to come. At least I'm going to the gym tomorrow!

I am finally feeling well! Woo hoo! So nice to be healthy again, it's been a while.

Not quite ready to dance

Monday:

I feel much better today. The walk up to the school and then some frantic housework so that a tradesman could get to the things he was fixing didn't exhaust me. So after lunch I did some Kinect. 15 mins of PowerUp Heros was fine but I wasn't totally into it so I switched to Dance. I pushed through to the end of 15 mins so that I could have 30 mins total exercise today but I probably shouldn't have. I was dizzy and weak and panting. I did get 5 stars on Lollipop though!

I stuck to my PP again yesterday and was down another 100 g this morning. Excellent progress. When I got dressed, I realised that my belt was now way too loose! I had been on the last hole already (I think I always was) but today I punched a new hole with a combination of skewer, sharp knife, manicure scissors, and brute strength. A new belt hole! Soon I'll be in my smaller jeans that I bought last October by accident.

Then I got to school with the kids, and a friend (Jodie) commented that I looked very trim today and asked if I had been keeping up the exercise! How lovely. I mentioned WW. I am used to being quite short, but Jodie is fairly tall and was dressed for work in high heels so it felt quite odd chatting up to her. Like a school kid talking to her teacher.

I made a modified version of cream of chicken soup for lunch today and was really looking forward to it -- I was even thinking about it in bed last night. Mmm, creamy soup. But it was quite disappointing. You just can't cut out 2/3 of the butter and 1/2 the cream and expect it to be the same. It didn't have any of the creamy thickness you get with the buttery roux. It was only 6 PP but left me hungry, I made a vegetable stir-fry afterwards for only 2 more PP (for the oil and oyster sauce).

Time to get the kids.

Sunday weigh-in: 78.7 kg; down 0.6 kg

Sunday:

So; no exercise, lots of party food, finally lose some weight? Oh well, I am hardly complaining.

I did well over an hour of fairly strenuous gardening yesterday, cutting back an out-of-control youngberry bramble. A youngberry is the delicious offspring of a raspberry and a blackberry, but unfortunately it has the growth habits of the latter. Which I didn't know when I planted it in the barren pocket beside the garage. It is the first thing that has ever grown successfully there. Now it has completely filled the space and you can only approach it from one side so I spent some time hacking a tunnel into it so the kids and I could get to the berries.

No exercise today; yet another kids party then we finally finished all the Christmas shopping. I am going to the gym tomorrow. I am definitely fully recovered from my flu or whatever it was. I will start working on rebuilding my fitness. Not looking forward to those lunges!

Oo, I do like being under 79. Onwards and downwards.

photo by leibolmai

All better, I think

Friday:

Aiden and I saw the movie "Arthur Christmas" on Wednesday (I had wanted to take him for a bike ride but I was feeling particularly unwell Tuesday night and Wednesday morning so I needed something less active). I spent half of Thursday doing more Christmas shopping (I am finished now, Tim still has a bit more to do this weekend) then we had Jasmine's school concert, this morning was Aiden's preschool concert then I drove Tim to work and ran some other errands ... it's been a busy few days but with no exercise.

On the up side, yesterday and today I have been feeling pretty much all better. I feel myself again, which is great. Both healthier and happier.

I haven't exercised at all for a week, and before that I had only done limited walking for about three weeks. Wow, four weeks of ill health and very little exercise. I bet I have lost all my fitness and whatever muscle strength I had built up. It is just a few weeks out of a lifetime though.

Back on the treadmill

Thursday:

I went to the gym on Monday and walked very slowly on the treadmill for half an hour. By the end I was sweaty and tired, and I had a bit of an illness relapse that afternoon. So I didn't exercise Tues or Wed -- yesterday was the first day I was feeling myself again. I went to the gym this morning and walked for an hour at a medium pace on the treadmill and it was fine so I think I am back to normal. Yay!

It is the first day of December, the first day of summer here, just over three weeks until Christmas. My weight has been stable for the past three months, which is very frustrating. I hope to lose at least one kilogram by Christmas. No, not hope. Plan. It is a tricky time of year, of course, but I can indulge a bit at parties without binging all month.

I will exercise five days a week again. I can't help having been sick for past couple of weeks, but it is time to get back on track. I will do classes at the gym and work on getting my lap of the lake down to 45 mins. I don't have a goal date for this achievement, I think it might take me a while. I might set a date after doing a few more trials.

I will also diet five days a week. I will track my food every day, and stay under my calorie limit (1340 plus extra for exercise) five days a week. It is the perfect time of year for eating lots of healthy fruit; at this moment in the fruitbowl I have nectarines, apricots, plums and grapes as well as the more mundane bananas and apples. This plan allows me to go over a bit on the evening we have D&D and on one day of the weekend. Like my exercise target, this will get me a bracelet charm after a month. I think this will help me to not give up if I have a bad day -- I still have wriggle room to get back on track.

I don't know why I thought I could trust myself with chips in the house, I bought some yesterday for D&D tonight. Then after my husband called to say he would be home very late from work (he ended up getting home just before midnight, poor darling) I sat in front of the TV and ate half the packet. I suppose I can count it a small victory that I only ate half! A couple of times recently I have kept eating until the packet was empty even though I felt quite sick.

I try not to sink into the mire of hating my body, a part of my self, but it is hard not to. I am very unhappy with how I look. My bulging stomach, in particular, is hard to disguise with clothes and it is what I see first when I look down or in the mirror. The top bulge, just under my breasts, is particularly unsightly; and actually makes it difficult to fit into many clothes that would otherwise be my size. Apparently I am the wrong shape, even for a fat girl. Depressing.

Well and so, it is never too late to do something about it! So I am doing something.

photo by Maxey

W19 D4 - All better!

Ok, I think I am finally all better! Yay. It only took about 7 weeks...

Just spend the past 5 days on holidays (my husband could only get 3 days off, plus the weekend). Saturday: kids birthday party, drive to Sydney, lovely dinner out, my brother-in-law's engagement party. Sunday: breakfast in a cafe, kids play on the beach (overcast and cool, but lovely), visit father-in-law, lunch with cousins, park with the kids (now sunny), dinner with brother-in-law and his new fiancee. Monday: train into city, Sydney Aquarium, cafe, walk through the rain to our favorite bookshop in the world (Galaxy - it specialises in fantasy and sci-fi), train back to car, drive to my mum's for dinner. Tuesday: car, bus, train, ferry, bus up the hill to Taronga Zoo! Then ferry, train, bus, car back to mum's for dinner. Wednesday: mum plays with the kids while Tim and I start on our stack of new books, then we drive home to Canberra (about 4 hours).

Had a lovely time, but it is great to be home again. And with my own bed! The hotel beds and the futon at mum's were horrible.

Best of all, I have been well for the whole time. Ready to get back into fitness. 7 weeks until Christmas - not long, but I can make a start.