MPM: 8th May 2018

I know life is busy, but at the very least I should be making times for meal planning posts. I mean, it is a basic right of all my beloved readers to hear about what I am eating, is it not?

I jest, and although I always feel that the first post after something of a pause should contain an apology for the blogger’s absence, it is something of a liberty to assume that people notice or care. Apart from my Mum, who texts me asking where the blog is. But she’s my Mum, and is therefore contractually bound to consider everything I do important and special.

The truth is that the last few weeks have been busy and stressful. We’ve not been sticking to 5:2 particularly and any weight loss has most definitely stalled - boo. Things should be improving now though, so we approach the new week with renewed vigour. I am also seriously considering signing up for a 5k run to incentivise me to actually complete the Couch to 5k programme. Every time I have started it, I have actually quite enjoyed the session but it is finding the motivation to trek out to, er, the garage in the first place which is proving tough (and yes, reading that back I know EXACTLY how pathetic it sounds). There’s one in a local park in mid July but I’m fretting that might be too soon as I need 8 weeks to do all the training runs and would then like to have at least a month of consolidation, including some Park Runs, to feel confident going in to the actual, organised event. So I might see if anything is going on in late August or early September. A lot of my colleagues are quite into running and from chatting to them I have gleaned that there are quite a lot of events going on from which to choose.

And so to meal planning. D has spent the last couple of days doing some serious batch cooking, so the garage freezer is now stocked with umpteen Merguez sausages and several pots of chilli. Our goal for the rest of the month is to try and eat down the indoor freezer. I’ve been desperate to own a Smeg fridge for quite some time now, and we’ve agreed that since we can’t afford to do the kitchen renovations we crave at the moment, we can at least splash out on a pretty fridge to make the space slightly more attractive. I mean, how beautiful is this?

Anyway, this is a convoluted way of trying to explain why sausages pop up not once but twice this week, albeit in different guises.

Monday: a bank holiday fast day - soup.

Tuesday: to celebrate the lovely weather, I suggested a salad. So tonight there is going to be some element of shredded veg and then some sort of satay dressing, probably with noodles and definitely prawns. This dinner is still rather at the concept stage.

Wednesday: already looking set to be a shocker of a day for me work wise. So I suggested something simple but oh so comforting with a half pack of sausages lurking in the freezer - the good old sausage sandwich. D is to contrive some sort of red onion marmaladey accompaniment.

Thursday: more soup.

Friday: a summery fish dish. Again, this evening is still rather at the concept stage.

Saturday: I am cooking the books, the book in question being Diana Henry’s latest (“How to Eat a Peach”) and the dish in question being crab, saffron and tomato tart.

Sunday: Merguez sausage stew with couscous.

Happy cooking and eating all!

In which I re-commit to 5:2

I've been thinking about what I did at the start of the year that worked so successfully.  And what I can add to those techniques in order to be even more successful.  Here's my list so far...

1) A food diary.  Practically every day in January, I carefully recorded what I had eaten.  It might sound a little obsessive but it never took long, and I kind of enjoyed it.  It focuses you; even though no one else was reading it, I wanted the food that I recorded to look good...let's be honest, who wants to actually have to write that they've scoffed half a pack of Hobnobs?

2) Alcohol.  I've mentioned this before, I'm sure.  I love a drink.  But my weight loss noticeably speeds up when I cut it out.  I'm not going to promise to cut if out altogether, but for "5:2 2.0" there will be absolutely none on school nights (unless for a very particular reason) and I will limit consumption at the weekends by focusing on higher quality, low volume.

3) Meal planning.  Whatever diet you're doing, meal planning is pretty key.  I also need to make sure that I'm planning lunches and breakfasts as well - I'd like to limit snacks and treats and a surefire way to do that is to make sure that I'm eating properly at meal times.

4) Ah, yes, snacks and treats.  The odd biscuit or packet or crisps or piece of chocolate is absolutely fine, but I need to keep an eye on consumption levels.  I'd like to limit myself to one "treat" a day, maybe relaxing slightly at the weekends. So that could be a biscuit with an afternoon cup or tea OR a packet of cheeky cheese and onion when I get home OR a few Maltesers after dinner.  Not all three.

5) Exercise.  Yes, this again.  Lesley has nagged me about it before and with good reason - I need to make time for this and commit to a proper programme of activity.  There's a hotel across the road from my office with a proper pool - I'd love to treat myself to monthly membership so that I could fit in some swimming.  I'd also quite like to try some yoga classes, as I think this would help with my anxiety issues as well as being good, gentle exercise,  but I'm not going to shell out a penny until I've proved to myself that I can make exercise part of my schedule.  We have a treadmill in the garage, I have the couch to 5k app on my phone - it's free, it's easy, it's effective there is NO EXCUSE.

I reckon if I can stick to all these edicts, as well as two fast days a week, I can get things moving again in six weeks.  Game face on!

Oh woe, oh woe, back to WW we go

So, thoroughly disenchanted with WW, especially after the change to Smart Points, I decided that I needed to find an alternative plan.  A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was trying something but wanted to give it a fair shot before writing about it.

Cue hollow laugh.

The thing was, I was sick to the back teeth of counting.  I wanted to do something else and what I came up with was the 5:2 plan, which involves having two fast days a week and eating normally the rest of the time.  My reasoning was that, OK, the fast days would be thoroughly miserable and would involve some form of counting to ensure that I came in under 500 cals, but the rest of the time would be "normal" eating - exactly what I craved.

The fundamental problem was that it turns out I am RUBBISH at fast days.  I think I managed one properly - perhaps two - and hated them.  And I struggled with choosing the days.  It couldn't be the weekend.  It couldn't be on a Monday because that's tutorial day and I can't concentrate on seven hours of tax legislation on an empty stomach.  So that left Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  But Tuesday and Thursday are the good exercise class days - Tuesday is Body Combat followed by Aqua Aerobics, and Thursday is Clubbercise and I was nervous about exercising on 500 calories. I messed around and, basically, didn't achieve anything.

So I'm accepting the inevitable and dragging myself back to WW.  I am going to give Smart Points a good go - my gym buddy A has lost a stone and a half in the last few weeks so it clearly works.  I have bought a Fitbit and linked it to my account so that I can rack up Fit Points which I will probably swap for food, accepting that this will mean a slower loss.

As far as I can gather, Smart Points is pushing people towards a high protein, low fat, low sugar diet.  Which sounds rather joyless but, as ever, I will be trying to bend it to my tastes as much as possible and report back here as to the results.  I'm not necessarily going to publish Smart Points on the recipes that I post though, because I really like the freedom of just sharing stuff that I like without having to write a "Sorry, this is so high in points..." precursor.  As ever, if you want the Smart Points then please just drop me an email.

D also wants to drop some weight and has decided to do a month of Dukan - which is also geared towards high protein and low fat, so the two should mesh fairly well, although I am far too greedy to give up carbs altogether, which is pretty much what he is intending to do.  Again, I'll let you know how that goes.  Once he is in "Cruise" phase, which allows some vegetables, I can see the spiraliser getting a LOT of use which will be interesting.

Wish me luck my loves.  For the fifty one billionth time.

Sloth

I have never been a big fan of exercise, being more akin to a sloth than any other creature in God's green Earth.  My nickname is not Sleepy Slouj for nothing.

Sloth.  Or me?  Image taken from https://gifts.worldwildlife.org

What I really want though (really, really, want) is to have a healthy, balanced approach to not just food but life in general, and exercise and fitness have to play a part in that, however much I would like to hide away from it (preferably in a pillow fort with my cat).

Recently, a friend of mine (well, I suppose officially she is a friend of D's but I am nicking her because she is the only person I know who gets as overexcited as me at the prospect of a Space NK discount code) tentatively suggested going to a class at the local fitness centre, on the strict proviso that we stand at the back.  The class in question was Clubbercise, which is basically just prancing around in the semi dark with disco lights and glow sticks.  It is waaaay more fun than doggedly stomping away on a treadmill.  And, subsequently, we have tried Aqua Aerobics (which I also love although have to spend most of the class attempting to stop my boobs making a break for freedom) and Kick Fit (great stress reliever).

I won't go so far as to say that I am a gym bunny, but I do find classes to be quite motivating and it is lovely to have someone to go with.  I have gone so far as to sign up for a monthly membership (the rolling kind which can be cancelled at any point - I know myself and the limits to my enthusiasm pretty well).  I'm very unfit at the moment, but I hope a few weeks of regular attendance will see a marked improvement.  Now that the weather is becoming distinctly more spring like, I'm hoping to get my walking boots on and if I could get up a hill without sounding like The Little Engine That Could, I would count that as a major achievement.

(New) scales on Saturday

Previously on WWF: -48.3lbs
This week: -3lbs
Total loss: 51.3lbs

There was a nasty moment earlier this week when my faithful old scales finally gave up the ghost.  Too weak to even finish their final error message, they flashed up a feeble "err" before dying completely.  Farewell, old friends.

Of course, my immediate concern was that switching to a new pair of scales could cause a rupture in the space time continuum - or, at the very least, a blip in my weight loss.  New scales can be very sneaky.  So, I don't really know whether this week's loss is all "real" or whether it is down to the newbies sucking up a little bit and weighing me a tad lighter than the old faithfuls.  Whatever - I'm taking it.  I LOVE my new scales.  I also really like the fact they weigh to 0.1 of a pound.  Little things, people.

I must admit, I was hoping for a good result.  I had done all the right things WW wise - not only tracking every last swig of gin consumed at the tasting last Saturday (it was painful to look at that day's tracker), but also getting to the pool for four (count 'em) swims, netting me 20 activity points (of which I consumed 2).  I'm trying to edge my way back into exercise and swimming, for me, is by far the least painful way to do that.  I want to start a running programme as well, but for the next couple of weeks, I think I'm going to stick to ploughing up and down the pool while I build up the nerve to hit the treadmill.

Onwards and downwards - the halfway point is approaching and I can SMELL it.  

Meal planning Moanday

Last week I wrote that I had been really enjoying my food, blah blah fishcakes, positivity abounded. This week I’m feeling a bit more…subdued. I’m closing in on a three stone loss since October last year, but, I must admit, the novelty has most definitely worn off and some days last week felt like a bit of a slog. A meal out on Thursday night and a decent loss on Saturday roused me up slightly, but I’m definitely just trying to get through one day at a time at the moment. Which is fine – there are going to be periods where things are a bit like that and doggedness rather than finesse is what is required.

I think my main goal for the remainder of February is to try and start some sort of exercise routine. Nothing too strenuous by any means (I am nothing if not intensely lazy), but I know from experience that there are few things more helpful to fight against mild dolour (is that an oxymoron?) than a bit of movement. Also, that there are few things that one feels less inclined to do when one is feeling sluggish and grey and sulky. Which is precisely why one should do them.

Onto eating. Dinner party on Saturday (if it goes to plan it is going to be top notch and I can’t wait to share some pictures with you! If it doesn’t go to plan then my parents will be eating takeaway fried chicken from the end of the road) which means Sunday will be a light, leftovers kind of a day. Tomorrow I’m out at my book group so I’ll be grabbing a quick sandwich beforehand. One night will be soup night (that’s a thing now). So three days left to plan…

Chicken and leek pot pie, celeriac mash

Salmon with curried mussels

Smoked salmon bagels with Valentines fizz, possibly followed by Gu chocolate pots if points allow

More meal planning fun over at Mrs M’s.

It was all going swimmingly...

Yesterday was rather like the curate's egg.  There was good news (you passed your exam!  You can go ahead and destroy those stupid index cards!) but also bad news.  I managed to lose both my keys and my purse - and when I say lose, I am becoming increasingly convinced that I actually unintentionally gifted them to someone.  It's not the end of the world - ok, I could have done without knowing how much locksmiths actually charge (ouch!) and all the cards got cancelled before any transactions went on them and there wasn't all that much cash in there, but still, it leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth.  I am someone who goes through life probably being a bit careless at times because I tend to believe in the inherent goodness of most people.  I need to be more cautious because some people just aren't nice.  Which is sad.

Oh, and the purse itself was a Mulberry one which was a gift from D for my thirtieth birthday.  Which also makes me sad.  I have replaced it with a very pretty Accesorize one but still, I loved that purse.

Heigh ho.  I must admit, my last ditch attempts to reign in any Scottish themed damage went somewhat out of the window last night and (still in a spirit of confession) I was tempted to skip weigh in this morning as a result.  But I didn't, and the result was a 3lb gain which also isn't the end of the world.  A good week will sort that out.

And then, post weigh in and post post weigh in coffee, I went swimming which is news in itself.  I took out an expensive gym membership back when I moved here in September and then, like 67% of people with gym memberships proceeded to not use it.  I just thought about using it a lot.  While lying on the sofa.  Weeping.  And drinking wine.  Which meant that my fitness went woefully downhill.  Which made me even less inclined to use it.  But I have, just in the last few weeks, gradually started to reintroduce it into my life.  I used to love some of the classes that I went to at the gym - I think I would struggle with an hour of Body Combat at the moment, so I've started with swimming, and I'm going to build up.  It's probably too soon to notice a huge difference, but earlier this week I walked up a hill to get to the Wallace Monument and then walked up said monument and didn't die.  I take victory where I can get it.   

The Wallace Monument.  Big in Scotland.

View from the Wallace Monument, complete with Scottish flag.  And top of random man's head.

I take my pedometer for a walk

Oh, how I wished that I was one of those lucky souls who enjoyed exercising. 

I think I've had phases of tolerating it to the extent that I got into the routine of going along to things that were not entirely loathsome and then quite enjoyed the positive effect that it had on my physical and mental wellbeing.  But it is far, far easier to fall out of a routine than it is to get into one. 

It's safe to say that I am not in any sort of routine at the moment.  There is a gym a mere hop, skip and a jump away with a lovely pool and a whole array of exciting classes and I am struggling to motivate myself to get there.  D keeps telling me that I should walk the half hour straight line between my house and my office rather than jumping on a bus.  He is right of course.  But walking along a main road is terribly dull.  And, also, have I ever mentioned before the terrible problems I have with general balance and rightfootedness?  Part of the issue is my weight distribution; I am essentially a Weeble - an almost perfectly spherical thing perched precariously on two little legs.  I have to actually concentrate to resist the pull of gravity which would have me toppling forward at any given moment in time.

And part of the issue is very simply this - I am terribly, terribly lazy.  I would, in all seriousness, list napping as one of my favourite pastimes - especially while being lulled by the dulcet tones of an audiobook or something soothing from Radio 4.  D tells me that sleep doesn't really count as a hobby.  I beg to disagree.  I thought that when I hit my thirties I would finally grow out of my rather teenagerish sleep patterns, the ability to sleep until noon if left undisturbed.  It has not happened yet and, the thing is, now that I live alone, I sometimes have very little motivation to rise from my rather comfortable bed.

The good folk at Weight Watchers obviously have encountered people of my ilk before as a part of the WW programme is a thing called Activity Points - essentially, if you exert yourself you earn bonus points which can, in turn, be scoffed.  I've noticed a lot of people on the message boards laugh in the face of such gluttony - why, they say, would I go to the trouble of earning these points to then eat them?  Why, say I, would you not?  And Weight Watchers have gone one step further by inventing a pedometer that not only counts your steps but beeps every time you have shuffled far enough to earn one of these precious, precious points.  I've been toying with the idea of buying one for ages but finally cracked on Friday and have been walking round with it clipped to me ever since - consulting it every so often to see how far I've walked.  As motivaters go, it's surprisingly effective.

On Saturday, D and I took the pedometer out for a walk.  There was a Gu chocolate ganache pot with my name on it in the fridge and, as I trotted, slightly sweaty and grim faced a few paces behind him, my ear was constantly cocked for the sound of the beep that would get me one step closer to guilt free pudding.

Oh, and there were some pretty spring flowers as well...

Although I must admit that sometimes I stop to take a photograph not so much because I am overcome by the beauty of nature but that I need to catch a breath or two...shhhhhhhh.

I’ve turned into one of those people…

Guess where I was at twenty past six this morning. Go on, guess.

Twenty past six saw me sitting outside of the gym, waiting for it to open.

We decided not to actually join the queue of keen beans that were waiting for the turnstiles to be unlocked and instead lurked in the car until half past. Nevertheless, I was in the pool at twenty five to seven and, as I swam up and down and watched the clouds begin to blush pink with sunrise through the glass roof, I thought to myself “Who are you?"

Happy new year!

I have spent the majority of my Christmas break in hibernation. Quite, quite literally – there have been days where I have barely left the confines of my bedroom except to fetch a fresh cup of tea, and have been mostly nose down in one of my new books or my shiny new Kindle (which I love, love, love!) It has been absolutely blissful and has meant I have started January feeling incredibly peaceful and content.

2011 was a good year for me in retrospect – although like the curate’s egg in reverse, it had its moments. I got married, which was lovely, despite the moments of stress and anxiety in the run up to the big day; I love being a wife and catch myself grinning down at my left hand even now. I stumbled, more by luck than judgement, into a new role at work which gives me a massive amount of job satisfaction and, yes, even enjoyment. It’s on secondment at the moment but will hopefully become permanent within the next couple of months so I'm tentatively feeling as if, professionally, things have started to come together. The downside of that was quite a lot of time away from home which I found difficult at first – I’m a homebody who thrives on routine and safety nets. And, looking back, I can see that outside of work and the W, my home life was a little stultified this year. I fell out of my gym habit, I didn’t do as much creative writing as I intended and missed quite a lot of my writing group’s monthly meetings. Having said that, I have kept up with this blog, albeit it has sometimes meandered quite a long way from its original purpose – but I guess that is the nature of blogs, they represent our very selves, complete with all our contradictions and falterings and what nots.

It was not a stellar year for weight loss. I tend to throw away records in fits of pique, or “fresh starts”, so I’m not sure what I weighed at this time last year but it sure as hell wasn’t significantly different to what I weigh now. That is frustrating. I am not going to waste time or emotional energy bemoaning the fact that another year has passed and I’m still a long way from where I want to be. The question I need to ask is: what now?

The first answer is – I keep trying. I want to be slimmer and fitter for both health and aesthetic reasons. As I mentioned here, I need to to rediscover the me who loves lipstick and high heels and that me wants to be at the very most a size 12 and probably (given my frame) smaller.

The second answer is – I address why I keep failing. It is not the plan I follow (if anything, WW’s new innovations have made it even more flexible and easy to use), it is not for lack of support. I have a platform here to work through those tangled emotions that keep getting in the way of success and I need to use it. So, expect the odd navel gazing post this year, and bear with.

The third answer is – I get fitter. I talked about my love hate relationship with exercise a bit here, and I am determined to get back into a decent routine this year if it kills me. Which it just might.

So my friends – here is to a fabulous (as opposed to flabulous) 2012 – to all of you out there in the ether, let’s make it a good one!

Maybe this time next year I'll have a Beachbody...

One of the things that I really, really want to get off to a flying start this coming January is a proper exercise routine. Throughout 2010 I was managing fairly regular attendance at the gym – to the extent that I was actually choosing to get up before nine on a Saturday to get to a Body Combat class. All that has rather petered out in the latter half of this year.

My general attitude to exercise was always one of dislike and suspicion, a seed planted back in my school days. I was not, it is safe to say, a sporty child, nor had any ambitions in that direction and can’t say I ever cried myself to sleep at night when I missed out on a place in the netball team. While we’re on the general subject, I never really understood the edict that every single pupil had to have some sort of role in Sports Day, but tried to get on board (generally by putting my name down for the relatively safe Tug of War every year as soon as the sign up sheet was posted). With the exception of swimming I steered clear of sport in general. And I think the world of sport was probably pretty grateful.

But then, back in (I think) about 2009, D and I began attending a local gym on a reasonably regular basis. I started off by just sticking to gentle lengths of the pool before cautiously venturing into the gym proper and then discovered that some of the classes were actually OK as long as you stayed at the back and avoided catching sight of yourself in the wall to wall mirrors. It would be too much to say that I ever enjoyed myself, but I definitely enjoyed the feeling of well being that followed a good workout. And I also enjoyed the fact that exercising allowed me to eat more. Weight Watchers allows you to earn bonus activity points to be consumed or not as the individual sees fit – well, I generally always saw fit (I am quite very greedy) and still achieved a steady weight loss as well as some fledgling muscle tone beneath the flab. So what happened in 2011? Hard to say. We’ve fallen out of routine, and, I must admit, the thought of having to build up all that fitness again from scratch does fill me with dread. More than once in the last couple of months have I thought about cancelling my gym membership.

Perhaps, then, it was more than a little bit lucky that a few weeks ago I had an email from someone who wondered if I’d be interested in mentioning some of their products on here. If I tell you the site was called beachbody.com you may understand why I was more than a little surprised – there may well have been some incredulous laughter on my part. But I read her mail and was touched that she said that she’d seen that I have posts relating to “living a healthy lifestyle”. And I thought, well, they may have been a bit thin on the ground lately, but living a healthy, balanced lifestyle is in fact the point of this blog. I want the people who visit me here to understand that losing weight or maintaining a healthy figure isn’t about deprivation but about balance. Have your cake, eat it, but make up for it somehow. Eat salad for dinner or (and here’s the bit I’ve certainly been avoiding for the last six months) go for a swim or a jog. I’ve lost sight of the exercise bit of a healthy lifestyle recently, but this was a salutory reminder, and just in time for New Year Resolution season.

Beachbody have some new products coming out which they’ve asked me to link to, and, in the spirit of spreading the exercise love I am more than happy to do so, although I should add that I haven’t tried these particular ones myself – unfortunately, my living room doesn’t lend itself to home workouts. I have however done some Les Mills Pump classes at the gym and always found them good in a painful sort of way, plus, strength training is a really good way of boosting your metabolic rate. The slightly amusingly named Body Beast workout looks to be more aimed at those people who are wanting to build some serious muscle – not my thing, but ideal if you’re after a more Fatima Whitbread look (hats off to her, the woman looked amazing on I’m A Celebrity). And I had actually heard of the P90X2 workouts, which seem to be a mixed bag of strength training and cardio previous to seeing them on the site – to have penetrated my consciousness they must be doing someone some good.

I should also say that although it is an American site they do international delivery at no extra charge, which is nice of them.

Many thanks to the very sweet Emily from Beachbody for what may well be the gentle nudge I needed to get me back in the direction of the gym – I can’t imagine that I’ll ever be what you would call a gym bunny, but I do need to make it a part of my life again. Are you there, Bonus Activity Points? It’s me, Seren…

Meal planning Monday 14

Monday again...how the weeks do fly by.  And the weekends too, especially if you choose to spend the majority of them catching up on zeds after a hectic week of work. 

The big news of this weekend was that on Saturday afternoon I crept back into the gym.  When I swiped my card I almost expected the turnstile to do whatever the turnstile equivalent of keeling over in shock might be.  I went on the treadmill and did some running and rather more walking (I've kicked off yet another attempt to complete the Couch to 5k programme) while listening to "Jar of Hearts" pretty much on repeat - I like angsty songs when I'm exercising.

And what's on the menu this week?  Well, tonight I will spending in Liverpool (for work rather than pleasure unfortunately) and D will be fending for himself and then tomorrow night I have requested a welcome home dinner of roasted chicken breast with lemon couscous.

Wednesday - Spag Bol

Thursday - cumin spiced chicken, creamy lentil dahl and zero point mushroom curry (the point of this meal is to provide something that the collection of naan bread we have accumulated in the freezer can be used to mop up the sauces).

Friday - D is out, so prick and ping for me.

Saturday - the current plan, local butchers' stock allowing, is to roast some spiced quail and then tear it apart with our fingers in a pleasingly primitive manner.

Sunday - Rabbit in mustard - which will almost certainly be served with some lovely, buttery mashed potatoes.

Don't forget to pop over to Mrs M's blog for more meal planning fun.

Tales from the Scales

I don’t tend to talk an awful lot about the results of my weigh in. I’m not sure why, it just never seems to occur to me as a topic when I’m coming up with things to write about.

But I want to write about my result last night. Last night was my first weigh in since re-starting the plan two weeks ago post the Christmas and New Year merriment. My first week had been less than 100% stellar, not improved by the fact I had been unable to attend the week before (I’m a terrible sulker when things don’t go to plan), but I’d pulled it back and now I toddled along , having had seven perfectly tracked days in a row (plus three gym visits to boost the bank). I had that smug little glow that one gets when one is about to receive one’s just reward and I jumped onto the scales quite happily.

I had lost a pound.

A single, squiddly little pound. A decent bowel movement can get me a pound’s weight loss some mornings.

I took back my card, signed the weekly sheet and headed straight for home, definitely a bit moist of eye. I started doing diet arithmetic – you know when you think, “Well, if I lose an average of half a pound a week for x number of weeks then it will take me so long to get so far,” and that made the eyes even moister. By the time I got back to the flat I was sufficiently worked up to make D’s shoulder quite soggy.

Later, pootling up and down the swimming pool (and let me tell you, it took quite an effort of will to go to the gym after my disappointment – the two bottles of organic cider in the fridge and the takeaway menu drawer had been singing out my name quite loudly) I tried hard to be sanguine.

I bang on and on about the fact that I don’t regard WW as a diet – just a way of monitoring the way I eat to ensure I create a bit of a calorie deficit. The alternative to WW? Well, I’d still have to eat, I’d still have to plan my meals, I’d still want to consume sufficient nutrients for good health. There’d be a little less admin, but not a massive amount. And the trade off for that fifteen minutes spent tracking every day is improved health and an eventual decrease in girth.

I suppose we all want validation, we all want to know that our efforts are being rewarded. And the main way we seek that validation is the number in the scales. If the number goes up, or stays the same, or even doesn’t give us the drop we hoped for, if the number doesn’t feel like sufficient reward for our endeavours, then we judge ourselves a failure.

But I’m sorry; I did not “fail” at anything last week. In fact, there was plenty to be proud of. I made sensible, healthy decisions, I ate well, I exercised, I did not over indulge nor did I deny myself anything that I really wanted. That’s a successful week. Failure would have been allowing my disappointment to derail me, to allow the negative thought pattern of, “Sod it. This obviously isn’t working for me, I’m going to eat and drink what the hell I like and waistline be damned,” to take over. Success is accepting that if you do all the right things, the results will eventually follow. Success is realising that this is a life plan – not a quick fix, not a temporary measure. Success is keeping on and on and on, and not allowing a number on a dial to derail you.

In the words of The Beautiful South, you just have to “Carry on regardless.”

Sticking to a budget

When I’m in a bad mood and feeling resentful of the Weight Watchers treadmill, the main stick-to-beat-it-with that I can come up with is that it tends to deprive your eating life of spontaneity. I mean, obviously you could choose to approach the day with a laissez-faire attitude, and hope that intuitively your food choices fall within your points allowance. Me, I tend to develop a condition known as “points-blindness” when I do that. The only way for me to succeed is to plan out meals and snacks to within an inch of my life.

This seems to take an inordinate amount of time and I sometimes wonder if I make the whole process too difficult for myself. For instance, I read somewhere recently that the majority of people have a standard repertoire of no more than twelve dishes that they eat in rotation. That would make meal planning very easy, but I suspect I might keel over with boredom. Of course, there are dishes that I cook regularly but I don’t think, in all the four and a bit years that I have lived with D, that a week has ever gone by where I haven’t tried out at least one new recipe. I may well be a little obsessed. As well as subscribing to three food magazines a month (well, one of them is the Weight Watchers magazine which would perhaps best be described as…lifestyle. But it has recipes in it) I am frequently to be found surfing the net and bookmarking recipe sites as well. Oh, and I adore recipe books. I can sit and read them cover to cover like a novel. With all those choices out there, how could I ever restrict myself to twelve – or even a hundred and twelve – dishes for the rest of my lifetime??!

And hey, meal planning has perks other than point related ones. I find I actually spend a lot less money at the supermarket now because I have a plan and a subsequent shopping list and I tend not to deviate. So I’m learning to budget my points as well as my pounds. Hence the post title. Yes, cheesy.

In other news – I took my first Body Combat class in aaaaages last night and survived! Of all the Les Mills classes this is my absolute favourite – it’s basically a cross between aerobics and martial arts all set to very loud, thumpy music. Nothing better for stress relief than punching at empty air to a persistent drum beat.

The skinny on exercise

As I may have mentioned, exercise and I have never been friends.

I was not, never have been, a tomboy. I was the kind of little girl who insisted on having a ribbon to match every outfit. I had ringlets. I played with My Little Pony, had picnics with teddy bears and was never happier than when curled up in an armchair with Enid Blyton.

Having a younger brother, I would occasionally join in a game of cricket or climb the old apple tree at the bottom back garden - to keep my end up, you understand. But my heart was never in it.

As for P.E. at school…my memories of sport at primary school are indistinct, although I’m fairly sure I never shone at sports day – and fairly sure I never minded. Come the age of 12, I attended an all girls’ secondary, so never had to experience the horror of communal showers that the boys down the road were subjected to…but I vividly remember having to wear the most ridiculously tiny pair of royal blue gym knickers to the athletics track. Which would not have been a problem had not getting to the athletics track involved a walk down the road. The public road. In full view of the public. Why would you inflict that kind of pain on anyone? Presumably the P.E. teachers were also products of Catholic convent schools and thus wished to maintain the cycle of humiliation. Oh, and don’t get me started on gymnastics lessons. I never got further than a forward roll. Physically timid, I hated the idea of throwing myself around, and couldn’t bring myself to handstand or cartwheel or launch myself at a large, looming box (calling it a horse did not make it cute, they could have called it the pink fluffy kitten and I still would have point blank refused to attempt to vault it).

Yes, exercise and I were never friends. I spent most of my early twenties avoiding anything more strenuous than lifting glasses and cigarettes. I had a brief foray into rowing at university, which was fun, but unfortunately the early morning sessions probably led to a net weight gain considering I developed a nasty All Day Breakfast sandwich habit as the result of the early morning sessions. The lesson: exercising first thing in the morning on an empty stomach might be beneficial for some people, but most definitely not for me.

When I made the decision that I had to deal with my weight once and for all, I knew that food would only be part of the picture. As it happens, current thinking seems to suggest that food is a pretty big part of the picture – one article that I came across states that the actual mechanics of weight loss (that is, creating a sufficient calorie deficit for the body to burn fat reserves) is 80% about diet and only 20% about exercise. But this wasn’t a “diet” I was going to embark on – a finite thing that I would finish one day. I was making a lifestyle change. And that meant facing my exercise demons.

So, one momentous day (a Thursday I believe) I walked to my local gym. Well, in actual fact, D gave me a lift to my local gym and I walked from the car to the front door, but the point is that I crossed the threshold. At first, I refused to set foot in the gym proper but just swam length after dogged length. Fast forward a year or so, and I am not only swimming but doing classes, both cardio and strength training, and even beginning to build up my running on the treadmill - although I can still not quite shake the feeling that I’m about to go flying off the back of the damn thing.

I don’t think I’ll ever love exercise but I love the way it makes me feel. I love the positive inner glow I have when I leave, the satisfying ache in my muscles. I love seeing the beginnings of definition in my legs and upper body. And most of all (well, this is the blog of a WW foodie!) I love the fact that an hour of effort can translate into enough activity points for a piece of chocolate or a glass or two of wine.

One of the reasons I am currently writing this is that is has been a week and a half since I last entered the gym. I’ve been in a bit of a funk. My logical self tells me that one of the best ways to lift my mood would be to go and sweat my way through a Body Combat class. My emotional self wants to nap and eat the last of the Easter eggs that taunts me every time I go into the kitchen. It’s time to grit my teeth and get down to it.