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!

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.

A little stumble (but not a full on fall)

So, as you may remember, last Monday, in a fit of something in between enthusiasm and smugness, I told you all about how I had dragged myself out of bed in order to swim at the ungodly hour of six thirty. As Lesley quite rightly pointed out, this is probably not deserving of too much kudos until it has become a regular occurrence. Well, I am pleased to say that I repeated the same feat on Thursday morning too. Early exercising is not set to become a regular fixture in our routine but we have both agreed that in order to hit the requisite (although required by whom I don’t know) number of workouts per week, they may sometimes be necessary and I’m proud that I proved I can do it…even if I don’t much like it.

As it is, the last few days have been a bit pear shaped and yet I still managed a half pound loss yesterday morning – I like to think that Karma gave me a little reward for fighting against every instinct of my inherently lazy nature not once but twice.

Back to this latest slip up, and it’s the same old chestnut with me; stress = poor choices. I had to travel to London for a job interview last Thursday and despite the fact that I had planned out my strategy with regards food and drink I still faltered, especially when the interview didn’t go as well as I had hoped. And then, having faltered, I didn’t pull myself up straightaway; I sulked on Saturday afternoon, refusing to go to the gym and having a nap instead, and then wasn’t as stringent as I could have been on Sunday (although it turns out fish finger sandwiches are not so pointy as you might expect). Little things but….meh. I hate the fact that I’m such a Pavlov’s dog about it all. I read the blog posts that I write when everything is going well and that person sounds so happy and sorted and healthy – in fact, that person is so happy and sorted and healthy, and yet the sulky, sleepy, cheese-on-toast eating, gym spurning alter ego is still around and closer to the surface than I would like.

Still, for all that, the scales continue to creep downwards – I’ve lost 12 pounds since the turn of the year and I’m going to go all guns blazing for a decent loss this week that will take me up to the 1 stone mark. Onwards!

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.”

Feelin’ (not so) Groovy*

*With apologies to Simon and Garfunkle.

The last couple of weeks have been slightly odd. We’ve been cat sitting for my parents, who live twenty miles down the road from us and while it has not been an actual holiday, I’ve sort of fallen into holiday mode which has made my general diet somewhat skewiff. Plus, we’ve been a lot further away from the gym and so our visits have been sporadic.

Oh, I had so many grand plans. I was going to take full advantage of the garden and the barbecue (we live in a two bed roomed flat, so outdoor space is a novelty) and eat a wholesome diet of grilled meat or fish and salad. You know, the kind of meals that celebrities insist they live on. When we couldn’t get to the gym I was going to shuttle run across the lawn, or maybe buy a cheap skipping rope. But grand plans don’t come together unless littler plans are in place – meal plans and cooking plans. The sort of organisation that I deliberately avoided. Yes, I’ve had good days here and there, but more by luck than judgement.

Anyway, we’re back home this evening and one of my first priorities is going to be putting together a proper meal plan for the week. I also intend to huff and puff my way through a Body Combat class. I need to reintroduce the concept of routine to my eating and my tracking and my exercise.

The day did not get off to the best of starts routine wise – I left the house without any breakfast or lunch packed; but instead of using this as an excuse to go entirely off piste I’ve had a grande skinny latte for breakfast from Starbucks (2 points) which ok, is not the most filling choice, but should keep me going for a few hours, and then it is off to Subway at lunchtime for my lucky 5 point sub.

Getting some zeds

Apparently, lack of sleep has been linked to obesity. I don’t think that can possibly be true. If it were I would be a size 8 by now.

I am a champion sleeper. Really, if it were an Olympic event I’d be taking home gold. I may be on the verge of turning thirty, but I still have the sleeping habits of a very, very tired sixteen year old. I frequently sleep until past noon at the weekend, and almost as frequently don’t bother to change out of my pyjamas when I get up. Last night I went to bed at half past eight people! Admittedly, my weekday routine generally involves getting up a few minutes before six o clock, but still, half past eight is not just verging on the ridiculous but is slap bang in the middle of it.

I don’t know if the current extreme tiredness is down to the (fairly intense) training course I’m doing at work, but one thing is for sure, it is not doing my eating habits any favours. When I’m tired, I tend to make poor decisions. I’m less organised and get a bit lax in the old planning department. I also feel less and less inclined to exercise – which is counter intuitive as exercise always tends to give you a big shot of energy.

At least things have improved in the last week – more homecooked food for a start. We’ve had some delicious dinners recently; last night D cooked fantastic chicken fajitas which we had with refried beans, salsa and a quickly cobbled together sour cream substitute (low fat soft cheese, low fat mayo, a little finely grated mature cheddar and some coriander puree – don’t laugh, actually it was very good!)

I guess until my routine gets back to normal I have to accept that I might not be losing any weight – but I’d like to be in a holding position. Getting back into a regular gym routine is key to this so, that’s my challenge to myself this week - three visits minimum.

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.