Time for Action

I have purposefully had a quiet week to 10 days and not been hard on myself for not doing much in the way of exercise and it has been beneficial I think. I had been feeling tired and under pressure with everything getting to me. Now I feel much more relaxed and optimistic about the near future. It’s strange - I feel as though I’ve been away on holiday even though I’ve just been ploughing away as usual.

However, I’m now ready and actually wanting to really knuckle down and a) do lots of exercise and b) stop eating too much!!

So, the first step is to get back to regular exercise. Getting over my distaste of going swimming for a start. I know when I go that I will enjoy it so I am pledging to go this lunchtime.

The next thing I MUST do is stop snacking at work. It is leading me into bad habits and adding hundreds of extra calories to each day. Not good. Luckily the snacking opportunities today are not brilliant so I’m going to set a mini-target of NOTHING today (Monday).

Thirdly is to cut back on the drinking. I went to the pub quiz yesterday and had 4 pints of bitter! 4!! And I had at least that watching the football on Sky on Saturday evening followed by wine and a chinese takeaway so, as you can see, things have been getting out of hand. So, no booze all week methinks.

I’m also toying with the idea of Slimming World or part-packs for a hit to get a quick stone off and get me ready for summer. The part-packs was going to be something fairly low-key like packs for breakfast and lunch 5 days a week followed by normal supper etc and loosening up at weekends but still limiting the booze and treats. I think I’m going to give it a go this week and if it goes well will aim for a 4 week bootcamp to get me back on track. If it doesn’t go well, I will go back to SW which will be longer term.

So, that's settled, a one-week trial of part-packs. I can do anything for one week!!! (That takes me back - it was the mantra I used when I started Lighter Life – “I can do anything for 14 weeks”!)

In other news, we had a lovely weekend with my sister-in-law and nephew. They are fun guests. We took them to Castleton for a wander around when they arrived Saturday afternoon. Lachlan fancied the show cave there – The Devil’s A**e! – but there was no way Hadi was going into a cave so we ended up splitting up into boys (cave) and girls (poking round little shops and cafes). Then early evening in the pub watching Sheffield Wednesday lose to Southampton on Sky (blegh!) and keeping an eye out for England losing to Ireland at the rugby (double blegh!). Followed by a chinese takeaway and film. Very pleasant and convivial. Lachlan was in seventh heaven to have fast broadband and Sky TV after a few days in the technological wasteland which is his grandparents so didn’t mind having to sleep on the sofa!!


They left Sunday afternoon and Rich and I took the dogs for a good long tramp which was very refreshing. I cooked a rather nice new recipe of my own devising – a sort of beef carbonnade but with light ale, grain mustard and chorizo instead of lardons (it was all I had). It had a sort of sweetish, Spanish flavour and was delicious!! This set me up nicely for a triumphant evening with my pub quiz team – we were away to local rivals and had a purple streak – we just knew everything and what we didn’t know we guessed, usually correctly. It was amazing. We scored our biggest ever total of 71 points (the league record this season) and beat them 71-36!! And we won the beer round (hence the over-consumption!).


So, all in all, life proceeding very nicely but looking forward to being a bit thinner and getting on with doing something about it. And – dancing this evening – yay!!!


Update - I typed the above this morning with the intention of posting it Yesterday evening. Around 12 o'clock my day took a turn for the worse with an important job going wrong unexpectedly and very quickly. So, I couldn't go swimming and was in fire-fighting mode for the rest of the day. I was good food-wise though; I didn't use the crisis as an excuse to pig out and resisted the snack table with no exceptions. I also purchased some packs to get me started tomorrow so we will see. I got away in time for dancing though and had a really good night (apart from the quickstep which was too knackering right at the end!).

We didn't get home 'til late though as just a few miles from home we saw an injured cat on the side of the road. It was alert but couldn't walk. So that entailed 90 minutes of driving around trying to find a vet then taking it into Sheffield to a 24 hour vet hospital. That's a long time to spend with a stressed, injured but very sweet cat on my lap. I hope he or she makes it through and will let you know when we hear what has happened. I'm facebooking and texting away to try and locate the owner and will put up notices and leaflets this evening if no news (don't have time this morning).