Thursday 28 January 2010

Things to watch out for

Hey party people!

How goes it?

I'm ticking along ok at the moment. I'm still following my little experiment of pre-planning my entire day's food a day or two in advance, and it definitely has it's advantages. For a start, I stop trying to second-guess myself on how much bad food I can cram into the day. I'm definitely guilty of this usually - if someone brings in cakes or sweets or something, I usually start mentally moving my day round to fit them in, but as I proved with the sweets the other day, I'm definitely doing that less.

Another good point is that I don't spend all morning wondering where my next bit of food is coming from. Mornings at work are a particular danger point for me (and again in the late afternoon), because I tend to start to get hungry, whether it's real hunger or boredom, and I start eating snacks. With my food all planned out, I already know what my snack allowance is for the day, and I just make do with what I have. And actually? It's not so bad! I'm getting reacquainted with what (mild) hunger actually feels like, and I'm learning that it's bearable and not the end of the world. Which means, that for a change, I'm actually hungry when I get to my major meal times: result!! It's also helping me to cut back on my diving-into-the-cupboard-before dinner-time tendencies, as I'm often starving when I get home in the evenings.

Ok, so it's not all roses. Last night, we had our flat inspection, which means I'm now reveling in the zen-like calm of our gloriously tidy flat. I love it this way, although I doubt it will last longer than a week if I'm honest. After our landlady had gone I made my healthy dinner that was on my plan - lightly smoked salmon fillet (oven-baked) with broccoli and a little experiment. My mum always used to make ratatouille style confections with our Sunday dinners, either from marrow, tomato and onion or leek, tomato and onion. I saw marrows at the supermarket on Monday and had a real hankering to try them again, so I thought this would be a good place to start. It was delicious!! And no points on Weightwatchers either, so I had that instead of a carbs portion. After dinner though, I found myself in the middle of an impromptu girls' night out our flat, and I had completely forgotten that Sheena (my new flatmate) always provides loads of goodies for girls' night. Or should I say baddies. A share bag of Doritos and a box of Maltesers between 3 of us. I can't honestly say how much of them I consumed, but it wasn't on my plan. On the plus side I've been leaving a few points on each days menu unallocated and I didn't have the planned Skinny Cow bar I was going to have for dessert, so that all soaked up some of the baddies. I would imagine I ended up a few points over though.

Overall, I'm really pleased with my eating over the past couple of days though. I'm eating in a more varied fashion, I'm getting a few more portions of fruit and veg in daily and I'm being more honest with what I'm consuming.

I've not really done much exercise since Monday's spin, courtesy of 2 nights of frantic cleaning and tidying and a pub quiz on Tuesday night (although I did walk to the pub and back, and just had one slimline vodka and tonic there). Tonight I've got Body Balance which I'm looking forward to, and then I'm heading into town to meet some friends for drinks - strictly Diet Coke for me though as I'll be driving straight from my class!

Tomorrow is weigh in day. I don't expect a great result, as despite a few days of better eating the scales are still resolutely where they were. Patience, little grasshopper, I'm just going to have to have patience. Sustained better eating, and some movement - that's where it's at! And no complacency - I realised last night, mid-tidying, that my wardrobe at my current size has got pretty comprehensive. In other words, I've fallen into the trap of buying more and more clothes as if this is the size I'm planning on staying at. It isn't - I'm a (large) size 14 at the moment, and I definitely want to get to a 12 before I'm done.

Time to cut the shopping. And the complacency. I've made a good start with my focus since coming back from holiday. I've just got to keep adding to that.

1 comment:

Cole Walter Mellon said...

Planning makes a huge difference for me. I keep healthy snacks in my office and car so that I'm never tempted by donuts, the vending machine or fast food joints. Since I still don't really trust myself, I limit most of my snacking to certain times of the day. It works, for the most part... sometimes I find myself eating more because it's time to eat than from hunger, but I think that keeps me from getting outrageously hunger and wolfing down a huge meal later.

Like you said, patience...