2018 - Happy New Year!

Last New Years Eve I decided that I was totally over the whole New Year, New Me movement and wouldn't be making any resolutions beginning on January 1st.

That's not to say I didn't have goals for the year, but I wanted them to be longer term and more organic than trying to reinvent myself on an arbitrary day of the year in a fit of guilt at not being good enough and having overeaten over Christmas.

And do you know what?  It was the most relaxing start to the year as a result.

I still lost some weight, and regained some fitness, and made some progress on money goals ... just not in January.

I liked it so much that I'm doing the same again this year.  My goals are boringly non-dramatic, but feel like they're authentic to me, so I'm still excited to see what progress I make this year.

It's become a tradition that my friend Jo and I sit in the village pub on Boxing Day night, having a break from families, and reflect on the year that was and what we want to achieve next year.  We make our goals in our own ways - hers are more drastic diets and fitness goals for January and February because that's how she likes to operate, and mine are more gentle actions I want to take over the coming year.  I tend to focus mine around the 5 areas of my life that are super important to me: love and relationships, career, money, health and travel.

My health ones are to keep doing exactly what I've been playing around with the last 7 months - getting to an honest, neutral, peaceful relationship with food, taking the emotion out of my eating and learning to appreciate the body I've got already.  To continue experimenting with exercise and activity until I reach a comfortable middle-ground of things that I love doing and feel great.  And I'd like to incorporate a bit more mindfulness and meditation into my life as a whole.  Also making sure I'm getting enough sleep.

In career terms, I'm still not entirely sure what lies ahead but I'm still thinking about doing the next part of the coaching course I did in February this year, so I'm going to save towards that, and also read some more coaching books.  I'm also going to keep an eye on my day rates and not be afraid to ask for an increase on future contracts if that is sensible - I'm adding stuff to my CV with every contract and I want to make sure I market myself at what I'm worth.

Under money, I want to clear my last outstanding credit card balance and put some money towards an overpayment on the mortgage - boring but very sensible, especially as I re-mortgage for the first time in the second half of 2018 and, the better my equity to loan ratio, the better the rate I get next time.  I'm also experimenting with taking my "non-essential" spending  - e.g. my social and shopping budget - and giving it to myself in cash.  I've been spending more than I want to the last few months, and admittedly while some of that was Christmas, it eats into how much I can save and it's not a habit I want to get into.  The overspend is 90% my non-essential stuff, and my theory is that I'm always much more hesitant about spending cash as it's so obvious how much you're spending and how much is left.  So, starting in January, I'm taking my allotted budget out in cash each month, and we'll see how that impacts my spending habits.  

Love and relationships are tricky because you can't force them, but one thing I can do is expand my social circle a bit.  I've let my Bristol circle of friends shrink right down, especially in this last year when I've been hermitting in the house.  So I'm going to make an effort to return to the surf club, and investigate what else is out there in Bristol - basically I've challenged myself to get some proper hobbies because I seem to have actually forgotten what I like doing.

And travel - possibly my favourite category!  I've got a few short trips in the works at the moment for early 2018 - I'm going to Amsterdam and Bruges for a few days in February with my friend Bridget, and I'm hopefully booking skiing in Italy soon with Jo.  But my big goal this year is Bali and Lombok.  I really want to go, and I've been having a serious case of itchy feet recently to go somewhere exotic so, whether it's with friends in the summer, or on my own in the autumn, I'm going to try and make that happen this year!

What do you have planned for 2018?

Christmas Survival Guide

It's nearly the end of another year - Christmas is just about done and dusted and ready to be put back in the box, and it's that time when I tend to get a bit reflective over the year that's just been.

I sometimes think that when you're wallowing around in the muck of the year, it's all too easy to get discontented and think "I don't have enough / do enough / make enough progress", and it's only when you look back over the 12 months as a whole that you can really see all the highs and the journey so far.

It's been a good 12 months, I'd say.  I've had some brilliant holidays, which is always good in my book, but I've had a kind of gentle bubbling layer of contentment at home too.  Partly because the house I bought right at the end of last year is now starting to feel like a home.  It's not shiny and beautifully presented like those ones you see on Instagram (and stalk on Insta, if you're me and hungry for inspiration), but it's my safe space from the world and it's starting to look like me.  Which I love.  I didn't do quite as much home improvement as I'd hoped because ... money ... but what I did do I'm happy with.  Main bedroom and living room painted, new carpet in the main bedroom, guest bedroom feature wall done, and furniture starting to appear where it should be in the living room.  I also grew things in the garden this year - actual things!!!  There was a parsnip that survived from seed to fully grown (which is a bloody miracle, let me tell you!), and I learnt a lot that I can apply to my little garden next year.

Otto the Cat came to live with me, and I learnt that I could in fact take care of another living being successfully.  He's covered the house in fur and takes up 75% of my bed on a regular basis at night but he's taught me that you can't be a perfectionist about everything .... and if you paint two rooms in your house he'll choose those two to sit in the windows of and leave grubby paw prints on your nice new paintwork.  Sigh.  Good job I'm slavishly devoted to the furball, eh?

Probably most importantly to this blog, I feel like I made massive strides in my quest to end my battle with food.  Something clicked in May - a combination of yet another weekend away overeating leaving me just over 15 stone on the scales, and the after-effects of coaching and all my reading and investigation bringing me to a place where I was ready to take responsibility and had the tools to do something about it - and I embarked on a new chapter.  I dared to rejoin Weightwatchers but with the confidence to try doing things my own way and 7 months later I've gently and pretty effortlessly lost over a stone.

Despite the annual Dieter's Doom that is Christmas, I've lost weight in December.  I've put on less than 2lbs over the Christmas week itself, but I've been able to enjoy everything I wanted to.  I've not felt out of control, or deprived, or binging over the period at all.  Although I have to come to realise, especially as I was hosting for the first time this year, that there is an extraordinary amount of pressure placed on Christmas being perfect that originates from food.  Was your Christmas perfect if you didn't have an extravagant Christmas lunch followed by Christmas pud and brandy butter?  Did you do it properly if you didn't have a full spread of a Christmas evening tea?  Did it even happen if you didn't have the cheeseboard and port, the mince-pies, the mulled wine, the chocolates, the chocolate biscuits, the canapés and whatever else we associate with Christmas?

The answer, I've discovered, is "yes".  Christmas is whatever you choose to make it, but the food isn't make or break, and if I'm hosting again next year, I'll choose to tone it down - especially as it's just Dad and I, because I've been eating leftovers for a week now and I'm bored!

What saved my festive period, was meal-planning the busiest weeks.  I marked down exactly what meals I was out for, and I planned and batch-cooked my favourite healthy comfort food around it - and honestly, that saved me falling into a pile of unnecessary snacks multiple times, because I knew I had great food to go home to and I wasn't starving when I arrived at events.  It allowed me to switch out of "celebration" mode between events and just carry on as normal - well-fuelled and guilt-free.  I also made sure I got plenty of sleep.

In fact, my whole December has felt pretty good on the health front.  I made a decision early on that the best way to tackle it was to think like a naturally thin person - I imagined that they would indulge a bit at Christmas, enjoy the good bits and probably be a lb or 2 heavier at the end of the month, but they wouldn't turn it into a month long binge.  So, I decided that the honest tracking absolutely had to continue - if I was going to gain a bit I wanted to be able to honestly say "I know how that happened".  I also wanted to not feel any guilt about seeing higher than normal totals on my tracker at the end of the week - no food is "bad" or "naughty", I've worked hard to get to that point and I didn't want to undo that - so I resolved to just view each number neutrally and observe how I felt in myself after eating the richer food of the Christmas season.

I've had my two highest total weeks on the tracker in 7 months in December - Christmas week and New Years week - and I think that's probably exactly how it should be.  There's a lot of treats still in the house but I'm able to leave them be and just have a bit now and then.  Most of the actual Christmas food has now either been finished or binned because it had lingered too long.  I've done a fresh meal plan and shopped and I'm back eating normally and looking forward to see what 2018 brings!

I'd call that a success!