Lazy Days

I have had a thoroughly self-indulgent day, and it's been bloody great.  I slept in, and when I finally did get up, I had a proper weekend treat breakfast sat on my sofa, in my pj's in the sunshine, taking my time and reading.  I loafed around til lunchtime, and did a few much needed jobs on my to-do list that could be done from the comfort of the sofa (phone call type stuff). 

This afternoon I took a wander up to Clifton Village, which I've been meaning to do for ages now, to have a bit of a nose around and an explore.  It's about a 40 min walk from the flat, but it was a nice afternoon, and I needed to stretch my legs a bit.  I love the mix of boutiques and independent stores up there - it is so damn quaint!  I seriously think I aspire to having one of the gorgeous modern flats up there one day - a chic pad, views of the city, but all the loveliness of the shops and bars at your fingertips.  One day, huh?

Since I'd handily packed my current book, I found myself a promising looking coffee shop and treated myself** to a decadent mid-afternoon tea; a praline hot-chocolate and one of the nicest blueberry and yoghurt muffins ever.  I spent a very enjoyable hour + lazing in the coffee shop, lingering over my cake, reading and doing some quality people watching.  They're very fashonable folks up there in the Village!

Another stroll back down the hill later bought me home for some Glee and tasty stir-fry for dinner.

It's been a lovely day, but I have to admit, as much as I've enjoyed dancing only to my own tune and doing exactly what I want, I have been feeling a little nostalgic and would have enjoyed having someone around to share that with; good friend, loved one, someone special ... just someone to share it with.

In terms of food, I'm doing ok this weekend.  I had a work dinner out last night, which although not terrible did involve rather more alchohol than I'd originally intended (and a follow-up moment of "Oh God, why did I tell them that?" this morning as I recalled my beverage-induced chattiness last night) - between that and my afternoon tea, I've burned through my flex points for this week already.  That's not a problem though, as I have another lazy day of nothing planned tomorrow, and I'm usually pretty good with my eating during the week.

Thinking about Claire's feedback last week on how I use my points, I'm going to try a little experiment this week.  I want to work out, what I can get away with in terms of my losses vs points used, so I have a better idea of how the plan works for me.  I tend to be a little haphazard with Weightwatchers, in that I'm either having an absolutely on-the-ball week and haven't used any of my extra points, or like last week I'm right on the edge and have used them all (or far more than). 

Since I don't often have perfect weeks, I need to work out what I can get away with and still have some more consistent losses - if I know what I can get away with, I'll have a far clearer target to aim for.  So for this week, I'm going to aim to use as few of my activity points as possible, but no more than half of them at the most.  Let's see how that works as a starting point.

I'm also trying to pay more attention to how hungry I am, rather than eating because it's a meal-time, or piling the plate high because the points are zero on something.  For instance:  I had a late breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast with some wafer thin turkey and mushrooms this morning, and consequently, I was not at all hungry by late lunchtime.  I had the smoothie and a yoghurt instead (I was feeling a want for some fruit of some sort), and then enjoyed my afternoon tea later.  Dinner was stir-fry as mentioned, but cooked late, as I was once again not so hungry.  Now I have to persuade myself to listen to my belly that is telling me I'm comfortably full, rather than my head which for some reason wants to carry on nibbling on stuff.

I think I might tidy the kitchen, and then retreat to bed with a film for an early night to avoid the siren call of the kitchen cupboards and fridge.

Night all!

** Treat - yes, treat.  I now take note of something I read a while ago, that pointed out that a "treat" is only a treat if you do it rarely.  If it turns into a regular ingulgence, then it's no longer a treat but a habit ... and 9 times out of 10, it will be a bad habit of some sort (shopping, eating, drinking being the usual "treats").  I used to have coffee and cake in coffee shops a lot, and for a dieter, it's a pretty expensive indulgence to make.  I've cut back since, and now I really enjoy it when I get the chance to do it.  I appreciate it more for the fact that I only do it rarely.