Settling In

It's been a week now in my new home, and we'll gloss over the number of boxes still to be unpacked.  Other than that, it seems to be going well, and is starting to feel like normal now.

It was a pretty jam-packed weekend, as it was my friend Bec's 30th.  That meant navigating lunch at Pieminster on Saturday, followed by the pub to watch the rugby and dinner at a very nice restaurant, as well as me having drinks out on Friday night and dinner at Wagamamas.  Ouch!

Surprisingly, I don't think I did too badly at all! I shared a bottle of wine with my friend on Friday evening, but didn't have anything else to drink.  Once at Wagamama's we had a couple of starters to share and I had a noodle main, but I ended up realising I was full about 2/3 of the way through my main and stopped.  Yes - actually stopped. 

On Saturday I had a plan of action - since I was awake at 9.30, I dragged myself out for a 30 min morning run per my training timetable.  I grabbed some cereal after (people - please remind me to eat before my run next time - I'm hideous before I've eaten), and then ran off to meet friends.  I was too worried about running late at that point to walk down to my friend's place, so took the car, but was then able to use that as a viable excuse not to drink all day or stay out too late.  We had lunch at the notorious Pieminster, which was flipping glorious, and I have to confess I had the whole works as it would be kind of rude not too - a Chicken of Aragon pie (chicken breast, bacon and tarragon), mash, minty mushy peas, grated cheese, crispy shallots and gravy (or "groovy" as they call it).  However, between the run and the next activity on the agenda - ice-skating - I felt like I had a bit of leeway.

The ice-skating was loads of fun, as I haven't been in years.  Of course I got over-cocky and went flying twice - where's the fun if you don't push yourself a bit, and the boots ripped my feet to shreds as they always do (damn me for not remember that you need at least three pairs of thick socks), but it was a great giggle.  Afterwards we found a nice pub to watch the rugby in, and I ignored the temptations of mulled cider in favour of Diet Coke - good job I love the stuff. 

I think my greatest victory was dinner though - the restaurant was described as "gourmet pizza, rotisserie and California grill", and was really rather nice (The Firehouse if you're ever in Bristol).  I've also been running low on funds this week due to it being the end of the month and a rather large bill being extracted from my bank account that shouldn't have been.  So I approached dinner with a rather ruthless attitude.  I wanted to keep cheap and relatively healthy.  The stuff from the grill looked lovely, but rather pricey, and I also find it difficult to estimate points on that kind of stuff, so I looked to the pizza menu.  I've eaten out in enough pizzerias to know where I am with those, and I picked a BBQ chicken one.  It was totally delicious, but by the time I was half-way through I knew I was full.  

So, Dear Reader, I stopped.  Yep.  Stopped.  Again.  And sent the plate up the table to the bunch of gannets at the other end to deal with.  Done, dusted and dealt with.  An all-round victory if you ask me.  I didn't bother drinking at all with dinner as it was just unneccesary expense and calories.

Sunday was a total day of sloth as I pretty much slept in til 1pm.  I got up for breakfast, read for an hour in bed, and went back to sleep - heaven!  The rest of the day was spent unpacking various boxes, moving bits of furniture and setting up the tv, including an intricate operation taping the tv aerial cord to the wall in the optimum position to actually receive a signal (the face of the socket is knackered and needs replacing).  Food-wise it wasn't optimum, but it wasn't terrible either.  I'm slowly learning that it's ok to eat unconventionally if that's what you want - I was craving toast and ended up eating it at every meal of the day - plain buttered toast for breakfast, humous, toast and olives for lunch and a poached egg with mushrooms on toast for tea.  Well, why not?

I've been struggling a bit with my appetite that last couple of days as my hormones do their routine monthly dance, but generally speaking I don't think I'm doing too badly.  Especially now I've worked out why I'm ravenous.  I'm still tracking though, and due to lots of walking, I reckon I have a bit of leeway.  I reckon I clocked up around 5 miles of walking yesterday between my work commute and meeting a friend for drinks last night, and I had an amazing yoga class yesterday lunch ....... God, I love my stretches!

No idea what the scales will do this week, but I'll just try and eat well(ish) and keep moving.  Even if I could just get another little tiny dip that would be fine.

(Also - mini-freakout - less than a month til Half-Marathon-Dooms-Day now ...... eeeeeeeeeeek!)