It's a quiet day today for me. My food is planned and so far I'm sticking to it. I'll be spinning later and want to get in at least 15 mins on the treadmill at the gym before or after the class. I've started to get the Fear about the run in Jan and need to up how much I'm running each week, whether that's short runs built around my classes or longer runs outside.
I'm also being a grumpy, ungrateful bitch today. I found out yesterday that the New Years party I accepted an invite to back in September is now only going to be myself and my friends Bridget and Tim, and Steve and Amanda. Yep - two couples. And two of the most coupley couples I know at that. It's every single girl's worst nightmare, finding out that you're actually celebrating New Year with 2 couples and a very grown up dinner party, when what you were expecting when you accepted was a raucous party full of lots of people.
The worst part is that I have 3 other New Year invites - all to the kind of event I'd like to be going to, but when I accepted Bridget and Tim's invite back in September I thought I was working the whole of New Year and therefore couldn't make any of the others as they're all away trips for several nights. Now I know that I'm not actually working and could go on any of the others, but Bridget will be really upset if I back out now. What's a girl to do? Go to an evening that's just going to rub in my face how very single I am and will frankly depress the hell out of me, however much Bridget promises me that it won't, or upset one of my best friends in a purely selfish move to make myself feel better??
I need some advice here folks, because at the moment I'm just considering throwing a sicky and ditching New Year in favour of curling up in bed and shutting out the world!!
-- Posted from my iPhone
Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts
Monday, 7 December 2009
Sunday, 6 December 2009
Out of the clouds
I'm feeling a lot like the picture below, as this weekend draws to a close:
After the doom and gloom of Friday's weigh in (which I also have to subsequently own up to - I can't add up - I'd gained another lb, not half a lb .... boooooo!), and the realisation that I'd been cheating myself last week, I feel like a bit of a rainbow peeking out from behind the dark clouds ... evidence that there might be better, less stormy weather on the way.
I've had a good weekend - I had a bit of a stroppy morning at work on Friday, when I realised that as per usual on my short day in the office, I had a list longer than my arm of stuff that had to be done. Yuck - but ultimately I knuckled down and got it sorted. There were cakes in the office yet again, but I behaved myself this time. By the time I left for the afternoon, I was feeling the need for a bit of therapy and relaxation time. I wanted some fresh air, and since I've been wanting sweet stuff all week, I thought it was time to go the whole hog (in a controlled fashion) and just bake something nice for the weekend.
I find time in the kitchen to be very therapeutic - especially if I'm doing something new which has lots of prep stuff to do, and requires me to pay attention to a recipe. It's time when I can just put aside the troubles of the day, and do something else completely. The other benefit to baking being that I get something sweet to eat, that probably tastes infinitely nicer than a chocolate bar or shop-bought cake (well, it does when it works anyway!), and isn't full of artificial crap, because I know exactly what all-fresh ingredients went in there.
After a happy 20mins perusing my baking book, I settled on Raspberry, White Chocolate & Cinnamon Blondie, and walked into town to go and collect the missing ingredients and have a little mooch. Feeling a lot better for the fresh air / leg stretch, I settled down to make a mess in the kitchen, and about an hour later, this is what came out the oven:
Dense, scrumptious cake with a raspberry and white chocolate layer right through the middle - think a kind of albino chocolate brownie. And better still - 4.5pts a square!! I took it round to the boys' next door and they happily devoured some with me. Well worth the splatter effect left in the kitchen, which it turns out happens when you don't grate the butternut squash finely enough and it gets caught in the whisk .... ooops!!
I was happy with Friday - I stuck to my points, I de-stressed for the weekend, I tried a new recipe which was a resounding success, and I remembered to take some of Thursday's tasty soup with me for lunch.
Saturday, I spent with my new flatmate Sheena, stripping wallpaper in the back bedroom, so we can redecorate before she moves in in a couple of weeks. We had a really productive day, and managed to do pretty much all of it - I just need to tidy up the bits round the skirting boards and coving before Dad comes round to help me rehang the lining paper.
I did learn a valuable lesson yesterday though - another bad habit that's contributed to my weight gain prior to the start of the year. By the time we broke for lunch, I suggested we do what we've often done in the past - grab some fresh baguette from the supermarket, a roast chicken from the rotisserie counter, salad and some crisps and build yummy, fresh sandwiches. Total error!!!! We used to do this all the time on weekends when there was a group of us - everyone just building whatever combination they want and sharing the food, but when I added it up to track afterwards, I realised that my little half baguette and vegetable crisps had cost me a mighty 16.5pts!! Good grief.
This actually made me pretty sad initially, as it's such a fun social way to eat, as well as marvelling at how deluded I'd been. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought of ways I could make it healthier without too much trouble. I mistakenly had cheese as well as chicken ... extra 4.5pts (god, I miss the lovely nutty taste of Jarlsburg - heaven!) and didn't measure out the crisps and just put them in a shared bowl - just sorting out those two things, would have saved me about 6 points or so, taking the lunch to a more manageable 10pts. Having a roll instead of my demi-baguette would have saved me more. Small changes, but at least I feel educated now.
Takeaway for tea (pre-planned and I didn't automatically scoff all of it), and then a lazy evening watching Strictly Come Dancing and Inglourious Basterds, which may well be my favourite Tarantino film to date. I also managed a pretty good job at keeping my hands out of the snacks Sheena had bought (Doritos and Cadbury's Buttons), and stayed off the vino in favour of Diet Coke. So, some points over from the lunch error, but not catastrophic by any means.
Cleaning up this morning, and be very proud of me please guys, all the leftovers - including half a share bag of Doritos went in the bin. No picking whatsoever!!
I've had quite a productive day today - I've cleared all the mess from the second bedroom and bagged it up, taken two of the four rubbish bags, plus two bin bags of non-recyclable clothes to the tip, tidied the flat, done some washing, been to look at ski jackets at Cotswold Outdoors, and now I'm sitting waiting for Bridget to come round for tea and tv. My food has all been planned for the day, including enough left for tea and a slice of cake afterwards. Nice.
In fact, since I've got a spare 5 mins, I might sit and plan my food for the next couple of days, something I very rarely do, but I've got a 3 course Christmas meal on Tuesday night with my spinning class and it can't hurt to be prepared.
So I'll leave you with a picture of my pretty Christmas tree which I put up on Sat afternoon - I've never had a full-size tree before, so I was very excited to have a proper 6ft one!! I love it as it's got all my mum's Christmas decorations on, some of which date from Austria in the 70's - it's nice to see them out again.
Hope you all had a good weekend!!
Mwah!!
After the doom and gloom of Friday's weigh in (which I also have to subsequently own up to - I can't add up - I'd gained another lb, not half a lb .... boooooo!), and the realisation that I'd been cheating myself last week, I feel like a bit of a rainbow peeking out from behind the dark clouds ... evidence that there might be better, less stormy weather on the way.
I've had a good weekend - I had a bit of a stroppy morning at work on Friday, when I realised that as per usual on my short day in the office, I had a list longer than my arm of stuff that had to be done. Yuck - but ultimately I knuckled down and got it sorted. There were cakes in the office yet again, but I behaved myself this time. By the time I left for the afternoon, I was feeling the need for a bit of therapy and relaxation time. I wanted some fresh air, and since I've been wanting sweet stuff all week, I thought it was time to go the whole hog (in a controlled fashion) and just bake something nice for the weekend.
I find time in the kitchen to be very therapeutic - especially if I'm doing something new which has lots of prep stuff to do, and requires me to pay attention to a recipe. It's time when I can just put aside the troubles of the day, and do something else completely. The other benefit to baking being that I get something sweet to eat, that probably tastes infinitely nicer than a chocolate bar or shop-bought cake (well, it does when it works anyway!), and isn't full of artificial crap, because I know exactly what all-fresh ingredients went in there.
After a happy 20mins perusing my baking book, I settled on Raspberry, White Chocolate & Cinnamon Blondie, and walked into town to go and collect the missing ingredients and have a little mooch. Feeling a lot better for the fresh air / leg stretch, I settled down to make a mess in the kitchen, and about an hour later, this is what came out the oven:
Dense, scrumptious cake with a raspberry and white chocolate layer right through the middle - think a kind of albino chocolate brownie. And better still - 4.5pts a square!! I took it round to the boys' next door and they happily devoured some with me. Well worth the splatter effect left in the kitchen, which it turns out happens when you don't grate the butternut squash finely enough and it gets caught in the whisk .... ooops!!
I was happy with Friday - I stuck to my points, I de-stressed for the weekend, I tried a new recipe which was a resounding success, and I remembered to take some of Thursday's tasty soup with me for lunch.
Saturday, I spent with my new flatmate Sheena, stripping wallpaper in the back bedroom, so we can redecorate before she moves in in a couple of weeks. We had a really productive day, and managed to do pretty much all of it - I just need to tidy up the bits round the skirting boards and coving before Dad comes round to help me rehang the lining paper.
I did learn a valuable lesson yesterday though - another bad habit that's contributed to my weight gain prior to the start of the year. By the time we broke for lunch, I suggested we do what we've often done in the past - grab some fresh baguette from the supermarket, a roast chicken from the rotisserie counter, salad and some crisps and build yummy, fresh sandwiches. Total error!!!! We used to do this all the time on weekends when there was a group of us - everyone just building whatever combination they want and sharing the food, but when I added it up to track afterwards, I realised that my little half baguette and vegetable crisps had cost me a mighty 16.5pts!! Good grief.
This actually made me pretty sad initially, as it's such a fun social way to eat, as well as marvelling at how deluded I'd been. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought of ways I could make it healthier without too much trouble. I mistakenly had cheese as well as chicken ... extra 4.5pts (god, I miss the lovely nutty taste of Jarlsburg - heaven!) and didn't measure out the crisps and just put them in a shared bowl - just sorting out those two things, would have saved me about 6 points or so, taking the lunch to a more manageable 10pts. Having a roll instead of my demi-baguette would have saved me more. Small changes, but at least I feel educated now.
Takeaway for tea (pre-planned and I didn't automatically scoff all of it), and then a lazy evening watching Strictly Come Dancing and Inglourious Basterds, which may well be my favourite Tarantino film to date. I also managed a pretty good job at keeping my hands out of the snacks Sheena had bought (Doritos and Cadbury's Buttons), and stayed off the vino in favour of Diet Coke. So, some points over from the lunch error, but not catastrophic by any means.
Cleaning up this morning, and be very proud of me please guys, all the leftovers - including half a share bag of Doritos went in the bin. No picking whatsoever!!
I've had quite a productive day today - I've cleared all the mess from the second bedroom and bagged it up, taken two of the four rubbish bags, plus two bin bags of non-recyclable clothes to the tip, tidied the flat, done some washing, been to look at ski jackets at Cotswold Outdoors, and now I'm sitting waiting for Bridget to come round for tea and tv. My food has all been planned for the day, including enough left for tea and a slice of cake afterwards. Nice.
In fact, since I've got a spare 5 mins, I might sit and plan my food for the next couple of days, something I very rarely do, but I've got a 3 course Christmas meal on Tuesday night with my spinning class and it can't hurt to be prepared.
So I'll leave you with a picture of my pretty Christmas tree which I put up on Sat afternoon - I've never had a full-size tree before, so I was very excited to have a proper 6ft one!! I love it as it's got all my mum's Christmas decorations on, some of which date from Austria in the 70's - it's nice to see them out again.
Hope you all had a good weekend!!
Mwah!!
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
The holiday season
I'm trying very hard to avoid a food focused melt-down this week. With holiday's now looming, I'm starting to feel the inclination to just say sod it - write it all off to the holiday - and that's really not what I want to do. Doesn't help that I'm still suffering crazy hormonal sugar cravings, and as we all know, that crap is addictive, so you just keep wanting it once you start.
So far this week, I'm trying to balance the sugar / eat crap urge with fruit, so I'm still in my points. Just about. I'm determined to keep my eating normal right up til I leave. New, healthy, normal that is.
But I'm thinking a change of strategy for next week might be in order. I wasn't going to point at all next week, just live a little and trust myself to make good choices. But Norway proves that I'm not terribly good at that yet, and I really don't want to come back with a humongous gain to deal with. I can't track properly while I'm away, as I'm an online WW's subscriber, and there is zero internet access in ol' Scotlandio, but I'm thinking that I could take a nice little notebook with me and at least food diary for the length of my trip. At least I'll have to be honest about my decisions then.
I need a plan, folks, as that's how I function best.
I'm intending on taking my own cereal and milk with me, so that breakfasts are sorted, as well as a selection of fruit and calorie-controlled snacks, and sugar-free squash. Lunchtimes we tend to forage for ourselves, so I'm sure I can keep that healthy, but dinners are a lost cause as we cook and eat together, so it's majority rule on what we get. On the upside, there's only so many things that you can make for 11 people in a pretty basic kitchen, so most evenings it's something like cottage pie, or pasta and sauce, or chilli - pretty basic home-cooked food. I reckon that if I apply my new portion-control eyes to my main serving, and then dose up on the usually plentiful veg that will help.
Alcohol-wise, it's going to be avoid the wine, and stick to the vodka and slim-line tonic. And much as I love Pimms, I'll need to limit that too.
So I'll take my Sue Survives Scotland provisions box with me. And, I know this sounds stupid, but I think I'm going to print this post out and clip it to the inside of suitcase, so I see it every morning. It might help remind me if I start to slip.
Scales-wise this week isn't going great so far - I've somehow gone back up 2lbs as at this morning, but I won't let it upset me - the scales are going back in the cupboard til Saturday now. I've got too much else to focus on this week. I've got shit-loads of washing, organising and packing to do, and literally zero money as I don't get paid til Monday (shit, fuck, bollocks - why is pay-day always such bad timing????). I've got Bridget coming over tonight for a catch-up, and I'm having lunch with my Dad on Friday. I've got pilates tonight and Body Combat tomorrow. I've got a pile of work you wouldn't believe that I have to deal with in the office, and severe decluttering that I have to do before Friday as they're moving my desk while I'm away. What I don't have is enough hours in the day.
Measurements
I took these again on Monday - a half-inch here or there off hips, arms and legs since June, but yet again, no movement on my waist. Seriously - when is that going to start to move again! Egg on legs is not a good look! The buddha belly must go!! Anyhoo, I'll put them up here when i get round to it.
I think that's most of my whinging done for today. It's just taken me half an hour to nibble my way through a Mr Kipling Bakewell Tart - there are yet more cakes in the office and it seemed like the least evil option. I'm debating whether I've got the time or money to order myself another hoodie from the internet and have it arrive in time for Scotland. And some luggage too. I hate being broke and disorganised. It sucks. I suck. Meh.
So far this week, I'm trying to balance the sugar / eat crap urge with fruit, so I'm still in my points. Just about. I'm determined to keep my eating normal right up til I leave. New, healthy, normal that is.
But I'm thinking a change of strategy for next week might be in order. I wasn't going to point at all next week, just live a little and trust myself to make good choices. But Norway proves that I'm not terribly good at that yet, and I really don't want to come back with a humongous gain to deal with. I can't track properly while I'm away, as I'm an online WW's subscriber, and there is zero internet access in ol' Scotlandio, but I'm thinking that I could take a nice little notebook with me and at least food diary for the length of my trip. At least I'll have to be honest about my decisions then.
I need a plan, folks, as that's how I function best.
I'm intending on taking my own cereal and milk with me, so that breakfasts are sorted, as well as a selection of fruit and calorie-controlled snacks, and sugar-free squash. Lunchtimes we tend to forage for ourselves, so I'm sure I can keep that healthy, but dinners are a lost cause as we cook and eat together, so it's majority rule on what we get. On the upside, there's only so many things that you can make for 11 people in a pretty basic kitchen, so most evenings it's something like cottage pie, or pasta and sauce, or chilli - pretty basic home-cooked food. I reckon that if I apply my new portion-control eyes to my main serving, and then dose up on the usually plentiful veg that will help.
Alcohol-wise, it's going to be avoid the wine, and stick to the vodka and slim-line tonic. And much as I love Pimms, I'll need to limit that too.
So I'll take my Sue Survives Scotland provisions box with me. And, I know this sounds stupid, but I think I'm going to print this post out and clip it to the inside of suitcase, so I see it every morning. It might help remind me if I start to slip.
Scales-wise this week isn't going great so far - I've somehow gone back up 2lbs as at this morning, but I won't let it upset me - the scales are going back in the cupboard til Saturday now. I've got too much else to focus on this week. I've got shit-loads of washing, organising and packing to do, and literally zero money as I don't get paid til Monday (shit, fuck, bollocks - why is pay-day always such bad timing????). I've got Bridget coming over tonight for a catch-up, and I'm having lunch with my Dad on Friday. I've got pilates tonight and Body Combat tomorrow. I've got a pile of work you wouldn't believe that I have to deal with in the office, and severe decluttering that I have to do before Friday as they're moving my desk while I'm away. What I don't have is enough hours in the day.
Measurements
I took these again on Monday - a half-inch here or there off hips, arms and legs since June, but yet again, no movement on my waist. Seriously - when is that going to start to move again! Egg on legs is not a good look! The buddha belly must go!! Anyhoo, I'll put them up here when i get round to it.
I think that's most of my whinging done for today. It's just taken me half an hour to nibble my way through a Mr Kipling Bakewell Tart - there are yet more cakes in the office and it seemed like the least evil option. I'm debating whether I've got the time or money to order myself another hoodie from the internet and have it arrive in time for Scotland. And some luggage too. I hate being broke and disorganised. It sucks. I suck. Meh.
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Into the unknown
Without stepping on the scales in the mornings, I'm feeling a little bit lost this week. I don't know whether I'm up, or down, or exactly where I was on Monday, which is strange for me as I'm used to knowing exactly what weight I am.
I find it hard not to get paranoid that nothing's happening, or worse, that something is happening and it's a gain. I don't know where this paranoia comes from - whether it's still a sense of disbelief that Weight Watchers not only works, but that I'm managing to stick to it, or if it's a lack of confidence in my own continuing abilities to keep going like this - but I wish it would fade and go away.
I'm not going to let my sense of unease put me off though. I've been good so far this week, and although there's a few challenges coming up over the weekend, I see no reason why I can't see this week out successfully.
I'm now going out for dinner on Friday night - think I shall ring the restaurant either tonight or tomorrow and get the menu so I can mull my choices over and do a bit of planning. It's hard to point their food as everything is homecooked, and generally quite luxurious, but on the upside everything's homecooked (lol) from good, fresh ingredients, lots of veg (and tasty veg, not anaemic, floppy things resembling carrots), and if you ask nicely they're willing to be flexible over stuff. I'm also thinking walk to and from the restaurant (20 mins each way) and stay off the booze - there's going to be enough of that over the rest of the weekend!
I'm then heading down to Ascot overnight on Saturday. We're going to the horse races during the day (DANGER!!!! The legendary Ascot burgers ahoy - VERY bad idea - need to steer clear of that!) whoop - can't wait, that's going to be so much fun! And then in the evening we're going straight out for dinner. Luckily, I've been let off the hook a bit here as the restaurant for the evening is Asian cuisine, and we've been asked to pre-order - I've asked for a sizzling prawn dish with ginger and lime, which should be pretty healthy. As long as I stick to a small portion of plain rice, avoid the prawn crackers, and maybe get some thin soup to fill me up, I should be ok.
Oh, and STAY AWAY FROM THE WINE. AND THE PIMMS.
Okaaaaay - there's my plan. I feel a bit calmer knowing what I'm doing.
I find it hard not to get paranoid that nothing's happening, or worse, that something is happening and it's a gain. I don't know where this paranoia comes from - whether it's still a sense of disbelief that Weight Watchers not only works, but that I'm managing to stick to it, or if it's a lack of confidence in my own continuing abilities to keep going like this - but I wish it would fade and go away.
I'm not going to let my sense of unease put me off though. I've been good so far this week, and although there's a few challenges coming up over the weekend, I see no reason why I can't see this week out successfully.
I'm now going out for dinner on Friday night - think I shall ring the restaurant either tonight or tomorrow and get the menu so I can mull my choices over and do a bit of planning. It's hard to point their food as everything is homecooked, and generally quite luxurious, but on the upside everything's homecooked (lol) from good, fresh ingredients, lots of veg (and tasty veg, not anaemic, floppy things resembling carrots), and if you ask nicely they're willing to be flexible over stuff. I'm also thinking walk to and from the restaurant (20 mins each way) and stay off the booze - there's going to be enough of that over the rest of the weekend!
I'm then heading down to Ascot overnight on Saturday. We're going to the horse races during the day (DANGER!!!! The legendary Ascot burgers ahoy - VERY bad idea - need to steer clear of that!) whoop - can't wait, that's going to be so much fun! And then in the evening we're going straight out for dinner. Luckily, I've been let off the hook a bit here as the restaurant for the evening is Asian cuisine, and we've been asked to pre-order - I've asked for a sizzling prawn dish with ginger and lime, which should be pretty healthy. As long as I stick to a small portion of plain rice, avoid the prawn crackers, and maybe get some thin soup to fill me up, I should be ok.
Oh, and STAY AWAY FROM THE WINE. AND THE PIMMS.
Okaaaaay - there's my plan. I feel a bit calmer knowing what I'm doing.
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