Slovenly Slumber

Well, it's been a while since my last post - and I have not been a SW hero in that time. I have been industrious, work was frantic with much travel, Christmas preparations all happened and I have had a lovely slovenly Christmas with family and friends just enjoying the respite - but, now, its time to climb back on plan with a vengeance, undo any damage I have inflicted and move forward into 2014 where I will hit my target weight.

Christmas in our house was as much about balancing food on top of food in the fridge due to lack of space, cooking for hours and eating together at the table for hours as it was about Gifts, Singstar and Buzz :) All enjoyable, and no guilt, but, not a way of life just a few days taken out.

I have no doubt I have added to the weight I need to lose, but I have chosen today, 27th December to get back to plan - there was a temptation to wait until the New Year, but then I wondered, why?

So, today I got up and wrote a week long food plan, checked I have everything I need, and wrote some Q1 (Jan, Feb and Mar) personal objectives for myself.

1. By the End of March my Weight will be < 13 Stone

2.I will run the Pednor Loop in < 60 minutes, so must train to do so

3. I will put savings of £10 per lb lost to one side to treat myself for achieving my Q1 Aims :)

I have not weighed in for a while, but expect that I will now have approx. 21 lbs to lose to achieve objective 1, so must aim for a minimum average loss of 2lb per week - achievable but needs me to stay focused and exercise.

The lowlights of the last few weeks for me - not really being 100% on plan, and the highlights - finding out that I can honestly run properly now, never going a day without walking the lovely hound dogs (so always getting some fresh air and time for reflection), knowing I have a plan to return to that I can do!

Good luck to each of you with your Christmas, and New Year, may you know what you want from 2014 and achieve it :)

Cheers 

xx

Zoomies and the Pednor Loop

Zoomies and the Pednor Loop

Well, I am a very naughty girl. One – I haven’t blogged since Monday (I have been working 11 hour days but still, I could have spared half an hour, bad girl). Two – I have been on plan when its easy at home, and when working in London etc I have just been making choices I hope don’t sink me at WI, but not giving it my full attention :( Double bad girl.

I am so looking forward to my new role which starts on 1 December. I will still have to work hard, don’t get me wrong, and, I will miss my team very much – BUT, less travel and more ability to do things which have a routine is just an amazing thought right now. I have even thought about joining a local boot camp for December to kick start the change :) I just couldn’t commit to a time and place on a weekly basis in my old role, I could only make group because my lovely consultant runs groups Tuesday lunchtime, Tuesday evening, Wednesday evening at 2 different times and on a Friday morning.

So anyway, enough self punishment, it’s Sunday, the sun is shining and I woke up with a sense of purpose (and a Labrador examining my face closely but never mind). Today, I am going to Walk the hounds (of course), and, I am going to go and run the Pednor Loop – it is a road run near me of just over 5 miles with some hills involved – I am going to make an awesome playlist and go run it in the fresh air - and this is my stake in the ground, my commitment that there is no going back and I best get the hell on track. Best start with a big breakfast then, SW friendly and no syns needed:

Being Remembrance Sunday – whilst I was running, I was thinking about my Grandad and Grandma and all they went through, and what good people they were – miss them x, also my Mum and her brother, who are also both gone and very missed x - who are also below, they are wearing black out curtains as that was the only material my Grandma had to clothe them in just after the war:

After my run, (which was indeed hard but I enjoyed it, beautiful route and lovely day out there. Also after reading about some of the horrid things that happen to the passengers on weight loss journeys, I was delighted when a guy in a group of cyclists who was struggling to cycle up a hill I was struggling to run up, paused next to me and shouted 'Come on we can do this!' - and we did :), then he grinned at me, cycled off, and I quite litterally jogged on - so some people show a little solidarity, how nice). Anyway, then I walked the pair with a bit of a good ache in my muscles. Henry has been quite good today by his standards, he stole and ate 4 low fat quorn sausages – and chewed the corner of my diary when I left him to have a shower – but by his standards this is him being very restrained:

He did zoomies up and down the living room, misplacing both mats and no doubt scratching the oak floor just a bit more – but this was due to excitement, or, overdose of quorn – not sure which.

So, I did it, 8.6km of jogging up hill mostly, it took me 1 hour 19 mins (which is dreadful time, my son does the same run in 40 mins – but he is young, is not carrying any extra weight and is clearly fitter than moi )

Then  after I had returned from the hour long dog walk, I made a delicious roast dinner, I had to allow a couple of syns for the gravy:

I then had a short nap, and woke up with a sweet craving – so an options with a few marshmallows for approx 4 syns.

Now my plan is to watch Strictly dance off, and get an early night to face next week.

I hope your Remembrance Sunday was a good one x

Cold Mornings, Train Journeys and General Panic

Cold Mornings, Train Journeys and Panic

So, it turns out that a bad nights sleep and waking up at stupid o’clock make me ratty. Fancy.

I didn’t sleep well, I did lie awake listening to the hammering rain on our roof for some time….but really not sure why proper rest would not happen. At 5.40am I was far from fresh – and the dark outside was mirrored on my face.

I did struggle on and get ready and face the freezing cold of the morning in my car, and on the station platform, to get to my client meeting in London. A 15 minute walk from Westminster train station, down past the houses of parliament and along Millbank to Horseferry Road completed my commute. My colleague was late arriving so I grabbed a porridge and cup of tea whilst waiting  -  which was very very welcome and did improve my mood a little. I do have a feeling though that I photo bombed several tourists photographs whilst striding purposefully down the road, ah well, they have all day to take more photos presumably.

Meeting went as well as it could, then I was rushing to reverse my journey in the lunchtime rush hour and get back to my car – and drive 40 minutes in the other direction to client meeting number 2 of the day. By which time my dark mood had returned. I grabbed a quick bite at client site and had to estimate the syns – so tired of not having complete control of what I consume, the will to follow plan is 100% there, but the days and nights in hotels and client sites seriously jeopardize my chances of measuring everything I need to, and not accidently having syns in food I don’t know about – golly I am a moody baggage today and no mistake. So, I am assuming my syns today are at least gone, and probably over.

Well, Client meeting number 2 done, I sat with my team on that site till nearly 6.15 pm then did the hour and a half commute to my home – outside of rush hour the same journey would take about an hour, but with the heavy traffic it was 7.45 pm before I got through my front door.

Welcomed by the hounds, bless them – hubby walked them today and I am actually a little miffed as I like walking them mostly. So, I put dinner on, emptied the dish washer, put some washing in and opened my post. Ate dinner which was zero syn casserole (as it was the only meal of the day I totally controlled I did not want to have any syns in it! It might help compensate for the rest of my day, you never know):

WI tomorrow, heaven help me with the past week travelling, in hotels, on client sites and generally not as organised as I would like I am not looking forward to it.

Anyway – so, it looks like I had porridge with honey for breakfast (HEA and HEB with oats and milk) plus 2 syns for the honey ish. Lunch was a sandwich due to that was all that was left – brown bread x 2 syned with salad and chicken all ok, but also had mayo in there so some syns for that too……

I have also eaten an apple, and a banana. How exciting food wise, not. The desk at my clients in my teams room was littered with biscuits and treats, here are some, which I did not eat:

Anyway tomorrows meeting in London has been cancelled, so that’s good – a day to relax a little more and get some of the work done on my to do list - I still have to go to Reading for a meeting in the afternoon, but its still an improvement on the day that was planned.

I choose a dress and ordered it also - it did cheer me up a little:

I bought it in a size 16, and when I started to lose weight it would have been in a 20-22 :) So that should cheer me up.

Well, onwards to the panic of weigh in on WEdnesday evening, wish me luck x

 

Travelling at the Speed of Light

Where did my Weekend Go?

So Saturday morning I was up at 7am thanks to Henry again – bless him he does not like to lay in. Harry our basset would happily snooze on for an hour or two –but Henry wants action the moment his eyes open – if I didn’t have him I am sure I would be at least 2 stone heavier as he gets me up and at em every day (now whether I always like that is another conversation entirely).

Hubby made me a cup of tea and then he headed off to the chiropractor – he is fine but after having had an issue some time ago he now goes once every 6 weeks to ensure he stays beautifully aligned and it seems to work for him. So I dyed my hair as it was looking a little shameful. Hair done I had a quick shower and got ready for the day – totally prepared for life by 9am, not bad.

Our son woke up and I made him some tea, then when we were both dressed and ready we headed out to meet my lovely daughter for Brunch. It was cozy wandering round the shops and then having a scrummy brunch with just me and the children (well, children are 25 and 19 now – but still my babies), we chatted about their plans and what we want to do at Christmas and I ate a SW friendly breakfast at one of our favorite lunch spots in Beaconsfield. We had an extra coffee before we were ready to all leave and get on with our day – and decided we should meet for Saturday brunch more often – which is fine by me.

My son and I then went and took his car to get a couple of new tyres, and terrifyingly it turned out to be nearly 4pm by then, so he quickly changed and headed off to his part time pocket money job (as he is still studying). I did a little housework, put some washing on, failed to make a couple of catch up calls I had planned, walked the dogs for just over an hour (getting rather wet), and made SW spag bol for dinner.

Yep, in the true tradition of a week end day – it was gone before I’d properly had time to settle in to it! Which time stealing worm hole follows me round every week end? No, really – its unbelievable that week end days just evaporate so fast.

So after spag bol, and some strictly – I was very naughtly and ate some ice cream AND had a glass of wine – so I will have to make up for that with exercise and abstinence going forward.

Bed beckoned at around 10 pm as the week had been looonnnngggg and I was v tired, I read my book and played on my ipad till nearly midnight however, and pondered whether the great god of lottery wins would smile upon me – he didn’t.

Sunday started early, again – this time I got up with a bit of a back ache and made us tea, and fed the hounds. I took my tea back to bed but didn’t really find it restful as my back was still a little sore for some reason, so I got up, put the news on and started breakfast – a full SW one for the last day of the weekend:

Sunday morning passed folding up laundry, putting washing on, and generally pottering around doing all the daft little jobs needed to head into Monday with half a chance of surviving the week. I also spent half an hour planning my meals for this week (I am in London Monday morning followed by a meeting in Bucks on Monday afternoon, in London Tuesday and Wednesday with various meetings and in Bucks on Thursday – so a plan is essential if I am going to stay on plan).

By 11.45 I knew I was pushing my luck with Henry and Harry, so I headed out for their walk (they have constant access to our enclosed garden so they can have a trot round in the fresh air whenever they like, but they make it clear this is no substitute for the fresh air and surroundings offered by our walkies)– the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day, the views were worth the hour and a half of walking up and down the Chilterms, and the wind blew away any cobwebs, well I think the walk I took was one of those that is good for the soul – views from todays stroll:

Once home, Henry and Harry settled down for their afternoon rest:

Lunch was the left over spag bol, a Satsuma and yogurt – all very nice thank you.

The bit of doggie walking body magic was nice, but no replacement for the gym, so after a little more housework I headed back out and into the gym for a run on the treadmill and some resistance training. Then I really was wiped out, so some preparation sitting down for tomorrows meetings was almost welcome.

Much later, after a couple of hours on my laptop and yet another tea,  I made diet coke chicken for dinner:

Another faster than the speed of light week end day, I am seriously considering booking a week off at home just to have some time to enjoy being at home? Does anyone else get like that at this time of year? Seeing my home in day light would be nice occasionally…..

Ah well, after dinner we watched Strictly elimination and then a little reading and you guessed it, off to bed (given I have to be up at 5.30am bed seemed a good plan).

Just before I snuggled down, I randomly considered the advice people give – you know the ‘don’t spoil your children’, ‘don’t pander to your dogs’, ‘you’ll make a rod for your own back’ type advice. I thought, stuff them – I did spoil my children and I am very proud of both of them, they are good people. I did spoil my dogs and they make me laugh every single day. The first year we had rescued Harry, he lay shaking on my lap for every second of the local  fireworks display, and against all advice I cuddled him like a baby – this weekend, he watched them out of the window and showed no concern at all. So, just maybe the most important advice we can ever have is from our own conscience, that tells us what is right for us, and when. Sorry, didn’t mean to be philosophical – just really did pop into my head as I was drifting off.

I hope your week end passed a little slower than mine, and that it was filled with good stuff , success this week peoples x