Mud vs Diet- I Much Prefer Mud!!! (Comments Welcome)

[Bonnie151]

Hello!

This is me:

As of Monday I weighed 11 stone 11lbs (165lbs ). This is not good! The dress I'm wearing in the photo does not actually fit me. 5 minutes after I took the photo, the zip burst. This is not good! We're off to WDW in 3.5 weeks and I REALLY want to bring this dress along and not burst the zip!

So- my short term goal is to lose half a stone (7lbs) in the 4 weeks to WDW- a bit ambitious, but we'll see. Longer term, I want to get down to 140 then I'll see how I'm doing and whether I want to lose a bit more.

I don't do calorie counting or Weight Watchers or Dukan or any other specific diet. I know what my problem is - too many large mugs of coffee with spoonful after spoonful of sugar, munching on crisps, sneaking the kids' packets of biscuits and too much general junk. Plus a complete lack of exercise. I walk the kids to school each day and home most days which for me is 2 miles each trip, but only half of each trip counts as exercise because the other half is done at the slow pace of a 7 year old girl!

I hate running, but I absolutely love cycling!! Not road cycling- hate road cycling - but good, muddy off road, dirt track complete chaos cycling. I used to cycle all the time but then I had kids so it's been 10 years! I started back up this week, and oh does it feel good! I'm fortunate enough to live within a couple of minutes of the national 75 cycle path and dozens and dozens of other paths, so roughly half my cycling is done on pavement and the other half is in the mud!

I brought my camera this morning on my ride so that I could post photos here to inspire me to get out when it's wet and miserable, but when I got down to the river I realised I'd left the memory card in the PC. Very annoying! It's supposed to rain for the next few days, but hoepfully I'll get some photos up next week.

I'm going to weigh myself on Saturdays so that I know how much I weigh right before we go to WDW.

 

[Bonnie151]

Weight Tracker

20/08/12: 11 stone 11lb (165lbs)
25/08/12: 11 stone 12.5lb (boo!) (166.5lbs) + 1.5lbs (boo!)
01/09/12: 11 stone 9 lb (163lbs) -3.5lbs
08/09/12:

 

[Bonnie151]

I hate the diet part!

Good Things
- When I'm determined, I can cut out snacks and coffee no bother
- I don't really drink alcohol, so no need to cut down there
- I work from home so I can stock whatever healthy food I like in the fridge

Bad Things
- I work from home as a cake decorator! No more grazing on cake cuttings!
- I tend to get fixed on one type of food and am quite happy eating it for days on end (e.g. right now my favourite lunch is a feta salad & sunflower seed roll. I'd happily have that for lunch for the next, oh, 5 years or so)
- DH is also on a health kick, but he tends to fall off the wagon and then dump pints of ice cream in my lap.

 

[Bonnie151]

Thursday 23 August 2012

Food

Breakfast: bowl of Alpen (too much sugar, have bought Dorest muesli today so will alternate in future then switch to Dorset) with sliced banana

Lunch: feta salad and sunflower seed roll

Snack: apple

Dinner: leftover chicken breast with tomato sauce, some parmesan and broccoli. Fat free Greek style yoghurt and blackberries


Exercise

- walked to and from school x 2. 4 miles but only half is proper exercise.
- cycled 1 hour. Half on paths, half dirt track.

(I had been hoping to convince the kids to come out on a short cycle after I picked them up from the after school club but DD was too tired)

Tomorrow I'm hoping to get up at 6 and do an hour of cycling- probably the same route.

 

[Bonnie151]

Friday 24 August 2012

DH was at a night out last night & came home at 1:00AM. I woke up and then didn't get back to sleep until well after 3. Grrrrr. So much for getting up at 6 to go cycling. However, DH was off work today so he came out with me later that morning for an 11 mile cycle! I love cycling with him- he's pretty fit so I slow him down, particularly on the steep hills, but he doesn't seem to mind and it keeps me pushing (though he was evil at the end and made me go the long way home, up a steep hill right when I was knackered!)

I also did the usual getting the kids to school - 2 miles.

For eating: Dorset muesli with banana for breakfast, usual salad & roll for lunch and cottage pie for dinner. I'm about to have a yoghurt as well and maybe some cherries.

 

[Gdad]

I was knackered!

Haha! I love that word- and I know exactly how you felt I rode almost 40 miles today. I've lost 64lbs this year mainly from road and mountain biking so it is definitely possible. Keep up the good work!

 

[Bonnie151]

I've lost 64lbs this year mainly from road and mountain biking so it is definitely possible.

Oh wow, that's fantastic!


So the bad news. I weighed myself yesterday morning and I'd actually GAINED 1.5lbs since Monday! I moaned to DH and he scoffed at me and told me that I can't weigh myself in the bathroom because the floor was uneven and that I needed to weigh myself in the living room. So I did. And I still weighed 1.5 lbs more than Monday! I now don't know whether I actually weighed more on Monday than the scale said (heaven forbid!), or whether I have put on 1.5lbs in 5 days! Neither is particularly appealing, but I'm going to go with the gained 1.5 lbs. Grrrrr.

The other problem I'm having is insomnia. After Thursday's lousy sleep, I woke up again Friday night/Sat morning at 2AM and didn't get back to sleep until well after 4. DH thinks this is my version of caffeine withdrawal and to not worry about it because once my body adjusts, I'll get back to normal. I hope so. I don't have any of the irritability or headaches that are typical of caffeine withdrawal and was hoping to escape any side affects.

The good news is that I feel fantastic! Lots of energy! I can't express just how great I feel!

I went for another 11 mile cycle yesterday, half of which was in the pouring rain. I got to the M8 crossover and it started to chuck it down! Good thing I don't mind rain, though I'm sticking to the 75 route tarmac paths when it's raining. On Tuesday I made the mistake of doing the trail route in the rain and ended up cycling through rivers of mud.

For food, Saturday is splurge day, even if I have gained weight! I had the usual muesli with banana for breakfast, a salad with sliced chicken for lunch plus some cherries. A yoghurt for snack, and then for dinner had Malaysian fragrant chicken curry, naan bread and a little GU chocolate pot for dessert (200 calories of pure chocolate ganache heaven).

I should also add that whilst I'm not keeping track of my water intake, I have water with each meal and keep a glass of iced water on the counter all day which I drink from and refill.

 

[Bonnie151]

Nice day today. We went on a family cycle so I'm not counting it as exercise. We just pottered about along the river and down to a local open air farm/museum so the kids could see the "Heilan' Coos" (Highland Cows).

I did pull out my old Callanetics DVD (used to do the original VHS religiously many moons ago!)- how retro. My thighs are still suffering for it, but I'm figuring it's a good balance for the cycling.

I walked a mile to the shops as well to get the Sunday papers.

Food- usual breakfast, salad with sweet chili chicken and then some strawberries for lunch, apple for snack and pork with mashed potatoes, peas and homemade applesauce for dinner. I've just had a yoghurt as well.

Oh, and I made DH take a "before" photo of me in my most bulge revealing, unflattering exercise clothes. Hopefully in 6 months or so I'll be able to post it with a much better photo alongside!

 

[Bonnie151]

I had a terrible night sleep Sunday night! I woke at 2:30AM and didn't get back to sleep until 6:30!!! I then slept until 7:15. Horrible. I think I worked out the problem- last night I woke a couple of times, but I forced myself to not open my eyes and check the time. I managed to fall back asleep both times fairly easily. I'm not used to waking during the night and when I check the time I seem to immediately pop wide awake and can't get back to sleep.

It was a bit rainy yesterday. I walked the kids to/from school (4 miles, only 2 count though) and cycled for an hour. It was raining at the start of my cycle but cleared up about a third of the way through. It was very windy, and I swear it didn't matter which direction I was going in, it felt like a headwind! I also did half my callanetics DVD until my kids came in. Today I'm taking it a bit easier and skipping my hard cycle (well, OK, hard for me!) - it's a lovely day so I'm going to take DS out this evening and see how far he can go.

For breakfast I had muesli with leftover applesauce (yum!), feta salad with sunflower seed roll for lunch, apple for snack and smoked mackerel with baby new potatoes and broccoli for dinner. I also had a yoghurt later.

 

[Bonnie151]

So much for taking DS out for a cycle yesterday. We needed to wait for DH to come home from work because I can't leave DD at home on her own (she's only 7), and after dinner DS had had enough and headed out without me! So he got HIS exercise and I had to make do with my callanetics DVD. We also went swimming for an hour (just mucking about so doesn't count as proper exercise) and walked to school (2 miles, 1 of which counts).

Sooooo, today WAS supposed to be a day off from cycling but seeing as my day off ended up being yesterday, I'm going to head out shortly. It's supposed to rain all day, but being Scotland, if I only went out when the weather is nice, I'd never get out at all!

For food yesterday, I had: usual muesli and banana for breakfast, feta salad, roll and raspberries for lunch, apple for snack and garlic & ginger stir fried chicken with 4 prawn crackers and a yoghurt for dinner.

 

[Bonnie151]

I inadvertantly took 5 minutes off my time for my 11 mile cycle yesterday. At my resting point over the M8 I ran into a guy who had cycled much further than me at a MUCH faster rate and this was his turnaround point. While he was catching his breath I headed off but thought, crickey, I'd better cycle as fast as I can so that it's not too embarrassing when he overtakes me. He overtook me halfway up Seafield Law - I'm struggling away and he just powered past me with a ,"Come on, you can do it!" and he was nice enough to wait for me at the top.

Oh, and I missed the rain by about half an hour. Good thing too because it was torrential and thunderstorms all afternoon!

So, I was happy with that run. I also did my Callanetics DVD and walked the kids to school (2 miles, 1 of which counts).

I had the usual muesli with banana for breakfast, salad with smoked hot Thai salmon (yum!) for lunch plus raspberries, an apple for snack and corn chowder for dinner.

 

[Bonnie151]

Down 3.5 lbs from last week! Yay! I'm now going to assume that last week's gain was water retention and so I'm 2lbs down from my starting weight!

 

[acwinsett]

2 lbs in a little more than a week is impressive! Keep up the great work!

 

[Terapin]

Good job!