The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl

Action before Belief?

Jen's juicy quote yesterday got me thinking about self-belief. I agree with her sentiment that when you truly believe that something is a top priority, nothing can get in your way. It's simple, but as some of you said in the comments: "it's not easy". As Jen herself said, "I'm not there yet either... I'm talking theoretically here".

So how do you get to that point of believing?

I tend to find that action comes before belief. If you're not someone with confidence on tap, I find it useful to do what the lovely LBTEPA said in her comment, "acting as if you believe it". I interpret this as "performing the desired actions as if you believed in yourself" as opposed to pretending you believe. If that makes any bloody sense at all. For example, at this start of this year my self-belief levels were at a dark and skanky low. Even as I started doing tiny, positive things (keeping my food journal, small amounts of exercise, listening to my hunger signals) I had no real conviction that they would do any good.

But I vowed to keep plodding along regardless of what the brain was telling me. So even when the Voice of Doom was whispering, "Wow, you used to be able to do this easily!" in the middle of kickboxing, the idea was to keep going and focus on the action.

Slowly the balance has started going the other way. Momentum is building. The more tiny, positive things I do, even with teeth gritted, the more my brain seems to link the actions together and conclude, "You are capable of good stuff."

I'm noticing this with some of the Up & Runners. The more training sessions they string together, the more positive they feel and the more they start to believe they will get through the eight weeks. This is regardless of how good or bad the session itself was - the victory is simply in the doing. I can see them starting to believe in their own power and it is so, so inspiring.

I find the action-before-belief thing applies to many aspects of life, in large and small ways. Like every time I make an effort to hang up my coat instead of dumping it on the floor, I am slowly changing the tune of "I'm a slob" to "I'm quite a tidy person".

The only exception might be writing. No matter how much action I take on the writing front, the self-belief doesn't come. But I reckon that might just be a writing thing. Maybe if you allowed yourself to believe in your own abilities too much you'd get cocky and a piano would fall on your head. I think with writing you need that wee bit of terror and doubt in your guts to keep you motivated. Hehe ;)

What works for you? Do you have any tips or tactics for cultivating self-belief?

Sermon on the Blog

Last week I got emails from three different people saying they'd dug up an entry from four years ago called Things I Have Learned.

I re-read it myself and found it very reassuring, like the Ghost of Shauna's Past telling me DUDE we've been here before so don't you worry bout a thing!

In light of the aforementioned mushy brain I thought I would re-post it today for the new-school readers.

2006 Disclaimer:  This is not smug lecturing or advice or a dietary Sermon on the Mount. It's just a wee list of lessons learned over the last five years. And so many of em took almost all that time to learn. I'm a bit slow.

Disclaimer Update 2010:  Yep. Still learnin'!

• Laugh at yourself. Especially when you screw things up!
• Don't compare your progress to other bloggers, instead be inspired by them (ie. steal their ideas!)
• Try to reduce the self-loathing. I'm not saying you have to look in the mirror and chant, "YOU ARE A WINNER!", but it really doesn't help to stand around yelling at your thighs.
• Remember that the weight loss industry exists to make money, whether it's Weight Watchers or Slimming Magazine or the CSIRO or Dr Gillian McKeith. Even though they all help in their own ways, they don't have all the answers and they really want you to buy the Choco Crisp Bars or send away for the Pilates DVD. Take bits and pieces from what they tell you and clobber it together to make your own way of doing things. Don't let anything be a substitute for thinking for yourself.
• Don't put things off until you Get Skinny. Try something crazy and new. If you fail, just don't blog about it!
• Deal with The Past.
• Look at the Big Picture or look at the Little Picture. Whichever is easiest to stomach at the time!
• Don't disappear up your own arse. Losing weight seems to bring a lot of introspection and lightbulb moments, but don't let this journey take over your life.
• Accept that you are moody, inconsistent and full of contradictions. What worked for you yesterday may shit you to tears tomorrow, and for no reasonable reason!
• Never eat lentils before you do squats or lunges.
• Just because you think everything is about your weight, don't assume everyone else sees it that way. Often other people are much better at seeing past your fat than you are.
• Just because you lose weight doesn't mean your old fears and problems will disappear. Example: If you were scared of rollercoasters when you were 350lb you may still shit your pants at the thought of them 160 pounds later!
• Total Greek Yogurt is the best thing to come out of Greece since Plato.
• Things won't change overnight. It takes time, trial and error to forge a healthy lifestyle and figure out what works for you. The difficulty of this task increases by tenfold increments depending on how many times per week you used to visit McDonalds Drive Thru.
• Don't let the fear of loose skin, belly rolls or flabby arms stop you. Do you think Oprah worried about her bingo wings? No. She just flap-flap-flapped and flew away to world domination!
• If you're still worried about your flabby arms, move to Scotland. You can get away with long sleeves for about 364 days a year.
• Even when you royally screw up – over and over and over again – you can pick yourself up again. As long you never stop believing you will get there in the end.

Review - Cathe Workout Downloads

Do you like working out at home in your pyjamas? Good news - home fitness queen Cathe Friedrich has just launched Cathe Downloads.

Her entire 150+ workout catalogue is now available in digital format, so you can watch your downloads on any computer or video-enabled mobile device, like an iPod.

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post or a PR conspiracy. I wanted to share this as I know many of you are fellow home workouterers. Cathe doesn't even know I'm alive! Sniff sniff.

I wasn't terribly excited by the Download idea at first - what's wrong with old-fashioned DVDs? But it's proved to be very, very handy:

• No more shipping or customs fees - more affordable than DVDs, especially for non-US residents.
• Extra lazy option - When I work out at home I usually play the DVDs on my computer, and cranking up a DVD takes so many seconds, man. Downloads are a mere double click into action!
• Good for travel - a couple of workouts stored on my laptop squashes those feeble dang I left my DVDs at home! excuses.
• Tailored to your taste - all Cathe's multi-disc series are broken down into the individual workouts - you don't have to purchase the whole set. I can skip stuff I don't dig (like high-impact Step) and just buy the bits I enjoy.

For example:

• I got a fab 15-minute Stretch routine for $3.97 that is a wee component of her massive Shock Training System series ($299 for 40 DVDs). I like Cathe stretches when I'm not in the mood for proper, la-di-da yoga. Also good for a quick stretch when I get home from kickboxing.
• I got the Kickbox part of her 4-Day Split series, $15.97 - I've wanted this one for ages but wasn't willing to fork out $79.99 plus shipping/customs fees for the entire 4-disc series.

Shopping
You can browse all the workout categories via the Products menu. There's sample video clips too. You can purchase with PayPal or a debit/credit card. To download the workouts you need a good internet connection.

Viewing
To view the downloaded files you need a computer or a video-capable mobile device, like a phone or MP4 player. Apparently you can watch them on television too if you have an iPod/Phone and an AV cable. There's plenty of support and tutorials on the website.

Quality
I'm not a technical person but the video and audio quality was great on my MacBook and Gareth's aging PC laptop. The workouts have chapter points like the DVDs, so you can skip past any too hard bits.

I haven't tried them on my iPhone yet - I don't know when or why I'd need that. Perhaps if I could listen to a weights workout while I lifted at the gym? Or watch a workout on the train and wiggle my feet around a bit?

Conclusion
I like my Cathe downloads - they're more affordable, convenient and ideal for trying out something a different, since you don't have to buy a bigass DVD series.

If you'd like some ideas, here are my favourite Cathe workouts:

• Pyramid Upper Body
• Kick Max
• Kick, Punch & Crunch
• Butts & Guts
• Muscle Endurance

And some ideal for beginners:

• Low Impact Step
• Basic Step
• Body Fusion
• Total Body Stretching

UPDATE June 2010: I've now become a Cathe Downloads affiliate, so if you purchase any Cathe workouts using this link, I'll receive a small commission. Any sales will go towards hosting fees for this blog so if you fancy supporting Dietgirl.org I will love you for life. Thanks for your consideration! :)

Why gardening is like weight loss

While shoving a few seeds in pots and washing bugs from the crevice of lettuce leaves hardly qualifies me as a gardener, I'm finding this growing malarkey so addictive and relaxing. With all that learning and bumbling error, gardening is a great metaphor for life. But I know most people come here for the lard busting chat, so it's time for another episode of... Dodgy Weight Loss Analogies!

It's best to start small
I nearly went beserk on my first visit to the garden shoppe - OMG obscure berries and fancy tomatoes and potatoes with girly names! We should get chickens too! And keep a goat in the bathroom!

It was just like the old dieter's mindset: Must lose 2 kilos, revolutionise lifetime of crappy eating habits and do 5 gym visits by Sunday!

So I slowed down - starting out small meant less chance of falling into a defeated heap two weeks later. I internetted "easy plants for absolute beginners" and settled on salad leaves and herbs for my debut.

Knowledge is power
If you're out of your depth you can't be afraid to ask for help. In this case it's been my father-in-law, gardening blogs and "The Kitchen Gardener" by Alan Titchmarsh - a very straightforward book that explains the basics in gentle, encouraging tones. Whenever a plant does something weird or looks close to death our mantra is, "Ask Titchy!" The good thing is, the more you learn the more confident you become and eventually/hopefully you'll get bold enough to test your own thoughts and ideas.

You gotta get dirrrrty
You could shove seeds in the ground then admire a la distance while hoping for the best. But if you want sexy results you have to get mucky. You have to nuture your babies, water them regularly and patrol for snails. As with lard-busting, it all boils down to time, sweat and toil.

From little things big things grow
At first it looks so pointless and insignificant - a broken pot, some dirt and £1 packet of seeds. Then you spy a tiny hopeful shoot pushing through. Then suddenly a few weeks later you're greeted with a lush spray of poncy salad leaves. Just like when you start your healthy quest, a brisk walk and forsaking Pop Tarts for porridge can feel like it will never amount to anything. But give it time and patience and those small efforts sprout into bigger rewards.

Mind your own business
It's easy to get Garden Envy when the neighbours are retired and have more time and fancy equipment and fancy flowers and whatnot and all you have is a rusty spade and a half-dead strawberry cutting. I was no stranger to lard-busting jealousy either - She's losing weight faster than me! She's got a personal trainer! She doesn't have to work! Rah rah rah!

But you have to focus on your own situation and budget and channel that energy into making the most of the tools you have to hand. You might have a second-hand DVD instead of a personal trainer... but you still have YOU and your own imagination.

PERFECTIONISM IS FUTILE
Holy moly this is a lesson I need to learn. So often I'm frozen into inaction for fear being undeserving or doing something wrong or rubbishly. But the gardening is showing me that it doesn't bloody matter if you cock up. It's more fun to let go of the outcome and plunge your hands into the soil. What's the worst that could happen? The plant might cark it but you only lose a few hours of your time or a few pennies for the seedling. Failure is your friend. Embrace ineptitude!

Some things are beyond your control
You can be diligent with your diet or pamper the hell out of your plants, but sometimes the weather turns nasty or a pheasant craps on your head or a snail gnaws away at your resolve. But at least you're DOIN' IT, baby.

Moonwalk Tips

Here's a great idea. Let's gather up 10,000 of us and stay up until midnight, then take off our tops then parade around the streets of Edinburgh in our bras for 26.2 miles. C'mon! Where's your sense of adventure?

A year later the painful sweaty memories of the Moonwalk marathon have mellowed. Except for the part with the 13 miles of leg cramp and turbulent stomach. Apart from that it was a pure magic.

Since that fateful night lots people have arrived at this blog by Googling "Moonwalk training tips" or "Moonwalk training plan" and I thought, "Yeah! I should write about that!". But I've faffed around for so long the 2009 London walk has already been and the Edinburgh one is next weekend! Let's get on with it anyway and we can help Saturday's ladies and the Googlers of the Future.

I canvassed some of my teammates for their hot tips too, so it's not just whingy me hoping others might learn from my mistakes. And I know there's some fellow Moonwalk Veterans out there, so if you've got any wisdom to share please feel free to join in in the comments!

Moonwalk Training Tips

• Above all, start with good shoes! You're going to be doing a lot of walking so start with a fresh pair or ones that haven't already done many miles. Make sure they're not too tight because your feet can swell up.
• Double skin socks can help prevent friction
• Coat your feet with Vaseline before putting your socks - feels like you're walking on air and helps prevent blisters
• DO YOUR STRETCHES from Day One! This is my biggest regret. Take ten minutes after every walk while your body is nice and warm to thoroughly stretch your legs. Follow the stretches in the Moonwalk booklet, do a leggy section of a yoga DVD or search YouTube for stretching routines.
• Try to do other kinds of exercise as well so that you don't get totally fed up with walking. Spinning, weight training, yoga - just try and schedule it so you "save" your legs for the long walk on the weekend!
• This goes against the Official Moonwalk Training Schedule but all my teammates agreed on this one: don't fret if you don't get all the short walks done, if you're someone who already does a lot of incidental walking (such as walking to work) or non-walky exercise. Just make sure you ALWAYS do the long ones.
• Audio books help the time pass on longer walks. You could get through War and Peace quite easily. Sometimes I'd get so caught up in the story I'd be almost disappointed to finish. Almost.
• Podcasts of radio shows are also great - the variety of segments stops you from getting bored. I liked The Bugle, This American Life and Jillian Michaels.
• Start your long walks either early morning or late afternoon/evening (hooray for long summer nights) so you don't get too hot. You'll be walking at night for the real thing so may as well get used to cooler conditions.
• Vary your walking routes so you don't fall asleep on your feet from boredom! If you do most of your walks in town, try a country jaunt or catch a train to a nearby town for a change of scenery.
• MapMyWalk is a good free website to log your walks, map your routes and feel smug about how many miles you're racking up
• Be careful not to overestimate how many calories you're burning with the training. Another of my biggest mistakes! I overcompensated at dinner time quite a bit :)
• Don't eat too much junk on your longer walks. You will need to eat to keep your energy levels up but don't go too crazy with chocolate bars or jelly babies. Most us walked better when we ate "real" food - a banana, a handful of dried fruit, or a wholemeal peanut butter sandwich (easy to break chunks off as you walk)

Moonwalk bra decoration

• Dying a plain white bra itself is a good base for decorating - it looks more interesting by default and you don't need as many dangly things to make it look jazzy.
• Make sure you bra decorations don’t chafe.

The week before

• Preserve your energy - get plenty of sleep every night in the leadup.
• Don't vary your routine too much - don't introduce anything new that might throw your body out of whack. For example, don't eat anything unusual. Check all expiry dates!
• Eat as wholesomely as you can - avoid processed food, potentially dodgy takeaways...
• Drink lots of water
• Try on your Moonwalk outfit and make sure it's comfortable and that you look racktacular!

The night before

• You do need to "carb up" a wee bit but try to keep your food plain and simple - nothing too spicy or exotic. You really don't want any stomach dodginess :)
• Lay out all your Moonwalk outfit and make sure everything's in its place
• Pack your Moonwalk gear - make sure you've not got too much stuff to carry because it will annoy you on the night. Can your phone double up as a camera? Do you really need four different kinds of snack?
• Don't forget to charge your camera.
• Make sure the fridge is well-stocked with something delicious for when you eventually recover from the ordeal on Sunday afternoon.

On the big day

• Have a very very quiet day. Try to sleep in as late as you can and/or have an afternoon nap - you're going to be awake all bloody night.
• Put lovely clean sheets on your bed so you'll have something nice to collapse into tomorrow.
• Put your nicest bubble bath and fluffiest towel right next to the bath tub because you won't have any energy to go hunting for them when you get home!
• Don’t arrive too early - sure the atmosphere is great but if you're too early you're just sitting around on the ground in a very crowded area getting cramped and grumpy. If I had my time again I'd have rocked up at 10PM and chilled out more at home!
• Enjoy the official Moonwalk flapjack; it's dead tasty. Dunno about that pasta they give you, though.

During the Moonwalk

• It will be painfully slow and crowded at first and you'll probably not be able to walk at your usual pace. Don't panic and don't waste energy weaving in and out of the crowds. Once it thins out a bit you can get into a more regular pace.
• Stay hydrated - small regular sips. It's easy to forget to drink once you start trudging along
• Don't drink anything you wouldn't normally drink - like if you only drank water during your training don't suddenly start on the energy drinks, your stomach will rebel!
• If you need a quick pee look out for some discreet trees. We know they tell you not too but you'd be walking til Tuesday if you waited in the port-a-loo queues.
• Do some stretches during your loo breaks
• Try to enlist a Support Vehicle - kind friends or family to pop up at various points on the night to give you a snack and/or words of encouragement! They can also carry more water so you don't have to. Particularly great at the halfway mark and then again at around mile 18. Just when I wanted to throw myself into the Forth River our friends appeared with this amazing platter and really boosted our morale.

Afterward

• Even if you're too shattered to feel any sort of joy for finishing, be sure to take lots of photos so you can admire your achivement in retrospect.
• Don't park too far away from the finish line! You are going to be KNACKERED like you've never known knackered before.
• Have a pair of slippers ready in the car to ease your tortured tootsies into for the journey home
• Have something nice for brekkie when you have finished

   

Check out all the Moonwalk training posts and reports from the big night in the Moonwalk category archive.

GOOD LUCK to any Moonwalkers out there!

How do you fight cravings? - DG by Request

Cravings are best fought off with a stick. Preferably a big one, with metal spikes all over it.

The dictionary says a craving is, "an intense, urgent, or abnormal desire or longing."

That doesn't necessarily sound like a bad thing. I like intensity; I love to long. But your questions have been about the food-related cravings - the ones that possess your brain and make you want to eat way more than you need to.

Personally I've found that prevention is the best cure. As with many things, the key is to know thyself and be prepared...

(You know I really squirm writing this stuff sometimes. I mean what a lucky western world dilemma to have; the struggle not to eat too much food. Crikey.)

... It's much easier if I don't give the cravings a chance to start. This takes a lot of planning and forethought.

My appetite is a demanding toddler; it's first words were I want. It likes to throw itself down on a supermarket floor and make a scene. My brain is the appetite's weary mother. She carries a Handbag of Anticipation, bulging with tricks and treats and distractions. She tries to be ready for any stunt the little monkey might pull.

It all starts with breakfast. If I don't get that right I screw up the whole day. During the week I don't eat until I feel the first rumbles of hunger; between 10-11 AM. If I eat first thing as convention dictates, I'm munchy again by 10. So I figured I may as well wait until I'm properly hungry in the first place. A nice bonus is that this is the time when colleagues tend to make tea and open the biscuit tin. If I'm tucking into my breakfast then that's one Biscuit Battle that I don't have to worry about.

The breakfast itself must be good and satisfying. Right now I'm running on porridge/oatmeal. I zap it in the microwave before I leave the house and put it in a wee Thermos flask, so it's still hot when I eat it a couple of hours later. I pour it into the lid/cup with some tinned pears then sprinkle it with 10g muscovado sugar and 20g of almond butter, then stir it all up so it's nice and melty and dessert-y.

I could be sensible and just have the porridge and pears, but the extra 160 calories for the sugar and almond butter are well spent. That "hit" of caramelly sweetness and crunchy saltiness, is enough to keep me happy. I can get on with my work and ignore those chocolates sitting three feet from my desk that someone bought back from vacation.

I generally eat a late lunch, around 2 - 2.30PM, that way I've only got 2.5 - 3 hours to get through until home time (how bloody sad does that sound!?). If I make it a good one - last nights leftovers, a really interesting salad, or a baked potato with yummy toppings - then I'll cruise through with no urge to visit the biscuit tin or vending machine.

But as another layer of prevention I've always got snacks if I need them in a range of tastes and textures - savoury (a Babybel cheese), sweet (fruit or a cereal bar), crunchy/sweet (oatcakes with banana) and so on. So if I do start hankering for something I have all these levels of negotiation at my fingertips.

Dinner requires just as much thought. It works best if I plan a week in advance - what's happening this week? What evenings will I be out or working late? How energetic will I feel?

If I know I'm going to be tired and crabbit (which is 95% of the time at present) then I pick the easiest yet most satisfying meals. For example, tonight we are having these lovely huevos rancheros a la Smitten Kitchen. Easy to make, healthy enough with sufficient Delicious Factor to be looked forward to throughout the day.

If you don't have Food Issues that must sound so pathetic, but today sometime between 3 and 5PM I know I will think, "I can't be arsed going to Spinning, maybe I'll go straight home and stop into the shop for a wee bag of Kettle Chips". But since I am organised for once, I will be able to talk to myself: "Whoa there! You have huevos rancheros coming up! Melty cheesy goodness awaits. Go forth and spin!"

Evenings are another tough cookie; the post-dinner wilderness hours. Again, planning a satisfying dinner helps kill that off. If I make a "Communist dinner" as Gareth calls them - you know the more diet-y kind of dinners like stir fries that are very light and vegetabley - I try to make sure I've got something ready for when the kitchen-roaming feeling kicks in - a small chocolate bar, an individual portion of Nutella, etc etc. Anticipate, anticipate, anticipate.

If I think about it honestly, aside from when I'm pre-menstrual, most of my "cravings" are because I've let myself go too long between meals; or I'm stressed or cranky and convinced that food will make it better. It's when I've pulled back too far on calories and/or flavour in my general everyday eating, so it feels like I'm missing out on something. When I take the time to plan meals that soothe and satisfy my many teeth (sweet tooth, savoury tooth, sour tooth etc etc etc) and plan yummy things into my calories, then I don't feel so obsessed by food. The cravings don't have a chance to build.

So in summary this is what I find helpful:

• Know your moods and vulnerable times and try to anticipate/plan around them
• Plan meals that focus on satisfaction just as much as nutrition
• When a craving hits, try to listen to your body and figure out what's really going on
• Talk to yourself like a loony, all day long
• Accept that some days none of the above will work and you'll scoff everything...

(Like last week there were Viscount biscuits at work [the UK's noble attempt at a Mint Slice]. I did the talking to myself thing and chose the Healthy Option oatcakes on my desk. But then I ate three sodding Viscounts as well. Why oh why. Reboot computer, try again tomorrow. Pfft.)

... but that's cool as long as you move on as soon as possible.

As always the key is getting to know yourself and finding out what works for you. A spoonful of sugar in the morning might prevent my cravings, but it might trigger you to eat rubbish all day. It's taken me eight years to realise what works for me, with lots of failure along the way. And now that I reckon I've figured it out, I struggle every single day to actually put it into practice.

But it's worth the effort and almost fun putting yourself under the microscope, studying your habits and patterns. Once you know the beast you're dealing with, it's easier to work out how to tame it.

See also: Tricks and Treats - Guest post on Limes & Lycopene from last year

No Year's Resolutions

It's the obligatory new years post! I've decided not to set any Big Goals this year just yet. I want to slow down and get the Little Things right. 2008 was often shambolic and I know I can do things better - less panic, less grumbling on the couch, less abandoning of healthy habits when life gets busy! So instead of grand goals I came up with three basic daily things I must do:

2009 Minimum Standards Agreement!

1. Write down what I eat
2. Exercise for a minimum of 20 minutes
3. 10.30 PM Internet curfew!

The first one is straightforward - I have to pay attention to what I eat. All the bloody time. Borrrring. But after two weeks of reviving my daily paper diary, I feel so chilled about food again. The Zombie Eating has stopped simply because I'm paying attention. Why did I ever stop doing this? It's not that difficult! (Thanks Pamela for inspiring this one :)

The exercise one - I know 20 minutes doesn't sound like much to you hardcore dames out there, but last year I kept going from one extreme to another. I'd do a 16 miler for my Moonwalk training then do nowt for a week. Even if it's just twenty minutes of Pilates or a quick jaunt around the village, I need to set a minimum. How can I say this without sounding like a new age wanker? It's not about burning calories, it's about taking a little chunk of time each day to focus on my body. Otherwise I just tend to live in my head (and on the couch) with my To Do list and not take very good care of myself. Things always seem easier to deal with if you get off your butt and get some endorphins buzzing!

And finally the internet curfew. I didn't realise how badly I needed this until we moved house in November and had no internet connection for three weeks. Suddenly I became incredibly productive and well rested! I called friends, I went for walks, I did my stinking tax return, I read books and newspapers.

So much of last year's angst could have been prevented if I'd just turned off the bloody computer. This was my weekday evening far too often, plonked in front of the laptop: Farrrrk I'm busy. What day is it. Crap, I gotta write that thing for tomorrow. Crap, look at all these emails. I better answer some before bed so they don't think I'm a jerk. Hmmm, wonder what's happening on Twitter? Crap, I haven't blogged for a week. LOL at that LOLcat. Crap, I gotta write that thing for tomorrow.

Next thing it would be 1AM. I hadn't washed my hair or packed my gym bag or prepped my brekkie and lunch for the next day. I'd go to bed, lay awake for another hour panicking about all the things I hadn't done. Then I'd oversleep, wake up swearing, make a hasty PB sandwich, race to work with odd socks and one mascara-ed eye, eat my PB sandwich at 10AM without even tasting it, too often leading to a a whole day of dodgy choices, and too often skipping exercise coz I had to write that thing for tomorrow which was now overdue.

So! By setting the Internet Curfew, I've had to get my arse organised. What's the real priority? What can wait until tomorrow? Have I done my minimum exercise yet? Have I had a SHOWER? Etc etc etc. 

Hopefully setting a cutoff time means I can read some books and get some bloody sleep and be 63.5% more pleasant company of a morning. Thank you Trish for the curfew idea.

And now I am going to have to end this entry abruptly otherwise I will be in violation of my own curfew. I don't want to have to ground myself.

ETA: ARRGH just hit post, IT'S 11.51 PM! I totally failed on the curfew today. Okay. Tomorrow, for sure.

Make It Easy

The most excellent Kathryn Elliot at Limes & Lycopene confessed her hatred of stir-fries in an entry called, Do small impediments stop you from eating well?

"Don’t get me wrong stir-fries are a great meal and I love eating them. They’re quick, easy and healthy ... Plus we always have tofu and vegetables in the house, which are perfect stir-fry fodder. Our mid-week meals would be better and easier to prepare if I made more stir-fries.

Instead I hate and avoid cooking them.

There are lots of reasons for this.  I don’t think I cook them very well, we often run out of necessary condiments etc, etc.

But the real reason I don’t cook stir-fries is . . . I can’t stand cleaning the wok."

Rather than kidding herself that there would come a miraculous sunny day when wok cleaning suddenly appealed, she devised a different strategy - she steams her veg and grills her tofu then throws over a quick dressing.

I agree that it's often the small, seemingly trivial things that lead to less healthy choices. Kathryn gave examples like skipping brekkie because you didn't have milk in the house; raiding the vending machine because you forgot your afternoon snack.

Personally I've found eating well becomes easier if you're truly realistic. What fits into your life? What are your likes and dislikes? What can you manage without wanting to stab yourself with a fork? Some people wouldn't mind washing a wok but for others it could mean, Screw this! I'm dialling a pizza. (Not that Kathryn would do that, mind; being an ace nutritionist and all!)

I love food and I love cooking. In my fantasy life, I slave over complicated casseroles and ponce off to the farmers market to stroke the organic spinach. But in reality? I'm lazy, busy and irritable. And hungry. There's no point pretending otherwise; you just have to work around it.

So I have a list of about 20 easy meals in the back of my notebook. There's old Weight Watchers recipes, food blog recipes, soups, salads; things I swiped from Ready Steady Cook. Half of them aren't meals so much as assembling things. I use the list to plan our meals before doing the weekly online grocery shop. I take into account the Level of Busyness - what will I have time and energy to cook? What could I be arsed to peel or steam after work or kickboxing?

I chuck the notebook at Gareth and ask for his opinion. He says, I don't mind! You're in charge of Foods. I say, Just look at the damn LIST would you.

We debate for five minutes: Yep. Nope. Bored of that. Aye. Nope. Too hard. That one's good. Too much chopping. Too many utensils. Can't we just have CHIPS for dinner? No. Oh.

Right now, with the Kitchen of Chaos, it's about minimum effort. For example, in the past I've made falafels from scratch, blitzing chickpeas and herbs and whatnot. Currently the very thought of messy food processor and messy chickpea hands and messy frying pan makes me want to stick my head in the oven. So this week I bought ready-made, non-dodgy falafel that take ten minutes in the oven. Last night while they baked I slapped hummus, salad leaves, cucumber, cherry tomatoes and grated carrot on a wholemeal wrap. Then I plonked on the wee falafel... squeeze o' lemon... dinner in 15 minutes. Rock n roll.

In summary: Online shopping, a daggy old list and a strong sense of reality make it easier for me to do the healthy thing. It took a lot of time and effort to find my groove, and sometimes I still fall out of it. But when I screw I just return to the basic formula and soon enough we're rattling along again.

I realise this topic won't be particularly earth shattering for some, but I know from experience that eating healthy can feel like a royal palaver and totally overwhelming. Do you have any crafty strategies for eating well? Let's hear 'em!

UPDATE: Many people have requested a copy of The List - you can find it here.

Heart Rate Monitors?

I went to a Spinning class on Good Friday and came out with jelly legs and a serious case of gadget envy. The instructor and one of the participants were yakking about their beloved heart rate monitors. My friend Jane used to rave about hers and I know Kekster uses one. I've always resisted them as it seemed yet another way for me to obsess over statistics and shiny things. But I LURVE statistics and shiny things! Is that so wrong?!

Anyone out there a Heart Rate Monitor fan? Anyone think they're baloney? I know sweat and slobber and inability to form sentences are good indicators that one is exercising hard, but... SHINY!

The Long and Whining Road

Gareth told me that after one of my radio interviews a lady phoned in and said, "It's all very well this girl writing about losing loads of weight, but we all know it's just calories in, calories out."

Oh reaaaaally, I longed to hiss at Mrs Gloria Smug of Tunbridge Wells or wherever, IS THAT RIGHT?!

Technically she may be correct. And I know some annoying folk like Gareth, for example, just cut down on beer and cheese if their jeans feel snug. But since I've been crapping on about this stuff for seven years, I feel the need to splutter defensively as a representative of those who find it more complex.

This Body Stuff is very complicated. I won't just say Weight Loss Stuff, because personally it has always come down to how I felt about my body. At first I was too busy point countin' to realise this, but what I really wanted was simply to feel alright to be me. To look in the mirror and not bawl, regardless of my knicker size. THAT, dear comrades, was and still can be the hard part.

I hate to use the cheesy J word... *choke*... JOURNEY! Because it makes me think of John Denver or sunsets or a soft focus montage or this delightfully crusty book of Gareth's -

How about the word process? Wendy used it in a comment on this most excellent Big Fat Deal entry last week and I like it.

SO... I started out swimming in self-loathing but ended up somewhere rather healthy and peaceful, where mirrors are my friend and the streets are paved with quinoa. But getting there was a slow process. I had to figure out how the hell to move on from years of believing FAT was my most defining characteristic. It took soul-searching and mistake-making and blog blurting. There was certainly more to it than bloody calories in and out!

I've been guilty of over-simplifying things myself. Sometimes a journalist will ask, How Did You Do It? and my mouth flaps open and shut like a goldfish, because I just can't remember. I'll look at the book cover and think, Who? Wha? Me? How?! And I'll hear myself say, "I started out with a walk to the end of the block" or I chucked out all the biscuits or I frantically peed before Weight Watchers meetings, momentarily forgetting how scary and difficult it was; how long it took to look beyond the scales.

Anyway, my point is... if you happen to find it all more complicated than calories in and calories out, and someone keeps telling you that it's not more complicated than calories in and calories out... well why not just go ahead and punch them in the gob? You might even burn some calories!

. . .

Dublin was ACE! All hail the mighty Irish and their sexy accents! I had a great ol time, guzzled a 20th of a pint of Guinness and chatted to journalists and radio folk. The Ray D'arcy Show was fun, Ray and his gang were hilarious and friendly. It was my first time live in a studio so I was a bit shell-shocked and rubbish in the first segment. Arrgh! But there were texts and emails flying in from the listeners - including a few asking about loose skin. That old chestnut! No folks, you don't have to look like a shar-pei! My favourite text was, Does she look as good as she sounds? Woohoo!

This week the book officially comes out in Canada, New Zealand and Australia! I'll be on Radio 2CC in Canberra on Friday morning and the Body+Soul show on Mix FM (Syd, Melb, Brisbane, Adelaide) on Sunday, both Oz time. Also a chat with the rockin' Roisin Ingle on Newstalk in Ireland will air on Saturday morning GMT. See my author page on Good Reads if you'd like more details of the book pimping activity!

Exercising in Winter: DG by Request

All the leaves are broon and the sky is grey! Well, it's getting that way around here anyway, that time of year when you just want to hide under the blankets and cry. Which brings us to the lovely Margaret's topic suggestion:

"Perhaps a subject to touch upon... is what to do to fight off the probability of motivation slide as the weather becomes cooler.. and how to move your exercise regime indoors without wanting to chuck it all in."

Exercise becomes even more of a priority during winter. My sunny disposition (haw haw) tends to nosedive without regular exercise and even more so when it gets dark at 3PM. Exercise this summer was nice and leisurely and fun - bike rides, hill walks, canoe stints - but it will take a bit more imagination over winter.

I don't rely on motivation per se, because I rarely wake up thinking OH YEAH HURRAH it's time to exercise! So the trick is to make it as 1) efficient 2) inviting and 3) easy and mindless as possible, so there's a chance I'll actually do it instead of grumbling into a mug of hot chocolate.

As always, I can only ramble on about what works for me and hopefully it will be somewhat useful to passers-by.

Lunchtime walks
It's easy to miss daylight altogether when you arrive and leave work in the dark, so this winter I'm aiming to get away from the computer and go outside at lunchtime. I kept meaning to do this last year but most days I'd end up yapping in the lunch room or remain slumped in front of the computer. When I did get out and stretch the legs, even just five minutes of Vitamin D and fresh air did wonders for my mood and will to live!

Classes
I've sung the praises of group fitness classes about eleventeen million times on here but they are even handier during winter because of their Leave Your Brain At Home-ness. In winter, I find the mental effort of exercise feels even more enormous than the physical, so 45 minutes of Spinning or the kick and punch of a Body Combat class is a great way to get it out of the way. Just rock up to a class, let someone boss you about for an hour, and you're done before you know it.

Gym cardio
I really loathe cardio at the gym but it's a sensible option when the pavements are icy or just poorly lit. I always sigh and huff when it's Cardio Day but have come up with a few ways to make it bearable:

• High Intensity Interval Training - maximum results with minimum time. Just Google HIIT to find some sample workouts. The idea is to be completely shagged by the end of it, as though you couldn't possibly do another minute on the cursed treadmill/bike/whatever. My average session is 25 minutes.
  
  That can still feel like an age sometime, so I use Cardio Coach. This is a downloadable MP3 workout where a dude called Sean O'Malley with a rather sexy voice tells you exactly what to do; suitable for any piece of cardio equipment. When to go fast, when to go slow, when to stretch; it really does make the time go faster! I have conversations with Sean in my head. I hate you Sean. Oh we're almost there? Fine then. I'll do it. Only for you. Fetch me another bottle of water Sean. You're the best Sean. HIGHLY recommended. iTrain also does MP3 workouts but they're a little cheesy for my liking.


• Rowing Races - Sometimes when I am feeling REALLY sluggish and/or unmotivated, I'll go to the gym and say, "Okay lazyarse, all you have to do is commit to ONE KILOMETRE on the rowing machine and then we can go home." But then the competitive streak kicks in, and I will be disgruntled with my time, so I will do another kilometre and try and beat that. Soon enough I've got in a rather intense workout.

The Home Gym
My favourite kind of workout is the one you can do in your pyjamas. I'd be lost without my Home Gym, which consists of a scrap of floorspace in our bedroom measuring 1 x 3 metres and a few bits and pieces:

• Workout DVDs. My favourites are:
  • Cathe Pyramid Upper and Lower Body and Muscle Endurance
  • Gaiam Pilates for Weight Loss and Yoga for Weight Loss. There's nothing particularly weight lossy about those DVDs, they were just decent workouts going cheap on Amazon!
  • Thanks to Mary, OM Yoga Intermediate/Beginners DVD which rules.
  • The best thing about ALL of these DVDs is that they have timesaver options. The normal workouts are about an hour, but they have shortened versions, usually 45 minutes. I find myself taking that option quite often, hehe. So when it's time to get sweaty, I put a DVD into the computer and off we go!

• Reebok step - a bench for weights, to stand on for calf raises, or to cling on for grim death for tricep dips. These are pretty cheap at Argos and slide neatly under the bed when not in use.


• Resistance bands - if you Google "resistance bands" there are dozens of exercises you can do with these inexpensive rubber babies. I made a list of band and body weight exercises that equates to a total body resistance workout - totally portable and perfect if you don't have much space and/or feeling too lazy to get out the dumbbells!


• Assorted dumbbells - These live under the bed. I started with a 1.5, 3, and 5 kilo set from Argos that were quite cheap. I've gradually built up a collection, including some nice heavy ones I found by Googling "cheap dumbbells uk". They were listed as seconds so were really cheap, and absolutely nothing wrong with them but a few wee scratches!



• Barbell and plates - Again from Argos. You can generally do most exercises with dumbbells but the barbell is the way to go when you want to lift heavier. I shove the barbell under the bed when not in use, but inevitably I leave the end poking out and someone trips over it and screams, "F*!@ing BARBELL!" Because of my limited floorspace I have to turn sideways and watch the screen out of the corner of my eye, otherwise the bar clonks into the wardrobe. Awkward, but do-able!


• Swiss ball for doing ab work or modified planks and pushups or even as a weight bench when too lazy to get out the Reebok step. The ball lives on top of the Wall of Sound in our hallway - Gareth's bass amp and other musical paraphernalia, which is crammed in next to a mountain bike. The ball falls off its perch about 20 times a day, often landing on one's head to a chorus of, "F*!@ing BALL!"

All of this stuff has been gradually gathered over the past three years or so, and has proved very cost effective. When it's miserable outside, it is much easier to convince myself to do some exercise when I just have to drag out some dumbbells from under the bed. Huzzah! So let it snow let it snow let it snow... I'm ready baby!

Old Dog New Tricks

Diets are dead, they've been telling us for years; it's all about lifestyle changes. I'm down with that rather annoying phrase. But what irks me is just when you manage to make changes, the style of your bloody life changes so those changes no longer fit in... to your lifestyle. Does that make any sense at all?

This week I'm trying to figure out arrangements for the latest changes. How long can I feasibly snooze before gulping down brekkie and getting out the door? Which is the fastest route to the office? Does the office have a microwave? How long must I eat Quiet Fruit like bananas before I feel comfortable enough to chomp an apple? Where does exercise fit into this new schedule? Before, lunchtime, after? I've got timetables and graphs and diaries and still haven't figured it out the logistics.

Sometimes people ask "What's the secret?" in regards to the flab busting. There's no secret, I say squirmingly, just exercise and eating healthy and spilling your guts on the internet, over and over for six years! But seriously, if I was forced to pick something I'd have to say an ability to adapt. Finding new ways of doing things when things change, over and over again.

But that kind of thinking will have to wait for the weekend, methinks. MY BRAIN IS FULL! Information overload. I keep fantasising that the Career Fairies will sprinkle me with brainy dust, so I will be blessed with all the workplace knowledge right now and able to bypass the whole uncomfortable Stupid Questions and Silly Mistakes phase. It's like when I started my Lifestyle Change back in the day - I longed for miracles and instant results, without having to endure all the panic and salad.

Meeting Jillian Michaels

Holy jet lag, Batman. When I finally went to sleep last night I'd been up for 30 hours, and now I'm awake again and still buzzing. Bzzz bzzz. I feel completely delirious and insane. Am I annoying you yet? Huh huh?

Let's begin with a burning question from the last entry - What is that yellow goo with the pretzels? On the left is mustard, on the right is some sort of Processed Cheese Produkt. Which didn't really do much for my tastebuds. So I ate two Chicago hot dogs to compensate ;)

Another question - Is Jillian Michaels wee or are you eleventeen million feet tall? I'm 5'8" and she is tiny! As Jen said, you could fit her in your handbag. And smuggle her out of the country so you could put her on your mantelpiece at home. Which is what I am sure many of us wanted to do after that soiree.

I had another one of those You've Come A Long Way Baby moments when everyone was lining up to have their photies taken with her. Despite Jillian being minuscule, I did not for one moment hesitate to get in the frame with her. Instead of fretting about our David/Goliath contrast all I could think was, "I cannae wait to show this to the blogging dames!"

All weekend I shocked myself at my ridiculous levels of boldness and enthusiasm. I think folk may have thought I was on drugs. Maybe it was the jet lag or maybe it's because I've been very busy and isolated this year and haven't been out of the house much -- but I just wanted to yap to everyone and hear all about their lives. I wanted to jump into photos, I wanted to tackle people to the floor and tell them how tops it was to meet them in the flesh, I wanted to burst into tears about 10,000 times. I didn't think about my arms or wobbly thighs or my bite-infested ankles.

I feel like I've shaken off so many old doubts and insecurities. I'm pretty damn excited about life lately. As the leather-trousered Mr Morrison sang in Light My Fire, the time to hesitate is through.

Righto. Focus Shauna, focus!

Okay, today I will zoom in on the Jillian Michaels Lunchtime Chinwag. The AOL Body folks sponsored some lunchtime chats with various health-type people, so I pounced on the chance to meet The Buffed One. I thought there'd be hundreds of chicks in a barn and Jillian would be a dot on the horizon, but there was only a dozen or so, clustered around a table. It was all very cosy with some very honest and frank conversations.

Jen wrote an excellent recap of the discussions if you'd like to know the nitty gritty, so I will just sprout my impressions. I'd only known JM from two episodes of The Biggest Loser I saw in Australia back in 2005, in her hyper fembot trainer mode. She was equally hyper in person, but also warm, kind, funny, wise and so generous and open. She only had to be there for an hour, but she stayed for two - answering our questions, cracking jokes, offering advice and insight and juicy anecdotes about the show.

I was busting to ask her a question, so I sat there listening while I mulled over the possibilities:

1. How do I get arms like that? How many reps? How heavy? Huh huh huh?
2. Did you notice any difference between the Australian and American Biggest Losers? Which country had the whiniest losers?

Hehe. Instead I asked her about giving advice. I get lots of emails from people with oodles of weight to lose saying they don't know where to start. What did she recommend I tell them?

I do get a bit angsty-pants when answering emails, because they're often heartbreaking and I desperately want to say something helpful. I realise people have to find their own answers, but I know when I was getting started I was gagging for a wee spark of encouragement. So I usually write about what worked for me - baby steps, finding a source of support, and forgetting about the big fat picture and just focusing on ONE tiny thing. Like say, decide to go for a 20 minute walk, twice a week (or in my case, it was 5 minutes before I thought I would keel over). Once you have that mastered, you pick another new thing and add it to your fledgling repertoire of healthy habits... and so on, until you have almost tricked yourself into being healthier :)

I guess I was sneakily looking for some reassurance from Jillian's answer. She said the two big things were 1) getting educated  and 2) getting support. And baby steps. I snavelled Jen's summary from her entry:

In the real world, [Jillian] said, people need to find a support system first, and tell their cheering section exactly what kind of support they want. After educating themselves a little on exercise and nutrition, wanna-be losers should make sure to start slowly with activity, but they should start right away. "Just go for a walk, get outside, find things you like." If they don't love exercise, they shouldn't be surprised, Jillian said, because "there's never a moment when I'm lifting a weight or doing a push-up where I think I love this! But I love the results." The first step for many people, she said, is "just not moving backwards" -- once they stop gaining, they can start the weight-loss process and get more fit.

She also talked a lot about the word balance. This was the big key to her approach. You have to find a way to juggle all the variables in your life so that being healthy is both sustainable and enjoyable. I remember a time when it seemed bloody impossible to me that it really could be that simple. But if you're willing to take the time to figure out what works for you, and do what you can feasibly stick to instead of driving yourself mad with unrealistic expectations or someone's elses notions that you must do X exercise Y times a week and eat Z... then suddenly everything really does slot into place. And you just end up healthier, on your own terms and your own pace, without so much angst and stress.

She also talked about how many people have an "all or nothing" approach to fitness and weight loss - if you're a perfectionist it can really paralyse your efforts. She said something like, "Just say your car has one flat tyre, would you go crazy and slash the other three?" No, you would just fix the one tyre then move on and start a new day...

One thing she said resonated with me like a brick to the noggin - "Successful people fail all the time". Nobody gets anywhere interesting without screwing up royally along the way. That sang to me in so many arenas, not just the fitness stuff. "Success is about attrition," Ms Jillian concluded, and I wholeheartedly agree. Just dig in, get your claws dirty and hang in there for the long haul, baby! Even when everything goes stinky. Especially when everything goes stinky.

Ace!

Just a quickie: I read an extract from Brad Gilbert's new book on the weekend. Reading about sporty people can be incredibly inspiring; all that sacrifice and focus as they pursue their goals.

Mr Gilbert is a superstar tennis coach and is currently tending to Scotland's great young hope, Andy Murray. The opening paragraph really leaped out and slapped me about the chops, speaking as One Who Has Obsessed About Numbers. I thought I'd share it for any fellow number junkies out there. Emphasis is mine.

"Can I get Andy Murray to No1 is what everybody wants to know. Here's the truth: I didn't know for sure that Andre Agassi or Andy Roddick would go to No1 when I started coaching them.

Nevertheless, here's my 100% coaching principle with Andy Murray or anyone else: I don't talk about numbers; I don't obsess about rankings or results.

What I talk about are those specific things we need to do to keep getting better; to get closer to the maximum game out of the player. Do that and the ranking will take care of itself."

Dudes. I think the Brad Gilbert coaching principle could be a nifty way to approach lard-busting. Focusing hard on doing the healthy things that take you closer to being that healthier person, rather than obsessing about the numbers. I've changed my focus this year and while I'm hardly trotting off to Wimbledon, I'm a bazillion times happier and healthier.

Think Thin!

I'm getting out the measuring cups, folks. I have officially declared this Watch Your Portions Week. I don't have a problem eating the right kinds of foods, just a problem with eating too much of them. I am sure my brown rice portion is more suited to a family of four. A family of four gorillas. If gorilla families ate brown rice, that is.

Today I bought a small loaf of rye bread, a chunky doorstop of a thing. If you threw it at somebody's head it might be fatal. I've always wanted to try the stuff, it looks so wholesome in a potential-deadly-weapon sort of way. But I toasted a thin slice and it was actually alright, although a little chewy. It went down nicely with an egg and spinach and grilled tomatoes and mushies. Hubba hubba.

In Scale news: there is no news. But I shall keep on keeping on! The exercise is alright and if I can get a handle on these portion sizes something will happen soon. I am feeling less flabby in the belly region so right now that's good enough for me.

. . .

Thursday nights are sacred at Chez Dietgirl, well at least the precious minutes between 7.10 and 8 PM. The classic 60s series The Avengers is on BBC Four and we always tune in. It's kitschy and hilarious and Gareth gets to perve on Diana Rigg as Emma Peel in her shiny leather trousers.

Last week's episode was intriguingly titled, "How to Succeed... At Murder!" and featured a gang of Killer Secretaries that would bump off their bosses and take over their businesses. They would all meet up at HQ for briefings and fitness classes. You need more than shorthand to be a good killer secretary. There's ballet and Strangulation 101 too.

Anyway, there was this fantastic sign in the classroom with the Killer Secretaries motto:

THINK THIN
TO BE SLIM IS TO BE SUCCESSFUL
NUBILITY = PROSPERITY

I thought of all the good folks in Fatblog Land and our constant search for words of motivation, so here are some more grainy screenshots.

Blondie Secretary here strangled one guy with her stocking and shot another with a gun-shaped charm on her charm bracelet that was actually a REAL gun! All while thinking THIN!

Meanwhile our heroine Emma Peel doesn't seem convinced by the sloganeering. She may be nubile, but working top secret for the British government hasn't made her particularly prosperous.

Here our hero John Steed is surrounded by leotard-wearing weapon-weilding Killer Secretaries. What is the collective noun for a bunch of Killer Secretaries? A tippex of Killer Secretaries? A memo? A staple? A shredder of Killer Secretaries? Anyway, power in slender numbers, gals!

Now even if you harbour no ambition to become a Killer Secretary, I'm sure you'll agree these are words of wisdom and inspiration that can help you on your own lard-busting journey. A motto for life!

Recipe Corner: Pumpkin and Tomato Soup

Happy Thanksgiving to all those who partook yesterday!

I hope you dined well, whether you turkeyed or tofuturkeyed or something else altogether. I don't know much about Thanksgiving except for the general themes of eating too much and being thankful. Sounds like the perfect holiday to me.

In the spirit of the event, here is a wee list of lard-busting things I am thankful for:

Internet Shopping - As much as I love wandering down the aisles of supermarkets admiring the goods, I hate the people. I hate when they meet their friends in the dairy aisle and park their trolleys nose to nose and chatter away oblivious to me trying to squeeze past. I hate the crowded car parks and the checkout queues and jumping up and down at the fish counter trying to get some service. I hate how miserable everyone looks.

So this is why I order groceries online and have them delivered for no more than the cost of trekking to the megamart on the bus. I plan a week's meals in advance, click click for ten minutes, then sit back while some other poor bastard has to scour the aisles with my shopping list then cart it to my door. And they don't "accidentally" chuck in cakes or bars of chocolate. It's a lard-buster's dream!

Dumbells Under The Bed - Again, I hate people. Bah, humbug. And I hate venturing out in the cold and dark, so I like to work out at home this time of year and not have to interact with the world.

Soup - Everything you need in a bowl. Easy to cook, easy to clean up. Endless leftovers. Equally healthy as, but far less fiddly than, a summer salad.

External Validation - The other day I had two separate people ask me if I'd lost weight. Amazing! This hasn't happened to me in so long. The first was a lovely woman who'd been away for six months and the other was someone I see in passing most days. They both used the word "load". As in, "Have you lost a load of weight?".

Dietgirl wept.

Actually, I just said, "Well, maybe a wee bit". Because I haven't lost anything, really. But I've been doing well for a few weeks now and had been annoyed with the scales as you well know, so to hear some nice words from impartial observers was a real boost to the ol' motivation. The number on the scale can faff around all it wants, but at the end of the day I just want to look like I take up less space, darnit.

Other things I'm thankful for: Good friends and internet people, emails from siblings, emerging biceps and Thursday night repeats of The Avengers on BBC4.

. . .

I've been meaning to apologise for my horribly slow email replies. But then I wondered if apologising would make me sound like a raging egomaniac, as though I can't get through the front door of our flat because there's just soooo many emails that they've all burst out of the computer and flooded the hallway. But then I figure if I don't say anything then it looks like I am a unresponsive snob. Hmm, dilemma!

So let me reassure you I have neither delusions of megastardom nor am I too important to answer my emails, I've just been a bit busy. Anyway I'm now down to 18 emails in my ReplyTo folder, and the oldest one is from late September so that's much better. Woohoo!

. . .

Recipe Corner

Well it's not much of a corner, more the arse end of the page. But there's no time for pedantry, we have to make the world's most delicious soup. Allez allez!

Seriously, it's the best soup I've had in yonks. It comes from Good Food magazine and was described as "rustic and robust". I thought that a rather poncy and optimistic description but it was really sublime! Hearty, rich, smooth and sweet. And strangely creamy despite absence of actual creamy ingredients. Hubba hubba.

Notes:

• In the mag the soup was served with some fancy cheese croutons but I skipped those as I am trying to shrink, dammit.
• The recipe said to roast the vegies with the herbs left on their stalks, and remove the leaves afterward. I thought that sounded far too fiddly so I just did that before it went into the oven.
• I chopped the tomatoes in half before roasting, which was a bad move as the juices ran everywhere and the veggies were more steamed than roasted. Next time I'll leave them whole.
• The recipe calls for pumpkin but I used butternut squash as that's all there bloody ever seems to be in the shops, except for Halloween. Then felt guilty as hell when I discovered my butternut had been flown in from NEW ZEALAND!?!

I don't have the recipe on me right now so I will blurt from memory and apologise in advance for any glaring inaccuracies! (Update - Have now checked recipe, should all be functional now!)

PUMPKIN AND TOMATO SOUP
Serves: 4
Source: BBC Good Food

650 - 900g (1.5 - 2lb) chunk of winter pumpkin or squash, peeled and cut into cubes
450g (1lb) ripe tomatoes
one red onion, peeled and cut into 8 wedges
6 whole cloves of garlic, unpeeled
a few sprigs of each fresh rosemary and thyme (I used about 6 of each)
3 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
1.2 litres (2 pints) vegetable or chicken stock

1. Preheat oven to 220'C (430'F).
2. Pull the leaves off the herb stalks and chop finely.
3. Put all of the ingredients, except for the stock, into a roasting tin. Turn in your hands so everything is coated in oil. Roast, uncovered, for 35-40 minutes, turning occasionally, until it all looks... roasty.
4. Remove veg from oven. Squeeze garlic cloves out of their skins.
5. Scrape the veggies into a blender and liquidise with the stock, in two batches if necessary. (I just put the lot in a big pot then blasted to smithereens with my trusty hand-held pulveriser thingy)
6. Pour into a large pot and heat a little if needed.
7. Check seasoning then EAT. Ooh yeah.
8. Actually, put it some bowls first, THEN eat. If you insist on being civilised.

Per serve: 212 calories, 12g fat

Bon weekend, you groovers!

Be Like The Mormons

Can I get a WOOHOO for the power of human endeavour? I had a good weigh-in this morning and I am deliriously happy to see some progress. The six weeks of post-honeymoon slob-out is over, I'm back on track! Sometimes I just look at the statistics and can't believe the difference in those numbers. It seems so long ago I used sit there on the couch surrounded by chocolate bars trying to summon the energy to walk to the end of the driveway to check the mailbox.

I get emails from people asking how do you do it, what's your secret? There's no bloody secret, except just concerted effort over time. Being persistent and determined. It's like most things in life. Take Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, they go knocking on doors every weekend trying to spread the good word. They must get told to piss off a dozen times a day! But they give up? Nooo. So be like that about your fat. It may tell you to go away, I'm sleeping in, but just keep nagging and annoying it until it finally screams, "Fine! Alright!" and surrenders to your will.

Anyway, on to this week's statistics.

Wednesday Weigh-In - Week Fourteen

last update: 20 April 2005

age: 27
height: 173cm (5'8")

original start weight: 159.2 kg (351 lb) on 17 Jan 2001
original start bmi: 53.4

fresh start weight: 95.9 kg (211.4 lb) on 12 Jan 2005
fresh start bmi: 32.2

current weight: 87.8 kg (191.4 lb)
current bmi: 29.4

result this week: -1.3 kg (2.2 lb)

loss in 2005: -8.1 kg (17.6 lb)
total loss since 2001: -71.4 kg (156.2 lb)

initial goal weight: 75 kg (165 lb)
distance to goal: 12.8 kg  (26.4 lb)

. . .

There seems to be an air of Let's Get This Bloody Over And Done With amongst a few of my favourite bloggers. Tree and Ms Ralph are busting for the finish line so they can enter the Weight Watchers Slimmer of the Year contest. And Kimba kicking ass on her new 22 Week Challenge, shooting for her WW goal by her 2 year WW anniversary date.

I've been looking at my own calendar and doing some obsessive calculations. We're looking to fly to Australia for Wedding Part III around 23 September, so my last Wednesday Weigh-In before that shall be 21 September. That's 22 weeks! So I'll be on a 22 Week Challenge of sorts too. I'm aiming for 75 kilos which is the very top of my healthy weight range. That means I need to average a 0.6kg loss per week, 0.58181818181 to be precise!

Can it be done? I reckon I can get pretty close, especially if I keep up the good eatin' and ass shakin' of the past couple weeks. Onward and downward, comrades.

Wednesday Weigh-In - Week Ten

So I gained half a kilo this week - I'm up to 89.8kg. I am too miserable to be arsed posting the usual list of stats. It's not as fun when the number goes up!

There were a few days this week that I seemed to forget I was this overweight person who cannot get away with eating chocolate bars. I had not got organised with grocery shopping yet so I didn't have good snacks for work. Instead I made trips to the vending machine. I had Mars Bars, Twirls and this strangely addictive Kinder Bueno thing.

I was in serious denial on the weekend, in my Saturday entry I said I was feeling "vague and half-hearted" about weight loss. Vague and half-hearted is one way of putting it, but being a mindless sugar pig is another! Saturday afternoon, after joining the gym, I walked to a mini supermarket in search of olives and peppers for our pasta that night. There were no peppers and this tiny jar of olives for 89p. I got all huffy and resentful, the expensive olives being a metaphor for the utter shiteness of the town I now live in. I stomped around the shop looking for something to calm me down, and then I spotted the freezer.

"AH HA!" I thought, "There is the freezer, and in that freezer is ICE CREAM, that substance that I really wanted last week but didn't get! So now it will be mine!"

I bought one of those Mars Bar icecream bars, just to continue the Mars Bar theme of the week. It was "only" one bar, as opposed to a box, so I got another one of those Kinder Buenos in case I wasn't satisfied with the Mars Bar.

I was walking back home, halfway up the big hill when I remembered SC was there, and all his mates were over. So I stood there scoffing down this Mars Bar ice cream, lurking behind a tree like some pervert, putting the bar down every time a car went by so people wouldn't think I was the Greedy Fat Chick. I was so edgy that I didn't enjoy a single mouthful, then I had to squint into car windows to see if I'd left chocolate evidence on my mouth.

I got home and pretty much lurked in the bedroom all evening after saying hi to everyone. I read my book Running Made Easy while sneaking bites of the Kinder now and then, stashing the wrapper in my handbag.

I was struck by the ridiculousness of my behaviour. What the hell was I doing? Who was this benefiting? Was this how I wanted my married life to be? Clandestine chocolate bars and foil wrappers in my undie drawer for the rest of my days?

I think I am just feeling unnerved by of all the change going on at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I am over the moon to be married to SC, but the whole moving out to his place and giving up my old routines and favourite haunts has been harder than I expected. I didn't expect to feel so resentful. I hate having to come up with all new ways of doing things, especially in terms of weight loss - because as you know I had a cracker of a routine happening before the wedding, I had great losses and was making progress with my fitness. Now I am struggling to get the formula right. That said, scoffing down chocolate bars is NOT going to get me back on track. It's not rebellion eating, it's just dumb eating.

Sunday became Get My Shit Together Day. I know that only planning brings me success. So I finally ordered the groceries online, we now have a fridge full of healthy stuff. Then I emailled the lovely Mistress Julia about the 5k and she is going to send me a training plan. I decided not to wait around in the meantime - SC and I went out and did Week One Day One of the Couch to 5k programme. It was a bit rough, I found running outdoors with hills and winds so much harder than faffing on the treadmill - but I was glad I did it. SC could have gone a lot faster but he insisted on staying with me. He is so bloody sweet and encouraging, I love him to bits. His encouragement as I bitched and moaned and huffed and puffed made me feel guilty for the secret binge the day before.

Monday night I braved the new gym and went to Body Pump. It was four weeks since my last class but I am proud to say I didn't need to reduce any of my weights. I was in agony yesterday though, and my triceps are still killing today! And we're off for another walk/jog tonight. I still feel kinda shaky at the moment, all this new stuff seems to have dented my confidence for some reason. But I just have to keep doing these positive things. Putting down the chocolate bars, putting on the running shoes. I can do it.

Cake is Sexy

My greatest runs of weight loss are always when I write down what I eat.  This year I've gone through phases of dilgently filling in my Slimming Magazine 2004 Diet Diary, then getting cranky with it and giving up.  There's columns for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and calories, but no space for exercise.  Or water consumption.  Or random drivel.

I was ferreting around in the Skinny Daily archives, reading all JuJu's entries in the Journal category, and then it hit me.  I didn't need a structured diary, I needed a big sprawling book of blank pages where I could run wild.  My weight loss caper doesn't fit into neat little boxes.  I don't want to write "1 apple, 4 brazil nuts".  I want to write "1 apple, 4 brazil nuts" then wax lyrical about what time it was when I ate, what mood I was in and what colour socks I had on.  This weight loss thing is such an emotional, complex thing for me, and until now I had been attempting to journal in tiny little Weight Watchers trackers or online calorie counters or the Slimming Diet Diary.  It doesn't suit my style at all. 

It didn't occur to me before that I could take a less regimented approach.  For some reason I thought there was some unwritten Sacred Rule that you had to be all official-like.  But thanks to JuJu I've decided to be more organic.  I went to Paper Tiger and bought myself a large Moleskine journal with graph paper inside.  Moleskines are oh so trendy these days, but I've been using them for years - they're the only notebooks that I've ever actually completely filled and didn't toss away halfway through coz I was bored of them.  Best of all, they always open flat, no matter where you are in the book.  They are just so comfy and easy to write in.

Anyway, I've decided to be unstructured yet structured.  On the first page I wrote "This Week" and wrote a few Mini Missions, concerning running and water intake and wearing my pedometer.  On the next page I wrote the date, then:

EXERCISE:
STEPS:
WATER:

Which is pretty self explanatory.  I can fill that in at the end of the day and get an overall picture in a Bridget Jones "units consumed" sort of way. Then underneath I just wrote down what I ate.  Below that is where it gets crazy, I crap on and on about how I felt and what I craved and when.  So far it is working brilliantly, I am getting back into that beautiful mindset where I think about what I eat instead of this mindless grazing I've been doing for months and months.

Last night I stayed at my Lovely Boy's house.  It is his birthday today and I am cooking him dinner.  Last night I was making the birthday cake in advance while he was in the recording studio with his mates - thus leaving me alone with cake batter, the bastard.  Normally if I creamed butter and sugar together I'd be sticking in my finger to taste, same goes for the block of Green & Blacks 70% Dark Chocolate melting on the stove.  Then I'd no doubt lick the bowl afterwards.  But tonight I kept thinking of my journal and didn't want to spoil the page by having to write "6.30PM - Half a cup of butter, sugar and raw eggs".  I made sure I had the sink full of hot water and washed the bowl right away.

The smell of the finished cake was incredible -- Dense Chocolate Loaf a la that saucy minx Nigella Lawson.  I was so aching to pick away at the cracked top but thought of my journal and my sister back home.  My sister is on an incredible roll at the moment, losing weight and exercising religiously.  I am happy for her but intensely jealous.  She knocked on my door at 5.55 AM yesterday to see if I was ready for our run.  I said "NO!" and dived under the covers.  "No worries, I'll go on my own," she says.  This of course spurred me into action and I was dressed in 2 minutes.  So last night I thought of her motivation streak as I stood over the chocolate cake.  I went and got my journal and sat on the couch, writing a new heading "Mantra of the Week - Would Your Sister Be Eating That?"

So this journal is all over the place (just like THIS journal), but it is helping.  I've realised where I have been going wrong.  I do well while I am at home with my sister, but as soon as I am on my own or with The Boy I let things slip.  He got home at 10PM and we ended up having a slice of cake, even though the birthday isn't til today.  But when someone comes home and tells you you're gorgeous and a domestic goddess and is generally happy to see you, it is hard to remember you're trying to drop 20 kilos.  Oh fuck it, cake is sexy. Let's eat cake.

But I wrote that down in my journal today.  Just because I feel truly loved by someone for the first time in my life doesn't mean I have a green light to get lardy.  Hopefully by keeping track of all this sprawling information, I can get back to that place where I was making considered decisions about what I ate.  That's the place where I lost some serious weight. 

I, Robot

Weight loss is easy. "Eat less, move more," says Dr John Smug MD from the University of Smugtown, "That's all there is to it!".

If you're a goddamn robot that is. I wish I was a robot, an automaton, a shiny box of metal with flashing lights and sproingy legs.

But I am not. And this is why it is never easy. Because I have this  brain constantly ticking away, constantly flipping through a rainbow of moods. Just think, if our bodies could be half as active as our brains, we'd be permanently sweaty, achy limbed, and very very skinny. Just flick back through my archives or anyone elses. It's all subject to change. I write reams about my thoughts and ideas on weight loss, and some days I come up with lightning bolt theories and explanations, but the next day I'll wake up in a different mood, circumstances will change or Venus is my 7th house, and I'll come up with a earth-shattering revelation that completely contradicts the last one.

My attitude to my body, my life, my health changes constantly. Here's a few thoughts I've had in the past month or so:

• If he steals that last piece of chocolate I will hit him
• I don't need that chocolate, I'm fine with this here apple
• I am getting serious calf muscles from all that running
• I am not doing enough running, I'm not making serious effort
• It's so nice being able to buy a size 18 at a normal shop
• I hate never finding anything to wear in a normal shop
• I drank all my water and took the stairs today, that's a great start
• I am kidding myself thinking water consumption is actual effort towards losing weight
• I don't want to have sex because my stomach is so revolting flabby
• My body is such a gloriously curved masterpiece that I think I will go have a wank

So what can you do with all this? How do you find a balance? How does anyone ever succeed? How can you bring some robot action into a creature full of contrast and contradiction?

I overanalysed the above then considered the wide range of lovely ideas/theories in the comments on the last entry. I wrote things on whiteboards, brewed up some blue liquid in a beaker, met with a crack team of dietitians and psychologists and came up with The Ultimate Theory* about my godawful Lard Busting Journey.

The only thing you can do when trying to lose weight, especially if it is a really fucking huge amount over an excruciatingly lengthy slab of time is:

1. Be patient
2. Accept that you will be a moody bastard some days, and just ride it out
3. Try to limit the damage when faced with #2
4. Choose the healthy option/action for the vast majority of the time

* Theory subject to change

. . .

How about I stop with the analysis and tell you what's been happening?

I got on the scale Tuesday night. I just wanted to see how things were going, I hadn't been on for over a month. Well, it wasn't good. I'm back up to 95 kilos (209lb). My lowest weight was 90.5 (199lb) in mid February. I've been fluctuating at around 91 - 94 kilos all year, but now it's crept up to 95 I can no longer kid myself that I am maintaining. I have gained weight. The scale isn't everything, but my clothes aren't getting any baggier. If I don't put in some serious effort a small gain could lead to some serious blubber.

My sister, on the other hand, had lost two kilos. I was happy for her but so burningly jealous I longed to kick her.

But let's look at the positives. I've gotten into a nice wee routine of doing cardio before my Thursday night Body Pump (weights) class. I say "routine" because it's happened three Thursdays in a row now so it seems more than accidental now, yes? So it's 20 minutes on the treadmill followed by 20 minutes on the elliptical.

The first week you may recall I ran a record 5 minutes on the treadmill, last week I bumped it up to 7.5 minutes. My legs felt like jelly when I hopped off. I quite enjoyed it though. Last night, after 5 minutes warm-up, I ran for ten whole minutes. TEN! I was so euphoric.

So I am just aiming to build on this. I am trying not to think about how freaking slow I am, rather build up my fitness and just go a little further each week. I am never going to win any races, folks - I looked down at the timer at 14 minutes and I'd only just clocked up a mile. The 14 Minute Mile! Mwahahhaa.

I increased some of my weights in the Pump class. I was feeling all very smug with my fitness efforts until the end of the class when everyone was putting their weights away. When I put my Reebok step back on the pile the entire stack collapsed and clattered all over the floor like giant dominoes. Everybody turned and stared.

"YES, THANK YOU! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!", I waved to the crowd and slinked out.