This has been a really positive week for me. Things are gradually changing and I really think they are changing for good this time. Each change I make I try to listen to what my body is telling me and go with that. Just recently, as you know, I’ve been trying to eat more during the day and less in the evening.
I struggle to eat anything before 11am, a knock back from the insomnia when I was too tired to eat (and anyway I had eaten quite enough over night to keep me going thank you very much). In the past I would often eat my toast at 11 and skip lunch and be starving by 3pm when I would begin my quest to feed the 5000. Actually it was just me, but I do remember eating a lot from early afternoon onwards. It was not always unhealthy food. I actually really enjoy healthy food and absolutely always eat far more than my five a day (love, love, love my veggies!). It’s just I was really hungry until I fell into bed at 3am.
This past week I have done my best to eat most of my food before 4pm. I still can’t eat in the morning before 11ish, but with only a smoothie or a slice toast I am able to fit in lunch. Lunch is now our biggest meal of the day and tends to be the most calorific (not that I count any). Because it is not that long since I have eaten (only an hour since breakfast), my portion sizes are smaller. We then have a tea with sandwiches once Gary gets home at 3pm, before heading off to the leisure centre. At this point I don’t seem to feel hungry. I am still munching away on our evening cup of tea and snack with Gary in front of Castle dvd, but every night this week I have thought how unnecessary the snack was to me. I wonder now how much is habit rather than need?
This is really just a (very) long-winded way of saying my body loves eating before 4pm and overall in a 24 hour period seems to need less than before. Another rather positive side effect is that it has also stopped the incessant nagging from the children that they are starving. Eating more food earlier on suits them too.
In the coming weeks I will be focusing not on how much weight I lose but how much health I gain. If I can make this a journey about making lifestyle changes rather than trying out the newest or latest fad diet, I might have a chance of some weight coming off and staying off. That said, I am pleased to say I have lost another 1Ib this bringing my total weight-loss to 18Ib. Can I hear a yipidee dipidee? I would say this is still down to moving more rather than eating less. I have walked the 45 minutes home from the gym most days. Next week Gary is taking me into the gym on our date night (I’ve not had the courage to go in by myself yet) and after that we have booked a court for an hour of badminton. It is such a healthy date night I feel all virtuous!! I have also booked myself onto a yoga course and I am debating a bit of Pilates and maybe even a swim. We’ll see, but the more I move this body, the more I want to move it!
I’ve also been putting some of my new knowledge to work and trying out various things. I’m incredibly bad at following recipes and the like, so will often play around with ingredients until I find what I’m looking for. I find this process much more satisfying than following the results of someone else’s playing about time!
This week I was intent on buying, preparing and freezing small freezer bags full of fresh fruit. My goal was to exchange the toast and Marmite breakfast with ice-cold smoothies:
I managed to fill ten bags with two large ladle-fuls to each bag. I will freeze them and add them to apple juice each morning before whizzing them up for smoothie heaven! I have plans to play about with freezing home-made yogurt in cubes and adding them to bags of fruit and chopped bananas for the children to help themselves to each day for a snack (they will add them to milk and blend). I was gratified to see how little space they take up in the freezer and next week will buy more fruit to make enough to last two weeks.
I have also been playing about with a granola recipe. The addition of the juice to the smoothie above gave me the idea to soak some just rolled oats in pine-apple juice. In the end I mixed together pineapple juice, small amount of oil and the last dregs of the honey and poured the fluid over the oats. After mixing thoroughly I spread them over a baking sheet and popped them in a hot oven:
I then mixed half a bag of mixed seeds with half a bag of sultanas and half a bag of dried apricots (which I chopped up):
I added the fruit and seed mix to the oats:
And put them in a hot oven. Once they had started to brown I turned off the oven and allowed them to dry out completely in the residual heat of the oven:
They are seriously good and made only from natural and healthy ingredients. I left them to cool and stored them in an airtight container. I made these for the children’s breakfast for them to eat a small amount of before going swimming each morning.
Thanks for all your encouragement last week. I love to read about your tips, successes and very much enjoy the cheering on!! I want to point you to a couple of other posts:-
1) Phyllis wrote another excellent post on why she won’t be a trim and healthy momma. A blogging friends emailed me recently concerning this book saying how well it had worked for her. I’ve never heard of it before, but Phyllis gives a very clear and helpful explanation of why it is not for her. Many helpful posts can be found at her blog On the Mend, where she documents everything she is learning about a cancer fighting diet. It’s very good stuff!
2) Audria posted about her week here and is going to be trying out a recipe for fish tacos this week. I’m kind of hoping she will post it because I love fish (Hint, hint Audria!).
How has everyone else done this week? Any of you care to show a before and after photo to inspire the rest of us? Any non bloggers want to share a recipe or write a guest post for me about a health related topic? I’d love for you all to get as involved as you want to. We are going to do this, I just know it!
If there is any way I can pray for you please do leave a message or shoot me off an email at the address above (right hand corner of blog). Thanks so much for joining in and for all your enthusiasm. I’ve also added a few more pins to my pinterest inspiration board which you might enjoy having a peek at!