The joy of the run

...in which I consider the attractions of running

Today, I have been for a long (by my standards) run of 5 miles, which I did in around 50 minutes. My legs still feel OK and I probably could run a bit further - after a flurry of facebook comments I'm now tentatively considering signing up for another half marathon, despite what my legs thought of the last one I did.

I would be interested to see what sort of time I could do it in now that I'm carrying a lot less weight and am generally fitter and have more time to train....watch this space, as they say.

Anyway, running...there's a strange sort of attraction to it. When I run, there's nothing but the effort of putting one foot in front of the other, and the sound of the music through the headphones. It's a good time to think about stuff, and it's actually kind of satisfying to finish a long run and feel as if you could go further.

This afternoon I took the Youngest Child into town, and we stopped off in Costa for a coffee (in my case - black with sweetener since I didn't have my milk allowance with me) and a cake and a "creamy cooler" in hers (which she decided she didn't like in the end). While we were there I saw a guitar in the local music shop for £60 (I do actually play the guitar), and was super tempted, but held off as I already have about 5 guitars and probably my wife would not be too impressed at me bringing home yet another one....

Saturday 28th June

Healthy A: Milk

Breakfast

Bacon on a wholemeal roll (healthy b) with tomatoes

Lunch

Fruit (Nectarine, orange) fat-free yoghurt, slice of ham - I wasn't very hungry for some reason.

Dinner

Home made potato wedges, garden peas, sweetcorn, broccoli, gammon (fat removed, fried in Frylight).

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, fruit, yoghurt, some sort of free sample sweet from Mollie's (I'll count it as 0.5 of a syn - I have no idea what it was, some sort of small hard ball coloured gold).

Exercise

45 minute run

15 minutes exercise bike

Friday again?

...in which I ponder the unchangeable nature of the weekend.

It is Friday, and I have wine. Every Friday at the moment I tell myself that I won't, and then by 5pm when I've made dinner (and the kids have come home and the regularly scheduled argument-come-wrestling match has taken place) I invariably change my mind. 

I'm hoping that I will manage to resist tomorrow, as I've gone right up to my self-imposed 3 glass limit tonight (about 16 syns, but I'm low on the rest of the week so I should be OK). One of the issues with alcohol, of course, is that it reduces your self control, and those crisps are still in the kitchen....(I'm resisting, honest....so far)!

Next Saturday I have Saira's VSO's stag day (go-karting followed by a pub crawl, although we're probably all too old to do much crawling). This is likely to involve a tiny bit* of alcohol after the go-karting so I'm hoping I have a decent weight loss this week, especially as I'm in a race to target with another member of our group...

Also, new idea for when teams go out of sports tournaments: play the "you're outta here" song from Skatoony. My google-fu skills have let me down though and the only recording I can find of it is way too faint to be heard, so you'll have to take my word for it that it would be funny (or so it seems after 3 glasses of wine). Especially if they did the ejector seat into a sandpaper factory thing as they do in the cartoon.

*Rather a lot.

Friday 27th June

Healthy A: Milk

Breakfast

Nectarine, satsuma, coconut & vanilla yoghurt

Lunch

Bacon on wholemeal roll (healthy b) with tomatoes

Dinner

Chilli with rice, carrots, broccoli & cauliflower (I froze the chilli we had the other day and saved it for tonight 'cos the kids were having a takeaway)

Snacks/Drinks

Fruit, pickled onions, yoghurt, wine (approx 16 syns), cheese grids (4.5 syns), super rice, 500 ml alcoholic dandelion & burdock (call it 13 syns, the same as a bottle of Crabbie's ginger beer)

Exercise

30 minutes brisk walking (I never walk slowly).

A battle of wills

...in which there are crisps in the kitchen

 As mentioned yesterday, I have a rather strong liking for crisps. An addiction, almost. A complete lack of self-control. If you've ever seen a swarm of locusts strip a field of wheat then you've got some idea what I'm like around crisps (if it was one very large locust with a packet of crisps).

Today, there are crisps in the kitchen. And boy do I want some. But as of the time of writing (8pm) I have managed to resist.

I'm sure lots of people on any kind of diet plan have this sort of experience; you're in the supermarket and the chocolate is calling, or the cake is begging you to buy it, or the cider in the fridge is urging you to drink it...

So how do you resist when faced with this sort of situation? It's inevitable that sometimes you won't; sometimes you will give in, drink the cider, buy the chocolate, eat the cake. And that's OK. Nobody's perfect.

I like Slimming World because it gives you options here; you can eat it and cut back on your syns tomorrow (if it takes you over your limit), or if it's within today's syns then you don't even need to worry about it.

In my case, however, I know that 1 packet of crisps will almost inevitably lead to another, and then before you know it I'm sitting on the sofa at 11pm with 18 empty packets of crisps next to me, covered in cheesy crumbs. So I am resisting, and the way I am doing it is by thinking about group on Monday. I know that I will be weighed; there's no judgement there, but I love the feeling of success I get from having a good week and losing weight (also only 2lb to go to get my 3 stone award)!.

So I visualise how it will feel to be in the group explaining that I had a moment of weakness and ate my own body weight in crisps, versus how it will feel if I get my 3 stone award; I had already decided before I bought the crisps (for the kids) that I would not have any, and that's helping my resolve too. If I really want a snack I'll have a yoghurt or pickled onions or fruit.

Anyway, that's how I resist...as always, your mileage may vary.

Thursday 26th June

Healthy A: Milk. If you don't know what sort or how much, check yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that...

Breakfast

Peach, apple, satsuma

Lunch

Mushroom & spring onion omelette, jacket wedges & runner beans

Dinner

Teriyaki pork (2 syns for the sweet chilli sauce and teriyaki) with noodles & sweetcorn

Snacks/Drinks

Bacon on a wholemeal roll (Healthy B) with lettuce & tomato, yoghurt, fruit, ice lolly (rocket lolly: 2.5 syns).

Exercise

30 minutes exercise bike

Anyone for tennis?

...in which I consider Wimbledon and pickled onions

I'm not sure why, but I've never really been in to sport at all; when I was younger I would always much rather read a book than watch the TV, regardless of what was on, and the only sport my mum ever watched was snooker (does that count as a sport? I guess so. Cue jokes about blue balls...). 

So it was something of a surprise to find that I quite liked watching tennis when my wife introduced me to it. I'm not sure whether her interest was purely to do with the actual playing of the game or just the men's legs, but after watching it with her I found that I could appreciate the skill involved. Before that, Wimbledon had always been just the place where the common that the wombles lived on was as far as I was concerned. So it's now Wimbledon fortnight, the weather is good and I've just seen Andy Murray utterly annihilate the unfortunate Blaz Rola (wasn't he a member of Run DMC or something?). I don't have any Pimm's but I'm very tempted to have a can of cider when I finish work...

I've also eaten the best part of a jar of pickled onions. I have (had?) an unhealthy addiction to crisps in my pre-Slimming World days, so I now tend to avoid them altogether as I know they're one of the things that makes my self control disappear (although I was very proud that I managed to stick to a single packet last time I had any), so pickled onions are how I've chosen to replace those. They are superfree (i.e. very low in calories) and you can't eat that many before your mouth starts telling you to stop.

Wednesday 25th June

Healthy A: 250 ml semi-skimmed milk (approximately - I couldn't find a measuring jug this morning so I've had 4 coffees and will have the rest black with sweetener).

Breakfast

Apple, nectarine, pear

Lunch

Bacon with tomato on a wholemeal roll (Healthy B)

Dinner

Pastry-less quiche with pasta, plum tomatoes and sweetcorn

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, fat free yoghurt, fruit

Exercise

15 minute run

30 minutes exercise bike

A late post!

...in which work gets in the way. Oops.

Occasionally work gets a bit manically busy. I work for myself as a software developer, and sometimes multiple clients have urgent requests at the same time; yesterday was one such day (and it was rubbish, and I didn't even finish the work!) so I'm playing catch up today.

I'll update again later, but here's yesterday's menu:

Tuesday 24th June

Healthy A: 250 ml semi-skimmed milk (do I really need to type this every day?!)

Breakfast

Fruit (apple, satsuma, nectarine. Mmm, nectarines.).

Lunch

Bacon with tomatoes on a wholemeal roll (healthy extra b)

Dinner

Baked bean & bacon lasagne with baked wedges and sweetcorn (1.5 syns for the cheese on top). I ended up eating about 3 portions of this since A didn't feel too well, the elder teen refused to eat it and the younger teen only ate about half of his, so I'm really testing out whether free/superfree food works.

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, fruit, pickled onions, yoghurt, ice lolly (3 syns - it was hot. I mean the weather was hot, not the lolly. That would be silly).

Exercise

Rest day

Weigh-In Update

...in which I do not have much time

Very quick update - I have stayed the same weight this week. Which is more or less what I expected after Saturday's excesses. Back on it like Gromit on a rocket this week!

Taster Day!

...in which there will also be a weigh-in

Today we are having a taster session at the group. These are sessions where we all take some Slimming World friendly food in for other people to try, along with the recipe; it's a good way to get new ideas for things to make that are SW-friendly and maybe try things that are a bit different to what you usually eat.

I have made chicken Rogan Josh, which is currently in the slow cooker. I'm looking forward to seeing what people think of it (because I'm a little bit of a show off) and trying the food that other people have brought in.

After the Saturday's excesses of alcohol I'm not so sure I'm looking forward to weigh-in - I only need a 2 pound loss to get my 3 stone award but I suspect I will end up either maintaining or with a small gain. Still, nil desperandum - although gains are a bit depressing I always try to remember how far I've already come rather than getting too despondent about it.

The saga of the younger teen's scooter has successfully been brought to a close; our home insurance people have agreed to pay towards it (I have to say it was much easier and quicker to make the claim than I was expecting).

Also we no longer seem to have bees, or at least there are far fewer of them flying around than there were. With any luck they've decided they didn't like our house so much after all.

In other news, the elder teen's GCSEs have finished today, so he is now going on about the fact that he has 11 weeks off and I am attempting to explain to him that that is not necessarily how life works.

Anyhow, Here's today's menu.

Monday 23rd June

Healthy A: 250 ml Semi Skimmed Milk

Breakfast

Fruit (apple, nectarine, satsuma)

Lunch

Bacon (all fat removed) on a wholemeal roll with salad; pasta salad

Dinner

Not sure yet! Depends what's available at the group :).

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee/Fruit

Exercise

30 minute walk (to town and back)

30 minutes exercise bike

The morning after...

...in which a barbecue has occurred.

I've never been on any other kind of diet, so I'm not really sure how a barbecue would work out or what you'd be allowed to eat; on Slimming World, pretty much all lean meat is unlimited, so all you really need to avoid are the usual fatty burgers and sausages. 

We had lots of pork chops/escalopes (brought by our friends), some chicken breast and some Sainsbury's "be good to yourself" burgers that come in at 1 syn each - I usually make "free" burgers (made with 5% fat mince, egg and onion), but I forgot and in any case there was just about the right amount of food anyway.

I managed to stick to free/superfree foods more or less exclusively (apart from the burgers); I wasn't quite so successful at my resolution of not drinking wine or having too much cider. I'm going for a long run in a minute to make up for that.

Anyway, many songs were played*, some of them even in tune. A good time was had by all, and the food and drink flowed freely and all that stuff (the drink possibly rather too freely). Apparently we now have a tradition at these gatherings of playing "Jolene" as it makes Saira laugh to hear 2 heterosexual men begging the eponymous Jolene not to take their man. 

Since we played for the best part of 4 hours, my fingers are not at all happy this morning (playing an instrument that involves repeatedly pressing your fingers down firmly on metal strings can often make your fingers sad).

*after a fashion.

Sunday 22nd June

Healthy A: 250 ml semi skimmed milk 

Breakfast

Nectarine, satsuma, apple, strawberries, fat free yoghurt

Lunch

Roast chicken, boiled potatoes, carrots, broccoli, sweetcorn, 100 ml gravy (1.5 syns)

Dinner

Pasta salad with sliced chicken breast (left over from last night)

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, Fruit, yoghurt.

Exercise

30 minute run
15 minutes exercise bike
30 minutes just dance