Well I survived & enjoyed it ;-)

28^th January 2013

Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows. Michael Landon

Monday morning rolled around again, that was a quick weekend, yesterday was lovely though, I went with the ‘last day on earth’ idea and had what I fancied!  I’m so pleased to report I didn’t over eat even though I’d given myself permission to have anything I wanted!  I made home made burgers 20pp (I left some – about 5pp worth), they were delicious, that was our main mean, whilst in the shop I changed my mind about the doughnut and the cheese and onion crisps, I only bought small 46g bars of galaxy (7pp) and there’s still 2 pieces of mine left on the table!  I bought the St Agur cheese and crusty baguette but didn’t eat it (that’ll be lunch today).  I did have a bag of monster munch (4pp) and smoky bacon crisps (4pp) neither of which aren’t as good as I remember, a bounty (7pp) and a dime bar (4pp) though, very unusual for me to fancy chocolate but I really enjoyed it – I think it was because we talked so much about snacking last week in the meetings.  Oh and my bubble bath was gorgeous, then I spent the evening enjoying a glass or two of Red whilst watching American Pop Idol and Got to Dance whilst knitting, love getting older I do ;-)

So a grand total 62pp consumed, that’s all my weeklies gone now but I really enjoyed my day and I will be going back to a healthy diet today, although I shall be enjoying the St Agur and crusty bread for lunch, might nip and get a huge bag of salad to go with it though. 

I had a cholesterol test done for free at Sainsbury’s (Reedswood, Walsall) yesterday, she said they are there till February if anyone wants to go make an appointment.  My results were good, my total was well below 5 and my good cholesterol well above 1!  I believe I eat quite well on the whole but I will definitely look more at the fats and cholesterol especially for moms sake, WOW a 60g slice of Victoria sponge cake has 8g of bad fat and 4.7g of good fats as opposed to malt loaf & ProActiv spread has 0.6g bad fat and 2g good fat.  Even the healthy stuff can be surprising, Cereal & full fat milk 6.3g bad fats, 3.1g good fats whereas porridge has 0.6g bad fat and 1.4g good fat not a bad difference.  By switching from white toast & butter 5.3g bad fat, 2.7g good fat to brown toast and flora pro.active buttery 1.1g bad fat and 3g good fat!  It really is work reading the labels on food.

Oh and if you didn’t know or weren’t sure Cholesterol is a fatty substance found naturally in your body.  It plays a vital role in the day to day functioning of your body.  It is one of the key’s for keeping every cell running smoothly, and only becomes a problem when blood cholesterols are too high.  High density lipoprotein (HDL) is good cholesterol , it takes cholesterol away from your arteries to the liver to be broken down.  So a high level of HDL Cholesterol can be good for your heart health.  Low density lipoprotein (LDL) is bad cholesterol.  It takes cholesterol from your liver to your body tissues.  If your blood is high in bad cholesterol it can build up in the walls of your blood vessels.   So high levels of cholesterol can be caused by eating too much saturated fat, but there are several factors that influence your blood cholesterol level.

-          A family history of high cholesterol

-          Insufficient exercise

-          Getting older

-          Being overweight

Go get it checked it’s free, I’m even sure the doctor would do yours too if you asked.  And of course you can naturally help yourself by eating well and moving more – get your five a day, choose wholemeal or granary bread.  Cut down on sugar, watch your salt and limit your consumption of foods high in saturated fat (hard cheese, red meat, full fat dairy, biscuits, pastries).

Well there’s your educational lesson for a Monday morning!   Here’s to a happy healthy day. xx