I'm dreaming of a White Easter - NOT!

31^st March 2013

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. Mayo Angelou

Happy Easter Sunday everyone, I have a feeling a few of you will be struggling to resist all the chocolate that you may well find yourself surrounded by today.  Thankfully there are no chocolate eggs in our house, although I may have a chucky egg for breakfast, mmm yes I could just eat that this morning.

So yesterday once again managed to stay on track, despite wanting to eat the house thanks to our drinking sessions the night before, I resisted and instead had a tasty Lamb Rogan Josh for lunch (17pp total with the rice) and for my tea, I had 6pp of deliciousness, in the form of prosciutto & emmental ravioli with 1tsp Parmesan – which is on offer in Waitrose 2 packs for £4 the pack serves 2.  I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as I’ve had stuffed fresh pasta a long time ago and wasted impressed but this may well become a regular at tea time as it only takes two minutes to warm through once you’ve boiled your pan of water.  They have at least half a dozen different flavours to try; I shall be nipping back tomorrow to stock up!

We shan’t be partaking in a roast dinner today either, but we do have chicken in a tarragon sauce which I will serve with veggies.

Didn’t get much done at all yesterday, I was fine when I first woke up but once I’d been and walked Alfie for half hour all my energy disappeared and me and mom just chilled all day, I managed a bath then later on the afternoon I asked mom if she fancied a little walk along the canal.  We usually do 20 minutes, but yesterday she was on fine form and we did an hour, walked along the canal to the second bridge which we walked over then walked round the estate and back, she doesn’t give up despite the pain, all she needs is a walking stick in each hand and an attitude to die for!

It snowed on and off all day yesterday but at least it hasn’t stuck, its very strange looking out of the window on Easter Sunday and seeing snow still up the garden, let’s hope we won’t still be seeing it in the summer!

Thanks to a lazy day I did finish my book, it was a very easy chick read but lighthearted was what I wanted, and it put into simple written word the coin-toss decision thing, which I was told a few years ago and think is fab but never quite but it across properly so now I can!  Here I’ll share it with you, it's what you do when you can't decide between two things. You take out a coin and decide if it lands Heads, you'll do one thing, Tails, the other. In the time it takes for the coin to flip up in the air and come back down to your hand, your heart speaks to you. Your heart speaks. And you know what you want the outcome to be.

Yes it really is a great way to acknowledge what you already know!

Have an EggCeptional day (couldn’t resist!) and Eat Gorgeous x

 

Chilled out this morning...

30^th March 2013

Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change. Wayne W. Dyer

Well my boozy night with my bestie went well; we had a 14pp tea courtesy of waitrose – butterflied pork leg with a honey-roasted parsnip crust and sage butter, served with potato rosti, mellow & creamy cabbage & bacon, roast courgette and pepper.  Now doesn’t that sound the business, if I’d just said we had pork, potato and veggies you wouldn’t have been so impressed would you and this is how they get you to buy the nice foods by describing them in such ways on packaging and menu’s in restaurants!   Don’t be fooled, the most important place to look on food packaging is the nutritional label, I also look at ingredients and price but that’s your choice.  The meal worked out at a tenner for 3 of us which I didn’t think was bad and it was delicious.  I consumed a little more alcohol than planned but when my bestie wakes I will find out how much of that bottle I drank and tot up my tracker, at the moment it’s looking like more than 50 and less than 60pp which ain’t bad really, we did munch on carrot sticks & a 2pp tub of hummous after drinking – you’ve got to be impressed with that!

I’m surprisingly fresh to say I drank Prosecco and vodka and I plan to stay on track all over Easter, I’ve not bought loads of booze so once my couple of bottles of red have gone there will be no more until I shop again next weekend, if it’s not in the house, I can’t overindulge.  My kitchen freezer is full of frozen vegetables and a couple of quality ready meals, and my fridge is also full of good healthy stuff too so no excuses this week at all.  I was really surprised at how good on ProPoints some of the meals were in Waitrose and yes I know it’s not the cheapest shop in the world but by buying their  ready meals I actually haven’t spent as much as I would in Sainsbury’s buying all the ingredients to cook, it helps that there’s two of us too.  Their Indian meal deal was £10 for two mains, 1 rice and two sides, we will eat the Aloo Gobi sides as another main, the Lamb rogan josh was 12pp for the tray and the rice was 7pp for half.  I bought some fresh stuffed ravioli which was on offer 2 for £4; they work out at 5 & 6pp for half the packet, that’s really good!

So I won’t have to rush to cook which means I’m going to have plenty of time to walk Alfie and I also plan on doing some more scrapbooking this weekend to keep me occupied, and I may finish my book which is a silly chick thing but I need to finish it now because I have one that’s being realised next week that I want to start.

 Short one today as there’s actually not much in my head this morning, I’m sat here daydreaming so I shall go walk Alfie instead.

Enjoy Easter remember to Eat Gorgeous xx

It feels good to be making the effort!

29^th March 2013

Take pride in how far you have come and have faith in how far you can go.  Christian Larson.

We wish you a merry Easter and a happy new spring!  That’s what I found myself singing last night as I loaded my car, I was singing it to the tune of ‘we wish you a merry Christmas’ because of the snow on the ground all around me!  Let’s hope the clocks going forward and Easter will bring with it the spring and then the sunshine will follow asap please because everyone has had enough of winter now and we would all benefit enormously from a bit of warm weather.

I got away with a 1/2lb gain yesterday but that is 2.5lb gained in 3 weeks, I’m still 1 1/2lb lighter than I was in January (slow progress I know!) and I’m on it now, day 1 complete and it looked like this;

Breakfast  - Scrambled egg and toast (5pp)

Lunch – Leek and mustard bake (6pp) recipe on www.happyowls.co.uk

Tea – Couscous, chorizo & butterbean stew, chargrilled courgettes (9pp) recipe will be on www.happyowls.co.uk as soon as I type it up as I was making it up as I went along, playing Master Chef in the kitchen.  I'm rather pleased with it if I do say so myself ;-)

 

Then I had 3pp for milk in my drinks, I earned 8pp which of course meant I could have wine ;-) good day all round and really enjoyed it.

It’s important to realise and work with the kind of person you are when losing weight, I am a foodie, I love food to look lovely, I like to eat different foods and to make my meals interesting whereas my bestie just likes to be full and likes it to be easy – she doesn’t want to cook, her words were, “Boring and routine works for me. I like traditional dinners... Not good in trying new stuff”

That’s why it’s vital that you identify your preferences and patterns and work with them, it makes sticking to the plan so much easier. The other thing you need is patience because you’re not going to lose it all overnight, the one thing that’s likely to make me cry is watching someone else get upset and cry over their weight loss journey which I did see this week and honestly folks it’s really not worth it.  I appreciate it’s difficult and you may want that weight loss asap but if we do it properly it’ll only have to be done once and then you work on the maintenance.

Life is too short not to enjoy every day, apparently I was told yesterday by someone who’d been talking to a laughter expert that if you laugh for 20 minutes a day you are likely to live an extra 8 years!  There you go, get laughing!  Mom and I laugh lots, I couldn’t even tell you some of the things we laugh about, partly because they’re so wrong and partly because my memory is dreadful and I forget!  My mom is just so random you have to laugh with her or there’s something wrong with you.

So today is the test, me and my bestie get to hang out and it’s an overnighter!  I have a plan though, I’m going to prepare us something delicious and low in ProPoints and I will stick to my wine but not be ridiculous!  I want a weight loss next Thursday and I’m going to do everything in my power to get one!  I can live without chocolate eggs we don’t really celebrate Easter here so I’m lucky. 

Whatever your Easter plans are, the most important thing to remember is enjoy it, only do as much damage as you’re willing to see show on the scales next week!

BeYouTiful xx

The 'Sod it' show is over!

28^th March 2013

It’s not the future that you’re afraid of.  It’s repeating the past that makes you anxious!

Good morning, and am I ready to start my Thursday or what!  It may take a couple of mugs of coffee to get me in normal Happy Owl mode ;-)

So yesterday I had a lovely chat with my boss which made me feel better about my decision and then later in the day feeling much better about everything I had a text conversation with my bestie.  It felt a little be like a scene from ‘Groundhog Day’, we’ve had similar chats so many times about our weight and losing it that when we started the conversation I thought to myself ‘here we go again!’, then I remembered all the members I’ve met – myself and my mom included that have tried to lose weight numerous times and then suddenly it clicked and they did it!  So that’s how I’m feeling this morning, I’m doing it and as Confucious say, “It does not matter how slow you go so long as you do not stop.” Well I’m not stopping until I get there, I can keep saying “the snow made me eat it”, or “I’m too busy and stressed right now to focus”, or I can get on it like a car bonnet and stop with the excuses!

Today is weigh day and I’m back on it, chocolate has all gone and I’m refocusing, I been playing the lead role in my very own production of the ‘sod it show’ for a fortnight now but the parts got TOO BIG for me and it’s time to move on!  It’s time to start writing a new role, I’m thinking a healthy, happy, balanced lead who spends her days walking her dog, cooking nice tasty low ProPointed food, working her fab job, enjoying taking her mom out for day trips, having giggly get-togethers with her besties, and I’d like to throw in a cleaner but I think that’s not gonna happen!

Yeah it’s time to stop messing about and take back control, I have a stone to lose and I’d like to get it off before we go away in June (there’s another scene from Groundhog Day, I’m sure if you do a search you’ll find that sentence elsewhere in this blog).  Should knowing I’ve said it before stop me from keep saying it till it happens?  HELL NO!  When I got to goal in 2004, I’d been starting a diet every week from January till March when I eventually got my act together and joined Weight Watchers, I got to my goal in the August of that year.

I’ve just spent ten minute sorting my food cupboard, my fridge and freezer is almost empty so I’m off to fill it full of healthiness tomorrow, good time as pay day was Monday so I can actually afford to this week.  Haven’t decided on what I’m eating today, but will have a look and think when I got make my next cuppa as this happy owl needs more caffeine this morning.

I’m already BeYouTiful but I’m about to get back to Eating Gorgeous and taking care of me again, how you doing in that area?

 

 

HURRY UP & Slow down!

27^th March 2013

To live is the rarest thing in the world.  Most people exist, that is all! Oscar Wilde.

 

How true is that quote!  I am always telling people life is too short and yet lately I’ve felt that mine is so full and even though everything I do is stuff I enjoy, it’s too much to pack into a week, so after 3 months of thinking and turning stuff over I made a decision to get some of those hours back.  My life has changed a lot over the last 12 months, I can’t just go away for the weekend at the drop of a hat because of mom, and I’m not complaining, I’m absolutely fine with that, I want to spend more time with my mom which is another reason I need to get some of those hours back. 

 

So I decided yesterday that I needed to make a change, I got in touch with my boss and asked about reducing my meetings so that instead of doing a 50 hour week, it’ll be more like a 40 hour week, she’s agreed so now I’ve just got to wait for it to be worked out.  I want to have more time with my mom, I need to actually have time to do housework as dull as it may be, and it has to be done occasionally!  And I want to have the energy to give 100% to my members and my job and at the moment with everything I’m trying to do, including walking the dog twice a day, I just feel like I’m chasing my tail, never mind his ;-)

So yes it means a pay cut and in the current climate that’s probably a silly move but I’m only here once and so is my mom and I’d rather be money poor and time rich, than time poor and money rich.  I know rushing is affecting my eating, I sat on Monday and just chatted with the caretakers at my venue over a coffee as I’d got there early because of the snow – I NEVER DO STUFF LIKE THAT, because I don’t have time, and I want to, I want to have time to waste (well actually it’s not even wasting is it) on small talk and chats, I’d like the energy to get up at the weekend and think ‘right that’s tidy the house from top to bottom’ (I only wanna do that about every 2 months though, lets not get carried away), I want the enthusiasm to say to mom come on my works all up to date lets drive to the seaside and watch the sunset, I want to walk Alfie without thinking ‘come on Alfie we ain’t got time to go that way’ or wishing he wouldn’t pee up every lamp-post.  Yeah I want the little things because I did most of the big things when I was younger and I have no desire to do any of those now, I just want to slow down and enjoy the day to dayness of life.  The only ‘fast’ I want at the moment is the odd MacDonald’s.

I want to spend my weekends tuned out of work and into me and mine, scrapbooking, enjoying days out, relaxing, cooking, doing whatever my mood takes me and then when I go back to work I’m 100% re-energised and ready to give my members 100%. 

I’m very fortunate because I absolutely adore my work, yesterday’s meetings were full of so much laughter yet we all got support regarding our weight loss, no one left feeling guilty if they’d over-indulged, my only mission in life is to make every person out there with a weight problem feel good about themselves, I want a world of “Happy Owls” (see www.happyowls.co.uk if you don’t know what that is).  No one should feel bad about how they look and through my work I get to try to help them realise that they are all BeYouTiful and should Eat Gorgeous for the right reasons.

So yes I’m already financially not as well off as I was a year or two ago and now because of cutting my hours I will be more so, but WOW I’m sat here smiling because do you know what, I can go without certain things, I can cut my cloth so to speak, heck I saved £24 a month by getting rid of Sky Movies and SkyHD, because I never have the time to watch the damn films and mom can barely see the screen let alone tell the difference when it’s in HD!  That reminds me I must sort out and change my broadband supplier now my contract is up!

Food for thought folks, are you living life in the fast lane, is that one of the reasons you’re struggling with your weight, is there anything you can do to slow down?

Here’s a bit more food for thought;

·         If the world has been spinning around you and your mind has been going along with it, slow down.

·         If the demands to keep up, join up, show up, stand up are weighing on you, slow down.

·         If the worries, the crying, the tears, the fighting, the tattling, the middle-of-the-night waking is frustrating you, let go and slow down.

·         If it feels like a chore, a job, a battle, slow down.

·         If there is no good reason to go yet you feel you must go anyway, slow down.

·         If things are just not right, not balanced, and you’re not saying “Hell, yeah, I got this,” then slow down.

·         Slow down when you find yourself down and out. Slow down when everything around you says speed up.

·         This week, let’s slow down and let the unimportant things fall to the side for a bit and let the good stuff — the stuff that leaves us smiling to ourselves – rise to the top where it should always be.

Slow down and see what comes.

I’m off to walk my dog now and he can pee up as many lamp-posts as he wants ;-)

In the words of Ghandi “There is more to life than increasing its speed.”

 

 

From argh to ahhh - reality check was necessary!

26^th March 2013

Hello my name is consistency – I make it happen, day in and day out.  You might know my good friend- success…. We’re always hanging out together!

So yesterday was a toughie, obviously the weather conditions weren’t great but that wasn’t a problem, the majority of my gorgeous members still managed to get to me despite the fact you could barely stand up due to the slippy paths, even Alfie was a bit like bambi when I whizzed him round the block!

The toughie started when I sat down to do paperwork, software issues and frustration ensued!  I got myself a little worked up to say the least, yes yesterday I took myself way too seriously and when you do that you get stressed, it really wasn’t worth getting stressed about as nothing is worth raising my blood pressure!   The frustration lasted about 2-3 hours when suddenly I realised what I was doing and thought ‘sod it’, smiled and took a deep breathe.

I didn’t get out of my office till gone five though so I did get quite a bit done.

The only down side to all that was my eating behaviour, I was stressed so I ate, I was rushed so I didn’t think about what I ate nor have time to cook!  This I realise is one of the side effects of stress and another good reason not to get wound up over things that you can’t change.

Lack of time I just realised when I was in the kitchen making a cuppa is one of the main reasons we struggle with our weight loss plans isn’t it, we’re all so damn busy so we feel that we don’t have time to cook and therefore we grab any old junk, stop at MacDonalds or KFC or order a takeaway!  A change of mindset is needed here because yes, yesterday there was no chance I had time to cook certain meals such as a roast lamb dinner because I hadn’t got time for all the preparation and I’d forgot to get the lamb out of the freezer.  I did however have time to do something fast, this pasta dish that I had for my tea took 15 minutes, and 12 of those was so the 50g wholewheat pasta (5pp) would cook, I threw 1pp chorizo, 1pp olives, ¼ chopped orange pepper, 1pp sundried tomatoes, 4 sliced mushrooms, 8 tiny cherry tomatoes in a pan and cooked them through, the when pasta was cooked I stirred it all together and added an egg (2pp) which I stirred through as it continued to cook for another minutes, served with 1pp parmesan cheese.  Total of 11pp and totally delicious, now there are plenty of those kind of meals that can be  thrown together to help you stay on track, or even  scrambled or poached eggs on toast, or beans on toast – there are quite a few options, because the danger of not taking the time and effort could mean you have a 4pp bag of crisps with a couple of WW bars 4pp, so 8pp has already gone and you’re still going to be hungry! 

Actually I’m just tracking yesterday and I’m absolutely thrilled, mom and I shared a pepperoni pizza and I was dreading ProPointing it, but it’s worked out at 11pp for half, and it was delicious, it would have been better served with a side salad to fill me up, and hopefully I’ll do that next time!  This was the pizza, it’s a 340g Goodfella’s stonebaked thin pepperoni, very, very tasty indeed and most definitely worth 11pp for half!

So I’ve realised once again that stress ain’t worth it and that time is something I’m short of in the week so I need to have a plan, as with any goal you have in life you have to have a plan – do you?  Is your goal list more of a wish list than a want list?  Are you being realistic and have you put in place a plan of how you intend to achieve that goal.  Remember it won’t just happen, results happen with action. Results disappear with inaction.  It really is that simple, I can sit here typing that I’d like to lose half stone, but unless I put some plans into action that goal is never going to be achieved!  So when I sign off in a minute, I will go downstairs make me a cuppa and plan my meals for the day – stop leaving everything to chance because that isn’t helping at all.

Today I shall mostly be behaving like a relaxed Gorgeous BeYouTiful person - care to join me. x

Content is what I am, the scales don't measure that!

25^th March 2013

Your dreams do not have an expiration date, take a deep breathe and try again.

I had a lovely day yesterday, I spend the best part of the day scrapbooking, it really does pass the time and keep me engrossed, I think the only reason I don’t do it more often is because of the mess I make doing it, maybe I need to try and work out how to do it without all the mess!  That way I could do a little bit here and there, my office as I type looks like it’s been ransacked, I can only just about move my chair without hitting something – untidymare.com!

After a nice soak in the bath on the afternoon, I did my master chef thing in the kitchen, it didn’t take long.  I’ve finally found a way of cooking pasta so that I enjoy it, I’m not keen on tomato based sauces so was glad to find that recipe the other week for a Carbonara which involved cracking an egg and stirring it through the pasta, I used that idea yesterday.  I added asparagus, olives, chorizo, spring onions, mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes and parmesan cheese and come up with a pasta dish I would eat again often as it contained all my favourite foods.  It was a huge plateful and cost me 16pp but it was 5pm and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast because I’d been so engrossed in my scrapbooking.

So how’s the weight loss (or maintenance of course depending on where you are on your journey) going?  Remember the true secret to success of weight loss is a combination of what you eat, what you drink and what you think!  It really is that simple, well it reads simple, not sure about the reality of putting that sentence into practice though!  However what you think can impact your success massively, thinking “I want that but I CAN’T have it!” won’t help at all, whereas thinking “I can have it but I don’t want it!” will have a completely different affect on your thinking!  I give myself permission to eat and drink anything I want, by doing that it stops me wanting it so much.  Yesterday I wanted a sausage sandwich for breakfast so I had it, cost me 13pp, Wall’s microwave sausages 2 for 7pp, bread 5pp, brown sauce 1pp, absolutely delicious and once the box has gone this morning I probably won’t have sausages again for ages.  Yes when I fancy something I have it because when you don’t then you crave it all the more, you have something else to distract you from what you really want, then you eat your way round what you wanted to start with, by the time you cave and have it, you’ve overeaten with so many other things you’ve doubled the ProPoints that the original food would have cost you!

I had Maltesers for breakfast one day last week because they were there in my kitchen and I knew that at some point I was going to eat them, so I decided to have them as a meal, rid my home of them and not buy anymore.  I’m so glad our Easter chocolate meetings are done and dusted because I couldn’t cope with having any more chocolate around me, I’m so over the sweet, sickly brown stuff, I really am, it makes me feel ill!

By giving myself permission I’m maintaining my weight, I’ve just looked back over the last 12 months, this time last year I ran 5 miles and I still weighed the same as I do today walking Alfie twice a day instead which I’m pleased about, my weight seems to fluctuate by 5-7lb max, again I’m chuffed about that, I know it isn’t the bmi number but it’s a number I happen to like because it’s a number that I can maintain!

I’m a comfortable size 12, sometimes I buy 14’s and other times I can get a size 10 skirt that fits, they’re just labels that can be cut out, I have something you can’t buy in any store, I have contentment and that’s priceless and immeasurable.

Have a wonderful day, it may be a bit grim out there but I shall be going to work, I’m already to dig my car out this morning ;-)

BeYouTiful xxx

 

She is Fabulous!

24^th March 2013

Whatever you hold in your mind on a consistent basis is exactly what you experience in your life.  Tony Robbins

Snow Sunday here and in most places in the UK I’m guessing, it’s still coming down, Alfie was happy to do a 2 mile walk (or bounce) in it yesterday morning but he only got one walk, I’m not a fan I have to admit and my socks were coming off in my wellies – not impressed at all.

We just chilled yesterday, I had a lovely chicken dinner for 16pp for my main meal, still not 100% on track but not being ridiculously bad either and at least I’m tracking again so that’s progress.

I have another guest blogger for you today; I really enjoyed reading this one I have to say!  We are all so different and all have our own stories, yet at the same time we share so many feelings and traits.

 

I am Fabulous!

The first thing you need to know about me is I am insanely shy, but I am also a great actress so no one has ever known,  Dawn French is quoted as saying “My theory was that if I behaved like a confident, cheerful person, eventually I would buy it myself, and become that” and that is truly my motto!

Size 10

Weight was never an issue for me, as a teenager I had the perfect hourglass figure, even after my 1^st child my figure snapped back as if it were made of elastic.

Size 14

However my escape from a violent marriage and subsequent divorce brought with it a deep depression which resulted in a Compulsive Eating disorder. At the peak of this I was bingeing on 3 or 4 loaves of bread in one day. With medical help and therapy I learnt to regain control.

A new marriage and two more children brought a move 150 miles away from everything I knew, when the youngest was 9 months I went to work fulltime and my weight ballooned uncontrollably...why?

Size 16

I learnt to drive, I worked at a desk, I was bored, I was comfortable? Maybe all of these things but ultimately I started changing. I no longer behaved like that confident, cheerful person. I wouldn’t go out, I wouldn’t socialise, I hid myself away. Something had to be done!

Size 18/20

In February 2005 I joined weight watchers, I went alone, I sat at the back and I didn’t speak. Suddenly it made sense, I didn’t know when to stop eating, I would eat and eat whatever was put in front of me and I never said no, although I thought I had regained control of the compulsive eating disorder and in most part I had,  I still had some of the traits.

Tracking was the key; tracking told me when I had had enough for the day. It was the only way I knew when to stop.

My journey was steady with the occasional small gain, I still sat at the back and didn’t speak but within 13 months I lost 4 stone

Size 12

When I got to Goal I left my meeting drove to the supermarket and bought a box of four fresh cream cakes, sat in the car park and ate them all!  You see I still have that binge eater in there - she is just controlled by tracking!

I had maintained my goal weight for 5 years and last year had another child I went back to my Weight Watchers meeting when my baby was 6 weeks old and lost two stone of pregnancy weight.

Size 8

These days I have a passion for weight loss far greater than my passion for food, it’s been a hard lesson but I think I am finally there.

Don’t get me wrong I can still eat a family bag of Maltesers and hide the evidence under the sofa, but I track it and that’s the difference.

So why am I still losing weight? Am I not happy with my body?

You will notice that I have sub headed my story with dress sizes because that is the ‘ME’ that everyone sees and yes I am very happy with that but only I know what I weigh and I want to see a particular number on the scales.

So I continue to track, it makes me feel in control and I like the way that feels.

Weight Watchers has given me freedom, I have unlocked the ‘ME’ hiding inside. Most importantly I’m not pretending to be confident & cheerful anymore, I truly have become that.

 I LOVE losing weight, I LOVE me and I AM FABULOUS!

--------------

Yes she is Fabulous!  You can tell that just by reading it can’t you!  So go think about your story, your journey and all the things that make you FABULOUS!  If you'd like to share it, you could be one of my anonymous bloggers x

Eat Gorgeous & enjoy being fab-YOU-lous today!

 

It's all White out there!

23^rd March 2013

When something bad happens, you have 3 choices – you can either let it define you, destroy you or strengthen you!

 

Well aren’t we lucky the snow had all gone from our roads by about 3pm yesterday so the universe has sent us some more, easily another couple of inches and its still falling – YAY!  Can you read the sarcasm? 

 

But I’m going to enjoy looking at it through the window as luckily I don’t have to go anywhere if I don’t want to, and because I’m listening to my mom singing in the bathroom, she's made the song up herself apparently, all I heard was, “If you cry you’ll be sad, if you’re happy you’ll be glad.”  She has a point!  I’ll take from that this morning I think.

 

Had a lovely day yesterday, spend the morning with my bestie, we went for a wander round Waitrose and a coffee, then we went to do some undercover investigating (I can’t tell you or I’d have to kill you), the we had a spot of lunch before saying our goodbyes – Fridays are NEVER long enough!

 

I had my massage on the afternoon, I thought it was today but luckily I checked, my memory sucks, I really need to put reminders in my phone not just my diary!

 

Today’s all about the doing what I fancy for me, so I’m off to make another cuppa in my new mug my bestie made for me, rather than waffling on I’m going to share with you  an exercise I did in this weeks meeting called ‘tasting and appreciating’ as I realise not everyone reading this blog attends my meetings so as it wasn’t a Weight Watcher exercise as such, I thought you may wanna have a go,

 

SIT DOWN, PUT IT ON A PLATE AND FOCUS

 

Get yourself a chunk of chocolate, a salted crisp & a grape (It’s good to do steps 1-22 with each of those three things one at a time of course)

 

1) Take a look at the chocolate

2) How do you feel about chocolates? Do you like it, dislike it, neither?

3) Just keep looking at it. What thoughts come into your head?

4) Now put the chocolate into your mouth without biting on it just yet… and Close your eyes

5) Just hold it on your tongue with your mouth closed.

6) Don’t bite it or chew it, just hold it on your tongue with your mouth and eyes closed. Tune in…

7) What does it feel like against your tongue?

8) Is it cool?

9) Can you taste its sweetness?

10) How does it feel against your teeth?

11) How does it feel against your palate?

12) Do you sense the salivary glands at the back of your throat starting to secrete?

13) Tune in to any physical sensations as you hold the chocolate in your mouth.

14) Notice any thoughts… any emotions

15) Slowly, slowly now bite into the chocolate.

16) Whatever you do don’t swallow it !

17) Keep it in your mouth for as long as you can.

18) Experience the subtle changes of flavour as you chew it.

19) How does it feel to do this? Tune in. What are you thinking?

20) Now slowly swallow the chocolate and see how far you can follow it down your into your throat.

21) Actually travel with it as it makes its way down and enters your oesophagus.

22) How does this feel?

How did that feel for you all?

 

Why did I ask you to do it?  Because it’s important to pay attention to your food.

 

Putting food on a plate helps us to… make it official! To acknowledge that we are eating… so often we graze and pick, and the food stays in the packet or we take it straight from the fridge… and that’s more often than not the way we overeat… Would you be willing to have one day when you experiment with putting everything you eat on a plate… and be aware of how it impacts your eating? Eating on a plate can be done anywhere – even at the office, could you have paper plates in your desk drawer?

 

Eating more slowly (you don’t need to eat quite as slowly as we have just

done here!) means we actually TASTE the food. When we really taste it we can become aware of what we like and don’t like, we can choose to STOP eating food we are not enjoying, we can make a point of having more of the things we DO enjoy. Often during meals, after a few spoonfuls we no longer even taste what we are eating. Eating slowly gives our brain a chance to pick up of the satiety signals which our body sends out when we’ve had enough food – but this can take up to 15 minutes so when we eat too fast we don’t notice how full we are till it’s too late. Aim to slow down just a little. Putting down your knife and fork between mouthfuls can really help. Tune in from time to time during a meal to gauge how hungry or satisfied you feel.

 

Taking a moment to transition from whatever activity you were doing before you were eating can help you to remember to eat more slowly –  you could use this moment to tune in.

 

Focusing means turning off the telly, the PC, the radio, putting away the

book or newspaper, taking a moment to tune in during a lively social meal…

 

For many people, eating without the TV, radio, newspaper is unthinkable.

Consider doing it if only to experiment.

 

If this sounds too difficult, or challenging, you can start VERY small.  Would you be willing to eat the first mouthful of a meal or any food really

consciously without distractions?

 

Or the first 2 minutes of a meal? – SMALL steps are fine.

 

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Have a super duper Saturday, Eat Gorgeous and always BeYouTiful xx

Staycation number two with THE BEST MOM IN THE WORLD!

22^nd March 2012

“There's nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons.”  Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

 

Today I’ve woken up with a gratitude state of mind, and although there are many things in my life that I’m grateful for, things that have happened and things that are still around the one thing I can honestly say I am most grateful for is my mom, she rocks!  I was talking to one of my fb friends (in person) on Wednesday night and she said how my mom seems to have such a young mind and she’s right, she has always been young in spirit, she sees the wonder in everything, for example if you put her on a beach she can play for hours in the rock pools, I’m not like that at all so I love to watch her.  She’s comical without trying, when she was reading my blog yesterday I heard her pipe up (excuse the language but she uses it), "Oh fk off, I'm not going on a tandem" Love my mom I do ;-)

She does crosswords constantly to keep her brain active but she cheats!  I call them her ‘copy the answer from the back’ books, so yesterday she was doing one and she say’s “Do you know a marine animal that has tentacles?” so I reply “an octopus”, then she goes on a rant, “No an effin jelly fish!  I didn’t think they had tentacles I thought that had suction pads, you know the ones that you lick em, press em and they stick!  I think they’ve made a mistake there!”    By now I’m bewildered to the idea of this and how we’ll cope with this situation the next time we’re on a beach, so I say “I don’t think you’d wanna lick a jelly fish mom”, she replied “No, you can buy things you lick and stick, I didn’t mean you lick the jelly fish you d@*!head!”

So yes I am truly blessed to have a 75 year old mother who’s that feisty despite the fact she’s lay awake most of the night with her pain, she still manages to have a giggle with me.

I’m ahead of myself today, when I got in last night instead of just collapsing in a chair, I decided to get all my paperwork done out of the way so I can relax this weekend, it’s another holiday at home weekend, all booked in my diary after the last one.  This ones not going to be quiet so lazy, I plan to cook up something scrumptious, I had a walk round Sainsbury’s yesterday for my favourite ingredients, I don’t have a recipe so I thought I re-enact MasterChef and get the ingredients out and see what I can invent, at least I won’t have those two critiquing me, good job really as mom does not like them, she thinks they’re mean!  I’m supposed to be meeting my bestie this morning, but there’s 3-4 inches of snow fell in the night this end, not sure of her end, so we shall wait and see.  I’ve got a massage booked for tomorrow and a book to finish.  Yep looking forward to reading the papers tomorrow, and I may even – despite being on my staycation actually hoover my bedroom and change my bedding and then again I might not.

I likes the idea of playing MasterChef in my kitchen, I couldn’t find a recipe yesterdsy I wanted to cook, found lots of ideas but not one recipe that screamed –“cook me”, I found one I liked, but it calls for whole wheat wide egg noodles, I’ve never seen ‘wide’ ones, although if I get to Lichfield maybe Waitrose will have them.

I’m rambling ain’t I, it’s because I’ve had a lie in lol, plus I’m evading the I gained another pound admission, why have I?  Because I’ve had the worst WW week for a while, nothing tracked, nothing weighed (because I was using my scales in the meeting for demo purposes), I’ve been picking at chocolate buttons all week (because I’ve been using them in meetings).  What have I gained despite a pound, the reminder that I don’t like the yucky feeling I get from overeating, and the sicky feeling and heartburn from chocolate consumption!  So back on track from today thankfully, even going to ProPoint on my staycation!

Right I’m off, hope you all have a good day, stay safe in the snow, and always BeYouTiful of course. xx