No more excuses...

Friday 3^rd January 2013

If you're going through hell, keep going. Winston Churchill

The upside of being awake since 1am is that I’ve spent a few hours sorting out my personal Weight Watcher plan, I was going to wait till Monday to officially get back on track, I won’t lie I was using my mom’s ill health as an excuse to not bother about me for now, however I’ve realised I need to bother about me so that I’m in good health to look after mom.  The doctor faxed all the information from her stay in the Welsh hospital over to a surgeon at New Cross yesterday morning; now it’s just the waiting game. 

Right then Simple Start it is, if I start today then come Tuesday when I’m back in my meetings I’ll have already done 4 days and will be able to share with my members how I’m getting on.  I’ve done my ‘official post Christmas weigh in’ and I’ve gained half a stone, probably a good thing we did come back from holiday early!

With my member head on (rather than my leader one!), I’ve sat and read my programme material and I’m now in the process of writing my own personalised shopping list and meal ideas, Simple Start will be good for mom also, as all the food will be nutritious, she’ll just need smaller portions and foods that are easy to digest because of her stomach problems.

Would you believe my boiler went and broke yesterday so now we’ve got not heating or hot water and the man who’s got the parts can’t come till Saturday as we called after 3pm and although it’s next day service, that’s only if you call before 3pm!   The universe is really testing me at the moment, it’s all good though as I’ve still got the gas fire in the living room and I found a convector heater in the shed that I bought on a previous Christmas holiday where the cottage was cold, so that’s in moms room.  I can hear her snoring at the moment, not noisily, more a reassuring sound that tells me she’s sleeping, the poor love has coughed so much through the night; it’s the acid in her throat causing it, very painful. ;(

Anyway back to getting healthy, I’m actually looking forward to eating some veggies!  I need to go get some shopping later, will get my sister to come sit with mom whilst I’m out, and I won’t do my usual ‘I’m getting healthy’ shop where I end up over buying and have too much food to go at, I shall have a list because I’ll have made a meal plan so that I only buy what I need!  Actually, I’m write that meal plan now…

1. Breakfast will be easy, I’m thinking;
2. Dry fried egg & beans on toast (calorie-controlled brown bread)
3.  Mushrooms on toast (calorie-controlled brown bread) (using my 2tsps healthy oil)
4.  Porridge
5. Smoked haddock & poached egg with slice of calorie-controlled brown bread
6. Scrambled eggs on toast (calorie-controlled brown bread)
7. Poached eggs on crumpets
8. Eggy bread (calorie-controlled brown bread) – haven’t had this for so long!

 I’ll my main meal at lunchtime;

1. Chicken casserole
2. Cottage pie
3. Baked fish (recipe in Simple Start booklet), garden peas & actifry chips or brown rice
4. Salmon and wholemeal couscous with roasted veggies
5. Chicken stew and rice (recipe in new F&H cookbook & also in wk3 meetings WW Your Week)
6. Veggie wraps (recipe in Simple Start booklet)
7. Egg fried rice  

 Lighter meals at tea time

1. Soup (homemade) thinking chicken noodle – will concoct recipe later 
2. Panzanella (recipe in next week’s meetings Weight Watcher Your Week)
3. Trout & Salad
4. Spinach & pepper frittata (recipe in Simple Start booklet)
5. Roasted corn on the cob
6. Ham salad sandwich
7. Tinned salmon sandwich

Now to go write my own personalised Simple Start shopping list, I feel better for having put my meal plans together, even if I don’t stick to it 100% I have options there in place and I’ll have a kitchen full of healthy food.  Gave the last of my Christmas cheese to my brother last night so now there’s no junk left in our house, it’s been officially cleaned of anything unhealthy except for the 40 bottles of wine under the stairs!  They can be my extra treats when I fancy a glass and who knows maybe I’ll have a few dry days too, we shall see – one step at a time!

It’s still only 4am, at least its Friday and I can snooze this afternoon if I want and go to bed early, I have managed 4 hours as I was in bed before nine last night, it’s better than nothing.  I did lie in bed for a while hoping I’d go back to sleep but it wasn’t happening, so then I started reading the Weight Watchers stuff, I got to page 64 of the Shop guide (yeah really!) and then decided it was time to get up and give up trying to sleep.  Actually the Shop guide was really informative and it was what motivated me to wrote the meal plan, see these books don’t help us if we don’t read them!

My other brothers coming back to visit for the weekend today, he better be up for eating healthy as that’s all that happening in this house!

Right I’m off, not because I’m running late or have loads to do – its 4am isn’t it, but because I’ve written enough and I want to do my shopping list.

Remember whatever the scales say next week, we’re in this together – Weight Watchers works because of that group support, let’s make 2014 all about the self care, learn to love the skin your in, Eat Gorgeous, BeYOUtiful and get Healthy & Happy – 'tis SIMPLES!