The honeymoon phase!

Sunday 3rd January 2021

Out with the old, in with the new 

Day 3 of 2021 and so far so good, I'm going to make this blog a bit of an accountability journal, 2 birds 1 stone, every year I start a journal and everyone knows I never fill the book, so this way, I can copy and paste every day and fill the gaps in, right what do you I want to record, I'm gonna be honest and start with my weight (ouch), it hit 200lb, notice I've changed it to pounds rather than stones and ounces, because I don't really understand the number as I would 14 stone, which just screams OUCH!  

I started at - 200lb

I wanna weigh - 165lb

I plan to lose - 35lb / 17.5% of my body weight.

The scales today - 194lb

I've already lost - 6lb - wey hay! Was worth pulling it back a little from boxing day!

Yesterday I stepped 6,872 times 

I covered 2.92 miles 

I burned 2,122 calories  

I consumed 1,559 calories

I was active for 33 minutes 

Sleep 7hr 15m (I had an afternoon snooze - yay)

Those stats are courtesy of my Fitbit which is going strong and I'm still thankful to Tina it after mine died!   Maybe when I get the weight off and if I get earning well again I'll treat myself to a new one. 

Yep it miht not interest anyone else but if I do that each morning, it'll put me in the right mindset for the day ahead.  Oh and I started being active yesterday, I decided I was going to walk a mile a day, but I know mom can be an obstacle there, and walking Alfie isn't the kind of mile I mean, so I found a video on YouTube that I walked along with Beginner 1 Mile Walk | Walk at Home - YouTube, and I did it yesterday and I've already done it this morning, but now I know that 15 - 20 minutes a day whether indoors or outdoors at a pace is the mile I need to cover and I can honestly say I already feel better, my muscles weren't so achy when I got out of bed this morning and my mind feels more positive. 

What about my food?  Well this was yesterday; 

As always I didn't plan my meals when shopping so ended up with too many mushrooms, so I had these ones on toast, they were the large ones (I was going to stuff them but I had too few days and too many meals to eat for one mouth - even mine!) Got to say they were absolutely delicious and I'll definitely add this to my regular meal ideas list.  

This was my main meal and again lush, it was the spag bol from yesterday, I gave 2 portions away and I've managed to get the last one in the freezer.  Those tacos have been in my bread bin for months but they were still fresh to eat and I did some roast butternut squash and red pepper.  

I decided later I wasn't really hungry because I couldn't decide what I wanted to eat, but I did enjoy half a tin of pineapple and some WW crackers, they're in packs of 7 crackers but I didn't want that many, so chose my own portion size, had half the pack, will have the rest today, 15g of low fat spread and a boursin square, like them because they're already portioned, I'd bought them for Christmas.  

And of course keeping it real, there was some of this too; 

Now the thing is, it's quiet obvious obvious I'm in what I like to call the 'honeymoon phase', I'm going to enjoy it whilst I can.   I'm feeling more motivated than I have in a very, long time and I'm planning to keep it going this time.  Everything changed in 2020 and I have more time for me now, new job, no having to get up at 5 to leave the house at 7.30, or getting home at 8pm.

When it comes to losing weight though, it doesn't matter what you read, what you follow, how you choose to lose weight - the truth is you have to create what is known as a CALORIE DEFICIT!  

1 pound of fat is 3,500 calories.  If you want to lose 1 pound of fat in one week, you have to burn / remove 500 calories per day from your diet.  It's science - not magic! 

I'm aiming for 1lb a week, I'm not in a rush, I want to enjoy food, yes I'll probably lose a little bit more at first, hence the 6lb loss, that's the excess glycogen, but then it'll slow down and each pound you lose looks like this;  

I don't know about you, but I'll take that!  Every time I lose one of those, it'll take pressure off my joints and my pain will start to ease, my heart will be grateful and they say eating healthy and moving more reduces the risk of Alzheimers and Vascular Dementia - I'll take that! 

Now if you need encouraging to move more and build some muscle, look how they compare and think of the effect that will have on the size of your clothes rather than the numbers on the scales. 

Oh and if you needed even more encouragement to move more, look at how much muscle burns as opposed to fat, 10 times more, which means if you build more muscle you'll burn more calories which means you'll get to your desired weight sooner!

Now if that doesn't motivate us all - what will?  Maybe the reasons you personally want to lose weight?  Why do you want to lose weight, move more, get healthier?  Maybe you want to be around long enough to enjoy your grandchild growing up, maybe you want to be able to get around, be more mobile, maybe like me you don't want to end up with dementia, lose mobility or unable to take care of yourself. Maybe you just wanna look and feel sexy or fabulous in your clothes.  

When choosing how you're going to lose weight, try to make it fit with your lifestyle, don't start eating completely differently to get the weight off, if you're not going to be able to eat that way long term.  If what you've been doing isn't working - you need to rethink and do things differently maybe? 

I've been consistently gaining weight for the last couple of years, it needs to stop, I've reassessed my behaviour, my habits and I'm going to do my best to get back to a way of life that worked for me.

Well that's me for today, I hope I've given you food for thought.

Mwah, luv ya 

Love me xx