Saturday 29 November 2008

OKAY I'M A LOSER...

. . . I feel like i've ate and ate and ate since my dinner. I had a chocolate eclair (weightwatchers so not too bad) and had a packet of ryvita minis dipped in light philadelphia. Okay, I know I could have had much worse, I could have eaten crisps and high fat dip I suppose. I'm sitting in watching the "X-Factor" so unfortunately my automatic reflex is to eat. I guess I'm not going to get over that straight away.

Think I'll stick my ab belt thingy on and drink some green tea now. Hopefully it might make me feel a bit better . . .

AN APPLE A DAY . . . OR THREE . . .

I recently read a diet tip that suggested if you eat three apples a day, you can lose up to 2lbs in a month.

Without making any other changes to your diet!!!

Now this could be all rubbish but it makes sense in a way to me. After all, if an apple a day keeps the doctor away, then surely three is even better??? Let's look at this way . . . an average apple has about 60 calories in it, right? And there's quite a lot of eating in one of them. In other words, they keep your mouth occupied for a while without causing you to waste too much calories. And they actually fill you up pretty well.

I know this from experience as last year one of my colleagues told me she had devised her own diet using apples that helped her lose a little bit of weight prior to Christmas (you know, so it didn't matter if she put any weight on over the holidays!). Basically the diet involved eating nothing but apples during the day then a normal meal at night. Of course, I ruined it by stuffing my face with chocolate at night but I certainly didn't put any weight ON!!! Anyway, my point? That trying that diet for a couple of days proved that apples were pretty damn filling. I think I had four or five during the day and didn't get hungry. I DID get bored though but that's not the point...

So I figure there could definitely be some truth in the whole apple as a weight loss food thing. So I'm now trying to combine eating three apples a day with a lower calorie diet in the hope that both can work together to accelerate the weight loss.

So this has been today's meal plan so far . . .

Breakfast:
One egg and some salad (lettuce, some plum tomatoes and yellow pepper with some olive oil and lemon juice as dressing)
Snack:
1 apple
Lunch:
WW Chili con Carne (which was yummy, I might add)
Snack:
1 apple

I've just ate another apple now and have popped a Weightwatchers lasagne in the oven along with a sweet potato. I figure the baked sweet potato will help fill me up (let's face it, the WW meals on their own aren't always that filling). Anyway, I'm quite proud of myself today.

I am also aiming to not drink alcohol again until next Friday since that's obviously a big downfall of mine.

I'm going to try my best to stick to it this time, but I feel a lot more motivated than usual so hopefully it won't be as difficult as I expect it to be...

Wednesday 19 November 2008

BEING PREPARED . . .

Me and my flatmate went on a big supermarket shop on Monday night to stock up on lots of healthy food, low fat ready meals, things to snack on that are low calorie and the like.

I definitely think being prepared is a good idea when you are trying to be on a diet or be healthy. Otherwise you end up using lack of food as an excuse to opt for the junk-food option. (Although to be honest, I could do that whether I had a healthily-stocked kitchen or not . . . ) Hopefully the fact that we have bought ourselves tons of stuff to keep us going means that we will end up sticking to the diet. We'll see!!!

Tuesday 18 November 2008

I'M FLAGGING AGAIN . . .

My flatmate I started going running with was sick last week and I didn't have the motivation to do it myself. (She, on the other hand, lost four pounds from not being able to eat, and vomiting - not on purpose, I might add . . . )

On top of that I just had too much to do, and alcohol accessibility was waaayyyy too easy. I definitely think cutting down on alcohol for a while is key to my progress here.

Here we go again I guess . . .

Saturday 8 November 2008

OOPS . . .

Yesterday went rapidly downhill after my post. I ended up eating two different meals for dinner, plus I polished off a bottle of wine. Ooops, like I said.

Anyway, today is a new day. So far I've had my usual probiotic yogurt drink and some low fat natural organic yogurt too. Just making my lunch now. I'm having a corn on the cob and also some fish. I bought these great fish portions in Iceland, they're frozen and come in their own little boil in the bag pack with parsley sauce. It's absolutely delicious, so easy to make as you just need to pop it in the microwave and only 123 calories. Plus the sauce is lovely and flavours everything else you want to have with it - I tend to go with green veg like sprouts, brocolli and salad leaves, but today since I'm having the corn on the cob I'm just going to add some mushrooms to the fish sauce and think that will definitely be enough. That should hopefully keep me going until dinner, and I'm going to try and do a bit of an exercise dvd too if possible, just to get my metabolism up and running properly.

It's so hard to motivate yourself when it's the weekend though!

Friday 7 November 2008

A QUICK UPDATE . . .

I slipped a bit yesterday, what with fireworks night, alcohol, chocolate and pizza but on the whole I haven't been awful with my diet this week. I've went prepared into work every day and apart from eating a couple of Cadbury's Roses yesterday that the department head brought in, I haven't veered off and bought crisps or sweets from the vending machine.

I also managed three runs in total this week. Not massive ones but I'm only starting out. I walked to and from work a lot more than I have been recently too.

And I weighed myself last night and it appears I've lost two pounds from the last time I weighed in.

It's a small start but hey every little counts, right?

Tuesday 4 November 2008

GOING A BIT OFF THE RAILS . . .

Not quite so good today, I'm afraid.

I started off well, the same start as yesterday. Two apples, a probiotic yogurt drink. A tub of grapes. At lunch I didn't want to fall into the pumpkin seed trap again so I brought an extra tub - of cherry tomatoes this time - to go with my chicken mayo wrap (as you can see, I varied it very slightly today - and low fat mayo!) and alpen bar.

It was tonight I slipped up. A nice guy in my work had brought me in some home made pizza and I managed to save it til tonight - but ate four slices of it. It was beautiful, mind you, and apparently made using low fat cheese, so I suppose it probably wasn't as bad as a takeaway pizza. And I walked to AND from work today meaning a roundtrip of 5 miles AND a 20 minute jog this evening. Not as long as yesterday but I felt like I shouldn't overdo it if I want to exercise tomorrow too.

So although I DID eat a bit more than I intended, I at least DID exercise I suppose. Oh well, tomorrow's a new day and all that jazz . . .

Monday 3 November 2008

TODAY I COULD HAVE BEEN SPONSORED BY WEIGHTWATCHERS . . .

Here's what I have ate today. Is it good? Is it bad? I'm not sure . . . Advice anyone???

Breakfast: A probiotic Muller Vitality yogurt drink (approx 60 calories) and two apples
Mid-morning snack - a small tub of grapes (approx 20 grapes)
Lunch - a tortilla wrap with chicken and some low fat coleslaw, a light Alpen chocolate orange bar (approx 80 calories) and a handful of spiced pumpkin seeds
Dinner - a Weightwatchers lasagne, a handful of cherry tomatoes and one light Laughing Cow triangle
Evening snack - one Weightwatchers lemon slice (approx 70 calories) and one Weightwatchers toffee bar (approx 80 calories)

Okay, I slipped up a little this evening by having the TWO evening snacks rather than one (or, even better, NONE!) but at least they were Weightwatchers ones, right? I usually can get through far more calories in an evening so I've actually been fairly restrained - and the lasagne was less than 300 calories as well. And DELICIOUS!!! In addition, I got a good way towards my quota of fruit and veg portions for the day.

The only thing I can't do a good calorie estimation for is the wrap I made for lunch. That's the one advantage to ready-made meals (other than convenience), the fact the nutritional content is written all over the packaging. I'm guessing possibly around 400 which I suppose is okay for lunchtime. If it hadn't been for the pumpkin seeds, I would definitely say I was under 1300 calories. They upset the calculations slightly though, but I suppose they were still good for me.

Oh yes, and despite getting a taxi to work this morning (kudos to me for still managing to make my lunch despite sleeping in I guess!) we walked home (about two and a half miles) after work AND went for a 30 minute jog. So really when I think about it I actually DID eat less and exercise more than usual!

I'm putting a ban on all social activities this week. I need to get a good kick start on the diet this time. Going out is bad because I find it difficult to restrain myself when it comes to alcohol and nice food. So staying in will be the new going out this week, just until I can get myself into a routine. And on top of that, we're hoping to jog another two nights this week.

I'm feeling fairly positive about the diet at the moment but it IS only day one. Again. Hopefully I can stick to it this time . . .