Toughing it out

My sugar-free (also wheat-free, but that goes without saying) challenge went well yesterday.

I asked for tips and hints on how to ride out these tough few days while detoxing from sugar… thanks Sandi for the tip of chewing sugar-free gum!

I also approached Gwen who has a great blog (Sky n Surf) who is definitely singing from the same hymn sheet and this was her advice: Drink lots of water. Keep busy. Exercise. Keep busy. Eat protein or fresh produce instead. Read “The End of Overeating” by Dr. David Kessler. And just gut it out. Sorry, there is no easy fix.   I’ve got Dr Kessler’s book, I just need to read more of it.

 

So Thursday went well, I logged it all onto MyFitnessPal and my carbs tally was 26g and that mostly came from cauliflower and the oatbran that I put into my morning omelette. Yeah, 26g: I consider that a win!

I went shopping yesterday and bought the FitBit Aria Scales. It took no time to set them up  and connect/sync them to MyFitnessPal account – how cool, not only does it give you your weight and body fat % but it also sends that data via wifi to your MyFitnessPal account automatically (I set them up to to it, and it remains private unless you want it to spurt your data out publicly) . I love gadgets and technology when it works

Now I am thinking about getting a FitBit ONE which is basically a pedometer. But then I saw the Nike + GPS watch in a mailer that arrived in the letterbox yesterday which maps your run, distance and speed (my iPhone has an app that does that but the phone is bulky and needs to be in an armband). I’m not sure…. but if I do splash out and get another gadget I will be sure to share the details here on my blog.

So today I need to be particularly efficient with my time as it is the last official day of my holiday (weekend does not count as hubby is off work on weekend days) so I need to get some school work done in order to feel organised and in control on Monday. On Monday school resumes for term 2 – at least it is only a 9 week term not like term 1 which was 12 weeks!  There will be additional challenges when I’m back at work, namely the evil cookie jar and the evil sweets jar. But as long as I don’t indulge on the first day back then it is kinda like not “breaking the seal”. That is my all or nothing attitude. I know if I were to put my hand in either jar just once then there will be no going back and I will keep putting my hand in those damn jars as I would have in my mind that I’ve “broken the seal” if you like. Argh… mental mind games…. It’s like having a box of unopened chocolates. The chocolates are completely safe while the box is sealed, but as soon as it is open…. the self-control fails me.

One last thing before I put this post up… my new scales keep track of the daily weigh-in data (via the wifi/internet) and so I have decided to keep me honest I will take a screenshot of the graph on the 31st of May and share it here on my blog. So people, I have made the promise to share the graph for the month of May and obviously I will find that quite tough to do if I am not trending downwards in terms of my weight so that is another incentive to be true to myself and constantly strive towards my goal. Lynda, another blogger (Living the Life) who I admire has shared her weight-loss graph and I must say it looks very impressive seeing a constantly downward slope showing her weightloss. So it is time to stop mucking around pretending to be healthy and slim and get on with it!!!

 

I’m an addict…

Cutting out the sugar or at least drastically cutting down on sugar consumption is proving to be a real challenge. I am a sugar addict!!

I start my day eating well. A protein rich breakfast; for the past few days I have been making myself an omelette cooked with coconut oil and with a lovely cup of coffee it seems to keep me full until lunchtime.

At lunchtime (1pm/1:30pm) I’m not really that hungry so I’ll have some salmon, tuna or ham.

Then about 2pm/3pm I start thinking about sugar…. I am not hungry but the thought of sugar is on my mind!

The dreaded SUGAR THOUGHTS! I start thinking….   “should I go get a few supplies for dinner like courgettes or broccoli?” But really I am just hunting for an excuse to go to the supermarket so that I can also get some yoghurt covered raisins or jersey caramels or something else equally sweet. If I can not justify going to get some extra supplies from the supermarket I have other thoughts such as  ”should I take Millie the dog out for another walk…? ” and I could go past the dairy and get a ice-cream or frosted caramel bar (those are my favourites). I’m just hunting for an excuse to get my hands on sugar – I am an addict.

I know there is a whole lot more to this sugar addiction… it is brain chemistry stuff. I have the science – I actually have a degree in Biochemistry – No, I actually DO!!  But it does not make me crave sugar any less. I just need to ride out these first few days of going cold-turkey as I know once I am clean it will be so much easier and the thoughts then won’t even cross my mind.

So what do you do while you are riding out these tough few days of detoxing??? The thought of drinking a diet soft drink crossed my mind but that is opening another whole can of worms and I seemed to have knocked that addiction on the head.

Do you have any advice, tips, hints on how to ride out the tough few days while cutting the sugar?

Any tips, hints or advice greatly appreciated

I can DO IT!!!

Yesterday was a much better healthy eating day… I managed to avoid sugar on the most part. I did eat an apple – they are so good at the moment especially the super crunchy braeburns. I also had some yoghurt which I did add a little stevia too. Given that I have been indulging in huge quantities of sugar I thought I did quite well to limit it to just an apple and some stevia. I do intend to wean off completely for my 30 day challenge.

As you would expect I got a nice loss of 1.5Kg on the scales…. I know, I know… it is water weight that accounts for the nice big losses in the beginning, and they sure do add some reassurance that it is not that scary jumping on the scales each morning! In fact I was shopping in an electronics store yesterday and saw the FitBit Aria Scales. They hook up to your laptop via wifi and automatically feed your weight, fat percentage and BMI to your computer or phone. I know I don’t need them but I thought it would be a nice little toy. All you need to do is step on them and even if you do not look at the display there and then the number is sent to your computer so you can look at it later in the day (week, month or when you are just about to cheat). They are a bit pricey but I do like my electronic toys!

I went for a run yesterday and felt great. I miss my running. While I do not plan to run another marathon in the next little while I do plan to get back into my running. I feel so good while I am out there plodding along. I don’t break any speed records and I really don’t give a toot – I just feel so good both while I am doing it and also afterwards. There is a fun challenge starting tomorrow – the powerade challenge which is over a 9km course along Quay St and Tamaki Drive. I hope to do that a few times each week and because it keeps a record of your time I hope to see some improvement over the two months the challenge goes for.

To keep motivated I plan to buy some new jeans in 10 weeks. I hate shopping generally. I am lucky as finding clothes that fit is not my problem, I am a size 8 – 10 but I just don’t like trying clothes on, I see what other people are wearing and wonder where they got it from as I can never find anything that cool/nice when I am shopping! So the plan is at the end of term 2 I will go and buy a new pair of jeans.

In addition to shopping for new jeans, I have loads of clothes already in my wardrobe that I will be more comfortable wearing if I had less tummy bulge – I have a great merino icebreaker dress (pictured below) I would love to wear and I have a gorgeous black Esprit dress that is very nice. Both of these dresses I could wear now but I just feel to sub-conscious to  wear at the moment for fear someone will ask if I’m pregnant. So while for many people eating healthy is to get better blood test results or improve their health for me it is more about vanity I guess but I don’t actually see anything wrong with that!

Back on the wagon…

Today I am keeping track of what I eat and making choices which will result in some fat-loss. I sound like a broken record, but I want to be happy and being able to slip on my jeans in the morning or anything in my wardrobe for that matter without worrying about whether there will be a muffin top or not in someways determines my mood for the day. It’s hard to be all positive and smiley when you had to go through half the wardrobe before you could step out the house to start your day.

I stepped on the scales this morning. I have been putting it off, putting it off but I decided last night I need to face the music. I will face the music every morning. If I take a break from stepping on the scales I derail. I am in denial. I can’t see the damage therefore I kind of ignore the damage I do.

While I know what I should and shouldn’t eat for a long term healthy future, I can’t but help LOVE eating sweets. The weekend just past we were away as we had some jobs to do our beach house and then we travelled to Rotorua for the NZSS championships which hubby was riding in. While at the beach house I indulged in one of my all time favourite bakery treats: an apple custard twist. It is a no, no as it is basically bread with extra sugar!  I also indulged in wine, chocolate and ice cream too while there. In Rotorua I indulged in ginger crunch, sweets, chocolate, wine – it was bad! So today (and going forward) I am detoxing myself from sugar…. I find this such a challenge, mostly it is hardest in the afternoon. Basically once I have eaten lunch I look for the sugar fix. The biscuit, the pick n mix, the yogurt covered raisins. If I can get through this week it will become so much easier. While I plan to stay well clear of sugar today I’ve decided to make it a 30-day challenge given that Wednesday is 1st May it seems a good day to start a 30 day challenge! When I say no sugar, I intend to also eliminate artificial sweeteners too. It will be after lunch that will be toughest.

So that is my S.M.A.R.T goal – 30 days of sugar free!

Oh dear… I have fallen off the wagon big time….

Yeah…. it is not going to plan at the moment. But if there is one thing I have learned over the years is never give up!

The weekend just gone I went away with hubby for the weekend staying in a penthouse apartment in Mount Maunganui, it was so much fun despite the rain. We went out for 4 meals:  lunch on Saturday, dinner, breakfast on Sunday, and to top it off lunch on Sunday. I over-indulged!

If I am honest with myself I have been breaking my healthy eating rules for about a month now!! I can pin-point where it all started, my birthday. I had some lovely girls make me a surprise birthday cake… they had no idea I don’t eat wheat or sugar. The cake was loaded with wheat and sugar. To be polite I ate a slice (a decent slice), that opened the flood gates. I further indulged that day in other sugary food I would not have normally eaten. I have this all or nothing attitude. If I break the rules once I tend to further break the rules.

Then there was Easter. We went away for 4 day and 3 nights. There was a 40th birthday party, there was a lot of alcohol, there was burgers, there was pizza. OMG!!!

Then there is the evil jar of sweets and the evil jar of biscuits at work. I had been so good not indulging in the contents of those evil jars but once I had let my guard down it was so much harder to stay away. Term 2 a fresh start and I WILL NOT PUT MY HAND INTO EITHER OF THOSE EVIL JARS!!!

We are off again for a long weekend this time to Rotorua which is a great place for fitness – I will be able to run around Blue Lake and the Redwoods. There will be a glass of wine or two with my long-time bestie who I don’t see face-to-face very much these days but when we get home on Sunday afternoon there will be no more excuses!! NO MORE EXCUSES!!!

 

The problem is once you eat sugar or wheat you crave more. I will need to detox myself from those evils! I find it easy to nip drinking wine in the bud, I am also finding drinking water instead of diet soda easy. In fact I can easily drink 2 or 3 litres of water, although I do need to pee a lot.

So that is my update. I am not proud of myself but I am learning from this. I know what to do, I just need to follow through with my actions, if only that was easy! I am willing to commit to this, it is a life-long commitment that will become a more ingrained habit and one day I hope it doesn’t require the will-power that it currently requires and that it will be more autonomous.

FTP – Day 1

Easter Monday = 1st April and the perfect day to kick off my next healthy living project.

I’ve been doing OK but things did go a bit wayward over the last fortnight which is bit of a bugger really as I was really close to my ultimate goal of 54kg. I’m actually afraid to jump on the scales and see the damage and I am considering taking a week whereby I eat clean and healthy before I do in fact check the damage.

The FTP is my Flat Tummy Project. I will be avoiding all food with sugar and that includes apples which I have been eating quite a few of lately. I will be indulging in coffee but also at least 3 litres of water. No wheat but plenty of protein and fat. I will eat veges so there will be carbs. That should do it.

With regards to exercise, I do my morning run with Millie she needs an adventure that takes her off the property before she spends the day sleeping and chilling waiting for us to return home from work. We then take her out again when we get home so I get a bit of exercise in.

To monitor my FTP I will use the tape measure but I don’t imagine there will be dramatic change but I will do it for the Month of April and see how it goes.

I will track my food intake with FP. (Fitness Pal)

Short and Sweet

You’d be forgiven for thinking the title of this post was a description of me! For most of my life I have been considered short at 5 ft 4in. But seriously I think it is more and more a “normal” height  The title was infact more a description of the fact that this post will be short and sweet.

Life is incredibly busy and I am LOVING every minute of it!!! Yeah, I LOVE my life at the moment! I feel great! I stepped on the scales this morning and for the third time I saw 56.9Kg – yep that is 4 days with no drop on the scale but that does not worry me. My weight-loss is slow. Slow and steady wins the race has been one of my mantra’s while running and I am OK with it.

 

Interesting how over the past 10 weeks my attitude to weight-loss has shifted somewhat, I just responded to another blog and wrote this in the comments:

 

I’m living proof that exercise can be a major barrier to weight-loss. I put on 10 Kg training for a marathon and it was NOT muscle. I had this mental belief that it was a license to eat! Getting the balance between exercise and calorie intake was something I struggle with. I have just lost 10 Kg without running a single mile! You’ve seen my blog so you know the mileage I was doing. It was insane and weight did not pour off me even when I did eat meticulously. I’ve been eating clean (mostly) and just walking and the weight is slowly coming off and I don’t feel like a slave to my running shoes. Never feel guilty because you’ve missed an exercise session. You no doubt run around after you kids and being a mum so go easy on yourself as exercise in my opinion is not critical to weight-loss. What you eat is far more important!
It is certainly far more important to monitor what you eat. Sure exercise burns calories and exercise can make you feel awesome with those endorphins rushing around in your blood and not to mention the sense of accomplishment. I’ve completed four marathons! is not something the average person can say and I have the medals to prove it But in the process I gained fat. I hit an all time high in terms of my weight two weeks after completing the New York (unofficial Run Anyway) marathon.

I’ve said this before: You can’t out run a bad diet!!  It is the truth!!

So I am aiming to lose another 3 Kg. I’m sure I can do it this time. It may take 3 weeks it may take 6 weeks – it really does not matter as I feel pretty awesome now and I don’t intend to add junk to my diet when I do get to goal. Although I will have a glass of wine every now and then.