Off the Wagon

Yes, I succumbed to the siren song of Anzac biscuits. But it was Anzac day and it would be unpatriotic to refuse the call. So sweet, so crunchy, mmmmm.
Now jumping back into sugar free with gusto.

Inauspicious Start

Over the weekend I have developed a cold and I'm feeling miserable. This has thrown a bit of a spanner in the works of my renewed commitment to getting fit. At this point breathing is a bit of a challenge, running, or riding, is completely out of the question. I suppose it's a good sign that I'm feeling disappointed in this turn of events. I'm consoling myself with the knowledge that the average cold doesn't last more than a week and a bit so this is merely a delay, not an end to my plans. While I'm stuffed up and stiff I'll be focusing entirely on stretching, and if the weather is fine perhaps a bit of walking: just to re-establish the habit of getting out every day.
On the dietary front, instead of the 7 day detox kick start soup I am going for a hot chicken soup. Since my throat is so sore that swallowing hurts, soup for a week has an unanticipated appeal.

Day 26

Yesterday wasn’t particularly interesting, just too filled with life for an entry.
Lunch was quite exciting today – a hamburger with beetroot relish and a sliced tomato (the provided version substituted with a truss tomato from IGA) that was significantly smaller than anything you’d buy from a shop but bursting with flavour.
My snack was a vegetable frittata, more filling than exciting but not bad, and the oft-recurring fruit and nut mix; my additional snack was a fruit muffin with jam. I was also supposed to have some dried apricots, but the snack pack didn’t make it into the delivery this week – so far I think there have been one or two items missing every week, which is irritating but not enough to have me leave the program.
Unfortunately I more than made up for it by continuing yesterday's chocaholia, dipping into the dark chocolate several times while reading in bed - this encompasses three of my least good habits: mindless snacking, eating when reading, and staying in bed instead of getting up as soon as I wake.
The non-program eating was compounded by a family dinner. One of my cousins moved to Melbourne a couple of years ago – it was her elder daughter’s ninth birthday, and her father’s seventieth a few days early. We ate at a contemporary Australian restaurant in one of Melbourne’s more expensive suburbs, and though many items on the menu sounded tempting, I chose an entrée of that most present of vegetarian options, a caramelised onion tart with goat’s cheese, on this occasion accented with “a bacon crisp” (or, to you and me, a small and crispy strip of bacon). The dish was smaller than I expected, which is no bad thing, and was de-constructed, which was interesting – the tart was more like a disk of crisp pastry topped by caramelised onions and green salad, with a round slice of goat’s cheese alongside, accompanied by a pot of Béarnaise sauce in a tiny jug. I’m not a fan of goat’s cheese, which I tend to find overpowering on its own, but this was delicious. The tart was complex and buttery, its richness cut by the salad; I passed on the sauce altogether, but did have a couple of (fortunately slightly overcooked) French fires. I also had just under half of the chocolate birthday cake, and all of the very decadent vanilla ice cream.
And I had something of a workout, taking the two younger children outside, where they jumped off benches to be caught, swing in the air, twirled around, turned upside down and hunted for, and lifted into the air. It was fun all round, but I had to take a couple of breaks. It will be interesting to see how I do next time, when they’ll be heavier but I will hopefully be stronger. – Alex

Day 24

The food for today was predominantly comprised of dishes I’ve had before, and predominantly frozen given that it’s the fourth day of the week, but very filling – roast chicken linguine, shepherds pie, a baked vegetable patty with sweet chilli sauce, the always-tasty ricotta spinach cake, a slice of walnut and date cake, and a fruit cup.
Tucked into everything are vegetables – the sultana tea cake coming up in a couple of days has sweet potato as its primary ingredient – which may explain a) how so much food can be included for the calorie count and b) why it’s mostly so filling. I’m thinking that next week I might list all the vegetables I encounter each day, just for my own curiosity. Or that may just be sleep deprivation talking.
I intended to leave for home soon after the end of my shift, but instead puttered about for an hour, then spoke with a colleague for another hour; I was still in her office when another colleague popped by inviting her to join him for tea, and I managed to spend another two hours in the tea room before finally wending my way home. By that stage, of course, I wasn’t interested in walking and so another exercise opportunity was avoided thanks to procrastination.
Worse, sleep deprivation impairs my decision making ability and lowers my resistance, which means I hoed into the big container of dark chocolate callettes I have for baking. I'm not sure how much I had, but sucpect if was somewhere between 100g and 200g; even though darl chocolate's high in antioxidants it is better in moderation, and not at all on my plan. - Alex

Day 18

Oh dear, not a good day at all! I knew going in to work that a group of people were ordering pizza, and planned to say that I forgot and had brought my own food, the latter part of which was certainly true. But, even though my Lite'n'Easy food was both filling and tasty (I deliberately picked a very filling day, skipping ahead to the day 6 menu or hamburger with caramelised onion chutney and a tomato on a soy and linseed roll, chicken chow mein, and popcorn), I still had two slices of pizza with the girls.
That would have been less than ideal but fine, had I not lingered for a while after work and, sitting in the tea room reading, idly polished off another three slices, washed down with about 100ml of Coke, and followed that with three sweets (two pieces of caramel fudge and a piece of coconut ice I didn't even enjoy). This last part is particularly annoying, as I still had a chocoalte muesli bar and two little spicy fruit biscuits left over, along with an orange.
I think I combined mindless eating with a little sleep-deprived grazing (which is why poor sleep is associated with increased caloric consumption) and the hung-for-a-sheep-as-for-a-lamb approach. I'm also mourning the apparent death of my Tivo, but suspect I'm grasping at straws now!
In any event, instead of being thrown into a morass of dietary despair and giving up on the whole thing altogether I'm still commited to my journey and see this as a regretable but forgivable meander. In the normal course of things I'd skip dinner in lieu, but as it's my first day off work and I plan to stay up all day (I have a vast backlog of book reviews to catch up on, two overdue tax returns and a threatening amount of work to do for uni) I think that way will lie devouring of timtams. Hmm, maybe a small nap is in order. Or an early night, now I haven't got Tivo to watch. And I was so lookign forward to the premiere of "Sherlock." - Alex

Day 8/first weigh in

A week ago I weighed the most I ever have, on the back of the better part of three months of eating ridiculously, being massively slothful, and generally falling in a hole.Today marks the end of my first week on Lite'n'Easy, started without incorporating exercise. Between last night's blow out, starting my period yesterday, and the lack of physical exertion, I had a little trepidation when I stepped on the scales. And was rewarded with loss of 2.3k!
I very much doubt that will be an average for the weeks and months ahead, but it's certainly an invigorating start and will help bolster me if I begin to lose motivation. So far, though, the process has been significantly easier than I anticipated - it's early days, but so far I've had no cravings at all, and have been completely untempted by anything, even when it's in front of me (except the slice of garlic pizza last night).
Breakfast today was the last of the current batch of stewed rhubarb/raspberry, with yoghurt, Weetbix and muesli. Yesterday I sorted my weekly delivery into frozen and refrigerated bags, so I can just grab one of each and head off. I've put the fruit (including anemic tomatoes) into a bowl, so I'll keep an eye on the menu plan and pick additions up appropriately.
Work has been busy the last wee while, so as a morale booster/thank you, my boss arranged for pizzas for lunch, and her boss brought slices (chocolate, lemon etc) for dessert. I'd like to say I resisted, but I succumbed and had three pieces of quite delicious pizza. I'd eaten the rice crackers and salsa dip on the way in to work, and had the broccoli & chicken pasta bake for dinner, along with a citrus sultana oat biscuit. I had the sliced turkey and cranberry sauce roll (which would have been considerably enlivened with a little baby spinach or lettuce), and walnut & date cake when I got home at 11PM (after one of the most unpleasant evenings in my twenty-one year career), instead on a Lite'n'Easy dinner.
On the plus side, until last week I would probably have vacuumed up half a dozen pieces, washed down with Coke, and sampled a number of the slices. So I'm going to be kind to myself, and not see this as a failure. After all, I have to incorporate change into my life, not put my life on hold. - Alex