WEEK 2

8/1   –  week 2 of a 52 week blog
Food:
egg, bacon, 1/2 tomato, 2 mushrooms (cooked in olive-oil) Thin slice toast with thin spread butter and marmalade! Yes, Sunday breakfast! Dinner: roast FR chicken, 1 piece pot, 2 parsnip, beetroot, carrots, brussels, cabbage, gravy. stewed apple and blackberry, home-made custard. 2 brazils mid pm, Tea: salad, ham, cheese, pickles. 1 cracker. mid evening, 1 tablespoon stewed fruit and dessert spoon custard (reserved from dinner)
Exercise:
Weights:
10kg, floor to above head lifts 12 x 2
using 2x  2 1/4  kg (Up by a quarter of a kg) one hand weights: 12 arm bends, 12, shoulder up raises, 6 straight out forward, 6 straight out sideways ;12  finger and wrist rolls  ALL x2 plus 12 sit ups and 12 cross elbows to knees x 2.  Half hour stretching and aerobics to music
Notes:

Weight 11.10 ( a 4lb drop – couldn’t believe it – checked many times. oh and thats 74.2 kg for the metric amongst us, or164 lbs for those who don’t do stones. (More than I’d expected, but as it was the first week after Christmas eat-fest I don’t actually expect this rate to continue)

Read a very interesting article today that backs up what I have believed for a long time – it’s the carbohydrates that are most likely to help you put on weight. When the creed was ‘increase your carbohydrates and reduce the fats’ I was always unhappy teaching it as from what I knew that wasn’t right. Sure, too much stored fat is bad for your arteries but fat is not made just from eating fat.Fat in your body is made from excess ‘energy giving foods’ over energy used, and the number one energy giving foods that we were being encouraged to eat was the complex carbohydrate group. Complex Carbohydrates are just longer strings of the simple carbohydrates, which we also call sugars. It was so indoctrinated into us all that I had great difficulty persuading the girls I taught that fat was not the only thing you eat / drink that makes you fat. And just don’t get me started abut eggs and the bumpy ride they have had as a food substance!

9/1

Food: Egg, Orange Juice, 2 cups milky tea, mid morn 2 brazil nuts. Lunch: roast FR chicken, 1 piece pot, 2 parsnip, beetroot, carrots, brussels, cabbage, gravy (yes – plated-up yesterday and chilled – time saving device!) mid pm, plain yoghurt, tea: crumpet with cheese and an egg, apple. Then in the evening had WI committee meeting and I brought out some of those really scrummy biscuits I want to get eaten up so they don’t tempt me.. and they tempted me and I succumbed – so 1 scrummy biscuit 🙁

Exercise:

Weights:
10kg, floor to above head lifts 12 x 2
using 2x  2 1/4  kg (Up by a quarter of a kg) one hand weights: 12 arm bends, 12, shoulder up raises, 6 straight out forward, 6 straight out sideways ;12  finger and wrist rolls ALL x 2 sit ups and 12 cross elbows to knees x 2  Half hour stretching and aerobics to music

Notes:

FR chicken – is one of our own reared for the table Free Range chickens (see main blog under Chicken keeping) and as such taste wonderful. Eggs, which are my main staple for breakfast also come from our little free-ranging flock. The ‘egg’ stated for breakfast most mornings is cooked in the following way: break one egg into a small dish suitable for a microwave (ie not metal and can take heat) I use a small cereal bowl, add about half as much milk as there is egg and whisk with a fork. Microwave on full power for about 1 min 20 sec (this varies according to the size of the egg) that’s it. – turns out like a mini omelette (without any cooking fat involved or pan to clean – eat straight from the bowl with a teaspoon. On mine I spread about quarter teaspoon of marmite. Marmite? Well, yes, for two reasons, 1, I like the taste and that way I do not miss adding salt to the egg, 2, Marmite has good vitamins including Folic acid which we all need especially at or after menopause.

Back to that article (see above – read more today) – there the doctor concerned said that weight wasn’t the issue – waist measurement (taken at belly-button height  – and taking care to make sure this was a level horizontal measurement) – was the one to work by. So now my target includes a waist measurement so here’s the starting point. WAIST: Relaxed 44 inches ( 112 cm) Pulled in: 42 inches (107 cm)  Noticeably if I let the tape ride up a bit at the back and angle down to meet the belly-button it was much less – so accuracy in placing is obviously required!

10/1

Food:

Egg, Orange Juice, 2 cups milky tea. 2 brazils and square choc. Gammon, pineapple, carrots, parsnip leeks 5 thin pot wedges (cooked in olive oil), mid pm – 5 grapes (forgot to drink water and I knew it by the time tea-time came!) Tea: fish and veg chowder, banana, plain yoghurt,

Exercise:

10kg, floor to above head lifts 12 x 2
using 2x  2 1/4  kg  one hand weights: 12 arm bends, 12, shoulder up raises, 6 straight out forward, 6 straight out sideways ;12  finger and wrist rolls ALL x 2 .  12 Sit ups and 12 cross elbows to knees x 2   Half hour stretching and aerobics to music

Notes:

First morning that I have not felt hungry for breakfast – usually can’t wait to tuck in. Is this part of the whole thing or just  a one-off? However, not eating breakfast could lead to snacking or cravings for sweet stuff later so I ate my usual breakfast. Discussion with N, suggests that I move repetitions in each set to 15 if I can reach without failing before then. Think I am ready. Will try tomorrow and if ok maintain. If not work up to it to start next week.  Do not want to weight session to grow too long as then I may find it harder to fit in. Wednesday tomorrow – that means an early start for the market – so weights will have to wait until the afternoon! (No, I’m not getting up even earlier to do them first!)

11/1

Food:

Egg, Orange Juice, 2 cups milky tea. Mid morn , banana. Lunch : lasagna and salad, Tea, pizza, thin crust and 1.4 of one, apple, at WI in the evening v. small biscuit. home: plain yogurt. (Hmm must have been having an Italian day)

Exercise:

10kg, floor to above head lifts 12 x 2
using 2x  2 1/4  kg  one hand weights: 15 arm bends, 15, shoulder up raises, 6 straight out forward, 6 straight out sideways ;15  finger and wrist rolls ALL x 2 .  12 Sit ups and 12 cross elbows to knees x 2   Half hour stretching and aerobics to music

Notes:

Up early early – as usual for a Wednesday, but, unusually for a Wednesday I didn’t augment my egg with a slice of toast and opted to just take a banana to stave off any hunger pangs. It worked. The only fly in the ointment is the biscuit I allowed myself to be lured by at WI in the evening. One of those thinly rolled ‘cigar’ biscuits with a lovely crunchy texture. Yep – you’ve guessed it BISCUITS are  the tempters, they have all the sweetest and wickedest words to whisper to me…. ‘crumb on – eat me’ they say ‘you know you want to feel that texture in your mouth, that gentle melt and release of flavour’  Oh Dear!  HOWEVER, on a positive note I did manage to UP my reps for the dumbbell weights (Seems that’s what I should call the single hand held bars with weights each end) to 15! Though it was really a struggle by the fifteenth!

 

12/1

Food:

Egg, Orange Juice, 2 cups milky tea. nothing mid-morn as was out – should have taken something! Lunch, toad in the hole (easy on the batter) carrots, leek, beetroot, calabrese gravy (with worcestershire sauce). 6 grapes. mid pm, 2 mint choc sticks, 2 brazil nuts. (slowly using up the mint sticks I was given at Xmas) Tea, crumpet with cheese and egg.Apple, mid evening, yoghurt.

Exercise:

10kg, floor to above head lifts 12 x 2
using 2x  2 1/4  kg  one hand weights: 15 arm bends, 15, shoulder up raises, 6 straight out forward, 6 straight out sideways ;15  finger and wrist rolls ALL x 2 .  12 Sit ups and 12 cross elbows to knees x 2 (Yay ! maintained the 15 reps ok)  1 and quarter hour of Belly Dance class!  and I still did my Half hour stretching and aerobics to music!

Notes:

Been feeling ‘bulky’ and slow today. Improved by the evening after Belly Dance. It’s so good to get back to it, develops great core strength and flexibility – though I am not sure that it is a weight reducer, the exercise certainly is good. Great for people with back problems, I know of 3 in our group who have back trouble that has been greatly eased by doing belly dance and two of them share the same chiropractor and he has commented on the improvement that doing the belly dance class has made to their flexibility and muscular structure supporting the back. Want to know a bit more about belly dance – go to Belly Dance  for blogs on this subject.

 

13/1

Food:

Egg, Orange Juice, 2 cups milky tea. mind morn, 2 brazils 1 cube plain choc, Fish in breadcrumbs, 6 chips carrots, beetroot, parsnips and calabrese. 6 grapes, small pasty, small piece of cheese and 4 grapes. 2 oz peanuts in evening

 

Exercise:

10kg, floor to above head lifts 12 x 2
using 2x  2 1/4  kg  one hand weights: 15 arm bends, 15, shoulder up raises, 6 straight out forward, 6 straight out sideways ;15  finger and wrist rolls ALL x 2 .  15 Sit ups and 15 cross elbows to knees x 2  Half hour stretching and aerobics to music!

Notes:

All these ‘grapes’ in small numbers because I bought a pack of grapes reduced – don’t usually go for fruit out of season much (except banana and clementines as they are never in season in the UK) All apples mentioned so far are our own stored apples. Currently using an old variety grown in Cornwall called American Mother. So when this lot of grapes are done my snack fruit of choice will become a Kiwi fruit as that is now In Season in our place. Yes, from our own kiwi plant, picked and stored in November they are now coming into the house to be finished off and are delicious!

However, no matter whether a grape or a kiwi fruit or a few nuts, what I have to remember is to give each piece of food it’s due consideration. If we eat knowingly, concentrating on the eating, our bodies are more likely to tell us we are not hungry as we have already eaten – than when we eat while doing something else – watching TV, or playing on the computer or reading.

14/1

Food:

Egg, Orange Juice, 2 cups milky tea. mid morn, 2 brazils 2 mint sticks. Gammon, shallots, baked potato (small) peas, beans. 1 oz mixed nuts later afternoon. Thin steak, onions, salad with dressing, mini wrap. 1 oz mixed nuts in evening.

Exercise:

10kg, floor to above head lifts 12 x 2
using 2x  2 1/4  kg  one hand weights: 15 arm bends, 15, shoulder up raises, 6 straight out forward, 6 straight out sideways ;15  finger and wrist rolls ALL x 2 .  15 Sit ups and 15 cross elbows to knees x 2  Half hour stretching and aerobics to music!

Notes:

Even if the scales don’t show much of a drop – or the tape a reduction I am still pleased with the progress this past week. I can feel the layer of muscle beneath the layer of adipose. I can feel my more toned body walking round as if it is wearing a large heavy overcoat with stuffed pockets, that shifts in a different way to the body underneath.

 

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