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A quiet Sunday

It’s been a pretty quiet week this week. I’ve done reasonably well on my nutrition, although starting a new job has required some re-adjustments to my schedule, and am doing OK on exercise. One of my forum friends (Hi, Chrystin) is getting a Wii this week, and it reminded me that ours has been sitting under our coffee table for longer than I cared to remember. Unfortunately, when I turned it on, the damn thing reminded me. The Wii Fit KNOWS. It is omniscient. 91 days exactly since I last stood on my balance board! I don’t know why – it was so fun. I’d forgotten how good it was. So I did 30 minutes of Wii aerobics (boxing, step, hula and jogging) on one of my off days and worked up a bit of a sweat. I must try and use it more often. Apparently they’re bringing out a WiiFit Plus later this year with more games and improved motion sensing, so that should be good.

Have a friend coming over for lunch today. We’re going to have a selection of salads – melon, prawn and avocado; carrot and ginger; mixed bean and artichoke hearts – and hubby is going to make those wonderful IHOP harvest grain and nut pancakes for dessert. We have some fresh strawberries and a selection of frozen fruits to go with them.

On the nutrition front, went supermarket shopping yesterday. They didn’t have any groundnut (peanut) oil, which I have been using as a good source of vitamin E. But they did have rice bran oil, and it said on the label that it was high in E so I bought it. Turns out it has double the amount in groundnut oil – 22% of the RDI in one tablespoon. So I’ll be using that from now on in my salad dressings.

Official blog weigh in today. Despite it being TTOM for me, and my body fat being all over the place as a result, I still managed to come it at one pound and 0.2% body fat down on last Sunday’s weigh in, so happy with that.

Turbulence Training 5th Transformation Challenge – end of week 5

This week was week 5 of the 12-week Turbulence Training 5th Transformation Challenge. It’s been a great week for nutrition and exercise but not so good (again) on my lifestyle goals. Here’s what I’ve been up to.

Exercise:

I actually did four TT workouts this week, although this is not recommended. I finished up the last one from phase 1 and did three from phase 2 of the TT Strength for Women programme. I only managed this because I was a workout down and started my workouts this week on Wednesday. So I did Wed, Fri, Sun and Tuesday. Only did intervals three times though. If I had felt I needed more time to recover I wouldn’t have done the four, but since this was the first week of a new programme, I was working out what weights I could lift, so wasn’t lifting overly heavy, and some exercises were body-weight only. Because of this I figured one recovery day was OK, but I won’t make a habit of this. Check out this post to find out why recovery is so important.

Least favourite exercises from phase 2: spiderman lunge and plank on ball.
Most favourite exercises: None really yet. Eccentric chin ups, maybe, but I can only control my descent for around two seconds. Will work on getting that up to a count of five.

Didn’t do yoga this week. I’ve been having a bit of back pain since trying that DVD, even doing the beginner workout, and it gets worse each time I try the DVD. I guess yoga is like pilates in that you probably shouldn’t do it without a live teacher there to correct you until you have a better idea of what you’re doing. I have only been doing the standing portion and there is a lot of bending. If someone with good proprioception and good posture and back knowledge like me can hurt themselves, it probably isn’t ideal for most people. I may come back to it in the future and try the lying portion of the DVD, but for now I am going to shelf yoga. I will return to doing some pilates – since it is supposed to be my speciality, and I could do with improving my own practice.

Also this week played badminton with hubby after work yesterday. It was hot. We were tired. Neither of us wanted to go. But we did and, of course, felt much better for it. And did extra walking on two days, so managed my ‘bonus cardio’ three times this week. I will aim for three times again this week but try to increase the duration. The walks were post-intervals and were only 15 minutes each.

Hubby still can’t workout properly because he can’t put/take any weight on the wrist he injured. So just body-weight exercises for lower body and some ab work.

Nutrition:

Did much better on micronutrients this week. Also, I managed to get 5 servings of fibrous veg four times this week, as per last week’s goals. But I’m still not drinking enough water during the day. Managed four glasses at work just three times this week.

Av cals: 1689
Av deficit: 660 (range ~0 to ~1100)
31% Fat, 19% Protein, 50% carbs
Nutrients: >100% RDA on everything except vit E but did manage 89%, on average, my highest yet, and well over 100% on some days.

Lifestyle

Only managed to get to bed by midnight once this week. Aim for three times in week 6.
Despite having meditation on my Joe’s Goals list, I have only done it twice in the last couple of months. Need to work on this too.

Body:

This week I crossed a minor milestone. My BMI fell below 35! I am no longer in the Obese II category, but merely a skinny Obese I. Obviously this is a huge improvement, but I have some way to go (another 25 pounds) until I cross out of the Obese category altogether.

Nevertheless, here is the good news:

• Weight: 15 stone 2.2 (202.2 lbs, 91.9kg). Down 3.2 lbs
• Body fat: 44.5%. Up 1% (but it’s TTOM – yes, again! One week early )
• Waist: 109 cm. Down 1 cm
• Hips: 127.5 cm. Down 1.5 cm
• Thigh: 65 cm. Down 1 cm
• Knee: 44.5 cm. Down 0.5 cm
• Calf: 40.5 cm. Down 0.5 cm
• Bicep: 40 cm. No change

Pretty happy with that lot!!

Specific goals for week 6:

1. Go to bed earlier – aim for no later than midnight at least 3 days this week
2. Get 100% RDA vit E and iron from food
3. Drink a litre of water every day at work
4. Do bonus cardio on three days
5. Use my WiiFit for exercise on one of my ‘off’ days
6. Get 5 servings of fibrous veg at least four days
7. Do 20 mins Transcendental Meditation twice this week

Train to maintain

Official blog weigh in this morning and I posted another new low of 14 stone 7.6 pounds. Body fat was up a bit on last week, but I think it is just a blip.

I met up with my mum today, who has been away and who I haven’t seen in a couple of weeks. She thought I must have lost at least two stone (obviously not in the last two weeks, but overall) as I looked so different. She couldn’t believe that it was just short of one and a half stone. If I hadn’t been weight training, I probably would have lost two stone, and maybe be a similar size to what I am now. But I certainly wouldn’t have been the same shape.

Hubby was reviewing our Turbulence Training transformation challenge month 2 workout schedule to go on the fridge. I included our starting stats and our end-of-week-4 stats. Just out of interest, because I haven’t posted them anywhere else I don’t think, here they are:

	Start	End Wk 4	Start	End Wk 4
Weight	15′ 0.6	14′ 9.8	13′ 3.2	13′ 1.0
% Body Fat	45.4%	43.6%	21.0%	19.7%
Lean Body Mass	8′ 3.0	8′ 4.1	10′ 6.3	10′ 6.9

He asked me if I’d be happy if I continued to lose weight but my lean body mass stayed about the same. Hell, yes. It is practically impossible to gain muscle mass and lose weight at the same time, because one requires a calorie surplus and one a deficit. It is sometimes seen in people completely new to training and with a lot of weight to lose, but really, the goal of all this weight training (apart from the fact that I like feeling stronger) is to maintain my lean body mass whilst losing weight. I have lost 20 pounds of fat. It’s awesome. So my weight loss might not be as drastic as if I hadn’t been weight training, but my body composition, and hence my metabolism, sure as hell is a lot better.

Today, I had to practically tie my favourite trousers onto my body to stop them coming down over my not-inconsiderable hips. I can’t even have them taken in as they are now pretty much the wrong shape for my body. I suppose this is good news.

I start my new job tomorrow (today actually – it’s the early hours. I’m so excited, I can’t sleep). The uniform consists of tracksuit pants and T-shirts. As most of my trackie pants have holes in them and are not suitable for a work environment, perhaps I will go shopping for some new ones. In a smaller size. I hope.

Vitamin E

One of my goals in the coming weeks is to get 100% of the RDA for vitamin E from food sources, so I thought I’d write a bit about what vit E is, what it does and where to get it. I have used a wonderful resource, the website World’s Healthiest Foods, for most of the information below, but check out the site for more on this and all other matters relating to food and health. Other information came from Wikipedia, the USDA Food and Nutrition Information Centre, the Linus Pauling Institute of Micronutrient Research for Optimum Health and Patrick Holford’s New Optimum Nutrition Bible (2004).

Vitamin E: What it is

Vitamin E is one of the fat-soluble vitamins (the others being A, D, and K – to remember them, ADEK, you can use the mnemonic All Dogs Eat Kidneys; the other vitamins, B and C, are water-soluble).

Vitamin E is actually not one substance but a family name of eight different, related substances. The eight naturally occurring members of the vitamin E family are made up of tocopherols and tocotrienols, both of which come in alpha, beta, gamma and delta varieties. Alpha-tocopherol has the highest bioavailability and is the most studied of the eight members of the family. It should be noted that the majority of clinical studies into the effects of vitamin E have used synthetic alpha-tocopherol, but this may not be a good indicator of the full range of effects of dietary vitamin E, because increasingly, unique and individual functions are now being recognised for the other family members. To confuse matters further, levels of some of the other members of the group are reduced in the blood by alpha-tocopherol supplementation.

Vitamin E: What it does

• Vitamin E is thought to be one of the most important anti-oxidants in the body, preventing free radical damage and protecting cell membranes. Other important anti-oxidants include vitamin C, glutathione, selenium, and vitamin B3.
• It protects the skin from UV rays
• Alpha-tocopherol (but not gamma-tocopherol) has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of bladder cancer, whether ingested from food or supplements. Bladder cancer is four times more common in men than women, being the fourth leading cancer killer in men.
• In contrast, gamma-tocopherol (not usually found in supplements) but not alpha-tocopherol (which is) has been shown to inhibit prostate cancer cell proliferation. These effects appear to be even greater when combined with other forms of vitamin E, such as delta-tocopherol (also not usually found in supplements). This emphasises the importance of getting vitamin E from food sources and not just supplementation, particularly for men.
• Food sources of vitamin E, but not supplementation, have also been shown to be protective against Alzheimer’s disease.
• Vitamin E may also play a part in cholesterol reduction, cardioprotection, immune function and cell signalling.

Vitamin E: How much do you need?

Too Little

Absolute vitamin E deficiency is rare, and tends to occur only in people with digestive diseases that prevent its absorption or genetic mutations that affect the proteins responsible for vitamin E transport. Symptoms of deficiency generally include neurological damage resulting in peripheral neuropathies. Subclinical deficiencies may result in reduced libido, easy bruising, slow wound healing, quick to fatigue and reduced fertility. Around 90% of American adults are estimated not to meet even the minimal RDA requirement for vitamin E (below).

Too Much

It is possible to get too much vitamin E though. Like all the fat-soluble vitamins, if you take in more than you need, it can be stored in body fat, thus building up over time. It is very unlikely that this will happen through dietary intake alone. Symptoms of vitamin E toxicity include severe influenza, malaise, fatigue and intestinal problems. Imbalances of vitamin E and vitamin K (high E, low K) can cause clotting problems, and people taking anticoagulants (e.g. warfarin) or anti-platelet medications should not supplement with vitamin E because of the risk of prolonged bleeding and impaired clotting following an injury. Some doctors also recommend stopping vitamin E supplementation a month before any surgical procedure, for the same reason.

In 2000, the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine established a tolerable upper intake level (UL) of 1,000 mg/day of alpha-tocopherol in any form as the highest dose unlikely to result in hemorrhage in almost all adults.

Recent research has suggested a possible connection between high levels of vitamin E in pregnancy and congenital heart defects in infants. This possibility requires much more thorough and stringent investigation, but to be on the safe side, pregnant women might want to avoid vitamin E supplements.

Just Right

The current RDA for adults is 15 mg per day. This is the amount needed to prevent deficiencies in most people. Patrick Holford recommends an optimal intake of around 300 mg per day. The Linus Pauling Institute recommends about half of this – 134 mg (200 IU) per day for protection against chronic diseases including heart disease, stroke, neurodegenerative diseases, and some types of cancer.

Supplementation:

The amounts of alpha-tocopherol required to achieve these optimal levels are unlikely to be achieved by diet alone. The Linus Pauling Institute, who recommend 200 IU daily of alpha-tocopherol note that supplements containing 200 IU of d-alpha-tocopherol are often as expensive as supplements containing 400 IU of d-alpha-tocopherol, a less expensive alternative may be to take 400 IU (268 mg) of d-alpha-tocopherol every other day.

It is generally thought to be preferable to take a supplement made from natural (d-alpha tocopherol) rather than synthetic (dl-alpha tocopherol) vitamin E. Also, although less common, some supplements now contain a mix of tocopherols.

Vitamin E supplements are unlikely to be absorbed unless taken with food, which should contain some fat.

Medications that prevent fat absorption (for example, some weight loss products) may reduce vitamin E absorption also.

Good Food Sources

All eight naturally-occurring forms of vitamin E are found in food, but the proportions vary. This table, from the Linus Pauling Institute, gives some examples:

Food	Serving	Alpha-tocopherol (mg)	Gamma-tocopherol (mg)
Olive oil	1 tablespoon	1.9	0.1
Soybean oil	1 tablespoon	1.1	8.7
Corn oil	1 tablespoon	1.9	8.2
Canola oil	1 tablespoon	2.4	3.8
Safflower oil	1 tablespoon	4.6	0.1
Sunflower oil	1 tablespoon	5.6	0.7
Almonds	1 ounce	7.4	0.2
Hazelnuts	1 ounce	4.3	0
Peanuts	1 ounce	2.4	2.4
Spinach	½ cup, raw	0.3	0
Carrots	½ cup, raw chopped	0.4	0
Avocado (California)	1 fruit	2.7	0.4

Some of the best food sources

• Excellent sources of vitamin E include mustard greens, turnip greens, chard, and sunflower seeds.
• Very good sources of vitamin E include almonds and spinach.
• Good sources of vitamin E include collard greens, parsley, kale, papaya, olives, bell pepper, brussels sprouts, kiwifruit, tomato, blueberries, and broccoli.

The World’s Healthiest Foods website calculates the best food sources of a nutrient not just on their absolute content of the vitamin, but taking into account how much you’d have to eat to get the amount and the calorie content of that serving size. Based on the serving size, they calculate what they call nutrient density – the amount of vitamin E in the serving per calorie.

The following table, from the website, shows serving sizes and vitamin E content for these foods.

World’s Healthiest Foods ranked as quality sources of: vitamin E
Food	Serving Size	Cals	Amount (mg)	DV (%)	Nutrient Density	World’s Healthiest Foods Rating
Mustard greens, boiled	1 cup	21.0	2.81	14.1	12.0	excellent
Swiss chard, boiled	1 cup	35.0	3.31	16.6	8.5	excellent
Spinach, boiled	1 cup	41.4	3.74	18.7	8.1	excellent
Sunflower seeds, raw	0.25 cup	205.2	18.10	90.5	7.9	excellent
Turnip greens, cooked	1 cup	28.8	2.48	12.4	7.8	excellent
Almonds, dry roasted	0.25 cup	206.0	8.97	44.9	3.9	very good
Collard greens, boiled	1 cup	49.4	1.67	8.3	3.0	good
Kale, boiled	1 cup	36.4	1.11	5.6	2.7	good
Papaya	1 each	118.6	3.40	17.0	2.6	good
Olives	1 cup	154.6	4.03	20.1	2.3	good
Bell peppers, red, raw, slices	1 cup	24.8	0.63	3.1	2.3	good
Brussel sprouts, boiled	1 cup	60.8	1.33	6.7	2.0	good
Kiwifruit	1 each	46.4	0.85	4.3	1.7	good
Tomato, ripe	1 cup	37.8	0.68	3.4	1.6	good
Blueberries	1 cup	81.2	1.46	7.3	1.6	good
Broccoli, steamed	1 cup	43.7	0.75	3.8	1.5	good

Getting the most bang for your buck

High-temperature cooking methods, especially frying, destroy vitamin E, as does factory processing. For example in wheat, most of the vitamin E is found in the germ layer. Commercial processing of wheat into bread, baked goods and pastas removes about 90% of the vitamin E content. Another source of vitamin E loss is exposure to air, and vegetables oils like olive oil, sunflower seed oil, and peanut oil should be kept in tightly capped containers to protect their vitamin E content.

Other inhibitors include air pollution, the birth control pill, an excessive intake of refined or processed oils and some medications, including anticonvulsant drugs (like Dilantin ™) and cholesterol-lowering drugs (like probucol, cholestyramine, clofibrate, colestipol, and gemfibrozil).

On the other hand, taking vitamin E at the same time as vitamin C and selenium may increase its benefits as it works in conjunction with these anti-oxidants.

Turbulence Training 5th Transformation Challenge – end of week 4

Well, it’s now been four weeks since I started the Turbulence Training 5th Transformation Challenge. I have just finished a 4-week TT exercise programme for the first time ever (despite having started a few in the past). Here are my details for this week:

Exercise:

I did all three TT weights and intervals workouts from TT Strength for Women, did yoga for 30 minutes and played badminton with hubby.

I have now finished phase 1 of this workout. Mostly the gains were minor, and in the case of Ys & Ts, non-existent. The only major progress I saw was for pushups, which went from (10,11,12) in my first workout to (23,22,20) in my sixth. Even I’m impressed! I’m looking forward to phase 2 of the TT Strength for Women.

As I have written in other posts this week, the biggest fitness gains have been in my aerobic capacity where I have seen really noticeable improvements over the four weeks which have spilled over into daily life.

Nutrition:

Av cals: 1618
Av deficit: 660 (range ~400 to ~1100)
27% Fat, 23% Protein, 50% carbs, 1% alcohol
Nutrients: >100% RDA on everything except vit E (again) (50%), iron (again) (56%), pantothenic acid (76%) magnesium (82%) and vit A (97%)

The reason my nutrition has been a bit off this week has been a sore throat earlier in the week when I lived off soup (and not home made) for a couple of days. So it wasn’t so much that I was eating the wrong foods, but simply not enough foods – check out that deficit range! – hence carbs up, fat and protein down, and not getting a good range of nutrients. At least not from food. I do take a multivitamin and mineral anyway. But being a bit short on vitamin E and iron was a bit of a recurring theme during month 1, so I will work on increasing these in my diet over the coming weeks.

4 week overview

This is what my stats look like for the first four weeks, courtesy of FitDay.

As you can see, nutrition pretty good overall, maybe a bit low on protein (the yellow segment), which I will work on – in particular trying to get more protein in my snacks rather than mainly at meals. Also over the four weeks I maintained an average calorie deficit of around 550 calories, without trying too hard or being too strict, and you can see the results top right – a nice steady downward trend on my weight graph. Here are the rest of my stats:

Body:

I’ll give you these results for the four weeks, rather than this week only:

• Weight down 4.8 pounds
• BF down 1.9%
• Thigh down 3.5 cm
• Knee down 3 cm
• Calf down 1 cm
• Bicep down 1 cm
• No change in waist or hips

Hubby took some pics but I haven’t had a look at them yet. If there’s anything to see compared with the ones we took at the start, I will put them up some time over the next few days. Anyway, overall some nice concrete gains, and some even nicer emotional and psychological ones. I am making slow and steady progress but am doing it without being restrictive and just adopting a healthier lifestyle – one I can maintain. Despite yo-yo dieting for over 20 years, and getting progressively fatter and fatter, I truly believe this is the last time I will have to lose this weight.

Specific goals for week 5:

1. Go to bed earlier – aim for no later than midnight at least 3 days this week (it’s a start)
2. Get 100% RDA vit E and iron from food
3. Do bonus cardio on two days
4. Get 5 servings of fibrous veg at least four days (only managed twice this week)

A very pleasant Sunday

Just a short one today. Official blog weigh day today (TT weigh day is Wednesday since I started the contest on a Wednesday) and I posted a new low at 14 stone 9 (205 pounds, 93.2 kilos).

Also, tried those pancakes this morning and they were fantastic – really tasty. I had mine with blueberries, raspberries and Total 0% Greek Yogurt, with a sprinkling of flax seeds. They were really filling and kept me going for hours. Also, they were surprisingly sweet – I didn’t even need to add maple syrup, despite the tart yogurt and raspberries, and I come from the school or cooking where there is not much that cannot be improved with the addition of maple syrup. I’m looking forward to having the leftovers for breakfast later in the week. And I’ve added the recipe to my recipe page.

Played badminton with hubby today. He beat me, rather comfortably, four games to nil, and then I won the fifth, but by that point he wasn’t really trying particularly hard! It’s funny – he is quite a gentle, mild mannered individual normally – I’m the fiery one – but he has a bit of a nasty streak on the badminton court, usually on the shot after I’d just won a point. I think I may try body armour next time!

I broke hubby!

When I got home from work yesterday, hubby was already in bed waiting for a cuddle and a nap. He gave me his big sad face (think Puss in Boots in Shrek) and said “You broke me.”

Uh-oh, what have I done now?

“I can’t eat fish and chips any more”, complained he morosely.

Aha, and you know this, how? (As if I didn’t know the answer.) Apparently he caught up with a friend and work colleague who has been away at the pub at lunchtime today. And after proudly telling me last week about how he has been making healthier choices at lunchtime, he decided to order fish and chips. For non-Brits/Aussies, this translates as cod/haddock etc deep fried in batter with fries. And now he had tummy ache. Poor baby! He can’t eat greasy food anymore. I broke him!

But he still loves me….

I wrote this on my blog a few days ago:

Exercise goals for this week: do all three TT workouts, one yoga and at least an hour of a fun activity. Not off to a good start with that last one as nobody at work is available for badminton, and hubby hates it so much, I can’t even bribe him to play. None of my friends live particularly near me. Anybody out there in Manchester who fancies a game of badminton this week???

Anyhow, he got a package in the post this morning. He has ordered a badminton racket so we can play together. I may not have met him till I was 35, but damn he was worth the wait!

Copycat IHOP Harvest Grain & Nut Pancakes

And here is that recipe, from recipezaar.com. It’s actually rather healthy sounding – lots of good stuff in there.

• For the health benefits of almonds
• For the heath benefits of walnuts
• For the health benefits of oats
• For the health benefits of whole wheat

Although there is not much sugar or oil in the recipe, (1/4 cup for the whole recipe), here are some ways, if you wanted, to make it even healthier. You could sweeten the pancakes with a different method, eg. stevia, or reduce the amount of sugar and use cinammon (or similar) to give the sensation of sweetness. As for the oil, choose a heart-healthy oil or substitute apple sauce or pureed prunes for some of it. Here is a link to a fact sheet on substitutions to make recipes healthier.

Anyway, here is the recipe as it first appeared:

Copycat IHOP Harvest Grain & Nut Pancakes

SERVES 4 -8

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup Quaker Oats
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped blanched almonds
• 3 tablespoons chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Lightly oil a skillet or griddle, and preheat it to medium heat.
2. Grind the oats in a blender or food processor until fine, like flour.
3. Combine ground oats, whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.
4. In another bowl combine buttermilk, oil, egg and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth.
5. Combine dry ingredients with wet ingredients, add nuts and mix well with mixer.
6. Ladle 1/3 cup of the batter onto the hot skillet and cook the pancakes for 2 to 4 minutes per side or until brown.

Getting off the wheel

I want to share with you a couple of posts I made on a fellow TT Transformation Challenge participant’s log.

It all started when she wrote this:

I totally totally totally suck

You know, I lost about 9 lbs and a bunch of inches. That was prior to this weekend. Now I feel as if I gained it all back in two days. I hate the lack of control that I feel over my eating habits. I’m so angry with myself.

Another of our fellow contestants (getfit2009) replied:

Relax – there’s no way you can add 9 lbs in a weekend – just get back on track again.

Do you know if there’s anything special that leads up to the situations where your bad eating habits take over? – might be a good place to start to see what you can do in those situations instead.

And I followed with this:

As for the internal messages we take from the words we use – hon, you don’t “totally, totally suck”! You made a poor choice in one situation. But you have made many, many good choices, which is why you are now closer to your goals than you were, say, a year ago. Get it right more often than not and you will get there. If you are trying never to make a mistake, you’re not in the right place. Try Pluto!

If you want to make a better choice next time, like GF2009 said, start to look at why you are making those choices in those situations.

We all still love you. Your family still loves you. Your friends still love you. Here’s to making better choices next time.

Anyway, that seemed to work for a while, but then today came this from our poor benighted fellow contestant:

Frustration rears its uglyhead

Aaaargh!!! Need to vent!!! Doing pretty well overall although not perfect which I’d really like. Was planning on fasting yesterday after breakfast ’til breakfast today. Didn’t happen. Just wasn’t feeling it. I was feeling sesame chicken and ben and jerry’s, unfortunately, which I really enjoyed but probably gained a lb of fat and some water, too. Been trying to do ESE instead of cutting and tracking my calories daily. Prob is, I feel like I get SO few calories to begin with!!! Anyway, I’m fasting today but I’m so cranky. Having an angry fast day which sucks (especially for my kids who are feeling my wrath). Feel frustrated over a lot of things. Torn between being happy for all of your successes and envious that I feel like such a freak. Want to be happy with how I look and feel without having to eat 1300 calories a day for the rest of my life. Hubby will be making whole wheat and walnut pancakes this weekend and I’m angry that I won’t be able to have any.

Thanks for letting me vent……

And my reply made me realise, yet again, what strides I have made in the last few months. This is what I said:

Have the damn pancakes. And post the recipe. Like you said, this is your life. You’re not going to get another one.

I have been unhappy with my weight for nearly 30 years now. I’m 40. I’ve learned to loathe myself whilst getting progressively fatter and fatter.

At the beginning of this year I made a decision. There is a history of heart disease, obesity, diabetes etc in my family. I was 40 years old, my blood pressure had just jumped into the hypertension range for the first time after being ‘normal’ for years, I was carrying around at least 6 stone (84 pounds) above my ideal weight, and I was a statistic waiting to happen.

I decided to make some changes, but I also made a decision that I would not make myself miserable over a number. My husband loves me and finds me attractive. I would learn to be a little easier on myself. I would not do ANY programme that did not let me lead a normal life. I didn’t want my life, and my practically every waking thought to be about food – did i have enough calories/points left? was it over 3 hours since my last meal? did this food have [insert banned food of choice] in it – was it allowed? was there enough protein in my snack? Did I have my cool box with my 24 meals in it for the day before I left the house in the morning? Had I earned my carbs? Etc Etc.

As a result, I am not following a meal plan as such. No ESE. No PN. No Weight Watchers. No calorie counting. Nada. I try to eat more nutritious foods on a weekly basis. Increase my portions of fruit and, especially, vegetables. Drink more water. Choose whole grains. Pick lean organic meats and dairy. Avoid processed foods and words I can’t pronounce. I knew that I would lose weight more quickly by following one of the other programmes, but I’ve been there before, and I guess you have too. By trying to be healthier, you are loving your body and yourself, rather than punishing yourself on a daily basis. This is for ever.

Anyway, I have lost 18 pounds of weight and 5.2% body fat since the beginning of the year. I have eaten goujons, and drunk Dime Bar milkshakes. I’ve eaten out with friends, drunk wine, even had the odd plate of potato wedges with sour cream and sweet chili sauce. Yet I am seeing changes in my body, my energy levels, and most importantly, my self respect on practically a daily basis.

I had an epiphany a while back. I wrote on my blog:

I no longer have good days or bad days, as defined by what I put in my mouth. They’re just days.

And then, after a weekend staying with friends, where friends cooked dinner, and I enjoyed them, the food, the company, the wine and the garlic bread – all in moderation:

I promised myself a month or so back that I would no longer define a ‘good day’ or a ‘bad day’ by what I put in my mouth. A bad day is when a school collapses in an earthquake and 200 children are killed. My garlic bread consumption is just another day in my ongoing journey to be a better me.

You seem to be on a treadmill (or a hamster wheel) of deprivation and regret. You don’t need to work harder to be ‘good’. You need to get off the wheel. It is this cycle that got you to where you are now. Old saying: if you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always got.

I truly hope some of this is getting through to you. One day, on your death bed, you are not going to look back at your life and think, damn, I really shouldn’t have eaten those pancakes. If only I’d lost more weight…

I’d like to recommend a couple of books to you.

The first one is Fed Up and is written by a doctor, psychiatrist and ex-eating disordered woman, and includes a lot about the science of how dieting/restriction affects our moods and our physiology. Despite this it is an easy read, a real eye-opener, and you will no doubt identify yourself in much of it. There are used copies available on amazon.com from $0.01!

The second one is The Body Fat Solution, Tom Venuto’s new book. He is an ex-champion body builder, yet despite his undoubted expertise in the fine tuning of transformation, he has a very common sense approach to the simple improvements that ‘ordinary folk’ can make to massively improve their health and fitness. This book claimed to be about overcoming emotional eating, and that comprises the first half of the book, and it was something in this book that finally got through to me and has been propelling me throughout the year. But there is also some very sensible nutrition stuff in there, general guidelines that will get you to where you want to go without turning it into rocket science. (There’s also workouts, but you don’t need to follow these – they are extremely TT-like with the exception of additional isolation exercises – no doubt, a throw back to Tom’s body building days – that add little other than time to your workout. Still, it is an easy read and I would recommend it.

I think you need to reconsider what you want to achieve in this challenge. Use this time, and the people here, to help you change your life, rather than your body. It is not a race. And most of us will never see the prize money, which, let’s face it, is hardly of the life-changing variety. We are here for the support and the accountability. Use the contest to learn to become the person you want to be.

Sorry for going on and on on your log. It’s just you remind me so much of myself, and I am so glad that I am (mostly) off that wheel. I will always have to be ‘careful’ about what I eat, and continue to workout, if I don’t want to revert to the blob I was at the start. But I now realise that I can do that without giving up the things that make life worth living.

ps. Don’t forget that pancake recipe!

Will let you know if I get the pancake recipe.