Sunday, October 31, 2004

Happy Halloween!

We've had a fab day, and even my eating has been better. I think I ate so much sug@r yesterday I made myself a bit ill, and today my body was looking for some food with some nutrient content. So I had omlette & salad for lunch, and pumpkin soup at the party, and while I wasn't exactly an angel (some cakes were consumed) I did pretty good in the circs. Even so, come the Moment of Truth tomorrow morning I don't expect to have lost weight. Ah well, I'll work on getting it right(er) next week.


These are our pumpkin lanterns - one made from a garden-centre pumpkin and one from our own, small but perfectly form, home grown pumpkin (of which we are inordinately proud).



Halloween party was great. We made them do traditional halloween games like apple bobbing and the pancake game [1] and the chocolate game [2] before letting them out to do modern new-fangled left pondish trick or treating tsk. They got a good haul, as some of our neighbours are nice kind people. And while they were doing that, we tried to explain to the Korean parents of one of the children what it was all in aid of.


[1] aka the treacle scone game (it uses scotch pancakes, which in Scotland are known as drop scones).
Eating treacle scones strung from a washing line hung across the kitchen is a long-established Halloweeen game. The treacle scones should be ... daubed in sticky treacle before being hung up. (It is a good idea to put a newspaper down on the floor to catch the drips.) All competitors should then have their hands tied behind their backs and the idea of the game is to see who can eat most of their scone. (The Scotsman)

we didn't tie them up, tho, just insist on hands behind backs.

[2] ok so it's not a trad halloween game but hey it's fun and it involves chocolate.

Saturday, October 30, 2004

tricks and treats

No calorie logging today. Safe to say the number of cals consumed is approximately Huge. Well when you're baking, you have to lick the spoon and test the finished product. S'quality control innit. Ghost biscuits [1] and poison buns and toffee apples and pumpkin lanterns and halloween party cd all made.

O is nearly bursting with excitment at the day full of halloween excitement he has on tomorrow. First, in the morning there's chocolate coated apples to be made and poison buns to be iced. Then after lunch there's the apple & pumpkin party at the local community garden centre, straight from there to the halloween party at our neighbour's that we've been doing the baking for, then out trick or treating. We :heart: halloween, although possibly not quite as much as this woman.

And once all that's over with, he has his birthday on Thursday. I bought his present from us today, and my sister rang earlier to say that she's bought him the ludicrously overpriced and over packaged pile of plastic he has been coveting lately. We delivered the party invites this evening, and as soon as halloween's out of the way, I've got all the party cooking to do. Diet, what diet?


[1] is it wrong to use the Xmas Dove biscuit cutter [2] to make 'ghost' biscuits for halloween?

[2] that may be 'cookie cutter' to you.

Friday, October 29, 2004

I hate this

I have a bar of chocolate in the cupboard. A very large bar of chocolate. It's there for making choccie apples for halloween. It's trying to make me eat it. All round the supermarket the chocolate demons were after me. I hate this, it feels exaclty like stopping smoking, and I don't know if I want to do that kind of hard work all over again.

Daily Review
food/cals ~ 1960 - over 1750 boo but under 2000, not bad considering biscuits, wine and nuts have been involved; fruit ~ 1 banana tsk; exercise ~ 30 mins bike, 20 mins walking; water ~ 2.25 l; booze ~ 2 glasses red wine


going out

Had to go Out today. I did really well in the morning, lunchtime was OK (well ok-ish considering vegetarian option was egg mayo sarnies or cheese sarnies). But by mid-afternoon I couldn't resist the M&S luxury choccie biscuit assortment any more. Ah well, I think I burnt them off cycling there and back.

Thursday, October 28, 2004

all i want for christmas


 Posted by Hello

much excitement

new options flavour discovered today! limited edition banana flavour mmmmmm also I have re-discovered low-cal cranberry juice huurraah I was getting bit bored of having just water at every meal, now I can have juice-and-water for only a teeny number of cals. Oh and I came in under 1500 cals today without even trying. I even said no to a biscuit. I have also invented a new tofu recipe which I may share with the world at some point.

Daily Review
food/cals ~ 1307 omg; fruit ~ 2 (bananas) oops tsk; exercise ~ belly dancing class; water ~ 1 litre; booze ~ 0

dear work people

please do not ring up and mither me when I am having a BRMC moment.

slight blip

I dunno what got into me last night but anyway that was last night and today is today and I am back on track wooo. I am in danger of crossing bridges far to early again, worrying about the halloween party I've offered to help organise on Sunday and the cakes and choccie apples I'm going to be making for it. So I will forget about all of that for now, except to burn a few calories laughing everytime O talks about going "trickle treating".

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

buggrit

bingette cals + b*llsh*t cals = way too many feckin cals

I. Want. Chocolate. Now.

that is all.

teenage dreams, so hard to beat

'Teenage Kicks: the lyrics I want on my tombstone'

Sheila, my wife - I wanna hold her, wanna hold her tight - knows that when I die, the only words I want on my tombstone, apart from my name, are:

'Teenage Dreams, So Hard To Beat.'

What more do you need?


Mark Radcliffe on John Peel:

He made us realise that you did not have to mellow with age - music could continue to mean as much to us now as it always did.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

on letting a 4 year old dictate your meals

Lunch was going to be soup and bread. Till O said he really really wanted omlettes. So, cheese omlettes it was, thereby doubling my calorific intake from that planned. But, on the other hand, at the greengrocer's he insisted we buy a cabbage and a cauliflower. As I am treating non-starchy vegetables as 'free', our tea of cauliflower cheese (with low fat white sauce) and buttered cabbage came in at 200 cals. Then again we did have pudding tsk. Oh, and there was b*tt*r ...

Thanks to everyone who posted encouraging comments for my restart bid. Especially to Marla, who helped me look on the bright side. Like she said, I have not gained weight this year. Who knows how heavy I would be now if I hadn't been working at it, all be it intermittently.

Another bright side to look on - my calorie intake for today may be over-budget, but it's still under the number of calories someone my weight and activity level needs to maintain their weight.


Daily Review
food/cals ~ 1960 eep; fruit ~ 3 (banana, 2 pears); exercise ~ 20 mins walking (at child pace), 20 mins belly dance vid; water ~ 0.75 litre; booze ~ 0

sadness

John Peel died.

After announcing Peel's death on Radio 1, the station played his favourite song, Teenage Kicks, by The Undertones.

/sheds a tear and spends afternoon listening to FabricLive07

Monday, October 25, 2004

one day at a time

Today went good. Calories within budget, exercise done, all good. Even betterer, my aquarobics instructor said she thought I'd lost weight. Makes me think that even though I don't always do so well with weight loss, at least the exercise is making me a better shape.

Off for an early night now. Gotta get up early tomorrow to try and get some work in, before a fun filled day of rainy day child care. Feckin half-term holidays bah.


Daily Review
food/cals ~ 1530, eating 'good' things; fruit ~ 3 (apple, banana, melon); exercise ~ aquarobics; water ~ 2 litre; booze ~ 0

yo-yo no-no

So here I go again. Clazza's Weight Loss Programme, Take 3.

As of today, I weigh a whole 2 lb less than when I started all this 10 months ago. I thought I had it sorted then. Just eat less and move more, and I'll be sylph-like for Xmas. Easy-peasy. Hah.

At least I now have more idea what I'm up against. I have learnt some stuff, and I also have the wonderful world of all you lovely diet bloggers, too.

So, here I go again. I've decided to go back to calorie counting. It's such a feckin bore, but it's the only thing that seems to work. Big Sigh.

new plan

An update to the orginal plan.

Daily
  • calorie count! - weigh and write down what I eat
  • aim to eat 1500 - 1750 calories per day
  • drink at least 1 litre of water a day
  • eat no crisps
  • drink no sugary fizzy drinks
  • think before eating - am I really hungry? what will this food do for me?
  • eat at least 3 pieces of fruit a day (together with the veggies I usually get at meal times, that will put me on target for 'Five a Day')
  • remember to suck my tummy in as much as possible!

Weekly
  • exercise for at least 30 minutes, 5 days out of 7, normally to include:
    • 1 aquarobics session
    • 1 belly dance class
    • 1 swim
    • do my belly dance video once a week
    • walk for 30 mins, at least 3 days a week
    • go by bike (instead of car/bus) whenever practical
  • do something active with O every weekend (eg bike ride, walk, go swimming)
  • weigh myself once a week only, on Monday mornings

Monthly
  • lose 1 lb a week on average (the 'pound a week' club)
  • set a monthly challenge (starting November)

Sunday, October 24, 2004

quick note

Have had fab weekend. Gave Trin guided tour of where we live, then we all went for lunch in our local caff. After that Trin had to go home booooo but C came to stay yay and then we all went on train to the PRY [1] to see some other friends. Stayed there overnight, came back this evening. Then I acted as a taxi service for a bit, and am now going to slob out with new book and nice wine.

And no, Jude, I haven't forgot about the Diet-restart-on-Monday Pact. Nor have I started yet either.


[1] People's Republic of Yorkshire

Friday, October 22, 2004

Thomas 'worse than crack', mother warns

A warning for all parents of young children. Do all you possibly can to avoid the Cult of Th*m*s gaining a foothold in your home. It starts innocently enough, a book here, the odd video there, perhaps a trip on the Sodor express and you kid yourself it's just a harmless bit of fun. Then comes the train set for Xmas. The train set is the point of no return. From there it is only a matter of time till you find yourself in the kind of situation I was in today. O, 3 years on from getting his first train set, still a Th*m*s-phreak. We already have a huge box of track and associated paraphernalia (4 different bridges, water tower, turntable, coal hopper, moving points, buffers, stations etc) and another huge box of trains.

Having acquired some funds of his own to be spent as he saw fit, O headed for the toy shop. He looked at the Power Rangers and Spider Man and Action Man and Thunderbirds and etc etc boys toys, pronounced them all 'kewl', then said 'lets go and get a train now'. Wouldn't you like a powerranger/ spiderman/ turtle/ etc? No, I want a train, lets go mummy. Then another half hour of deciding which of the myriad engines to get [1]. Then he took it to the station and played happily with his train while watching trains while waiting for a train to come in. I do try to be interested in things he's interested in, but there's a limit to how many times you can feign fascination with another train pulling into the station.

For small boys, Th*m*s is more addictive than crack. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Other news: Trin's here woooooo. She arrived safe and sound and on time. We came home for cup of tea then spent a couple of hours worshipping at the local Temple of Mammon. She was most impressed, I don't think they got shops like that down south. They certainly don't got them with faux Grecian statuary and a food court modelled on the deck of the Titanic. She also v impressed with O's beautiful diction. I think she's wrong to say that O loves her for the chocolate, tho - it was the über-kewl cars that did it. A lovely evening of eating, drinking, chatting and chocolate followed, marred only by the Voice of Th*m*s turning up on TV.


[1] He decided on Gordon in the end

Thursday, October 21, 2004

A Tale of Two Binges

Binge 1 ~ last night ~ x1000 cals: I knew R was going out for the evening. On my way home from aquarobics, I called into the supermarket and bought a pile of stuff to binge on. As soon as he went out, I ate till I felt sick. I don't even know why I did it, I haven't been feeling particularly bad lately.

Binge 2 ~ this morning ~ 0 cals: cycled into town to pay a large cheque into the bank and then (even tho we are skint and most of that money is going to go on paying bills), celebrated by indulging in a Waterstones 3-for-2 offer.

I love getting new books. We have a houseful of books but can always find room for more. I'm going to have to limit myself to splurges at the local Oxfam bookshop from now on. Aksually I love Oxfam bookshop - last week I found some excellent fact books for O, plus a fantastic kids' joke book that my sis used to have.

Other news: Warning: sensitive mens who don't like to read about 'ladies things' should avert their eyes now


ladies Posted by Hello

Before going to town, I had to go see the practice nurse at the doctor's surgery, for a routine smear test and check on my IUD. Our practice nurse, Sister L, is a sweetie. She never forgets to warm the speculum.

OK you can look again now

Sister L's the one who put me in touch with the smoking cessation service, which was the start of my ultimately succesful quit. We've talked about my weight issues in the past. We talked about them some more today, she was encouraging about what I've been doing and not down on me for not making more progress. She also mentioned that if I feel that compulsive eating is a real problem for me, there are support groups I could go to. I'll see how I go on for a bit longer, but keep that in mind. I love Sister L, she's 'soft cop' to our GPs 'tough cop'. And we all know nurses rool.

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Still not getting it right

My eating is still in a deep dark bad place (hence no food logging). I can't even imagine having the motivation to get it back on track. I don't know what to do. I am at least keeping up the exercise - aquarobics again tonight.

In other news: I spent the morning in O's class, on their open day. It was good to see what they get up to. And I will be seeing a lot more of it, as I have volunteered to help out in class one morning a week.

Other other news: only 2 days till Trin visits woooooooooo!

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Monday, October 18, 2004

dancing, laughing, drinking, loving

Marc Almond 'stable' after crash

Fingers crossed that Marc is able to do all these and more again, soon. Get well soon, Marc.

Theatre of Marc Almond

who broked the blogosphere?

Bloggrolling seems to have disappeared (taking my links with it) and Blogshares is having a Database Maintenance Moment.

not going the extra mile

I had various errands to run this morning, local stuff but all in different directions. Would've been about 3 miles to walk it. But it looked like rain so I wimped out and cycled instead. Will either to go aquarobics or for a swim this evening, too. Still can't get the Eating Right thing right, but can at least keep on going with the Exercise Thing.

scrabble, and other wholesome family entertainments

Oooh goodie, Trin wants to play games with us when she comes to visit. We love board games we do. So glad she wants to join us for an evening of wholesome family fun. Here are a few highlights from our extensive selection:

  • Frustration ~ ludo's even more exciting with a pop-o-matic die

  • Mahjong ~ we have lovely set from Chinatown but are still mahjong n00bs. We don't get to play much since our mahjong-playing neighbours moved away, boo.

  • Monopoly ~ another game I spect we'll be getting the junior version of soon. Currently we have 3 - classic, Coronation Street & Star Trek

  • Risk ~ the classic geeky student's all night entertainment. Not just students, either, all kinds of geeky-types love da Risk. The more hippy, peace-loving, lefty, anarcho-crusty they are, the more determined they are to establish global domination by any means necessary. We haven't actually got a Risk set right now - I've bought at least 2 but somehow at 7am, after staying up playing risk for 72 hrs solid (with associated drinking), you can never quite remember whose set it was to start with. And you are too desperate to go to bed to argue about it. Risk - as endorsed by the TickleMeister. Nuff said.

  • Scattergories ~ v. good game for when you have people round, and one of the few games that genuinely works well with people of all ages (and can be played in teams, or not).

  • Scrabble ~ we :heart: scrabble. We have 3 scrabble sets (new one, old one (kept for spares for new one) & travel scrabble). Shortly to be 4 sets when O gets Scrabble Jnr from Santa. R once gave me a copy of How To Play Better Scrabble for my burfday, and our dictionary is almost always bookmarked at the 2-letter words list at the back. It's a shame Trin's not gonna be here at the same time as C this weekend - C's favourite is Dirty Word Scrabble. C usually wins at that, but I reckon Trin would give her a run for her money. Gift ideas for Danz: Disney Scrabble.

  • Snakes & Ladders ~ gotta love that up and down action.

  • Trivial Pursuit ~ yes OK so we're Thatcher's Children. Don't hate us, it's not our fault. Gift ideas for Abby: Goth "Trivial Pursuit"


Or, if you wanna play for real, I could always take you to the casino. Don't say I don't know how to show a girl a good time ...

Sunday, October 17, 2004

Highlights of my Sunday

  1. Spending the morning at the swimming pool with R & O, and getting a good work-out playing piggy in the middle in the water (this will be a key part of P-Aerobics™ my all new concept in work-out and well-being for the busy parent (parent-aerobics geddit)).

  2. Spending the afternoon on the sofa reading the paper while R took O to ride his new bike round the park.

  3. Starting on the Francis Wheen book.

  4. Roast garlic, roast pumpkin, roast sweet potato, roast carrots, roast shallots, mmmmm.

  5. Rousing games of Pop Up Pirate and Manic Martians. I totally rool at Manic Martians, I won 3 games out of 3 wooo.

Saturday, October 16, 2004

Highlights of my Saturday

  1. Baby Race on Dick 'n' Dom (me and O have decided that we need to have a baby immediately, so that we can enter).

  2. Reading the Little Britain new series interview in the grauniad.

  3. Getting a cd of photos from our friend in Canada (I'm sorting out an on-line photo album to share them with everyone, till she can get her internet up and running).

  4. Seeing O riding his new bike, an early birthday pressie from Granny & Grandad. It has 20" wheels, 6-speed gears, and most importantly, a bell. It has flames painted all over it, is called a HotRod and is officially Kewl.

  5. Eggs Floretine for lunch in the caff.

  6. O going to his friend's birthday party, leaving me and R to enjoy some 'quality time' together.

  7. Roasted garlic

  8. Phish food (if you're gonna go off diet, may as well do it right).

Bring on Sunday.

stop this madness!

Government pays for 'gourmet' ice
A farmer in Shropshire planning to sell "gourmet" ice cubes made from spring water has been given a £40,000 government grant.
Phil Mann already sells bottled spring water, taken from a well on his family farm near Hopton Heath.

He now plans to freeze that water and sell it under the name Shropshire Rocks.


n'eau, n'eau, n'eau!

Friday, October 15, 2004

The royal visiting season is upon us

You may recall how I feel about cleaning. The only time we do cleaning is when we're having visitors. And visitors we are having in abundance. My parents have sprung a visit on us for tomorrow morning, so it's a fun-filled Friday night of cleaning for us. Then we have to try and keep reasonably clean (at least so you can see the floor under the newspapers, and also see what colour it is under the cat-hair). For Trin is gracing us with her fragrant presence nexxt weekend, and then immediately after that C is coming to stay. OMG @ having to keep the house tidy for a week.

oh and another AAAAARGH

for the same website/department. Aaaargh for when you know they've ammended an official document - you know so cos you have a sheaf of dead tree in front of you telling you so and it's dated 4 weeks ago - and they haven't updated the information on their website. Bah. And that's after you've spent the past half hour trying to find the feckin thing on their shiny new site.

things that make you go AAAAARGH!!

When a government website that is hard to negotiate but you have to use most days of your working life gets a make-over. So now it's prettier (it looks like a blog, bless) but not easier to negotiate. And all your carefully harvested links to specific pages you need regularly turn up 404 errors. Add to this the annoyance of the laughable (if I didn't need the information and wasn't in fact paying for it through my taxes) 'search' function on UK government websites and you have a recipe for making me want to give up and go home.

Except I am already at home. So I will make more coffee and turn on my msn messenger instead. It's the closest thing we home workers get to hanging out in the office kitchen. You're welcome to join me there, by the way. My MSN id is clarriegrundy [[at]] hotmail [[dot]] com. Drop in any time, I'll have the kettle on.

linkety-link: The 404 Research Lab

oh and another thing

I've decided it's not boredom, it's ennui.

I'm also bored of all my music. I have over 20 gb worth of mp3s on this puter and I don't particularly want to listen to any of them. Anyone got any suggestions for something to titilate my jaded musical palate?

I'm bored

Weighed self today, lost nowt. Not surprising. I'm bored of this dieting thing now. That's always a danger for me, getting bored and the novelty wears off and then I can't be arsed with it anymore. The question is, am I prepared to put the effort and energy into getting things moving again? And the answer is, I don't know.

I'm fed up of working at things. I don't mean physical work, I mean the emotional and psychological work I'd have to do to change how I eat. I feel like I already have to work hard at what I've got on now - caring for my family, staying sane, staying stopped smoking. I don't know if I want to be making an effort in every corner of my life. Aren't I entitled to veg out a bit in some areas? That's what my inner binger keeps telling me.

I know this is junkie thinking. I don't know if I want to do the work to change it.

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Just because I'm cynical, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me

I read this on the BBC's website, about how 'experts say'
a tape measure could be a better guide to future health risks than bathroom scales

Interesting, I thought (mind you, on current form I'm stuffed either way (no pun intended)) and followed the linkies till I got to the National Obesity Forum's Waist Watch Action site. And being the kind of person who reads the small print, I notice the link at the bottom of the page telling me the site is "provided as a service to medicine by Roche Products Ltd". You'll never guess, it turns out that Roche make the 'anti-obesity drug' Xenical/orlistat. For some reason or other, I am deeply suspcious of drug companies' involvment in 'health promotion'.

Don't get me wrong, I am not anti-conventional medical drugs. Me and people close to me have benefited greatly from modern pharmaceuticals (anti-depressants and beta-blockers for example). I like science, and one of my best-friends-in-the-world is a research chemist. But drug companies' primary interest is in making profits, not in making my life better. I want to take health advice from impartial sources, not from those who have an interest in selling me something - whether that's big-pharma selling me drucks or nice ladies off the telly selling me 'natural' remedies (actually don't get me started on 'natural' remedies, that's a whole other rant for another day ... ). And there's little profit for anyone in me simply eating less and moving more.

Oh and I'm cross that the BBC reported failed to point out the drug company's interest. I feel another 'annoyed of manchester' email coming on ...

Thursday Log

Food

    breakfast: w/meal toast w. pb

    lunch: banana & soya choco pudding (owning to shopping-failure, that's just about all there is in the house right now)

    snack: some nuts (almonds, brazils)

    tea: omlette, oven chips, corn-on-the-cob

    drinks: 1 mug coffee (no milk); 1 mug tea (w. s-s milk); 1 options; 2 x 750 ml water

Exercise
    none. zilch nada zero. no walk this morning because I overslept because of insomnia last night. No belly dancing tonight because I had a tummy ache. How pathetic is that? I didn't go belly dancing to reduce my belly cos I had a bellyache brought on by stuffing my belly too full.



Daily Review
food ~ ; fruit ~ ; exercise ~ ; water ~ ; booze ~


a new hobby for dad

My dad retires next year and my mum's dreading it. Even he can't play golf every single day. He will spend the rest of his time 'helping' her aka getting in the way and trying to suggest 'improvements' to household tasks that mum has been carrying out perfectly well, unaided, for the past 30 plus years.

So, he's gonna need a new hobby for those non-golfing days. Mum thinks maybe he could get into this new fangled interweb they've heard about, and she got us to get him books about computers for his birthday. That was 6 months ago and he still hasn't passed the window-shopping stage. Oh and he refuses all efforts by me to offer advice. After all, what could I, non-engineer that I am, know about such things? Just because I did extensive research on my own computer, replaced my hard drive all by myself and spend most of my waking hours on-line. Tsk, as if I'd have anything to offer.

So anyway, ending the venting of my issues with pater familias, this is leading up to me bookmarking Cooking For Engineers. My dad's an engineer, he knows how a cooker works and he's old enough to be trusted with sharp knives and it's about time he learnt to make his own tea. Once he's worked out how to use computers, I reckon learning to cook should be his next project.

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Double Deckers Part Deux

I posted about this before I knew she'd [1] posted that. Double Deckers in all their forms have been much on my mind today. Everybody sing along now ....


[1] I can hear my mother's voice now "Who's she, the cat's mother?"

Double Decker?


double decker? Posted by Hello



double decker? Posted by Hello



double decker? Posted by Hello


you decide ...

I still can't get the eating thing right

but I did at least get the exercise thing right today. 12,455 paces on the pedometer (mainly walked to, from, and around tube stations) and 30 mins on bike (to/from train station).

Back to eating right (or at least right-er) tomorrow ...

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

will my pedometer change my life?

Piece about pedometers in the BBC news magazine. Apparently, just wearing one doesn't make you thinner. Boo. You have to actually go and walk more, too. Spokesmansays
The 10,000 daily target should include 30 minutes of proper walking each day

I have been wearing mine [1] more as a lucky talisman than anything else. And not doing 10,000 steps most days. Praps I will think about setting a new improved walking challenge ...

other news ~ Koff-Watch: bloomin koff still not gone. I thought it had gone, didn't even need the cough medicine last night, but then I woke up at 5 am with koffing fit. Bah. I shall be laying in more stocks of codeine as prescribed by my personal nurse.


[1] yes I have found it now. it was hiding under a tower of papers on what we laughing call our desk

Tuesday Log

Food
    breakfast: rice cakes w. s-f p/b, banana

    lunch: cheese salad tortillas, dates & nuts, apple

    tea: spaghetti w. tomato sauce & cheese, banana

    drinks: 1 mug coffee (no milk); 2 x 750 ml water; 2 mug tea (w. s-s milk)

Exercise
    walking: 25 mins (don't know distace, I've misplaced pedometer)




Daily Review
food ~ ; fruit ~ ; exercise ~ ; water ~ ; booze ~


Monday, October 11, 2004

I didn't want to go

but seeing as how I won't be able to go on Wednesday, and seeing as how I've moped about feeling sorry for self for quite long enough, I hauled myself off the sofa and down to aquarobics tonight.

Course the real reason I went was to try out my new cozzie. It arrived last week from the ever lovely Allens. I recommend the Maru Classic cozzies for us more traditionally built ladies. My new one's an appollo aqua masters like this
Posted by Hello

and I look just like that it in, natch, except that I have better hair. Cozzie has added support in the chest area, which one really feels the benefit of when jumping about at aquarobics. I think I may have been over-optimistic in ordering the size smaller than I had last time, tho, it is a teeny bit snug hem hem.


grrr @ blogger

grrr, stoopid 'blog this' button. It keeps putting posts here, despite my telling it to put them at my other blog. So, sorry bout political stuff popping up now and again, but blame blogger.

Monday Log

Food
    Breakfast: 50 g shreddies w. s-s milk, banana

    Lunch: shop-bought egg sarnie (boo); dates 'n' nuts

    Tea: noodles w. green beans, tofu & sesame oil; banana & soya chocolate pudding

    snack: rice cakes & b*tt*r (bad bad evul b*tt*r)

    Drinks: 2 mug coffee (no milk); 2 mug tea (w. s-s milk); 1 can diet coke; 1.5 l water; 1 irish coffee flavour options w. medicinal whisky

Exercise
    walking: 1.5 miles (too greengrocer and healthfood shop)

    aquarobics


Am still feeling bleurgh with lurgy grrr. Am off for walk to greengrocers to see if that will make me feel any better (or send me to the sofa for the rest of the day).


Daily Review
food ~ ok; fruit ~ 3 (if dates counts - must make self eat fruit other than just bananas, tho); exercise ~ walking + aquarobics = v.g.; water ~ 1.5 l; booze ~ medicinal


Sunday, October 10, 2004

for no particular reason

apart from looking at this pic cheers me in up in my omg-when-will-this-koff-go-away-feeling-sorry-for-self-ness:

Posted by Hello


R & O on a beach at sunset on our holidays last year.

happiness is ...

Observer Food monthly

(except the bit where Dr John "wheat is the work of satan" Briffa tells us to drink more mineral water. I feel a strongly worded e-mail coming on ... )

Saturday, October 09, 2004

Vegetarian Sausage Guide

DG asked about veggie sausages. I am currently addicted to Asda's own brand frozen vegetarian hotdogs, they are delish and also v diet friendly cos you boil instead of frying. I think most supermarkets stock their own brands, or if not they stock the tivall ones. We eat sosmix sausages quite often too, handy store cupboard stand-by, but nothing like 'real' sausages (and also can absorb quite a lot of oil while cooking, if you're not careful).

oops

There was some ill-advised eating yesterday, but then I was ver' ver' drunk. I have been punished for it today with a hangover and the return of my sore throat & koff boo. Eating has been OK today, now I'm off for an early night.

In other news ~ books wot I bought on a Waterstones 3-for-2 deal today:



Pedantry of the day: Commotion in the Ocean shows polar bears and penguins together. Tsk. Polar bears live near the north pole and penguins near the south and are only ever seen together in zoos, kids books and vilely cute &/or 'humorous' greetings cards. Bah.

Friday, October 08, 2004

Boo

Weighed self, gained 2 lb, boo. I knew it was gonna happen but am still fed up about it. I have to sort myself out, I don't want to be a yo-yo dieter.

I have to go out all day today, for work incl. working lunch, and not back till late. I do not have high hopes for today being a good day.

Thursday, October 07, 2004

an insight?

I was thinking today about eating and calories and so on. And the think that I was thinking was ... for me, what's important is not what happens at normal meal times. It's what happens the rest of the time that really counts.

See, I think my proper meals are pretty much OK. We decided when O was born that he'd eat what we eat (ie no special/separate kids meals) so that means we have to come up with something that's vaguely healthy and nutritious at most meals. We also have an (increasingly old-fashioned) "eating at the table and no tv at meal times" rule. We don't have desserts at most meals, usually just fruit and/or yoghurt. And since I started on my weight loss efforts, I've got a handle on portion size (weighing out pasta etc).

I am increasingly coming to realise how much of a problem I have with bingeing, tho. When I binge, I binge alone. I'm used to having the house to myself all day, and get irritated if R decides to work at home on a day I'm feeling like bingeing. Is it because I don't want people to know? Because I don't want to share? Probably the former, embarrassment coupled with guilty pleasure. It's not fun if it's not forbidden.

So what this is leading up to, is me realising that contrary to most diet-theories (which seem to concentrate on meal times), it's non-meal times I have to worry about.

Which is also another way of saying that I'm not worrying about what I eat when I go out for lunch with colleagues tomorrow.

Girls 'embarrassed to exercise'

BBC reports that:
Girls want to keep fit but are too embarrassed to exercise, a study shows. ... Asked why they did not exercise, 49% said they did not feel comfortable exercising in front of other people. ... Report author Professor Helen Haste, of Bath University, said: ... "We should be thinking more about graceful activities."

No we shouldn't! We should be thinking of ways to make girls and young women feel more confident and have better self-image, so that they don't give a flying feck who sees them doing what. We should be teaching them that they can play hard, play competetive sports, run about, lift weights, jump, throw, climb, whatever - and it doesn't matter if they get sweaty and red in the face and mess their hair up in the process. By all means offer a range of physical activities, but don't tell girls they can only do graceful, ladylike pursuits and should leave the good stuff to the boys.

we plough the fields and scatter ...

Harvest Festival day at O's school, so no morning mile today cos I had to go to assembly and see him and his class singing Dingle Dangle Scarecrow and The Vegetable Song (aka Cauliflowers Fluffy). Which they all did beautifully, awww.

Being a non-church school and having pupils from very diverse backgrounds, they did a good job of keeping things vague on the religion side, with 'thank yous' to no-one in particular (even atheists like us couldn't feel particularly aggreived) - right up until the last verse of the autumn song, giving thanks for the "smell of bacon as I fasten up my laces". At least half the kids in our school are Muslim or/and vegetarian, and most unlikely to be grateful for the smell of bacon. Big fat 'dur' to the head, I think.

Thursday Log

Food

    Breakfast: 50g shreddies w. skimmed milk

    Lunch: veggie-soz sarnies (w. butter boo and w/meal bread yay), banana

    Snack: apple & p/nut butter

    Tea: veggie sozages (yes again :P I love them but the packet's finished now), smashed potatoes, baked beans; banana & custard, grapes

    Drinks: 2 mug coffee (no milk); 3 x 750 ml water; 2 x options; medicinal *koff* whisky

Exercise
    Belly dancing (plus bike ride there and back)




Daily Review
food ~ good :-) I'm quite pleased I didn't give in to an urge to binge that came on this evening; fruit ~ 4 pieces; exercise ~ belly dancing; water ~ 2.25 l; booze ~ medicinal


Wednesday, October 06, 2004

The Map Room

The Map Room: A Weblog About Maps joins the side bar. I do like maps and R loves them. It's very strange when you go to forn parts and discover they don't have proper OS Maps of their countries. Hurrah for British map-makers of yesteryear (even if they were all running dogs of imperialist expansion, making sure there was a map to be coloured pink).

Begin again

Rather like Michael Finnegan.

Feeling better today (less koffing = more sleep) so am getting back to eating properly and doing exercise. I wonder if I will ever learn proper eating habits, enough to make them my default position?

Wednesday Log

Food
    Breakfast: 50g shreddies w. skimmed milk, 1 slice w/meal toast w. p/nut butter

    Lunch: 2 veggie sausages, egg, white rice

    Tea: baked potatoes with hummous, sweetcorn, cheese; pears with (sugar free) custard

    Snacks: w/meal toast w. p/nut butter, jaffa cakes (medicinal), banana

    Drinks: 1 mug coffee (no milk); orange juice; 1 x options; 750 ml water; hot whisky (medicinal)


Exercise
    Walking: morning mile

    Belly dance video: 20 mins




Daily Review
food ~ ok up until the jaffa cakes. aaaaaargh. i wonder if i will ever have the discipline to get this eating thing right? ; fruit ~ 2 pieces (but we didn't have any till the evening so not too bad); exercise ~ didn't feel up to aquarobics due to lurgy but did start on new belly dance vid (still haven't got the hang of shoulder shimmies); water ~ 0.75 l - must try and drink more tomorrow; booze ~ medicinal only


Tuesday, October 05, 2004

VolcanoCam

Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam

I read Pompeii recently (as exellent as you'd expect from Robert Harris). Gotta hope that if Mt St Helens does go up, no-one gets hurts this time.


BBC Guide to Volcanoes
Flash guide to Volcanoes

Scones!

Thanks to Marla and Fat Girl Thin for helping me find out what American 'biscuits' are. I knew that cookies = British biscuits. Now it seems (from looking at this pic supplied by FGT) that biscuits = Brit scones.

scone / skɒn skəʊn / [1]
a small sweet or savoury cake of flour, fat and milk, baked for short time in an oven

Scones is a cornerstone of the Irish diet, my m-i-l bakes a fresh batch most days. They is also an important feature of the cream tea.


[1] skɒn - normal pronunciation, rhymes with 'gone'; skəʊn - weird (posh) pronunciation, rhymes with 'throne'. Arguments about the correct pronuciation of 'scone' rage on, there's even been songs written about it
The finale of their dream
In the land of clotted cream
Turned against their fellows
In their lust for jam and scones .... scOnes!



bleurgh

Back home after having a nice time on our mini-break to Scotland. Gran enjoyed her 90th birthday lunch on Saturday and despite her protests about not wanting any fuss, was most chuffed that her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren were there. O loved meeting new cousins - actually my cousins' children, which makes them his (... ummm ... *googles* ... finds handy chart ... ) second cousins. He also liked visiting the old ship on Sunday morning. On Sunday night we went to my uncle's house, where O met more second cousins and also had his first experience of live accordian music. He says he liked it so now my mum is threatening to get him a Jimmy Shand record aaaaaaaargh.

Eating-wise, the weekend was kind of bad in an ok kind of way. Which means, there was lots of eating out and I didn't always make the best possible choices, but on the other hand I didn't do much bingeing/snacking. I will be lucky not to have a gain this week, tho :-(

And I am feeling very sorry for self, having contracted some Caledonian strain of Dreaded Lurgy. Symptoms include feeling v. tired and experiencing almost irresistible pull of the duvet, cottonwool-for-brains, and a cough that comes on mainly at night so I don't get much sleep in spite of sleeping propped up like some Victorian invalid. I'm off the chemists now for some of that super-strength Night Nurse they keep under the counter.

update: stoopid chemist won't let me have proper full strength "Dreamy Sleepy Nighty Snoozy Snooze" owing to some blah blah blah about interactions with my meds blah blah and fobbed me off with crapola non-drowsy formula cough syrup. Bah.

Friday, October 01, 2004

ttfn

we're off to sunny Scotland. Saw one of those tourist board ads on the telly box last night and if it's not exactly like that, I shall be lodging a formal complaint.