Friday 5 December 2008

Good Intentions


I realise that I started this blog almost 3 weeks ago and haven't posted a single entry since that day. That's because I suck and have no willpower.

Ever since that day I wake up at 6.30am with my alarm and what do I do? Reset it for an hour later. Obviously this gives me no time to go to the gym before work. So then I take my gym clothes with me to go to the gym after work instead. The nights that I don't already have plans with friends, I walk straight past the gym without going inside.

I started thinking last week that this gym membership is a waste of time and perhaps I should start off slowly with regulating my eating (and drinking!) habits and focusing the exercise on dancing, which I love, rather than going to the gym, which I do not.

Then on Saturday night, one of my friends called me and we started talking. S went up from a size 12 to a size 18 because she couldn't be bothered doing anything to stop this happening. She was the one with whom I used to do the Tesco lunchtime run when we were revising and who would tempt me into buying doughnuts (I have this tendency to compare my eating with that of my friends/ family - if she/he is eating it, then it must be OK). She decided in May that things have to change - she spends about 6 hours in the gym a week, hasn't eaten bread since May and continues to lose weight.

She really inspired me. I'm still not going to the gym. That's OK though. I go on holiday this week and am only in London for about 6 days between now and the New Year. However, the major change I have made in my life is in my eating habits. Before, I wanted to lose weight so would vaguely watch what I ate. Now, I've started a spreadsheet detailing what I eat, the food group and the number of calories and take away the number of calories I burn.

I seem to have settled into quite a nice rhythm.
- for breakfast, I have berries and yoghurt
- soup for dinner
- oranges/ cherries/ cherry tomatoes for snacks
- and a bit more latitude for tea, depending on whether I go out with friends or am cooking at home

The main reason for the change seems to be that I've now started to keep my breakfast and lunch food at work, meaning I don't just grab whatever is easiest in the morning on my way out the door, that I don't just end up in the queue at Gregg's in my lunch break and that I don't go on chocolate runs if I feel a bit peckish come 11am/ 4pm. I have fruit and yoghurt for breakfast; vegetable soup for lunch and my snacks are oranges, cherries and tomatoes that I just munch on whenever I feel like it and which seems to fill me up quite nicely.

It's all about the planning really. Luckily, when it comes to food, my willpower seems to be sticking at the moment (much more so than when it comes to waking up in the morning to go to the gym!).

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