A lovely lazy Sunday for me today. Starting with a lazy breakfast out, followed by a lazy day over my parents house. It has been another hot one, and food really hasn't been top of the agenda. Exercise also does not feature today! Its going to be a short one!
~BREAKFAST~
Most weekends, normally on the Saturday, sometimes, as today, on the Sunday, and sometimes both days, we will have breakfast out.
Our chosen location for this is usually a lovely little 'restaurant' in a local garden centre just outside Colchester.
Matt then gets to have his beloved English cooked breakfast. I normally have the scrambled egg on granary toast, probably full of butter, but hey, it's a once a week treat, it's not going to kill me and it is bloody delish!!! There could be worse things to eat!
~LUNCH~
The breakfast usually lasts us for most of the day. However we went over to my parents after. My Dad had a scan at the local hospital (strange for a Sunday) and Matt was taking him, I got to spend the afternoon with my lovely old Mum, not something I get to do very often.
Funny thing is, I always loved being over there partly because it is my family home, I could indulge in all the things I never have at our house. White bread, butter, biscuits, etc etc. But wasn't even tempted by any of that today, it didn't even enter my head. When I started to feel a little bit hungry, I instantly chose an energy boosting banana sandwich, on wholemeal bread, followed by a plum! Just the job.
~DINNER~
It is another hot one today, and neither of us are feeling hungry this evening. I had made a quorn bolognese with the intention of having that with wholewheat pasta, but neither of us fancy it, the heat has just completely taken any appetite away. So that will be put aside for tomorrow nights dinner, and I will post the recipe then.
So instead, I should imagine a little later on it will be a plate of beans on toast ... I like mine with loads of vinegar and white pepper on the beans ... lovely!!!
~EXERCISE / DIET~
As I mentioned, I have not done any exercise today, my body has had complete rest, which I am sure it thanks me for. It does however leave me chomping at the bit to get back to it tomorrow, which can only be a good thing and shows the novelty has no sign of wearing off!
As I have said before, 3 months is usually the timeline for me to try new things out and then get bored and give up, I have passed that now and am still full of enthusiasm for it, so I am guessing it really has become my new lifestyle, brilliant!! Keep bringing it on!
As I was discussing with my friends the other day, it has already installed a new confidence in me. Even if the changes to my body are not very obvious yet to others, I can see them, and I can feel them. I am constantly thrusting my arm or leg in my husbands face saying 'Look at my muscle definition'!!! I actually get a little thrill when I look down and can see the contours in my calf muscles, my thighs and my arms. It just spurs me on to keep going. I still have a long way to go, but I am on the right track and still going, and that's enough for me to be able to raise my head and smile into people's faces, I am doing something to change what I am not happy about, I am in control.
I would say I am already a very happy person, I have a husband I adore, a job I love and I always say I love my life, and I really do. The only thing I never loved was me! I could not see any positives in me, I hated how I had let myself down. I would judge people's opinion on me against my own opinion of me, certain when they looked at me they could see what I saw in the mirror. An out of shape, overweight, unfit and unhealthy person. I found it hard to look people I didn't really know in the eye, not wanting to see the look of disgust in their faces. Ofcourse I know this was all in my head, but when you have such a low opinion of yourself, you assume others do to.
So many times I would get told 'you have such a lovely face', but I am not just a face! And I would always take that as 'shame about the rest of you'!!
I was never overweight as a child, I was always a skinny little thing, always very active. I do however come from a family who do suffer with their weight, all of us have at one stage or another. I am the youngest of 4 children, we grew up on good home cooked food, and plenty of it. As a teenager I developed a very unhealthy relationship with food.
I started to put weight on once I hit puberty, found boys, lost interest in any sports activity. Piled on the so-called 'Puppy Fat' for a couple of years, then lost it again. Once I left school it started piling on again, and it could certainly no longer be called puppy fat.
Then I lost it again, but not in a healthy way at all. First of all I turned to laxatives, and not just a couple. I would count out 10 every evening, and time when I took them perfectly so that they started to take effect in-time with when I got up. Then I started to count out another 5, every afternoon, so that they would take effect in-time with getting ready for bed. Then it became whenever I ate anything I would take a couple! This went on for months, and I got away with it, until my Mum found the empty packets stuffed under my bed, in my drawers etc etc. She soon put a stop to that ... thank god!! It has however left me with a very sensitive stomach and I quite often get stomach upsets out of the blue, I dread to think what damage I did to myself.
Another attempt was when I started to attend a chinese herbalist, I don't even think my Mum knew about this one so when she reads this she will be shocked, sorry Mum!! (Although she probably did know, she knows everything!!) But to be fair, I went in completely naive. It was advertised in the local paper as weight loss tablets. I would go every Tuesday after work to this little office in Chelmsford, all very professional looking, be weighed, have my blood pressure taken, pay £16 and be given these little miracle tablets. I think I was going for a good 3 months or so, and the weight was falling off me. I was buzzing, always very alert, hardly slept and had no appetite. I was getting up at 5 on the weekends to go swimming, and going most evenings after work, I had so much energy. One of the girls I worked with asked me my secret and I showed her the tablets. She came back in the next day having been to see her own doctor, she was epileptic so she wanted to make sure she could take these tablets ...... turned out they were amphetamines .... speed!!!!!!!!
So that was knocked on the head. From then on it was constant yo-yo dieting over the years. My most successful was when I found CYT, Cook Yourself Thin. It had been a tv series but it also had a website with a fab forum ... I made some brilliant friends through this and we all really supported each other, and we still do. I lost about 3 stone through that, but although it installed the healthy eating theory in me, I still viewed it as a diet, it was still about recording everything you ate, counting calories and eventually I got bored and stopped.
Following that has been the Dukan diet, Boots diet, Slimming World etc etc. All with some success, none with long-term success. I hate to be limited, I hate to be told what I can and can't have, it should be about personal choice, knowing what is right, but not always denying yourself.
This year something snapped, enough really was enough. I threw away my scales, I refused to weigh myself anymore. Instead, I decided to just take control and get my body back.
And this is where I am now. My interest is in being healthy, being fit, not being skinny and meeting the so-called ideal image, I don't need that extra pressure on myself. I am loving the feeling of getting my body strong, inside and out. And that is why I am sharing this with you all. Confidence is a wonderful thing, installing it however takes a lot of hardwork, but it is worth it.
Thanks again for reading
Jo
xx
No comments:
Post a Comment