A slightly restless night of sleep but overall a good start to the morning. Glad to have skipped the wine last night as it's a lunchtime of circuits and weight training following by evening run club.
My gym is currently the main thing keeping me on the straight and narrow. I'm not much of an outdoors runner on the best of days so I struggle on good days to keep up. Circuits is my cup of tea, throw me a mixed bag of burpees, tuck jumps and a variety of cardio and resistence and I'm happy as a clam. Weight training really isn't my thing but I had good physical results last go round when I threw it into the mix so I'm keeping it in, especially as it's right after circuits.
Thursday's instructor Laura is the epitome of what one expects from a fitness instructor: smiley, bubbly, bouncy, in top shape with lots of positive shouting and a dash of 'woo!'. I do an hour at lunchtime with her and have started to throw in an hour in the evening classes to get me over the 5 to 7 PM bridge.
The last time I went on an extended alcohol free stretch, I was doing well on the eating front also. It came up on a Thursday and feeling all sweaty and hitting it hard and I actually felt great. Not struggling to sweat out a hangover but full of energy and power, feeling lighter as I had just shed 2 kilos.
So this feeling is what I'm driving toward this week.
So run club tonight, I may stay on for Zumba after with Laura if there is space as that will get me past 7 PM by the time I get home and eat dinner. Tuesday will be another sporty day, so another reason to stay off it tonight.
Wednesday is normally date night but my work set up an 8 PM meeting. I am strict on avoiding prior to work calls. I try to avoid night calls but working for a US multinational while living in Europe, some are inevitable. A new regular call is starting up for a new project on Tuesdays at 9 PM starting next week. In some ways that one will be a mixed blessing as that will take care of my Tuesday evenings.
So Monday and Wednesday should be easy nights this week, just Tuesday to step over on the way to Thursday awesomeness.
Monday, 11 July 2016
Sunday, 10 July 2016
A wine free Sunday
It hasn't happened so often in recent weeks, going to bed clear headed, ready for tomorrow's hour in the gym at lunchtime and run club in the evening.
OH even brought along wine on his way home. My wine.
However, I had mentally decided earlier to take today off from it. I packed my day with other activities to get me past 6 PM as he was out cycling with his friends. I do some freelance writing and had a deadline today to keep me busy. Then he arrived with vegetables from the garden allotment and I was quite hungry and didn't want to drink on an empty stomach and I'm not fond of wine with food, I find it impacts the taste of food too much.
By the time we finished eating it was after 7. So I watched him down a bottle of wine over the rest of the evening, and that was ok.
I had bought a bottle of wine yesterday and he had brought along a second one thinking I was drinking as it's Sunday. So I am in my house with two bottles of wine and not tempted.
Next to Sunday, Monday tends to be my most difficult day, so tomorrow will be the test. Monday and Tuesday are my hardest gym days so really I should get more focused to not drink in the evenings before. Time will tell.
OH even brought along wine on his way home. My wine.
However, I had mentally decided earlier to take today off from it. I packed my day with other activities to get me past 6 PM as he was out cycling with his friends. I do some freelance writing and had a deadline today to keep me busy. Then he arrived with vegetables from the garden allotment and I was quite hungry and didn't want to drink on an empty stomach and I'm not fond of wine with food, I find it impacts the taste of food too much.
By the time we finished eating it was after 7. So I watched him down a bottle of wine over the rest of the evening, and that was ok.
I had bought a bottle of wine yesterday and he had brought along a second one thinking I was drinking as it's Sunday. So I am in my house with two bottles of wine and not tempted.
Next to Sunday, Monday tends to be my most difficult day, so tomorrow will be the test. Monday and Tuesday are my hardest gym days so really I should get more focused to not drink in the evenings before. Time will tell.
Friday, 8 July 2016
Tough work week
So not a good wine week. My only saving grace was to replace wine with prosecco, saving 100 calories per bottle. Also it seems that the fizziness fills me up more so I drink less. A silver lining in every cloud.
As I soldier on with my log, Friday tends to be my least destructive evening. I don't feel the need to unwind excessively and we usually go to the garden allotment on Saturday morning so I like to be bright and breezy.
I've done a full run of fitness classes this week and hit a new high of exercise minutes but it was tough slogging. I held steady at 57.3 kilos despite all the wine/fizzy due to the exercise. One of the main instructors has been on holiday this week so I've varied up my classes but will be back at my routine starting Monday. In particular, the dreaded run club is on the agenda which I struggle with on a normal day, never mind the feeling awful days.
I continue to struggle excessively with my job. The company is in the middle of a major spinoff and everything is in chaos. My job went downhill in 2009 when internal politics created an equivalent team to ours in another department and I had to even give them two of our team members to staff it. That team has proven ineffective and they fired half and all have left over time. So we ended up doing a lot of the work that we did before but we're no longer responsible for it and we're not allowed to contact the end customer. And now we've lost 1/3 of our team due to the new divestiture.
My skills are going stale. I manage a good set of people and the larger team that I belong to is top notch. My boss is superb. I work in technology which is a good fit for my personality. However, the work isn't there anymore. The things that I need to do I do efficiently and quickly so that I can slack off the rest of the day (I work from home). Nothing that I do matters.
I've worked at home since prior to 2009 and was productive and busy. I cannot help but think that if I had a proper job where I was needed and could make a difference that I wouldn't be so quick to slip into wine o'clock. In the olden days Friday and Saturday were the days to kick back. Currently I am in the reverse, Friday and Saturday are my least alcohol fueled days while the remainder are not, with a particular shout out to Sunday and Monday.
OH did an early start so that he could go to the local beer festival. I'm not really a major beer drinker so am letting that one slide. Instead, having a bit of a clear out here. I have been getting rid of a number of possessions via the Marie Kondo methodology. Seeking to improve my life on multiple fronts.
As I soldier on with my log, Friday tends to be my least destructive evening. I don't feel the need to unwind excessively and we usually go to the garden allotment on Saturday morning so I like to be bright and breezy.
I've done a full run of fitness classes this week and hit a new high of exercise minutes but it was tough slogging. I held steady at 57.3 kilos despite all the wine/fizzy due to the exercise. One of the main instructors has been on holiday this week so I've varied up my classes but will be back at my routine starting Monday. In particular, the dreaded run club is on the agenda which I struggle with on a normal day, never mind the feeling awful days.
I continue to struggle excessively with my job. The company is in the middle of a major spinoff and everything is in chaos. My job went downhill in 2009 when internal politics created an equivalent team to ours in another department and I had to even give them two of our team members to staff it. That team has proven ineffective and they fired half and all have left over time. So we ended up doing a lot of the work that we did before but we're no longer responsible for it and we're not allowed to contact the end customer. And now we've lost 1/3 of our team due to the new divestiture.
My skills are going stale. I manage a good set of people and the larger team that I belong to is top notch. My boss is superb. I work in technology which is a good fit for my personality. However, the work isn't there anymore. The things that I need to do I do efficiently and quickly so that I can slack off the rest of the day (I work from home). Nothing that I do matters.
I've worked at home since prior to 2009 and was productive and busy. I cannot help but think that if I had a proper job where I was needed and could make a difference that I wouldn't be so quick to slip into wine o'clock. In the olden days Friday and Saturday were the days to kick back. Currently I am in the reverse, Friday and Saturday are my least alcohol fueled days while the remainder are not, with a particular shout out to Sunday and Monday.
OH did an early start so that he could go to the local beer festival. I'm not really a major beer drinker so am letting that one slide. Instead, having a bit of a clear out here. I have been getting rid of a number of possessions via the Marie Kondo methodology. Seeking to improve my life on multiple fronts.
Sunday, 3 July 2016
post festival thoughts
Yesterday's festival was an interesting experience. It's changed a bit since the year before last when I had last been, it's more of a younger crowd and less of a quirky, creative place and more of a standard music festival.
We arrived at lunchtime and I had brought in my own liter of water so had that with a festival burrito. As it was chilly with a strong breeze. Had a nice place of vegan food with more water so only started on beer around 6 PM, trying out a special one that was brewed for the festival.
As many people started at lunchtime there was much tipsiness all around us. It didn't really bother me but a few things of note:
1. There were various music tents where people were dancing, there were yoga tents, storytelling, all sorts of areas. We went into the comedy tent and enjoyed an act so stayed for a second one. During the 20 minute break between sets, people mill in and take seats or set up their blankets. A certain young lady was very vocal and proceeded to step on to the stage during this time. A young gentleman called out to her and it ended up being the two of them on stage, trying to get the soundman to turn on the mikes (he wouldn't).
We were near the front so could hear as she proceeded to tell everyone how drunk she was at that moment and would have a headache the next morning.
As it was getting closer in, I suspect the soundman was noticing the increasing number of people who may have been confused that she was the actual entertainment so he fetched the chief comedienne who was introducing the acts and warming up the crowds. Bad move to be an idiot in front of a sober comedienne.
She took the stage and the soundman turned on the mike and she said, "Welcome people, the next set starts soon so find a seat and a place. In the meantime, be entertained for the next three minutes by these drunk twats."
Said drunk twats were overly offended and scurried off the stage.
2. The festival was selling alcohol in their own cups, you had to pay a £1 deposit to get a cup. I'm guessing they did this to cut down on the cleanup later, since it cost a quid people would return the cups to them instead of leaving them all over the grounds. To be fair there were recycle bins around and the majority of people were using them for water bottles, paper plates etc.
The more drunk people became, the less they cared about their cups. The things got thrown and left everywhere, they just bought new ones when they purchased their next drink.
As I had only had two beers and was a bit antsy without the gym, I did a walk through the grounds, collecting cups along the way. My other half jokingly suggested that I could make up the cost of drinks at the rate I was going. I like a challenge...while he enjoyed being stuffed in an overfilled dance area listening to middle age music, I collected cups...and collected and collected. I ended up making £38 in £1 cup deposits so I more than covered my 4 beers plus his over the course of the evening.
To be fair, we have another big music event and people in charity bibs will collect stray cups, if there was something like that going on I would have left them to it.
3. As I was standing in the queue to return cups (it was also the 'purchase drink tokens' queue) a young man of 20ish looked at my stack of 10+ cups and assumed that I had drank all of them and started up a conversation. Sheesh. I don't think it would be physically possible at my size to swallow 10+ pints of beer without exploding.
In his drunken state he grabbed my forearm and asked if I was ok? Then he asked where I was from. His drunk friend came bounding in and bumped into me and he admonished his friend gesturing to the stack of glasses...and then he asked where I was from.
So overall, 4 pints, a controlled evening and I didn't feel like I missed out on anything.
We arrived at lunchtime and I had brought in my own liter of water so had that with a festival burrito. As it was chilly with a strong breeze. Had a nice place of vegan food with more water so only started on beer around 6 PM, trying out a special one that was brewed for the festival.
As many people started at lunchtime there was much tipsiness all around us. It didn't really bother me but a few things of note:
1. There were various music tents where people were dancing, there were yoga tents, storytelling, all sorts of areas. We went into the comedy tent and enjoyed an act so stayed for a second one. During the 20 minute break between sets, people mill in and take seats or set up their blankets. A certain young lady was very vocal and proceeded to step on to the stage during this time. A young gentleman called out to her and it ended up being the two of them on stage, trying to get the soundman to turn on the mikes (he wouldn't).
We were near the front so could hear as she proceeded to tell everyone how drunk she was at that moment and would have a headache the next morning.
As it was getting closer in, I suspect the soundman was noticing the increasing number of people who may have been confused that she was the actual entertainment so he fetched the chief comedienne who was introducing the acts and warming up the crowds. Bad move to be an idiot in front of a sober comedienne.
She took the stage and the soundman turned on the mike and she said, "Welcome people, the next set starts soon so find a seat and a place. In the meantime, be entertained for the next three minutes by these drunk twats."
Said drunk twats were overly offended and scurried off the stage.
2. The festival was selling alcohol in their own cups, you had to pay a £1 deposit to get a cup. I'm guessing they did this to cut down on the cleanup later, since it cost a quid people would return the cups to them instead of leaving them all over the grounds. To be fair there were recycle bins around and the majority of people were using them for water bottles, paper plates etc.
The more drunk people became, the less they cared about their cups. The things got thrown and left everywhere, they just bought new ones when they purchased their next drink.
As I had only had two beers and was a bit antsy without the gym, I did a walk through the grounds, collecting cups along the way. My other half jokingly suggested that I could make up the cost of drinks at the rate I was going. I like a challenge...while he enjoyed being stuffed in an overfilled dance area listening to middle age music, I collected cups...and collected and collected. I ended up making £38 in £1 cup deposits so I more than covered my 4 beers plus his over the course of the evening.
To be fair, we have another big music event and people in charity bibs will collect stray cups, if there was something like that going on I would have left them to it.
3. As I was standing in the queue to return cups (it was also the 'purchase drink tokens' queue) a young man of 20ish looked at my stack of 10+ cups and assumed that I had drank all of them and started up a conversation. Sheesh. I don't think it would be physically possible at my size to swallow 10+ pints of beer without exploding.
In his drunken state he grabbed my forearm and asked if I was ok? Then he asked where I was from. His drunk friend came bounding in and bumped into me and he admonished his friend gesturing to the stack of glasses...and then he asked where I was from.
So overall, 4 pints, a controlled evening and I didn't feel like I missed out on anything.
Friday, 1 July 2016
Day 4
I've been reading a lot about giving up alcohol and weight loss. Then I get distracted by becoming vegan and weight loss. Then I really push out the boat and spend an hour reading a body builders' forum where they discuss alcohol consumption and diet.
I've always believed in the logic that you shouldn't weigh yourself every day, fluctuations, water consumption etc. and that once a week is fine. However, I'm a numbers person, so data helps me to understand things.
I only started daily weight tracking in June, when I was all excited about my possible new job. So my numbers start from June 15th, a nice mid-month starting point. To make this interesting I also added exercise and alcohol consumption into the spreadsheet.
From June 1-14 I was probably drinking virtually every night and working out 3 times a week for 1 hour.
From June 15th I have a spreadsheet list of days, weight, exercise that is tracked in 30 min blocks (so 1.5 is one hour/30 min) and wine which is (unfortunately) tracked in bottles (e.g. 2).
Logged:
My cheap and cheerful gym has a fancy scale it magically can formulate body fat etc. through standing on it on bare feet and holding on to a bar. I've been using it around the last day of the month and then logging these in-depth numbers, I have these going back on a monthly basis since December. Patterns emerge again, as expected, January's numbers are not great due to December indulgences and April/May were headed in the wrong direction due to a spate of birthdays (alcohol), all inclusive holiday (alcohol/no exercise), trip back to the States (alcohol/way too much food/no exercise).
While I only started this in-depth logging of activities in June and don't have data for other months, I can guarantee that this was my lowest alcohol consumption of 2016 with the highest number of exercise minutes. As well, my focus on clean vegan eating in the later weeks of the month was definitely an improvement over other months.
So how did the end of June numbers compare to other months, keeping in mind that I've only been at this effort for around 15 days?
Food: the vegan diet seems to have kick started some changes, but I can't squeeze out too many more improvements on that front. Processed food is out, fruits and veg are in. I'm doing fish and dairy (cheese) about once a week each and have reached the right balance of carbs and protein needed to support the fitness regime. 95% vegan is probably my best bet to be able to adhere to a consistent food pattern.
Exercise: Mon/Tues/Thurs are now 1.5 hour days. Wed and Sun are days off. Fri and Sat are the wildcards, usually I'll go to the gym for an hour on one of those days and do something lightly exercise-like on the other, such as a few hours on the allotment. I don't see me adding much in this area as I feel that I've reached a good balance of sweaty days vs days off.
Sugar: Probably worth a mention as I know many diets pinpoint this one, in particular when alcohol is removed. I'm not much of a sugar person...well outside of sugar disguised as alcohol. Cakes, cookies, cola, chocolate, none of it does it for me. I'll have a piece of fruit in the morning at that's my biggest sugar hit of the day (on a non-alcohol day). A bigger risk is crunchy, salty things such as nacho chips or crisps/potato chips or deep-fried anything. I solve this problem by not buying them in the first place as rationing is not my strong point. Popcorn consumption has been stepped up heavily in the meantime as the new snack of choice, sans salt.
Alcohol: This one is the one that is completely negotiable and probably the biggest impact I can make for July. So now to figure out what to do with this one. Needless to say, no alcohol tonight as I want to be bright and breezy for tomorrow's festival.
I've always believed in the logic that you shouldn't weigh yourself every day, fluctuations, water consumption etc. and that once a week is fine. However, I'm a numbers person, so data helps me to understand things.
I only started daily weight tracking in June, when I was all excited about my possible new job. So my numbers start from June 15th, a nice mid-month starting point. To make this interesting I also added exercise and alcohol consumption into the spreadsheet.
From June 1-14 I was probably drinking virtually every night and working out 3 times a week for 1 hour.
From June 15th I have a spreadsheet list of days, weight, exercise that is tracked in 30 min blocks (so 1.5 is one hour/30 min) and wine which is (unfortunately) tracked in bottles (e.g. 2).
Logged:
- Over the course of 16 days I've managed 9 as alcohol free.
- 2 of the alcohol days had 1 bottle of wine while the remainder had 2.
- 8 days of exercise at 10.5 hours.
My cheap and cheerful gym has a fancy scale it magically can formulate body fat etc. through standing on it on bare feet and holding on to a bar. I've been using it around the last day of the month and then logging these in-depth numbers, I have these going back on a monthly basis since December. Patterns emerge again, as expected, January's numbers are not great due to December indulgences and April/May were headed in the wrong direction due to a spate of birthdays (alcohol), all inclusive holiday (alcohol/no exercise), trip back to the States (alcohol/way too much food/no exercise).
While I only started this in-depth logging of activities in June and don't have data for other months, I can guarantee that this was my lowest alcohol consumption of 2016 with the highest number of exercise minutes. As well, my focus on clean vegan eating in the later weeks of the month was definitely an improvement over other months.
So how did the end of June numbers compare to other months, keeping in mind that I've only been at this effort for around 15 days?
- Weight and bmi were in my lowest 3 count. May and June were the highest, so now headed in the right direction. March numbers were the best, not sure what I was doing in February to make that happen.
- Body fat clocked in at 26.5, the lowest of the 7 months. Diet, exercise and removing a bit of the wine sugar seem to be having an effect. My previous lowest in February again was 28.5.
- Muscle mass is the highest of 7 months. I've been doing the strength training classes, not really my cup of tea but needs must.
- After 6 months of bone mass at 2.1 it inched up to 2.2, so good going there.
- Metabolic age, a fictitious number that comes from all the other inputs I've been between 29 to 33 in earlier months, a new personal best of 26.
- Visceral fat held steady at 3.5. April was a whopping 4. This number in particular I'm targeting as it's the fat around the organs such as the heart and liver. As I have genetically high cholesterol this one keeps me in line.
Food: the vegan diet seems to have kick started some changes, but I can't squeeze out too many more improvements on that front. Processed food is out, fruits and veg are in. I'm doing fish and dairy (cheese) about once a week each and have reached the right balance of carbs and protein needed to support the fitness regime. 95% vegan is probably my best bet to be able to adhere to a consistent food pattern.
Exercise: Mon/Tues/Thurs are now 1.5 hour days. Wed and Sun are days off. Fri and Sat are the wildcards, usually I'll go to the gym for an hour on one of those days and do something lightly exercise-like on the other, such as a few hours on the allotment. I don't see me adding much in this area as I feel that I've reached a good balance of sweaty days vs days off.
Sugar: Probably worth a mention as I know many diets pinpoint this one, in particular when alcohol is removed. I'm not much of a sugar person...well outside of sugar disguised as alcohol. Cakes, cookies, cola, chocolate, none of it does it for me. I'll have a piece of fruit in the morning at that's my biggest sugar hit of the day (on a non-alcohol day). A bigger risk is crunchy, salty things such as nacho chips or crisps/potato chips or deep-fried anything. I solve this problem by not buying them in the first place as rationing is not my strong point. Popcorn consumption has been stepped up heavily in the meantime as the new snack of choice, sans salt.
Alcohol: This one is the one that is completely negotiable and probably the biggest impact I can make for July. So now to figure out what to do with this one. Needless to say, no alcohol tonight as I want to be bright and breezy for tomorrow's festival.
Thursday, 30 June 2016
Day 3
I don't necessarily like to count non-drinking days as I find it to be a bit of pressure. Plus, my ultimate goal is to cut back, not to never drink again.
However, I work with computers, life tends to be very black and white. What you cannot count you cannot measure and what you cannot measure you cannot improve.
Over the recent weeks I've figured out that my worst days of the week for drinking are Sunday and Monday. Sunday because I loathe my work and Monday because I've just lived through another work day.
As well, I've figured out that I am a boredom drinker. I am ok when I have things planned and am on the go. Tuesday evening I had a work call at 8 PM (I work with folks in a US timezone), and I never mix alcohol into a conference call setting, I have a hard enough time keeping sarcasm in check when sober.
Wednesday was date night. OH suffered through another low carb vegan dinner and then we did our shopping that we usually do at the weekend as we're packed up with plans on Saturday and Sunday. By the time we returned at 8.30 it was too late to be bothered to drink.
Today (Thursday) I had a electrician stopping by at 7 PM, so that also broke the cycle for me.
I've figured out if I can get past 7 PM, then I'm free for the evening. I've never been one to eat late and drinking seems to fall under the same pattern. While I'll have some water all evening after 7, my stomach doesn't really want to process anything else. So the trick is to block out enough to bridge the gap from 5 until 7 PM.
I plan to keep this roll up through Friday night and then Saturday we're off to a festival so am ok to break this streak for that one. The festival is an alternative, artsy thing, so am expected to be distracted by activities, but not going to stress if there's something interesting to try, just deciding already not to be preloading on wine prior to heading over there, as would have been my past behaviour.
However, I work with computers, life tends to be very black and white. What you cannot count you cannot measure and what you cannot measure you cannot improve.
Over the recent weeks I've figured out that my worst days of the week for drinking are Sunday and Monday. Sunday because I loathe my work and Monday because I've just lived through another work day.
As well, I've figured out that I am a boredom drinker. I am ok when I have things planned and am on the go. Tuesday evening I had a work call at 8 PM (I work with folks in a US timezone), and I never mix alcohol into a conference call setting, I have a hard enough time keeping sarcasm in check when sober.
Wednesday was date night. OH suffered through another low carb vegan dinner and then we did our shopping that we usually do at the weekend as we're packed up with plans on Saturday and Sunday. By the time we returned at 8.30 it was too late to be bothered to drink.
Today (Thursday) I had a electrician stopping by at 7 PM, so that also broke the cycle for me.
I've figured out if I can get past 7 PM, then I'm free for the evening. I've never been one to eat late and drinking seems to fall under the same pattern. While I'll have some water all evening after 7, my stomach doesn't really want to process anything else. So the trick is to block out enough to bridge the gap from 5 until 7 PM.
I plan to keep this roll up through Friday night and then Saturday we're off to a festival so am ok to break this streak for that one. The festival is an alternative, artsy thing, so am expected to be distracted by activities, but not going to stress if there's something interesting to try, just deciding already not to be preloading on wine prior to heading over there, as would have been my past behaviour.
Wednesday, 29 June 2016
Background
I've been having a fascinating read of so many bloggers out there (a special shout out to age 40 plus ladies who live a 'normal' life otherwise), that I thought I'd like to join in this bloggersphere.
I am drifting a bit in life, being a 41 year old lady with a proper, yet painfully dry career. Earlier this month I had an interview for a role that I would have excelled at which matched my goals and lifestyle.
I've been lazy over the recent months, working at home (at said boring career) has made it a little too easy for wine o'clock to start precisely at 5.01 PM. On slow days I've even been known to have a glass of wine at lunchtime. I like to see the positive in everything, it means that there was a glass still in the bottle when I went to bed the prior night...
I was so excited at this new career prospect that I started to make some quick changes in anticipation of getting out the credit card and buying a new career wardrobe. I've been working at home since 2010, so I've been making due with one suit and 2 sets of work shirts and trousers when I travel. Fortunately business trips only usually run a week at a time for me, two weeks max.
So I went back to my golden triumvirate of healthy living: no alcohol, vegan, intense exercise. To be fair, you wouldn't necessarily guess that I can pack away 2 bottles of wine for 7 nights in a row. Or probably you would recognize the signs...
Basic stats, my starting point was a UK size 10, 58.5 kilos, 5 foot 5. I go to the gym 4 times per week, despite said wine. I've been eating more from a convenience level in recent weeks, frozen pizza and pringles have figured prominently on the menu.
So I had a bottle of wine the night before starting (see, I was already cutting down, it wasn't two) and hit it hard at the gym the next day (Thursday), along with a strict diet regime tracked in my fitness pal. I hit my 1200 calories and 1 hour at the gym.
Friday I informed my long suffering other half that it would be a healthy evening, low carb vegan, no wine.
Saturday followed a similar pattern but included an hour at the gym. On Sunday my OH was hosting his parents for a Sunday dinner, they are teetotalers. OH was a tad annoying by getting out 'my' white wine (he usually drinks red as his preference) and then kept putting the cup next to my water glass. I kept moving it to the other side and it kept gravitating back until I finally pointed out that it was going to get knocked over being so close to my water glass.
On Monday I clocked in at 57.3, so a 1.2 kilo loss. On one hand, a little too much too quick, although having gone vegan in my 20's, I recall the weight just falling off me with no effort until it finally bottomed out at a certain point.
By Wednesday I reached the 56 kilo zone and was flying along in the subsequent interviews.
It went to 4 interviews and in the end they chose the other candidate.
So I had a frozen pizza and two bottles of wine. Rinse, repeat for another week.
In the three weeks while thinking I might have a new job and following my regime I felt physically great, was sleeping wonderfully and reaching new levels of fitness. So this little online diary is my attempt to find and keep the momentum when right now I have no driver for it.
I am drifting a bit in life, being a 41 year old lady with a proper, yet painfully dry career. Earlier this month I had an interview for a role that I would have excelled at which matched my goals and lifestyle.
I've been lazy over the recent months, working at home (at said boring career) has made it a little too easy for wine o'clock to start precisely at 5.01 PM. On slow days I've even been known to have a glass of wine at lunchtime. I like to see the positive in everything, it means that there was a glass still in the bottle when I went to bed the prior night...
I was so excited at this new career prospect that I started to make some quick changes in anticipation of getting out the credit card and buying a new career wardrobe. I've been working at home since 2010, so I've been making due with one suit and 2 sets of work shirts and trousers when I travel. Fortunately business trips only usually run a week at a time for me, two weeks max.
So I went back to my golden triumvirate of healthy living: no alcohol, vegan, intense exercise. To be fair, you wouldn't necessarily guess that I can pack away 2 bottles of wine for 7 nights in a row. Or probably you would recognize the signs...
Basic stats, my starting point was a UK size 10, 58.5 kilos, 5 foot 5. I go to the gym 4 times per week, despite said wine. I've been eating more from a convenience level in recent weeks, frozen pizza and pringles have figured prominently on the menu.
So I had a bottle of wine the night before starting (see, I was already cutting down, it wasn't two) and hit it hard at the gym the next day (Thursday), along with a strict diet regime tracked in my fitness pal. I hit my 1200 calories and 1 hour at the gym.
Friday I informed my long suffering other half that it would be a healthy evening, low carb vegan, no wine.
Saturday followed a similar pattern but included an hour at the gym. On Sunday my OH was hosting his parents for a Sunday dinner, they are teetotalers. OH was a tad annoying by getting out 'my' white wine (he usually drinks red as his preference) and then kept putting the cup next to my water glass. I kept moving it to the other side and it kept gravitating back until I finally pointed out that it was going to get knocked over being so close to my water glass.
On Monday I clocked in at 57.3, so a 1.2 kilo loss. On one hand, a little too much too quick, although having gone vegan in my 20's, I recall the weight just falling off me with no effort until it finally bottomed out at a certain point.
By Wednesday I reached the 56 kilo zone and was flying along in the subsequent interviews.
It went to 4 interviews and in the end they chose the other candidate.
So I had a frozen pizza and two bottles of wine. Rinse, repeat for another week.
In the three weeks while thinking I might have a new job and following my regime I felt physically great, was sleeping wonderfully and reaching new levels of fitness. So this little online diary is my attempt to find and keep the momentum when right now I have no driver for it.
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