MiddleAgeShed

A Good Food Day

Just settling down to write this blog I realised that this was the first day since I came back from the USA that food has not played a major part. I have not been over hungry, I have not over eaten.

Its true that it is mainly because there is no food in the house, but even so a small celebration, a little holler, and a short skip is in order.

Hope all goes well with you shedders!

The La La Girls Take the Diet to US

Yes tomorrow night I will be in LA...not at the same hotel as Heather but at the same event...so I will know that the diet eyes will be watching me. For two people who have been brought together through a desire to be slim and not from living near other, how ironic that we will hopefully be doing this weeks podcast from LA!

I think a photo on muscle beach may be in order!

I thought I would ask is there anyone who has any tips on where to go or what to see as I am tagging 10 days holiday on to the trip...with some friends who are meeting me out there...you see not only do I need tips on eating healthily but also socialising.

8 Foods You Should Eat Each Day

Here is an article that I found that highlights the 8 kind of foods we should  eating daily to maintain our fitness level and a healthy body.

I have to say I failed badly on the list...I need to extend the healthy foods a little! My diet campaign centres around eating less of the food I like rather than changing the foods that I eat....maybe now is that time I need to start thinking about the foods as part of keeping the weight off.

Have you got time to diet?

Time and your diet often go hand in hand. I know I can easily use lack of time as an excuse, and indeed it does have an effect - usually if you dont take time to think about what you are going to eat - or if you have to miss out some exercise.
But using a lack of time as an excuse to end up eating "convenience food" doesn't make the grade for me. I've been thinking - and my conclusion is:

Lots of "Convenience food is Inconvenient, Unhealthy, with lots of Food Miles"

We normally refer to convenience food as things like ready made meals or reconstituted food (like chicken nuggets - yuk). Most of this stuff to me is the complete opposite.
If I want it , I either have to go out and shop for it, or defrost it out of the freezer and then cook it like normal food. The other strange thing is that if you ask folk about shopping locally and supporting farmers they will often say this is important - and then more often than not forget all this when the food is prepackaged.
There's lots of "fast food" which is great for your diet and your health, and pound per pound it often works out less expensive than precooked "convenience food" which you have to warm up anyway.
What's the difference between warming up a ready meal to cooking a piece of salmon?
For ultimate convenience go for basic foods, without packaging, bought locally. Many of these foods can be eaten raw for utter convenience but I can cook a small steak and courgette in less than 12 minutes including preparation time.

Todays menu

Before I am tempted to have any extras today (like a glass of wine for example) I thought I would check in with what I have eaten today, hoping this will give me time to refuse the wine (and yes I will update if I fail to resist - but that wont happen.)

Today I have eaten

A bowl of Jordans Porridge Oats, made with water and semi skimmed milks with a sprinkling of demerara.
1 probiotic yogurts.
1 egg from Lilian, and 1 egg from Valerie
1 sausage
baked beans and 3 potatoes and green salad out of my garden.
Fruit with a bit of natural yogurt.

Plenty of Earl Grey tea, and 3 pints of water.

Fitness

Number 24 is the best ever Middleageshed podcast, I reckon.

I've just listened in with Anna and Karen. Its a real insight for us EX yoyo dieters to get inside the mind of a slim person. I heard a woman on the radio today who said "losing the weight isn't the hard part - its staying slim thats the hard bit". As overweight folk, do we not tend to think that slim people can eat what they like? Dont we assume that they can forget exercise and still stay a size 10? This then gives us a few extra excuses as to why we have put weight on etc etc. Listen in to Karen who talks about what she does to keep trim - it is a true inspiration.

If you listen to one show, this has to be the one to go for, especially if you are - or were a yoyo - er.

Well done both, and thanks for the running tips.

EASTER Warning!

Egg Time, Feasting coming up! AGGGHHHHH! A chocoholic nightmare...
However, with my newly found motivation from the Anna rant, I am putting in place an early strategy to ward off those yummy treats piling on the pounds!
I have put in place an exercise programme of running daily over the Easter break followed by a hike on Monday up the Black Mountains! I will limit any choccy in take to absolutely ONLY the best - Green and Black or Milka, and only in insy wincey proportions.
That should sort it, and just to batten down the hatches Barbara from Relationship Matters - our fabulous coach is coming in on Saturday morning with words of wisdom.

Water

I had forgotten water as a key part of this process, and although I have probably ended up having a glass of water every day for the last week, but having just read Mireille Guillame's recommendation I should be aiming for much much more than that. She says that dehydration is one cause of bad sleep, and so to ensure that you have a glass before going to sleep.

Alcohol...

Its a toughy this one. After all a couple of drinks here and there is hardly going to wreck the diet, and I enjoy playing pool for our local pub team every Thursday evening. Last night I had a couple of red wines and sipped them throughout the evening - 8pm til about 11.30pm. No problem at all. However, I find that a bit of alcohol really affects your resolve and willpower. When we got home if I'd have had any biscuits in the house I would have just eaten them I'm sure. As it was I just had two Black Magic chocolates.
So the lessons learnt are I must be aware that it is going to be more difficult to resist temptation with wine in the equation, and make sure there are no milk chocolate digestives in the house!

Food tastes better!

Today I have eaten:
A fairtrade  small banana,
A Clementine,
A bowl of Jordans porridge,
An omelette made with an egg laid by my chickens Lilian and Valerie, topped with welsh cheese and organic mushrooms,
A green salad produced by LEAF farmers, along with a spoon of Waitrose coleslaw,
and to finish the day:
A tiny piece of Green and Black Milk Chocolate.

I am nicely full.

But the real point is each and every mouthful I ate was absolutely delicious and guilt free. I think eating food when you are not really hungry racked with guilt must affect the taste!

Apparently as a nation the main reason so many of us are overweight is that we are actually consuming 30% more food than we need! If we reduced the quantity of food we eat and radically raise the quality imagine the difference we could make to our waistline, and to British Farmers.