Setting myself a challenge

As I was reading this week in ‘Healthy’ magazine, you don’t need to be religious to give something up for lent. So for 40 days before Easter, I have decided I am going to set myself a challenge. I need a kick up the backside in the area I am focusing on and I think doing it around this time, is just what I need to get myself started.

My issue is that I have been eating a lot of sweet stuff, since from around last October I think, when I started doing it.

I have eaten sweets I normally would not touch, which is the sugar coated kind, regardless I find it too sweet and sickly.

Biscuits, I am eating more of than usual and the packs are not lasting like they normally would.
When it has come to eating the biscuits, I have ate more than I normally would in a sitting and I have ate them just for the sake of it.
I say to myself I won’t buy another pack so soon. But I do and they are gone before the week is out as well.

It’s obvious to me and my counsellor why I am doing this and I know I don’t need to explain it here, as most of you will know. (For new readers, just read some of last years posts of events that affected me.)

I need to sort this and only I can do it. I thought I had it under control. But I haven’t, because I am having a lot of moments eating sweet stuff unnecessarily. So I think doing the above I mention will be a good kick start for me.
Cutting back and eating like I used to before, rather than how it currently will benefit me obviously health-wise. But also the certain things my body experiences after excess sugar will help to reduce that too, which will not help anxiety.
Writing it here, I am sharing it with you and verbally putting it to show that this is what I am going to do for the 40 days before Easter.

So here is what I am not having for the 40 days before Easter:

• No cake
• No biscuits
• No sugar-coated sweets, or any other sweets with exception of Jakemans sweets. But I will only have some of these if I come down with a cold, or sore throat.
• No dairy-free chocolate (even though I hardly have it)
• No apple pie, or equivalent.
• No dairy-free ice-cream

So there it is. It’s not going to be easy, but I am aiming to do this.

 

© Elizabeth Fisher and My Wellbeing and Learning Journey.

Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to My Wellbeing and Learning Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. (But Guest Posts that feature on my blog are not allowed at all to be duplicated, as that is their copyright.)

Blog post share: Chia jam – the healthy alternative

Recently, I discovered Chia jam via “Still Waters.” I got round to making it this morning and I was impressed.

It looks just like jam, but not sweet as I find jam.
Regular readers will know that after I changed the way I eat, my taste buds also changed and I found some things too sweet. This is a good alternative for me, when I would like jam and it does not take long to make. I used raspberries for my first go and I will probably have raspberry version now and again in the future, but I love strawberries, so more likely it will be strawberries for me when I make chia jam. But I will enjoy experimenting.

Some related posts to my healthy eating, for those who may not have read them:

• My reasons for eating healthy
• A year today, being off my blood pressure medication.
• My taste buds changing

 

© Elizabeth Fisher and My Wellbeing and Learning Journey.

Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to My Wellbeing and Learning Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. But Guest Posts that feature on my blog are not allowed at all to be duplicated.

Self-destruct: sugar

For a few weeks and more so in last two weeks, I have been on self-destruct eating more sweet stuff than normal. I even went out and bought it, which is how bad I was feeling.
I was feeling low and at times depressed with the idea I still have this same job and not anywhere else. Some mornings I just did not want to get up because I was that tired, but I had to, with what was happening that day ahead. Eating sweet things have been done in secret, until I mentioned here and recently to a friend because of saying why I refused to accept a sweet she offered because I thought I had enough sweet stuff today.
I wasn’t eating what I would usually allow myself as part of my new healthy eating, I went in overdrive. I won’t go into detail of some of the amount, because I find it embarrassing and I feel I have let myself down. I have even done where after I have felt bad eating what I have done, I noticed I was eating a bit more for that emotion. So if I don’t watch, I will go on a vicious new circle here, which I have not done before.
My friend who I tried to explain to, why I was not accepting a sweet, (which I accepted later in the night after further offers to have one) said, “there was more fat on a bone.” But like you my readers, she does not know the secret quantity I ate. But also, she herself is now enjoying food more since she quit smoking and has admittedly said she can’t stop. But she is not bothered, as she said she needed to put the weight on. (Which she looks better for.) The difference is, I don’t want to be going back to putting more weight on. I was happy at 11 stone which I last weighed many months ago and even though I wanted to go to 10.5 stone, I wasn’t to concerned with maintaining 11 stone at one time. But now I am over 11.5 stone.
She may not know the full details, but I would have thought there would have been an understanding before in how I felt and why I said no thanks to offerings of sweets.
Also when I have said where I have put the weight on how I feel and she says I haven’t when the jacket I wear is starting to look tighter than it was and I can’t layer winter things under it as it will be tighter looking, or wear my fleece jacket with it, like I originally could.
My favourite red winter coat that she knew about (at the beginning of this year I think it happened, otherwise it was end of last year,) the stitches ripped completely halfway around, under the arm of one coat when I went to reach for the seat belt. Even though I could zip it up, I was aware of that difference and then that happened.

I know I am responsible for what I put in my own mouth and that by accepting this friends offering of sweets, it’s my own doing. But it makes it hard. But I am determined that I don’t want to be buying a new coat in a size up.
I may not be fully happy in life, but when I lost that weight, I was happier with my body at that point. When you are not confident and you end up hating your body, it can be a vicious circle and I don’t want to go back there.

Sweet things that were sickly sweet for me before, I have found they are not, so I know I will have to go back to my 10-day sugar challenge again, to kick off this sweet tooth I now have. It’s a wonder I have not been sick on a couple of occasions.

I know also that I have to motivate myself into exercise. Regular readers will know I sold my exercise bike after I wanted my living room to look like a room again and with giving up the TV, I knew I would never get on the bike again. But I like Zumba and I have a Zumba DVD, I need to get motivated and get that DVD playing and get off my arse and do it, for an hour at least once a week, but preferably twice a week.

I need to remember how good I felt when I achieved what I achieved before and for the health reasons I did this. I need to remember when I choose food as emotional eating, that I am not treating myself right and I need to make sure I practise self-care.

To say how I have felt with my moods, I have been able to motivate myself with study, which I am surprised about. But then, it could be my get out card and do something different with my future.

That’s my rant out of my system towards myself. Now I need to kick my butt!

For new readers who have not read about my healthy eating originally, then links to the related posts are below:

• Do you read food labels?
• My healthy eating, continued…
• Book review: ‘Goodbye sugar,’ by Elsa Jones.
• A year today, being off my blood pressure medication.

 

© Elizabeth Fisher and My Wellbeing and Learning Journey.

Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to My Wellbeing and Learning Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. (But Guest Posts that feature on my blog are not allowed at all to be duplicated, as that is their copyright.)

 

Emotional eating

Although I have eaten healthy dinners and not missed out on those, my vice of all last month has been sweet stuff. January has been a pig out for me at home, sometimes pigging out more than twice a day and exceeding my original three allowances a week for myself. I know all this is down to emotional eating and I know it is understandable for what I have been through. But, I now need to kick this in the bud.
There were plenty of reasons for me eating healthily. The main one was keeping my blood pressure healthy. Added bonus, in being in a size 12 coat, which has recently ripped on the sleeve. I gained a stone I originally lost, when I weighed myself end of January. (I know this is a little less now.) My red coat, although wearable until recent events, I had noticed for sometime it getting tight in places. So although to anyone else visually I may not be putting weight back on, I have felt the difference and seen that little difference. (But mainly felt.)

To say I have been eating a lot of sweet stuff, I have not gained a sweet tooth and things I find sweet are still sweet when my taste buds changed originally, when I cut down and only allowing myself those three sweet treats a week if I wanted them.

There has been times my willpower has been good for so long, but I am around temptation, even though I have said no thanks with proudness, then willpower gives up and I take that offering. So please, when I say no thanks, please leave it to that. If you want it, you eat it. I don’t mind you eating it in front of me. Just don’t offer anything further, or pressure me to take something sweet home, when I have said no thanks. Some cake I was given recently, I threw away when I arrived home.

All my sweet stuff has gone in the kitchen cupboard and as always, I need to stop buying anymore, because if it is in the cupboard, I tend to go for it. But if it isn’t, I don’t tend to think about it, or if I do, I mostly don’t go out for it.

I also need to get a bit more activity in, like getting back on my exercise bike. There is no excuse for not getting on my exercise bike these last couple of months, because it is in the living room. The plan was while watching tv, cycle on it for 30 minutes a day, three or four times a week. I did very well committing to this, till it stopped. So I do need to motivate myself and get back on it, as well as the above.

Some related posts:

A year today, being off my blood pressure medication.

My taste buds changing

 

© Elizabeth Fisher and My Wellbeing and Learning Journey.

Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to My Wellbeing and Learning Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. (But Guest Posts that feature on my blog are not allowed at all to be duplicated, as that is their copyright.)

 

The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs (BBC) – my thoughts as a medicated patient

I have watched “The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs,” this morning on the BBC iPlayer. This documentary comes in two parts and I did nearly forget to watch it until I seen Sarah’s post, (which I re-blog here.) Watching the documentary was an eye-opener, but also in parts, it has proved to me what I have said in the past to friends that eating healthier and doing some form of physical exercise to suit you, makes a big difference too. If you have not seen this documentary then I strongly recommend you watch it.

sarahreturnstolife

I have not seen such an eye opening programme for a long time. If you take a paracetamol for every headache or feel disappointed when you don’t come away from the doctors with a prescription, I would thoroughly recommend watching it. By taking some time to listen to patients’ individual needs, this doctor managed to wean chronic pain sufferers off their codiene and halve the dose of antidepressants for a woman who had been on them for years. It has totally changed my perception of prescriptions, but those of you who know me may be thinking YOU HYPOCRITE. I am currently taking a lot of tablets, which I believe are necessary, but that is not to say that they are necessary for everyone.

I cannot deny that drugs are currently responsible for my ability to function

I am a great believer in trying talking therapies before medication. Pills will never…

View original post 480 more words

Wholesome foods, not diets.

To follow on from yesterdays post where I talked about healthy eating, these are just some of the people I follow for inspiration, that encourage healthy eating. Not in the form of diets, but proper healthy, wholesome food.

Elsa Jones – Goodbye Sugar

Ella Woodward – Deliciously Ella

and someone who I have recently started to follow; Joe Wicks, The Body Coach. (I have just bought one of his books.)

 

© Elizabeth Fisher and My Wellbeing and Learning Journey.

Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to My Wellbeing and Learning Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. (But Guest Posts that feature on my blog are not allowed at all to be duplicated, as that is their copyright.)

Teaching Mum healthy eating

My Mum has had some bad eating habits for a while now, as well as myself, there has also been another friend that has given my Mum advice on healthy eating.
One bad habit of my Mum’s is having ready-made meals instead of cooking from fresh. Eating ready-made meals can have hidden salt and sugar you would not believe, unless you read the food labels.

Anyone can eat healthy

All it takes is motivation

Motivation is the hard one, but it can be achieved and when you see the results that you want, then motivation becomes even easier.

My Mum recently has discovered she is borderline diabetic. I have said to my Mum if she starts to look after herself and stick with it, she can reverse this.

If you live on your own like I do and my Mum, then sometimes cooking for one can un-motivate you. But you can change this feeling by cooking something new and experimenting with food.

Forget diets, as they restrict what you can eat and are only temporary. Instead, think long-term and reap the benefits.

Readers of this blog and my old one I used to write and family and friends will know I no longer take blood-pressure tablets through healthy eating. I am so proud of this result, because I never thought I would see that happen. As well as this, I no longer feel tired as I did and I have extra energy. I have also lost weight gradually too.

I write down a menu plan for the week ahead, before my current one runs out and shop for what I need for that week if needed. I have a whiteboard on my kitchen wall with Monday to Sunday on it which displays my weekly food menu. (My mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks not included on this.) By having this whiteboard visible on the wall, I am able to see what I am eating that week and it helps to keep me motivated.

My weakness is sweets and so I am best not to buy this in advance and have in the home. If it is not there, then I cannot have it. But also if I have a craving, like chocolate for example, the chances of me going out to buy it, is nil. But had it been in the house already, then I would have been tucking in.

My Mum already has the tools to eat correctly, she just has to find the motivation to do it and the confidence to shop for the right things.
I feel my Mum is starting to listen after this result from her doctor and I have given her new advice, along with what I have mentioned before and I have sat down with her to prepare her first menu for the week ahead. There will be no doubt that I will support my Mum with any other advice she needs in the weeks, or months ahead, as she starts her healthy eating journey.

Further related reading:

• My taste buds changing
• Book review: “Goodbye Sugar,” by Elsa Jones
• My healthy eating, continued…
• Do you read food labels?

 

© Elizabeth Fisher and My Wellbeing and Learning Journey.

Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to My Wellbeing and Learning Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. (But Guest Posts that feature on my blog are not allowed at all to be duplicated, as that is their copyright.)

A year today, being off my blood pressure medication.

It’s a year today, since being my doctor allowed me to come off my blood pressure medication and I’m still off them. I would have never thought that this moment would have come originally, as I had been taking them for some years. From posts I have shared here, you will know that it was down to me eating healthier, to stay off them.
Off all the things I have gained from eating healthier, this was an added bonus for me. I actually thought I would be back on them by Christmas. But I am not. As soon as it was the New Year, I was feeling more confident that this would be reality.
Eating healthier has been easy for me, as I have done this gradually, but because I am off my blood pressure medication and I want to stay off them, this has become my greatest motivator to keep eating healthier.

Related posts:

• Do you read food labels?
• My healthy eating continued…

 

© Elizabeth Fisher and My Wellbeing and Learning Journey.

Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to My Wellbeing and Learning Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. But Guest Posts that feature on my blog are not allowed at all to be duplicated.

My taste buds changing

When I started reducing my sugar intake last year, I found over the course of 4 weeks, how my taste buds changed. I ended up where I was giving away, or thrown some food away, that I could no longer stand to eat, because it tasted too sweet. I was really surprised by how much my taste buds had changed.

I asked a weight loss group I am in on Facebook, to see if anyone else experienced this great change with their taste buds and I found I was not alone. I knew it was nothing serious as someone raised, after chatting to the doctor about this and he said it can happen. All for the better he added, what I was doing.

These were just some of the things I had found too sweet, compared to what I used to have before:

• jam
• Weight Watchers Hot Chocolate
• apple sauce
• some sweet desserts
• supermarket’s own french toast (don’t know if there may be less sugar in other brands as I rarely eat it)
• sugar-coated jellies (these are just yuk to me now and make me feel sick, after just having one!)
• a branded cereal, that had a couple of new ones out, that I wanted to try as a one-off.

Finding this change in me, is all good in the long run and it will certainly make things easier.

Related post:

• My healthy eating, continued …

 

© Elizabeth Fisher and My Wellbeing and Learning Journey.

Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to My Wellbeing and Learning Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. But Guest Posts that feature on my blog are not allowed at all to be duplicated.

 

Overnight oats

Overnight oats, I have seen for some time now being mentioned around different websites. But it was only this year before I decided to try it, because I could not imagine eating it. When I did try my first bowl, (which tasted like muesli,) I absolutely loved it and I have been hooked ever since. I wish I tried it sooner.

Rather than me tell you more about what to put in your overnight oats, I will instead share this link:

http://blog.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats/2015/05/13/overnight-oats-for-breakfast/

All I will say is, that making your overnight oats is fun if you vary it. I never have the same overnight oats twice in a row and I still have other cereals in between, like my porridge or Weetabix, for example.
Overnight oats are filling and making your own is healthier, because you are not adding extra sugar like shop bought muesli’s can have.

 

© Elizabeth Fisher and My Wellbeing and Learning Journey.

Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to My Wellbeing and Learning Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. But Guest Posts that feature on my blog are not allowed at all to be duplicated.