A lady who lunches...

It's been 2 weeks since I last posted, and I haven't succumbed to any illnesses since then. This is a new record! I'm hopeful that my new healthy living (with the odd lapse) is having the desired effect.

My eating, on  the whole, is pretty exemplary, lots of fresh vegetables, some fruit, less fat, no snacks and a load of water. I'm still making it to the gym for PT, but other than that, movement has been quite limited. The snow over the weekend didn't help much as our gym was closed and we live on the top of a hill, so the cars were going nowhere.

We did go for a fairly decent, snowy, walk on Saturday, but ruined that with a boozy lunch. Swings and roundabouts, I guess. That cauliflower cheese, heaven!

In case you're wondering......
Ashampstead venison haunch, butternut tart, duxelle of seasonal mushroom, herb crumbed salsify, smoked butternut purée, game jus, crisps
Hampshire beef fillet, potato cube, winter veg, confit shallots, crispy pancetta, garlic chive purée, green peppercorn sauce
Cauliflower cheese, blue cheese crust


The scales are not moving in any direction. I'm kind of ok with this, although a little bit disappointed that being healthy doesn't necessarily mean losing weight, despite eating well, I'm clearly still eating too much.

So, I'm going to start tracking calories, just to get an idea of where I am going wrong. This might need to be put on hold this weekend as we're off to Le Manoir on Friday for lunch which was a wedding gift from my best friends. They've also paid for £100 worth of wine, which I suspect is one bottle, but still.... We're staying over in a little B&B nearby, I did have a vague thought we could treat ourselves to Le Manoir, but we'd need to sell the flat to afford it, so that seemed a little extreme.

Saturday we've a belated Burns night dinner with friends, which I suspect will involve more alcohol and obviously food.

It seems, that as per usual, my social life is not conducive to being thinner... I just need to remember, for now, that is not my aim. I'd like to go at least a month without catching a lurgy. What is the likelihood of that??

True flu baby I love you....

So that little cold I blogged about last Wednesday, it decided to become full blow flu. Happy days. It completely floored me so I ended up spending from Wednesday lunch time - Saturday in bed. I can't tell you the last time I felt quite so pathetic.

It meant we had to reschedule my Christmas present to Matt. I'd booked for us to go for lunch at The Square on Saturday which we were really looking forward to, but given I could barely leave bed and anything I ate had no taste, it seemed a pointless exercise. Boooooo.

Anyway, being bloody ill again has definitely given me (more) food for thought though. My immune system is obviously completely screwed, so I've been very kind to myself these past 5 days. Lots of vitamin rich foods (I'm like a green grocers inside at the moment), lots of water and plenty of rest. I had PT penciled in for tonight, but I've cancelled it until Saturday so as not to put any stress on my already stressed body.

Thankfully I'm feeling a lot healthier today, but given that seems to last about a week at most at the moment, I don't want to count any chickens.

I weighed myself last week also, and it was slightly less than anticipated. Still far more than I am happy with, but not such a shock to the system really. I'm hoping that reintroducing my healthy living regime will see me drop back to my happy weight (which is about 3 stone less than currently, but still fat) without too much trauma. That could be wishful thinking of course.

So, watch this space. Here's hoping I remain healthy until at least the end of January....

Happy New Year

Happy New Year y'all, I hope you all had much fun over the festive period. My Christmas and New Year were lovely, but it's back to work today and the start of a new year, time to finally take control and sort myself out.

2012 was a brilliant year for me in many ways, I married my favourite boy, had a lovely time in Italy with friends and family, got promoted at work, traveled a lot, spent a lot of time with my favourite people and generally enjoyed life.

However, towards the end of the year (post wedding) I let things slip. Work stress got the better of me, I stopped eating well, I became a lot lazier and I suffered in no particular order from this little lot:

• food poisoning
• 2 colds
• 1 bout of flu
• Norivirus
• Chest infection
• Mild pneumonia (particularly fun)
• and now I have yet another cold... 

So enough already. Before this point I have rarely been ill, I've always had a fairly robust immune system, but clearly something has gone wrong and I can only put it down to this vicious circle I've gotten into. Stress = boozing = little sleep = no exercise + convenience food = illness = stress.... 

It stops now. I am determined to get healthy again this year. I've started back on a healthy eating plan - I'm not planning to start following any 'diet' plan, I just need to concentrate on upping the fresh fruit and vegetables for now and cutting down the crap. Limiting the soft drinks and getting more water down me. This is not about losing weight for now, I need to drop a couple of stone to get back to a weight I a comfortable with, but for now, I need to concentrate on getting healthy.

I'm also committing to working out at least 3 times a week. I missed PT for the whole of December due to illness, so once this current dose of cold does one, I'm going to do at least 2 sessions of PT a week and one other gym session on my own. I'm cutting back on the boozing too - the aim is to drink only at weekends and as little as possible during January. 

Hopefully once I start following the basics, I'll start being able to avoid picking up every flipping germ that passes me.

So, here's to a happy and healthy new year! I've already lots planned for 2013, so I need to make sure I'm fighting fit to enjoy it all.

Hectic

Oh dear. I keep going AWOL. Life is completely mental at the moment, work is crazy and stressful which means I am not really managing to look after myself too well.

I've lost a few pounds without really trying, but exercise is suffering because I have to keep cancelling my gym sessions due to being stuck at work til after 1900 most nights. I'm also on the verge of illness again, but I'm trying to keep the pesky germs at bay with Echinacea and vitamins. Fingers crossed.

I'm hoping things will calm down in the New Year. Only 7 more working days before I get some much  needed holiday and then in January, I'll have a new plan of attack. God knows I need to do something.

It's not all doom and gloom though, we spent a lovely weekend in London, went to Jamie Oliver's Fifteen and a Taste of Christmas, both of which were great. This weekend I've a couple of Christmas outings and some relaxation planned. So all in all, life isn't too bad now really, is it?

It's been a while

After my last pity party post, I pretty much lost my blogging mojo. Following on from the second cold of the month, I succumbed to Norivirus last week which just about finished me off. Mentally, I don't cope with being ill overly well. I am a doer, I hate sitting around feeling sorry for myself, but after non stop illness since September, I was ready to admit defeat.

I'm starting to worry that I am allergic to being married. However, we've now had a week, germ free (touch wood) and I am hopeful that I can pull myself together and get back on with the task of taking care of myself.

I managed to lose 9 pounds after 2 days of projectile vomiting, clearly that was not sustainable, but I still find myself about 3 pounds lighter. so every gloomy cloud does have a bit of a silver lining.

Work has also been crazily mental. My boss did his yearly disappearing trick (this time only 3 weeks instead of his usual 6) and left me to man the fort. Now bear in mind he usually comes into the office around 1130 am as he works late with our US colleagues and I usually come in for 0730 am. He decided he had no one else to cover the early (we are a team of 7!!), so that meant me working at least 14 hour days for the 3 weeks he was off. Still, it was all worthwhile when he came back and thanked the whole team for their efforts, especially given none of the rest of the team had to work any different to their usual hours. Thankfully his boss appreciated my efforts, but still...

I also worked 3 weekends in a row, which seems to have gone unnoticed, but my boss did send a nice email to the whole team thanking one of my colleagues for putting in 20 minutes of work on Sunday. Seething does not come close. It's probably time to start looking elsewhere before I'm up on an assault charge.

But enough of the doom and gloom, life is all very lovely really. Being married to the funniest man I know is brilliant. We've spent our illness periods planning next years holidays to give us something to look forward to. We've planned our trip up North for Christmas and a weekend in London before that. Now if I can just stay healthy for the next few weeks, I can crack on with the gym and healthy eating and possibly shed a few more pounds before Xmas otherwise I'll need a whole new wardrobe to accommodate my ever expanding backside.

So, here's the plan.

• stop feeling sorry for myself - life is good
• get back to the gym at least 3 times a week
• stop turning to alcohol after a bad day
• eat less crap 

Simples.

Woe is me (Part II)

Ok, enough already. I have another blooming cold and I am, quite frankly, sick of it now. Since I came back from Italy in the middle of September, I have been nothing but ill. It's becoming very boring.

I started back at the gym, all guns blazing, last week. I did a PT session on Thursday, which despite being really hard, felt good. I made a renewed vow on Saturday morning to track everything I ate, no more letting things slip by - which given I was just heading off to a Spa for the night with a couple of girlfriends, seemed fairy bad timing. I photographed everything I ate on Saturday and Sunday to try and remain in control. See the proof below:

Salmon, pear and fig salad

Spinach Gnocchi with parmesan

Rosemary and Garlic Chicken breast with fries (I ate about 2), beans and salsa

Fruit Salad with ice cream (I hate ice cream so that was left)

Help yourself breakfast buffet - restrained for me 

(1 sausage, 1 egg, 1 hash brown, streaky bacon and mushrooms)

Stuffed Lamb breast with Sweet potato mash, home made Yorkshire and cabbage

I swam at the spa - only 20 lengths, but it was something, then I came back yesterday for another PT session. I was feeling pretty good, a little bit smug that I seemed to be back in some sort of control and expecting a decent loss on the scales. I'd tracked all weekend, I was under my calorie goal. I was invincible.

Clearly, pride very much comes before a fall, because last night, my throat started feeling a bit scratchy, I ignored it because I couldn't possibly have another cold in the space of 4 weeks, right? Today the scratchy throat is a full on cough and runny nose and I am now wallowing in a massive vat of self pity.

I'm aware I've not really been looking after myself for the last few weeks. Work has been very stressful which has meant I've had a few sleepless nights and my diet, up until the end of last week, has been somewhat suspect. My immune system is clearly proving a point.

I'm off to dose up on Vitamin C and feel sorry for myself a little bit more. Here's hoping this is a temporary blip and normal service will resume tomorrow. If anyone wants to take these germs off my hands, they are all yours?

Woe is me

On the back of the dreaded man flu, I've now developed a chest infection which has put paid to any form of exercise for the last 6 days. I've managed 1 session of PT, which left me barely able to walk, but since then, a combination of antibiotics, a chest like someone who smokes 60 day and an adverse reaction to aforementioned antibiotics has left me somewhat incapacitated.

I've had to cancel 3 PT sessions, which is somewhat frustrating but I guess there is no point until I am no longer sounding like Darth Vadar.

In other news, despite feeling pathetically sorry for myself at the weekend, we managed to have a fairly lovely one. Friday night we went for dinner at the Hotel du Vin in Henley on a Living Social Deal and on Saturday we ended up having a few too many quick ones in our Local. I suspect this may have had something to do with the adverse reaction to the antibiotics! Yesterday was spent looking through our wedding photos and putting together a couple of photo books  and a collage which was very pleasant.

So, operation weight loss is temporarily stalled. I'm nowhere near ready to face the cold showers of a morning but I am eating vegetables like there is about to be some sort of massive worldwide shortage.

I think that's me for now. Boring :)