Ouch!

I fell off the wagon a few days ago, but luckily have only suffered some superficial damage...I hopped on the scales quickly on Tuesday morning after my long weekend away and it looks like a 2lb gain. 2lbs in 4 days? I'm really hoping I didn't have the 7,500 calories required to gain that!

I need to look at why I overate and how I can avoid doing it in the future. I suppose one positive thing about my overeating in this instance was (probably for the first time ever) I wasn't stressed out prior to eating and it wasn't a binge so much as overindulgence. Sunday was the worst day- Chinese and we'd overordered food! I'm not a takeaway girl anymore - mainly as I don't live near any shops like that and I don't have a car to get there - so I was a bit lost on points values. So here's what I found:

Chinese vegetables with: Beef 1 cup = 6
Chicken 1 cup = 5
Pork 1 cup = 7
Shrimp or Tofu 1 cup = 4
Egg drop soup 1 cup = 1
Egg rolls: Beef or Pork 1 (4 1/2" long) = 5 chicken or shrimp 1 (4 1/2" long) = 4
Hot and sour soup 1 cup = 2
Lo mein, any type 1 cup = 8
Rice, fried, with beef, chicken, pork, shrimp, or plain 1 cup = 8
Stir-fry with garlic or black bean sauce beef or pork 1 cup = 8
chicken or shrimp 1 cup = 7
Sweet and sour: beef or pork 1 cup = 12 chicken or shrimp 1 cup = 10 sweet and sour sauce 1 tbsp = 2

Well, with one portion of egg-fried rice and 1 1/2 pots of other stuff, it would look like I had at least 20 points in one meal! I was uncomfortably full to say the least. I suppose it wouldn't be so bad except that I had another meal on top of that - mashed potatoes, sweet corn and 2 thai fishcakes which were probably another 15 points!

So, enough's enough...have to get back to basics. I was good on Tuesday but Wednesday threw me some obstacles I couldn't work around. I was catching up at work at college and assumed that I would be able to get lunch at the college...All 4 restaurants were shut - leaving me with McDonalds as the only option! Had a quarterpounder with cheese meal with medium fries - 15.5pts and for dinner we ordered pizza delivery. I didn't have any pizza but opted for some chicken strips at 7points - putting me 1.5 pts over for the day :(

So what's the plan today? Me thinks I need to go shopping and get the right foods in the fridge and larder - vegetables, lean meats and low-point options! I'm only 1/2 way to goal and I need to work extra hard to get to the finish post. Let's hope that this weekend gone has given me a taste of how just a few days off the wagon can set me back! Let's hope a few days on the wagon will get me back to where I was!

Feeling bouncy!!

For the past few days, I've been playing, wobbling and falling off my gym ball. It's really good fun - I mean, what is there you could hate about it? I've been trawling the internet for video clips and exercises that can be done using the ball and I've come up with a few of interest.

Ask Men have some fantastic video clips which feature the only piece of gym equipment which has ever brought a smile to my face!


I have to confess an almost-morbid fixation with YouTube videos featuring the ball. For starters, I'm on the lookout for wobbles and falls...surely it can't just be me that has NO balance whatsoever. However, I must say that I am impressed with the level of fitness that can be gained in using the ball. What girl doesn't smile at the sight of a rippling 6-pack! Also, there's no ladylike way to put it, but like yoga's way of shifting emissions, the ball tends to be a noisy bit of fun - if you catch my drift (not literally, of course). Why I'm looking for wobbles and wind? Not sure - just would love to see someone having as much fun as me using it....Perhaps I'll post my own viddy sometime....then again, perhaps not!!

Pimp my points!

Nineteen weeks into this adventure, I think I've become a point pimp. Inside my head is a virtual point calculator and I'm constantly tabulating the values of all sorts of foods for myself and for friends who are dieting but just don't understand how to do it without starving! I think each person on WW has a list of great low-point treats that will satisfy the naughty urge. Here's mine.

Sweet

Skinny Cow Ice Lollies - 1.5 pts

Pink'n'Whites - .5 pts each

Miles of Mallow - 1.5 pts

Tesco Chocolate Chip Cereal Bars - 1.5pts

Curly Wurly - 2.5 pts

Cadburys Fudge - 2 pts

Savoury

Walkers Baked Crisps - 1.5pts

Potato Heads - 1.5pts

Walkers French Fries - 2pts

Quavers - 2pts

Most people I meet find it impossible to believe that you can have this sort of stuff and still lose weight...what they forget is that you can have a little bit of this stuff as (hopefully) you're keeping your diet in check with other low-fat and low-cal options. I've even had people tell me that they don't understand why they can't lose weight because all they eat is...and when I point up their diet, I soon understand why.

A great example of this is a friend who feels she is constantly starving yet continues to gain. Her diet involves:

no breakfast (bad move)

a mid-morning baguette with sausage, eggs and bacon (at least 15 points)

scampi chips and peas for lunch (at least 15 points if not more)

for dinner two slices of bread and butter (4.5pts) followed by at least a bottle of wine (8pts or so).

Of course she's starving as she's:

a) not spreading her food throughout the day

b) a fair chunk of her calories feature saturated fat

c) nearly 1/4 of her calories are coming from booze

At the moment, thanks to folks like Jamie Oliver, the government is earmarking cash to be spent by local education authorities on nutritional learning for children. Let's hope this education scheme works as thanks to fear induced by the media children aren't moving as much as possible to burn calories and busy work schedules encourage parents to become part of high cal/high fat ready meal culture.

Let the battle commence

Crunches really haven't be working for me...the pain in my back is excruciating! So, you can imagine my joy when my Reebok Gym Ball with Pump and DVD. I opened that parcel like a kid at Christmas. Tomorrow I will have a go at the DVD, but quickly ran through some basic moves which were suggested in the accompanying book.

To be honest, I'm not sure who was more excited about the introduction of the gym ball into our household, my son or me... My quick play with it earlier today made me feel the burn, but it's bouncy nature makes me stick with it. Oh, and I've now tried sitting on it for a period of time - very hard work!! Am sat on it now - wobbling as I type at the keyboard!

Not sure whether this will shift the bulge more quickly than traditional crunches...but at least I'll be giggling while I attempt it...it's like a grown up space hopper!

The Miracle Pill

So many times I've hoped and dreamed of the wonder of a magical pill that could take away the struggle of weight loss. It would seem I am not alone. Take a walk through any chemist or supermarket and you'll find shelves lined with with pills and remedies for the omnipresent blubber. Glance through a newspaper or magazine and ads will call out to you that their product will "boost your energy", act as a "fat burner"and "melt away the pounds". Who needs to worry about diet and exercise with products like these around?

Everyday Diet blasts this myth. Fitness Trainer Tom Venuto writes: "There is no such thing as a pill that simply burns away body fat. Fat loss is primarily a function of negative energy balance (burning more calories than you consume). Even if such a "magic" pill did exist, it would not be a permanent solution to the obesity problem because it would be addressing the symptom (the fat) and not the cause (poor nutrition and lack of activity). Many products advertised today as "fat burners" are utterly worthless frauds. "

He points out, however, that one group of products are effective - those with "thermogenic" agents. By raising the body temperature, they increase motabolism, thereby burning off calories as heat. Ingredients used tend to be natural herbs such as Ma Huang, ephedra and kola nut. Published, peer-reviewed studies have shown that this combination works synergistically for a thermogenic and a stimulant effect.

Ephedra and products containing it were recently banned in the US. It is a powerful stimulant with many dangerous side effects. Overuse can cause insomnia, palpitations, and jitteriness. Long term use can cause adrenal fatigue. Although it was relatively safe when compared to prescription drugs and other over the counter drugs, overuse and abuse has been known to cause trips to the emergency room and even death.

While death would bring this struggle to a quick close, I don't think I'm prepared for anything so risky. It might seem old-fashioned and at times, a chore, but it seems that eating less and moving more is the way to go...and it's much easier on the purse to boot!

Scale Watching

Some are stair-steppers...and then you have me - the scale stepper. I reckon I'm burning up at least 10 calories a day hopping on and off that thing! I am at those scales at least once a day...as though I expect some amazing loss to jump out at me. It know it's a habit in need of breaking, but I thought I'd find out what the experts say to this.

An article on NorthJersey.com reports that University of Minnesota researchers have found that frequent self-weighing will not make you depressed. Their findings were published in Preventative Medicine and showed not strong link between scale-stepping and depression in women. They also found that daily weighing, as opposed to once a week was asscoiated with lower BMI's in women over 40. A study in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine found that daily weighing is helpful "to individuals trying to lose weight or prevent weight gain."

However, as Milton Stokes, R.D. of the American Diabetic Association points out:"Weighing daily can lead to an over-reliance on the scale and cause you to obsess about weight. Plus, the scale doesn't indicate when you've gained water weight versus fat weight versus protein and/or muscle weight." He adds that your weight should be based on how you feel and how clothes fit. Sports nutritionist Nancy Clark, R.D., agrees: "You should look in the mirror. If you see less fat, you have less fat. Weight fluctuates and can be misleading -- perhaps you are constipated, holding water from a sodium-rich Chinese meal, or premenstrual."

It would seem that a combination of scale-watching and body-shape watching is the key to not only getting to goal, but staying there!

Fidgeting!

Apparently, scientists at the Mayo Clinic in America have claimed that you can lose weight by exercising at work. An article on the BBC website describes one journalists attempt to work while at the gym - rather humorously!

While I wouldn't recommend physically doing office-bound work in a gym, it reminds me of something my ex-husband once told me. At 5'9" and never weighing more than 10 stone in his life, he revealed that the secret to being slim was being a 'fidgeter'. During our spell together, I must say that I never saw him doing anything physically exerting..well unless you count pressing buttons on a keyboard! Yet, he managed to keep a 30" waist and defined physique. Confused? Yes, so am I - particularly as his diet consisted of fry-ups and takeaways.

So...how does one develop this habit which was ground out of the majority of us at a tender age? It may seem odd but I've been working on this habit...weird trying to encourage a bad habit to take hold I must say! I've started shaking my legs and tapping my feet at every available moment! While I probably look like I'm suffering withdrawl...it could be worth it, couldn't it?

A 2005 Washington Post article seems to back up my ex's fitness claims. The Mayo Clinic conducted a detailed study of mundane bodily movements found that obese people tend to be much less fidgety than lean people and spend at least two hours more each day just sitting still. The extra motion by lean people is enough to burn about 350 extra calories a day, which could add up to 10 to 30 pounds a year, the researchers found.

James A Levine, who led the research published in the journal Science said: "There are these absolutely staggering differences between people who are lean and people who are obese. The amount of this low-grade activity is so substantial that it could, in and of itself, account for obesity quite easily."

So, maybe looking like an addict going cold turkey isn't so bad if it helps me not only get to my goal, but to stay there!