Show me a weight loss plan or book and I'll sniff with interest. Enough interest and I'll buy it. Such as, it says I can have a glass of wine with dinner. Or enjoy the occasional serve of hot chips. Guess what I found at our local bookshop last week, in that case!
G and I are both on a weight loss kick. In his case, it's on doctor's orders as doc has said G's 'bad' cholesterol is too high. G was then sent to a nutritionist who recommended using margarine instead of butter and other ideas that the medical profession believes are better for you, mostly related to using 'fake' food instead of real food.
I have a real beef with that. Pun intended.
We humans didn't evolve for hundreds of thousands of years to eat artificial preservatives and oils bleached to pale yellowness to resemble butter. We ate meat with fat on it. We made butter from cream. We were relatively healthy - aside from the plague and other baddies - until the last few hundred years and particularly the 20th century.
I've just finished reading two books: Sweet Poison and Toxic Oil by Aussie author David Gillespie. These are real eye-openers.
David Gillespie isn't a doctor. His background is as a lawyer. As such, he's an investigator. He hunts down facts, and what he's found out from sifting through layers and centuries of data is that it's the fructose in refined sugar and food that contains it that's making us fat. Killing us, in fact, as sugar is also the culprit behind rising bad cholesterol.
Sugar didn't exist in our diet to the degree it does now, 200 years ago. It was simply too expensive to buy. Yer average Aussie these days eats about 1kg of the stuff a week. Pick up a kilogram bag of sugar and hold it in your hand just to cement the idea. It's no wonder 1 in 5 Australians are obese. Sugar creeps insidiously into just about everything, particularly the 'fat-free' products, which use sugar to enhance the taste in lieu of fat.
And guess what - those little Heart Foundation ticks of approval on food containing vegetable/seed oils should be crosses. The way these oils are produced affects their molecular structure, and not in a good way. Couple that with data produced in the 1950s by a respected scientist, which was taken as gospel by the US government (and later the Aussies), showing that animal fat apparently leads to heart disease, and suddenly we're all being told to eat polyunsaturated oils which can have some pretty nasty side effects. I knew polyunsatured oils can cause macular disease - ie blindness - so have banned them from my kitchen, and if I have to buy packaged food I read the labels very carefully indeed. Animal fat isn't the bad guy it's made out to be, in a nutshell.
These books were written by a man who lost 40kg after cutting out sugar - and still eating animal fat products. Without sugar his health has improved immensely, weight loss irregardless.
As you can surmise by now Sweet Poison tells you all the reasons you should cut out refined sugar from your life. You can eat whole fruit (but not juice it... you're just getting fructose without the fibre if you do). You can even have a glass of dry white or red wine with dinner, as the sugar in wine doesn't break down into fructose. But forget the cakes and sweet biscuits, jams, and - regretfully! - chocolate.
This is going to be rather hard to achieve. Harder for G to achieve that I, as he has a Scotman's sweet tooth and adores his marmalade. And chocolate. And biscuits. He can hoover up three biscuits with one cup of coffee if they're put in front of him.
Since I cut out sugar in my coffee last year, I have less sugar cravings. I don't long for a couple of squares of chocolate after dinner any more. I eat marmalade on my toast maybe twice a year, as I find it too sweet. I prefer a handful of nuts to a sweet biscuit. I do love a good cake though, and as David points out, if party food such as cakes is only eaten at parties or as a rare treat, and you don't have the urge afterwards to get back on the chocolate, biscuits, meringues and other sweet goodies, that's acceptable.
Toxic Oil says eggs are just fine, hunt out grass-fed beef or choose lamb instead, choose free-range chooks who aren't fed on grains heavy on Omega-6, and if you must have chips, fry them in olive oil, or an animal fat such as Supafry. (Don't buy fast food chips, whatever you do.) The book features several handy tables showing the sugar and polyunsaturated oil content of many common supermarket items, so I know what to buy and what to avoid.
Over the last couple of months G has lost five kilograms after a stern talking-to by the nutritionist, and me pointing out he doesn't need two slices of toast laden with marmalade after a breakfast of eggs, spinach, mushrooms and half a grapefruit. He's down to one spoon of sugar in tea and coffee too. I've surreptitiously cut down his portion sizes at other meals, and we don't have carbs every night at dinner, only a couple of times a week, getting carbs from vegetables instead. He's delighted at his weight loss and I'm going to urge him to read these books so we can work together on getting him down to a good weight for his height. In my case I only have about 4kg to lose.
My next task is clearing the food cupboard and fridge of the worst sugar and polyunsaturated oil offenders. I think tucked under the packets of quinoa, couscous, chia seeds and curry powders are some jars of curry paste, possibly bought when G still lived in Adelaide. As I typically make my own curry paste from scratch they're undoubtedly out of date anyway. This will be cathartic. And that's always a good thing.
Showing posts with label diets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diets. Show all posts
Monday, October 14, 2013
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
You're so vain... Or, the French Solution
Well, actually, I'm so vain. I feel about 25 and skinny inside but the reality is fifty and overweight (but not yet obese, officially). I don't want to look fifty. I don't want to be tubby. I am also, and I state this unequivocally, the world's laziest bint. I have a gym membership but haven't used it in ages. Just the thought of hot gym-based sweatiness in a Sydney summer makes me want to lie on the sofa with a chilled glass of pinot grigio. Lying on a sofa won't help my thunder thighs though; summer is especially awful for me as wearing skirts or dresses means my big inner thighs rub together and get sweaty and uncomfortable unless I wear panty hose or thigh-length underwear. So I spend summer in trousers or shorts, even on the hottest days.
Having perused several books by French women or Brits and Aussies writing about French women (Almost French by Sarah Turnbull, Parisian Chic by Ines de la Fressange, All You Need To Be Impossibly French by Helena Frith Powell and - like millions of others - French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano, among others), I have decided to pursue a French solution. French women don't go to the gym. They simply move a lot. They walk. They take the stairs rather than a lift (although an office block of 30 floors would defeat me). Having spent five days in Paris walking my arse off last year there's something about Paris which compels you to walk everywhere, because there is so much to see and the city envelopes you in Parisian-ness. Um, western Sydney doesn't have the same charm but I'm doing my best. Even downtown Sydney doesn't have the same pull walking-wise but curiously central Melbourne does.
(Why French? you may ask. Because I've always thought French women to be chic, and while I was born without a chic gene, it doesn't stop me trying.)
Another part of the French solution is eating like the French. Not being guilty about having a glass of wine with dinner (but of course, one is not supposed to drink the entire bottle as some of my girlfriends do!). Not eating huge meals. Eating seasonal produce. Eating whole foods. Eating freshly prepared meals rather than package ones (something I have always done anyway). I've also cut down on the carbs, especially after 5pm. Except for the wine. I view wine as 'good carbs'. Heh heh, I've rattled on about diets etc on this blog before, but basically I eat protein and veggies at every meal, and don't have carbs every day. I have also cut down dramatically on sugar, particularly processed sugar. The Christmas season, with its jolly Christmas cake and irresistible Christmas pudding and home-made brandy custard and catching up with friends to - frankly - FEAST has taken its toll however and my weight is creeping up again.
So I have pledged to walk or cycle to the shops unless it's stinking hot in which case the airconditioned car gets a run, I gallop up the stairs in my house several times a day, the diet is back on track, but wait, there's more.
Those canny French women spend a bleedin' fortune on their skin, not just anti-ageing but anti-fat as well. I've been doing some research as I don't have the kind of budget which allows me to spend $200 on a face cream or anti-cellulite/slimming cream. Nor do I have a budget for regular facials, or regular anti-cellulite massages.
One thing and another led me to the No Lipo Lipo program by Carole Maggio, who has a day spa in California. One thing I had been researching was dry body brushing, something you can do in the privacy of your own home at the frugal cost of a sisal mitt. Lo! Carole's program includes dry brushing and also deep knuckle massage. Because I can't go to California for a six week program, I bought Carole's knuckle massage DVD which shows you how to do it all at home.
I put the DVD on yesterday, made notes to take into the bathroom and gave it all a go. Jesus! My arms will certainly get toned as giving yourself a massage with your knuckles is hard work! You're supposed to do the massage three to four times a week but I'm going to try and do it every weekday while G is at work.
Carole also sells her Facercise book, which for a modest sum looks like it can supplement the skincare cream I use anyway and keep the wrinkles and double chin at bay. The book arrived in the post a few days ago and G flicked through it. "God!" he said. "I hope you won't be doing these exercises in front of me!" The exercises are well illustrated with photos, and some of the facial expressions you have to pull as part of the exercise program are a hoot!
So I'm also doing the exercises while G is at work. They make your face ache :-), which is probably proof they are doing their thing. I'll be intrigued to see if there is a difference. I've noticed the corners of my mouth turning down over the last year or so, and I hate that. I look like a grumpy old cow. (Probably because I AM a grumpy old cow 9-5 Mon-Fri!) Facercise has an exercise to stop your mouth turning down at the corners.
So here's the goal. By Easter, when it's time to hoe into all those cheap chocolate eggs, I'll be a clothing size smaller with a mouth that doesn't turn down. I'll be bien dans ma peau. C'est tres bien, non?
(Why French? you may ask. Because I've always thought French women to be chic, and while I was born without a chic gene, it doesn't stop me trying.)
Another part of the French solution is eating like the French. Not being guilty about having a glass of wine with dinner (but of course, one is not supposed to drink the entire bottle as some of my girlfriends do!). Not eating huge meals. Eating seasonal produce. Eating whole foods. Eating freshly prepared meals rather than package ones (something I have always done anyway). I've also cut down on the carbs, especially after 5pm. Except for the wine. I view wine as 'good carbs'. Heh heh, I've rattled on about diets etc on this blog before, but basically I eat protein and veggies at every meal, and don't have carbs every day. I have also cut down dramatically on sugar, particularly processed sugar. The Christmas season, with its jolly Christmas cake and irresistible Christmas pudding and home-made brandy custard and catching up with friends to - frankly - FEAST has taken its toll however and my weight is creeping up again.
So I have pledged to walk or cycle to the shops unless it's stinking hot in which case the airconditioned car gets a run, I gallop up the stairs in my house several times a day, the diet is back on track, but wait, there's more.
Those canny French women spend a bleedin' fortune on their skin, not just anti-ageing but anti-fat as well. I've been doing some research as I don't have the kind of budget which allows me to spend $200 on a face cream or anti-cellulite/slimming cream. Nor do I have a budget for regular facials, or regular anti-cellulite massages.
One thing and another led me to the No Lipo Lipo program by Carole Maggio, who has a day spa in California. One thing I had been researching was dry body brushing, something you can do in the privacy of your own home at the frugal cost of a sisal mitt. Lo! Carole's program includes dry brushing and also deep knuckle massage. Because I can't go to California for a six week program, I bought Carole's knuckle massage DVD which shows you how to do it all at home.
I put the DVD on yesterday, made notes to take into the bathroom and gave it all a go. Jesus! My arms will certainly get toned as giving yourself a massage with your knuckles is hard work! You're supposed to do the massage three to four times a week but I'm going to try and do it every weekday while G is at work.
Carole also sells her Facercise book, which for a modest sum looks like it can supplement the skincare cream I use anyway and keep the wrinkles and double chin at bay. The book arrived in the post a few days ago and G flicked through it. "God!" he said. "I hope you won't be doing these exercises in front of me!" The exercises are well illustrated with photos, and some of the facial expressions you have to pull as part of the exercise program are a hoot!
So I'm also doing the exercises while G is at work. They make your face ache :-), which is probably proof they are doing their thing. I'll be intrigued to see if there is a difference. I've noticed the corners of my mouth turning down over the last year or so, and I hate that. I look like a grumpy old cow. (Probably because I AM a grumpy old cow 9-5 Mon-Fri!) Facercise has an exercise to stop your mouth turning down at the corners.
So here's the goal. By Easter, when it's time to hoe into all those cheap chocolate eggs, I'll be a clothing size smaller with a mouth that doesn't turn down. I'll be bien dans ma peau. C'est tres bien, non?
Friday, January 6, 2012
The Not The New Year's Resolution
This year the only new year's resolutions I made were:
Not for me the give up smoking/drinking/eating/chocolate/anything enjoyable that most people put on their lists, because trust me, it doesn't work and you just end up miserable because you've given something up and then more miserable because you've failed and launched back into the smoking/drinking/eating/chocolate/anything enjoyable a few weeks later.
Every year I have muttered at one minute to midnight on New Year's Eve, "This year I'm going to lose weight!" And I do, in a Bridget Jones sort of way. A bit off here, a bit back on there, with my weight typically being the same on December 31 the next year. This year I thought, "Stuff it!" instead.
And now here I am, reading The Clean and Lean Diet book. More on that later but honest, I wasn't looking for a diet.
It's amusing as how I found the diet was googling Nigella Lawson. I was blessed to get a copy of Nigella Kitchen from my Mum for Christmas; unlike some of Nigella's books this one isn't heavy on the fats and cream, and everything I've cooked out of it so far has been delicious. Put it this way, we've been living off the book's recipes since Boxing Day and haven't put weight on over the holiday season. However, we haven't been our usual sedentary desk-bound selves either, which helps. We have had plenty of walking and exercise and physical labour.
I like Nigella. Well, actually, that's not quite right. I fancy her rotten. She is sexy, warm and simply beautiful. And shit, she looks great for 51! I get the occasional crush on women (don't get me started on Sue Perkins or this blog post will run for days) and Nigella has been a crush for many years.
So I thought I'd do a search and see what the scrumptious Ms Lawson has been up to lately. Losing weight was the big one. She's gone from a size 18 to a size 12. Obviously she hasn't been eating anything from Nigella Express, her fat- and preservative-laden fast recipe book! A little more prodding produced the Clean and Lean diet as the secret to her new slenderness (she looks even hotter now!).
I've been hovering around the 5kg-too-heavy mark for about a year, after losing 7kg the year before that. Given my usual life of stuck at the desk from 9 to 6 most weekdays and often weekends too, it's a minor miracle I'm not the size of a house but I try to ensure both of us eat pretty carefully. You know, fat trimmed from meat, no package meals, as many fresh ingredients as possible, organic when I can a) afford it and b) find it in Western Sydney. We rarely have biscuits in the house, don't do fast food, and only eat crisps if we're at a friend's place and they are put in front of us as nibbles because I have the willpower of a marshmallow when I'm hungry.
We both fall down when it comes to wine, chocolate and the occasional sugary thing though. My husband is much worse than I. He will have toast laden with butter and marmalade at breakfast regardless of whatever else I serve up, even bacon and eggs. I might have toast and marmalade once a year; I prefer my toast with a hint of butter, and perhaps some Vegemite, if I have toast at all. He has two sugars in coffee and tea, I have none. No matter how large and delicious our evening meal, he'll pull out the chocolate and put it on the coffee table for afterwards; sometimes just looking at it makes me want to heave. And we both enjoy wine every night. It was only last week I'd had my first alcohol-free night in months. I like white wine, and typically drink it over a lot of ice, quite slowly, so during the evening I might have 1 to 2 standard drinks. He likes to guzzle beer before dinner in summer.
To my horror - but not unexpectedly - the Clean and Lean diet bans all alcohol and sugar for at least two weeks. The sugar I don't care about but there goes my delicious evening treat, my reward to myself for a hard day's work, my lovely glass of pinot grigio/sav blanc/chardy/whatever.
My husband has dipped into the book and grumbled copiously. Being a Scot he was born with a sweet tooth and now in middle age it's showing. He's a good 15 kg overweight. I don't know how far down this Clean and Lean journey he'll go with me. Mind you the diet features quite a bit of smoked salmon so that's cheered him up as it's one of his favourite foods.
I started the diet yesterday afternoon. I'd like to say I started it in the morning but I didn't, because I'd baked a Nigella chocolate cake earlier in the week and we had to finish it. You know what it's like. :-) So it got eaten yesterday and last night I sipped on soda water with a lime squeezed into it. No chocolate for either of us after dinner (grilled chicken with steamed veg). I couldn't get to sleep because I was hungry; I find on alcohol-free days I do get hungry late at night even if I've had a good meal.
The diet is a low-carb one (surprise!!) and we both lost weight on something similar a couple of years ago - I lost my 7kg on the paleo diet and my husband dropped a few kgs too although he cheated more than I did so didn't get quite as good a result. This one is very varied on what we CAN eat and if my husband starts seeing a result he'll stick with it I think.
After two weeks you can introduce some carbs and dairy back into your diet, eat fruit again (as fruit of course is sugar on the whole), and have a blowout meal once a week and the occasional drink, apparently only one per week but I suspect I will end up drinking every second or third night once I've got some weight off. Gin and tonic is apparently better for you than wine as far as calories go. Luckily it's also a favourite of mine. :-)
Reading through the recommendations of what to eat however the 'best' is typically organic produce, to reduce the toxins we put into our bodies. This makes sense but it also makes it a very expensive way to eat assuming you can find the stuff.
It's no surprise that wealthy celebrities can brag about how much they lost on this diet or that diet. Eating well typically means spending more money on your food. Replace sausages with steaks, and not supermarket steaks packaged in plastic and sprayed with preservatives; steaks from the butcher and preferably organic ones. Suddenly you've gone from paying $4.50/kilo for your sausages or $9.99/kilo for premium beef mince to $33/kilo for your steak. Not a problem if you're wealthy; if you're a typical working family with two or more kids and a mortgage those sausages or mince are going to sound a lot more tempting.
So we'll try this diet and pretend not to notice the cost of organic this and that. It's not a new year's resolution so it may well work :-). I'm betting now that I reach my goal weight but my husband will cheat too much and not make the scales.
If the Domestic Goddess, with her self-confessed greediness for delicious food, can stick it for a bit, so can I.
- to be happy
- to be less stressed about everything
Not for me the give up smoking/drinking/eating/chocolate/anything enjoyable that most people put on their lists, because trust me, it doesn't work and you just end up miserable because you've given something up and then more miserable because you've failed and launched back into the smoking/drinking/eating/chocolate/anything enjoyable a few weeks later.
Every year I have muttered at one minute to midnight on New Year's Eve, "This year I'm going to lose weight!" And I do, in a Bridget Jones sort of way. A bit off here, a bit back on there, with my weight typically being the same on December 31 the next year. This year I thought, "Stuff it!" instead.
And now here I am, reading The Clean and Lean Diet book. More on that later but honest, I wasn't looking for a diet.
 |
| Mmm... yummy Niigella! |
I like Nigella. Well, actually, that's not quite right. I fancy her rotten. She is sexy, warm and simply beautiful. And shit, she looks great for 51! I get the occasional crush on women (don't get me started on Sue Perkins or this blog post will run for days) and Nigella has been a crush for many years.
So I thought I'd do a search and see what the scrumptious Ms Lawson has been up to lately. Losing weight was the big one. She's gone from a size 18 to a size 12. Obviously she hasn't been eating anything from Nigella Express, her fat- and preservative-laden fast recipe book! A little more prodding produced the Clean and Lean diet as the secret to her new slenderness (she looks even hotter now!).
I've been hovering around the 5kg-too-heavy mark for about a year, after losing 7kg the year before that. Given my usual life of stuck at the desk from 9 to 6 most weekdays and often weekends too, it's a minor miracle I'm not the size of a house but I try to ensure both of us eat pretty carefully. You know, fat trimmed from meat, no package meals, as many fresh ingredients as possible, organic when I can a) afford it and b) find it in Western Sydney. We rarely have biscuits in the house, don't do fast food, and only eat crisps if we're at a friend's place and they are put in front of us as nibbles because I have the willpower of a marshmallow when I'm hungry.
We both fall down when it comes to wine, chocolate and the occasional sugary thing though. My husband is much worse than I. He will have toast laden with butter and marmalade at breakfast regardless of whatever else I serve up, even bacon and eggs. I might have toast and marmalade once a year; I prefer my toast with a hint of butter, and perhaps some Vegemite, if I have toast at all. He has two sugars in coffee and tea, I have none. No matter how large and delicious our evening meal, he'll pull out the chocolate and put it on the coffee table for afterwards; sometimes just looking at it makes me want to heave. And we both enjoy wine every night. It was only last week I'd had my first alcohol-free night in months. I like white wine, and typically drink it over a lot of ice, quite slowly, so during the evening I might have 1 to 2 standard drinks. He likes to guzzle beer before dinner in summer.
To my horror - but not unexpectedly - the Clean and Lean diet bans all alcohol and sugar for at least two weeks. The sugar I don't care about but there goes my delicious evening treat, my reward to myself for a hard day's work, my lovely glass of pinot grigio/sav blanc/chardy/whatever.
My husband has dipped into the book and grumbled copiously. Being a Scot he was born with a sweet tooth and now in middle age it's showing. He's a good 15 kg overweight. I don't know how far down this Clean and Lean journey he'll go with me. Mind you the diet features quite a bit of smoked salmon so that's cheered him up as it's one of his favourite foods.
I started the diet yesterday afternoon. I'd like to say I started it in the morning but I didn't, because I'd baked a Nigella chocolate cake earlier in the week and we had to finish it. You know what it's like. :-) So it got eaten yesterday and last night I sipped on soda water with a lime squeezed into it. No chocolate for either of us after dinner (grilled chicken with steamed veg). I couldn't get to sleep because I was hungry; I find on alcohol-free days I do get hungry late at night even if I've had a good meal.
The diet is a low-carb one (surprise!!) and we both lost weight on something similar a couple of years ago - I lost my 7kg on the paleo diet and my husband dropped a few kgs too although he cheated more than I did so didn't get quite as good a result. This one is very varied on what we CAN eat and if my husband starts seeing a result he'll stick with it I think.
After two weeks you can introduce some carbs and dairy back into your diet, eat fruit again (as fruit of course is sugar on the whole), and have a blowout meal once a week and the occasional drink, apparently only one per week but I suspect I will end up drinking every second or third night once I've got some weight off. Gin and tonic is apparently better for you than wine as far as calories go. Luckily it's also a favourite of mine. :-)
Reading through the recommendations of what to eat however the 'best' is typically organic produce, to reduce the toxins we put into our bodies. This makes sense but it also makes it a very expensive way to eat assuming you can find the stuff.
It's no surprise that wealthy celebrities can brag about how much they lost on this diet or that diet. Eating well typically means spending more money on your food. Replace sausages with steaks, and not supermarket steaks packaged in plastic and sprayed with preservatives; steaks from the butcher and preferably organic ones. Suddenly you've gone from paying $4.50/kilo for your sausages or $9.99/kilo for premium beef mince to $33/kilo for your steak. Not a problem if you're wealthy; if you're a typical working family with two or more kids and a mortgage those sausages or mince are going to sound a lot more tempting.
So we'll try this diet and pretend not to notice the cost of organic this and that. It's not a new year's resolution so it may well work :-). I'm betting now that I reach my goal weight but my husband will cheat too much and not make the scales.
If the Domestic Goddess, with her self-confessed greediness for delicious food, can stick it for a bit, so can I.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Spring into action
I've been lax in posting to my blog the last few months. I've been too busy to get my head around leisure pursuits, and it's taken a toll on my health. My doctor tested my cholesterol last month and told me it was heading for the high side, and I needed to do more exercise and lose weight. The problem with working the way I've been is that you get into a rut: you go to bed at night with your brain still whirling around work stuff and wake in the wee hours still thinking about it. When you finally nod off again you've had a broken night's sleep, and if you've set the alarm for 6 to go for a walk you feel too tired to get up and hit the snooze button and finally get up an hour later, too late really to get a walk in before the work day starts. This, perversely, makes you even more tired and irritable throughout the day. It's a vicious circle.
With people pulling me this way and that to do projects for them I resorted using the car instead of the bike to go to the shops, when it was perfect cycling weather in late winter and early spring. I had maybe two weekends off all winter. I was heading for clinical depression too, I think. But that's another story.
Now it's nearly summer but thankfully it's still relatively cool. I've learned to say no to people and keep the workload to a manageable level most of the time. We set the alarm for 6.30 now and go for walks most mornings. The last two weekends we've headed out to Olympic Park with our bikes for a couple of hours on Saturday mornings. Neither of us had ridden since August (shame on us both) and I was surprised that my fitness level hadn't dropped too far below its usual mediocrity. Must be the walking, as we live in a hilly area and our morning walks include at least 3 hills.
So the exercise bit is happening, and I've finally found a solution to help me lose weight from an unexpected source - my iPhone. It's an app called ShapeUp Club, and is associated with a website, shapeupclub.com. The app is free, but it pays to join the website for $36 a year. It works on a similar principle to Weight Watchers, ie you are allowed eat a number of kilojoules/calories per day, but the beauty of it is the food database, where with a simple click you add an item into your daily allowance and it recalculates how many kJs you have left to eat that day. You add in any exercise taken and again it recalculates. You can also add in your own recipes and foods from your pantry. I've lost two kilograms in two and a bit weeks using ShapeUp Club to track my food intake and exercise.
Over the last year I've tried:
but the ShapeUp one is the sensible option. I've likened it to Weight Watchers as it promotes a balanced diet rather than high-protein or no-carbs. While WW uses 'points' to calculate your food values, the points are undoubtedly based on a kJ or calorie count.
So now I'm having an action-packed spring, and loving it. Taking time to smell the roses. Destressing. And finally getting out on the bikes again :-)
With people pulling me this way and that to do projects for them I resorted using the car instead of the bike to go to the shops, when it was perfect cycling weather in late winter and early spring. I had maybe two weekends off all winter. I was heading for clinical depression too, I think. But that's another story.
Now it's nearly summer but thankfully it's still relatively cool. I've learned to say no to people and keep the workload to a manageable level most of the time. We set the alarm for 6.30 now and go for walks most mornings. The last two weekends we've headed out to Olympic Park with our bikes for a couple of hours on Saturday mornings. Neither of us had ridden since August (shame on us both) and I was surprised that my fitness level hadn't dropped too far below its usual mediocrity. Must be the walking, as we live in a hilly area and our morning walks include at least 3 hills.
So the exercise bit is happening, and I've finally found a solution to help me lose weight from an unexpected source - my iPhone. It's an app called ShapeUp Club, and is associated with a website, shapeupclub.com. The app is free, but it pays to join the website for $36 a year. It works on a similar principle to Weight Watchers, ie you are allowed eat a number of kilojoules/calories per day, but the beauty of it is the food database, where with a simple click you add an item into your daily allowance and it recalculates how many kJs you have left to eat that day. You add in any exercise taken and again it recalculates. You can also add in your own recipes and foods from your pantry. I've lost two kilograms in two and a bit weeks using ShapeUp Club to track my food intake and exercise.
Over the last year I've tried:
- The Paleo Diet (very expensive as you eat a lot of meat/protein, and I started to feel guilty about eating so many dead animals. I did kickstart my weight loss though, but it plateaued because we broke the diet with chocolate and red wine)
- The Gabriel Method (didn't lose a gram, but the hypnotic CD helped put me to sleep when I was stressed.)
- The Dukan Diet (Echoes of the Paleo Diet, and for the first few weeks really restrictive. Too restrictive. Protein only. No fruit, very few veggies until the second month. Not balanced in my opinion)
but the ShapeUp one is the sensible option. I've likened it to Weight Watchers as it promotes a balanced diet rather than high-protein or no-carbs. While WW uses 'points' to calculate your food values, the points are undoubtedly based on a kJ or calorie count.
So now I'm having an action-packed spring, and loving it. Taking time to smell the roses. Destressing. And finally getting out on the bikes again :-)
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