Monday 31 March 2008

Day 40 - the path of righteousness is....pink

It's ironic really because IPD is all about pink - on the forum they refer to "the pink book", "the pink path" etc etc - and I HATE pink. Partly possibly because I'm a redhead and no redheads look good in pink, no matter WHAT Molly Ringwald/Psychadelic Furs think, and partly because I find the girliness and ubiquity of pink nauseating.

But, irrespective of this, I have stuck to that pink path since brownie/blondie-gate on Thursday. Okay, that's only 3 days (well, 4 if you count today) but the longest journey starts with a single step (to be said piously). Well, I SAY I've been good but my (supposedly legit) G&T yesterday had - unbeknownst to me - fat tonic in it. A glass of fat tonic is my complete daily allocation of carbs. B/f had gone to Sainsbury's rather than Tesco and bought the wrong stuff. Sigh. So annoying - if I were to blow it I'd rather do it with a chocolate bar, thanks, and enjoy it. I'm trying hard not to count this though as it really wasn't my fault. Doubt my body and its stubborn fatcells will be understanding though. I'm still 3lbs up on what I was before Easter. As in 3lbs lardier, not up on the lottery of life and fat.

We did the first run of week 5 on Sunday. From the start of week 2 up til now we've been building up time on 1 min run, 2 mins walk and are up to 27 mins. But from next week it will be 2 mins run, 2 mins walk and I'm very worried that I won't be able to do it. Although we did end up doing an extra circuit of 3 mins on Sunday (making it 30 mins) as we were arguing and it stopped me being able to concentrate on timings. Damnit, a whole extra minute's run! It's b/f's fault obviously and he was pretty blase about finding it easy anyway - grrrr. The last 3-4 runs have been more than usually draining but I think it's because I have TOTM coming up tomorrow and it must make me tired in advance. That's my theory anyway, we'll know if it's true if b/f is eating my dust next week! Place your bets, ladies and gents....

Thursday 27 March 2008

Day 36 - wobble

The wobble is my Easter, not me. Well, having said that.....

I put on 3lbs over Easter. I'd battle to lose that in a week but put it on in a weekend. Life is very cruel. And carbs are crueller. All I had was a piece of roasted potato (probably half a whole potato), some of b/f's Easter eggs (yum but very bad), 3 pieces of my mother's excellent zingy lemon meringue pie, 4 biscuits and 2 cheese scones (not all at once I hasten to add). Now I ask you, does that sound like 3lbs? I suppose it's the great mystery of ketosis - in which case I fervently hope the weight melts away as swiftly as it came.

Fervently, yes. Except today I ate a very small square of homemade brownie, one of blondie and a chocolate finger (pointless and not enjoyable - the finger, that is, the brownie and blondie were excellent). This is not going to get me back on track. And I'm back in my utterly illogical and soul-destroying vicious circle - haven't lost weight, feel depressed, eat, thefore won't lose weight etc etc. I'm breaking out of this circle right now. I want a virtuous circle, not a vicious one - one that purrs at me, not growls.

On a more angelic note, I am still going with the running (slightly outraged that such endeavours haven't literally melted the fat away). We even ran in snow - rather alot of it coming down (not settling of course, except on me) and we have done a couple of good walks too. My thighs and arse ache in a way that makes me hope they are diminishing. Soon I may be able to run without looking as if my arse should be wearing a sports bra of its own to rein it in!

Tomorrow is the last run of week 4 (forecast to be in rain). Only another week until the dreaded 2 mins running, 2 walking - 1 min is hard enough, sufficiently hard that I can't believe another week, upping the circuits, will be enough to prepare me for this. Trying hard not to think about it though - worrying ahead is a particular speciality of mine (I'm 37 and already anxious almost to the point of illness about how I'll cope in old age - absurd!). I need to take it a day at a time. So tomorrow will be an exemplary IPD day, starting with a run. Those of a tender disposition have been warned to stay away from Docklands parks...

Thursday 20 March 2008

Day 29 - not doing so great

Well, I am blushing after Amy's comment - what a lovely compliment! In fact that - along with the fact that I know Sandra's doing IPD too - is what has motivated me to post. I really haven't had the inclination to be honest - and you know what THAT means. Yes, I couldn't face myself or you with things that I know in my heart to have been poor choices. Can't promise to be witty though!

Sandra - update your blog! Would love to read how another battler is getting on with IPD. Sick of cream? Well done you! I have had to forego mascarpone after developing an obsession. I even picked it up in the supermarket at the weekend and had to force myself to put it down. Have you found the forum www.pig2twig.co.uk? It's great! As is the cookbook which you might find gives you fresh inspiration (although there are alot of recipes on the forum too). I do think this is a good diet for me as it deals with the whole sugar/insulin thing which I definitely have problems with. Sugar in any form is not good for me, however.....

Last weekend, after Green and Blacks-gate, b/f bought chocolate. Somehow I was compelled to also buy chocolate - not my chocolate of choice but something that I dressed up as IPD compliant, Prestat dark chocolate with orange oil. And it probably would be okay for Phase 2, a few squares at a time. But I'm on Phase 1 and I ate the whole flipping bar (375g I think). And pleasant though it was, it was no nicer than Terry's chocolate orange which was a third of the price! I think my sweet tooth is giving me gip again, big-time. Not so much a sweet tooth as a sweet fang. And just in time for Easter which in true pagan style, for me is all about chocolate. With flowers and fluffy bunnies in second place.

I have bought b/f, mother, neices, nephew and god-daughter-to-be Easter chocolate and managed not to eat it (not easy) and asked b/f and mother not to buy me eggs. But b/f's mother bought us a small Thorntons egg and I have today eaten 2 chocolates and about a third of the shell (delish). And I know there are 2 puddings in store this weekend - one as near IPD compliant as damnit (b/f's parents are coming over and I'm making individual strawberry pavlovas, mine with splenda rather than sugar - that's okay, the cream is okay and the strawberries are nearly okay (phase 2)) and one not - my mother's amazing super sharp and zesty lemon meringue pie . And I put on 1lb this week - meaning my total for 3 weeks is a loss of a princely 1lb. This makes me despondent which makes me eat which makes me despondent - a vicious cycle indeed. But post Easter I will STOP the chocolate, STOP the excuses and buy my sweet tooth off with sugar free jelly for a bit whilst sticking to IPD 1+ (the odd gin and diet tonic is okay after 2 weeks and I'll go back to having that at weekends but I'm going to give myself a hard core 2 weeks again first).

Other food planned for Easter is okay. Meal for b/f's parents - lamb shanks slow cooked in port, garlic and rosemary, new potatoes (probably won't have any of these) and purple sprouting broccoli, then the pavlovas. Easter Sunday eve at my mum's will be asparagus and rocket salad, fish pie made with a celeriac cheesy mustard mash topping and courgettes and then the lemon meringue pie. Damage limitation is in force - and I feel quite good about that, even though I know it means that next communion with scales of doom is likely to be a bitter one. I'm looking ahead though to the one after that when all my pigeons will come home to roast. I mean roost.

And we're still going with the running - one more run to complete week 3 scheduled in for tomorrow morning (in the cold and wet by all accounts). And a long dog walk on Sunday with my mum's labs.

And the 16 trousers I bought in December are really too big now. Okay, I tried another pair of 16s on in M&S and they were too small but I'm ignoring that. Or trying to. That elephant in the room is not me! No!

I'm on duty Saturday morning and all day Monday (likely to be busy) and in the office on Thursday but otherwise off until a week on Monday. We were hoping to do lots of walking but the forecast is awful. Perhaps the weather pundits will change their minds yet.

Have a lovely Easter everyone, focus on the bunnies and the flowers, not the eggs and buns!

Wednesday 12 March 2008

Day 21 - Intrepid

We went to go for our run last night and I nearly got blown into the Thames. That, the fact that b/f's elastic on his shorts had gone and the fact that the park was locked (early) made us turn back. But 6am this morning we were back there. At times I think I probably looked like a cartoon character where my legs were going but I wasn't moving (due to the ferocity of the wind) but we did it. And this is after I hurt my knee - or just below it - on Sunday and spent Monday limping about in some pain. My work friend, V, brave woman that she is (and former nurse) prodded it a bit and said she reckoned that I'd be okay to run if I strapped it up. So I did and I was. In fact the device - which was a bit like an uber tubie-grip - was more painful than I think my knee would have been unsupported. I was in quite a panic about it though - worried that I'd have to give up on week 2, how wussy and depressing would that be! I live to stumble on however..... (run 3 of week 2 scheduled for 6.15am Friday).

Diet is going okay but I am eating too many nuts and too much mascarpone. I've taken to putting a generous tablespoon of mascarpone in a mini bowl with some toasted flaked almonds on as 'pudding'. This is not good on a whole number of levels. Firstly, one of the central ethos' of this diet is to kill our sweet tooths (that doesn't work in abstract plural but you know what I mean) and this is keeping mine alive, well and kicking ferociously. Secondly, my weight isn't going down very spectacularly and this is therefore reinforcing that vicious circle engrained in my psyche of disappointment=food=disappointment etc etc, repeat ad lib to fade... I have been justifying it to myself by reasoning that you're allowed cream in coffee and cheese and so me having a couple of dollops of mascarpone (and I've moved from cream to mascarpone) is much the same thing. Part of me clings to that rationale but the hard truth is that the scales aren't really shifting. This could be just my body readjusting after pack-hell but could equally be due to the mascarpone frenzy. And I've been a bit too generous with nuts. A small portion once - or even twice - a day of the non carbiest nuts is okay but I've been doing the non-stop thing. So I've just finished a tub of mascarpone (started on Sunday/Monday) and won't buy any more - I have one portion of rhubarb to finish and then I won't buy that any more since the link is too strong for me. I'll have the final portion with cream but I'm going to have to watch that too since the temptation to have a couple of glugs is strong. And more portion control on nuts too I think.

I ate a mini egg today - just one. It was horrid and I spat it out. Aha! I thought, perhaps what IPD promises has come to pass and my tastebuds have changed and I will only like strong dark chocolate in minute quantities from now on. So of course I had to test this. I bought a mini bar of Green and Blacks Maya Gold chocolate and one of Butterscotch. I had 1/3 of the Maya and didn't like it and left the rest. By now I'm feeling slightly superior. Then I ate the whole of the Butterscotch one (35g bar, folks, not full sized) and enjoyed it. Sigh. Back to the no chocolate thing for me I think. I'm just ITCHING to find a substitute - it literally is driving me crazy (see mascarpone-madness stories above). I've got to get over this, got to, got to, got to.

I'm back to only 2lbs down (in 3 weeks almost). At the end of last week I had a brief flirtation with 4lbs down but the scales of doom are adamant that I will not get below that magic x+1/2st marker. I feel vaguely aggrieved because I feel the weight should be FALLING off with the effort put into running. Whereas in fact I'm still only running 6 mins in a period of 18 mins. Just because it's hard and miraculous for me doesn't seem to impress my body. Grrrr. We're definitely on different sides.

Weekend was okay - annoying but okay. My mother hadn't really planned for me to be there (the effort is feeling very one-sided) but I managed okay (sent her to Waitrose after having to have cheese for breakfast).

Yesterday's menu:
B - rhubarb and mascarpone
L - cheese and mushroom omlette, green salad
D - chilli bake (lovely, chilli with a kind of ground almond solid souffle on top) with sour cream, homemade guacamole and tomato salsa
Etc - too many almonds, too much mascarpone

Today:
B - rhubarb and mascarpone
L - parma ham, avocado and blue cheese salad
D - at my mother's. Fish apparently.
Etc - 2 marmite cheeses (genius cheese AND marmite), too many macadamias, small bar of G&B butterscotch chocolate and a piece of Maya gold

Must stop pushing those boundaries - at least as long as it takes to see the effect on the scales of doom.

Friday 7 March 2008

IPD 16

Thought I'd better do an update before I leave for the weekend although I have little to say (a blessed relief, some of you may be thinking!)

I actually put on 1lb this week. Quite scary but I think it is going to take my body a while to cope with the change to my eating (ie I am eating) and maybe the running is having an impact. Or is it too early to be building muscle mass? My inner thighs and area under my arse certainly ache after a run and the next day which I choose to interpret as positive. I'm sticking with it - at the very least for this month - but if the weight started really piling on I'd have to review. And actually that lb has gone again but it does mean I didn't lose anything last week. There's an interesting post on the pig2twig forum on how your fat cells panic fill up with water when you're loosing weight - so you are actually losing fat which will show once they release the water. But once you've built fat cells you can't get rid of them - the best you can achieve is to leave them flat, empty and dormant. I've made this into Janet and John science because I'm a science dimwit but if anyone wants to read it I'll email it to them as it's fascinating stuff. And backed up by my obesity specialist who said the same thing last time I was there.

I've had one very minor deviation from purity - a solitary green jelly baby today. It tasted overly sweet and I didn't enjoy it - but as soon as I had it I wanted more. So far I have resisted. I had a pretty horrible day yesterday, exhausted from no sleep after a spat with b/f and very tearful. I even had dispensation to eat chocolate from work best friend but I decided not to as it would reinforce the link between chocolate and comfort which clearly exists in my twisted little mind. I've sorted the argument out - with unusual calm, dignity and sensibleness but b/f still being a bit cool. Think he might be slightly thrown by me taking the lead. Hope it sorts out but I am going to try to be less of a emotionally needy, fragile doormat (although in my head I suspect I will never escape this!)

I'm at my mum's tonight and until Sunday lunchtime. I have severe doubts she's going to be able to feed me - she's rubbish at having food in generally and lives on pasta or M&S prick-and-ping. I'm not going to let it sway me though - I'll manage somehow - but I will be pissed off. I'm slightly fed up about it anyway since I kind of got emotionally blackmailed into going tonight. Tomorrow we'd arranged to go to Loch Fyne (fish restaurant, not place) in the evening to celebrate what would have been my grandmother's birthday (with b/f) and that was fine. But she's dogsitting over the weekend for her friend's Lab and she clearly can't manage this one and her own two on her own - she just relied on me being about and I don't want to. I'd rather be home tonight (on my own as b/f is with pal in Herts) and I'd rather go home on Saturday night so we can do our Sunday am run. As it is, we'll have to do it Sunday late afternoon/early evening. And we have to fit in a supermarket shop and some cooking for the week too. Along with dreary chores like clothes washing. And no lie in! Feeling a bit put upon. I'm useless at saying no! And not just to sugar. What was that I was saying about doormats?!!

Wednesday 5 March 2008

Aaaand breathe. No, really, breathe.

We did the final 'run' of week one this morning. That was some achievement as b/f was out drinking last night, got home at 11.30pm (having phoned me twice just to make sure I couldn't get any sleep), very chatty and got to bed at 12.20am. Then snored like a warthog. He, irritatingly enough, fell instantly to sleep whilst I lay awake. Then we got up at 6am to go 'running'. It was freezing. But we had thought the park next to our flat wouldn't be open (it's not supposed to be open until 7am) and it was! Bonus! And the 'run' was fine - much better than run#2.

So week one, tick! Probably week two's runs will commence on Sunday. It had been scheduled for the morning but my mother has taken on too much with dogsitting her friend's Labrador and she won't be able to manage to take 3 for a walk. It's annoying that she clearly thought I'd drop everything and help her (she lives 45 mins to an hour away). We're going out to dinner with her Saturday night as it would have been my Grandmother's birthday but I didn't want to stay over again (I'm there Friday night) - no lie in and makes it inconvenient with the running and she huffily said "I'll just have to manage". Feel manoevered into this and sulky and resentful as a result.

Talking of being manoevred, our newly affianced friends have set a date - the day before the weekend b/f's parents have bought us for b/f's birthday, so inconvenient. And in Sorrento. So financially problematic too. I can't see we can go but there's certainly emotional pressure being applied "oh it wouldn't be the same without you", "at least it's not in Oz" etc etc. Going to look into whether we could do it in a day but it's not very satisfactory.

Last couple of day's menus:

Yesterday:
B - rhubarb (stewed with a little splenda) and mascarpone
L - odds and sods: 2 small slices of smoked salmon with lemon and black pepper and 2 bulbs of chicory with soft blue cheese
D - tarragon chicken and cauli-mash (with new potato ricer - very satisfying to use!).
Snacks - pack chorizo, few flaked almonds

Today:
B - faux bacon and sundried tomato muffins (basically baked eggs with stuff in)
L - courgette soup, green salad, marmite cheese
D - Wagamama soup without noodles in
Snacks - nuts

Seeing my LL buddy A tonight. We're going to walk along the Thames path, stopping off at Wagamama for dinner. Really looking forward to seeing her (incidentally she has the most incredible and envy-making hair) and she's on Food Doctor now so will be interested in finding out about that too.

Monday 3 March 2008

IPD 12 - Time is elastic

Well, being a Londoner (if a wannabe country girl) I know that the minutes they show on tube indicators are random - a minute there can be a minute but is more likely to be 3 mins +. But seemingly it applies to running (at least for the terminally unfit) too. Friday was day 1 in the new running regime - it's running for people who can't, don't and won't run (Running Made Easy) and it says that in 10 weeks you will be able to run 5k. I have no idea how far that is incidentally, probably to the bus stop! So week 1 you run for 1 min, walk for 3 mins for a total of 16 mins, 3 times in a week. Min 1 was okay but then we had a deterioration. I made it though and was very pleased with myself (and then proceeded to walk a further 5 miles during the day). But run 2 on Sunday was really tough. We were going faster - not intentionally - and because I am the world's worst person with numbers I made us run an extra minute, but I came back really dispirited and was really worrying whether I'd cope with next week - which I thought was 2 mins running. So I cheered right up when I found out that it's actually 1 min running, 2 mins walking for 18 mins. I'm sure it will still be hard (for a wuss like me) but better than 2 mins running at a time which seems unattainable (I think that's week 6). I have very achy inner thighs and under my (large) ass - I sincerely hope that that means these areas are shrinking. I walked in today too.

Diet is going well in that I am sticking to it and have not given in to sugar yet (58 days to go until I've broken the habit, R). Menu from the weekend for Lesley:
Friday
B - handful macadamias, 2 slices of parma ham and 6 quails eggs with celery salt
L - Hamburger Union: protein burger (ie burger wrapped in lettuce leaf) with bacon and montery jack
D - Selfridges ready made curry: chicken korma and baby aubergine curry. Quite odd without nan or rice but a small price to pay.
Snack - Nobby's chilli and lime almonds

Saturday
B - Scrambled eggs and smoked salmon
L - Avocado stuffed with crab mayonnaise
D - Steak, massive mushroom stuffed with leeks, blue cheese and a dash of cream and green salad
Snack - Nobby's chilli and lime almonds

Sunday
B - Scrambled eggs and sausage
L - Gingered courgette soup
D - Faux cottage pie (with a topping of mashed cauliflower, cheese, sour cream and bacon) with buttered savoy cabbage
Snacks - marmite cheese and macadamias

And I have an appointment with Marissa Peer! Not until early May though so I have only to hold off sugar until then and I will be cured! Elegant E is going to give me some money towards it in lieu of a birthday present. My lovely friend Willowy R had also offered this and my knee-jerk reaction was to say no, it was too much. But I'd thought about it and so when E offered I had a more reasoned unpanicky response. It's something that will hopefully be more useful and more life changing (in a positive way folks) than any lovely frippery E can buy me (and I love frippery). And since we've been friends for 14 years she's probably relieved not to have to think of anything either.

Feel quite down today though. It's the anniversary of the death of my most beloved grandmother (2 years ago) and her birthday's coming up on Saturday. I guess I should be over it by now and most of the time I'm fine but I guess these anniversary dates are going to be hard for a while yet. So sorry for the unperky entry. Hope everyone is well and happy.