Thursday 8 October 2009

A human experiment

Fired up by Mrs Lard's progress with Potatoes not Prozac, I thought I would buck the habit of a lifetime and have breakfast before I left home this morning. I had a half cup of porridge oats (50g) with a half cup of semi skimmed milk and one of water with a large tsp of honey, loads of cinnamon and 6 half-walnuts - does that sound a reasonable breakfast? I guess that the problem with being on LL, Diet Chef etc is that when I'm not following a specified plan, I'm a bit in the dark about what constitutes a good choice. And I know that this is a healthy breakfast - but is it a good calorie choice? Anyone know?

It was a much nicer breakfast than I could have at my desk, despite having to get up even earlier to have it, but my concerns about doing this were:
a) I have heard that exercising on an empty stomach forces you to burn fat reserves and that always sounds like a good thing
b) I was worried that I would still be hungry when I got into work.
Well, I don't know about a) so if anyone has any inkling, please do let me know. As for b), well, yes, I was hungry. I don't think it was just habit either. I had to have my mid-morning snack of 100g of 2% Greek yoghurt with 2 dsp of compote by 10.15am as I was so hungry. So I'll try it for a bit longer but will have to see how I go.

And then I cycled in. It has been almost 3 weeks and I certainly felt it. I don't know whether it was the colder air, the length of time that's elapsed or the extra weight I've packed on but my lungs were sore (if you know what I mean). I hope to cycle tomorrow too (and do the Circuit of Hell) and carry on like this so that when I next weigh myself (next Friday) I can be perked up by some loss. I squeezed into my next largest skirt today but I'm not sure I have 4 outfits for work (we can dress down on a Friday) at this weight. Even my bras are uncomfortably tight.

And I didn't do well yesterday. A combination of circumstance (also known as sod's law) and weak willedness. Breakfast was a small pot of instant porridge and a very small skinny cappuccino. Mid morning I had 6 Haribo, 2 Turkish Delight and a low cal cereal bar. At lunch I met bf for a coffee (semi skimmed cappuccino) at which point I was so hungry I started getting sweaty, dizzy and faint. He had a wodge of granary bread in his bag and I ate that. Then I went off in search of soup for lunch. Then I got very shaky and faint - I know this is a blood sugar problem, I've had it before. Reader, I ate a packet of peanut M&Ms. They did the trick but I couldn't enjoy them as I was despairing of the calories even as I rammed them - shakily - into my gob. Then I couldn't find any soup. It was ridiculous - I'd looked at the Eat website to choose the best calorie choice and they'd run out. So had the next 3 places I went to. I ended up with a Moroccan Chicken soup from Pret (eek! 309 cals I just checked) with a mini Artisan baguette (with proscuitto, basil and pecorino - 318 cals! It was tiny!) and about 8 Haribo. I had 100g 2% Greek yoghurt with 2 dsp of compote late afternoon and then went home to homemade squash soup (large butternut squash, soup and a little chorizo). Then a slice of helva and a pear - and then in a rage because I couldn't find my cycle lights, 4 Roses chocolates. It wasn't a good start.

But as Yazz and the Plastic Population wisely say - "the only way is up". Today is another day. so far I've had my porridge and my yoghurt mid-morning snack. Lunch will be soup - not sure whether I dare include a hunk of bread with it (probably not) and 200g plums. Mid afternoon - a low cal cereal bar. Tonight - a prawn stir fry with noodles and a few cashews, a slice of helva and a pear. And I'll have cycled for 2 hours and walked for half an hour. That has to be good, right?

1 comment:

Lesley said...

The breakfast sounds good. The oanic about the soup not so good.

One of the cycling blokes we spoke to told us about his weight issues which started when he stopped cycling for the Olympics. Apparently his main problem was that if he couldn't do exercise/diet stuff perfectly he couldn't make himself do it all. Eg. unless he could cycle 30km flat out that day, he couldn't make himself do 10km at a moderate pace and hence piled on about 4 stone in 6 months!!

Bear with me - but there seems to be a bit of a similarity with you. You had to have the soup because you were hungry and this was what you had decided and it was suitably low cal etc etc But, when thwarted, you ended up having much more. Mightn't it have been better, when you were very hungry and faint, just to have something straight away, like a cereal bar. Which you know would have taken the immediate edge off and then allow yourself whatever low cal lunch is available. Presumably there were salads or sandwiches around in the 300-400 cal range, rather than exhausting yourself looking for the exact thing you're after and ending up eating far more??

Just a thought.

You have to roll with the punches sometimes and not be "perfect" and it might take away some diet stress and lead to lower intake overall....

Many apologies for sounding as though I'm preaching (which I suppose I am a bit) or if I've totally misread the situation but it seemed to jump out a bit at me.

The cycling sounds bril as ever. I slept through my alarm this morning so missed personal training for the first time in years! Bad me. And then didn't swim at lunch or go for a run this evening. Very bad me. Will rectify the situation tomorrow.

Lesley x