Catching up from the weekend and new developments

Right, well as you may have noticed I have been absent from the blog for few days so let me first catch up with my posts from the missing days and then I can tell you about my new strategies for health regime.

So firstly...
Friday 6th February
Up at 8.05am
It was weigh day so I went ahead and weighed and the result was that I had lost 4lbs (sadly not quite enough to put me back to where I was before the Whitby weekend blow out...but good enough for me).

10.00am - One large apple

12.45pm - Left over minced mutton stew (with added tomatoes, sweetcorn and peas).

During the afternoon I decided to sign up with the Tesco Health and Well Being site (something which a friend who helped create it recommended). Looking round the site it seemed like it might really help me keep a better track of what I am eating and what the calories add up to. Also I can note how many of my five a day I am getting, my 3 dairy a day (which is apparently recommended), how many glasses of water each day. It is handy to see how close to my recommended daily amount of fat, sugar, fibre etc I am getting each day.



I also noticed that there was a link to something called Fitbit, who make a range of items which track your steps, give you an idea of how well you are sleeping etc. True it may be a bit of a gadget and certainly not needed to use the site above...but it does synch up and automatically send the amount of steps I do to record them on the site. (You can manually record the amount of exercise you have done, which I will do for anything other than just every day steps).
So this gadget will be arriving tomorrow and will mean I can get started on this new phase of the healthy regime.

We were heading to give blood tonight so I wanted to make sure I had eaten something before we headed out.
5.45pm - Muller whipped Greek yoghurt with lemon sauce

6.20pm - Gave blood
Had a mint club biscuit, three bourbons and a custard cream afterwards...well, they pretty much insist that you have something before they let you go...plus I must have lost some weight right? (I actually looked it up and a pint of blood weighs approx 1lb Yes, I have too much time on my hands...lol)

When we came home I prepared a Chinese 'takeaway'
Peking Duck with pancakes, cucumber and spring onion
Sweet and sour chicken (made with unbattered chicken breast) using a Uncle Ben's sauce (with pineapple, baby sweetcorn and mushrooms added to it).
Uncle Ben's Egg fried rice (no peas! as Paul hates those!)
A few prawn crackers
For afters we shared a large slice of Mar's Attack chocolate cake

So as you can see this wasn't the best of healthy eating days...but it was enjoyable.

Saturday 7th February
Up at 9.45am (nice lie-in)

Paul helped me put up new fencing so that the chickens can help themselves to a larger area of grass without being totally free range (something which they were doing until they started heading towards the road recently and it occurred to me that I would be liable if they wandered into the road and caused an accident).
My Fitbit Flex wristband arrived and I will be starting work with that after lunch.
Off to the pub for lunch after we finished that job.

1.00pm - Ham (two thick slices), egg (one fried) and chips (small portion as I had ordered from the saver menu)
For afters I had raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake with a little single cream

6.00pm - 1/2 can of Heinz Cream of Tomato soup and one Gluten Free seeded soft roll

8.45pm - Half a large bag of Walkers Extra Crunchy Prawn cocktail crisps (well, a bit under as that would have been 75g and I had 60g) and 19 Malteasers (40g)

All of the above was noted down and was within my daily calorie limit when taking into account the amount of steps I had done as reported by the Fitbit (I went for four brisk walks of several circuits around the garden).

Sunday 8th February
Up at 10.15am (another nice lie in as Bruce was again letting the chickens out for me)

2.15pm - Roast beef, new potatoes roasted with a little oil and garlic/herb seasoning, green beans and carrots

8.00pm - Cucumber, cherry tomatoes, 2 slices of GF seeded toast and tuna mix (tuna, onions and mayonnaise)
2 Tesco Finest cherry scones with clotted cream and raspberries
I was going to have jam but because of the cream I was quite a bit over my daily calorie limit already...which I worked off through several brisk walks during the day. I decided that some raspberries on top of the scones instead of jam would not only be less calories and sugar, but also count as one of my five a day.

Already this new way of doing things seems to be working, if what I plan to eat during the day works out more than my calorie allowance then I know I need to either tweak my foods or do more exercise to burn those extra calories. But the main thing is that this for me is an easy way of working out how many calories I am eating (as the website does it for me I just have to enter what food and how much of it I am eating). There is also a weigh in function that I will be using, and I will be entering my measurements when I do my first weigh in so I can see any changes in size as well as weight.

So this is my new regime, I will still be trying to cook more fresh food and not indulge in too much junk food. I will also still be trying to keep carbohydrate heavy foods such as bread and potatoes to a minimum, but the main thing is to stay within the recommended daily calorie allowance or eat more to compensate if I go over the allowance. It will also be good and a challenge to try and ensure that I am within the recommended limits for fruit, veg, dairy, fat, sugar etc, etc
Watch this space to see how it works for me...and keep your fingers crossed for me eh (well, it can't hurt can it!).