Tag: Away Day

Wilma came back from her holiday this week, just in time to warn me about fluctuations and plateaus that might happen with my weight at this point in my Gloji journey. A very condensed version of that accounts for my weird experience of trying to weigh myself this morning for weigh day – that or the scales are broken. Here’s what happened:
I get on the scales, they say 71.1kg, I think ‘no that doesn’t look accurate’ and I get off them and get on again… the scales now say 72.5kg, I think ‘I’m still not sure that’s right’ and I get off them and get on again…
The scales say 73.4kg, I get off them and on again, 73.4kg, and again, 73.4kg, and once more for luck… 73.4kg.
I’m not sure what I weigh but I hope it’s 73.4kg because that’s what I recorded on the Gloji site today.

An hour of walking right at the start of the day. It’s now just gone 11 and I’m multi-tasking, in a Zoom meeting right now. I need to go get food now though because I’ve got another meeting at 12.

Evening update: Learning all about emotional eating and mindless eating, of which I have often done the latter, but never really the former because I tend to lose my appetite if I’m upset. Useful Gloji video with some good suggestions. I’m allergic to mindfulness (explanation skipped; short version: trauma) but the hunger scale idea is useful. Eat when you’re hungry, not ravenous. Stop when you’re satisfied, not stuffed. Slow down. Enjoy!

I would say “it’s one of those days” but it’s TWO of those days!
Day 32 was a weigh day: 74.55 kg so I rounded up to 74.6 when I logged it on the Gloji site.
Here is day 31 (otherwise known as yesterday) food – food photographers probably know how to not get food all up the sides of the plate (last photo) but your tired Trish doesn’t:

Here’s day 32 food so far. I’ll upload this evening’s dinner when I’ve made it, photographed it, and eaten it. I don’t know what it’s going to be yet but it might involve sashimi if the shop that sells it is open late enough.

The Gloji videos that I’m watching today want me to look at how wonderful exercise is, and how to enjoy it, as I sit here with neither leg being optimal to stand on at the current time 😄. American YouTubers got me covered, as usual.

Today was a weigh day: 75.5kg

I’ve been meaning to put some thoughts in this blog about how my eating habits and tastes have changed since I began doing my little Gloji journey.

Here’s a list of things I’m eating less of…

↓ Bottled sauces and ketchup are lasting longer because my food is so nice it doesn’t need them and, while I have used mayonnaise, one jar used to last us one week whereas now it lasts more like 3 weeks.
↓ Despite some experimentation with lentil chips, and a disastrous attempt to turn popchips into crackers by putting cheese on them, I’ve not had a bag of crisps for almost a month. Too much salt and too dry! It’s like how I remember having used to enjoy smoking, I get it – but not now thanks.
↓ Oh my goodness, bread – what an utter dry and boring disappointment you are now in general. I found a dire warning on the internet somewhere about dreadful things that could happen if you stopped eating bread but the person who wrote it seemed to be assuming that bread is the only carbohydrate that exists… either that or they were a baker. PLUS – and this is spooky, we had the same loaf of sliced wholemeal bread at home for nearly 3 weeks and it did not go mouldy! Made us wonder what chemicals they put in it and thus what goes into us when we eat it?!

Here’s what I’m doing eating more of…

↑ I think the biggest change is that I wait till I’m hungry and then I eat a meal. This replaces my previous pattern of forgetting to eat then grabbing bread, or eating recreationally without much thought about what I was eating. I did used to make meals, usually a meal for me and PJ when he came home, but I don’t think I was looking after myself well enough to sort anything proper out at other times. I also don’t tend to eat after my evening meal now, which I couldn’t imagine happening before (probably because I wasn’t eating properly in the day thus really, really hungry).
↑ Salad – by which I mean salad leaves, and other veg and things that can be used in a salad. I love all of that – a meal doesn’t feel quite right if there’s not enough veg in it. We buy what I think is plenty with the weekly shop, but then I run out of it because it gets eaten.

Here’s some things that haven’t changed, some of which should…

⟷ I love nuts and eat them in approximately the same proportions as before.
⟷ I like soup and it would be great to eat more of it, particularly soup I make myself.
⟷ I could also do to drink a bit more liquid, either water or my herbal teas that I like.

Today I decided to, experimentally, count calories. Ideally a dietitian would have followed me around (secretly, for maximum efficiency), record the calories I’m eating, then tell me the next day. However, there was just a me, kitchen scales, and the link to My Fitness Pal, so the best I could manage was to eat as I have been doing, but remembering to weigh and record stuff… then come back and add it all up at the end of the day.

Here’s why I don’t like calorie counting, or point systems like Weight Watchers use. They create a dependency on keeping doing something that may be long-term unworkable, i.e. weighing everything that is eaten and looking up its calorie or point content, rather than helping the person using the system to learn how to balance their own diet in ways that are sustainable and in ways that build new habits that are easy to follow. Hence, while I agreed (with myself) to calorie count today, it was just today and just to give me an idea.

Today was a weigh day. I’ve lost 250g, and I was going to say ‘only’ 250g but then I found a mug in the kitchen that weighs 250g, held it, and went ‘OK then’.

Today was also the day for starting the step aerobics DVD, and I did some step aerobics before I started work. Not very much step aerobics… but there will be more step aerobics as I get used to it. *waves asthma inhaler at you*

This is the life! It’s 9am and I have a blueberry muffin because I made a tray of them yesterday. I was tempted to eat one last night but, with my recent ‘fruit is a diuretic so avoid it just before bedtime’ discovery in mind, I decided to wait for breakfast.

It’s a weigh day: 76.25kg*. Although if anyone wants to congratulate me, I offer instead the fact that I slept OK and am around and conscious before 10am OR that I made lovely muffins.
* (Gloji’s ‘My progress’ page only allows for 1 decimal place so I’ve rounded up to 76.3)

Early evening update: Following an easy lunch that was more assembling than preparing, this afternoon’s knife fight has been with a large winter squash. If someone from the cast of Kill Bill had turned up with a large sword, I would’ve been grateful, but no it was just me, in the kitchen, with the sharpest knife, trying not to lose digits.

And with that… the food diary is ready to go! I think I’ll just email it to Wilma because anyone reading this has seen photos of everything I’ve eaten anyway. The food diary has the addition of my mood before and after eating – and that was harder to answer; I think I have a limited number of moods. I just put how I was feeling physically, because I think there’s a major correlation.

What happened to Day 3, I hear you silently ask?
Yesterday I was busy, and tired, and not up to blogging. Also not up to being my healthiest or bounciest self. I did go for my walk but at entirely the ‘wrong’ end of the day and… having been exhausted all day yesterday, I had a lie-in this morning so am off on that walk now.

Today was a weigh day! I weigh 77.1 kg. This puts my BMI at 30.49721134 (using just putting the BMI formula into a sheet on Google Drive because online BMI calculators take ages and ask for a load of other data every time). I should probably make it so it shows fewer digits.
It’s good that I weighed because I had been operating thus far on a guess. A reasonably correct guess as it turns out!