Rhubarb and asparagus - 10 / 10 club sparkly Spring thread

[FrannyandZooey]

All welcome - for anyone who wants a boost to their general health. The suggested goals are:

EAT 10 PORTIONS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES EVERY DAY - if you don't usually eat much fruit and veg I would build up gradually or you could upset your digestion.

DO (AT LEAST) 10 MINUTES OF EXERCISE EVERY DAY - can be yoga, stretching or something more energetic. The plan is that the idea of doing 10 minutes is not too daunting, and having started you may well find you want to do more.

There are no restrictions on what you eat, so long as you get your 10 fruit and veg as well. The focus is not on weight loss, but on improving our energy levels and hopefully our general mood and well-being. Sign up below and post here to tell us how you're getting on and how you are feeling.

Basic guidance on what constitutes a portion of fruit and veg here and you can download more detailed information here (follow the link at the very bottom of the page)

Cappucino you are just mocking my ballerina aspirations now. I am the only daft fucker to have ever taken up ballet at the age of 33. My god I was crap.

ok, if you want to pysl at ballerina type aspirations, here is what i did this evening

nia

(I went by accidents, i though it was aerobics. It wasn't.)

The high point was 8 overweight middle aged women rolling about on the floor pretendnign to be, i quote "embryonic fish"

Also learning that, apparently, there are "two gravities" (one up and one down), and that "nia promotes healing at a cellular level.

i was struggling to keep a straight face but it was ok cos the instructor (jesus she was one of those scary happy women) just thought I was overflowing with joy and so on.

embryonic fish

good lord

I am always very heartened to hear of people who are clearly WAY more barking than me

I did actually have a go at ballet when I was 29 and I was probably crapper, Franny. The floor kind of rattled.

you can bow down in awe of me if you like since I take two kids swimming and one of them can't walk. Whenever I feel down about myself I remind myself of the friend who told me that she had to put her 2 year old in nursery to take her 5 year old swimming because she couldn't cope, while I struggled womanfully on with a toddler and a child in a walking frame

I tell you this not to brag but because sometimes it's the only thing I achieve in a week to be proud of so I have to keep reminding myself of it

I booked up for a course of 10 swimming lessons once for ds, and after about the fourth one they gave me my money back because I kept crying at the entry desk

I have to say I usually have a beer open by 7.15 on swimming nights

Cappucino, I have had great success with fruit bars but no specific recipe. Just hoik variety of dried fruit out of the cupboard, chop very finely, mix and squidge into a tin or something. Tastes just as good raw as cooked but cooked stays together slightly better. Can add oats, coconut, marge (for moisture/stickability) - whatever you want really

I have not done well today, apart from the masses of spring greens etc, but tomorrow is a new day and I have lots of salad items from Riverford.

Question for those who take their dcs swimming: do they actually learn to swim or just mess about and have fun? Not that I'm against fun, just it would be nice if they learned to swim as well. Dd1 and ds1 have had subsidised school lessons, which helped, but if ds2 had out of school lessons the others would want them too and it's blasted expensive.

mess about

trying to teach them to swim would be a recipe for disaster

LOLOL at different teams

yes you will all be divvied up and made to wear different coloured sashes

Overrun and Filly can be team captains and take turns to pick who they want

while I stand around and blow my fabled whistle

oh I hate team picking

I was always picked last at school

Yes I would not mind betting we have more than a few school geeks on here

I was shite at any kind of sport - if my pe teachers knew I now coached sport they would choke themselves laughing I expect

Ouch.

I didn't do that well on fruit and veg yesterday, and I'm not sure today will be much better. DS2 is ill, although not horribly so. I am probably keeping him home, as he wants to be home, and my kids generally always want to be in the scrum.

I took him to the co-op yesterday, although he was a bit off colour (less so than today) and he was fine for most of the session, but whingy and crying for the last 45 minutes before lunch . I know one of the other carers just cuddled him, as he's never like that normally, people aren't about to try to convince him to not be clingy.

Oh, I'm another fan of running. You actually can do it with a child, for one thing. I know people who run with prams (I never did this, because I don't run on hard surfaces). I run with DS1 - he bikes, and I run, and it's a nice outing for us.

ah for me, NQC, part of the joy of running is running away from my kids at the end of the day

I certainly wouldn't want to be taking either of them with me

Oh, I prefer to run without kids, but if I have DS1, or if DH isn't up for coping with two, during the day, taking DS1 with is easier than not running at all, iyswim. I keep my ipod in, I am running a fair few feet away from him, so it really isn't a very 'interactive' experience.

Last night was good, but today is really going to suck, I think. I have DS2 on the sofa next to me, all warm and unpleasant.

Well, today I am finding it hard to eat any more fruit as I am too busy feeling ill at my own stupidity, having just realised I sent an e-mail with a sarky comment to absolutely the wrong person. I am hoping I haven't ruined an event I was helping to organise. Luckily I had already had banana and raisins.

aw SK. oh yes have been there, oh yes...

right off to The Woods today. no gym i think tongiht. ds has a birthday party to go to (might make dp take him) and I can't be arsed i don't think.

franny i would love to me a team captain but think it might be too much of a patriarchal structure and so forth for me. also don't do star jumps.

(so have i persuaded NO ONE to go to Nia?)

oh and just to set the record straight

i am not buying more trainers

it just occured to me that although i know nike=bad etc, i had kind of never thought about this in the context of actual running shoes, just decorative running shoes. god knows why, i have read no logo and so on.

Nia is absolutely not an option for me. It took a lot of mental energy to not snicker at the yoga talk 'feel your feet reaching down into the middle of the earth and supporting you' etc etc ... much preferred them talking about pelvic floors tbh ... nia would be a good workout for me if rolling about laughing while being pelted by quinoa by angry credible people counts ...

lol NQC

also blathers about 'chi' from 21 year old squeaky instructor in full make-up

and bowing ffs as if we are Buddhist monks

I hate the relaxation session at the end of yoga/ pilates/ body balance type workouts

I don't want to spend 10 minutes lying down in a dark room full of strangers listening to hippy music

I want to go home and have a bath and lie down in my own bed

would it be so very rude to just leave when they start turning the lights down and putting their socks on?

Oh, I quite liked the relaxation thing in pregnancy yoga. Hated it in postnatal, though, as DS1 always would fuss then.

And I don't mind bowing. But 'chi' and makeup and embryonic fish would just have me either rolling my eyes a lot or struggling to hide laugher.

Maybe those are good exercise, too?

DS2 is not well. And somewhat insane.

We've had demands to go get DS1. To go to the childcare co-op. (And I'd love to have the morning off, haven't been childfree at home since Friday morning. But I still can't actually take him in.) To go to the childcare co-op via DLR.

He's refusing calpol. He's not insanely hot, but is absolutely warm.

And I'm hungover and just want the place to myself. [sulk]

Lol at being team captain, I was always the one left over at school, not because I was really bad at sport, more that I was universally disliked not sure which is worse
Filly, that NIA thing is most strange, I'm not remotely tempted.
NQC - my sympathies about ill children and being hungover, those two things do not mix well at all. Are you hungover after the black tie affair and if so, how did it go?
I have had a plum and a apple for breakfast, and a tomato in my sandwhich for lunch, followed by a banana.
I am building up gradually today

Yeah, I'm hungover after the black tie do. It was fine. I made a bad legwear choice, but otherwise it was fine.

The bike across town was really good. I'll do that again if the circumstances arise. Much more pleasant than the tube or a taxi.

I had raw spring greens for breakfast. Have just had half a pear.