Upper Fourth at Celery Towers - 10 / 10 club - All welcome

[FrannyandZooey]

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 by following the link at the very bottom of the page

Am eating raspberries, nectarine, grapes and raisins. Is heaven

Avi I am LOL at your suggestion of who we should have on next, because when I first saw it for a split second I thought you meant Annabel Karmel LOLOLOLOL

can you imagine the reception she would get hahahahah HAH

and yes, I think Greeny did eat Piers Morgan, and she spat out the pips

PMSL at Annabel karmel

Have gone over to soya milk. Have had Watermelon for breakfast and for my packed lunch I have natural yoghurt with blueberries and rapberries, 2 satsumas and a sald of chicken, spinach, watercress, cherry toms, carrot and cucumber. I keep forgetting though that my Super Active Metabolism has left me for a younger, prettier chick. Last night I had a huge slab of home made flapjack before remembering that Sugar is no longer my friend.
Franny, how will new clothes help? A jellybelly is still bloody visisble whether you are wearing a size 8 skirt or a size 12. I don't want to lose weight exactly, just flatten this slatternly pot and not gain any more weight.

Oh dear Franny have I shattered your illusions?

TT don't worry about polishing! And there is absolutely no rush

Filthy have you tried a pilates class? I really noticed an improvement in my tummy when I was doing it.

100x - I found that extemely uncomfortable last night too. I had never heard of her I have to say, quite like the name India though, and I wondered what the excitement was about so watched it a bit. I know people weren't rude to her but I found myself cringing in that way, like when you think someone might challenge the lecturer and it'll all be awkward and wincey and they'll be twiddling a loose bit on their skirt and going a bit red and you just want to give them an apple? I wasn't actually a teacher's pet I don't think, well maybe in spirit.

Following this thread has helped me lose some weight, half a stone since my wedding (April) but to make a serious dent I think I need to up the exercise and stop evening snacks. I am definitely craving fruit more and always have three of four portions of veg whereas before it might be one or two.

I am spending a LOT of money on food atm though, need to address that somewhere. The free from foods are pricey, how much are all your organic boxes?

Today I've had, 1 peach, 2 kiwis, watermelon and cherries. Tomato and basil salad, cucumber gherkin and dill salad, green leaf and avocado salad and raspberry banana blueberry smoothie.

Blimey I must have missed a lot on the IK thread then, I thought it was overwhelmingly friendly. After the reception that blow job woman had, that Beverley person, and of course Piers Morgan I thought IK got a rapturous welcome. I don't think I have ever seen MN be so friendly to a guest speaker, truly.

FMF I don't think someone who is size 10 is going to look bad or have a drastic jelly belly, really. I think they just need to stop wearing the size 8 clothes that are going to make them look and feel uncomfortable.

MrsC we have a £20 fruit box every week and a £15 veg box every other week. I find if I get a veg box every week we get too much random stuff I didn't want and I end up buying yet more things to go with the random stuff.

Have had an apple and a mini fruit salad thing. Am ravenous. Roll on teatime.

I think it was friendly, I didn't notice anyone being rude, it's more the anticipation of it that makes me anxious.

Oh yes I see.

LOL at tube steak! Shall be employing it tonight, prob! The expression, that is...
Please, please can I have some advice or motivational kick up the arse or something- do you all eat shit as well as the fruit and veg? I don't seem to be able to eat anything but shit at the moment.

SK if you still have the room for, and crave, shit after eating your 10 a day, then good luck to you IMO

So eat the good stuff first and then see how you feel

I personally find the more crap I eat the more crap I want to eat, and the less energy I have

fill your fruit bowl up with delicious things and try to reach for them instead of shite

have eaten lettuce (3 kinds), cuc, toms, carrot, beetroot, black-eyed beans, rice salad and feta for dinner

Good plan. Must stop finding excuses for not filling up that fruit bowl...
Got off to a good start by asking Dh to bring salady stuff instead of chocolate.

I think I shall stick those wise words up on my wall in a motivational kick-arsey manner. Forget the simplest things when I'm on a "shite" roll.

oh well I might have pushed the boat out and managed to put some punctuation in if I'd known you were going to quote me

I bought some dark chocolate covered mango today, mmm, looking forward to that after dinner, which will include carrots, peppers, onions and lots of spinach.

Toot - I also got some fennel so intend to make
a beetroot soup tomorrow and also try it with potatoes like you said. I had it today with pickles and cucumber, it went beautifully with some brandon rost cold salmon, yum.

Franny- when you say you have two large fruit boxes, do you mean your £20 one comes in two boxes or do you have £40 worth . I am seriously considering getting one, we used to but I stopped when it got a bit boring, endless swedes and so on. I think they've improved now haven't they? I need to reduce my spending but don't want to compromise on organic f and v. Dh says I should do online shops again but I'm not sure that's the way forward.

Oh sorry MrsC, I meant that we order two of the large (£10) fruit boxes so it costs us £20. Personally I don't think their large fruit boxes are large, but we had to ask several times to convince them that yes we really DID want two and yes we really would eat it all etc. I still end up topping up with cheap non-organic fruit from the greengrocers / supermarket.

I find that we can buy an awful lot of organic (inc pasta, cereals, milk etc), if we eat unprocessed food cooked from scratch, for the same price as we used to when we bought processed food and supermarket f+v

we also get staples such as oats, bread flour, tea, raisins etc in large amounts very cheaply via our Suma collective

you have to order (I think) over £300 worth of stuff to get the wholesale prices, so people band together to put in an order each month. The savings are brilliant - well worth asking around to see if there is one in your area, or to start one up

ah found this at last. Thanks F&Z for directing me.

ooh, clementine, what a nice name

That's a good idea about the suma coop, I do actually know some people who do that, they've asked me before but I didn't get my order in in time. I pay for full price dried goods at my green grocers, so I really should sort that out. Thanks for tip.

Along with the choc covered dried mango I also bought some Whizzers speckled eggs, healthy mini eggs, lovely! No wonder weight loss is slow when I have so many delicious replacements. It would benefit my waistline and my purse to cut down I think. There is a tealy blue one coloured with copper.

Hi Clementine, your name really is perfect for the thread! Welcome, is there anything particular we can help you with?

MrsC I bought some of those eggs at Easter - yum. M+S also do chocolate eggs with vegetable colourings (spinach and beetroot IIRC!) but not dairy free unfortunately

Glad to hear it's not just me that has problems with pissy under-filled fruit boxes

I always order the organic fruit box, then go through and order a separate lot of each of the fruits individually, and even then I end up topping it up from the grocers. Not to mention the fact that we grow our own fruit.

Why don't people eat fruit, ffs? It's nice!

If I had to survive on one food group for the rest of my life it would be fruit

Somebody stop me eating this mango