One month of abstinence and fitness - anyone care to join me?

[ClaudiaSchiffer]

I need to get fitter, stop drinking alcohol, stop eating so much chocolate and other junk. Generally have a good healthy month in order to add zip and zing to my life. I also want to be more creative and less consumed by drudgery.

So . . . during July I am going to do the following . . .

1. No alcohol

1. No chocolate/junk food

1. Exercise at least 3 times a week - for me it will be a 0 - 5k running program.

1. Pick up my paint brushes and be creative

1. Listen to more music and DANCE

1. Say YES to opportunities

1. Less time on the computer

1. Read more books

1. Meditate

10. Eat and drink healthily

11. Be conscious of spending money - no quick trips to the newsagents for crappy mags and sweeties

Right. I can't think of any more but would you care to join me?

I want to start properly on July 1st but today I am going for a run and last night I went to a cabaret show which has inspired me to be less conventional and screamingly middle aged and dull.

Perhaps we could encourage each other to to Random Acts of Kindness or get tattoos or learn magic tricks or something.

Cake I think you have to allow yourself some chocolate otherwise it will feel too much like deprivation and you will cave before the month is out. At least this is my justification for a moderate amount of marshmallows which seem to be my weakness of late, I'm going to save them for a weekend treat but I'm only going to buy a small bag instead of making a whole tray of the stuff .

Claudia, I think PAOK (parental acts of kindness) do count especially middle-of-the-night ones. Bloody well done!

Hello changemylife, there is nothing like a bikini moment approaching to motivate!

Hi there changemylife, you are very welcome my darling. I know exactly how you feel at a. feeling like you deserve the wine as you've had the kids all day - and you know you DO deserve something lovely but maybe not wine - do you think you could cut down a bit and treat yourself with something else? Can you get someone to babysit and you have a night out with friends?? And b. I am about the same height as you so understand the horror of approaching 10 stone.

So, we can definately help out. Can you clear out the treats for a month. Get a calendar on the wall, and cross off each day you can go without booze. When I gave it up for February the first few nights were awful, honestly they really were quite bad. I so believed I needed that treat but once I got past that it was fantastic. I felt so much better, I had more energy, I lost weight, I was generally a MUCH nicer person and a much better parent. It rather makes me wonder why I took up boozing again - apart from it being delish and great fun of course.

An Cain, thanks for the well done

One day at a time is sensible I know... but take this weekend for eg. I have a black tie dinner on Friday ( the thought of not having a drink to get me through this is unbearable). Then on the weekend I am away with DH and kids for a night so I know we will drink then. So already I feel like I am failing.

Alright, alright. Am the heaviest I have EVER been (non-pregnant, obviously) and it is Not Good. No idea how/when to exercise. Can't go running after daughter is in bed.
Can't get to gym. Do you lot have any success with exercise videos? It'd mean wresting the remote control from my husband, but it's the only thing I can think of. So, in the spirit of things and also I've read somewhere that setting specific measurable goals works best:

1. No crisps, and those flavoured rice cakes COUNT AS CRISPS.
2. No sweets, which means no baking. My husband is going to hate this.
3. Exercise every night, even if it's only 15 minutes, because I get no exercise most days.
4. No computer after 8.30pm.
5. Make sure that at least 4 dinners a week (I menu plan) are low fat/healthy
6. Take up a new hobby. This is not easy. My hobbies are reading (do enough of already) and cooking (there is a limit to how much cooking I can do, plus the wine rack is in the kitchen) and gardening (too cold). Am not artistic. Keep meaning to learn to sew, but is so teeeeedious to start out with, all that pinning and tacking and argh.

Hi there Tortoise. Good list you have there. Very strict. Remember it's just for a month, can your dh put up with no baking for one month?

Re the exercise dvd, I have a 10 min get rid of belly fat one - if I ever used it I would have a 6 pack by now. Instead it is gathering dust in the dvd drawer. So I personally think they are a bit crap - or at least I am too lazy to fish it out and actually do it.

Hobbies are tough. I have no time even to read these days. Am determined to carve out a bit of time though. Even if it's shite I want to paint again.

Changemylife - can you think of July as being predominantly alcohol free but with 4 passes? Ie you get 4 nights out where you can drink as you like - then you get the big events out of the way but cut out the daily boozing.

Count me in! Will compile my list today and post it later.

Ok here goes:

Get up at 7 during week and walk before work
Plan meals
No alcohol
No crisps or chocolate
Try positive thinking

Roll on 1st July

Thanks claudia that is a good way to look at it.

I am going to try to:

1 Walk 10000 steps per day
2 Drastically cut alcohol intake
3 No sweets, biccies or cake
4 drink water

I am determined not to touch wine tonight.....promise I will come on here if I feel tempted!

Slack time is up, time to get started in the morning.

one hour of slack time left by my watch! (sets alarm for 6)

I really need to get some sleep, but do you think I should stay up for the next hour and stuff my face?

absolutely, you'll regret it by next week if you don't ... no you go to bed mc am pulling your leg. see you tomorrow!

Pinch punch first of the month NO RETURNS

Right ladies, here we are July 1st, it's 7.40am here in Australia - the dawning of a new age. Spend a moment with me, come on girls, lets hold hands and consider exactly how fabulous you are looking and feeling a month from now.

Seriously now, this is IT. We are all going to have the most boring month healthiest month ever. Think of it as a gift to your liver selves. In exactly 31 days time we will be clear of skin, bright of eye, busy of tail and with an extra spring in our steps.

Today I will be cooking a casserole (midwinter here), taking the dawg and sick 2 1/2 yr old for a walk and trying to do some work whilst said sick child dribbles on me.

Hurrah, I couldn't be happier about doing it with your company.

Also I am going to PRINT OUT my list and stick it on the fridge - to much derision and laughter from my husband no doubt but yah boo sucks to him.

Actually he will have hysterics and get all nervous about no 5 and 9.

still another 7 and a bit hours of june left here! but i've been consciously making decisions about what to eat today instead of just leaping in. so i think that's an improvement...

be careful walking the dog with those dingos about (i can say that as i took the dogs out last night and got stalked by a really territorial coyote - frightened the living daylights out of me - i came back cross country as it was herding me off the track, barking and howling, and snagged myself on barbed wire on the way back to the village . i spent the morning at the medical centre with them trying to decide whether to give me a tetanus shot or not (i'm allergic to them). ho hum. didn't have the kids with me though, thank goodness.

anyway - i'm off to the mountains tomorrow after my lardy b'fast (well, today for you but i'm still due dinner and sleep lol) so may be on and off over the next few days. will update how the list is going when i get back! (6th ish) i'm looking on it as a bit of a detox spa break

good luck everyone!

Morning Claudia! this is v international thread
here in UK I've about another 8 minutes of decadence
pmsl at gift to your liver

lol at dh being nervous about no. 5 - dd1 (10) suddenly leapt up in the sandwich shop at lunchtime and said 'mummy, i've just remembered a tap step that miss x taught me last year' and jumped up and demonstrated it. i may not be quite that bold, but may dance with the dcs in the long quiet afternoons on the prairie lol.

good luck ladies
have a lovely day!

Right. It is THURSDAY.

I am v prepared. Have eaten all the salt and vinegar rice cakes, polished off the chocolate date pudding and finished the tonic water (with gin) last night, thus ridding the house of temptation. I am a martyr to the cause, people.

I didn't have an alcohol one on the list, but I LOVE the idea of 4 passes, so am going to add that to the list.

1. Cut alcohol consumption to planned occasions (max of 4) instead of idle glasses of wine in the evenings.

Have done this week's menu plan and have four low fat/under 400 cal dinners on there (hard in midwinter, my lovely osso bucco and coq au vin will have to languish, sobs). Claudia, my husband will almost certainly react to Baking Drought by eating Nutella with a spoon, so no problems there. Actually, might drag him along for the ride. He is also the heaviest he has ever been and both of us feeling the lack of exercise opportunities post-child-having.

Thing about hobbies is not that I don't have time; I have loads of time for reading/Mumsnet/cooking, but I have no idea how else to spend my evenings. How do the rest of you spend evenings?

At risk of baring my soul to the world. I spend my evenings thus . . .

Chase children into bed

Welcome husband home with cheery smile

Cook dinner

Watch telly

Play angry birds on iphone

Telly

Angry birds

Telly

Angry birds

Telly

Bed

So as you can see Tortoise a purty busy schedule chez Schiffer. No time for hobbies, oh no.

I'm with you, going to bed now but shall return with a list tomorrow.

mine:

children
tv
dinner
tv
fall asleep on sofa
get woken up by dh telling me to go to bed
fall asleep on sofa
wake up
glare at dh
go to bed

occasionally i shake it up a bit by waiting until he falls asleep on the sofa and then i sneak to bed. childish, i know.

my how the long winter evenings simply fly by...

but in this neck of the woods i think we're supposed to patchwork or quilt or something. i have two kits somewhere in the abode, one of which i purchased 10 years ago in an attempt to learn a new hobby. reader, it's not even out of the packet. maybe this will be the moment, eh?