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.

Oh God Oh God Oh God etc etc

I REALLY really want a glass of wine ..

DH out with friends, just me at home with dds, it's Sat night and I'm gagging for a wine.

Fffffffffing blardy dry july

Oh, sorry, I also meant to say Welcome to Jardins, of course you can join us my love. And congratulations on your new dd.

Where in France are you? I think your list sounds totally doable - remember it is just for a month so if the lack of sugar seems horrible try to get through the withdrawal symptoms and then perhaps create some better habits? I know if I'm at home with the kiddies I just stuff myself not out of hunger but out of boredom. So have been trying to notice when my hand reaches for the ritz crackers and cheese and go and do something else.

Stay strong Claudia! You can do it!!

Have you had your dinner yet? I usually find once I have eaten I don't want a drink.

I went out last night with "the girls", and they attempted to ply me with drink. But I resisted . Usually I get plastered if I go out and people come up to me in the street and say "You were so funny last night!"

So it made a nice change to not drink. I think I enjoyed myself more too.

And it was just as well as when I got home DS2 was awake because of the heat and had to sleep with me, so I got very little kip last night. If I'd had a hangover as well I would have been good for nothing this morning - and we have people coming for lunch.

Aaagh

Off now to hoover and clean floors. Gah.

Day two went well including 20 mins of Shred dvd and 30 mins on the cross trainer.
However, the chips and gravy I had to keep DS company (TLC food)probably do come under the 'crap' heading.

Oh well, still as dry as an Arab's sandal here. I hope you resisted Claudia - think of another pound in the jar!

DS seems ok, no headaches but a hugely swollen lip, I am plying him with ibuprofen to try to keep it at bay. Poor thing.

Day 2 went OK for me too - I did another run, I only had two packs of the crisps, and I drank wine but not too much, and I am allowed to at the weekend anyway (and Fri night counts as the weekend, as if there was any doubt!).

I would like to add to my list if that is OK, although it is neither abstinence or fitness - being more patient with the children! Will let you know how I get on!

I have not checked in for a while, I have a good mate here whose relationship is in the knackers yard. So........the diet has been out the window.

Have drunk a bottle of wine and had chips. but have been for a big walk.

But I now seem to have gotten mastitus. AGAIN. feel sick sick sick.

oh, thatsnotmymonkey - poor you.

I'm not keeping to my no fizzy drinks rule at all, am having a coke a day. I just crave it in this weather. Didn't do my writing yesterday as it was a full-on day with the kids.

Claudia - I am a fiction writer, currently working on a novel. Sometimes being a writer sucks large.

Should be doing my writing for today but DH is away on an overnight camping trip with DD and some friends, and I am here with DS (baby). The thought of writing now on a lonely Saturday night is demoralising. I bought a great new book today which I read a lot of in the garden earlier, and I'm tempted to sod my writing and go to bed early with my book. It's The Slap by someone with a greek name, and is our book club read this month. It's so exciting to have a book that I'm dying to be alone with - haven't felt that way for a bit

Hi all, Day 4 here. I managed to avoid the wine last night. Thanks for the encouragement Ballonslayer, you were exactly right. After I posted I ate my dinner then felt fine.

Well done howdoo on the walk. I found that once I gave up alcohol the being patient with the kids thing sort of came as a natural consequence of being more rested and no hangover. Not that I ever (well rarely) drank loads - just a wine or 2 a night most nights, but had a general level of grumpiness that shifted when I gave up the sauce.

Cake, I am VERY interested in your writing, not wishing to out you or anything but what kind of writing is it?. I know you must hear this all the time but I would love to write - (like 50% of the population) I have a half finished novel mouldering in a file on my computer. I would love to have the discipline to concentrate on it. And wierdly our book group is reading The Slap this month - and a Zola, most people seemed to hate it, I'm yet to start so perhaps we can compare notes.

There is a thread about The Slap in Adult Fiction.

Am also interested in the The Slap - I am always on the lookout for a good read.

Also really interested in what you say, Claudia, about not feeling so grumpy if you don't drink anything. I am the same as you - I have a glass or two a night, but TBH it is every night. Really will try to have all next week off and see if it makes a difference.

Walked up a mountain today - 4ks up and then ran down. Am fit to drop now, but do feel very pleased with myself.

This afternoon I went to bil and sil's place for a bbq and ate about a million crisps. So not totally great on the healthy eating front. But I did manage to stay 100% sober.

So in general I am chalking today up to a success. Another $1 in the pot

I was not so good on Day 3 - I drank quite a lot of wine, ate vast amounts of crisps and didn't go for a run. However, I don't expect or want to run every single day so not too worried about the last one.

So today is 4th July in the US (and everywhere else, but you know what I mean) and I have said that I will drive to the BBQ we're going to later, so no wine for me!

How is everyone else doing?

Good evening everybody. Well, thanks to ClaudiaSchiffer's encouragement I have been pretty good this weekend, so even though I arrived 2 days after the rest of you at least those 2 days have been IMO pretty successful. So I succeeded in eating no chocolate, sweets, or crisps. I did however allow myself a slice of homemade chocolate cake for tea with the family. Apart from that it was pretty much veg, fruit, meat, brown bread, honey and yoghurts. This morning my weight was down half a kilo. I don't know about tomorrow though. I must say that I felt generally much better without all the sugary rubbish I'm capable of downing. I felt calmer and even succeeded in not snacking between meals. Please help me stay on the straight and narrow!

I'm in the Loire valley, Claudia near Tours. We moved here a year ago. Before that we were in Normandy by the sea and before that in Paris.

I'm so sorry Thatsnotmymonkey about your mastitis. I'm breastfeeding too. How old is your baby? Mine is 5 months and is being a little bugger at night feeding around 3 times. Maybe that's because it's so hot or maybe it's because I'm far too soft with my babies .

I love all this talk of writing. The main reason I chose to do a Phd is that I knew that somehow I'd have solid proof of my love of writing at the end because of all the guidelines and encouragement you get. I just didn't trust myself to write a novel alone without having an institution looking over my shoulder and tutting if I didn't do enough work. Actually scrap all that. After 4 years I have realised that you really are all one your own when writing a Phd and I have had very little structure or encouragement from my university. I'm still loving it though. It's bloody hard work writing, innit? I quite understand the lure of reading a good book instead, Cake.

I must look up The Slap since so many of you recommend it.

OK, My house guest has gone, so I can get back on it today.

For dinner last night I had a prawn salad and lots of water, and no booze, but I did have a lot of minstrels at the cinema.

My mastitis has gone! It was a really fast little bout. My DS is 19m, so I dunno how I managed to get it, we feed only twice/24h.

I had half a slice of toast and a peach for breakfast.

hello, will be back later with a proper update and name check, but just waned to say that I'm feeling a little sad. Not sure why. Not sure why I'm even sharing this! I just feel a little ... lost.

I think that I should add working on my mood to The List. I snapped good and proper at DD (5) today, really shouted at her and read her the riot act. I was too harsh, although it did seem to get through, and after putting her to bed very early she did go to sleep by 6:30pm, which is what she needed after a sleepless weekend of camping with her father and friends. I am just fed up of her disobedience and always having to push the boundaries to try and get more, more, more (more playing time, more snacks, more this, more that) and not being satisfied with what she has.

But I feel an eel for feeling so annoyed with her. She is just a little kid. I just had a frustrating afternoon in the park with her after school, which culminated in her weeing on our doorstep when we got home (because she refused to go to the toilet on the several occasions earlier I'd asked her to.) It meant I then had to throw her in the bath and neglect my baby for a bit, who'd just woken up. And she was covered in mud because she kept playing with mud even though me and another mother (of DD's accomplice) kept telling her not to. I had to physically pick DD up in the park in the end and carry her to the gate to get her to leave, and then she screamed that I was hurting her, that I was squeezing her, even though I wasn't squeezing her at all, just holding her. Sigh.

Oh Cake - I'm really sorry about the day you've had. I recall my DS driving me to distraction when he was, say, four years old. I REALLY think I can imagine how you feel. You know when I've had one of those days and the DC goes to bed under a big grumpy cloud I always manage to wrangle out of myself the words 'Tomorrow will be a better day'. I always want my DCs to know that the slate can be wiped clean, new beginnings and all that.

I hope that makes sense to you.

cake, your DD sounds like she was knackered, and nothing you would have done would have been right. But you did get her into bed early which was just what she needed, so well done x
It is shit when you feel like you have been a bad mum- which you HAVE NOT . Give her a big hug in the morning, it will all be forgotten then anyway.

You should go crazy and have a carrot stick!

Helloooooooooo everyone, Day 6, my goodness the alcohol free days are just flying by.

Cake so sorry you had a terrible day with your dd, it's so awful when you have a day like that. I have them reasonably regularly with my two and it's very hard. As thatsnotmymonkey says though, she sounded exhausted and was going to be difficult. Well done for getting her into bed early. Tomorrow will be better.

I still have not touched a drop of alcohol, and d'you know what last night was the first time I've really not felt the desire. Perhaps this is it, I am FREEEEEEEEEEEEE.

The trouble is real life is pretty shite at the moment, and I have rather resorted to the biscuit tin. I bought the kids 2 really enormous triple chocolate cookies - you know the REALLY BIG individually wrapped ones - anyway I ate them myself.

Soddit though, it's only two biscuits though right? And rl is rubbish right now.

Aw, sorry life is no fun, Claudia. But you are doing superbly.

I had a total Failure in Failtown Friday. My work celebrated its second birthday, and morning tea was a specially baked chocolate birthday cake, and someone vut and handed me a slice, which I then felt rude not eating. And at after work drinks they had out my favourite crisps. And then I went out to dinner with my husband and shared a bottle of Riesling. And then logged onto Mumsnet at about 10pm. Without doing any exercise.

However, with that one exception, I have been crisp-and-sweets free all weekend.

Sunday evening I came down with a dramatic, but short-lived (i.e., from 10pm to 6am), bout of gastro - so I felt like utter crud yesterday and made my husband stay home and look after the toddler until noon so I could recover. Now feel strangely purged, and full of good resolutions. Keep telling myself to change each little thing as I go and not try and do everything at once. So am having soup for lunch instead of the enormous roll I usually have, and have resisted the English sweetshop across the road all week.

Harissa baked chicken and couscous tonight. I think that counts as one of my low fat dinners.

AND I got my period. If that plus the gastro doesn't mean I've lost a lb or two I'm going to throw things at other things.

Oh, sod it, I keep forgetting about this name change. It's tortoise.

I had a very virtuous dinner last night, home made lamb burgers with seeds in them, on a bed of salad and half an avocado. I did have a slice of griddled haloumi. Ok 2 slices. But no booze. I am feeling lighter by the minute.

The fruit eating has not been so great. so am off to eat an orange now.

ClaudiaS I hope RL perks up a bit, anything you want to vent about on here? I feel like your cookies were probably medicinal and therefore absolutely calorie free.

LadyinRed although gastro is horrid, I am a wee it jealous. I bet you have shifted some weight!Glad you are better.

Hi Tortoise LadyintheRed. Great new name.

Thanks for the support my lovelies. Still no booze and not much rubbish food today - well no choccy biccies, so hurrah for me. rl continues to be rather trying but some silver linings if I look hard.

Off up the wooden stairs to Bedforshire now, hope you all are doing fabulously well and are SOBER AS JUDGES

It's morning again my darlings.

Day 7 of.the.rest.of.your.life

up and out for me today, I have a day on the road selling stuff. Joy joy joy be unabound.

also have sick child on the sofa and miserable dh

Still I am feeling tip top after over a week of being booze free.

Onwards and upwards people.

Claudia, you are doing brilliantly. I am now on day 7 and have so far managed precisely ONE alcohol free day. And that's one more than most months TBH. This is not very impressive!
Running is going fine, and I am eating OK, but this "I must have a glass or two of wine as soon as the kids are in bed" mindset has got to stop!

Hello!

I am on my 7th alcohol free day and not missing it. This is odd - usually when I give up for a while I feel miserable for the first couple of weeks.

Maybe it was because I decided to do this when I saw Claudia's thread - on the spur of the moment and hungover to the tits as well!

Anyhoo I feel goood although I am not eating well, but have been better today.

Am slightly about how my evenings revolved around wine before.