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.

It's wierd isn't it Balloonslayer - I'm not really missing the booze either, although home life is a bit of a nightmare at the moment and normally I'd hammer the bottle. So it's probably good timing to be doing this.

DAY 8 now.

Today I am mostly visiting companies trying to sell them stuff I know nowt about. Whilst out on the road I will attempt to avoid the pies and crisps and find something more healthy.

No exercise though, although as have been so unbelievably busy I'm hardly eating much. So hurrah!

How are we doing, people?

Gastro hit my husband this morning so at the last second I had to do the daycare run. I delivered her without her communications book (the thing that says how she slept and they return with how many naps/meals she had) and also without shoes. I'm SUCH a good mother, me. And I was almost two hours late for work as a result.

Anyway!

My computer resolution lasted until I finished my new (well, old, but I hadn't read it in 15 years) Jilly Cooper, and then went by the wayside. I HAVE to stick to this one, MNetting too late at night stops me sleeping well.
No exercise as such but I've been making a point, when I get home, of taking my daughter upstairs for a good half hour romp (wrestling on the bed, crawl-chasing each other around the landing, having her balance on my back while I try and do pushups) and that's making me happier at least.
I have been very very good with the food. No sweets, not a one. Soup for either lunch or dinner every day this week so far (yesterday was a bouillabaise, today is chicken and corn chowder). No crisps, no flavoured rice cakes, no prawn crackers, no popcorn. Only evening snack is toast. Morning snack is fruit.

AND YET I have not lost any weight at all. A glass of wine or two in the evening can't be the whole culprit, can it, if I've totally changed my eating habits? Waaaaaah.

Give it time, tortoise . . .

Sometimes there is a delay, I have found

I am reading a Jilly Cooper too! Were you because of the Jilly Cooper thread? I am so tempted to go out and buy some more.

The wine-free evenings are a good change for me. For years the DCs went to bed at 7pm (thank you She Who Must Not Be Named) and I'd come downstairs and almost sprint to the wine bottle to celebrate the start of "Me Time." Now the older two are 10 and 8 and don't go to bed that early and I felt confused because I didn't have "Me Time" any more. The structure had sort of gone. Now I am not drinking wine, I don't have that feeling. Methinks I may have to stay off it.

Good work everyone!

I am still booze free, but have gotten my period so am feeling really bloated and yuk.

I went for a bike ride this eve as well tonight, it was lovely, me and DS, DD.

I have been quite shit with the food though, yesterday I had chocolate and the day before I had a packet of mini-chedders cos I was starvation!!

Hello all

Thank you so much for lovely support the other day. Particularly liked being told I'd done the right thing for DD by putting her to bed early, as it made me feel better . And it clearly WAS the right thing for her. DD (5) slept 12.5hrs and, for the first time in MONTHS, DD woke up in the morning without us having to wake her up. She does go to bed at 7:30pm/8pm normally, but in these hot, long summer days has not been going to sleep until past 9pm and she needs at least 11 hours.

Anyway, I won't witter on about my child's sleeping.

Erm, while the rest of you have been abstaining from alcohol I've been drinking more than normal I hardly drink usually, but I've had a beer (just the one) most nights in the last week. Drinking wasn't on my five point plan. Going to bed by 11:30pm was, and I've been managing that.

I'm also very chuffed with myself for keeping up my running programme - have been doing it for 6 weeks now, 3x a week. Haven't missed a session, have been keeping up, and am now running for 20 mins continuously This is an achievement for me as 6 weeks ago I wasn't doing ANY exercise and hadn't run for years, and I am SEVERAL stones overweight.

Have been doing some writing too. Claudia - I'd be very happy to tell you about it but not on here. You can PM me if you like or give me an email address to contact you on? Or I can set an email address up and post it on here.

So, where I've been falling down is on my fizzy drinks and sweets. BIG FAIL.

Hmm. Hopefully by July I'll have made progress.

Lovely to hear how you'll all doing. Claudia, so sorry RL has been a bit shit for you. Feel free to rant/vent/whatever.

Er, that should be by END of July.

And well done thatsnotmymonkey on the bike ride.

Day NINE!

NINE!!!!

Wow that's pretty good going don't you think?

Another booze free day yesterday and a whole booze free weekend coming up. I was due to do another big walk tomorrow but dh has to work so I've gotta call it off.

I too had a choccy bar yesterday, I was flat our all day and OfficeWorks has no decent food just picnics so scoffed one of those in desperation.

I LOVE Jilly Cooper. Must go and read that thread xx

Balloon, yes, that thread got me all inspired, and there's a wonderful and incredibly cheap secondhand bookstore around here so I picked up Riders for $2. Gosh, I'd forgotten how much of a bastard Rupert C-B used to be, he mellows so much in the later books.

Another day down with no sweets or snacks or seconds, AND I stayed off the computer AND I did a menu plan (standard Thursday ritual) using my low-carb and low-fat cookbooks instead of doing my usual impression of the Third Two Fat Ladies.

I have often thought how much easier dieting would be if it were instanteous. Like, you have a day sticking to the diet and the next morning you are a lb lighter, but if you eat a chocolate bar or a second helping, you wake up a lb heavier. Don't you think that would be far easier?

Cake, I am SO impressed about the running. I am a slothful sloth who sloths around a lot, and I think my running tolerance is about 3 minutes.

Don't worry about things that aren't on your list. I'm not worrying about the wine because it wasn't on my original list for a reason; I can't give up everything at once, and when I give up alcohol I get massive sugar cravings. The sugar habit is the worse habit at the moment, so I didn't want to set myself up for failure.

Tortoise and Claudia, are you in Australia? Whereabouts?

Interesting what you say about the sugar cravings, Tortoise, because I am having those and normally I am not all that bothered. Nevertheless I also should be losing weight and am not really . I saw some weightwatchers wine today which proclaimed itself "Only 80 calories a glass!" I thought bloody hell, how many calories is ordinary wine then? The amount I was drinking I should have lowered my calorie intake significantly.

Perhaps the fact that I am still BF once a day is making my body hang on to it [clutching at straws emoticon]. I only want to lose 4lb!! >

ballon how old is your DC that you are BF? i am still feding my 19m 2x a day.

I AM OF THE WAGON. I have had 2 beers and 2 glasses of rose!! Feck feck feck

Hey there Balloon Tortoise and I are in South Australia, just outside Adelaide. Usually it's lovely here but last night we had a ma-hoosive storm that cut the power for hours. I had to feed the kids in the dark, was quite a laugh actually.

It's DAY 10 people. Hurrah hurrah hurrah - nearly half way through (sort of).

Monkey, enjoy your drinks then climb back on that wagon lovey.

I completely agree with you Tortoise on the 'dieting should be instantaneous' thing. The trouble is that if I stop eating huge amounts it takes ages to loose weight with loads of effort etc but when I just scoff my face normally I can stack on the weight pretty sharpish. S'not fair.

Okey dokey, ready to be impressed?

I ran for 25 minutes continuously today, despite being hungover and sleep deprived (due to messy combo of heat/teething baby/next door's partying Australians drunkenly shouting singing 'Cant Stop Believin' en masse at 1:30am)

Claudia - did you see my earlier post on here to you WRT your writing question?

Hi Cake

So sorry somehow I missed your post, which is odd as I am glued to this thread normally. I would love to email you and have a writing convo - my email address though has my name on it, um, I'll do a hotmail and get it up here.

Well done on the running. 25 mins continuously is astonishingly good.

This is DAY 12.

12 days without an alcoholic drink. Blimey O'Reiley. Well done everyone.

Hey everyone!

Well done Cake. I can't even run for a bus

thatsnotmymonkey my DS2 is nearly 3. I am hoping he will stop soon as, well, how long can it go on for . But I let the other two decide when to stop for themselves so I need to do the same for him.

I do think that whether or not I lose weight is something my body decides. I remember cutting down dramatically trying to lose a bit before I was forty - to no avail. Then a year or two later I cut down a little and dropped a stone without really trying.

Claudia and Tortoise - do you know each other in RL then?

We know each other through Mumsnet - there was a South Aussie meetup a few months ago. And now I stalk Claudia go to the same playgroup as Claudia, so, yes.

Re: the storm. My husband took our daughter and let me lie in (till, um, 10am. Oops) and when I got up the power was still out, but they'd built up the log fire to get some coals, then set up an impromptu campstove on the back decking by putting a metal bucket of coals on some bricks. So he had coffee made, and was doing scrambled eggs and bacon in a wok over the coal bucket.

Good times.

You'll note I am not boasting about any self-deprivation. I think my subconscious has a big honking Weekends Don't Count caveat built in. BUT I haven't had any sweet things in two weeks.

Oh, and but and, my benchmark jeans do up properly again. Still carrying too much weight, but something good must be happening.

Hurrah for jeans fitting! Well done tortoise.

It's day 13.

I am eating my tea, tonight ladies I am having soup made from chicken scrags and veg. It is suprisingly tasty when an almighty hunk of cheese is added.

Zero exercise. Eaten buns, but despite EXTREME provocation I am still wine free

tortoise, funnily enough during the power cut I made the kids eggy bread and bacon. Usually I chuck a bit of toast at them. They had a much better time with no 'leccy.

Day 14

I am sensing a mid-month slump . . . Is anyone else still here?

Cooooooooooo eeeeeeeeeeeee

Come on, we're HALF WAY!

Tonight I do quite fancy a wine, dh has gorn orf to the pub so am left with the dds - which is nice but would be nicer if I had a wine inside me.

I am still here!

Quite enjoying the alcohol free-ness but I am SO TIRED. I don't understand why.

Methinks I must tackle the diet and try to eat a bit better from now on.

Hi Balloon, praps the tiredness is a side effect from lack of alcohol

I, on the otherhand, have developed rampaging acne since I've started this whole clean living thing. Which is nice.

It's now DAY 15. No alcohol, but rather a lot of biccies. RL woes are picking up, and I am feeling a lot more positive. Have been reading the secretly poor thread and getting tips.

I'm still here! But I have a cold. I never used to get ill, now (AC) I get ill all the time.

Claudia, do you have gas, then? We are all electric, so the only way to make a coffee was boil water on the wood fire.

I am still sweets-free, but can't say much else. BUT my boss has just emailed us to say he is going to pay for lunchtime fitness sessions when the weather is better. I did not influence this at all, but I'm still going to count it towards Resolution: Get More Exercise.

Tortoise, we have gas tanks from Elgas. They are very irritating, as they unexpectedly run out at awkward times, but give us hot water and we have a gas top cooker.

Good on your boss for the lunchtime fitness sessions. My mate works for a law firm in the city who are madly keen on encouraging their lazy deskbound staff to run/eat healthily etc etc. Good really.

I'm off out now to walk the dog. Really should get my running things on but its too cold to take anything off.

ahem-hem is anyone still abstaining?

I am

I feel quite smug. Thank you Claudia for starting me off.

I feel like a happy bunny.

I was just thinking about this thread!

I am still sweets-free. Almost completely off refined sugar, actually (the odd muesli bar for emergency breakfast aside). I feel more 'me' - pre-pregnancy I never ate sugar really, never had a sweet tooth except when reeeeeaaaaallly pre-menstrual, developed it when pregnant and then just got into the habit of sweets. So it's nice to have broken that habit, I feel I can keep this up. Didn't last on the others, but maybe I'm more of a slow-habit-change person.

Claudia, does your mate work for ME? When I wwas in big firm law they did loads of "healthy month" challenges and corporate cups and things.

Hellooooooo you two.

Well done on being so fabulously alcohol free Balloon, I had 2 glasses of red on Saturday (was out for lunch) and a beer on Monday night (desperate measures). But otherwise have been alcohol free. I'm afraid to say that had I any drinkable wine in the house I would have chugged it down this week . I have been absolutely gagging for a drink. Also I am going out tomorrow night for birthday drinks so will deffo have a couple of sherberts then. But apart from those 3 units I am a changed woman.

Rather disappointingly since slipping off the booze wagon (slightly) I have heavily slipped off the sweetie wagon. Yesterday I had a bag (A WHOLE BAG!!!) of triple chocolate covered almonds and today I went to Haigs (world class luxury choc shop) and scoffed quite large amounts. So I feel I need to reign myself in. Tortoise I am so impressed with your steely resolve. Well done.

Tomorrow however, I am getting my haircut into a chic highlighted bog rather than the scraggy mess it is currently. i am hoping that looking a bit more groomed will help my resolve