New Year, new resolution: healthy living and positive thinking in 2009

[eemie]

Welcome to 2009 everyone.

This is where we try to support each other to eat healthily, take better care of ourselves and think positively.

It used to be called a 'bootcamp' but it's really more forgiving than that, especially if you're poorly (as most of us were in December) or you've just had a baby (congratulations Chutneymary).

Everyone is welcome (I would put that in capitals but don't want to shout).

Our suggestions:-

Eat healthily;
Exercise regularly;
Drink plenty of water/other clear fluids;
No alcohol during the week;
Use body lotion/hand cream/extract of donkey testicles regularly (can you tell what I've been watching with dd over Christmas?);
Get enough rest (Ha!);
Focus on three (well, at least one) positive achievements, however small, every day and try to post it/them here.

Have I missed any?

Join us! Or if you're (still) here already, stick with us!

3 positive achievements per day...what a completely fab idea!

1. I handed keys over to the new tenants I found for my dad's buy to let flat and answered all their questions/ completed paperwork

1. I spent hours tidying up the sitting room and it looks lovely

1. Collected some parcels from Royal Mail for dp

Welcome, Podrick, happy New Year

Yay about the house sale eemie

I have a bad back. Not sure why/how. Still eating chocolate thanks to my mad MIL buying enough to feed the five thousand over Christmas. On the up side I cleaned out the bottom of my wardrobe today [slattern]

Oh eemie what a lovely welcome, the sweetest thing that happened to me today

Fancy completing on your house...congratulations! What happens next?

Yay eemie! What good news.

My three for yesterday are

1 - coffee with a friend
2 - made a good dinner everyone (bar fussy boy) liked
3 - rode bike to said friend's place so got a bit extra exercise in

Yesterday was a jogging morning too and we ran with someone from the "fast" group who put us through our paces! It was hard but I felt a real sense of accomplishment. Yes to lotion, I'm not sure about water, had no alcohol and think I'm decently rested.

Saggars, my husband sustained a sleeping injury (not a nudge nudge wink wink one, but a zzzzzzz one) to his back and said it hurt all day yesterday. Hope yours feels better today. Pod, it sounds like you got a lot done, wow. I've been slack this week, eek.

JJ I am fascinated to know what fussyboy eats! I have a fussygirl who eats very few "normal" foods but likes a few plain weird ones!

So my 3 for today are:

1. Had a Lush - tastic bath & used new moisturiser
2. Cleaned the oven although I didn't want to use harsh chemicals and just used bicarb of soda & washing up liquid...as a result it is not that clean! But it smells good and is a lot cleaner than it was!
3. Bought squid tentacles for fussygirl's supper

Some of my 2009 missions are to cook more from scratch/ learn new recipes and to do some exercise! I am taking a lot of inspiration from this thread!

Hello all,

My 3 for today are:

• Up and out to the shops by 9.30 - that is good for me on a Saturday;
• Managed to find a dress in less than an hours shopping (with DS in tow) for DH's birthday celebration next week - he's 40!!!OMG; and
• Ate reasonably well for a Saturday and didn't snack much. Not sure about everyone else but Saturdays have a 'the weekend is here' feel about them and I feel almost entitled to eat all kinds of things that I don't duing the week.

Podrick - squid tentacles!! That is a good one! My DD is a fish fiend and one of my aims for this year is to learn to cook more fishie things, might leave tentacles to later in the year though

My three for today are:

1. Made Nigella's pancakes for breakfast
2. Had our first family trip to cinema
3. Have made yummy Spanish Oven Risotto (chicken, chorizo and prawns) which hopefully we will ALL enjoy - ready in 5 mins and I'm drooling already!

Podrick, fussyboy's eating habits are a big (uneaten) chip on my shoulder, so I don't talk about it too much. But he sounds like yours! It's so so frustrating for me - I actually hate cooking now.

Anyway...

feetheart, I did a Billingsate fish course before Christmas that was fab. If you ever need someone to go with you so you can split the haul, let me know!

moET, wow on finding a dress in record time and with a child in tow!

Haven't eaten too much bad stuff today, water tick, no alcohol, but no exercise or shower (blergh) so no lotion. I am going to bed now and slept in, so decent sleep.

Three things from the weekend:
1 - got boys to places they needed to go in timely fashion
2 - made decent dinner tonight that ds1 and I liked (my husband is low carbing it atm, arrggghhh)
3 - finished damn website finally, a huge accomplishment as motivation was hard to find

Well done on notching up the positives everyone.

Cold better, took puppy to woods today and sun shone. Temperature 8C here, which feels balmy after a week of -4 and -6. Puppy must have spotted a chance when we took down Christmas tree - she is now shitting tinsel .

Cooked healthy food
no alcohol, but some chocolate
hand and face cream - tick
body cream - a little bit

1. washed all the muddy trainers,
2. had friends round & cooked,
3. Wrote the cheques for juice, music lessons, bits and pieces, etc, etc.

Hardly any sleep though. Must do better.

bump

I'm not sleeping too well either eemie - I think it's my age. Although booze doesn't help, it seems to make me wake up at around 4 am

I jogged very slowly yesterday despite my bad back and it's no worse so I'm just going to keep at it I think. Well done on everyone's positives.

Saggars, glad you got to get back out there again.

Eemie, ewwww at shitting tinsel. Makes me clench my butt cheeks. blergh.

Didn't have great food today, ended up starving at 6pm and ordered in. But I jogged, so that's good. Yes to drinking water, no to alcohol (in the good way, I mean I had no alcohol), yes to body lotion and not quite enough sleep last night but I'm already looking forward to bed tonight and think I might go soon.

three things
1 - biking it to post office for package rather than taking car
2 - getting school clothes laid out tonight
3 - going a bit faster than normal on my jog

JJ - DD would LOVE Billingsgate. She is magnetically attracted to anything to do with fish - caught her quietly investigating a whole poached salmon at a friend's buffet in the summer, examining it's teeth, trying to gently work it's jaws and tweaking an eye to try and see if the eyeball would come out
Might take you up on it later in the year!

eemie - spluttered all over keyboard at puppy shitting tinsel
Glad cold is better but sorry to all those not sleeping well.

Eat healthily - better
Exercise regularly - back to walking to and from school/pre-school so getting there
Drink plenty of clear fluids - getting much better, trying to drink cup of hot water with slice of lemon and ginger between meals
Only had tiny bit of chocolate when making mint choc chip ice-cream this afternoon
Lotions and potions - OK
Sleep - trying to get back to 10.30pm but keep checking MN before shutting computer down at night

Positive achievements -

1. FINISHED MY TAX RETURN - sorry for shouting but am very pleased. How's yours going JJ?
2. Tidied up our craft storage dump area ie the top of DD's wardrobe
3. Tried to sort out plumbers/washing machine engineers for tenants

Slept better,
Did the school walk yesterday and today, Productive day at work.
No alcohol, not enough clear fluid,
Some face and hand cream,
Some healthy food,
No snapping at dd .

Lots of people close to us have bad news. Struggling a bit to get my head round it all and stay positive.

JJ - done tax return?
moonshine - how's babe doing at school?
Podrick - done any more cooking from scratch?

Eemie - sorry its hard to stay positive, January always seems to be a tough month for all sorts of things I find.

Far too much scoffing of bananas and banana-related food today Bought MASSES at market on Saturday and have been turning them into cake (with chocolate)/bread (with walnuts)/smoothies/etc as quickly as possible as they are VERY ripe. DS and I spent most of day stirring things and wiping cake mixture from our faces
Apart from that have eaten quite healthily!

Clear liquid/lotions/walking OK.
Sleep interrupted too often last night by children and general waking

Three things:

1. Cleaned window in DS's room which hadn't been done for AGES and needed a toothbrush to get nasty black stuff off the frame
2. Made sausage and bean casserole for dinner
3. Arranged to meet up with a neighbour and her boys next week, DS will be delighted as he is surrounded by girls!!

Ok, my taxes are done! Well, the UK ones, now I need to start on the nightmare US ones which are already late.

All else ok-ish. Jogged, lotioned, drank water, did not drink alcohol, not quite enough rest, eating was not great but not horrible.

Eemie, I know what you mean. When bad stuff happens to friends I feel sad for them and then grateful for what I have and somewhat guilty for it too if that makes sense.

Feetheart, I always have trouble using up excess bananas. It's one of those things where I never buy quite right - either too too much or not nearly enough. And re the fish: I'm not squeamish in the least about anything to do with them but the eyes! I'm quite happy to catch and clean them but even then can't bring myself to touch the eye (because it might hurt the fish ).

(Steps in sheepishly). Eemie, sorry you are having a tough time but well done on the house!

I too seem to have fallien back off the wagon so soon which is my I have been tip-toeing round this thread.

Hats off to all single parents - I am not particularly enjoying my one-week experience but work is particular crap and am feeling guilty I cannot devote my time to it/my kids/domestic duties yadda yadda yadda.

But ds, after a little wobble on Monday, has declared today that he prefers being at school .

I also seem to have managed to put on 4lbs in 4 days . I'm hoping it is early pms bloat but I definitely am fatter and cannot again fit into a lot of my clothes.

And Saggars, like you, I have done in my back but have no idea when or how, which has made my trying to be positive about not going to the gym as it would give my aches time to recover useless.

And with that I had better slink back off this thread and try and find my mojo.

Oh sliced bananas freeze really well and can be whizzed up in milk for smoothies or cooked in with some porridge. I eat far too many bananas - love them!

Never thought of freezing bananas - good tip.

Well done on the taxes JJ and glad to hear baby is enjoying school, moonshine. When they race off without a backward glance you know you should feel grateful, despite the pangs.

I have sciatica, so no or little exercise. Is there some sort of bad back bug going round?

1. Went to (lovely) pub after choir tonight and drank lime and soda.

1. Cooked healthy meal this evening & had vegetable soup for lunch.

1. Good-ish day at work.

Generally trying to keep my chins up

All the best, everyone

.

Puppy v. ill last three days - expensive trip to vet this morning and prospect of daily visits for a while, along with lots of extra mess to clear up.

Went to GP with sciatica. Told to see how it goes and come back in 2-3 weeks if doesn't improve . Meant to go straight to work from there but realised I was still in my dog-walking jeans, which wouldn't do at all.

Achievements?

1. Made personal e-cards for nephew and niece's birthday, which had got sidelined by all this week's upsetting news;
2. Auditioned for excellent local choir & was accepted;
3. Started sorting out our finances a bit - work in progress...

Oh poor you Eemie and poor puppy - is it an ongoing illness or something that has come on recently?

Just to make up for being in such a crap mood yesterday I wanted to post my 3 positive things today.

1. Lost 2lbs of bloat overnight
2. Bought a new dress in the sales (let's skim over that I said I wouldn't buy any more clothes for a while) and several people told me I looked nice today - haven't heard that for a while.
3. Work is still busy but I had a very 'feel-good' task today which gave me my first warm glow for a while.
4. And for good measure - my back is still sore but very very slightly better - I think my problem this time has something to do with my flinging my legs into strange positions in bed this week with dh not being in there taking up most of the space. I shall try to recitify my strange shape-throwing again tonight.

It's an acute infection and she's much better today thanks

My back is much better. I persevered at the gym (gently) and it's improved. I'm defefo the worse for no exercise - my hip gives me jip too.

I'm still having trouble kicking the booze. This is a bit of a pattern with dd due in hossie but will take steps to rectify it by Monday.

Glad the puppy is better eemie.

Oh, dh has scuppered my healthy eating too by finding a pack of Green and Black's choc that was supoosed to be part of my Christmas pressie. It's calling to me as we speak.

Will go to bed instead.