LOSE IT! August 2021

[TheRealHousewife]

Good grief, I’m sure the year is speeding up! July has passed so quickly!

This is a space for those of us who enjoy healthy eating, exercising and feeling motivated to reach (or maintain) a healthy weight/bmi. The members of these threads are inspirational, supportive and happy to share their progress (the ups and the downs).

We all know that if we eat right, get outside & move more your mental health will reap the rewards. Better mental health = better choices. It becomes a healthy cycle.

There are so many enjoyable lifestyle options out there without the need to resort to extreme measures. Whatever way you choose, it needs to be enjoyable & sustainable for the long term. This is a long term commitment rather than a quick fix. Personally, I rarely drink alcohol and keep sugar to a minimum. I try to not overload on carbs etc, include a protein source with most meals and aim to glug enough water. I exercise by doing walking vids & strength sessions with light weighs.

As no one size fits all, members need to follow their own way of eating. Nonetheless this thread aims to offer guidance, support and a bit of hand holding. We generally have WOW (weigh on Wednesday) day each week. However post and share your progress as often or as little as you prefer. I’ve weighed daily at times and weekly at other times. Do what works for you.

There is no shaming, competition or harsh words to be found on these threads. We are in this together.

Jump right in! If you’re not too shy, post a bit about yourself 😊. How do you plan to do it? What do you want to achieve? What excites you about your future self? Together, we can create a whole new you!

You’ll be glad you got on board this time next month 😊

Useful Links

LOSE IT July 2021 Thread

NHS 12 Week Weight Loss Plan

Fast 800 Diet & Fitness Plan

Water Intake & Weight Loss

MFP

26 Evidence Based Weight Loss Tips

The Psychology of Weight Loss

😬. Better than reaching for the snacks.

Well Done @20flowerpower 🥳
Welcome @orchidsonabudget 👋🏻

Sharing my little NSV this morning, might not make sense to anyone but i came 1st out of 5 in my online fitness class 😀😱 first time i have ever done that, proud of how my fitness has come along this last 10 months.

Not sure i can walk now but nevermind 🤣

@CescaCesca that’s fabulous, well done! 👍👏🌟🥇

I’ve just watched @Graphista suggested programme Don’t Diet, Lose Weight on catch up. This is a quick summary. If I’ve missed any salient points im hoping @Graphista can post (no pressure Graph)

1. MENTAL IMAGERY Master the visualisation/mental imagery technique. It’s suggested if utilised correctly you can lose 5x more weight than those who don’t use it.

2. VISUALISE where you’d like to be in a year. A specific event, activity etc. Visualise how you’d like to look, your future selfs physical version (shape), how you’d feel etc.

3. REMOVE OBSTACLES. Plan menus, meals etc. Don’t buy bargain multi snack packets etc. Limit low nutritional food stuffs. Focus on more nutritional foods.

4. TAKE-AWAYS If you choose to have a take away be mindful about portion size etc. FOCUS on your future self and your goals.

5. MINDFUL EATING Eat in tune with your appetite. Have less on your plate. (In the programme it suggested having less choice/items on plate. However I personally do have many items but they are healthy choice vegetable and salad)

6. THERE ARE NO BAD FOOD, only MORE nutritious and LESS nutritious.

7. COMBAT (unconscious) SNACKING and plan in nutritious snacks in your menus if you know you need them. Don’t snack whilst distracted such as when watching TV or at the movies. Keep hands busy/brush teeth etc.

8. EXERCISE Proven to aid weight loss. Don’t underestimate the value of NEAT (None-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis). Do your housework/yard work with gusto.

9. SELF BELIEF Utterly believe in yourself, your capabilities, your own capacity to change, your strength and your own rock solid resolve (it is my belief that all the ladies on this thread possess all these traits ❤️)

10. JUST DO IT. We all know what works for us. Every single one of us. We are all aware what sabotages our efforts. Emotional distress, low mood, anxiety, poor self esteem, lack of sleep, health conditions, medications, hormones, disability, etc. The ideal is to plan to address the aspects we can and change any bad habits (mental health, finding what exercise we can do, keeping hands busy, prioritising sleep, address health & hormone issues etc) I realise it’s not always easy but with the right mind set we set ourselves up reach/maintain our goals.

Hi. I'll post properly but for now I'm on my phone trying to post the photo of my sad courgette plant

@SunshineCake, that looks like a plant that is in urgent need of some nitrogen. Do you have some plant food you could use? Something like tomato food would be best as it’s safe to use with edibles 🤓

That’s an excellent summary @TheRealHousewife. I watched the programme too and thought it was a good reminder of how important (and arguably essential!) having the right mindset is to losing weight.

And if we are sharing grow your own successes and struggles…here is a picture of one of my blueberry plants this morning. I’ll probably end up losing more than half of the berries to the local blackbird population, but that’s ok!

@SunshineCake, growing fruit is infinitely easier than growing veg. The only exception is blueberries, but even those are not that difficult if you know what they want.

If you can, I’d suggest getting a few strawberry plants, raspberry canes or berry bushes in the ground this autumn. That will give them time to get established over the winter and you should have fruit next summer.

Sorry for de-railing the thread! 😄

The only plant food I have is for roses. Is it beyond help? I have more courgette seeds to try again but wonder if I'm too late?

Staying the same is still a win @CescaCesca. Well done.

Well done @20FlowerPower. Enjoy your time with your friends.

Welcome @orchidsonabudget. Everyone is welcome to join when they want and there's no pressure to share more than you want. It was months before I shared my weight.

Congrats on coming first @CescaCesca. It all counts. During the olympics I told dh I was proud of my level 4 gymnastics badge .

Thank you for the fruit bushes info @Crazzzycat. DH seems on board too so well investigate. No issue derailing for me. Anything we want to talk about works for me!

I've recorded @Graphista programme so will watch at some point. Very helpful summary @TheRealHousewife thank you.

I went for a run but my watch sabotaged me so didn't count 0.45km I ran but kept counting so my first km time was rubbish. On the other hand I did five sprints and my best km time was faster than last time. My knees are sore though.

Not has lunch yet as waited for dh who got caught in traffic so once he's finished fitting the room divider we'll eat. Left over home made soup and bread.

NSV I didn't weigh myself and my knickers are too big .

My dh tripped over our blueberry and it’s dead…I’ll be pulling it out ASAP.
@TheRealHousewife, growing some of our own food was a retirement wish, the central Okanogan where I live is hot and sunny and a good farming zone. My green thumb gets help from my dh who loves to eat.
Speaking of dh, honey harvest starts any day, it’s lovely stuff but so addictive. My low carb ideal will be hard to maintain.

@SunshineCake, I really think your courgette will perk up with some food.

As an interim measure, do you have any used tea bags or coffee grounds? Those should work too! Just open up the teabags and spread the contents around your plant.

The only reason tomato food would be better is because it’s more balanced. Your plant will need nitrogen to form green leaves, which it can get from tea or coffee. But it also needs potassium to flower and tea and coffee are not much use for that. But may be the first course of action is to see if it perks up a bit with some nitrogen?

@Crazzzycat and @SunshineCake, do you think the zucchini has been over watered?

Dh drinks tea so he knows to save the next tea bag. I have been watering it but didn't feel excessively. MIL said they need a lot. The other day it had a beautiful big yellow flower but today, not.

If the current state of the courgette plant was the result of overwatering, I’d have expected the new growth to be affected more. But the yellowing appears to be much worse on the older leaves, which is why I’m leaning towards nitrogen deficiency.

I could be wrong, but as courgettes are fast growing plants, I can easily see them ending up with a nitrogen deficiency 🤔

Should I take out and plant new seeds? I will get some tomato feed but it won't be for a few days.

@SunshineCake, I’d leave it be and experiment with enriching the soil learning about the flowers etc. it’s too late in my season to replant anything here. Maybe the UK is significantly different.

It was doing so well until the snail got in the pot. I'll look later about planting more. At least I've got loads of potatoes!

Had a lovely day today 😊 got my exercise in going to Clovelly again using the return option on our tickets. We saw dolphins 😱 and grouse 😱 not together obviously 😂😂 considering a dirty weekend there at some point 😂😂

Was planning on doing parkrun tomorrow morning but I’m going to have to be Run Director instead of running it as 2 of the others have tested positive for Covid and the other one is away. So it would have been cancelled otherwise.

So I’m going to get up early and do a treadmill run before I go to the park for 8am. Need to battle with the printer as well 😭😭 so a busy morning tomorrow! Husband is back at work tonight tho so at least it won’t affect any plans.

Tea was chicken which I marinaded (sp) in a lemon/Worcestershire sauce/garlic/paprika mix basically bits I dug out of the cupboard 😂😂 with roasted Mediterranean veg from the freezer with added mushrooms as they needed using up. Was lovely. Now I’m going to have a beer before I have an early night 👍

@crazzzycat i wonder where i am goi ng wrong with my blueberry bush - its the only thing with no fruit! Have raspberries & blackberries and all the veg growing but nada on my blueberry bush 😒

@fallfallfall I'm disabled so high impact/fast is out of my reach these days

@UnLunDun where you live sounds similar to somewhere I once lived, lovely

@Crazzzycat I also have an actimel every morning so that and they milk in the cereal should be sufficient protein wise BUT I rarely manage breakfast due to stupid mh sleep pattern

I am increasing my fibre where I can.

Lowest number nhs calculator gives is 1438, but I can't always eat enough if I'm having a bad day anxiety wise

@CescaCesca well done on the sts and well done on the exercise nsv

@20FlowerPower well done on your loss

@orchidsonabudget welcome

@TheRealHousewife yes that's a good summary. I felt though that the experiment really gave a skewed sense of how good the experiment worked as they had a LOT of support which most other weight losers simply don't have access to

@SunshineCake well done on your nsv

For me I've had a bad night and am now having an aches/crampy body and I haven't even done anything strenuous! Urgh!

Meal 1 was falafel with humous and salsa, a satsuma and a cereal bar

Meal 2 - I need to use up the humous today, also got halloumi there to use so gonna be a "picky" dinner I think with bits and bobs. I have Quorn roast sliced fillets, the halloumi, maybe some sweet pepper so might skewer those and have with some wholegrain rice and humous.

Grocery delivery tomorrow needs updated. For now off for a long hot bath in hopes it eases my aching body!

If it doesn't I'll have to resort to my strong nausea inducing pain meds! Which I hate

@CescaCesca, if you have only one blueberry bush that could be the problem. Blueberries need to be pollinated with pollen from a different blueberry bush. So you need to either get a second blueberry bush or persuade your neighbours to get some too!

Also, unless you live somewhere with acidic soil, make sure your blueberry bush is planted in ericaceous compost. You can tell if you live in an area with acidic soil by looking at the colour of the hydrangeas that are in flower at the moment. If you have a lot of blue hydrangeas in your area, your soil is likely to be acidic. Hydrangeas only turn blue in acidic soil 🤓

@Graphista, supper here will be a big salad with halloumi included. Lots of small bits need to get used up.
I hope the aches ease up shortly.

@crazzzycat oooh thankyou for your knowledge! I never knew or realised that and we do only have one blueberry bush!! Thankyou!
I am a complete novice with this stuff and just plant it all and hope for the best 😆

@fallfallfall thank you - I worked out what it was caused by, I spent 3-4 hours typing on laptop yesterday which seems pathetic considering it's a sedentary activity, but my body isn't used to it at all these days because it's been so long since I did anything like that. It's only really in the past year I've got to being sat up most of the day rather than lying down! Plus my disability is now affecting shoulders and arms which I forgot to account for.

Dinner ended up being cous cous with smoked paprika and garlic grinder mixed in before the water was added, diced Quorn ham, diced mushrooms and diced halloumi with a little sweet chilli sauce mixed in - yummy!

Dessert - meringue nest crumbled into a ramekin and no added sugar low fat peach yoghurt mixed in/over the top

Morning everyone, hope you all have a fabulous day today. I am going out for lunch with my daughter, she wants to treat me as she recently started her first job - such a sweet thing for her to do. First time eating out since my diet became so restricted but am feeling positive as it’s a place we know and I’ve worked out best option.
B - Cheerios, almond milk, L - plain jacket potato, plain salad, D - lemon & garlic baked cod, veg. Snack of rye toast with chocolate honey if I need it/can manage.

Well the treadmill run didn’t happen today. Feel like I’m lacking some motivation 😂😂

Off to shout at people in the park shortly 👍