LOSE IT! May 2022

[TheRealHousewife]

☀️THE SUMMER COUNTDOWN THREAD ☀️

Fresh new month, fresh new start, fresh new habits. Jump right in to reset & refresh to become a healthier version of yourself in time for a Sizzling Summer!

As no one size fits all, members need to follow their own way of eating to LOSE or MAINTAIN. 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. Do what works for you.

The important thing is not to think of it as a diet (based on deprivation and unsustainable) but more a way of life (sustainable & enjoyable).

I calorie count based on a lower carb Mediterranean diet. I intermittent fast and generally eat twice a day.

Are you in😊 What food plan will you be following? What do you want to change and why?

@Benjispruce4 hope you feel better soon.
I'm one of the few I know who never had it for sure - although DH and I had a very bad flu for a few days in Feb 2020. Took weeks to recover but still dragged myself to work after 3 days (had a horrible bully boss at the time). It was right before testing or lockdowns. So I reckon we've had it which is why we never tested +ve after that. That said didn't do too many tests either - only when someone close had it.
If we'd tested at every sneeze like it would have turned up +ve at some point. Plus vaccines of course.
What I would worry more about would be monkeypox. Our generation have no immunity and it doesn't looks like a pleasant disease (to say the least).
When DCs were v young they had chicken pox (which is not related but looks similar to me) and I remember thinking why isn't here a vaccine for this medieval disease ! (I know there is for CP but some complication with shingles in later life).
I personally think the risk of MP is higher for kids that Covid ever was. If a vaccine is rolled out I'll be first in line. Basically the opposite of my view of Covid vax for kids.

I've probably put people off their lunch sorry 😁

You'll be fine @pennysays , while there doesn't seem to be any logic to weight gain / loss versus good weeks and bad, you will be rewarded. It can take time to show on the scales.

Thanks @buzzofthebumblebee . DD rang to say she had arrived and I doubt I'll hear from her now until she wants picking up sometime tomorrow evening. Sounds like you had a productive time in the garden. I'm like you, don't get out there then can spend hours weeding and repotting. I've just nipped out to peg out some washing and I think I might do some gardening later.

I went for a run and knocked five minutes off my time for 4km and ran almost 5.5km. My pace max was great at 4:56 and I finally ran a km in five something. It has been ages since I have done a five. I then met dh and SunshineDog for the end of their walk. We've just had a nice picnic lunch. I made potato salad, parmentier potatoes (dh choice) and roasted garlic potatoes, pretzels, cous cous from my new recipe book, duck boa bao, macaroni cheese bites, salad and boiled eggs. Bit of a hotch potch but always is to cater to what everyone might want. I've told dh he's making dinner!

Happy Anniversary @CrimsonAlligator . I hope you have a lovely day and if your dh has planned a calorific day, embrace and enjoy!

I haven't done meditation etc. I don't think I could sit still long enough to do it!

@Benjispruce4 I do walk most days with the dog but I love my running too. I have ordered two new pairs of trainers which should come next week. Next week I might go on some new walks with the dog or some we haven't done for a while.

Feeling anxious when I think about DD. I'm not happy with what she is wearing. I know she has alcohol with her. Just fretting.

Benji - my calzone recipe is basically a bit of a hodge-podge from my standard pizza recipe, you just use a lot less 'toppings' so:

Base (which makes 6 calzones as there's three of us so gives us 2 each 😋)
250g plain flour
7g yeast
1tbsp oil
170ml warm water

Innards
About 200g passatta
1/2 ball of light mozzarella
50g of red Leicester
1 egg, beaten
Whatever else you fancy 😉

Mix flour & yeast, make a well and add oil and water. Bring together to a soft dough and then knead for about 5-10mins on a surface (need a fair bit of flour on the surface as it'll suck quite a bit up). Stash somewhere warm for at least an hour.

When ready to cook, lightly oil a baking tray, oven on about 180 (fan) and divide dough into 6. Roll each into a circle, probably about 8inches wide and dollop a couple of tablespoons of passata on the half closest to you. Add a small handful of mozzarella and other cheese as well as anything else you want in there. Fold the half which is furthest from you across and use a fork to crimp the sides to make a semi circle of pizza goodness.

Pop on baking tray and brush with egg (you can put another small handful of cheese or parmesan on top after the egg if you fancy!). Bung in oven for approx 12-15 mins and boom - lovely, delicious calzones!

They work out at about 250 calories for the basic, cheese and tomato one. If you want to add loads of innards, it will obviously go up a bit but stick with veggies and they're not a horrendously unhealthy dinner.

Writing that spurred me on to make my dough for later, so thank you as it always gets bigger, the longer you leave it 😉

Happy anniversary, CrimsonAlligator - I hope whatever you do, its fun and romantic!

Interesting musings on monkeypox, Flowers. It is worrying but hopefully not for most of us! Would be nice to have a bit of time where there isn't some big, bad lurgy looming, wouldn't it!

Your day sounds lovely, Sunshine - just right for a weekend. You won't be able to help worry about DD but hopefully she'll be back, full of her trip tomorrow.

Thank you all for your kind words on my little DD (she's 12, but 13 next month!) - her and her bestie - see, I'm still young, I know the cool phrases - are talking again so even though it might be weird for a bit, am sure it'll be fine longer term. DD is feeling much better. You sort of forget how intense friendships and love is when you're a teenager - her Head of Year called me yesterday as she'd got herself into a bit of a state in class. He couldn't have been lovelier but you could tell he'd seen it millions and millions of times before, poor man!

Did have a good walk over lunch as wanted to be able to indulge a little this evening. We'll be bingeing a bit of Stranger Things as both DC are very into it (DS is a bit young really but he's way more hardcore than I was at his age!)

No alcohol for me still though, determined to see the month out - June will be a very different matter though as we're away with my best friend which is always very drunken.. her husband makes incredible cocktails, even when camping!

Thank @SanFranBear they sound fab and will go down well here! I used to make pizza but haven’t in a while.
glad your DD is ok and has her friendship back.

Smiling at your message @SanFranBear as dh didn't want to walk the dog as feeling poorly and I want to have crisps later so I took her out. Since I don't calorie count I have no idea what's going in and burning exercised off but psychologically it helps to think a walk will help.

Great news things sound okay with your dd and her friend.

Ooh... missed calzone instructions which is pretty important - need a couple of vents on each one or it might explode!

@SanFranBear I am definitely using that recipe- sounds delicious!

But not tonight. Been out at a fair all day, managed to swerve all the candy floss and ice cream but succumbed to Thai takeaway for dinner as we got back late and had had a defrosting disaster

At least I managed to do 18k steps. Night mitigate it somewhat!

B- one scrambled egg with spinach
L- tin of mackerel with salad, satsuma x2
D - Indian takeaway that DH wanted so I chose carefully and went for chicken shaslick which is skewered chicken breast with peppers and onions, a spoon of sag aloo, a tbsp pilau and a palm sized piece of peshwari naan. I’m stuffed.
Feeling much better Covid wise already.

Oh and I’ve had a bottle of beer.

So you know that holiday? With all the stress over COVID and check in?

It's not happening.

We got to the gate, flight delayed an hour, OK, not too bad. They'd STARTED boarding people... and they cancelled it. Crew shortage.

We were then buffeted from pillar to post, literally made to dash to the opposite side of the airport to be told to go somewhere else before realising we were in the wrong queue, which made no difference in the end. I had hopes there might be seats on flights to places we could get to our destination from next day, but all booked up. In fact, overbooked probably - several people i the queue were from a flight where that was the case, one poor woman was having a full-blown panic attack.

NOt feeling too awful - we hadn't paid for hotels, car hire or anything, it's just my parents' house and we've been there before and can go again any holiday time. Tomorrow I'll reclaim the ticket price, we'll also claim compensation - it'll take forever but we'll get someone else to do that (any recommendations for specialists welcome). We'll look for somewhere in UK any time between Monday-Saturday. In fact I may suggest we try Mon-Thurs as then we could at least go to our street's jubille party. Don't give a toss about the Jubilee, but we like our neighbours!

Oh @Echobelly I’m sorry! That is just awful! Was it Easy Jet? I’d heard something on the news today.

No, Wizzair - an odd kind of relief to know we weren't alone judging by BBC story - they reckon 30,000 people have had seriously delayed or cancelled flights. Honestly, as soon as I saw it was running late, alarm bells started ringing as to whether it was going to happen but honestly I thought we were safe once we got to the gate,

Gutting. We had a British Airways city break booked for July and they recently cancelled. No explanation at all.
I hope you find something. 🍷

I now can't sleep - I'm trying to find somewhere to stay in the UK for just a couple of nights but everything's booked up due to long weekend and what's left is expensive or unsuitable. It can be hard to find places as DH is very light sensitive in mornings and if it doesn't look as though there are decent curtains (and a suprising number of places don't have them) he can't stay there as he'll be woken up at 5am.

Would taking a gro-blind help? It worked with my rises-with-the-sun DD. Might widen your options a little?

We used to take a 1m2 piece of black-out fabric in every holiday when the girls were babies/toddlers so that they slept until a decent hour!

PS I suggest your DH does the searching. I always get lumbered with it then feel the weight of any shortcomings with the holiday.

Good Morning

@Echobelly how disappointing and frustrating for you! Hope you receive all reimbursements! Sleep mask! I have quite a few now but my favourite is a black silk one (no intentionally kinky) I love mine and I’ve even made OH promise to bring me one in if I end up in hospital again😬 They absolutely work!

@SanFranBear We had a menu change as OH didn’t fancy it! It started out a Fast800 recipe but Ive evolved it over time. Yesterday meal2 I had porridge with dates & nuts 😬 He had beer or rather more beer as he’d had a few by then 😅 We’ll have it today instead.

@milkfromthesleepycow Well done on the 18k steps! 👍👏🏅

Enjoy your Day!

Lol yes of course a sleep mask, he’s a grown man not a toddler! 😂

I know what you mean about feeling too frantic to even try meditation @SunshineCake . I had a few failed attempts to get into it myself, before I got myself into the right headspace. It is a great tool for managing stress & anxiety, so it may still be worth considering for when things calm down a little, which hopefully will be soon.

Also, meditation isn’t necessarily about sitting still. There are quite a few meditations around that combine mindfulness with movement. You may find those easier to get into when the time is right for you. Here’s an example:

www.bupa.co.uk/newsroom/ourviews/mindful-walking-meditation

As expected DH did forget about our wedding anniversary, but that’s ok as it meant that I could basically dictate what we did all day! We went to a lovely Lebanese restaurant and, as neither of us had got each other presents, we decided to finally get our act together and buy ourselves a tree to plant in our garden. We’ve been wanting to do that for ages and we both agreed that getting one for our anniversary had a lovely symbolic feel about it. I think we did pretty well for an impromptu, low key celebration 🥰

Yes, we do take tha blackout blinds with us everywhere - oldest has now started complaining about light as well, I think mostly as DH complains so much. He has started wearing a mask and has been at it for several weeks, but it's still hit and miss and he takes it off in his sleep quite a lot. He won't wear silk ones as objects to the silk-making process on animal cruelty front.

We are going to the south coast for a few days, as we can't bear to just be at home. We've found a pricey but genuinely fancy airbnb (most available were pricey but not actually that nice for even more money than this one). Plus it has 4 bedrooms, so I can sleep if DH snores badly and the kids get separate rooms.

I think I'm automatically getting Wizzair 'credit' for the cancelled flight and have cancelled the return with the same deal - apparently I can then have it transferred to cash, but it looks like I'll need to wait a few days for it to come through.

I'll still probably trash the diet while we're away, especially after what we've been through, but at least it's fewer days of me doing so now.

Ah lovely enjoy @Echobelly i love the south coast. You were lucky to find somewhere even if £££.
Re meditation. I found a great Tai Chi one on YouTube. As PP said, slow movement is sometimes easier.

I’m feels lots better , cough gone just a bit sniffy. Just back from a long walk over deserted fields. Thank goodness I can do that! Otherwise I’m in the garden or bedroom. Thankfully it’s pleasant to sit out for now.
B- poached egg on seedy toast, espresso, tea
Will probably have main meal this afternoon.Not sure what as DH has just gone to Aldi to do food shop.