So what do you do?

Back in 2014 my journey to better health and wellbeing began. I didn't know it at the time but that desire to simply 'lose some weight' would cause a complete new way of life for me that has evolved, and continues to evolve, ever since. And because of those changes, along with my passion for knowing and understanding more, I often get asked the question 'so what do you do?'...well this is what I do!

Where shall we start? Well let's go with the obvious...food! Back in 2014 I started off with a low carb/keto approach to eating which gave me the weight loss I'd been wanting for so many years, but since then my approach has changed as I learned more and more. So whilst the ethos of low carb/keto is still there I think the easiest way to describe the food I eat today would be to simply say 'real food'. By which I mean we cook whole foods all the time. We avoid ultra processed food (I urge everyone to read Ultra Processed People by Chris Van Tulleken it is eye opening and will put you off packaged foods for life!). If we do occasionally buy any packaged foods then we follow these simple rules...does it have more than 5 ingredients? If the answer is yes put it back! Does it contain ingredients that you have never heard of or that you wouldn't find in a kitchen cupboard? Again if the answer is yes put it back!

So what do you eat I can hear being asked? Well a typical day for me can look something like this;

I'll start the day with a black coffee (fully caffeinated) and will usually have my first meal of the day around late morning/lunchtime which tends to be bacon, eggs and mushrooms (breakfast foods are my favourite!). Dinner is around late afternoon/early evening and will be some type of animal protein (chicken, ground beef, steak, salmon etc) with either green veggies (stick to veggies grown above ground) or salad. To round out the day I will have an evening dessert/snack of greek yogurt & berries (raspberries & blueberries are my go to) with a drizzle of honey. If I do feel the need for a snack at any point then this is where my favourite dark chocolate comes in, I prefer 90% cocoa but will always aim for a minimum of 70%. But other options can include a couple of dates, an apple, small amount of cheese, hard boiled egg, small amount of nuts or deli meats. And for drinks I will stick to black coffee or black tea which after our first morning coffee will mostly be decaffeinated.

A couple of caveats to the above;

Protein (animal based is preferable...more satiating and more nutrient dense) should be your primary source of food, not only does this keep us satiated it helps to maintain our muscle mass which becomes so important the older you get.

Alcohol - I try to avoid alcohol and only have a small glass of red wine occasionally. To be honest I like the taste of red wine but I don't like the effects of over indulging and the less I drink the less I want it.

Treats or cheats - these do happen occasionally and we aim to stick to the rule of 80/20...as in 80% of the time we keep to our regular foods and routines (although I suspect this is probably closer to 90%). Treats may involve indulging in something carb focused like bread or potatoes if out for a meal or maybe having a sweet treat with a coffee (but we do tend to buy just one thing and share it between us!). We make sure to really enjoy any treats that we have while at the same time not letting those treats define us...all too often I hear people indulge in something they know they perhaps shouldn't have which then gives them the green light to throw all their good work away and revert back to their old habits. Have a treat, enjoy it and then get back to what you know you should be doing.

So with food covered let's move onto exercise. Now I need to start this by saying that I have never been sporty; poor coordination, lack of confidence and an aversion to getting sweaty and out of breath always meant that I just simply didn't have any interest or desire to do any sort of exercise. In the early 1990's we started going to a local gym; this was in the days before big franchised gyms, it was relatively small, friendly, supportive and non-judgemental. We made a great group of friends and we sustained going for a good number of years (even during both my pregnancies)...although I would often remark that sometimes the muscle that got the most exercise was my jaw muscle from all the talking I would do! But at that time our diet wasn't great and so all the effort I put in down the gym had very little effect on my weight or body composition.

With the addition of children and Simon working away from home we gradually slipped out of our gym routine. In 2014 when I started my initial weight loss journey I was introduced to body weight exercises - squats, lunges, press-ups etc - and along with my new way of eating I began to see a change in how my body looked and felt. Fast forward to around 2018/2019 and we re-joined our old gym (although by now it was much, much bigger and much busier) and we were even able to enrol the kids along with us. Then the pandemic and all the various lockdowns hit; having no gym to go to we invested in some basic equipment and converted our garage into our home gym, and it was the best thing we ever did - no more gym subscriptions, no more having to drive to get to the gym, no more looking for some where to park, no more having to turn out in all sorts of weather, no more excuses on why we couldn't get to the gym and no more waiting around for machines. 

We still use our garage as a garage but have bought equipment that we can store easily and make the best use of. This means we now workout with weights three times a week for about an hour each time...and the 'non-sporty me' now schedules gym time into our calendar so that we never miss a session! But the other thing that we do is walk; we aim to get in excess of 10,000 steps per day and it is very rare that we don't get outside and get our steps in. It has become an integral part of our routine so much so that the day just doesn't feel right if we have not gotten those steps in. The effects of walking are tremendous; it is low impact, it is free, it keeps you mobile and active, getting outside you get the benefits of sunlight, the therapeutic affect of being outside and the chance to 'blow those cobwebs away' as well as a chance to destress and re-connect with nature. For Simon and I it is a great opportunity for us to connect, to chat about our plans, to have the time to talk and simply be together. Walking in our local community means that we have made connections with local businesses and with people we see on a regular basis, and simply seeing others out and about and saying 'hello' provides those social interactions which are so important.

In addition to food and exercise we try to ensure that our sleep patterns are consistent. I'd like to say that we aim to get good quality sleep but I'm not really sure how you do that and how you would prove it?! As a menopausal woman I will suffer from night sweats (although these are a lot better and much less frequent than they have been!) and these will obviously disrupt my sleep.  But we try and have a regular(ish) bedtime routine and are pretty consistent with the times we go to bed and the time we get up in the morning. 

We are also very fortunate to have our own infra-red sauna and try to use it for 30 minutes every day. We may even use the time getting sweaty to meditate as well...after all we have no where to go so why not multi-task and make best use of the time!

But with all of this the key to success is consistency. Almost 11 years after my initial weight loss I have kept the weight off and continue to learn more and adjust but I keep on going. I keep on doing what works.

My goal is to live as long as I can, to be as healthy as I can and to be in the best physical shape I can be. I want to be able to enjoy the life that I have ahead of me in the best way possible for the longest time possible. To live my life to its fullest unencumbered.

So, to sun it all up eat real food, lift some weights, walk, connect with others, sleep well and repeat!

Overdue Blog Post - Part Three!

Wow, so I finally have the time and space to get writing again and find myself approaching the end of March having not written anything since early January - whoops!

Luckily for me I have been keeping a diary of sorts and so have a pretty good idea of what I've been up to but am wondering how best to either summarise or move on from my last post. Which I think means this will be more of an overview and perhaps there will be separate posts focusing on some of the happenings over the last few months.

Plus I need to figure out a way to get back into writing more often...perhaps I need to go back to my diary type posts that I did over the preceding couple of years...something to think about!

But let's get back to the job at hand and try and summarise what's been happening of late.

So, where were we...ah yes Christmas! This year (or should that be last year?) was different to our usual routine of years gone by. This was the first Christmas since my dad had passed and that meant the first Christmas for Simon and I without any of our parents and while that brought about its own set of emotions it also meant that we had only ourselves to please. Which meant we were able to mix things up a little!

Molly and Dan were spending Christmas at their home, having spent the previous year with us, so we decided to travel down to see them instead. This resulted in us making the journey to Bournemouth on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas Day) for a few days before returning to celebrate the New Year at home.

I'd realised as we approached Christmas that ordinarily after having the big Christmas Day meal we would make use of any leftover food on Boxing Day...but as we wouldn't be home on Boxing Day this meant a change of plan. As Ethan's birthday is on Christmas Eve we decided to have our big Christmas dinner for his birthday instead and then make Christmas Day a very relaxed affair with presents and leftover food, which worked out beautifully. It was so nice to be able to enjoy the unwrapping of presents and have a very chilled out day as opposed to the usual slaving away in the kitchen! Plus because there was only the three of us it meant that cooking on Christmas Eve wasn't the big ordeal that it would have been compared to previous years. Oh and of course birthday celebrations in this house meant it was Mickey waffle time!

We had a lovely few days in Bournemouth even though the weather was rather soggy. We were able to exchange presents, enjoy some lovely meals, do lots of walking interspersed with coffees and even a little ice skating. Although on this occasion Simon decided to forgo the skating as it was very, very wet and joined me and Ethan in watching Molls and Dan enjoy themselves on the ice.

On the 29th December we travelled home with Molls and Dan making the journey as well so that we had a few days with all of us at home. We were able to make use of the outdoor skating rink in Nottingham that this year had an elevated 'skate path'...

Nottingham's Skate Path, above the Christmas market

...and when I saw 'we' I do of course mean Molls, Dan and Simon. I watched from afar and then went off in search of coffee and a little retail therapy. We saw the New Year in as a family with an array of board games and a lovely 'big' meal on New Years Day.

But by January 3rd the house was very quiet; Molls and Dan had gone back home to Bournemouth and Ethan was back at work. That left Simon and I with a couple of days to get the house back to 'normal' as we embarked on the horrible task of taking down and putting away of all the Christmas decorations; I love all my Christmas 'stuff' and hate having to put it all away. It actually took us about three days to put everything away with the majority being done by yours truly once Simon returned to work.

Well with Christmas and New Year done lets move onto January.

We started to get back into our routine of early morning (and rather chilly) walks followed by our Wim Hof breathing and a little meditation. Cold showers have now become the 'norm' for both Simon and I and these have continued regardless of what we have been up to. Unfortunately after getting back into our stride with the morning walks we had to take a little bit of a break as I suffer with chilblains on my left foot and once aggravated it becomes uncomfortable to walk on for extended periods and only gets worse if my feet get cold. So with a spell of very chilly weather we took a bit of a break from our walks.

Through January I was dealing with the sale of my dads house as we had signed all the necessary paperwork just before Christmas and it was now a case of working with solicitors to get everything done as speedily as possible.

We also started making some headway with our Jedi robes ready for Star Wars Celebration at Easter. And of course when I say 'we' I actually mean Simon, and his focus was on making some leather pouches for our belts to house our mobile phones. He also mastered the technique of metal casting by using pewter to make the buckles for our belts. 

For my part I had to order some different trousers as the fit on the pair I'd originally ordered was a little snug. And then there was an awful lot of research into the correct material to order for the outer cloak...something that was of the right dark brown colour and that was also of a heavy, wool like material. Suffice to say I think I went cross eyed looking at all the different options out there.

By the end of January we had found a local dressmaker that was willing (and excited) to help us with the technical aspect of putting the tunic/tabard section of the robes together. But I think I will go into more detail about our Jedi robes in a separate post!

We tried to get out for our morning walks again when the weather eased but no sooner than we had got back into the routine the weather turned rather cold again so we resigned ourselves to just get out as and when we could.

As we moved through January I was focused on getting more things removed from my dads house in readiness for the sale going through, along with the subsequent organising of Ebay sales. And my involvement with pre-school continued as we looked at the ongoing finances as well as a potential change in charitable status; so lots of research and a fair few meetings over numerous cups of coffee.

Ethan is still trying to find himself a house and we managed a viewing of one, but it was not quite what he was after,  and he had another couple of viewings cancelled at the last minute. First time buyer houses seem to go rather quickly once they get on the market - oh well just got to keep on looking.

And I think that covers January, so I will stop here and get writing the next post!