Heather's Plan Part 3.........by Heather

Ok

Part one - give up the sugar - check
Part two - reduce the carbs - check

Part three - move.

The biggest defeats for me and exercise are - a tendency to choose something to do that I don't really like, but picking it because its supposed to do me good; not maintaining doing those things I do like to do; trying to implement a plan I don't stand a hope in hell of keeping to and then giving up because I've failed.

Truth be told, I don't enjoy exercising. I don't like sweating, I don't like the pain (just the actual sensation of forcing myself to move), I don't have the inner mettle to force myself through the pain barrier and don't get anything out of pitting myself against a target - I am also right now, the weakest I have ever been in my life.

Again, the thyroid dysfunction has been to blame for robbing me of what little muscle tone I did have. As my thyroid condition worsened, I was unable to walk upstairs without holding on to the bannister rail for support; once in a squat (to pick something up from under the tv say) I couldn't actually then lever myself back up again.

Having a small holding, I'm used to lugging bales of hay around and cleaning out after livestock - at the height of my illness in 2011 I couldn't even get the horse food from the trailer in to the back of the car - the effort nearly made me pass out.

Despite the improvement to my overall health, the meds haven't miraculously improved my wasted muscle tone. The short lived efforts I have made to improve my lot have been half- hearted, because exercise has become really uncomfortable - for uncomfortable, read difficult.

I know the solution - I just don't like it. But now is the time.

In an effort however to embrace what I have learned about myself over the years, I'm not suddenly going to pretend that I am off to train for a marathon - no siree.

I have conflicting views about exercise - that what I know I should do and that what I know I am likely to do.

I know I ought to be doing some sort of weight resistance training for muscle strength and some cardio.
I don't like the sound of either.

I am working on the principle that anything I do is better than the nothing I have been doing to start with and if I can manage to make it habitual; I stand a chance of moving up a gear as the weather improves.

So - first off - daily, will be yoga. I have been doing yoga since before Christmas and it has made an amazing difference. I am getting a little stronger. I can hold poses more than a couple of seconds without my legs and arms shaking like jellies! And I am getting much better flex in my hips and shoulders.

Second - like Katy, I have secret fantasies about hula hooping like Salome - right now that's more fantastical than I'd like. This is something she and I fancy doing and we're hoping we aren't mistaken in thinking it will help tone our middles - but we shall see. That too has to be a daily occurrence.

Finally I aim to resurrect the 'Wii Shape' I bought a couple of years back. It helped me then to start a very laudable exercise campaign that was only derailed by ill health - so I don't see why, it shouldn't help me now.

I have a fight on my hands for the telly - but I am finding 3-4 times a week when the rest of the family seem to be out and about on a regular basis - which gives me a chance to reclaim the remote control and work out in private.

The other thought is that over the next couple of months, the weather and the dark nights prevent me doing anything more ambitious - but if I stick with the Wii, I stand more chance of evolving in to something more adventurous by the time that light nights arrive.

So this begins part three....

Heather's Plan Part 2 .....by Heather

I do think that my learning curve is set to start today.

A few days ago I talked about the start of my lifestyle diet plan - which was all about the sugar.

Ditching the sugar additives in my food was all about making what I believe to be better choices, healthwise, for my overall diet. I really think that Robert Lustig's lecture explains this far better than I could here. True, by limiting the amount of added sugar in my diet, I am instantly cutting out the cakes, and sweets and biscuits, and the ready meals and the rubbish sugary drinks etc etc. Which is all good from a weight loss point of view.

However, if I'm honest, whilst I love most of these things, I have known for a long long time that these things have to be limited, I have never done sugary drinks - I hate Coke and Pepsi et al. I don't have added white or brown sugar in any drinks or breakfast cereal; so saying I am dropping these things out of my diet is no biggy. The biggy for me is in not having a pudding after dinner, or if I'm feeling virtuous, a sweet yogurt say. Not having a chocolate bar during mid morning break or a few biscuits with my afternoon tea. In times gone by, just cutting these things out has been enough to bring my weight to some acceptable level - not a perfect model figure, but one that looks vaguely acceptable.

I have never had to think harder than that - until now.

Ditching added sugar overall (all items with sugar/syrups/'oses' 3 or higher in the ingredients listing) has and will for some goodly time I know, been hard. Despite eating unchecked, all other foods, life without sugary food feels hollow - literally. And I'm not exactly sure whether it is addictive or not, but I have this weekend, thought of little else than what I can't have.

For all of that, I don't believe my weight has shrunk measurably - ok, I think I do feel less bloated, but that is because we are now back at work, having previously been off for Christmas - but weight loss? No I don't really think so.

So, part 2 of my plan, is to be kick started today. And I am already in a quandary with it - and I am sure will blog in more detail over the days to come.

My present weight (and the fact I would like there to be less of it) is presently being exacerbated to greater or lesser degrees by 2 facts, for which I appear at least to have little direct control.

Fact 1 is I have a thyroid disorder.

Fact 2 is I am menopausal

I will revisit both of these wonderful arrivals in my life, I'm sure - but not right now. For now it is enough to say that their existence makes for complications to the matter of  my losing weight.

Undeterred I move on the the second phase of my plan of attack - like Air Chief Marshall Dowding, I haven't as yet dropped the pencil!

My corollary to the sugar ban is the management of my carbs.

I have been reading with interest Peter Attia M.D. at the Eating Academy - presently, I'm seriously not in a position to emulate him - however he does say that his present eating regime took some time to refine and become use to; I am not entirely sure I want to go so far. But seriously I do want to start introducing modifications.

I like Carbs. A lot. Especially the grain variety and what manufacturers can do with it!

I have thought for some considerable time I needed to look at managing the carbs more vigorously. 

There is a slight added point for me, with regard to carbs - I am a coeliac  - not the end of the world but it adds to the mix. I am also a coeliac who isn't averse to cheating a bit. I realise its only myself that gets cheated - but hey, my husband makes fresh pasta to die for!

I wasn't sure exactly what the best way to manage my carbs was - for a start, my family, some months back moved wholly to brown bread - but there has been a general reluctance to change to brown rice, brown flour or wholewheat pasta - since the new year however, my husband has agreed that the family will make a wholesale move to wholegrain where at all possible.

I took the view, that I would happily forgo gluten free bread altogether, be that brown or white (include here too any gluten free equivalent to muffins, crumpets and rolls) - I have experimented with different makes and found a few really good attempts at providing real alternatives for coeliacs; but I think that all too often I default to bread and it wouldn't hurt my weight loss attempts to shelve it, unless it feels absolutely necessary to a meal.

But just moving to wholegrain isn't going to help me with the waistline. And it was whilst reading a grubby copy of 'Women's Health' magazine over the holiday, that I read about using mobile apps to track Gi and GL foods - and so I downloaded a couple of apps last night.

I've flirted with GI before - but because it targeted my most foody nearest and dearest, I lost interest.

Part 2 of my lifestyle diet plan is to stop flirting and just proposition the thing!

Right now I don't have a full handle on it all - so homework for me this week is to read up and learn. In the meantime, I will track my meals and see what its saying about what I eat - I have an immediate and not so startling inkling that its all gonna be 'red' - the key will be to see what this means exactly and refine plan part 2 to shape what my carb eating should entail, and whether GI is relevant or just a useful tool

Be assured, I will be revisiting this again shortly.

Heather's Plan. Part I......by Heather

So here is my plan, part 1.

Sugar obviously is my first point of call. But I am conscious that just like giving up the ciggies, I am going to have some serious issues just dropping all sugar - sugar consumption is also more complicated than just cutting out the white stuff in drinks.

Katy is particular irked with a whole list of 'no's'; but for me it  makes for an easy reference point - eat what I will except...... All products that contain added sugar - either home made or shop bought where sugars/any product ending in 'ose', corn syrup, syrup, treacle, mollasses, appear in the ingredients list - 3rd place and higher.

The kinds of products that are easy to spot are: sweets and chocolate, sweet pastries, cakes, puddings and biscuits - but other culprits would be ketchups, pickles and chutneys,  pasta sauces, yogurts, rice puddings and custards, curry sauces and pastes, tinned tomatoes, baked beans, tinned pasta types, ready meals, squirty cream, hot chocolates and malty drinks, almost all breakfast cereals, juices and other soft drinks and some breads

Not an exhaustive list but you can't fail to get the message - and this is why this is part 1 because this is a big ask. I am effectively boxed in with not much in the way of escape or diversionary tactics available to help me out when I get the call. At least smokers can call on nicorettes!

And I don't doubt that I am going to find this hard, I've tinkered around the edges of this before, and it doesn't take long before I am thinking of nothing else. Going in to a shop is like bringing a vampire into the blood bank - and it affects my mood. Without a sugar fix I get really ratty, depressed and lose concentration. Actually having Googled this phenomenon, I really don't know whether this is a real physiological response to sugar withdrawal or all in my mind. But the outcome is not - grouchville here we come.

What I can't quite believe, is that by encouraging my other half to watch the Lustig lecture the other day, he is pretty much with me on this and wants to start looking seriously at incorporating a sugar reduced menu family wide. (My daughter is gutted) but we are hoping that our youngest son will benefit from this approach because of the 3 kids, he is more prone to weight gain and has the crappiest diet. It's not just this though - we are on board with the health benefits and we as a family are pretty 'up' for cooking from scratch, my husband enjoys cooking - and despite what looks like a depressingly comprehensive list of goods on the NO listing - we are committed to filling our lives with quality, fresh food.

I'm not big on new year resolutions - but if I had one this year, it was to work hard at including more veg to our meals generally, having more than one serving per meal and if necessary turning sergeant major on our youngest and force him in to a more healthier approach.

Last nights meal had a bottle of tomato ketchup accompanying it, sat in the middle of the table - and both my youngest son and daughter looked at it forlornly, like an old friend was about to die; because I had said there wouldn't be anymore replacements once it had gone.

I haven't gone mad. The whole family will not be catapulted into sugar oblivion, as I. Not yet anyway.