TGIF !

I know that it has only been a short week (and if I wasn't sure my pay packet next week will remind me !!!) but I am really glad that today is Friday - not sure I would have managed to get through another day of work.

For some reason I have not been sleeping very well lately - not sure why because normally when I exercise as much as we have been, I sleep really well. It doesn't seem to be the situation at the moment - maybe because I haven't been to yoga for a while. Looking forward to going tomorrow morning. Then on Monday night and after that we will be going on Thursday night and Saturday which will be good because the class on a Thursday is the intermediate class and goes for 90 mins instead of 60 mins.

On Wednesday A said that he had a surprise for me but wouldn't tell me what it was. I guessed a few things but wasn't right and then he said that he would tell me on Thursday after we had weighed. I forgot all about it and yesterday morning he showed me the easter eggs that he had bought from the South African shop - candy coated chocolate eggs that look similar to normal eggs. We used to love these eggs as kids - the first year we had them my Mom had put them into egg cups and pretended that they were real boiled eggs for our breakfast. Of course when we tried to crack the egg and couldn't then realised that they were chocolate we couldn't wait to eat them. We used to get them every year. After we were married, Al and I would buy a couple of boxes (6 eggs in a box) and eat them over the course of a couple of weeks leading up to Easter and beyond. I was really excited when I saw them but said I wouldn't have it for breakfast which is always a rush but would rather keep mine until I could sit down and quietly savour the taste. I had mine tonight - it wasn't as good as I remember it being and so I told Al that he could he the other one in the box that was mine. No point in eating extra calories if they aren't really what I want ! That is something that I have learnt more and more about this time around - I was always brought up to eat what was dished up 'because there were thousands of starving children around the world' - was my Mom going to ship the food I didn't eat off to them ? I don't think so - but she used to tell us that everytime we didn't want to eat something. When I think back now I should have just said no and not eaten it except that we didn't do that, we did what our parents said and that was that. There was certainly never any discussion about why they told us to do something or any reasons given for anything. Maybe that is where we went wrong with K sometimes - had too many discussions and explained our decisions instead of just telling her to do something and be done with it ! Anyway, I digress.

I was talking to someone the other day about the fact that there were a few occasions when I had made a conscious decision to buy a miniture chocolate and eat it - always after I had waited at least 3 hours. The point was that I didn't just go off and buy a large chocolate as soon as I thought "I feel like a chocolate" invariably because I was bored or anxious or waiting for something to happen. She explained the behaviour as a lapse in my eating plan rather than a relapse into a bad habit. That has stood me in good stead quite a few times since then when I have made a decision to eat something - I always think about whether it is a lapse or a relapse. I don't want a relapse but I am happy to have a lapse if it means that I will have a miniture chocolate rather than a large chocolate - just enough to satisfy the sweet tooth that I have that has really missed my daily diet of chocolates and biscuits that I used to live on.

I am trying something a little different with my L&E this week. On the 1200 plan - you generally get cereal, toast and fruit for breakfast. Lunch can be a variety of things plus a fruit and a snack - a biscuit / muffin / pate and biscuits / cracker mix - again a range of things. And then dinner is dinner. The last couple of weeks I have not been too enchanted with the lunches so what I am trying this week is to order breakfast and dinner for the week plus 5 of the 'meal in a bowl' for me to use for lunches (we sometimes get them in the lunches anyway) and then I have bought some fruit cups as my fruit (again something that we would get in the lunches) and I have bought some biscuits to have as my afternoon treat based on the calories that I need for the day. The difference now is that instead of having 6 or 8 biscuits as my snack, I have one AND I always wait until at least 3pm before I eat it - that is the time that I have said is snack time otherwise it would be eaten by 9am every day and then I would have nothing to look forward to !!!!

We have a busy weekend planned - tomorrow we have yoga from 8-9am, then drop K at work on the way home, get home and walk to pick up our numbers for the 5km walk on Sunday morning and take the dogs for a walk at the same time. Have to be home by 10am as I have an appointment from 11-12. Then dash home again for a client at 12.30pm and another at 2pm. After that I think we may shoot off to see about getting some road bikes - am not keen on doing long distances on the mountain bikes without slicks on - but it will depend on what else needs to be done. Then home in time to have dinner and get to Coles by 6pm. On Sunday the race starts at 7am - at least we will have collected our numbers and timing card the day before which means that we can go straight to the start on Sunday morning. K is working at 9am so will have to get home quickly after the race so she can shower and get to work on time. The last race we did in 44mins and some secs so will be interesting to see if we are fitter and can do it quicker this time around. Al and I are going down to Currumbin Creek Road to do a cycle up a road that is apparently a long incline - to help with our fitness levels and stamina for hills. Think that might take a couple of hours (also good to have to sit on the bicycle seat for longer than the hour or so that we normally cycle for) and then it will be home time to shower before going up to Brisbane to see if we can drive the route of the 50km race that we are doing on 27th June. We want to try to have cycled it at least once before the big day so it may have to be next weekend as we don't want to do it too close to the actual day - the weekend after we are off to Melbourne and Adelaide - YAY !!!! Once we get home from Brisbane we have been invited to a BBQ at Paradise Point for one of our nephew's birthday - Al has taken out some steak for the BBQ but K and I are going to heat our meals up and then wrapped them up and take them with us. Much as I love my nephew, I don't want to have a night of eating food that is not what I want and likely to break my focus on the weight loss side of things. I do know that once I am at goal, the trick is going to be intergrating ordinary eating back into our lifestyle and still be able to maintain the weight. I think it will be so much easier this time around because we are all watching what we eat and so when one overdoes things the others are more likely to say hey, do you really need that extra helping of dessert ?????

I am officially a granny - I am sitting in the loungeroom - blogging and watching TV with my bifocal glasses on - what a pleasure to be able to work on the computer and then glance up and be able to see the game on TV !!!!! While the operation was a success, I do miss the close vision that I used to have BUT I don't miss having to wear glasses or contacts 24/7. It is great to be able to see the time on the clock next to the bed, and dry my hair without having to have my glasses on, and eat without glasses on and be able to see what I am eating ! So many positive except for the fact that I can't read and watch TV or knit a pattern and watch TV because my glasses were for distance only. Now with the bifocals, I can do both - YAY !!!!!!!

Have a great weekend everyone - take care and Jod, go safely on the bike ride.


TFTD : It is easier to drift than it is to climb.