weight

Diets and Crochet

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I’ve been a bit quiet on here lately and I thought I would explain why. It is largely because I have finally got back into doing my crochet! I did loads when Monkey was little but after making my Granny square blanket I set my needles aside. Then LM was born, and well I haven’t picked them up again, until now. So my word of the week, is Crochet.

Hub’s mum has a gorgeous ripple blanket I always admire and I have loads of wool hanging around so I thought I would have a go at making my own. I have to admit that after a long break I could not remember at all how to crochet. The first evening involved a lot of false starts and head scratching and you tube watching! But once I remembered how to do it, I was on a roll. I’m following the fab tutorial from Lucy at Attic 24, though using different colours.

It was slow going on the first evening!

It was slow going on the first evening!0

One of the reasons that I have chosen to pick the needles up again now, is because I have also started a new diet, and doing the crochet keeps my fingers occupied so I am less likely to stuff my face of an evening!

Now, I know that I wrote recently that I am who I am, and that I was going to stop trying so hard to change myself all the time. Now, I do stick to that and I know I am never going to be super skinny or lose my curvy shape. I am trying to be kinder to myself in all areas. But, and there is a but, the trouble with the “I’m happy as I am” philosophy is that it can sometimes lead to a change of a different kind. As in the scales moving up, kind of change, and that’s not what I want either. So I needed to make a change.

A good friend of mine is a big advocate of the 5:2 diet, where you fast (only eat 500 calories) on 2 days of the week and then eat a normal amount the rest of the week. Now a normal amount isn’t the same as what I was eating before, believe me. So anyway I decided to give it a try.

I’m finding the fast days pretty easy to manage so far, which surprised as I thought I may get really hangry! I still have eggs for breakfast, a big bowl of soup for lunch and a carrot and a little hummus later. It’s not loads but it seems manageable.

What has also happened is that I have really paid attention to what I normally eat. The amount of food that I hoover up off the kids plates, treating my body like a human dustbin, with the argument “I don’t like waste” when really it is pure greed. So let’s just say that even on the non-fasting days I am eating a lot less than I was!

It’s been 2 weeks and so far I haven’t really lost any weight (possibly due to a rather boozy night in london last weekend) which is demotivating. I’m really not a patient person at all, and especially with diets. After Monkey was born, I went on a diet and lost quite a lot of weight, really easily to be honest. It was brilliant. Since LM it has not happened that way at all. Every pound lost has been hard-won and put back on almost immediately which has been hard. I know that in truth I’ve given up too easily each time, so I am determined nor to give up this time.

Not sure shots are ever advised on a diet??

Not sure shots are ever advised on a diet??

There are bound to be ups and downs and I need to find a balance between enjoying myself on the rare occasions that I go out, and not berating myself for that…. But also expecting that that will slow down my progress. I have to stop comparing this weight loss to the diet of a few years ago as clearly my body is different now. As a slight aside I was reading a really interesting article (I know, I know, apologies that it is from the Daily Fail, but it is interesting!) the other day about diets based on the bacteria found in your gut, as there are bacteria that are super efficient at extracting every calorie from food, and other bacteria that are less ‘good’ at that so help you not to gain weight. Fascinating and a reminder that we know so little of the way our bodies work and the reasons things are different for different people.

I’m not about to get my poo tested though, so for now I’m just going to stick with the eat less and move more philosophy. And to help with that, crochet in the evenings or whenever I am tempted to eat out of boredom rather than hunger!

I have to admit I am rather pleased with my blanket so far, a long way to go but it is really getting there, LM seems to like to it too… Though Monkey is moaning at how long it is taking to finish haha.PhotoGrid_1487322124286

Do you find it harder to lose weight than pre children or as you’ve gotten older? Any hobbies that help you?

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Our obsession with weight and the affect on our kids

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I’ve read a few things recently that have sent my mind a-whirring about this issue. It all started after a recent shopping trip where a visit to some extremely unflattering changing rooms left me full of self loathing. I came home and wrote a post about my post baby body which was really mean (only to myself). I never actually published this post as after a few days of rational thought and normal lighting I realised I didn’t mean all of it and I didn’t like what I had written. It got me thinking about the amount of time I spend worrying about the way I look though.  And it’s not just me, my husband, my friends, my in laws. It’s a frequent topic of conversation and when I really think about it, it’s just so stupid.

I then read this fabulous post from Morgan at Morgan’s Milieu about how she has had enough of fixation on her weight. She quite rightly says that the way you look doesn’t define who you are. I really admire Morgan for stepping off the merry go round. I have tried this attitude before but I always fail to maintain it and soon go back to the dieting and obsessing about the way I look.

I decided not too long ago that I was going to try and focus on being healthy instead and that is going fairly well. Since completing the couch to 5k over the summer I now run 2-3 times a week and I actually enjoy it. I had to miss a run last week as I was poorly and I actually missed it, I never thought that would happen. As much as I try to focus in that I have to admit I have been disappointed that I haven’t lost any weight. According to friends and family, you can see the difference in my shape but not according to the scales. I know I over indulge a bit sometimes but I don’t think my diet is terrible and I had hoped that the exercise would balance things out.

So have you noticed? So much for focussing on being healthy, here I am once again obsessing about my weight and the way I look. It feels almost impossible to break away from. It doesn’t help that on a recent trip to get a repeat prescription for the pill I was warned to lower my BMI as otherwise they’ll have to take me off it. Thanks for that! (I actually hate that we use the BMI as an indicator of healthy weight, as for so many people it is wholly inaccurate as it doesn’t take into consideration your body shape or muscle mass but I digress).

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, growing up I always knew my mum was battling with her weight and she tried various diets and exercise routines so the obsession is hardly a new phenomenon. The trouble for me is that this isn’t what I want for my kids. I don’t want them to go down the same road of self loathing and guilt if they over indulge. But then I also want them to be healthy and don’t want them to always over eat without a care in the world to the point where they cause themselves problems. It’s such a tricky balance.

Monkey starting school has added a new dimension to this. You see it isn’t only us who influence him now,  and he has already started repeating messages he has been told at school. They obviously talk about healthy eating and he has been saying lots of things about how eating too much sugar is bad and we are keeping a close eye on how this affects him as we want to make sure that he understands that everything is ok in moderation.

I read a fantastic post this week on The Parenting Game about the NHS programme of weighing children in schools. It was a guest post from Sam at A Testing Time about the terrible negative effect it had on her perfectly healthy child after he was branded ‘overweight.’ Now I know that Monkey will be weighed at school and honestly I gave it no more thought than when he was weighed as baby and I seriously hadn’t thought about any negative connotations at his age. Now though? I am much more wary and want to make sure I know what is going on and what is being said to him. As with Sam’s child, Monkey is very tall for his age and has always been at the top of the percentile chart as a result. He is very slim though so if they dare to suggest he is anyway unhealthy I will not be happy.

On the whole I do think that encouraging healthy eating and exercise at school is a good thing, but only if it is done in the right way and positively. If the message focuses on the negatives and causes very young children to worry about their weight unnecessarily then it does concern me.

Interestingly I also read a great post from John at Dadbloguk.com about the practice of sweets being handed out at preschool and school for kids’ birthdays. It’s a practice that bugs me too so it really struck a chord. What interested me most though was the way people responded to him on Facebook. Criticising him for being controlling over his kids’ diets. Um, I’m sorry but as parents isn’t it our responsibility to have a level of control over what they eat? John wasn’t saying his kids were never allowed sweets, just that surely it wasn’t the healthiest practice (especially as in his case about 40 kids gave out sweets in a week as a leaving gift when they left preschool, slightly excessive, no?) and that he would like to be the one to choose if/when his kids have sweets rather than having the decision taken out of his hands. What is wrong with that?

I also find this really interesting in relation to Monkey’s school and the fact they clearly have an emphasis on healthy eating. Monkey has only been there a few weeks yet has come home with sweets from a child’s birthday on more than one occasion. On the one hand I don’t worry too much about the occasional bag of sweets, but I don’t really like the choice being taken out of my hands either and it does feel a bit incongruous for the school to allow sweets to be distributed in class, while also clearly giving the kids the message that too much sugar is bad for you.

When Daddy told Monkey he would be having a donut for pudding as part of his school dinner, which we thought would be a nice treat for him, he immediately started saying he didn’t want to eat too much sugar. While I want him to understand the difference between healthy choices and unhealthy ones, he is only 4 and I guess I feel that it’s a bit of a burden when they are so young and feel it should be our responsibility as his parents to worry about this so he doesn’t have to.

Since I started writing this post Monkey has also said at home “fizzy drinks are bad for you” which is a difficult one. We only have sugar free fizzy drinks in our house but they are very much for us, the kids have the occasional sip but they don’t have it on a daily basis as I don’t like the idea of them having a lot of artificial sweeteners as I don’t think we really know the full story about the side effects they may have. As an adult it’s my choice but I’m not making that choice for my kids. I’m digressing again but it’s the point that we don’t want Monkey to necessarily think about foods in terms of good and bad as we really believe that anything in moderation is ok. It’s obviously more complex than that but then if it’s too complex for a 4 year old to understand then maybe they shouldn’t be given that responsibility yet? I don’t know and in truth no-one does, let’s face it one minute fat is terrible for you but now fat is ok and sugar is bad. I don’t always know what the right things are to eat so how can we expect 4 year olds to understand?

I guess though that the difficulty is that not everyone has the same attitude as we do. That for some kids knowing this stuff from a young age may help prevent them from following in the footsteps of parents who perhaps have an unhealthy relationship with food. I mean let’s face it, I struggle with my weight so why do I think I am equipped to prevent my children being the same as I am in years to come?

It’s such a difficult balance and maybe my wanting my kids to not join this merry go round is futile and it’s part of the world we live in. All I can think to do is to try and give them a good example to follow. To eat a varied and balanced diet and to enjoy getting out and exercising. To hope that my kids will follow that example and do the same.

How do you feel about this? Do you worry about your weight? Do you talk about that in front of your kids?

Starting my running journey with the couch to 5k plan

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I’m not a natural runner. I was rubbish in PE and I like my food. I’ve openly laughed at runners in the past, thought they were potty and that that would never be me. But I’ve just run 20mins straight for the first time in my life, and no I wasn’t being chased! I chose to do this and I am actually enjoying it. Here’s the beginning of my story.

I’ve really struggled with my weight since LM was born. I’ve stopped writing about it because I haven’t managed to stick to anything. I’ve gone back and forth between dieting and convincing myself that this time I was going to do it, to saying I wasn’t going to diet because I don’t want my kids to see me obsessing about food so I was going to concentrate on exercise instead. But my swimming petered out, and I had to stop the Zumba dvd because it was giving me niggly pains in my hips and back (presumably left over from all those pelvis and back issues in pregnancy and generally just having no strength in my muscles). So what to do?

I still felt unhappy about my size but didn’t want to keep moaning on about it. Dieting wasn’t working as so much of our social life revolved around food and I am clearly weak willed. I thought about starting running, but I am really not a natural runner. I tried for a bit with a friend when Monkey was little but only half heartedly. I constantly came up with excuses not to go and then when I got pregnant with LM that was the end of it.

As the weather started warming up though I thought about trying again. For one thing, it is free. I have trainers already (that I’ve had for over 10 years and have only seen sporadic use, I’m ashamed to say) and I could just go. I don’t have to drive anywhere first as there are lots of places around that I can run. I mentioned the idea to one of my sister in laws, the lovely Fran, and we decided to go together. Fran works different shifts so we were a bit intermittent but we did it, we started. There was lots of walking interspersed with running but we were slowly improving. It was also nice to catch up, have a natter or a vent, and to encourage each other. It was great when we could do it together, the problem was when Fran was working and I tried to go on my own to my own. Then I just felt utterly useless.

I would still try but it was so hard to motivate myself. I felt horribly embarrassed if I had to go past someone and felt I must look so stupid, with my flab wobbling everywhere and being so out of breath after only a few seconds. I would try and keep running until they were out of sight then stop, gasping and panting and coughing and feeling useless. When no one was around I would run for such short distances as my legs felt like lead and the negative little voice in my head kept telling me to stop. I felt so deflated and negative and we on the verge of giving up, but I really didn’t want to. I thought about the couch to 5k type thing but didn’t know much about it. A friend then suggested I try it after I shared how useless I felt with my running and I decided it was worth giving it a try.

There are loads of apps and plans out there all called the couch to 5k but I decided to go with the NHS version. I downloaded the podcasts and went for it. It starts off so slowly and because of the bits of running I had done with Fran, I was able to do the first runs quite easily. I felt so positive after that first run, even on my own and I really enjoyed it. Hurrah!

I persuaded Fran to follow it with me for our run that week and also continued the plan on my own when she couldnt join me. Our holiday was coming up but I was determined not to stop, and to stick to the plan while I was away. I managed 5 runs across the couple of weeks I was away and was sending texts to Fran while I was away to motivate us both as she was running at home when she could too.

“just been for run no. 2 and actually pushed it a bit at the end and ran for over 2 mins solid, helped that it was downhill but still it felt good.”

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“I did it! 5 min walk, 90s run, 90s walk, 3 min run, 3 min walk, 90s run, 90s walk, 3 min run, 3 min walk! It was hard work and my legs are sore now but I am so proud of myself. Could never have run for 3 mins when we started!! Yay :D”

“So I was supposed to run yesterday but didn’t fancy the downpour! Was really hard to motivate myself today as still chilly and damp but I did it and ran for over 3 1/2 mins solid on my last leg, wahoo!”

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Running there was great and it was through such beautiful countryside, I absolutely loved it. Most of the start of my run was uphill but the way back was downhill which definitely helped. So much so that although I completed week 3 when we were down there I did another run of week 3 when we got home before moving on to week 4 to make sure I could hack it without a big downhill stretch. I managed it and so felt really good despite not losing any weight on holiday. In fact I put weight on which was a bit disappointing but figured that was due to the amount that we ate while we were away. Still, I wanted to keep going at home and try and eat a bit healthier too. I wasn’t going to let it stop me. I was looking forward to Fran being able to join me agai but while we were away she fell and sprained her ankle. She wasn’t going to be running anytime soon but I knew I just had to keep going. Excuse the language but here is another text I sent once we were home

“F**k me, just done the first run of week 4, 16 mins running in total. A 3 min, a 5 min, another 3 and another 5. Was really nervous but I did it! Bit knackered but after the warm down walk actually not feeling as bad as I thought I might! Xx”

I still had days where my legs felt like lead and I felt so tired. I realised that in my eagerness I was running every other day and had done so for over a week. The plan is to run 3 times a week with at least 1 days rest in between, but I was getting up to 4 runs a week, so I decided to have a couple of days off. It did me good as week 5 was a real step up.

Me on a run in my dodgy running gear!

Me on a run in my dodgy running gear!

I went from running for 3 mins to running 5 mins, to running for 8 mins, which I was so nervous about but then so proud when I managed it. Annoyingly though, the podcast cut off during the second 8 min run for some random reason and it really affected my rhythm. I tried to keep going and check the time on my phone but it was really hard. Those negative voices in my head came back, telling me my legs were tired and that I couldn’t do it… and I tailed off just after 6 minutes. It’s amazing how my fitness has come on and now my buggest hurdle is, as they say on the podcast, mental rather than physical.

Instead of focussing on the negative I reminded myself that a run is a run and it’s still good for me. It isn’t all about hitting the targets. They are a good motivation but not the reason I am doing it. I have come so so far since I started. I feel substantially fitter and I have had a few comments about looking a little slimmer which is nice. Unfortunately the scales aren’t showing this, but hopefully my muscles are growing as I burn fat and that is keeping my weight the same? No idea on the science of it but I am clinging to that as I am trying so hard to eat healthily and am running 3 times a week. I do feel slimmer too.

20160802_182318The last run in week 5 was the one I was most nervous about, running for 20 minutes straight. Surely not! Already? But I decided I just had to go for it, and actually, surprisingly, it was easier than I thought. I think with the shorter runs I am constantly thinking about when I am going to stop, but with this I knew I just had to keep going, so after the first few mins (I always find the first few mins the hardest) I just kept going. It was hard, don’t get me wrong, but it also felt awesome that I was able to do it.

I actually felt like a real runner, for the first time. Not just some daft fatty making a fool of herself which is how I felt in the early days. I honestly never thought running would be the right exercise for me, but I think it just might be. I may also buy some better running clothes as so far I have been running predominantly in a pair of hubs old shorts that are covered in paint from decorating and whatever top I am wearing that day haha.

Are you a runner? Have you ever tried the couch to 5k programme?

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