Food is a drug!

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/18/food-is-a-drug-and-we-have-to-learn-to-say-no

Well the photo below was taken in 2014. As you know this year I'm sporting for no lattes and no cappuccinos so it's certainly been a good while since I enjoyed the arrangement depicted below, plus Mc Donald's wont even sell you a bacon bagel any longer! 

Interesting article about the hit food can give you. Those breakfasts certainly fall into this category. A friend once told me that cheese was a drug. At the moment I tend to avoid buying it to be honest.

Last week I certainly had some success. After a whole month of pilates and no milky coffees I actually lost 3lbs. Only a start and a slow start but it is nonetheless still a start. 

I tried yoga for beginners for the first time on Saturday. It was great and I don't know why it's taken me this long to try? It was more friendly than pilates but challenging too. I like that we were told to smile during the class, that there were lavender eye bags at one point 🧘‍♀️ and the idea of activating my inner smile really has stayed with me. a) I didn't know that I even had an inner smile b) activating an inner smile and carrying it with you through the day - what an amazing philosophy. As weight loss also has to be about health and wellbeing, why not activate an inner smile ......? 🤗 New to me.

My Fitbit stats for last week were encouraging. Because I weigh more that when I started using my Fitbit a few years ago its telling me I have gained 10lbs BUT my average steps per day are increasing. Its do hard on  working car with driving and carrying out work duties. I aim for 10,000 steps a day and interestingly if I'm off work I'm often able to do more than thd 10,000. A walk into town for example will boost the steps. 

The exercising data isn't accurate either as I managed to delete some activity which can't be retrieved and when I enter things manually I don't think it is precise.

Last week I also tried a stretch and tone class. That was a mixture of yoga, tai chi and pilates. It was excellent, challenging and exhausting. I couldn't get booked on it today so just the 10:30 pilates class for me. January at Bannatynes is crazy busy. People keep telling me it calms down by February when people ditch their new year's resolutions. Well, we can see what happens! 

Just a short entry this time round but like all these classes I'm attending; I'm here and I'm going it! 👍

So if I go back to my earlier mention of 'Obese: A Year To Save My Life' for a moment. Chris Powell will say to his clients 'It's not all about victories it's about falling down and getting back up'.

      

So if I go back to an earlier mention of 'Obese: A Year To Save My Life' for a moment. Chris Powell will say to his clients 'It's not all about victories it's about falling down and getting back up'.

This month (January 2020) has seen me getting back up. Where has the time gone? 3 years ago I was writing this weight loss blog. Since then I've had some set backs including a car crash which put me out of action for a time and has left me suffering persistent vertigo BUT when my health club membership came up for renewal in January (2018) I realised I wasn't ready to quit it! Ok so I've put lots of the weight back on but here I go again, January 2020 - if I increase my movement and watch that I'm eating surely there's got to be results, right?

Since my last time of writing all the fitness apps have changed. I treated myself to a fitbit flex 2 which has been fantastic. I can't use the gym that much at the moment as my vertigo would make looking down at digital displays and along with quick movements would send me spinning but I've been swimming. That's my main reason for choosing a flex2 as it measures my swimming efforts. I've linked my fitbit with my Banantynes app & run keeper, which are great motivators and really do give great +ve feedback.

I suffered a back muscle spasm in Nov'19 which put me completely out of action for a month. The result being weight gain and a sideways lecture from my GP. She was very nice about it and said she didn't want to cause offense but that I ought to lose weight to prevent these things happening again. Since then I've been attending pilates classes to improve my core strength- much needed. At first the only class I could book onto was a ridiculously difficult keep fit pilates, because it always had free spaces. I hadn't realised until too late and it was a shock BUT I'm still going. Do Google fitness pilates, I am sure YouTube will have some footage of what it entails. I would have love to see video footage of and in that first class, I'd turned up ready for relaxing muscle stretches but it was side planks and all sorts of pilates madness. I go to a class once and even twice a week if my work schedule allows. It's still really, really hard and sometimes afterwards, I burst into tears in my car, but I'm still going. This week the class was full (new years resolutions and good intentions for January I think) there wasn't room for any more mats on the floor. One of the regulars told me to watch the instructor and that when it gets like this "she tries to kill people off" - he was not wrong. If was the hardest class I have ever attended, at points I had my eyes closed willing a particular hold to be over. So here I am, back again today for more pilates! Fingers crossed for a slightly more graded class today.

I was given a prescription by my GP for Orlistat but on reflection I thought I ought to try weight loss without it first. The side effects sound pretty drastic and potentially catastrophic. I'm booked to see a Health Coach in a couple of weeks so that will be interesting.

Only new years resolution has been to avoid the lattes and cappuccinos. Hidden calories. One problem has been the extra caffeine in the Americanos can be a bit much. 

Today I've turned up for my pilates class at 10:30 only to find its actually at 12:30! So porridge and chamomile tea (still avoiding the lattes) followed by a swim I guess .... oh, and writing this blog which has been dormant for some years now. Well I called this blog journey to slim and I'm very much still on that journey. Bis bald x