was good but not for me

Greenlane diet week is over and I managed to lose 600g. Not good enough results for me to keep doing it. I'm happy with a 600g loss but the sacrifices I had to persevere with don't make it worthwhile.

I found after the three hard out days I went into a rebellion mode with food. Kinda like the noose is off now so 'LET'S EAT!!!' The book says you can lose up to 4.5kgs in 3 days. We all know that won't be 4.5kgs of fat!! After day three I was down 2.6kgs but of course as soon as I went back to normal eating again my gut filled up again and I was back up another 2kgs over the following 4 days.

So I'm back to counting points again. It's always interesting how take something away makes you appreciate it. Very glad to be counting points again and eating 'normally'.

Onto another eating healthy week. Only 1.3kgs to go to get into double digits!

Simple pleasures

I'm pleased to say I completed my first three days on the Greenlane diet. I now have four days of healthy eating but not to a strict menu. It was really hard going!! REALLY hard! I found each day by the time I got to mid afternoon I was feeling very lathargic, light headed and headachey. Proud of myself that I stuck to it rigidly all bar 2 glasses of wine on the night of day two.

Bill had a friend/customer in the shop yesterday that he was telling about how we were doing this Greenlane Diet. She said "you're crazy!! That diet is for people who are so sick in hospital. They are stuck in bed and can't move all day! And you guys are eating the same amount AND walking around! I don't know how you can do it!"

I hadn't actually thought of it like that. I don't think it will be a permanent thing for me but more of a kickstart to get my motivation back which it seems to be doing.

Lynda and Jules you are totally right! I couldn't remember what he had died of. I had an idea it was something non-related to weight but couldn't quote that on here as I wasn't totally sure. So thanks for pointing that out.

I'm really enjoying his book for reasons other than weightloss as well. It's been very good timing. We are currently going into winter which is always a tough time financially for us. We're having to live day to day budgeting to pay bills and when you own a shop like this the bills are big amounts ... in the thousands so we have to be very tight with our money. Some days it gets us down and very hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Anyway getting back to the book ... this guy talks about another side of life ... one where he had no issues with money, where he was jetsetting all over the world for meetings. Over to London for 8hrs then back again, flying all over New Zealand multiple times in a day, smoozing clients in fancy restaurants, buying big fancy cars and living a life many people dream about. Yet he wasn't happy. He found himself not communicating with his wife because he was too busy being the big exec and by the time he got home he would flop into bed and start all over the next day.

It was a great reminder to me that money isn't everything. I've never had a desire to be hugely rich but enough to cover the bills and a little left over for some playtime is the dream for me. And sometimes I feel very let down in life because we've had to work so hard just to pay the bills. This man made me refocus on the fact that yes we may be broke, but hey we have a great relationship together (Bill and I) where we can be together every night and talk, we can work happily together, take the kids out for a swim down the beach as a family, play 'bat down' out in the back yard as a family and generally we can have the time just to be us, with out the rush, rush, rush of the 'high life'. We have our health and we have to be grateful for those small things because in all reality those small things ... are actually big things in life ...

To simplify it down it reminded me ... 'Don't worry!! Be happy!!'

P.S. - for those of you who asked what happened about Bill's job ... he never heard back so we're taking that as a no. Pretty rude of them not to let him know, but that's ok we're happy with that.

Don't run away mojo!!

Firstly ... 'Me' ... the guy's name that wrote Diary of a Fat Man is Paul Jeffreys. (published by Penguin Books) Hope that helps. I must admit I tried to do a search on the net to find a pic for yesterdays post but found very little info on it. I wonder if they pulled it from publication when he died.

This new menu plan is working out great for me! (the Greenlane one I talked about yesterday). It's really hard to stick to and I'm finding I'm getting really hungry (like stomach majorly growling at me hungry) between meals. I think this is a good thing for me right now. I got so used to the points system where if I got hungry I just ate and used the points from another day.

Get this ... I've EVEN gone to black coffee/no sugar!!! (normal is white/1 large tsp sugar) And it's not actually too bad!

As you may recall I had beetroot for my menu dinner last night. I had raw beetroot there that I was going to cook up. But not wanting to add sugar I found a recipe to roast them with garlic and balsamic vinegar which in theory sounded devine ...ehem ... 2.5hrs later everything else was cooked and we were still waiting for the beetroot. I gave up, took it out of the oven and decided to boil it ... half an hour later I thought they must be cooked. The kids had eaten everything else on their plate so I peeled the beetroot and dished it up. "YUMM!! Beetroot like grandma does!!" came their excited replies. They started hooking into it as I peeled Bill's and my portions. "Umm, it's okay, not quite as good as grandma's beetroot" I heard them say. As I took a bite of my beetroot I was discusted!! It was revolting!!! Still crunchy and raw!!! Those poor kids ate their beetroot without another word! I just couldn't eat mine! YUCK!! I gave in and went and got a can of the stuff out of the cupboard. "You kids want any more of the canned stuff?" "No mum I'm full" Poor things! lol

We finished the night off with our allotted ww icecream and baked apples.

This morning it was worth it all with a loss of 600g on the scales for my weekly weighin! Very happy given I've only been on this plan one day.

My food for today is ...

Breakfast - 1 boiled egg, 1 slice dry toast, 1/2 banana

Lunch - 1 cup cottage cheese, 5 snax crackers

Dinner - 2 Frankfurters, 1 cup broccoli, 1/2 cup carrots

Snack - 1 cup ww icecream, 1/2 banana

My mojo may very well be on it's way back!!

Anyone seen my mojo? ...

I'm trying desperately to find my mojo again. It's totally vanished and do ya think I can remember where I left it???

While waiting for the pager to go off at the ambo station the other day I picked up a book and started reading. 'Diary of a Fat Man'. I'm usually against such 'tacky' books but his writing style actually grabbed my attention.

It still goes against the grain for me reading a book about a guy who loses 64kgs to 'gain his life back' (his words) and then dies 6mths later!! But hey still a good read.

I'm about a third of the way through it and one of the diet's he does (twice a year) is the 'Greenlane Diet' named because Greenlane Hospital uses it for all their patients waiting for open heart surgery. It's remarkably simple and cheap so I thought 'what they hey? I'll give it a go'

It involves a very strict diet for three days and 4 days off, 3 days on, 4 days off etc. I think I need a bit of structure at the moment to get me aysse into line!

This is todays food ...

Breakfast - 1/2 grapefruit, 1 slice dry toast, 1tblsp peanut butter

Lunch - 1 slice dry toast, 1/3c tuna

Lunch - 1 cup green beans, 1 cup beetroot, 2 slices lean meat

Dessert - 1 small apple, 1 cup ww icecream

Feeling good so far but only upto lunchtime... see how I feel on day 3!!!