Thanks to all who have supported me, “listened” to my rants and basically stuck by me even though I can be a right whinging fool now and again. I wish I had a profound post to write about each and every one of you, but you know who you are and I’m pretty sure without you I’d have crashed and burned a lot harder than I actually did.
Especially Katie, Karen, Emilie, Penny, Alinda, Lynda, Angie,Tracy, Donna, Elisha, Brooke and Paola- Thanks for being a pretty constant stream in my life as far as support goes; your comments mean everything to me here and on Twitter or Facebook.
Those are just a few who are continually with me throughout my days whether they are good or bad and I’m so, so grateful that I’ve “met” you all online and that we can share this together.
Looking forward to the next great year – WHO KNOWS what’s in store for us???
This week has not be stellar for me once again but we are not surprised by now. After all this is NOT A WEIGHT LOSS BLOG so no real reason to expect that I’m a green, mean, clean eating machine all the time, right? With the holidays coming to a close, finally the biscuits, cookies, chocolates, cakes, special breads, etc., will stop being put in my face until next year and I can at least go on with my life in the way I actually MEAN to go on.
It’s funny because we have stuff at home right now, chocolates that my husband bought, but the thing is, I don’t like them, so I don’t eat them. I don’t like half the shit I’m shoving in my face at work, but I’m still eating it. I’m not hungry, I’m eating it. I’m looking for stuff to shove down my neck. I know that it’s stress related.
But it’s amazing (here comes the broken record) that even though I know it doesn’t help I do it anyway. Really annoying. I can quit smoking, but I can’t stop shoving crappy things in my face?
Anywho. I had some really good stuff this week too though. I must be such a food/health dork because I just LOVE a great salad. I am definitely going to refocus and get my good food on next week and beyond :)
Thanks to Tracy, I had these Cheddar Snack-a-Jacks with lowfat Philadelphia and 4 slices total of chorizo for breakfast. In hind-sight, I agree that these are more a snack item and not breakfast as I was just too hungry too soon. Lesson learned.
Another breakfast: Green Eggs. I used spinach (frozen, thawed out from night before), spring onions and courgette (zucchini) with two eggs and two egg whites, about 10g of parmigiana and (sorry if this sounds weird) used the pan that had a wee bit of oil (< 1TBSP), garlic (whole clove), chilies and cumin fried in it the night before. This was delish and definitely more filling than the snack-a-jacks.
Curry (Dahl) – OH MY GOD this is insanely delicious and healthy, really! Lentils, tomatoes, chicken, spices… with basmati rice and the “topping” as mentioned above ^^^^
The topping, in the pan:
Wait that’s not food! (Nena, Kitty #2 hanging out)
Another breakfast: this was good, but only semi-filling. I had a couple weeks there where I was doing all right but lately (maybe again lack of good sleep) I’m hungry by the time I get to work. Again need to revamp and figure this out. Ah I’m in a constant state of reinvention, no?
2 Hard boiled eggs, leftover rice and two small ripe tomatoes:
This week I also had, but did not photograph, leftover chili con carne with rice (yum), leftover Dahl (no chicken, no topping) and I had some leftover rice, steamed broccoli, chicken, courgette and red onion that I whipped up together for lunch yesterday.
With all the not so healthy choices (and chocolate/biscuit face shoving) there were some healthy ones in there too.
What did you eat this week? What was amazing and healthy? What could you improve upon?Did you also almost eat up a cute kitty cat?
as I mentioned on my last blog post, this week has been a total bust as far as staying on plan is concerned. Not the end of the world and actually some really nice things happened as well :)
Like Monday, not only did I do my lunchtime run like planned:
I also went out in Rotterdam for African Food with my friend Tammy, her husband and if you have been paying attention, Penny (who I know thanks to Tammy), plus a few other friends of Tammy’s that I did not know previously. Dinner was FAB, the company was great and most of all I got to meet Penny finally and see Tammy again. Rotterdam is fairly far away for us, Penny is even further, so we had to take the opportunity that presented itself to us.
I did not get home however until after Midnight. I planned on going in “late” the next day, i.e., taking the 8:30am train to catch the 10am shuttle bus to the office and then making up the time due to a conference call I had until 5:30pm. As luck wouldn’t have it, my train was just enough delayed to be cancelled at Amsterdam Central Station, leaving me to have to take another train, putting me in at my station at 10:01… just late enough to miss the shuttle. I waited for the City Bus… it never arrived. Then it started raining, HARD. I ended up taking a taxi with another colleague who was also waiting.
The rest of that day and the next is a total blur to be honest. Tired. EXHAUSTED. Not planned my meals well at all. Ate too much junk. Wednesday I even took the car to work to take some things home (I bought a table recently at an auction we did to raise money for the Horn of Africa), and I remember only driving home and feeling so incredibly tired that I felt physically ill. (So I knew that being out on Monday night would wreak havoc, but I still say it was worth it). By Wednesday evening 9:30pm I was in the bed, on my way to dreamland.
On Thursday we had a surprise lunch for all of us at work – Pizza. My plan was to pick up a salad but there was nothing available (that I thought would be tasty AND worth the calories) but I had Pizza instead. (Makes sense right???). Then the Big Boss let us all go early, so I went into town (Amsterdam) to do some last minute shopping (which was awful, tiring and back breaking) and hang out until my friend P was off work – we had planned to have a beer or two, catch up and she had some amazing giant cookies for me (and they were truly amazing). So basically, beer (yum) and cookies (delish) – more junk prior to the holiday.
Friday we were off officially. I was meant to work in one of the stores but I already cancelled Wednesday. I felt physically so broken. So I got some sleep, took care of the grocery shopping, managed to find what I was looking for in Amsterdam just here next door to us (as a side note, I don’t see what is so special about shopping in Amsterdam; all the same shops over and over and over again!) and by the time all that stuff was done the kids were arriving for the weekend. I managed to have a decent lunch of roasted veg, chicken and noodles and I prepared a healthy dinner for us as well – couscous, veg and turkey. My stepson had made apple pie and brought some to us, so we had that for dessert.
Saturday we spent cleaning up and preparing for my mother-in-law to visit us. She doesn’t really come around very often – she lives in the town that Hubs comes from and lives in a home. Several years ago she had a stroke is in a wheelchair and seems to have aphasia. So with Dutch being my second language and she hardly being about speak/get her words out, it’s quite a challenging situation. Regardless we still all had to chip in and make the house look presentable! Once that was done I went out for a run!
This one felt REALLY good. I actually just started. No warm up, nothing. I thought I would just do a round and come home. Nothing major, just get out and feel the wind and the bits of rain and the patches of sun. Just enjoy it. And so I did :) No pain, no stress, no nothing. Just some music that makes me feel good (cheesy vacation tunes that make me think of Greece and the great time we had a few months ago) and running. No time or distance goals. Running just because. AWESOME!!
I came back, showered, got ready and then Hubs went to pick up his mother while the kids and I started the traditional peanut butter cookies (for Santa of course)! I love doing this – I did it with my mom and my grandma and I just love that I can share it with my stepkids. Hubs and MIL arrived at the house, we finished up the cookies, hubs made an incredible pasta meal for us, we had drinks, laughs, it was all good fun.
Hubs returned MIL home around 9pm and the kids prepped for bed. Once hubs was back we had a few glasses of wine and watched a movie (Barton Fink – I know, old and kind of a weird choice for Christmas but it was Hubs’ choice) and then put all the presents out so that the kids would see the big pile in the morning.
And So this is Christmas :)
Unfortunately the Girl had Female Trouble real bad so the morning started out with needing a hot water bottle and some serious ibuprofen, but eventually she felt better. Everyone loved their presents :) Hubs bought me the pink Nike running jacket I wanted, a pink skirt from RunningSkirts (I would prefer to buy from Hiphardlopen.nl but they don’t have my size with just a brief underneath), a new gloves and hat pack (black!), a subscription to RunnersWorld Magazine (YAY!), a new digital kitchen scale with timer and alternative weights, a book light (can’t read in bed because our light isn’t bright enough!) and an Audrey Hepburn Calendar (LOVE Audrey). All in all I’d say some great loot!
Now we’re just hanging out. Hubs is watching LOTR (again!) and I’m going to do my nails and drink coffee. The kids went to their Grandma and Grandpa (Mum’s side) and we are going to have Fondue tonight for our Christmas dinner together.
I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday, if you celebrate it, but no matter what, I hope that this time of year brings you the chance to reflect and find the good things and work towards the less-good in your life. I don’t celebrate Christmas religiously, but I do think the sentiment that Christmas brings is one of caring and loving one another – my biggest wish this time of year is that we stop being so materialistic and selfish and start thinking even more of others to exist peacefully with each other. John Lennon reminds me constantly of how amazing it would be if we could just IMAGINE:
I went running on Monday and on Wednesday night I went to bed early… those two things were probably the most positive I did for myself. When the holidays are over I’m truly going to enjoy my nice little controlled planned life again! Or rather I should say my ROUTINE. Is it so OCD to want a routine?
Anyway, before the madness of cookies, wine and pasta dinner begin, I’m going to get dressed and go for a run. It’s well overdue.
Another week in review and to be quite honest with you it was almost the same as the last.
Busy, hectic, too much to do, too tired, too packed full of stuff.
In fact if I think about it now I have no idea what even happened two days ago let alone a whole week.
I do know there was no running (but the bag is packed to run at lunch tomorrow).
There was no gym.
There was somewhat of an attempt to do my body weight exercises.
There was less planning and too much random eating.
Friday I worked at one of our stores so I was not really in a position to have my regular food and snacks and Friday night was our company Holiday Party… there were *some* alcoholic beverages comsumed (and quite a bit of dancing, yay!) Saturday I was a wreck though (I’m not good with drinking much anymore… could be a good thing right?) so I didn’t eat or drink well and on top of that I had plans to go out with my friend M, meaning more food and drink was involved.
You know I don’t think the holidays should be a time when you say “screw it” and eat everything that isn’t nailed down, but it is a special time of year and very often you end up presented with food and drink that you normally wouldn’t have during “normal” times of the year. While I think my brain still wants to hang on to that a little bit (enter the panicking about food/weight Pinky), part of me feels really free. You know, I feel quite good. Healthy. I was looking at my body a bit the other day (which to be honest I don’t do much and maybe I should because it’s not exactly BAD…) and I thought “damn. for a 43 year old you really aren’t looking bad at all”. I bought this cute dress for the holiday party and it fit perfectly and I just thought “yeah! being this size/weight isn’t really bad!”
So yeah. Not the best example in the world, but I’m an honest example. It’s the holidays. Enjoy being with the people you love and if there is food or drink involved just use your head. You know, enjoy. Be present. Make memories. It’s nice and something to treasure. Nobody wants to sit around and pick at all the things they did “wrong” (ie what they ate and drank… people, life is too short!), pick at the things you did right!
I was in situations quite often this past week where I was late going home and hungry so I tried a few things I hadn’t had before:
Have you Had these?
I think these were 140 cals for two biscuits
Fruit Bites - Tasty, 90 cals but downside made from concentrate
I was in a BTL Chat about a week+ ago and we were talking about tips and tricks… one of my favourite tips is… if you are eating pasta with meat/tomato sauce, have less pasta and bulk it up with broccoli.
100g Kamut Pasta with 150g steamed broccoli
mmmm mmmmm leftover homemade (lean) meat and tomato sauce courtesy of the Hubs
Also I have a twitter friend who has a cook book shop in town and she actually blogs here (in Dutch); she has some great recipes that she shares but this past week she made what sounds to be like a very simple but amazingly delicious mandarin cake… she saved me a piece so on Thursday I went by…What a treat!!
mandarin cake courtesy of Riejanne S.
I love to support local businesses and I wish you all lived close to me so you could visit her shop!
One of my favourite things this week? Homemade cappuccino. Yes I’m back to making them again at home.
foamy milk and creamy espresso
A Perfect Beverage
Plans this week:
Monday – dinner with friends (and looks like I’ll finally be meeting Penny!!! YAY!) packing my bag to run at lunch time.
Tuesday – recover from Monday, make sure I make my lists for food we need over the holiday
Wednesday – I may again run at lunchtime; driving the car because I need to bring some stuff home from work, don’t want to be stuck in Traffic
Thursday – meeting up with my friend P after work. Last minute shopping?
Friday – am supposed to work in another store of ours. don’t know if I’ll make it.
Saturday – last minute (food) shopping, making cookies for the Hubs Santa Claus.
Sunday – CHRISTMAS! Whoo!
Calgon, take me away!
How was your week? How do you feel about all of the busyness and food and drink this time of year?
You may or may not know this, but I am kind of skeptical. Usually I don’t “buy into” things very easily. My approach is really more no-nonsense than anything – usually takes a bit of convincing before I’ll try a product and even then I have the feeling it won’t work.
It took me quite a while to start thinking seriously about compression. I know that when you read people’s testimonials they say they are giving their own opinion – but I’ve hardly seen anyone say a product is crap when they’ve received free goods or services to try. Am I saying people are lying? No, but I am saying *maybe* it’s not all true…
Anyway, *I* did not receive any free samples. I actually ordered the Tommie Copper knee sleeves to give compression a chance myself. My physio told me not to bother with any extra help, and I really wondered about this as I see people wearing braces and compression gear all the time. If those people are doing it, who advised them and more importantly why? There must be a good reason.
I wrote earlier that I was already impressed by the service I received. My package arrived fairly quickly from the US and luckily even on the day that I had a day off from work (last week Tuesday). I immediately tried it on because if it wasn’t the right size, I needed to arrange to send it back immediately. I wore it on my left (bad) knee for several hours. Already I noticed that when sitting for periods of time my knee didn’t hurt when I started to move again. The next day I wore it in the train on my commute. Usually after 1 hour and 15 minutes of sitting still my knee hurts pretty bad. In fact, I usually start to get up out of my seat and work the kinks out about 5 minutes before I arrive at my station. I have a lot of pain for about 10 – 30 minutes after that; walking through the train, going up and down stairs at the station, getting into the bus, getting out of the bus (a real doozy). Already though the first day on the train with the knee sleeve – NOTHING. No pain. No kinks. Even the stairs and getting on and off of the bus was fine. Amazing!
Since then I’ve been wearing at least the left sleeve. I hardly notice it as I’m wearing it. Saturday I was out all day with my family and I wore both. My legs and knees were much less tired than normal. The real test though was to come…
Sunday I went for a run and I knew I was going to go minimum 10KM. I slipped on the left sleeve, got dressed and eventually hit the pavement. I have to say it went really well! I hardly noticed my knee at all!! My only regret was not wearing both sleeves. There was a very clear distinction between left and right knees; my left TC knee was fine, my right non-TC knee definitely had some mild irritation/tiredness.
So there it is :) Would I recommend Tommie Copper compression gear? Yes, I would. Even without receiving any free stuff from them to try :)
Have you considered compression gear but just aren’t sure it works? What sort of compression gear would you try? Do you know what makes Tommie Copper special?
or alternatively:
Don’t be like me and eat crap all week
But alas, I’m going with the standard Week in Review Post…
You know when people talk about motivation, I find myself thinking about the post that I wrote some time ago and I truly believe that motivation is nothing something you can just “get” from somewhere. Not having motivation (in my opinion) is actually just an excuse why you (general “you”) don’t do the things you know that you need to do to be healthy, fit and feel good about yourself in general.
For example, it wasn’t lack of motivation that I ate like crap this week. It was other things. And they were all related to emotions:
I’m tired.
I have some quite some stress at work.
I had my Aunt Flo visiting me this week and felt like complete and utter shit on a stick (massive back pain and cramps)
I found out that my grandmother has pretty bad dementia and my dad actually thought she may have had a stroke (this particular fact had me crying a LOT last week – am so afraid I won’t see her again, plus she is my only link with where I come from, she’s my history, my GRANDMOTHER, someone I spent so much time with; I was her first grandchild and the thought of her dying now just really upsets me greatly) – she’s now moved into a nursing home. On Wednesday I even almost booked a flight home.
So with these as my excuses/facts I do realise 100% that sticking my head in the candy jar at work is NOT a solution. The stress and the pain in my back could be relieved with a run or an hour at the gym, but clearly I wasn’t willing to do that this week. I’ve no one else to blame here. I made the choice and I have to live with it. I’ll be honest, I’m fairly sick of myself and reacting with food in these ways that I do feel a very serious change coming on. I cannot continue my life like this – this emotional eating does absolutely nothing for me but enhance my crappy feeling.
So another week has gone by and I did not go to the gym. That’s 2 weeks since October. I did however fill out the form to join the other gym that my company pays a chunk of the membership fee each month. I just need the option to go to the gym in the weekend after 12. So I’ll be sending my letter (again) to my current gym to stop my membership.
Something fun happened this Saturday – although eating was still not stellar, the kids, hubs and I all went to the Openluchtmuseum (Open Air Museum) here in Arnhem. It was SO MUCH FUN. And I can tell you we were walking around pretty much all day. We even did a bit of tubing down a “snowy” hill and went ice skating. It was the kind of day that just made you forget all of the stress and worry, just for a few hours. I was so grateful for this day, even though I’m pretty broken from landing on my tush a few times on the ice skates. For your viewing pleasure, a few photos:
It was an absolutely GORGEOUS day!
S-Daughter and Hubs (waving) on ice:
My Family *swoons*
Coming down the hill
How can anyone not enjoy this scenery?
I got a run in today that I called the Road to Redemption; feeling much better mentally and physically!!
So, plan for the week: Get some food prepped (still haven’t done it and it’s nearly 7:30pm), go to the gym, enjoy the party next Friday night (company party), try to get through Christmas shopping, see my girlfriend M and get a run in. Should be possible.
This has been another crazy week, I can tell you! No time for much catch up. Once again I wanted to share with you a foodie post prior to Sunday, but lucky reader… you will get that today!
So the week ended/started out all right with my “new” Sunday ritual of roasting vegetables and prepping for the week. AND an 8K run in the evening. Running is going well, it feels good and I’m glad to be doing it. Sunday I ran through town a bit because to be honest I prefer different routes vs. running around the park several times. I’m then paying less attention to how many more kilometers I have to run and more attention on my surroundings and maneuvering my way back home.
Monday was my regular day to come home early from work and relax in the evening, but with all the things going on at the moment, I wasn’t able to leave on time. Tuesday was an absolute nightmare – I left for work but I only made it almost half way when there was a big problem with the trains. I had to turn around and go back and work from home instead. Since this was my busiest day of the month it was not stop people asking me questions (over IM), calling, emailing, problems with the system… basically working from home is supposed to be less stressful but it was by far the worst day of my week! I *did* go for a 6 K run on Tuesday evening (once I finally got to sign off), but when I came home I had two missed calls from my boss and a bitchy email, so I knew I wasn’t quite finished yet. It was a day for a LOT of coffee:
Italian Roast in Italian Roast
Luckily I had prepared my food for that day so I had something healthy to eat and wasn’t just reaching for anything, like this tuna, rice and green bean salad:
Wednesday and Thursday I worked late. I wanted to go to the gym Thursday but as I had my friend Kary coming to visit me on Friday (for the weekend) and I still need to clean and tidy up, this just wasn’t going to happen. Sadly, this was the first week since October 1st that I haven’t been to the gym.
Friday I left early because K arrived!!! I wasn’t quite sure what we were going to do for the weekend since I am sort of out of the loop when it comes to guests. My dad and stepmom were here earlier this year, but they didn’t stay with us, they stayed at a hotel near the station. I haven’t had anyone come and stay for probably 10 years! K made it really easy though and I did imagine in the back of my mind that we would probably just spend a lot of time talking and that’s exactly what we did! Hubs made a great dinner for us on Friday, Saturday we spend the day in town drinking coffee, talking, eating, talking, drinking wine and then eventually we went to our favourite Thai restaurant in town. Sadly the weekend flew by and K’s already on her way back to Sweden.
I’m going to now probably have a cuppa (or more specifically a shot)
and prep my food
Sundried Tomatoes and Roasted Vegetables
I’m eating Peas now!!!
Peas are my new love
My breakfast this week has been only yoghurt, fruit and some nuts (in this case almonds). I’m waiting now until about 7:30 to eat, though admittedly I’m pretty hungry by then.
A friend of mine actually gave me this “energy bar” – I was really hungry Thursday morning and remembered I had it in my bag (it’s vegan too!)
This coming week will also be a bit unconventional – I’m having dinner with a friend tomorrow night, but Tuesday I took the day off to go with hubs to some doctor’s appointments, then by Thursday I need to come up with a dish I can share with my team; Friday we have a sort of Pot Luck and we all have to bring something that represents where we come from… again, tons of food on Friday that will not exactly be part of the plan…
Looks like gym’s going to happen on Friday after work…
How did your week go? What are your plans for the upcoming week?
