Goal 3: Sleep: lights out by 10.15. (Changed to 10.30) Tick. (2weeks)
Goal 4: Fast for 16 hours each day. stop snacking!) Tick. (17 days.)
Goal 5: Daily strength training.
Cannot put this off any longer! I pledged on Thursday and again Friday and didn't do it. 😖 I blame a playroom!!. So I got up this morning and did it straight away. However for ease of weekly counts, I will start my counting from Monday!
Each day I will do a small number of strength exercises on different parts of the body. I will do them in the morning before I do anything else. I will make this pledge daily until it too is a habit and a statistic like goals 1 to 4.
Is anyone else focussing on anything this week?
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asics
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Asics it takes me all of thinking to stay on track. I have been losing weight for 5 and half months. In September hopefully I will be so close to healthy weight that I won't care any more. Late night snacking and getting all of my exercise done Are my goals. I dumped alcohol on day 1 and I am not a bit sugar addict. So getting moving is my big thing.
Now you've written this great post, you've helped to focus my mind on.... guess what.... Strength work!!!! So I'm going to follow in your footsteps and try to motivate myself to do daily strength work - although I will allow myself a day off somewhere in the week too. I am glad of the reminder, and would like to join you in your pledge.
It's inspiring to read your progression through your various goals, and wishing you success with this current goal too - I'm sure it will become a habit and a statistic like your other 4 goals.
It was your pledge a little while ago about 10 of each exercise that stuck in my head! I knew I wanted to come back to it.
We can do this! Saturday and Sunday I have ticked off. When I go back to work tomorrow it will be a real challenge. I have to keep in my head that I need to tone up too!
Good luck lovely! I will let you know how the week is going.
Thanks Asics, I do like the 'pledge' idea - because it does help to keep on track with things. I have to admit I've not managed to do any strength stuff over the weekend. I will try to do 10 of each before the end of the day! Thanks for the reminder - I'll try to do it regularly next week too, especially as I know you're doing it too - it does help to keep motivated - so thank you! Good luck! We can do it!
I want to get c25k behind me and then I really need to think about strength exercises. Keep us posted. Sounds like you've got this healthy living business cracked! I really admire you for getting to bed on time - it's really important and often gets forgotten. Well done you!
I am terrible at getting to bed! However tired I am in the day, I always get 2nd wind and potter until really late. Or I have found even if I go to bed at 9 I catch up with this site and I can be messaging away until really late.
So I have had to re-think it all! It does however make a huge difference to me.
You are tpright though. Comquoring one bad habit at a time is more achievable than trying to ditch the lot in one go.
Well done asics, you're a good example to us all. At the risk of sounding really stupid, does the 'stop eating sugar' mean absolutely no sugar at all, even in food like baked beans and fruit? Or do you mean you don't add sugar to food or drink you prepare? I should think it's very hard to exclude all kinds of sugar from a diet, I believe even milk has some in it.
I have to stop all refined sugar due to a Thrush which means that baked beans and peanut butter I therefore make my own. I do not have cornflakes / bread crumbs. In other words no processed food. I think this is what Ascis is referring to but she will clarify. Sorry for interrupting. In the beginning it is hard but I just get used to it. Therefore fruits I will eat as it is natural sugar. Like tonight everyone else at home was eating dairy chocolate an I didn't join in. No point as I will just get itchy. For me it is easy to cut out as I have health issues. Good luck!
Wow - that is fantastic! I tend not to be in the same room when my lot chomp on choccie! Although I did have a warm milk when my family all had a hot chocolate after a cold walk. I was absolutely fine about that and when I was heating the milk and mixing it for them it did smell really sickly.
Not stupid question at all! I have done a lot of reading around the subject and different people recommend different things.
I will try and keep this simple - but apologise in advance to any experts!When you see 'sugars' on a label about 50% of that figure is glucose, 50% fructose. Although too much of both is an issue (the body will turn it to fat and other nasties, please excuse the over simplification here!), it is fructose that is the biggest problem.
Fruit has fructose in, this is naturally occurring, but importantly it comes with fibre. Fibre helps the body deal with fructose. (Nicely put in one programme I watched - when mother nature provides poison (fructose) she also provides the antidote (fibre)!
Milk has lactose in it. Although a sugar, the body deals with this differently to fructose so handles it differently and it is not nasty like fructose. (Again cringing at my own over simplification here, but this is how I think of it!)
Phew! So this is what I am doing - I am cutting out all sugar. I don't add it to anything but I also don't eat anything with it in. This means no cake, biscuits, chocolate, sweets etc etc. It also means to me no baked beans, ketchup and other sauces. Anything in fact that has added sugar. I am no longer having balsamic vinegar for example. I am not eating honey or maple syrup either. I am also not eating bread. I intend to look out for sugar free bread, (possibly rye and soda?) but I am not missing bread at the moment.
I am sure there are some things I am eating that have teeny weeny amounts of sugar in, although can't think of anything at the moment.
I am however eating fruit. Some sugar free peeps cut out fruit altogether when they start, then eat just 2 pieces a day. Some reduce all fruit to 2 pieces. Personally I am eating it, I don't count it but probably average 3 pieces per day. I am not eating dried fruit either. Last summer I used to make Ella's energy balls with dates and raw cacao. However for now I am staying away from those too.
I have been drinking milk as it does not contain fructose. I find milk with cinnamon after a meal very sweet and creamy and it helped me feel like I was having something sweet when I first started all this. I still have it although I don't feel I need it now. I am also going to look at reducing my dairy, so today I am going to try unsweetened almond milk as an alternative. (After a post by Aqua!)
Oh and finally, nearly forgot! I am not drinking any alcohol, so those sugars have gone too.
At some point I would like to think I could introduce teeny weeny amounts of sugar, such as the odd piece of very dark chocolate. Or maybe not, maybe Ella's energy balls will be enough. At some point in the future I am sure I will also relax a teeny bit and for example enjoy the odd streak of balsamic or tablespoon of baked beans.
For now though, I know this abstinence is doing my body good. I started this year with a different approach - this is about health, with weight loss hopefully being a happy, if rather slower, side effect. I have read and watched enough to know that sugar really is poison to the body. I am therefore not seeing this restriction as I might have done in the past, lamenting all the things I can no longer have.
Instead I am happily researching, trying, testing, enjoying and celebrating those things I can have which are poison free and taste so much better now sugar is out of my life.
And if anyone is reading this thinking - oh my word, she is extreme, I couldn't do that. What a nutter! I can assure you at any point in my past, right up to the day I gave it up, I too would have thought the same!
Then when people on this site told me they have given up sugar and have been without it for years or months - that gave me a boost too. It is possible and more importantly it is possible without feeling deprived.
Have you tried making your own baked beans asics. I posted a recipe in the Healthy Food ideas thread (I think) which makes really nice ones. They have maple syrup in them, but you could easily leave it out
Now I have gone 6 months without sugar, I fully intend to remain that way until the end of my days. Everything tastes so lovely now and I love not having cravings for something sweet.
I do eat fruits, probably 4 pieces a day, but they tend to be the less sweet fruits for now. Sharon fruits which I adore are way too sweet, so they are just for special treats only. I also add chopped up bits of some dried fruits or raisins to my porridge, but just small amounts.
Really, this isn't at all extreme, it is how our grandparents probably ate, with sweet treats as a very rare occurrence, our bodies are just not designed to eat the silly amounts that we have got used to in the last 30 years or so.
I bet if you'd told yourself 8 weeks ago you were gonna do all this you'd have thought it was impossible!
I am seriously considering giving running a try. I'd like to run a mile - that's it just run a mile non-stop just the once So I am thinking hard about how I might do this. Upping my walking is the first step.
Good luck with your strength exercises and good on you for changing things around rather than giving up when your current routine wasn't working for you.
Your words really did help and I see them everyday in my diary! When I read your post the other day explaining how you had done just that, it gave me a further boost. I will be forever grateful.
Your goal sounds great.
Upping your steps is a good idea, then maybe think about upping your pace of walking? Did you see the bit on Doctor in the house on this? A man walked for so many seconds / minutes and noted the house number he had got to. Then he was challenged to walk for the same time but to get further. He therefore was walking quicker to get further, improving his pace without increasing the time spent on it. The difference was spectacular!
Then perhaps jog the distance between two houses / drives. Stop walk 2 or 3 and run the next one. Lengthening the distance over time. This would be great HIIT training too!
OK will stop now my mind is whirring...I feel the crazy pom poms and cheer leading rising to the surface again!!
Thanks & thanks for the advice I have been walking for over a year now but my pace hasn't improved greatly, I don't know why. But I like the idea of working with house numbers - I could do that. Maybe some speed walking first and then see how I get on.
Maybe if you could pop along with your pom poms that might motivate me
This is a reply to bakersdozen but I cannot find your post now?! It was about maple syrup.
Opinion varies on maple syrup. It is a natural sugar taken from tree sap. (Sap is basically distilled until only the syrup remains - over simplifying again!!)
A quick search tells me that the sugars in maple syrup are primarily in the form of the sucrose, with some glucose and fructose. In honey, the sugars are primarily in the form of fructose and glucose with some sucrose. Sucrose is a complex sugar that breaks down into the simple sugars fructose and glucose.
So....in short, not really great for health or weight loss. However if maple syrup is used instead of pure sugar it would be better. However too much of it and it will be converted to fat.
They generally agree if you use it, make sure it is a pure, good grade one. (The darker the syrup the stronger the maple flavour). You have to be careful as some have added sugars. Also if you’re going to buy maple syrup, then make sure to get actual maple syrup, not just maple-flavoured syrup, which can be loaded with refined sugar or high fructose corn syrup.
Going forward I will probably use maple syrup in moderation in recipes (Ella's and Davina's use it in small amounts) as it is better than sugar. Also looking to reduce the amount it has in each recipe.
However for now, to me it is sweet. I know I need to wean myself off the need for 'sweet'.
Thanks asics for clarifying matters I thought pure maple syrup is good but than I saw it has sugar. You are so right regarding dates should cut as it is full of sugar. I just bought a whole big box! Oh well never mind I will clear up from my thrush and than slowly be able to eat Ella's bites.
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