A change would do you good

...so said Sheryl Crow.  And by 'eck, she was right!

I'm at the end of day 3 now, and I've already made some positive changes to my dietary habits.

1. Cut the caffeine
Probably my biggest change yet but surprisingly easy.  I know that tea and coffee themselves are 'free' on Slimming World, but I drink both tea and coffee very weak, with lots of milk (almost half a cup) and 2 sugars! A colleague and I have a saying at work, “We don’t like our tea to taste of tea.” It’s not that radical really. I work in an office, and some days we might only have 2 or 3 brews, but other days we might have had 2 or 3 by lunchtime!  So I knew that if I didn’t get this sorted straightaway, this could easily be my downfall. 

I sometimes drink Peppermint Tea (without milk or sugar!) to help with bloatedness after meals so I set out to make this my substitute hot drink.  I learned pretty quickly on Tuesday, that as soothing as peppermint tea is after a meal / before bed I can’t drink it throughout the day for ‘fun’.  So I’ve now switched to having no added sugar squash with hot water.  I still keep warm and hydrated, but I don’t use any syns and to be honest a caffeine reduction can’t be a bad thing!  I still have a coffee in the morning with breakfast, before leaving for work, but the milk comes out of my Healthy Extras (with the remainder going on my 2 weetabix - also healthy extras).

2. Lose the lift
I work in an office on the top floor - it's only the second floor though.  And I'm quite ashamed to say that using the lift to get to the top floor has become the habit rather than the exception.  So far, since going to SW on Monday night, I haven't used the lift once. Walked straight past it and up the stairs. 

On Tuesday morning, when I got to the top, I did have to stand there and gather my breath for a couple of minutes! But it already seems to be getting easier - though i'm sure that's not possible so quickly.

3. Plan, plan, plan
I think this is the most important lesson so far.  It's no good coming home and thinking, 'what shall we have for tea?' By tea, I mean my evening meal here.  To any Southerners reading, you would most likely recognise this as dinner or supper.  Ideally, planning a day or so in advance what you're going to have is best, but night before or the morning is also good. 

For example, last night we made a spaghetti bolognese recipe (from the SW website - http://group.slimmingworld.com/recipes/spaghetti-bolognese.aspx ) and i purposefully made extra pasta, so that i could use it for my lunches today and tomorrow.  I've made a tuna & sweetcorn pasta, by mixing in fat free natural yoghurt (we'll come back to this in a minute) and some sprinklings of paprika, blacked pepper, chilli flakes & a dash or 2 of worcestershire sauce.  It's no Nigella, but it filled me up quite well at lunchtime today.

Back to natural yoghurt.  I have an issue with this.  How can something so white, pure and innocuous-looking taste so awful?  Don't get me wrong, I like yoghurts...it's just the natural yoghurts that offend me! A friend today said that fat free fromage frais is a better alternative, so maybe I'll try that next week.


So that's where I'm at so far.  It's not been a bad few days really, has it?  It does feel like it's been a bit too easy so far and I do keep thinking that a crushing reality of where I've been going wrong will dawn in me soon.  But I keep checking the books, and it seems I'm doing everything right.  I guess the proof will be in the pudding (bad choice of adage for a dieter eh) on Monday night.

I'm touched by the responses I've had so far - in person, by text and other means.  Thank you to each and everyone of you for reading my ramblings in the first place, and for your (much needed) moral support thereafter.

Love,
Hippy xx