Category: Blog

I know that I am more likely to go on a walk, even in nasty weather, if it is included in a group of tasks that I have agreed with myself to do. As well as this, when I have an eating theme in place I find that I am less likely to respond to the nasty weather by eating foods that are not part of that theme.

Today when I looked out the window and saw some very nasty weather I knew a choice had to be made. I chose to go on the walk. Yes I know, I know, how goody three shoes of me!

I could have done with three shoes, that is for sure. I experienced a strong wind that was forcing sleety drizzle, and me, sideways. I could barely hold my footing or my umbrella. Despite this indisputable sample of weather nastiness I am delighted to report there was no need for any barbecue crisps or chocolate ripes because I could look forward to a generous amount of food straight after my walk. A typical “Porkust” lunch. A bread roll with ham, lettuce, tomato and onion on it, followed by a piece of fruitcake and some fresh grapes.

The whole story about losing weight has two chapters: eating differently and taking more regular, realistic amounts of exercise.

Allowing enough time to learn how to be some comfortable, smaller amount of kilograms less weight is the key that opens the door of successfully keeping the weight lost. The goal weight is the interim weight, not the theoretically perfect weight of someone else, an unrecognizable heroine or hero in some other book universe.

Say five kilograms are lost without too much pain over three or four months. After that it might take six months or even a year of learning how to be that weight. All sorts of learning will take place. How the new body shape fits into its surrounding space. Learning how to wear new smaller clothing. A new relaxed posture will become more usual because it becomes normal, instead of a posture as rigid as an economic plastic hose. Letting the eyes become used to seeing a slightly smaller (but not alarmingly smaller) image needs to take place. Learning how much exercise and how much of each food type is needed to eat, in order to maintain the interim weight is a non-trivial challenge involving much guesswork.

The whole story about keeping the weight lost has more chapters than a romance novel.

Believe it or not, it is actually quite easy to know how many chips to place on the oven tray to heat up for the evening meal. Just follow my “Two chip” guideline.

Firstly, shake out as many chips as you would like to eat onto the oven tray from the freezer pack. Secondly, choose the two largest chips and put them back into the pack.

For my collendar page today I have taken an image of cooked roast pork and used my scissors to cut off all the crackling. Essentially what is left is an image of a pan fried, lean “Pork Medallion.” It doesn’t look too bad at all.

I have also found images of cabbages and flowers to remind me that this winter, this Augrapes, I am being quite disciplined about what I eat and it isn’t too difficult. My portion size now is a lot less than it was several years ago. However, it is only slightly less than my portion size was this time last year.

We only eat a few grapes this month to give us a symbolic taste of “Augrapes.” Even with the money saved from giving up cigarettes, buying out of season grapes can quickly damage the improved budget.

The pressure to purchase more grapes than we want or need by unreasonable supermarket packaging practices is a challenge to work on, constantly. We pay per kilogram, there is absolutely no need to purchase nearly a whole kilogram if we only want about one half of a kilogram. Therefore I think it is perfectly acceptable to remove up to even half of the grapes, one of two clusters for example, from one bag and place them in another bag. This sort of assertiveness does develop, slowly. If you don’t feel comfortable about doing that it would be possible to ask a shop assistant to do it for you, as an interim step, if there are too many in the bag. That way about the right amount of grapes will arrive home.

Sometimes the packaging of the grapes mentions that they have been treated with a gaseous spray to make them last longer. This makes it very important to give them a good rinse under the cold water tap. I like to change the bowl any leftover grapes are in each day. It helps them to last and makes them look more appealing.

For the rest of this month a quiet time is my plan. Continuing the daily walk is a must in order to balance the incidences of roast pork with crackling and of ham and pineapple pizzas. I will also continue making the collendar pages. I think it is well worth doing them because they do use up some time that might otherwise be spent on thinking about eating chocolate ripes and barbecue crisps.

Today the weather excelled itself. There was hail. I was so thankful I wasn’t out walking in that. Later the mere rain shower that did drop on my umbrella seemed trivial.

Really it has been a grey, grey day. Grey collendar pages work so well this month, so appropriate. It would be tempting to find an image of the date and leave it at that, just have the the rest of the page grey. But no! Not today anyway. As well as some Augrapes, tonight strawberries are on the plate. Just a few. Just for a change, some colour on the pancake, a preview of summer. So, with images of strawberries and tomatoes, most of the collendar page turned out to be red.

As winter slowly, oh so slowly retreats, spring is almost believable. Today I noticed sparse blossoms are appearing on flowering cherry trees.

I find that the risk of eating incorrectly increases when I am feeling tired. A chocolate ripe, some barbecue crisps or even a bowl of icecream would be so good. They all send messages directly to the brain receptors, jolting them to wake up.

A hierarchy of foods to eat outside mealtimes is needed. Near to the top of mine would be toast. Sometimes a round of toast can make all the difference. At any time of the day a round of toast will be better than chocolate. A bowl of soup does not have to be a meal, and eaten at mealtimes. At any time of the day a bowl of soup will be better than chocolate. Having any or many extra amounts of the fruit of the month, or any type of fruit is also better than chocolate.

It is sounding very like the bottom of the hierarchy of outside mealtimes foods has identified itself. Chocolate!

Sugar added, sugar added, to coco-youknow whats, to corn-youknow whats, to every type of youknow what breakfast cereal, they all have massive amounts of sugar added. Perhaps enough sugar is added for an athlete to run a marathon, who would know, it would not surprise me. Usually the amount of sugar that has been added is very cleverly obscured because the packaging speaks of “energy” instead of heaped teaspoons.

What they do not have added is the ability to make us feel full, so the natural and perfectly understandable thing to do is eat more of them, and more and more of them, until we do feel full. That might be great for breakfast cereal sales, but it is exactly what we need to overcome when struggling to lose weight and keep that weight off.

A round of toast lightly buttered with a shortcut, almost fatless piece of bacon and an egg, fried in a non-stick frying pan will be much more filling and the feeling lasts longer. It is very important to have a good non-stick frying pan so that all the bacon and all the egg gets onto the toast. Follow that with a real, fresh large (or two small) orange.

At the start of my weight loss journey I found that I needed to have two rounds of toast, two shortcut, almost fatless pieces of bacon and and two eggs for breakfast. Sometimes two large oranges as well. It takes some experimenting to find out the best amount for the current body shape. Slowly, over time the amount required reduces.

This month of “Porkust” is a very good time to try some breakfast changes if you are struggling with coco-youknow whats or corn-youknow whats, or any other youknow whats. The only marathon we need to run is to get as far away as we can, as quickly as we can from the sugar added, breakfast cereals isle of the supermarket.

One of the tasks for Augrapes is done. Today I visited the dentist. Your turn!

There must be hundreds of reasons why a day would be special. There are a few easily identifiable reasons of course such as a birthday, an enjoyable outing, a family day. I would also like to try and consider some other less obvious ones.

Today is special because… I walked down the mile long lollie isle of the supermarket and did not put any in my shopping trolley!

Yesterday evening Waratah and I started playing our online computer game which we have been developing.

We have called it the “Gobbler Game.” We chose this name because when it is played it gobbles up time. That is it would, if you allowed it to. It is such fun to make a camp and try and craft at least some, if not all the items it requests. The requests change daily. The Gobbler game is a hoarders paradise because you never know what it might request. It is good to have a bit of as many e-items as possible…

So, as you can easily imagine it would be really tempting to log in to the new game and not go walking. If I detect any new non-walking tendency I will take steps immediately to rectify the situation. Steps out of the door and along the walking path.

Move… walk, bend, the more you move the more the chance of success there is in managing weight.

(PS You will notice some notes about the Gobbler game at the bottom of this site.)

Sometimes it can be difficult to get images to use for collendar pages. Usually there is something in catalogues but an example is images of the month may be tiny when I would like to use some larger ones. There is no need to have the expense (and dust) of a printer if you don’t want one. I have discovered the library.

For a tiny cost it is possible to get a print out of a whole bunch of cut and paste font images on a text document. If phrases like “cut and paste” and “font images on a text document” seem like a different language, and I know from experience that computer menus can be confusing and often don’t do what we want them to, that is where the librarian is able to help.

Another idea is to use the food packaging for images if it is made of suitable material. I give it a good wash and plenty of time to dry well, days rather than hours.

Today’s collendar page includes an image of the word August done at the library and an image of the words “red seedless grape”s cut from the packaging they came in.

No, of course my mind was not on you know whats as I walked right on by the bakery. But just in case my brain does activity on some other levels that are not available to my consciousness, I fully occupied myself taking photos of local street art instead. I have posted some of them in the archives section.

Now for the weight report. Yesterday, dressed in similar clothes to last month and at roughly the same time of day, (before the evening meal) the scales read 73.5 kg. That was a loss of 1.5 kg which was acceptable.

I am not jumping for joy because the goal was to maintain my weight, not to lose it. I misjudged the amount of calories for the month, and that is despite eating all those pies. Perhaps the meat portion of the evening meal could have been a bit more generous? Perhaps I needed to walk only each second day, not every day? You can see what guess work is needed to learn how to stabilise weight after you lose some.

Never mind. Onwards, into Augrapes. Perhaps we could schedule one more ham and pineapple pizza meal…

After the towel task of last month which was very demanding, this Augrapes task is almost trivial. It is easy and enjoyable. The task is to visit a florist shop once each week and to buy some appealing flowers to colour up the last month of the winter.

Firstly, I dump all the catalogues that have cluttered up the table for ages into a box and hide it somewhere, in another room. I still need the catalogues but can get them out and put them away again as required.

Next I place a blue tablecloth on the table and a mat which could potentially soak up any stray water from a vase. After that I choose a vase. There is no need to buy expensive table cloths or vases if I am on a budget. I have used some of the sheets of the paper I use for collendar pages to cover a tall bottle that originally held dried pasta. A blue sheet is able to function perfectly well as a table cloth. Over time I have found some nice vases at opportunity shops and I like to get them out and display them this month.

Then follows the arranging of the flowers. I do it patiently, trying out various ways of placing one sort of flower next to another sort and eventually I get them all standing up, tall. I do it as well as I am able to. After that comes the admiring of them.

Augrapes soldiers : Wattle’s Weight Warriors. Now on duty!

Stop Press! Pie Season ends. Weight report will follow tomorrow.

Yum yum, the pie breakfasts sure were delicious. What could possibly take their place? Lets have a sneak preview of “Augrapes.” Here is a hint…

Some fresh grapes. Somehow, I know you would have predicted that. Only some though, they are quite expensive because at this time of the year they have to be imported.

Fresh grapes do not sit well on pancakes, there is no doubt about that. It would taste odd with ice cream and anyway, they would tend to roll off. Instead, we have fresh fruit of choice on the pancake and try to mix it up. I like to revisit summer berries if they are available. Attempts will be made to cook steamed sultana puddings. Fruitcake suppers might make an appearance.

We will have some home made ham and pineapple pizzas with a small amount of cheese on them. Ham and salad bread rolls are great for breakfast, brunch or lunch.

Cabbage is the star in Augrapes. I just know you would never have predicted that. A large proportion of cabbage and carrot in homemade coleslaw that has a small amount of coleslaw dressing goes really well with ham and bread roll.

How does roast pork with crackling sound? We will definitely have some of that. Naturally, we will mainly have many pork medallion meals with, (yes, how did you guess?) oven fries potatoes, commercial brand finishing sauce and steamed vegetables. Cabbage, carrots and rotate the third vegetable for some variety.

I do so very much enjoy Augrapes, which over the years we have come to know fondly as “Porkust.”

One of the tasks ahead for the month of Augrapes will be to visit the dentist. After all those apples eaten in Apply it hardly seems like it would be necessary. Even so, it is just to have a tiny checkup visit. You and I, ok?

Think of it as an outing. An interesting outing. Even as a very special outing. Certainly it is special in terms of the cost. Truly, it is a luxury outing. Right up there with price of a ticket to Disney Land. It is way more expensive than going on an outing to the ten pin bowling alley, or visiting a cinema.

Now I can just hear you thinking, “Yes, that is all very well but it is not as entertaining as the ten pin bowling alley or the cinema would be.” Ah! But it could be, if only we let it. All those modern posters to look at. The very latest thing in tooth brushes. The awesome beauty of the perfectly clean dental surgery. The friendliness of the dentist and his or her team. There is a feeling of importance too, all their attention is focused on us and the well being of our fangs.

Pick up the phone and make an appointment. Right now! Just to have a tiny check up visit. You and I, ok?

There are no right or wrong amounts. Eat the amount that feels right. It is likely that the amount that feels right at this time will not feel right at this time next year because it will feel like too much.

Over several years the Apply amount of pie for breakfast has changed. It gone from 2 pies each day, to one pie each day, and now this year to one pie each second day. The really heartening thing about this particular example that is I didn’t even really notice it, it is only in retrospect that the pattern shows. At any given time in all those years the amount felt right.

You might have noticed that the pie for breakfast each second day started on the first of the month. Could that be because of my enthusiasm to farewell the Pearn eating theme and commence the Apply one? Perhaps it was a mere a coincidence? Or could it be because there is one more odd day than there is even day in Apply? If I was counting, that would be one extra pie breakfast, wouldn’t it.

Another very good aspect of having a pie for breakfast is that if it is bought from the bakery, as well as acting as a hand warmer on the way home, giving a different way to practice waiting to eat, and having no frozen pies in the freezer for me to be tempted to have a pie for lunch after a pie for breakfast is that I get to meet to all the dogs who live along the way. Woof, woof! They exuberantly say hi back – to my pie.