Category: Blog

I am positive I will never be as slender as a gray hound. Simply stated, I like eating too much.

So how did the weigh in go? Quite well. I am happy with my maintenance weight today of 79.0 kilograms which is half a kilogram more than at the end of Januberry. That is a good result given that each second day sausage rolls were on the plate for breakfast and on Saturday nights home made pizza was on the menu.

The continued walking has also played an important part in the weight maintenance. Portion size will need to be adjusted downwards if any hint of missed walks appears.

Thank goodness for freezers. The remaining sausage rolls will keep quite happily until we reach a month which has a mixed foods breakfast menu, or until they annoy me so much I just eat them!

Waratah here writing for Wattle. Unfortunately Wattle is managing her diet in hospital tonight after slipping on a deceptively steep gravel path and breaking her ankle. There may be a delay in regular posts for a while, but be assured that she will be back after a short interlude with more ideas, incubated in the dubious comforts of a hospital bed.

Meanwhile be sure to stay safe in your regular exercise, and especially watch out for treacherous terrain while walking.

The question I was wondering about a bit over a year ago was, “Would I eat less if my walking was reduced?” I had hoped the answer would be yes of course, because that would be the best answer. However,at best it was a hypothetical musing. Back then I didn’t anticipate finding out the answer any time soon.

Now I know. It is yes. The answer is yes!

This next bit is **NOT** recommended as a weight loss strategy… eating less because of going into hospital after fracturing ankle bones (and I do mean the plural, bones) resulting in six weeks of enforced bed rest is a huge no no…

I am so pleased to report that at least some of the good habits already developed, slowly and painstakingly devloped over years, such as drinking water with meals, really did help.

Could I (or anyone else) be blamed for thinking that it might also have something to do with not being able to get to a refrigerator? Sure that could also help a bit. After all the food which arrives on the tray is a very strict, the very definition of, portion control.

Portions of what? What was on the tray? Well I hoped I was making some weight friendly choices, like inclusion of a piece of fruit with each meal, and avoidance of too many desserts. At one stage I recall thinking I wish I could visit this restaurant more often because they had some particularly delicious crumbed fish on one of the trays.

A whole year and a bit has flown by since the last blog entry so it seems a good time to resume again, documenting each month’s eating theme and various activities and etceteras. Thankfully the walking has slowly returned to almost normal and with as much distance as before. What has changed is the walking path taken: the gravel lane has been removed from the route.

Let us imagine we are the slender heroines or heroes of our own book. It is a fun game to play.

How busy we would be! The slender heroines and heroes in books always seem to be so busy don’t they, doing exciting things in each and every chapter. They are never lost for words, conversing with all and sundry, including the equally slender heroes and heroines. Not always, but mostly their confidence oozes from each page.

The author rarely, if ever, mentions the slender heroine or hero doing the dishes promptly after each meal or snack. I think it could be assumed, or implied that there would always be plenty of personal energy to do them and that the kitchen would have perfect temperature control, and perhaps even a dish washing machine.

What if our imagination doesn’t want to cooperate? That is alright, we are no worse off because of that. Perhaps it might cooperate at some future time.

Meanwhile, in the real physical world we can always be heroines or heroes of our own kitchen, ones who are gradually becoming more slender. Ones who do do the dishes promptly after each meal or snack, regardless of the difficulty of trying to find the personal energy, or whether the kitchen is too hot or freezing. A dish washing machine? I have difficulty imagining what having a dish washing machine would be like but it is fun trying.

Eating enough protein food is really important. Eating enough protein food without eating the fat surrounding it is even more important still.

This does make the meal more expensive, there is no question about it. Trimming the lamb cutlets oneself means throwing the fat away. Alternatively, purchasing them already trimmed means the fat was still thrown away. The product just has a higher price to reflect that.

Consider this elegant arithmetic. The cost of a generous serve of trimmed protein roughly equals the cost of some (quite some!) serves of chocolate ripes and barbecue crisps. This month I can afford the trimmed protein.

Who remembers the joys of being seated in a comfortable chair, reading an engaging book and there on the coffee table of course would be the inevitable packet of cigarettes with ashtray overflowing and naturally a wonderful range of chocolate ripes and potato crisps? Who recalls the mental bliss of the happy brain receptors, the cosy comfort feelings and the battery recharging effects of such a powerful combination?

What sort of a silly rhetorical question is that? The real question has to be how to forget?

How might one proceed to read a book after giving up cigarettes? With the greatest caution I suspect. Allowing some small tokens of chocolate ripes and potato crisps seems to me to be a good idea, to reduce the shock. Picking a book that has an interesting dust cover may also help.

This Aprilcot I think I am ready to attempt what still might be a quite difficult task, I will try to read a book. I have chosen “The Enchanted April” by Elizabeth von Arnim.

For the next month or so when I am out walking I will pick up pretty yellow, orange, brown and maroon coloured leaves. I love this task.

In the first year I chose a small cane basket to display my autumn leaf collection in. Lined with a bright yellow paper serviette they looked great on the dining table. This year I have decided to use an inexpensive black coloured plate instead.

Sitting the plate on a yellow and white tea towel will make the leaves the stars of the room, having the effect of bringing autumn inside.

Slow, steady, successful, sustainable. These are all words which have become firmly established in my vocabulary. They well describe my weight loss. Compared to the 90 kilograms about four years ago, this year’s new weight is fluctuating around 77 kilograms. I am delighted to become used to my new size.

Do you ever look at your reflection in shop windows? Sometimes I do. The current shape remains “Pear”. Unfortunately there is no other more flattering word that will do the job of describing it. But let me rather concentrate on “Compear”. This year I notice that my shape has become a smaller pear. That is an excellent result.

Slow, steady, successful, sustainable: all these words are worthy of repeating.

I have found out that eating an apple assists the book reading experience. I am allowing as many apples as I want to or that I can find room for, whichever arrives first, whilst reading the book. Munching one apple after another, if necessary, until the book is finished.

This is a compromise situation. Any compromise is acceptable to break the mental triumvirate of books, cigarettes and indulgent foods.

Even if a mental pairing of books and indulgent foods occurs, that is still a win. Without cigarettes some chocolate ripes and barbecue crisps would enhance the reading experience, I suspect it, I just intuitively know it. However, so far I have managed to resist this sort of partial and less acceptable compromise which would certainly contribute to weight gain.

Learning to read a book all by itself would be some task set at some stage in the future. Imaginable? Just. For now, for this month I am aiming for a book and apple-eating duarchy.

So…back to reading my book: and to eating apples!

The featured herb for Aprilcot is Rosemary. A pot growing some may be kept inside on the kitchen bench which makes it look good as a decoration as well as a wonderful general in the war of weight management.

I finely chop large amounts of rosemary to place on large amounts of tomatoe, on one or two rounds of toast for lunch. I allow plenty of time to enjoy the smell of the rosemary as it is chopped. I also finely chop large amounts of rosemary to place on the fat-trimmed lamb for the evening meal. The only measurement for the lamb is to eat a similar amount, or less than was wanted the previous year. If no fresh rosemary is available I would think that large amounts of the bottled dried herb would also be great.

A lean chicken month could still employ plenty of rosemary. No, absolutely not, I don’t think it would enhance fish, let us not bend reality that far.

A possible task could be to try and grow some rosemary. It is one of the most friendly plants to grow in a pot, even if one has zero gardening experience.

Have an outing (all outings are beneficial as they keep one away from the refrigerator for a few hours!) to a nursery to obtain some potting mix and an appealing pot. Obtain a piece of the plant, from a friend’s garden, or already growing in a pot from a nursery, or even from a bag of fresh live herbs bought from the supermarket.

Simply poke the stalk of the piece of rosemary into the pot of potting mix, a few inches deep. Water it each few days giving it about one third of a cup of water. They are quite forgiving if it gets tempting to water them more often. Let the water drain out of the pot into the sink so that the plant doesn’t sit in a pool of water. Stainless steel plugs with holes in them can be purchased to catch any potting mix that drains out. When the plant grows some branches those can also be planted. Keep repeating this planting of branches as it will eventually lead to a generous amount of rosemary to use for future Aprilcots.

The Easter holidays are approaching for many of us. I have had a few disciplined months of eating and so fully intend to enjoy the special foods of the season. I do hope that I will not want quite as many of them this year as I did last year because I am a smaller size now. That is the power and the beauty of the slow steady approach to weight loss and management of that loss.

None the less, there is one thing that I intend to do to assist me to remember that I do need less special Easter foods. I will collect some of the pretty coloured tinsel papers that cover the chocolate eggs and incorporate them into next weeks collendars.

I and my nose passed right on by some food shops on today’s walk. To resist those delicious aromas takes practise doesn’t it. I wished I had some rosemary to crush on my fingers and waft under my nose. Could that help? It is hard to say. Definitely worth trying.

One shop had a sign outside displaying meat pies. As well as making a mental note to myself that I am allowing myself all the pies I care to eat in July’s eating theme, I also knew that my lunch of toast and tomatoes would be filling and that it wasn’t too long to wait for it.

It is a real feeling of satisfaction to overcome all the sensory advertising of foods in the high street at eleven oclock in the morning and not walk into a food shop.

If I get some images I like better, or I manage to place them on a page in a more pleasing manner I am quite happy to replace my collendar page for any particular day. It could be the same day, or even the same date the following year. The Collendar Collection is an ongoing work in progress.

What would happen if I don’t see images of what I am eating in catalogues? I think it would be possible to use different coloured papers instead. There is never a shortage of indulgent food images. They could be used with images of “Half” on the collendar page as a message of what has not been eaten, has been eaten eaten less of, eaten half of, or sometimes just using my imagination to visualise not eating as much of them.

Another possibility would be to buy a printer and print out some images of my own. It does seem that some of the money saved from not smoking could be spent on a printer. If anyone has a printer and wants to use my images they are most welcome to. Actually, it might be time to start making a collection of vegetable images. Yes, that is a good idea. I will make a start on that.

Sometimes it will be tempting to miss a walk, or a week of walks. If that happens I am not going to allow it much mental space. I know that the following week I can always improve. It is easy to better zero walks, right? Sure yes it is, even just one walk will be enough.

So if it is rainy, or snowing, or yesterday my umbrella grew wings and landed inside out, high in a tree, just out of my reach… so be it. Or perhaps I am very busy, due to circumstances beyond my control… also so be it.

What if the weather was beautiful, not a cloud (nor an excuse!) in sight? I just don’t feel like going for a walk. Well that is also a so be it. See what tomorrow brings.

Note to self : Continue the autumn leaf collecting for at least the next two weeks. One leaf per walk done may be traded in to dine out. The minimum amount is 28 leaves which represent 28 Autumn walks.

The Aprilcot theme has been all about eating trimmed lamb. A good guideline about the size of the portion is to eat less lamb than was eaten last Aprilcot. It doesn’t have to be a lot less, just a bit less is good. A bit less will lead to the eventual longer term success in managing weight. A bit less is enough to maintain this year’s smaller shape, which is also a bit less than it was last Aprilcot. The idea is to hardly even notice that it is less because of what is most noticeable of all: there is enough on the plate, it seems about right.

Even three or four years later, and 13 kilograms lighter I still tend to have a large portion of vegetables on my plate. Is it a bit less than last Aprilcot? Perhaps, slightly less for some famous starchy vegies, an example being that now its half a corn cob on the plate instead of a whole one. However, I still have my plate loaded up high with brocolli and carrots.

We allow some commercial brand Hollandaise sauce to have on the meal. I definitely need less of that this Aprilcot compared to other years. On top of the sauce I have a large amount of chopped fresh rosemary herb. It is lucky that rosemary isn’t too difficut to grow because our bush was well pruned this year, what with eating it for the evening meal and at lunch time on toast and tomatoes.

In previous Aprilcots we have had the opportunity to obtain apricots in Januberry and freeze them. That was not the case this Apricot. Instead we have had a modest amount of tinned apricots (three halves) on our pancake with chocolate icecream. I wish that we could buy tinned apricots that are preserved only in water. Sadly all we can get here are ones preserved in “Juice”. What they really mean but do not say is that the juice is SUGAR! I pour it straight down the sink. There are so many other better ways to enjoy sugar, like Easter treats.

Fresh fruit of apples and grapes were unlimited, I ate plenty!

The walking has happened on most days this Aprilcot and has been very enjoyable. Inspecting autumn leaves, taking some photos of them and collecting some to bring home has been the main task, all occurring in mostly pleasant, sunny weather, lovely.

Both Aprilcot and Mayndarin are reasonably disciplined eating themes. In theory they assist to prepare for the cold winter months of “Spoon” (Pearn) and “Pie” (Apply). As those names suggest, indulgences will be allowed and enjoyed at that time so it seems like a good idea to eat less of them before that.

The weight measurement for Aprilcot is 75 kilograms. That is a bit of a surprise. I wasn’t expecting to lose much weight and there was no conscious effort to do so. Two kilograms the less, its gone!

This month is mainly about mandarins. An unlimited amount may be eaten. They don’t really suit as a topping on pancakes so we will have kiwi fruits instead.

Some meals will be using up items still in the freezer. However, mostly Mayndarin meals consist of lean chicken, pan fried in generous amounts of pre-mix cajun spice. As per usual we will serve it with the commercial brand Hollandaise sauce. The amount of chicken will be slightly less than was needed last Mayndarin. The objective now is to not go on an effortless downwards weight loss spiral, so it will be a suitable portion of chicken.

Some years we have managed to grow our own pumpkins. They are ready to harvest in early May. They are the absolute star of the Mayndarin plate. I have large portions of pumpkin. We rotate other vegetables throughout the month.

Mayndarin features the herb thyme. The chicken can be cooked with large amounts of chopped thyme in the pan (instead of the cajun spice), or it can be placed on the pumpkin. Some experimenting using it in scones could prove interesting.

The easy task for Mayndarin is to have a glass of water which contains lemon juice ice cubes with each lunch. This is as well as the usual glass of water with the evening meal.

A more difficult task, one which actually takes me quite a lot of effort, is to have a really good look at the new body shape. Why would that be difficult? Because it involves accepting a loss of the old shape. Yes it was a larger shape, and I am sure to like the new smaller shape better once I get used to it, but it is my larger shape that I am losing and I don’t like losing anything, not even kilograms.

Loose clothing doesn’t really impinge on my consciousness too much. Despite weighing a whole lot less, if I close my eyes I still feel exactly the same. Even if I open them I still feel exactly the same. What does impinge on my consciousness is what I see reflected back at me from a mirror. That has an powerful emotional impact. I want to see me, not some thin, stick person, obviously somebody else.

Due to the slow changes of the body shape over years as the weight is slowly lost, Maydarin’s task is designed to especially to reduce the amount of emotional impact looking in the mirror has. So it is off to visit clothing shops. I visit as wide a range of clothing shops as possible, the more the better. It includes opportunity shops, large department stores and small, expensive boutiques.

Now lets have no confusion about this. The task is not to buy new clothes, although that is not ruled out if something is really appealing. The task is to stare in the mirrors whilst trying on clothes. Well lit dressing rooms are to be particularly sought out, but less well lit ones can also have value. The task is to admire what is reflected back, an individual who is a bit smaller, yes, but still remains “Me”.

Isn’t it a great feeling to look better in the clothes that are already in wardrobe. Well fitting clothes, ones that are slightly loose rather than ones which are stretched so very tight. I think the time has arrived to replace some the super loose ones.