Author: Wattle

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!