A healthier summer

With the school holidays starting on Friday its time to knuckle down and try and get the whole family's diets a lot healthier! This half term we seem to have done a lot of rushing around and we have all eaten far too much rubbish. I need to get us all to eat a more balanced and nutritional diet without dieting. Also if I am going to be a student in September we need to all enjoy simple and inexpensive home cooked meals. 

My son is the fussiest eater of the two and is reluctant to eat his food groups mixed together. This has made it hard to serve up stews and casseroles. So one challenge is to try and get him to branch out more and be adventurous. Not an easy one as he is pretty stubborn and would rather go hungry than eat something he doesn't like! Hopefully as he gets older this will peter out...

My daughter will eat a wider variety of foods but will suddenly announce one day that she no longer eats something she used to love. The most recent one of these is chicken! I think if she had her way she would eat bolognaise, lasagne and cheesy pasta in rotation... 

I would love for them to eat more vegetables than they have been doing. In the summer salads are so quick and easy but only one child eats cucumber and no other salad vegetables are liked. For myself I rustled up a 3 colour salad today but my children would never eat it:

Get Fit Feel Epic: Week 2 #GFFE

Well with week 1 going well could I carry on the good work into week 2 with the stresses and strains of being back to work and school plus after school activities? I have to say it is the after school stuff that usually throws a spanner in the works. Its often a grab and go with picnics or fish and chips in the car en route to something or other...

I was therefore pleased that I'd lost another 1.5 pounds this week. A nice healthy weight loss and one I hope to repeat most weeks this year. So how did I do it?

Firstly I added an extra exercise class to my week with my Rosemary Conley instructor. She has started lots of new classes but the only one I get to is the salsa on a Friday morning:

Would be nice to get to more but unfortunately the children have evening activities and I can't keep having babysitters!

I wasn't able to do too many Hairy Dieters recipes whilst rushing round. Plan is to cook a couple tomorrow morning when not at work so I just have to heat through. Still sticking to being teetotal! I have got some alcohol free beers in for the weekend though.

Hoping I'll have a chance in week 3 to fit in more exercise at home... front room just needs to be kept clear so that I can workout safely! How is everyone else doing with their healthy starts to 2013?

Get Fit Feel Epic: Week 1 #GFFE

Well after posting my plan last week how did I do? Tonight was my first official Rosemary Conley weigh in since before Christmas, and a chance to see if my week's hard work had undone the damage of overindulging at Christmas....

I am pleased to report that I have managed to lose all but 0.5 pound of my excess baggage! A whole 3.5 pounds in one week. Needless to say I am dead chuffed and it makes giving up the booze worthwhile.

It proves that the Hairy Dieters cookbook does actually work and helped me to stick to between 1200 and 1500 calories a day. The one down side is that many of the recipes take a while to prepare and now we are back to school and work I need to be more organised.

So how do I take the plan into week 2? Being shorter on time means I will have to plan ahead and cook when I can and have things ready to just heat through. Making sure that I take the time to eat a healthy lunch before starting work at 12 is key. Too often I'm grabbing and running which means its often unhealthy or not filling enough. I will have to check out the Hairy Dieters lunch ideas. I know the fruity rice was delicious and filling and would do me for a couple of days. Breakfast is not too difficult so I just need to have my dinners organised... Just in case I still have some Diet Chef meals in the cupboard for speed...

Exercise is also going to be important to maintain losing weight and toning up. Tonight I did my Rosemary Conley aerobics session and worked up a good sweat. I will try out salsacise on Friday morning to see if I like that too. If I keep on decluttering house that will be a good workout too!

So onwards and downwards with my first target of back to before Christmas almost complete its time to head for target two - the elusive 2 stone award that I kept nearly reaching last year. If I keep up the good work I should get there in a couple of weeks!

Watch this space....

My Family Fitness Plan for 2013 - Get Fit Feel Epic #GFFE

This is my entry for the ‘Get Fit Feel Epic’ competition hosted by Kate on Thin Ice

It's always good to try and plan how to get fit rather than just rushing in willy nilly although every year I set out with good intentions and usually fail! This is because I don't stick to the plan... 

2012 was a partial success as even though my weight didn't drop significantly I feel in better shape. So how do I manage to do it better in 2013? I need a workable plan that I can stick to whatever life throws at me...

My Diet

To lose weight I know that I have to consume less calories than I burn off. Its not rocket science but I don't manage to keep my calorie intake down often enough to make a difference. At my Rosemary Conley classes we are given plenty of advice on how having a low calorie, low fat and low GI diet I just need to pay more attention!

January is always the month when I am most successful at losing weight. I am so enthusiastic and determined that I stick to my goals. Its easy to ditch the junk and the alcohol for a month to help maintain the required low calorie intake. This year I'm boosting my chances by using the Hairy Dieters recipe book to provide me with healthy yet enjoyable meals. As its only me eating them I've had to adjust quantities but so far everything has been delicious:

If this is dieting then I'm going to find it much more enjoyable than previously! Tracking my intake through My Fitness Pal makes it much easier to see what I am doing and whether I can have anything else to eat ;-) 

Getting my children on board will help a lot too. This is easier with my 9 year old as she is more adventurous than her little brother. He knows what he likes and getting him to eat new things is too much like hard work. Once they are at school things will be easier as they will be having school dinners so will need less feeding at home! I have told them that I'm not buying any more naughty treats this month. The last of the crisps have gone and they are slowly getting through their Christmas chocolates. If there isn't rubbish around then I can't be tempted. One problem is my daughter is eating all the fruit ingredients I got in for the recipes! Looks like I need to get even more next week...

Exercise

This is something I was starting to get right last autumn. I joined my local leisure centre gym and as I had to go twice a week to get my money's worth I made sure I got there! Having an individual exercise plan from one of the instructors was worth the small extra payment too. Things weren't quite as good when I took on an extra job and had very little child free time to do more than my 2 sessions. 

My other regular exercise is my weekly aerobics which is part of my Rosemary Conley class. Luckily my parents babysit once a week allowing me to go. I did a week of the 30 Day Shred and it was making a difference to my waistline and abs but life got in the way especially when my children keep covering the front room in toys! 

What I need to do is schedule in my exercise to make it more regular. I also need to make sure the front room is clear enough for me to be able to workout at home. There are plenty of DVDs and Wii games that I possess to help me get fitter and burn off the calories I just need to use them. Just hope I don't need to set my alarm for an earlier time in the morning to fit it in as I'm not a morning person... Even just making sure I'm more active when doing housework and going about my every day life will all help.

Getting exercise with the children is also going to be an important part of me getting fit too. We need to get out together walking, cycling or swimming. Let's just hope that the weather in 2013 is drier than 2012! 

Support

It is almost impossible to successfully lose weight without support. I'm gathering as much as possible both in real life and online. Going to my Rosemary Conley classes provide great motivation and group support. Some of us are also supporting each other in groups on Facebook. Sharing blogposts with other people and charting the highs and lows is also very useful. The My Fitness Pal community is also very supportive.

So here is hoping that a) my plan for 2013 is a good one and b) I can stick to it.... Watch this space to see how I go and if I win the FitBit activity tracker and a set of smartscales from Kate then it will help keep me on track to getting fit and feeling epic! This is part of Money Supermarket's “Get Fit, Feel Epic” campaign

Fresh Start

Home today properly for the first time since December 22nd when we set off down south to visit friends! Since Christmas Eve we have been staying with my parents as there was so much going on it made sense to remain there. I have nipped home a few times to collect or deposit things but we are now all home to stay.

 

The advantages of a long stay away are twofold, firstly I am feeling relaxed and have more energy for 2013, secondly we have no naughty leftovers at home to tempt me! So now it's time to knuckle down for the new year.

 

I have tried to make sure none of our bits from Christmas are left cluttering up the already crowded sitting room. Tomorrow my mum will help my daughter sort out her chaotic room so we can see what she really wants to keep. I have to decide which room to tackle first on my own declutter mission. This may well be the kitchen as I am doing a lot more cooking from scratch to be healthier.

 

The healthy eating has kicked off with my new Hairy Dieters cookbook. It was a modified breakfast of crumpets and honey as my healthy food delivery hadn't arrived. Once my fridge was refilled with plenty of low calorie foods I set off to rustle up a Golden Vegetable Soup:

 

Because my children never eat my homemade soups I have now got soup already to reheat for the next few days. It was yummy and I resisted having bread with it and still felt full.

 

At tea time my children didn't fancy joining me with salmon with chilli ginger sauce so I managed to cook myself one meal and them a quick pasta dinner. It's useful having a stacking steamer to do pasta and new potatoes at the same time. I cooked a half portion of the recipe as I had a double pack of salmon and I'll have same dinner tomorrow - though maybe different accompaniments. There was a slight change to the recipe as I didn't have a chilli but my flakes seemed to add just the right amount of heat for my taste:

 

 

So as far as day one of healthy eating goes its a good one. Just need to work out what to have later for my last calorie allowance! Tomorrow I will have to think about exercising other than housework too.