Sitting on my bum

Although I've been doing between 10000 and 14000 steps per day I seem to be spending a HUGE amount of time sitting on my bum doing this and this.  Drinking far too much tea too.....  Goal for the week is to make sure I get out for my walk every day. If it rains I'll use a brolly or get on the treadmill.

Today, while out at an appointment, I decided to pop in and check out an aquatic centre that was on my way home. It was AMAZING. I love swimming but have done very little since developing a number of skin cancers, including melanoma.  This centre has a fully covered and enclosed  50m pool and a 25m pool.  Warm in winter and SHADED all year round!  The only catch is it's about 40kms away which is really only half an hours drive but that's far enough to be unrealistic or a reason not to go some days.  I'm down near the pool once per week so am considering going on the day that I'm close by anyway.  Hmmm, will have to see if my togs still fit....I suspect not.

I hope you enjoy having a peek at what's been keeping  me sitting on my bum for hours on end...

What's on the menu

Since coming home from hospital I've lost 2.2kgs and I think I have menu planning to thank for it. In part anyway.  Out menu or meals for last week can be found here if you are interested.  I simply do up six or seven meals and have the ingredients on hand from the beginning of the week. I then make the meals each night from the menu plan that suit our needs and preferences . 

Below you'll see the baked dill salmon, smashed potato and mixed steamed veggies that we had for a main recently.  The meal looks large but the plate is quite small, entree size really.The potato is a chat (baby) so that may give you some idea as to size.  When I was making this I was feeling quite hungry and decided that it wouldn't be enough so I made a dessert that I'd seen in my Weight Watchers cookbook.

 I present to you these beautiful spiced apples.  This dessert was light, delicious and very easy to make. Brilliantly it was worth only 2 propoints too!!  Take one apple per person and cut into 3 width ways (I didn't core).  You end up with rings as you see.  I then juiced 2 oranges from my tree and into this juice I stirred a shake of nutmeg and 2 teaspoons of dark brown sugar.  I arrange the apple slices in a single layer in a lasagne dish and poured the juice mix over them.  Bake this in the oven on 180'C for around 20 minutes or until the apple is tender but not mushy.  I served these sprinkled with cinnamon, a few pistachios and some greek yoghurt. Try it, it's a winner.

Life doesn't always turn out like you plan.....

Today I set off for my first walk since leaving hospital.  Taking advantage of the warm sunshine, I set out just after lunch and strolled down to the creek.  I coped ok on the way there but struggled quite a bit on the return 500m. My lung (the one that I had the pneumonia in) burned quite badly on the way back and I started to cough quite a bit.  I arrived home tired and clammy but happy that I'd taken the first step back towards daily exercise and wellbeing. While my focus at present is on improving my health, I am keeping my weight and weight loss in mind.  My losing continues to be very slow but I'm pleased to say that I'm down another kilo.

When I started my focus on weight loss and wellbeing a year ago I never could have imagined that my journey would have been so S.L.O.W.  I understood that my health would be a long term journey but I really expected to have lost weight far more quickly and that I'd be happily at goal now.  I rather suspect that if I knew that my weight loss journey would be this glacially slow I would have given up before I started. As it is, I set my foot on this path 12 months ago and although the journey has not turned out as I had imagined, I find myself with no interest in giving up.  While experiencing moments of disappointment with my progress and the increasing complexity of my medical situation I find myself happy to have lost almost 10kgs and to have mainly kept this off. Prior to my pneumonia I was extremely pleased with the progress I had made with my daily walk, having found a new route I enjoyed and being able to successfully walk for 35 minutes or more each day without crashing back into fatigue.  This was a HUGE improvement on what I had been physically able to achieve for many years and I know I'll get back to this walk as my body heals.  Maybe I'm like a diamond and am simply taking a long time to form.... :)

Missing in Action

My journey to wellbeing has been nothing if not interesting.  It reminds me of a muddled ball of yarn where finding your way requires bobbing up and down, twisting, turning, retracing your steps and sitting in perplexed confusion over the whole thing before you. I am currently in hospital with pneumonia. I've now been here 4 days and was ill for a few days before. For some reason I am quite shocked to find myself in this position.  Pneumonia wasn't even on my radar I suppose.  How can I be sick again? Oh well, I'm in the right place to deal with it and am receiving excellent medical care and feel very relaxed and comfortable here which has to help.

Don't know when I'll next have much to post as I am not often on the computer here in hospital and really don't feel particularly inspired to say much.  Will get back to it once I get well and home.  On a positive note, I now know I'm allergic to penicillin......

Thank you to Stacia for posting this series of wonderful YouTube videos on weight loss on her blog. They were done by the BBC and well worth sharing so I've decided to include them over here in Belladonna's Garden.  It's also an easy way for me to rewatch them! :) I hope that you can take the time to watch them and that they are of interest and use to you.

Progress

I've been struggling with motivation and focus, as you well know, and today I came upon these two pictures. Not the greatest collage assembly but it gives me a look. On the right I am attending a friends wedding in 2007. I am at my heaviest. The photo on the left was taken earlier this year and for once I can actually SEE that I have actually lost weight. I also think about how I felt in these two photos. In the photo at right I felt awful. I had a very poor level of wellbeing, was suffering from really bad fatigue and I was in pain all the time. Everything was a monumental effort and it took me months to recover from going to this wedding. Looking at the photo at left I see someone who is out being active, has thinned down and although I still struggle with the same medical conditions, my general wellbeing is MUCH improved. I needed to see this. It shows me how easy it is to really lose sight of what we've achieved and how we've progressed particularly when it doesn't fit in with the expectations we have or the pictures in our head of 'what should be.'  My progress may be slow but it is happening.

What's on my plate

I keep forgetting to record what I'm eating.  I started this blog as a way of keeping track of my journey and keep forgetting to include my food intake and a more detailed account of my exercise.  I want to be able to look back on it as a resource, a place where I can see what worked, what didn't, when I struggled, what I found easy.  Anyway, the above is my lunch which consisted of a small amount of chicken breast in cajun seasoning, lettuce, tomato and my homemade mango salsa, all in a wholemeal wrap and washed down with a small banana smoothie. The smoothie was made with 1/2 banana, skim milk and a dollop of greek yoghurt.  Yummo!

In the interests of being backwards (and not being bothered fiddling with the order of my images), here is what went on for breakfast.... I had steel cut oats - seen on right in the following image.  Basically it is the form the oats take before Uncle Toby's and other companies get their hands on them and process them until they look like the more common oats in the bowl at left.  I tried the steel cut after reading that they were higher in fibre, beneficial oils and had greater health benefits than 'regular' oats.  I quite like them although they take longer to cook.  I soak them overnight in water with a bit of keffir in it and then cook it on the stove when I'm ready for it the next morning. The steel cut oats have a nuttier taste and are not as fluffy as regular oats once cooked. 

I eat the oats with about a tablespoon of maple syrup (or maple flavoured syrup in this case), about 4 nuts cut up - usually walnuts or pecans. They provide good essential oils and extra protein to the meal. I then lightly sprinkle with cinnamon.  No, I've not forgotten milk. I eat it without and it's fine.

My weight is still coming off oh-so-slowly, at a rate that matches my thyroid and my motivation I suppose.  I've been really happy with how I've been exercising daily and eating well 90% of the time with NO MOTIVATION. None, zip, nada.  I've tried to have the mind set that I eat well and exercise daily simply because that's what I do. I'm not making good food choices, using healthy eating habits and exercising because I want to lose weight, because I'm dieting or any other reason other than the fact that this is the standard of behaviour I've set for myself.  I want these behaviours to be habits like cleaning my teeth - it's just what I do regardless of whether or not I'm motivated or happy or have the energy. I do the Nike and JUST DO IT.  This is how I thought and lived my life pre-illness and I've sort of been back in that zone these past few weeks. I've stopped focussing on Weight Watchers points, what I should be doing, overthinking and have just got in and taken action.  I'm not deluding myself into thinking that I've suddenly mastered all of my problems but if I can continue like this and string successful days, weeks and months together I really feel like I'll be heading back into familiar territory.  Territory where I existed as a healthy, fit, active person with healthy eating habits and control over my weight.  It's been a long time since I lived in that place but at least I can now see it in the distance again.

I think I'm coping much better and being more consistent because my thyroid medication is 'right' at present.  I've been on my new dosage for about 4 weeks now and I'm actually feeling rather well. Finger's crossed I continue to chuff along feeling so good and DON'T spin into hyperthyroidism again (as I usually do when medicated with thyroxine).  If I can maintain this level of wellbeing I really feel that I can make some significant steps towards reclaiming much of the lifestyle I was forced to leave behind 12 years ago (God has it been that long?), not to mention the aspects of myself  such as my vibrancy and bubbly nature which faded to nothingness during this time. They'll be friends well met when I am reunited with them again.