A weigh day - Day 7

Day Seven

Breakfast: left over Smoothie from yesterday - I'm really liking these

Mid-Morning: cup of tea.

Lunch: still had some left over from yesterday - it has now all gone so will be trying a purely veg juice tomorrow.

Dinner: Special Chicken and mixed salad.  Chicken pieces are just a false economy so I always joint my own chicken; plenty of places on the web to learn how.  Yesterday, I butterflied the chicken, cut open the chicken (I use scissors) by removing the back bone, turn over and press with ball of your hand - it will click and crunch.  This way the chicken lies flat with the breast in the middle and the legs open flat.  I marinated the chicken overnight; in a small bowl add good glug of apple juice (around 100mls), table spoon of hot smoked paprika, table spoon of chili powder, 4-6 cloves of garlic; this marinade isn't an exact science if you don't want it too spicy leave out the chili equally if you want it more spicy add more.  Lay the chicken in a flat dish and pour over the marinade, cover which plastic wrap and put in the fridge - baste a couple of times I baste before bed, then again in the morning and at lunch time.  Cooking is easy 45mins - 1hour on high heat 190 in the oven.

Mid-evening: cup of tea

 

Water throughout the day – aiming for min 2litres above another other liquid

Exercise: None – 15 mins on the bike; the plan called for a rest today but I felt energised to do some exercise.

Acknowledgement: The meals we have eaten during Monday - Friday have all been prepared by my dearest DaddyHen, weekend meals are by MummyHen.

 

MummyHen X

A weigh day - Day 6

Just realised I’m blogging a day behind – today Sunday is Day 7 so there will be two posts today

Day Six

Breakfast: Raspberry smoothie from yesterday, always a little thicker the next day so I always add about ½ cup of water and give a quick blitz.

Mid-Morning: cup of tea.

Lunch: Pineapple Strawberry Smoothie Recipe from here; I missed: out oats, pumpkin seeds (didn't have any), sweetener - I added a few dates; and I added a handful of spinach. 

Dinner: steak with mixed quinoa salad (toms, cucumber, grilled pepper, courgette, gherkin, asparagus) & rocket

And watermelon for pudding

 

Mid-evening: cup of tea

Water throughout the day – aiming for min 2litres above another other liquid

Exercise: 15mins on the bike which is just over 4 miles.

 

MummyHen X

 

A weigh day - Day 5

Day Five

Breakfast: Nearly missed breakfast again - but no; Banana, a few dates and a few cashew nuts

Mid-Morning: cup of tea.

Lunch: Raspberry Smoothie from here; I added ½cup of oats, missed out the mango and added a few dates.  Nice to see pink in a glass other than green!!  It was lovely but a little pippy from all the raspberries - but its all fibre!!

Dinner: Haddock & Poached egg, with samphire & asparagus

Mid-evening: cup of tea

Water throughout the day – aiming for min 2litres above another other liquid

Exercise: None – will have to make up for it over the weekend

 
 

MummyHen X

 

A weigh day - Day 4

Day Four

Breakfast: cup of tea, had series of early calls today so just had a cuppa - need to be more organised and have a juice in the fridge from the day before.

Mid-Morning: cup of tea.

 

Lunch: Egg mash-up – scrambled egg/ omelette with a little pepper, spring onion & courgette & chilli.  Decided on something a little more food like as I'd missed breakfast.

 

Dinner: Salmon salad

 

Mid-evening: cup of tea

Water throughout the day – aiming for min 2litres above another other liquid

 

Exercise: 15 mins on the bike

Need to start thinking about strategies for the weekend – as I know from previous experience that this can be break time.  During the week everything is structured but the weekends have no structure.

I have to stop drinking about 8pm otherwise I'm up at least twice in the night.  I did contemplate doing three juice meals but I know from doing a well known weight loss programme that is built around no food just 'food packs' shakes; that just drinking and not eating it a real killer for me.  So two juices/smoothies a day with a sensible high protein evening meal is the way to go.   

 

MummyHen X

A weigh day – Day 3

Day Three

Feeling positive about how its going; had a slight headache this morning so upped the water; I know from previous changes to diet that if I don't up the liquid then I tend to get a thick head and yak breath.  A good pointer as to if your drinking sufficient water is the colour of your wee; it should be a pale straw colour.

Breakfast: Lime & Ginger drink, cup of tea

Mid-Morning: cup of tea.  

Lunch: Lime & Ginger drink; had some left over and wasn't going to waste it, so added an apple, a few cashew nuts and a little more water; 

Dinner: Lamb & Chicken & Veg kebabs - peppers, courgettes and tomatoes

Mid-evening: cup of tea

Water throughout the day – aiming for min 2litres above another other liquid

Exercise: Yes - cycled for 15mins

My contraption arrived - I already have a bicycle, space is limited so bought a bike trainer - it converts your bike from mobile to static; the back wheel is fixed in to the gadget and off you go except you don't go anywhere. 

I tried to use my bike to attach but it didn't work so have had to use DaddyHen's its not that comfy but will persevere. I found a few cycle programmes on the net so will follow them buy building up the time on the bike to get fitter.

This article caught my eye Stand up to lose weight - I will try standing when I have my teleconferences - I have a Bluetooth headset so am not tied to the computer via a fixed headset it might work a tiny bit!?!.

 
  

MummyHen X

A weigh day – Day 2

Day Two

Breakfast: Morning Mango Smoothie - the mixture makes enough for two generous servings, cup of tea

Mid-Morning: cup of tea

Lunch:  Lime & Ginger drink; I didn’t like this one as much as the Mango from this morning and yesterday but it was still very nice 

 

Dinner: Sea Bass and a pile of steamed veg – yellow courgettes from the garden

 

Mid-evening: cup of tea

Water throughout the day – aiming for min 2litres above another other liquid

 

Exercise: None –but am hoping to rectify that from tomorrow

 

MummyHen X

A weigh day – Day 1

This is confession time – My name is MummyHen and I’m overweight.  Yes I’m tall 5’11½” – but I need to be way over 7ft for my weight.  I am large framed my hands are larger than DaddyHens and my feet are a size 10; I’m never going to be Twiggy – but I can be much much lighter and healthier.  So until Christmas I’m going to blog about my fight to lose 28lbs.

My job is sedentary and I find it really difficult to find time to move about – sounds stupid but true.  Some days I take very little exercise – working from home really is not all it’s cracked up to be; some days the furthest I walk is to the end of garden and that less than 100ft. Time for me is also an issue – I am looking at ways of doing some cardio at home; more to follow on this. Weekends are different and we do try and do at least one 5 mile walk and get out and about.

If you’ve not seen or heard of Fat, Sick and nearly Dead; there are plenty references to this on the internet; then do take a look on how these guys lost weight by drinking juice for 60 days.  I will be drinking juice for breakfast and lunch; dinner will be a healthy meal primarily fish or chicken, may be meat once a week and either salad or veg.

The smoothies or thickies are from Katherine’s site Green Thickies some great recipes on this site

Day One

Breakfast: Porridge made with skimmed milk, cup of tea

 

Mid-Morning: cup of tea

Lunch: Morning mango smoothie  this was yummy

Dinner: Poached salmon and mixed leaf salad
Mid-evening: cup of tea

Water throughout the day – aiming for min 2litres above another other liquid

Exercise: None

 

MummyHen X

 

We escaped from the coop

Work was getting the better of me and the heat wasn’t helping – so we through caution to the wind and escaped to Jersey for five days.

 

I did do some work but only a few hours each day – the remainder of the time was spent walking, swimming and relaxing

Swimming – the water was very cold but refreshing – I do enjoy swimming in the sea

 

Walking - the Corbière Walk – from Corbière Lighthouse to St Aubin;

 

it is beautiful; lined with trees, a flat well-kept surface which used to be a railway line carrying granite and then passengers, so the slope down the hill into St Aubin is very gentle.

Beautiful sunsets

 

Some delicious food

 

 

We are now back rested ready for what ever life has to throw at us.

 

MummyHen X

It’s hot hot hot

Boy is it hot - I do enjoy the warm weather but when the temperature rises above 25 it starts not to be much fun, sleeping becomes a problem and everything becomes an effort.

The car temperature registered 30.5 yesterday, thankfully it has aircon.

 

We decided that we would go out and have a short walk – armed with bottles of water we set off.  It’s a walk we have done before from Shoreham towards Eynsford – needless to say we didn’t get to Eynsford on foot – we turned back after a mile it was just far too hot.  OK we set off at 1pm which wasn’t the most sensible time.

The scenery was just beautiful – when the sun is shining there is no place like this little Island we call Home.

The lavender farm with its purple pillows of lavender

In the distance we could see a red field of poppies

The views were spectacular but it was far too warm

 

 

MummyHen X

It’s been a year – 1st anniversary

Since I started this blog – wow how time wizzes by.

This was my first post.

Thank you for all the comments - I do enjoy reading them; welcome to all my followers, for those of you just popping in for a quick look - why not leave a comment and become a follow.

Challenge #1 was to reduce food spending – we are now in the swing of things after a year of looking for yellow stickers, buying meat when it’s on special and putting it in the freezer, bulk buying – stock pile non-perishables when they are on special.  We spend £500- per month; I think it can be reduced but that will depend on everyone on the Hen house being on side.  [Yes you, you there I know you read this?!?]

Challenge #2 build-up emergency funds. This is added to each month and is now £2,000 – it has been used a couple of times and then replaced. I am aiming for £3,000 by year end.

Challenge #3 debt snowballing.  This was perhaps the most revealing; shocking to start with when we realised how much debt we were in - putting it on paper in black & white is very cathartic.  We started with six credit cards and owned over £54k between us; we are now down to four and owe just over £34k (still way too much), a third card will be paid off in the next 3 months, the final payment on the car loan is in September after which snowballing on card #6 can start in earnest.  This card has the lowest interest but I will look at if a balance transfer to a completed card is viable to save.

Sealed pot challenge is continuing;

as I don’t spend much in cash what goes into the tin is limited but I am always on the lookout for £2 coins and £5 notes – both Daddy & SonnyHen feed the tin when they get either.  I weighted the tin back in April and it was 7.1kgs today its 7.5kgs – I have added all this;

 in the spirit of challenge I didn’t count it but it must be around £120.

MummyHen X