Journal No.2

Food:
7/8 cup of cocopops with 3/4 cup full cream milk (approx. 204 + 119 = 323 calories)
2 mentos (20 Cal)
2 glasses of water and my multi-v (zero cal)
Potato salad (see this post) -  after some rough calculations, I think this was about 890 Cal.
Chai Tea (approx 80 Cal)
Total calories: 1493 Cal

Exercise:

I got a massage... I don't suppose that counts though. I also did a little walking (10min, nothing outstanding) and packed.

Overall:

I am very sore from yesterday, so it was good not to really exercise at all today. I was kind of reasonably busy, however, with packing and preparing for going away tomorrow for four nights.  I think that I broke even in terms of calories in and calories out!

*   *   *

Tomorrow (Thursday), I'm going away for 4 nights. Over this time, I'm not going to worry about calorie counting, but I am going to be careful about what I eat, and I am aiming to go running on the beach at least once, but hopefully twice. I'm aiming for a 20 minute run each time.

Glorified Potato Salad

Today's main meal was based on this Sweet Potato, Bacon and Egg Salad.

After some substitution (we had no sweet potatoes or dill) and some increasing so it would feed Julian and I, this is what I ended up with: a tangy dish with a lot of flavour and different textures. Even better, my husband loved it!

Glorified Potato Salad

4 eggs

5 potatoes (I used kennebec), diced

a dash of olive oil

4 rashers of bacon (fat removed), diced

half a head of broccoli, cut into quite small florets

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoon mild English mustard

Put the eggs in a saucepan with enough cold water to cover them, and bring to the boil. Boil them for 5 minutes. Remove them from the water and allow them to cool.

Into the water, tip the diced potatoes and bring them to the boil. Cook until tender then drain. Rinse with cold water.

Meanwhile, begin to heat up a fry pan. When it is fairly warm, add the olive oil, and when the olive oil is hot add in the bacon. Fry until it is starting to get crispy, then toss in the broccoli. Continue to cook this over medium heat.

While the bacon and broccoli are cooking, shell the eggs and then dice them.

Chuck the potatoes, eggs and bacon and broccoli into a medium sized salad bowl (or you can use the saucepan the potatoes were cooked in, or even the fry pan). 

In a small jug or cup, mix the mayonnaise, lemon juice and mustard. Pour this mixture over the potato mixture, and mix it in.

Serve straightaway.


I calculate that this recipe, all together, contains roughly 1782 calories. Divided among 4 people, this equates to 446 calories per serve.

Homework

My massage therapist gave me homework:

• Drink more water
• Get my heart pumping often
• Learn to love salads
• Start moving my arms a lot

She says that I'm retaining fluid in my arms, and this is why I need to start moving my arms more, to help drain my lymph system. She says that doing this will cause my arms to slim down really quickly, as it's mostly fluid, not fat.

I'm also really crooked, and she worked on that a bit, lengthening muscles in my hip so that my legs are the same length and other things like that. 

I must prioritise seeing her again a few more times this year so that I can really work on relaxing (sounds strange, but it does take a lot of conscious effort when you're used to being tensed) and get straighter.

I just need to start somewhere

Making this journal helpful

I am very much afraid that I am going to have to dive into previously unexplored waters if this journal is to be any use.

I'm talking about calorie counting - a thing I have previously despised. However, I recently found out what a calorie actually is, which makes them more tangible and therefore graspable and not quite so despicable. 

For the past, oh, half an hour or so, I've been busy finding out my BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate - the minimum amount of calories we need daily just to breathe and keep our heart beating). Apparently mine is 1,439 calories a day (calculated with this Basal Metabolic Rate & Daily Energy Requirements Calculator ).

If I factor in being moderately active (which is defined as "Moderate exercise/sport 3-5 days/wk"), my total energy requirement are 2,230 calories per day. At the moment, though, my energy requirements are probably more like 1,980 calories a day, as I am more "lightly active" than "moderately active".

(I think I have either an eyelash or mascara in my eye. It hurts.)

However, my aim is not merely to loose weight, rather I am concerned with becoming fit! Because of this, I need to start exercising more, not just consume less calories. Between pilates and cardio (I want to be able to run 4km nonstop by the end of October), plus the everyday exercise of cleaning, walking up and down stairs, typing, cooking and so on, I think the energy requirements for being moderately active are an appropriate starting point for me. 

As you need to create a deficient of 3,500 calories to loose 1 pound (500 grams), this means that to start loosing weight, I need to eat less or exercise a heck of a lot more than I currently do.  Over a week, 3,500 cal equates to 500 calories a day. I have read that a good way to create this deficiency is to eat 250 cal less and exercise and burn another 250 through exercise,

Using this theory, I should be consuming approximately 2,000 cal (I rounded it to the nearest thousand) each day. If I can't exercise on a certain day, or it's a rest day, I should consume even less, probably an amount in line with being "lightly active" minus 500 cal (1,980 - 500 = 1480 cal a day, so slightly more than my BMR).

All in all, I am very new to this sort of thing, and feel a bit like I'm walking blind. It is good, however, to get all this down so I don't have to think through it all again. 

Looking at the previous post, and doing calculations for a few things, I think I may have come out pretty even with the exercise and food intake. But then, maybe I'm totally off... I don't really know. For future journal entries, I'm going to have to start calculating calories, I think!

Til another day, then!

Kathy xx

Journal No.1

Food:
Half a block of Cadbury "Bar of Plenty" chocolate
2 Mentos
Potato and sweet potato bake (a couple of serving spoon sized scoops)
White rice
Curry (thai flavour?) with sweet potato, cauliflower, chicken and some other veggies.
Corn muffin
Homebaked biscuit
Two or three handfuls of crimson grapes
Hot chocolate


Exercise:
One hour of pilates (POP pilates: this twice, then this and then this - I need to do a post about POP Pilates soon - it's great!)
15 minute brisk walk uphill to West Hobart


Overall: 
This is far more exercise than I usually do, and I'm feeling great about it! It was hard to do the pilates, especially some of the leg exercises, and walking up that hill puffed me out. I love how exercising gives you more energy! I have been feeling so lethargic lately, and it's great to be feeling better today.

I could have done a lot better with the food, I know. Part of the problem is that my kitchen is a mess, and when it's like that I'll tend to eat whatever junk is in the house rather than doing something like frying or poaching a couple of eggs to have with toast. Also, I totally would have had cocopops, but we had no milk left. The milk situation has been rectified and cocopops will be had tomorrow, right after I've been for a run! (Well, okay, a brisk walk).

Also, does a massage count as exercise? I want to say yes, because tomorrow I'm getting one! And yes, I'm very exited!

It starts with food

The First Post

The first blog post always seems slightly surreal. What to write, what to write...?

I suppose I'll get straight to business... It must be business time (there's a call out to all you Flight of the Conchord fans).

Basically, I envision this blog as a sort of food and fitness journal, with a bit of a Christian twist. I am, after all a Christian, and it's the sort of thing that invades your whole life. Well, let's be honest: it should be part of every bit of your life, but people are pretty good at categorising and I'm no exception.

It turns out, however, that food (especially honey) is talked about heaps in the Bible, and a lot of what is said makes good sense (some of it, of course, is more specific to the Jewish culture, like the Passover feast). I figure that I might as well talk about that too, and so provide some spiritual balance to a blog which is predominantly about the physical body.

I plan on keeping a journal of what I eat, the exercise I do, as well as things like recipes, motivational things and the aforementioned Bible bits.

If you made it to the end of the post, well done. I tend chat on, and I'm sure that my ramblings are not endlessly interesting, even if they might be endless.

That's it for now!

Kathy xxx