I’ve never been one for evening snacking and I rarely eat anything after dinner. My problem is that once I’ve started eating by having brunch it becomes one long meal until dinner is over. I’m better if I’m out but when at home it is much more difficult. I am determined to find a way to conquer it rather than avoiding the situation by going out every afternoon.

Work is still going on downstairs and it has been fairly quiet as painting has been in progress. Today there is someone else there and much banging,crashing and yelling is occurring. Three of the internal doors have been removed while they work and are up against the garden fence but it hasn’t stopped a door being slammed every few minutes…………….. I’m hoping they are nearly finished as the back garden resembles a junk yard and there is no possibility of sitting out there due to the noise.

Jojo, May I recommend an app called “Eat Right Now?” It uses mindfulness strategies to change one’s thinking about eating and food. It was created by a doctor with expertise in addiction. I have found it very helpful!

Hi Fast Trackers and Hello World (You All know Who You ARE) 😉
Hi Bay and a big cyber hug welcome home 4ks over 6 weeks obviously you were not trying hard enough 😉 I took a full week off and went nuts and smacked on 3kg in 7 days I went into a zen like state for 4 days and have melted it all off 💡
This is Brilliant hasn’t happened to me but I can see the funny side yes morning 😆
Lynx Tv ad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmue_d9NCXM
Have A Happy Weekend All You beautiful Losers 😉
Peace RT

It’s a feel good kind of a day 🎖🏅

Omolette and salad. ..excellent choice Amazon!
We’ve moved from coastal northern regions to the tablelands…well known for very low temperatures so I’ll be into wearing the heavy layers I have brought with me. Getting lots of material for painting 😊
Enjoy your weather, wherever you are folk. It is not an excuse to overeat!!! P ☺

I’m loving the Olympics but it’s a bit tricky this week with a big tennis tournament going on in the USA. Last night I was flicking between channels to see Andy’s match and the track events 😆
I am very impressed with the high number of GB athletes who have defended their Olympic titles and the fact that GB have won medals in a greater variety of sports than other nations.

It is also amazing how sports such as boxing and badminton become fascinating when there is a GB athlete involved 😉

Morning all from a freezing morning at Jamieson. We are having breakfast by the fire, having run away for 4 days for a mini break! Injured son’s fiance home from work for the weekend so she can wait on him, plus new grandchild not due for a few weeks, so we grabbed the opportunity! It is actually our very first grandchild Jo, so I am filled with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Having worked with very ill neonates for many years does tend to skew your view of reality!

Its bitterly cold here still, poured raining all day yesterday but the clouds have cleared today so good walking weather! The rivers are running very high, amazing to see the way they swell in winter. The daffodils have all opened since I was last here and they look wonderful. Every Summer when I clean up the dead daffy leaves I wonder if they are worth all the work, but then come the following Winter I forget all that and enjoy them so much! I guess that is what gardening reminds us – we need to ‘put in’ to enjoy the benefits.

Purple I am with you re the Olympics. With over 100 million dollars spent on preparation by Australia in the four years leading up to them, just for our little population, not including the costs of actually participating, I find it hard to justify. It probably sounds like sour grapes, but a lot of the athletes behave like spoiled brats to me. Maybe also if it was all simplified somehow and held in the same venue every year (Greece even?), the corruption and cheating could be minimized. I am not even suggesting we spend that $100 million on hospitals (to make the medico’s richer), maybe on education?

I had planned to fast yesterday (Fri) but that came unstuck when husband suggested a stop for morning coffee en route at a lovely Chocolaterie in the Yarra Valley! Yes I avoided the cakes etc, but the free tasting chocolate near the exit just jumped into my mouth! I hope to walk it off today, then will start fresh Monday!

Thinking of you Happy last night, watching a TV interview of the amazing James Rebanks who wrote about his life as a Shepherd in the Lakes District. (He is in Sydney at present for book awards). I will definitely get his book, it looks fascinating.

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Hi everyone,

I was up until 4.30am watching Olympics and tennis so only surfaced long enough ago to shower, dress and make tea. Quite a good idea to sleep the morning of a FD away 😉

I didn’t watch the hockey but saw the GB women win a bronze medal in the 4 x 100m relay, the first medal for 30 years. It is great because the team ages are 19, 20, 20 and 23 and haven’t been together very long. They have a huge opportunity to work together and improve.
I watched Lutalo Muhammed in the Taekwondo and it was heartbreaking, he was 2 points ahead and his opponent landed a 3 point kick in the very last second of the match. He had been so good throughout the day and evening, winning all his matches with some fantastic skill, enthusiasm and determination.

Jo, yoghurt is curdled milk ie it is already “off” and sell by/use by dates are there to prevent litigation and encourage people to throw perfectly good food away and spend more money. Did you have your jacket potato with butter and cheese? If you did it might have been the amount of fat in the cheese and the butter.

Fit, fat swimmers etc might have strong bones and muscles etc but that doesn’t negate the effects of obesity on their vital organs etc and many of them choose to ignore that.

The government are still peddling the idea that exercise will help the obesity epidemic rather than concentrating on healthy eating. The majority of fat children who are unfit do not like to exercise as it is such a struggle for them and they feel embarassed. They also often come from homes where parents do not participate in any form of exercise.
When I was at school I hated PE as teachers only encouraged those who were good at sport which was very poor teaching as they were not the ones who needed support.

I read a shocking fact yesterday, 1 in 3 primary school children in the UK are overweight/obese, and the majority of parents are unable to recognise that their own children are overweight wrongly thinking that if they can see a childs ribs they are too thin.

The good news is that they are trying to encourage families to exercise together and stop making short car journeys, walking to school etc.

It’s breezy this morning with intermittent sunshine and the overnight rain has given the garden a good drink 🙂

Have a good one everybody 😜

Hi Jo,
glad you are feeling better 🙂

I understood your point and I agree that it is always better to exercise than not. Unfortunately there are too many people who don’t understand the difference between fitness and health.
There are also many parents who don’t have a healthy diet and wouldn’t know where to start, so their children are disadvantaged in that respect.

My brother was an excellent all rounder as far as sports were concerned, football and swimming team and later on rowing team with a shelf full of trophies and medals. My Dad was rather old fashioned in his approach to parenting and as a girl I didn’t receive encouragement in sport, although my parents ensure that we were both taught to swim at a young age and I’ve always enjoyed it. I was in the hockey team for a while but got fed up with permanently bruised, painful ankles so gave it up.
In later life it was my brother who encouraged me to exercise and he was very supportive and gave me some great advice when I joined the gym last January.

Hello,
What a slow day here! I am taking time to myself and reset my thoughts and future challenges.
I had a beautiful day yesterday with Girlfriend Jackie. She is from Brazil and although we don’t see each other much our friendship is really genuine. We laugh, cried, ate a lot and had a long walk along the beach. I got home almost 11pm.
Well! She is also struggling with her extra pounds and like every one else o talk to i walk on egg shells when it comes to recommend reading 5:2 and The obesity code. Everybody knows what’s right and exercising holds the answer for weight loss. Well, well, well… We know now better then that.
Jo here in the US they say when they eat pizza the healthy part is the vegetable,the tomato sauce on top of it and also this goes for ketchup. I don’t feel like lecturing anymore.
Wishing you a beautiful blessed weekend.
Now I’ll make myself pretty and go eat delicious oxtail at our friends house.
💋

Jo,

I’m a fan of the Olympics, and physical activity personally, but I question your statements about the legacy of the 2012 London Olympics. As far as I am aware, there has been no step-change benefit to the nation’s health and in fact adults are apparently now exercising less than before 2012.

Our Olympics success is funded by the national lottery, with sports most likely to win medals targeted ruthlessly. If we don’t win the medals predicted then the funding is cut. Effort is therefore focused not on all sport, but only those where excellence is predicted and achieved.

It’s always said that success comes at a price. In this case I gather that a gold medal costs us several million pounds. Is that money well spent for two weeks of national pride with no lasting benefit?

I can’t comment on the lasting benefit or otherwise of the redevelopment of London for the purposes of the Olympics, except to say that if there is any benefit it’s probably to the exclusion of the rest of the country (and those of us who consider ourselves blessed not to live in London 😀)

I’ve always loved the Olympics, and Sydney 2000 is particularly special to me. It kept me company when my back went into spasm and I spent two weeks on the lounge floor (couldn’t get upstairs). In those days TV was not 24 hour, so early hours coverage of the Olympics was a godsend! But there’s no getting away from the fact that the pinnacle of any human achievement will inevitably bring out the best… and worst in humans. …

Amazon,

I am a late starter to the joys of exercise too, the traditional roles of men (active) and women (supporting the activity of men) still being the norm while I was a child ☹️ And my lovely Dad, to whom I will always be a delicate flower (even when clinically overweight!), continues to worry that I might over exert myself and break 😀

Hi P,

I forgot to say Olympic coverage is on the good old BBC (at least for the moment, until the Tories shaft that too!), so no adverts!

And funnily enough, even though there’s bigger money in commercial TV, BBC coverage is always far superior (in my, ha ha not very, humble opinion 😀)

Morning/evening all,

Sunday again, another week begins 🙂

FD went well yesterday and I’m aiming for a 19/5 today. I haven’t eaten any meat for a couple of weeks so I’ll be looking for something interesting at the local farmers market this morning.

I make use of commercial breaks for going to the bathroom/getting a drink/putting dinner in the oven etc.

GB have become the first nation to improve their Olympic medal haul following a home games 😎
Mo Farah was magnificent last night. His opponents ganged up against him and tried to run his legs off in a fast race but they were wasting their time.

Andy Murray is in another final only a week after taking Olympic gold. I was switching channels back and forth last night when Farah was running as Andy was serving for the match in his SF 😆

The clouds are being blown away and the sun is shining. Time to get moving.

Have a good one everybody 😜

Jo,

Congratulations on the weight loss. Have you changed your approach, or just more disciplined recently?

It’s great that you’re seeing increased opportunities for sport in your area, but that isn’t necessarily the same across the country, and while it’s interesting anecdotally you have no evidence that it is a direct result of London 2012 or that it is resulting in any improved health outcomes… Indeed, Sport England data shows that more people are now taking part in sport/ exercising since 2005, but numbers have actually fallen since 2012…

ABC and SBS are available everywhere there is tv reception in this wide brown land. You’ll often hear we Aussie Fasttrackers discussing programs we have seen. Brings all our isolated communities together. 😊
We travel with a billy, water, a gas burner, an esky and freezy bricks and a good range of makings for meals. We usually stay in self contained accommodation. ..same price as motels, but all the room and pleasures of home.
Delightful cottage for the next few nights, with full facilities. It makes it much easier to eat well. 😑

Jo,

I don’t doubt that you are seeing a real increase in your area. There are regional trends in the data.

The point I’m making is that the data shows there is no London 2012 legacy effect in terms of sports participation at a national level…

But Jo, the main issue is weight and we all know that requires eating much less, less often.
Time is irrelevant to exercise…park quickly further away, instead of driving around and around looking for a space. Walk to the station instead of waiting for a bus. Carry bags instead of pushing a trolley when shopping. Always walk upstairs and escalators… always quicker than waiting for a lift anyway. Stand and move your feet instead of sitting when waiting. Run on the spot every 15 minutes (or during ad breaks) when watching tv. None of this takes time.
Lose weight, eat less and people will start moving more, naturally.
Jason Fung quotes studies in Canada that show that upping sport in school time did not increase kids overall time spent being active. The study group just flopped at home, while the non study group ran around after school. Teach kids sporting skills to empower them, but not so that they grow up hating exercise.
To me, the key is reducing eating first. P

Afternoon all,

I’ve just broken my fast with some corn on the cob bought at the market. Not as good as fresh off the plant but very nice and satisfied the yearning for something sweet that I often have after fasting.

I bought steak for dinner and I’ll make a warm vegetable salad from what is in the fridge. I decided I would like some vino so have elected to forego potatoes 🍷

I also bought greengages which were 10 for £1. While I was talking to the stallholder about my love for them a man who was waiting to be served asked what “those green things” were so I told him and said that I thought they were delicious. He tried one then bought some. A convert 🙂

There is always time for exercise if the will to do it is there and it doesn’t have to cost anything. I didn’t bother when I was younger because I wasn’t interested but I started doing aerobics when Jane Fonda was urging everyone to “feel the burn” and have exercised on and off ever since. The reason I continued once started was that I realised I enjoyed it.
I had a bike when I was 4, a huge orange 3 wheeler which I would ride around our large garden with my little brother standing on the back, but when I was older my Dad wouldn’t allow me to have a bike despite my brother racing around the streets on his, so I didn’t own another until I was 30. I paid pennies for a second hand lilac “ladies” bike with a basket on the front and started cycling to work. I bought it because I was trying to save money and the pleasure I got from cycling was an unexpected bonus. I used to go to the supermarket on my way home from work and do a big shop, then hang the bags that din’t fit in the basket on the handlebars and cycle home unless the bags were too heavy for me to keep my balance when cornering 😉

Despite the good weather I’ve not done much walking lately so I’m going to make an effort next week to do at least two big walks. We are going to Bushey Park on Tuesday which is next door to Hampton Court.

Lucky you to be eating home grown produce.

I’m always on the lookout for things that aren’t widely available or have a short season eg greengages, apricots, Worcester Pearmain apples, chard, peas. Farmers markets are often the best places to look.

Running might make you cough more but it should help clear your chest.
I’m chafing at the bit to get to the gym tomorrow after 5 days of not doing very much, so I know exactly what you mean 🙂