Post Christmas Blues

On my way to the gym today I had a tiny twinge of the post Christmas blues, they soon passed. Once in the gym I realised how much fitness I have lost over the festive period. Yuck! I wasn't super fit in the first place and a combination of little exercise, lots of food and a reasonable amount of alcohol made it a real struggle. My training plan said 5k for today which I managed to do but it took me ages. I felt really flabby too, I could feel my stomach and thighs jiggling when I first started running! Seriously that needs to be prevented from ever happening again. I think once the festive period is over I can get on with my training much more easily.

As I said in a previous post I do have a party to go to on the 8th January but that gives me just over a week off partying after New Years Eve. After that I am hitting the straight and narrow with exercise and eating etc.

My parents are going on holiday for a while soon and I was thinking earlier about what a good opportunity it is for me to eat healthily, I can cook what I want without having to consider other people's likes and dislikes. I imagine I will make some big batches of stuff and freeze them. I always find it hard to think of meals to cook. When I was at uni I used to spend ages trying to plan different healthy meals. Any suggestions welcome. I am really looking forward to getting back into the healthy eating habit.

Back to work in the morning, dare I say that I am quite happy to go back now, I've had a nice break but like to be kept busy. Then I have Friday off as it is New Years Day and we are closed. It would have been my day off anyway as I am working the weekend. I do actually find I sometimes get more admin type work done on weekend shifts as there are usually less interruptions.

Wishing you all a very happy new year, lets hope 2010 will be the best yet

50 Posts Later

So this is my 50th post on this blog.

I am having a productive day today, I have my washing in and I am popping into work for a bit later on to go through some things that I need to learn how to do. Then this evening we are going to make the mince pies ready for Christmas. I don't actually like mince pies but I love making them. I think it's because I love baking and I love Christmas and making mince pies means it's near to Christmas. We will freeze them until nearer the time.

I went to the gym yesterday after work wearing my new sports bra, my £18 new sports bra, I got on the treadmill to have a good run only to discover that the sports bra which stated on the packet for running was in fact crap! So annoying, I tried it on in the shop and it fitted well and seemed supportive. I will have to keep it as I have worn it now. I will just have to wear a normal bra underneath in future. I had a really good session on the cross trainer instead, on a higher level than usual and I went faster. It was great for getting some aggression out after a stressful day. My eating however hasn't been great lately, I am trying to rein it in.

It is getting close to eating season now, Friday night I am going to my work Christmas meal, then I have a week or so before it really gets into eating lots. My sister's birthday is on Christmas day so she usually celebrates on a different day which is this Sunday this year, so another eating occasion. After that I have a few days of normal eating before it starts getting to people coming over to visit then my Dad's birthday, Christmas and pretty much a couple of weeks of just eating! I'm hoping to do lots of exercise so I don't put on loads of weight. Myself and a friend were wondering the other day how much weight you could put on in a month if you really tried to have loads of calories.

I am going to try and eat well the next few days then enjoy the meal Friday then eat well again as much as I can. I want to enjoy Christmas and the food. So I just have to get the balance right between enjoyment and putting on a million pounds in weight!

Pistachio Muffins

I made the pistachio muffins, they were disappointing. They weren't sweet, I suppose when I saw how little sugar was involved in the recipe and thought thats not much I should have realised. I can't work out if they were supposed to be savoury or not. Surely if they were savoury then the sugar wouldn't have been bothered with. They were kinda in between neither sweet or savoury. I will eat them but its one of those won't make those again thoughts. They were pretty healthy as muffin recipes go. Hardly any fat.I have my eye on the chocolate cherry brandy muffins next! Very naughty!

My friend came round earlier and we looked at holiday brochures for going away sometime next year, I can't wait. It will be my first holiday in 4 years :)

Musings on life

I'm not sure how I am doing on the healthy thing.

I am starting to get a little nervous about the marathon, I have a minor ankle injury at the moment but tonight it has suddenly got more painful. So I am torn, I feel like I must exercise and work on my fitness levels as I haven't really made much progress so far. I also feel like if I make my ankle worse then it won't be beneficial. I guess I'll have to see how it is in the morning, I figure I may continue going running on it and then if in a weeks time it is still bad I should probably rest if for a few days. I just need to feel like I am doing something to make progress with the fitness/training. I am considering tomorrow or Friday may be better, going somewhere else for my run which is a flatter place and doing some intervals for a longer period of time rather than a short run with a bit of walking. I just want to make progress!

I was reading a blog earlier and was in awe of the blogger and thought I wish that could be me able to run that far etc etc, but then I thought about it and realised that can be me with enough training, it was really inspiring :-)

Eating healthily seems to be swings and roundabouts really, some days this week I have done really well, others not so well. It is again a case of being busy a lot, I'm at the stage now of needing to go shopping due to lack of healthy foods to take to work. I'm in a motivated mood right now so things should improve.

Tomorrow I have the day off which is great as at one point I was going to be working 6 days this week as I am covering on Sunday and then we realised I could have tomorrow off as there would be someone else in. One of the benefits of this new job is that I will be doing full time hours but only working 5 days a week, with the occassional extra days overtime. whereas before i often worked day after day with no days off but not necessarily many hours each day.

Plan is run either tomorrow or Friday, right now Friday seems more sensible, gives my ankle an extra rest and means I can sneak a bit more of a lie in tomorrow. Then my friend is coming over for coffee late morning before she starts work in the afternoon. Once she has left I will probably have a relaxing rest of the day, maybe pop on a girly dvd (mamma mia or sex and the city probably) or go food shopping. I realise now I have time for both as I have the whole day off so I have after 3.30pm free too! duh! I am so used to squeezing in all my days activities before work that I forgot I could do both those things! Yay for days off. If I do go food shopping I will get the ingredients to make pistachio muffins out of my new recipe book and I will make sure I ration them!

Have a great week all x

A non-scale victory

I have a non-scale victory. I fit into a pair of jeans that has been too small for over a year! yippee! They button and zip up. I am not going to start wearing them just yet as they give me a massive muffin top which is not attractive! I shall be smaller soon though and then I will start wearing them.

This morning I have been for a run and mere moments after I got back it started to rain, good timing huh? It was so nice to have a hot shower afterwards.

I have work later on and have yet to decide what to take for my dinner. Yesterday I took wholewheat pasta with mixed chopped peppers and tuna, it was lovely. I also had an apple, a carrot and a chocolate mousse as a treat.

For lunch today I am going to have homemade turkey curry with broccoli and cauliflower and either a wholemeal pitta bread or a little bit of rice.

I am wearing a cardigan that can only be described as my big cardi, it is long and thick and warm. It's not that cold yet but I was looking for something to wear whilst my work stuff washes/dries and it is a bit chillier. I have had this cardi for years and it is not exactly very fasionable but is just what you need in cold weather.

I would like to do some baking tomorrow before work so I will have to have a think what to make.

Thursday I have the day off and intend to go for a long walk/run. If I don't meet up with any friend or anything then I think I will try to tackle the mess that is my bedroom and sort clothes out a bit better.

Have a good week x

A busy bee

So, I am a busy bee at the moment, hence the lack of posts.

Normally when I am working a late shift I come online before work at least once or twice a week. So far this week however on Monday I walked into town and then came home and did some baking and yesterday I met a friend and her boyfriend for lunch and by the time I got back had just enough time to get my stuff together and make something to take for my dinner before leaving to walk to work.

This last week has been good because

• I had an assessment day and interview and have got a promotion yippee! I'm really looking forward to starting that.
• Also I have gotten some more exercise in, once my sinuses were more normal like and I could breathe better I went for a run. I went on Friday and did the same route I did the time before but managed to run more of it. Then on Sunday I was going to go for a run and my dog was a bit hyper so I thought I would walk him to the fields, let him off the lead and then run with him round there. It was good fun and I ran for quite a bit.
• I have been walking to work a lot and here there and everywhere getting chores done.
• I baked cranberry bran buns on Monday, they are a nice treat and also pretty healthy as treats go. The recipe is my mums and calls for mixed dried fruit which I am not keen on so I thought hmm you know what cranberries could be nice and I was right! Yummy.
  
  My car is getting some welding done today and another MOT which means that once it is back I am legally allowed to drive it on the roads again. It will still need some other work done but it will not cost anywhere near as much as originally thought. I am very pleased as not being able to drive has taken away a degree of independance from me. Silly as it sounds I'm thinking I hope I can remember how to drive lol! I'm sure I can and am itching to go for a spin. I do still want a new car within the next several months but getting my car back on the road will be a great help while I look. Not being able to use it has really made me appreciate my current car, think I've fallen back in love with it!!
  
  Other news to report hmmm, today I have the day off, I haven't really got up to much, I had to pop to the pharmacy earlier and then I tried to walk the dog, he got frightened by a noise though and turned around to go home and wouldn't be persuaded to carry on the walk. So that was rather short lived. It's kinda odd having the day off because over the last few weeks I have worked pretty much every day and on days off done other stuff to help people out. Tomorrow I am working the early and then Friday I am working only for a few hours in the evening. On Friday morning I will go for a run. Saturday I have the day off and in the evening it is my cousin's engagement party, I'm not sure what to wear yet but I am looking forward to it, I haven't been out/to a party for ages, will be great to let my hair down.
  
  I seem to have been doing ok with my eating lately, I have taken salads to work the past 2 days and I must say they were rather tasty, also my snacking after work has calmed down. The problem wasn't the time I was eating as its the calories not when you eat that matters but the fact that I would eat several things mostly out of boredom/habit I think.
  
  Two positives for my healthy future are that I will now be working 5 (not more) days a week and having my car back will mean I can pop to the supermarket and buy myself some healthy foods to either take to work or have for my lunch before work if I'm on the late.
  
  Planning is the key.
  
  Have a good week everyone.

Honest Scrap

Newbierunner gave me this :-) cheers
As a recipient of this award, I am to share 10 things that people don’t know about me.
This is gonna be hard as I just did a post with 6 things people don't know about me

1. My current (broken car) is blue in colour, when I get a new car I would like it to be metallic blue, this is a bit odd because my favourite colour is actually pink.

2. I really like 60s music despite the fact I wasn't even born then.

3. We have a book club come in to work, they sell books and other cool stuff for cheaper than their rrps. I have ordered a set of books: the muffin bible and the cake bible, both books for £5 bargain! They should have been there yesterday but I forgot to check. Looking through the books I loved the muffin book, it's got a great selection of sweet and savoury muffins in, I wasn't as bothered about the cake book as there were a few great looking recipes but not enough to sell it to me. They come in a set and I can't wait to get them and get baking! (yes I know this isn't very healthy you, but I will try my best to make sure I share them round and have them in moderation)

4. People always mis pronounce my surname.

5. My middle name is Elizabeth.

6. In the future I would like a house with apple trees, a vegetable patch, and space to keep hens, I would like 2 border collie dogs.

7. When I was a child and we played make believe games I always wished I was called Sabrina as I loved the TV programme Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

8. I have an important day next Tuesday.

9. I usually give blood regularly despite having a fear of needles, currently I am low on iron so am unable too, but will be back to it as soon as I can

10. I wish they still sold Lucky Charms in the UK. They do sell them but they are about £7.99 for a tiny box which is sooooooo expensive, and that is only at Selfridges which isn't around here. They are a similar price online too. I don't know why they stopped selling them over here. Admittedly they probably aren't the healthiest of cereals but my gosh so tasty, I would love some just for the nostalgia.

I want to give this award to my sister as I think she really is an honest scrap.

Have a great weekend everyone.

I made soup!

I made soup yesterday, I had some uncooked vegetables left over so I made soup with those, I also threw in some roasted veg that was left over. I then discovered that the blender was broken! I put it in the food processer which didn't work as well as the blender does so my soup is a bit lumpy but only tiny pieces. I didnt eat it yesterday, it's in the fridge at the moment and I think I will freeze it to have later on in the week so that I can mayb get away with going food shopping less. I did have a tiny taste of the soup and it was delish!

I am now in sole charge of the dog for the next week so I will be getting a lot of walking done. Hopefully this will kickstart my weight loss a bit more. I do enjoy walking the dog.

I have work later on this afternoon but only for a few hours, then I have a couple of friends coming over for dinner. I am making fajitas because they are yummy and pretty healthy. The ones I make are pretty healthy as I don't add cheese or sour cream like you can do. Then we are having toffee pavlova for dessert! Naughty I know but as desserts go meringue isn't very calorific. There's about 250something calories per quarter, there will be 3 of us so that leaves me with a slice to have tomorrow. It is the weekend lets not forget and I reckon tomorrow if I know I have pavlova for my treat in the evening I can be good the rest of the day. I do have work tomorrow so will be up early to walk the dog beforehand and will take a healthy lunch (in fact I might take some of the soup). I have found myself including more treats again towards the end of this week. But I am aware of it and keen to get back on the straight and narrow. I think it is fine to have dessert some days and in fact a treat each day, as long as it's not several very large treats every day and no exercise.

One tip I will share that I do sometimes is to walk up and down the stairs when you are waiting for something, for example I walked up and down them a few times while I waited for my computer to load up, also waiting for the kettle to boil is a good time, even during the ad break when watching tv. It won't burn thousands of calories a time or anything but it all adds up. Over days and months it will make a difference. Also as it's getting to a chillier time of year it can give you a nice boost of warmth.

Tired (and a bit grumpy)

I didn't sleep well last night, I was too hot and so tossed and turned for quite a while. I didn't feel too tired until after I got back from work.

I finished early as we didn't have many children in this afternoon, so someone got to go home and today it was me. I had asked if it could be me so I could keep an eye on the dog. After getting home I read the paper and then tried to watch something I had recorded on sky plus a while ago. After 10minutes I could feel my eyelids drooping until I could wait no more and needed a sleep, so I turned it off and had a 15 minute nap and felt loads better for it. I was a bit headachy afterwards so had a drink and a piece of toast.

We took the dog for his check up at the vets and his leg was looking loads better, he will have his stitches out next Monday and in the mean time has to still wear his 'lampshade' as I call it. It must be a bit uncomfortable but in the long run it's for the best.

I have just checked my email and had a rejection letter for a job I applied for that I really, really wanted. Even though I had assumed I hadn't got it as the date given on the job advert for the interviews was last week I feel disappointed as it sounded a great job and a bit down about the whole job hunt thing, there are so few suitable jobs around.

I shall keep on looking though, I know something will come up eventually.

Early night for me tonight, I have a training thing on in the morning and then the rest of the day off, so I'm hoping for nice weather tomorrow afternoon so I can sit in the garden reading. My current book is Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. I'm quite enjoying it. I also really fancy cooking something, I'm totally in the mood for cooking at the mo. :-)

Sunshine, Shopping, Shortbread and Cake

My kinda day! I made cake and shortbread (both of the chocolate variety)yesterday morning before work. The cake for my friend as it was her birthday this week and the shortbread just to have as a treat.

It was a lovely day today, sunny and warm but not scorchingly makes you feel ill too hot :-) The sort of weather that makes you feel all mellow and chilled. When my friend came over we mooched into town and after saying can we just pop in New Look I ended up with 2 pairs of shorts, 2 pairs of leggings and a lush lush lush dress! Apparently women feel guilty themselves after shopping and don't need nagging to feel that way, but not me, I was very pleased with myself indeed. Perhaps because I have barely any clothes that haven't got a hole in or aren't ill fitting and because I haven't bought any clothes in absolutely ages. The last clothes I bought were to wear to my graduation so were kinda essential. I'm so looking forward to wearing my new clothes :-) I love wearing something new for the first time.

After town we came back to mine and tucked into the cake, then once my friend had gone home I chilled in the back garden reading the paper. It was bliss, I keep forgetting that I've got tomorrow off work, I'm so used to only having one day off at once and working weekends. I'm hoping for nice weather again tomorrow so I can chill in the garden. I am making a roast for lunch for myself, my brother, his gf and my sis. Other than that it's gonna be a lazy Sunday.

In other news the dog's op went well, he seems more bothered by the lampshade he has to wear so he doesnt chew the stitches than he is by his wound. I thought he would be whimpering all the time and barely walking but boy was I wrong! My dad took him for a short walk today on his lead as that's all he's allowed and he apparently wanted to keep going!

Here's hoping for nice weather tomorrow and enough nice weather for the rest of the summer for me to get some wear out of all the summery clothes I bought today.

lovely lunch

I went into town this morning to pick up a letter which had been too big to fit through our letterbox, it was the photos of me shaking the guys hand (I can't work out who he was other than important!) at my graduation. The posed photos of me with the pretend scroll haven't arrived yet.

I then popped into Sainsburys to get some bits for lunch. I decided to have a cooked lunch as I start work at 5pm tonight and trying to eat dinner before then is a bit too early so I will take a sandwich with me. I have to say I bought the healthiest shopping ever. Well maybe not ever. I decided to have roasted veg for lunch with sweet potato, but for some reason there were no sweet potatoes to be seen so I went for butternut squash instead. I had butternut squash, onion, red pepper, mushrooms, garlic, chilli and cinnamon with a touch of olive oil all roasted together. Then just before the end I chucked some cooked frozen prawns in. It was bloody delicious! Wasn't sure whether it would be nice or whether the cinnamon would have been a mistake. Then I had strawberries with a little bit of melted dark chocolate. Yum, yum, yum.

I'm having a bit of a boring weekend really this weekend, got work tomorrow as well. I want to go for a bike ride before work tomorrow if the weather's ok. I'm not doing much before work today, being very lazy I think. I have next weekend off so am planning some fun things :-) I'm working on Monday and have to start extra early due to the antiviral collection point being in one of the rooms and them needing to get in to set up before they open. Which is the same reason why I have work tonight as they are open later than our usual closing time on a Saturday. I can't complain it means I earn some extra money and whilst I'm not a morning person there is something satisfying in being up really early and getting on with things. I'm off to give blood after work and then will probably do nothing for the rest of the day. Tues, Weds, Thurs, Fri I am working the late. Saturday I am planning to see my friend Gemma who is 21 this week. If we have time before that I am hoping to go and look at some cars to get an idea of the price for the type of car I want.

Right now I have to go and do some tidying up.

Saturday

I had work today and a bit of a late night last night so am vowing to go to bed earlier tonight so that I don't feel quite so bad tomorrow. I went to my friend's house last night as another of our friends was back from Cardiff for the weekend. We had a nice natter and ate delicious cakes. One was make with grated courgette instead of butter and was simply delicious, apart from one tiny green speck you would never have known there was any courgette in it. The other cake has loads of plain chocolate in a mix of 70% and 90% cocoa varieties, it was still warm when we ate it and was yum yum yum! I got home just after midnight and by the time I was ready for bed it was about half past. I didn't sleep very well because my itchy ear was driving me mad. Sods law says that I fell into a lovely deep sleep ready for when my alarm went off at 7am.

I made my own pasta sauce yesterday with red onion, courgette and tinned tomatoes and a little olive oil. I then cooked some pasta and took it to work to have cold for my lunch today. I was anticipating it being a bit gross and me not eating much of it. In fact it was really quite nice and pretty healthy. I had such a large portion of sauce(it was more like a ratatouille type thing than a sauce, loadsa chunky veg) that it was about half a large courgette, half a red onion and half a tin of tomatoes which would have been 3 of my 5 a day and I also had a banana and an apple. So I had all of my 5 a day at work. I have to say I do struggle to have my 5 a day sometimes.

I've had a sore throat all week, a very low level thing and a spot in my throat. For some reason I frequently get a sore throat and a spot in it or on the roof of my mouth for no reason. So I'm trying to fruit and veg it up to get rid! That and a few early nights should sort me right out.

I have been working on my cv this evening and my dad is going to proof read it for me tomorrow when I am at work.

I finish at 3.30 tomorrow so am thinking I'll go to the gym on the way home from work, but that's gonna be a wait and see how tired I am kinda thing.

Right now I think I'm gonna chill out in front of the tv and get an early night, as an aside to that I find I watch hardly any tv when I'm on lates cos daytime tv is rubbish now that bondi rescue has finished!