Reading : one of my favourite pastimes

I am a voracious reader. Have been since a very young age. Always will be. Come rain or shine, workday or holiday, I cannot live a day without reading something.

Am I talking Tolstoy? No, I have no conspicuous literary pretensions. I am a reader of washing machine manuals, cereal boxes, crime thrillers, craft & nutrition books by the dozen, cookbooks, biographies, business tomes, ‘pop psychology’, income tax and VAT manuals, – you name it, I read it. For my business and for my pleasure.

I love nothing better than curling up under a duvet with a good book and preferably a large slab of chocolate. Well, OK, the slab of chocolate has not happened for a very long time unfortunately. So I make do with 3 Provitas and hummus! Not quite the same but I am a hummus binger!

So, amidst all the very serious crashing computer issues I am dealing with at this time, I was thrilled with the arrival yesterday of  4 books I had ordered and eagerly awaited.

New editions of the SA GI & GL Guide and SA Edition of The Complete Kilojoule Carbohydrate and Fat Counter.

SA Cookbook for Diabetes & Insulin Resistance Book 2.

More Jewellery in a Jiffy.

No rocket science as you can see!

Interestingly, I see that the new edition of The Complete Kilojoule Carbohydrate and Fat counter now has nutrition software available as a companion resource. This is something new and I will be checking it out and will let you know what it’s all about.

Have a great day.

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Weight loss – are you battling too?

Man alive, what a struggle I am having this winter with achieving a steady weight loss result every week. Although I do weigh in at Weigh-Less most Thursday mornings, my actual loss chart runs from Sunday am to Sunday am and that chart shows my struggles far too graphically!!

I had a ‘mini-breakthrough’ on the 2nd and since then have been fluctuating a bit down-a bit up-a bit down- you get the idea….

Causes of this? Ah, that part is easy. Not enough water; lax portion control especially with the winter ‘comfort’ foods; erratic mealtimes; eating at my office desk (toast with peanut butter in left hand and right hand still wielding the mouse!!); ‘illegal foods’; occasional piggy binges; not nearly enough physical activity; not enough ‘time out’ for extreme self care; the list goes on and on…

The whole odyssey is about the ‘extreme self care’ that Cheryl Richardson writes about so well. Although I am posting about weight loss today – which is the crucial self care bottom-line for most of us on the journey to best wellness- the other aspects must receive attention too. Serious attention.

OK, so the causes of poor weight loss, no weight loss and, yes, weight gain are no mystery to any of us.

One reason we must consider is this: What eating plan are we actually following? Low fat? Low carb? Atkins? Weigh-Less/Weight Watchers? Crash diet? 4-day ‘Heart Diets’? ‘3 days on/3 days’ off? Growth hormone injections? Considering bariatric surgery?

We HAVE to have a plan. A map. A route. A guide. A GPS. Call it what you will. That much I have learnt from over 4 decades of (often bitter) experience. I have spoken about this before but it does bear repeating!

In a nutshell then:

Where are you now? (Get your health status checked out. Know ALL your ‘numbers’.)

Where are you headed? (Goal weight. Healthy ‘numbers’.Physical fitness.)

How will you get there? (Lifestyle Plan. Write it all down. Get your support team together – appropriate health professionals; your family and/or friends; a mentor you know well and trust? Stop dreaming it. Just action it. Now!)

While facing often overwhelming odds as I do, one thing I know for sure (Oh God, I sound like Oprah) is that I have come this far and there is no turning back! And if the journey to my destination  takes longer than I would like, so. be. it. I am still learning all along the road.

(This post – in fact all my posts – with apologies to my English master Mr Graves who thought he had taught me perfect English grammar! )

Weight loss : a mini-breakthrough

Well, it was a damn long time coming. What a battle! As of this morning, I have edged past the 25kg mark for the first time – 25.2kg down to be exact. As I said, a mini breakthrough but a breakthrough it is.

My weight loss has fluctuated between 24 –24.8kg for the last 2 months. I know the reasons for this very well. Lax portion control, little exercise, insufficient water and occasional mini-binges all contributed to the patchy downward progress.

June was a month of bi-annual medical checks I have which form part of the diabetic care protocol. At the beginning of the year and at mid-year, I have various tests done to check my health status.  Doctor, pathologists, ophthalmologist, podiatrist and dietician all had the dubious pleasure of my company last month. I will talk about it in a later post.

Diabetes really is a dread disease in that uncontrolled – or even just poorly controlled glucose levels wreak havoc with virtually every body system. Unseen and undetected until too late. That’s fact and not just me becoming neurotic or a hypochondriac! While I am very aware of my health diagnoses/challenges and am doing (action!) all I reasonably can to reverse the situation, I have no time to sit around contemplating my ‘health navel’!

Between health, business and personal challenges, I seldom have time to scratch myself! I do not schedule enough ‘me time’.  I call it down time or time out. I am looking at that quite seriously and would recommend it for everybody.

As part of my mid-year checks, I consulted a dietician about the prolonged weight plateau. Yeah. Another one. Another dietician I mean. Did I learn anything new? No. Didn’t expect to. What I did get was a slightly revised eating plan which cuts kJ to 5200 per day. (About 1222 calories). Rather strict plan for sure. Cuts carbs and leaves protein/fats much the same. Am I following the recommendations to the letter? Not quite but I have had a shift in weight and that’s the bottom line isn’t it?!

The other perennial recommendation is to increase exercise. Any regular physical activity is crucial for overall health improvement – any physical activity at all.

So get that fat dog out on a leash and get out into the neighbourhood so that he can pick up his pee-mail!

Quotations : George Eliot

“ It’s never too late to be who you might have been.”

George Eliot

Mary Anne Evans was a Victorian novelist who used the pen name George Eliot. According to Wiki, the masculine name was chosen to partly distance herself from the lady writers of silly novels but it also quietly hid the tricky subject of her marital status.

She lived with the married George Henry Lewes for over 20 years. Mr Lewes apparently had an open marriage; one can imagine how well that played in the Victorian era! Nonetheless, the Evans/Lewes ‘marriage’  was by all accounts a loving and stable relationship.  

After Lewes died, George Eliot later legally married American banker John Cross – a man 20 years her junior. A Victorian Demi Moore?! 🙂

I seem to gravitate towards women who buck the system, don’t I?!

Now from George Eliot to Tom Venuto. Wow! Now that’s a jump! You can’t say my interests are not eclectic!

Tom Venuto, of www.burnthefatblog.com and www.tomvenuto.com fame, writes about his sadness when people think that it is “ too late” for them to do anything about fitness and overweight. You may like to read his 2 latest blog posts dated 25th and 29th June. Don’t be put off by the pictures of his body-builder torso! He is anything but a steroid laden exercise junkie. The man has much to say that  may resonate with you!

Have a great Friday.