When did it become OK? Just when?

So, I ask again, when did it become OK? Just exactly when?

Just what am I on about now?

Yesterday, we spent several hours at CT International airport. On the Saturday before Christmas it’s not a good place to be. The place was heaving with people who were heaving themselves along….. as in lumbering along with their obese bodies no doubt protesting quite strongly.

Of course, there were many folk of healthy weight among the masses but, it seemed to me, that every second person I saw was obese to morbidly obese. Lumbering along with that peculiar rocking gate of protesting bones and muscles slack with lack of exercise….. Or traipsing along with muffin tops offending my eyes. (Maybe I’m just prudish and old fashioned with that one!)

I will refrain from including myself in any pics at this time, but my family companions looked pretty good!

Sitting in the Spur, watching the planes come and go (I love doing that), I also observed people come and go from the various tables in the restaurant. One family in particular came directly into my line of vision and I covertly observed them for quite a while. Grandparents, morbidly obese, trying to squeeze into the benches at their big table. The granny, I wondered about her. What did she look like when she married the old man? Slim? trim? Or already plump on her wedding day?  The oupa; I imagined him just eating whatever was put on the table in front of him at home. The children, ‘30/40-somethings’, severely overweight. The son; maybe it was rugby muscle now overtaken by fat. The DIL; very plump indeed. Maybe she was trying to control her weight? Who knows? Lastly, the grandchildren. Not yet in High School. Seriously podgy and pasty looking from lack of sun & exercise. Perhaps that was the saddest part of the picture in front of me. The grandchildren.

Why do I keep thinking about the grandmother? Should she have informed herself and controlled the diet & habits of herself and her spouse? Which, in turn, could have inculcated better eating habits in her son? Maybe she is in fact informed but just could not get control? You know, somehow, I don’t think so. I think she just gave up on the calories, the ‘low fat everything’ that was supposed to help her slim down, the never-ending diets, the never-ending failures.

The food choices that family of six South Africans made yesterday were ill-advised to say the very least. And I, for one, will never give up on myself and my quest for permanent, sustainable healthy weight. I will never give up on my Odyssey.

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Listen up 2015! Here.I.Come!

I’m enjoying a short period of less hectic days and this will continue for a couple of weeks. Bliss! Trying to get office stuff done quite promptly in the morning and then indulging myself for the rest of the day.

As for many of us, 2014 was a mixed bag – the proverbial good, bad and the ugly. I wrestled the entire year with my weight and worrying health markers.

A battle plan is in progress for 2015 and I will be sharing all here on this neglected blog. Not easy to bare one’s soul for the whole world to see but I will be doing this anyway.

I would so love to have you join me as the odyssey continues……

This pic sorta says it all!  🙂

Sweet Perfection? If you must!

I found this today. Looking forward to trying these sachets; do hope we get used to the taste!  Hubby and I have been on sucralose for a long time. Ingredients are Erythritol  and Stevia extract.
@ProfTimNoakes  @SalCreed

Low Carb Milk

We cannot obtain low carb cow’s milk in South Africa. No worries. Here is the recipe I use for my beloved tea. So quick & simple. I use about 50ml in a cup of tea. Never in coffee! For that I use Clover cream!

Camilla's Low Carb Milk

• Servings: 5 x 50ml
• Time: 3mins
• Difficulty: falling off a log
• Print

• 1/4 cup full cream milk
• 3/4 cup distilled water (I use bottled water too)
• 1 Tablespoon heavy cream (I just use Clover)
• dash of salt & sweetener to taste

Shake all ingredients together in a shaker and chill. This has 3.2 g carbohydrate; perfect for LCHF. If 1 cup of water is used, it takes more like skim milk.

DEFINED INSPIRATION

http://www.helpdiet.co.za/blog/letter-of-gratitude-to-prof-tim-noakes/

That’s it! Enough already!

Hear ye! Hear ye! Public Announcement!

It really is enough now.  Exactly what is ‘it’ and what is enough already? Weight. Hypertension. Blood Glucose (and the edible kind). Fatigue. Insomnia. Indifference. Oh grief, I could go on and on.. and on …

It’s what my dietician called ‘the slippery slop’. Perhaps I should pen that as ‘The Slippery Slope’. Because it really, really is a Slippery Slope people. Actually, no, scratch that completely. It’s the Slippery Gorge. And do please check out the synonym verbs for Gorge hereunder!

The infamous and notorious (there is a difference) Odyssey takes to the road again tomorrow morning. Let’s be clear on this, tomorrow 19 August 2013 at 07h00 my Odyssey takes to the highway again.  I am mortified to admit here on this horribly public forum that I tested FBG and BP this morning and both are notably elevated. Elevated from my usual readings that is – which were last done on 23rd June. That is the mortifying part – the interval between these routine checks. Won’t be permitted to happen again.  I am not mortified about the readings themselves, they are simply proof of severe self neglect. My excuses for this severe self neglect will become clear as I continue to bore you all in the days and weeks to come 🙂

Gorge (per the ubiquitous Google)

Noun A narrow valley between hills or mountains, typically with steep rocky walls and a stream running through it.

Verb Eat a large amount greedily; fill oneself with food: “we used to go to all the little restaurants and gorge ourselves”.

Synonyms noun. ravine – throat – gully – gullet verb. gormandize – gobble – devour – guzzle – cram

2013 New beginnings?

Happy New Year to each and every one of you!
Goals? They are but dreams unless written down. Just IMHO.  🙂
Let the Odyssey resume… let’s do this peeps!
(A test post from my Android phone)

ODYSSEY: All psyched up & nowhere to go!

Yeah well no fine. There I was – on Saturday morning all fired up, fasted and keen to get my latest lot of bloods done.

Tootled along in the new Yaris (now named Ruby btw!) to the lab we now use.. only to find they do not open on Saturdays…. Sh*t… not impressed. I was on my way to pick up my granddaughter to take her to a birthday party so could not shoot through to Milnerton where the Pathcare lab does open on Saturdays. I was planning to go on Friday am but decided on Saturday as Fridays would cut into my working day….. hhhmmm. Will have to go to Pathcare lab tomorrow am.

The regular blood tests have now become even more important in my life as I made some quite momentous decisions recently.

Quite momentous in that I have been battling to curb a backslide in my weight loss progress since all the ‘snot en trane’ of the last half year or so. I need all the help and motivation I can get but I have nonetheless resigned from Weigh-Less.  I will miss the lovely pamphlets they produce and I will miss some of the people I met while there in 2009/2010. I will be glad to have R125 a month more to spend on good, quality food. But for the rest – well quite frankly I truly believe that I can teach most of them a thing or two. Some GL’s are tremendous and others just do not have ‘it’ I am afraid.

I have come to the realisation that I went about my weight loss in completely the wrong way. How can a 25kg weight loss not be a raging success story?  You may well ask! I did the right things for me (I thought) – low GI eating plan mainly of my own creation; using nutrition software to keep track of intake; some increase in physical activity >>>>> and therein lies the crunch!

I have realised that far more than what that damn scale says, it is in fact body fat % that has to be monitored and brought down to within the normal  range. At a 25kg weight loss, I looked pretty darn good if I say so myself and I still get compliments about my June 2010 birthday photo used on most websites I frequent. BUT BUT BUT I was a skinny(ish!) fat person!

If body fat % is right, then the weight will be right too… I think… any comments greatly appreciated here!

Lack of robust physical exercise during my weight loss journey resulted in far too much of that 25kg loss being lean muscle. I can feel that and see that in myself. To rectify the matter will not be a simple undertaking but I plan to give it a go. The low GI eating is resuming (for me the only way to go) and the nutrition software has been ‘re-booted’!  The CRUNCH is going to be the physical exercise – aerobic; stretching; light weights; core;  – dear heaven this is not going to be easy at all!!

Anyone know when I can buy reasonably priced skinfold calipers? I am serious! Can order from the USA for +- $20 BUT the freight costs are very high.  www.chponline.com.

While we are mentioning websites here, check out the new diabetes website www.mydiablog.com. Had a long chat with the founder this evening – a German named Wolf. What a great guy.

Blue Tuesday coming up – had a great weekend out & about in the sunshine so not looking forward to my desk again early tomorrow morning.

Have a great week everyone.

Weight loss: we must know where we are headed

“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” was his response. “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.””

— Lewis Carroll, author

Reducing my weight and maintaining at goal weight is the single most important element of my journey to optimum wellness. With my weight at a normal level, the other ills I have will come right. Well, if not ‘come right’, they will certainly be the best results I can achieve given my specific circumstances.

Damn it all to hell! I have said it before and I will say it again. It’s all self inflicted. By upping the ante as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I am placing a much higher value on self care.

By doing this, I will be better able to cope with a stressful, busy life and better plan for the more rounded lifestyle I yearn for.

The first thing I am doing, as of this morning, is re-looking at portion control. W & I have been eating far too much and this is one of the main reasons why our weight is not shifting as rapidly as it was. With W-L and the very comprehensive food list booklet they provide, I am able to instantly see what size my portions should be. So, I have no excuses. Period.

The other day, I saw a list of portion sizes compiled by Dr Ingrid van Heerden (DietDoc on Health 24.com). I am sure I made a copy of it. I’ll dig it out and post it later in the day.

Chow for now. Have a good one.

Weight Loss : I’ve got to up the ante

It’s now exactly two weeks since we returned from our wonderful break at Pinnacle Point. A fading memory I am afraid. 😦  We had to jump right back into the fray and catch up on time lost while we chilled out.

There’s something fundamentally wrong with the whole scenario; with the way that we live our lives in our house. This work, work, work is not a good place to be. We should be relaxing and I suppose I should be relaxing doing crochet or something or maybe gossiping with the other tannies in our quiet apartment block. Nah, just can’t see that ever happening.

I, for one, am right up there with my kids checking out the latest Blackberry, muttering about what in the cloud data backups are costing me, taking on new payroll work for small businesses. I would just like to have a more rounded life and in truth am striving towards that goal; without any notable success at this time!

What has happened since returning to Cape Town two weeks ago? Well, on the weight front nothing much at all and therein lies the problem. Having lost 23kg, my metabolism has settled down and decided that this weight is quite OK, thank you very much. So, another dreaded plateau. I have 7kg to go to the W-L goal set for me and I still want to go at least another 5kg down after that!

I feel good! I’m told I look good (but not when I am still working in my dressing gown mid-morning!) I am much smaller than I was, of course. I had the most amazing experience just before we left on holiday. I simply had to go to Woollies and find some denim pants to take on holiday – the old ones were all hanging like sacks on me. Great feeling actually! 🙂

Not having a clue what size to buy, I confidently took home two pairs of denim pants in size 18. Bearing in mind that I had been wearing size 22 stuff, this in itself was a major victory for me. Got home to find that the jeans as well as the pull on elasticised denim pants were both far too big!

As I hate trying on clothes in shop fitting rooms, I went back, changed the pants and came home with size 16’s. Tried them on. WOW!  The fitted jeans were fine – even a little loose. The elasticised pants were too big!  So back to the shop again to came home with size 14’s. Anyone who has worn size 22 clothes and now wears size 14 will know exactly how I felt!  I was and still am over the moon about this very tangible evidence of my progress so far.

SO FAR

Two very crucial little words for me. I have come so far and am justifiably chuffed with my efforts. But now the real test must begin. The last 7kg’s will be difficult to lose and hence the expression below :-

“ If you up the ante, you increase the importance or value of something, especially where there’s an element of risk as the term comes from gambling, where it means to increase the stake (the amount of money bet). “    Wikipedia

The element of risk for me is, of course, the real possibility of deteriorating health issues due to too slow intervention on my part. I must place a much greater emphasis on where I am heading and pick up the pace substantially.  I will have to worry about all the loose, wrinkled, floppy bits that will only get worse once I have arrived at my destination! The value of goal weight as the basis for optimum wellness has to be the most important element of my odyssey.

So, onward and downward again – are you joining me? You are most welcome!