When you feel like you’re doing all the right things it can be very tempting to step on the scales every day, just for that little endorphin rush and the validation that yes you are doing the right things. But…I am all too aware that when you go to the gym, longer term progress may not be immediately evident due to swelling, water retention, and other things that happen to your body after an intense workout. That is why I am trying to stick to weighing-in once a week, but damn is it hard to resist the temptation to step on the scale when I feel like I am literally working my backside off.
I have within the last hour or so been having a conversation with the kids about how variety is the spice of life, so I feel like a hypocrite when I write that I had a chocolate porridge pot for breakfast, but right now I don’t need the spice of life, I don’t need excitement in all my food, I just need reliable. The porridge pot is reliably tasty, I know it fills me quite well, and it is easy to do whilst giving me no option to cheat. So see you later spice of life, for now I’m riding the reliable train to a healthier life, starting off with a breakfast of 263 calories.
The theme of reliability continues into lunch, unfortunately. What I had been having for lunch was from Tesco, we do our regular shop at Asda, and as I had ran out of lunch meals I decided it was easier to just get some with our regular shop, The first meal, the chicken and bacon pasta bake was lovely. The meal I had today was one I was looking forward to, chicken korma with pilau rice. I love chicken korma. I love korma so much that when I first lived on my own all those years ago and money was tight I used to make myself sausage korma because a bag of frozen sausages was a hell of a lot cheaper than chicken. Anyway, I couldn’t wait to tuck into my lunch. I nearly cried. It was revolting. I’m not exaggerating, it was disgusting, it was mush. I wouldn’t even feed it to Darby. I ate it because I was hungry and didn’t fancy cooking something else, but there is a good chance that the other chicken korma in the freezer is going to end up in the bin because I don’t think I can put myself through it again. As I said, right now I need reliability. Time to do a click and collect order on Tesco.
After lunch I take Darby for a walk and we have to come to a compromise. I need to walk, he needs to walk, but I appreciate that he is a hunter dog and needs to let his nose work. I decide that if we can have a decent walk, with limited stoppages, then once we get into the field at the park that is all Darby time, if he wants to stand in one spot and sniff then that’s what we’ll do, if he wants to follow his nose all around the field then so be it, whatever he feels he needs to do, except running, sod running. We end up being out for about 40 minutes, burning a decent number of calories, 469 if my watch is to be believed.
Tea is a cheat treat today, one of those meals that I do to try and help keep me on track. I love pizza, Vikki loves pizza, the scales do not love pizza. If I tried to eliminate pizza from our diet then it would almost certainly be the thing that derails us. I can see it now, shall we just get a pizza to share for lunch? If we’re getting pizza and having that little bit of naughty then shouldn’t we just do it right and have a takeaway pizza? If we’re going to have a takeaway pizza then we may as well get a pizza each because there is a buy one get one free deal. Oh, and I’m going to need to have a large pizza because the base I want they only do I a medium or a large, an if I’m going to get a medium then I may as well just get a large for the extra couple of quid. Yeah, it would be so easy to let pizza derail us. So instead, I do what I can to make my fat brain think I’m getting pizza. Welcome to the world of pizza thins. Using sandwich thins, and a sensible amount of toppings, it is possible to have “pizza” for a decent amount of calories. I have six slices of pizza, 3 thins, for tea, I’m full enough, and it only cost me 546 calories.
I decide to go for another treat after tea, a protein pudding. Now we all remember the theme of the day, right? Reliability. The treat I am looking forward to tucking into is a new pudding, one that I had to do a little research on in fact as I wasn’t entirely sure what flavour it was. Stracciatella. Basically vanilla with chocolate shavings. It is a quark pudding, not entirely sure what that was before trying it. It’s a bit weird, kind of cheesecakey but not quite. I don’t think I’ll be having it again. Luckily it was only 90 calories wasted.
Time to head to the gym and because I’m a putz and didn’t think ahead my gym bottle is in the dishwasher. We have a bunch of lucozade sport bottles, bought before I got serious about tracking calories, so I take one of them knowing it is putting me 135 calories behind at the gym. Fortunately between a decent workout on the bike, some strength training targeting my back and shoulders, followed by a brisk walk on the treadmill, I manage to burn off 575 calories.
Total calorie intake 1746
Total calorie expenditure through exercise 1044