OS Singlies - We Do It Our Way!

BookWorm

Morning everyone :hello:

Soz for being awol. Partly due to work being busy but I also had the funeral for the relative that passed away at NY. So it's been an emotional and mentally draining week for me.
However, I'm feeling positive with a new month starting and looking forward again

Mum2one - well done on your weight loss - that's fab :T

LB - :j brilliant news that you have finally got the items you longed for and that you can now move on and put those troublesome siblings beind you

We've had another dusting of snow overnight but looks like it's melting already so shouldn't cause any problems. It is however giving me a good excuse to stay inside and get some house jobs done :rotfl:

Stay safe and warm whatever you are all up to

BW

Horace

Hello all.

LB Your chooks sound like tinkers if they can put themselves to bed when it is cold but not at other times. I don't like stepping on the white stuff either because of the ice underneath. Fab news that your poisonous siblings have at last given you your mum's jewellery and photographs - now you can put them behind you and move on.

It snowed again last night but this morning it appeared to have melted somewhat. I just wish we could have a big dumping of snow so that it is out of the system and then we can think of warmer days. I managed to oversleep again and slept through my 8am alarm and woke up at around 11.30am - I seem to have gone into hibernation mode. Missed my SW group this morning but I am not that bothered because they were having another party and I don't see why I should be guilt tripped into feeding them all when I have just enough to feed myself. I don't think I will go back as my time with them is due to finish soon anyway.

I am in the process of sorting out my pantry - clearing it of old expired packets and making things neater so that I can see what I have got. I have more tinned stuff - tinned spuds, chopped tomatoes, corned beef, baked beans, chicken in white sauce. I have new packet stuff too as well as lots of herbs. I like to keep a supply in for times when I am ill or am snowed in.

BW Hope you are ok?

BookWorm

Horace wrote: »

BW Hope you are ok?

I'm good. Having a quiet and relaxing weekend just for me. Thanks for asking

moneyistooshorttomention

I don't think its really necessary to go to Sl*mming W*rld groups myself Horace. Once you've been in the first place for a few sessions = then you've got the basic drift of how to do the plan/bought the basic literature/etc.

After that, its perfectly possible to do it on your own anyway and there are only two reasons to keep going. That being if its being done as a "social thing" and the attendee is using it as a group to make some new friends from on the one hand or if they wish to keep buying those "food" products they produce (once tasted = never forgotten:lipsrseal) on the other hand.

Horace

I had to go to this SW group because I was sent by the health trainer, I have got some of the books too. Must admit I prefer the Hairy Bikers healthy eating books. Am currently working on my calorie intake because I just don't eat enough so I am trying to have breakfast every day and generally trying to eat more. Please don't remind me about their sugar loaded cardboard biscuits. Once eaten never forgotten.

Had a long chat with mum on the phone today - we were chatting about stuff and about dad who was ill again yesterday (he is always sleepy these days). She has asked me to sell some stuff on fleabay for her so I have been pricing things up, she has a load of craft stuff to sell which she is sorting out because she used to run classes but no longer has the time nor the energy so the stock has to go. We also chatted about my glass collection and about how I am going to keep the things I like (some rare colours) and sell others. I have a rare piece that I bought quite cheaply because the shop didn't know what they had and when I checked my books and with the Carnival Glass Society that it is actually quite rare and therefore worth quite a bit of money. I don't really like this piece of glass so I will be selling it - probably via the auction houses and not via fleabay.

Spent more time tinkering in the pantry and cursing because two of the tins of beans are dented (I hate dented tins) so I will have to eat these first. At least I can now see what I have - with other stuff like coffee and tea squirrelled away on the top shelf of my plate cupboard (the middle shelf contains all my eye drops and the bottom shelf my plates).

Lots to do tomorrow - sign up to yet more job websites, write a letter of application and send it with my CV for a job which is about an hour away by bus. Go to the post office to buy stamps and envelopes, I will also ask for a price list for letters and parcels so that I have a good idea of what to charge via fleabay and what to use on various sizes of envelope. I also need to take some petty cash to buy stamps for the Friends group too.

Best think about going to bed - early to bed early to rise and all that.

Have a great day tomorrow folks.

moneyistooshorttomention

Those "biscuits" are precisely what I was thinking of:p and I have rather a cynics take on many aspects of it by now.

The Green Plan is one I found useful to lose weight a couple of times and might do that again (on a personal basis). I've been rather waiting for that Little Madam of a neighbour of mine to stop driving me to drink at regular intervals with all her shenanigans (having fought several Major Battles with me to date in her attempt to stop me doing work on my own house and try to "encourage" me to move back to my home area). Just how am I supposed to "move back" - considering that the houses I would be viewing there are twice the price of the one I have here?! (ie she's not exactly being very realistic then to try and "push me out"). I've gone through what I think is pretty much all the Major Battles she is likely to have with me now and duly won most of them and hopefully life will settle on a more even keel now.

It's helping that I have some more "time and energy" free to focus on Getting A Life Together here now and I think I'm up at a total of 6 social groups I'm involved in here to date. I'm getting more involved in the life of a nearby village actually (as its more "English" and there is a lot more "social life" as such going on by the look of it and suits me rather better than the town I am in in that respect).

Anyway, courtesy of things calming down more re Madam Neighbour and I've not had any booze for 9 days in a row now:) and am hoping I can keep up my intention of keeping it as something for "social occasions only" - so maybe I'll actually be able to focus on losing weight now and generally getting my appearance more back to normal (first priority - my hairstyle has changed "from Waitrose to Aldi" somehow since moving here and I haven't given any instructions to my hairdresser to change the style - so how come?)Must book my first appointment with a new hairdresser ....

mothernerd

I never even tried the SW 'biscuits'. I have been twice (well 2 x 12 free sessions). The local authority pays for them and there is an hour's free exercise class afterwards - it's the exercise I want. I found the instructors are okay about extra people continuing with the exercise after the free 12 weeks, as long as it doesn't get so the room is overcrowded. As most participants seem to drop the exercise after the mandatory 12 weeks, it wasn't a problem.

I had to give up the first time because of a sprained ankle (old injury that causes problems from time to time). I have both worked and exercised with it strapped up (thanks to DS2's sporting activities I can strap an ankle faster than most A & E nurses but when I can't move at all I have to stop.

Last year I had to give up at the point where my doctor ordered me to 'bed rest' for three weeks, followed by months or physiotherapy, another referral, diagnosis of severe arthritis, surgery referral and total hip replacement so this year will be mostly walking (am allowed to walk in the house without crutches whee hee).

I didn't get along with the SW 'plan' and find it clashes with my diabetic diet - You can eat as much fruit as you like, NO I can only have 3 pieces a day
Lovely yoghurts, Yes they are but they have real fruit in them so have to count as one of my 3 a day
You can have little treats - NO all biscuits choc etc contain sugar so have to count instead of a piece of fruit
Artificial sweeteners - NO they are contra indicated for long term use and damage your ability to taste the sweetness of natural things like fruit (My mother's partner has never attempted to follow the correct diet for his diabetes but has sweeteners in his drinks - he's now trying to put 4 in and is drinking undiluted cordial - he has Altzheimers as well)
Admit to eating a piece of bread and they look at you as though you had killed a puppy in front of them but the wholemeal seeded bread I eat is great for regulating my blood sugar and keeping my energy levels through the day. I only eat two pieces a day and rarely have marg on it.

Some of the recipes are useful but our library has a selection and I have had better recipes from the diabetic dietician and the BHF healthy heart website - I can recommend the 'Eat well' plate. I do best upping my veg content as much as possible and going cold turkey on all the chocolate, biscuits etc - I make carrot cake and oaty biscuits with a lower sugar content and then freeze them. i have to wait for a piece to defrost before I can eat it.

Sorry have to run

moneyistooshorttomention

My thoughts exactly, ie that I don't regard the Sl*mming W*rld diet as a healthy one basically. I guess its down to two things, ie the reason why most people put on weight in the first place is an unhealthy diet and they don't want to change peoples normal way of eating that much. The other being its a commercial enterprise (along with the other Big Banana weightloss diet) and they want to be able to flog their own products ("foods"/magazines/etc) on people.

There is a blog I follow (Bealtaine Cottage) in which the author has put herself on a "Let and let live diet" as she calls it and she is eating as much as she pleases by the sound of it and still lost approx. 1 stone weight in a month. On the one hand, it sounds as if she is still having (very small) amounts of sugar but that weight is still coming off. On the other hand, I would imagine she leads a pretty physically active lifestyle, with all the gardening she does.

I keep wishing she would give more details of what she is having, ie a daily diet diary. From what she does say though, it sounds as if she is on a vegan diet and its all healthy (apart from that tiny bit of sugar). I shouldn't think she's having any alcohol either? - though I did notice recent mention of some homemade wine brewing:beer:.

So, I'm guessing a (genuinely) healthy diet/no booze (except for special occasions) and a good amount of exercise should, on its own, be sufficient for most people to lose weight. On Day 10 here of no booze currently and wondering if its my imagination or I can detect a very slight "shrinkage"..and that's at this time of year (ie less walking than I am basically planning on).

Horace

One thing that I discovered when I was a member of the Hairy Dieters (soon stopped that due to expense) was that instead of eating around 1600 calories per day I was eating around 900 which is not good. I am so used to not feeling hungry. It is a bad habit that I got into when I was married which has continued and it is a hard habit to break. So I am trying to eat more and will be exercising a lot more too especially in the Spring because my garden needs a lot of digging.

SW has given me more of a phobia about food - I too have had the stares and been made to feel like a child for daring to eat more than one slice of wholemeal bread yet on the other hand being pushed to eat those Pink & White mallow things which contain 7g of sugar - it makes no sense. The woman who runs my group is about 20 stone herself and when mum saw a picture of her in the local paper she realised that I would not lose weight with SW because I am not being inspired by people who have successfully lost weight. Anyway, my doctor has told me that it is not healthy to lose huge amounts of weight quickly, it is better to lose a pound here and a pound there. In the time I have been at SW there is a couple who started on the same day as me and each week they lose around 9lb or even more each which to me just isn't healthy at all. I also get details from BHF website and have signed up for their free newsletter which contains healthy recipes.

Must make the effort to go to Tai Chi tomorrow, I will take the car because I have to go up the other end of the village to go to the post office too.

Best go to bed if I am trying to get up early. Nite all.

moneyistooshorttomention

Re those comments about wholemeal bread being treated as sinful to eat at SW:eek:. I didn't experience that sort of thing myself at the meetings I attended to "get the gist". Maybe its because I didn't continue with them for long enough? but I would have been on the end of the "hard sell" for their "food" products instead if I had?

Maybe its because I didn't say what way I was making up my Syns for the day?

I started on the basis that I was still going to have my porridge and 2 slices of toast (yep large slices of wholemeal bread) that is my usual breakfast and then worked on from there as to what Syns I had left for the rest of the day. I'm not a great eater of sweet things anyway and eat pretty healthily anyway, so I didn't even think of allowing any Syns for sweeties and the like. My concern was having some spare Syns for a bit more choice come dinnertime.

I do remember figuring out that I could have as large a portion as I pleased of their Syn-free chips (and duly had chips for once and made it a double-size portion:rotfl:) and that I ensured I had enough milk "spare" that I could have a portion of rice pudding if my stomach felt empty between meals (no sugar or that awful fake "sweetening"). Think I must have carefully Syn-ed out some honey to sweeten it?

Basically, I just made sure my dinners were chosen from amongst Syn-free recipes only, rather than give up my wholemeal bread or eat any of their fake "foods".

Did the trick and the weight came off - twice over. But this time I think I will just stick to completely healthy eating (apart from my coffee:cool:) and lots of walking..so I'm basically waiting for better weather now. My "I don't do hardship if I can help it" way of thinking does include going out for walks in all weathers - but then I moved to Wales and it has got modified to "going out for walks in most weathers". Yep...count me as being a Southern Softie:rotfl: