EH - Essex > Hebrides...the next step of the adventure?

milann

You are so right about use it or lose it. I’d built my walking up after surgery 15 months ago. Once I was walking the levels I wanted - lockdown opened up a lot and my walking took a back step😏 I’ve been out for a walk I’d worked up to doing fairly easily and but did it today for the first time in months……I really know about it 😳 It sounds a sensible approach to hitting fabulous 50 👏👏

beanielou

I am 60 this year!!
So @EssexHebridean & @lucielle you are young 

savingholmes

I'm young too then Beanie - although I will turn 52 this year. Seems impossible to believe...

Well done on the health plans EH. Definitely agree with use it or lose it. I'm trying to step up my walking again - but in the bitter cold (by my standards) it's hard...

Cheery_Daff

Excellent planning there! Love the focus for the year. I have just some yoga and am now in bed so I hope you're following my example 😂😂😂

starnac

Obviously a year for big birthdays judging on all the comments so far. I am 40 this year and I have pretty much the same goals as you. I've put on quite a bit of weight over lockdown then injury stopped my running last year so I'm building back up slowly. Hydration and stretching is definitely things I overlook. My job changed over lockdown when everything shut and so I spend a lot more time sat at a desk now and it has definitely affected my fitness levels.
Good luck EH. Sensible goals there 

EssexHebridean

Starnac your running inspires me - I love seeing your adventures and am completely in awe of the distances you've completed!  Cheery I had done the yoga but didn't make it to bed until rather later than you I'm afraid! (Although still - just - inside my personal limit). L, Love that we're the same age - and SH not so far ahead of us either! Beanie - I'd assumed you were younger than that - you have a younger "sound" in your writing, somehow!  Milann I think a lot of us got so used to walking everywhere during lockdown didn't we - then when we were able to freely use cars and travel further we slipped straight back into the habit of it. MrEH and I do still do our walks first thing on days we're both at home, and he goes for at least a short walk on the days I'm working too. 

It's another chilly one here again today - I was VERY glad of my winter weight cycling gloves (Christmas present) this morning, but the fog over the local greenspace near the office was rather beautiful... 



Couldn't resist stopping to get the phone out and grab that one - only to realise that another lady on a bike had done precisely the same thing behind me, we were both quite please not to be the only ones! 

Cycling is still feeling like rather hard work - probably unsurprisingly. I'm reminding myself that after three weeks of not doing it, near as, it's going to take a short while to get back to where I was, but that it won't take as long as the three weeks, AND the more I do it, the quicker it'll come back to where it was! It was at least a glorious morning for it today (see above) far nicer than the drizzle I cycled back to the car in yesterday! 

Meal planning for the week is in place - we had omelettes last night - nicely veggie loaded with red pepper, mushrooms , kale and tomatoes underneath a nice helping of cheese. I've got a pack of the chicken sausages out for tonight - I'll cook them and then chuck them into a spanish-y inspired tomato sauce with red pepper again, mushroom, onion, probably some chick peas and copious amounts of smoked paprika.  I mentioned the "30 plant based challenge" thing somewhere yesterday, I think - I had a quick count up last night and was delighted to realise I've already hit 20 different plant-based foods for the week! Of course the early part of the week is where you build up fastest, my aim now is to continue the good work! My suspicion is that I'll fall short this week, but that gives me something to think about and aim for higher next week after all! I'm really keen on the idea of adding in more varied fruits and veggies and I think this is a great place to start - I'd also like to aim for our 4 "ordinary" weeknight meals (Mon - Thur) to be more veggie/fish than meat based - eating fish more regularly is something we've talked about a lot but never quite got to the stage of properly following through with so this is another thing for me to try to build on this year I think. First step on this is to have a good look next time I'm in Als to see what fish I can easily get - I already use their frozen tuna a lot. I can also easily drop sardines into the meal plan weekly - either on toast as a weekend lunch, or in something like the sardine and butterbean pasta I've made before (thanks to Jack Monroe for the inspo there!) 

The CC statement is now in - I've cleared the Hebrides spending off already, and the food spend is £122.19 which needs transferring, I'll aim to get that done at lunchtime I think. It's looking fairly under control, though. The Hebrides spend is what it is - there's a big chunk of diesel spending on there of course - over £200 worth in fact. Then about £100 of "journey related spending" - drinks and a snack on the ferry over, food costs on the way back, the hotel in Fort William...the balance is the food and drink over there, and we take the view that we're on holiday and we are not willing to be budget-watching for food. Our evening meals were mainly home-cooked from scratch, with the exception of a couple of pizza nights, and some "picky bits" christmas food. We mainly ate out at lunchtimes - usually around £20 - £25 a time. Again we partly see this as feeing back into the local economy - for the same reason we take very little food with us, only stuff that either it won't be worth buying a full pack of while we're there or that we can't get up there. All shopping is then done in the local supermarkets.  All in all I'm really comfortable with what was spent, not least that it leaves more than enough in the account for me to pay our friend the Lundy accommodation money which was the plan!  And of course that food spend last month for "home" food also means another £50 spare in the food account to build towards my aim of working a month in hand there, so all good! 

Prolific £8.12 paid/£2.25 pending
OnePoll 2185 points

milann

That photo is just stunning. 

The idea of 30 plant based ingredients sounds very doable……I might pinch that one. I couldn’t go veggie but would happily add extra pulses and veg.

greenbee

Stunning photo.

Re. the 30 plants a week - I've been doing this for a couple of years and mostly manage fairly easily (when I was first asked to do it I didn't actually see what the big deal was - but then I generally faily on protein intake). I've been told that you can include herbs, spices and herbal teas. I'm not sure wine counts... When you think about it, half a teaspoonful each of turmeric, ginger and cinnamon in yogurt a couple of times a week (for example) is as important as making sure you have kale, peppers and spinach... It's worth trying to make sure you're skewed more towards veg than fruit as well (I rarely eat fruit, so haven't hit this problem) as a lot of people find they're increasing fruit massively rather than veg, which is good.... but doesn't have quite the same results. 

rtandon27

What a great idea EH - just had a little look round t'internet and found out that grains also count as one of the 30!  If we add in a piece of fruit each day, we'll hit 30 easily!

EssexHebridean

Hello Milann, greenbee and RT! 

There are absolutely no "rules" around the balance between fruit and veg on the challenge - which is great as fruit has been SO unfairly demonised over the past few years because "it has sugar" - sigh! It's awful that there are now folk out there who are literally frightened to eat fruit because of that too - so I think the focus on this has it spot on - the key is "variety". I'm a bit of a crusader in a small way for trying to banish the restrictive rules that people have been told they need to apply to food and eating - it's doing incredible amounts of harm and needs to stop. Ditto the "demonising" too - a lot of which is based on, I'd say misinformation but actually it's simple lies, ie "Sugar is as addictive as cocaine" (spoiler alert - it's not) and "the keto diet is the best way to lose weight" - grrr....more nonsense. (for anyone who'd interested to know more on this both Dr Joshua Wolrich and Pixie Turner are great people to follow on social media for fact based advice and mythbusting. Pixie T is also involved in a rather wonderful podcast debunking some of the utter rot that features in "health" documentaries too).  Yes to herbs and spices counting for the "full" challenge too - theoretically each separate main plant based item counts as 1 point, and the spices etc count for - I think it was a quarter of a point each - the ideal being to aim for 30 points overall through the week. RT I'd forgotten about grains being included - guess that means I can add my oats from tomorrow morning's porridge too then - as well as the raspberries. (In fact I may offer to give MrEH some of the raspberries in exchange for half of his final banana - there's a thought!) 

So - MrEH investigated the car warranty and (phew!) it IS still in effect, and it DOES cover emissions system faults thanks to the dealership specifically adding that in - double phew! MrEH's pal plugged it in to diagnostics the other evening and it is definitely a fault with the particulate filter but thinks it is relating to the fluid that deals with the regeneration not feeding in properly which also tallies up with what we thought it could be from what we'd read. Either way he's not comfortable to deal with it (he usually does our servicing, repairs etc) so it will be a main dealer job. No idea if the warranty will end up completely covering, but at least we have a more reassuring starting point. 

The CC bill is now fully settled. We've decided that the paying stuff off across the month  is working for us so we're going to carry on doing that. 

I booked a tr@vel0dge room for an overnight stop on our way to Edinburgh for our pal's 50th birthday weekend last night - decided to pay the extra for flexible rate as things covid-wise still feel a little uncertain - as it was only an extra £3 it didn't break the bank! That has been paid on the CC but transferred straight across from the joint account. 

Took the decision to walk to the office from the car this morning as felt my legs needed a break from cycling. I signed up to REDJanuary - definitely not to run every day (in fact not at all, yet!) but just to do some form of conscious movement daily, and so far I'm doing well with some form of mindful planned activity every single day. I've also been getting yoga in daily since Sunday which I feel is starting to make a difference. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I plan to use the bike to go for my booster, and then cycle on to the gym - which also means needing to cycle back...pretty much uphill all the way. Hmmm! I do need to check that the gym will be staffed though - otherwise I'll change plans on that to make it a longer bike ride. I'm trying to make a habit of the yoga as soon as I get home each day and so far - and allowing that I'm earlier because of not waiting for MrEH (still WFH) -  it's working well. 

Bit of money wrangling last night saw the final bits on the CC cleared, a payment set up to a pal for the Lundy trip accommodation for April, and £50 transferred to the "extra electricity account" which essentially means that we'll have the money there ready to lump-sum transfer if needed if we get a cold snap and end up using a lot more later in the winter. 

Planned spending for the next few days is my gym membership, a tank of diesel for my car and the regular shopping - plus possibly the farmers market tomorrow.