Debt Reset....

WinterWarrior

My steps are shocking too 😖 I’m also attempting an increase. 

Don’t forget to show us big brother sheepy when he’s done 🥰

CRANKY40

Good morning all, 

Thanks to the six loads of washing and drying that I did on Saturday (all bedding, all towels and whatever the HT contributed from his floordrobe) my steps were rather fabulous. I was up and down the stairs and bed stripping then bed making. I made several trips to the bin but didn't leave the house otherwise and my steps were much higher than Friday. It was a fairly decent day pain wise so I made the most of it. I'm slowly starting to realise that if I manage to do a lot one day then it could be a couple of days later before I can do more rather than making ambitious plans for the next day. 

On Sunday I made biscuits, brownies for the HT and I had a go at making a lemon tart. The pastry is lovely (thin and crisp) but the tart bit is more like baked cheesecake which wasn't the texture I was after. I anyone has any good recipes for lemon tart please point me in the right direction 😊 I took the HT for a drive in the afternoon (I'm not great at walking and neither is he but we like a chat in the car so we do go for a drive now and then) and then came home to do the ironing and make  roast dinner. My step count wasn't that great as all of the Sunday things were accomplished with a lot of sit down and rest for 10 minutes type spaces apart from the driving which obviously I was sitting down for anyway. 

The only thing I didn't manage to do was to hoover upstairs and that was only because the HT's bedroom floor wasn't visible. I've told him to do something about the state of his room today before rats move in 🙄 He said that he would but I also asked him to put the dishwasher on last night and I've just done that myself. The teen years are so much fun aren't they? 🤣🙄😨

I didn't manage the freezer inventory either so I'm thinking that this week and the two weeks school holidays could be mainly "eat from the freezer" weeks so there isn't so much to write down by the time that I get around to doing that. I also didn't plant anything here at home yet but I did buy a small bag of compost that can stay indoors rather than the huge bag that is out in the garden that has been rained on all winter. This is much more of an incentive to start sowing that the thought of either going in and out numerous times to fill pots or the alternative which is heaving a large rather dirty and wet giant bag of compost through the house. 

Take care all of you 😊

EssexHebridean

I do love reading your diary Cranky - especially your interactions with the HT who sounds just brilliant! 

"Just a few more" is a great way of improving step count. Another option allowing that increasing every day isn't always practical is to try to do more one day than the last, then match that count for the next two, then have a lower count day. So for example you might start after a day when you'd done 2350 steps - and aim to do 2500. Then the next two days 2500 each, and the final day of that "run" can be under 2500 again. Then you start again but with 2500 as your benchmark figure - so 2650 for three days for example, then a lower count day. That factors in some proper rest days which people need when they are managing pain related conditions, and doesn't drive things upwards so fast that it causes too many issues. 

Good idea to factor in lots of freezer based meals for the holiday weeks - but aren't you ideally going to need an inventory to do that so you know where you are?! (I know, sorry!) 

And I'm another one loving the sheep too - can you share the pattern please? (I nearly said recipe!) 

foxgloves

Agree about steps. I heard somewhere recently (can't recall where) that many people are really put off by the 10k steps a day minimum. This person said that from a health point of view, it would be better to say that nobody should be doing less than 5k steps a day as the vast majority of ambulant people can do that. While walking 10k steps a day (at least some of them briskly) is certainly good for our health, the main thing to avoid is sitting for hours at a time. I think 5k of daily steps for people who would otherwise be inactive would be a really positive move.
F

jwil

There was an interesting article the other year saying that you don't need to do 10,000 steps to get the health benefits - 5000 will give good results, and 7,500 seemed to be the sweet spot.  Of course being more active generally is good, but no need to stress if (like me) you are a long way away from 10k https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190723-10000-steps-a-day-the-right-amount

joeyjimbles

Rachel Allen's lemon tart is very good 
https://cakesncookies.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/rachel-allens-luscious-lemon-tart-recipe/

I have made it a few times and it works very well so I hope it might work for you too

CRANKY40

Thank you @joeyjimbles, I've bookmarked that to try 😊

@EssexHebridean he makes me laugh too so I have to be really cross to tell him off. Last weeks was on discovering that he scored the highest marks in the class for their most recent exams. "They all look down on me because I'm gay, well I've showed them. Gay rights.......and wrongs."  Me : "What are gay wrongs?"  Him : "I don't know, I'm always right." He drives me mad but he is very funny and we do live in relative peace compared to some of his friends and their parents. 

The sheep pattern is here  As for the freezer inventory I am armed with the previous one and nothing has moved off the bottom of the drawers since I did it so the plan is to start at the top and eat down, possibly digging for some bits from lower down if appropriate. 

@foxgloves I mostly aim for about 6000 steps but since I've been keeping best friend company while his house is taken apart they have slipped a bit. Sunday is generally a lazy day here so I don't mind low steps then but the rest of this week I've been making a conscious effort reach at least 5000. 

@jwil About 6000 sees me losing a pound a week usually. A long time ago a GP that I saw said that while exercise won't do any harm, if you want to lose weight concentrate on what you are eating. I try to constantly remind myself that food swaps are not the way forward (as in low calorie this and that or low fat), it's actually not eating when you aren't hungry that helps and then eating a properly balanced meal when you are.

My mum killed my "stop eating" button (and my sister's) when we were young. I was forced to eat and I actually still remember vomiting into my breakfast bowl. It was a green tupperware bowl with one of those suction plastic egg cups in the middle. I was probably about 3. The "starving children who would be glad to have your dinner" was also mentioned at least twice a week.... My mum used to cry because I wouldn't eat and I was so skinny, then aged 14 hormones arrived (I had PCOS and endo) and so did the weight even though I wasn't eating any differently. Then my mum started calling me fat but that's another counselling session, lol. Both my sister and I can carry on eating way past our comfort zones. 

The HT has always been a sensory eater but I just threatened physical violence as an option to anyone who tried to tell him to "eat up" or "just another spoonful". He isn't overweight and he has a very good sense of when he's full. He can leave a piece of croissant on his plate at breakfast time 😮 These days I can also leave his piece of croissant on his plate instead of finishing it for him 🤣

Take care all of you 😊

jwil

That's interesting about the 6000 steps.  

I am a terrible grazer.  I think if I ate proper decent meals it would make a difference, but it's a hard habit to break for me.  One I keep working on.  Little jwil has really good natural appetite control.  He will eat precisely what he wants and no more.  He's slim as a rake.  Little miss, I can see is the opposite and is much more like me with an endless hunger.  There must be something in the genes as well as  I've bought them both up exactly the same, but it does worry me that she'll end up like me.  I'm the only one in my family that's big as well, it's strange.

WinterWarrior

I’m averaging about 4500 per day during the week. And that’s with mindfully walking around and around the garden while dog pootles about. It’s so hard! I’m another one that was told food is always the main factor in weight gain. I can see how easy it is as I weighed an infinitesimal piece of Easter egg and it was over 100 calories….seriously, it was barely visible! 😢

Humdinger1

You can't outrun a bad diet, says Dr Mike Moseley.   I devoured (!) his books while reversing diabetes and he seems to be right.  Leaving at least 12 hours between dinner one-day and breakfast the next helps enormously and waiting till hungry too.  Cutting right back on carbs has also made a vast difference.  I think the diabetes diagnosis was a lbm for me.  The debt journey was very relevant as it was a parallel in many ways.   Hope I'm not highjacking your diary @cranky40? Fascinating as ever love Humdinger x