Fab Feb - Fat and Frumpy

Snacks.
And it was all yellow...

✅Fitness - #28bysamwood 'The Hustler'

❌Free of Alcohol
✅Full of fruit (again)

Time to get real. 

I finished school 18 years old and 55kg. I’m about 176cm tall (depends who is measuring). I didn’t understand the agony of shopping for something to fit; it was merely a case of shopping for something I liked. Doctors who didn’t know me then have retrospectively remarked that I was underweight and malnourished. Not true. I was perfectly healthy and happy. 

A year out of home cooking for myself and a bout of glandular fever granted me an extra 10kg. For the first time since toddlerhood, I had a rounded tummy instead of a flat one, as a doctor so kindly pointed out.

At the age of 23, as I approached my wedding, I was horrified to discover my weight had entered the 70s and that finding clothes to fit wasn’t quite as easy as it had been. I had been behaving as if I could eat anything and it wouldn’t matter, like Twisties and Coke for morning tea or a toasted ham and cheese croissant for breakfast. Turns out, it did.

I fluctuated between 70 and 75kg for a while. When I started working for First State Fund Managers early in 1995, I was 24 years old and around 70kg. Six months later I emerged from that job 15kg heavier. Working 80-90 hour weeks and surviving on the provided pizzas and lollies will do that to you.

When I became pregnant at the end of 1996, I was still 85kg. I lost 8kg with ‘morning sickness’ in just a few weeks but then gained 20kg. I went back down to 75kg sometime before the next pregnancy and I think I returned to that weight at some stage before becoming a teacher. I sold or gave away all my size 16 clothes, thinking I’d never be that big again.

Wrong! I gradually increased weight over the first ten years of teaching so that 85-90kg became the new norm. During the five years since then, I have dreamed of being that low. I hit the century mark in April last year, for just a few days, and I haven’t hit it again since, but it often threatens to reappear. The lowest weight I’ve been in the last twelve months is 94.5kg. I wear size 16-18 on bottom and 14-16 on top. That makes me a pear.

Despite starting this post with the sentence, “Time to get real”, there was originally no intention to admit to the most recent measurements. According to my scales, I have gained 1.6kg in the last week. Today I am 98.3kg, around the same weight as at the end of my first pregnancy.

I have thought about doing a Bridget Jones’s Diary style of writing at the top of each post the amount of alcohol consumed and my weight each day but at least for the moment I will stick to the tick/cross method. I think I’ll keep this post as the one-off reveal of detailed figures. I’m feeling like I’ve over-shared as it is. I am embarrassed to lay all this bare, but here it is.

So a week into #FabFeb it is time for a reassessment. Last weekend was bad in terms of alcohol consumption but only two glasses on Tuesday night since then. I have exercised for 30 minutes every weekday. I am really pleased about my mindset towards exercise since early December last year. I have never liked any form of physical exertion except in team sports or on the tennis court. My dodgy knees (arthritis) and feet (plantar fasciitis) stop me from participating in most of the sports I have previously played. It’s a catch 22 in that the conditions prevent me from many forms of exercise but I need to lose weight to reduce the aches and pains in my body. I have been going to a personal trainer once a week for several years. I am stronger, mentally and physically as a result. Once a week isn’t enough to shift weight though.

Even before my knees and feet became a problem, I couldn’t really run. I trip over my feet all the time. Whenever in the past I came close to regularly running (shuffling), I’d fall over and skin my knees, hands or something. I have, upon writing this, though, decided to up the level I’m doing on the #28bysamwoodprogram. I don’t love the routines, and I have to adapt them for my knees and feet, but they give me a sense of achievement when they’re done. They are also completed in the convenience and privacy of my own home. These things are important to me. 

Now I need to be more mindful about food. 

In the main I eat healthy food, it’s the quantity that’s the issue. Let’s take yesterday as an example of a reasonably bad day: 

• BREAKFAST: I had bircher muesli, listed in my #28bysamwood program. Only, it wasn’t the home-made version provided by the #28bysamwood recipe but from a bought packet, and I made almost double the quantity. I had a cup of tea and drank water.
• LUNCH: I had a free lunch at university. It was a mild chilli con carne thing with saffron rice, plus a small vegetarian curry puff. I didn’t have either of the salads on offer because one I didn’t like and the other I suspected of having coriander which triggers sinus related nausea. I drank water. At home, a couple of hours later, I had some leftovers, a little similar to the meal at uni. I later ate a banana, a peach and a mango. Two mangoes with bruised bits cut out, to be brutally honest. I had another couple of cups of tea.
• DINNER: Around 5pm I was hungry again. I ate carrots with hummus. A lot of carrots with a lot of hummus. Still, better than digging into more of the leftover cheese and crackers. Dinner was soft tacos (mince, tomatoes, sauce, cheese and avocado wrapped in a tortilla). I ate two of them. I was bloated well into the night. 

As I write that, just now, I realise the amount of food I consumed in total. But at each step, I could justify each mini meal as fine. I had more than usual for breakfast so I wouldn’t eat too much at a provided, possibly unhealthy, lunch. I didn’t over indulge there but then came home and had the same amount again. Fruit is good for you, but four extra sugary ones in one day, is not. Carrots and hummus aren’t bad for you, but the amount I ate, particularly in context of the whole day, was excessive. And so it goes.

When I work at uni, as long as I haven’t stocked my desk with snacks, I am better with my eating habits, usually taking a packed lunch. When I am being social, though, I buy lunch. Sometimes It’s a salad but the burgers a cheaper, and besides, they have salad on them! At uni I probably buy coffee (a flat white) every second day and a No Sugar Coke when I buy lunch, about once a week. Room for improvement but not too bad.

At home though, I am thinking about food all the time. We don’t generally stock unhealthy food, except when we have leftovers from entertaining, and we entertain a bit, and as I’ve said before, cheeses are a big downfall during and after entertaining. Excessive wine consumption is also bad for my health but that’s easier to reign in now December and January have passed. That said, we are having dinner at the in-laws tonight and a Chinese New Year banquet (with wine) on Saturday night. Let’s see if I can turn down wine tonight to stick to the Monday-Sunday five alcohol free days*.

As I said above, it is definitely the amount I eat that’s the main issue at the moment. I know I eat more when I’m feeling tired and stressed. I’m a terrible sleeper so I tend to look for energy from food when I don’t reboot energy supplies enough via sleep. Financing our house, the loss of scholarship and the flow-on effects have been stressful but nowhere near as stressful as I found the day-to-day responsibilities and emotional toil of teaching full-time. I really like the life of a full-time research student. I really like casual teaching and all my little side projects. I have a good life. 

I am so incredibly looking forward to moving into the new house, only a few weeks away. I have my first supervisor meeting for my PhD on Monday, which I am also excited about. I feel when these two milestones are reached, I will have properly launched into the next phase of my life and my stresses will be good stresses at an appropriate level, rather than the ones that involve major life decisions fraught with dire consequences. I’m feeling positive about the future and that I can knock the weight down. 

If you know me, please find ways to encourage me. You could invite me on walks that don’t involve too many hills and let’s meet for breakfast instead of at a wine bar. I love wine bars. But I love breakfasts too!

* I drank champagne and red wine. I am weak.