And here we are again. Another Friday and almost at the halfway point for the month of April. So scary.
Yesterday did not start as well as the day before. The dog woke me up at 4:30am and it took me an hour to get back to sleep. Even so, when it was time for me to get up, I got up. And I made the dog get up as well. Well, he’d woken me in the night, it was only fair. He didn’t want to get up yet, let alone go out. But I kicked him out anyway while I made my dirty cuppa and his breakfast. Once he’d had his breakfast, he went straight back to sleep again.
I, on the other hand, did not. I was awake and researching a new health regime. I won’t be dieting or slimming or anything like that again, or not intentionally. But I do want a healthier lifestyle. I do want to be able to walk the dog a few miles and not have it lay me up for the next 4 days.
The day before, when I made everyone get up, the poet thought it was something like 9am, but it was much earlier than that. By the time we reached the middle of the day he was impressed by the amount we’d achieved in only one morning. Getting up on time is one of the things I want to try and maintain, for this exact reason. We get more done.
For the past year or so I’ve been watching reels on Facebook by a woman in her thirties called Leah Hope. In early 2022 she weighed almost 400lb and hit what she called ‘rock bottom’ during a trip to Disneyland. Determined to do something about her weight, she managed to lose 215lb within 2 years. She did it by herself, without surgery, and without drugs. She isn’t bragging when she says this, she’s just trying to demonstrate that if you can’t afford surgery, if health insurance won’t cover it, or if someone doesn’t want to take drugs or can’t take drugs, it can still be done. By anyone.
As I say, I’ve been watching her reels for more than a year and to say she lost 215lb in 2 years, that’s more than one of me, even at my current heaviest weight (again – sigh!). And I don’t know how patronising this is to say, but if she can do it when she has so much to lose, why can’t I do it when I only need to lose around 50 or 60lb? I have a lot of respect for all of these people who manage to lose so much weight, however they do it.
I know I’ve been idle for a long time, and I do have a very sweet tooth. I’ve tried diet after diet after diet. I’ve tried exercising more. I’ve tried shakes. I’ve tried calorie counting. I’ve tried counting Syns™️. I’ve tried counting WW points. I’ve joined slimming clubs. I’ve subscribed to slimming magazines. I’ve joined online slimming apps. And back in the dim and distant past, when I was still in my teens and didn’t have a scrap of weight to lose in actual fact, I even tried diet biscuits. But the most I’ve ever managed to lose was half a stone, or 7lb. Apart from 5:2 fasting. I admit I didlose around 2 stone (28lb) when I did 5:2.
The poet and I do fast now, still. It’s not the 5:2. We do the 16:8, where we fast for 16 hours and eat in an 8-hour window. This has worked brilliantly for the poet. I only lost 7lb and then I put it all back on again.
But anyway, Leah Hope has now added longer content to her videos and has a YouTube channel, and I spent much of Wednesday evening and too much of Thursday morning watching videos and shorts on YouTube. The first thing she suggests, and the way she did it, that I want to embrace is this:
- Don’t call it ‘losing weight’. Call it ‘gaining health’.
She says that if we change our mindset to ‘gaining health’ rather than ‘losing weight’, then it doesn’t matter what the number on the scales says. If you shift your focus to health, if you eat healthier food and maybe move a little, then it means you’re healthier on the inside even if you don’t look or feel it on the outside.
The next thing she said that she did that I also want to take on board is this:
- Make just one change at a time.
Here she means just add one healthy choice to your diet each day. Not every day choose an additional healthy choice, but just add one thing and see how you go. Don’t take anything out, add one thing in. She chose eggs. I can do eggs. She also did a food journal, just wrote things down without worrying about the calorific value, and the eggs as well as grapes were in there among things like potato chips (crisps), cakes, cookies (English biscuits), dips, chocolate, candy (sweeties), etc.
She also described the difference between BMR and active calories and suggested if anyone does want to look at calories, then so long as there’s a calorie deficiency of 300 – 500 calories, and not going under our BMR, we should lose weight without making ourselves ill.
In the beginning, Leah chose to make one healthy food choice every day and to move more every day. She chose the eggs, and she chose to walk. Every day. Then she added grapes, and she added more movement until strength training was on her schedule.
All of this started to make complete sense to me. And, by the way, all of this is freely available on her videos and reels, so I’m not doing her an injustice. I do, however, suggest that if you’re interested, then hop along and check her outyourself, even if you don’t want to lose weight or gain a healthier lifestyle. Because she also explains how her weight makes her feel and how unintended thoughtless comments could have derailed her. In fact, she covers a lot for someone who’s a regular gal and makes her living as a photographer.
And this is what I spent far too much of Thursday morning doing: watching videos and reels. This ate into my reading half-hour, my housework half-hour, and some of my dog walk half-hour, but once I realised, I snapped to attention and just went on a shorter dog walk. (Another thing she says is don’t do nothing just because you didn’t do one thing; still do something.)
I’m already walking every day now, but I can still make healthier choices. And yesterday my healthier choices were to keep a glass of water on my desk and to grab a banana instead of a biscuit or a handful of sweets. I also remembered the grapes in the fridge to add to my afternoon meal. Fortunately, too, I’ve been able to create a food/weight-loss/measurements journal in the ‘digital’ planner, and as that’s now on my phone, on my tablet and on my desktop, it’s easier than having to remember to carry a physical food journal and pen around with me.
When I got back from our dog walk I still didn’t go straight into work. Instead, I did the faffing I usually do over my breakfast break first and had my breakfast at the end of it – it was now midday after all. That gave me 3 hours straight to concentrate on the client edit. And during my first Pomodoro break, having got up, stretched, filled my glass with water and grabbed the banana, I started today’s blog post. I had a bit of a play in the garden with the dog. And then it was back to the client edit.
I was so close to the end of the hard copy edit that I postponed the revision for the Take One Idea…story until today. Ideally, I wanted to finish the hard copy edit yesterday and crack on with the screen edit today, especially as the previous books I edited for this client are now starting to queue up for proofreading.
From about 3:30pm onwards, the puppy started going nuts. Every time a car door slammed, every time an engine roared by, every time there was the slightest noise, he was screaming to get to a door, any door. He tried to jump on the windowsill in the living room twice, but fell off. (He didn’t hurt himself.) For about 40 minutes I couldn’t settle down to work at all, and then at around 4:10pm, the poet pulled up on the drive. Alfie must have heard him leaving the motorway, or something. But when the poet did get back from his latest 2-day trip away, he took the puppy into the living room so I could at least try and get a quiet hour in on my work.
However, a twitch had developed over my right eye that wouldn’t go away. I’m not yet wearing the new glasses for close reading as it’s, well, all too close. I daresay I’ll get used to it one day. But if I’m working solidly on something, it’s better if I’m comfortable. And having to move my head every few sentences to keep the focus isn’t currently very comfortable, and it’s noticeable. So I’m not wearing them yet for close reading. The twitch, though, may have been just because my eyes were tired.
I persevered for as long as I could stand it, but called it a day when the light started to go as well.
Ah well, there’s always today.
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