Protein Shakes: Her Free Soul

As part of my quest to try and be more healthy (and maybe loose weight in the process), I decided that being vegetarian reduced my protein intake. A lack of protein can effect an intake of B vitamins which help with cell metabolism. Simplistically B vitamins can help in the production of red blood cells and neurotransmitters. The benefits of having B vitamins can help with the reduction of anxiety, depression and improve energy. I have known for years I have lacked B vitamins being vegetarian and these past couple of weeks I have been tired and lethargic. I wanted to address that and thought I would introduce a protein shake into my diet.

I have and probably never will be a big breakfast fan so I figured instead of skipping breakfast I could introduce a protein shake into my diet. Similarly rather than reaching for that very tempting bag of chocolate of an evening I could instead supplement that with a protein shake. These are not intended to be a replacement meal with in my diet but more adding a meal I would rarely eat anyway and offering an alternative to an unhealthy (well at the levels I eat chocolate it is unhealthy, as I have no moderation when it comes to chocolate) snack in an evening.

I had been looking at meal replacement shakes and looking at different brands before Christmas before deciding that I did not think it was healthy for me to give up a relationship with food and replace it with shakes. Unfortunately I have not always had the best relationship with food. I am quite neophobic – I hate trying new foods and new meals. If I have it into my head that I will not like a food for possibly trying it when I was a child, to not liking the texture (for example, I could cook a load of vegetables and make a stew and eat it, but blending that into a soup…I won’t eat it). I still need to have a relationship with food and work on making it as positive as I can. So meal replacement was not an option, but adding something additional to my diet was.

I decided on trying Her Free Soul shakes. What drew me to them was the aim of their product which was to:

Help regulate female hormonal balance
Sources of vitamins, minerals and fibre
Improves energy, focus and athletic performance
Contribute to physical and mental well-being
Reduce tiredness
Improve mood and psychological function
Her Free Soul

This appealed for me so I decided to take a little more of a look around the website. They have a Whey powder which is vegetarian and a Vegan powder. I decided to take advantage of their New Year 20 percent discount code and ordered the Whey Protein Starter Pack. This pack included two bags of Whey Protein Shake, a tumbler drinks container and a bag. I would have opted for the Whey Protein Blend + Shaker or just the protein shakes on their own but with this discount it meant I wouldn’t have got free shipping with them and this allowed me to order both flavours (the Whey Powder only has two flavours, whilst the Vegan option has more).

I loved the slogan on the box the products were delivered in. My slogan now comes with bite mark customisation

Delivery was fast and I was able to get them within 48 hours.

My initial impressions of them are quite positive. I really like the taste of the vanilla one and that is my favourite of the two. The chocolate one I did not feel was very chocolatey, at first I thought this was because I added 400ml rather than the recommended 250-300ml of liquid. I followed the recommendations the second time and I still didn’t feel it was as chocolatey as I would like. Third time I added a teaspoon of Hot Chocolate powder to it, and the fourth time I added 2 teaspoons and the taste is more to my liking. It is chocolatey enough now that I consider it a treat shake and an equal replacement to giving up a bag of chocolate. For now I have only tried them with adding water (and the additional chocolate powder), but over the course of February I may experiment with adding different liquids or food items to the shakes. I might even experiment with baking with the powder. I did transfer the contents from their original packaging to a glass container so I could see how much powder I had left and I am not always the best at keeping the sealed packages closed.

I’ll check back in at the end of the month to give another review of how I feel about the shakes and whether I feel they have made an improvement to my diet.

Box was successfully upcycled into the Kitten’s playbox. Result.

Plan of Action: March

Spring is here, maybe? I don’t know. The weather of late has been pretty sad and depressing. It has definitely put my off last month’s plan of walking more. However, I am still trying to make small but permanent changes that will hopefully over this year actually become permanent.

Protein Shakes

I started this last month and I’m going to continue in March. My plan is to have 4 scoops a day.

Exercise!

Last month didn’t really go down for exercise. My aim is to do 10,000 steps a day with running and walking. I’d also like to start working on my core and strengthening it, but this month will be more trying to work it into my day rather than pushing myself. So I will look at beginners plank challenges and work up to trying to survive a minute of planking (hate planking). My plan is also to get out when the weather is nice but if it is not I will go to the gym…and push myself to actually go.

Corset/Waist training

I own a waist trainer and I briefly used to wear it when I slept. However, I have been looking into it a bit more and I read about someone who wears a waist training for Anxiety. Since I am starting a new job this month I really want to focus on trying to find techniques to help my anxiety and depression. I also think that waist training will help to target the area of my body I have self esteem issues. It’s an experiment for a month with an inexpensive waist trainer and I’ll see how it goes.

Mindfulness

As mentioned above. I am starting a new job. So I planning to take me time in the evenings to relax and rest. I’m planning to make some cooling DIY sheet masks and I have just purchased an Aromatherapy Humidifier Light. I’m going to focus on relaxing and maybe look into mediation. Also I am going to try body brushing and Gua Sha for my face take the time to do something that feels good and take the time to relax whilst doing it.

Vegan-ish

I’d like to try and look at a vegan diet. Now my protein shakes contain Whey powder so they are not vegan. I also want to eat some butter and cheese to help promote healthy hair so there will be some limits to a vegan diet right there. That being said I also want to explore more vegan proteins, more vegetables and would like to aim to have one vegan meal a day. I would also like to try to explore alternatives to bread or a least cutting down my bread consumption, which isn’t high to begin with but I find that quite often when I do not know what to eat I turn to a sandwich and bread as a quick option. I’d like to try to meal prep a little more and look at freezing more portions of healthy meal preps and looking for healthier options when I am in that ‘I don’t know what to eat’ phase.

Water

I did have a pretty revolutionary break through with water last month. I’ve found it slipping a little bit this last two days. So that slight transgression needs to be nipped in the bud because it becomes a regression back into old habits.

I’ll check back in at the end of the month to see how well my goals have been progressing.

My Relationship With Water Has Completely Changed in 10 Days

I used to hate water and never drink it. I hated the taste. I know that may sound weird to some people. I mean water tastes of nothing right? How can you hate the taste of it? I don’t know. I think there was a little bit of a mineraly taste to it.

I live in an area which has hard water. So it makes sense that I could taste something additional in the water. Hard water contains calcium, iron, magnesium and manganese. This occurs when rain water falls into water supplies which have a bedrock with limestone and chalk deposits.

Now when I go to North Wales, where I have family. I loved the water there. The water from the tap didn’t taste as minerally and my hair felt so soft and nice when washing with the water. This is because the water is soft water which has a higher sodium content but is low in other minerals.

So as I didn’t particularly like the water taste I drink a lot of other things. My drink of choice for years has been Cola. Mostly either Coca-Cola or Pepsi. I used to drink full sugar Cola. Now thanks to the Sugar tax that was implemented in 2018. Soft drinks companies began to lower their use of sugar in drinks to avoid being charged more for sugary content. Places that served drinks such as Restaurants and Pubs also began switching to lower sugar content. I switched to Sugar Free Cola such as Pepsi Max and Coke Zero. That I did notice a transition period as I whined myself off so much sugar but I was still getting the caffeine I was addicted to.

Now I have tried to do previous New Year’s Resolutions to drink more water. These often went hand in hand with drinking no Cola. The result previously was a major sugar and caffeine withdrawal. You feel crappy. You work Cola back into your diet. Cola intake goes back to normal. Water goes out the window.

So what has changed in the last 10 days? To break this cycle. Well on the 10th of February I got a Microcurrent facial, which I have documented in this blog post. The therapist said I may be thirsty more and need to drink more water when I got home. I did need to drink more water. In fact, I drank 1,600ml which has been my water target since getting a fitbit about three years ago. I rarely, if ever reach that target.

I was thirsty from the microcurrent facial and I craved water. But rather than mixing it with sugar free squash etc. I wanted the water immediately so just drank the water. I found the water easier to drink than squash and could gulp down a glass much more quickly then I could with squash.

The next day. I woke up and was still thirsty and again I drank 1,600ml of water.

The next two days I drank 1,200ml per day.

Then I have been drinking 1,600ml of water everyday until yesterday.

Yesterday I felt a bit meh. I woke up with a headache and a sore throat. I felt crappy. Yesterday was a Wednesday. For Monday and Tuesday I had been really good with drinking protein shakes and smoothies, eating yoghurt (topped with too much Granola which is a vice of mine) and eating a lot of rice and vegetables for meals. I wanted to eat these crisps (chips for an American audience) which I am completely in love with. The problem is they don’t come in the small 30g bag we are used to in the UK. They come in the bigger share pack sizes more similar to American crisps packages. I can’t seem to say no and will eat the whole bag. So I convinced myself and rationalised that I wasn’t hungry. I wanted to eat them. I didn’t need to eat them and I promised myself on the Wednesday I could eat what I wanted.

So my Wednesday what the hell day started with a can of Cola. I hadn’t opened a can of cola on the Tuesday (I did drink cola though…I have discovered that if you open a can of cola in the evening and don’t drink much of it it still retains it’s fizz overnight and you can drink it the next day). As I wasn’t feeling great by 11:30 I reached for some comfort food. Crisps and Peanut M&Ms. Currently addicted to them. I did drink some water. 800ml…but that is half of what I have been drinking recently. I went out for dinner and the cinema. At the restaurant I ordered a cola. They didn’t have Pepsi Max so I went for full sugar, which although full sugar, it has actually reduced in sugar quite a bit following the 2018 Sugar Tax.

Last night I struggled to sleep. That’s not unusual for me and I do have medication that can break my sleep pattern a little bit. But I was also thirsty. I craved water, but I didn’t drink more than 800ml because I didn’t want to spend the whole night waking up and going to the toilet because my body does not know what to do with all this sudden influx of water.

Today. Woke up. Had my protein shake…mixed with water. Measured out my 1,600ml of water for the day and I’m sipping my way through it. I think I am finally on the drinking water bandwagon, which is a good bandwagon to be on.

I will still maintain a steady intake of Cola. I do enjoy drinking Cola. I like the taste and I do think I am addicted to the caffeine. Not drinking tea and coffee my only other source of caffeine is chocolate. However, I am hopeful that maybe finally I have a better balance with my intake of water being higher than my intake of cola.

This might actually be a New Year’s Resolution I have completed and I might finally have made a permanent change in my life. I hope so.

Microcurrent Facial

Yesterday I went to try a Mircocurrent Facial. I went to my local beauty college who had a deal to try a Microcurrent Facial for £10. This treatment was part of the student’s exam. I thought it would involve having an examiner in the cubicle/room with the student and watching over them but it was more relaxed as the examiner observed over a couple of students doing exams and so rotated. I never noticed an examiner at all.

I do watch a lot of YouTube videos about various people going off and trying a range of Celebrity facial treatments at ridiculous price tags (seriously jealous and would love that job…who wouldn’t?). I was aware of the Mircocurrent Facial and I really wanted to try it.

It started with a Dermalogica precleanse and then followed by a second cleanse with Dermalogica’s Special Cleansing Gel. Next she applied SBC’s Collagen Skincare Moisturising Gel and began with the Mircocurrent machine.

The Mircocurrent tools she used on my face reminded me of a shaving or toothbrush plug with the two prongs. She had two tools, so four prongs in total.

She began by placing the Mircocurrent tool above my top lip and asked if I could feel the Mircocurrent. I couldn’t feel it at all so she kept adjusting it and I still couldn’t feel anything. She said she would adjust it lower because it was a bit high and asked me to let her know if I felt it when she started the massage. I could feel it once she started.

The Mircocurrent has a tingling sensation, reminds me of when you stand near something who is using a pneumatic drill or similar to a acid peel, but not painful at all. When she past by the teeth, either on the chin or upper lip it did feel a little weird, like your teeth were vibrating a little, again not uncomfortable. When the prongs moved near the eyes there were strobes of light. It reminded me as when you pass in and out of tunnels on a train with your eyes closed. There were times as well that the Mircocurrent did feel like a train, that little thumb, thumb, as you pass along the track, it was rhythmic. When she passed on the forehead, it felt like someone was stroking, combing your hair, a gentle tug although she never touched my hair.

The therapist applied four layers of the collagen gel in total. I did not feel the Mircocurrent after the second or third application of the gel but I did on the fourth. Even though I couldn’t feel the current I enjoyed the facial. The prongs were cool on the skin and it was like massaging with slightly warmer ice cube on my skin. I found the massage with the prongs very soothing, they didn’t dig at all into the skin, with very gentle and extremely relaxing.

Towards the end of the facial I felt a slight sensation on my temples, like when you are tired, dehydrated or have been staring at a screen a little too long. It wasn’t unpleasant.

When she finished the Mircocurrent she gave me the option of keeping the Collagen gel on or taking it off and applying a toner and a moisturiser. I opted for the toner and moisturiser. She used Dermalogica again but I couldn’t tell you which toner or moisturiser she used.

After the facial the therapist advised me not to wear makeup for eight hours and to drink plenty of water. By the time I got home I was very thirsty and did drink about 800ml relatively quickly afterwards. In addition, I had the feeling that my jaw was a little sore, like when you have done too much talking. My temples still felt a little headachey, I’m not sure if that is because I was still thirsty or whether it is like my jaw and the muscles being worked.

24 hours on I don’t see a big change to my face but then again I didn’t expect to. I think Mircocurrent is a treatment that needs several treatments and ultimately it is about exercising and toning the muscles. However, from the relaxing element and the encouraging me to drink more water (I drink 1,600ml yesterday which is practically unheard of for me, especially as I didn’t add squash to it to make it more bearable), I think this is a treatment I will continue.

Below are some before and after pictures.

The Ordinary

As detailed in my last post I made the decision to challenge myself in 2020 to look after my skin. Since the New Year I have started a ritual of looking after my skin. I am finding it great to have improved skin, that is brighter and shines (not from oil of the teen years). I feel more confident with my skin and I am enjoying taking the time to give myself a little bit of a pamper and to look after my skin.

Like for so many people, I am confused about skincare products. There are tons of products out there that all claim to offer you the world but you are not really sure if they will, or if they will work for you. I was watching a couple of YouTube videos on different people’s skincare regimes and I discovered a company that appealed to me. They are called The Ordinary and they claim to be an abnormal company, offering great skincare without the heavy price tag. I was intrigued and watched people’s skincare videos using The Ordinary. I decided to give them a try.

Now the website is a minefield of different products and I was left perplexed about what to get. So I searched their website and read some reviews and watched even more YouTube videos. I also looked at availability in the UK and where I could buy it. I discovered that the high street chain Boots offered it. Great. So I went to Boots and looked for it in store and could not find it. Not Great. Ordered online and picked it up the next day. Back to being great again. Boots were limited on what selection of products they carried but that was ideal for me as a beginner as I could narrow my search down and try a skincare regime.

I went for:

The Ordinary: The Daily Set.

Price: £15 for three Products:
Squalane Cleanser
Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5
Natural Moisturizing Factors + HA

The Ordinary: Lactic Acid 10% + HA 2%

The Ordinary: Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1%

The Ordinary: Vitamin C Suspension 23% + HA Spheres 2%

The Ordinary: 100% Organic Cold Pressed Rose Hip Seed Oil

The first use was in the morning so I kept it simple and used the Squalane Cleanser, the Hyaluronic Acid and the Natural Moisturizing factors. My first impressions of the Squalane Cleanser were not great, I hadn’t seen anyone use it on YouTube video hunt and I expected it to do a foam cleanser. I expected some kind of bubbles. It’s a cream cleanser that goes on and you take off which warm water. I have always preferred soapy cleansers over cream. So I mixed it with water in the beginning expecting a reaction of soap that didn’t come. I was more impressed with the Hyaluronic Acid and I was intrigued by the gel like consistency. My skin instantly felt moisturised and hydrated and I really enjoyed it. Next I used the Niacinamide, this is supposed to be very good for those with acne prone skin. When i first applied it I got a tingling sensation. It wasn’t painful or uncomfortable, I could just feel it tingling on my skin. I let it soak in a little bit before moving onto the next step, which was the moisturiser. The Natural moisturizing factors was like standard moisturisers in consistency and it went on smoothly and absorbed well. I was impressed with the results of my first attempt, my skin felt clean, brighter and moisturised. However, I started to notice after a couple of minutes that product was rubbing off and going into little globs of product…is globs a word? It looked like my skin was flaking, it was not skin, it was product. So I took a towel and gentle exfoliated the excess product off. I eventually learnt I was using too much Hyaluronic Acid and have cut down and I don’t have this effect anymore.

Now before I continue. My first impressions of Squalane Cleanser were a disappointment but we have actually become good friends. I think I will be introducing a foam cleanser into my routine but will be doing a double cleanse, Squalane first, foam cleanser second.

For the evening routine, I must start by saying I watched a YouTube video in which someone showed their The Ordinary skincare routine for a month, and there was about 15 products, maybe more. She would put the lot on her face and her skin did look amazing. I did the first night and quickly decided for me, less would be more, so I use all the products, but not every night and I do alternate what I use.

For my first night routine, I cleansed with Squalane cleanser (this time I applied it correctly, not with water and not expeting it to foam) washed it off and then applied the Lactic Acid to my face. I did really want to try the Glycolic Acid 7% Toning Solution, but Boots did not have it. I also wanted to try the AHA 30% + BHA 2% Peeling Solution. However, I had never used a chemical peel or a chemical exfoliate before. Advice from the Ordinary’s website was to start with a gentle chemical exfoliate and work up to the AHA peel. So I selected the Lactic Acid. I did get a burning sensation from it when I first used it. It wasn’t painful, but then having had a lot of kittens over my life, who love to use humans as a climbing frame I have a high awareness of pain and I have grown a tolerance to it (my current kitten used to like to eat on top of the work surface but couldn’t climb their herself, so up my leg, hip and waist she went). I didn’t find the sensation unbearable, I imagine those without the built up pain barrier would. I washed it off and applied the Hyaluronic Acid, Niacinamide then the moisturiser. That was pretty much the same as my morning routine with the introduction of the Lactic Acid. I then went on to add the Vitamin C Suspension. I was impressed with the silicone consistency, it was super smooth almost like primer. By then I was feeling very oiled up. I let that soak in and about 90 minutes later applied the Rose Hip Oil to my face. I then felt very oily but enjoyed massaging it in and taking the time to relax and enjoy the experience. I did however have flash backs to being a teenager and the horrible greased up skin feeling. It was too much for me and my skin and I do not think I’ll ever apply the whole lot at the same time again.

The only product out of the evening routine I do not particularly enjoy is the Vitamin C Suspension. I like the product, but I have used a Vitamin C cream in the past and what I do not enjoy it the smell when you have had it on your skin for a period of time. Especially when you wake up in the morning. My kitten also didn’t enjoy the smell so she avoided me for a little bit. I know use it during the day if I am not going out and I wash it off as soon as I start to notice the unpleasant to me smell.

The Rose Hip Oil I do enjoy but I was more interested in trying The Ordinary’s B Oil. I was placing an order for something else and picked up a new bottle of Hyaluronic Acid (I was using too much and thought I’d run out, cut back on it now so not using it up as much) and I ordered the B oil to try. I will went until I have used up the Rose Hip Oil.

Harper Lee – To Kill a Mockingbird

Part of The Book Challenge

The Book Challenge number: 1

Start date: 1st January 2020

End date: 9th February 2020

Time taken to read: 40 days

Thoughts:

I really struggled to get into this book. I think I did not bond well with the protagonist. At first I thought Jean Louise or Scout as she is known as a teenage male to part way through the book realise she was a four year old girl did throw me a little.

I also found the book a little boring. I knew Atticus Finch was a character that is celebrated for his challenging prejudice, championing equal rights and morality…but I did not really know the story prior to reading it. I found it very slow to get to the court case and to begin to show the story that made Atticus to be a strong, moral character. I found those chapters very readable and I did not put it down. Yet then it faded again, but it carried you on willing to find Tom’s justice…to fizzle out again. Then as the last few chapters unfold you, again, get the build up on the walk back home from school, the tension building for the story to almost drop flat, as if in the middle of it. The book that relied so much on the gossip and reactions of the town, falling silent on the last dramatic evening of the book.

Not really knowing all that much about the American south and the culture of slave-owners and the lingering legacy of that in the south. I did enjoy reading about small town America and how society was structured and reading about some of the views. As someone who has studied history and in particular the Holocaust and understanding concepts of Race and Ethnicity. I liked the drawing a criticism of how it was seen as madness for Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany to terrorise Jews, persecute and arrest them and eventually find ‘the final solution for the Jewish question’ through extermination. Yet, similarly naively think that those in Maycomb were more civil, despite treating their fellow Americans, fellow human beings, as second class (or even fourth class citizens as the book implied) simply because of the colour of their skin.

Having read the book I champion the court case and the challenging an aspect of prejudice and injustice in society. I also praise the story for writing a fictionalised account that was inspired by real events. I just feel there was not enough of it in the book. I am glad to have read about Atticus Finch, but I can’t help but think I would have liked to have read about Amasa Coleman Lee (Harper Lee’s lawyer father) and some of his court cases more.

Uping my Skincare rountine for 2020

Since turning 30 and then 31…I am beginning to be more concerned about my skin. Whilst I have been lucky with it, I am beginning to feel I should take better care of it. Honestly before the New Year I didn’t really do anything with it. I had no set beauty routine. I had some products but they were just cheap basics, they were nice and I enjoyed the scent but I wasn’t concerned about targeting specific concerns or anything.

My skin is combination-oily but it is also dehydrated. I also don’t always sleep well throughout the night so I can look tired. At the start of January, I had a couple of spots around my mouth. I have incredibly pale patches on skin on my neck and other parts of my body which I suspect maybe Vitiligo but I have never had it checked out and diagnosed by a Doctor. I have some acne scarring, not too deep but it has lead to some pigmentation on my checks. In an attempt to wax part of my face I also got some skin irritation on my chin which you can see in the last photo.

Another big problem I have is…I have a kitten. She likes to suck my ear and pad my neck and the side of my face. I shouldn’t let her do it really but it is her wanting comfort from her Mother-figure. She didn’t have a relationship with her Mum as her Mum didn’t know how to look after her. She used to urinate and defecate on her kitten. She was incredibly underweight for her age and did not know how to groom herself. So to her I am her Mum as I taught her a lot of things. I feel bad trying to stop her seeking comfort before she goes to sleep, as she mainly does it when she is tired. Hopefully she’ll grow out of it when she gets a bit bigger. I am stopping her trying to pad my face though and try to get her to pad my hand that is covering my face instead.

Below are some pictures of my face before I started my journey so you can see my starting point. I will detail in subsequent posts some of the different things I have been trying and reviewing.

The Weight Loss Journey Continues

So it is the 1st of February. The start of the last month of winter, my Dad has the belief that this is the hardest month of the year, but once you push through this month you get to Spring and with it longer, brighter and warmer days that make life a little bit easier. I do feel that January is perhaps a hard month to start a new year, in the middle of winter. It is cold and trying to break old habits, particularly if they involve diets that strip away comfort foods away and encouraging you to go out to get more fresh air and exercise…when it is cold and wet is not the best way to encourage these new steps. Perhaps it is better to start them in the spring or summer when it is a more pleasant experience to be outside or to switch warm, stodgy foods in favour of salad and uncooked fruit and vegetables.

Reflecting back on January…was it a success? I didn’t gain any weight, well that’s not strictly true I did gain 0.1lb of weight. This lack of weight gain however was more due to good fortune than me directly trying to improve it. I could have been a lot worse, but equally it could have been a lot better.

So what is the plan for February? Well I’m going to challenge myself to:

10,000 steps a day. It doesn’t have to be running, although I would like to try and get running in there. Simply being outside and trying to get 10,000 steps in one or two bursts of activity a day would be good and sometimes going out for a walk in less daunting than going for a run.
Introducing shakes to my diet. Now the shakes I have chosen are NOT meal replacement shakes but shakes designed for women to introduce vitamins that are particularly lacking in a vegetarian or vegan diet. I follow a vegetarian diet and have done since I was 7. I think lacking in essential B vitamins does impact on one’s energy levels and in January I was feeling particularly tired all the time which impacted on my mood and my enthusiasm to do anything.
Zero calorie counting! This month is about trying to pick healthier options, including more fruits and vegetables into meals but realistically I am not going to restrict what I want to eat, especially not when I am feeling low and craving foods I like to eat.
Water. Lots of water and drinking more water over cola.

I’ll check back in at the end of February beginning of March to let you know what successful this month’s plan of action has been.

Losing Weight in 2020

I think one of the most popular New Year’s Resolutions of all time has to be to lose weight and get healthy.

This is a trend I am rather new to…well the losing weight element of it at least. As a child and in my teens I always struggled to put on weight. I hated food, I hated eating and if someone had given me the option of taking a tablet that would give me all my nutritional needs overeating I would have taken it. I didn’t enjoy eating, cooking and thinking about food.

Despite this, about four years ago I made a real conscious effort to start to gain weight. Going from about six-seven stone to pushing nearly ten stone in the run-up to the end of last year. Gaining weight was relatively easy, I did calorie count, but there were no restrictions, I simply tried to eat over 2,500 calories and get as close to 3,000 calories a day.

However, now I am more conscious about my body image. I feel fat around my tummy and my clothes cling to emphasise it. I no longer feel comfortable in my skin and I want to start tackling that. I would like to eat healthier and exercise more – to feel more comfortable in my skin, to improve my mental health and to be a healthier person.

My starting weight on the 1st January from 9st 10lbs. My initial goal is to lose 10 pounds and see how I feel about my weight and how I feel about myself.

My plan for this is to:

Limit my consumption of Coca-Cola to 330ml or one can a day.
To drink a minimum of 400ml of water, but ideally closer to 1,200ml a day.
To increase my consumption of fruit and vegetables trying to consume as many 80g portions of fruit and vegetables a day.
To calorie count, using My Fitness Pal. Weighing all my food as much as possible.
Reduce eating out and takeaways.
To increase my activity. Ideally completing couch to 5k within a reasonable timeframe (hopefully within three months). To increase my running activity.
To challenge my gym attendance, combating anxiety and increasing activity.

Over the past nine days, there have been challenges. Although I had cut from full fat/sugar Coca-cola to sugar-free, I did consume a lot of sugar within my diet. Chocolate was pretty much a daily requirement in my previous diet. The 1st of January, with the optimism of a great year ahead, proved a success for the first day. This was replaced with withdrawal, a lack of caffeine, with cola being my only source of caffeine, and a dramatic reduction in sugar had left with tired, with headaches and not feeling great.

Also, I am somewhat of an obsessive. Particularly with calorie counting. I can be too in control of the numbers, weighing everything and avoiding meals because they would be difficult to quantify and put into the My Fitness Pal app.

Furthermore, there is peer pressure. Living in a house which has temptation and other people’s eating habits can be difficult. Particularly when they are suggesting takeaways or calorific meals. I have stopped calorie counting for four days and just eaten what I have wanted to eat and not restricting how much of it I want to eat. Whilst my initial plan to keep a strict diet has subsided to a more 5:2 diet, with two days being unrestricted, undocumented days of whatever I want and five days calorie-controlled attempts to stick to all the points listed above.

I weighed in on the 1st and 6th. I didn’t think this was a fair assessment of grasping how well I was doing, particularly as it was not a full week and I had my two non-diet days on the 3rd and the 4th January. However, my scales said I had lost half a pound, which is good for the short duration I have been undertaking this challenge.

I do not want to be obsessive. I want to make small and permanent changes that lead to a more positive and healthy me. I know this is not going to be an easy walk in the park but an uphill struggle which will challenge my relationship with food, drink and exercise which has never been a positive relationship. I am hoping that over the next coming months I make headway challenging myself to get out of my comfort zone, eat healthily, drink healthy and exercise.

The Book Challenge

So for 2020, one of my goals is to read more books. Reading for me has always been a chore. I have dyslexia so reading has not been one of my strongest tasks. Often at the end of a busy day at school, I would be too frustrated to read for fun. Later, at University I had a degree that required a lot of reading (actually most degrees require that…) so reading for fun at the end of the day was never an option for me. Reading films as well can also be quite a challenge and requires me to pause the film for a bit and come back to it on occasion.

This year although I would like to see how far I can get down this 100 Books Everyone Should Read Before They Die (Ranked!) list from Business Insider.

Although the first thing I did was to change the order. A couple of authors appear on this list more than once (J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling for example), I’ve moved them together so I can follow the book story, rather than chop and change to another book. I have a feeling I would, if I enjoyed the story, wish to continue with it, and for J.R.R. Tolkien in particular, The Lord of the Rings was ranked higher than the Hobbit, even though the Hobbit is set before. With J.K. Rowling I will probably break from the list and read the missing books from the series, so after Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, I would read the Chamber of Secrets and then come back to read the Prisoner of Azkaban. Also, I moved the Bronte sisters together as I thought it might be interesting to compare their styles.

One thing that perplexes me about this list is: why does the Lord of the Rings get lumped together as one book, when other series, like Harry Potter or the Hunger Games, get more than one listing on the top 100?

The challenge is to see how far down this list I can get in 12 months. Wish me luck!

Harper Lee – To Kill a Mockingbird (01/01/2020-09/02/2020)
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
Anne Frank – The Diary of Anne Frank
George Orwell – 1984
George Orwell – Animal Farm
J.K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
J.K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
J.K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
J.K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
J.R.R. Tolkien – The Hobbit
J.R.R. Tolkien – The Lord of the Rings
1. The Following of the Ring
2. The Two Towers
3. The Lord of the Rings
F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby
E.B. White – Charlotte’s Web
Louisa May Alcott – Little Women
Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451
Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre
Emily Bronte – Wuthering Heights
Margaret Mitchell – Gone with the Wind
J.D. Salinger – The Catcher in the Rye
Markus Zusak – The Book Thief
Mark Twain – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain – The Adventure of Tom Sawyer
Suzanne Collins – The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins – Catching Fire
Suzanne Collins – Mockingjay
Kathryn Stockett – The Help
C.S. Lewis – The Chronicles of Narnia
C.S. Lewis – The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe
John Steinbeck – The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck – Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck – East of Eden
William Golding – The Lord of the Flies
Khaled Hosseini – The Kate Runner
Elie Wiesel – Night
William Shakespeare – Hamlet
William Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet
Williams Shakespeare – Macbeth
Madeleine L’Engle – A Wrinkle in Time
Charles Dickens – A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens – A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens – Great Expectations
Douglas Adams – The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Frances Hodgson Burnett – The Secret Garden
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – The Little Prince
Aldous Huxley – Brave New World
Lois Lowry – The Giver
Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid’s Tale
Shel Silverstein – Where the Sidewalk Ends
John Green – The Fault in Our Stars
L.M. Montgomery – Anne of Green Gables
Stieg Larrson – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Mary Shelley – Frankenstein
The Holy Bible: King James Version
Alice Walker – The Color Purple
Alexandre Dumas – The Count of Monte Cristo
Betty Smith – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Lewis Carroll – Alice in Wonderland
Truman Capote – In Cold Blood
Joseph Heller – Catch-22
Stephen King – The Stand
Diana Gabaldon – Outlander
OrsonScott Card – Enders Game
Leo Tolstoy – Anna Karenina
Richard Adams – Watership Down
Arthur Golden – Memoirs of a Geisha
Daphne du Maurier – Rebecca
George R.R. Martin- A Game of Thrones
Ernest Hemingway – The Old Man and the Sea
Arthur Conan Doyle – The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes (#3)
Victor Hugo – Les Misérables
Yann Martel – Life of Pi
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar – Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge
Ken Follett – The Pillars of the Earth
Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Bram Stoker – Dracula
William Goldman – The Princess Bride
Sara Gruen – Water for Elephants
Edgar Allan Poe – The Raven
Sue Monk Kidd – The Secret Life of Bees
Barbara Kingsolver – The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel
Gabriel García Márquez – One Hundred Years of Solitude
Audrey Niffenegger – The Time Traveler’s Wife
Homer – The Obyssey
Pearl S. Buck – The Good Earth (House of Earth #1)
Agatha Christie – And Then There Were None
Colleen McCullough – The Thorn Birds
John Irving – A Prayer for Owen Meany
Jeannette Walls – The Glass Castle
Rebecca Skloot – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Crime and Punishment
Cormac McCarthy – The Road
Tim O’Brien – The Things They Carried
Hermann Hesse – Siddhrtha
Toni Morrison – Beloved
Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse
Abraham Verghese – Cutting for Stone
Norton Juster – The Phantom Tollbooth
Fyodor Dostoyevsky – The Brothers Karamazov
Helen Keller – The Story of My Life