The Changing World

The world is changed.
I feel it in the water.
I feel it in the earth.
I smell it in the air.
Much that once was is lost.
Galadriel – The Lord of the Rings

It feels like another lifetime ago when I wrote my last blog post. In reality it has been about five weeks. Covid-19 seems to have altered life almost beyond all recognition.

I was fortunate enough to start a new job just before Coronavirus broke out. I almost thought I wouldn’t have started but I did and was at work for three days before they suspended my training to make way for emergency measures to help deal with the pandemic. I was moved to another department and I am still working every weekday.

I am grateful that I still have the opportunity to go out to work everyday in a world of lockdown. Recently spending four days at home over the Easter Bank Holiday period was so weird. I was bored. I didn’t know what to do with myself but I knew I didn’t want to go outside and do something because being out every weekday and dealing with people from different households to your own can be very stressful, particularly if they do not follow social distances rules and don’t seem to care about the situation.

What is worse is just how negative and hostile the world now seems to be. I almost avoid Facebook now and I have blocked people because of just the negativity and digs people make at random things.

Today, people were getting fed up with Tom Moore and how everyone is making a big deal out of him for basically doing nothing. For those that are not aware. Tom Moore, fought in the Second World War in the Royal Navy and at the age of 99. Decided to do 100 laps of his 25m garden with his walker in the hope of raising money for the NHS. He ambitiously set a target of £1,000 in a hope that friends and family would donate. However, it went viral. At the time of writing this post he has raised over £26 million and is now realising a song in the hope of making it to number 1 to raise yet even more money for the NATIONAL health service. To benefit the nation at a time of an international health pandemic.

I think more than ever I am now learning the need to distance myself from the negativity in life. Focus on enjoying the moment and letting go on the things I cannot control and focusing on the things I can.

I do not know how long this pandemic will last and what the world will look like when it reemerges from lockdown but I am grateful for my health and the lessons I am learning.

January in Review

So 2020 already has a month under it’s belt and it seems scary that the time has flown by so quickly!

In terms of successful keeping on New Year’s Resolutions. I think I have broken every single one already. However, it is not a failure. It is incredibly difficult to set resolutions with the aim of overhauling your life and stick to it religiously. Old habits need time to be unlearnt and new ones take time to adopt.

For me, my major stumbling block this month was depression. I suffer was Anxiety and Depression. I went back on medication at the end of November and have had a wave of side effects, heart palpitations and feeling incredibly anxious gave way to exhaustion. I have been so tired for weeks and it has been a real struggle to do anything, let alone getting on a hoodie and some trainers to go out in the wet and a cold for a run (I hate the wet anyway and hate water hitting my face).

I’ve been craving foods I like, sugary snack foods, crisps, chocolate, cola. Completely wrong to eat but they make me in the short term feel better.

My quest to read books with the aim of one every three weeks also has not happened yet. I’m halfway through one and I am not sure if that it because I’m not gelling with the characters in the book or I am not used to reading fiction.

Tomorrow, is February though, a new month. A chance to turn the page, literally in my journal’s case and have a fresh start, a new blank spread to fill in February. I’m going to get back on it and start again and try to slowly break down those old habits and work on forming new more positive ones.

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.