Time flies!

We are almost a week into September, and it’ll soon be Christmas!

This coming weekend is the read through for panto (oh, yes it is!). I am hoping for a good turn out; it’s a great script, we’ve picked some cracking music and the annual pantomime is for me the highlight of the theatre’s calendar. It will be colourful, noisy and hectic, and gone in a flash (literally, as far as the Genies are concerned!).

It’s unbelievable that we have got to the panto season already, though. It seems not long ago that I was away at Easter and not even considering the niceties of rehearsal schedules, community songs and the appropriate dimensions of a dancer’s bra top.

Someone once told me that the older you get the quicker the time passes and that certainly seems to be true. Each year it seems to go quicker and quicker, and events creep up on us and pass more swiftly than the year before. Of course that can’t be the case, after all 24 hours is always going to be the same 24 hours lengthwise or worldwide chaos would ensue, but it does seem like it and I don’t know what to do to slow it down. At this rate, in another few years things will have finished before they have begun!

Mentally, I don’t feel any older than I did in my late twenties. I think I make better, more considered and less judgemental decisions now and my experience in dealing with other people and situations means I do things differently, but in my mind I am still slightly alternative and non conformist. In reality, I am probably a typical middle England Tory living in an increasingly unrealistic fantasy world. But the real difference is in my physical capacity, which is definitely reduced.

I went to bed at 8.30pm the other night. The combination of dieting (which saps your energy anyway), extra walking with the dog (actually all walking with the dog is extra because I didn’t do any walking at all before) and just the pace of life are getting the better of me. I am looking decidedly haggard, or at least I think I am. The Hubby, bless him, always tells me I look beautiful but he’s a consummate liar about that sort of thing and will say anything to make me feel better (ie stop me whinging) so I have to take it with a pinch of salt (either that or he really thinks so, in which case he’s deluded and should be committed).

Does everyone feel like this? Or have I been unlucky and allowed myself to get into an unfit, overweight and isolated state and my chickens are coming home to roost?

If other people feel like it they don’t let on, so perhaps I just don’t have any backbone and ought to pull my socks up and have a stiff upper lip (a few slightly confused metaphors there, but you get the drift). I’ve always been a cope-er, but at the moment I feel like I’m sinking. Or maybe this is the state that everyone goes through when they try and do something about their health and get fitter, because doing exercise knackers you and then you don’t have any energy for anything else until you are fit enough not to need to do the exercise in the first place? It’s always been one of life’s paradoxes that the more you exercise, eventually the more energy you have.

I’ve obviously got some way to go! And lets hope that I don’t arrive before I’ve set off.

Hungry - why do we sometimes get the munchies?

I had the serious munchies yesterday.

I had them all day, and it played hell with my will power and my ability to stick to my diet.

I have done very well over the past few weeks, and have lost around a stone in weight. I have roughly another stone to go, and I am feeling relatively confident that I can make it. Munchies aside of course.

What is it about some days that you simply feel starving all day regardless of the amount you eat? I blame my hormones (well I am the right age and I might as well, they have such a bad reputation any way) but surely other people feel like this and they can’t all be hormonal?

My chosen diet at the moment does as much as it can to help by providing a daily snack which you are supposed to save up for your ‘weak’ time of day and by permitting you two daily fruit snacks as well. Yesterday, I had my breakfast, my morning fruit, my lunch with permitted soup plus an allowed bread roll and a yoghurt, my afternoon fruit and my savoury snack and by late afternoon I was still starving! It was ages until dinner, and I am was in serious danger of buckling under the smell of the fast food as I entered Victoria station tonight. I almost had to go home with a peg on the end of my nose!

I am using a diet from a company called Diet Chef, which is essentially a fully catered diet using old fashioned calorie counting as its basis. And it works. You get an allowance of 1200 calories a day of which they provide approximately 800 in a pre prepared breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack. You make up the remainder by plenty of fruit and vegetables and a small amount of carbohydrate. There is plenty of choice (you get to pick your month’s meal selection yourself from a set of drop down choices) and without exception everything I have eaten so far has been tasty. The portions are smaller than you would cook yourself, but reasonably filling. You can have the odd night off (for instance if you are out with friends for dinner) as long as you don’t do it too regularly. All in all, I am quite impressed. It’s just as well, because I had to sign up for four months and it was expensive.

I have tried numerous other ways over the years from Atkins (which did make me lose weight but I got terrible wind, constipation and bad breath) to detoxing (which is just weird) through very odd pills which 'cleanse' your colon and stop you absorbing fat to Weight Watchers (where I was hungry ALL the time and which, judging from the lardy women that attend their meetings week after week, doesn’t work long term). None of them were terribly successful and all of them, in their own way, were unpleasant. I didn’t stick at anything longer than a month.

I have been doing this for almost seven weeks now, so my weight loss is averaging just over 2lb a week, which is the recommended amount if you want to keep the weight off long term. I have another two and a bit months to go (I can’t afford to do it for any longer) to get down to a goal weight I haven’t seen for about 15 years. If I can do it, I am promised a pair of Armani jeans by The Hubby.

Now that we have the dog of course, and now that she is old enough to go out for walks, I hope to accelerate the rate of loss by taking her out daily and for at least one long walk at the weekend. She is still a baby and can’t walk for hours, but an hour’s play in the field will be an hour longer than I would have done before. It should help me lose weight, tone up my thighs and calves, tighten up my belly muscles and improve my heart. A lot is riding on this, so it better bloody work!

Another update on the fitness regime

I thought it was about time that I gave you an update on my fitness regime. Not that there is a great deal to say because, unfortunately, it has stalled somewhat.

You all know that in the early days I did really well, doing exercise, eating less and more healthily and losing 10lb in the process.  And that's about it. Nothing else has happened and, as it always does, life has overtaken me.

I haven't put the weight back on, mind you, but I certainly haven't lost any more. The busyness of work, trying to run the house and now starting rehearsals again means that I just don't have time to think about my food, which is what you really have to focus on if you want to seriously lose weight. 

Having just been on holiday, and feeling rather pleased that I have managed to squeeze back into a pair of jeans I left in Crete last autumn, I am however conscious that in a swimsuit I still look rather like a lemon on matchsticks (or a weeble, if you prefer) and must lose some more. So the promised supermodel status is still some way off.

The Hubby also feels like a weeble, so we are climbing back on the wagon as I write and, with the exception of going out to dinner, all booze, sugar and the majority of fat and carbs are banned. We have eight weeks before going to Greece again, and will have lost more weight by then and done some more exercise.

I have the added incentive that I am incredibly skint, and need to cut down on the shopping bill. Buying less of the luxuries will have the benefit not only of making me trimmer but also of making me richer. And I do think it gets easier to lose weight when the weather is warmer and you simply don't feel like eating loads of the stodgy comfort food you eat in the winter.

I will need to discipline myself to keep out of the kitchen, since I find baking an incredibly relaxing and fulfilling activity. But it's chronically bad for the waistline, so I mustn't do it. Instead I'll have to do some more writing and perhaps focus on that self help book I intend to e-publish.

I wonder if I ought to write a chapter on dieting?

An update on the fitness regime.

Once again, I thought I’d give you an update on the fitness regime.

Sadly, over the last fortnight, not all has gone to plan and my exercise regime has suffered somewhat from busyness and can’t-be-botheredness.

We have had a fairly social fortnight, so there has been lots of nice food in the house and lots of sinful stuff.  Cakes, puddings, far too much carbohydrate and far too much wine. Although I haven’t put any of the weight I lost back on, in the past fortnight I haven’t lost any more. Which is disappointing.

I haven’t been back to the gym or used my Zumba dance thing on the Wii either.  The gym I do have a semi excuse for, in that I’m skint and also each night I have had a commitment to do something which needed me to be at home. But I don’t really have any excuse for not doing the Zumba beyond knowing that I couldn’t be arsed! Those of you that know me will be aware that exercise has never been something which has stimulated me, and I have failed to get motivated and excited in what has been a very busy period to even find half an hour to do it. My bad!

This week I don’t really have an excuse. I have a commitment tonight, but after that the week is blank in the diary. Yes, there are the usual household chores to do and we still have the bathroom floor to finish off completely, but I don’t actually have any commitments with other people. And The Hubby is out a lot for work in the evenings this week (or at least that’s what he tells me he’s doing) so I have one or two completely free evenings. I have been paid again (amazingly the Royal Borough keeps shelling out for my services) and am not yet totally skint, so I suppose the gym is beckoning. It will be difficult to put it off any longer.

I am still aiming for supermodel status by the summer, but it might have to be a curvy Sophie Dahl style supermodel instead of a skinny Kate Moss style one. Nothing wrong with that, is there? My trouble is that all my weight sits on my belly (nothing else is fat – much – I still have a nice pert bum and shapely legs and from the back I have achieved my ambition already) and if I don’t lose it and tone up a bit soon there is a danger people will give me their seat on the tube because they think I’m six months gone! I also have a horrendous double chin which is purely weight related and which looks appalling on photos.

My initial target is to lose enough to look good when I play Titania in mid May, since the stage lighting is harsh, drapey fairy costumes reveal every lump and bump and the camera is very unforgiving. Then I have about a month to slim down further for my hols.

I will do it, I will, and I will go to the gym this week. I’ll let you know how I get on again in a week or two’s time!

Getting fit - at last

Regular readers of my blog will know that I committed to getting fit once the panto was finished. I've said it before, and been a dismal failure. However I am now such a lardy-arse that I really have to do something or I will have to start buying clothes where the size starts with the number two, and that I refuse to do! So, good as my word I have really cut down on what I eat, started using some very odd but as far as I can see harmless herbal appetite supressants and stopped snacking or drinking booze Sunday to Thursday.

I've been doing all that for almost two weeks (well, 10 days) and in the first week I lost the grand amount of 5lb! OK, you can stop clapping! However after the initial success things do seem to have stalled and I'm not losing any more. I suspect that is because, very pleased with myself, I have relaxed a bit and had the odd sweet or glass of wine and I did have a Mcdonalds the other day because I was out and about and there was nothing else conveniently available.

Clearly, I need to stay strict and what's more, do some exercise. I've been a bit nervous about that because of all the issues with my knees and back, but its obvious I can't delay any more if I want to be super model sized by June.

So I went back to the gym and did a refresher induction with someone who understands injuries which was fine. I have even been back and done another session myself. Trouble is because of the knees in particular and my general state of unfitness, I can't do much more than half an hour, which makes it bloody expensive each time and as things are a bit tight, I can't afford to do that too often.

So I have dusted off the Wii console and bought myself a Zumba exercise disk. Once I remembered how the machine worked (and after half an hour of frustration discovered that something was unplugged out of the back and that I'd put the disk in the wrong way round [dur!]), I tried it out. It's great fun!

I can see myself dancing away of an evening when I get in from work much to the derision of my daughter and occasionally my step son, to great Latin music and in the process sculpting myself into the body of a 20 year old. When she finds out I've got it, she'll be furious (yes, old panto joke, but still a good one!). Seriously, I do think I might stick at it because the brief bit I tried yesterday, I really enjoyed. Unlike going to the gym, which is torture.

So watch this space for update reports. If you don't see any, you will know that I am thoroughly ashamed of myself and have given up like I have done every other time I have tried to do anything like this. If it's going well, I won't be able to avoid bragging! Wonder which it's going to be?