This whole blogging thing is quite alien to me if I’m honest. Firstly I find it amazing that people would be interested in what I have to say and secondly, where they get the time to read other people’s blogs is a mystery to me. But according to Pete Cohen, it’s the people who blog most who are most successful at his programme. Maybe it’s because the constant blogging acts to reinforce all the new things we’re learning. I suppose when I was at University I’d attend a lecture and write notes to help embed the information in my brain – perhaps the blog is the equivalent of lecture notes. If I think of the blog as my notes to myself and not to an audience of readers, that might make it easier.
I’ve gone for one tool from each set (nutritional, exercise and behavioural).
The first one for me will be to drink 2 litres of water a day. This will be a challenge in itself as I always resent the amount of trips to the loo I have to make when I up my liquid intake. I also like my tea – chai is my favourite right now, but as that has caffeine in it, I’ll need to pull back on it. I don’t take sugar in my tea, but I do in coffee although I only have 1 cup of that a day – it’s my “start the day” hot drink at the office. I’ve just been good and had a hot herbal tea instead of another chai – NOTE TO SELF – buy some more fruity herbal teas and some South African red bush tea.
My exercise tool is to be walking 30 minutes a day. I’ve started well on that one and did 30 minutes in -3 degrees up at the local park with my dog Solo. I’ve been walking him for about 20 minutes for the past couple of years but have to do one extra circuit of the park to make up the extra 10 minutes.
My dog Solo in the bluebell woods last spring.
I walk with two other school mum friends and their dogs most mornings, after we’ve dropped the children at school, then put Solo back in the car and drive on to work – sadly I live 7 miles out-of-town in a village so have to drive in every day to school/work.
I think it will be the weekends when it’s hardest to do the walk, which might sound crazy, but it’s because during the week I have a routine to follow which makes it easy. My weekends tend to be downtime for me, as well as the time to catch up on household chores like washing and shopping.
My daughter on her favourite horse at the stables
I also like to go horse riding up on the Ashdown Forest with my daughter. However, at least doing all these active things means I’m on my feet even if I’m not actually walking for the sake of walking.
My third tool is to eat slowly and I’ve told my husband that I want the whole family to do this at our evening meal every day. We’re rather old-fashioned in that we all sit down together every day for dinner, all five of us, and what we eat is all home cooked food. It’s a great chance for us all to catch up on each other’s day and just be a family. All of us tend to eat much too quickly, so if we all slow down a bit and start with much less food on our plates, we should reduce our intake substantially. I’m of that generation where you always had to clear your plate and it’s very hard not to insist that my children do the same – I see it as insulting to the cook not to eat all the meal they have prepared for you. So if we start with less, we can still clear the plate.
So tonight is our first group meeting up at Freedom Leisure Uckfield that will include a full 45 minute training session. God knows how I’ll feel tomorrow! I haven’t been riding since early December what with all the bad weather, so my thighs will probably be very sore in the morning. Hopefully though it won’t be too bad as I’ve got a big client event tomorrow evening up at the Gherkin in London for the Atlantic Canada Tourism Partnership. It’s a private dinner for 60 people with our clients and travel journalists. Very glamorous, but I promise you it’s not fun standing around “networking” in high heels when your legs are killing you!
