May weigh-in

Starting weight (4th December 2017): 10 st 7 lb

January weight: 9 st 10 lb

February weight: 9 st 0 lb (weight on 1st Feb would have been around 9 st 4 lb)

March weight: 8 st 12 lb

April weight: 8 st 7 lb (119 lbs or 54 kg)

May weight: 8 st 3 lb

Total weight loss: 32 lbs

People have started to comment on my weight loss and I’m still losing weight… I don’t want to lose anymore so I’m trying to find the balance and understand how many calories I can eat against how many I’m using up in relation to the exercise I’m doing.

I have an app on my phone called ‘My Net Diary’ which has an apple logo and can help with weight management. I don’t use it although did check that for me to maintain a weight of 8 st 7 lb (I’m 5’3″ or 161 cm), I would need to consume 1673 calories each day. And this doesn’t include any exercise meaning that if I burn an extra 300 calories each day, I would be able to consume 1973 daily calories.

From past experience where I’ve lost weight and quickly become complacent again (resulting in regaining the weight) I’ve realised the only way for me to manage my weight properly is to roughly count my calorie intake each day. It is too easy to ignore the amount of food and as such calories you consume which quickly adds up and the pounds soon begin to reappear. So to stay at my current weight I really do need to tot up the calorie total each day!

As a 50 year old woman I am at the age of the dreaded menopause… I’m not sure if I’m there yet or even if I’ve had the perimenopause (which can start in your early 40’s or even in your 30’s) and is the time leading up to the full menopause. Other than difficulty sleeping most nights I haven’t really had any symptoms (although this might be due to my birth control implant which might be masking things…).

Anyway… the point of this is that getting plenty of exercise and eating properly can help with menopause symptoms by improving your mood, boosting your energy and helping to keep your metabolism faster. One more reason to stay fit and healthy!

Gym update

Today is 1st May and I’ve now been attending the gym on a regular basis for 5 months (having joined during the first week of December 2017). This is probably the longest I’ve kept up a gym membership for… ever…!

I am still attending the gym 2 or 3 times a week and have got into a routine of spending an hour each time before starting work in the mornings. I vary my routine slightly and haven’t yet missed a session.

I am feeling incredibly fit now and the buzz I feel when I’ve completed each session is huge meaning I feel positive and ready to face anything throughout the day!

Week 17 walking progress

Week 17 walking progress:

Total for week 17 = 33 miles
Average per day for this week (33 / 7) = 4.71
Running total = 538 + 33 = 571 miles
Miles left to walk in 2018 (1050 – 571) = 479

A fairly average week of walking to and from work, a bit extra at the gym and 10 miles with my local walking club on Sunday.

Lovely bluebells on Sunday’s 10 mile walk!

Vegan verdict

Conclusions on vegan diet…

For my last day as a vegan a little reflection on the last month is in order. What has this month taught me?

I do feel incredibly healthy and positive in both mind and body. I have a little personal turmoil at the moment but that’s for another post.

Throughout the last month I’ve managed fairly well to stick to a predominantly vegan diet. Unfortunately I’ve not managed to be a 100% vegan…

Chris and I visited a local pub for dinner one evening. There was no vegan option and the only vegetarian option was mushroom risotto… I’m not keen on mushrooms or risotto so decided to have fish and chips.
During my recent trip to Oslo with my vegan daughter Zoe, we were able to follow a vegan diet without too much difficulty. The hotel had a massive choice of breakfast enabling me to have soya milk on my cereal, beans on toast, smoothies etc. Oslo has several excellent vegan restaurants including Nordvegan and Funky Fresh Foods. However on the last night we set out to look for something to eat but at 8.30 pm on a Sunday most specialised vegan restaurants had closed. We found an Olivia restaurant but the only vegan option was a bowl of olives! So we had to get a vegetarian pizza…

Lessons learned:

I have no issues with preparing vegan food at home; there are thousands of tasty vegan recipes and I never get fed up with curries and soups. I don’t miss meat at all.
Many restaurant chains now have specific vegan menu’s which is great. However this doesn’t apply to all and going to the two restaurants mentioned above has meant breaking my vegan pledge.
Having discussed veganism with my daughter Zoe she now refers to herself as having a ‘plant based diet’ rather than calling herself a vegan.

Conclusion:

Following a vegan diet throughout April and March’s vegetarian lifestyle have encouraged me to think carefully about my approach to food and eating.

Giving vegetarianism some careful thought I don’t feel its much more ‘animal friendly’ than people who eat meat. It could even be considered worse… I am not an expert but I would assume that killing a cow for its meat means the animal suffers less than a cow who is milked for its entire life. Therefore if someone decides to become a vegetarian and as a result consumes more cheese rather than eating meat, are they in fact being more harmful to cows?

I also believe that a predominantly vegan lifestyle is a healthy lifestyle choice and that eating meat isn’t really necessary.

Taking all things into consideration this is what I am going to do from now:

I will cook vegan as much as possible at home although I will revert back to having fish occasionally.
I will order vegan food as a priority if it’s available on restaurant menu’s. If it isn’t I’ll go for the most healthy choice.
I’m not keen on the way animals are used to produce milk (which is meant for baby cow’s) so I will continue to have oat milk or coconut milk rather than cow’s milk. And have occasional cheese but try to get vegan cheese where possible.
I might very occasionally have chicken but only if it’s free range and organic. And the same applies to eggs.
I won’t eat pork, lamb or beef again. The only exception would be if I am invited as a guest and someone has kindly cooked it for me without realising my food preferences. This would be extremely rare and might occur less than once a year. However I wouldn’t want to make a fuss or offend my host.

So following my vegetarian and vegan months and discussing the terminology with Zoe, from now I am going to follow a primarily plant based diet!

Week 16 walking progress

Week 16 walking progress:

Total for week 16 = 44 miles
Average per day for this week (44 / 7) = 6.29
Running total = 494 + 44 = 538 miles
Miles left to walk in 2018 (1050 – 538) = 512

A milestone in week 16… yes, I’ve completed over half of the 1050 miles I had pledged to walk in 2018 already 🙂

Some of these miles were walked in and around Oslo city centre. On Saturday my daughter and I clocked up 9 miles and a further 8 on Sunday. It’s surprising how many miles you can walk by spending a day in a city!

Weeks 14 & 15 walking progress

Week 14 walking progress:

Total for week 14 = 43 miles
Average per day for this week (43 / 7) = 6.14
Running total = 408 + 43 = 451 miles
Miles left to walk in 2018 (1050 – 451) = 599

Another super effort! 10.5 tough miles were achieved by climbing to the summit of Carnedd Llewelyn, the second highest mountain in Wales. And on Easter Monday I did a 15 mile walk in the Chilterns which boosted this weeks’ total.

Week 15 walking progress:

Total for week 15 = 43 miles
Average per day for this week (43 / 7) = 6.14
Running total = 451 + 43 = 494 miles
Miles left to walk in 2018 (1050 – 494) = 556

Oddly the same total for weeks’ 14 and 15 but very different miles walked! Most of week 15’s miles were walked in and around my local town including a walk that Chris and I did to a local village pub and back… it took slightly longer to walk back…

Week 13 walking progress

Week 13 walking progress:

Total for week 13 = 40 miles
Average per day for this week (40 / 7) = 5.71
Running total = 368 + 40 = 408 miles
Miles left to walk in 2018 (1050 – 408) = 642

So, the first three months, or 25% of 2018 has gone already and I’ve achieved over 50% of my target for the year. This means I have been walking over twice as many miles on average each day to meet my target of 1050 miles.

I seem to be walking more and more miles each week which I think is partly because I am recording them in this blog. Counting them up and putting updates on here is inspiring me to walk even more…

I’ve got a big 16 miler coming up tomorrow, Bank Holiday Monday, with a semi-local walking club that I haven’t walked with before. I’ll be exploring the rolling hills of the Chilterns with 20 other people I haven’t met. It’s like a mini, or micro adventure!

The great thing about these walking groups is that you also get to meet loads of interesting people and even though the weather forecast is for rain tomorrow, walking 16 miles with random strangers is better than sitting on the sofa!

April weigh-in

Starting weight: 10 st 7 lb

January weight: 9 st 10 lb

February weight: 9 st 0 lb (weight on 1st Feb would have been around 9 st 4 lb)

March weight: 8 st 12 lb

April weight: 8 st 7 lb (119 lbs or 54 kg)

Total weight loss: 28 lbs

I’ve gone quite a bit under my original 2018 target weight of 9 stones! The recommended weight for a 50 year old medium build 5′ 3″ woman is actually 8 st 10 lb so I’m slightly under the ‘normal’ weight for my height. I’m happy with this and would like to be able to keep my weight at around 8 st 7 lb rather than 9 st. The reason I originally set my target at 9 st was because I didn’t think I would be able to get below that weight!

Yesterday I sorted through my clothes and was delighted to find a size 10 holiday skirt which fitted beautifully! I haven’t been able to wear this for a few years and thankfully its one that never really goes out of fashion.

I’m consuming around 1200 – 1300 calories a day and still doing a huge amount of exercise most days. I’m anxious not to regain any of this weight and concerned that if I indulge in chocolate or cakes that I will lose my focus and the weight will pile on again…

A typical week of exercise for me at the moment is:

Mon: walk 5.25 miles to the station and back; spend an hour at the gym (700 calories burned)
Tue: work at home and go swimming at lunchtime (400 calories burned)
Wed: work at home and go swimming at lunchtime (400 calories burned)
Thu: walk to and from station and hour at gym (700 calories)
Fri: as above (700 calories)
Sat: walk around my local town (300 calories)
Sun: walk with a local walking club (750 calories)

This is more exercise than I’ve ever done so I’m probably fitter now than I was 10 or even 20 years ago!

A typical day of eating goes something like this:

Breakfast: a small bowl of bircher muesli with oat milk (300 calories)
Snack: banana (100 calories)
Lunch: Vegetarian soup from Pret (200 calories)
Snack: grapes/mixed nuts (200 calories)
Dinner: Sweet potato curry (400 calories)
Coffee: (100 calories)

The calories are estimated and rounded to the nearest 100!

Having received some helpful advice from my best friend (who is the same height as me and has had a similar yo-yo diet pattern over the years), in order to try and maintain my current weight I am going to do the following:

Stick to around 1200 calories a day during weekdays
Continue doing lots of exercise each day
Have treats and eat more at the weekends

And monitor my weight each week to keep a check and ensure it doesn’t start creeping upwards again!

Today I start my vegan month…

Conclusion on a vegetarian lifestyle

Today is the final day of my month as a vegetarian and tomorrow I switch to vegan.

I’ve spent the whole of March on a diet which has excluded all meat and fish products which according to the Vegetarian Society is a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet. This is the term used for vegetarians who eat dairy products and is the most common type of vegetarian.

Firstly I can say I found it very easy to lead a vegetarian lifestyle which is probably because my husband has been a pescatarian for a number of years, that is, someone who doesn’t eat meat but who does eat fish. He also occasionally has chicken but it has to be free-range organic chicken.

Rather than cooking separate meals, I’ve also tended to follow this diet too. So the main difference has been the lack of fish or chicken for a month.

As I mentioned in the previous ‘mid month‘ update, our dinners have contained meat substitutes such as Quorn which I still have mixed feelings about due to it being processed. Also, if you substitute lean meat such as chicken or turkey for say a cheese flan or cheese pasty, this has to be the more unhealthy choice too.

My conclusion?

In my view a vegetarian diet is easy to follow although, unless you limit the processed meat substitutes, cheese and pastry, I can’t really see the health benefits.

In addition, I would think there is greater suffering for cows if you consume larger amounts of cheese and milk. Rather than being slaughtered at a young age, cows have to go through multiple pregnancies throughout their lives to meet the demand for human consumption of their milk. So which is worse?

As mentioned, I’m starting ‘Vegapril’ (instead of Veganuary) tomorrow to experience a month as a vegan. Although the increase in people choosing a vegan lifestyle is rapidly increasing, I’m anticipating a few more challenges…

Week 12 walking progress

Week 12 walking progress:

Total for week 12 = 52 miles
Average per day for this week (52 / 7) = 7.43
Running total = 316 + 52 = 368 miles
Miles left to walk in 2018 (1050 – 368) = 682

Wow! Massive effort this week! Am I becoming obsessed? I’ve been in the office 4 times this week which, given that I walk over 5 miles a day (to and from stations as the walking element of my commute) every time I go into London to work, this has pushed things up a it.

In addition, I decided to walk through Central London instead of getting the tube during the working day (on top of the daily London trek from and to the station). For example its nearly 2 miles from one of our Central London offices to another one. And meeting my daughter in the West End after work racked up another couple of miles. So one day I actually walked 14 miles just by not taking the tube! (And burned off a huge 1200 extra calories too)

And on Sunday I did 12 miles with my local walking club…

Posting these updates every week or two is certainly helping to keep me motivated and look for ways of walking extra miles!