Hungry and tired but a little bit thinner

I've been doing the healthy eating for over two weeks now, it's going well. I lost three pounds last week. I'm still logging my food into MyFitnessPal but I've given up trying to stick to 1200 calories, it's impossible, I've only managed it on one day - here's what I ate:

Breakfast
One slice of whole meal toast with one tablespoon of light Philadelphia
One medium banaana
Instant coffee with skimmed milk

Lunch
Wholemeal pitta bread with 30g of Brie, one slice of honey roast ham
One apple

Dinner
Two chicken thighs marinated in lemon juice, garlic, chicken broth
3 small roasted potatoes

Snack
2 custard creams

See, it's NOTHING. I was starving. I went to bed at 9pm because all I could think about was getting up and eating breakfast. So I've upped my limit to 1500 which is still hard, but better.

To complement the healthy eating regime, I've also started exercising. Well, I've been on one run, tonight actually. I'm using another free app for this called RunKeeper which was recommended to me by my friend Sarah. She is super fit and has lost a bunch of weight so I thought I'd give it a try.

So after James got home from work, I dug out my old trainers and my only sports bra, downloaded an album called Now That's What I Call Running (I'm a professional now see) and set off. I chose a 20 minute program and a nice lady told me to set off at a slow pace for five minutes as a warm up. I took "slow pace" to mean "walk" and head towards the park.

After five minutes, the lady is back telling me that for my first interval I should go at a "steady pace" for a minute. Except I need to cross the road - crap. I start jogging on the spot, out of the corner of my eye I see one of my neighbours and try to hide my already sweaty face. Desperate to get away I make a run for it and come frighteningly close to being squashed by a bus. The driver leans on his horn, my neighbour can barely contain his laughter and I run as fast as I can in the opposite direction.  So... going well so far.

However the rest of it is pretty straightforward. I run steady for a minute and then slow for one and a half minutes. Even so after ten minutes my lack of fitness is glaringly obvious and I can't believe I'm only halfway through. The longer it goes on, the more annoying I find the lady. As 20 minutes approaches I can't wait to stop running but the lady just comes back and tells me to go steady again. WTF? Turns out the first five minutes were just the warm up and don't count towards the 20 minute program! When it finally is over, I hobble home and do some half arsed stretches. I'm mortified by how difficult I've found it. The stats on the app show that I have run a measly 3.29km and burned 259 calories - which is less than one Mars Bar.

Anyway, it's a start and I will continue.

A quick word on what the kids have been up to this week. Joey has two front teeth! They are just poking through the gum and he's been suffering a bit at night with them but on the whole it's not been too painful. He does keep pulling this weird face where he sucks his bottom lip in and chews on it though...

And Finn has been perfecting his scooting skills, he can't turn or break or anything but I'm still really proud. He also tried to steal a cake from Ben Fogle's son, but that's a story for a different day.

Sorry seems to be the hardest word

What a week. Four days trapped in the house by sick kids and torrential rain followed by three debauched days in Brighton on a Hen do. I'm bloody knackered, even more so than usual. Now, Finn and I don't do too well when either of us is over-tired so there has been the odd stand off of late, which leads me to this week's topic; discipline.

My style of parenting is either bodged from what I can remember off Super Nanny, or copied from the other mothers in my NCT group. But, now that Finn is well past his second birthday, I'm running out of excuses for his boisterous behaviour and none of the above is working. Before I launch into some of his finer moments, I'd just like to say that he's a good kid really, he's not malicious or spiteful. If anything he's overly friendly in a Lenny type manner that often sees him pulling small children to the floor shouting 'CUDDLE, CUDDLE'.  I think it's cute, sadly many parents of said small children disagree.

The main problem that we have is his refusal to follow directions...of any description...ever. From 'please don't post mummy's wedding rings down the plug hole' to  'don't eat the play-doh' (every single week at playgroup) to my personal favourite 'don't climb out of your pram onto the doctor's computer desk while I'm having this invasive examination', if Finn wants to do something, he's pretty much going to do it. Most of it is harmless exploring but every now and again he crosses a line and something must be done.

Yesterday, was one such example. Joey took a tumble trying to reach a toy on his play mat, he banged his head on Buzz Lightyear and had a good old cry. I gave him a dummy and reinstalled him on the mat. Finn hasn't had a dummy since his first birthday but lately has become obsessed by them. So as soon as I turned my back, he pinched it and Joey was crying again. I took it away and gave it back to Joey. Now repeat the last two sentences a hundred times. And then he got really mad and threw a toy, which hit me in the shin.

I'd given him a warning and now it was time for action. Supreme punishment of two minutes, alone in the front hallway. It didn't work. He played with the post, he pulled at threads in the carpet, he broke the zipper on his trousers. When I opened the door and asked him to apologise, he said 'No way, no way!'. Cue two more minutes in the hallway. Now repeat the last two sentences a hundred times.

After about twenty minutes, he was crying hysterically and I was on the verge of joining in when he finally, and very begrudgingly, uttered 'Sowee Mama'. We had a cuddle and I inwardly breathed a massive sigh of relief at my victory. Ten minutes later he'd stolen the dummy again - this time I did cry. If anyone has any advice on training toddlers, I'd love to hear it.

In other excellent news, I put on weight this week. Actually it's not too bad, because as I said, I went to a Hen do and drank my weight in Blue WKD (I don't know why) so I guess it could have been worse. One thing I am proud of is that despite knowing I was going away, I stuck to healthy eating before hand. The old me would have been all... 'well I can't diet this weekend so I'll just eat myself stupid all week and then start again on Monday'.

I'm aiming for 1200 calories a day and using a free app called My Fitness Pal. It requires quite a lot of forward planning to make sure that I don't eat my limit by the time I get to my evening meal but it makes me think twice about every single thing I eat, which can't be a bad thing. I hope to have more positive results next week.




  

Hey, remember when I used to blog?

Well, I'm giving it another try. My year long absence can be explained by the arrival of baby boy number two six months ago. We never intended to have our children a mere 19 months apart and the shock of finding myself pregnant again before my kid's first birthday knocked me for six. It was a difficult pregnancy, it felt like it went on forever. But after a delightful Christmas day labour, lovely baby Joey was born at 00:27 on Boxing day. So...now I have two of the buggers to muse over and I thought I'd share it all with you. 

Towards the end of my last foray into the blogging world, I was bemoaning my weight. And shockingly, having another baby has done nothing to help matters! Not only am I bigger than I've ever been, I've also fallen into the classic mum trap and 'let myself go'. I'm averaging one haircut every twelve months, my waxing has been shamefully lax, my wardrobe is half empty and what is in there is a minimum of three years old.

The other day, I had to get the kids to the doctors for an early morning appointment (conjunctivitis if you're interested), none of us had slept, they were both screaming and it was all I could do to get us out the door. As I ran down the road, sweating beneath my new plastic mac (purchased for this delightful summer we are having), I caught sight of myself in a shop window; no make-up, unwashed hair with roots so long they look like a reverse dip dye, JOGGING BOTTOMS. I'm not that girl, there's no way I can be that girl.

So another reason I'm revisiting this blog is to document my redevelopment. Now, unlike Victoria Beckham, when I say I'm just an average mum, it's actually true. We earn just enough money to pay for our little flat, eat and have the occasional trip to Nando's or the zoo. Sadly I will not be able to afford liposuction, a personal chef or stylist. I'm going to have to do this the old fashioned way - Weight Watchers and Legs Bums and Tums down the local leisure center. I am lucky enough to have a few friends in the beauty world, so I'll be cadging a few favours along the way too.

In a future blog I will be providing photographic evidence of my hideousness. You have been warned.

But for now, here are some goals...  

• Ideally I'd like to lose a stone and tone up my mum tum. I'm giving myself six months which I think is reasonable
• I go back to work in October. By then, I'd like to have sorted my hair out and refreshed my wardrobe
• Finally, I'm thinking of trying out a 'Scouse brow' - I dunno, we'll see on that one.