Day 289 – Cruise PP

Morning weigh-in: 95.6kg

• Daily LOSS 0.3kg / 0.66lbs
• Total lost 16.7kg/36.74lbs

Watercheck – 2.6l – Tea, lemon cordial & water

Breakfast

• Microwaved eggs x3
• Fat free natural yoghurt with sweetener and 2 tbsp of oatbran mixed in
• Mug of tea

Lunch

• 4x venison sausages
• 2x venison burgers

Afternoon snack

• 150g strawberry Onken fat free yoghurt – the same nutritional values as Muller Light, but thicker and creamier!
• 1 slice of low fat cheese
• the slices of ham out of some leftover sandwiches from a meeting at work

Dinner

• Mexican mince with lean beef, fat free fromage frais and a teaspoon of salsa
• 1 mini babybel light
• 1 shapers choc pud (I’m not perfect! but close…)

Exercise

• 20 mins cycle to and from work (I felt like I worked hard, and got to work and back in record time!)
• 60 mins walk around the Meadows

Oh wow, what a beautiful day.  It was marvellously warm outside, and I did my walk with a spring in my step and joy in my heart.  I still need new music to listen to though, peeps – any suggestions for songs between 127 and 135 beats per minute? That’s my favourite walking speed – not too fast, but faster than my normal walking pace, which keeps me pushing the speed.  Unless I have a beat to push my stride, I tend to start daydreaming and dawdling… Especially on an evening as gorgeous as this!

Oh, and – the venison burgers and sausages are a total hit with my tastebuds.  UK Dukaneers, I went for the Highland Game brand, which you can get at most big Tescos stores.  Dunno about the other big supermarkets.  It’s low in fat, low in carbs but high in taste.  Now, I know that the burgers (not the sausages) are mixed in with some pork, but all’s you gotta do is look at that fat content – not bad.

I was tempted today by biscuits at work – as usual.  Biscuits should really not be allowed in communal areas while there’s someone there trying to resist them.  As Cheryl says, “would an alcoholic put a vodka in front of them?” NO!  But people consider alcoholism or a smoking addiction to be a much more valid kind of problem – those of us with problems with food are merely seen as weak. Grr.

Anyway, not to worry.  We shall prevail! How are we going with our spring-attack, Dukaneers? Are you joining me for the walking?  Clocks go forward this weekend remember, so we’ll have EVEN more light to walk by, hurray! 🙂 I went out today in just a teeshirt and sweatpants for the first time since last October, it was so “warm.”  And it was brilliant. 🙂

Cruise day 77 – PV

Morning weigh-in: 95.5kgs

• Daily LOSS 0.2kg/0.44lbs
• Total lost 16.8kg/36.96lbs

Watercheck – 2.5l

Breakfast

• oatbran porridge (I should have reduced oatbran content to take into account oatbran in muffins, but I still had one tub of porridge left over from the last batch… oops.)
• 2x microwaved eggs
• Mug of tea
• Moist vanilla muffin x1

Morning snack

• Moist vanilla muffin x1

Lunch

• 350g chicken strips with Simon’s fajita seasoning, marinated overnight – not bad! I’d never have thought about using cinnamon! But I ended up using half as much cayenne pepper (which in itself was too much) and twice as much lime juice, and smoked salt too – I like my salt.

Afternoon snack

• 150g strawberry low-fat yoghurt
• chocolate biscuit – oh noes!

Dinner

• Beef stirfry
• Moist vanilla muffin x3 (eek – I think having muffins in the cupboard available to snack on is a bad idea.  I always do better when there aren’t any available.  They’re all gone now, and I’m not making more.  I have not the self control.  Shame on you, fellow bloggers – you know who you are – for leading me astray with such tasty treats!)

Exercise

• 25 mins on the bike to and from work
• 50 mins walk around the Meadows

I had a bit of difficulty hitting my stride today on my walk.  It kinda felt like my feet weren’t hitting the ground properly, and I was definitely not walking with as long a step as usual – by the time I was just 15 minutes into my walk, I was already 45 seconds behind where I usually am.

Today was a bad day for the diet.  I had too many oatbran muffins.  I had a chocolate biscuit.  I didn’t reduce my oatbran porridge mix to compensate for the muffins and now I’ve probably had twice as much oatbran as I ought to have done.  Tomorrow is going to be a very pure protein day.  No tolerated foods.  Meat and eggs only (plus the oatbran, of course.)  After dinner, I’m feeling really bloated and gross, especially after cleaning out the muffin supply in the cupboard.  I’m not feeling guilty, just annoyed at myself – not the same thing.

Also – the chocolate biscuit made me feel TOTALLY queasy today.  Blargh.

I am steeling myself for a jump in weight tomorrow morning on the scales, and not just because it was a PV day today. *sigh*

However, one must again take the long view on this.  In the last two weeks I have lost 2.4kg (5.28lbs).  A colleague who’s been away following surgery saw me for the first time in 3 weeks, and the first thing he said was how healthy I was looking.  You gotta hold onto things like that. 😉

Cruise day 74 – PP

Morning weigh-in: 96.1kgs

• Daily LOSS 0.1kg/0.22lbs
• Total lost 16.1kg/35.42lbs

Watercheck – 1.7l

Breakfast

• oatbran porridge
• 2x microwaved eggs
• 2x lean beef sausages
• mug of coffee with sweetener

Lunch

• Lean beef burger patty

Afternoon snack

• Cafe latte (with semi skimmed milk and a sweetener) at the book festival

Dinner

• chicken breast pieces grilled on the George Foreman

Exercise

• 55 min walk + 10 min run around the Meadows.
• 25 mins cycling to & from a Book Festival event (fun!)

OK, so you know how yesterday was a bad day? Well, today was as equally a GOOD day – caught up with friends, went to the Book Festival (and got enthused about writing again – NaNoWriMo here I come!) cycled around town like a dervish, ate ONLY good stuff today – no tolerated foods (not sure if a skinny latte counts as a tolerated food?) and then I had my pace back and THEN some on the walk.  I even ran (mostly effortlessly) for 10 mins, and could have gone for longer if I’d not arrived home and it was dark.

I hate to go all pathetic blogger on you all, but I have to say thankyou all for your lovely encouraging comments (especially Sharon’s comment today just before my walk – that really spurred me on!)  Having lurkers come out of the woodwork and say that they’re following my journey as they do their own Dukan thing gives me the total warm fuzzies! It emphasises to me that it’s not just me doing this, changing old ingrained habits and often being forced into social pariah-ship; as if I could ever really be in any doubt though – Simon’s forum is a brilliant site, as are the blogs of all those I link to – Simon, Gentlemonkey, Yee-Shin, Julie, Carrie, Claire, Pearly & Patty (though she needs to blog more!) and many more!

So thankyou all for helping build and grow this community – they say that that’s why things like Weightwatchers work so well, because there’s a whole support network in place. What’s happening around Dukan is kinda similar, albeit online – and it certainly does it for me! 🙂

Onwards and downwards! 🙂

Cruise day 70 – PP

Morning weigh-in: 97.1kgs

• Daily LOSS 0.5kg/1.1lbs
• Total lost 15.2kg/33.44lbs

Watercheck – 2.2l by 21.55pm

Breakfast

• oatbran porridge
• 2x microwaved eggs
• cup of tea

Morning snack

• Strawberry Muller Light

Lunch

• Chicken fajita strips

Afternoon snack

• Cup of coffee with milk & sweetener
• Mini babybel light

Dinner

• 2 1/2 Pork loin steaks, trimmed of all fat

Exercise

• 25 minutes cycling to and from work
• 70 min walk around the Meadows

Last day of my mini attack, and I can’t WAIT for vegetables again tomorrow.  I’m planning to take some of my frozen veggie soup to work, and am going to enjoy EVERY spoonful.

Nice result on the scales this morning too – down to my lowest weight since starting all this.  I was feeling fantastic this afternoon for my walk too – I’d only planned on doing a 45min buzz around the Meadows, but it was such a lovely brisk evening and the music from my walking playlist was reaching down into my legs and sending me on longer faster strides, so I ended up deciding to take advantage of the feeling, and go for a big longer. Before I knew it, my walk timer had pinged past an hour, and it was time to head home! 🙂

Special shout-out today to one of my favorite Californians, JeanneB, who’s decided to start the Dukan Diet.  I’ve hopefully given enough advice for the shopping list for Attack – but if anyone has any suggestions for the shopping list, please add them to the comments! 🙂

Of course, my first advice to anyone starting the diet is to read the BOOK – from cover to cover!! It’s a delightful read, full of anecdotes and logic, and is very accessible – very well translated from the French (though some of the French idioms peek their way through sometimes, but in the most charming of ways)

Onwards and upwards (or downwards, as the case may be…)

Cruise day 58 – PP

Waiting for the Whoosh…

Morning weigh-in: 99.2

• Daily loss 0.0kg/0.0lbs
• Total lost 13.1kg/28.82lb

Watercheck – 1.8l by 21.00 – incl tea and tapwater

Breakfast

• 2x microwaved egg
• oatbran porridge (reduced oatbran to compensate for muffins later)
• cup of tea

Morning snack

• Cup of tea
• Chocolate oatbran muffin

Lunch

• Chicken fajita thigh pieces

Afternoon snack

• Cup of coffee
• Chocolate oatbran muffin

Dinner

• Chicken fajita pieces
• 2x pork meatball with yoghurt dip

Exercise

• 25 min cycle to and from work
• 20 min cycle around town for errands at lunch time
• 55 min walk around the Meadows + 8 min run

So, yet another day in the 99s.  I think (I hope!) this is the pre-whoosh plateau – my eating habits and my exercise habits haven’t changed, so I suppose it must be the water retention that my fat-cells do before finally giving up and getting rid of all the water.  I’m not getting disheartened, I’m just gonna plough on through and keep doing what I’m doing. 🙂

This evening was just beautiful for a walk/run.  The Edinburgh Festival is in full swing, and a freak combination of ominous looking storm clouds and spontaneous sunlight peeking through made the light pretty special.  I ended up zig-zagging my way around all the various criss-crossing paths in the park, doing three sides of each triangle but never once retracing my steps.  And it was EASY! These past few days, walking has been a bit tiring, and sometimes I’d be struggling to keep up with the music.  But today everything felt smooth and glidey, no effort at all, hence back to running again.  I’m hoping that this may be my body getting ready to whoosh away the excess water, cause I’m getting pretty sick of this station…

Oh, and I’d also like to point out – today: no tolerated foods, unless you count the chocolate oatbran muffins, which contained part of my daily oatbran allowance so they were kinda neccessary! 😉

Cruise day 46 – PP

Morning weigh-in: 101.2

• Daily LOSS 0.1kg/0.22lbs
• Total lost 11.1kg/24.42lb

Watercheck – 1.4l by 20.30

Breakfast

• 2x scrambled egg
• Cup of coffee with milk
• 3x lean beef sausage

Lunch

• 1x lean beef sausage

Dinner

• Rump steak
• fat free yoghurt with oatbran & 1/2 tsp cocoa
• mini babybel light
• 2x oatbran muffins

Exercise

• 50 minutes cycling around running errands (including cycling up the length of the Royal Mile
• 35 mins walk around the Meadows

My sneaky scales played tricks on me this morning – I couldn’t get a constant reading from them – the first reading they gave me was 100.9 – jubilation! But I always do more than one morning weigh-in and it settles.  The second reading was 101.7 – no jubilating. A few more reading later, I finally got the scales to settle down on 101.2, but I have no real idea which reading was correct.  Especially as, once I came back from my cycle, I once again weighed 100.9 (yes, some obsessive weighing.  Better than compulsive eating, right?)

Energy levels, despite the long cycle and walk, were quite low today.  I did no running for my after-dinner walk, and hardly had to backtrack and criss-cross the Meadows at all to make sure I walked for teh full 30 mins – in fact, it took five mins longer than usual because I wasn’t able to walk at a quick enough pace for my fave walking tracks.  I’ve been thinking about what Gentlemonkey said about red meat – I’ve not been getting much iron recently.  So, my meat intake today was entirely red meat – I’ll be interested to note my energy levels tomorrow!

Hips are also a bit sore from my 8 minute (sore from 8 minutes?!) run yesterday.  J says that when he started running again, his hip joints were sore too, but I’m not convinced about the wisdom of running when I’m carrying around my kinda pounds.  The fitness level is there to run, but maybe I should take it easy.  Advice gratefully received if there are any Dukan runners out there…

One last comment: I didn’t have my oatbran porridge for brekkie today, so in order to get my oatbran intake, I had a tablespoon with Yoghurt at dinner, and some chocolate oatbran muffins at the same time.  My god do I ever feel bloated now! The last time I remember having the same feeling of bloat was actually the last time I had oatbran, muffins and yoghurt together.  I won’t be trying that combo again… Ugh.

My fave walking tracks

Great disco tracks for a good walking pace

1. YMCA – The Village People. A nice brisk pace without feeling like you’re having to push it.
2. Canned Heat – Jamiroquai: I love this song so much – reminds me of that great dance scene in Centre Stage
3. I Gotta Feeling – Black Eyed Peas: If you’ve not yet seen the live Black Eyed Peas concert with Oprah Winfrey, you gotta go check it out on Youtube like, NOW! And you’ll love this song foreverafter, if you don’t already.
4. Shake Your Groove Thing – Peaches & Herbs: This is always the one that I feel I need to start running too – it’s pretty fast for walking, so I feel a bit like I’m tripping over my toes, but if I can keep up, then it’s not a huge stretch to fall into a gentle jog.  Walking very fast after running to this feels like a breeze.
5. September – Earth Wind & Fire: A good one for warming up or cooling down – a fairly easy pace, but still brisk
6. I Love the Nightlife – Alicia Bridges: A good hip-swingin’ choon at a great pace.
7. Young Hearts Run Free – Candi Station: another good one for warming up or cooling down.
8. It’s Raining Men – Weather Girls: too fast to walk to, to slow to run to.  However, the original version by the Weather Girls has all disco soul a girl could ask for – it gets my blood pumping!
9. We Are Family – Sister Sledge: great for the end of the walk – the pace is a little slower so I can lengthen my stride and swing my hips a bit, which helps loosen me up.