DAY 1 OF MY 5 STONE CHALLENGE - COMPLETE!!

I can’t quite believe it’s finally here!  After weeks of researching and planning, the challenge has begun and I’m feeling better than ever about it.  Not nervous or concerned, just absolutely focused on achieving the end result – a 5 stone weight loss in 8 months. As I’ve said previously, for me, this is an opportunity to get fit and live a healthier lifestyle, which I hope will mean I lose weight along the way too.  I’m not looking for a miracle cure.  I entirely appreciate the only way to do this and succeed long-term, is through increased exercise with portion and calorie control.  I have already planned a number of simple changes like eating breakfast in the morning to get my metabolism going instead of getting to 11.30am and wanting to eat a horse!  I will also stop eating dinner around 10pm.  I spoke with a doctor over the weekend who told me that the body needs to focus its energy on repairing the cells in your body whilst you sleep, not breakdown foods, which made sense to me.  I’ve coupled this with increased exercise – things I can do daily as part of my usual routine rather than pushing myself to get into a gym.  Simple things at first, like walking up and down the escalators at underground stations and doing the same in my office rather than using the lift.  Eventually I will build that up to including walking to and from my home to Epping station, which is about 4 miles and takes about one and half hours to walk.  Initially, I’ll walk one way, slowly building up to walk to and from the station.  I’m the first to admit how horrific my fitness levels are and I’m a strong believer in the idiom ‘Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey’…!!

Anyway, with day 1 almost complete, I still feel great and am getting more prepared for the weeks ahead.  Had a nice yogurt and granola and banana this morning for breakfast, some minestrone soup for lunch and a poached salmon salad for dinner.  All things I love to eat, I’ve just cut out any of the snacks and sauces and avoided the carbs.