Square 1

This week has gone from bad to worse. After letting go at the weekend, instead of picking up where I left of on Monday I’ve just slipped further and further back to my old ways. Yesterday, my diet consisted of a full english breakfast, a donner kebab and chips, 3 cadbury’s creme eggs, a crunchie, and a slice of coffe cake. In other words a big bucket of lard and sugar.  The only slight hint of any positive progress was that I didn’t (quite) finish everything at my two meals, but that really is clutching at straws.

I’m worried that I’ve now had three days of “fresh start” that has lapsed into complete failure. This is a familiar pattern from dieting days, and one I am desperate to avoid. So today’s goals are just

a) Have a proper breakfast, i.e porridge/fruit/OJ – tick

b) Walk to the station & back. Done the first half, and difficult to get out of the walk back now. No reason to either, the weather is fine & mild, and I’d rather walk than take a bus any day.

Not setting any other goals today. Tomorrow my goal is to have a decent walk, at least an hour, and eat slower & more conciously, and that’s it. I need to get some success chalked up.

I’ve discovered Porridge!

Ok, not “discovered” in the sense that Fleming discovered penicillin, I do know it’s been around for a while. My Dad used to eat it now and again when I was a kid and it just looked like sludge to me. Tasted it once, hated it, and never tried again for probably 35 years or so.

However, porridge, I have learned in recent research, is made of complex carbohydrates which release their energy slowly and steadily. I’ve also discovered that most breakfast cereals, even those you wouldn’t think of as sweet like cornflakes, are around 30% sugar, and contain more calories per 100g than some brands of chocolate.   And with just a little something for flavour and sweetness, it really doesn’t taste too bad. I wouldn’t eat it for entertainment, but that’s not what breakfast is about, I’m either late for work or supervising children.

So I now have a new staple breakfast – porridge made with skimmed milk, with fruit of some description on top (this week it will be blueberries, which were half price), and a small glass of fresh orange. I plan to vary this by cooking the odd poached egg and maybe  a mini-English once in a while, when I’ve got time – but that isn’t likely to be on weekdays. I’m indulging myself by squeezing real oranges – they are so much nicer than the stuff out of cartons. And because they are expensive, and time consuming, I am drinking a small wine glass full  (2 large oranges) instead of the half pint or so I’d have out of a carton. I’m even enjoying this, and damn, I feel righteous. It works too, this slow release stuff, stops me getting hungry again for hours.  If I eat cornflakes for breakfast then get a train to work I usually want to buy something like a McMuffin or bacon roll at the station when I arrive.  A bowl of porridge sees me through to lunch no problem.