The day started with writing and then our lovely Water Babes class. It followed with the only cup of black filter coffee I have in a day.

 
I do love Water Babes! It makes me feel so good.  And yesterday I swam 30 laps without stopping in my 15 metre long pool. Believe me, you need a pool in the hot northern reaches of this land. Summer is one long sweat, and if sweating could make us lose weight, I would be Twiggy by now, or I would have slipped down the plughole in the bath.

 
When I arrived here 17 years ago I immediately started putting on weight. On speaking to the leader of Weight Watchers at that time, she told me that a doctor had addressed the WW gathering a few weeks before and what she told me has stuck in my mind ever since. I might not say it the way he did, but this is my understanding.

In a hot climate such as ours, our bodies get really warm and our metabolism slows down. The doctor suggested that we drink iced water and exercise in air conditioned rooms. Now I know that many nutritionists and health practitioners suggest room temperature water, which I love and drink copiously. However, iced water is so very welcome on a hot day, and it begs a trial, so I am going to experiment with it. Interesting about the metabolism though. I think I will consult Google Scholar on that one.

 
Needless to say, here in our sunny clime, we do not need vitamin D supplements. My skin is turning a light gold from the pool activities and somehow one always looks that little bit healthier with a bit of tan. My legs are still milky white, but then again, I hardly ever show them! My beautiful daughter Jennifer has black skin and even she tans. Strange but amazing what the sun does for us – warms us and feeds us with vitamins – and like a little plant when it is fed good compost and kept free of pesticides and poisons (read preservatives and white carbs) we grow strong and beautiful.

 
It really is important that we see ourselves as beautiful. That we speak the language of kindness to ourselves as well as others. Go on. Say it…I am indeed beautiful and I love the me I am. Dare you…

 
Just because I am fat (as I said – tell it like it is) does not mean that I cannot strike a confident pose, a sexy pose even:) I am what I am inside…my spirit is playful and I am learning all the time. So exciting. I love life…and I am learning to love sincerely. My friends, my family, the beautiful planet that nurtures me. It is like melting into Source (whatever your name for the Centre of All) and realising just how much a part we all are of this awesome thing called Love. How the fibre of our spider’s webs are inextricably linked. We are indeed one.

 
OK. Enough rambling. Back to food!

 
Noon meal, (first of the day) is to be a lentil and vegetable curry type stew/soup thing. Don’t you love making up dishes from whatever is in the fridge? Spices are a must, especially cayenne and turmeric. If you ask Aunty G (Google/Google Scholar) about the health benefits, you will find that cayenne helps the heart as well as a whole bunch of other things and turmeric is anti-inflammatory and is a great after-dinner/meal drink with 50/50 plain yogurt and water. Yum. In fact, I might just have one after lunch.

 
Let you know later about the Lentil and Veg recipe…off to cook

I did not starve and I drank wine and had ice-cream and chocolate as well. And a couple of cookies and a real junk food meal – KFC with chips and coleslaw! Yep. I did take the skin off the chicken and used organic tomato sauce from Woolies with the chips

Really, I just had more raw vegetables and a little more fruit in between all the high carb food and I ate alkaline as far as I could. It is a great way to think. Thinking alkaline. And of course, I have been exercising in the pool for an hour a day, five times in seven days. My absolute best. So weightless and divine, but boy am I feeling stronger! Very yum with wasabi mayo.

Take a tortilla (ok that’s acid) /thin crepe/lettuce leaf, whatever, and cut up some veggies into strips. Spread wrap with some wasabi mayo/cream cheese/cottage cheese/mayo and yogurt, again whatever you fancy, and fill with your veggies, roll up tight and cut on the diagonal. And just because you have cut up a lot of veggies, you put them on the side and eat them as well. This was one of my snack-lunches.

This morning was a banana (alkaline) after one hour of Water Babes and a little while later 2 small slices of olive ciabatta toast, drizzzled with olive oil and a cup of black Italian Roast freshly ground coffee, no sugar. If I did take sugar I would have used Stevia or Xylitol. And if I was desperate and had no sugar I would have dipped a clean spoon into the coffee and put it into whatever sugar (preferably muscovado or demerara) and had a wet teaspoon of sugar in my coffee. Very rarely though.

I am heading for a green smoothie at 12. All alkaline. Watercress, rocket and some lettuce, with an apple and a some ginger, blended with some cold water. I will also put some almonds in water in the fridge to soak. 

Activity will be a little more than usual today. Normally I sit and write or sit and stand to paint, so I really am sedentary most of the time, but today I am going to start packing for the new farm house. Everything that I need with NO CLUTTER!!!  While I am decluttering my body I shall be decluttering my house, garage, carport, in fact, my life. Go to Flylady.net to see some excellent tips on how to declutter your life. Starting with a Shiny Sink (which I still don’t get right all the time). But I love to declutter when I get into it.

So, off to to have my green smoothie and then pack. 

Nothing is forbidden.

Concentrate on eating Alkaline 80% Acid 20%

http://www.acidalkalinediet.com/Alkaline-Foods-Chart.htm

Main foods:  80%

Fruit one or two a day (melons to be eaten alone)

Vegetables – at least three – especially green and raw where possible

Green Smoothies

Fermented vegetables (probiotics – kimchi, raw sauerkraut)

Seeds

Nuts and Nut Butters – especially almonds

Lentils and beans according to the alkaline/acid chart

Legumes/pulses according to the alkaline/acid chart

Grains: bread, pasta, flour, cereals, rice etc. according to the alkaline/acid chart

Quinoa

Millet

Buttermilk

Yogurt

Lassi – Yogurt and water with turmeric after a meal

Whey Protein Smoothies

Fish

Poultry

Pork

Omega 3 oils/EV Olive oil/Coconut oil/Nut & Seed oils

Apple Cider Vinegar /Balsamic/Verjuice/Lemon Juice

All herbs and spices

70% to 85% dark chocolate

Water and herb teas/ginger tea

Less:

Butter/Animal fats

Dairy – Cheeses, Milk

Tea

Coffee

Alcohol (Beer/Cider/Wine/Other)

Minimum:

Red meat

High Starch Vegetables (potatoes/pumpkin)

Chocolate

Ice cream

Cookies

Cake

Exercise: 

Aquaerobics/Swimming/Chair Exercises/Yoga/Weights

Monday’s Food Plan

7:30 – Ginger Tea

8:00 – Mango & Papaya Smoothie with ground flaxseed. Grind them fresh as they go rancid quickly.

9:00 – Exercise – Water Babes in the pool for one hour

10:30 – 50g Oats & 5 Almonds soaked overnight. This helps to digest them better.

12 noon – Butternut and cannellini bean soup with 1 slice wholegrain bread, no butter, and a salad

15:00 – Green smoothie made from rocket, lettuce, apple and ginger

19:00 – 80g Cold roast chicken (no skin) with lots of salad veggies with feta cheese and balsamic vinaigrette dressing

                One Chocolate Brownie and some red wine

With this plan in place it is good night!

I am doing something new, for this is the journal of My Journey to Healthy and Happy.  I have a Plan that is hatching as I go… and a little sign that says Live the Life You’ve Imagined.

My many years of struggle with obesity (I will say it like it is), has come to a most spectacular place. This is the most I have ever weighed. Huge. So I have made a plan and I have asked for help. It is a good step I have taken. I now have a support team who, happily, agreed to let this Plan be openly and selfishly all about me. The team comprises my friend and assistant Kathy O and my ‘son’ JB, (he adopted me:) who is my personal trainer in the pool with oodles of noodles…and my arms are beginning to feel it already after two days.

These friends allow me ramble and they exercise with me and we all have a good laugh. It is so encouraging. I cannot thank them enough for agreeing to help me. No, I am not an island. They have taken photographs of me in my bathing costume, (I smiled and fooled around but I am not looking forward to seeing those pics) recording the momentous occasion marking my Grand Intention. Weights and measure have all been recorded and saved.

Why am I doing this?

If you eat 6 chocolate sweets, have two helpings of food, drain your wine glass in order to refill it and then have a large bowl of ice cream, with another chocolate afterwards, you would know why you are fat, yes? I saw this in a friend and then I saw it in myself. It was very sad and also quite an epiphany. We were living in denial and acting mindlessly. I saw how we were clinging to our many, various diet books, spouting information on great ways to lose weight, the nutritional value of foods, the protein carb discussion, the newest diet discovery. Our clever minds were filled with information overload and yet with years of reading and research, trials, tribulations and failures, we were still (I will say it again) obese. Still struggling. Still stuffing our faces and getting more and more stressed and upset about our weight.

This experience got me thinking very deeply and the only thing I could think of to do to help myself and hopefully others in my position is to blog an honest journey on this road I’m travelling, while I face myself. Face facts and deal with them honestly, as best I know how.

I have devised an eating plan – MOD – My Own Diet. I would urge any and every overweight person to do the same. Make it up from good information, good sense and your own desires. Work your favourites into your daily life. As I go along on this Blog, my discoveries will be written up here.

My exercise routine includes exercising in the water – weightless what bliss! A full massage as I run and leap like a ballerina in the water. The second exercise is in a chair. Yes, seated exercises for the obese, the frail, the disabled, the recuperating, for the office and even the lazy. Ask Aunty G (Google) and go to YouTube where you will find a plethora of wonderful little exercise snippets from a few minutes to nearly an hour.  Yoga in a chair is lovely. There are even seated Sun Salutations a-plenty. Because of these chair exercises, I actually did some exercise today on my day off and it feels good.

So the first step of the Plan has made its appearance. Today is the first day of the Journey.

Step 1: Make up your own MOD then Ask for Help and Share your Plan

Next: The Food Plan