Betty

On Saturday night we had dinner at a French restaurant to celebrate a friend’s birthday, and the food was spectacular - so I indulged on pan fried goose liver, roasted suckling pig and chocolate cake!  There were a few lettuce leaves and grapes in there somewhere, but add all that food to the wine and martinis and it made for a rather large calorie bill at the end of the evening!

I find it incredibly hard to make the right choices when I’m eating out, I think because it’s a chance to eat food that I don’t/can’t cook at home, and all my good intentions on the way to the restaurant get thrown out of the window the minute I see the menu.   I know this is going to be hard for me and it’s going to take a lot of discipline that I’m not sure I’ve got yet.

This week is going to be a tough one for me food-wise, as I have lunch with girlfriends on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, as well as a party on Saturday night.   So any tips on how to eat sensibly when eating out would be very much appreciated…….!!

Finally the storm as passed; the wind died down overnight and after more rain this morning, there’s actually a bit of blue sky finally peeking through the clouds!  I don’t think anyone’s been seriously hurt in Hong Kong, so that’s a huge relief - just a lot of clearing up to do with fallen trees and landslides in the territory.

Most importantly (for me!), I managed to avoid eating hot dogs and snacks and drinking beer all day, which is my usual response to a typhoon!

I’ve also finally worked out more about how the webiste works, especially how to have a blog name as well as my real name! And I’ve discovered I can put up more information about myself, which I’ve done.  With all the support and encouragement I’ve had so far, this is certainly the place for me to be while I’m on my weight loss journey, so I think I’m going to be here for a while! And I hope I can reciprocate all the good will.

Hong Kong is being blown away today;  Typhoon Nuri is only 40 miles away and heading straight for us, so I’m at home all day with the windows rattling and everything tied down.

My new healthy lifestyle was also blown away yesterday by far too much alcohol.  I’d weighed myself first thing, and found I’d lost 2 lbs, so I was completely motivated to stay on track, and did so right up to and including dinner at a fabulous spanish tapas bar.  But we went on afterwards to a concert and everyone was fun and cheerful, so we all stayed out too late and drank too much.  However, it was a very sobering experience filling in my food journal today and realising that I’d consumed over 2000 calories in alcohol alone.

Usually this makes me feel like I’ve “broken my diet”, but for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like that this morning!  Today I feel that I can just carry on where I left off because this isn’t about sticking to a diet, it’s about a totally different lifestyle and days like yesterday are going to happen, so just learn from them, put them to one side and get on with it!

So that’s what I’m going to do - straight back to good food and plenty of exercise!! And looking forward to the weekend after Typhoon Nuri has passed.

My new lifestyle (I refuse to call it a diet!) is actually going well so far.  Thanks so much to everyone who has left a comment for me - I am delighted at how encouraging everyone has been and it really is helping me keep focussed.  I’ve exercised every day and tried hard to eat the right food.  I’m going to have a weigh in tomorrow.  I know it’s only been three days, but I think Thursday is the right day for me to weigh each week rather than straight after a weekend.

I had a wonderful lunch today, so let me share my recipe with you:

Prawn, Lime and Papaya Salad: Squeeze the juice of a whole lime over 6 headless, shelled and deveined prawns.  Season well and leave for 5 minutes.  Heat a wok until smoking.  Add a teaspoon of olive oil, the prawns and half of the lime juice.  Stir fry fry for 3 minutes.  Add some finely chopped red chilli and the remaining lime juice, and simmer for 1 minute. Mix with a serving of brown rice, 1/4 of a small papaya, 1 scallion, 30 g radishes, 1 tablespoon chopped coriander and seasoning to taste.

Thanks again everyone and fingers crossed that there will be some weight loss to report tomorrow!

I’m not sure if this is the best week or the worst week to be starting to try and lead a new lifestyle.  Sadness seems to be all around at the moment.  I have friends and friends of friends who have variously and tragically been killed in a plane crash, diagnosed with breast cancer, died of septeceamica, and permenantly brain damaged in a boating accident - all four in the last couple of days.   It’s times like these that usually make me reach for the wine or the chocolates (or both), but I seem somehow to be able to resist; it’s a hard time for everyone at the moment and I suppose these things just make my own problems seem small in comparison.

I gave up smoking last year a week before Christmas on the basis that if I could handle Christmas and New Year without cigarettes, then I could handle just about any situation.  And I did.  So maybe that’s what this week is about; if I can stay strong this week, there’s no excuse because tragedies in life like these can’t all come along together again like they have today.

It may be hard to believe from my posts so far, but I’m usually a pretty cheerful person!! Tomorrow there will be something cheerful to report!