I was feeling really proud of myself, as over the past few weeks I have looked at my diet, recorded it, researched foods, signed up for the gym and even went down a size in jeans. Then I looked at the photos of me from Pride. Horrifying!! So, am I skinny yet? No!
The photos are not the only tell-tale sign from Pride that all is not as it should be. I can still hardly walk today. The night was not too bad. I was sore after taking photos of the parade and at two venues, but in all my ‘I am going to do the right thing’ bravado we walked all the way back to the car which we had left in Highgate. Yesterday a long hot shower helped me to get me to work in the afternoon however I did not leave the sofa when I got home. Too much for one very unfit and overweight forty year-old.
How did it come to this? I’m coming to realise that I hadplenty of bad food habits which didn’t really register. Other things in my life have always been more important.
I am not one for sweet foods or drinks, I don’t eat chocolate, I avoid ice-cream but I do love savoury foods. Give me cheese, French bread and a glass of wine and I’m in heaven… but it needs to be social. The actual process of eating for me is often about being with friends. I would look at the amount of food other people would eat though and not understand why I was so much bigger than them. The answer really is in my average daily habits.
Breakfast – didn’t exist. Too busy.
Lunch –Too busy! In the last year or so a staff member has called me every day to make sure I leave the office and eat. If I’m honest I often have to be frog-marched to lunch to take a break. Which leads to…
Snacks –the convenient high calorie snacks provided by local fast food outlets when late afternoon hunger kicks in were all too often more than just tempting.
Dinner – usually after work… around 8pm
Exercise – Walking the dog… and if you were to ask the dog about the frequency of these walks the dog would agree that they are not often enough.
I even had a two-year membership to caloriecount.com – with the iphone app, as well as emails every day reminding me that I am overweight. I had looked at the emails regularly – I enjoyed reading the success stories and seeing what a difference it has made to other people. Although each time I felt I came a little bit closer to doing something about my weight, in reality it resulted in me doing absolutely nothing to change the situation.
So, on setting out on The GET FIT Project I decided to use the tools I had instead of just looking at them. For the first week I used the calorie count iphone app to record my food diary, my exercise and water consumption. During which I learned that I don’t eat well. It’s not that I was eating huge amounts of calories but the calcium, vitamin A and iron levels in my food were too low and often my cholesterol was too high.
After one week I swapped to the Australian app My Fitness Pal. This is slightly easier to use as it has Australian brands and a great feature that tells me if I continue with this amount of calories I will weigh X in five weeks which changes every day depending on how good or bad I have been, a great incentive.
Normally, by this stage of a diet I am bored and finding excuses to not count my calories, not exercise and not change my habits. Trust me I have not been perfect by any means. I have had days of going out with friends, drinking wine, eating fabulous foods which are way too heavy in calories.
What I feel I have achieved though is managing my calories around these events in a better way than I would do normally. Whilst my target is 1210 calories per day some days I am over some days I am under but my average is good and I have started to eat foods which raise the levels of iron and calcium in my diet. Vitamin A was a bit easier, one carrot a day or a cup of sweet potato is all that is required to meet the daily requirements.
I’m pretty happy with how I’m travelling on the food front, but my lack of exercise is really letting me down. This week though, that’s all about to change as I (aargh!) tackle going to the gym. Wish me luck!
Read Alex’s previous blog entry 40 and not so fabulous
OUTinPerth’s Editor Graeme Watson and Publisher Alexandra Maltby have taken up the challenge of getting fit and healthy over the next few months. Follow their journey here on our website as well as on our Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Read Graeme’s first blog entry The Time Is Now
