As many of my friends and colleagues are aware, about 12 years ago, I lost a large amount of body weight. It was eight stone or 50.8 kgs. To say that was life-changing would be an understatement. I started work as a Slimming World Consultant, met Kathy, moved to Stoke Fleming with Kathy and, two years later, we were married.
Over the intervening years, my weight has been a yoyo. At the moment, I'm heavier than I would wish to be at my age, especially as I'm coming up to my yearly MOT with my GP.
Having been a Slimming World Consultant for a couple of years, I know it is one of the best ways to lose weight successfully. Slimming World, however, taught me to have an open mind, and with this open mind, on Monday, I started something very different for the next three weeks. On Monday, I started a 21-day Purify Programme.
The first morning started well. I would typically load coffee beans into my grinder and heat the water in my swan-naked kettle to just the right temperature. Instead, the big kettle was out on, and in my mug was a peppermint and liquorice tea bag. I'm usually good at having breakfast each morning, and this morning, although different, I started with dairy-free coconut yoghurt with frozen fruits and added chia and sesame seeds. Surprisingly, that was very tasty and filling, and along with the tea, it was a satisfying start to the day.
Lunch is always a challenge where I work within the NHS. Almost every day, we end up having our lunches at our desks. That is not ideal and happens as there are no welfare facilities where we can be away from our desks for breaks. We bring it up regularly at meetings and with our Unions.
Ok, what did I have for lunch? A mix of fresh veggies, bean sprouts, and hummus provided a filling lunch. Snacks throughout the day were fruit and a mixture of pumpkin and sunflower seeds toasted with Tamari sauce.
Dinner was a lovely and hearty Mushroom soup made by my beautiful wife with some Buckwheat bread, a collaboration between us. The bread is a bit of an acquired taste, but with a lick of a plant-based spread on it, it was passible. The rest of the evening, I snacked on fruit until nine o'clock, which is chocolate time in this household. Murphy dog knows what time it is, and he's ready for his Scooby Doo Chocolate. For the humans, it was a square of 80% chocolate.
Tuesday morning…disaster.
Sadly, my wife had a horrendous toothache. A trip to the Dentist confirmed that root canal work was urgently needed. She had to wait until Thursday before the Dentist could complete the required work. Although not pain-free, Kathy is at least in a lot less pain than she was. As she is now on antibiotics and the purpose of the purifying programme is to put new probiotics into our diets, we decided that it was best to pause for a week or two. We kept to our planned diary and gluten-free diet, and we have both lost a substantial amount of weight, which is a very positive end to the week.
I started this piece earlier in the week and hoped it would be a chronicle of the week of changing my eating habits. I achieved that in a small way. I do not intend to blog about any weight loss over the coming weeks, but I will come back to write about the purifying programme in a couple of weeks.
After a busy week at work, in which we had the Prime Minister urging us to provide the services that we have been doing for many years, It has been nice to sit quietly and complete another week's piece for the blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment