3rd Weekend Down - Days 17-19

What a bloody mess Friday turned out to be, I started the morning off by trying to find a tyre replacement place, eventually got sorted at Superquick in Sea Point. 900 Bucks later I had a new tyre. Bleh! Not the best way to start your day, especially not a week before payday.

Anywhoo, the diet damage done by the previous evenings shenanigans also played heavily on me, so much so that I decided to do another semi-fasted day.

I had my 2l of water and split a summer salad into 4 portions. I also ensure that my apple was split into 2. This pretty much made up my daily meals. Now I have been told by one of my mates, who is a dietician that this could work for some but not necessarily for all - she has advised that fasting even for short periods of time may actually halt my metabolism entirely - Bleh, okay then, thanks for the heads up love, unfortunately I don't have 2k right now to run a full blood panel and see exactly what would work for my specific body - for the most part though I feel that I am trying and eventually will stumble onto what works for me - this is about a change in general and not so much a diet, yes I want to kick the pounds too, and with enough exercise I'm sure they will abate. I am seeing centimeter loss and lets face it, most sports professionals/trainers etc will tell you that the real results you will only start noticing in yourself between 4-8 weeks, so we still have a ways to go.

I am back on the alcohol free stint until Wednesday of next week. That makes 22 Days yes, but remember I lapsed on Thursday so I had to add another day.

So regardless of having had several explanations I was still very dismayed and completely thrown by the lack of weight lost over the last 2 and a half weeks but have been told that this could also be linked to my current emotional state. I guess that’s valid, but didn’t quite realize how big of an effect your emotional state/well-being has on weight loss – until I started researching this.

In particular I was floored to find the clinical trials and psychological studies that had been done over the course of the last 2 decades. These were done on a variety of people trying to lose weight. All different shapes and sizes as well as racial demographics. Some only wanting to lose 5pounds others 100pounds. It was strange to find that a whole lot of them showed that a real key to weight loss was not diet or exercise, but is instead a person's emotional state.  A recent study inclusive of questionnaire discovered that 90 percent of the participants ignored the psychological link between food and exercise.

Okay, so yes. I am an emotional eater, yes I have been sad and angry recently. Yes my personal life is an absolute disaster right now…so maybe I need to start seriously focusing on getting my mind right too. The truth is that there are a lot of logistics involved in happiness. So I will now start actively trying to sort out my “shit”. We all have baggage, some only a handbag others a duffel some even vans and vans full of baggage. So in an attempt to “declutter” my personal baggage I will work on some much needed emotional stability, with my recent relocation, being away from my kids(they are furry) and trying the long-distance thing with my boyfriend it has been putting a heavy strain on my chi. Furthermore missing friends and family is hard, but there are always ways around things. I need to go and set a realistic game plan into motion to figure out what I want in life and in love.

Jawbone UP3 Data:

Step Goal: 6500     Actual: 6628

Sleep Goal: 7hr      Actual: 4h22m (Bleh)

Food Intake:

2l Water

Coffee: 3 Cups, 1 Brown Sugar, Milk

Woolies Summer Salad with 1 can of Tuna(in Water)

1 Medium Apple

Saturday Day 18

The day started out fairly normal, I did my washing and went for a stroll in the vineyard. I saw the strangest thing ever! A Hadeda chasing Ducks out of a tree! Yes you heard me right. Now this is not something you see in Gauteng people. You may see ducks on a pond but certainly not in high trees.

A lot of my day was spent on studies and binge watching Felicity. There are so many now famous actors who had small roles in that show. It’s actually funny that I didn’t remember them before now.

Here’s a quick list of the stars and their most recent shows.

Bethany Joy Lenz – Hayley in One Tree Hill

Tyra Banks – Top Model and now her own Talk show

Donald Faison – Best known as Turk from Scrubs

Eddie Cahill – CSI NY, Under the Dome

Christopher Gorham – He played Harrison in the 2000’s tv show Popular and now recently played Auggie in Covert Affairs and can be seen as Wyatt in Heartbeat.

Simon Rex  - Scary Movie 3,4 & 5

Amy Smart – Many movies, recently played Allison in Justified

I didn’t feel like cooking at all this weekend, I did make myself a 2 egg omelette in the morning, filled with mushroom, onion, green pepper and cheese. But when it came to lunch and dinner I opted for a delicious Caesar Salad from Woolies which I split over the 2 mealtimes.

Jawbone UP3 Data:

Step Goal: 6500             Actual: 4991 (Epic Fail)

Sleep Goal: 7hr              Actual: 8hr40m

Sunday – Day 19

Sunday started out all smoggy – for all intent and purpose it looked like it would be a day spent indoors, but with some luck this swung around and by 12PM the sky was clear. For me it was a day of reflection and some much needed introspection. I took a long stroll in the garden, past the pond through the vineyard –  after which I spent some time with my awesome neighbours (They are horses by the way). There are 5 of them, right next door and they are super friendly. I don't know there is something about stroking a horse and looking into it's eyes.

In the afternoon I went to spend some time at my dune.  There were some gorgeous sail boats sailing on the turquoise water – I want one!

That is something I love doing, sailing, yes it's hard and yes we got stuck on a hobie cad in Mauritius for a while, a loooooong while. But sailing is a blast, fishing and diving are blasts too and they all go hand in hand together. Don't get me wrong I'll take a speed boat too, but sailing with wind, is just something else. Ideally I would like to get a combination boat, with sails and a powerful engine.



 

A song in particular that helped me today with my "introspection" is 'Catch & Release" - Matt Simons

Do yourselves a favour and really listen to the words, ah, such a great song. 




The food day was pretty boring but at least I cooked again.

Breakfast - 2 Egg Omlette
                   Cheese, Tomato, Mushroom, Green Pepper

Lunch - Green Salad - Lettuce, Cucumber, Onion, Cherry Tomato, Feta

Dinner: Beef, Green Beans & Baked Mushrooms

Ingredients: 100g Tenderised Steak
                       80g Portobello Mushrooms
                       80g Green Beans
                       30g Grated Cheese
                       5-10g Cream Cheese
                       5-10g Pesto (Mine is made  
                        with Red Pepper, Garlic, Cashews, Spices and Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
10ml Sweet Chili Sauce
10ml Soy Sauce (Can be reduced salt soy too)


Here's the video, it really is super easy! Remember to liven things up through spices.

Phuza Thursday #Day16

In South Africa we have 11 official languages, "phuza" is the Zulu word for “drink”  so a few years ago, society decided that we South Africans like to party on Thursdays too and it was aptly renamed Phuza Thursday’s since it’s inception, many bars, pubs, clubs and restaurants have jumped on the bandwagon and tend to have great live music, as well as drink & food specials running on Thursdays.

Today was not a typical diet regime Thursday, but as mentioned on Monday I knew we would be meeting an institutional partner for drinks after work so I had to provision for those extra calories.  I did this by doing a semi-fasted day.

I had no breakfast or mid-morning snack and had a Caesar salad as a late lunch, to at least line the stomach.

My Chicken Caesar Salad consisted of:

Grilled chicken, Parmesan shavings, Baby Cos Salad and an Anchovy dressing, I did get them to leave the croutons out. There was no egg or bacon in this particular Caesar salad.

I did end up having 3 glasses of Chenin Blanc – 360 Calories
(There are 120 calories in 1 5 fluid ounce serving of Chenin Blanc Wine) 4 Tequila’s – 256 calories( depending on the variant of Tequila there are between 64-69 Calories in a tequila shot.)

This Tequila video is hilarious. 

 




Yeah, in hindsight we ended up having a bit of a late night. But do not be worried, for every glass of vino, I had a glass of water too – this upped my intake of water to 3l for the day, which should help mitigate the damage done by the booze.

I think that realistically it’s okay to “fall off the horse” so to speak, as long as you take your flops into account and ensure you get right back on the horse.

The events of the evening unfortunately did not end there, on the way home I got a flat tyre - FANFUCKING TASTIC! I was between Camps Bay and Hout Bay on an outstretch of road with poor signal. 1st For Women, my insurer were not reachable on their "Guardian Angels" line, so essentially I was Fucked.

I couldn't believe the amount of vehicles who just zoomed by - bearing in mind that I was woman alone at roughly now 12:00AM in the morning. After about the 15th car that just zipped by, I decided to actively wave the next one down - and low and behold they stopped! There are still good people in the world. Initially we tried to change the tyre ourselves but for some reason my "jack" did not have a key. Shame my rescuers as they are now aptly called, offered to use theirs and  in the process it got bent. So that idea was a wash. Eventually after about another 15 min I was able to get a hold of 1st for women, they advised that their driver would be about an hour.

While we waited for the "Guardian Angel" to arrive the 3 of us had a great conversation - they happened to be muso's too. It's really rare to just randomly meet such like minded people, nevertheless we did.  We wanted to get the spare wheel pumped up so it would be a quick tyre change, unfortunately the "car gods" had other plans for me, now of all times, my car's lighter was stuck!!!!! Argh sometimes the saying: "Anything that can go wrong...will" Is too bloody true! Luckily their lighter worked just fine so we did manage to get the spare wheel pumped up. It was closer to 1.5 hours, before the  "Guardian Angel" got there. Through all of this I have to say both Eben and Jana were awesome, they didn't have to wait for me, but they did. My tyre was changed and we all got away from there at around 1:40AM, just goes to show, that you can make friends in the most obb places.

Daily Data:

Water: 3l
Wine: 3 x 120ml Chenin Blanc
Tequila: 4 x 25ml Shots 
Food: Chicken Ceasar Salad 

Jawbone UP3 Tracker Data:
Step Goal: 6500                Actual: 6260 (240 steps short)
Sleep Goal: 7hr                 Actual 3hr 45m (Bleh)

Tomorrow is another day, I leave you with some words of wisdom and a minion meme. Ciao Ciao

 

 

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Ah yes some remnants by U2 are very fitting here. You ever have one of those days, where the emotions just run you the fuck over. Well for me today was one of those days, I woke up early - by early I mean before my alarm(8:30 on a Sunday). Got out of bed to a grey sky with thunderous clouds, I decided I would get a crack on the final load of washing for the week. 

I also had to start narrowing down my Community Outreach Volunteering situation, I have always been involved in one form or another with Community Outreach, strange that now after my 3rd year of Psychology, it is deemed a prerequisite for one of my modules. (Not strange that it's a prerequisite, strange that it only becomes one in year 3). When I still lived in Jhb, I volunteered at The Florida Baby Clinic - A place of safety for orphaned babies, most of them HIV positive, I also spent time at the Rape Crisis Centre in Hillbrow, and for the last 2 years have been actively trying to get my own Social Entrepreneurship program going in Zandspruit - Now that I have moved, I think Langa or Kayelitsha will be ideal areas. Yes it's frustrating that 2 years of hard work, dealing with the community and their elders have just been washed down the drain because I had to relocate, but it is what it is and we will start again. There are always people less fortunate than you, they don't need a hand out, they need a hand up, change starts and ends with each one of us, personally I want to be someone who makes a difference, not for glory or praise but rather to make an actual difference!

For whatever reason I was very emotional, I cried over the smallest things. I don't know whether it's the overload of Felicity I've been watching, food deprivation, this "time" an emotional overload from the hectic week, being angered at myself for eating the bloody fruit pastilles or what! But for the life of me I couldn't stop randomly crying today. It's more fitting to quote REM - It's been a bad day please don't take a picture it's been a bad day please...

Yes my life is a tad chaotic right now and I have had a lot going on over the course of the last few months, but for the most part, I've got a lot more to be thankful for than most. So it was just random and weird kind of gives me the eerie feeling that something is coming. I don't know, it's like a pang in my gut....watch this space I will keep you in the loop.

Before we get into the food day, I have to note how amazingly talented and insightful JJ Abrams is, the man is a bloody genius, I would love to have a coffee and just get into his mind. When I think of all the shows I watched and loved growing up - now specifically thinking of my teens up until early 20's he was the producer/director/writer of quite a few of my favourites. 

Felicity is just one example.... I love when writers/producers really grasp their target audience. This comes through by how well the targeted viewers react to the work. You may not know Felicity but I'm sure you remember, LOST...woah look I hate what they did in the end, but no one out there can deny he had us hooked.

I also love his movies. He tends to go a bit beyond the norm, and pushes the envelope, but I like that. A show I loved even more than LOST was without a doubt FRINGE - if you haven't watched it, please do yourselves a favour and get it. If I had to go into the awesomeness that is Fringe I would take another 3-4 pages and at 22:25PM on a Sunday night, that really isn't an option. All I can say is if you are a paranormal activity enthusiast and love to venture into the I unknown, exploring the vastness that is the universe, ah it's brilliant, nope it's decided I will have to get you all the Skinny on Fringe. But that is definitely a blog for another day.

So back to the issue at hand, day 12 having cheated yesterday I think added to my bad mind space, and in fairness it really wasn't the end of the day as even with those calories added to my intake, I still kept my daily intake under 1300 Calories, which is 200 calories less than the recommended calorie intake for women to lose weight healthily (1500 Cal). I don't know, I just felt guilty as fuck and the constant stream of water running down my face did not help one bit.

However as I stated yesterday, the distinguishing factor between success and failure, is getting back up and on continuing on your journey. So I will dust this off and now that the crap's out of the house, I won't have it there to eat. Simple. My food day was actually not too boring today.

Food Diary Day 12

Water: 2l

Tea: 2 Cups of Rooibos Tea, with milk no sugar

Special Coffee 2 X Vanilla Latte 

Juice: 200ml Strawberry 100% Pure Juice + 200ml Water

Breakfast - 2 Egg Omlette

                  2 Eggs (Medium roughly 43g each)
                  Cheese 40g

                  1/4 Med Tomato
                  3 button mushrooms

                  1/4 Onion

  

Mid morning snack: None

Lunch - 60g Beef Biltong & Remaining Salad from Saturday night's Prawn Tempura

             

Afternoon Snack - 25g Cashew Nuts (Raw)

Dinner: Chicken Cordon Bleu & Creamed Spinach With Baked Mushrooms

Ingredients for 2 Portions

160-200g Chicken Breasts (2 in total(Skinless & Deboned)

70g Cheese.                  2-4 Bacon Strips

1 Egg                           Self Raising Flour

String

250-300g Spinach.        50-80g Onion

50ml Cream.                  Fresh Garlic/Chopped 160g Mushrooms (Portobello)

10-15ml Cream Cheese

This is a great meal for entertaining or when you wanna please the fam, it;s easy enough to combine a starch to and doesn't take too long. Enjoy!

 Here's the vid:




Jawbone UP3 Traker Data:
Step Goal: 6500              Actual: 9492
Sleep Goal 7h                 Actual: 8h7m
Resting Heart Rate: 63 Bpm
 
 


As we all need a little pep in our step, I leave you with these quotes:

Chicken Soup for the Soul #Days 10 -11

Heehaa it’s Friday, can you say excited….yes the weekend is upon us and I couldn’t contain myself. Regardless of the work day today, tomorrow is Saturday and I can just hang back and relax Whoo-hoo!

Today a good friend took me along to go pick up apparently, the best koeksusters in Cape Town! For those English speaking people out there wondering what the hell a koeksuster is… It’s an Afrikaans traditional dessert/tea time classic, every boer worth her salt, has someone in her family with a fantastic Koeksuster recipe, 9 times out of 10 it’s from Grandma.A golden delicious doughy twister directly sent from heaven, sweet, gooey and soft. 

Why did I opt to join him on this obviously temptation filled outing , well because we would be meeting them at Haas Coffee - a really eclectic chic, coffee shop in Cape Town, it can be found on Buitenkant Street in the City Bowl. If you are in the area pop in for a quick cuppa, you will not regret it.

Why is this special you ask, well Haas Coffee is a place that charms and enchants all of your senses.  For me as a Coffee Addict of Note the fresh aroma of roasted and ground coffee beans in the air immediately puts me in a happy mood. I would probably even like it more if I were not on a diet. Why??? Oh my giddy aunt! Their  assortment of decadent baked goods, just looking at them through the display counter window made me salivate like a bloody hungry dog.

I did peruse the menu, which also offered some sumptuous looking breakfasts and lunches, the ambience is also something to note, the background music sets the tone for a chilled out time regardless of whether meeting a client, or an old friend.  

Me likey, very mucho.  As I was perusing the menu a flyer on the table grabbed my attention.

 

A brew claiming to be the world’s strongest cup of coffee, I was intrigued. Aptly named Black Insomnia coffee, it’s predecessor called Death Wish contained 660mg caffeine, Black Insomnia contains a whopping 702mg. I had to try a cup.

Yum Tikka! Whopow that coffee is one for the books, I couldn’t even risk ruining the deliciousness of the coffee by tarnishing it with sugar.  Hmmmm for a moment all was right in the world again.

I guess I have a really high tolerance for caffeine because I felt completely fine,  not even the slightest hint of the jitters, I think that coffee and I might just start a really serious long term relationship.

After the coffee it was back to work and a fairly normal afternoon followed. I had already exceeded my minimum of 3 trips to the gym per week, so I opted to spend some time at my dune instead. I love my dune, it’s big, it’s high and what a view. Living in Hout Bay you are slap bang behind Table Mountain, we also have a small harbour and a long outstretched beach. My dune is closer to the harbour than the swimming beach…I think, I haven’t lived here long and to be honest I don’t know yet.

I happened to find it  my first time out there and just completely fell in love with it. It’s the highest point on that part of the beach and you can always appreciate the view, glorious mountains and a vast turquoise ocean, the beaches here are sandy white.  I come here after work before gym, to have my chill time, my thinking time.  I love people watching, and my spot is the ideal place for that.

Before I knew it, 40min had passed and the sun was starting to go down, I made a unilateral decision that I would rather go for a walk in the vineyard with Harry(My landlord’s Alsatian) than trek off to the gym this late(Rush Hour time for everyone who just came home from work).

I didn’t feel like cooking at all and had some curry leftover from lunch, so I decided to have that instead of cooking. So far this battle has continued to be won, but  today I faltered, twice. I gave into my friend’s plea to try the best Koeksuster in Cape Town – although only one bite I didn’t feel to happy about it later. In the late evening I did also succumb to a craving and had 10 Fruit Pastilles, I discovered the packet in the back of my drawer. I felt so guilty and gross after having them, yet felt to weak not to reach for them once they’d been seen. For me I guess it’s really much better to keep things out of sight and out of mind.

These types of changes and life challenges  really aren’t easy and I honestly can’t wait for it to be over, I just know that without  my snacks I would be totally screwed. It definitely affects you emotionally, obviously my wonderful cycle has also had a hand in my feelings this week and have driven me mental with cravings but still, I hate failing even if just a little.

I suppose it’s how you define success, in my opinion the difference between success and failure is not whether you fail or how many times you fail. The difference is the amount of times you get back on the horse and try again. - this is a marathon after all and by no means a sprint, I see a lot of high high’s and bloody down low’s coming over the course of the next 90 days, I’m just glad that I haven’t completely gone off the rails and binged like a banshee.

Below I have outlined my food day

Water: 2l

Coffee: 2 Cups, with Milk, 1 Brown Sugar

Teas – none

Special Coffee: 1 Vanilla Latte + 1 Black Insomnia Cappuccino (No added sugar for either)

Breakfast – 1 Medium Apple + 100ml Yogurt

Mid morning snack – Boiled Egg

Lunch – half of my left over curry

 

Afternoon Snack – None

Dinner: Remainder of my leftover Curry

Dessert: 20ml Cream, 70g strawberries

Cheats: 10 x Maynard’s Fruit Pastilles (470kj)

Jawbone UP3 Data:

Step Goal: 6500      Actual Steps: 7608

Sleep Goal : 7hr      Actual Sleep: 5hr42m (this always represents previous night)

Resting Heart Rate: 63Bpm

Day 11 – Saturday

I was home alone today, my landlord has taken a trip to Paternoster, a small town up the coast. This meant that I would need to feed Harry and lock him inside at night. It was for a change, a very pleasant change a glorious sunny day in the Mother City. This to me has been a very rare occurrence and has been the first Saturday in 4 weeks we’ve had sunshine. I fully capitalized on it, went for a 40min hike in the vineyard, played a little with Harry and had some me time next to the dam with Buddha. Yes there is a tiny built dam with a Buddha in my garden. Now that I had taken care of my step goal for the day, I could focus on other things. 

I did a little “Spring” clean in my place, did the general washing and decided to give Betty a wash too – for those who don’t know, Betty is my car.   

If you aren't aware, South Africa is currently facing one of it's worst droughts ever! So please everyone when washing your cars, do it with a bucket, minimize the hose usage and please do it in the afternoon. If you are like me and wish to take it even further, get yourself a nice scratch relief foam car was, which goes on straight to the dirty car - It feels like you are prepping your car for OPPIKOPPI (The best Music Festival in South Africa - only this time it's not for decoration, and it's not shoe shine. 

Not only is this a better way to wash your car (by saving water) It also yields amazing results.

  Behold - Tyre Before

 

 < Tyre After - That's with no scrubbing, FYI.

Get this stuff man.

Friday was one of my closest friend’s in the world’s birthday, my Steph. We’ve been friends for over a decade now, we met in the UK, we worked, lived, partied and traveled Europe together. I’m the kind of freak that will approach you in a public bathroom and ask you a question out right, that’s how we met actually. I had gone to an interview with my cousin in the UK and Steph was assisting the interviewers. I cornered her in the bathroom and asked her straight up not to give me the “practiced/pitched” answer but to lay the shit out there about the Company and how it would be to work there. Whether they were just sugaring us up – this was a very unorthodox interview.

She was so shocked, I remember her face like it was yesterday. Well sufficed to say we are both back in SA now and despite living at opposite ends of the country we always stay in touch.  It was her birthday on Friday and we’d been missing each other for a catch up chat for weeks already, it’s actually pretty bad, but life does have a habit of occasionally getting in the way. Well we had our catch up chat, about an hour and a half in all. It’s always so cathartic to speak to a close friend, to vent, to express, to share. I dunno, but it’s like “chicken soup for the soul” If anyone’s ever read the book, you’ll know what I mean. I needed it folks, I needed that pick me up.

The food day was also a bit of a fail, but this was mainly as I didn’t feel lus to cook (lus means in the mood/eager/looking forward to) here goes anyway –

Day 11 Food Diary

Water: 2l

Tea: 1 Cup Rooibos, milk, 1 brown sugar

Coffee 2 Cups, Milk, 1 brown sugar

Special Coffee 1 x Vanilla Latte

Breakfast: 40g All Bran Flakes

                     20g Peanuts

                     20g Raisins

                     100ml Full Cream Milk

Mid Morning Snack – None

Lunch: 100ml Yoghurt

Afternoon Snack – 50g Beef Drywors

Dinner: Tempura Prawns & Salad

 No video for today, I made this last week, the only difference for today, is that I actually had olives. Unfortunately I also had the remaining 10 Maynard’s Fruit Pastilles. The packet is now finished and has been thrown out so no more distracting Temptation, don’t get me wrong, this little fopa still brings me in under the max calorie intake for the day – every day I aim for between 900-1200Cal, according to most dieticians the best calorie intake for women to lose weight is between 1200-1500Cal a day. Regardless, it still makes me feel like a weakling that I had to have those sweets, damn it man. I was doing so well, but I won’t let this throw me completely, we’ll regroup and start again, tomorrow is another day I guess..

 

Jawbone UP3 Data

Step Goal: 6500        Actual: 9848

Sleep Goal: 7h           Actual: 8h13m

Resting Heart Rate: 61 Bpm

I will leave you with some cute and quirky quotes.

Laughed my ass off, especially at the one on Sweat by Ray Kroc.