that canadian girl

Today’s morning weight: 145.6lbs

Had an english muffin for breakfast, veggie ciabatta for lunch, an apple, a banana, two herbal teas and no snacky stuff! Got a lovely piece of salmon to steam for dinner while Andrew’s going to pig out on Toad in the Hole (mmmm! though i’ve never had it, it sounds nice… sausages in a tin of batter… see Delia’s site for a recipe)

Anyways, Benjamin has created himself a MySpace to keep track of his progress, and I’ll write down the progress of the other ones when they let me know about it!

Today was tiring and a bit crap, so I’m off to read a good book and get my mind off of things…

Update:
Ok so I didn’t go for a long walk as I was hoping for as the evening flew by, but while watching an ep of South Park, I did some weights and situps. My tummy still hurts from situps two nights ago but I’m sure I’ll get used to it!

Also, Kelly from Marmalade.ca has joined us in the Fitness Challenge!

Here’s Kelly’s goal this month:
Starting weight: 179.2lbs
Goal weight:174.2 lbs
Exercise: run 5km 3x per week, weights 2x per week, elliptical 1x per week.
Nutrition: No counting calories! It’s bad enough that I’m obsessing about the numbers on the scale

Kelly will be tracking her progress here, but she’s also got her regular everyday blog here!

So this is day 2.

I ate well today, drank loads of water, did sitting-situps (when you tense and release your diaphragm very slowly) while at work, got home, did dishes, dinner, then went for a good brisk 25 minutes walk (with a pathetic attempt at jogging for about 3-4 minutes).

Now I feel fantastic!

I’m also adding a new player in the challenge, my mom Francine!

Ma maman Francine
Goal: Go for a walk when getting home from work and walking nice and briskly!

Yay this is becoming a great big multi-people challenge!

This morning’s weight: 145.4lbs

Breakfast: teacake with Flora and a cup of hot water.

Lunch: Brought with me 2 apples, a banana and a low-fat Ski Vanilla yogurt. Will buy a salad or a soup and wholewheat roll for lunch. Snack on fruits during the afternoon.

Note: The hot water or herbal tea seems to fill me up quite a bit and stop me from wanting to snack. Good stuff!

[edit: had to correct that! I typo’ed my weight really badly hahaha Merci Jo! ]
[edit 2: Bugger it! I took the password off, who cares if the whole of the ninternet finds out I have a big ass! Maybe Oli will stop offering me Belgian chocs if he reads this!! ]

Ok I doubt I’m going to do a daily roundup and 26 million other health posts so don’t worry, this won’t turn into a total health nut blog!

Alright, so today, I’ve had three people (possibly 4) joining me for the challenge!

My sister Jo in Canada
Goal: Bike or rollerblade at least twice a week for 45 mins. Lose 3lbs. Resist temptation to snack while studying for exams!

Benjamin in Germany
Goal: [UPDATED] Starting weight: 167.5lbs
Goal weight at the end of the Challenge: 158.7lbs
Drop bad habits like eating chocolate and at the cafeteria

Steven in London
Goal: [UPDATED] Prepare for the BUPA 10k Hyde Park run by jogging regularly to reach 10k in 45 minutes

My challenge
Goal: Lose 7lbs to get within the 130’s I don’t mind so much. Exercise daily (a good walk, some situps and dumbells while watching TV or gym at work or bike, but SOMETHING daily!). Cut out unnecessary snacks at work, eat smaller portions. Drink a whole lot of water and herbal tea.

Roundup of my resolutions for today
Goals for the day:

So, decent day, no real cheating but I need to kick up the exercise one notch!

Email me at thatcanadiangirl {a} gmail dot com if you want to join the fitness challenge, or just know what I’m hiding behind those passworded posts.

I just think that by making the posts passworded, Google won’t index the posts containing my weight

I’m resisting the bad bad Belgian Chocolates and the Portuguese cookies!

So this is day 1

Starting weight on April 11th: 146.2lbs
Goal weight by May 13th: 139lbs (hey, I’m being realistic here!)

Goals for the day:

Since the month-long Christmas binge, I’ve gained a bit of, lets say, baby fat. (One can still have baby fat at 23, right?) Either way, these love handles definitely seem to be holding on a bit too long.

So here’s the plan, I’d be grateful if some of you offered a bit of moral support, because I’m going to need it.

The Fitness Challenge

As of tomorrow morning, April 11th, I’ll start a set of private posts (which means a password is required to read them) and only the people joining into the fitness challenge will be able to see my actual weight progress. UNTIL May 13th, where, no matter how much or how little weight I have lost, I’ll have to show everyone my progress (or lack thereof). I think that alone is motivation enough to prove to me (and you) that I can do it. Note: I leave for Canada on May 15th and I don’t want to have to stress over this while in Canada or while moving to the new house as soon as we come back. Otherwise I would probably extend it to 6-8weeks for more exciting results.

This effectively gives me a month to do my best to reach the goal I want.

It’ll take more than the occasional salad instead of a sandwich lunch swap to get to a size where I won’t get mistaken for a beached whale when we go to Menorca in June.

If you want to jump in and join me in a last attempt at not frightening the neighbours when wearing a bikini this summer, send me an email or a message and we can be health buddies! If your goal isn’t weight related, but you want to get an arts project done or write a book or who knows what else, you can join in too! And it doesn’t matter when you start, you choose your timescale and your goal!

Following the publication of the book French Women Don’t Get Fat, Clotilde from Chocolate & Zucchini got involved in a discussion with 3 other French women. Her post about it is here along with the follow-up comments, while the transcript of the discussion on the subject is here.

What came out of the discussion was plain old-world common sense; balanced small meals, treats in moderation, walking and exercising to make up for indulgences and fresh, locally grown produce, avoiding prepared and processed meals. What struck me as something I know but haven’t been practicing recently for lack of a dining room, or a dining table for that matter, is enjoying a meal away from distractions, focussing on the freshly cooked food and conversation with dinner company.

(Cross posted to my food blog)

Following Jamie’s School Dinners tv series, the British government is finally reacting to the needs for better food in school cafeterias.

Cynics will say the money will go to the private caterers and never really reach the plates of the students or that Jamie is doing it for personal publicity. Yeah, sure! Both of those comments have truth to them, but how many parents and children will look for chicken breasts rather than re-formed chicken next time they shop for chicken nuggets after seeing Jamie’s presentation on what’s in those nuggets? A good few will at least have the memory looming about when choosing!

Awareness of health and eating habits is a start. Now, it’s up to the parents to teach their kids what good food is, both at school and at home!

With the back-and-forth pull between the attraction to junk food some people have and the opposite movement to be healthy and free of toxins, a new name has been given to the more common than ever obsession with healthy eating. Dr Steven Bratman has named it orthorexia nervosa: literally, “fixation on righteous eating.”

Although I wouldn’t say it’s a very common obsession over here in Britain as there isn’t quite as much junk food temptation at all times, therefore less of a backlash into healthy eating. People just seem to eat averagely healthy, with some but less people reaching into the extremes of junky eating or obsessively healthy eating.

On the other hand, I can certainly say some friends in their early 20s over in Canada exhibited these exact symptoms. Of course, it’s fantastic to hold an interest in eating healthy and knowing what’s in our food, but it shouldn’t take over one’s life.

Without going into depths of the why and how of eating disorders, this certainly strikes me as another symptom of the ideals of perfection we all seem to try to reach in today’s world.

Via BBC Magazine.

Before his death, Ivan Noble received his fair share of bad news from doctors. “He felt strongly that the medical profession needed to work on its techniques for breaking bad news - what he called ‘the shoe problem’.”

Dr. Kettlewell, from Scotland, goes on to explain why doctors feel they can’t look the patient in the eye when telling such bad news and how it should be done.

Further to Dr. Kettlewell’s comments, I have to say I’ve been generally shocked by the NHS doctors I’ve met. They avoid eye contact much more often than when announcing terrible news, they avoid eye contact at all times!

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve so far been satisfied with the service I’ve needed from the NHS, but it’s been rather minor. If I went to see my doctor for something more serious than eczema or a prescription refill, I’d be very frustrated. The lack of even the most basic acknowledgement that there is another person in the room on the doctor’s part doesn’t encourage the patient to explain symptoms. They seem to want to pass the patients as quickly as possible, not calling them by their names or looking at them.

“What may be another day at work for a healthcare professional is perhaps the most stressful day in the life of the patient.” No one likes going to see doctors and get bad news, so the visit should cause as little distress for the patient as possible.

This BBC Article on the habits of employees in the British workplace made me smirk since my office mirrors the syndrome so well.

The findings of catering firm Avenance aren’t surprising; the better we eat, the more we take healthy breaks away from our computers, the more performant and effective we’ll be.

Now if only they could pass the information on to the catering firm where I work, maybe they’d make the healthy option meal more appetizing! And maybe they’d put away some of the chocolate bars at the coffee shop downstairs and replace them by fruits, veggies and low-fat options! There were periods of healthy sandwiches and homemade soups but they’re back to cheesy pasta dishes and sausage rolls. Those cause guaranteed sleepyness after lunch!

Ah well, I guess I should start making my own lunches more often really! Nothing beats homemade soup on cold drab days. Mmmm… All I can say is going for multiple tea breaks seems to be the current solution for most of my colleagues…

Coca Cola’s latest campaign is directed at the members of the ever-growing religion that has becoming the Diet. If during the festive season we see a number of Christmas Christians, in January we certainly see as many New Year’s dieters join the worshipping of gods such as Dr. Atkins, South Beach and Dr. Phil.

Coca Cola have even invaded my office today! We received vouchers for a free Diet Coke when we walked into the building and at lunch time, a towering mountain of Diet Cokes greeted us near the canteen entrance. I heard that the giveaway of free cans of drink last week in Liverpool Street was of monumental proportions, leaving some people with an entire case of cans as they walked through!

Now, I’m no preacher as I haven’t been to the gym in the past month and a half, but people on diets like Atkins can’t claim to be health conscious - if only they realized how much damage they are doing to their body by cutting out essentially all vitamins found in fruits. Drinking Diet drinks won’t do anything more than give people a slightly less guilty conscience. Smart move on Coca Cola’s behalf to choose this time of the year though!

I very well know what I need to do to be healthy, and it doesn’t involve buying the books of any of the recent pop-culture Diet Doctors. I need to get off my big bum, go to the gym, bike or walk more. I need to cut out Pringles and choccies for a while and it’ll all happen!

This is going to bring on guaranteed “go to the gym!” nagging but it must be done!