Losing focus and an inspirational woman...

I think the hardest thing about any weight-reducing and exercise regime (still can't bring myself to use that hateful word 'diet') is keeping the momentum going.

The first week you may be full of resolve, what you need to achieve is clear and besides, it's fun to have a new project, something to direct your attention towards.

Similarly, during those weeks where the weight has demonstrably and undeniably dropped, it is easy to keep going with it, the results are in, it's paying dividends, and you are happy to keep on going.

It has been scientifically proven
that you can't watch watch this programme
without a glass of wine in your hand..

The trouble is those weeks when nothing happens; your weight either stays the same or even creeps up a little and frankly you're bored of doing stomach crunches and jumping jacks. You're heartily sick to the eye teeth watching 'Two Greedy Italians' without a glass of wine in your hand. You are tired of being this person whose whole life has been hijacked by this 'self improvement' bullsh*t and you just want your old life back again (even if you know damn well that your old life meant being immensely dissatisfied with your appearance).

So yeah, last week was a bit like that. Belligerently I bought wine mid-week and ignored any form of exercise, telling myself that life is too short and besides, who cares what I look like?

I think we all have these sort of weeks so I'm not going to beat myself up about it. But it's important to keep the eye on the prize and that's where inspirational stories really help.

I met my friend P when I lived in the desert city of Al Ain, close to the Omani border. We both hung around in the same group of expat women, all of whom were relatively new to the country, and all of whom were dealing with the bizarre, frustrating but quite often hilarious way of life in the UAE.

Collectively we would meet up at the mall for coffee, or get drunk at the Horse & Jockey, or at each other's villas (remember that 80s party? I wish I had more pictures...)

P was a bit of a yo you dieter and as far as I knew had battled with weight on and off over the years. Funny thing is, it's only recently when she posted photos on Facebook of herself back then, that I realised how overweight she was at the time. It might sound a little disingenuous but I didn't really notice, mainly because she was smart and beautiful and a good laugh.

She's been on a weight loss journey of her own, with the help of Slimming World, and she has been steadily losing weight over the past three years. Like everyone's her life has had some dramatic ups and downs over this time, but she has stuck with it and kept going and simply not allowed anything or anyone to stop her.

I'm so impressed with her resilience and feel - and sorry to come over all American here - but humbled by her journey. I've had a lot less to lose and yet have figuratively and actually stamped my foot, pouted my lips and made a big deal about it. Compared to what P's had to go through, my journey is hardly worth mentioning.

To date she has lost almost 80lbs and is half a stone away from her goal. She looks amazing, more beautiful than ever, full of youth and vigour and has a wonderful future to look forward to. I'm dead proud of her.

P, I hope you don't mind me mentioning you in this blog post, but you gave me such a shot of inspiration into my arm this morning, I simply had to.

Race you to the finish line!x

Baby weight and why we should leave new mums alone...

(I'm not writing about myself today since I have absolutely nothing to report. However an article I spotted on Facebook earlier lead me to writing today's post...)

I try not to read celebrity gossip too much, the obsession with weight and appearance drives me nuts. However I must admit to silently cheering last July when Kate Middleton, several days post-partum, appeared to the world’s media looking, well, five months pregnant. In a time when it is only acceptable for post-baby celebrities to look as if the pregnancy and ensuing baby never happened, I felt that Kate was particularly brave.

We seem to have forgotten that gestating and delivering a baby takes a huge toll on our bodies and we don’t simply ‘shrink back’ to pre-baby bodies overnight, even if the media would have us believe otherwise by endlessly printing annoying ‘How I got my body back’ articles.

Now I'm not claiming my weight-gain has anything to do with my last baby, it hasn't. I got back into shape fairly quickly after I had him in fact. But I do think society puts enormous pressure on women to lose baby weight quickly, and this can often tip women into despair if they don't manage it.

A controversial picture has been doing the Facebook rounds recently, featuring mother of three fitness enthusiast Maria Kang looking super slim in a bikini, surrounded by her baby and two toddlers. Overhead is the caption, ‘What’s your excuse?’

Aside from the astonishingly patronising tone of this, Ms Kang seems to miss the point that most new mothers are exhausted, sleep deprived and otherwise occupied in the weeks and months following childbirth, and the last thing they need is to see photos of smug post-baby fitness fanatics berating them for not being in similar shape.

In a recent study, Dr Julie Wray of Salford University found the accepted wisdom – that it takes just six weeks to be ‘back to normal’ after giving birth – was a fantasy, concluding that it takes closer to a year for a woman to fully recover. Certainly this has been my experience, although I too have succumbed in the past to the pressure to lose the baby weight as quickly as possible.

After having my first child – fueled by a story I’d read about Catherine Zeta Jones on a treadmill just hours after giving birth – it became a point of pride for me to regain my pre-baby shape. And so, as soon as I got home from the hospital I embarked on a ludicrous 80 sit-ups a day regime in a desperate bid to flatten my stomach. Nobody told me that my abdominal muscles needed eight weeks just to knit back together and that the sit-ups were actually preventing this from happening. I only discovered my error when I complained to my district nurse that my stomach seemed make a funny triangular shape whenever I sat up!

Sometimes I think our generation of women have gone slightly mad, going to enormous lengths to disguise what is only natural; as if inhabiting a post-baby body is something to be ashamed of rather than celebrating. Back in my mother’s day, women stayed in hospital for two weeks after giving birth; these days we’re sometimes home in a matter of hours! Again the message seems to be ‘pull yourself together, stop making excuses, and get back to normal quick sharp!’

And it’s not just the media that exerts this pressure, other people – especially women – can be remarkably tactless at times. Three days after giving birth to my youngest child I returned to the delivery ward to complete some paperwork. The nurse behind the desk – yes a health professional - eyed my still-swollen abdomen, laughed and said ‘are you sure you’re not still pregnant?’ which frankly went down like a lead balloon. I’d like to say this was an isolated incident, but annoyingly the same hilarious comment was made several times over the following days. Lucky for me it was my fifth baby, so I knew quite well that it takes several weeks for the uterus to descend back into the pelvis again, but to a new mum the first sight of a post-baby belly can be quite a shocker.

And so, as a bit of a veteran of pregnancy and childbirth, I’d like to humbly offer some advice to new mothers or those who are soon-to-be, and it is this: Chill! Enjoy your new bundle, cuddle them, bond with them and, just for a while, forget about what you look like, because at the moment it really doesn't matter. Babyhood is fleeting and you won’t get this time again. Your favourite jeans will eventually fit – I promise – but for now just be kind to yourself.

Good news!

I didn't post this yesterday in case I was being premature and my water balances were messing me around, but since this morning's weigh-in confirms the fact, I shall now share it with you all.

I'm 69 kgs!!!

In English that's 10 stone 12lbs. I'm in the tens!!!!

Oh joy, oh rapture, the pleasure of all that effort paying off is amazing and I feel wonderful. Of course still several kgs to go, but much like reaching your 20th week of pregnancy, I've passed the halfway mark and am now on the home stretch and that is a relief.

I realise I should be wearing the yoga pants I wore in the picture on the first blog entry, but I couldn't be bothered to put them on and besides, I like this dress...

So, Champers all round I reckon! Am busily making a chocolate fudge cake in between typing, since my daughter is home from boarding school this weekend for the first time since she left.

Whooppeeee!!!

To celebrate I'm posting a recipe I nicked straight from Facebook, but it looked too good to not share, and damned the calories!

So, happy weekend! (Or enjoy what's left of it to those of you in the Middle East...)

Chocolate Salted Caramel Tart Recipe:

Makes 6 small 8-cm tarts or one big 22-cm tart

For the Crust:

• 110 gr butter, softened;
• 100 gr sugar;
• 1 large egg yolk;
• 130 gr all purpose flour;
• 30 gr cocoa powder.
In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until creamy. Beat in the egg yolk. Combine the flour and cocoa powder and add them to the butter mixture. Mix in until it just comes together. Roll out the dough or form it just pressing it with your fingers into 6 8-cm rings laid down on a paper lined baking tray. Fridge the tarts shells for an hour to set. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 180º C. Prick the tart shells all over with a fork and blind bake until cooked through, about 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

For the Caramel:

• 125 ml water;
• 400 gr granulated sugar;
• 60 gr glucose;
• 125 ml heavy cream;
• 110 gr butter (if using salted butter skip the salt below);
• 15 gr flaked sea salt.
In a saucepan, whisk together the sugar, glucose and the water and bring to a boil. Salt can be added at this initial step (skip if using salted butter), but I prefer to add it at the end in order to preserve the salt crystals. Cook without stirring until amber colour, if using a candy thermometer it should reach 180º C . Remove the pan from heat and whisk in the butter and the cream until smooth. Pour caramel into cooled tart shells and refrigerate until firm, around 4 hours.

For the Ganache:

• 120 gr heavy cream;
• 120 gr high quality dark chocolate
• Sea salt or kosher salt for garnish
Bring the cream to a simmer. Then pour the hot cream over the chocolate. Wait for a minute, then stir to obtain a smooth ganache. Pour the ganache evenly over the tarts and refrigerate for further 4 hour. Before serving sprinkle with sea salt, but not before as it will melt away.

Tip: If you have any caramel left, wait till it hardens, then tear small pieces of it and dip them in dark chocolate.

Konga in the outback and the redefinition of self...

This morning I did something I haven't done in a very long time; I attended an exercise class at our local hall.

I've been threatening to attend this class for pretty much the whole ten months I've lived here but it took until today to actually make it in the door (the last time I tried to attend it was cancelled which I decided was an omen).

To be fair, the reason I don't usually go for this sort of stuff is because they tend to be in the mornings and bringing the baby along doesn't seem wise, although on occasion I have tried it.

When I was in Perth I once brought him along to a Zumba class, reasoning I could sit him in his buggy in the corner of the hall, where he would sit happily and watch the class. I'm an optimist like that.

Of course this didn't happen. Ten minutes in he clambered down and began exploring. A room full of frenetically Zumba-ing women is no place for a wandering two-year-old and after I'd sent him flying to the ground for the second time with my shimmying bottom, it was clear that my time was up.

To be honest I wasn't that upset. My face was redder than any human's should be at that stage.

But this morning I woke with resolve. I would try it again. He's older now and less likely to interrupt, so I sat him in his buggy, with two books, a drink, a snack and a warning.

This time it was Konga, which is a mish-mash of dance, kickboxing, Pilates and everything in between. (Please note, not to be confused with 'The Conga' which is a drunken human train weaving itself around a hotel bar at 3 am following a wedding.)


And I'm happy to report that it was vigorous, sweaty and yes, hard! To date, apart from my (very occasional) swims, the majority of the exercise for this regime has been in front of YouTube. And while this is certainly effective (to the tune of 5kgs!), it doesn't quite have the same effect as engaging with a real group.

Pride dictates that, when you reach a point when you're so knackered you want to lie face down on the floor, you will soldier on when surrounded by a room full of women who are equally fagged. With YouTube you (well I), simply press pause for a moment while gathering my strength for a moment, which can, I suppose, be detrimental to the particular movement.

As for the baby (OK he's three but since he's the youngest he'll always be 'the baby), he sipped, snacked and watched, waving occasionally and refusing to run around the hall with the other two toddlers in tow. I can't help but feel he won't be so docile next time but we'll deal with that when it happens.

When it was all over I was left feeling jubilant, energized and happy that I can now add Konga to my eclectic little workout pot of Jillian Michaels (for when I'm feeling fat), Tiffany Rothe and the New York City Ballet Workout.

Weight-wise the dial is still tantalisingly hovering just under the cusp of the 70 kg, but I'm confident with this new addition to the regime I will be hitting those dizzy lows soon. Overall I feel smaller than I did six weeks ago, without question, and that will have to do for now. However I do find that this heightened awareness of food and weight is resulting in some pretty impressive baking storms in the kitchen on occasion.

Yesterday I baked enough to cater for a small wedding and my husband and children were packed off to work and school this morning with more than they could hope to eat. I allow myself just a nibble on a corner, but in a way that's enough.

Another side effect is the deluge of body-skimming dresses I've recently purchased, a little prematurely I might add, but which I simply couldn't resist after trying one on in a shop recently.

Losing weight isn't just the dropping of numbers on a scale, it also redefines how we perceive ourselves, and my body image over the past two years has been horrendous, filling me with shame and self-loathing. As the pounds drop I feel I'm welcoming back an old friend who had gone walkout for way too long.

Of course my inner feminist screams furiously at me for quantifying my worth by my size, but it's hard not to; we are conditioned to do this from a very young age, not always consciously, but by osmosis, particularly if we had mothers who constantly dieted and talked about their weight.

But to stay positive about all this, I'm trying to focus on taking care of myself better, of prizing this body I have. I regularly read The Times columnist Melanie Reid, who incurred a spinal chord injury from a riding accident a couple of years ago and has paralysis in much of her body.

Excellent read...

While never preachy, she regularly gently reminds us that these bodies we have are wonderous machines which we should never, ever take for granted.

I'm trying to do that, and as I lie reading in bed each night - currently A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar - free of alcohol, and exhausted from exercise, I can congratulate myself that I've tried my best that day to make this body better than ever (and we won't mention the messiness that is the weekend...that doesn't count, this is purely a five day a week experiment!).

Nothing tastes as good as fitting into a pair of shorts...

Something truly wondrous has happened. Indeed, truly wondrous. And I'm not one given to exaggeration, which of course you all know by now.

Last year I bought a pair of denim shorts from Next. Denim shorts used to be my uniform of choice in the UAE, teamed with a vest, and I thought this look might suit the outback. And as far as I was concerned a size 14 would be plenty big enough. Plenty!

Apologies for the selfie of my crotch, but it had to be done.

It wasn't. Oh I managed to wrestle myself into them, after a stint lying flat on the bed and a lot of not breathing, but once I was upright again the look was sort of, err, muffin-that-won't-stop-expanding-in-the-oven-and-has-now-spilled-over-onto-the-rest-of-the-tray-chic. In short I looked like Vicky Pollard.

And so, I struggled back out of them and sent them to the deepest, darkest bottom drawer of hatred, a place reserved for a worrying large proportion of my clothing.

But today, most precious reader, emboldened by a particularly good weigh-in (on the verge of tipping into the 60s - any day now), and feeling particularly light and slim of waist, I decided to see if the banished shorts might fit any better.

Reader, they slid on and buttoned up without a whisper of protest and I am now full of renewed resolve (I had been contemplating a mid-week bottle of red to share with DH, but not now!).

So today's lesson is this: the hard slog of working out day in and day out, not to mention sacrificing the mid-week wine, can be demoralising at times and you will feel like quitting. Quite a lot in fact. Certainly during this process so far I've had many, many moments like this. But no scale, no measuring tape, nothing, can make you feel as good as slipping into something previously unfittable. This makes it all worth while.

So one goal has been reached and the next is in view, namely the size 12 denim shorts sitting sadly in that same, dark drawer. 

Ditching the sadism...

Well today I come to you slightly more upbeat and decidedly less truculent than yesterday. The scales indicate I'm almost back to the 70kgs I was so pleased about two weeks ago. Thank god. A lesson has been learned and that is for sure; don't become complacent with any weight loss you might manage, and don't expect it to turn the other cheek just because you are having a bad week. Sending my daughter away gave me a mental hall-pass - or so I thought - to drink mid-week, to not bother with my workouts, and guess what, I gained back a couple of kgs. What on earth did I expect?

But I have better news. I've ditched Jillian Michaels and her sadistic 30 day shred. Yes, you heard me Jillian, I QUIT!

Having been doing these workouts on average five or six times a week for the past month or so, I realised I was dreading them more and more, and what's more, they weren't making a huge difference to me. The introduction of the softer, more balletic workouts a couple of weeks ago, lead me to Tiffany Rothe, who not only does a ballet workout, but has a series of 10 minute workouts on YouTube which tackle different parts of the body - from her 'Get your sexy back!', to her '10 minute booty shaking waist workout'.

These workouts concentrate on lady figures - waists, hips, bottoms - rather than Jillian's '24-things-you-can-do-with-the-plank' approach, which I despised beyond words. I love them, they make me sweat every bit as much as Jillian but without hating every minute of it. Also, being just 10 minutes a go, you can decide to spend as little or as much time as you want, hopping from workout to workout. They're quite addictive actually.

One thing I've noticed with the massive array of workouts available on YouTube is the prominence of ultra-difficult, contortionistic (is that a word?) type workouts out there. As if the more difficult it is to get into the position, the more effective it is. But I disagree with this. If you're trying to do jumping jack while in the plank pose, I reckon its efficacy is reduced by the effort to maintain the pose. Workouts don't need to be difficult to be effective.

So I've been working with Tiffany all week, and the results are every bit as heartening as anything I did with Jillian, and perhaps even a little better since - I'm sure my waist is looking trimmer than this time last week.

Poor St Valentine, where's the love?

So it's Valentines day, a day when we celebrate a match-making priest who was especially keen on conducting secret marriage ceremonies for Christians, much to the chagrin of the Emperor Claudius Gothicus, who ordered he be stoned to death. When that failed, he had him beheaded instead. Ooh I've come over all romantic...

I considered going out for dinner with DH tonight to the one inn we have in the town, which, as ambient as it is with its topless barmaid and enormous TV, I eventually decided against, opting to cook instead.

Am going to try this I think - it's dead easy and really doesn't require instructions, but have added them anyway. To follow will be yesterday's creme egg brownies with cream...

Carrots with Chickpeas and Pinenuts

Ingredients: 

Add caption

olive oil
1 red onion
2 cloves garlic
tin of chickpeas drained and rinsed
4 carrots, peeled and shaved into ribbons
handful of pinenuts
1 x tsp white wine vinegar
1 x tbsp flat-leaf parsely
salt and black pepper

What to do:
- heat oil in frying pan over medium heat. Add onion and cook until soft
- add garlic and cook for a minute then add chickpeas, carrots and pine nuts. Cook until pine nuts are toasted
- drizzle with the vinegar, add parsley and salt and pepper to taste

On being fat and forty...

So as myself and DH power-walked around our little town in the outback of Western Australia last night, swatting the pestering flies which hovered in the air around our heads (yes, those cork dangling hats we see in the movies make sense), and trying to talk over the chatter and squawk of the corellas which are absolutely everywhere here, I pondered on this whole weight-loss lark.

What occurred to me as I sweated, panted and swatted, was that had I done this much exercise ten, or even five years ago, I would be hovering around the nine and a half stone mark by now. No question about it, regardless of diet or alcohol intake.

So what is it about getting a little older that makes our bodies so resistant to change? Well according to a book by Pamela Peeke, 'Fight fat after 40', our metabolic rate drops at a rate of at least 5% a decade after we reach our 20s, and after 40 our stress levels rise causing fat to gather around our waists.

Quite simply, after 40 whatever worked for us before, won't work any more and it's time to take stock of our entire routine.

How unfair this is on women! Like watching the sand disappear through a timer, I feel like my youth is beating a hasty retreat and I'm literally clutching at straws to keep it all together - the desperate workouts, the bi-monthly hair dye, the diet almost completely devoid of carbs. Conversely DH eats what he pleases and is slowly greying in a sexy, older man kind of way. His face carries the etchings of wisdom and experience, he's still climbing the ladder to a fulfilling career. In short, he's still 'got it' and he's still relevant.

Not only am I battling weight gain - and the odds are against me - but I haven't even done anything of note career wise yet. And telling myself that Mary Wesley was 71 when her first novel was published has stopped being a comfort and more of a threat.

So fat and unfulfilled, I may as well simply give up and wait for the grave to open up before me - double width because by then I'll be at least 40 stone.

But wait, according to Peeke, all is not lost! No, all this unpleasantness can be completely reversed if one only sticks to her advice. And it is this: for those of us over 40, it is possible to regain our former trim bodies if we simply ensure we get 45 minutes of aerobic physical activity five or six times a week - basically every day. In addition, make time for at least 30 minutes of strength exercise twice a week.

Also, cut down on portion size; that 25g of cereal recommended on the back of the box? Try that, turns out that's how much you were supposed to have all along! If this is difficult try using a (much) smaller bowl. Or better still, go without - or eat cotton wool, that will fill you up!

See, it's easy ladies! So easy I don't know why I didn't think of it and make that million writing this depressing book, since the advice is as plain as the nose on your face! Basically eat practically nothing, workout every breathing moment of your day, and you too can be not quite so fat as you are now!

This advice makes me want to punch a kitten and then make these brownies (below), and I don't even have a sweet tooth or, for that matter, hate baby cats particularly. In defiance I am going out to get these ingredients RIGHT NOW!

Ingredients

• 3 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup (113 grams) room temperature butter
• 1/2 cup (100 grams) brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup (120 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 18-20 mini Cadbury creme eggs, unwrapped

What to do:

1. Heat the oven to 350F. Line an 8X8 inch baking pan with parchment paper.
2. In a microwave safe bowl place the chocolate chips. Microwave, 30 seconds at a time, until melted. Stir to combine. Set aside.
3. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
4. Add the egg and stir well.
5. Pour in the melted chocolate and keep stirring.
6. Slowly add the flour mixed with baking powder.
7. Spread the batter on the bottom of the prepared pan and press in the Cadbury creme eggs.
8. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the top is set and firm to touch.
9. Let cool completely before cutting into bars.

Enjoy!