Day 13…. Lucky or Not??
Posted by Tess Egerton in 
Well another week of fasting, not feasting has passed and I have arrived on day 13 and it’s a Friday too… unlucky for some! Pity I’ve chosen it as my new weigh-in day… ( I decided Saturdays are SO much fun, it seemed almost sacrilege to blight them with the presence of a mocking digital scales).
After another 7 days of careful food monitoring this week, I’ve been frequently reminding myself that this had ‘better be worth it!’. As the weather has begun to turn colder and the lack of substantial fuel started to chill my bones a little, the concept of why a lot of thin people are often poker-faced suddenly dawned on me…. they’re cold, tired and hungry!! Who WOULDN”T be miserable?! Energy just doesn’t create itself, no matter how hard we try.
Monday , the thrill of having lost some weight and experiencing successful wardrobe renaissance sessions was still fresh enough to provide incentive. Soup, fruit and black coffee virtuously replaced my usual ~ rather more palatable fodder ~of toast, sandwiches, crisps and hot chocolate.
Tuesday and Wednesday spun past in a flurry of workloads and my tum rumbling to remind me I had to eat something, even if it DID look and taste like pitted cardboard. So ryvita and cottage cheese it was! Followed by a whole tin of pineapple rings to remove the wallpaper paste consistency of the cheese. It should surely be called ‘claggy cheese’ NOT ‘cottage’! I have wondered all week if it achieved it’s moniker from having been discovered on the walls of a country ruin somewhere… evil stuff! I found myself mixing it with marmite just to introduce some taste into the glurg. However, when I found it all combined together into a browney-grey lump, it appeared exactly like mashed brain on my plate. Not altogether apppetizing then.
Thursday proved to be a day of attempted~ and failed~ excercise. The god of contrariness was with me and no matter how much I contrived circumstances to allow a short run or fifteen minute jig about, doorbells rang, people stopped to chat and all but a 50 piece brass band piled into the equation. “Ah well, I’ll just have to lose the blubber some other way” I mused whilst eyeing up the mince pies in the local bakery window.
And here we are.. ” thank Crunchie it’s Friday”. Except I’m not allowing myself a Crunchie or anything else lovely for another week. So! I must jump on those scales to elicit some joy out of my week in self deprivation!
Yes! Thank you resultometer!! I have lost another 2 and 1/2 lbs in 7 days! That’s almost a bag of flour’s worth. I wonder where it went to? Maybe it’s melted into the ether and transferred itself via precipitation onto some poor thin person who actually needs it…!
Now it is late on Friday night with only 6 days until my party and the ultimate deadline left to go. I still have 7 lbs left to lose in under a week. Short of several daily seaweed wraps and living on miso soup with spirulina dressing for a week, there’s nothing much i can do, but ” keep calm and carry on”. I guess any spare tyres still to be shifted will soon disappear once my feet find that dancefloor on the 1st December!
Week 3 , my final week
Those final pounds I have to tweak!!
© Tess Egerton 2011
Diet Day 2. ‘D’ for Desperate Measures….
Day 2.
After day one’s disastrous attempts at shifting those inches, I decided to go into ‘desperate measures’ mode. The idea that I needed some extra incentive so early into the diet shocked me into raiding my box of tricks in the next level up from whence I’d started.
Today I initiated the mission by raiding my photo-box for shots from earlier years to shame me into action . ‘Compare and contrast’ always works when all else fails. There I found my wedding photos from ten years ago, still beautifully presented in their glossy album. Inside revealed the images of a bride far more youthful than now and a slender size ten. The washboard stomach and toned arms created just for that day have since stretched into an ironing board stomach which sits atop as I work. I don’t even want to THINK about the bingo wings which are desperately trying to cultivate themselves as each day passes.
The power of nostalgia and reminiscence did wonders as I mentally measured up my workload ahead… and within less than a month! The decision was made quickly. I would stick to grapefruit, vegetable soup, wholemeal toast and fruit all day to see how I would cope.
On top of this, I dug around for my old VHS tapes of Mr Motivator ( remember him??) and fitness DVDs of every ailing celebrity under the sun. I found requisite determination to try and tone this butt into looking like part of the human anatomy and less like a dead-heat in a zeppelin race. By early evening, my dieting had proved a little tedious but thoroughly possible. I’d had my first successful day of self discipline.
All I needed to complete the day was a successful session of exercise and I would feel settled into a mode of positivity. Newly kitted up and ready to go in no time at all, I cleared the decks in the sitting room and warned all family members of low flying limbs for the next hour. I then proceeded to follow the instructions of my chosen TV teacher eagerly but without any trace of gracefulness whatsoever. There I continued for the full hour; leaping , lunging, star-jumping and running on the spot over a highly polished wooden floor. Inevitably I went absolutely flying several times and must have appeared like a complete lunatic to anyone passing our front window. But here was a mum on a mission and nothing was going to stop me. I’d even remembered to dust off my pedometer for charting my glorious hour’s intensive workout.
Once the hour of physical mayhem had ground to a relieved halt, I checked my pedometer for success. A half decent 263 calories and 8,091 steps completed. I momentarily wondered if that would have been enough to even touch the damage i’d done the night before at my girlie dinner. Happy with my efforts nevertheless, I collapsed gratefully into my bath while the children sprinted back to the tv downstairs; squabbling like crazy having been starved of their favourite programme for an hour.
Whilst soaking the limbs I reflected on the reasoning for all this pressure on myself for the sake of one night, essentially. Why did I feel the need to look so presentable when actually it shouldn’t matter too much. Was it a secret fear that when the clock struck 12 on my birthday night, I would suddenly turn into a pumpkin? Was it the silent, insidious effects of every magazine and newspaper in popular circulation permeating my thoughts with a necessity for a need to be super slim, super glam and superhuman? Was it that desperately clichéd fear of ageing , making me turn into a glamour-junkie automaton?
The answer to those questions seemed to return as ‘no , not really’ in each case. More the fact that during the last year in my thirties I have indulged far too much in the good life, with work and play crossing over much too frequently and resulting in enormous fun, but gradual midriff spread.
Whilst swinging from the chandeliers with a glass of Veuve Clicquot is wonderful fun, it plays havoc with the saddlebags over too many months. Any more protracted indulgence and my liver would be suffering from repetitive stress disorder; my hips would reach across two separate time zones.
They keeping telling me that ‘Life Begins At Forty’, so for that reason I feel it’s time to push onwards and upwards. Health, fitness and a peppering of light glamour lay ahead~ I just have to put the work in to reap the benefits.
Positivity is the key- let’s aim for day three!!
©Tess Egerton 2011
Day 1: ‘D’ Day … for Dieting
It’s D-day. Nothing to do with Remembrance weekend and the war, but Diet Day 1; the first day of reckoning.
I started the day with virtuous intentions ; black coffee, fruit and a large wedge of determination on the side plate for breakfast. The mantra of the morning was ‘four fat-free weeks to freedom, four fat-free weeks to freedom’. Extra zeal was initiated on my morning run; so much so that on pushing myself that extra mile I had to stop at the graveyard for a moment of asphyxiation and felt as though I may end up staying there for good. Clearly, this was ‘first day frenzy’, the novelty of a new exciting challenge and one which I already knew would be wearing off by at least day 3. The ‘no pain , no gain’ philosophy appears so much more attractive when it’s being considered nonchalantly on the sofa of an evening beforehand.. good intentions and all that.
As I stumbled along the driveway back to the house feeling exhausted but most pious,my phone beeped with a diary reminder: ” Dinner Tonight With the Girls; Make Spinach and Ricotta Pies”.
Suddenly my morning of dieting glory turned into a flash of red panic. Firstly , this would inevitably mean lots of amazingly yummy food a la ‘Come Dine With Me’. My diet would be shot to pieces! And it was only day 1! Secondly, I had forgotten to buy the ingredients and would have to fit frantic food shopping into the rest of my crazy day’s diary- pretty sharpish too.
Whizzing into the sitting room to grab a pen, I scooped up the two children and threw them into the car. One was happily munching on a packet of Doritos and thereby occurred my first deadly sin of the day… stress induced snacking. Before I even KNEW what was happening , I’d already stolen a few chips from the bag and with lightening speed , they were demolished and in the tum. Oh dear me. So much for the self discipline already.
On we continued, racing from the supermarket, to the swimming pool for the boys activity (why is it that swimming pool cafe’s always smell of fish fingers??), to soft play and finally back home for me to cook the starter for dinner that night. With all the speedy work to be done , I’d built up even more appetite by 5pm and could have eaten a manky horse between two mattresses once ensconced in my kitchen. Deadly diet sin number 2 was looming menacingly around the next corner. I prepared the starter ready to cook , but the combination of being hungry and locked in the kitchen working proved way too much for me. My temporarily steely resolve was shattered into a million pieces as I absent-mindedly munched on biscuits and cheese whilst pottering from mixing bowl to fridge, pie tin to oven. Without even realising, I had just eaten the equivalent of a cheese board starter and the diet for day one was obliterated already.
Accepting my fate, I decided to go with the flow for dinner and start my resolve again in the morning. Just as well really. The chocolate mousse pudding at ‘dinner evening’ was so evil and delicious in equal measures, no am0unt of running all weekend would have compensated for it’s sheer calorific density.
Oh well, c’est la vie.. lessons learnt from day 1; TRY HARDER TOMORROW (and gaffa-tape my hands together between meals!).
© Tess Egerton 2011
Running For Precedence
It’s finally race day at last! The ‘Run For The Future’ is on and I have reached full circle in my quest for fitness all in a good cause. Having spent the last 48 hours furiously collecting sponsors for the run and bumping up the potential funds for research into prostate cancer, my attention has shifted substantially from the self-motivated need for improvement on aesthetics to the genuine cause of helping to save men’s lives throughout the UK. The former appears completely insignificant when set against the latter cause.
My priority on this day is to win for the charity and not let anyone down. So after a nervous and fitful sleep (accompanied by very odd dreams) I rise at 8 to start preparation. Good healthy cereal to start; a bit of fruit and lots of water (now affectionately known as my ‘Maccy plan’- named after a good friend’s advice). Before I know it, it’s time to leave the house and make my ‘warm up’ trek to the event site. I feel a bit of a ‘narna’ jogging up the hill in my special t-shirt with pinned- on number and message, custom made for the day, but it’s all in a good cause.
On site, there is already an array of ages, shapes, sizes and personalities waiting and warming up for the 5k run. At one point the Tannoy announces that the youngest runner is 7 and the oldest is 85; quite an age range. There is a stage with local Radio station DJ’s whooping up the crowds, there are sports and health stands surrounding us and various offers of assistance in any way to make the whole experience a good one for all kinds of runners. I am amazed. As a first timer I didn’t think it would be anything like this – it’s so exciting! There’s plenty of motivational upbeat music around, field marshals, police, paramedics, barriers to keep traffic away for the duration of the run and wall to wall reminders of why we are here. Every back has a message or a photo dedicated to a loved one who’s suffering or died as a result of prostate cancer.
Our regional news reader takes to the stage and ups the ‘anti’ even more by relating how her own dad died of this disease only eight weeks ago. Everyone is solemn and a minutes silence is held in honour of sufferers. Shortly afterwards I’m offered a full leg massage as a starting warm-up point… I accept with both legs, gratefully!
Within minutes, it seems, the fitness team from Bannatynes has taken to the stage and they are bouncing us all around energetically to heavy-beat chart music. Everyone is smiling widely and there’s a huge sense of anticipation and team membership amongst the 750 or so runners. We’re shaken up, down, to the left and the right, I’m panicking about my i-pod and drinks bottle which I’ve temporarily put down on the grass….every time that man in front steps to the right, he’s an inch closer to stampeding all over my Lady Gaga!
Frenzied warm up complete, the announcers shout over the mic for the mayor to take position at the starting line. He’s not running, just lost in the crowd somewhere and they have to call him back to cut the red starting tape!
The participants are duly spilt up into groups of ‘runners’ and walkers’. JJ and I head for the runners’ group and walk excitedly towards a gigantic inflatable ‘start’ gantry towering over the road and field in front of us. Everyone’s excited and in place, the hooter goes and we’re off!! I can’t quite believe it as we start running and are caught up in a huge crowd of stamping feet and laughing, chattering fundraisers. The atmosphere is electric and carries us along effortlessly for the first kilometre or so. Half way along, JJ strikes a look of sheer surprise, stating “did you see that? We just overtook someone!!!”. I’m laughing so much I can hardly keep running. Our triumph is short lived as my fit of giggles has slowed us down to a trot and we’re by-passed swiftly by an elderly gent jogging in brown socks and loafers. This sets me off again! Now we’re almost in a convulsed crawl for around 100metres.
Gradually we build back up to speed and recover our position around midway in the ‘runners’ section. Things are going well and we’re ahead of our timings. Wonderfully, we discover that at every half kilometre there’s a marshal clapping us on and shouting encouragement to anyone who looks like they’re flagging. Hundreds of family members line the route and clap, shout, wave and take photos as all runners continue past in various stages of tiredness.
The main part of the route is thankfully sunny and a good temperature, but all of a sudden, a huge black cloud appears from nowhere and the heavens open. At first, JJ and I are grateful as we’re so hot and thirsty. I run along trying to catch some rain to drink for a minute or two. But then the driving cold winds accompany the rain and for the last kilometre it feels a tad unpleasant to say the least. Just as I start to think things are getting too tough, I see the huge blue ‘finish’ gantry across the road and even better, my family are waiting there waving and clapping.. the kids are calling me and going crazy. Blood sugar levels have to take a back seat at a time like this and I race with JJ towards the finish line! We did it!! Neither JJ or I can believe it. 39 minutes and 10 seconds- we beat the record AND raised the money for research. Job done!! Now……”where’s the next 10k charity event?” we wonder..
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