Who ate all the pasties? Or how not to stay slim on holidays and survive....

I love holidays. Holidays are a real highspot of my year. Best of all I get to spend most, if not all of my time with Ali, my most favourite human being in the whole world. It says a lot about our lives that many of us spend the least time with the people we love most.  Next I love the freedom of holidays - being able to do what I want when I want, no longer subject to the tyranny of the diary or the blackberry. 

On holiday I have the freedom to walk when the sun shines and lie in bed when it rains. I can get up when I want,  go to bed when I want. I don't have to worry about being too tired to stay awake through that meeting or writing that report. I am the mistress of my own destiny for those few precious days each year and life can be just how I want it.

Luckily we're simple souls, easily pleased. Bliss for Ali and me is walking near the sea, being outside as much as possible, ideally in warm and sunny weather (tho that's a bit of a luxury in the UK I know) with good food and quality sleep.  Like last year,  we headed south, this time by train, and rented cottages for two weeks in Cornwall and Devon.

We had a fantastic two weeks, blessed by warm and dry weather (including more sun than we'd expected) and we were out and about all day every day. We spent most of our time hiking along beautiful, rugged coastal paths.  We did marvellous walks (holiday blog special to follow) and visited lots of interesting and beautiful places.

One of the joys of travel for me is getting a taste of a place,  literally and metaphorically. How can you get to know and understand somewhere if you don't try their food? Cornwall and Devon are fantastic for quality local food and great cooking and baking. We were delighted by the diversity and freshness of the local fish and veg. Everywhere we went had some local treat to be tried. Fresh air, exercise, lovely healthy fresh good food, nom nom!

But not all local delicacies make good staple diet material, and we were in dangerous territory in counties that major on dairy. I resisted the clotted cream teas easily, but not the ice cream.  Ice cream is my downfall, I love it and I love to try different ones and compare them. As a purist, I rarely eat anything but vanilla. I ate ice cream in Zennor, Salcombe, St Ives, Padstow and beyond.  

I am also partial to cake and we ate far too many delicious home made scones and cakes and drank too many glasses of wine (Ali sampled local beers as befits his having a beard). We ate a sinful amount of new Cornish potatoes and hand cut perfectly cooked chips.  Twice I had the local cheese plate, and reader, I cleaned those plates.

So we were a little bit indulgent and I have returned 5lbs heavier than when I left two weeks ago. I know our coastal walks were the equivalent of several hours on the step machine (at least!) and we walked everyday for long periods, and of course muscle weighs more than fat.... but I have put on weight and I need to lose it -  those work clothes are going to be a tight fit. Oh B*gg*r!  It's the same old thing - how to get the balance right.


Last year's holiday was similar, if less strenuous, but I came back more or less the same weight I started out at. What was different this year? Well, this year we ate out more, every night except twice, and it is hard to control calories (and greed!) when you eat out, even if you do stick to the rules (ho, ho!). I ate chips -  a lot. I ate at least some cake every day, we had no 'normal' days this year, every day had some treat in it.

Of course Devon and Cornwall are quite foodie. West Sussex had good food, but great food is a big thing in Cornwall and Devon, with a focus on fresh, healthy and local.  Most of the food we ate was grown and made in beautiful places with clean air, and somehow that gets into the food. Much of what we ate had a strong and unique local identity, food was part of the places we walked through; and was often grown, caught, prepared and served by people we met.  This meant we did eat well and maybe a little more unwisely than we should.

But I didn't lose my self control completely; even though we ate more this year, we did not relapse into the old ways.  Because we were self catering there were no tempting cooked breakfasts that used to be the staple fare of our holidays (one scrambled egg and smoked salmon does not count). We could indulge our love of healthy fruity breakfasts and control what we ate better when we did it ourselves.

We shared a cake rather than have one each.  We drank a glass or two of wine, rather than glugging a bottle and didn't pig out on crisps and peanuts. We ate some big meals, but only twice, we didn't want big rich dinners or a pudding every night. Small but significant victories!

The biggest difference this year is what's in my head.  Last Summer I  was reaching the end of my weight loss programme and still losing weight. I was very much in diet mode as I struggled to lose the few final pounds. I was totally focussed and quite disciplined, even though I did allow myself to relax on the holiday, I kept control. This year I am trying to live normally, to maintain a healthy weight, but at the same time avoiding slipping back into bad habits. But I did let go a bit and as a result piled on the beef.

But as I sat on the train home and reflected on the holiday,  I don't regret any of the good food I ate. Surely it can't be right to leave Cornwall and Devon without sampling their superb cheeses and I will never regret having tasted the magnificent Moomaid ice cream from Zennor or the amazing meal we had at the Gurnards Head Hotel, two fields away from our Cornish cottage. The food we ate is as much a part of the holiday as the Lost Gardens of Heligan and  the herons on the River Dart boat trip.  The fresh ham baguette and shared scone at Olives's cafe in St Ives after the amazing cliff walk from Tween. The plaice in the Cricket Inn in Beesands after we walked from Torcross to Lannacome Bay and back.

Life is full of choices, but I want to have my cake and eat it, at least for those holiday weeks when I can be a bit more free and a bit less disciplined. My choice is to enjoy the taste of places, along with the sights and smells and experiences of being there. I want to indulge myself a bit on holiday, do things I enjoy, things I don't usually do, let go a bit. That includes eating differently.  A big part of me getting very fat was my 'out of control' holiday eating that I never compensated for. Each year I put on those extra holiday pounds and never shifted them, they stayed put.  I'm happy that my weight fluctuates, but it can't keep going up (or down), that's what I need to watch - the slow but steady upward drift.  Yes, it's the old refrain.

Now the holiday is over I have to get my weight back down again. Last year when my holiday ended, I immediately went back to losing weight mode - I'd started that diet so I was going to finish it, and I did. I barely missed a beat when I got home and I was soon at my target weight. This morning, I was straight back into my weight loss eating pattern and I will stay in it until I am back at my target weight. Already I can feel the benefit and it feels good. Somehow because I've put on so much I feel better about dieting, I can't pretend those extra pounds will just go on their own, the risk of getting very fat again seems quite real. I can feel that old determination to take control of this coming back and the food diary is back out. My fruit bowl is full.


So whatever you do for your holidays, make sure you savour the moments, they are precious days. Holidays are supposed to be special and different to normal, so make the most of them!

Cheers

Sue

The End of the Road - When Your Running Shoes Bite the Dust

Well, the time has finally come to say a fond farewell to my first ever pair of proper running shoes. No more will we pound the roads of North Berwick together. No more splashing in rock pools, tip toeing through the tulips, no more dark o'clock trots round the streets. It is time to say goodbye, farewell, adieu.

It might sound nuts, but I've got really attached to my running shoes. I bought them last September in Leeds (town of my youth) at UpandRunning, it seems like yesterday. I was so excited and trepidatious walking into a shop for proper runners (another first for me) and having the audacity to try on running shoes. I was like a teenager, trying to sound like I knew everything there was to know about running. Ha! wasn't I the seasoned runner, with many miles under my belt??!! Yes, well, we'll draw a veil over that one.  I don't think I convinced anyone in the shop, but at least I didn't fall off the running machine when I did the gait test!

As a woman who loves shoes, I fell in love with my runners (Brooks Ghost if you're interested) the moment I put them on and wriggled my toes.  We were made for each other and that was that. Over the last 9 months, they have taken me over hills, along beaches, on streets and parks. We did our first half marathon and 10K and Race for Life together. They've been with me on the treadmill and have even come spinning sometimes. But now their running days are done, they don't have the miles in them for what comes next. With the possibility of a marathon next year, it was time to get new shoes to take me into the long runs ahead.

My old shoes officially retired at Race for Life. But there's life in the old trainers yet. Like a fine race horse who's had their last Grand National, they will come out for short runs and maybe to the gym, but their racing days are over.

As in life, when we say farewell in one area, we find ourselves also saying hello to something new. When I bought me new running shoes (Asics, very nice and comfy), I didn't feel that excitement that I did the first time, but I did feel like a runner buying runner shoes. I know what my gait is, I know how I feel when I run fast or slow or long. I realised I'd moved on and that there will be more new shoes in future, I might even have two pairs of shoes, who knows. It feels a bit strange, odd and new, but also exciting.

Today a week after race for life, me and the new running shoes are going to have our first run in North Berwick. Not sure where yet, or how long.  So, here's to the very special first times, but also to where they take us - to other amazing first times - the future.

Cheers,

Sue

RACE FOR LIFE: MAKING HOPE HAPPEN

Well, I did it. Today I did the Race for Life in Edinburgh. 10K round Holyrood Park with some of the finest women on the planet. What a morning. 


This year I ran to celebrate and to mourn, friends and family who have survived and those who didn't. But I also ran in hope. Hope for friends and family who are currently having treatment; hope that more people will not even get it in the first place. Hope for a time when cancer isn't scary any more. Dare I hope for a time when we just don't get cancer? Is that possible? I hope it is. I know that every woman and girl (and the black lab who joined us today!) who ran round Arthur's Seat today got up that hill because of hope and love.

I don't know what's scientifically possible, I'm just a punter. But I do know that Race for Life is about making hope happen. The money we raise helps find cures and treatments. By running we raise awareness and hopefully make people think about how they can reduce the risks of getting cancer. By running Race for Life, we might also be helping ourselves. Keeping fit and healthy, keeping active, keeping a reasonable weight all help reduce the chances that we will get cancer, particularly women of a certain age, like me.

So, here's to all the thousands and thousands of women who've run Race for Life this year.

Also raise a glass to the marshalls, volunteers, warm up acts, well wishers and the lovely lady near the finishing line who cheered me on when I was ready to walk and helped me sprint over the line. Here's hoping that the money and hope that we have raised will make a difference. Here's hoping for a day when we don't have to do Race for Life anymore, when cancer is history.

Love, Sue

I Hate Diets - They Don't Work!

I don't like diets. Diets mean doing without, eating abnormally. They are punishment for indulgence and lack of self control. I know that isn't really what the word means, but that's what it means to me and I'm not alone.  What's even crazier is diets don't usually work anyway. Only about 20% of dieters succeed in losing weight and keep it off for a reasonable amount of time. Diets don't work, so what do you do?

Diets fail because we don't stick to them when we're on them or  because we pile the weight on sooner or later when we stop 'dieting'.  Diets fail because they are miserable, unnatural and temporary fixes to a way of eating (and living) that has been going on for years. We all know yo-yo dieting is physically and mentally damaging and diet 'failure' can be a real knock to our emotional health and well being. Who in their right mind wants to stay on a diet, especially after you've lost the weight? All we want is to lose weight and get back to normal and get on with our (hopefully, slimmer) lives, and never have to diet again.

For me the mention of the word 'diet' sent me to the biscuit tin, so I needed a good story to tell myself. I worked hard to focus on eating to keep healthy and happy. I had to accept I was an unhealthy eater and got to be 4 stone overweight and morbidly obese because my normal eating habits were unhealthy.  I had to learn that healthy eating isn't just about what I eat, but how much; it's eating to keep my body within a healthy weight range/shape. I needed a new 'normal'.

Story 1 - I was getting back to normal weight by eating 500 calories per day less than I needed. Not dieting, just getting back to normal.  Story 2 - I had to learning how to eat healthily - for ever, not just until I'd lost the weight.

Over that year long weight loss programme, I put in place a new and healthy eating pattern that I have kept on even though now I don't need to lose weight anymore. What's different?  I was a classic - bacon roll, chocolate bar and milky builder's tea for breakfast; tuna mayo baguette and cake for lunch, big dinner - cheesy sauces and puds. Snacks during the day and a biscuit or two with Mum when I went to make her tea (Hands up carers if you believe that biscuits eaten during caring activity are calorie free!). 

Now  I have porridge, apple and yogurt for breakfast and soup, a roll and banana for lunch.  No cheesy sauces and we don't have puddings on a weekday.  Things are relaxed a bit at weekends and holidays, but we don't go mad - well not very often!  I love the way I eat now, I find my food delicious and satisfying.  My body feels better, I feel less sluggish and I enjoy treats when I have them.  I still enjoy my food and I still like a big full plate, but it's a healthy plate.  I am at peace with my eating!

There's a big hard sell on dieting and losing weight, but for most of us, it's about so much more than shifting the weight, it's about living healthily. Even the big diet companies are recognising that the real answer is not just to make easy money by getting us on the diet cycle, but about promoting healthy lifestyles for us and our families.

So, if like me your extra weight is down to a long standing pattern of unhealthy eating, just cutting down won't solve your problem in the long term. The real answer to losing weight is eating to be healthy, and that for many of us is about learning new ways of cooking, thinking, living.  So don't waste time dieting, get healthy.

Good luck!

Sue

ps My Race for Life is next Sunday, wish me luck!

Change your life? Yes You Can!!!

Do you ever have moments when a teeny tiny thought comes into your head, and you think to yourself, 'I could do that'?  It seems like a really little thought, but it changes your life?  You're not really sure that you can do it, but suddenly it's a maybe?  I suspect we all have them quite a bit and most of them we don't notice (thank goodnesss!), but some of them stick in your mind for some reason or another.

It won't surprise you that after my last blog, I started thinking about what made it the right time for me to diet. Okay, I'd been building up to it for a while, and I'd finally admitted I had a serious weight problem that I had to address. But what changed thoughts to action was the sudden realisation that my life didn't have to be like this, I could change it.  And it's all down to Helen Mirren in a bikini.

Somewhere in my messy cluttered thinking about life was the notion that getting older meant I had to look and act like an older woman, not wear a skirt above the knee never mind a bikini! I was not supposed to be the physically active and energetic woman I had  been for so much of my life, just the odd (very odd!) dance at parties.  Seeing Helen Mirren in that bikini opened my eyes and my mind. I realised that getting older did not have to mean I had to act old. All around me I saw women my age and quite a bit beyond doing amazing things that were about who they were and who they wanted to be, not the numbers on their birth certificates.

This was heady stuff, and I can still remember the moment that I saw that photo and realised that I had options and choices, that there were still many possibilities in my life. I did Pilates, maybe underneath several inches of tummy was toned muscle. Maybe underneath my poor heavy and weary body there was a youthful exuberant one waiting to get out...

And reader, there was!  As I lost weight, I found my youthful energy again and new possibilities emerged. One of the things I began to do was to jog, then run. When I was doing my success story for TescoDiets, I put down that I'd always secretly wanted to run a marathon but never believed I would, even when I was slim.  That thought had been buried deep and suddenly, I was thinking 'maybe I could do that' one day. I was pretty doubtful, but it wasn't in my impossible box any more!

After I did the Edinburgh Half Marathon in April, I began to think that with training and patience, I could do a marathon and I've registered for the Virgin London Marathon next year. Gulp! Yes, it's scary. yes I am going to have to work hard, but yes, I think I can probably do it, if I can keep injury free and if I get in. Now that I've got the running bug, I have lots of amazing women runners to inspire me.  The oldest woman in the London Marathoin this year was born in 1927 -  83 years old. And I'm going to run it for Parkinson's UK, for Dad, who would understand so well what it means to me and that inspires me.

Big life changing and wonderful things can start with a tiny but momentous moment when what was impossible becomes possible. It can be a tiny bit possible, and you can be hugely dubious, but in that moment life changes.  Those are the moments we can change our lives, we just have to open our minds to a new possibility and see what happens.

So, seize the moments and let your mind open even just a bit to the thought that things can be different.

Good luck!


Suex

There's a right time for everything, including diets

What is that makes a diet work? I've been thinking about why I didn't lose weight for the wedding, why did I start 9 months later? And why do people do diet after diet and it just doesn't work, then one day for no apparent reason - bam, they've started a diet, lost the weight and it stays off. What is it that makes that critical difference?

Some people lose weight ready for a big birthday; a wedding; a holiday, a new outfit, a race.  They have a goal, a very clear reason to lose weight and a timescale to lose it in and they go for it.  Some people lose weight as things happen to them - after a divorce, or a break up or a happy event.  Feeling that I should lose weight was enough to send me straight to the biscuit tin.  I sailed through big birthdays, our wedding and honeymoon like a magnificent galleon in full rigging. I hadn't meant to be a fat bride, but I obviously didn't want to be a slim one enough for it to get me on that diet.

Talking to people thinking about weight loss, it's clear diets can start in our heads way before we start losing it on the scales and this preparation time can make all the difference between success and failure.  Some diets start with us feeling unhappy about our weight, dress size or how we look. Some come when you can't run for that bus or climb those stairs. Some start with that dreaded family photo; beach or no beach, I was the family whale for a good few years.  Gradually a cluster of things that matter to us begin to prepare the ground and something unique to every one of us plants that seed of an idea - the thought that we want to change and we want to be different. For many of us, it takes  time to grow and take root before we begin to see any leafy shoots of change. Growth needs the right environment, things have to be right in the real world too, it's not just about heads.

Looking back, I began to get unhappy with my weight about 7 years ago when I got noticeably bigger than my gym buddies. I became the fat one. If you'd asked me, I would have said I was fine, but the thought had begun to settle. I started to think about healthy eating and even bought a GI cookbook. Over the next few years, I looked at weight loss websites - in passing of course! I didn't do anything about how I ate until 6 years later. Ali and I been out for a lovely walk on the beach. We'd treated ourselves to hot chocolate and a toasted tea cake at the Seabird Centre, watching the waves and looking forward to the return of the gannets.  As we headed home, we talked about our future and how we both  wanted to have many more days like this, and our worries that our growing waistlines were likely to cut our happy ever after short.

 When we got home I signed us both up to a weight loss programme. We started that evening and never looked back. It was the right time.   Losing Dad, getting married, holiday photos from Fat Hell were all part of my journey, they all took me a step or two closer to losing weight. That Sunday our time came and we went for it.

It's easy to feel a failure because you're not on a diet and not losing weight. But diets are hard work, they take time, energy and mean you have to change how you go about your every day life -  how you shop, cook and what you eat. You have to be prepared to take some time and energy out for you, and if you're focussed on caring for others that's not always workable.
Life is too short for guilt, if it's not a good time to diet then accept that, but you can begin to prepare -  mentally, physically and emotionally - for your diet.  If you're reading about healthy living, you're already on your weight loss journey, you're preparing and learning. If you've tried a diet and it doesn't work, then you are experimenting to find out what works for you.  You are not a failure. Feeling a failure is not good for anyone, and is totally counter productive, especially round weight where guilt and feeling bad about yourself are so much part of the problem.

For many years, I was fat I and I was very happy, especially on the day Ali and I got married.  Here's a photo taken on the beach at North Berwick on our wedding day, you don't get much happier.  We realised that caring for each other with rich food was going to steal precious years away from us. We decided to lose weight because we want to stay happy and healthy for a long time to come.  Our right time came that Sunday on the same beach. We went home and changed our lives, the next stage of our journey had begun.   The Bass Rock is behind us, and so are our fat days!

Take care

Running with gannets - and Jenni Murray!

I had such an amazing run yesterday. I was dithering about when to go and what to do first, but I made myself leave the house, leave the ironing and leave work NOW because it was sunny and the forecast was for rain later. I made myself go there and then and not put it off.  I am so glad I did what I told myself to do and got my priorities right.

I set off planning a long run, trying to keep up my distance so my rule is, just enjoy. I go where I want, as fast or slow as I want and that gets me in the right mind set. I then just see what happens and where my legs take me. The tide was out and the wind coming from the sea but I decided to head along the beach. The beach here is so lovely. Beaches are great places for almost anything and everything. I love watching dogs and some like to come and say hello, some want to play, some are clearly scared by me, but me and dogs, we run for the sheer joy of it and the joy of being alive.

And then as I looked out to sea I saw the gannets diving right next to the shore. It was magic, what a treat to see them so close. Ali and I  Love the Scottish Seabird Centre at North Berwick and have taken the boat out to the Bass Rock a couple of times to see the gannets close up. I can watch gannets diving all day, it is a most wonderful sight on many cliff and beach walks round here, but I have never seen them so close - feet away from me. They are beautiful birds with the most amazing lives. When they dive, they fold their wings like a missile and dive. It is some sight.  Gannets

(You won't have noticed but I have just spent 15 minutes looking at gannet pics to decide which to pick, I went for this even tho they're not flying.)

I had to watch them, this was too special a sight to just run past. I had to slow down, then I had to run sideways and I even tried to run backwards (very slowly!) so I could keep watching them. I ran up to the top car park which has an amazing view of the Bass Rock where the gannets live; every step of that hill was worth it. At the top I could see for miles along the Firth of Forth. Brilliant white gannets and their black tipped wings were clearly visible diving, flying low, circling round, going about their work. The Bass Rock goes white there are so many gannets on it and you can see thousands of them circling round it.

By the time I got back to the beach, the gannets had moved further out, avoiding the canoes I think. But today I was running with the gannets and so I headed off towards Tantallon Castle so I could keep the Bass Rock and gannets in view, I hardly noticed the running, I was up there with the gannets. How perfect does life get - gannets, warm East Lothian sun and fresh air and woman's hour on the ipod.  Does Jenni Murray know that she has run today!

But I couldn't run forever, and I had to head inland. As I turned off the road, in front of me was an enormous hare, looking at me. I could see it clocking me and deciding to shift sharpish, and I followed it up the track until it left me far behind.  Another treat.

I just ran until I stopped enjoying it and I'd done 14 miles, my longest run ever. I was tired but exhilarated and uplifted. The gannets and the hare were totally unexpected treats. I never thought that I'd see so much wildlife and such great views when I took up running. I am amazed how each time I run something unexpected happens. A problem is solved, a tension eased, a new sight, a new insight.  Yesterday was a very special run, one I will remember for ever, the day I ran with the gannets. And just think, I could have been ironing....

Take care

Sue