No spending day

Good afternoon.

I finished work today at 1.15 and then walked home. Whilst at home I made the beds, hovered downstairs, cleaned the kitchen and the downstairs toilet. Put the dishwasher on and did a load of washing.

Then I walked back to the school to pick the children up and walked straight back home again so my walking should be up again today. Update - steps 18,012 miles 7.7 calories burnt 1047

When I say it has been a no spend day I have not stopped at any shops and spent any money but my son has gone to cadets tonight and he takes £2.00 with him every week.

I have eaten a little more today :-

Breakfast 1oz crunchy nut

Lunch - 3 Ryvitas with low fat cream cheese and a nutrigrain bar

Snack - Apple, 2 cookies and 2 crumpets

Tea - pasta and tomato sauce

The reason I have eaten more for snack today is because walking back from school with the children I came over very dizzy and had to sit down. My darling son gave me an apple leftover from his lunch and we carried on walking home.

I'm unsure whether I felt dizzy because I am still recovering although I feel ok. But quite a few people at school have said because of the amount of walking that I do I am not eating enough. I'm not sure but thought well I feel the need for a snack so I decided to have one.

I feel much better now so I guess it must have worked. Update - Ok so I have just worked out my calories and even though I thought I had been very greedy I have only had 1066 calories and still have 224 calories to use if I need to.

I am off to give my lovely children their lavender bath and story before bed as this seems to be working a treat.

Have a lovely evening and take care. Xx

The scales have let me down!

Good afternoon dear friends,

I hope you are having a lovely day after all we are half way through the week. Two more days until its family time!

Today, I had a full day at work and it was busy, as its the start of a new term and new topics there is just so much to do.

My walking will be down a bit today as sweet man came and picked us up from school, its not very often that happens anymore as he is normally home a lot later than me.

Cleaning today is nada, not a thing! And I have a friend who I haven't seen for a long time coming over to tea tonight so its very unlikely anything will get done.

But last nights lavender bath and reading worked a treat so I will carry that on tonight with my boys and as my friend is a teacher I will ask her to do some reading with my beautiful daughter. Ha ha I'm sure she won't mind.  It was lovely to wake up to happy children. We sat and ate our breakfast together and chatted all the way to school. Such a treat.

I have been very good with my exercise and food the last two days but I got on the scales this morning and found that I have put on 2 pounds! I was mortified. Everyone at work was telling me your catching up from Christmas. Hmm not the point. I have been so good.

Ok so my food today as I have not let it put me off has been:-

Breakfast - 1oz crunchy nut

Snack - nutrigrain bar

Lunch - 4 ryvitas with low fat cream cheese

Dinner - Jacket potatoes with cheese and beans and salad

I will work out the calories tomorrow and also my exercise for today.

Take care xx

Daily update

Good evening, I hope you have had a nice day.

Mine has been busy. I worked till 1.15, walked home, changed my shoes as I have rather gigantic blisters on my heels. Ouch!
Walked to the shops and took a top back as I looked like a beached whale in it. Got some breakfast stuff as it was the children's first day back at school and my son decided he was not going to eat any breakfast. I also bought some lavender bath soak as the same son could not sleep last night because we are back to school.

Remember them aims - Am I letting this get on top of me... No, tonight we are going to have tea, I am going to run him a luscious warm bath and then read him a story and tuck him up in a bed that has lavender drops on the pillow with a hot water bottle.

Then I think I will jumps in a hot bath myself!

Food for the day.

Breakfast - 1oz crunchy nut cornflakes with skimmed milk

Snack- Nutrigrain bar

Lunch - 4 Ryvitas with low fat cream cheese

Snack - Nutrigrain bar and apple

Dinner - Chicken breast, new potatoes and salad and a Müller lemon yoghurt

Total calories 1139

Exercise for today Mainly walking I have done 22,554 steps plus 3,300 aerobic steps which was 9.674 miles and used 1330 calories.

I am really pleased with this.

I haven't done very much cleaning though today I have swept the floors downstairs, cleaned the kitchen and downstairs toilet. Whilst the children are in the bath I am going to try and clean up the boys bedroom a little, just so they get a cosy nights sleep. (and don't fall over if they need the loo)

Well bye for now and take care xx

Menu Plan Monday and other things

Good evening. Even though it was my first day back at work today I still feel quite smiley and happy.
I woke up at 5.30am this morning and after showering and getting dressed I had some breakfast and wrote a to do list which I will recreate for you.

1 - 2 loads of washing
2 - Put the dishwasher on
3 - Take Christmas tree and decorations down
4 - Organise school bags, clothes etc
5 - Do Menu plan for the week

Big fat tick to all of the above plus I did some ironing, cleaned all of downstairs and cooked a Ham joint for sandwiches this week

 

 

 

 

My fitbug today registered that I did 14,426 steps today which worked out to 6.169 miles and as some of them were aerobic steps I burnt 985 calories. Yay!!

 

 

 

My food today was:-

 

 

Breakfast - 1oz Crunchy nut cornflakes

 

Lunch - 5 Crackers, 1/4 Apple, 1oz cheddar cheese, 1 pickled onion, tomato, cucumber and picallili

 



 

 

Tea - Sliced ham, a handful of oven chips, lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber and a low fat muller mango yoghurt.


I am quite pleased with what I have eaten today although I know I haven't drunk enough I will register it shortly to check the calories. Update I have just logged my calories and I have had 1047.

Tuesday - soup and fresh roll

Wednesday - Chicken, salad and new potatoes

Thursday - Jacket potatoes with baked beans and salad

Friday - Tuna pasta and salad

Saturday - Homemade Chicken Curry and rice

Sunday - leftover curry and rice.

For my lunches at work this week I have bought a packet of ryvita crackers, some low fat cheese spread and some cottage cheese to have and I will take an apple with me each day.

Well I'm off to bed now.

Take care xx

Final day off

Its my last day off from work today. So this morning I popped over to see my brother and sister-in-law. As my brothers present didn't arrive for Christmas and I knew he would need it tomorrow to bike to the station. (It was a bell for his bike)

We spent about an hour with them and then we bought some fresh rolls for lunch on our way home.

We then brought all our pillows and covers downstairs and watched movies together and then we played games together. It has been a delightful way to spend the last day of the holidays together.

The children are still off school tomorrow so they have a list of things to do whilst I am at work like getting their bags organised, polishing their shoes etc. And if they complete their jobs and its not raining then we will be going to the park when I get in.  This hopefully will wear them out so that they sleep well.

As I told you yesterday I have decided to organise and tidy my bedroom first, and I intend to start this tomorrow after the park. The plan is to clear out my bedside cabinet which has lots of rubbish in it. I'm hoping that I will be able to bin most of the stuff in there. I plan to take roughly two weeks per room to fully clean and tidy them and will show you the before and after photos so you can tell me what you think.

I also intend to log my exercise and food from tomorrow. So its a whole new start.

Well I am off to work on a healthy menu plan that the whole family will eat. This could be interesting.

Take care xx

Ok hands up I haven't done much!

Hello dear friends,

Ha ha I bet you are wondering what I have achieved today...A big fat nothing.

I walked for a whole mile yesterday, yes, I can hear you cheering.

But seriously, I really haven't done much at all today. I have decided the first room that I plan to clean out is going to be my bedroom. But I can't decide whether to get rid of the clothes that are too small or as I am trying to lose weight whether to keep them and try and get into them. What do you think?

I tried to be good with what I eat today and had Alpen for breakfast, I know I shouldn't have done but I missed lunch and had chicken and noodles with Chinese vegetables for tea. Unfortunately I also had a couple of chocolate chip cookies too.

I haven't drunk anywhere near enough fluid today and this is normally an issue for me as I only tend to drink about three cups a day.

I had planned to take the Christmas tree down today but hey it looks pretty so it can stay up until Monday. I have to work for three hours on Monday morning so I think I'll take the decorations down in the afternoon.

I have had lots of lovely cuddles from my beautiful children and as we speak I have one of my boys snuggled up on my legs. I should really be sending them up to bed soon so they get into the habit of going to bed ready for back to school in a couple of days but its so cosy with him sitting there and I don't want him to go.

I checked my Nectar card today and I currently have £2.40 on it, I also have £4.40 on my Boots advantage card. I will keep a monthly update for these cards.

I'm off to read stories with my little ones before bedtime.

Take care and have a nice evening xx

Aims for 2016 - Not Resolutions

Hi, well here we are 2016. I am glad to say goodbye to 2015 but I want to welcome 2016 with the enthusiasm that was missing from last year.

I know certain things that brought me down last year are not going to get any easier, my dad will still be terminally ill but instead of being scared of losing him, I need to treasure every moment that I still have with him.

I know that my sweet boy, that is very unhappy at school, is not going to become miraculously happy but I need to make sure that I continue to support him as much as possible and try and make decisions that are right for him. (This had a massive effect on me last year because I work at his school and saw him alone and crying on a daily basis)

But now its time to get down to the things that I can do something about:-

1. I want to lose weight and become healthier. At the latter part of last year as most of you who pop in and visit will know I became very poorly and if I'm honest I'm only slowly on the mend now I think this was partly due to being so low and partly due to being not very healthy. This upset my children tremendously and they have begged me to become more fit and healthy this year. My children are my everything and the last thing I have ever wanted to do is make them worry.

I have joined Iona at meanqueen to walk 1000 miles in a year

I have been given a fitbug orb which monitors the exercise that I do and you can also monitor what you eat etc. Unfortunately the app does not work on my phone so I might need to download the app to my eldest sons iPhone.

I also plan to log what I have eaten on here so you can either congratulate me or give me a good talking to if I need it. I promise to be brutally honest because realistically the only person that I would be cheating is myself and my children.

2. I desperately want to get my house clutter free. I can't stand mess it stresses me out and with five children mess can accumulate very quickly. My aims for doing this is to take one room at a time and clear out everything in it into piles of what should be kept because it is truly wanted or needed, what should be donated or sold, and what is only fit for the bin! And systematically work my way through each room.

3. This year I want to save as much money as possible. To achieve this I aim to menu plan, only buy what is needed and to get what we need at the best possible prices. I would also like to cut down on the new items that we buy and get the best savings possible on things like nectar cards.

Organise big expenses like the children's birthdays and Christmas in advance and take advantage of offers on things that they would like when they arise. I am hoping that I will make extra money from the things that we don't need and I intend on putting this is an old jam jar together with money that I find. (I stole this idea from my dear friend Nathalie)

 

 

 

I hope you will join me on my bid to a happy and healthy 2016.  Over the next few days I will be planning exactly what time scale I want to reach each goal in and would love any advise or ideas that you may have.

 

Enjoy your evening and take care xx