Dearest Reader,

As I am writing this latest post, I am sitting at my dining room table, lovingly and slowly snacking on one of my all-time favourite snacks, apple and cashew butter. I prefer cashew butter to peanut butter as I find cashews have a more subtle nut taste than peanuts but, that is not to say that I don’t also lovingly enjoy peanut butter and jam toast (although not so often these days as I am cutting down on food with added sugars).

It’s been four weeks since I started my new programme, the NHS diabetes prevention programme.

It was a bit of a struggle, I went down the rabbit hole for a while but with the help of my coach I managed to set myself the following SMART goals (which I am very happy with): (1) reduce my weight by 5% in the next 12-13 weeks; (2) reduce my HbA1c level to 41 mmol/mol – test to be done in 12 months; (3) increase fibre intake using the T plate model (also helps control portion sizes) by including more whole grains such as brown rice, whole wheat bread and whole-grain pasta, as well as aiming for two portions of vegetables with my main meals; (4) exercise by doing yoga at least three times a week. I am still working on keeping up with my exercise goal. I know I want to do yoga at least three times a week, I would like to do rowing and HIIT sessions, but I go through these fluctuations of motivation, and I don’t have it nailed down yet. As part of the programme’s learning material, I came across a Youtube video which was talking about the “23 and 1/2 hours” concept. It’s a very interesting video that looks at “what is the single best thing we can do for our health” and concludes that the best intervention we can do to improve our lives is to consider that our day has 23 and 1/2 hours and use the remaining half-hour or even an hour for exercise or being active. You can watch the video here . Including here goal (5) improve quality of sleep – read on below and it will all make sense 🙂

So… How am I doing after four weeks?

• (1) Kilograms lost – 1.1 kg – it could have been more, but have been a bit of a cheat – so not very good
• (2) reduce my HbA1c level – have been cheating a lot and have had lots of treats and sweets – so not very good
• (3) increase fibre intake and use T plate model – have reduced quantities of bread, increased quantities of vegetables at some main meals, reduced food or food ingredients ordered through delivery services (Deliveroo, Uber Eats) and mainly shopped from the stores
• (4) yoga at least three times a week – last week I managed to achieve my goal but this week I didn’t manage to do any yoga yet (still have two days though! 🙂
• (5) improve sleep quality – I managed to wake up early (as I used to like to do) in the morning twice this week

Don’t know about you but I am getting “Bridget Jones’ Diary” vibes here… 🙂

Also, it is worth mentioning that, in the last week, I managed to keep up with not buying too much food and let it go to waste. This used to be one of my biggest issues (I wholeheartedly believe I made lots of progress in this area). Not to mention that this has had a positive effect on my purse too! 🙂 The approach I am taking is to plan meals for a couple of days and only buy the ingredients I need. I opted to meal plan only for a couple of days because every time I used to meal plan for a week, I would always get bored with what I planned, inevitably crave something else and would lose interest in the plan. Therefore, I don’t bulk buy anymore and I only buy what I need and fancy.

I keep discovering the Oviva app that I am using as part of the programme and a couple of weeks ago I noticed that you can record all sorts of things, not only exercise. For example, you can record the time you are doing chores around the house which also counts as being active which is also super important, not only exercise. Since then, I have been so much more active, keeping up with chores and not letting things escalate until they become a much bigger and time-consuming chore. I keep working on this every day.

Something else I am still working on, with ups and downs, is my sleep. I am a very light sleeper and, in the last couple of years, the quality of my sleep has worsened significantly. All the literature I am reading about being healthy and losing weight is connected to sleep. Not that I didn’t know this for a very long time, but it just sank in… if you know what I mean! I have come to the realisation that when I don’t sleep well, I am tired, I make bad food decisions, I am irritable and don’t see all the opportunities or the positivity I see when I had a good night sleep. I have been reading (for forever – just can’t finish it even though I really want to!) this very interesting book on sleep by Matthew Walker titled “Why We Sleep”. I am still only on chapter 6 of 16 but I will persevere! Mum raised no quitter! 🙂 So far, I read about what is sleep and why should we sleep. It makes a compelling case for a good night sleep and that’s why I have been so focused on improving my sleep. This just made me realise that I should include sleep as my fifth goal! Going back now to include it! 🙂 Before the pandemic, I was a morning person. I used to love waking up early in the morning and be in the office by 07:30 am. Nowadays, some days I am not even awake at that time! Since the pandemic, I have been mainly working from home and have been trying to work more days from the office than from home, but I’ve not been very successful with this endeavour 🙂 Oh well, I am sure that this will change from August. I have some amazing news I will share with you in another post in due time…

I will leave you with that cliffhanger!

Sending you lots of positive vibes!

Miss B x