Observations

- when I eat low-carb during the week it takes me longer to get to sleep at night, and I need more sleep
- when I switch to high-carb (eg on Friday night) I fall asleep quickly and need less sleep.
- I don't need 48 hours of 'relaxed' eating if a lot of it is crap food.
 

Eventful Week

On Tuesday my husband and I celebrated our birthdays (we are born on the same day, he is a year older). On Wednesday we found out Rob's dad was in hospital (he lives in New Zealand), and on Wednesday night he had his leg amputated above the knee. He has a history of kidney and heart problems, and the operation was pretty high risk but the tissue was dead and it had to come off before it spread any further. Luckily the operation went well, and his dad is in good spirits. He faces another couple of months in hospital, and we should be arriving over there on holiday around the time he comes out, so we can work out when and how he might need further assistance. Hopefully there will be no complications in the meantime.

On a lighter note, I've seen a few changes in my physique this week. Dropped a lot of water after TOM bloat disappeared, plus have been keeping my starchy carbs low during the week so less water retention there too. Don't know what the scales say - haven't been on them since Friday last week. Will weigh in again on Sat morning before weekend 'relax' starts.

How Do You Feel?

Since I didn't have enough energy to train for the last couple of months, I experimented with my diet a bit in an attempt to make myself feel better. Rather than than eating to change how I look, I ate to change how I felt. And I discovered something interesting about myself.

In March, to give myself more energy, I decided to up my carb intake to around 55% (from oats/quinoa, sweet potato, legumes, veggies and fruit) and dropped my fat intake to around 20%. Near the end of the month I had the worst PMS ever. Cravings, irritability, depression, frequently bursting into tears, etc.

So the next two weeks I bumped my fat back up to about 30%, and dropped carbs back to 30 to 40%, with the majority of carbs coming from veges - a LOT of veges - and oats with flax seeds at breakfast in the second week. By the end of the second week (just prior to Easter) I felt great - relaxed, increased libido - better than I've felt for a long time. I ate a lot of starchy carbs over Easter so the following week I dropped carbs way back and pushed my fats even higher during the week (up to 60%), relaxing and including more carbs again this weekend just gone. Yesterday I was surprised when my period arrived, because I had no PMS symptoms.

So at this stage I'm not sure if it was the fats, the HUGE amount of veggies, the tablespoons of flax seeds, or the large amounts of starchy carbs that I ate in the weekends that made the difference, or if it was a combination of all four, but I want to keep working it out, as after feeling so crap for the last couple of months, feeling great feels, well, great!

relaxed/strict start

Friday 17 April: 63kg (same as pre-Easter weight)

Plans for this weekend (relaxed)
Friday Quiet night, low-carb food in case Rob has to make weight for a grappling tournament on Saturday.
Saturday At a course for most of the day. Possible dinner out at a Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant after Rob's comp, plus birthday drinks at a local pub.
Sunday May have some house guests after Saturday night, so will probably do brunch and coffee together.

Will report back on Monday after my 'computer free' weekend.

Trying Something New

For the next four weeks I'm going to try a way of eating I've been thinking about for while: 'strict' weekdays, and 'relaxed' weekends. I'm choosing to do 'strict' weekdays because I work from home and my husband is often out from about 8am to 10pm, so when I eat it's not a social thing. The weekends are a time for me to catch up with family and friends. That might mean having a latte with my husband, or going out for drinks or brunch. During the weekends I don't want to be concerned with counting calories (there's the other five days of the week for me to do that). I just want to relax and enjoy myself.

I've also decided that I won't be using my computer on weekends. It's easy for me to spend hours on the internet when I could be doing other things. So on Friday nights I will be turning my PC off (and putting the laptop away), and not turning it on again until Monday morning.

So on Friday mornings I will post my training and food from Monday to Thursday, and my Friday-morning weight (as 'relaxed' weekend will start on Friday night), and on Mondays I will post my training and food from Friday to Sunday.

Tuesday-Friday

Food
M1: scrambled eggs, spinach, salsa
M2: protein shake, blueberries, fish oil
M3: beef pattie, mashed cauliflower
M4: salmon, asparagus
M5: chicken stir-fry (with oil)
M6: coffee-walnut protein pudding
approx 2000 cals

Food Porn

Gluten-free hot-cross buns aren't readily available at the supermarket, so today I made some, using the recipe on this page:

After rising


After adding cross


After baking


After glazing


Warm out of the oven, with butter - yum!

New Toy

When Rob started his Mixed Martial Arts training, he bought a sandbag to train with. It looks a bit like a gym bag, black with lots of handles on the outside to hold onto. It has a reinforced zip down the middle, which you can open up to add or remove filler bags. The filler bags are filled with sand, hence 'sandbag'. We have the 'advanced' size, which fits four 20lb filler bags and two 50lb filler bags, so you can have up to 180lbs (just over 80kg) in the bag. Rob finally got some sand today and filled up the 20lb bags, and I've found some ways I can use it: