Day 25

It was a calm start to the day. I set off on my walk at 6.30am and walked for half an hour. 

When I got back I had 2 scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and a cup of white coffee for breakfast. Lunch was a green salad with 4 slices of bacon. After work I had a cup of coffee with cream and dinner was Sea Bass cooked in butter and lemon juice served with broccoli and asparagus. 

It's been a hard week so I treated myself to a couple of glasses of white wine this evening. 

Now I need to plan next week's meals and write my shopping list for tomorrow! 

Day24!

I'd be a lot more excited about day 24 if I'd lost some of the 8lbs I was hoping to lose in September. However I have to be completely honest and report that I am still exactly the same as when I started! My clothes do feel a little looser but nothing has happened on the scales! 

It would be easy to feel discouraged in these circumstances and decide to throw in the towel and creep away quietly to comfort myself with a jumbo sized bar of chocolate. However, I'm in this for the long haul. I know that after losing 2stone of the 2.5 stone I wanted to lose 2 years ago that the last 7-10lbs will be the hardest to shift. 

So what can I do to make a difference? Well the most sensible thing to do is keep a food diary for a week. Write down every single thing that passes my lips and be 100% honest. This is a truly tedious task but it will reveal if and where things are going wrong. In my case it's not due to eating sweets and cakes and other forbidden treats, it's much more likely to be too many hidden grammes of carbohydrate. Sadly I have  a very low tolerance of carbs and find it virtually impossible to lose weight unless my carb consumption is under 5% of my daily diet. 

So tomorrow morning I will start my diary - I'll share it with you so you can see what a typical week's diet is for me, hopefully you'll find it useful. 

Bye for now!

Just before I go - here's a shot of this morning's sunrise - so very peaceful.

Day23

I can't resist sharing this amazing picture of the sunrise over Belfast Lough this morning - I think it's the most spectacular one I've ever seen! 

For me walking provides a great opportunity to appreciate the world around me, whether that is a spectacular sunrise or the sound of the seagulls circling overhead. It connects me to nature and seems to fit naturally with my LowCarbhighfat diet. This is a diet that does not include processed food. Instead I eat moderate amounts of protein from meat, fish and eggs, a range of fats, nuts, small amounts of fruit (mainly berries) and plenty of vegetables. It's a diet that has changed my life and health and one that is easy to follow as long as you are prepared! 

Day22

It was a struggle to get out of bed this morning, but when I did and dragged myself and the dog out for a walk I was greeted by this wonderful sky - a lovely 

start to the day. 

My meals today were smoked salmon and 2 poached eggs for breakfast, smoked mackerel salad for lunch and a chicken stir fry for dinner. I had some olives late afternoon and grapes for an evening snack. 

I don't eat rice with my stir fry as I don't eat any grains, but if you want to avoid rice you could replace it with 'cauliflower rice'. To make Cauliflower rice, gently blitz florets of cauliflower in a food processor for a few seconds at a time until it resembles grains of rice. Then cook in olive or coconut oil along with some finely chopped onion and garlic - tasty and low carb! 

Day21.

I've made huge changes to my diet over the past two years. Biscuits, cakes and sweets no longer feature at all and chocolate is a very occasional treat. 

But for any change in your diet to work you need to ensure that you are getting enough of the key elements your body needs to thrive, and what your body needs is moderate amounts of protein, high levels of good fats and a very small amount of carbohydrate. Around 25% of what I eat is good quality protein such as meat, poultry, eggs and fish, around 70% is fat - including double cream, whole fat yogurt, olive oil, coconut oil, nuts and avocado and oily fish and around 5% carbohydrates from fresh berries, vegetables and salads. 

This high ratio of fat may seem a lot but it's necessary to fill you up and stop you snacking on unhealthy refined carbohydrates such as breads and baked goods. One of my favourite sources of fat is full fat natural Greek yogurt. I love it! I've tried every local supermarkets own brand along with some well known makes, and in my opinion the very best one is Lidl's at £1.38 per 1kg tub

It's so good that I find it difficult to stop eating it once I start and have had to restrict myself to one tub per week! As you can see my toy poodle Teddy is also a big fan! 

Dairy does cause problems for some people who find it hard to tolerate, (including me!) so if the same applies to you focus on non dairy sources of fat. 

Day 20.

I was trying to have a quiet day today, with minimal rushing around but as usual it hasn't quite turned out like that! 

I've done well with meals today - I had boiled eggs for breakfast, a bacon salad for lunch and dinner tonight was roast chicken and gammon with mangetout, asparagus and gravy. I had a few berries with Greek yogurt for a late afternoon snack and a glass of wine with my dinner.

                       Very tasty!

I didn't do much walking today, in fact it's probably the least active day I've had in months. That was mainly because my dog is limping and I don't want to walk him too far until the vet has checked him over, and also because from mid afternoon there has been torrential rain, the sort of rain in which the dog won't even put a paw outside! Hopefully tomorrow will be better and more walking will be done!

Day 19 'Happy Weekend'

It's one of life's great mysteries - why can many of us spring out of bed bright and early at the weekend but find weekday mornings so difficult? 

A sunny Saturday afternoon on Belfast Lough

Well of course it's all about motivation. Even though I enjoy my job I enjoy the weekends off a lot more and don't want to waste time lying in bed! 

However, it is important to get the balance right - we all need 'down time' to relax and recharge our batteries, and if we fill every waking moment then down time is likely to suffer. Now and then that doesn't matter, but if you push yourself day after day, week after week without adequate rest, the strain will begin to show in your body. 

So next time you're planning an action packed weekend make sure you plan some rest time too!