The children still off school (bring on Wednesday) and the weather below zero, I still did my best at calorie counting. Both after lunch and supper I had to consciously tell myself, “this is enough food for you”. Portion sizes are definitely smaller, but the fact is, this is what I need to do to lose weight. They are sufficient to keep me going, and also lose weight.

After clay painting in the morning (at the highly recommended Paint A Clay) I did some baking with R&M, when H had taken himself off for an unnecessary nap. I’m currently ignoring sounds upstairs which probably mean he is breaking something when he is supposed to be asleep.

We had a made up recipe to use up the three over ripe bananas which involved ridiculous amounts of sugar, chocolate chips and butter.

I was fairly restrained but did try a truly small amount of the mixture to ensure it wouldn’t be disgusting before baking it, and then shared one small cookie with the two of them (they went on to have more). I have counted it as 300kcal. I hope not much more than that.

And then here is the genius part… I ATE SOME CHICKEN! Just a tiny bit leftover from shabbos. Because there is a prohibition in kashrus (keeping kosher) of eating dairy product shortly after meat produce, and the biscuits had actual butter not margarine in them. Hey presto! I couldn’t eat the biscuits for three hours! I’m actually incredibly proud of this bit of halachic cleverness.

For those readers who were wondering, H is actually staying in bed at the moment. No damage yet.

In other news, my scales fell on the bathroom floor and smashed today. I’m not thrilled about this, as I find that weighing myself daily to be very motivating. Fortunately in my loft decluttering I had recently found another set of scales. They aren’t as precise (only to nearest pound instead of quarter) so I will need to get some new ones. I think there are some measure fat perxentages. I don’t know how that works but it sounds interesting.

I have been researching different exercise classes along with ladies only times at various swimming pools. I’m putting all the information into a chart which is getting quite full, and will post here when completed. I have identified several new options which I hope to try out once the kids are back at school. I know not many of you lovely readers are local to me, but if anyone is, and knows of anything, please tell me in the comments below.

As you can see, I’m not giving up. I think I needed that kick up the behind to get me motivated to move forward.

Breakfast (262)- 35g porridge with 140ml almond milk, 174g stewed apples
Lunch (464) – 75g tricolor pasta with chilli son carne (veggie mince, tinned tomato, chickpeas, vinegar, chilli powder)

Snacks (544) – baking mixture and 1/3 biscuit, chicken, pressed beef

Supper (210 – possibly less as the portions of soup calculated were probably more than I had) soup – onion, parsnip, potato, carrot, stock cube

Total 1480