Dukan Attack Day 2

Blimey what a day!!

I decided to do something different for breakfast and had some sliced ham - I was rushed off my feet, so didn't get anything more than that, but it filled me up.

Lunch was a little unfortunate. I had planned to have the left-overs from last night's dinner. When I got into work I didn't take the tub out of my bag and put it into the fridge as I normally do. In fact, I only remembered that I had left it in my bag when I had worked through lunch and went to get it during my free period afterwards. But to be honest, I wasn't particularly hungry, so I wasn't too bothered. Besides, my BG was stable at around 7 all day, so I didn't worry too much.

Got home and decided to try one of those Dukan pancake thingies. I made it and it was surprisingly nice. I let it cool down, sliced it into ribbons and then stirred through some cooked chicken and non fat cheese. Yum! In fact it was so filling that I could only eat half of the meal. I can keep the rest for tomorrow's lunch.
The pancake was a bit like bread so it will make nice wraps for pretty much anything. I'm really looking forward to one with smoked salmon tomorrow for breakfast.
Recipe:
1 egg
1 tbsp wheat bran
2 tbsp oatbran
2 tbsp low fat fromage frais.

I think with some sweetener it could be made into a kind of sweet treat too! In fact, it would be great spread with dukan nutella - I'm sure I saw a recipe for that somewhere, will have to dig it out.

No figures for weight loss yet. I refuse to keep a set of scales as I know of the obsession that lies there. I plan to weigh myself at the gym on Sunday. But, like yesterday, much less bloated and feeling great. Also I keep ketostix in the bathroom from the last time I tried a serious low carb diet. (I didn't stick on it perfectly, but reduced carb has stuck for a while.) Anyhow, I was curious so I peed on the stick! It went light pink. It never went pink all the time that I was doing low carb before and the darker pink the better, as far as I'm concerned. I am so chuffed at that. It means that my body is starting to burn fat. As my BG is normal and stable, the dangers that are associated with this are limited, I'm told, so I'm pretty happy.

I had a headache yesterday evening, so I tried really hard to drink more water today. I think I've managed about 2 litres and am going to drink another couple of glasses this evening. Head is much better tonight.

I can't wait for tomorrow!

Dukan Attack Day 1

Hmmm. Well, it's been an interesting day! Today's food:
Breakfast 1 boiled egg
Lunch 3 slices ham with some philly light and babybel
Dinner Turkey breast stuff with garlic and philadelphia.

I haven't been hungry all day - until 6pm when I hadn't eaten for 5 hours, which is fair enough! I came home and shoved something in the oven. Had I not been hungry, I probably could have cooked something a little tastier for dinner. It was ok. I made two but only ate one as I was stuffed. I might eat it later if my BG fall too low.

Small emergency - can't find my BG monitor from the clever hiding place I put it in at the weekend. That is my mission for the evening. I had to use my horrible only-takes-blood-from -your-finger-and-it really-hurts-for-ages spare monitor at work. BG had been stable at just under 6 all day. Have felt great!

But on the plus side, my Tesco delivery just arrived, so tomorrow I am looking forward to Dukan bread with my boiled egg, chicken muffins for lunch and I don't know about dinner yet - going to find a recipe tonight.

So how does it feel? Well it's kind of hard to know how this relates to a non-diabetic but as my BG have been normal all day, I've been feeling great. Full of energy and not nearly as tired as I was before. In fact, I've got to go and find my BG meter as I might need to alter my meds tomorrow so that I don't end up hypo-ing when I'm at work. I am so impressed!
When I look at what I've eaten today, I'll be really surprised if I didn't lose weight this week as there can't be masses of calories there. I quite like the unlimited food aspect - I'd love to eat more but I'm just so full.

Only negative today: I'm really missing vegetables. I usually eat lots of them so I'm craving a whole plateful at the moment. I'm glad that I don't have to do this attack business for more than 6 days, I can't wait to get back to 'normal' on the PV/PP part.

Well one day down, 5 to go. I already feel far less bloated and my clothes feel normal, rather than the strain that was there before. Am I imagining that? We'll see!

Delusions of glamour

I flew up to see my fiance on Friday - a very quick visit using flights transferred from the volcanoed trip last weekend.

I had worked all day and jumped in the car to get to the airport in time. I was still in my work clothes and feeling pretty grubby, carrying a whole load of work with me. Ahead of me in queue were two beautiful people, joined at the neck it semed and very much in love. She was dressed in a very chic travelling outfit complete with sexy heels, carrying only a handbag. He carried a bag, which I assume was for both of them. And there was I, tired, bedraggled and with bigger bags under my eyes than my handbaggage that I was lugging around, painfully. Whilst the beautiful people had been chatting in departures over a coffee, I had been shuffling papers on a nearby table, trying to ignore noisy hen-parties and do some of the urgent marking that had to be done this weekend.

It reminded me of my frequent wish in my first few years of teaching. I longed for what we called a 'hand bag job'. You could work at a desk all day, so it was possible to look glamorous in killer heels and all you had to take to work was a handbag. You didn't have to lug huge bags of work to and from home and sensible shoes wouldn't be necessary to avoid crippling you.

On the plane, I was confronted by yet more glamour. The air hostesses always amaze me. Not only are they only a size 8-10 (as they need to be that narrow to fit easily down the aisle) but they are on their feet all day with heels on and they always seem to have perfect make up. To be fair, most of them do seem to have taken make-up lessons from Jordan and have tans that are a little on the orange side, but still. Smiles perfectly planted in place all day. I wondered if they have make-up lessons at stewardess school.

On the way home, I was stunned by a rare example of male glamour. There was a very well spoken gentleman with his daughter waiting at the gate and I was just fascinated by him. I've never seen anyone like him in real life before! He looked as though he had come dressed up as a parody of an English gent. He was wearing a pink polo shirt and lemon cardigan. On top he had a blue blazer, complete with a red rose in the lapel. (And this was St George's day weekend, too!) His trousers were green tartan and he wore penny loafers. I just had to keep looking at him out of the corner of my eye. Was he for real? It seemed so, after closer inspection. I was just stunned by him. Why wasn't he on a private jet for this journey? Again, here I was with my scruffy jeans and hair all over the place. I wasn't sure that I felt dressed well enough to be on the same flight as these two!

One day I will be a real girl and put make-up on and everything before I go to the airport!

Sunday scribblings - Dinner

Funny that this was the prompt for today. I have been spending that last couple of days researching the Dukan diet and plan to start it today.

The thing is, I've become far too content with the DearHusband2Be. He says he loves me just as I am (sigh, yes that bit from Bridget Jones, girls!) and with all of the romantic dinners out and dinners in and so on, have put on so much weight that I'm starting to get uncomfortable in my clothes!! (Well, as we live apart, I do have to confess that I just haven't really been planning my food or looking after my blood sugar as much - I've just been focussed on other things.)
The other day a letter dropped through my door, reminding me about my annual HBA1c blood tests and it was the kick up the bum that I needed. I know that starting to eat properly again isn't going to help my HbA1c levels now, but it'll be good to get back on track.

Normally I try to stick to a high protein, low carb diet which keeps my Blood Glucose (BG) in check but then Date dinners happened, then Easter happened and then general laziness kicked in! The Dukan diet doesn't actually appear to be too far away from how I normally eat (when I'm being good!) anyway, and lots of people seem to be doing really well with it and so I thought I'd give it a go.
The big difference is the 'attack' phase where you only eat pure protein for a few days to kick start the new eating plan. After that you can eat a mixture of pure protein and low carb veg, which suits me nicely.

So here goes. Attack phase. I'm going to do it for 7 days. My fears at this point are that I might get migraines (as I sometimes seem to if I haven't eaten enough carbs) and that I may struggle to drink the recommended 3 litres of water a day at work. I'll try.
The other concern is that I may get bad breath in this time. I know it seems like a silly thing to worry about, but I work with kids and I don't want to spend the week making them endure the bad breath!!
Anyhow. Here it is. I'm going to plan out my menu for the week and then go shopping later.
Right now, for today it's boiled eggs for breakfast, prawns for lunch and for then for dinner, I think I'll have chicken stuffed with non fat cream cheese.
I'm going to have to start tracking my BG carefully again, so I can adjust my meds and avoid hypos.

I've got until next August to ty to get into a reasonable dress size, so that I can start getting excited about looking gorgeous for the wedding. How much do I seriously want to lose here? Is it wrong to hope for a loss of 37 kg? I know it sounds a lot but that would take me into a healthy weight. (Yeah, I'm heavy now!) Well let's take it one kilo at a time. It will all add up in the end.
I am so going to do this!

Sunday Scribblings - Wonder

I had to chuckle to myself when I saw this prompt. I am a person who asks lots of questions and often when I am asked about why the query, my response is "just wondering". And there often really isn't a hidden agenda, I actually do just spurt out the random questions which arrive in my brain.
So to be perfectly honest, a large part of my life is spend "just wondering". I'm not away with the fairies, really I'm not.
Most of my wonderings are about figuring people out. I love to know what makes people tick. Sometimes my wonderings are about people in history and how their lives were different.

I'm hoping one day to do a Psychology degree so that I can put these wonderings to good use. Perhaps folk will stop thinking that I am (a) a spy (b) deranged or (c) very nosy. Well, I am nosy, but for purely scientific purposes!

Poor poor fiance - what a palaver!

My poor, poor fiance.

We try to maintain a long distance relationship as he currently lives nearly 400 miles away from me. He contacted me on an internet site and we agreed that we would only be friends, as neither of us was looking to have a long distance romance.
We chatted every day online and he quickly became my closest friend. I was going through the worst possible time at work right then and I'm not sure I would have maintained my sanity (what there is of it) without his constant support. So eventually we agreed to meet up, of course, just as friends.
Well that premise lasted, um, about 5 minutes and we eventually gave in to being in love.

Now that's all fine and well, but like I said, we live nearly 400 miles apart. So until he sells up and moves, we have to try to cope with seeing each other a couple of times a month. We've become regulars at the airport (believe it or not, air travel is the cheapest option!) and keep in contact mostly, by webcam. (Now don't be rude - it's all very innocent.)

So we decided to start having weekly webcam 'dates'. Just for one day a week we meet online at a preset time and turn everything else OFF. No Facebook, no Bebo, no MSN, no emails etc etc etc. Just quality time devoted to each other to talk about what's happening in our lives, getting to know each other better. There is often a bit of gentle flirting and occasionally a glass of wine or two. And actually, it works. We really enjoy it and it's the nearest we can come to having a real date. We both feel pretty special afterwards and totally loved up.

Anyway. That's just a little background to put things into context for you.

Sadly this week our online date coincided with a small but not insignificant bout of PMT on my part. Now don't get me wrong - I really don't suffer too badly compared with other women I have heard about. Occasionally I get away with nothing at all, but this month reverted to the traditional 24hr being far too needy and insecure followed by 24hr recovering back to normality.
No raging tempers or angry outbursts, but it's bad enough.
We logged on at the appointed time.
It was great to see him, sitting there smiling at me, as usual.
We chat about our day and occasionally I see his eyes flicker to other parts of his screen and by mouse-clicks and typing, I surmise that he is not devoting his time entirely to me. Now this has happened before over the last couple of dates and I have previously made a mental note to myself to bring this up as something that we should sort out. I can't really actually complain, I have read the odd email and checked out facebook myself whilst he's talking to me.
He plays me a song that he thinks I'll like - which is a beautifully romantic gesture. And another. But whilst the song is playing through the speakers, we can't talk. So, sensibly, he uses the time to check emails and facebook. There's nothing in any way wrong with that.

But we are forgetting the wretched hormones which currently have control over my emotions and reasoning.
I really want to tell him to stop the music and ask him to pay me some attention, but even as the thought begins the form in my head I hear it and I know how utterly ridiculous it sounds. So I can't find the words to explain it in another way. And then the moment has passed and the unspoken thought is just sitting there, looming. Too big for me to express and still appear like a normal, reasonable, confident woman, as though my mouth just isn't big enough to form the words, but also too big for me to ignore. I end up feeling stupidly stuck between being annoyed with him and knowing how to talk to him about it without coming across as a total bunny-boiling lunatic. He puts another song on. I sit silently looking at the webcam. I can hear the 'ping' of his MSN announcing that one of his friends is chatting to him. I end up staring at the top of his head as he types his answers and biting down more anger.
And the silly thing is, the more angry I am with him, the angrier I get with myself for (a) feeling that way and (b) not being able to just spit it out and tell him. I know that mostly if it were not for the HormoneGestapo, I would be feeling just a little miffed and would have jokingly told him off.
But poor Hubby to be. He asks me what's wrong. (Why do I say nothing? There is something.) He asks "this hasn't been a very good date, has it?" and I shake my head, feeling hormonal tears threatening to make their presence known. He says he is going to bed and he'll call to say goodnight. (We always say our goodnights curled up in bed over the phone.)
I feel so terribly awful at this point. I communicate for a living - why I found this so difficult to talk about, I have no idea!

Luckily he is a good man. He isn't quick to anger and his patience always amazes me. He knows that there is something wrong and that if he gets me on the phone I am more likely to talk about it. So he gives me a little time to work out in my head how to tell him that I felt neglected and unloved. Then calls me and asks just enough questions in just the right tone of voice to get it all out in the open.
Trying to explain to him why I didn't just say something at the time was really hard and I don't know if he got it. Do men turn into hormone bags in the same way?
We laughed about how silly it was after we'd talked it through. We both agreed that if we are going to stop the distance getting in the way, we should keep our 'dates' special and devote time only to each other.
And then we talked and talked, about our hopes and dreams for the future.

Like I said, Poor poor fiance. What a palaver!

Deadlines - Sunday Scribbling

Oh this one would be so easy to write about from a professional point of view. My whole entire life seems to be governed by deadlines during term time. Other folk might be looking ahead to the holidays but any discussion of this sends me into a mini panic. All I can see between me and the holidays are all the deadline markers, looming up like hurdles on a track. And I was really never very good at hurdles. Something to do with having short legs.

But there is more to deadlines than just the obvious. For a woman there is a biological deadline by which time one must have had children, otherwise it won't happen. At least not naturally, anyway.
When I was young, there seemed to be an endless amount of lifetime stretching ahead of me. I never wanted to have children too early. I wanted to live a little first. This isn't becuase I was career driven or anything, more that my mum had me when she was just a teenager and has always told me that I should have my life before committing to a family.

It was only in my early thirties that I started to question when my time would come to have children. Rather than start to desperately seek out a prospective father for my children and schedule in dates for conception, I told myself that I had to accept the distinct possibility that I may never have children at all.

And that was hard.

Some tears were shed but in the end I just came to terms with it all. I may have kids one day and that would be amazing but if I don't, I don't. Since accepting this possible future, I've come to realise how lucky I am to have my own space and time. I've realised just how selfish I am and wondered if I did have kids, how I would possibly fit them in amoungst all work deadlines?

My fiance really wants to have children, I hope it happens for his sake. But then, I also really hope he's great at babysitting on his own so I can get on with some work.