Interesting.

Reading about low calorie foods that fill you up, as I am attempting to lose 15 kg by xmas (at which point I will put the lot back on, in a day... mmmm ham and champagne breakfast!!) so I have joined this website: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ and I am now only allowed 1540 calories a day. This is brand new to me, I have NEVER counted calories in my life before. In fact I have never dieted before. But then I have also never been 76 Kgs before either. At least that I know of.... apart from when I was pregnant when I think I weighed more than an elephant.

Anyways, so sticking to this is proving VERY difficult. I am a snacker, a grazer and I eat a lot while I sit at my desk working. Since quitting smoking I am also eating breakfast, and thought it was not too bad really, till I added the calories and found out it was over 300!!! THREE HUNDRED thats pretty much a good 3rd of my calorie quota for the day :-S No.

So I have made several little changes, such as only 1 sugar in my coffees now, and halving the amount of butter I put on my toast, and thats helped, but with exercise I still seem to be coming in at just under my calorie quota (any exercise I do apparently earns me more calories I can eat, and to me thats not REALLY the point.)

And I'm hungry. Well no I'm not exactly hungry, but I want to EAT its so odd, its like theres a little switch going off in my brain saying "Now that you are thinking about your calorie intake, you must eat!" its proving a very difficult battle. I am not happy at all.

So now I am on a mission to find low calorie meals that are filling. I refuse to never have foods I love, I believe in allowing a little of what we love, but I want to CHANGE what I eat so that it fits better with my new "healthy me" routine.

AND WINE!!!! (both WHINE and WINE!!!!) I love and adore wine, its my sanity, and now I no longer smoke its one of my only sanitys, and one glass of my fave wine is like 400 calories??? THATS NOT FAIR MAN!!! I am very grumpy that wine has so many calories :-S

Once I have lost my 15 kg I am pretty happy to stop counting calories and just maintain my exercise routines to maintain my weight, but until then I am battling myself and struggling to find alternatives. The few I have found that appeal to me are:

Popcorn
A can of fruit (thats quite a good one, lots of food, eff all calories)
Healthy muffins, with lots of fibre in.

I have to stop eating biscuits *cry* I love biscuits.

At least I don't bake mountains of yummy things that tempt me, I used to, and somehow I was a skinny wee thing. How did I do that??? Oh yeah, I had one child, and the food all got packed for lunches and I didnt really get to eat that much.

So I came across this website too:

http://www.breakfast-eaters.org.nz/

which has a bunch of good ideas for breakfast, one of which is a baked potato. I'm sorry, I cannot cope with that at all, a baked potato for BREAKFAST????

That is not a breakfast food.... it makes me feel quite anxious at the thought of eating a baked potato for breakfast.

Another of the ideas in there is to wrap a banana in a piece of bread for breakfast on the run. Ew. Not my taste.

So anyway Thursday weigh in. Day of truth, has my half-hearted effort to count calories and my whole hearted effort to do lots of exercise paid off? Stay tuned.

xx The Ramblings of Another Mother

Who are you and what have you done with my mother?

Have you seen that add? It cracks me up. And I have recently felt a little like that about myself (which is scary and exciting at the same time.)

First we gave up smoking, one month ago tomorrow. (Taking bow.) Then I morphed (almost overnight) into an exercise junkie, and then I started feeling motivated about all sorts of things.

Granted some of these things are just not happening (like baking every Tuesday for Paige's lunch.... which I should be doing RIGHT now) and some of them are plain outrageous expectations on myself (like working for the twins entire naps on my days off) haha, yeah right. Not if it can wait till next work day. Which it almost always can. And if it can't then yeah ok, I do it.

But then again some of these things have been hugely beneficial to me.

Like I can now go on a fairly extensive and intensive walk and not feel like I am about die. Which feels very good. Especially after the first time when I walked with the twins up the hill and was panting so heavily that they thought I was entertaining them and turned around in their pram to laugh their brains out at me.

One of the less good things would be that my head is so so full of crap that I can't get rid of it to get to sleep. So I am getting quite tired. I want to do something like write about it in a journal or SOMETHING but I suck bottom at keeping to these things.

Today a wonderful woman on facebook told me about Kiwi Mummy Blogs http://www.kiwimummyblogs.co.nz/ and through that I have found a blog called http://www.greatfun4kidsblog.com/ which is a beautiful blog and is very similar in content to what I am trying to achieve. But most of all, it has new blogger tips.

Now I must admit one of these tips is so blindingly obvious that I actually laugh at myself. Can you guess what it might be? Google it. Thats right, it had NOT occurred to me to google ideas on improving my blog! I blame Nappy Brain.

As an aside, here is the pattern of brain freeze I have noted women follow:

I'm Pregnant: Preggy-brain
I'm a new mother: Nappy Brain
My kids have left home: Senior Moments.

Anyways. So now I am full of tips and advice and well meaning posts from OTHER bloggers and am feeling all motivated AGAIN to make my blog PURDY!!!

Watch my blog go BLITZ!!!! Stay Tuned