Heranje

Hi guys! Sorry about vanishing for a bit, the second half of this week was hectic! So sorry to hear about your hair & missed hike Jo. Hopefully you can manage to make the best of the new short hairstyle? How's everyone's first challenge week gone? Hope we're all off to a flying start, aside from horrid injuries and other badness!

I do love that phrase about not letting perfect be the enemy of good - so true! The end of this week became a bit too hectic for posting, but I've been on-track with all my goals! Today I've got a bit of a conundrum because I'm supposed to do the last of my 3 gym workouts, but my knee is giving me hell... so I'm not sure it's a good idea to aggravate it by working out. But I wanted to ace my goal!

It's such a hard balance to strike. I'm really grateful that I was raised to know a lot about nutrition, so my unhealthy lifestyle was always a result of me knowingly making the wrong choices rather than not knowing what to do. So many people just aren't educated properly - and so when they do try to make changes they think that healthy = deprivation and try to lose weight by eating everything "light" and "low fat" and not actually realising that things branded like that often are far from healthy. And then like you say, too much consciousness can be scary too. Especially when children pick up on their parents' own complexes and copy their self-monitoring. My 15 year old brother is really body conscious and thinks he's too fat (he's really, really not). That's not ok. I spend a lot of my time frustratedly thinking about why we can't just have normal, healthy relationships with food as fuel and sometimes joy. Why does it have to be so fraught and stressful and neurotic for so many people?

Day 38: February 27th Food: 80% clean. Just a glass of diet coke, everything else good - even though I spent the day in Starbucks. Exercise: 40 mins run/walk intervals Left the house: 8:59. I've decided to make my goal 9 AM instead of 8:30

Day 37: February 26th Attempted grain-free day today, but dinner in the evening with my friends got in the way. Will try again this weekend. Food: 80% clean! The only deviation was a small snack - Mrs Crimble's dairy-free, gluten-free choc macaroons, which are one of my favourite things. Exercise: 30 mins walk Left the house: Late day.

Haha - people always seem to get slightly worried when we're planning meals and they remember I can't have dairy. "Oh, let's get some ice cream! Oh wait. You can't..." "Well, you guys can still have ice cream. I'll just get some berries." "You sure? That's ok? *huge relief*" I actually find it a pretty good way of resisting temptation and keeping myself in line, though. Instead of tricking myself into thinking it's ok to have just one scoop of ice cream/slice of cake/piece of chocolate, they're simply out of the question. Makes it a lot easier to sit watching other people eat that stuff without joining in - and that's also got loads easier with time.

Thanks for the tip, Jo! I do have peppermint tea, so could try that. Cutting out/down on diet coke is something I keep thinking about, but haven't quite managed yet. Maybe a challenge for the future. Another good day yesterday! Did another interval run outside on a rare sunny day which was pretty great. But my knee is hurting today, so looks like my plan to go to the gym is out the window - guess I'll reschedule that workout. Good to know that I shouldn't follow an interval day directly with a gym day. I've also decided to change my leave the house goal to 9 AM instead of 8:30. What was happening was that was staying inside too long, then telling myself "oh, I've already missed the 8:30 slot, may as well stay longer now" - which is counter-productive. Better to set a more attainable goal.

Hi Dalaughingbuddha! Great to see you back for the second challenge - of course there's still room! We'll just pull a Fonzico-and-me and pop your name into the form next to one of ours.

Yeah, this link seems to work quite well. Definitely recommended watching! Even though at one point they get weirdly evangelical about juice cleanses. Oh sorry darkfoxx, I edited that bit out of my post because I thought I'd put it in my own thread. It does creep into the territory of all other beverages, doesn't it? Which is why I've decided it needs to stop and I need to seriously reduce my intake. Definitely not good for my body all my wallet, when water is free and healthy!

2 small chocolates are definitely not outside acceptable realms! Haha, I love that your husband has a shelf for his stuff out of your reach - probably useful for the both of you!

I managed to go grain-free most of the day, then dinner with my friends got in the way! 80% clean though, and managed to resist a huge wave of craving for diet coke and have water instead - so I'm really pleased with how the day has gone. Luckily there's more days this week to get my grain-free day in, and more days mostly grain-free can't hurt!

Wow, that cauliflower popcorn sounds amazing! Hahah, makes me want to have a healthy movie night with kale chips and cauliflower popcorn. Speaking of healthy movies, have you guys seen Hungry for Change? It's a really good film about the food industry and health... pretty much what inspired me to do clean eating this challenge.

Oooh, also my favourite things! Welcome Teabunneh Guys look at our fabulous big team. Is everyone doing the first challenge? I've been wondering how to translate my character to the cyberpunky universe we seem to be doing this challenge round - whether I'm just going to make an alternate universe version of her, or actually transport Mirrin from the medievaly context she's in so she's in this new world.

Great-looking goals, Ordi! I like the way you're slowly scaling up to full paleo. And even though you didn't lose any weight last challenge, using all the good habits you learned and your new goals you'll definitely get there this challenge!

Your goals look great, Tea! I definitely know the problem of drinking too much coffee and not enough water. I do that all the time, and it's quite normal to have a day of only drinking caffeinated beverages if I don't think about it consciously... Keeping a water bottle with you is very helpful!