liz1729

April Challenge Day 5 I have a diagnosis and plan of action from the consultant. it involves drastic lifestyle changes. For 6 months: sleep with the head of my bed raised up, no eating within 4 hours of bedtime, eating little and often (bye bye intermittent fasting!),no alcohol, no fizzy drinks, no citrus, no tea/coffee. Have to take a long course of meds. After 6 months, off the meds and some relaxation of the rules but as little as possible. That is for life. This is a major lifestyle change.

April Challenge Day 4 Still suffering from the after effects of that endoscopy. I basically got filled with air right from my throat to my intestines, got the sharpest wind ever through my whole chest and stomach and have had to wait to slowly burp it out over 48 hours. Good thing I'e been alone! So eating much has been off the cards and screw exercise, I could barely move. On the positive side, I didn't have any junk food.

WHOOPS!!!!

March April Challenge Day 3 I barely slept through thirst, felt like crap from the get go from thirst and low blood sugar then drove to hospital and had an endoscopy. Have a hernia, gastritis and duodenitis. Biopsy taken; results in 2 days and follow up appointment then too (who said the NHS is crap??). I opted for the procedure without sedation as I'm all for avoiding unnecessary medication. It was unpleasant, to say the least. They sprayed the top of my throat with numbing spray, yeah great, but it really hurt from the point just past that right down to my stomach and still does now. Couldn't eat much after that. Still feel sick sick sick. All bets are off today. I just want to lounge around while someone strokes my hair and fetches me warm drinks. Unfortunately I live alone. I'll go to bed soon and start afresh tomorrow.

March April Challenge Day 2 An inferior 4 freggies today. I fell apart by evening time and didn't eat quite as well as intended. Binged on crackers til midnight when I had to stop as I had an endoscopy the next day and orders to stop all eating and drinking (even water) from midnight. Went to sleep very thirsty and spend all night dreaming of drinking water. Day 5 of yoga with adriene was lovely and I went for a run in the evening too. More internetting today - 10 sessions in total with 4 fails of more than 15 minutes. Just had stuff to do and it sucked to stop mid task! Like I sold my dining table on eBay and needed to arrange pick up times; I was rearranging addresses for council tax for when I move. I squeezed a spot, wasn't even satisfying. Showered but neglected my face.

March April Challenge Day 1 I excelled myself on the freggie front with an unprecedented total of 9. It's not that hard to hit it you base all eatings around them (which I won't be for every meal every day!). No junk until quite late at night then a highly enjoyable binge of crackers and a creme egg. Random. I'm trying to change my eating habits from no breakfast / light lunch / large evening meal/ bedtime snack to breakfast / large lunch / small evening meal / small late night snack and I got hungry late on. I'm getting a free lunch at work from September so I want to make the most of it! I did well on the fluids front, with a pint of water on my desk all day and two refills of my giant 1 litre teapot (containing fruit tea). I did day 4 of yoga with adriene which was great. I'm really getting to like her and I'm enjoying her series. I'm already seeing improvements in my flexibility and I ache less. I internetted in 15 min chunks of time like a good non-binger and racked up a mere 5 sessions in total during the day. That's a lot of time left to be productive yet my work was crap. Just didn't have the brain to produce anything very good. I resisted squeezing my spots including the massive one on my chin, showered nicely after my yoga in the morning and cleaned my face. Neglected to clean it in the evening though. I spent the majority of the day chained to my desk working on my dissertation with 'breaks' to clean and pack up pre-house move. Fun. I'm trying to get in good habits with washing up and do it as I create it. While this is technically less work (because things don't get crusted on, need soaking, etc) it felt like more effort to do it 4 times a day rather than every 3 days. I went into town for the first time in ages as the shoes I'd ordered into Clarks were in. I needed some new flat shoes for work as I've worn two pairs down to the holes-in-the-soles stage and I need some sandals for summer. I have to order them in because I'm a size 3 and they don't stock them in store. I bought 3 pairs total which was very promising and only took about 15 minutes. I bought a new shower squeezy ball thingy to replace the old one that the internet says is ridden with bacteria and making my spots worse (it was 29p) and I bought a ton of other random crap because I was in one of those cheap shops where you can't resist buying everything. To be fair, the £1 witch hazel spot stuff actually dried up my giant spot and the £1 chiropodist sponge has made my feet amazingly soft. Win.

Nice to see your challenge is up and I've enjoyed looking through your battle log too. I'm considering starting one too.

And we begin! Fruit and veg were prepped last night and I have a choice of 8 to select from in the house, fruit tea is brewing ready to start yoga and a spot that started up on my chin a few days ago has shown up in full glory...MUST....NOT...SQUEEZE.... Starting stats: Weight: 7 stone 8 Chest: 82cm Waist: 68cm The fat bit at bellybutton level: 72cm Hips: 87cm The widest part of my butt: 92cm L Thigh: 51cm I'm intrigued to see if anything actually changes.

I'm a maths teacher. Husband is a Prof of Maths. It's been 7 years in total for us :-) We had about a 2 year lead in that this might happen then 6 months to mentally prepare ourselves once he'd accepted the job before he left. And he's back for 3 months over the summer, starting in 1.5 months! He beat 700 other applicants to the job, it's only 3 years and should set him up for getting his next position which I hope is a permanent professorship at Oxford University... it was too good to turn down! I made the best of it by taking up tons of hobbies I wouldn't otherwise have time for so it's been really nice to find myself in that way, I've been half of a couple for so long that I never really took the time to see what I really like doing.

Good luck Grizzy. Know what you mean about the partner wanting your company while you want space! We used to struggle with that one. I hope you find some strategies bring you peace.

Good luckMmead0105! Know the feeling trying to do too much at once, I'm really a fan of the way you've started small. Nice work on the daily steps, what are you doing to get it so high?

Hi mmead0105 and Grizzy! I'm looking forward to the challenge! A bit about me: I'm 27, married and a teacher in the UK. My husband is a professor and currently based in America. I have just finished up at one job in order to take a term out from work to do the dissertation of the Master's degree I started 4 years ago and have worked on in bits and pieces. It was starting to look like I'd never get it finished! I got a new job for September, head of dept in a private girls boarding school which is going to be a big step up so I'm spending some time there in preparation. So I am sort of still in school, except I'm a long distance, part time student so don't actually get taught or see other students! My dissertation supervisor and I meet every now and then. I have taken on other work (which ironically pays more overall for fewer hours!) doing private tuition and exam marking this summer so I have an income but it's quite lonely. I really don't like not working full time. And the idea of living with my parents after 9 years away is daunting. I've stayed with them for up to 6 days before and while it's lovely, the peace, quiet and freedom is amazing afterwards. Good thing it's only two weeks!

After the last challenge, I started well then got kinda bored and hopeless. What went well was - eating more freggies - doing exercise classes In this challenge, I am mostly not at working. I have a lot of study to do. I have to sort through my whole house of stuff and move in with my parents min-month, for two weeks, before moving across country to my new house. Exhausting! I don't do well through changes of routine and especially when I have to lose my independence and most of the control over my eating when living with my parents briefly. The Big Aim Improve my health after a long illness and maintain continuity through house moves! 1. Eat 5 freggies per day Stepping it up from the last challenge of 4 per day as I exceeded 4 freggies fairly regularly! I was either very good or absolutely appalling so I am going to preplan my freggies per day, especially fruit, which I've had go off before I got around to eating it. Good luck to me on that one when I live with my parents obviously! I'll get what I'm given! Score: A = 5; B = 4; C = 3 2. Junk food diary I'm not ready to limit my junk food intake artificially when I have a big and stressful Master's dissertation to write somehow, I'm not putting mood swings on top of that! But I think it would be good to at least see what I'm doing to myself... 3. 30 days of yoga journey I've ached so bad, especially when trying to get to sleep, since doing more exercise and think I need a robust stretching routine. Doing a 30 days of yoga thing off youtube to get into that. Score: A = 90%; B = 80%; C=70% 4. Internet in 15 minute chunks I waste so much time on the internet looking at random rubbish, without even noticing how much time has gone by! I need to go on the internet to do dissertation stuff, chase utlity companies for house moving, update this thread, and Skype my hubby but the rest is limited. I'll set a timer for 15 minutes then I have to do something else for at least 30 minutes before the next one. EDIT: BONUS 5. Sort out my skin I have a lot of spots on my face and back and squeeze them regularly which as we all know is BAD. I also get flare ups of eczema and psoriasis, the latter of which has appeared in three locations in the last couple of days. I googled what to do about it and got some sense (shower after exercise) and some unnecessarily expensive pseudo-science products. Good old NHS talked the most sense. I already do some, like showering with an emollient cream and exfoliating sometimes. I started the shower one a couple of weeks ago and my back is looking better; my face is getting worse I think because I'm studying and touch my face while I work. So I'm going to track the following and see what comes out: (a) Longest streak of days with no spot squeezing. (b) Showering ASAP at the end of exercise if at home and making the best of it with babywipes if at the gym (c) Clean my face morning and night (with my emollient cream).

Summary: F on most counts. C for freggies. Lessons learnt: repetition gets boring. Freggies are great. Better planning needed so I don't leave one type too long and let it go rotten. Exercise classes really suit me right now while I am low of mood and easily give up midtask. Meal planning is a good idea.

Thanks Owlet and Jarric! It is quite a relief but we haven't signed anything yet so it may still go wrong :-( Jarric, it was a really good class. I'm so unfit that it's just what I need right now. I've always wanted to learn barbell stuff - squat, deadlify, power thingys, etc - but after a back injury I didn't dare unless I knew I'd have superperfect form. The instructor emphasised that it's a light to moderate weight class for building endurance blah blah rep effect(TM) blah blah other things. This class has been great for learning form. I'm getting the form in my muscle memory because there are so many reps. This is all dependant on having a really good teacher, she is always watching everyone (class of about 10), gives very good cues for form and is very quick to point out form corrections. I've learnt a lot already. I had waaaaaay less weight than most of the rest of the class but this was good as some other people were struggling and when they saw me shamelessly lifting an empty bar they copied for the next set. I missed quite a few reps during the last 1/3 of the class last time and only a few reps this time. I'm aiming to get to the point where I can do the whole thing and get adding weight on. Eventually I'll head into the gym to do some actual proper weight lifting.