Clean 9 is finished

Now I just have to remember what I’ve learned so that I don’t undo all the hard work.  I didn’t post a Day 8 post because everything just got away from me on Monday and yesterday was incredibly busy.

As the title says, I finished the Clean 9 and, surprisingly it wasn’t as hard a last time and I got much better results.  So, what have I learned and what were the results?  Firstly, I actually like water but I prefer it cold out of the fridge rather than out of the water filter jug which sits on the worktop.  I do still want my “nasty” diet coke and that is going to be one of my naughty treats.  I have been drinking between 9 and 12 cups of water per day thanks to my new favourite Tupperware product – the Eco Bottle.

I have also been eating a lot better as I have had to think more about what I am eating.  I’ve also been limited to 3 meals per day and, although I was allowed to snack on fruit, I found that I didn’t need to eat between meals.  The final thing I’ve noticed is that I’ve been sleeping better due to not eating so late at night, having a cup of water before bed and a generally much cleaner diet.  I’ve also found that I am actually ready to get up in the morning without having to hit the “snooze” button 2 or 3 times 🙂

The results:

I lost the following measurements in the last 9 days:

Arm – 0.25″; Chest – 0.25″; Waist – 1″; Belly (hip bones) – 1.5″; Hips (bottom) – 1.25″; Thigh – 0.75″
Weight – 8lbs
Body fat is now 27.3%, down 1.8%!
BMI is now 22.3 down from 23.4

So, what’s next?  Well it’s my birthday tomorrow so that will be a bust as far as healthy eating goes.  I will be going out for dinner.  I will have a pudding.  I will have birthday cake.  And I will have chocolate.  However, after my birthday is over, I am going to try to stick to the Weight Watchers plan a lot more closely than I have been doing.  I am going to try to continue to not have crisps with my sandwich.  I am going to continue to have breakfast.  I had got in the habit of not eating until I had a banana at around 11 am which is so not good for you.  I have also decided that, while I know BMI is not necessarily the best indicator of health etc, I am going to see if I can get my weight down to a BMI of 22 as I read that that is the healthiest for the average person and I only need to lose 1 Lb more to get there.  Obviously, I know that muscle is more dense than fat and it would follow that someone who is more muscular would have a heavier BMI so I will also continue to monitor my body fat too.

Tuesday was a very busy day with a meeting to discuss Adam’s Learning Support Assessment and decide what action needs to be taken if he gets a headache/migraine at College.  I also had a Tupperware party in the evening but before that I went to give blood.  I thought everything went really well and the donation was really quick.  As it turns out it may have been too quick.  While I was choosing my biscuit, a penguin, someone said my arm was bleeding.  Sure enough, blood had seeped through the dressing and I was bleeding on to the floor.  I felt fine and hadn’t even noticed.  One of the donor carers came over and helped me in to the chair which they had near the drinks table and cleaned me up.  I felt really bad because they had to call over the Sister and then give me a leaflet about bruising etc.  I said that I was fine but I guess that they must have actually got into the vein properly because the donation was so quick and obviously the blood didn’t want to stop flowing!  Usually, giving blood is a little uncomfortable because they can’t find the vein properly so it comes out quite slow.  I also usually get a bruise because of the vein not being easy to find.  Oh well, it was all good fun 🙂

I have also exercised every day for the past 10 days 😀

Happy Birthday, Becky!

I was getting bored with just putting the days in the titles of these round-up posts so thought I’d be a little different today.  Except, today isn’t Becky’s birthday that was yesterday.  As this post is the round-up of how I got on with my challenges yesterday, I thought I could get away with wishing Becky “Happy Birthday” again.  I’m sorry that I couldn’t be with her for her birthday.  I would have loved to have been there for her and to have seen her face when she opened her card and present.  Maybe I’ll organise my time better next year so we can get down south.

So on to my round-up.

It was Day 7 of the Clean 9.  I’ll be so glad when it is over and I can eat a sandwich!  However, I have learned a few things this week.  I do not need to have a snack pack of biscuits while watching tv in the evenings.  I do not need a packet of wotsits or other savoury snacks with my lunch, a sandwich will be fine.  My dinners are actually, usually, the recommended 600 calories or less.  By recommended, I mean the amount of calories set by the Clean 9 (and many other meal replacement programmes) as being the amount you should be eating for dinner.

It was also day 7 of the Skinny Jeans challenge and I smashed the 30 minutes of cardio requirement with a walk to town (and back again) to get College supplies for Adam.  That was a first!  In all his years of education, I have never had to buy Adam back to school supplies as all equipment was supplied by the school.  When Adam went to his enrolment meeting at College last week he came home with a list of stuff needed for his course.  So we went shopping for an academic diary (found for £1 in Poundland 😀 ), highlighters and calculator (also Poundland), a USB stick, extra wide file dividers and pad of paper (Rymans using my business account to get 10% off 🙂 ).  We also had to buy an apron for cooking.  Where do you get an apron suitable for a young man?!?  Fortunately, we have Barnitts!  Barnitts is a fab old-fashioned hardware store which also happens to have a cook shop and a work wear department, which includes catering, so we found a nice plain navy catering apron for about half the price of the girly ones we saw everywhere else.  Adam also needed 2 lever arch files (already have those for business so gave him a couple), plastic pockets (of course we have those!), pens, pencils, coloured pencils, pencil sharpener and eraser (already had all those too).

We also bought Adam a new phone which he can put his photos on.  This was at the suggestion of one of the student advisers at College who suggested that it might be easier for Adam to talk to someone about his family and his hobbies etc if he could show them pictures.  Fab idea!  When we got home, I put the numbers he might need into it and asked if he’d like to phone Becky to wish her a “Happy Birthday”, so we did.  We also downloaded the BBC weather app as he is obsessed with weather!  I have, however, turned off the data so that he can only connect to the internet when he is connected to wi-fi as it is a pay as you go phone.

After all that walking, I got my 2,500 lifetime miles award from SparkPeople.  This is for the miles which I have actually remembered to record on SP since 2008.  As I can go for weeks without logging any of my exercise on there I have done a lot more.  I got the last award for 2,000 miles last September and I know I’ve done an average of at least 75 miles per month.  Still, it’s nice to get an award.  I’ll have to remember to log my miles more often 🙂

September – Day 5

It’s day 5 of my Clean 9 detox, only 4 days to go, yay!  It is also day 9 of the Skinny Jeans Challenge and another couple of exercises to add to my repertoire – 2 non-crunches exercises for a flat stomach.

On Thursday I started a new 30 Day blogging challenge.  I was originally going to do it here as I wasn’t sure I was ready to blog every day on my new Tupperware blog.  However, while I was going through yesterday’s task I decided that even if I don’t make it through the full 30 days on Tupperware York I should still give it a try.  If I wait until I’m ready, I’ll never start.  I have ideas for blogs for about 10 to 15 days so I only need to find 15 to 20 more.  If anyone has any burning questions or memories about Tupperware which I could research and write about, please let me know.  Any ideas will be gratefully received.

I’d like to say that the Clean 9 detox/cleanse is getting easier but I’m not sure it is.  Why did I decide to do this?  Oh yes, I remember, I wanted to clean out my digestive system or something after all the rubbish I’ve eaten over the Summer holidays and especially last weekend.  It is hard but it has shown me that I can make good food choices and I don’t have to have that packet of wotsits with my lunch or that chocolate bar/biscuit on an evening.  I’ve also drastically cut the amount of diet coke I’m drinking.  I haven’t cut it out completely and I’m not sure that I’m going to but I am going to try to stick to only having one or 2 glasses per day and not taking a bottle of diet coke to work.  Let’s make that an extra challenge for when the Clean 9 finishes on Tuesday.

Finally, my Macmillan World’s Biggest Coffee Morning kit arrived yesterday 😀  I’m really excited.  I’ve never taken part in the Coffee Morning before but a Tupperware contact of mine said that she holds one every year to promote the new Autumn/Winter catalogue.  It has the added bonus of raising money for a great cause, too.  As I work on a Friday, I’m going to hold my coffee morning on either the Monday or Tuesday before or after the 26th September.

How are you progressing towards your September goals?