Weeks 10 & 11…in which I turn 52

Have to admit, the last 5 weeks in Australia have been insanely busy. Which made concentrating on my diet REALLY hard. Well that and being invited on more than 8 occasions to 3 meals a day out at incredible restaurants.  And I couldn’t find the time to blog every week. Not if I was to keep my sanity. So here’s another 2 in one.

Today I turned 52 years old. So I’m 52 writing 52 in 52. See what I did there? I’m not happy about being 52. I remember my Mums 52^nd birthday and thinking – oh my God, she’s ANCIENT. ‘It’s just a number’ is my new mantra.

It was the dawn of my 52^nd year that was the trigger for deciding to do something about my health. Of course if this had been a film then the impetus and defining moment would have been the scene in which my 11 year old daughter gently slips her hand into mine, looks up at me with tears pooling in her eyes, and says ‘Mummy…If you don’t take care of yourself then you might die..(insert sob)…and I love you way too much for you to die…(more sobs)…because I’m really scared…(choking now).. that if you die…(holds breath)…then I’ll go off the rails, become a crack addict, have 15 children, live in a squat and then blame you forever for totally fucking up my life’. Obviously the film would have been by Tarantino rather than Richard Curtis.

Nope, spectacularly selfish as it is, to be brutally honest I’m doing this for me and me alone.

So far my method has been to eat healthy, no processed junk, only brown rice / bread/ pasta (even wholewheat noodles..who knew!) and smaller portions. Now I’m back from Oz I need to kick it up a bit. But calorie counting bores me to tears and life is too short to write down everything I eat. Given that I have the attention span of a goldfish and maths was never my strong point it’s not my preferred route. So I’m going to do the 5:2 diet for the next 4 weeks. Intermittent fasting – or as I prefer to think about it – intermittent eat what I like. I’ll eat hardly anything for 2 days and continue doing what I’ve been doing for the other 5. I might shake it up with 16:8 too – so when I eat, I’ll only do it during 8 hours.

Other stuff…

Gonna have to part company with the dayglow FitBit. It’s truly ugly and I can’t turn the display off – it’s on all the time which means apart from the fact that I can even see the display in bed with my eyes shut, it drains battery really quickly (usually just BEFORE I hit the 10,000 steps mark). Have ordered a new and more discreet one.

Week 11 was spent at Q Station in Sydney with 30 incredibly fit and gorgeous marketers. There is something truly inspirational about surrounding yourself with young healthy people even when you are THE OLDEST PERSON IN THE ROOM!

The Funicular Stairway at Q Station has over 300 steps.

I went up and down this f**king staircase twice during my stay. Easy coming down – but up was a total bitch. I had to stop for a breather many times, once actually over taken by a pair of Aussies in their 70’s (smug bastards). I pretended I was stopping to take photos of the view but in reality I was afraid I would throw up my lungs.

Q Station is haunted. Honestly, it’s a thing. I managed to survive 6 nights of the living dead with just one heart stopping moment around 4am whilst going to the loo for a pee. In the dark and during  what sounded like a hurricane, I caught sight of a round, middle aged, slightly mad looking woman wearing what looked like a voluminous victorian nightie lit up by something glowing on her wrist. Fortunately it was a reflection from the lounge mirror….and it was me.

Eating out in Sydney is a wonderful thing…

This 5 week trip has been amazing. A recent advert by Tourism Australia says it all. Watch this…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUF7ja9ehIs

Yep, Australia isn’t just a place you see it’s a place you FEEL, even the air has more life in it. And they have Chris Hemsworth…and Bondi Rescue…and Housewives of Sydney AND Melbourne, seriously what’s not to love. If you’ve never been I strongly recommend you immediately book a flight, because you’ll only ever regret the things you didn’t do.

Here’s the cumulative 11 week outcome. I’ve lost a total of (drum roll) 22lb or almost 10 kilos. TA DAH!! At the age of 52 I’m lighter than I’ve been since I was 35 (apart from one long hospital stay – nil by mouth is still the most effective diet ever created). I’m 40% of the way to the 52lb target with 41 weeks to go in phase one and 22% to my total target of 100lbs. I’m ok with that.

Normal weekly blog service will resume forthwith.