Lent.

Well, we are now a full week into lent and so far I'm doing well. 

I haven't eaten chocolate, sweets, biscuits, cake or ice cream at all. I even shunned a hot chocolate at the weekend because I felt that was too much like what I was trying to give up. I have also been very good at not snacking, which I was hoping to cut out as well. 

Last night was the first night that I really felt like I missed all the things I had given up, but I was good and went and got myself one of my vanilla yoghurts to munch on and after that I felt ok again and satisfied. I am determined to do this, not to give up and only allow myself a small amount of tasty treats on my birthday and the day I'm hosting a dinner party to celebrate my birthday. I feel that it would be taking things a bit too far if I shunned all the goodies when celebrating my birthday! 

My overall lifestyle changes seem to be going well too. I'm making sure I'm hydrated and feeling better for it and my adjusted sleeping pattern is working well.

I'm still getting up between 6am and 6:30am and am usually up, ready, dressed etc before 7am. I'm opening the curtains early and trying not to put on too many artificial lights, so that the gradual increase of light helps me become more alert naturally. I'm also making sure that I go to bed between 10pm and 10:30pm each night, to allow me to get a good, full nights sleep and this change seems to be helping too. 

I have also been eating 3 proper meals at approximately the same times each day, which is why I think I'm managing on the 'not snacking' thing. I'm finally getting into a proper eating pattern and not just grazing my way through the day until dinner time!

I am loving the changes to the weather these past few days!! It's so nice to go on my morning walks in the good weather. And it's so much nicer pottering about during the day too! Spent Saturday afternoon back down at Ironbridge with friends from Uni, thoroughly enjoying the Sunshine. I then went to Bidgnorth on Sunday for a family meal. I was able to do a lot of driving through the gorgeous Shropshire and Worcestershire countryside to go and pick one of my Grandma's up. We met my parents and my other Grandma in Bridgnorth and also our friend Cat (who was our token Celt for the day, being Scottish). 

We had booked to have Sunday lunch at the favourite pub of Cat and I and it was, as always, wonderful. I had my trusty favourite, Steak and Stilton pie with the biggest serving of mash potato you have ever seen. Thank you to Bryn and co at The Old Castle, in Bridgnorth. If you're ever in Bridgnorth, it's a must, you won't be disappointed! We then stayed there to watch the rugby. 5 of us were resolutely supporting England, but our token Celt who is a Scot, but also has Welsh in her family kept changing sides! On principle she was supporting Wales, but when they looked like they were playing really badly she suddenly decided she was English...

I have been cracking on with my dissertation work during the week, hoping to get a big chunk of it done over the next couple of weeks, before we break up for the Easter Holidays at the end of the month. 

I'm then having a lovely weekend at home this coming weekend. I'll go home Friday afternoon and then will have our Friday early evening riding lesson that we seem to be having every 3 weeks. Last time, it was a rather eventful one due to the horses being absolutely convinced there were pony-eating monsters in the hedge that surrounds the school. This provided much hilarity and unfortunately, Sammi's first 'involuntary dismount'. She got straight back on though and Mummy Bason and I were very proud of how well she rode afterwards, joining in with the rest of the lesson. Hopefully this week will be less eventful but as with all our lessons, something (usually Sammi's fault) ends up happening to provide mishaps and mischief and generally leave us all in fits of giggles. Our poor instructor Chloe must either dread us coming, or look forward to it a lot because she knows something silly will happen! 

The Saturday will be spent at The Original Re-enactor's Market (TORM) which takes place at a Sports hall complex somewhere on the outskirts of Coventry twice a year. I'm looking forward to picking up the new hat I have on order, but unfortunately I don't have any more pennies to treat myself to anything else, but it will be good to enjoy a day of 'window shopping' (with no windows...) with Sammi and Mummy Bason (and Simon!) and no doubt bumping into lots of other re-enactor friends whilst we're there.

I am hoping for lovely weather on Sunday as after church, I'm hoping to have a chance to do two things. Firstly, I'm actually going to wash my car! Anyone who knows me well knows that my old car, Corrie, was half blue half mud in colour and very rarely got treated to a bath. But since Benny was almost brand new, I promised my parents that I would keep him clean, inside and out. The inside is still pretty spotless, but the adverse weather and village life this winter, has left him rather dirty on the outside, so now the weather seems to have dried up, it would be nice to try and rectify that! 

I also want to go for a walk somewhere, I have really enjoyed walking every day, in a bid to do a bit of exercise each day and it would be nice to take a late afternoon walk on Sunday and enjoy the predicted sunshine. 

Hopefully all plans will fall into place, we will have a good weekend and my dissertation will come on nicely. I'll keep you posted! 

Good Morning World

Good Morning world, how wonderful it is to see you. I'm up, breakfasted and raring to go for the day and it's only 7:23am. 

I have been doing parts of my new healthier lifestyle (such as proper meals and better hydration) for about a week and a half now, but yesterday was the first day of lent, and I'm happy to say that Day 1 is complete. I had my 3 meals of the day and nothing else. And none of my meals contained chocolate, sweets, cake, biscuits or ice cream. Happy Days. 

1 down only another 43 to go! (39 days of lent + 6 Sundays as I'm including those -2 for my Birthday and my Birthday Dinner party, which are on different days). Believe it or not, I've not even felt hungry in between. I'm really trying to make sure that I don't feel like I need to eat so much, and so much of the time. It's fabulous!

I've also been doing a bit of research (nothing too strenuous!) into sleep and sleeping patterns. I've been looking into how light affects sleeping as for over 90% of the time that humans have inhabited the planet, we haven't had electric light. Naturally this has caused evolution to work with the light patterns of the natural light and the seasons etc, to allow us to be adapted to the most suitable conditions. 

The gist of it is, darkness makes us tired (and scared, but that's a whole other story) and light makes us wake up. We are diurnal, meaning we function during the day. So the main points I have taken from it is going to bed earlier (you sleep better earlier in the night, pre-midnight basically) so I'm now turning my lights out at 10:30pm or sometimes earlier and then waking up earlier. By waking up earlier, you allow your body to wake up with the increase in natural light. Therefore I've been waking up between 6 and 6:30am each day. 

One of the first things I've then done is open one curtain, to let natural light in and so that my body can use the natural effects of a gradual increase in light to become more awake. I didn't know if it would work, but it was from a credible source and also, my current knowledge of biology, adaptive behaviour and ecology meant that it all did make sense and the theory behind it was very easy to understand and agree with.

It is working! As it gets lighter each morning and more and more light comes into my room, I am feeling more alert. Coupled with getting up and getting the blood flowing round the body at a faster rate, I am feeling better for getting up earlier and actually getting up within a maximum of 20 minutes after my alarm has gone off. Lazing around in bed for ages after the alarm is lovely as a one off, but really wasn't making me feel up and ready to face the day. 

I'm really glad that I'm implementing these changes and sticking to them, it makes a nice change and I really am feeling a lot better for it. I'm also (and this isn't just because of the changes, but they have helped) feeling a lot happier recently. I've felt a definite change over the past couple of weeks or so, that has made me realise that overall, my mood is a lot lighter.

I feel happy, and genuinely happy, a lot more of the time and I don't worry about the little, irrelevant things in life so much. I think a tablet increase has been the main reason for this, but I don't mind that this is the reason. If the tablets are going to help me to be better, then I'm not going to reject them. 

Percy, my black dog (depression analogy, for those who haven't read previous posts) seems to have been behaving more recently. He's more obedient and knows that I'm the boss. He's still there though, as a companion and he won't ever leave me fully, but as long as he doesn't control me, I like his company. 

Overall, with spring arriving, I do feel like a bit of a 'new person' a Beth 2.0 (beta) if you will. 'New and improved' and feeling a lot happier about the world around me. 

Healthy Lifestyle

This week is the one containing Pancake day and therefore Ash Wednesday. This is the time of year that I tend to start my 'get healthy' part of the year.Each year I try and use Lent as a good way to try and enact some lifestyle changes. Each year I cut out chocolate, sweets, biscuits, ice cream and cake for the duration of lent, in a kind of detox. 

Last year I did pretty well, I stuck it out the whole duration and I did noticeably lose weight. The lovely ladies at work all commented on my slimmer physique towards the end of it and I was happier and felt more confident to wear outfits in the spring and summer that revealed parts that I don't usually show off.  For a while, I did manage to keep the weight off too.

Unfortunately though, a lot has changed since then. I left my placement job, which went from me being on my feet most days to being back at home not doing a great deal and then back in the classroom for the final year of Uni. I stopped riding as much, I haven't ridden as much the past couple of years as I used to overall, but due to my operation, I didn't ride at all for about 6 months. 

My operation did limit how much I was able to do for a while and I was less active than usual. Also, I went back to Uni for final year. Cue the onset of depression and anxiety and my 'go to' option for happiness: comfort eating. 

Overall, by the time lent has come round again I'm right back to the weight that I started at. To give you a rough idea without having to be totally transparent, I'm approx a size 14-16 in clothes on the top half and 12 on the bottom. Although this is perfectly fine, in regards to my height, it is not healthy for someone this short to be carrying quite as many pounds as I am. I'm not a huge believer in BMI as it's doesn't take in muscle etc and according to that I should weigh just over 8 stone and it's unlikely I ever will. I do however, still need to make an effort to slim down.

The past few weeks I've actually felt 'bigger' as well. It doesn't really play on my mind a huge amount, but when I was putting on clothes and they were getting a bit tight, it was a bit of a temporary mood killer. Also, I've noticed my face and neck getting a little bigger too, which is something that I have ongoing confidence issues with. 

So, hopefully I can stick to my Lent detox and by cutting out the above items from my diet, which also stops me snacking. I will see the weight going down a bit.

It's not just about a change in diet though, it's about a whole lifestyle change and this is something I want to work on too. 

The first area is diet related, but it's not what I'm eating, it's when. As a student, you often find that mealtimes are not regular and often meals are skipped. I am part of this, it can't be denied (it's one of the reasons I snack so much) so I'm making a conscious effort to change that. I've been doing so this past week and it's been going well. I'm back to 3 proper meals a day (I have always been eating a proper cooked meal in the evening, as my housemates and I take turns to cook for each other) and each meal is accompanied with a glass of juice. 

I don't like fruit (don't ask, yes I've tried lots of different types, yes I've tried them all many times during my life as tastebuds change, no for one reason or another I still haven't found any that I like) which is a big issue. It's not the best option, but it's better than nothing so my 3 glasses of juice are being used as a substitute for 3 of my '5-a-day'. The other two I get from at least my main evening meal and sometimes my lunch, as I am a big fan of vegetables.

The juice also is helping me to combat another area that I know is a weakness. Hydration. I have never, ever been good at keeping myself properly hydrated. Much as my parents tried to make sure I was as a child and teen, I just rarely felt thirsty. I have no idea why. 

So, I've decided to make a real effort with this too. I've treated myself to a snazzy new water bottle. 

It is 0.35ltrs, meaning that 5 of those a day, plus my 3 glasses of juice takes me up to the 2ltrs a day of fluids that you're meant to drink. Hopefully I'll be able to stick to this. Today I had two this morning, two this afternoon and have just had a final one after dinner. I think that should work in the long run.

It's also important to help my immune system. Due to my thyroid and my heart, my immune system is weaker than average, so an increase in fluids is a good way to try and flush toxins etc through the body and reduce their negative impact. 

Finally, I need to start exercising more. Now I'm not riding regularly, I cannot rely on it as my only exercise. I need to make an effort to go for a short walk or something at least a couple of times a week. Now that my Uni timetable is down to 8 hours a week for the last few months and the weather is hopefully improving, I don't really have an excuse. 

So, we'll see how these changes work and if I end up sticking to them or finding other methods that work better and see if I will have slimmed down much between now and Easter (due to my birthday being during lent, chocolate, cake etc will be eaten that day!!). Also, in case anyone tries to catch me out. I don't find it's the end of the world if I allow the occasional treat between now and then. I'm doing this to get healthy, not as some kind of test of stamina!