The spicy chicken and roasted butternut went down a treat which I served with salad and grilled mushrooms. Instead of the crisps and high fat dip usually present around the barbeque,  I whizzed up a humous and courgette dip and chopped up carrots to enjoy with it.  Tasty and packed with enough goodness to cancel out the affects of the extra wine!

Where as the old me would be beating myself up this morning for not sticking to the intended one glass, the new more positive me realises temptation is ever present and succumbing occassionally is not the end of the world.  I am instead thankful for the lovely evening spent with my loved ones and the delicious food (and wine) I was able to share with them.

So feeling loved and healthy when I woke up this morning, I breakfasted on oatmeal and gave myself a pat on the back for resisting the buttery toast and fried eggs I would normally have after a night of entertaining.

Lunch today was a big tasty salad with chickpeas and spelt and I snacked on pumpkin seeds and almonds in the afternoon so my body should have all the fuel it needs. I wonder if this is some sort of “cold turkey” reaction to the fact that I’ve had no sugar or processed carbohydrates in my diet for the past two days?

The Husband is barbequeing spicy chicken legs for our dinner tonight which we’ll have with a green salad and, my favourite, delicious roasted butternut.  All innocent enough but what will I do when he brings out the bottle of red wine we usually enjoy while cooking and eating alfresco!  I’m sure one glass won’t hurt…

After work yesterday I went for a 20 minute jog in the park  and, rather than bemoaning the effort of running,  I focussed my attention on the lovely evening sky, the fresh air I was breathing and the natural beauty of the trees and plants.  Afterward I felt energised and very appreciative for having a lovely green space near my home.

Dinner consisted of a small grilled pork chop seasoned with sea salt and chilli’s, steamed green beans, sauteed summer cabbage and a green salad.  As you can tell I’m trying to incorporate a lot more green foods.  The Husband, although not a very fussy eater,  is definitely a meat and potato kind of guy.  So he had two pork chops and a small microwaved potato. A very satisfying meal for both of us and again I had no craving for something sweet later in the evening.  The Husband had bought a packet of penguin biscuits and had one in front of the TV but I found it easy to resist.  I did not want to put the hydrogenated fat and sugar into my body as it took it’s time to digest and absorb all the green goodness I’d just eaten. Instead I opted to stay hydrated with a glass of lemon water.

There is a fridge at work so I stocked up on fresh produce to make delicious salads for lunch. The mix included  spinach, celery, carrots, cherry tomatoes, chick peas and spelt wheat with lemon juice and cayenne pepper for seasoning.  For snacking I picked up a few apples, a bag of almonds and a bag of pumpkins seeds.

Now you’re probably thinking this would not have come cheap but low and behold everything cost me under £11 and there is enough food to last for four lunches! That’s £2.75 a meal!

Here are the individual items I purchased:

Baby spinach = £0.90
Celery hearts = £1.30
Loose carrots = £0.80
Cherry tomatoes = £1.29
Can of chick peas (use over 3 days) = £0.80
Spelt wheat (pack of 3 cans) = £1.09
Lemon juice = £0.50
Braeburn Apples (4) = £1.16
125g Pumpkin seeds = £1.20
150g Almonds = £1.50

Best of all the salad tasted delicious and was very satisfying. All the crunchy vegetables took time to chew which allowed my stomach to register it was being fed.  A bowl of soup or a sandwich would have been left me wanting more because it is easily wolfed down in under 5 minutes.  It is now 4pm and I have not had the usual craving for something sweet or been remotely tempted to visit the pesky biscuit tin lurking in the corner of the office. Result!

The next step in transforming my life is changing my outlook and creating my own sense of purpose.  It’s time to replace the old feelings of dread with positivity and anticipation for what lies ahead, be it good and bad.

I believe this will get easier as my body starts to respond to my new “diet”.  Wow that sentence alone is already a more positive than what i’m usually prone to!

For years my poor body has been struggling to convert the crap I consume into viable energy.  It’s like putting rusty water in the gas tank of my car and expecting it to, not only get me from point A to B, but to do so all day without ever breaking down!

My body, my vehicle that needs to get me through my (prolonged) life, has been poisoned and then punished with starvation for not performing as I expect it to. Visualising it as something outside of myself and fully comprehending what I physically put it through has made me sympathetic to its needs and I don’t believe I can ever mistreat it again.

So here I am ready to replenish and heal and excited to finally reward my body with only the best that it deserves.  I am going to nuture it back to good health and it simply requires me to eat the widely available, nutrient dense, natural food that can be found in every supermarket!

It appears realigning one’s thinking really can make profound change quite easy…

In a society obsessed with magazines that tell us how to lose weight and bombard us with images of impossibly thin women, we associate the word ‘diet’ with starving and denying ourselves the foods that we enjoy, elaborate meal plans that are expensive and usually so impractical to follow that we give up after only a few days.

I have tried Atkins, GI, Cabbage, South Beach, Zone and numerous other diets but I am finally accepting that following a plan is too restricting and it’ s only making me depressed.

This blog will be my documented road to recovery.