Author: growingtakata

My Fitness Pal

by growingtakata

Here I am 47 years in and I’m new to counting calories.

I’ve never quite bought into the calories in calories out theory but think I may have been a bit hasty to overlook the simple maths.

Yes it’s true that as you lose weight your body needs less calories, this is the point that makes people on the lower end of the height scale shiver. Less calories is always a bad thing. I have always been a bit jealous of taller people getting to eat more food than me!

Suffering from a Covid-comfort-eating induced padding on my tummy I needed to make a change.

I started to track my calories in My Fitness Pal.

Boy was I wrong about some foods. Having become vegan for the past 5 months I’ve established the need for a significant amount of daily protein in order to keep hunger at bay, you can smash through calories with the smallest bit of peanut butter! Based on some basic information, height, weight now, goal weight and exercise levels the app told me how many calories I should eat (1200) daily to lose a pound a week.

Learning about the food composition and the macro nutrients each day is very helpful. I have changed things up to find my natural rhythm. I used to routinely skip breakfast and lunch then after being vegan I found that impossible, now through protein I am getting back to a few days of delayed eating (I have dabbled with intermittent fasting and fasting for years).

Being very value driven I am using the app entirely for free having not yet signed up for the premium service. Because I like it so much and find it to be very helpful I’m likely to sign up soon as a way of showing my gratitude rather than for the extra benefits.

The piece I find most motivational about the app is when you ‘log’ your food at the end of the day a very simple message pops up,

‘If you continue to eat like this, in 5 weeks you’ll weigh XXX’

I’ve seen 9 stone 11lbs and 9 stone 1.5lbs. You can see which message has the biggest motivating effect.

I am very lucky, I don’t gain calories just by looking at food, I can eat a lot and know when I am full, when I go on a diet my body responds by losing weight. I am not hungry all the time (when I eat enough protein). I don’t like to eat between meals, not a constant grazer. I do not take this for granted. I have seen heavy people gasp at the size of my plate. I am lucky that my genes help me and I have always been able to maintain a healthy weight in a range I am mostly satisfied with (apart from the three times I gained 63lbs when pregnant, yes EVERY time!).

My Fitness App is a great learning tool and a great motivator to help make good decisions today for your best tomorrow.

Isn’t that a great idea!

Ethical gateway of being a vegan

by growingtakata

I became vegan in February 2020. I am not sure how long it will last. I like the food and feel good eating this way. It can make you a less pleasant social partner but that is the only downside I’ve found so far.

At the time of writing this it is end of July so a good six months of veganism. I feel better, I taste more and I have learned to love the flexibility of vegetables more than ever before.

This post is less about food and more about the other things that come to mind when being a vegan.

For a long time I have considered myself a minimalist and have spent most of my working/adult life spending 50% of my income and saving the other half. To achieve this I have frequently not done what others do, I almost never buy a coffee out of the house. Hardly ever eat in a restaurant and certainly not high end ones. And when we go on holiday we like to mix up high end and budget locations equally.

I don’t want my kids to grow up being entitled little gits. But I do want them to experience the world and benefit for the amazing life me and my husband have worked hard to achieve.

Back to ethics or do I mean being a vegan? I believe in treading lightly on the earth. I believe that we should all aim to make life more fair for more people. I am only vegan because I believe (and know that this may not actually be true) that if people in developed countries ate plant based there would be a significant and meaningful reduction in green house effects AND we’d be able to grow enough food to feed the world. I hate that we now have millions of people ill with obesity related disease at the same time we have millions dying of malnutrition and starvation.

Today I listened to a pod cast on the ‘democratic lottery’ I am a big fan of this approach, the longer we go on voting for people who speak well and are hungry for personal power the more we will end up with people like Trump in power. We need to invite black people, women, transgender, poor and a whole host of normal people into the seats of power to debate and make the right decisions for a nation.

I live a privileged life and know that I have no idea what life is like on the average wage fighting to make ends meet and fighting for survival in times of Covid. I could learn a lot. Someone in that situation can learn from me too. I want to live in a world where our voices have equal value. Not one where in the UK you can only seriously be considered for leadership if you went to Oxbridge and or Eton. It’s not good enough and it’s why we end up with circumspect decisions and leaders.

I had a lot of these thoughts before being a vegan, but this little voice inside me says there is a load of BS research (I am trained in understanding data) about food and the government ‘recommended’ ‘good’ ‘food’ ‘diet’. This data is funded and pushed by the farming conglomerates of America and it is not good for the little people like me and you.

Being a vegan for me is much more than cutting meat and dairy from my diet, it is about making a decision that could impact on people I will never meet and never see. It is about making the world a little bit better for other people.

Privilege is a bad thing, the benefactor can’t see it, but everyone else can and it’s not fair. Veganism is my small way of rebalancing the scales.

How have you rebalanced today?

Being vegan

by growingtakata

In December of 2019 I watched three programmes on Netflix.

Game Changes

Forks over Knives

What the Health?

I watched them in quick succession and decided to become a vegetarian. A successful transition completed in January I then became vegan from February.

For me, I don’t miss meat or dairy. I do miss eggs and found that protein is really important to stop me feeling hungry all the time.

Of course Covid has impacted during this transition. When I worked in an office I almost always missed breakfast and lunch by going straight from meeting to meeting and generally being too busy to remember to be hungry. From the middle of February I felt hungry all the time and was at home with saved travel time able and willing to eat breakfast and dinner. This coincided with no outside walks or non-obvious exercise. Not the best combination.

So now although I love how I feel, I have put 4 pounds on and don’t love that.

I downloaded the MyFitnessPal app, loaded my data into the free version and off I go. I’ve never counted calories before so it was a bit of a surprise to see the peanut butter in my wrap double the calorie content and made breakfast the most calorie dense meal of the day.

I am lucky, I’m only usually interested in food at mealtimes, my husband cooks all our family meals (and whatever I want if it’s different) and my body has so far always responded when I’ve cut back on food for a while.

I’m also doing the past versions of PE with Joe Wicks every other day after having a break from exercise for a while. My kids often hear me say ‘damn you Joe Wicks’ when my body aches from the workout.

I really enjoy being vegan but am not militant about it so when my 7 year old made meatballs and spaghetti for the family as her first meal, I did eat a meatball and still considered myself a vegan. Maybe in time I will graduate to being a better vegan. But for now, it’s good enough.

Re-life

by growingtakata

Charity shops get a hard time. There are too many. The money they raise goes to expenses rather than the charity. They sometimes smell and carry overpriced items.

While all of the above may or may not be true, we have a moral obligation to avoid adding to the toxic waste building up on our planet.

You don’t need a set of matching dinner plates from John Lewis or Ikea (choice driven by your budget). Why not go to a charity shop and buy a selection of mis matched plates, cups and glasses?

We like to buy cups on holiday to remind us of a lovely time spent together. And we often buy glasses, serving bowls and plates from charity shops.

It’s true that they don’t alway last long but we have saved the world from one more unnecessary purchase, given to charity and made a choice based on aesthetic rather than how the purchase makes us look to others.

As a family we can afford to buy a very fine and expensive set of dinner plates, matching bowls, side plates and serving bowls. I appreciate beautiful design and my father was a potter so I understand the energy and passion that can go into producing ceramics. But, if you are looking for a useable set that your family is going to use daily it doesn’t have to speak to what you can afford, it doesn’t have send a message about your taste. It can be a message to our little ones and friends about what we think is important.

The planet, being frugal and making a stand against capitalism that benefits a chosen few and punishes a whole lot more.

Let’s hear it for re-life articles. What can you re-life to help the planet and everyone in it?

Overwhelm

by growingtakata

What do you do when you are being asked to do three jobs at once? The tasks of two vacancies in your team (my responsibility) and another director who has left the organisation. One can’t do it all, yet, as a people pleaser especially with more senior people, I find myself saying yes to more and more.

So, I’ve spent the weekend working. I’ve not been to CrossFit, I’ve not done my morning routine. I’m starting to feel a lesser version of myself.

But, I have interviewed some great people and hope to fill some vacancies, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Sometimes our lives make it harder to do the things that are good for us. I am not beating myself up, I am paying for a gym that I’m not using, not ideal but it’s not forever. I’m not wrong for dropping my morning routine because I need to be at work for 12 hours which limits my family and me-time significantly, again, it’s temporary. This is life, I love it, sometimes it’s a bit more of a struggle, but in a few months when those 3 people are back in place, I will be able to appreciate what I am capable of and what it feels like to have a great team.

What challenge are you facing that you will be able to mentally ‘thank’ in the future?

Motivation

by growingtakata

More and more people are sharing that motivation won’t get us very far. I am starting to believe them. How often have you started a project/fitness regime/diet only to give up very close to the beginning, even though you know it will make you happy?

You can’t motivate yourself into

* a smaller pair of jeans

* a new business

* having a really positive support group

Recently I’ve been listening to Mel Robbins 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…..you can search for Mel Robbins TED. Mel says motivation cannot be relied upon and yet counting to five had a profound impact on her ability to turn her life around. You can use this to live the life of your dreams.

Research has shown that we can actually run out of motivation during the day. I believe this. At my job I am asked to make numerous decisions all day, everyday, by my team and those beyond. Honestly, sometimes, by late afternoon I struggle to decide what time to go home. It is these days that when my kind husband asks me what I want for dinner I despair, what is a kindness on his part is perceived by me as yet another decision someone else is not prepared to make!!!

Where does this leave us in our daily lives? Well we need to stay one step ahead of ourselves, in whatever it is we want to improve we need to be prepared, let’s continue with the list above

* Always have the next meal ready, never be without a snack on you so if you’re caught short you don’t have to eat a big sticky bun

* Have a list of numerous tiny next steps that get you closer to your new business idea, then when you have a spare ten minutes rather than mindlessly looking at Instagram pictures of people living the life of your dreams you can get on with creating yours – in tiny bite sized chunks – you can use brainstorming techniques to prepare for this

* Have a list of people (yes a list) and make sure you contact at least one person from your list every day/every other day/ once per week / once per month and even better book to do some kind of physical exercise with them

If motivation is finite on a daily basis, and it can’t do anything for you, at least you can be clear that you must plan to succeed, share your plans with people you trust, declare your ambition (if you want to). Whatever it takes.

Be clear on your why? and plan for your how

Let’s start at the start…

by growingtakata

If a morning routine sets the tone for the day, does the opening paragraph set the tone for a blog?

I am evolving into a better version of myself and want to connect with others who share an interest in ‘being better’. This can cover every aspect of life.

I am particularly interested in treading lightly on the Earth whilst having a nice time. Making good use of resources and making money work for me. Creating an optimal environment in which a family can thrive.

We are all on an approximately similar path, moving forwards into the unknown, let’s take a stroll together. It might be nice.

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