I have given myself a couple of challenges to complete from now until the beginning of June (at least).
Weight loss
When I was off work last week I watched Secret Eaters, I hadn't really watched this before but found it really interesting. There was a couple on it who were really over weight but they thought they only about 1000 calories a day and this got me thinking about how many calories I actually ate.
I know I don't eat excessively but like everyone else some days I just eat and eat and eat but everything is in moderation.
A few years ago I started using My Fitness Pal and as I have an app on my iPad I decided to start using it again. If you haven't checked this app out it is really good. It calculates how many calories you need to eat a day in order to lose your desired amount of weight and it has a huge database of foods which you add to your meals and it calculates it all for you. It also includes restaurant foods so you don't have to guestimate and it also includes how many calories are burnt by exercising. It's a great app.
So I have worked out how much weight I need to lose and how long I want to lose it in so for the past 3 days I have been calorie counting. I'm allowed 1600 calories a day which is more than what it recommended but still under the recommended 2000 calories a day a woman should eat.
Whilst doing this I am also going to start doing the Fast Diet. This is where for 2 days a week you basically fast and eat 500 calories. This sounds impossible but a huge salad with a little light mayo is only around 100 calories and with 50g of chicken it would be about 180 calories. So I plan on doing this every Tuesday and Friday and I plan on getting weighed ever other Saturday and will update My Fitness Pal with this info to keep a diary of how well I'm doing.
What I learnt yesterday was that if something looks and seems a healthy choice it might not be. I had a pasta salad with prawns from Aldi which I used to have everyday for lunch in my old job but when I worked out the calorie content it had around 772 calories in it!! And to make things worse it made me feel sick all day and when I worked out how many calories would be in a Quarter Pounder Deluxe meal from McDonalds it would only have been 100 calories more! Even with the disgustingly calorific pasta I was only 132 calories over my daily allowance and on Friday I was over 300 calories above my allowance but me and my mum went out for tea which is what bumped it up.
I'll keep you updated with my progress including what I eat on my 500 calorie days.
Spending Ban
I've been saying for the last 3 years, since I started my blog which by the way I missed my blogversary on the 25th March so happy birthday blog, that I wanted to reduce my huge stash of toiletries and finally at the end of last year I had managed to just about get it down to a reasonable decent size. And then along came the sales.
I'm now in double figures on some items such as shower gels and my storage unit is busting at the seams and sometime when I open the doors on it stuff falls out as it's all balanced on top of each other to fit in.
So I'm not buying anything until at least the beginning of June. When it's my birthday at the end of June I have a wishlist of products that I want to buy so I'll allow myself to buy some products then.
My spending ban is also on make up and clothes.
In order to reduce my stash I am selling clothing on eBay and have sorted some things out for a blog sale on here when I get round to putting the post up.
As well as this I am also continuing to save all my 1p, 2p and 5p's in my piggy bank as well as £2 coins which I haven't had many of recently. I'm also continuing to save my extra money from work we get on a Friday. Last time I counted my piggy bank I had £260 and I'm not emptying it until it's full so I should hopefully have around £350.
As with my weight loss challenge I will keep you updated!
