Sample day from Week 1

Well I am now in day 4 of the plan and I have to say I am loving it so far!

Here is my food plan for yesterday.

Thursday, January 06, 2011

Breakfast
2  roll(s) Plain Chocolate Chip Brioche Roll	7
Subtotal	7
Lunch
187  g Potatoes, Old, Raw	4
1  portion(s) Salad Vegetables with a ProPoints value of Zero	0
1/4 pot(s) Chicken, Bacon & Sweetcorn Deli Filler	3
Subtotal	7
Dinner
1/3 jar(s) Tikka Masala, Medium	3
55  g Rice, White Basmati, Raw	5
165  g Chicken, Breast, Skinless, Raw	4
1  portion(s) Spinach	0
1  pot(s) Activia Activia Fat Free Peach	2
Subtotal	14
Any Time
1  medium Apple	0
1/2 bar(s) Oaty Flapjack Bar	2
14  g Chocolate, Plain	2
Subtotal	4
Food ProPoints values total used	32
Food ProPoints values remaining	0

Not a bad day all round. For the first time since my daughter was born I was able to stand in the kitchen and cook with no distractions and I loved it! In fact I have another portion of the curry in the fridge which I will use for Fridays lunch (I love leftovers!!).

I also made the effort to cook a jacket potato for lunch which was lovely served with a huge salad and the leftover sandwich filling I found in the fridge!

I need to increase the amount of fruit and vegetables that I am eating (think there are only about 3 portions in this day). I have filled the fruit bowl with apples, pears, satsumas and kiwi fruit and have moved it to the lounge so it is easily on hand which really encourages me to eat more!

Ok, baby is stirring from her morning nap so will have to love you and leave you.

Bye Bye Belly

I have weight to lose.

I want it gone.

Its making me unhappy, uncomfortable and my clothes aren’t fitting properly. It has to go and the New Year is the perfect opportunity.

Tomorrow night I am rejoining Weight Watchers. I have been reading about the Pro Points plan and think it can work for me.

Wish me luck!

Happy New Year

The New Year is a perfect time for resolutions, for reflecting on the past 12 months, and for making plans for the coming year. And I have never felt so inclined to do all these things as I do this year. Why? Because of Lily! My beautiful daughter was 2 months old on New Years Day and in two short months she has transformed our lives.

One year ago today I was anticipating going back to work following a miscarriage. Hubby and I had been married for 4 months and were ready to start a family. Unfortunately that pregnancy hadn’t worked out but by the end of January I was pregnant for the second time. This time I felt sure that the time was right for this baby and most of our year was spent preparing for her arrival. Now she is here our wishes have been granted and we are now excited for the next 12 months so we can watch her grow and develop through 2011!

My plans and resolutions for the next year are heavily influenced by my baby girl.

1. Strive for a balanced family life.  The pressures of family, friends, work and finances can be overwhelming sometimes. In 2011 we will work to balance these areas of our life and spend lots of quality time with Lily.
2. Keep control of finances. I am currently on Maternity Leave from work and money is tight. I would love to be able to be a stay at home mum at some point in the future, and keeping control of the spending is the only way we would be able to do that.
3. Improve our health and nutrition. I have weight I would like to lose this year, and I want to be able to set a good example to Lily in the future. More information on this in a later post…
4. Make time for the things that make me happy. One of which is blogging. I have always found myself wasting time on things which don’t make me happy, leaving me with not enough time for things which I enjoy. I hope to improve this in 2011.

I will talk about all this and more on the blog through 2011, I would love you to join me!!

Introducing Lily…

I can’t believe its taken me so long to get this post written! On Monday 1st November I gave birth to my beautiful baby daughter Lily. She was born at 11.50am and weighed 6lb 10oz. We feel truly blessed to have her in our lives and its hard to imagine life without her!

On the Saturday I started having what I felt were contractions which were building in intensity and frequency. I had almost no sleep on Saturday night due to this pain but on Sunday morning they died down and I realised that this was not labour, just practice labour! Damn!!

So I convinced myself that I had days left to go and headed to bed early on Sunday night feeling fine.

At 12.30am I was woken by some really painful contractions and knew immediately that this was it. I decided to let the hubby sleep for a while and headed downstairs on my own. I used the TENS machine for some pain relief for a few hours.

By 4.30 I was really struggling with the pain and knew that we would need to head to the hospital soon. I woke the husband and we grabbed our bags and headed to the car. The car journey was awful – each corner and bump in the road was excruciating! When we arrived at the hospital I was assessed and was already 5cm dilated.

Over the next few hours the labour progressed until I was fully dilated at about 10am. By then I had moved onto gas and air for the pain which I found really helped.

At about 10.30 I started to push. This was the hardest part of the labour by far. Although the pain wasn’t as intense as the contractions had been, the pushing phase was physically draining and I really struggled to keep my energy levels up. The midwives were amazing, as was hubby, and at 11.50 I gave birth to a baby girl.

We immediately had skin to skin contact and decided to call her Lily, a name we had been thinking about for a few weeks. We spent a couple of hours just holding and cuddling her before being moved to the ward where we had some visitors and later spent the night.

We were allowed home at 3pm the following day and since then we have been in a bit of a spin! We have had visits from Grandparents, Aunties and friends. We have taken Lily for her first pub lunch (she slept through the whole event) and to the supermarket.

I have been breastfeeding Lily since she was born and am really enjoying it. I will write a separate post on this as I have a lot to say on the subject!

The hubby is back to work tomorrow so I will be caring for Lily on my own during the day. Wish me luck!