I am trying to lose weight. I have been for the last few years.
For most of my life I never considered dieting. I was slim. I ate what I wanted. Luckily I never wanted most fast food. I hate, hate, hate McDonalds, so was never tempted there. I didn’t eat ice cream. I was active. I didn’t drink much. I had a fast metabolism.
I had a few times where I had to lose weight. But they were the result of some specific environmental factors. Such as the result of travelling around Europe, where I just had to eat cakes and pastries every day. And I drank a lot more alcohol than usual.
So my two weaknesses, sweet treats and alcohol, have joined with a metabolism that has slowed due to middle age and a more sedentary job. And the result is: I need to lose weight.
My exercise physiologist (yes, I am still seeing her) said I am smart enough to know what I have to do, to know what I should and shouldn’t eat.
Ah, there’s the rub!
I do know. But I do love cakes, biscuits, chocolate, lollies, pastries, donuts, croissants, scones with cream, meringues, waffles with cream, pudding, pavlova. And my new favourite: Darrell Lea chocolate honeycomb. All manner of high sugar and high fat goodies.
Look away now if you are tempted by any of these yummy goodies.
So my challenge for October! Let’s do a droptober.
I will drop after dinner sweets. I will drop biscuits. I will drop pastries and donuts. I will drop croissants. I will drop waffles/scones/cake with cream. I will drop lollies.
Mmmm. I won’t drop chocolate. But I will only eat a small bit of dark chocolate.
Not masses of Rocky Road or my favourite Darrell Lea chocolate honeycomb.
And cake will be limited to a piece of cake without cream, and only if it is someone’s birthday. And no mud cake allowed.
I hope withall this dropping, I will drop a few kilos.
lucinda sans 
Best of luck with your droptober – that’s so clever! When I’m trying to drop weight, I keep a goodie jar. Whenever I’m craving something, I write it down and put it in the jar (that way I feel like I’m fulfilling some inner craving). Then at the end of the week if I haven’t cheated (and eaten five candy bars), I pick one slip of paper out of the jar and that’s my reward 🙂 It sounds silly, but it works for me!
Thanks for the positive encouragement, Erin. I love your reward idea. Just might take it up in November.
OK I’ll sign on to join you – I need a kick in the butt to get back to not eating sugar. Though I am having a housewarming this weekend, and I plan to bake all sorts of treats… But the daily caramellos have to stop (or the four tim tams yest, and two already today, and I’m not home yet to unleash on the rest yet).
Welcome aboard, Sarah. I know about the chocolate addiction. I can never stop with one bikkies, or one piece of chocolate. And then I face the big drop of energy and need another sugar hit half an hour later. And I can inhale three Danish pastries in one very short sitting. Better to eat a healthy option and not have to eat junk every 30 min all afternoon.
Have fun at your housewarming.
No point in having cake if you don’t have the cream. Ummm, yes I am fat, How’d you guess. I’m trying to get fitter. By Friday. That’s not working either.
Good luck with it, I’ll look forward to reading of your success.
Barb. http://fitterbyfriday.blogspot.com.au/
Oh Barb, so true. Cream whipped with sugar and vanilla is the only accompaniment for chocolate cake. In fact I don’t like fruit to corrupt my chocolate cake, but I prefer not to eat the cake without cream.
And thanks for popping by and encouraging me.
Lucinda, go droptober! I really can’t stand pavlova or honeycomb, don’t even like icecream, not fussed about chocolate biscuits, but don’t get me started with the dark chocolate. And bread. With lashings of peanut butter. Yesterday I ate toast, raisin bread and pizza. And an apple. For health.
Today I will remember it is droptober. But, oops, had pancakes with lemon marmalade already. Will do better at lunch. Will make soup.
Barb, love that everything will be solved by Friday!
Good on you to do your body good with that apple I say.
Your vices aren’t that bad. Well, relative to mine. I’ll pass on the peanut butter.
How can you not like pav? I love the crunchy bits, so I prefer homemade ones, not the bought ones full of snail slime. (Not that I make them but I have friends and family that do.) And with cream, but not with fruit. Why try to be healthy when it is clearly an unhealthy dessert?
Every Christmas lunch my lovely husband makes Nigella’s dark choc pav with cream, grated choc curls and a friend’s home grown raspberries. People beg to come back for Christmas lunch, just for the pav. I only eat the raspberries and cream, and palm off the pav, because I am an ungrateful cow…
My absolute fave dessert ever is lemon and poppyseed cake, with lemon syrup… and cream.
This is not furthering the cause, is it?
No, not helping. Except the chocolate pav doesn’t tempt me. Like a traditional pav; don’t like a chocolate one. But the lemon and poppy seed cake, yumm. What a lovely afternoon tea treat. Who wouldn’t rather eat a slice of that rather than broad beans, even if double shelled?
I am not the biggest cake and ice cream eater, but I eat candy daily and have no intention of dropping down to none…it would be nice to get it under control, though! Maybe next month? It’s the 5th of October already; far too late to sign on, LOL!
Luckily chocolate is sort of healthy! But if you joined in this month, you would only have to do 25 days rather than the 30 of November. Lol!
I think I would have too big a mess-up because of birthdays, Thanksgiving and Hallowe’en – so I definitely need to postpone!
Fair enough.
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Hi Lucinda – I have just ventured onto your blog and before I go I thought I would wish you well in your weight loss. I also need to lose a few pounds and like most people I know in my head what I should be doing but at busy times (which is most days!) I don’t give this area of my life enough focus to do it. I do however eat an apple everyday at work for my snack – I began this habit earlier this year and have stuck with it and I realised this is a key step – just change one small thing at a time. I think the other good habit is to eat 80% good healthy food and 20% treats. Allowing yourself some of your weaknesses can help to stop you feeling bad about eating them. Good luck.
Hi Vivien (and you may be happy to know my iPad auto-corrected your name to Vivienne). Thank you you dropping by and commenting. I totally agree with the change one thing so I am not cutting other sources of carbs like pasta and bread and I am not cutting cheese.
I am very happy you dropped by because it led me to your blog. I love ones with photos of life in north England. One of my favourite blogs is Mean Queen. I love her travels. I have just read through many of your posts. Downsizing for your move to your cottage in Scotland sounds like a grand plan!
Thank you Lucinda for returning a comment and I like your i-pad version of Vivien! just thought I would mention (you probably know anyway) if you are going to keep on with the cheese you could shop around and read the packs and get the lower calorie versions. We have low fat cottage and cream cheese here and also I believe Edam, Jarlsberg and Gouda are lower. The Italian Parmesan cheeses are hard and when grated you need less to flavour sauces thus saving calories. I will be interested in following your weight loss journey and may pick up a few tips!
Vivien, thanks for the info on cheese. My weakness for cheese is when I have a cheese platter with wine with friends. Normally I don’t eat too much. Just a few slices on bread for lunch, or a small handful on pasta, or some in a quiche. That said, I am only dropping the naughty things like cake or biscuits this month. I am a fiend for biscuits and things with pastry. If my cholesterol doesn’t get better after dropping those bad fats, then I will have to cast the net further to cheese and the animal fats I eat. *pouting*