Nutty as a Fruitcake

Today has been stressful and I have proven to myself that I have zero resilience to the negative thoughts generated from toxic situations.

I’ve had several meetings today which have left me with the impression that the feeling of hopelessness is endemic among my colleagues and that led me to a ‘why bother’ mindset.

It is clear that management of stress is going to have to form part of my experiment.

Sarah Knight says that avoiding a negative can be more motivation that trying to imagine some dream like outcome that you find it hard to believe in. This approach does align with my psychological makeup so it will be the technique I employ for this experiment.

Why am I changing my daily habits? Because….

• I’m scared of being old and dying early
• I hate feeling myself getting creaky
• I feel disappointed that I have never loved or connected with my body
• I am scared of being ill and a burden
• I am fearful of being unable to travel
• I feel incapable of meeting the physical demands of owning this property with its large garden and many rooms
• I worry about my ability to manage my mental overload and recognise that the women in my family have not handled growing old socially well
• I do not want to end up a crusty old bitter woman cursing her lots and that of her friends, family and neighbours… a pattern I have seen too many older women adopt
• I do not want to lose my mind and body to stroke, dementia or disease

Most of these negatives are remedied by the lifestyle habits I am experimenting with and I will just both the success of the habit and the chance of long term change at the months end.

I am someone who puts a lot of pressure on myself which means every goal I set myself becomes an all or nothing exercise, and pretty soon the joy of the journey is lost. Not long after that I end up feeling overburdened or a failure.

I have been looking for help with this personality flaw for a long time and from my search it seems that the people who are most successful in introducing change in their lives are the ones who see each change as a lifestyle experiment.

I know from my professional life that experiments are able to succeed or fail to produce the outcome. Both results are good results as you end up learning something. So on that basis I am going to conduct a month-long experiment to determine what lifestyle will work for me going forward.

I am using advise from a number of sources to inform ‘a perfect month of health’ to see how I feel if I am diligent in applying the recommendations.

My sources for advise are:

• The Living Experiment podcast hosted by Dallas Hartwig and Pilar Gerasimo
• Fat-burning Man podcast hosted by Abel James
• Get Your Sh*t Together by Sarah Knight
• Forty+ Fitness podcast hosted by Allan Misner

The key principles and tactics that I am using this month are:

1. Set a clear ‘Why’ that I can keep referring back to when motivation is low or if I slip up and need to reset
2. Prioritise sleep, and keep my going to bed and getting up times consistent. Bed time will be 10:30 and my getting up time will be 7:00
3. Remove process food and inflammatory foods for a month, following the principles of the Wild Diet, but not counting calories or using a food diary. I will also continue to use Intermittent Fasting to support my health goals.
4. Exercising a minimum of 22 minutes a  day and introducing weight based training at least twice a week. I will have a general goal of being more active, but I will experiment with mixing activities up so that I increase mobility, strength and balance, but reduce the risk of injury
5. Focus on reducing stress by managing my time and not over committing my time. I will reduce the amount of time I spend with negative people, and meditate every day both as a guided meditation and as a Qi Gong physical meditation
6. Adjust the balance of tech and human interaction, reduce the amount of negative content is pushed at me and choose how I use tech to engage with my fellow humans. I will limit my news consumption, adjust all my notifications, only use one item of tech at a time, talk versus email and put down tech by 8:30 PM to wind down for sleep.
7. Increase social interactions in my own community both in the village, with colleagues and with old friends. Aiming at increasing this to at least one event per week.
8. Review and develop my experiment for June.

I will conduct and record my observations and metrics each primary goal and the impact is has on my physical and mental state in this blog every day in May.

3391 burned, and I feel like I’ve sat on my bum all day. How does that happen? The Ki-fit doesn’t lie.

Breakfast was a rule breaker! I ATE IT IN THE CAR…. damn, damn, damn. I had to be down in Christchurch super-early so had to leave early too. So I made a coffee and a almond butter and sugar free apricot jam sandwich and two bites of flapjack.

Lunch was more straight forward. A packed lunch of roast beef sandwich, a piece of Brie, Clementine and some carrot cake.

Dinner was a Red Thai Curry made with chicken breast, coconut cream, yellow peppers, spring onions and Red Thai Curry paste and served with brown basmati rice.

Tired, tired bunny so a short posting today.

Warm moist air creeps over snow covered cold counties and we end up with a pea soup. I left Christchurch late, so was traveling in the dark, but as I started to climb over Cranbourne Chase the fog crowded in and I drove slowly down Zig Zag Hill it got even thicker. It was difficult to see the street lights!

Morning started with a breakfast of cheesy toast, a banana and fresh ‘tassimo’d’ coffee.

My main excitement today (apart from work!) was using our new HD video conferencing facility. It was quite an experience once we read the instructions! What is it about TV zappers that men are always the first to pick them up, assuming that pressing random buttons will just work. After several minutes of zapper ownership, the first male team was complaining that the system was rubbish, not set up properly, blah, blah, blah… Another male team member walked in, picked up the one page instruction sheet, pressed two buttons and we were talking to a team 70 miles up the road in perfect HD.

Lunch was packed. Seed rolls with houmous, lean ham, cucumber and watercress. Clementines and a handful of mini biscuits. I also took a portion of my plum compote, but released at the end of my day that I had forgotten to eat it.

After the perilous drive back, I looked at the weeks meal plan and started preparing the tofu, rice and stir-fry vegetables. I baked the tofu, sliced and covered in szechuan marinade. I added a spoon of the marinade to the vegetables, before combining with the rice, and put the tofu on top.

My daughter was taking her first exam of her MSc today…. it seems to have gone OK, which is good because she had worked incredibly hard.

It had snowed all night and we had about 2 inches of fresh snow on top of the existing covering. The Somerset countryside is amazingly beautiful, with every tree branch outlined in white. I had to drive over the Mendips to Bristol for a very important customer meeting. This is a 14 mile trip on snowy, ice, hilly roads. I was not looking forward to it.

Breakfast was multi-seed toast with peanut butter, a smear of mixed berry conserve and sliced banana. Served with a Starbucks Blend Tassimo Coffee. Comforting and invigorating at the same time.

While I was eating my breakfast, I was watching a strange bird tuck into its breakfast in the garden.. an apple impaled on the tree. It was a Redwing, which is a Scandinavian bird that migrates here for the winter. They usually stay out in the countryside but the prolonged cold weather in driving them into towns to find food. As my Beloved is a committed bird feeder, we have the best type of entertainment to watch while having the first meal of the day. The bird was so pretty and obviously very hungry.

This photo Andreas Trepte, www.photo-natur.de.

The journey was slow, but careful. I soon got into the swing of where the sliding risk was maximised. I was able to relax and enjoy to beauty of the snow. The car park at the Bristol end was interesting, but I got there in plenty of time. I met some of my team members in the cafe for lunch. The selection was excellent, but unfortunately no photos were allowed. I had some celery and apple soup, a salad roll and some yoghurt with apricot puree.

The meeting was very successful and the journey home was even more beautiful as it became misty. Black, white and misty .. a monochrome landscape.

Dinner today was a quick supper of a steak and onion pie from Farringtons ( on the blogroll), pak choi sautéed with a spoon of hoisin sauce and some mashed potato.

The thaw arrives tomorrow, meaning less adventurous driving back to Christchurch tomorrow.

Today was another based at our Dorset site, completing some Development Review for my first line and a few interesting conversations focused on a white paper that I am writing from one of our customers.

However there has been a huge ‘snow’ cloud hanging over my head. I have a very important meeting in Bristol tomorrow i.e. must not be missed and must be done in person. The weather forecast is for about 12 hours of heavy snow and indeed by the time I got home the thick snowflakes were coming down fast. So what to do?

• Travel to Bristol in the snow, stay in a hotel, get to the meeting and not be able to get back home afterwards?
• Or stay at home tonight and hope that the roads will be cleared in time for me to travel tomorrow?

My Beloved was unhappy that I would be traveling again tonight after a having already driven two hours home to Somerset so I decided on the second option. Having made the decision I felt a lot better… isn’t that always the way?!

Breakfast was of the cooked variety, at the hotel, accompanied by a tall glass of orange juice. I always get ‘a look’ from my fellow businessmen as I pass them with my breakfast, as they tuck into their ‘lighter’ breakfasts of toast and cereals. They think they have chosen a healthy options, but I’m having two portions of vegetables, a fruit portion, and some protein… a much more satisfying combination!

I was going to have a hot lunch in our canteen today but it was the dreaded liver and onion so I opted for a cheese and tomato baguette with coleslaw.

I broke my commitment to not eat in the car… I was very hungry (and stressed) by the time I filled the car with fuel and I fell into that trap of buying a snack of cheese.

Dinner was crumbed Haddock with spicy potato wedges. Hot and quick. Just what I needed to warm up after another snowy journey.

I’ve parked my car at the top of the hill…. we will see what happens tomorrow.

This is my first day away from home since starting my blog. This meant I was faced with having to take pictures of my meal at the hotel. I had a practice of flashless photography in my room first and I’m hoping the quality is good enough.

Breakfast was cinnamon porridge with a sliced banana and my plum comport. This was a lovely mix of hot and spicy, cold and fruity.

Porridge with banana and plum

I had a team telecon first thing, followed by a drive through the snowy countryside to Dorset for work. Only to be faced with an icerink car park when I arrived.

A busy morning and two lunch time meetings meant lunch was in three stages. The first at two o’clock, the second phase at three and the rest at five. My planned roast pork had to be replaced with leftover chili as we were piggies ourselves and finished the joint yesterday! Still the chili went well with the broccoli, cauliflower and potatoes. Two clementines and lunchies for something sweet.

The afternoon flew by and by the end of the working day my brain was buzzing. A quick drive to the hotel, a couple of phonecalls and I checked in. I bought a skinny vanilla latte from the starbucks on the ground flour and went to practice my photos. What do you think of the results?

I’m staying at the Village in Bournemouth, which is a good chain that is aimed at the business traveller Dinner was French onion soup which was tasty.

I followed this with a turkey burger with veg instead of chips. I drank spring water and felt too full at the end. It was well prepared but the portion size was way too large.

I think the photos have turned out well….. brilliant.

This is the meal plan for the week starting Sunday. I have a shopping list to go with it and we are going to get the shopping tomorrow before the snow returns.

Greens are vegetables and fruits to make sure I am getting enough

Blues are new recipes: This week from EatingWell Serves Two

Another morning of sub zero temperatures and luckily the snow was still ‘powder’. Snow and cold means porridge. These new oats take a lot of cooking. I think they would make wonderfully chewy flapjacks, which I think I will try tomorrow. Topped with dates, candied nuts and banana; this was a good breakfast.

After a morning on my work laptop, I stopped and shoveled snow off our road with my Beloved. He was armed with a spade, but I was armed with the best snow clearing tool… a plastic dustpan. It scoops, it clears and is very easy to aim…. try it. After an hour of clearing, we came indoors for some ‘pinged’ soup with cheese and onion toasties made with the last of our Parmesan and Tomato bread. No butter but a smear of the remaining aubergine pesto under the red onion slices.

This evening was a Try a Recipe night… I had tofu, pak choi and bits and pieces of vegetables, so I was inspired to try to make Tempura. I found a recipe on the Internet (posted separately) . It was a great success. The tofu looks like it is going to be too soft to batter, but it all hangs on in there. Crispy on the outside and soft and creamy on the inside.