My eye was almost back to normal this morning and so it was off to work,
where I spent a busy morning working on boring spreadsheets and a slightly more
relaxed afternoon talking to my boss. I think the swelling may have been caused by an allergy, possibly from a wasp sting, as the forefinger on my left hand is also very painful and swollen and has just started (after three days) showing the signs of a sting.
Breakfast was oak smoked streaky bacon
with buttery, peppery eggs and lunch was some of that rather delicious stew
that I made on Sunday. Unfortunately with the stew being so high it didn’t leave
me much in the way of carbs for dinner this evening, especially after a mug of
tea with a friend of mine at lunchtime, but I had a raspberry protein milkshake
and some prosciutto and Babybels anyway. Sadly, I was quite hungry this evening
so ended up having some honey and mustard crusted ham as well, so my carbs for
the day are somewhat over, although still not too bad.
I had to make my choices for the work’s Christmas lunch today, which was
rather more difficult than usual. It soon became clear that any hope of
sticking to the low carb way of eating was pretty much a non-starter, and
whilst I could leave all the carby bits of my meal and not have dessert, I have
no intention of doing that as it’s costing me so much money.
The starter wasn’t too bad, as all options were okay – garlic mushrooms
(which I chose of course), prawn cocktail, and pate – however all come with
some sort of bread. The mushrooms come with onion bread, which I’m hoping I won’t
like very much and won’t feel the urge to scoff it all. The mains too weren’t
as bad as they could have been - the obvious turkey dinner, a rib eye steak (my
choice, as I’m not keen on turkey more than once a year), cod in a creamy white
wine sauce and vegetable filo tart (which was a definite no in my opinion). All
of these come with potatoes and vegetables, so once again a higher carb option
than usual, but do-able for one day. The problem was the dessert. As I said
having paid over £20 for the pleasure of spending an afternoon with my work
colleagues I had no intention of missing out on the lovely sweet treat at the
end – especially when everyone else would be eating it. But what to have? None
of the choices were in any way carb-friendly or even heading towards
carb-friendly. I spent two and a half hours agonizing over the choices,
weighing up the merits of each one as I tried to decide which would be the
better dessert. Eventually, and only because I had to hand in my choice, along
with my money before going home, I ended up using a counting game to eliminate
two of the puddings because I really couldn’t decide. The problem was that all
three were so different, yet all potentially so tasty, that I couldn’t decide
which one I was going to enjoy more. First to be eliminated was the
intriguingly named winter spiced pannacotta, which was actually my least
favourite choice as it comes with mandarin jelly and I’m not awfully keen on
jelly. I kept having visions of the squares of jelly and blancmange they used
to force us to eat at junior school and which used to make me throw up, so I
wasn’t too sad to see that one go. And then the chocolate fondant with vanilla
ice cream was rejected, leaving me with the sticky toffee pudding with brandy
sauce. We also get half a bottle of prosecco each, plus whatever else we drink
while we’re there.
As with other occasions of this type, I’m going to go with the flow,
enjoy the meal and not stress about it taking me off-track as that won’t help.
Fortunately, it is two weeks before I go to Spain, so hopefully I should have a
little time to stop any weight gain/stalling before Christmas.
I haven’t done a lot this evening as I’m feeling quite tired. This, I think,
is due to an unexpected time of the month. Having not had a period since June, due, I’m guessing, to the increase in exercise
and my change of eating habits (both of which can affect menstruation according
to ever-helpful Google), I had absolutely no warning that this one was coming.
Thus, even though I’ve been religiously taking my vitamins I’m feeling pretty
washed out. The one good thing is that because of the lack of carbs I'm not feeling bloated, or particularly water retentive.
I’ve already decided that I’m not going to go to the gym in the morning
because I can’t face another session without a swim and I wouldn’t feel
comfortable going swimming at the moment. Also I think a sleep in will do me
good. I may go on Friday if I’m feeling more like my old self, otherwise I
shall schedule gym time into my weekend instead. However, I’m intending to give
my Zumba dvds a dusting down and see if I can start getting on with them, so I
won’t be completely exercise-free.
Today’s exercise: The walk to and from the bus stop at each end, and that's pretty much it
Carb's Eaten: 34.2G
Exercising
to: Various IPod music
Weight Loss = 1 stone and 4
pounds
Inch Loss = 12.5 inches (I really must weigh myself again soon!)
Mood: Tired, achy and a bit blah
