Week 7 – Journals and Photos

This was a hard week. I fell off the wagon for the first time in spectacular fashion.

Day 43:

As I opened my eyes I realised that something was very wrong. All of my limbs and the main part of my torso were on strike due to yesterday’s workout.

Luke texted me with more than a hint of glee at my near paralysis. He told me that my mission for the day, should I choose to accept, it was to drink three litres of water. Unless I was travelling.

I went for a walk which eased the leg pain a little although my quads felt ‘fizzy’.

Yesterday we received a call from my sister-in-law to say that my mother-in-law was really very ill and we should bring the children to say a final goodbye. We had the usual debates about the Covid lockdown but we decided that the rules would allow us to see a terminally ill relative one last time.

I’d asked whether there was anything that my mother-in-law would like us to bring and the only thing that she felt like eating was double chocolate cookies. I made some to take with us.

I ate a cookie. I don’t even like cookies but in a moment of mindless stress and fed-upness I ate one. It started with cutting one in half to see if they were gooey and before I’d stopped to think I’d eaten the whole thing.

It gave me heartburn.

I was so annoyed with myself that for the first time in 6 weeks and 1 day I’d lost control and eaten without thinking. But it was done, and I vowed to work extra hard at the cardio tomorrow.

We left at 12 but by the time we’d got to the motorway my sister-in-law rang to tell us to delay it a couple of hours. Because of the Covid lockdown we could only see my mother-in-law in the garden; but she wasn’t well enough to come outside.

We set off again at 2:30. It was a two hour drive and by the time we arrived my mother-in-law managed to come outside for a socially distanced cup of tea.

I was shocked by how much she had deteriorated since we’d seen her a week ago.

After about 20 minutes, Grandma had to go inside. The dining room had been converted into a bedroom and when she was settled, the Lovely Girls and I went to the window and waved goodbye. It would be the last time we saw her.

Day 44:

My lunch took a left turn at the lights. I was supposed to have rice cakes and soup. However, the soup was hijacked by a hungry teenager and I threw together a stir-fry.

It had been a strange weekend. I’d intended to do cardio earlier but the afternoon slipped away. I put dinner on and got on the bike. I’d messed up my timings but I promised myself that 30 mins of decent effort would be better than nothing.

The only thing that I wanted for dinner was beige food. Not because I was stressed or unhappy, I just fancied it.

I had organic roasted new potatoes, organic fried eggs and low sugar HP sauce. It was lovely.

Day 45:

I had to go into the office in the morning. It had been my intention to get home in time for lunch. Inevitably, my morning went to hell in a hand cart. My lunch options were an M&S sandwich (apparently there are no salads in lockdown) or I could wait until I got home. I waited.

I did an excellent workout and felt amazing.

Day 46:

Finally I got the scales to start with a ’10’ and did a little dance. My jeans were hanging on me.

My legs were tired and sore but I started the day with a walk which helped.

My husband had been away looking after his mum but came home for a night, planning to go back later in the week.

Dinner was a disaster. It should have been salmon and ratatouille but the fish smelled funny. I threw some beans into the ratatouille and had some of the potatoes that everyone else was having.

Day 47:

The day started well despite waking up at 4:30. We got a call mid morning saying that Grandma was unlikely to survive the day. My husband headed straight back to his parents.

I had a great training session with Luke at lunchtime but the rest of the day was a write off.

I was emotionally distressed and I simply couldn’t settle. I ate erratically and craved comfort food.

At the end of the working day I opened a big bag of Tyrrells (left over from the road trip at the weekend).

I’m just going to put it out there that Tyrrell’s salt and vinegar crisps are the best crisps on the planet. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of a cheese and onion, but these are superb.

I stood in the kitchen shovelling handfuls into my gob whilst cooking some gluten free fishfingers. It was mindless and stupid.

I cannot believe that when the Devil said to me “Name your price” that my response was “7 fishfingers and a bag of Tyrrell’s”.

If I was going to career off the food rails then I could, and should have been much more inventive.

I stood in the kitchen sobbing and eating crisps. The stress of the day had got to me. I eventually came to my senses and tipped the rest into the waste disposal.

It took every fibre in my being not to pick the slightly soggy crisps out of the sink bowl and eat them.

Before I could change my mind I ran the water and rinsed them all down; I put the plug in the waste disposal and got rid of them.

The fishfingers were decorated with some token lettuce (in a vain attempt to close the door after the horse had bolted). I spent the rest of the evening with raging tummy ache and feeling rather sick.

Quite honestly, it served me right.

Day 48:

I had a bad night and felt very teary. The dog and I went for a walk and blew the cobwebs away. It also eased my sore legs. I took an early lunch and did an extra training session with Luke.

After training I felt so much better – more mentally stable and generally happier.

I had a much less chaotic day on the food front.

Day 49:

As I awoke, the only part of my body that I could move without an audible groan was my eyelids. Every other muscle was screaming.

Luke sent me a text to say that today’s workout would be the toughest yet. It was. It was also completely amazing. It was so hard that I thought that I was going to start crying at one point (ahem…from frustration obvs – nothing to do with the fact that my legs were on fire).

By the time I’d had a shower I felt on top of the world yet strangely unable to put my socks on.

For a few days my friend had been trying to persuade me to write a blog. I made up my mind to do it and told Luke that my first post would be entitled “Day 49 – I think that my trainer is trying to kill me.”

End of Week 7 Progress Photos:

Not bad progress for 49 days considering the emotional background of the week.