Monday 31st October 2011 (Halloween)

So apparently you have more chance of dieting successfully if you start on Monday... so here we are, Monday..,. the best place to start!

Despite the fact that is Halloween, and there are treats floating about the office, I have resisted! Today's menu below... with photographic evidence as proof...

Lunch: Artichoke and feta salad with lettuce, cucumber, tomato and red onion, and balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Calorie Count:  448 (A lot higher than I exepected - 266 without the cheese... )
(Artichokes - tinned in salt water (90 Cal); Feta cheese (182 Cal); Olive oil and balsamic (119 Cal); Salad (57 Cal))

Dinner: Chicken and brocoli salad, with watercress, spinach and rocket, with a cream cheese dressing. I absolutely love the super green colour of this dish!

Calorie count: 403

(Chicken (190 Cal); Brocoli (78 Cal); Cream cheese dressing (100 Cal); Watercress, Rocket and Baby Spinach (35 Cal))

(Plus a pre hockey snack of crisps (200 Cal) and 2 quality street (100 Cal)... ooops)

Total for the day 1151 (plus an hour and a half hockey) On target, even with cheese!

Let's begin

So, I like food... I like all food... some more than others... but generally speaking food is good. My absolute love (/arch nemisis) is cheese, I like cheese in every way, shape and form. I eat it every day. I am more than aware that cheese (amongst other things) is not the best food that I need to be eating if I want to lose a few pounds... but I can't help myself!

I enjoy exercise too, however, in my head I exercise a lot more than I actually do! I have hockey twice a week during the season (which I never miss) and, of course, the gym. In my head I go to the gym 3 or so times a aweek. The reality (at least of late) is that I go more like once or never... and that I am really not as fit as I like to think I am... Honestly, this is not through lack of wanting to go... the biggest blockade to getting the excerise time I would like, is the time consuming nature of both working and socialising in London (currently this is more the former, the socialising part is becoming a desperate attempt to hang on to the friends that I have in the small amount of free time that I find myself with - and I don't even have kids yet!).

So... I have decided that a public record of the food (and quantity of cheese) that I eat, and the amount of excerise that I actually follow through on doing, may be enough to shame me into sticking to the rules that I have set myself, and give myself the goal that the competitive side of me craves in order to lose a few pounds.

I am going to start this experiment with calorie counting. The target being to lose 1lb a week, this means 3500 fewer caloreis a week... 500 calories less a day. At a lofty 5'2' and on an inactive day, my recomended daily calorie intake is 1750... so 1250 from now on in.

Wish me luck!!