When I gave up drinking I really embraced a replacement bad habit and that bad habit was eating All The Chocolate.

In particular All The Chocolate containing coconut for preference.

When I say All The Chocolate I really mean it – I can easily inhale a large block of chocolate or a packet of chocolate biscuits in an evening.

So in January I gave up chocolate. This was quite a lot harder than giving up wine!

I was planning to make this for a month only to wrest back some control, but I think I need to make it a tad longer – even after a month I still have cravings when I see any form of chocolate in a store.

Interestingly though, my headaches have gone – so perhaps all that sugar may have been a contributor?

xxx

In other news, this morning posting is quite the challenge!

i did say there would be photos – from the waiting-for-ikea-to-open walk

What, February? I’m sure I did stuff I January, but I’m at a loss to work out precisely what that was.

Yesterday was the first day of no internet after work. This went quite well – probably because I didn’t get home from SML until 7pm.

Things I did instead of futzing about on the Information Superhighway:
➕ Went for a quick run (failed at 3km again** – what the hell?)
➕ Watched terrible television with Don and Bess
➕ Knitted one pattern repeat of my scarf
➕ Read a bit of an awful book which I’m planning to abandon

I suspect the first day was less challenging because I came home late and because I went for a run. I suspect the secret is to do things slightly out of the ordinary to break the “come home, snack lots, stuff about on internet” – which is unfortunately quite an ingrained habit!

xxx

** I made the decision on the weekend that I would not participate in the 7km Sun Run this Saturday. I checked out my stats and the last time I ran that far was in that event last year, I’ve barely been doing 5km.

The very bad 3km yesterday confirmed this was a pretty good idea.

We’re taking a good hard look at shaking up our diets – as I’ve mentioned, I suspect this partly to blame.

I really need to stop entering these events in advance – this is about the 4th I’ve withdrawn from!

from the “waiting for ikea to open” series

#47 was originally make a planter with trellis for the front verandah. Not going on the internet after work for a month is going to be a heck of a lot more challenging!

Naturally there are exceptions to the no internet rule: urgent work (obviously), watching netflix with the fam, critical personal emails and probably other things I haven’t thought of.

I’m very interested to see where this takes me, and whether I can maintain the daily posting if I’m confined to the morning.

I suspect there will be a whole lot of single photo posts in our futures.

We drove out to Woolooware and rode to Cape Solander and back for yesterday’s bike ride.

Rather excellent scenery was enjoyed briefly.

We breakfasted adequately, snacked before we were hungry and definitely felt better for it! There’s still a ways to go to get back to the 80km rides, but we’re making progress in the right direction.

(So much for my grand plans of doing this weekly!)

100 days of happiness: day fifteen – ersatz robot with dried floral tribute. Visiting old stomping grounds on way to dentist. #100daysofhappiness #dayfifteen #glebe #robot #glebe #innerwest #100happydays #myoldstreet

xxx

100 days of happiness: day sixteen – bike ride to kurnell. #100daysofhappiness #100happydays #daysixteen #sydney #botanybay #kurnell

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100 days of happiness: day seventeen – lounging about watching cricket with Don. #100daysofhappiness #dayseventeen #cricket #100happydays #television #australiavpakistan

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100 days of happiness: day eighteen – the joy of deciding to abandon a sewing project that’s been hanging around for 13(ish) years! Begone patchwork quilt! #100happydays #dayeighteen #craft #sewing #100daysofhappiness #blackcat #patchwork

xxx

100 days of happiness: day nineteen – totally amazing Japanese packaging on some sort of neck cooling thing. #helloladies #100daysofhappiness #daynineteen #100happydays #japan #packaging #graphicdesign #foxy

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100 days of happiness: day twenty – fortune cookie! “You would get a prize in luck draw in new year” #100daysofhappiness #daytwenty #fortunecookie #100happydays #yearoftherooster

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100 days of happiness: day twenty-one – virgin mojito! #100daysofhappiness #daytwentyone #mocktail #virginmojito #100happydays #nom

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100 days of happiness: day twenty-two – Pilates! Third Pilates class ever – need to do much more of this. #100daysofhappiness #pilates #feet #daytwentytwo #100happydays #myyogamat

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100 days of happiness: day twenty-three – wandering about the car park taking photos, waiting for the giant blue and gold temple to open. Gorgeous morning! #100daysofhappiness #100happydays #sydney #ikea #tempe #summer #daytwentythree #container

xxx

100 days of happiness – day twenty-four – sunset from my balcony. #100happydays #daytwentyfour #sydney #sunset #innerwest #100daysofhappiness

one of many, many photos taken waiting for ikea to open this morning

Post idea completely stolen from the very excellent ganching

5 things I do every day:
1. get up before 6am, make coffee, return to bed, drink coffee in bed while lounging and looking at pretty things on instagram
2. write in my notebook – 3x worried/stressed | 3x positive/grateful | 3x to do | what I ate | what I wore | general happenings
3. floss!
4. desperately scrabble for a photo for #100happydays (currently at day 23)
5. post here (oh! it’s 13 months today!)

5 things I’d like to do every day, but don’t:
1. 30 min moderate exercise
2. 10 min meditation
3. drink 2 litres water
4. work on items from my 50before50 list
5. read something Improving

On Wednesday after work I decided to squeeze in a quick 3km run. The run was nothing out of the ordinary, but about 700m from the finish I became quite light-headed and had to walk the rest of the way home. It was reasonably humid, but this hasn’t ever happened before and it unnerved me a bit. 

Don and I went for a 34km ride on yesterday morning (public holiday) and that was a bit of a struggle too – I was completely knackered afterward and so have been asking myself some really tough questions about nutrition and fitness.

I know I’m definitely not fuelling enough for bike rides, which I’ve mentioned before. The sports tracker app tells me that Thursday’s ride burned 892 calories! Half an oat bar before the ride and a protein ball mid-way (my usual bike ride eating) aren’t really going to cut it, so future me has to focus on sensible ride preparation.

My overall fitness is definitely not where I would like it to be. I don’t feel unhealthy at all, and generally have loads of energy for day to day activities – I walk about 3.5km a day without an issue. But Big Physical Activities are becoming increasingly challenging and I refuse to believe this is because I am an old lady. Remember those 100 pushups? I haven’t done a single push-up for a long while now. I was doing 100 sit-ups along with the push-ups and those fell by the wayside too.

I’m wondering if 5:2 is having an adverse impact on my ability to push myself physically. I’ve also started inadvertently combining 5:2 with intermittent fasting because I rarely eat before lunch on any day. I no longer have quite the energy stores (okay, let’s be honest – fat stores) I used to, so maybe there’s not enough to absorb my bad choices.

I think if I want to do the big exciting things like running far and riding far and hiking far, I need to work eating more (I never thought I would say that!) and increase my basic fitness levels.

I finally had an annual leave day today where I didn’t have to think about work(!) and decided this was the day to jump back in, so I dragged myself along to my third ever Pilates class ever this morning and felt so much the better for it. I need to find a regular class or get back to regular yoga. 

I also need to get back to the daily exercise – push-ups, plank, sit-ups squats and work out what on earth I am going to eat. I see delicious carbs in my future.

It’s been a while since I last posted a crazy Australia Day^^ related item. I suspect this is because because the flag is now plastered over all manner of inappropriate products and I am now blind to it. Or maybe this scourge has stopped? Or maybe we just don’t shop at those supermarkets anymore?

Who can tell?!

But when I came across this advert in the NRMA magazine, I knew had to share it because it is something truly … special.

Behold the Advance Australia Ring: A beauty rich and rare for the man who loves Australia**.

Indeed.

It is now my fondest wish to spot one in the wild.

xxx

^^ Invasion Day | Survival Day

** Our national anthem is Advance Australia Fair, it contains the line our land abounds in nature’s gifts of beauty rich and rare. The text is choc-full of national anthem puns!

It’s been 73 days now since I gave up drinking with the intention of making it permanent. Yay me!

I survived the festive boozy season with nary a bother, have been out and about and have mostly been able to find decent alternatives to alcoholic drinks. This is definitely new since 2013 when I stopped for a year – back then the options were sugary soft drink or water. Yay venues!

Though I have had a couple of health things going on – night-time cough and headaches for example – I feel tons better health-wise. And sanity-wise. Mostly I’ve thrived on the very intense work environment and haven’t done that much in the way of unfavourably comparing myself to others. Yay physical and mental health!

So all good. 

Of course, some segments of society are still very intent on teetotaller-shaming:

I’m not meaning to be that person, but holy goodness! 

This is the sort of artisan-supporting, independent business I would ordinarily be crazy about. I’m not against drinking, just against drinking for me – but way to be massive exclusionary dickheads, booze exchange, and to ensure that I never buy the alcohol I purchase for other people from you.

One of my previous incarnations at SML involved wrangling a whole lot of data. I adored doing that for a very long time, but was very pleased to recently offload it to Knut and move onto other exciting things.

Which is a rather round-about way of mentioning that last week I received an email invitation to a data-centric event which had a rather interesting method of enticing potential attendees. 

Ummm … yeah, no thanks.

I do rather hope the wretched hireling is very enthusiastically jeered.