Or more truthfully, that should be a weight gain update.
I wasn't losing weight despite seeing my Personal Trainer twice a week, and then December hit. That means watching every Christmas film on Netflix, and then attempting (and failing) to watch every Christmas film on My5. In fact, I typed "christmas" into the My5 search, and was going through all the Christmas films in alphabetical order. As they show a film every afternoon, the list was updating every day, and I purposely did not go back to watch the films that had been added after I passed that letter. Even still, I only managed to get to the end of the letter C. (There are sooooo many films that are called either "A Christmas in... " or "Christmas in... "!) Added to that was possibly excessive mince pie consumption (can you blame me?! Mmmmmm.... Mince pies.....) my weight increased to the highest weight I've been ever. Surprisingly, though, I did not gain much from Christmas and New Year's themselves, and I started January at a whopping 104.7kg. Any my progress photos, which I won't scare you with, actually look worse than when I started with my PT back in April. Yikes.
I did already have a plan for the new year to meal prep. My husband and I had become aware that we had regressed into buying takeaways when we cba to cook or worse, we wanted to cook but had time constraints or we hadn't defrosted anything in time. I already owned one meal prep book, but it didn't really teach how to do it, beyond being a recipe book, so I asked for a book for Christmas: Low Calorie Meal Prep Cookbook.
I started following the weekly meal guides - the first week was breakfast only, the second week was breakfasts and lunch, the third week (this week) is breakfast, lunch and dinner, and weeks 4, 5 and 6 all have breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack planned. I have had to purchase some more containers for storage, and my fridges are now full at the start of each week.
The foods in the book are actually really tasty. I have learned that supermarket fruit and veg don't actually last a week when prepped, which is a shame as it means I need to do a mid-week prep for the fresh food. And it takes aaaaages on a Sunday afternoon, but as my PT pointed out to me, that I would be spending at least that much time during the week making breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.
Some examples of the meals I've been eating include Veggie Quiche Bento Boxes, Tuna and Hummus Wrap, Tropical Smoothie, and Chicken and White Bean Chilli. Though my 3 favourite meals, so far, have been swiftly demolished before I've had a chance to take a photograph: Southwestern Black-bean Quesadilla, Chicken and Gnocchi Soup and Honey-Sriracha Chicken with Noodles. Yum.
I've also started using My Fitness Pal again, to record my calorie intake, and I've signed up to a 4-week bootcamp in February. Incredibly, I am seeing weightloss already! I am weighing myself on a Monday morning (so I will restart the weekly updates) and over the first 2 weeks of eating these meals, I have lost 3 kilograms! My PT said to challenge myself and aim for getting below 100kg by the end of January - and I thought that was a bit optimistic, tbh. But, I seem to be on track at the moment! As expected, I lost more weight the first week, than in the second, and we have to wait until next Monday to see what this third week has done for me. I have started drinking tea again (vanilla flavour rooibos - delicious) with a couple of drops of stevia, to satisfy my sweet tooth, and I've been having one of those 10calorie jellies as a dessert after dinner. I haven't been depriving myself, and have actually had a takeaway every week in January, I've just tried to be sensible about it - eg choosing tandoori chicken with vegetable side dishes, rather than my usual tikka massala, pilau rice and peshwari naan. And I've managed to have the odd glass of alcohol (red wine, or even a baileys) if it fits within my calorie allowance. (My calorie allowance is currently 1500kcals in MFP because I have set it up to aim to lose 0.5kg/week.)
So, that's where we are. I was 101.7kg on Monday, and I hope I will continue to lose weight, get fitter and get healthier.
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