“You don’t eat much each day Mum!”

I’m not sure whether Ella’s assertion is a good one or not!  I don’t believe in starving myself, but I guess compared to the snacking culture of my children, I’m not eating a lot each day! 

The food diary is working a charm.  I get mocked by Ella whenever I scribble anything down in my notebook – she thinks it’s downright weird that I should write down every item I eat, but it’s working for me.  I don’t go back and review it, because I haven’t needed to.  Nothing has slipped in that shouldn’t be there, and my intake of fruit has grown hugely as a result of simply thinking more carefully about what I’m eating.  I used to have a muesli bar (low fat variety, but probably high sugar!) for morning tea, whereas now I’ll have a mandarin and banana.  Same again when I get home from work – no more bowls of steamed rice for me!  After tea, if I get peckish, I’ve been making just a basic fruit salad (banana, apple, mandarin) with some natural yoghurt. 

I was out of town today and even managed to pick myself up a healthy hospital lunch!  I’m not normally a fan of Eurest food, but today I got myself a very yummy fruit salad plus some yoghurt with toasted rolled oats for lunch.  I was well impressed – particularly given that it was just on 2pm and thought I’d be lucky to even get a cruddy toasted cheese roll!  (I would have opted for starvation, if that was the case!)

Watching the family consume my precious marshmallows is eating me alive, but each day I’m feeling more and more virtuous (read “stronger”!).  When I start to see and feel some results, I know it will have been worth it.