This week marked the official start of my healthy campaign. I flat-out refuse to use the d-i-e-t word.

I’ve been building up to this week for a while, trying to eat better, using the cross trainer Dan bought himself for Christmas and mentally psyching myself up for the real deal.

Because of NSW school holidays, work is much, much quieter than usual, and the lack of official meetings means I can avoid the snacking and nitpicking of leftovers. I’m very proud to say that I only had a couple of teddy bear bikkies after enduring some food challenges in the lunchroom at work. I made my lunch and snacks every morning before work- that alone deserves a bloody medal.

In this week of firsts:

• I ate my first stick of celery since I was about 7. I hated it then, and only convinced myself this week that I should try eating it again (only 23 years later). It wasn’t as bad as my 7 year old self remembers, but will still take some time to adjust. This is when I treated myself to 2 teddy bear bikkies after surviving the ordeal
• I ate veges for my morning snacks every day, and fruit if I needed it in the afternoon. Celery, cucumber, carrot, capsicum, mandarins, apples and pears. I cut the veges into sticks and just ate the fruit as-is
• I ate a whole bowl of porridge for the first time ever on Thursday morning. I seriously don’t know who I am anymore. Porridge has always reminded me of vomit and even if I could have handled the taste before, the texture would have made me gag. Admittedly, the porridge I ate was laced with honey and sugars, but hey, anything to get me started, right? I’ve had porridge 3 breakfasts in a row, and I even made it this morning with only water. Not bad for a girl who loves her milk
• My sambo’s were the talk of the lunchroom every day this week, all on Molenberg wholemeal bread:
  Tuna, corn, mayo, spinach, capsicum dip (so good, I had it twice this week)
  Salami, fetta cheese (low fat, of course), capsicum, tomato, spinach
  ham, cheese, spinach, capsicum dip, tomato
  chicken, avocado, spinach, tomato
  I tried to have a mashed boiled egg sandwich, but apparently I need to work on actually boiling the whole egg
• I’ve been to Newtown Gym twice, both for their Body Pump class. I was the only one not muscley and toned but managed to survive the whole hour pumping my little 1kg weights. The instructor only picked on me twice, which is pretty good considering one of those times was during lunges, and I hate lunges more than I hate the idea of John McCain being the next American President
• I actually updated my Diet Diary software from DietClub.com.au and did well considering some of the shocking dinners we’ve had this week (Oporto, Thai)

The thing I’ve done for the second time this week was start taking Reductil, one of those dreaded diet pills. I’m not proud to be on them, especially considering the flack I got from taking them for one month mid-last year. I appreciate that everyone has their concerns about these medications, but I am fully supported by my GP (who has threatened me with regular check-ins) and also Dan, which is most important to me. When I took them for a month last year, without any exercising or trying to eat healthier (really, I wasn’t psychologically ready to take them, hence stopping after one month), I managed to lose a kilo a week. I’m hoping that I can keep that up if I eat well and exercise regularly enough. I’ve decided I’m too lazy to measure myself, but I popped on the scales just before I took my first Reductil tablet and weighted 97.5kg, which apparently takes by BMI to 35.

My first goal is to lose 5kg before my birthday in June.