New Year's Day part one: review and aims (long ramble alert!!)

 Good morning, everyone; wishing you a Happy New Year (in the context of this blog, anyway, I appreciate that there's a lot that isn't happy about this new year) and I hope that you had a pleasant evening, however you were able to spend it.

Traditionally, it's time for changes, for new ideas, for resolutions, for targets and challenges.  I guess the idea is to brighten things up and get us going again once the bright lights and sparkle of Christmas are but a memory!
When things are darker, as they are right now, it's a reminder that things can and do change, nothing lasts for ever and maybe we can play our individual parts in those changes

Twenty twenty was the very first year in a very long while that I approached Christmas in a good place.  By that, I mean with good-ish food habits, around target range and with positive expectations.
I have, of course, crashed and scoffed over the last eight or nine days.  Endlessly at times.  I ought to be annoyed with myself as the weight has gone shooting up and certain clothes have become tighter and a bit uncomfortable which is a sure sign that things need to change!

I ought to be but, in fact, I'm not, not really.  I've thoroughly enjoyed having white bread, for example, and I tried some rye bread from M&S which was lovely.  I've had crisps galore and, generally, way too much of the stuff that is really not good for me!  I hate to think what my innards are thinking right now.  I've eaten mindlessly at times but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking and planning.

It's time to draw a line under it all, isn't it?  Time to learn from the last few weeks and to turn away, to move on into a new year.  I'm starting in a good place really.  Yes, I have poundage to discard again but who hasn't?  I've got the tools, I've got the motivation, I've got the support from all of you as well as via my Slimming World group.  I know I don't get a lot of comments here but I know there are people reading and that's an encouragement in itself.  Thank you so much.

Changes.

1.  As you will have picked up if you've read this blog for any length of time, I'm a Slimming World kind of girl but not a true blue one.  I appreciate the structure, the pointers towards eating very healthily, the limits on junky type food and so on but I don't appreciate what I think of as the sillier, more controlling aspects of the plan.  I've ranted on about them often enough and probably will again so so I won't now.  I tend to ignore them or work round them.
So - I'm back on plan as from today.  I'm going to be quite strict for a week, then weigh and move down from there.  If I think a rule is silly, I will say why and ignore it.  No change there, I guess.

2.  However, meal boredom is a great enemy.  It's too easy to get into a rut and then to start thinking too far outside the box.  Too much deprivation (in amount or in variety) leads to a crash.  I'm lucky in that I have a great range of helpful recipe books such as Pinch of Nom, Chubby Cubs (new book arrived yesterday!) and others, magazines galore including the excellent Slimming World magazine, a range of cupboard essentials and not-so-essentials to use and some helpful kitchen equipment.  I also have two freezers packed with resources that I really should get to grips with and use up.
So - as from today I will make better use of the resources I have to hand to grow and expand my range of meals, almost always working within SW parameters.

3.  As most of us would agree, I think, the bottom line in this game is calories.  Most structures, certainly the longer term ones, are ways of managing the calories in order to fit differing views of a 'healthy' diet.   Some I wouldn't touch with a bargepole while some I consider and maybe borrow elements from them.  
Slimming World rarely mentions calories which is fair enough with its minimal-weigh ethos but I think their insistence on 'have as much as you want' is a mistake without an equal emphasis on 'third of the plate is speed' and 'eat to satisfaction, not to feeling totally stuffed'.  Until people stop criticising SW for the 'eat as much as you want' ethos, SW is evidently not emphasising the rest nearly enough, I don't care what they say.
Also - while on the subject - apart from bread, why not sell the whole grain carbs much, much more?  Brown rice, wholewheat pasta, etc.  They're great!  So much better than the white version.
End of mini rant.
So - from today, I'll use the SW structure as my base but, if I need or want to go onto calories for a few days, a week or even for one meal, then I will!

4.  I love that SW places great emphasis on making it yourself from fresh.  I love that their Iceland meals all come with the recipe so you can then make it yourself (if you want).  I love that their magazine and web site are both stuffed full of recipes that are already 'valued' for you.  I love that, pretty much always, home made meals are better value, both in health terms and in money
However, sometimes I want to go different and splash out a bit as well as trying something new.
Last year I had a go at Do the Unthinkable which worked pretty well.  I have, in the past, tried Body Chef (not Diet Chef) and thought that was brilliant but it is terribly costly, you don't do much cooking - and I enjoy the cooking - and they don't let you have their recipes (or at least they didn't when I last looked).  I'm attracted to box meal thingies like Gousto and I saw an ad for a 'healthy' meal service last night although I forget what it's called.  I must research.
So - this year, while I am committed to Slimming World AND being mostly frugal (making the best of what I have), now and again I will branch out, spend more and give other things a try.  Just for the sheer fun of it!

5.  For the part of the year I went for restricted eating.  That's not restricting the amount, it is about restricting the window of time  within which you have your meals and increasing the window of time when you don't eat.  One needs to be adaptable as it doesn't always work with one's daily schedule but, as a principle, I took to it like a house on fire.  It's died the death over Christmas and I want to get back to it with a slight difference.
I could never do the OMAD structure - that's One Meal a Day - and I'm not sure I could manage just two meals a day even as a general rule but how about this.  I will return to the eleven am to seven pm  eight hour meal window but the first meal, breakfast, will be just fruit.   I sometimes have that anyway.  That gives me more scope for the other two meals and I think it's worth a go.
So - for the next week, I will work towards two main meals (usually on SW principles) and one fruit meal a day, taken in an eight hour window.  It might very well stop the four o'clock snacking that has become a bit of a habit again.
All subject to evaluation, of course.

The aim of the above waffle is to be healthy and to be happy, not in a yippee-doo sort of way but deep down inside, knowing that I am respecting myself and my physical health.

Fingers crossed.

How about you - what is your strategy for the new year?