I haven’t blogged for a while because things have been pretty hectic. A few days ago I saw one of the cats obsessively licking his paw, and I noticed that he had a massive gash down the side of his leg, his fur had been completely pulled of it and it was bleeding We took him to the vets’ and he had anaesthetic and his leg shaved and stitched. Poor kitty. Since my housemate had to leave for a few days me and Joe have been looking after Halo, and now he won’t leave my side, bless him. He’s doing fine but has painkillers and antibiotics (don’t know what they put in them but Halo bites my hand off to get at them, so they’re clearly some form of kitty crack). We’ve been keeping the cats in the house because Halo can’t go out, and so I’ve been getting no sleep with them crashing around everywhere!

Everyone’s very restless, and whereas before the cats were like this:

They’re now like this:

Tense! Halo’s collar is actually pretty useless and doesn’t stop him scratching the stitches on his leg, which are now looking considerably looser. I’ve bandaged him, Rich and Joe have bandaged him…nothing stays on. Hopefully it will be okay though as they look fairly secure still.

So, what else is new? I finished the 30 day challenge on EA Workout, so now I’m going to start the 60 day challenge on EA More Workouts. That one tracks weightloss as well which is good.

I added more photos to my Flickr account but I’m feeling lonely, so if you have one feel free to add me

The new style Photoshop tutorials are proving pretty popular. It took me forever, but they’ve been SEO’d and XHTML’d up to the eyeballs now. Just a couple left to rewrite, thank God.

Last night Rich came over and cooked dinner whilst I looked after Halo. Finally got a chance to chill out in front of the TV for a bit, and it was lovely being cooked for.

On Tuesday me and Joe had our Valentine’s Day, since unfortunately he’s at a funeral this weekend.

My other presents from him haven’t arrived yet, but I picked out some stuff from Love The Planet. I’ve been trying to find a paraben-free moisturiser for months and they sell them so that’s fab. I’m quite anti-Lush at the minute because they might be planet friendly and animal friendly but they aren’t people friendly with all the parabens, sodium laureth sulphate and other junk they put in their products and then claim they’re ‘natural’. Sigh.

This weekend I’m going home to visit my family. I’m so happy now that it’s beginning to get noticeably lighter in the evenings because this winter seems to have lasted forever and it’s been snowing a bit on and off. I’m also due some holiday at work so I’m thinking of having a bit of time off at the end of March, which will be a nice treat

There have been several hiccups in my healthy eating so far this year, but the following is a list of rules I’m trying to stick to. I’m not tempted to buy bad things, I’m only tempted to eat them if they’re in front of me…which is why the work meal out last week wasn’t conducive to my healthy eating!! But here are my guidelines…

1. No cereal other than muesli. Even supposedly healthy things like Special K and All Bran are packed full of sugar which will be converted into fat. Instead I have porridge (microwavable and filling), or fresh fruit with yoghurt. Yep, they have sugar, but not so much of the added kind.

2. Drinking lots of water. My body has become very in tune with feeling thirsty, which is something I’m not used to. Now I’ll get a dry throat and clearly think ‘I need some water’ rather than just ignoring it or thinking I’m hungry. I’m also drinking fruit juice, a mixture of my own blended fruits or shop-bought stuff not from concentrate. I’ll only have about one glass of juice a day though.

3. When I want chocolate or something warming, I have a hot chocolate or tomato soup. The soup is quite sweet, and I can barely ever finish a small mug of hot chocolate anyway so it’s not too bad.

4. Going by the sugar and salt content of food as well as fat, saturated fat and calories. Most of the packaged food I eat tends to be low-calorie anyway, but I’ve been watching out for the sugar and salt content of things more and it’s actually quite shocking.

5. Crisps (chips) are limited to about once a week instead of every day.

6. Lots more fresh veg, particularly salads and things like carrot sticks I can snack on at work.

7. Dividing plates up into ¼ protein, ¼ complex carbs and ½ veg/salad. I don’t tend to eat enough protein because I generally dislike it, so this helps ensure my meals are well-balanced overall.

8. Blended drinks – I love milkshakes, but instead I’m blending things like berries, banana and melon with some milk and a touch of milkshake powder. This also helps use up overripe fruit.

9. Being more veggie – this kind of links to my general dislike of protein, but I’ve been eating more veggie foods like meat-free sausages, Quorn balls etc., which are less fatty than meat and visually easier for me to cook.

10. Other food substitutes – roast potatoes instead of chips, bakes instead of cereal bars, homemade smoothies and milkshakes or fruit instead of dessert.

11. Waiting 20 minutes after eating – I’ve never really done this before but I’ve found it makes a big difference as to how much I actually eat, particularly as I eat bits and pieces when I’m feeling lazy.

12. The ‘No’s – I know a lot of people say not to cut things out completely because you’ll miss them, but these are the things I’ve avoiding: sweets, chocolate (except a kid’s sized bar every so often), red meat, fizzy drinks other than Apple Tiser, fried things, heavily processed non-veggie products, diet products with lots of bad ingredients and E numbers, foods with MSG, foods high in calories, fat, sugar and salt, white bread and pasta, coffee, tea, energy drinks.

13. Cooked veg is steamed in the microwave – quicker and healthier than boiling, roasting or frying.

14. Eating organic as much as possible – it just tastes nicer to me. And I’d prefer to give my body as little work as possible when it comes to toxins etc.

So what AM I eating? Well, here’s an example menu…

Breakfast: Fresh strawberries and melon

Mid-morning snack: Oatmeal and raisin bake

Lunch: Tuna sandwich with salad/peppers, fruit yoghurt, carrot sticks, small portion of soft cheese with crispy potato sticks

Mid-afternoon snack: Banana

Dinner: Fish with roast potatoes and at least three kinds of veg (usually a combination of the following: baby corn, peas, cabbage, green beans, sprouts, sugar snap peas, mange tout or broccoli).

I’m quite lucky in that I love almost every kind of veg. I’m not a massive fan of sweet potato, though I do like it cooked certain ways. The only vegetable I refuse to eat is ‘proper’ sweetcorn because I think it’s disgusting. My diet is still pretty heavy on the sugar, and I’m not sure what I else I can do about that really as I’ve always had a very sweet tooth. I have stopped eating desserts though and I have been generally careful whilst eating out as to what I’m choosing. I’ve also got fussier with picking what I eat rather than generally clearing my plate. For example, I ordered a chicken sandwich in a restaurant at the weekend and it came with orange plastic cheese and a burger bun, rather than the ciabatta I was expecting!! Needless to say I scraped the cheese and top part of the bun off and left them. I could see the grease on it, it was disgusting. Ick.

What are the healthy aspects of your diet? Do you find it hard to eat healthily or do you naturally like things that are good for you?

Ouch…I haven’t blogged in ages! I’ve been pretty busy with work, going home for the weekend and general catching up. And yet after all the catching up I’m still behind! Sometimes I really do feel like I’m going round in circles.

I’ve been getting up earlier to do a workout every day. I’ve been following the EA Active 30 Day Challenge (on my Wii) for the past week, and it’s a pretty good workout to start the day with. I definitely needed to up my exercise levels since I spend five days out of seven sitting at a desk for eight hours or more. Getting up earlier is not fun, but I feel good after a half hour workout and I want to at least complete the 30 day challenge.

A few of you were asking about Wii Fit Plus – if you have Wii Fit, it’s not too dissimilar. It adds some more activities and allows you to create custom workouts. But I read something recently which mentioned that Wii Fit and Plus both follow a more Eastern attitude to exercise (i.e thinking about stretching, posture and balance), whilst EA Active is based on Western thinking of being active. This is completely true, but then again there’s an ultimately fun aspect to Wii Fit which you don’t get with EA Active. You’d ‘play’ Wii Fit, you’d work out on EA Active. Having said that, if you’d the kind of person that prefers fun ways of exercising then Wii Fit is going to be more your cup of tea. It’s something you might play with friends, whereas if I invited one of my friends round to play EA Active, they’d probably take it as me calling them fat or something. Or just be very confused.

I just feel that Wii Fit and Plus, though they are more fun, don’t really count as exercise and so you might be fooled into thinking you can eat more crap than you can. I guess both games have certain advantages and disadvantages.

In other news…thank God the snow is over!! We had a day of black ice to round it off, and it was horrible. A two mile journey took me nearly an hour and a half, and it was so slippery in places I physically couldn’t walk uphill without the aid of a well-situated fence or hedge. Crazy. The only reminder of the snow I have left is a small scab on my knee from where I ripped my jeans (and part of my leg) open last week. Fingers crossed the weather starts to get better. It’s already getting darker later, which I love. I’ll be complaining again once it starts to get hot though!

I’ve installed Google Analytics for WordPress, and I’m going to delete CyStat because it’s just too buggy. Google Analytics has a lot of useful information, though I’d prefer an overview of general stats as well. It also seems to be missing the (very basic) full referral URLs of visitors, though there’s a hack I can implement so I might try that.

I’ve also signed up to Delicious, so if you’re interested in what I’m bookmarking or have an account, feel free to add me. If you’re interested in stalking me all over the Internet, then check out my lifestream (but I only add people I know on Facebook).

The Haiti earthquake is all over the news, and it’s pretty emotional stuff to watch. For all the hate and war there is in the world, it’s pretty amazing to see how much people can achieve when they actually work together. I’ll definitely be donating to the cause in a few days when I have more money, and then I intend to blog all about it. Until then, I’ll just count my blessings that I live in a non-extreme country (however boring it may be), and realise that I should stop complaining about the snow.

So, to round off – if you made any new year’s resolutions, how are they going? Have you broken any yet? If you didn’t make any, why didn’t you? I’m finding that mine are actually pretty tough going, but I haven’t given up yet