We did Break Free in February, now let’s reinforce those beginnings and add another habit you’d like to tame over Mad March.

I’m going to continue to work on keeping PB to a minimum, and add “chip shop chips begone”. OH loves his fish and chips on a Friday. I will continue to buy them for him, I’ll eat the grilled fish (we don’t have battered as he needs GF) but have a salad instead of the chips. A stern test this time! Wish me fortitude😌

Fab thread mine is to drink more water so I dont get all my fluid through black coffee! Also to keep on top of the running, I can run for 20 mins and want to keep at it, to help I will join a local running group. Bad habit to break- is estimating rather than weighing.

Mine has to be less meat. Or more accurately to know how much meat/protein I actually eat and keep it within the ranges suggested elsewhere on the forums. Strangely resistant to this I think it’s the idea of logging and counting, but it is sensible I think

The bad habit I’ve got into is “treats”. The treats are usually salted nuts and far too many! Also, I’ve started eating lentil crisps as a “treat” and so they are definitely being ditched in March. I was so good last year whilst I was aiming for goal and never ate anything in between meals and never wanted to. Since reaching my goal last November I’ve introduced some old and bad habits back into my day. I’ve learnt that by relaxing the regime, old habits soon return and we all know what happens then! I won’t ever put myself in the position of having to lose three stone again. Thank you for this thread, a great idea for keeping us on the straight and narrow.

Individual sachets of latte coffee from Aldi’s made with extra milk are my ‘treat’ during the day – but seem to have become my regular go to drink since starting the BSD. So I want to break that habit, and introduce water to drink instead (probably hot water at the mo as it is flipping cold here).

Thank you for starting this thread, just the act of spending a little time thinking about a change to make each month is a positive experience. I have been debating with myself 4 different habits to change.

I have an old Wii gathering dust with the programs for different exercises. I am going to dust that off and set it up in the lounge so that I can start fitting in some formal exercise each day which is designed to burn fat.

Thanks for kicking this thread off Marsie. I think it is very helpful to have something to make us evaluate what we are doing and how we could improve our approach. There are some habits already posted, which I could easily identify with – little too much between meal picking, drinking more water rather than other fluids and exercising. They are all things I should be looking to improve myself and knowing they are issues for others, will hopefully help me to be more conscious of these issues in my daily life too.

My previous problem habit, was getting control of my indiscriminate cheese nibbling. This has largely been achieved, but I know I still need to watch the amount consumed, if cheese is part of a meal. My next one to curb, might seem a bit of a cop-out, but with an upcoming extended vacation it is something I need to get a grip on now, before we go away. The issue at hand, is not to be so easily swayed to consume non-BSD foods in social situations. We have a few social events scheduled for March, which will give me the opportunity to flex my ‘resistance muscle’ in preparation for our three months away and hopefully it will help me become stronger in such situations, so that I don’t unintentionally pile on pounds while we are away.

Best of luck to everyone one, for successfully breaking free in March.

Just quickly checking back in so I can be re-subscribed.
Happy to have company x

Thanks for starting this for March Marsie.
I failed miserably in Feb – I wanted to do more exercise but didn’t. So this month I’m going to create the habit of walking 10,000 steps every day. I’ve signed up to a fundraising campaign for Cancer Research UK to do 10,000 steps every day in March which I hope will spur me on – I wouldn’t just be letting myself down but the charity too!
Specifically:
Walk to the station instead of catching the bus.
Go for a walk at lunchtime during the week
Go for a walk at weekends
SNOW IS NOT A BARRIER!!! Just walk more slowly…
Basically – I just need to get off my back side in March. Good luck everyone on breaking those bad habits.

Hats off to you Gattina – your determination is admirable and I can say with absolute certainty, there is no way I would be up for those walks in snowy and icy weather. so all power to you! Best wishes for easily hitting your 10K steps every day.

Gattina, I’m with SunnyB in admiring your determination. Hope March is good for you.

And to everyone … focus well …x

Friday, the first of my stern tests for Mad March. We were out for lunch today and, come the evening, usually that means just a couple of eggs, or grilled cheese on toast for OH and maybe sliced tomato on a cornthin, if anything, for me. But no, tonight he wanted his Friday fish and chips which I dutifully bought.

I so NEARLY made it 100% …. I put the small piece of grilled snapper onto my plate, the larger piece onto OH’s plate and as many chips as he would normally have, put none on my plate👏👏. Oh, BUT, without thought popped two chips into my mouth, had a third ready to follow when I had the conscious thought “eew taste the oil! Awful!” Put it back, wrapped the rest up and shoved them into the bin. Put a few salad bits onto my plate, plus a handsome forkful of sauerkraut to add zing to the fish.

For me this is a big win because I’ve always loved chips.🙆🙆🙆 But … one win doth not a Mad March maketh. So, as I’ve said elsewhere. MFODAAT.

I do hope you are enjoying wins along the way, too xx

Well done Marsie – two chips slipping passed is not an issue. It’s so easy to do these things on autopilot isn’t it? This lunchtime I was making a cheese sandwich for OH and decided the piece I’d taken out of the fridge wasn’t going to be big enough and I’d have to open a different cheese for his sandwich. I’d broken a little off the ‘reject’ chunk and popped it in my mouth and then picked the piece up again and was about to take a bite out of it, when I suddenly realised what I was doing. Quickly returned it to the fridge without having any more. ….. So, still working on the Feb Break-free it seems!

Good morning all. Thank you Marsie and Sunny for the encouragement and well done for stopping yourselves from indulging.
So two days into March and I’ve managed my steps. 12000 on Thursday and 10500 on
Friday. The weather is a bit warmer today some of the ice seems to have melted so I should be able to go for a longer walk.
Good luck with your challenge everyone and break those bad habits.

Hi all and how is everyone going with breaking their habits?
I’m on a roll with forming my new habit – I’ve achieved 10,000 steps every day so far and a little bit more on top. It has involved pacing up and down the hallway and up and down the stairs – but they’re still steps so they count. Yesterday I was dancing around the living room to 80s music – I was wearing headphones so if anyone saw me I would have looked very crazy 🙂
Well I’m off for a walk around the park to notch up a few more steps…

Gattina! That’s very impressive👏👏👏 very well done, you😌

My carryover goal was to only have one small serving per day of PB (no more than 5g) & butter (nmt 3g) on a corn thin. On Sunday I had 3 serves of the butter & PB (only one corn thin, but that was not the main point of the exercise – the pb and butter are). Haven’t had any since.
My Mad March goal is to do with avoiding the hot chips that come with OH’s fav Friday night fish&chips. As that is a once a week thing I’m adding another: avoid bread and potatoes of any sort when eating out, which we seem to be doing a couple of times a week at the moment.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, to really focus on one particular thing, whilst still working on the larger plan….
MFODAAT xx

Good going Gattina, feels like you are the most focused of us all right now. You are right of course, as step is a step, even if it’s in the house and I love the idea of dancing in the living room – maybe I should be looking to do that myself!

Marsie, don’t beat yourself up, today is a clean slate and a new beginning for the butter and PB thing. Try hard on the potato and bread thing, especially as you are eating out more at the moment – it’s always the bread I find tempting in those situations, so know it can be tough to refuse it.

My cheese things seems to be pretty much under control at the moment and this w/e will be my first real test on the eating out thing this month, so we will see how that goes. It’s not having that extra glass of wine that’s the issue for me, so I’ll be keeping a watch on that.

Hope everyone else is managing to tackle their bed habit with a good measure of success.

Thanks, Sunny. It’s a strange feeling at the moment but I’m not beating myself up, just making a statement of fact. Coming from the drama queen that I am, it’s actually quite a nice feeling, lol. Hopefully I will remember that the drama of beating oneself up over a misstep just makes it worse and probably guarantees it will happen again. For me, anyway, can’t speak for anyone else.

Bread on the restaurant table is hard to ignore, isn’t it but as I don’t have it at home any more I shouldn’t (!) have a problem putting my blinkers on. And wine, luckily I have so little these days, without missing it a jot, that I’m surprised at the end of dinner to find I’ve only had a couple of tastes and there’s a very watery (from the melted ice) lot left in the glass :). As I’m generally the designated driver home, I’ve been accustomed to just a little for many years, and this is just a natural extension. Handy that:)
Happy focusing, everybody …

Hi all
Marsie – I’m glad you’re not beating yourself up – there really is no point. And SunnyB sounds like you’re on top of that cheese. Good luck this weekend – you keep telling yourself you don’t really want that extra wine…
I’ve had a couple of binges over the past few days – posted on another thread – something I have to keep a check on because I don’t want it to be my bad habit for next month! But I am much more active and feel like I have so much more energy. I went for a long walk at lunch time – headed off in a different direction in the park and then realized I had to go a very long way to get back to the office, so it was longer than I had intended – but I did do my 10,000 steps for today 🙂
Good luck everyone

Said I wouldn’t have bread or potatoes when eating out. Pub food last night with#1son, new place in the city. It worked perfectly😄
Eating Italian tonight and I won’t have bread or pasta.
To the gym for Pilates or 5k walks each day this week. Feeling empowered, long may it last😇xx
MFODAAT

Hi – hope everyone is keeping up with ditching those bad habits or forming new ones.
Marsie – I hope the Italian was good and steered clear of the bread and pasta. I would find that difficult, I love pasta but haven’t eaten any since December, except for a black soy bean pasta I found in the health food shop which is low carb.
My new exercise habit is coming along nicely – I’ve managed my 10,000 steps every day – I managed just over 96,000 last week 🙂
As I’ve been feeling so much more energetic I downloaded the Couch to 5K app – I thought I would give running a go and this morning I tried a run for the first time – ever! I didn’t do well – I only managed to do 6 of the 8 runs but still – at least I did that much and covered 6,000 steps in less time than if I had walked all of it. The app does make starting to run manageable – but I may have to do week 1 a few times before moving on, I’m really not very fit.
Foodwise I’ve been rubbish this week – but at least one aspect of this woe is going well.
Hope everyone else is managing to break free 🙂

Hi Gattina,
Yes, thanks, the Italian was very nice except for the leather chicken(!) and I didn’t have either bread or pasta or wine. Didn’t quite manage to totally avoid the birthday cake when we went for afters at a friend’s nearby house. I did however only have one mouthful of the enormously rich choc mud cake. Never was to my taste anyway but definitely not now.
Peanut Butter? Well, I haven’t totally avoided it but that wasn’t my original intention. I wanted to control it. It was a close run thing today but I did stop before too much damage was done.
Lunch with friends, yesterday, at another new venue in our city and in total contrast to the leather chicken I had the most succulent smoked chicken with roasted cauliflower, cranberries and goats cheese, plus 1 small glass of semillon blanc. Beautiful, and even though I shared half of the chicken around the table it probably added up to my 800cals. No bread. Strange, I’m not missing it but can imagine I would easily fall back into the overeating trap if I did indulge. Only one piece of fruit for dinner.

G, I love what you are doing with your walking and now introducing running into the mix. I’m sure you are right to amend the programme to suit your own beginner status … baby steps come first. Congratulations xx

Hi Gattina. The c25k app (I used the podcast) is brilliant. Not sure if you have seen that there is a c25k forum, (and for later a Bridge to 10k and Marathon forums) on the NHS health unlocked website. They are really supportive too and, just like here, there’s always someone to answer any queries. If you are just starting to run I would say take each run very slowly, it’s the best way to get through the programme injury-free and the best way to build up stamina. Repeating a run is only necessary when you haven’t completed that particular one and repeating whole weeks isn’t necessary at all unless you want to. Also the main aim of the programme is to run for 30 mins non stop rather than getting to 5k in the nine weeks (not many people do, I’ve only managed it a few times in over 5 years 😄). Best wishes for enjoying the programme – it can be as life changing as the BSD.

Thanks Annie – those distances of 25k and 10k sound a bit intimidating right now. Just running for 60 seconds is enough of a challenge for me 🙂
I did my second run this morning – I managed 7 of the 8 runs. I did take your advice and took it very slowly which probably helped me to do one more run. I’ll let you know how I get on.
Hope everyone is doing well.

Hi Gattina. Congrats on getting further into the runs. You thought the same as me. Originally I thought c25k meant 25k. It’s actually the shorthand for couch to 5k, so you are on your way with that. Although as I said the aim is actually 30 mins non-stop.

Later on, perhaps when you have graduated and if you think you might like to run with others, there is Park Run (Google it). It is free and held around the country every Saturday morning. All sorts of people do it, with dogs, pushchairs etc. The course is a measured 5k but on timing you can take as long as it takes. There is always a tail runner who walks/runs with the people at the back so you are never left alone. Many people walk the whole 5k.

Bringing this thread to the top again as we let it fall away. I just want to summarise my month with these goals.
For march, I’d said I would avoid bread and pasta while eating out – we often eat in Italian restaurants when out with friends. This was a success I’m happy to say but as this would really only cover 3 or 4 times in the month I carried forward the Feb goal of severely reducing my peanut butter intake. For a while I avoided it altogether but gradually let it back into my life. So far, though, it has been very measured i.e. 1tspn, usually on a cornthin, once a day but not every day. Happy with that and I’ll endeavour to keep this going.

Hi Marsie,
I was thinking about this topic yesterday as well. I had to go back to find out what I had posted which wasn’t a good start, and you may guess that I didn’t achieve it. (I planned to dust of the old Wii and use it for an exercise program.)
On the plus side, I have been increasing exercise but rather than bouncing around in the lounge I have been busy doing tasks such as painting and work around the property instead. Which would have been a better aim if I had thought of it at the time. – This week alone I have already had 3 days were cals out where 3000 plus to cals eaten.
The reason I was thinking about the topic yesterday was because I had a bright idea of what I would put down if there was a topic for this month. – I am going to try to wean myself off artificial sweeteners. I changed to using stevia, rather sugar in coffee and make my own flavoured water using soda water with a slice of lime and a couple of spoonfuls of stevia powder. But it would be better to get used to drinking coffee and water without sweetener.

Good to see this thread revived. Well done with getting a grip on the peanut butter Marsie and although you are playing it down, it sounds like you have actually achieved more than you thought on the exercise front, JGwen.

For me, I feel quite comfortable that I have he cheese thing back in control and I’m reasonably happy that I have also got the not eating excessive non-BSD foods in social situations fairly sorted too. However, this will be severely tested during our upcoming trip to Turkey, as our Turkish friends love to entertain us and meals are often carb heavy there. I will be doing my best to keep things in control though and fully intend to throw in some fasting days, to mitigate any potential damage from transgressions into non-BSD foods. If I can keep overall gains to 4lb for the duration, I’ll be content and know that I will be able to kick that into touch pretty quickly on returning home.

Good luck with the sweetener thing JGwen and hope you continue to manage the peanut butter consumption Marsie.

Your exercise sounds effective, anyway, JGwen. You’ll soon be fit as a fiddle (how fit is a fiddle, do you suppose?) and SunnyB, social situations can be littered with landmines so well done on that front. Also with bringing your cheese thing into line. Ooh, I do love cheese! Have a great time in Turkey, won’t you. We spent some weeks touring there a few years ago and loved it💝

Hi All
Thanks for bringing this alive again Marsie and well done all for breaking those bad habits.
Marsie you have very strong resolve avoiding carbs at Italian restaurants – well done. I’m sure I would dive into a big bowl of pasta 🙂
SunnyB well done getting the cheese under control and hope have a fab time in Turkey. I’ve only been to Turkey on holiday a few times and I’ve loved it. Food is amazing – so good luck.
JGwen – you’re doing amazingly well – but your form of exercise sounds like too much hard work to me 🙂 3000 calories more out than in is fantastic.

I had resolved to exercise more – I was doing the 10,000 steps each day in March for Cancer Research and I have completed it. I did 436,441 steps in March and covered 282.74 km and raised £160. I even managed to get to the gym last week – which was my aim for February which I failed. I’ve only been once but I have booked classes for later in the week – I’m doing a yoga class on Friday and should be able to get to the gym again on Saturday. I’m keeping up the steps too – I wear my fitbit all the time and it seems wrong to go bed without having done the 10,000 steps.
My eating however, is totally out of control – my increased exercise has meant I haven’t completely gone off the rails with my weight but I am struggling to get back in control of it. That is my aim for April – get eating under control!

Hi Gattina,
You were marvellous the way you completed the walking challenge. Congratulations:) I’m doing this on my larger laptop and can’t access emojis here, I’d be posting claps and fireworks if I was on my tablet or phone.
I know what you mean by struggling to get eating under control … my best suggestion would be to set behavioural goals along the way e.g. weigh, measure and track all food. I find that these “action” goals serve me better than actual weight goals. Best wishes.

MFODAAT

Thanks Marsie – you are right about tracking food – it’s the only way to do this. I’ve recently started going back to my work canteen for lunch and although I try to keep to bsd foods it’s so easy to let a few in and eat too many calories. I was able to do this at the start of the year by tracking everything I ate and I need to do that again to continue losing weight. I’m not in a place where I can let it creep.

Very impressed with the walking results, Gattina – would make an excellent positive to post on the ‘Positive Thoughts’ thread! Good news about the gym too. I’m feeling quite ashamed that I’m not doing more on the exercise front myself – it has always been a sticking point for me. Maybe that needs to be my next focus, but it will have to be post-Turkey – although to be fair, I am always more active when we are there, so it won’t be a total loss and I’ll probably be fitter on my return than when we set off. Anyway, might give me something to build on in August.

I always found that tracking everything I consumed was essential when I was in weight loss mode. Getting back to basics is a great way to get things heading in the right direction again.