I’d decided to take a long weekend off work to catch up on my course work, and figure out what to write about for my final assignment, an essay due in mid-April. I’m doing the course via distance learning, so I fit it in around work and life.  I spent a couple of days catching up with the weekly work which was good, then yesterday I started trying to narrow down what to write about for my essay. Long story short, but it needs to be based on what we’re studying this term, but we can’t make it too similar to anything we’ve studied during a particular week. Of course typically I want to cover something that we looked at in Week 4. After three full days of sitting in front of the computer, my back was decidedly unhappy, I couldn’t figure out what else to write about – hours of research boiled down to a big fat zero – so I had a melt down. I emailed my tutor in a stress, then sacked it off for the night about 8:30pm and decided to watch Fast & Furious 7. I love that film and still cry at the end 😩 Anyhoo, I had today off to study, but after a restless night with an achey back I decided to sack it off for the day.

Amazingly it was a beautiful day, so I decided to drive to a nearby beach and go for a walk. I looooove beaches so much, they just make me feel great. I spent a good couple of hours wandering along the route of the local Parkrun, and enjoyed a coffee on the hoof. I was sorely tempted by some chips, but managed to restrain myself.

After I got home around 1:30pm, I had a cuppa and was contemplating logging on, but thought ‘bugger it’ and headed to the allotment.  Happily I met one of my neighbours who I’d never met before so we had a nice chat, then one of the guys from the plot on the other side appeared so we had a lovely chat too. I asked them their expert advice on what I should do with the two compost heaps I have, so now I’ve got some plans for another visit. I decided to try and clear one of the beds I hadn’t really touched, other than previously trying to pull out some brambles. I got most of it done, and hauled out another couple of huge roots. This was the first time I’d been at the allotment in just a t-shirt, and at one point it felt totally scorchio. I cannot wait to be down there in the summer 😀

My recently discovered rhubarb is also coming on at a pace, and I’m already dreaming of my first crumble (a sugar free recipe has already been found).

So today was fabulous, and I’m glad I chose to spent a lot of it ourside. Even though I felt like I’d had a meltdown last night, the difference is I didn’t reach for the shit food to compensate, as I would have done in the past. It didn’t even occur to me. Also as frustrated as I was, I feel really clear headed today, and I know I’ll get the essay sussed and get the plan in next Monday. I know I keep banging on about it, but I’m constantly amazed at the difference that no sugar and low carb eating is making to me, especially mentally/emotionally. Yeah stuff can still be stressful, but it bothers me for a lot less time, and mentally I feel a bit sharper such that already I can see a way out of the hole I felt I was in yesterday.

That said, this week I didn’t lose weight and in fact went up 2 lbs. I’ve been tracking what I eat but I’ve also not really been paying attention to whether I’m hungry or not and scarffing down nuts like there’s no tomorrow (damn you salted pecans!). So back to just eating when I’m hungry this week, and I’m sure I’ll get shot of those 2 lbs pretty quickly. Oh and I did have a sneaky Chinese takeout on Friday, so that won’t have helped!  It was bloody good though 😀