Health Diary Week 51: Food, Exercise and a Positive Mind

Once Upon a Time… in Watson World

Open Book Landscape Scene: Mystic Art Design, Pixabay

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Hi and welcome to another weekly instalment of what’s on my plate, health and nutrition updates and smile-provoking experiences.

What’s New

It’s been a relatively quiet and happy week. Here’s my updates…

Guest Blogs:

Excitingly, I published my first Guest Blog written by my cousin, Alice, who works in the clinical trials industry: Mythbusting the Coronavirus Vaccine. It was an informative read, supported by useful references (I especially liked the first video that provided an animated explanation of vaccines). I’m looking forward to sharing more Guest Blogs in the future.

General Health:

I’m relieved to report I’m still sleeping well and I feel back to usual resilient self. The rhinitis issues are ongoing – most likely because of what I’m eating – but I’ll be addressing these soon with the looming strict Histamine Elimination Diet^[1] from Week 53 onwards. Also, I’m still struggling with a painful right shoulder and arm, but I’m hoping that will ease up soon.

Dyspraxia Awareness Week:

It was Dyspraxia Awareness Week. Dyspraxia^[2] is the lesser known cousin to Dyslexia. When I was diagnosed with Dyspraxia in my late 30s, a friend retorted “it’s just a label, everyone has problems” – what they didn’t realise was that I’d lived my life feeling stupid in disguise. The diagnosis provided a life-changing insight into myself and now I’m happy with me and I don’t feel stupid at all (well, not often). Okay, so we know there are plenty of challenges for us neurodiverse individuals to overcome, but we mustn’t forget our many positive attributes:

Dyspraxia Awareness Week Instagram Screenshots: @genuiswithinuk and @bpw_14

Food and Nutrition

Right, its time to have a look at what food was on my plate, the healthy and not so healthy choices. I should warn you, this week I’ve unashamedly indulged in some of my favourite foods, because of my soon to be food limitations and the need to free-up some freezer and cupboard space…

Breakfast:

I really am a sucker for those oat biscuits! – I had these for breakfast four times. I also had a sausage sandwich twice and two bubble and squeak veggie cakes:

Week 51 Breakfasts

Lunch:

For lunch, I had My Typical Salad five times. The remaining days, I ate a Singapore style curry noodle pot and rice crackers with hummus:

Week 51 Lunches

Dinner:

My dinners were a mix of convenience and fresh foods, other than on Monday when I had Mum’s delicious veg curry and dhal, leftover from last week. I enjoyed a vegfurter hot dog and a Shawarma and salad kebab. I had burgers twice, one soya-based with oven fries and salad; the other burger was jackfruit, accompanied by oven potatoes, peas and sweetcorn. And then there were cheesy nachos twice, loaded with plant protein mince, tomato salsa, lettuce and once also with avocado – yum!:

Week 51 Dinners Table

Week 51 Dinners: Clockwise: Pant Kitchen burger, oven chips and salad. Waitrose jackfruit burger, oven potatoes, sweetcorn and peas. Shawarma and salad kebab and corn on the cob. Plant Kitchen mince loaded on cheesy nachos with salsa and lettuce

Snacks:

Well, I ate some chocolate every day, not excessively at least. Also, I worked my way through some chickpea and bean snacks and canned sodas:

Week 51 Snacks

Alcohol

I drank rum with soda on weekend evenings, again, not excessively: four rums on Friday and two on Saturday evening, with half a can of soda per rum:

Week 51 Alcohol

Exercise

I had another one of those weeks with reduced physical activity, totalling 184 minutes, just over three hours. That’s not bad, but not where I’d like to be either – I aim to work on improving this:

Week 51 Exercise. Top: Table. Middle: Walking: Beautiful flowers. Wii informing me about my walking issue – the combo of Dyspraxia and hypermobile ankles and hips doesn’t help. Some strange plant thing. Bottom: Wii compliments – wow!

Weight, BMI and Fat Results

Well, my weight stayed the same, but my body fat percentage increased. I’m pleased there was no weight gain at least. I’m in a kind of in-between zone, knowing my diet is going to be incredibly strict soon for at least a couple of months, so I’ve not worried too much about what I eat:

Week 51 Results: Weight, BMI and Body Fat

Positive Thinking: What Made Watson Smile

Don’t you just love a good story? Well, I do. Now, I’m not guaranteeing a good story, but I decided this week’s What Made Watson Smile would be presented in story-teller style, just for a little change…

Chapter 1: The Stalker Spider:

Once upon a time [that’s how all the best stories start apparently], Katey [that’s me], was sat at her computer, diligently researching, when out of the corner of her eye she noticed a rather large spider walking up her shoulder towards her face. As you can imagine, this was rather a shock for poor Katey, resulting in a squeal, a leap to her feet and flinging the ‘Nana’ shawl, previously wrapped around her shoulders, onto her bed – bad move Katey – now the spider was potentially making itself cosy in her bed! She couldn’t locate it, so all Katey could do was try her best to forget the incident ever happened.

By the next morning, Katey had completely forgotten about the spider incident. But mid showering, she noticed a spider hanging out above her head – she figured it would stay put. Did that spider stay put? No, it did not – it climbed down towards her, so Katey hastily completed her shower and started examining an emerging pimple (how annoying) on her chin. Now, that very same spider decided to exit the shower and amble along the ceiling to position itself above Katey’s head. “Really?” she thought. So, Katey sidled across to the other mirror (this one magnified her spot – nice!) to continue her inspection. Temporarily distracted by her blemish, Katey disregarded the spider, but upon gazing upwards, she saw it was above her head yet again! “Why was this spider stalking her?” she wondered. “Could it be the same spider as last night?”. Of course, she realised this was highly unlikely, but Katey decided it was so and that this spider wanted to be her friend, so she bid Frankie (as he became known) farewell and continued with her day…:

The stalking spider – well not the actual one. (Image: Clker-Free-Vector-Images, Pixabay)

Chapter 2: Wii Bully:

Imagine Katey’s surprise at the start of her Wii Fit training session, when Wii asked her how healthy she thought Val [aka Mum] was. Wii even asked Katey if Val looked fatter! Katey thought this rather rude but, responded that Val looked the same. Well, Wii wasn’t believing that for a second and suggested Katey wasn’t paying enough attention – to be fair this could be true, but what a thing to say! Wii continued this awkward discussion with a ‘side note’, informing “that dogs become more motivated when their owners pay more attention to them” – definitely a gearing up to offensive from Wii’s usual passive aggressive self. Was it wrong that Katey sniggered? Yes, probably. Katey knew that at that very moment Val was in the fresh air obtaining her daily exercise playing tennis:

Wii Fit: Bully antics

Chapter 3: Naked Ladies!:

How dramatic one can sound! – It wasn’t in reality. Wednesday was a gloriously sunny morning, so much so that Katey got her arms and legs out to soak up a bit of immune-supporting Vitamin D during the driveway morning coffee – bare legs in October? Yes indeed. Whilst chatting with her parents, Katey watched the frequent bird visitors and gazed at a lovely white butterfly, whilst her Dad noted how good his ‘Naked Ladies’ looked, and Mum mused aloud about her current art project. Katey spent much of her day on the driveway, including a lovely afternoon meet-up with her bestie, Bevy:

Driveway. Clockwise: The driveway and my rather large coffee. My bare legs soaking up some Vitamin D. Butterfly beauty. Dad’s Naked Ladies

Chapter 4: Rainy Mindfulness and a Little Mishap:

Now, by Wednesday evening the clouds rolled in and rain arrived. How quickly the weather can change in Blighty! Thankfully, the previously postponed Mindfulness meet went ahead regardless. Katey prepared sufficiently by wrapping up warm and arming herself with an umbrella, blanket and hot apple and cinnamon tea. Karen’s garden looked welcoming as always, with a beautifully decorated canopy to offer shelter from the rain and gentle lighting. Chrissy led a wonderful mindfulness practice, calming everyone’s minds. Afterwards, the conversation easily flowed. As the evening progressed, the canopy gradually lowered under the rain’s weight. Just as the group were making arrangements to leave, the overhead canopy suddenly collapsed – the wooden peg leg shot out of the ground, over Chrissy’s head (with a small donk), the collected rainwater emptied itself between the gathered friends (a soaking narrowly avoided) and Julie became encased in the canopy sheet and could no longer be seen. Well, you can imagine the surprise and the subsequent giggles. Thankfully, all survived relatively unscathed and headed home to bed in their warm dry homes:

Rainy Mindfulness socialising. Top: The beginning of the evening with intact canopy. Bottom: Me adequately prepared for the rain

The End. Or perhaps not…

I hope you enjoyed this week’s ‘What’s on Watson’s Plate’. Please feel free to follow my bite-sized updates on Instagram or Facebook. See you next Wednesday for another catch up.

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References

1. Swiss Interest Group Histamine Intolerance (SIGHI), 2016. Food Compatibility List.
2. Dyspraxia Foundation, 2019. Dyspraxia in Adults.

More from What’s on Watson’s Plate:

• Week 50: Coming Soon…
• Week 49: My Inner Mermaid
• Week 48: Social Butterfly
• Week 47: The Human Yo-Yo
• Week 0: The Starting Point (I’ve got to do this!)

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