Amazon Delivery :)

After waiting in all day yesterday for the British Gas man not to turn up, this morning it felt like the doorbell was ringing non-stop! First my Grandma arrived with an offering of lunch in exchange for me teaching her how to use her mobile phone (after everyone else in my family had lost patience!!) and then within 10 minutes of her arriving, a delivery man came with our Amazon delivery, and the British Gas man finally turned up, phew! The Amazon delivery was mainly Graphic Design books for Liam, but there were a couple of things for me...I'll talk about them later...first the food I've eaten today!

Breakfast...porridge...delicious! :-D I got a bit stressed last night when Liam came home from the shops with loads of junk foods (expensive chocolate biscuits, chocolate trifle pots and the dreaded Nutella), none of which I ate because I got in a strop...sorry Liam!! Anyway, overnight I decided I would treat myself to a spoonful of Nutella on my porridge...but when I came to make my porridge after Liam had left for uni this morning, I discovered he'd hidden it to "save me from myself"!!!! It seems I made up for the lack of Nutella by topping my porridge with everything else in sight! Porridge made with mashed banana and cinnamon in, topped with dark chocolate drops, blueberries, golden syrup and peanut butter...

loving the sunshine we've had over the last couple of days!

this was so good! I haven't had golden syrup in ages...was very sweet but divine, so glad I couldn't find the Nutella...this was much nicer! :)

So for lunch, Grandma had brought a salmon and prawn bake from M&S...basically a 'posh' fish pie with but with sliced potatoes. Luckily I cooked some peas to go with it as by the time we split it between me, Grandma and the baby there wasn't much to go around! I actually had half of it which was the "correct" portion size, but still looked tiny to me!

this wasn't great if I'm honest, no nicer than a standard ready meal, and no where near as nice as fish pie I can make myself! Still, a promise is a promise, and I spent the next 1.5 hours trying to teach Grandma how to send and receive simple text messages! I think she finally got it...ish...I'll see if she still remembers when I see her on Sunday!

Mid-afternoon I found the Nutella jar - Liam had hidden it behind his gardening gloves on top of the (un-used) table top dishwasher! Oh dear...

I ate about half the jar and didn't even enjoy it! Kept it on the dining table away from me, but kept going back for another, and another, and another spoonful! It was way too sickly sweet and left a gunky feel on the roof of my mouth - I much preferred the substitute sugar laden porridge this morning...when will I learn!

As mentioned, a couple of things I'd bought from Amazon arrived today...

Paul McKenna's "I Can Make You Thin" and Jillian Michaels "30 Day Shred" DVD ... I will be slim and toned by my wedding, hopefully achieving more natural/intuitive eating along the way!! Has anyone read/watched either of these? Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to start reading the book until after the Nutella incident!!

I like the basic principles in "I Can Make You Thin":

• Eat when hungry
• Eat what you want to eat, not what you think you should eat
• Take the time to enjoy every mouthful
• Stop when full

Not sure how easy it will be to take time over my food (he recommends putting your cutlery down between each mouthful) when baby is around, but I will give it a go! Also need to override my "must clear my plate" mentality! It seems to make sense though, and hopefully will "allow" me to enjoy my food I like without feeling guilty :)

I decided to give the principles a try with dinner - pork&apple sausages, mashed potato, onion gravy and savoy cabbage...

I made sure to put my cutlery down between each mouthful (despite the baby screaming with tiredness through most of the meal, pour Liam was sat next to him this evening!) and really taste the food. To be honest, I didn't actually enjoy it as much as I thought it would - the mash was too watery, the cabbage a bit tasteless and the sausages had an odd texture. Still nice, but it didn't quite live up to the expectations I have in my head of this meal. That's the problem with family life though - sausage & mash is one of Liam's favourites so we will still have to eat this sometimes, I can't always eat exactly what I want. I left some of the mashed potato but ate all the sausages and cabbage...

I didn't feel full whist eating as such, but I did start to enjoy the food less a couple of mouthfuls before I stopped eating. I kept eating because I wanted to finish the sausages and cabbage - my favourite aspects of the meal. MISTAKE! About 5 minutes after I'd finished eating, I felt very full and bloated, a feeling which has so far continued for the rest of the evening, not nice. I should have stopped when I started to notice the lack of hunger...there will be other sausages and cabbages!! Looking back, I regularly feel full and bloated after my evening meal especially, just haven't really taken much notice of it before...need to start listening to my body!

I really do like the concepts of Paul McKenna so will continue to follow this. Tomorrow I get to choose what I really want for dinner as Liam is at work - at the moment I fancy a margarita pizza topped (by me) with roasted peppers and goats cheese, but I'll wait until tomorrow afternoon before going shopping to see if I change my mind!

30 Day Shred... I've heard that you really ache for the first few days of this, so I'm going to wait until Sunday to try it - I can already barely walk by the end of my full day working on Saturday, so don't think it would be helpful to be in pain before my shift even starts!!