It's Just Not Worth It!!

Good Lord, how on earth is it the 23rd June already? I can't believe I have been back to work a week already after my Pacific North West trip. I just bumped into one of my account teams in the caff this afternoon, the first time I've seen them since I got back - well except for Brian, who I undoubtedly made an impression on in a meeting last Friday when I accidentally flashed him during a client call.

Nooooo, not on purpose. I couldn't help it, I reached over the table to get closer to the speaker and then realized that I had a loose scoop necked top on and that in leaning forward I'd probably given him an eye-full. What can I say I am a consummate professional who knows how to get ahead ha ha!! Anyway I bumped into the other 8 of them today and they were all "how was your trip?" and I was all "what trip?" It's already like a dim and distant memory. Thankfully I have a trip to LA and Vegas coming up in 5 weeks which is the trip I've been planning to squeeze into the bikini for, although after spending 10 days eating and drinking my way around the Pacific NW I've also invested in a couple of one piece swim suits as back up. Actually if the scales are to be believed I didn't put on so much as a lb, but things are definitely jiggling about much more than I like, so now I am back on a healthy eating kick and my return was perfectly timed so as to be vulnerable enough about my weight to be coerced into joining the office "Wellness Challenge" by 4 colleagues, a 10week health and nutrition event where 25 or so teams of 5 employees compete for...well I'm not sure what, there may be prizes, but it could well be just bragging rights. Anyway the upshot of this is that we have to log our health and exercise habits on a weekly basis, did we eat 3 servings of vegetables per day, did we eat 3 servings of fruit, did we take the stairs instead of the lift, did we use sunscreen every day, how much cardio, weight training, walking did we do etc. Anyway it's all pretty standard stuff and nothing I don't do on a regular basis with a couple of exceptions, the first being not drinking more than 1 alcoholic drink per night for the entire week.

The entire week!!!

Meaning you are not supposed to be teetotal during the week and then drink your entire booze allowance on a Friday and Saturday night, so that you average out at 1 drink/night, it's one drink per night or nothing, so all of us - except Kanayo who only has the tolerance for half a beer a week - are failing that one.

The second criteria that I am personally failing on, although I think a lot of my competition will not track this properly and just assume they did it, is to eat 25g of fiber per day - 38g for a guy, poor Tom - which I decided to try with the whole bikini thing in mind, because fiber helps you lose weight apparently plus I eat so much fruit and veg that I thought I'd achieve this without too many problems, but when I started tracking my meals on livestrong.com a few days ago I discovered on the first day that I only ate a paltry 6g of fiber - admittedly not the best day for me, well it was the first day of woman's week and I was craving carbs. After that I started to look at fiber rich foods - like raspberries which have 8g in a cup - to try and boost my consumption, but even then I've only been able to increase that to around 14g per day over the last 3 days so still a long way off the 25g goal, but I don't mind telling you I am not in the least bit thrilled about the side effects that began today. Talk about loud involuntary farts.

Good Lord, I do beg your pardon!!

Fortunately the first - and only - one of these occurred when I was in the ladies bathroom - two other cubicles were occupied and I was so mortified to have company that I waited for both occupants to leave and lifted my feet should I later be recognized as the culprit by my cute summer sandals. I've received a LOT of compliments on them so I know they are distinctive enough to identify the wearer - so at least I was in the right place, but my stomach rumbled alarmingly for the rest of the day and I noticed it was disturbingly bloated when I caught myself sideways on in my Pilates class, so much for flattening my transverse abdominus. Ugh, so not good, especially as I am actively trying to date at the moment too - bizarrely after having turned 40 on my vacation I returned to be bombarded with requests for dates by men in their late 20s. Who knew? - not unless I meet someone with a fetish for flatulence anyway!!

I'm starting my low fiber diet tomorrow!! ;-)

P.S. Vacation posts still to come, it's been a hectic week of insomnia and client deadlines...oh and fiber of course.