It's that time of the week again, I attended my local slimming world group this morning to do my weekly weigh in despite all the snow. The last seven days I have lost another 2.5lbs taking my total to 13st 2lbs lost.

This week I would like to talk about what we at slimming world call "body magic", or exercise, as any health professional will tell you to be healthy and lose weight a balanced diet and exercise are needed. When I first joined slimming world nine months ago I did not do any exercise apart maybe from lifting up the tv remote, but after about a week on plan I decided to try and do a bit more, I started by just going for a gentle walk around the block for five minutes,which was more than enough at the start. Over the next few weeks the 5 minutes turned into 10 then 20 and so on, before I knew it I was going out most nights for at least an hour as my fitness levels were increasing. At this point I made the decision to take things to the next level and decided to join the local gym. I made an appointment to have an induction and despite feeling very nervous and body conscious about going I went down and did it. I then started going on a regular basis, a couple of times a week at first and again I built that up to 5 times a week, also the length of time increased from 30 minutes to at least an hour a time. On top of that I started swimming one morning a week and started playing my favourite game of squash, which I had not played in several years.

The reason exercise is important is a number of reasons, it will help to speed up your weight loss, it will improve your inner health, but one of the big reasons I did it was to help tone up whilst losing the weight to combat having problems with lots of excess skin, I am sure I will have a bit but the exercise is definitely helping. I personally have found that I have become some what addicted to fitness over the past couple of months, I think whereas before I was addicted to chocolate and junk foods my addiction has just found a different avenue.
If the gym is not your thing then there are plenty of different ways of getting body magic, any form of movement where you heart rate is raised is good for you, just going for a walk or maybe a bit of gardening. There are a number of groups you can do like Zumba or maybe try some aqua jogging.
I have found that over the last nine months my fitness levels have improved beyond recognition from what they were before I am currently doing between 6 & 10 hours a week now. The other huge plus to gaining fitness is that I can do a lot more with my kids which I couldn't do before, we go to the park regularly and I even went to crealy with them for the first time recently and it was like being a child again, I was on the drop slides with them and everything.


TIP OF THE WEEK

My tip this week is to keep a food diary, everyday I keep a record of everything I eat. By writing things down it makes you much more aware of how much you are eating and armed with that knowledge you are much less likely to eat things you probably shouldn't.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Slimming world quiche.
Ingredients:
5 eggs                                                                                    
1 tub of quark (very low fat cream cheese)
Onions
Peppers
Sweetcorn
Mushrooms
Lean ham
Fry light low fat cooking spray

Soften all the vegetables in a frying pan with a few squirts of fry light adding the ham at the last moment. Whisk the eggs and the quark in a bowl and season. Spread the the vegetables and ham mix into a fry lighted flan dish and then pour over the egg mixture. Bake in a preheated oven (190 degrees) for 25 minutes. Serve with some nice salad leaves, ideal eaten hot or cold.