August 22 - Buzzwords & Banana Bread

  This morning it was hard to get up but I managed.  I had my yoghurt, berries and fibre toppers for breakfast and drove to work.  When I got to the intersection of Springvale Road and Burwood Highway there way a broken down truck in the middle lane.  The traffic actually behaved itself and we all got past it pretty quick.  I was pulled up right next to it at the lights though and I thought my car looked pretty cool reflected in the big shiny dented hubcap.
 Today was our annual Business Plan meeting, in which we review results of our People & Culture Survey and make our Action Plan for the following year (so there went the entire morning).  The buzzwords flew thick and fast.  Actually, in all seriousness it was one of the better 'future planning' sessions I've been to at work, they seem to have got the format to feel a little more personal this year.  My team is pretty good and we kept our goals realistic and relatively interesting.

  My right-hand gal catered the event as usual (she's only got 1.5 weeks of work left, Oh god!!).  She filled the boardroom with temptation as far as the eye could see.  Just look at all the leftover temptation!!  The session went for two hours from 9:30am and therefore covered my usual snack time.  I had one slice of the banana bread with no butter and that's all.  Willpower for the win!

  By the time it was over and everybody dispersed it was lunchtime already.  Today's lunch was a sandwich (again, yes it's feeling boring for me too!) of Bürgen Wholemeal & Seeds bread spread with a mixture of rainbow salad and a sixth of a Reed avocado and topped one slice of Bertocchi Triple Smoked Ham with the fat trimmed off (about 73g).  Accompanying the sandwich were six slices of cucumber, four ripe strawberries and a dozen red seedless grapes (the healthy leftover temptation).
  The afternoon was taken up with typing out the Action Plan that I scribed in the morning session.  Oh joy!  It was a good session as I said, but living it the whole day through is rather taxing.  I had a Honey-Murcott mandarin for my afternoon snack and a small very ripe Kiwi fruit with skin on an hour or so later because I was still hungry.
  Just before I left work for the day I got an unexpected phone call from Jack.  I had sent him a text this afternoon wondering if he was free on a particular weekend (we had previously discussed the idea of a Marx Bros movie night).  I was surprised to see him call rather than text back until his very bemused voice said "Hi... I don't recognise this number."  We had a laugh, made our plans and then I left to head home.
  By the time I got home I was drained, I was hungry and I felt like giving it all up in favour of a thick crust cheesy pizza.  I sure as hell did not feel like getting on the cross trainer, in fact I felt well and truly crappy.  I flicked on my computer and chatted to Mr Smart for a bit and eventually realised I should just do it rather than feel disappointed in myself.
  Part of the crappiness, I realised as I was on the cross trainer, is internal muscular pain.. kind of like cramping but more vague.  I honestly think it's me feeling things like my stomach shrinking and my muscles toning.  It's a very weird sensation.  In fact as I write this, my stomach has that weird empty feeling you get when you realise you have done something terribly terribly wrong but are powerless to stop it.  For example, the last time I remember feeling it, I had accidentally deleted every price in the system of the hardware store where I worked.  After the cross trainer of course, I did feel a little better.

  As I heated up my 280g 'Balanced Serve' Lean Cuisine Thai Green Chicken Curry with Rice for dinner, I phoned my Granny and Grandad.  It was nice to catch up with them, I miss all my extended family over in Adelaide.  It's such a small family over here now, just me and Bertie, her husband and my nephew.  Anyway, the Lean Cuisine was tasty and filling and not overly dissimilar from the picture on the box this time.  And after that I had a 17g serve of Balance dark chocolate with cocoa nibs.
  I took a couple of extra blood glucose readings tonight so I thought I'd share them to demonstrate the effects of exercise and food.  At about 6:50pm while I was chatting to Mr Smart I wondered whether the crappy feeling could be low blood sugar.  Nope, it was 5.4, perfectly normal*.  Then I did my cross trainer and took it again after my cool down.  Now it was low at 3.9 just after an hour later.  Then I ate dinner, white rice being a primary ingredient in this particular Lean Cuisine and two hours later it was back up to 7.1 grrrrrr.  So exercise = good, white rice = bad.
  I feel like I will have nothing left to eat soon!  Though, saying that reminds me that I should make my appointments with the dietitian soon.  I'm nearly ready to do it, just a little longer getting the hang of doing things on my own, then I can start to tackle meal planning and increased cooking.
  Jess

*Normal fasting range is between 4.0 and 6.0 and
 two hours after eating should be below 7.0.