Weight Loss Journals - petecohen.tv

Started off at the gym - I was getting slightly less motivated by my workout so I booked in a new one and feel happy with the new moves I got to do - a lot of these involve balance and stability which will be a challenge...

Next schedule of the day was... a trial in a kitchen for a cheffing job - I'd already had the interview and was aksed to come back to makea dish the restaurant already serv es and one which I had to create myself -

The actual test lied in the tasting of my food and they enjoyed it! It had been over 3 years that I'd properly cheffed in a restaurant and I was just absolutely chuffed,, pleased and felt completely lifted that I'd finally made the jump - got offered the job and accepted! I realise this is a next challenge for me but I'm ready to give it everything.

I did today watch my food and only ate when hungry, however throughout the morning I did have to taste the food that I prepared for seasoning, consistency - but for me the main thing was to do it without feeling as though I wanted to go home and eat some more and It was fine.

Next on the agenda was going to another kitchen in a nearby village, where I've started hiring a kitchen and make mini cakes - got the approval from the council to sell them and so I baked a load this afternoon and now looking to just print some food labels to sell. The beauty about my new found job is that I can still bake my mini cakes and fit the job in I might even be able to sell it to them too.

Food today was: greek yoghurt with honey and a wee bit of granola - a smoothie for lunch - a banana in the afternoon and for dinner Tikka salmon flakes in a chapati with lentil tarka dal (a lentil curry) and spinach with an apple.

Hope you've had a great one today in this lovely sunshine.

I'll respond to blogs tomorrow after a good night sleep

Annie
xx

Hi ladies,

I hope you're enjoying the sunshine even when we're all busy bees.

Just getting back into the swing of things and the past couple of days have been good and challenging at work, but it's all setting down nicely.

Yesterday I had a dinner planned out with a friend in a lovely little French restaurant in Cuckfield which does nice food at reasonable prices. So, for most of the day I did compensate for it. First of all I was up before five to get to work in Horsham. Started the day with a smoothies with blueberries, banana, brazil nuts and oats, all blended together - I am making less quantity to gauge how long I can go on with it.
Lunch was a low fat probiotic yoghurt with a red berri compote and some fruit salad with a banana.

I did have loads of water as I did find myself quite hungry throughout the day - but it was worth it for the evening meal : started of with seared scallops, rocket and a tomato salsa - main was lamb steak with borlotti beans and spinach - the lamb was succulent, griddled and just yummy and for dessert I did have two scoops of homemade vanilla ice cream drizzled with a little espresso over the top. I was happy with my choices as I told myself that I would stop at any point when I reached full and did not have wine but green tea instead.

All of that was eaten very slowly indeed as we chatted away for about 3 hours with a friend and loads of laughter...

The tools used that day were, eating slowly, drinking water and stopping when full.

Day 3
Today worked in my home store which was nice as I get to see the regular customers and see the girls behind the counter find out how they're doing. I had a smoothie again, this time around I bought some humus and had it with celery and carrots and a fruit salad. For dinner had a prawn salad, with spinach beetroot, spring onions and a thai dressing.

Was a good day at work today as we got a good report back from our customer snapshot (100%) wihere random mystery shoppers come in and rate the level of service and we're all marked against it - so the boss was very happy hooray.

Tomorrow I'll focus on exercise, water, eating slowly and only when hungry.

Have a fab evening.

Great news to hear that Pete's back.

Love

Annie
xx

After all this time - I've decided to get back as I missed a lot of friendly ladies here

My aim this time round is to shed a few pounds gained recently (10 to be precise). I'm also very keen to achieve a level that I 've yet to reach (55KG) the closer I got to it was 57-58 so that's what I'll be striving for.

So today I'm going to use three tools : Exercise, the relaxation track and only eating when I'm hungry - got out of that one when I was in France helping mum out.

Food planning for the day:-

Breakfast will be fruit and yoghurt - I'm having it with friends and they eat healthy.
Lunch: bean salad with some green leaves.
A banana at some point as I'm on a late shift today and I tend to flag later on in the day.
Tonight will be prawns, spinach, beetroot salad, spring onions and a dressing made with beetroot juice, chilli flakes and spring onion and just a tud of honey.

Have a fab day.

Love
Annie
xx
I'm working in Horsham today and that store has three levels, so the good thing is for my little leggies :) will be going up and down these stairs a fair bit.

As for the exercise, I went out for a 30 run this morning - injured my ankle about a month 1/2 ago, so it still causes a bit of discomfort but I'm so relieved to be out and about running amongst the SUNSHINE - yippie - love it.

Friday -

Was at Brighton sea front just before 6:30am - managed to get myself a mocha before starting another 1 hour session of military bootcamp - the venue was just exhilirating - we were facing the sea and it was threatening to pour any time, so the sky was quite dramatic but absolutely stunning - an hour later and golly did I feel it - but there was a big sense of achievement. We got through our paces with a fast warm up, this time they also had us skipping but with a big heavy marine type rope so it was heavy too.

Brekkers was a smoothie with banana, oats, whey protein and blueberries with strawberries

Wen to do a late shift
I had not prepared lunch so munched on a small pot of houmous (tiny) and some crudites with tzatziki and a fruit salad.

Evening meal :
Smoked mackerel, prawn, avocado and watercress salad.
Fat free greek yog with chopped up stem ginger, lime and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Saturday:-
Whey protein smoothie pretty similar to above but with added blackberries.
I forget what I had for lunch!
Went to the gym after work and did a load of resistance.
Dinner was a thai spiced lentil salad to which I added some prawns, avocados, spring onions.

Sunday:-
Somehow with all this shift work I wa s up at 6:00 so I went for a long run (9 miles) and it was so peaceful. I am starting to train for the half marathon and someone said that one of the best ways to do this was to get the distance under my belt as soon as possible so that I could get that in my head first! Never mind my feet.....

had a tutti fruitti smoothie, again pretty much like previous ones:
Went to work - had some more of that yummy lentil salad but bulked it up with spinach and rocket.
A big handful of bluebberies
Diner was salmon teryiaki and a green salad.

Recipe for thai lentil salad:-
2 tings of green lentils
2 spring onions - finely chopped
a big handful of fresh coriander - chopped
a small chilli - chopped
1 TBSP of olive oil mixed with a tsp of dry red curry paste
1/2 juice of fresh lime
1 tsp of Nam plan (fish sauce)
Mix the dressing ingredients fist, then add the coriander, chilli, lentils.

To bulk mine up with yet more protein, I added loads of prawns chopped up.

Hope everyone's had a a gooden.

xxxx

Wow,

Today's been great.

Went to the gym first thing, did some running on 12lm speed to see how long I could last that and just managed 6 min, then went on to do some interval running and then just a few bits of stomach exercises as I thought I would be going to the bootcamp again tonight.

Breakfast was greek yoghurt, honey, a tiny bit of granola and a fruit salad.

Caught up with my running buddies and another very close friend who's just climbed Mount Fiji - flipping heck, it was like adrenaline junkie in that shop!

Before I went off to London for a day to remember: i went on a photoshoot for essentials magazine thanks to Pete. It was in the center of London I had an amazing time. The hair stylist was absolutely fab - a sweet sweet bloke, who was telling us some really weird tales of "desperate housewifes" type ladies he'd met in some New York gym. He said he was trying to work out why they spent 5 hours in the gym and always seemed to look amazing. He'd see them go in the changing rooms every 40 mins or so and stay there until they were made up again and immaculate! Anyhow, I had a fab time and enjoyed every second of it.

I was meant to attend the military bootcamp tonight as my mates had these vouchers but missed it cos I was so late getting back - but I am duly informed that the ticket will be valid for Preston Park at 6:45am and I am not going to let my mates down now, ouch...

For the rest of day, food was ok:- a banana, an apple and a houmous wrap.
Tonight I had 0% fat greek yog, with strawberries, blueberries, chopped up stem ginger, lime and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

I am absolutely cream crackered and off to the land of zzzzzzzz

Have a lovely evening
xxx

Hi everyone,

Today was really good in terms of activity - went to the gym in the morning to loosen up the few aches I had from the weight training the day before. So I just did a wee bit of skipping, pull ups and interval training at quite a reasonable pace.

Anyhow, my running buddies had told me to be prepared for a good workout - well well well, I ended up doing my first military fitness bootcamp in the intermediate level - it was 1 hour continuous and it was tough: running, jumping, press up, push ups, jumping squats, yada yada yada and that was really good for us just to see where we fitted in all that. I am cream crackered and consequently going off to get an early one. I very much suspect I will curse this guy just like I have always cursed good instructors - I can already my stomach muscles - never mind tomorrow.

We got in there using vouchers from the Telegraph and are attending on Thursday - this time it will be a different instructor - but it's definitely tough but you get a strong sense of achievement at the end.

My food today was: a small fruit salad, greek yoghurt, bit of honey and bit of granola for breakfast.
Lunch was a whey protein smoothie with fruits and oats.
An apple and a handful of sultanas - half hour before the training session
Dinner was a butter bean salad with prawns, yellow peppers, watercress and a hot smoked paprika dressing with olive oil.

Have a lovely evening
xx

Hi,

I had an odd night and woke up for 2 hours - set my alarm to get to the gym but slept right through - luckily I had the day off.

Anyway I went and did some resistance along with a bit of skipping in between. Met a friend and then had to go and have a chat with my boss. Got a call from my running mates, who said and I quote, if you're around tomorrow night, prepare yourself for a heavy workout, but we're not telling you what that will be.... hmmmmm. the last time we did that - we run up Ditchling Beacon and that was a steep hill - in the end, my mate Baz said it was the equivalent of climbing half the twin towers! I was too out of breath to speak... we then carried on running for an hour after that. So I am bracing myself for the next instalment.

Food wise today: usual smoothie with oats, whey protein, fruits and smoothie base.
For lunch had another toasted seeded wrap spread with avocado, chopped up prawns with a tiny bit of dressing made with olive oil and a dry red thai curry paste and a handful of watercress.
Mid afternoon was a non fat greek yoghurt with a little honey, a dash of lime juice and a bit of cinnamon, to that I added raspberries and that was quite nice.

Tonight was split - started "practice teaching" on a friend with healthy recipes and they loved the wraps we made, in the end her teenager son was practicing and he loved them too - I had half a wrap there and some more houmous I made with a few celery sticks as a quick snack.

Have a lovely evening.

xx
p.s. did anyone see Rick Stein's recipes from Vietnam the other week? They looked so good and all such healthy, fresh and vibrant really inspiring.

Hi,

I am in a bit of a quacking mode at present, though I have and am practicing the shooting or telling myself to shut up - it's a persistent little animal....

The past 10 days have gone like a flash - have worked all of them, in different stores with last minute extra hours in the district, horsham, crawley, in my home town and today is the first day that I am rested - slept about 13 hours! !! I forget when the last time was I did that.
Work is very strange at present and I feel that the journey for me is about to change - there are lots of people who are seriously down at present and I guess lots of people feel that way at this present time, though I would prefer to work somewhere where's the spirit is engaging. I can do things to lift the mood up but at the end of the day there's only one of me and somehow I think my energy's being sucked out running around working the district - though an offer has come up for me to be more involved on the food side of the products the compay sells, it's something that will happen in the future and it could be months before that starts - it's still nice to be asked to do it.

I am also concerned for my folks in France: mum's had an operation when I was on holidays in Greece and no matter how many times I ring her, the phone is always off the hook and so I am at this time on tender hooks trying to establish how she is. I have spoken to her twice since she's been operated and she is poorly, the operation has left her very tired, she's 75, but Tthe result the surgeons were hoping for have not materialised. The last time I managed to get hold of her was over ten days and she was quite poorly and my dad's just recovering from his cancer so, he is also himself very weak at present, though he's as tough as old boots, it is a bit bleak. I am planning to go and see them asap though I have to negotiate that with mum. There is a lovely french lady who goes in and helps them on a regular basis - I know that somehow she will be in touch if I need to know anything.

On the plus side, my mates and I are running the Barnes Green Half Marathon in November, that will be for cancer and we have started training for it. They're really into fitnes and that helps a great deal - we go outside and either do long runs up in the lovely countryside or stop in the kiddes park and do a circuit with press ups, pull ups (I am still working on these) and stomachs crunches etc...

I was fortunate to have been asked to come and give a talk about my little side business at one of Pete's classes in the area and made some simple nice food for people to try - the idea being that I will start teaching people simple healthy recipes and how to tweak some of their preferred dishes to help them along the way. So I just served homemade no fat houmous (spicy with a little kick) as dips and wraps, same with guacamole and also some non fat greek yoghurt dessert with mangoes and cranberries soaked into green tea, with cinnamon and extracted the sugar to make a syrup with - I was very nervous but got there in the end and thoroughly enjoyed the experience - and one of the ladies there said she'd try and make houmous herself but could not make it like mine, could I come round and show her how? That made me feel really nice and decisive about the road ahead.

So here it is:-

Tin of chickpeas
Keep the liquid from it
1 -2 cloves of garlic - according to how garlicky you like your dips
a wee squeeze of lemon juice
some chill flakes or powder
2 teaspoons of ground cumin
Salt to taste.

Most houmous use tahini (sesame seed paste) as a flavouring and that's fine, it has however a reasonably high fat content and can take away some of the natural flavour of the houmous - by just keeping to the spices above, you get a real middle eastern flavour - this recipe was inspired by Claudia Roden who is an incredible writer and food guru.

Tip your chickeas in a blender - add all your spices, then add 3 tablespoons of liquid, start whizzing, it should be a of a creamy consistency and you should be able to run your blender without it getting stuck - it may need a little more liquid - but basically that's it.

Today I did a cardio workout - run 5km on treadmill as outside was a little Mary Poppins type weather and I felt like staying on the ground - and then a lot of bike on different levels, with stomach exercies.

Late morning - early lunch: -
Mango and coconut smoothie with blueberries, oats and whey protein.

I went to work today just for 1.5 hours to cover my boss as he had a lot on his plate at home and stepped in to help - though technically that was a day off - but it was fine.
Late afternoon early evening:- a hot giant butter bean stir fry with yellow peppers, beetroot, garlic, hot smoked paprika and spring onions and a toasted seeded wrap with watercress and homemade houmous.

Have a lovely rest of the day.
xx



Food wise, I eat reasonably well, though in the past week, my appetite left me a wee bit so I ate a lot of fruits, tons of that 0%fat Total Greek Yoghurt, lots of smoothies with usual fruit suspects, oats and protein. Things I couild make quickly and that did not engage me too much with thinking as I was elsewhere.

Hyia,

Day 2 was a real tutti fruitty day kind of a Greek day rolled into one:
Gym session for around 45 mins - mainly weights and 13 mins interval running at a faster pace than I am used to.
Red fruit base smoothie, blueberries, strawberries, banana, whey powder and oats.
Mid-morning: an apple
Lunch was leftover cold thai salmon salad with watercress
Evening dinner after a really packed shop today I felt a bit out of it so I just made a big fruit salad with papaya, strawberries, cherries, melon and grapes and dolloped some non-fat greek yoghurt mixed with honey and cinnamon on top - that was yummy.

Drank loads of water today but also a fair bit of coffee too.

Day 3

Early early start today.
Breakfast was a smoothie as above, lunch was a salad of smoked mackerel and watercress, and we're lucky that they're having a promotion on greek yoghurts and we've done a bit of a trade, so ended up with a LOAD of fat free proper Greek stuff so I had one of these for lunch with my salad.

We're having a staff meeting late tonight so I'll only eat if I feel hungry.

I was planning a run with my running buddies today but that's had to be posponed so I'll be going to the gym instead before the meeting - we've been training for over a year now, started out as doing 5km run, we did a couple of 10km and now we've all enrolled to do a half marathon all together - it's been a while since we've run together and I really miss them as we have a great team spirit and they do help to keep me going.

Hope everyone's well.
xx

Three tools today: Exercise, eating slowly and stopping when full.

Went to the gym did about 40 mins cardio: running and bike, then weights and stomach exercises.

Breakfast: Orange, Mango and coconut smoothie with whey protein and oats, a banana and apricots.
Morning snack: an apple

Lunch was a hot salad of giant butter and kidney beans in a curry sauce with watercress.

Afternoon: melon and grapes.
Dinner: Thai spiced salmon with toasted walnuts, more watercress and spring onions with a simple drizzle of olive oil.

I watched MJ's memorial and really got taken aback with Stevie Wonder's performance - to me he's an amazing inspirational person in his own right, it's so rare to hear him perform but he was astounding.

Hope all's well with everyone.
xx

First of all,

I'd like to say please excuse the previous 3 comments coming up all saying the same thing, my computer's having a fun day with moi...

Today's been good, finally a day off for resting and a bit of sunshine..

I stayed at the gym for about 1.5 hours without really wanting to, just got into a bit of this and a bit of the other: rowing, skipping, weights, stomach and cardio. Though afterwards I was so out of it that I did actually head straight to the coffee shop - woopsie...

Food was allright: non fat proper greek yoghurt , honey and dried fruits for breakfast, banana mid morning.

Met our lovely DJ for lunch and we had such a laugh... it really is the best medicine.

Lunch: chickpeas, red peppers, spring onions, avocados and a smoked paprika dressing with olive oil
A couple of apples in the late afternoon with a handful of sultanas.

I also met my little old lady custsomer from the shop who's in her 80s now and who was telling me about her stone weight loss at Christmas - we now have regular organised visits - bless her, she'd baked me some rock cakes, but I had to ever so politely decline it was so hard to do as I really did not want to upset her ... though in the end she did not have one either.

Dinner: simple salmon teryiaki, green crunchy salad, and a multiseed food doctor pita bread toasted and spread with avocado. A small handful of apricots.

I'm planning to run tomorrow morning with my running buddy friends and really looking forward to having a lovely morning sunrise to help lift the spirirt.

Have a great evening, weekend.

xxxx

I just recently heard about the 6 week challenge and decided to rejoin, rekindle and have some fun along the way:

Today's been a bit of a flash.

Was meant to be having two days off, instead got a call late afternoon to go and cover an early morning shift cos someone quite high up had been laid off. I get there and I could feel the tension after the top person had obviously been fired and I was there to just try and run the store - and what happens? The master keys get lost (I felt fortnutate that I was not the culprit in losing them) oh my - anyhow, we could not operate how we're meant to but we managed somehow .

In all this I missed the videos this morning (once I managed to reconnect online) - but I did eat slowly, drink 2 litres of water - had a serious intake of caffeine - I work in coffee and also am responsible for helping youngsters taste and improve their knowledge on coffee, that one me thinks is going to stay with me so heck...

Today I had for breakfast: a banana and half a papaya with honey, no fat greek yoghurt and a sprinkle of granola - for lunch: I had a houmous wrap and an apple and dinner had a salad of prawns, avocados, spring onions and some more papaya as I seem to have a craving for that one.

As for giving myself credit - I finally got round to watching the video and reminded myself that I feel good about going on an activity holiday on my own and coming back feeling stronger having had loads of fun and learning to waterski.... something I would not even have considered a year ago.

It's good to be back here and wish you all as much loss as possible - in the weight department of course.

Annie
xx

It's been ages and I've been wondering how you girlies/guys are doing?

Seeing Pete last week was just what the doctor ordered, thought provoking, inspirational and entertaining. It was also great to meet some of the bloggers here as you get to feel you know people, albeit on a "virtual" blogging level.

As for the programme, I must admit that I've been more concentrating on using some of the tools that I use than anything else. I am enjoying exercise - just joined Ben's bootcamp - just finished my first week and so far so good. Had 3 sessions so far, and it's felt ok but, knowing Ben, that's just the beginning and it's going to get harder from now own. The brilliant thing about bootcamp is being outside and overlooking the downs, feeling alive and being in a group with people - loving it. Today I can tell I've done bootcamp - lol - but I'm going to go for an hour's run with my running buddy up in Ditchling - we're upping the antes a bit cos we're aiming to do a 10 mile run for charity and then a half marathon this year.

Neither of us used to enjoy running two years ago, we both felt that it was something we could not do and somehow, little by little, we've somehow come to this - it's probably just something we'll do til we get to the marathon and move on to something else.

Foodwise: I've gone back to the old smoothies with base, banana, whey protein, oats and fruits - there's nothing that keeps me as feeling as full of beans as that so why change it? I have come across Asian Pears recently and i am very curious to put something together. So I'll experiment with these to see if I can come up with a recipe for these that's healthy - has anyone ever had them?

Lunches have been mainly prepared tuna and bean salads - cooked salmon with avocado, chopped green crispy vegetables and spices to tantalize the old tastebuds.

To keep me going in between I've had brazil nuts and other dried fruits, and evening have been pretty hit and miss in that I've eaten faster than I ought to have done thereby eating more than needed.

I have missed keeping up to date with everyone and will post more later.

Annie
xxxx

Right,

Time to refocus - haven't watched the videos lately and so starting 2morrow - I'll be up early to catch up and get back on track.

Tools wise have tried and sometimes done good with the eating slowly bit - exercise's been ok - a few gym sessions and a few runs outside which I just love (am missing my running buddies at the mo they're snowboarding in Utah ...) I feel like I am getting too slack with the exercise bit, so next week I'll be starting the bootcamp with Ben and I am SO looking forward to that so hopefully that will put some oomph in my resolve as lately I have waivered a bit. The water thing's pretty under my belt now. I could do with cutting down on portions at times when I am really tired and feel hungry and carry on eating despite the feeling full signal.

Foodwise, well, when you're single and go to fancy vegetarian places and try and buy a small amount of cabbage, what do you end up with? A whole cabbage that's what - so I got carried away, made a load of that coleslaw and ended up on a blimming coleslaw week - that will have to become my detox week lol .

2morrow's food will be back to what I enjoy with the old smoothies, salad with a good amount of protein and filling without being too much, a couple of "undecided" fruits as I call them and not sure about dinner yet.

Have a lovely evening.

Confused of Haywards Heath :))

xx

I felt so blessed having a day off yesterday - it was like spring again and I felt uplifted because of that.

Went to the gym and did my usual weights but this time put in some skipping in between each set of reps - I think I scared people trying to skip and getting stuck with it - whey hey...

Food was good ish and had lots of fruits throughout the day and as I went to Bill's in Lewes - which is an amazing good food vegie/deli place, they make everything themselves - had homemade granola, red berry compote and fresh fuits, beautifully presented and so fresh - along with errr 2 mochas - I feel that duck on my shoulder right now as I'm typing this - anyone fancy shooting it?

That kept me going for ages as I only sat down to have dinner around 9:00 which is way late but by then I was really hungry. Had some more salmon teryiaki and a small watercress salad with beansprouts and a couple of clementines.

Today's food so far: a smoothie, but blueberries, pineapple, ginger, lime, blackberries and oats .

As I bought some really lovely veg from Bill's I'm going to attempt to make a really jazzy coleslaw with apples and oranges in it and a low fat yoghurt dressing with some mild curry spices in it and see what that tastes like.

The tools I have used have been fewer than before and I am just concentrating on eating slowiy at present and really paying attention to noticing when I'm full.

Have a fab weekend.

xxxx