The Road to the Supermarket Is Paved With Good Intentions.

I am an enigma. I can't work myself out, so gawd knows how anyone else can! I think I am part possessed! (I am laughing here - please don't take me seriously. No voice change and head swivelling of 360 degrees is going on...) I do however seem to easily overule all my good intentions. I have a good woman and bad woman lurking in the same body. The bad woman seems to be the strong one ;-)

Today's good intentions were to get on the bike once the boys had gone off to work. The house was empty apart from me and the big ginger cat at 8.15am. I'd had my big mug of tea (a must, to wake me up. I need a bucketful of tea in the morning to kick-start my system.) Hot water and lemon??? Do me a favour.....*pulls face*

Plan? To exercise early. So, boys out, tea finished, time to bike. And I did. I did thirty minutes of biking at a four resistance. Only 101 calories burned but my heart rate went up from 70 to 135 and I was warm when I'd finished. I watched TV as I biked and told myself I could finish when my programme did...but I carried on anyway, to get in the full 30 minutes. Box ticked. Yay me.

I drank a big glass of water. Another box ticked.

I had a small bowl of no sugar, no salt muesli with semi-skimmed milk. Box ticked.

I showered and got dressed. I did a few household chores and got a machine load of washing out on the line. It was a sunny, blowy day and it was good to be out in the garden. "I'll go for a walk," I thought. It was a good day for walking.

That's when the first good intention went by the wayside. I did other things..pottering about mainly, and I didn't leave the house. I took my pills for the day and my vitamin and mineral supplement. I had a banana for a snack and my one cup of coffee.

I went on the computer and sat there for far too long. I read and replied to emails. I enjoyed myself and wrote too much on message boards of various sites I've joined. I learned things too. I get lost surfing...who needs books when there is a mine of information and fascinating stuff online? I become engrossed and this is why my arse has spread over the last ten years or so.

Infernal machine and thief of time! I ought to put a hammer through it! I turned it off...deliberately, but then old habits kicked in. Instead of thinking "What shall I do now?" or "Which job should I tackle next?" guess what I thought?

I bet you can guess. Go on - try.

Yes, I thought "What can I eat?"

I had to have food. I wasn't particularly hungry, but this was a habit. This is how it goes. Stop what I am doing...have no plan, no real sense of direction...so go and open the fridge door. I tell you, my fridge door opening triceps and biceps are soooooo well developed ;-)

Ah...but I only had healthy stuff to eat. Damn my sensible shopping list! I got out a wholemeal tortilla wrap, filled it with baby spinach, tomatoes, red onion, a slice of lean ham and a tiny squirt of low fat mayo. This was OK, because it was almost lunch time. I sat down for an hour, with my wrap and a mug of tea and flicked through some old magazines. Very enjoyable. I enjoyed a pot of low fat raspberry yogurt and vaguely wondered how I'd spend the afternoon. (Sometimes it's a bind being your own boss!)

So it was about 1.30pm and all my determination had fizzled out. I hadn't achieved much, but I was on course to have a good day. The morning had been good. Lunch had been healthy...but all I wanted to do was idle..veg out...do self-indulgent 'nothing much.' Just as I was giving myself a pep talk along the lines of "Come on you silly cow. There is so much to be done...and if you walk to the supermarket now, you can pick up some broccoli to have with tonight's meal " the door-bell sounded.

My friend Lyndsey had called to say hello, so I invited her in for a cup of tea. I hadn't seen her for a few weeks, so we chatted and caught up with each other's news. Lyndsey does peoples' gardens for a living, and although she is almost 58, she is super-fit and agile. She also swims every day too. (She ought to be my 'active' role model.) She wanted to see what was growing in my garden, so an hour later we found ourselves sitting out in the sunshine, having yet more tea. When she left I felt a bit flat....and the determination to do something/anything had vanished. I busied myself with some paper work and filing...but this was another sitting down job. I looked at the clock. 3.20pm. Hmmm. No good going out for a walk now, because the traffic would be building up on the main road...the road I have to walk down. Offices seem to finish earlier and earlier it seems. The 'rush hour' traffic starts to build up at 3.30pm and roads are busy until about 6pm. No. I didn't want to walk down a busy road and breath in traffic fumes...so the walk wasn't happening. I have peas and green beans in the freezer. They'll do later. I was roasting a chicken for dinner.

And that was it really. A day in which I was going to be more active didn't happen. I failed to keep the early momentum going. I console myself that I had a lovely day and I didn't go mad food-wise.

I have had a slice of toast and honey and another mug of tea. I have also had another glass of water, and a nectarine and I have written this. I have to go and cook an evening meal in a minute (Roast chicken, new boiled potatoes, carrots, peas, green beans, sage and onion stuffing, tiny chipolata sausages - I'll only have one...but the boys like them and are ravenously hungry after a day's work - and gravy.)

So...time to reflect. It hasn't been a bad day but I really have to have a plan of activities for the afternoon too. That's when I flag and start to think "I need food!" I could have been MUCH more active. It has clouded over, the sky is now grey, but if it doesn't rain later, I may have an evening walk. I am not seeing my man this evening, so there are a good few hours of today left in which to burn off more calories. Will I though? After cleaning up the dishes when we have eaten, I suspect the sofa will call me...and the TV remote control will be just there by my side.

My legs will thank me for a walk. Yup - I will, no matter what the weather later, go for a walk before it gets dark. It hasn't been a bad day at all. I intend to walk. I just hope the bad woman that lurks within doesn't take my shoes off and glue me to the sofa later on. She is mean like that...

I leave you with the sensible Mario. (I had to stop the bad woman strangling him....)

"Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek."  ~ Mario Andretti