I have done really well today and I don’t mind admitting I feel a tiny bit pleased with myself.  Inspired by my sister Abi (who didn’t need to lose that much anyway) who has lost nearly a stone and a half since Easter, I decided to follow her plan.  She swapped breakfast for a Jason Vale juice and then ate sensibly all day making sure she had no flour products; bread, cakes, biscuits, pastries etc.  I have the Jason Vale 5lbs in 5 days app so I followed his instructions for the morning, had what I wanted for lunch and then followed his plan again for supper.

The day began with half a lemon squeezed in to a mug of boiling water.

No, I didn’t juice the sweet peas.  They went in a little vase and the fresh mint was steeped in hot water.

I really like fresh mint in water, it is very refreshing and in my new glass mug I think it looks very appealing too.

The next thing on the agenda is a ginger shot, made with the juice of half an apple and about 2cm of ginger.  It is very strong but I quite liked it.

These are the ingredients for the ‘Turbo With a Kick!’.  I made twice this quantity and placed half in a flask in the fridge for supper.

You juice everything except the avocado.  Then blend the avocado, freshly squeezed juice and some ice in to a very refreshing runny smoothie.  I really liked it and the other half I had for supper was still fresh tasting and enjoyable.

I did have a coffee mid morning and a cup of tea in the afternoon but that is a considerable reduction on my usual caffeine consumption and I have no intention of giving those up.

For lunch Harvey and I had a little something from the garden.  Some just picked radishes.

Added to a huge salad and served with salmon and new potatoes.  I did have an olive oil based salad dressing and some butter on my new potatoes.

Apart from water I had nothing else until supper time when I had another ‘Turbo With a Kick!’.  I am eating some grapes while I write this post but that will be it for the day.  Well, apart from a mug of camomile tea I will have in a minute.

I did some exercise today as I took the dogs on a walk in the woods over the road.  It was really pretty today in the sunshine and I wished it had been that pretty yesterday when I went with Sally who visited us for the day.  Next time.

I also enjoyed spending some time painting.  I am teaching myself how to watercolour and am working my way through a complete beginners book.

I used to think watercolours were washed out, pale and not interesting but when my Uncle showed me some of his collection of brightly coloured paintings, made with watercolour paints I was inspired to have a go.   Thanks to Sarah and Marion I have the kit so I am ready to go.  I have been dabbling since my birthday in September but not regularly enough.  Now I have found a book I am enjoying working through there is no stopping me.  Well, time permitting!

It is quite hard to tell what the colours in the palette will look like on the paper so today I arranged them all in their little trays and painted myself a colour chart.  So many of the paints are dark in their concentrated form but really sing with bright and glorious colour when diluted with water and painted on to white paper.

I am on a chapter about painting flowers so I took some photos in the garden so I have some subjects to copy.  Fushias make me think of little ballerinas. Our apple tree is smothered in this pretty little climbing rose. I have hundreds of these cheery Ox-Eye Daisies. I have no intention of trying to paint the dog but it was a cute picture.

So tonight I can go to bed happy that I ate well, exercised well and relaxed extremely well.