I haven’t written a blog for a few weeks, as I decided that I was only going to write it once a month. Before I realised, we are suddenly in February, already six weeks into the New Year.

January always seems a long month. Maybe its because we look forward to Christmas and New Year so much that January seems to stretch on forever. Maybe it’s because people start new regimes like dry January, or following other New Year’s resolutions. Perhaps it because the days seem dark and cold and spring seems such a long way away. Whatever the reason, January is now gone and the daylight seems a little bit longer, which always make things feel a little bit better.

February brings Shrove Tuesday and the beginning of Lent. Quite often I have given something up for Lent, usually biscuits or chocolate, or something else that is really hard for me to stop eating. This year however, I read quite a lot about giving up sugar, so on the second week of January I decided that I was going to do 5 weeks of giving up processed/refined sugar. It’s really hard to find any kind of ready meals that don’t contain some kind of processed sugar, or artificial sweetener.

The first few days were quite hard, but now it is getting a little easier. It has stopped me snacking quite so much, as a lot of the things that I normally snack on are sweets, biscuits and cake, so I find that as I can’t have those I don’t bother having anything else.

I can’t say that I will give it up forever, as I think it is a big ask, but I definitely feel a bit better and hopefully have got out of the habit of fancying something sweet on an evening, or finding any excuse/reason to have cake or biscuits.

I’ve also been worker back nearer home for the last couple of weeks, which has allowed me to walk to or from work. This is a 4 mile walk, which is quite hilly, so it is a good start to the day.

We have also started to do some walking on a weekend. We set up a what’s app group between a few friends and family, so that if anyone is planning a walk, they can invite others along. This has been more effective than trying to plan a walk around a weekend when everyone is free, as this is sometimes impossible.

We I think  that that’s just about it for me. Let’s see what the next few weeks bring.