The first sizeable blip

Any way I look at it, this has not been a good weekend for the diet. Friday night kicked things off with Char Siu chow mein from my favourite local Chinese restaurant. This was followed up by bacon sandwiches (well, bacon in tortilla wraps) Saturday lunchtime, a frozen pizza Saturday night and tonight I've had cheesy enchiladas for my dinner. One out of four over a weekend would be manageable for a diet. All four is a sizeable blip after more than three weeks of keeping to my plan.

The only positive I can take from the weekend is the fact that despite great temptation, I've kept away from snacking beyond meals. This was pretty difficult, particularly on Saturday when my kitchen started resembling a bakery with fresh bread, doughnuts and crumpets flaunting themselves at me. Inside the fridge was just as bad with chocolate bars galore hiding just inside the door.

It was also extremely tough because I was both physically and mentally exhausted. Interrupted sleep has become a regular occurrence over the last few months, which is par for the course when sharing a bed with a pregnant woman. What really messed things up on Friday night was my cat deciding he wanted to break into the nursery, clawing up chunks of carpet at regular intervals until I finally locked him away in the kitchen. That I spent the next few hours struggling to sleep while hearing him meowing sadly downstairs and scratching away at the kitchen door did little to help matters.

Throughout Saturday I was pretty much a zombie. I had an enthusiastic 4 year old to entertain, and only whatever caffeine my Pepsi Max supplied me with to keep me going. Grumpy, argumentative, yawning, frustrated. These are words I'd expect to describe me in a few weeks time when the newborn is working to a different timetable to his parents, not a couple of weeks before it all happens. If this is an insight to how I'll feel in the not too distant future, the diet could be in serious jeopardy.

On the bright side, I did decide to do something positive to shake me from my funk late Saturday afternoon. Determined to avoid sugar and alcohol to try to get me through the day, I found another way wake myself up. For 15 minutes or so, until my son interrupted, I reintroduced my unfit body to the crosstrainer.

Hello Mr Crosstrainer. Been a while?!

It wasn't much of a workout, but it was a start. Did I feel any better for it? Not really, but it did help me to get a better night's sleep on Saturday, in partnership with a much better behaved cat. But it was a start and therefore a step in the right direction. I don't just want to lose weight this year, and while my January focus has been exclusively on what I eat, the exercise part if just as important to ensure this diet is successful.

I'm going to write this weekend off and start afresh Monday morning. Back into the routine and hopefully get a bit more time on the crosstrainer. This weekend I fell off the wagon. Time to get back on.