It was another week of emotional ups and downs. Birthdays, coping with loss, late nights, back to school..some element of cake, and lots of trying to be good, to counteract the naughtiness of the previous week.
Then I had a great time at Bhangra this week. 45 minutes of pure jumping around! I managed to get a friend to video us.. there’s me in the middle!
That! 45 minutes of that, with one short break in the middle lol!
And the results, you ask?
Well, I managed to maintain once again!
So that’s 23.5lb off with Slimming World, and 28.5lb off in total! That elusice 0.5lb is still haunting me! But I am happy!
Until next week Peeps…I still have more cake to eat this week!
Another week, another bunch of wonderful meals… and some exercise!
I have had some naughty things,
I have had some extra healthy things…
And I discovered baked oats! Ooooh! So good!
Simple recipe
40g plain oats
Half a Muller light vanilla yoghurt
1 teaspoon sweetener
1 small egg
Mix together
Bake at 180 C for 30 mins.
Enjoy
You can bake fruit in it too but that adds syn values to it as the fruit is cooked (an SW thing!) so I just ate it separately. And for one of them, I added chocolate chips too which made it rather sumptuous!
And I attempted my first Bhangra class too this week!
I am by no means a beginner to Bhangra. I have been dancing pretty much since I started to walk (though if you ask my mum, she’d say I started in her tummy!). But whatever I have learned has come from observation, practice and a natural rhythm inherited from my Pops!
But this class was a ladies beginners class, and at the same time as the kids’ Dhol drum lesson. It was convenient, and one of the other mums wanted to go too. I went, all dressed in my fitness gear, and sports bra (a must for the more generously chested of us. Bhangra involves a LOT of jumping!) and it waws 45 minutes of great fun, breathlessness, and realising I really needed to get fit! We were learning a routine, and remembering the moves in the correct order was hard enough!
True bhangra has never been touted as a ladies dance in the Punjab. At functions, we would probably do a more sedate version. The real ladies dancing is called giddha, which I also do, which has song rhymes that you dance too. Nowadays, however, you have more female bhangra teams and they use more or less the same moves as the men. It is very energetic, and some would say not that ladylike!
I survived it, though, and was told my body moves naturally to the beat (as I said, it’s in the blood!) so I hope to try it again next week. At least I will be managing one physical activity a week! (This class was on Wednesday evening… I am still aching!)
And on to the important announcement…
This week…
I lost another 1lb!
That makes 22.5lb down since I started Slimming World, and 27.5lb in total on this journey…That leaves 0.5lb to go until I hit my 2 stone loss!
I have not been this weight since university I think!
I am so proud of myself!
And I am off to finish my chicken and chips… not diet at all, for my dinner now! See, now I have that control in place, I can still eat naughtily, and make up for it in the week!
It’s played a huge role in my life, both growing up, and in my adult years.
Music and dancing.
Music for pleasure, music for prayer, music for learning, music for my soul… music for all times in my life.
Growing up, I was surrounded by music. Both my parents love to listen to music, and I had a real eclectic mix of old Hindi, Bollywood music, that they both loved, Bhangra music which my Precious Pops loved to sing along, and dance to, and a real mix of 60’s music that my mum had crown up with in her English boarding school, in Kenya, and when she had been in the UK at university.
Couple that with some Kenyan, Swahili tunes, and I was always going to have a true mish mash of genres that I would generally like. My parents had these old cassette tapes that had been recorded for them before they left Kenya, to come here, with great golden oldies from the Bollywood era.
A beautiful Bollywood love song from the 70’s!
And bhangra bands were fast popping up all over the place, but the Midlands, where I grew up, was a true hotspot! And as my Pops was an avid dancer, he would keep up with all the latest tunes!
A classic Bhangra tune!
Going through school, I grew up with the 80’s and 90’s pop, which all my friends listened to. I remember some of my friends deciding The Beatles were the best thing since sliced bread then, so I acquainted myself with all their songs, and mum could have a good old bop around to them with me too!
As my cousins got married, the traditional music became fascinating to me too. so as a result, some of my cousins and me, we got together, and learned these songs and dances, and I can proudly say, I could perform at a wedding mehndi ceremony, with a full understanding of the lyrics and the dances that go with the songs too!
That’s me, singing!
Going to university, my love of music grew more. I was still as much into Bollywood as before, I pride myself on my knowledge of the old classics, singing them frequently! And the same goes for Bhangra, and Pop music. I loved the old Cheese that was played at the student nights in the clubs, and I was introduced to R’n’B, Soul, Hip Hop, Swing, Reggae and Ragga.
It was the THING for most Indian students to like this type of music, and most of the club nights with this type of music would be packed to the rafters with Indian students. I loved it! I hadn’t even been a clubber before University, but this was great! My 2 loves coming together! Music and dance! Oh I could ‘boggle’, ‘wind’ and ‘butterfly’ with the best, alongside ‘changing the lightbulbs’ to the bhangra, and ‘heaving my chest an wiggling hips suggestively’ to the Bollywood! and of course, jump around like a loon to the pop and cheese too! I forgot to mention, after a college trip to the US, I even got to know a few country songs, and tried my hand at line dancing!
I’ve loved all these music genres for my entertainment, and pleasure, and as I;ve grown older, I’ve also increased my listening of spritual Sikh hymns, finding amazing Raagis, and singers who keep the love of religious music current, so eve my kids sing along, and love it too!
Manika Kaur, simply beautiful.
And as my own children are growing up, I have attempted to introduce each of these genres into their lives. In Hubby Dearest’s car, there is usually Bhangra blaring out at top volume. In mine you might have the greatest hits of the 60’s one day, a religions CD next and some hip hop after! Eclectic, I told you! But I want them to have a rounded knowledge of all music, and now, as they are getting older, they decide, be it One Direction, or Will-I-am, or whatever they want, alongside mummy’s cd’s, because they like it!
It was cold, really cold, slightly damp, but Lil Man’s day for Drumming came.
The local Football Stadium had invited children from his team to drum and dance, along with other community cultural groups, as multi cultural pre match entertainment.
They did splendidly, and got a whole bunch of football supporters dancing too!
But I Smile Anyway... 