RE: https://mastodonapp.uk/@HollieK72/110405398507116991

It's been three years since I started tracking health and wellbeing, and trying to improve it. My goals were very modest - just aiming to achieve the basic guidelines set out by the NHS for healthy eating and exercise. This year's goals are more extensive.

Health and Wellbeing Goals for 2026:

Fruit and veg - At least 5 portions per day.

Coffees / Caffeine - No more than 5 per day.

Saturated Fat - Less than 20g per day.

Calcium - At least 700mg per day.

Weight - Get weight down to 10st.

Exercise - At least 150 minutes of moderate activity per week / 15,000 steps per week. Walk at 3.5 mph as often as possible. Aim for 4 mph.

General activity - 8,000 steps per day and 3,000,000 steps for the whole year. Use the sedentary alert to remember to stand up every hour.

Reading - Read every day.

#HK72Posts

This book was donated the other day, and my first thought was "What are the Daleks doing invading Venice?"

#CharityShopLife #HK72Posts

February 2026 Books Read: 17

The Road - Cormac McCarthy

No Place To Hide - Rebecca Griffiths

Before I Go To Sleep - SJ Watson

The Motel - Nancy Savage

The Lucky Winners - K L Slater

Dust - Arthur Slade

Snowdrops - A D Miller

*Locker 19 - J Cronshaw

The Last Trip - Rowan Chambers

The Burning Stones - Antti Tuomainen

Containment - Christian Cantrell

A Neighbour's Guide To Murder - Louise Candlish

The Society Of Unknowable Objects - Gareth Brown

The Never Game - Jeffery Deaver

The Life Of Chuck - Stephen King

The Martian - Andy Weir

Reacher: Killing Floor - Lee Child

Did Not Finish:

Island Builder - Andrew Karevik

2084 - Mason Engel

*Locker 19 by J Cronshaw was the first book that I began to suspect was AI generated part way through, and read to the end to confirm my suspicions. Then I went back to scrutinise other books I'd read recently.

#2026Books #AmReading #HK72Posts #HK72Books

Yesterday I really wanted a cheese sandwich, despite knowing that it would trash my saturated fat stats for the day. It was lovely, but two slices of bread, margarine, and 93g of cheddar cheese came in at 650 kcals, and a huge 22.3 g of saturated fat - daily limit for women is 20g. It was great for calcium levels - at 777mg, and explains why I used to rely on cheese as a good source of calcium. That was before I started to worry about cholesterol, though.

#HK72Posts

Monday's book donations were fairly typical in volume, but heavily skewed towards books needing to be ragged and books to go to the warehouse as donations. We kept 96 books for processing, sent 154 books to the warehouse as donations, and 181 books for ragging. It took most of the afternoon to sort through all of them, and it was irritating that people had donated over 180 books that were in poor enough condition that the best outcome is that we can get a few pence per kilo for them as ragged books, rather than going into the bin and costing money to dispose of - which is what might happen to some of them.

#CharityShopLife #HK72Posts

The boxes of books to go to the warehouse were collected last Thursday, so by Monday we were back to normal with book donations, and donations in general. We had just over 50 boxes and bags donated on Monday, which is par for the course. Over the course of a week, we probably get at least 300-350 donations in, which is why we can get clogged up at times, and can't take any more in. When we're that full, we can't "just store it somewhere," because we have already used up all our storage space. We do try to limit the amount of time that we aren't taking in donations, but it is something that happens.

#CharityShopLife #HK72Posts

Now that I've reached the weight that I want to be, I'm looking at maintaining it. I'm using an app because I'm trying to track several metrics. When I was losing weight, the app worked well, not so much for maintaining weight.

It overestimates the amount of calories needed for different levels of activity:
Sedentary - 1899 kcal
Low Active 30-60 mins moderate activity - 2062 kcal
Active 60-120 mins moderate activity - 2199 kcal
Very Active 120+ mins moderate activity - 2433 kcal

Whereas an online Basal Metabolic calculator has lower amounts:
Little to no exercise - 1488 kcal
Light exercise 1-3 times per week - 1705 kcal
Moderate exercise 3-5 times per week - 1922 kcal
Heavy physical exercise 5-6 times per week - 2139 kcal
Heavy physical exercise 6-7 times per week - 2357 kcal

I think this is intentional, so you become reliant on the app. I do moderate exercise, so have had to put the app level as Sedentary to get the right level of maintenance calories.

#HK72Posts

The stockroom has been tidied to within an inch of its life, and we are busy appreciating it while it lasts. The bags and boxes to go to the clearance shop have gone, and although the boxes of books to go to the warehouse won't be moved until Tuesday, at least they're tidy. The charity's CEO arrived for a short, unannounced visit on Wednesday, and he was very complimentary about how good it looked, which was also very nice.

#CharityShopLife #HK72Posts

Some of the items we packed up yesterday, for moving on to the clearance shop:

- Chestnut roaster
- Bread bin
- French horn
- Cutlery set

If they don't get collected today, they'll just have to wait until next Tuesday, when deliveries and collections should be back to normal.

#CharityShopLife #HK72Posts

As we've got a pause on donations this week, we decided to tidy up and sort out the stockroom shelves, as stuff tends to pile up and they get cluttered. It went really well - we unearthed and packed up a load of random bric-a-brac that can hopefully get sent off to the clearance shop tomorrow, found a lot of kids' toys that can go out straightaway, and discovered that we have even more crockery, puzzles and games than we thought. Now that it's all visible and tidy, it will be a lot easier to find things to put out. It's not going to stay that tidy for long, especially when we are able to take donations again, but it looks good for now.

#CharityShopLife #HK72Posts