Progress progresses...

Well another week, another Post.

Only a couple more weeks until November and a return to sanity. Well, ok, maybe not, but perhaps a bit further away from insanity.

The good news? Well, there's lots of good news. My friends whose shit I was anxst-ing about a few posts below have managed to get said shit back together, for a start (yay, small feeling of inner glow for part played), but, nay, that wasn't the good news of which I was a-thinkin'.

Nope. The good news hereforeto alluded is that I have lost yet another two pounds, making me now 15st, 2lbs. Now, this was still in "silly season", whereby I am eating mostly crap. I suspect the weight loss is because I am doing a lot of exercise - mostly riding - at the moment. It does, however, motivate me greatly to get back into proper diet mode, because that elusive status of being "under 15st" is now well within my sights. From under-15st, under-14st-hood is surely only a hop and a skip away...

The bad news? Well the bad news is that I have just ended up volunteering to organise something else. Why, oh why, Oh Why, can't I get involved with anything at all without bloody well ending up running the damned thing? Why? Because I'm a damned fool idiot, that's why! It wouldn't be so bad if I actually had time to do everything that I volunteered to do, but when it comes down to it, I don't always have it. It's all very well saying "If you want something doing, give it to a busy man to do", but sometimes the busy man is just too busy.

That said, I think that this particular little event I should have time to run, as I have over a year to plan and execute it, and a committee - of sorts - to assist me, but still, I must make a mental note to slam my head in the fridge door at some point in order to chastise myself for yet another piece of damn-fool volunteering...

Well, I did say that September and October were my crazy months.

Haven't had a lot of time for anything recently, let alone writing here. My bad.

So what has happened? Well, I have stayed constant at 15st 4lbs for the past two Monday mornings, which isn't too bad as the diet has not been good. To give you an example, I haven't been groceries shopping for over two weeks.

Also I have been smoking rather a lot, just recently. Now I gave up smoking some time ago, but always used to smoke for enjoyment rather than addiction and every now and then I have a little relapse and have a small smokeathon binge. However, this last couple of weeks I have been a stress monkey, and when I am stressed I tend to smoke. Smoking, as we know, is a bad thing to do, so I must get myself back into control and stop.

If I am being totally honest with myself, I only really do it because it is "naughty" anyway. It's bizarre, but if I really analyse it deep down, that's why I do it - because I know that I shouldn't. I never did rebel as a teenager, so maybe this is my teen rebellion finally seeking its self expression.

My teen rebellion is an idiot.

Bad times...

The following was written in two stages. The latter stage is not in the same vein as the former.

Well, I must apologise for the sparse performance here. September and October are incredibly hectic months for me, work-wise, also involving a lot of late nights and early starts. Ay present I am too knackered to think very straight and also so busy that I just don’t have time to sit down and compose my thoughts.

In addition, I am on the move a lot, and regular healthy eating is very difficult. On the upside, however, I am getting a lot of exercise done in work, so yay to that.

On Monday morning, I weighed in at 15st, 4lbs, which is another pound closer to elusive under-15-stone target. Good, good, good.

I have decided that that I am going to stop being a good listener and an all-round good egg. It’s bloody hard work. As well as everything else I have to contend with, I am also having to try to help my friends sort out their shit. Now, in reality, I don’t begrudge them this one little bit, but on top of everything else it’s wearing. What’s worse, I don’t know if I can actually help. My magic wand is running out of zap, and it’s not good.

Makes losing a pound seem a bit trivial really…

Eh?

Ok, who out there is effing about with my scales?

Three weeks ago I was 15st 6lbs, last week I had shot up to 15st 10lbs and this week I am back down to 15st 5lbs.

What gives? I weigh myself each Monday morning at pretty much the same time under pretty much the same conditions, so it’s not something simple, like having just eaten a huge meal or anything like that…

However, it does give a bit more encouragement for the eat-healthy campaign…

All I need now is a couple of extra days in my week, so I can catch up on some sleep…

Time

Where does it all go? That’s what I want to know.

The weeks and months are just flying by. This last couple of weeks I have been outrageously busy, and no matter how much I seem to do, there is always more to achieve. Work expands to fill the amount of time available in which to do it…

Diet has been pretty poor this week as well, alas. I have been out at events at various people’s houses for the last few days, which, for various reasons, have all seemed to include eating a cooked breakfast.

Now, I love cooked breakfast, especially bacon and eggs. (In fact, I think I might even have already written about this on here before, but it might also have been somewhere else.) Bacon and eggs are one of those combinations where the value of the whole is worth more than the sum of the parts. If bacon earns you five pleasure points and eggs earn you five pleasure points, when you add them together you actually get twelve or fifteen pleasure points, not just the ten.

That probably makes no sense at all, but, I don’t have to make sense to other people. I know what I mean.

Going back to time, how the hell do other bloggers manage to find the time not only to write up reams of stuff on their blog each day, but also to read through sometimes dozens of other blogs as well? I struggle to find the time to write up my paltry offerings, let alone read a lot of others as well.

(This may not be a bad thing – I seem to be the kiss of death for blogs. With one notable exception (Hello TGIC – when I can be bothered to work out how to link o this thing, I will put one in…), whenever I start regularly reading a particular blog, the author commits bloggicide.)

Anyway, that’s enough for now. Off to Norfolk tomorrow, and then off to a fairly large Show for the weekend. Sadly work, not play. Sigh.

Not good.

Weighed in at 15st 10lbs on monday morning, which is pretty shite.

It seems that the modified-eating-habits regime is not going to work, and I might have to try something more regimented.

Although, how, when I do do a fair amount of exercise anyway - at least compared to many couch potatoes - and I was eating very little except fruit and vegetables, I managed to put weigfht on, I am not really sure.

Maybe I am one of those people who is just destined to be fat.

I don't know. I am prepared to make some concessions to get fitter, but I am buggered if I am going to spend the rest of my life on a calorie controlled diet. Life is just too short. That is why establishing a healthy eating regime that I can live with is what I want to achieve, not some short term "blitz-off-some-weight-and-then-put-it-all-back-on-again-as-soon-as-I-stop" fad diet.

Some times I really want to murder those irritating bastards who can eat what the hell they like and never put on a single pound. Grr!

O the shame of it!

I am a bad blogger!

Not only that, but I am a bad dieter and excerciser, too.

These last couple of weeks have been manic, getting holidays, parties and battles in before the start of the silly season.

I'm off to Devon this weekend, but this is the last excursion for some time, and thereafter I will be back to diets, cross-training and, hopefully, writing drivel in this space...

Gosh what an exciteing prospect for the world in general. I bet it can't wait...

Dear Customer Services...

I wonder if I will get a reply?

Sir,

I am sure that you, like I, will appreciate the irony in the fact that it has taken your website, one dedicated to literature and the spoken word, with its claimed array of ten thousand books, to finally shatter my faith in the English language: our glorious mother tongue, the toolbox of great writers such as Shakespeare and Milton, the aural palette of great poets, such as Shelley, Tennyson, Dr. Seuss and Keats.

Always, until now, I had supposed that its diversity, its adaptability, its sheer depth and breadth made our language equal to any challenge put before it, but sadly, no more. It makes me feel traitorous to admit it, but even with the whole sweeping expanse of words and phrases; verbs, adverbs and adjectives; nouns and pronouns to draw from, the language is just not equipped to adequately convey the feelings of contempt and frustration that your computer software has instilled within me.

For a start, the idea that one even needs special software to use the product is not immediately apparent. It is, I confess, mentioned at the bottom of your home page, but should one, as did I, choose to sign up before scrolling all the way down, then it is entirely possible not to discover that one is compelled to use this software until after one has already purchased one’s first titles.

However, at this stage one is still blithely unconcerned. If one has to download the software, then so be it. How difficult can it be, one asks oneself? Oh dear. One soon finds out, but only when it is too late.

The mere fact that the F.A.Q. index alone covers seven pages, detailing over 130 topics, answers that question as eloquently as one could wish. But, alas, who looks at the F.A.Q. before one downloads the software?

This strategy is, of course, even cleverer than is immediately apparent, containing, as it does, its own cast-iron defence. One can just hear the defence Lawyer in the court: “Oh, come now, Mr. Victim, how can you possibly complain about my Client’s software not being fit for the purpose, when you were fully aware of this before you purchased the product? You cannot possibly expect this court to accept that you believed for a moment that any product with an F.A.Q. openly advertising that you are likely to be confused by it on no less than 136 separate occasions was anything other than crap right from the start.” Q.E.D. Case dismissed, and probably with costs awarded. Quite brilliant.

But, by this time, with one’s £17 already committed, one leaps hopefully into the F.A.Q. jungle only immediately to fall foul of the first major flaw. It might perhaps be logical to have listed the questions in some sort of chronological order, starting, say, with “How many hours, days or weeks of my life should I set aside to have any hope of completing an Installation in one sitting” and then running through the possible questions in the order in which they are likely to occur, right the way through to “Can you recommend a good on-line supplier of anti-depressants?”

But, no; whilst that might be the logical way to do it, the actual method is to scatter the questions randomly throughout the entire document, possibly in the hope that the customer will derive additional excitement from the treasure-hunt aspect of the exercise.

Once one has found one's topic, or what has been cunningly disguised to look as if it might be one's topic, one then finds that it, too, contains yet more alternative options, leaving one to guess which, if any, is actually going to solve one’s problem.

At this point, I do have to acknowledge the sheer Machiavellian brilliance of some of these answers. My particular favourite is the one that tells you what to do if you cannot even establish a link with the server to download or activate parts of the software.

(This is naturally Question #62 on page 4 of the F.A.Q. – because, of course, you are bound to encounter 61 other problems before you have even completed downloading the programme… However, I digress.)

This particular answer tells you to open the software and click on “Tools” and then “Change Internet Settings”.

Reasonable enough, one might think, apart from the fact that there is no “Tools” button on the task bar. This is sheer quality because, of course, the poor victim will inevitably spend a considerable amount of time looking for one. “The F.A.Q. says it is there, therefore it must be there.”

And so, even though it patently is not there, one spends an eternity clicking everything in sight, in the vain hope that the “Tools” tab might thus be revealed.

I trust that the programme does contain some sort of spy ware, by which your IT technicians are alerted to the fact that someone, somewhere has clicked F.A.Q. #62 so that they can all gather round a monitor and watch live as the poor sap plays “hunt the ‘Tools’ button”?

If not, I am sadly disappointed, as they are definitely missing a trick. (I also assume that they run a sweepstake on how long each player will last, and I would like to put my entry in at 17 minutes.)

(Incidentally, you might suggest to your marketing department that if they were to introduce a range of small waxen images of your IT technicians, they will surely become a rapid best seller. I do not wish any credit or commission for this idea. The knowledge that it will have brought joy to countless others will be reward enough.)

And so, my book remains unheard. If my current plan of sacrificing a small chicken to the computer gods fails to bring relief; and if I remain unable to discern which of the 136 questions actually contains the hidden information that the software will only work if you activate it by the light of a new moon whilst wearing a blue lycra codpiece and singing the Lithuanian National Anthem, then it will continue to do so. (And I feel sorry for female users who will look even more ridiculous in a blue lycra codpiece than will I).

The idea behind your product is a good one – and one that, if it worked, I would recommend to several of my acquaintances who would, I know, use it extensively. As it is, however, once I have finished writing this letter, I am going to enrol at a University, do a degree in journalism, take employment with a computer services magazine and work my way up to a place from whence I can write damning reviews of your site to be read by all and sundry.

Why?

Because it will be considerably easier, quicker and far less stressful than trying to download and listen to one of your damned books.

I remain, Sir, your obedient servant.

M.A.D.

Not a good week

Well, it has been a crap week. Bugger all exercise done, and eating habits not good.

I am off to another battling weekend this weekend, and after that, things are going to settle down, including doing a lot more riding.

I am not, however, looking forward to weighing myself on Tuesday when I get back. I didn’t even get around to weighing myself this week – which just goes to show how hectic it was…

Note to self: Must do better…

Back again...

Well, I’m back, and I will write more later about the trip and the party, but the problems about the phone were just something else.

After what I wrote on Thursday about changing the tariff, on Friday morning at 8.00 am, they disconnected the phone.

Now this is something that I had specifically said should not happen, but unfortunately the munchkin at the other end, not only failed to comprehend this and pressed the wrong buttons, but he pressed them in such a comprehensively wrong way that he then “lost” the account.

I was trying to change the account from business to residential. He terminated the business tariff but failed to activate the residential tariff, and the problem with this is that business helpline assistants can only access business accounts and residential helpline assistants can only access residential accounts and because of what this gut did, the account now fitted into neither category.

I discovered that the phone was cut off about half-nine Friday morning. At 10 am, I had assurance from BT that it would be on by lunch. At lunch they said it would be on by tea-time. At tea-time it would be on by the morning.

The next day, the same programme. By Saturday evening I have probably talked to twenty to thirty different people and accumulated at least two or three hours of on-hold time.

On Sunday, they weren’t even open, so I got a day of rest.

Half-eight Monday morning I made a breakthrough. Instead of ringing faults or customer service I rang the complaints line. Complaints are obviously given more attention than faults or service. Within two hours he had the account back up.

But the real irony? He had re-instated it as a business line, so after hours of effort and days of disconnection, I was right back exactly where I had started.

So, another day, another salad. Did my exercises today, no sweat. Well, actually, quite a lot of sweat, but that’s a good thing, right?

Oh, gawd, whilst I am trying to type this, I am also trying to deal with British Telecom, and the stress and hair that I am pulling out whilst doing so is bound to help me lose weight.

All I am trying to do is take a phone number off a business tariff and put it onto a residential tariff. That’s all, no change of address, customer or anything – yet you would think that I was asking them to cure avian flu or land a man on Mars. And, to cap it all, I’m getting thoroughly sick of their damned on-hold muzak. Can’t think why, I’ve only been listening to it for over an hour!!!

So, anyway, I went shopping last night, and I decide that I was going to have to convert myself into one of that mysterious and inexplicable group of people who think that celery is a good thing to eat.

There is this myth, which may even be true, for all I know, that celery is a magical substance that actually costs more energy to digest than it actually contains. Well, I mean to say, if that’s true, then I really need to be getting myself some of that.

You see, fruit is all very well, but every now and then, I crave for something savoury to snack on. Currently my nibble of choice is hard—boiled eggs. However, too many of these cannot be good for one, so I thought that celery, being more of a vegetable than a fruit, and therefore not really sweet, it ought to be the snack of choice for me; especially with it’s miraculous fat reducing properties.

The trouble is that the bloody stuff is disgusting. Now I don’t mean just “not very nice”; I mean actually nasty. I am a person who will eat almost anything. There are a number of foods that I am pretty indifferent about and won’t buy, but there are very few things that I actually dislike the taste of – and celery is one of them.

I have tried, and tried hard, but celery just tastes nasty. I don’t know if you have ever tried, but describing a taste is actually a very difficult thing to do. So, in the interests of literature I am actually forcing myself to eat a piece of celery as I write, just so that you, dear reader, can have the benefit of understanding just exactly what is wrong with it.

For a start, it is actually quite sweet, but that isn’t really to be held against it - onions are very sweet. But as well as the sweetness, you also get, along with the relatively unpleasant crunchy-stringy texture and squirt of tepid celery juice, a rather nasty bitter taste that attacks the back of your tongue. All in all, it’s pretty much what you would expect a parking ticket to taste of, and not, in any way, a good gastronomic adventure.

So, miraculous thin-making qualities notwithstanding, I will not be converting to the ranks of the celeriphiles. This doesn’t make me a bad person, even if it might make me a fatter one…

Oh, yes, and by the way, I am going to Scotland tomorrow for my parents 50th wedding anniversary party, so I probably won't be posting here until tuesday.

More progress

Back on track today, and guess what. I weighed in at 15st, 4lbs (that’s 214lbs American. Haven’t got the foggiest what it is in kilos, but I’m sure one could work it out if one really wanted to…). That is a loss of 3lbs, which is most gratifying.

What I have to do now is keep it up – and particularly not fall into the “complacency trap”. Very easy to get the idea that it’s all plain sailing from here on in, relax and then fail to lose any more or, even worse, put weight back on.

Just got to keep on going. The magic goal of being less than 15st is in sight.

Exercise was good this morning. Not quite as good as Friday, but still better than previously.

All in all, a good report.

A quick update...

Had a good battling weekend. Did not eat a lot, did a fair amount of activity and drank a lot. (Also smoked a few ciggies. Tut, tut, naughty me. I’m back off them again, now, though…)

Didn’t do my exercise routine yesterday (Mon) because I was busy, busy, busy (and also, when I am being honest, knackered and idle).

Didn’t do it this morning because I was up at 4.30 to go and pick a friend up from the airport and am not likely to do it this evening because I am going out. (And again, I am being idle – I could have forced it in, had I been really determined.)

Should be back on track for tomorrow morning, though.

Foodwise, I haven’t been too bad, although I did have a fry-up at lunch-time today. However, this fits in with my “I-should-be-able-to-eat-normal-meals-when-invited-to-other-people’s-houses” philosophy. It should be enough to eat more sensibly most of the time and exercise more most of the time…

I hope…

I wonder what I will weigh tomorrow morning…?

Feeling better

Got up this morning (a struggle) and actually enjoyed my exercise this morning (yay!). Could have something to do with the Chinese take-away that I shared with some friends last night though. More energy in the old system? Not sure. I’ll have to see how it goes after the weekend.

Yep. I’m off for the weekend again. This will involve a lot of riding, a lot of drinking and a certain amount of eating unhealthy food. Shall I say what I’m doing? Yeah, why not? I will be riding cavalry in a battle re-enactment – something that I have been doing for over 20 years now. Of all the things I do, and, believe me, I fill my life, these weekends give me the most pleasure.

So I won’t be back until Monday to see whether the exercise is as enjoyable.

On Monday, I also have to go to Gatwick Airport to pick up a friend who is flying in from South America. Well, that’s gonna be fun. Hey ho – life goes on. Fuck ‘em – that’s what I say.

Other news, I have just joined the digital era. I have invested in a set-top-box for my TV. This means that instead of just the big five terrestrial channels, I can now pick up the free digital channels as well. Hmm, now for someone who hardly watches any TV, this might seem like an odd thing to do.

However, my reasoning goes that, as I was saying previously, if I want to stop getting bored whilst on the cross-trainer, I need stuff to watch. This little gizmo doesn’t just pick up the programmes; it also has a built-in hard drive that will record up to 40 hours of programmes, so that I can be sure of having something to watch when I want to watch it.

Now this didn’t come cheap. Instead of the 40-odd quid that a set-top box usually costs, this one cost a hundred and forty. However, that said, it didn’t really, because I used my Tesco clubcard vouchers to buy it.

(Tesco being a supermarket, and Clubcard being its loyalty reward scheme. Each quarter, they send you vouchers based on one penny per pound spent. These last for two years. I tend to hoard them for two years and then buy something that I wouldn’t normally buy. This time, the two years worth had amounted to over £240, so I bought the set top box. The previous time, I spent £100 worth on a dual DVD/VCR recorder. What will I buy next time? Who knows…?)

So there we go. Off for the w/e. Back Mon.

Another day, another workout. Did my routine again, this morning, but once again, I just did not want to. That optimistic post I wrote the other day about starting to understand why fit people like exercise is seems a long way away.

Oddly enough, I don’t mind exercise for a purpose. I will quite happily ride for hours when I am working, and I will walk up and down hills in Scotland all day, if I am “doing something” – but the idea of going for a ride “for pleasure” or just going up a hill “because it’s there” leaves me totally cold.

I suppose it’s part of the thing where if you spend a lot of your time out in the countryside, then being out in the countryside looses its bonus value. Lots of people tell me that they like running or riding because it gests them out in the fresh air, out in the countryside. Well, whoopee-doo. I much prefer working out on a machine where I can watch TV or a video. One of the things I find worst about exercise is the mind-numbing tedium of it. It’s about the only time I spend not using my brain for anything, and I get bored real quick. So, I video things I want to watch but don’t have time for, and then watch them during exercise time, when my mind has nothing to do. Two birds, one stone.

I have virtually given up drinking alcohol. I hardly ever drink any at home now – I seldom did, but every now and then, maybe once a week, I might have had a whisky or a beer. Since starting this little exercise, I have not had a drink at home at all – until last night when I had a bottle of cider. I do still drink a bit when I’m out, and not driving, and cider is my drink of preference. I will be taking a few bottles to an event I’m going to this weekend, and I wanted to try the Magners Irish bottled cider. (It’s pretty good, by the way…)

All in all, though, I have not found stopping drinking much trouble. Bit like smoking, really…

I'm back

Well, it’s been a few days since I posted here, but I’ve been a busy boy – so I will sit here, drinking the juice of two grapefruit (one pink, one yellow) mixed with two teaspoons of psyllium husks. I’m really getting quite into these psyllium husks. They don’t taste of much, but what they do taste of ain’t too bad. The old digestion is ticketty-boo, too. Anyway…

Ok, so on Friday afternoon about 4pm, I was sitting in the office deciding what I would do with last (at that time, “this”) weekend. On the spur of the moment, I thought “What the f***, I’ll go back to Scotland.

So, an hour later, I had loaded the car and the pooch and off I went. Now, some people tell me that I am crazy to drive to Scotland for the weekend, but personally, I don’t see it. If I leave at 5 in the afternoon, I can be there by 2 in the morning. That then gives me two whole days in Scotland to play around, and then I can do the same on the way home. Seeing as the 5 ‘til two slot is only really spent doing crap stuff like going out, watching telly and getting an early night, I don’t think its too bad to swap these for two days on the beeeyootiful West Coast.

Had a good day on the Saturday because it was the local Agricultural Show. I met up with out Farm Manager, and we spent most of the afternoon propping up the bar in the Beer Tent and chatting to the people we know who were passing through. I was on diet coke, but it was a good do none the less. The FM was on vodka and water – and extraordinary (and extraordinarily disgusting) combination that I have never come across before.

Also met up with an old friend who I used to work with when I was on the farm, who is an extremely good accordion player. He spent a fair bit of time propping up the bar with us.

I am glad to be able to report that the bar did not fall over once during the entire afternoon, so our efforts were not wasted.

Took the FM to a local restaurant where he was meeting his wife, and got dragged off to join a table whilst we waited by a local farmers wife. She was three-sheets to the wind, as was her husband, who spent the whole time giving me the eye. “Hmm”, thought I, “This guy is going to get up and take a swing at me any minute”. Gawd knows why? Maybe he thought I was flirting with his missus (I wasn’t) or maybe he just didn’t like the colour of my shoes, but every now and then I looked over and saw him just staring at me.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a guy of a certain size, and I have done a fair amount of Martial Arts in my time – plus, I was stone cold sober and he was swaying in his chair. I wasn’t really worried about the physical outcome if he did take a swing at me, but the political outcome would have been less good. So, when FM’s wifey arrived, I made my excuses and left.

That evening I went to the local tourist-tavern because my friend the accordion-player was doing his stuff there. Not the sort of stuff that I would normally choose – very touristy – but interesting none the less.

It was also made interesting by the fact that I had the waitress come up partway through the evening and say “the Lady over there would like to buy you a drink” Now, I though that only happened in rather corny Hollywood movies, but no, it happened to me at the weekend. Despite the fact that I didn’t really want yet another diet coke, I had one, to be polite, and spent an interesting time chatting to the very attractive blonde lass who had sent it.

Hmm. Just goes to show that even if Mr BMI thinks that I am borderline obese, I have still got what it takes. Ha! Up yours, Mr BMI!

The next day, I spent on the farm with the Farm Manager looking at various things that one might do in order to try to make a Scottish Hill Sheep and Cattle farm into a profitable operation. More yomping over the hills involved, which is good on the exercise front.

Drove home overnight on Sunday/Monday. My knackered ankle was giving me gyp on Monday and Tuesday. Not sure why, but I think It might have been spending 10 hours pressing the accelerator.

What with that, and a lie in on Tuesday morning to catch up on sleep, the exercise got left out a fair bit over the last few days, but I am back on track today. Huzzah!

Also, I am down to 15st, 7lbs. Another pound off. I would prefer to lose it a bit quicker than 1lb per week, but at least that’s going down not up. Yay!

Good news and bad news...

The good news? Well, I have always believed that I was classified as “obese”, which has a horrid ring to it.

Well, I have just discovered that I am only “overweight”. This is according to my BMI (Body Mass Index). My BMI is 28.8 and the “overweight” category runs from 25 to 29.9. So yayy! for that. (CDC BMI Calculator)

The bad news, however, is that in order to get to the “normal” category of BMI for my height, I would have to slim down to 13st 7lbs. That’s 2 whole stone!! OMG! I’d have to chainsaw a leg off to lose 2 stones…

Sheesh. Talk about a challenge…

Well, I did have a salad. Go me.

We will, however, draw a veil over the freshly baked bread slathered with butter that I had beforehand. Sigh. Well, it was there, and it would have been rude not to eat it. Fresh bread is yummy.

The salad seemed to be garnished with quite a large portion of chicken and bacon – but, that’s only garnish, so that doesn’t matter, right?

My old man used to have a theory that if you had lettuce with anything, it became a salad, and salad makes you loose weight. Fish and chip salad? No worries,

I am still having real problems getting out of bed in the morning. It really is like I have a split personality. In-bed-me just doesn’t care. In-bed-me just turns off the alarm clock, rolls over and goes back to sleep. It is a problem. I will have to think on it.

(Did get my morning routine done today, all the same, though…)

Discussing diet etc with a colleague today, and they we of the opinion that I wasn’t getting enough carbohydrate in my diet. This is true. Bread, potato and pasta just don’t feature. Is this a real problem? I will have to investigate.

Bread I don’t keep in the house. If I have bread, I just want to eat it. Sandwiches, bread and jam, bread and marmite. Ooo! Marmite. How can some people not like marmite? Marmite is just delicious.

As for potatoes, they take too long to cook. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like cooking and, if I say so myself, I am a pretty neat chef. However, I just can’t be bothered to cook for one.

Also, the best ways of cooking spuds are also the most fattening. I do however like all forms of potatoes – except one. Baked potatoes! God how I loathe baked potatoes!

Actually, that’s a lie, I am perfectly capable of eating a baked potato if someone feeds me one. I am polite like that. I will however, have to choke it down. They are just flavourless balls of mush surrounded by just as flavourless leathery skin – and what little flavour they do have isn’t particularly nice…

Oh no, I hear the baked-potatophiles cry, you can put all sorts of things on them to improve the flavour… Well, yes, indeed you can, but, so what? You could spread butter and cheese on a cork tablemat, but it wouldn’t actually make it good to eat. The undeniable fact is that whatever you put on a baked potato to improve the flavour would taste better if it didn’t have baked potato all around it – and I have never yet heard of a filling for a baked potato that wouldn’t taste infinitely better between two bits of bread.

And you know the real bummer? Being a chap of a certain stature, whenever I go to a barbecue or any sort of meal that involves baked-bloody-potatoes, the hostess always comes up and, with the air of one bestowing the riches of the world, thrusts a pap-laden dish under my nose with the words “I’ve saved the biggest one specially for you.” Oh, goody…

When I win the lottery, I am going to buy the Spud-U-Like chain of restaurants, just so that I can have the pleasure of closing the damned torture chambers down!

Anyway, so that’s why no carbs. I was, however, eating some Bulgur wheat in my salads. Maybe I will have to re-institute this.

It gets difficult to think of titles sometimes...

So, another day, another salad…

Well, actually, that ain’t technically true. Today I haven’t had a salad yet, but I will probably have one for dinner.

So, in the morning, I got up and had a glass of very weak Kombucha Cordial and some Psyllium husks. Yum, yum, yum. Worth getting out of bed for, you must surely agree. (Actually, to be totally honest, they ain’t that bad.)

Then on to the cross-trainer for a 30 minute blast. 10 minutes on setting 2, 5 minutes on setting 4, 10 minutes on setting 6 and then 5 minutes on setting 3. Seems to be pretty good at the moment. Gets me into a good sweat.

Then this is followed by crunches. Front, both sides and reverse. I have been doing 50 of each, but today I upped it to 100 off each, because I was not feeling any pressure with the 50 any more. For some reason, even though I do have something of a paunch, I have always had pretty strong gut muscles. Maybe it’s something to do with the horse riding – I don’t know.

While this lot is going ion I will drink at least a pint of water.

Then it’s off for a bath and a smoothie. This morning it was a nectarine, a banana, a handful of blueberries, half a dozen raspberries and four spoons of live low-fat yoghurt. Not bad.

Lunchtime was a couple of hard boiled eggs and some olives.

Now, I have just had another pint of water and some more yummy fibre stuff.

Later this evening, I am off to have supper with a friend who is going through some fairly hard times at the moment, so I am going to take her out for a meal and a couple of drinkie-poos. Well, I won’t be having the drinkie-poos, of course, because I am driving, but then again I’m not the one that needs them…

And when, I go out, I’m going to have a salad. Yes, indeed I am. Yup.

Back from the north...

Well, it’s been a while since my last entry, but this is because I’ve been away from the computer, not because I’m giving up. A long weekend spent in sunny Scotland, with my parents. Marvellous.

Weighed myself this morning. Back down to 15st 8lbs. Well, it’s better than 15st 9lbs, but it’s not exactly going to win me any slimmer of the year awards.

That said, however, my belt seems to be looser. Note to self: remember to get a tape measure and start measuring size as well as weight.

No! Not that sort of size. Clean your mind out! That is definitely not the sort of measuring that I have in mind, not least because the rule seems to be measure in centimetres and claim that it’s inches… I mean, where the heck do some of these guys measure from? Their Knee? Their Coccyx? Half way up their back?

Anywayyyy, moving swiftly on, I had a good weekend in Scotland. Went to a local Highland Games on the Saturday afternoon and to a folk festival in the evening. It has to be said, traditional Scottish country music rocks, big style. There were all sorts of people at the festival and all sorts of bands – but the one that got everyone together and got them jumping was the traditional ceileidh band. Five young lads (fiddle, pipes, accordion, guitar and drums) playing traditional music fast and furious. Brilliant.

Walked in the hills on Sunday. Lots of uppey-downey stuff and worked up a good sweat, so hopefully that will have counted as exercise. Spent all day Monday and Friday in the car, so no exercise, but also did not eat much, so all in all, should not have been too much of a gain.

Got up and did my routine this morning. Boy, oh boy, did I not want to? No, I didn’t! I absolutely, bloody hated it. Felt fairly righteous when I had done it, but my lying-in-bed self did not want to yield possession of the body this morning.

If I could find some way to assassinate lying-in-bed self, then this would all be a lot easier.

Is this what it is about?

Whew! Just done a good session on the cross-trainer, and I sort of get an idea what people mean when they talk about getting a high from exercise. Fit people probably don’t understand, but for unfit people, that sounds like a whole crock.

When you’re unfit, exercise is just plain unpleasant. You don’t get through the pain-barrier, you don’t get second-wind, you just have a thoroughly miserable time. You have, I suspect, to reach a certain fitness threshold before you start to get any of those benefits.

(I will add here that I in no way think that I am at that stage yet, but I did, I hope, get a slight inkling of what it might be like one day)

No exercise got done yesterday, alas. I had to head straight off to the event after work. I also pigged out on BBQ chicken. It was not in any sort of sauce – bonus – but it was bloody good.

Stayed there overnight and had a cooked breakfast this morning. M-mmm, I do love a cooked breakfast; what the hotels here in the UK call a “Full English Breakfast”. Fried bacon, fried sausage, fried eggs, mushrooms, baked beans, tomatoes, hash browns (although those are, of course American gate-crashers to the party). Full of calories, full of fat and full of sheer scrumptiousness. I could happily eat a full English breakfast every day. I would no doubt soon be 38 stone, but what a way to go. So, I never cook them for myself, but I do take advantage of them when they are on offer.

One caveat though, no fried bread. I hate fried bread. Eurgh! I don’t know how people can eat it. Too much grease, too concentrated. I was put off it in the school canteen 30-odd years ago, and I have not been able to face it since. Toast. That is what the righteous breakfast has, not fried bread, toast.

However, I digress. Other news on the lifestyle front, I have invested in a new juicer, which turns out to be a real pain in the butt for doing citrus – and I do love fresh juice – so I have got a cheap citrus juicer from Tescos (£5.99) and it is very good. (I gave my previous cheap and cheerful juicer from Argos (14-odd quid) away as a present (asked for) and this one is better at half the price. Easier to clean).

I have also decided to try out Psyllium husks as a Fibre supplement. 2 teaspoons morning and night. Good for the digestion, so I am told, and bulks one out too.

I’m off to Scotland tomorrow until Monday, so no diet and no official exercise; however I hope that I will do a fair amount of yomping up and down hills, which should count a bit.

Back Monday.

Struggles

This is not turning out to be a good week, so far.

Went down to London on Monday night to have dinner with my father and brother. I get on extremely well with my old man, and take every opportunity to spend quality time with him (and my mother) that I can. With me in my forties and them in their seventies, the sense that such opportunities are finite grows ever stronger.

So, fairly boozy evening on Monday, with ensuing hang-over on Tuesday, squashed the training on Tuesday.

Tuesday night, I was working behind the bar for a local charity event. Calorie-wise it was not a bad occasion, although I did drink a lot of diet coke, which is probably not the healthiest option in the world, even if it is relatively non-fattening.

However, I eventually got home at 4.30 this morning, so no early rise for exercise today either. Tonight I go to another event for an organisation that I help out with. Probably booze-free, but the BBQ might be a bit calorific.

I am hoping to get a session in on the cross-trainer before I go, but work commitments mean that this might not happen.

This change of lifestyle thing is not that easy…

Oh, crap!

Curses!!! Weighed myself this morning, something that I decided I would only do once per week so that there would be a chance to see any real differences, and I have gained a pound. I now weigh 15st 9lbs.

I waxed lyrical last week about how I would be happy to lose only 2lbs per week, and how that would hopefully indicate a sustainable change, but gaining a pound??? Where the heck did that come from?

Now ok, as recorded, I went out a few times last week and had “normal” meals, but the point is that these were no different to what I would have had before I started trying to change things. Since then I have done at least 30 minutes of exercise on the cross-trainer most days – and this is breaking-into-a-good-sweat exercise not a mild jaunt – plus I have been doing 200 assorted crunches with each session. They do say that just increasing your exercise alone should help you reduce weight, so the fact that I have replaced a lot of my meals, with salads and healthy food should have helped twice as much. I am not looking for earth-shattering results, but gaining a pound?? That sucks!

I have spoken to a couple of people who have pointed out one or two possibly contributing factors. There’s the old muscle-weighs-more-than-fat cliché. Well, ok, perhaps it does, but I can’t really see that my 30 minutes on the cross-trainer will have converted that much muscle fat into muscle. I shall have to invest in a tape measure and start recording measurements as well.

Second, and hopefully more hopeful, someone was telling me that the very hot weather last week will have made my body retain a lot more water. Now I thought that when you started increasing your consumption of water, it stopped your body from retaining as much.

Maybe this takes time, and the old bod isn’t used to the idea that it doesn’t need to retain at the moment, plus maybe there is something in this idea that the body retains more when it’s hot.

The thing is that I’m sure the principle ought to be right. By exercising more and eating lots of fresh fruit and vegetables instead of junk, I ought to be able to lose weight. So, I have decided that I will give it another week.

If I don’t see better results next week, then I will have to do something different.

The main thing is, not to give up.

Ok

Yep, got my exercise routine done yesterday evening, and again this morning – although still the usual problems with getting out of bed. Diet has been as it should be, too, so it seems we are back on track.

I am away to a conference from this afternoon until Sunday, so I’m not sure how much exercise I will be able to get there. I should probably explain that I have, largely through falling off horses, completely knackered my ankle and therefore can not run.

Well, ok, I can run to catch a train, or something, but repetitive high-impact training, such as running, is a no-no. Hence the cross-trainer.

This means that when I go away somewhere, it’s not that easy to replace the training, unless I can find something similar where I am going.

Back on Monday.

On routine...

I was just thinking about this, following on from the previous blog.

So often, routine can be used as an excuse for giving up. When circumstances, be they 3rd party actions, time constraints or a simple failure of will-power, make you break a pre-determined routine, it is all too easy to adopt a mindset of "Oh well, the routine is already broken, so I don't need to follow it any more..." This has got to be one of the greatest causes of broken new year's resolutions, Lenten fasts, diets and "giving-up-smoking" campaigns that ever exist - and it's just a load of defeatist bollox.

Everyone fails in their resolutions every now and then - and using that to give up is just an excuse. If you fail, you fail - ONCE! So what? Move on and try harder. If you are on a diet and you succumb to the attractions of a cream cake – or, indeed, a curry – then this doe not mean that because the routine is broken you don’t need to bother with it any more. You have just broken it once. You can still adhere to it thereafter. The routine is still there and it can still be followed.

In fact, coming to think about it, “broken” itself is a defeatist word to use. It carries within it it’s own in-built excuse for further failure. It implies a sense of finality. “I have broken my diet”, “I have broken my routine”. It’s so easy to turn this into programming for failure. If it’s broken then I can’t follow it any more, can I? I’ve broken it… No you have not. The diet is not broken, you merely veered away from it briefly. The routine is still there, unbroken, intact and attainable, it just requires you to get back on course.

Losing weight is, I believe and hope, much like giving us smoking – true success comes not from gizmos, gimmicks and gadgets, it comes from a genuine decision on your behalf to make that change happen.

Genuine decisions include refusing to give up the journey just because you stumble along the way….

Get back to routine

Hmm. Just to confuse things, the post with yesterdays (Wednesday’s) date on it was actually written on Tuesday and referred to Tuesday.

So on Tuesday, I did no exercise and had a very fattening dinner.

Wednesday, I did manage to get my exercise routine done, but had a large lunch, with a totally unnecessary pudding and then a curry in the evening.

Now, my philosophy is that I should eat “proper” food and cut out crap when I am at home, but that when I am “out” I can eat “normally”. When I say out, I don’t mean just out on the town, as an excuse to pork down burgers, kebabs and KFC, I mean going to other people’s houses for meals or joining groups of friends for “proper” meals out. This is partly because I love eating, but also because it’s bloody irritating having people coming to your hou7se who are on faddy diets. It’s bad enough with people who have food intolerances – and where the heck did they come from, hardly anyone had food intolerances 30 years ago – but at least you can sympathise with them. People just “on diets”, on the other hand, make it very difficult to be a good host.

So anyway, as far as eating was concerned Tuesday and Wednesday were not good, and Tuesday was a bust as far as exercise was concerned – but I was at a Show all day Wednesday in 35º in a dark suit, so I probably sweated off a fair amount…

Last night I had a very late night, so I made a conscious decision to lie in a bit this morning, but I will, says he, get my exercises done this evening, you see if I don’t…

Oh dear! Had a bad day today. Could I get out of bed this morning? Could I hell as like?

I really don’t understand what my problem is. I lay in bed listening to the alarm going off every 10 minutes – curse you, snooze button! – and I just felt like shit. Not sick, but definitely not well. My limbs felt heavy and ache-y and I just felt as if getting up was going to be a really unpleasant experience. How much easier it was to just carry on lying there…

I have never really analysed this before, but it is quite weird, as I am sure that most of it is psychosomatic.

So having failed to get up, I failed to do my morning routine; I then decided I would do it in the evening. However, I have a meeting with my boss at 6.00pm and dinner with him at 8.00 pm.

No probs, I thought, I will meet at 6, be done y 6.45 and have plenty of time to exercise and be done by 7.45.

So, of course he was 45 minutes late. Hence, no exercise followed by very calorific, boozy dinner.

As said before I have nothing against calorific, boozy dinners. These are part of what life is about and why life without them is not really worth living…

Dinner good – no exercise baaaaaad!

Must try harder 7/10

Progress!

Weighed myself this morning. 15st 8lbs. That might not seem much of a difference, but if I can lose 2lbs per week, I will be perfectly happy with that. I hear tell that weight that is lost quickly gets put back on quickly, too, so loosing it slowly is maybe not a bad idea.

Actually, I am not really bothered about weight itself. I don’t really care how much I weigh – it’s how it looks that bothers me. Muscle weighs more than fat, so they say, so I’m not really bothered what weight I get down to as long as I trim up a bit.

I’m sort of vaguely getting use to the idea that whatever I do, it’s going to have to be a permanent lifestyle change. There’s no point in doing some weird fad for a few weeks and blasting off a few pounds, only to put it straight back on again when I go back to “normal” living.

What I need to do is find a lifestyle that allows me to lose weight and trim up, and then stay that way. So I need an exercise routine that I can commit to following permanently and a change of diet likewise. Fortunately, I am not particularly attached to sweet or fatty foods, so eating healthily is only a question of foregoing the convenience of junk food. I actually quite like the tastes.

I was talking to a friend over the weekend who is also trying to loose weight, and he is on a crash course of one of these meal replacement diets and is eating nothing but these shakes and soups four times a day. Well, quite frankly, I’d rather be fat.

I am not counting calories. I am just replacing junk with “healthy” alternatives. I told him that one of my favourite snacks was garden peas, fresh from the pod. “Oooo,” says he, “you can’t eat peas, they’re full of sugar.” Well, ok, yes they might be – but I hope that they are still a better idea than a packet of crisps of a piece of toast.

If I am wrong, then this crusade is doomed before it starts. I am prepared to change to healthy foods and a reasonable exercise regime – I am not prepared to sacrifice the enjoyment of today for the possibility of an extra 10 years at the end of my life. I don’t want to end up lying under a number 9 bus thinking “Bloody hell, I wish I’d had those garden peas after all…” Life is too short, and there’s absolutely no guarantee that you will live long enough to live longer, if you know what I mean…

Why is it that I just can’t get out of bed in the mornings? I mean, I just hate it. Even if I have one of my infrequent lie-ins and get loads of sleep, I still don’t like getting out of bed. I never want to get out of bed. Ever.

That said, I did get out of bed this morning and do my routine, but it was a struggle - and at least half an hour later than it was supposed to be.

And then some of the nectarines that I was planning to vaporise for my breakfast smoothie turned out to be going manky. Ick! However, I still managed to find a nectarine, a peach, a banana, some raspberries and some blueberries, so smoothiedom-ness was achieved.

However, I have to admit that feel fairly vibrant now. ‘Trouble is, even though I know it will make me feel better, my in-bed-self still doesn’t want to play. I sometimes think that my-in-bed self is an evil alter ego that manages to infiltrate my body when my mind is asleep. Many times when I need to get up for something – be it some thing important or something trivial, my in-bed-self turns off the alarm clock and sends me back to sleep.

Sometimes, especially when it is important, my in-bed-self takes advantage of my sleepy normal persona and starts very persuasive arguments why it’s not really necessary to get up at the time set on the clock. Half an hour later, when normal-persona finally takes control, it almost invariably reveals in-bed-self for the evil lying bastard that he is, and frenzied panic ensues to try to make up for the lost half-hour – which was, of course, necessary all along. Curse you, evil –in-bed-self persona!

I’m off to not one but two funerals today, and then I’m off for the weekend, so won’t be posting here ‘til Monday. Normal exercise regime and diet will be out of the window for the w/e, but plenty of exercise will be taken, including a fair amount of riding.

There will also be some fermented – and even, possibly, distilled – vegetable drinks partaken of, but only in moderation, of course…

Better day today. Did workout last night - although I suspect that the melted butter that I had on my globe artichoke afterwards probably was not very good for me. However, I just want to get into better shape, not kill off all of the pleasure in my life, so I'll let that one slide.

Have you ever tried globe artichokes? They are good.

Managed to get up ok this morning and did 30 minutes on the cross-trainer and 50 of each (4) type of crunches. Go me. Ok, I know it may not seem a lot to the fit folks out there, but it's a start. The plan is to do this twice a day, but it's taking some getting into. I know now that it's just not going to work every day, because of my lifestyle, but if I aim for two a day, then hopefully I should get at least one.

This evening, for example, I had some visits to make connected with a funeral that I'm going to tomorrow. Bummer. I seem to be going to a lot of funerals just lately. Goes to show the point - you just don't know how long you have got, so make the most of your time. As a great friend often says "this is real life, it's not a rehearsal".

This is part of the reason why I am not going crazy on this fitness kick -he other part of the reason is, admittedly, sheer bloody idleness. However, it is a valid point that I just want to improve my lifestyle so that there is still plenty of enjoyment out there, not regiment it into a torture camp.

I once read that there is no point in walking sedately into your grave in a perfectly preserved body with lots of money in the bank. Rather you should skid sideways into the grave, completely skint, in a worn out body, shouting "Woo hoo! What a ride!!!"

There is a happy medium there, but it's a valid point none the less.

I woke up this morning with a stiff neck. This could have something to do with the exercise - particularly the crunches - however, I have done these before without similar problems, so I suspect that it is just a co-incidence.

Diet hasn’t been too bad today. Now, when I say that, however, I’m not actually “on a diet”. I have however, thoroughly moderated my eating patterns. I’ll write it up at some point in due course, but essentially, I am eating a lot of fruit and vegetables and not a lot of anything else.

I am not a vegetarian, by any stretch of the imagination. I love meat (and I had a couple of slices of lean ham this evening, for example.) I just find that cooking meat and two veg is too much hassle. If I am going out, I eat normally, but if I’m at home, I eat salads and fruit.

The salads are probably not exactly the most healthy possible, because I whack things like olives and sun-dried tomatoes and pine nuts into them, but I figure they must still be “healthier” a lot of other junk that one might eat. One day, if I happen to trap a passing nutritionist, I will attempt to find out …

Oh, crap! Not a good start to my new "campaign to a new you" regime. Instead of getting up at seven to do my exercise regime, I overslept and woke at nine thirty. Gah!

Alas, I am not a morning person. I hate getting out of bed, and I find it all too easy to ignore the alarm.

Must do better...

So here we are. This is my first ever attempt at a blog.

What is it about? Well, it's called "Middle Age Dread" because as a 41 year old male who is, as far as he is aware, pretty healthy I have come to the realisation that I need to be more responsible if I want to stay that way. I am, I would guess, already over the crest of the hill in lifeline terms, so I need to get a grip now and try to make sure that I don't fall apart completely.

My middle aged dread is of imminent middle aged spread.

So, something about me. I am 6'1" tall and I weigh 15st 10lbs . That is wayyy to much - an came as a big shock to me when I jumped on my newly acquired scales. I thought I was a whole stone lighter than that!!!

Oddly enough, however, I carry it relatively well. I have something of a pot belly (which I can still pull in) and my man-breasts seem to outstretch Jordan's in my eyes, but I am told by those whose word I trust that I don't look that fat.

Alas, I fear that "not that fat" is not quite as complimentary as I usually kid myself that it is.

Incidentally, I should point out at this point that you're going to have to take my word for this, because there aint not going to be no pictures on this blog - or at least not of me.... Anonymous is the name of the game. This is here for me to record my progress - if anyone ever looks at it, and I can't imagine for a moment why they would, then they will have to rely on the beauty of my prose, I'm afraid.

Unless, of course, I lose shedloads of weight, become super-fit and launch a new career as a fitness guru and millionaire fitness guide author - in which case when the current me is nothing but a memory, then I shall revel in the publicity of its demise. Until then, let caution be my watchword.

I lead a relatively active lifestyle - ish, I suppose. I ride horses a fair bit, and I walk the dog. I do however, sit on my butt in the office a lot, too.

I am single and live on my own. I cook relatively well for company, but can't be bothered to cook for myself.

I used to smoke 20+ a day until the beginning of this year (although I was a late starter, and probably only smoked that much for a couple of years, and didn't smoke at all until the new millenium).

That'll do for a first post. Let's see how it goes...