yet more weight stuff

I know, yet more on the weight thing - I'm beginning to become a bit of a scratched record, huh?

Well, the thing I wanted to mention mainly was that I think my main problem is going to be time. See, I've basically come to the conclusion that exercise is going to be the real key.

Or more specifically, I need to walk myself thin. The change to the diet thing of not including bread has proven to be a real pain in the arse. I think I need to take a more level-headed approach.

After all, when I started looking at the calories, my discovery was actually that I was basically taking in the recommended 2,500 calories a day (well, maybe a little more or a little less, depending on the day), where I had thought I was taking in a lot less. The main reason for this was because I was eating an entire home-made loaf a day.

In other words, if I just stop being a fussy bugger and have that loaf across 2 days, even though on the second day it will be a little dry, then that essentially drops me below the 2,500 calories (although I will have to be careful what I put in said sarnis). I can still have "loaf replacement" in the evening, but it avoids the real hassle I've been giving myself of having to prep said meal replacement in the morning. That has the added value of freeing up a bit more time in the morning, so I can walk a bit further.

Also, my other thing is to be more careful as to what I eat at weekends. I wasn't really being very strict with myself at weekends, but if I'm more sensible then that shouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, the point is that the pedometer has shown me (a bit like the scales) that the situation wasn't as bad as I'd feared, but there's a long way to go. Roughly speaking, I need to double the amount of walking I'm currently doing to make any sort of inroads. And really that's just to get me onto a normal amount - I then need to build up even more.

Which isn't to say I'm doing a lot at the moment, although I reckon I have already doubled what I used to do. Currently, I'm getting straight up when my alarm goes off and going for a quick 15 minute walk. I'm hoping to bump that up to maybe half an hour eventually, but for now I think it's an okay amount.

It then turns out that on some days of the week, when I have stuff to do at lunch, I already do a reasonable number of steps. The problem, however, is that most days I don't have anything to do, so I don't do very many steps at all. My current thought is that I can simply do a quick walk around the car park at the start of lunch and that will bump the steps up a bit.

Again, we're not talking about a huge distance or a long time walking, but the whole point is that it all adds up. So I can also maybe do the long walk around the car park thing again when I'm going home - again, only a couple of minutes, but every little helps.

The key though is going to be doing something in the evening, after work. My initial thought is to repeat my short, 15 minutes walk as soon as I get back.

But, as mentioned, the problem is going to be time. If I'm spending 15 minutes walking, then you can add on a good 10 minutes of faff (changing clothes, catching my breath, etc) as well, and I've already got massive backlogs of stuff to do - magazines to scan, DVDs and TV to watch, games to play, books and manga to read...

I guess the point is that doing those things instead of stuff that involves physical exercise is a big part of what got me into this mess in the first place.