up, not down

Unfortunately, blogger seems to have broken yesterday, which means I'm posting this very late, but also seems to have eaten my post yesterday.

It was basically about how I'm getting rid of the hosting for my websites and transferring my domains to a new registrar. I'll eventually resurect trismugistus.com at the least, but not for a while. It also mentioned how I'm going to be getting landline broadband as the cable I piggy-back has been really flakey lately. Actuyally, it was mostly saying about all the arse-painery these have either caused or been done in order to solve.

Anyway, on with today's scheduled post.

Dieting and exercise did not go well over my holiday.

In fact, they went so badly I came out of the holiday with a weigh in that was four pounds up on what it was when I went in.

This wasn't a surprising result, given the diet and walking problems, but it was disappointing. Last time I had an equivalent period of holiday was back in September, and I did loads of walking and only really let myself down by eating loads of junk food.

The difference was, in that previous holiday I was staying in a hotel (well, a travelodge job) so I had a much better control over what I did and was focused on doing the walks with fewer distractions. This holiday I was at home and so there was access to a myriad of distractions.

Of course I also ad my birthday in there, when I really let my hair down, so that was the most significant dietary slip. In that sense it wasn't as bad as when I pigged out on junk food last time, but then because I was doing far less walking, it clearly had a bigger impact.

I also found doing all that walking around where I live less enjoyable. Obviously I go for big walks at the weekend normally, but doing similar big walks every day got a bit boring. I think I should have driven to some other places and walked there, but then I was only just saying the other day how I didn't have enough time to do all the stuff I'd planned to - working out some different walks and driving to them and back would only have meant they would take longer.

I was also slightly hampered in that I bought some new walking shoes. These are actually a lot sturdier and therefore heavier than my last pair (which, presumably explains why the last pair started to fall apart in 6 months) and that's actually made walking the same distances a lot harder work. But then I guess that's good in a way.

But yeah, generally not good results for last week. And that's generally been my feeling about this period of weight loss since Christmas - it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere near as smoothly as it did last year. I think my desire flagged a bit and there were a lot more things getting in the way over this period. Maybe summer will bring better fortune?

The raw stats don't really back up my feeling, though. According to my spreadsheet, my net loss was a total of 28 pounds, or 2 stone, which is a good loss. It was a shorter period than last year, when I lost 35 pounds.

But then stats can lie - when I look at the numbers, the weird bump up and rapid fall away at Christmas effectively means it should be more like 42 pounds lost last year and 21 pounds lost this year - so 1 and a half stone.

Or another fact is that I've had two bits where I've actually gained weight this year and these add up to 7 pounds, so if I'd lost those then I'd have had a 35 pound loss across the period.

So I think my disappointment is justified. Don't get me wrong, I'm very pleased that I've lost a total of 63 pounds (or 4.5 stone) but I think I need to really take my diet and exercise seriously again if I'm not to loose heart. However, my next target is even more modest than my last one, in that I'd like to loose a further 1.5 stone by the lat August Bank Holiday.

The reason I've set this specific target is that 6 stone represents about half the total weight I need to loose and I actually kicked off my weight loss in August of last year. Also, I'm hoping that by setting a more sensible target if I'm able to beat it that can only be a good thing.