a little more... or less, as it were

I weighed in at 20 stone 8 pounds at the weekend, which is another 2 pound loss.

I was a bit surprised by this - it was an okay week, but nothing special.  I did hit my target for walking, but didn't really exceed it, and in terms of eating there were a few extra bits I ate that were a bit naughty.  I therefore figured I'd stay about the same, so a 2 pound loss is good.

I'm not really getting my hopes up, so at minimum if I can lose another pound and keep it off then I will still fit into all my new clothes for the holiday.  I guess if I was to get close to 20 stone that would be the "hopes up" version, but as I say I'm not really thinking that will actually happen.

I've also decided I will not do any walking in the week before we go - well, obviously other than to move about to places I need to be!  But I mean I won't go on any specific walks.  My intention is to try to rest my foot a bit.

However, and trying not to tempt fate, I've actually been doing okay with the foot.  I don't know if it's simply easing naturally or it's a coincidence, but I've been doing some stretching exercises recently and things got better after that.  The specific exercise that seems to have helped is actually one that stretches my Achilles tendon and back of my leg.  It involves leaning into a wall and stretching each leg.

The exercise is recommended on the NHS website, so it's not quackery and it's a stretch you see runner's doing.  The point they made is that the plantar fasciitis thing can actually be made worse because of tight Achilles tendons, which makes sense as it would obviously be making the plantar thing taught.

As I say, I don't want to count any unhatched chickens, and it's still not fixed in the sense that I still get discomfort, but it's not the horrible pain that made it difficult to walk I was having a couple of weeks ago.

that's a bit more like it

I'd lost 4 pounds at this week's weigh in.

I therefore now weigh 20 stone 10 pounds, which is good.  If I can keep on the right track I should at least be safe in terms of the new clothes I've ordered for Canada.

I've got all the clothes I've ordered so far and have only had one failure in terms of fitting, which are some boxer shorts.  I will admit I'm a bit finicky when it comes to the fit of boxers, as I prefer them to be loose (that's the reason I switched from Y-fronts, after all).  However, the terminology used to describe boxers often doesn't help with understanding the fit.

So these I ordered turned out to be tailored for a tighter fit, but even bearing that in mind they were too tight and I would have had to send them back anyway.

I've not ordered all I need, but I wanted to try some stuff on before ordering more.  Sizes can get a bit tricky when you're in the super-large category, as what one company means by 4XL doesn't necessarily tie up with what another company means, as the boxers show.

Anyway, I wasn't entirely surprised at the loss - the last couple of weekends I think the numbers were a bit inflated by circumstance (retaining fluids from drinking and some sluggish-ness in my digestion.  This isn't to say I hadn't put on weight, but I think perhaps I hadn't put on quite as much as the numbers suggested.

That's not entirely unusual - everyone's weight fluctuates naturally, though for normal size people the fluctuations probably wouldn't show up on a regular scales.

I've scaled my expectations down and am now basically hoping I can get below 20 stone 7 pounds before the holiday.  Any more is a bonus.

I should note that I've done something to my foot that is causing me some problems.  I've done a classic bit of self-diagnosis and all the symptoms line up with something called Plantar Fasciitis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantar_fasciitis).  This basically means I've damaged the big mass of connective tissue that runs along the bottom of your foot (it acts like a sort of cushion/spring).

Of course the only real treatment is to rest... which is hardly an option right now and will be impossible in Canada :/.

up - not down?

So I weighed in on Sunday morning and I'd gained a pound.  My weight is now 20 stone 13 pounds.

I really couldn't make head nor tail of this.

I mean, don't get me wrong - it wasn't the perfect week by any stretch, but I at least figured I would come out neutral at worst.  Gaining a pound seems bizarre.

In terms of walking I actually did more steps than my targets.  And this is with my newer upwardly revised targets of 7,500 steps on Tuesday - Thursday.

Eating wise I was pretty good all week, though things went a little pear shaped on Friday.  Obviously, we went down the pub as I mentioned and had carvery (we always have carvery nowadays - the boss is not an experimental eater and assumes we're all fine with having the same thing over-and-over, but also it's relatively cheap).  However, that evening I also had packaged sandwiches, crisps and 4 small éclairs bought from Tesco.

I usually shop on Friday evening, but on this occasion it was after a 12 hour day where I'd not slept particularly well the previous 2 evening.  Usually, lack of sleep seems to "help" the weight (you obviously burning more energy in "wake" mode) but I don't think it did this time, so Friday was a bad day, but I honestly didn't think it was so bad I would put on weight.

There are a couple of excuses I could give.

Saturday I seemed to be a bit constipated (Friday's food was obviously quite rich) and on Sunday had (not wanting to get too biological) some large bowel movements after I'd weighed myself.

I also didn't go for a walk on Sunday.  There were several reasons for this - I had to go in to work to finish off and wanted to do it early.  But also, when I was finishing at work someone came in to do the cleaning and I thought best to leave, rather than go for a walk then.

However, I was also swayed as I have been having a bit of trouble with my ankle, as it's been a bit uncomfortable when I've been walking just recently.  I suspect I might have strained it a bit last week - I need some new walking shoes more urgently than I thought as the souls are worn smooth and it's been quite icy on a few mornings recently so I've been slipping.

Lastly, the scale doesn't give detail beyond pounds.  I could easily have been 12.4 pounds last week (round down to 12) and 12.6 this week (round up to 13), which would appear like a more significant gain than it really was.

However, these are all excuses - I mean, I could have been 11.6 last week (round up to 12) and 13.4 this week (round down to 13), for example - so I'll just have to see if it helps me stick more closely at it this week.

the end cometh

Apparently it's going to warm up a bit this weekend.

I've also seen forecasts for rain.  The double combo of warmer weather and rain should be the death knell for all the snow.

This particular bout of snow has been particularly frustrating.  It arrived during the day, which gave me that horrible journey back and also meant I didn't really get a proper "snow day".  It was also a Friday and it then didn't snow very much across the weekend, so by the Monday it was drivable and I had to go to work.

Then, this last Tuesday we had a bit of a mini blizzard towards the end of the day.  The snow didn't really settle as such (about 2cm maybe) but it made driving conditions horrendous.  The problem was that there was just enough snow settled on the ground so that I couldn't see the markings.  It was also dark, so I couldn't go on general vision, but instead what I could see with my lights.

All that meant I was staring quite intently down at the road in front (usually you look into the distance to see where you're going and looking for any hazards, etc).  However, because the snow was really coming down it seemed like it was all blasting straight towards me.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't very windy, so it was just the effect of me driving towards it and the lights illuminating it that gave that effect.

The combination of staring down and stuff rushing onwards me was actually very disorientating and made me feel a bit sick.  Not to the extent of throwing up or anything, but I felt a bit dizzy and really tired at the end of the journey.

I've also been getting up a bit earlier (which translates to "stupidly early" for normal people) because I didn't want to travel in traffic and obviously knew I had to scrape the car, etc.  Now if it had properly snowed here at the right time I'd actually have been having some nice lie ins.  Tbh, what it's actually done has mainly disrupted the normal stuff, rather than work.

So I've a huge pile of washing to do because I've only been to the laundrette on foot and could only carry one bag.  I've also not been shopping in a while so have run out of stuff.  And I'm almost out of petrol because I haven't wanted to do too many journeys and also have had to have the engine on at lunch to keep warm.

It's also played havoc with my walking - I've only done a handful of walks early in the morning and have been woefully short of my step targets since last Thursday.  Add in that, as I say, I've not really been shopping so have been relying more heavily on tins and things like that and I'm fully expecting to have gained weight when I weigh in this weekend.  Which is particularly annoying as I should be shedding my Christmas pounds.

So, long story short, I'm very much hoping they're right that the weather is on the turn and I can get back to a bit or normalcy!

rather damp

I'm back off of holiday.

And I have a bit of a case of post-holiday blues if I'm honest.  I think it's particularly affected by the work related situation (looking for a job, getting an offer, turning it down, expecting things to improve) this year.

The holiday was gone in a flash.

It rained quite a bit and if the rain had been accompanied by thunder and lightning that would have been an even more cool statement, but it was mostly just regular rain and lots of it.

It wasn't quite as bad as up north.  The forecasts had been very bad before the week and I think the rain they got was basically predicted to also badly hit the south West.  Well it got it on the Sunday when I drove down, but then Monday it was actually rather bright.

Indeed, although it was wetter than was ideal compared to what the forecasts had said it wasn't actually all that bad.  It was only really Wednesday where it poxed things up - I'd planned a beach walk day and it rained almost constantly so I couldn't really do that.

Generally I did lots of walking.  For the first couple of days I was also very good with diet as I was expecting that when I went to my Dad's at the end of the week I'd end up eating badly, and this was the case, so I think overall it's all sort of balanced out.

However what was very clear to me is how much fitter I am.  The walks I did were generally a breeze and they were of a similar length to last year when I found them much more challenging. Indeed I did further walks more often and felt fine.

I've not much else to say - I didn't take any pictures with the weather.  I also tried a new route home, which was a lot more fun to drive, but was also therefore more tiring as it required a lot more concentration.

disappointed

I was rather disappointed with my weigh in this last Sunday.

I thought I'd done quite well during the week with only a few relatively small slips.  However, I'd only lost a pound, which was quite disappointing.  Particularly since my weight has been see-sawing around without any real gain or loss for a good few months now.

Having said that, when I think back at the week I can see that the small slips I'd felt I'd made were actually probably much bigger than I'd really thought.  I ate a few too many sweet things and it all adds up.  Also I'd really struggled with the walking.

Well, I'd actually really struggled with sleeping, having had a night where I'd basically been unable to get to sleep at all and with this then being followed up by a night where I'd woken up incredibly early.  Usually when I have a bad night the next night I sleep like I'm in coma, but this time I woke up at 4:30AM, a good two hours before I usually get up.

And this waking up early pattern suddenly seems to have become something of a norm - with the exception of Sunday I've been wide awake at least an hour before my alarm was due.  I've actually started to suspect that something is going on, like someone is getting up early for wake and making a noise that wakes me up, but I've no real evidence for that and besides, I usually sleep with earplugs in.

Anyway, the point is that the lack of sleep left me very tired and therefore in no real mood to do much walking during the week.  Now usually there's a compensation when I'm suffering from insomnia in that I burn a lot of calories when I'm awake lots of hours like that, but in this case I'm not sure it's quite worked like that.

It was all rather disappointing, as I say.

In fact, I got rather depressed about it all on Sunday and ended up buying some actual proper chocolate bars when my walk took me past Sainsbury's and scarfing them.  I felt bad... but also good.

What's been particularly frustrating over the last few months is that I've not been losing weight.  I still do lots of walking and it's not like I'm eating loads of bad stuff like I used to, but I don't seem to lose weight.

I mean, don't get me wrong - I know bad bits I'm eating and the walking are cancelling each other out, but the depressing part of it is that it's not loads of naughty eating, it's just a bit.  It's like I can't even have a bit of fun.

ruined shoes?

One of the things I was going to blog about last week but didn't was the weather and walking.

On the bank holiday weekend we got some horrible weather on the Saturday afternoon.  I'd seen the forecasts, but they were quite vague and the weather in the morning was okay.  As I mentioned I worked very late on the Friday so I ended up quite delayed on the Saturday and it was a bit later in the afternoon before I went for my walk.

I had to go down to Sainsbury's to pick up some bits and as I was walking down it was still okay, though you could see the clouds building for a bit of a storm.  Well, as I got to Sainsbury's (it's about two miles away) the heavens opened and I got a bit wet but then headed inside and bought the bits I needed.

When I came out it was still pretty heavy, but I hung around and waited for it to dry up.  There was then a bit of a break and so I thought I would give it a go at getting back.  My route was also quite tree-lined so I was hoping I'd stay fairly sheltered.

Well the first thing was that when the rain came back it was a full-on thunderstorm.  I'm not fundamentally afraid of thunderstorms like some are, but I get a bit nervous when I'm out in one.  Not from a point of view of being hit by lightning, but if it hits a tree or something nearby.  So my route being tree-lined made me quite nervous, especially since my plan to try to avoid getting wet was to shelter under trees.

Now initially the rain wasn't too bad - I've walked in worse and not been fussed.  However, it wasn't long before it was absolutely hammering it down.  I mean, it was monsoon-like stuff with gobbets of rain hammering down.  It was that level of rain where even if you stand under a tree it offers no protection at all as the rain just blasts through.

This step up happened about half-way home and initially I tried to shelter, but it quickly became obvious that I was getting just as wet as if I was still moving.  I therefore set off home and got extremely wet.

I was oddly reminiscent of last year, actually, when I also got stuck in a thunderstorm and got soaked.  At that time I bought a cheap poncho with the idea of carrying it with me if rain was threatened, but obviously I'd left it at home.

I also doubt if it would have sorted the real issue I had and that was that my relatively new walking shoes filled up with water.  The real problem here is that the shoes are too big and I have to wear an extra pair of walking socks (weirdly my shoe size seems to have shrunk with the weight I've lost - I think it may be due to my feet being less wide due to a smaller load being pushed down on them: they're certainly not shorter.  However, I think this means there was a route for the water to seep in having run down my legs.

That might seem extreme, but as I say it was a hell of a lot of rain that fell - it was streaming down me and every single part of me was soaked.

Now these shoes are Gore-Tex, which is kinda waterproof, and they obviously have a rubber soul, and these two things meant that the boots actually ended up acting like buckets - I could feel water squishing about in them and when I took them off they were full of water on top of my socks being wringing wet.

I was so wet it took tree full days for everything to dry out having hung it up with the dehumidifier going fairly constantly.

I was therefore rather worried that I might have destroyed this almost new and very expensive boots, but I tried them out this weekend and they seem totally fine.  I guess because I dried them out thoroughly they're okay.

burn, burn, burn

So this last weekend I had a few things on my to do list, one of which was burning and ripping some audio books.

I listen to audio books when I'm walking.  I find music difficult to walk to as you naturally want to fall in to step with it and of course each song has its own tempo.  Well, unless you listen to dance music I guess, as loads of songs are at exactly the same tempo.

I use audible, which is owned by amazon.  It's all done digitally - you download the audio books and they have their own player thing.  Their player is actually terrible, but I don't generally use it.

What I generally do is burn them to CD (I've discussed this before - you're only allowed to burn them once) and then rip the CD and stick those on a tiny MP3 player I have (a Sanso clip).  Ripping the CD means I have to deal with iplayer, since audible uses its own proprietary format.  It's a necessary evil and generally seems to work okay.

Anyway, the to do list only featured ripping and burning as one of the things I had planned.  It was a grand prix weekend, and one of the ones the beeb was showing in full, so that would obviously take up a big chunk of time, but I hadn't expected that doing the audio books would take quite as long as it did.

The problem was I'd stacked up more audio books that usual and also the books I'd purchased were mostly quite long.  So while burning each Cd only takes about 5-10 minutes, when you're doing 30 of the things you're talking 2.5 hours at the minimum.

Ripping the things is quicker, but it comes with a kind of admin burden.  The reason for this is I just use windows media player to do it and it doesn't really recognise the tracks.  That means you have to go through and re-name everything.

I don't do this to the extent I could - I just rename the files and folders, rather than editing the Meta data, but still, it's horribly tedious.  And it's horribly tedious on top of the whole ripping process, which is tedious too.

There are associated tasks too, like downloading the audio books, backing the files up, putting them on the MP3 player, etc, so all told I'd say I spent a total of around 7 hours doing all the stuff that I needed to just to rip the audio books.

When you consider that the total time for the Grand Prix adds up to 6 hours (1.5 + 1.5 + 1 + 2) it's not really surprising I didn't get much else done at the weekend!

two down, ten to go

So the second week on my contracting job has finished.

It was a bit better this week in some ways.  I got a better idea of what I'm meant to be doing, but it's not really my cup of tea.  I mean, it's interesting, but not really the sort of work I'd have brought me in for.

Part of the problem is I'm meant to be doing two projects, but one of them has basically evaporated.  In a way that's good as I don't know that what I've been given to do would really fit into the time unless I was able to work on it full time.

The commute is going to be a bit of a drag.  It's turning out to be just under an hour, but only if I do two things: set off before seven and push it on the A3.

This clearly has two issues - it means I have to get up at 6AM and it's costing me in fuel economy.  The first isn't too bad, as I'm a bit of an early riser, although I have to say 6AM is probably my breaking point.  6:30AM I've been doing for years, but 6AM has a bit too much of an impact on when I have to go to bed (I have to get 8 hours every night or I feel cranky all day).

Since it's only 3 months, I can probably cope with the time, but the fuel economy is more of a bugger.  See, the real issue is that the cost of petrol is so high and my company's fuel allowance is pretty crap.  That means I'm not really making much over and above what I'm spending.  Now, that's okay in the sense that at least I'm not out of pocket, except of course that the increased mileage means increased wear on tyres, more frequent services, etc, etc.  And those things are pretty expensive.

Again, 3 months will be okay, but I really wouldn't want to do this long term.

Well, I say that, as there are other options.

Firstly, I could not push it and just arrive when I arrive.  That means the journey will take a long time if I still set off early, because I'll start to hit traffic relating to kids going to school.

The other option is to go in later.  They work flexi where I'm contracting, and at the moment I'm going to work early so I can come home early.  I could alternatively try to go in later and come back later.

I'm not really sure about this, as I am a 'lark', rather than an 'owl' and my body clock is really locked in to doing early, rather than later.

Also, there are going to be days when I have early meetings, etc, anyway.

Part of me is still hopeful that I'll have a bit of a gain of time in the evenings, though.  Because I can do flexi, I can take short lunches and stuff, so once I'm properly used to it I will hopefully have a few extra hours in the evenings across the week.

My weight basically didn't change this week.  To some extent that was because I found work less stressful, I think, but also I had a poor week diet wise anyway, and then my landlord came back from holiday and gave me a gift of chocolates to say thanks for house-sitting... and I ate the lot in a few days :/

I think if I can avoid slipping up too badly with normal diet stuff then I should get back to weight loss next week.  The idea of going for a walk after work is an okay one.  It doesn't work quite as well as my former walking regime and I think it might be a case of picking days to do it on.  For example, some evenings I can get petrol or shopping or whatever and the other I can come back and go for a walk.

first week

So, my first weekend blog post.

My original plan was I would actually post on both Saturday and Sunday, but to be honest I pretty much forgot to do one yesterday.

Anyway, what have I been up to?

Well, obviously I started my new contracting job this week.  That doesn’t mean I lost my job or anything, but it does mean I’ve been working at a different location.  The best way to think about it is the (much maligned) consultants.  I mean, I’m not a consultant, but it’s the thing people know that’s similar.

The job was... okay.

When I did the interview there was lots of talk of the type of work that I enjoy.  I won’t really talk about the detail, but it was to be quite technical and number-crunchy - that sort of thing.

However, it’s become apparent that this part of the work has kinda ‘cooled’ a bit.  I’ve not had specific confirmation that it’s no longer needed, but there’s been some strong hints that the looming deadlines aren’t really that looming any more.

Now the last time this happened to me it was with the same group and what happened on that occasion was that I ended up playing about with something that didn’t really need doing.  In essence they had to make up something for me to do, and it was very apparent.

While I sort of enjoyed doing what I was doing it wasn’t really productive, so I felt a bit rubbish about it.  When I’m doing contracting I like to be working on something properly so that it feels like I’m giving value for money.

This time there’s not the same problem.  There were actually two projects that needed input and the second one hasn’t dried up.  It therefore doesn’t feel like I’m thumb-twiddling, so that’s good.

What’s not so good is that the work I’m doing really doesn’t play to my strengths at all.  In essences I’m having to do lots of phoning around and trying to get things from people.  This is the sort of thing I really don’t like.

What makes it worse is that I’m not really 100% sure what it is I’m asking for.  Again, I won’t give specifics, but there are two basic issues.  Firstly, I don’t really know much about what this group does and so I’ve been given a very steep learning curve.  Secondly, I’ve not had the clearest instruction and have basically been dropped in the deep end - I’m coming in after some work has been done, but not much, and I’ve also not yet gotten access to the background.

As such, I’m kinda calling people up going “Any chance I can have some x?” and they’re going “maybe - what sort of x do you need?  how much and what, specifically about?” and unfortunately my reply has tended to be “er... I’m not sure.”

Hopefully I should get better access to the background next week and find my feet more.

What also hasn’t helped is that I’ve had to do loads of “training” and induction stuff.  It’s good that it was all set up and ready to go (last time I worked there it was days before I even got a computer) but it  means it’s all been a massive info dump.  I’m also having to hot desk, which is rubbish.

The commute has also turned out to be a bit longer than expected.  Well, I can do it in the anticipated hour if I set off at seven, but if I set off much later than that, then it takes about an hour and a quarter.  That means I’m getting up at six.

The up side to it is that I should therefore be able to go home at four, but I’ve not really been able to take advantage of that yet.  This also means I struggled to do my idea of going for a short walk after work each day.  Although saying that I lost four pounds this week, but I think that could be due to diet re-adjustment and stress and lack of sleep and stuff, rather than effective diet and exercise activities.

Although to be fair I think part of this is because my landlord has been away, so I’ve been having to fart about sorting the lights out and stuff.

Well, until next week, I guess.

porky time

Well, this is the last blog of the week and I’m also pretty sure it’s going to be the last daily weekday blog for a while.

As mentioned before chrimbo I’m starting on contract and it will be impossible to update the blog at work from now on.  Since I’m probably not going to be keen to then spend time in the evening doing it (I’m pushed to do much more than watch TV) this will therefore become a weekend blog.

Quite how that will work I’m not sure, but I’ll see what I feel like.

The last thing I did want to mention was my dietary progress over the holiday.  Or rather the exact opposite.

Before the holiday I weighed in at 18 stone 10 pounds. When I weighed myself this last weekend I weighed 19 stone 4 pounds.  That’s a gain of 8 pounds, or just a smidge over half a stone.

I did actually gain  little more than that, as I weighed myself during the holiday and weighed 19 stone 6 pounds, but I actually had the same phenomenon that I had last year where I ate a lot and then it took a while for my digestive system to... “catch up” if you will.

Indeed, this year I actually had a few occasions where I had serous gut pain during the night.  It was the same as the pain I’ve had before when I've seriously over eaten.

Part of the problem is that I went a bit nuts before Chrimbo buying stuff “because I was going to treat myself” over the holiday.  But then my dad also loaded me up with loads of food to take back with me that he’d bought.  Quit why he’d bought so much when he knew we were both only going to be there for a little while I don’t know.

And yes, some of it I could have been sensible and left in the freezer or not opened, but then I’d have been faced with weird meals where you’re only having half of what you expect (so bangers and mash without the bangers, because they’ve been put in the freezer :/) and also after the holiday way over, what then?

Would I have to drip feed ‘bad stuff’ in?  Throw it away?  Or what?

So I essentially forced myself in to a situation of having to eat a lot.

I did still keep walking and did some good walks, although it wasn’t really part of the holiday plan to do walking like I do in autumn or whatever.  However, I think those helped me keep things in check a bit.

Anyway, I’ve now pretty much finished it all off, so it’ll be back to bread and water and lettuce next week.

Also, I think I've come up with a bit of a plan for what to do in terms of walking when I’m on contract.  Basically my problem is that it will be an hour commute each way, but I will have the advantage of working flexi time.  As such, my plan is that I will only take a minimal lunch and then I’ll do a single, reasonable length walk when I get back (literally when I arrive home I'll go for a walk).

Before I was doing three short-sharp walks in and around the estate where my offices are (when I got to work (I’m always super early), at lunch and then straight after work, before I got in my car).  I’m hoping these should be equivalent - especially since the walk I have in mind will involve some steep inclines, making it harder work.

it's actually back this time

Total Wipeout appears to be properly back this time.

It also appears to have started in a "Winter Wipeout" format.  Whether this is a temporary Christmas thing or the whole series will be Winter Wipeout I'm not sure.

It was again very quiet in the Laundrette.  Not sure why it was quiet, but I did therefore take the opportunity of not being worried about my machine ending without me there (not from a people may knick my stuff point of view, but due to politeness - not wanting to keep a machine occupied when it's not doing anything) to go and explore the Co-op.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned this before, but a new Co-op mini-supermarket / convenience store type of thing has opened up at the end of the road.  It's taken over an old electrical goods store that's been closed for years and is of a reasonable size.

I think there's quite a lot of the store been used for storage and back-room area, though, because I was actually a little surprised by the actual shop-floor space.  It's quite 'rammed in' to compensate.  Most of the aisles are very narrow - it would be a struggle to get past someone if they were down the row and you certainly couldn't get two trolleys past each other.

IT was obviously quite early so it wasn't exactly busy, but I could imagine it would seem quite full even if there were only 5 or 6 people in there as you'd all be getting in each others way.

Having said that, part of the reason for it being so full is that they've tried to get as much in as possible.  The range of stock is really quite good and you could easily do a reasonable shop in the one place.  I mean, it doesn't have as much as a big supermarket, obviously, but there's a good range of products.

The opening hours are also very long - it's open 7AM to 11PM according to the sign, and I've been past it quite early on my walks and going to the laundrette and it did genuinely appear to be open.

I didn't exactly buy a lot - just some mini-baguette things - but then it was more of a reconnaissance exercise than anything.

And speaking of my wanders, on this weekend's saunters I got to see some of the damage the reason storms caused.

It was obviously not as bad as they had up north, but there were a couple of trees down and where there were roads with lots of trees there was a lot of detritus of broken off bits of branches in the road.  It was obviously a lot windier than I'd appreciated at the time.

dampened again

Got a bit of a soaking again this last Sunday on my walk.

I went a bit earlier than I usually do, as I’d checked the forecast and it suggested the rain would come at about lunchtime.  In the end it was quite sunny across lunch.  I think the forecasts were struggling a bit this last weekend because apparently the leftovers of a hurricane were drifting over us.

I didn’t get too wet, as it was more like a short sharp shower than the monsoon I suffered with last weekend.

I also put on a pound at my weigh in.  This was a reflection of stupidity on my part, as I bought too much food and ended up having to eat up some stuff.  I also bought a few naughty things and didn’t get quite as much chance to go for walks during the week as I’d normally expect.  The problem was the weather again, as it seemed to rain quite heavily early on and at lunchtime for some reason.

Part of the issue I’ve been having just recently is I’ve discovered some other options for things I can eat that aren’t too bad calorie wise.  Well, no, the problem is that I’ve discovered these things but haven’t properly worked out how to include them n my meal plans.

I therefore seem to keep ending up with multiple things to eat which obviously actually boosts my calorie intake, despite the specific things I’m eating not being bad in and of themselves as such.

Another weird problem is doing my own washing.

I used to drop my washing off on Wednesday or Thursday, when I would also nip into Sainsburys and pick up some rolls (and some naughty stuff in recent months) but also, crucially, I would pick up a copy of the Radio Times.

Now I do my own washing at the weekend, and I’ve not quite worked out a new strategy for when I go and buy my RT.  I know it shouldn’t be complicate, but it’s been throwing me a bit as it’s a lot simpler to just pick up an RT and it seems to encourage me to buy more naughty stuff as well.

I dunno, as I type it out it doesn’t seem that complicated, but I’ve certainly been struggling for some reason.

I also know I’m in real danger of finding excuses to cover what is me simply not exercising the will power that allowed me to do my initial weight loss.

damp enough for you, sir?

I got an absolute soaking on yesterday afternoon’s walk.

I’d checked the forecast the day before, so I kinda new rain was forecast.  In fact, to be honest, I was actually hoping for a bit of rain.

My afternoon walk on Saturday had been rather sticky.  It was surprisingly warm for the time of year (are we going to have an Indian summer, I wonder?) and I’d thought a little sprinkling of rain might not go amiss.

When I set off I took my cap as it was just starting to spot with rain and for about three quarters of the walk it kept spotting on and off.  It was also pretty muggy again, so these spots were actually quite welcome.

I didn’t take any sort of coat or other rain protection, though, as I figured if it did rain properly I wasn’t going to be that far from home and I could possibly duck under cover if needed.  But this was a bit of a mistake.

When it started raining, it quickly changed into a deluge and I got very wet very quickly.  Also, the timing was very unfortunate, as I was a good way from any decent cover and by the time I reached cover, I was so wet, stopping wouldn’t have made much difference.  I’d have just ended up being cold and wet for ages, before having to set off in the wet anyway (it continued raining for hours).

I therefore continued on and the rain managed to somehow get even heavier.  As I was coming down the bit that leads to where I live, there were rivers running down the road and everything.  It was a veritable monsoon.

This, of course, had that weird side effect of that super-pleasant feeling you get when you come in out of the rain and dry off and change into fresh clothes.  It’s a really oddly pleasant experience.

To emphasise just how wet it was, my clothes were still sopping wet when I went to bed and rather damp when I checked them after I got up.

In other weight/diet/exercise news, I unfortunately put on the best part of a pound at my weigh in.  To be honest, I’m actually surprised I only put on a pound, considering the crap I ate.  My guess is that my long walk on Monday and my sleepless night and resultant fatigue burnt off a lot of the crap I ate.

I think, basically, it’s a good thing I’m ending one diet period and starting a new one.  Hopefully, it will effectively draw a line under my recent poor performance (only 10 pounds lost across the period, less than half compared to the other periods).  My new plan is very ambitious, as I’m aiming to be “fat” by Chrimbo.

Obviously I’m already fat, but what I mean is I want to take myself out of obese and down into overweight.

If I make it, it will be great, but if not my next target for my birthday will stand a good chance of achieving this goal.  Once I’m down into overweight, I can hopefully look at slowing down, if not stopping the dieting.

While part of me wants to become normal weight, several other parts of me have very good counter points.  One big one is that if I get properly thin I’ll have real problems with loose skin.  Another is that while being obese is a noticeable health risk, simply being overweight is much, much less bad.

Thee are other points too, but those are the key ones.

three double u's

Does that make six u's or three w's?

Anyway, my entire bank holiday weekend can be summed up as Watching, Walking and... er... Scanning... Widiculous amounts of scanning?

Er, yeah, no, it doesn't really work. But it's still true.

On Saturday and Sunday I essentially spent all my time watching stuff. It was the Belgium Grand Prix, so that involved loads of hours of watching practice, qualifying and the race (I'm going to miss this depth of coverage when it's gone).

But I also had loads of stuff recorded from the past week that I watched. If I'm totally honest I'm not entirely sure how I managed to stack up quite so much unwatched stuff last week. I mean, it's not like I watched loads of anime DVDs and I didn't do any scanning during the week.

I think the honest truth is a high degree of fatigue brought on by work. It's been so manic these last few weeks I think basically I was getting home quite late, having something to eat, doing only a little bit of stuff and then going to bed. Either that or somebody shaved a few hours off each day.

Going for more extended walks is something I like to do at weekends, but I figured this weekend would be a good chance to really pump in the steps. As I've discussed before I use a pedometer to try to keep an eye on the number of steps I do.

This weekend I went for three long walks - one each on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The Saturday and Sunday walks were two of my normal walks, but on Monday I did one of the super long/hard ones that I'd been doing before I went to the British Grand Prix.

It was quite knackering, I have to say. The Monday walk on its own was about 8,500 steps, which is quite a way. When you add in the steps I do as part of normal weekend stuff, I was a good way above 10,000 steps each day.

I think most people have heard of the 10,000 steps thing before. To be frank, it's actually a huge distance - if each step is just 50cm, it's around 5km, which is a big way. My steps are about 60cm, so that's more like 6km, which is a long way. Also, I walk at about 100 steps a minute, so it's about 100 minutes or 1h40mins of walking.

I think you can pick up from the above that the suggestions of doing 10,000 every day are a little unrealistic in the modern world. Spending more than an hour and a half every day walking is quite unlikely for anyone who works in an office and has to commute to work. I therefore use 10,000 as my guide for the weekends/days off and 5,000 for normal days, which I (roughly) manage to achieve.

I hadn't actually thought I'd get round to scanning at all this weekend. And if it had been a normal weekend I wouldn't. Basically, I spent a good number of hours at it on Monday, having managed to watch most of what I needed to across the weekend. I could have watched torchwood, which I've been recording but not got the chance to start yet, but I was a bit sick of watching telly so scanned, instead (where I obviously watched anime while I scanned... is that ironic or just me being daft?).

a surprise loss

Obviously one of the things I didn't manage to cover last week was the old diet.

It's not gone particularly brilliantly, mainly as I continue to not stick to my diet properly. If I wasn't exercising I think I'd probably gain weight, but since I am, I've broadly been staying constant when I've had a bad week.

That basically covers what I should have posted last week. This week it went better than expected in that I lost a pound. I'm not just 2 and a half pounds away from 19 stone, which is the new, revised-revised target I set for August Bank Holiday, which is when I switch into the next phase of the diet.

If I reach it, I'll basically have lost one stone across this dieting period, which is good in the sense that I have lost weight, but quite poor because I've lost much more than that in previous dieting periods of similar length.

I've mainly put the problems down to the combined effect of more social eating and drinking and, to be frank, a slip in my commitment to not eating crap. I'm hoping I've turned a bit of corner on that front, as I feel much keener to loose weight and stick more closely to a lower calorie intake than I have done in recent weeks.

Of course, the acid test is actually what happens next time I go into a supermarket and am faced with the temptation of buying stuff.

Hmm, that was a lot shorter than anticipated, so I'll stick in a random observation. Basically, while I've been wandering around my usual walking patch near my home and up into Farnham and Aldershot, I've been really struck with how overgrown everything has become.

This year, with its wet summer and bursts of hot weather seems to have really suited some of the plants and there's lots of bits on my walk where I have to duck down to avoid the overgrown shrubbery.

In particular, raspberries seem to be absolutely thriving, with loads of big bushes weighed down by loads of berries. I'm very tempted to go and pick some, but the problem is how I would fit it into my walk if I did it then. I'd need to take a container with me and of course I try to walk at a decent pace, so there's a good chance they'd get bounced about and damaged.

I think if I decide to go on a picking session I'll have to pop down in the car, park up and then grab a load.

weighty issues

So it's been a while since I did an update about my weight and related issues.

Last I mentioned I'd been on holiday for the Grand Prix and subsequently put on a little bit of weight, although I was pleased it wasn't a huge amount.

Last week there was no change in my weight - it stayed at exactly 19 stone 6 pounds, and I do mean exactly - both weeks the scales said 6.0 pounds exactly.

I kinda understand why it stayed exactly the same, though I won't say I wasn't a little disappointed. Basically, I didn't do very much walking (the weekend in particular I seem to recall being a bust due to the weather and other issues) and I wasn't very sensible on the diet front.

This last week was much better, as I lost 3 pounds, which I'm rather pleased about.

I wouldn't say I was back into the groove properly with the dieting and exercise, but I am getting back there.

I did my short walk I do before work and I went for reasonable walks at the weekend. Ideally I need to walk during lunch as well, but unfortunately since Homebase closed down I feel a bit odd parking in their car park, which is what I used to do when I went for a walk around the industrial estate. To be fair, this was also been hampered by the need to go to the post office for e-bay stuff most lunch times over the last couple of weeks, so it's not entirely down to that.

I also was closer to my diet.

Well, I say that, actually I slipped quite a few times, but still lost weight. They weren't big slips and there weren't as many, so I guess that explains it.

On my side (?) I did have some really bad nights sleep and I do seem to burn calories when that happens. Not that I'd use it as a proper dieting technique, obviously, but it does seem to have an effect whenever t happens.

In terms of targets and stuff, I've set a new one after the middle of this diet phase turned out to have a net no change, which is to get down to around 18 stone. I'm not entirely expecting to make it, as the change-over point to my next diet period is around the August Bank Holiday, so there's not long to go, but hopefully I'll at least be able to get a good way below 19 stone.

Wow - below 19 stone! I'm not that far off being "fat" rather than "obese"!

I've been umming and erring over what to set as my next target for my next weight loss phase. This one runs up to Chrimbo and has a late autumn holiday, which I'm planning to do a similar thing to what I did last year, although I'm going to have to be really careful about the whole splurging on junk food thing.

It would be nice to set a target that's fairly easy to achieve and then break it next time, rather than my usual thing of too ambitious a target that I then don't get anywhere near too.

holiday bump up

Considering what I ate on the holiday and the surrounding days, I'm rather surprised that when I weighed myself on Sunday I'd only put on 1 pound.

Well, actually, that's going by my rounding up way of doing things. I think it was probably more like 2 pounds if you take the decimal points way of doing it. But still, 2 pounds isn't a huge amount.

Or rather, 2 pounds isn't as much as I was expecting. It's a lot of weight, representing around 7,000 additional calories consumed, over and above what I needed for my base metabolism and the exercise I did. And I did a lot of exercise - the GP weekend involved walking some 15 miles, I reckon, and that's just the walking. There was all the lugging of stuff around and the calories I would have needed to keep me going without enough sleep and all that.

But the point is I'm not even going to pretend I ate anything like sensibly, but I still only put on a couple of pounds, which probably suggests I did do a hell of a lot to burn those calories off. If I had dieted or even been moderately sensible I bet I'd have lost half a stone.

You also always have to bear in mind that, when you're big, your metabolism is higher because you're burning extra calories just to kept yourself warm and when you're moving to shunt all the extra weight around. So, in other words, sensible (i.e. balancing my metabolism) is somewhere in the region of 3,250 calories, even now.

I think I've managed to confuse myself, as I'm now not sure if I'm arguing my two pound gain was good, bad or better or worse than expected. In many ways I'm actually just trying to fill a blog post where I would normally have an entry about my diet and exercise, only I've been off the diet and the exercise wasn't properly monitored.

What it all does mean is I won't be making my original target, set back when I started this stretch of the diet. Indeed, overall, I'm unlikely to have lost very much weight at all across this period. That's not great, obviously, but at least I've not had a net gain - it will definitely be a few pounds lower than at the start, it's just not going to be as much as I'd hoped/planned.

crappy weekend

What a crappy weekend.

It started out being rubbish on the Friday, when I made the stupid decision to bake a cake. I think I mentioned before last week was holiday from the diet and stuff, so I thought I'd go out on a blow-out. That was fine, except baking a cake was definitely the wrong decision. A far better decision would have been to make some fairy cakes or something like that, as it would have put far, far less of a burden on me to have to eat such a lot of bad stuff.

Actually, technically it started with the shower buggering up. This was inconvenient, but I think it's clear from what I posted last week that I was expecting it to be a relatively simple fix - some pipe was blocked or something.

When I got back my landlord told me that the shower was completely knackered, he'd taken it off the wall and couldn't get a new one until Monday at the earliest. That meant I'd have to use his, which means I've been wandering into his house at 7AM every morning to use his shower.

But Saturday's rubbishness really got going when I went to the recycling centre. Now exactly where and how it happened I don't know, but as I was driving away I realised I had a load of wet pain on me. Whether this was from some area of wet paint they'd painted or because of something someone had spilt or what I don't know, but it's ruined my coat.

It's white emulsion paint by the looks of things and I had a half-hearted attempt to hand wash my coat and it had no impact on it whatsoever. I mean, I'm not fundamentally bothered about the coat - it's very old, the zip is knackered and it's now too big for me, but the point is it was another area where I was trying to hold on and not spend any money. Now I've got to as the summer is providing to have lots of spells of shit weather and I can't really go to work in a coat spattered with white paint.

And that was another shit thing - the weather was rubbish this weekend. Every time I thought I had a bit of slot to go for a walk it was raining or just about to. It's nearly August, it shouldn't be like this, surely.

Saturday evening I watched the Thin Red Line, which was shit. I've seen good reviews, but I thought it was awful - like an attempt at an art house war movie and way too long with it. I'll review it properly, but there's three hours of my life I won't get back.

Because my PVR recording went tits up I was also forced to watch a bunch of stuff on Saturday. Not that I minded the stuff itself, it was more that because stuff often expires after a week on the iPlayer (which is otherwise marvellous) I had to watch it all on Saturday, just in case.

Sunday the rubbishness was initially focused around the photos and posts about the Grand Prix. I'd thought I'd be able to rattle them off in an hour or two, but it took well over four hours and I'm still only about half way through. I guess that four hours actually includes the time I spent on putting some e-bay auctions together, but I'm pretty smooth with that now, so I don't think that took much time.

Of course e-baying is always a bit depressing, so I didn't really enjoy that either. Especially as I realised now I've somehow missed a couple of things I was keen to get on.

I'll continue tomorrow.

one out of two isn't bad

So this weekend's weigh in showed I'd lost a pound.

If I'm honest I was secretly hoping I'd loose both the pounds I put on, but there you go.

It's going to be a little while before I weigh myself properly again, as I'll be away this weekend. I'll also not really be following my diet, though I am expecting to do a fair bit of walking. The track is about 3 and a half miles, I think, but obviously you walk around the service roads, rather than close to the track itself, so I guess I'll be doing a fair bit of walking.

And speaking of which, I tried to do a bit of prep this weekend by going on some very long walks.

In fact, I actually walked until my arse hurt.

Well, actually, on Saturday I did a massive walk and then Sunday I woke up with soar bum muscles. I guess it could have been the other stuff I did - shopping, cleaning the flat, but I do those all the time with no bum effects.

Sunday's walk was actually slightly longer that Saturday's and was definitely tougher as I went up the really steep hill to upper hale. I actually did the hill last week as well and was shocked to find once I'd come back down (it's a sort of triangular walk I go on) that it was only about 2 miles. It felt way more tiring than that.

This time I went for a fairly long walk and then went up the hill.

My fitness has improved massively. I mean, I'm still tired when I come back after the long walks, but when I first started this walking business I used to do the circuit around the block, which is about 2 miles total and I'd be huffing and puffing and it would take me ages to recover.

In fact, if I went the way that goes up the hill, rather than down, I'd have to take a short breather about half way up. Nowadays I'll go on a three or four mile walk and then do that circuit as the ending and not stop at any point (crossing roads excepted).

It is quite a turn around and it's something I'm pleased about, but it inevitably makes me think that if I'd just stuck properly to my diet I would have lost a lot more weight.

I mean, obviously the exercise is, on the whole, burning off the naughty stuff I've been eating, but then that's the point - if I wasn't eating that naughty stuff I'd be burning off body fat.

Anyway, such thoughts are for post Grand Prix, as I'm now on holiday.

Not that my boss would agree, yet!