Gastritis!

...in which illness rears its ugly head.

While we were on holiday, there was one day where I had a fairly bad burning pain in my abdomen for most of the day. This eventually resulted in an extremely unpleasant night/morning where I got very little sleep because of having to stay in the toilet, for reasons I won't go into but are almost certainly exactly as horrible as you're imagining. The next day I felt a bit queasy but the pain had gone and I was generally fine, and continued to be so.

Until yesterday (Thursday). At about 3AM, I woke up with the same burning sensation that I had had on holiday, and was then stuck being awake because of the pain. I am very rarely ill, but by about 10:30 AM it was bad enough for me to call the doctor and ask for an emergency appointment (which is almost unheard of without a lot of nagging from A, but the fact this was a repeat of last week was a bit worrying).

The doctor diagnosed me with mild gastritis (if that was mild I don't want to think about what a serious case would feel like) and gave me some tablets that will reduce the acidity of my stomach juices. She also advised me to eat "bland" food for a while, 

She didn't really go into detail about this, so I did some research online and spoke to Saira about it; the basic advice is:

No alcohol, no coffee, no spicy food, no bacon (and nothing cooked with bacon or onions) and nothing acidic like citrus fruit etc.

Four out of the five things on that list coincide with my "list of things I really like to put in my mouth". It could be worse of course - it could be permanent, so I've probably got off fairly lightly as I should be OK after a couple of weeks of a bland diet. I still managed an hour in the gym last night (I took my first tablet at midday and the pain had mostly gone by the evening).

From a Slimming World perspective it's not too bad; I can still have lean meat and vegetables, and rice/pasta/potatoes, as long as they're well cooked and not cooked in sauce. I can have apples and pears and bananas; the coffee prohibition does bite hard though, since I usually need 2 cups of coffee just to be half awake in the morning. On the plus side, having no alcohol should help with my quest to get to target...I was 7lb away on Monday and am aiming to get as close as I can this week.

On Sunday I'm doing the Rainbow Run at Wrexham; this is a short (2 mile) run where they throw powder paint at you (they provide a white t-shirt). I'm a bit useless at getting sponsors (since I work at home there aren't many people to ask!) so I will make a donation to Nightingale House, the children's charity that the run is in aid of.

Weigh-in update

...in which the regular Monday weigh-in has occurred

Weigh in was last night, and I hadn't quite managed to maintain over the 2 weeks; however, I'd only put half a pound on and I'd managed a few extra treats that I wouldn't usually have (chips and so on), and actually found that because I no longer eat them all that often I enjoyed them far more.

I'm now 7lb (3kg) from my new target (11st 4lb, around 71.5kg), so I'm really not far off. I've hunted out my first couple of weeks of food diaries and I really did stick to the foot optimising plan absolutely 100%; everything I put in my mouth is written down there, so I've printed out a food diary and I'm really going for it this week. The gym shall be hit lots, as will the pavement.

That's just a quick update because I'm trying to do my C.V. ("resumé", if you insist) and look for a new contract. This means dealing with recruitment agencies, which is not normally a very pleasant experience, but needs must when the devil vomits on your cornflakes (as somebody a lot funnier than me once said).

I'm back!

...in which a holiday has occurred

I haven't posted for a couple of weeks because I've been on holiday with the family. I suppose I should have posted that that was going to happen before I disappeared off the face of the Internet really.  

Last time I was weighed (18th August) I got my 3.5 stone award and had lost 1.5lb on the previous weigh in, so I was 6.5lb off my current target.

Holiday has involved a few extra treats; ice creams, chips on the sea front, possibly a couple of packets of Monster Munch and of course extra wine, but usually while everybody else was enjoying sweet treats I stuck to black coffee with sweetener. The night we got there we stayed with friends and it was the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who, and there were some very yummy cup-cakes and dalek biscuits and Adipose marshmallows, and a few of those may have accidentally found their way into my tummy...

I did still manage to do my body magic - two 4 mile runs, lots of walking, some swimming and some playing rounders etc. with the kids on the beach; I'm now just 3 weeks away from my platinum Body Magic award (16 weeks of doing at least 30 minutes of exercise for 5 days of the week - or at least doing 150 minutes of exercise over 5 days; I quite often do the 150 minutes over 2 days but you have to do some exercise every day for 5 days out of the 7 for the week to qualify). 

I ran with a friend on the first night and discovered that if I run at a slower pace than normal it has far less impact on my knee and I can keep going for much longer, so I will now be attempting to pace myself more carefully when running.

Since we were in a pretty well equipped static caravan I was generally able to cook meals that were SW friendly; I had to settle for wraps a couple of times during the day but managed to avoid bread and stuck to lean cooked meat as filling; on both the way down and back A and I had pasta salad (the second time made with mayonnaise as that's how A prefers it so it wasn't quite free - I prefer it with paprika and soy sauce, but we had that on the way there).

Men don't often talk about this sort of stuff, but one thing that did feel good on holiday was being able to strip down to my trunks and not feel like I was wobbling everywhere, or feel self-conscious about taking my t-shirt off and getting into the sea. I'm not Adonis or anything (yet ;)), but I don't feel like I have my own gravitational well either now.

I also wasn't out of breath after playing with the kids for a bit (after all that time in the gym I should blooming well hope not!)

I'm trying to avoid staying in "holiday mode" as I'm only too well aware of how a couple of extra treats can suddenly become a couple of extra treats a day, so today I'm back onto SW 100%. I will make baked bean lasagne with bacon and jacket wedges today, I've measured out my milk allowance and I'm going to the gym later despite my body's feverish protests that it would rather stay at home and have a portion of fish and chips.

We stopped off to visit some friends on the way home last night and the scales came out for some reason...according to those I've put about 2.5lb on but this morning on our scales I seem to have lost 3.5lb and be 3lb from target. (my weight does fluctuate a bit during the day, as does nearly everybody's, and the clothes I wore last night were a bit heavier than the ones I'm normally weighed in). I guess we'll see tomorrow...in the meantime, it's time to head to the gym. I might even run there, just to show off.