A week of strange happenings

...in which odd things have occurred

You may (or may not, depending on how often you read the blog and how much notice you take of it)  remember that back in June, our younger son's scooter went missing when the Elder Teen left it in the park while we were at the beach.

This week it turned up out of the blue; some of the younger teen's friends saw someone on it, asked him where he'd got it (apparently he'd just found it) and brought it back to us. Since we've claimed insurance we have to pay that back (but not all of it, which was a bit of a surprise...insurance companies being reasonable and quite nice is a new one on me).

Our kettle (which had stopped working for no apparent reason a couple of weeks ago) started working again (also for no apparent reason); since I'd had to buy a new kettle we now have a spare one (we like the old one because it has a filter in it).

The oddest thing that happened though was probably Wednesday. Amy, who is doing 53 marathons on 53 consecutive days was in town. She's from a local village, so I thought I would go along and support her by running with her for part of the route around the town (along with some other folks, including a lady from the Slimming World group I go to).

I don't have much work on at the moment (if anybody needs a contractor to write C# for them please feel free to get in touch), so I had most of the day free; I originally intended to run until around 11, when we would get to my daughter's school. I'd run 9.5 miles last Sunday, and that was supposed to be around the 10 mile mark, so I was pretty confident that I could do that; I had to drop Princess Bubblegum off at school and only had about 15 minutes to get to the start, so I ran up there to be on time.

So...somehow I didn't quite stop at my daughter's school. I didn't stop when we got to Whittington either (although I didn't know how far we'd run at that point)...and then just after Whittington someone said we'd just passed the half-marathon mark. By now I'd made friends with another runner and we were running together, and neither of us wanted to stop, although we were both quite surprised to hear that we'd gone quite that far.

Somehow, even though neither of us usually runs more than 10 miles, we carried on to West Felton (where Amy was interviewed by the BBC at her old school) and then back to Oswestry....at this point it was around 2:30PM and I had to stop and pick the daughter up from school (and my running partner had given up and got into the pace vehicle, but she'd made it to 20 miles). 

I worked out later than I had run a total of around 21 miles (including the run up to the start point and the runs around the various school fields with school kids); I'm pretty sure I could have made it to the end of the full thing if I'd had the time though.

This was more than a little surprising, since the furthest I'd ever "run" before was the Reading half marathon, and I ended up walking probably about 5 miles of that (I was 4 stone heavier back then, after all, and I couldn't train properly); I was running all the way this time, although there were admittedly quite a few breaks for things like photos.

It definitely helped to be running with other people; I usually run alone, which gives me a chance to listen to music and get a certain amount of peace (in a house with 2 teenagers that's in short supply), but there was a lovely feeling of camaraderie about the event, even though a lot of us didn't know each other.

My legs still feel pretty good; I rested on Thursday and then went for a short (3.5 miles) run tonight; I'll be going to the gym tomorrow and aiming to run 10 miles or so on Sunday.

Of course, compared to Amy (who is on her 53rd and last marathon tomorrow (27th September 2014) in Manchester) 21 miles looks pretty unimpressive; but for me it was a major achievement.

In honour of this, and since it was Amy that inspired me to run so far, I have decided that I will run the Manchester marathon next year and will raise funds for the same cause that Amy is running for (the Isabelle Lottie foundation). 

If you'd like to donate to the foundation for Amy (and boy does she deserve it), you can find a BT giving page here: https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/53marathons

We have a barbecue (almost certainly the last one of the year) tomorrow with Saira and her VSO. Some innocent songs will no doubt be subject to sonic abuse again....

On the home stretch!

...in which the (probably) final target is so close I can taste it.

On Saturday we had Saira and G around for a barbecue (probably the last one of the summer). The wine flowed freely, and (as usual) a good time was had despite mine and Gary's insistence on creating as much noise pollution as possible via the medium of our guitars and voices.

So to help make up for the wine, on Sunday (despite the rather late finish on Saturday) I decided I would do a pre-breakfast 5-mile run; I'm told by people that know such things that if you run before you've eaten anything your body burns fat immediately rather than using up stores of carbs (the body stores carbs as glycogen and the body will burn this first during exercise if it has reserves of it. Apparently). 

I'm not sure if this is 100% accurate or not (there seems to be some debate on the Internet, but that's a bit like saying there's some discord between cats and dogs), but I did actually really enjoy running early in the morning and will probably do it again next week.

Since I'd also had cider last Monday I wasn't that hopeful for weigh-in yesterday; however, the run (plus 3 visits to the gym and runs on other days), along with eating sensibly the rest of the time, seem to have done the trick; I had lost 2 pound (0.9kg), which means that now I have just 2lb to lose to get to my new target of 11 stone 4lbs, so I'm really hopeful I'll get that next week. 

That will mean I'll have lost a total of 4 stone (yay! another sticker and certificate! I love those. No, you're a bit of a child at heart :P) in a little under 9 months; I haven't had to go hungry (I have had to eat sensibly, of course), and I'm really very impressed with the way Slimming World fits together so many strands of common sense into a single diet plan that's easy to follow, doesn't involve fiddly weighing or measuring and lets you eat loads and still lose weight.

This is also the last week of my platinum body magic award; that's 16 weeks of doing 150 minutes of exercise over 5 days. I have become the sort of person that has a fitness regime; I go to the gym for an hour every other day, do resistance and "core strength" (I'm not even sure what that is but apparently that's what I'm doing) workouts for 30 minutes and then 30 - 40 minutes of cardio (treadmill or elliptical, rowing machine, and exercise bike or cross trainer (Oxford comma seemed appropriate there)). 

So, with any luck I'll get a hat-trick of awards next week (4 stone off, target and platinum body magic). Go me! :)

On the days when I'm not in the gym I run (generally a minimum of 4 miles), and am aiming to get up to 10 miles by the end of this month (I've done a couple of runs that are close to 7 miles and been fine, and I'm planning an 8 mile run after lunch today. I usually have one rest day per week as that's all I feel I need right now.

And I feel good about it. There, I said it. I like being the sort of person that can run 5 miles without struggling. I like the feeling I get after exercise (not so much the feeling I get during it). I like the effect it has on my body. I'm not vain (I hope), but I like what I see when I look in the mirror now; I still have (very small) man-boobs and a bit of a tummy, but they're shrinking and slowly becoming more toned....I may do a topless before/after picture. If you're really unlucky ;).

On that rather horrendous thought I shall bow out for the week...till next time.

The morning after...

...in which a barbecue has occurred.

I've never been on any other kind of diet, so I'm not really sure how a barbecue would work out or what you'd be allowed to eat; on Slimming World, pretty much all lean meat is unlimited, so all you really need to avoid are the usual fatty burgers and sausages. 

We had lots of pork chops/escalopes (brought by our friends), some chicken breast and some Sainsbury's "be good to yourself" burgers that come in at 1 syn each - I usually make "free" burgers (made with 5% fat mince, egg and onion), but I forgot and in any case there was just about the right amount of food anyway.

I managed to stick to free/superfree foods more or less exclusively (apart from the burgers); I wasn't quite so successful at my resolution of not drinking wine or having too much cider. I'm going for a long run in a minute to make up for that.

Anyway, many songs were played*, some of them even in tune. A good time was had by all, and the food and drink flowed freely and all that stuff (the drink possibly rather too freely). Apparently we now have a tradition at these gatherings of playing "Jolene" as it makes Saira laugh to hear 2 heterosexual men begging the eponymous Jolene not to take their man. 

Since we played for the best part of 4 hours, my fingers are not at all happy this morning (playing an instrument that involves repeatedly pressing your fingers down firmly on metal strings can often make your fingers sad).

*after a fashion.

Sunday 22nd June

Healthy A: 250 ml semi skimmed milk 

Breakfast

Nectarine, satsuma, apple, strawberries, fat free yoghurt

Lunch

Roast chicken, boiled potatoes, carrots, broccoli, sweetcorn, 100 ml gravy (1.5 syns)

Dinner

Pasta salad with sliced chicken breast (left over from last night)

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, Fruit, yoghurt.

Exercise

30 minute run
15 minutes exercise bike
30 minutes just dance

Diet Food

....in which I talk about food. Again.

If you're anything like me, your image of diet food is probably something like this:

I don't know about you, but eating that stuff all the time would get pretty boring pretty fast.

Now, here's some pictures of things I have actually made and eaten in the last 6 months:

(From left to right: Penne with rich beef & tomato Ragu, Five-spice chicken with noodles and steak with wedges and garlic mushrooms).

The point is you don't have to eat like a rabbit to lose weight. There is some element of the first set of pictures in what we eat; I do quite often have baked potato for lunch, but I usually cook it as wedges and have it with a mushroom omelette (or whatever other veggies I can find to put in an omelette - cooked with Frylight, omelettes are free), and wedges are much less boring than a jacket potato without butter (you can add herbs and spices to them to keep them interesting).

Of course, if you've gained weight and want to lose it you can't just carry on as you are, assuming that you've gained weight because of your diet; something has to change. In my case, that's meant that we no longer use jars to make any meals (everything is cooked from scratch, and generally nicer for it), we use leaner cuts of meat (more expensive but you need less of it to fill you up) and fat is removed from pretty much all meat when possible. If something is fried we use Frylight, which is a 1-calorie spray that you just spray on the frying pan/wok before cooking.

I have started exercising as well, but that is not a necessary part of being on Slimming World; it certainly helps the weight drop off more quickly, but you will lose weight whether you do or not.

I'm sure there are people that will look at the above and say something along the lines of "you can't possibly lose weight eating like that." I'll remember that next time I get on the scales, since they don't seem to have got that message.

Today we are having a barbecue, so there will be lots of (lean) meat later. Avoiding bread is a bit of an issue when there are burgers out (I will make my own for the 3 of us on Slimming World that will be there - these will be free, and I've also found some frozen ones that are 1 syn per burger), but I'll save my healthy b so I can have a wholemeal roll for one burger. I'll do wedges and pasta salad as well as a vegetable salad, and I may do something in the slow cooker...we shall see.

Right, I need to go and change the strings on my guitar.

Saturday 21st June

Breakfast

Satsuma, nectarine, apple, fat-free Greek style lemon yoghurt

Lunch

Mushroom & red onion omelette with beans and a baked potato.

Dinner

Lean meat (pork/chicken/beef) cooked on the barbecue; pasta salad (pasta with vegetables stir-fried in frylight with garlic & paprika). 1 wholemeal roll (healthy b), potato wedges, salad.
3 Sainsbury's "be good to yourself" burgers (1 syn each)

Snacks/Drinks

Fruit, yoghurt.
Err, okay, this didn't quite go to plan....
750 ml of wine (27 syns)
4 cans of cider (38 syns (9.5 syns per can))

68 syns today...but I'm still under for the week.

Exercise 

30 minutes on exercise bike