Weekus Horribilis

...in which a rather Bad Thing has occurred

First things first; I'm still within my target weight range, or at least I was on Monday when I got weighed (I now get Slimming World membership for free as long as I'm within 3lbs either side of my target).

Marathon training is continuing, and going pretty well; I'm still doing over the actual amount suggested by the Asics training plan as the runs would be quite short if I stuck to them (5 miles...I'm not sure when 5 miles became a "short" run for me, but it's weird how perception changes).

Anyway, the Bad Thing...this week my PC's hard disk has been more or less completely wiped due to a combination of a Blue Screen of Death and a hard reset performed out of impatience (not by me, I hasten to add - I was out at the Younger Teen's football match). 

When Windows attempted to reboot it ran ChkDsk (a utility for scanning and "fixing" a disk) and the result was that it moved nearly all of my files to a hidden directory, but in the process it's renamed them to nonsense.

I'm currently running some software to attempt to recover what data I can; I have backups of my work for clients, of course, but some other data that should really have been backed up to a different drive has not been for a little while (I'll be setting up an automated backup procedure as soon as this is done...lesson learnt the hard way).

This has led to a sequence of events that can be summed up as buy new hard disk, install Windows 8, realise I have to install Windows 7 first because I only have an upgrade license for Windows 8, Install Windows 7 Home Premium, upgrade that to Windows 7 Pro, then upgrade that immediately to Windows 8, all the while wondering why Microsoft couldn't have just included the ability to check a Windows 7 key in the Windows 8 upgrade install.

That process (and the missing data) has led to a few days of being a bit fed up, which in turn has led to not eating brilliantly, culminating in a bit of a crisp-and-wine-fest last night. Today I am back on the Slimming World train though; Slimming World quiche will be made for dinner, with paprika wedges (the kids can have pizza and chips as they won't eat the quiche).

Anyway, on the plus side I now have a "clean" C:\ drive with very little on it other than the operating system, development software, Open Office and a bit of software that tries to recover deleted files (currently doing a scan on the ex-drive, which is apparently going to take a total of around 75 hours).

Oh yes, and I was in the local paper last night. They haven't put the story online, but it was about the weight I'd lost and the fact that I'm running a marathon next year. So that's quite nice :).

Another week, another weigh in...

...in which the new target creeps inexorably closer

Today is Monday, and therefore it is weigh-in day. I lost 3lbs since last week, but since I'm not allowed alcohol or basically anything I actually like to eat that might make me fat at the moment that's not a huge surprise.

With that said, I'm currently on my 3rd can of cider (it's made of apples, so it must be good, right?). I suspect my stomach will get its revenge for this tomorrow, but we shall see. I have tablets and stuff. And I've been sensible for like 5 days. That's waaay longer than I usually manage.

Err...I'm sure there was a point to this post but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. This may or may not be related to cider and the consumption thereof.

Oh yes, food. You really don't want to know what I've eaten for the last few days because it basically boils down to chicken (without any kind of spices), pasta/rice and vegetables. I have made stuff like beef stew and chicken curry for the rest of the family but I'm not allowed to eat any of it so I've mostly stuck to (non-acidic) fruit and lean meat with boiled or steamed vegetables.

I've also done quite a bit of exercise; today, for example, I ran to the gym, then did an hour of exercise in the gym, and then ran home again because apparently that's something I can do now. When I got home I felt really good, Knackered, but good.

I did the Rainbow Run in Wrexham yesterday, and it was really rather excellent fun - a group of us from our Slimming World group met up there, and it was a great laugh to meet up with other SW members and raise some money for a good cause at the same time. I even managed to resist the complimentary bacon roll afterwards and swap it for a banana (mainly because I'm not supposed to have bacon at all due to gastritis, but I'm still calling it a triumph of willpower).

I think I may be doing this sort of thing rather more often in the future...watch this space, as they say. In the meantime, here's a picture of me at the end of the race (I think I was in the top 20 out of 1000 people):

So...4lb from target (I've now lost 3st 10lb in just over 8 months), which I can make this week if I have a good week. Been a bit naughty tonight with the cider, but it's pretty much guaranteed that I'll be good for the rest of the week (as long as I don't drink too much).

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).

Weigh-in update

...in which all is not as it seems.

So. I should probably be working, so this will be a quick update, probably. This week at weigh-in I put on half a pound, despite having no alcohol, far fewer syns than usual and going to the gym a lot. For the first time that I can remember in 7 months of doing Slimming World this made me feel slightly despondent after Monday's weigh-in, despite the fact that I was half expecting it. I couldn't stay for the group portion ("Image Therapy") this week, but I would have liked to in order to get some encouragement.

Another reason it was maybe a bit more disappointing that usual is that I was so close to my 3.5 stone award (half a pound off, now a pound); also I have a holiday coming up that's going to make it tricky to stick to the plan 100%, and that might put me back a bit when it comes to hitting target by September, which was the original plan when I lowered it. (We also have a barbecue/food evening coming up on Saturday with Saira and her Extremely Significant Other coming round, depending on the weather, but I can make that SW friendly with no difficulty).

I am feeling better about it now; I had a look at my progress graph thing on the SW website and even with the gain I've lost 4.5lbs over the last 3 weeks, and an average of 1.5lbs per weeks is really pretty good, and that's despite a wedding featuring lots of beer/wine.

The reason I was half expecting it is because some of the exercise I'm doing now at the gym is designed to build muscle rather than burn fat, in order to get to the elusive state of a toned tummy and chest. (I'm not looking for a six-pack or anything, since my wife doesn't like that look, I'm just going for slim and toned). Muscle, as most people know, is denser than fat ("heavier" makes no sense - 1 cubic inch of muscle weighs more than 1 cubic inch of fat, but that's because of the density).

I doubt that I've actually put on half a pound of muscle in a week, so some other factors probably came into play; the human body has a way of kicking in "emergency fat storing mode" when it feels it might need to, and it's quite possible that the increased exercise last week caused this to happen for me so that fat that I would usually burn just got stored instead.

Still, nil desperandum, as they say. This week I'm going to do a bit more outside running again but still go to the gym 3 or 4 times. I'm still somewhat confused by this sudden desire to go somewhere that until recently I'd have considered a sort of hell on earth, but apparently it's good for me so I should probably just go with it.

Food this week...I made a sort of rice salad thing yesterday (chicken tikka chunks from Sainsbury's, stir-fried onions/peppers/carrots/tomatoes with white wine vinegar, sweet chilli sauce and paprika all mixed with sweetcorn and rice) - A. has the leftovers for her lunch today at work. Tonight I'll make diet coke chicken, and tomorrow probably paprika pork. If Sainsbury's actually have any half-price steak in I'll get some of that for Friday...

Okay, that wasn't as short as originally intended....back to work. Probably. (Or maybe I'll just procrastinate a bit...where'd that guitar go?).

Confusion

...in which things are slightly odd.

(Observation 1 in a series of n, where n is a number between 1 and as many as I can be bothered to do: Why do people assume "all natural ingredients" in e.g. shower gel means "good"? Arsenic is natural, but you wouldn't want to bathe in it).

Not odd in a bad way. Just...odd. For this post to work, you have to imagine that the below is said a slightly puzzled way. I am not showing off, I'm just...perplexed.

As you might have read, I joined the gym last week. If you had told me at the start of this year that I would have joined a gym by August I would have looked at you as if you had just told me that you were training an elite defence force made up of ferrets. If you'd then told me that I would not only have joined a gym but would actually be using it and enjoying it I'd have looked at you as if you'd gone on to say that you were training the ferrets to combat an army of space badgers that were about to land and take over the world.

Now, I am firmly with Jennifer Lawrence on the subject of people that claim they're addicted to working out. ("I hate people who say 'Oh, I’m addicted to working out', I just want to punch those people in the face." - from Pinterest). I'm working out as a means to an end (to tone up my tummy and chest a bit); I'm certainly not addicted to it. It makes me sweaty (and not in a good way), it's hard work and the gym is often full of people that could easily give you an inferiority complex, but...(there was bound to be a but)...it does give a certain satisfaction to challenge the limits of your own body, and there is documented evidence that exercising does actually make you feel better (since 90% of the time when I'm exercising I feel like I'm about to collapse in a heap I assume they surveyed people after they'd finished exercising rather than during).

I've actually started reading articles about how to exercise. That deserves the italics, believe me. If you only know me through the blog then it probably looks like I'm a pretty fit, healthy kind of guy, but until the start of this year the only thing I was fit for was moving around slowly and eating a lot of food. Seriously, I once ate 15 pieces of pizza at Pizza Hut to win a departmental competition (there was no prize, other than the pride of being the winner and preventing PH making any profit on their "all you can eat" buffet).

So, the point, inasmuch as I ever have points to these posts. Today I took the younger kids swimming (the eldest was at OsFest, a local music festival), and I swam 1 kilometre (with quite a few breaks, because swimming is hard work). Then this afternoon I felt like I wanted to do more exercise. Wait, what? That makes no sense even to me. 

I still don't know why, but I went back to the gym (and remember I'm not showing off here - this is said in tones of complete confusion) and I did 2km on the rowing machine, 3km on the Octane (I'm not sure what this is called "officially" - I guess an elliptical trainer? It's like a cross trainer except the movement feels more like running and it has bizarre settings designed to hurt exercise your arm muscles (edit: I looked it up and this is indeed an elliptical trainer)), 2.75km on the treadmill and 1km on the cross trainer. Before that lot I did a bunch of what's apparently called "resistance work" (machines with weights). If you'd told me even a month ago that it was even possible to do that much exercise in just over an hour I'd probably have taken my chances with the space badgers.

Anyway, there we go. To sum up: I'm going to the gym and exercising quite a lot, and finding it...um...what's the word? Enjoyable? Err, no, that can't be right, surely. Satisfying....yes, that just about fits.

Right, food. This week I've made some rather nice pork loin medallions with jacket wedges - I fried the pork as per the instructions (using low fat cooking spray, of course), but added some dark soy sauce (about 2 tbsp), a good sprinkling of paprika and fried onions, mushrooms and red pepper in the pan at the same time. I served this with broccoli and sweetcorn and it was really yummy (it doesn't sound like diet food, does it?). 

I made something similar tonight, but we had no soy sauce left so I used teriyaki sauce; this means there were probably a few syns in the pork/veg but they would be very low (call it 1.5 per portion).

Tomorrow is weigh-in day. I'm hoping to get my 3.5 stone award, but it's possible that all the exercise may be counter-productive (when A joined the gym she maintained for a week or so after). Also I had a really big piece of chocolate cake on Monday after weigh-in and it's just possible that I may have had a few packets of crisps this week...we shall see.

Edit: In "other news" today I bought a pair of underwear that are "small" in size and they fit. Small victories (no pun intended).

A quick update

....in which original target has been achieved

Last night was weigh-in night, and I had lost 3.5 pounds last week. This puts me at 2.5 pounds below my original target, but I have now lowered my target by 10 pounds because that puts me right in the middle of the healthy BMI range for my height. (Edit: That put me at 3 stone 6.5 pounds lost, so I didn't quite get my 3 and a half stone award, but I will next week)!

This isn't always a great measurement (it's hopeless for Rugby players, for example, but it's a pretty good indicator for someone like me who's of medium build). I'm 7.5lb to my new target now, and really just need to a) lose the man-boobs and b) tone up my tummy a bit.

To help in this endeavour I have joined the local gym; my wife gets a month free for introducing me and I get it discounted by £8 a month on a no-contract basis because of Slimming World membership, so it's pretty good. I have about 3 weeks left on my countdown, so if I can keep up this sort of weight loss I will hit my target within that and Slimming World will become free (as long as I stay 3lb either side of target), so that will more or less pay for the gym.

Bizarrely, I am rather enjoying the gym; I have been twice so far (once for induction, once with my wife while my daughter was at her swimming class doing her 3000m badge), and intend to go tonight as well. I am actually looking forward to it, which feels somewhat bizarre.

Today I am making beef and tomato stew, so I suppose I'd better go and get it in the slow cooker.

New Website? What?

...in which I demonstrate mastery of procrastination

I'm in the middle of designing my company's new website, so this seemed like a good moment to stop and write the blog because I hate web design (I can't afford to pay someone to do it for me, or I would). Procrastinating? Me? Well of course.

The other day I decided to have a clear out of our bedroom and tidy it up, because it was starting to look worryingly like a teenager's sleeping place. As part of this I got rid of all the jeans that were too big for me, which resulted in about 6 pairs going into the charity bag because there's no way I'm going back up to a 38" waist.

I'm now in 34" trousers, and I can get into 32" ones fairly comfortably; since I've lowered my target by 10 pounds I'm not buying too many new pairs yet in case I end up in 30" trousers, which would probably be the first time ever I've been that slim (this would put me right in the middle of the "healthy" range for BMI, although the main reason for lowering it is that I'm not happy still having man-boobs; some toning may be required too).

With the school summer holidays now in full swing I've found sticking to the plan easier than I expected; the kids mostly like the Slimming World friendly food I make, so them being home isn't too much of an issue. They do have the occasional chicken nugget/oven chips/takeaway, but A and I always have something different when they do.

This week has been a good week so far food wise. We've had diet coke chicken, beef & tomato stew and yesterday I had sirloin steak (it was half price in the supermarket) with wedges, tomatoes and friend onions and mushrooms (both fried in low calorie spray, of course). The kids had ready meals because A. had taken Turquoise Princess out to see How To Train Your Dragon 2 and they had food out.

Tonight I'm planning on doing Paprika Pork, probably with Slimming World chips; I'm going to take Emily to the park in a minute for a picnic, but I have cooked chicken, ham, pickled onions and fruit to take for myself (Emily can have sandwiches).

I've had very, very few syns so far (no more than about 3 at most in the whole week), although I expect that to change significantly on Sunday at Saira and G's wedding, where (in Saira's own words "the meal in the day isn't too bad but there's probably no point even trying to flexi-syn the buffet"). So I'm being extra good this week in the hope that I can still manage a maintain or a small loss next Monday.

On the exercise front, I've been keeping up the running, although anything over 4 miles makes my knee ache a bit. I've been alternating this with the exercise bike to build strength in the leg as apparently that's the most likely cause; I also need to start doing some exercise that tones my stomach and chest as otherwise I'll have super-fit legs but my upper body will be floppy.

I know, I know...

...in which many things are discussed

Sorry. Lack of blog. School holidays. 3 kids. Work at home. House stuff to do. I've also got to find a new contract so I'll be doing my company website and sorting out my C.V. - if you're reading this and you need a C# .NET contract developer for either web or windows work feel free to contact me via the comments, or look me up on LinkedIn. My company website should be up at some point this week too (like most developers I rarely have time to work on my own stuff).

This week I gained half a pound, which isn't really surprising given that I had about 8 pints of beer (over the week) and a bottle and 3/4 of wine on Saturday night, which led to a bit of a crisp-fest (the sort of crisps that pretend they're healthy, but are still crisps). I've lowered my target by 10 pounds, but I'm still close to my original target (2.5 pounds away now).

It's Saira's wedding on Sunday this week and I need to get into 32" trousers so I'd better make a bit of an effort with the alcohol control.  Since the wedding is likely to be a day of celebration involving much eating, drinking and being merry I'd better be good this week.

I've also lowered my target by 10 pounds because I would still have been in the "overweight" BMI range at my previous target and I've decided if I'm going to lose weight I'll do it properly and get rid of my man boobs completely.

During the school holidays I will probably only post once every couple of days and I won't do the big lists of food because they're getting a bit tedious - instead I'll probably just say what the main meal was on a given day and how many syns I had. I might put some daily menus up on a separate page somewhere as I guess that might be useu

In any case, I always have fruit (sometimes with a yoghurt) for breakfast and nearly always have a wholemeal roll for my healthy b (usually with bacon), I always have milk for my healthy A and I rarely have syns except for alcohol.

On Friday I had steak (fat removed) with pasta, fried onions and mushrooms. I also had a bottle of wine while A was out with her workmates (27 syns).

On Saturday, err...oh, yeah about 4 packs of "pops" (16 syns total), plus 47.25 syns' worth of wine (oops). So really I got off quite lightly with a half a pound gain. I can't remember what I had for dinner on Saturday - A went out with friends on a sort of impromptu hen night for Saira (and by all accounts had a fantastic time), so it was pretty light since I was only cooking for myself (the kids had sausage and chips from the local chippy).

On Sunday we had the usual roast Sunday dinner (this is because my mother-in-law comes down every Sunday since my father-in-law passed away a few months ago and she's quite set in her ways).

Yesterday I made diet coke chicken with the leftover chicken with jacket wedges and it was very nice. Tonight I'm making beef stew in the slow cooker, but I need to go down the shop to get extra vegetables for that at some point soonish.

Exercise-wise I've been going on the exercise bike more because of my knee - I'm trying to build the strength in it up as it appears that's what the issue is, so I've been putting the resistance up on the bike to help with that. I did go on a quick 2.5 mile run last night though, but the knee is still feeling quite tight. We tidied the bedroom yesterday so I may see if I can get the cross-trainer in there now since it's been sitting in its box waiting to be assembled for the last 2 years (yes, really). (Edit: A pointed out that actually it's been there for 4 years. Oops).

Right, time to sort out the website.

Okay, okay, I'm posting...

...in which I will skip lightly over current affairs, because they're scary and more than a little crazy.

Right, I've been a bit lax with posts for the last couple of days because it's hard to think of stuff to write every day, and lists of food are boring to read. I've been meaning to do some musical recording for the last few days but work has kept getting in the way (plus it's actually quite a lot of work to record stuff by yourself and it always takes me way longer than I think it will, so I tend to put it off and do other stuff...must focus).

Anyway, dieting and stuff. After Monday's beer/cider incident I was doing fine, until an old friend strolled into town last night and decided to drag me to the pub (admittedly I didn't take a lot of dragging). The 2 pints I was going to have somehow turned into 4, so that's err..oh. 26 Syns (assuming 6.5 syns a pint). With the 42 on Monday night that puts me on 68 for the week, so I suppose I'd better avoid wine tonight. 

On the plus side, the beer was a rather lovely local beer from Stonehouse brewery and was much cheaper than I expected. The beer was Cambrian Gold, but you can only really get it around Oswestry (I'm not sure if they offer an online ordering service, but the bottled stuff is slightly different apparently because it's bottle conditioned).

I did a 4.8 mile run last night, but my knee started playing up a bit after 4 miles or so. I'm finding this quite frustrating because I'd like to run quite a lot further and I think I could, but I can't because of the knee. I'm told that it's likely that it's just because the knee is being asked to do things that it's just not used to, so building strength may be the key; I'm going to take a few days off running and use the exercise bike instead. 

(A version of me from 2 years ago is looking at that paragraph and saying "What? You want to run further than 5 miles? What the hell is wrong with you? Have you become a masochist?", but I'm ignoring him).

With a following wind and if I can resist more alcohol I may hit target this week, but Claire the Lovely Consultant is not around this week because she's on holiday, and it would actually be quite nice to hit target when she is there and I can stay to group so I'm not too fussed whether I do or not (plus it has got harder to lose more than a pound or so a week as I've got closer to target).

I've already decided that I'm going to lower my target to 11 stone 4 pounds (71.7kg), as that would put me right in the middle of the healthy range for my height (also I'll get 2 more certificates and I like getting awards. Yes, I'm just a big child at heart).

My V.S.O. is out both tonight and tomorrow, so that may make avoiding wine over the weekend a bit easier because generally we have a couple of glasses together. One of my clients (a wine & spirit wholesaler) has sent me a bottle of rather posh rosé though, which may make it slightly more difficult to resist...but that's supposed to be an anniversary present (we'll have been married 20 years in August) so I probably shouldn't drink it alone.

Right, I think that's all the news/stuff I can muster for now...here's the food I can remember from the last couple of days. Healthy A was milk on both days.

Wednesday 16th July

Breakfast

Fruit, yoghurt.

Lunch

Chicken tikka pasta salad (onions, peppers, mushrooms, spring onions, tomatoes).

Dinner

Jacket Wedges with broccoli, sweetcorn and piri-piri chicken (chicken marinated in fat-free natural yoghurt and fromage frais with piri-piri spices and some tikka powder added).

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, fruit, yoghurt.

Bacon & tomato on a slice of wholemeal bread (healthy b)

Exercise

Rest day

Thursday 17th July

Breakfast

Fruit

Lunch

Super rice, baked beans, tuna with crushed chillies

Dinner

Pasta salad (onions, red onions, peppers, tomatoes) with Piri-piri chicken, broccoli, sweetcorn, runner beans

Snacks/Drinks

Bacon & tomato on a wholemeal roll (healthy b), coffee, fruit, yoghurt. 1 pint Guinness Extra Cold (6.5 syns), 3 pints Cambrian Gold (19.5 syns). Fortunately all the takeaways were closed on the way home so I had some melon and an apple

Exercise

4.8 mile run (50 minutes)

Walking (~45 minutes).

Yesterday's food

...in which I was lazy yesterday

I didn't get time/was too lazy to do a blog post yesterday. So here's what I ate, and I shall post a longer post later:

Tuesday 15th July

Healthy A: Milk

Breakfast

Fruit (peach, apple, clementine), fat free yoghurt.

Lunch

Savoury rice (Batchelor's super rice) with beans

Dinner

All-day breakfast spaghetti - this was a recipe from the Easy Express cookbook. I really ate an awful lot of it because the kids weren't too keen; it was quite nice, but the recipe made it sound a lot easier than it was!

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, Bacon with tomatoes on a wholemeal roll (healthy b), fruit, yoghurt.

Exercise

40 minute run (3.66 miles)

15 minutes exercise bike

Are we nearly there yet?

...in which yes, we are nearly there.

Tonight was weigh-in, and I lost 1.5 pounds (about 3/4 kg, for those who insist on using measurement systems based on powers of 10 rather than arbitrary weights of stuff).

This puts me 2 lbs (1.1 kg) away from target, and this makes me happy.

So, on Saturday I said that I might post a video of myself playing the new guitar I bought. However, having recorded said video and reviewed it, I'm pretty sure that I'd be arrested for cruelty to music lovers or something if I released it in its current form (this is partly because I recorded it on my phone, which apparently has the worst microphone ever, and partly because I made the mistake of singing while playing and my voice sounds like a donkey being attacked with a chainsaw - my actual playing isn't that bad).

I do have some software that lets me make higher quality recordings and the necessary equipment so I shall try to get that out this week and do a recording that doesn't make me sound like Simon Cowell should be shouting at me for wasting his time (not that I'd care if he was - I'm with Dave Grohl on that show and all its ilk. I don't suppose he'd have been too impressed with Dylan's voice either...)

Anyway, in celebration of being so close I have bought some beer tonight, but I'm pacing myself and sticking to no more than 3 cans (~18 syns - I couldn't find the exact brand on the app, but bitter is usually around 6 syns per 440ml can, which is considerably better than cider)!

I was a bit naughty today and didn't really eat very much in the day because I really wanted that weight loss - I would have been happy with half a pound so I was really happy to get one and a half. I don't recommend this though - it's far better to eat sensibly each day.

Also I won the raffle at the group tonight - lots of staple foods to cook with, including some mushy peas - haven't had those in years! :)).

Sunday 13th July

Healthy A: Milk

Breakfast

Fruit

Lunch

Roast chicken with boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, broccoli, sweetcorn and carrots (1.5 syns for the gravy)

Dinner

Bacon with tomato on a wholemeal roll (healthy b)

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, Singapore noodles, small portion sweet & sour chicken from the food festival (5 syns at a guess), fruit, yoghurt.

Exercise

19 minutes running (2 miles - knee a little better but still sore).

Monday 14th July

Healthy A: Milk

Breakfast

Fruit (peach, grapes, strawberries)

Lunch

Marmite on a wholemeal roll (healthy B) plus a banana (in between a lot of exercise)

Dinner

Chicken Rogan Josh with rice (recipe can be downloaded here)

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, fruit, yoghurt, lean meat (beef/chicken - I knew I'd be hungry this evening so I bought some reduced lean cooked meat from the supermarket).
3 440 ml cans of Boddington's Extra Smooth (18 syns but may go up to 24)!

Exercise

30 minutes exercise bike

30 minutes Just Dance 4

25 Minutes running (2.5 miles)

A new guitar!

...in which a new musical instrument has been "accidentally" purchased.

Today it was the first day of the Oswestry food festival, which I thought would be a hotbed of temptation to go well beyond my normal syns allowance. I had therefore avoided syns all week, but when I came to it I found that it was quite possible to eat lots of yummy stuff without going beyond my syns allowance:

Chicken tikka with salad and pilau rice (1.5 syns for the rice; tikka/salad should be free as it's just grilled chicken with spices, but the Slimming World app only has Tikka Masala which is not the same and not as low-syn as it has sauce)

Venison burger (grilled) with fried onions on a wholemeal roll (2 syns for fried onions, wholemeal roll as healthy b)

Ice-cream cone (2 scoops of rum & raisin, 14 syns, plus cone, 2 syns)

50g fudge (11 syns)

So, that's errr....(clicking of calculator keys despite the maths degree)....30.5 syns

And then tonight I had 750 ml of red wine (27 syns) so that's 57.5 syns, which is considerably less than I had last week at the stag night. Oh, and about 8 syns' worth of rosé last night, so that's a grand total of 65.5 syns. But I'll probably "have to" drink another glass because A. never drinks a full bottle, so call that a 250 ml of rose and that's 74.5 syns. Which I can live with.

At some point today I decided that I needed a new electro-acoustic guitar (although actually I decided this several months ago). I went to the local music shop and they happened to have a rather nice electro-acoustic in, which was reduced from £170 to £110 because it had been dropped at some point and there was a bit of a crack in the lacquer. 

I tried it out and it sounded fine, and was certainly a lot easier to play than my current guitar (which is OK, but very difficult to play barre chords on due to a high action - if you don't know about guitars, the action is how high the strings are above the 12th fret. If the action is high then it's harder to fret the strings; the one I had was fine for open chords but difficult to play barre chords (where you fret several strings at once with the same finger)).

I may post a video of me trying the new guitar out tomorrow, although that might be the wine talking.

The wine has probably got to me so I shall just list what I've eaten today now...

Saturday 12th July

Healthy A: Milk

Breakfast

Fruit (nectarine, apple, satsuma).

Lunch

Err...yeah. Chicken tikka with pilau rice and salad, venison burger with fried onions on a wholemeal roll (see above for presumed syn values).

Dinner

Diet cola chicken

Snacks/Drinks

Fruit, yoghurt, coffee, ice cream, fudge (see above for syns)

Exercise

30 minutes brisk walk.

Thursday Food

...in which I've already said most of what I have to say!

I did a long blog post earlier (here) and I don't have the inspiration or time for another one (I have mowed the lawn though) so here's today's food (I'm having another "eat ALL THE THINGS" sort of day).

All caught up for the week now....normal service may resume tomorrow if you're lucky.

Thursday 10th July

Healthy A: Milk

Breakfast

Fruit (peach, apple, orange)

Lunch

Pasta with bacon & veg stir-fry and crushed chillies

Dinner

Chilli (made with Quorn)

Snacks/Drinks

Fruit, yoghurt, bacon on a slice of wholemeal bread (healthy b) with tomatoes, blackcurrant ice lolly (3 syns).

Exercise

30 minute run (may be longer, we'll see how I feel later).
This turned into a 75 minute run, but I had to walk most of the last 2 miles due to a dodgy knee. No running will be happening for a couple of days at least :(.

Of Karting and Curries

...in which the stag do is discussed

Right, I've been meaning to get around to writing this since Sunday but life kept getting in the way. I have therefore neatly moved life aside and will mow the lawn later, honest.

As you'll know if you've been following the blog, Saturday just gone was Saira's VSO's (henceforth referred to as G) stag party, which I was invited to and attended with much enthusiasm. We first went to glan y gors karting track, where we drove small go-karts at what felt like very high speed around a big track. I thought the hair-nets and overalls we had to wear were particularly attractive. Unfortunately G's brother had neglected to mention that it was a stag do when booking it or G would have been wearing neon pink overalls.

I am not (normally) hugely competitive, but once you're in those karts and racing there's a certain impulse that kicks in. If there's somebody in front of you then you really, really want to overtake them and if there's somebody behind you then you really don't want to let them. This may or may not have led to a "oops my kart's on the grass" incident...but generally I think I held my own, given that I'd never been karting before and most of the others had. I didn't come first, but I wasn't last and I had a great time, and shall definitely go again if I get the chance.

There are, however, certain disadvantages to sitting in what is effectively a plastic bucket travelling at anywhere up to 80mph, especially when you're high on adrenaline. During the racing you don't really notice the way you're being thrown around in the seat (although you certainly do notice the strain in your arms from turning the kart); the turning circle on those things is insanely small and you do tend to start throwing them into corners with complete abandon once you get the feel for them. 

You do, however, notice the bruises and bumps the following day....although to be fair some of those might have been self-inflicted during the drunken shenanigans that followed.

After the karting we headed back home in the minibus, via Llangollen and a couple of pubs (allegedly to watch the Belgium match but very little football watching actually happened). After that my memories of the day are somewhat hazy. That may have something to do with the Guinness and the wine that followed, but I do vaguely remember leaving the remainder of our jolly band at around 11:30pm to go and get a curry, because that's always been the traditional end to a night out for me.

I'm quite impressed that at that point I could remember that a chicken vindaloo is 6.5 syns and that therefore I should go for that, although having walked/staggered (delete whichever is least appropriate) home with it I apparently forgot that the accompanying complimentary poppadom was 4 syns by itself. Apparently I was singing along very loudly to my wife's MP4 player and attempting to eat with my fingers...

Anyway, moving swiftly on...I worked out that I'd had around 78.5 syns for the entire day, but since I'd saved my syns all week that was fine (yes, I know you're not meant to do it, but it works for me). I still lost half a pound, and am now 3.5 pounds to target.

I'm planning a very low syn this week as it's the last week that I've paid for and once I hit target membership is free (as long as I stay within 3lbs of target), although it's likely that I will lower my target by at least half a stone once I'm there...and it's the Oswestry food festival this weekend, where it is traditional that I take my daughter and eat a lot of stuff, so that may get in the way.

Wow, that was a long one (as the actress said to the bishop). Yesterday's food (I'll do a short post later with today's now that I'm caught up):

Wednesday 9th July

Healthy A: Milk

Breakfast

Fruit (peach, apple, orange)

Lunch

Bacon pasta salad (bacon fried with mushrooms, red onion, tomatoes and spring onions and added to cold pasta with some crushed chillies)

Dinner

Gammon with Jacket wedges, sweetcorn and broccoli.

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee/fruit/yoghurt

Exercise

Rest day.

Busy busy busy

....in which life is not playing ball

Since I run my own company occasionally things get a bit manic. This is one such time, so here's a quick update with the last few days' food - I will try to do a longer post later, but more work beckons (because apparently we need money to buy stuff).

Oh yes, I lost half a pound this week despite the stag do shenanigans - 3.5 pounds to target!

Sunday 6th July

Healthy A: Milk.

Breakfast

Fruit (peach, apple, satsuma), fat-free yoghurt

Lunch

Roast pork (fat removed) with boiled potatoes, carrots, broccoli, roast potatoes & sweetcorn. 1.5 syns for gravy.

Dinner

More fruit...wasn't very hungry!

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, fruit, yoghurt

Exercise

Rest day (largely because of various bumps and bruises that were either a result of karting or drunkenness - not sure which!

Monday 7th July

Healthy A: Milk.

Breakfast

Fruit (apple, peach, satsuma), fat-free yoghurt

Lunch

Ham & Mushroom omelette with spicy wedges & baked beans

Dinner

Paprika Pork

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, fruit, yoghurt

Exercise

30 minute run (approx 3 miles)

Tuesday 8th July

Healthy A: Milk.

Breakfast

Fruit (apple, pear, satsuma), fat free yoghurt

Lunch

Piri-piri jacket wedges with runner beans and fish.

Dinner

Diet Coke chicken (never tried this before)!

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, fruit, yoghurt, marmite on a slice of wholemeal bread (healthy b)

Exercise

Another rest day because ow my side and my arms and I think I might have a bruised coccyx....
(Okay, I ended up running 3.63 miles despite all that. Somehow I now consider this to be a medium length run...)

Run time!

...in which my mind probably wanders a bit.

(Run time as opposed to design time. This is a programmer thing, you can ignore it. Unless you want me to explain it...no? No, didn't think so).

This morning I ran 4.8 miles in 45 minutes. If I'd tried to do that 6 months ago there's a better than even chance that I'd have keeled over halfway around; even briskly walking it would have caused me to get out of breath (probably within the first mile). I ran in the morning today because it is the Elder Teen's prom tonight (when did proms become a thing in the UK?)...I will probably run again tomorrow morning, since I shall spend the afternoon driving go-karts around very fast and the evening engaged in beer drinking).

This wasn't one of the reasons I originally joined Slimming World; I did want to feel a bit more healthy (and in fact I feel about a hundred times more healthy; I have more energy, I feel more alert and I'm generally much fitter) but a side effect of that has been that I can now run much further than I've been able to since the half marathon, and without feeling anywhere near as tired.

The picture on the left below is why I decided to slim down (not just that picture - the aggregate of years of living unhealthily and really starting to feel its effects as I hit my 40s):

The picture on the left is August 2012; the one on the right is a couple of weeks ago. The t-shirt on the left is a large; on the right I'm wearing a Medium (although they're different manufacturers so there's not much difference).

I have been told by 3 separate ladies in the last week that I look "amazing". (Okay, one of them was Claire the lovely SW consultant and it's part of her job to make us feel good about ourselves, but it still counts)! That is what Claire calls a "non-scale victory"...it feels good that people have noticed.

I am very close to my target now (4 pounds to go) but I still have a bit of a belly and slight man-boobs, so it's quite likely I will lower my target a bit - I have a very clear image of how I want to look when I have no shirt on and it doesn't involve a belly or man-boobs, plus I will still be in the overweight range for my height at my current target.

So, there we go. Sorry, that did ramble about a bit...but to sum it up I'm glad I joined Slimming World.

Friday 4th July

Healthy A: Milk

Breakfast

Fruit (Apple, nectarine, pear)

Lunch

Chicken Tikka pasta salad; fruit (orange and grapes).

Dinner

Paprika Pork (recipe here for Slimming World members - requires log in)

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, bacon on a wholemeal roll (healthy b), fruit, yoghurt

Exercise

45 minute run (4.8 miles)

Oops...

...in which I have forgotten to post the blog

I managed to forget to do a blog post yesterday, thanks to a combination of laziness, forgetfulness, parenting, world of warcraft and tennis. Must try harder.

Here's yesterday's menu...another post will be forthcoming later:

Wednesday 2nd July

Healthy A: Milk

Breakfast

Fruit (nectarine, pear, apple); fat-free yoghurt

Lunch

Omelette with bacon, mushrooms & crushed chillies; 4 rye crispbread (healthy b) with marmite

Dinner

Pasta with some sort of chicken & tomato stir-fry thing that I made up (garlic, paprika, onions, peppers, mushrooms, tin of tomatoes, stir-fried with the chicken & 200ml chicken stock then left to simmer for 25 - 30 minutes)

Snacks/Drinks

Hungry day...fruit (loads of fruit), yoghurt, lean sliced ham, 1/2 jar of pickled onions

Exercise

18 minute run (1.83 miles)

15 minutes resistance training (I guess?) (push-ups, sit-ups, running up and down stairs)

The all-pervasive football

...in which I consider the far-reaching nature of sport

A couple of friends and I have had a Skype Instant Messaging conversation going for the best part of a year now*. We are from different countries (Belgium/Netherlands/UK), we hold broadly similar views about a lot of things (and wildly different views about some others), and you would be hard pressed to find 3 people who are less interested in football (except when the younger teen is playing, in which case I become interested).

*(edit for the sake of accuracy - one of the other participants has pointed out that the conversation has been going since at least April 2013, so a bit more than a year).

In fact the chances are that if one of us died tomorrow the average enthusiasm for football in our nation would actually go up. So it was quite a bizarre experience for the three of us to find ourselves discussing whether Robben dived or not in the Netherlands vs Mexico game, whether the penalty was justified, and how theatrical or otherwise his reaction was. There you go, you can't even get away from football in this little corner of the Internet...the world cup seems to have made us all football fans to some degree.

With that in mind, here's a link to an amusing but serious video about FIFA (some bad language):

John Oliver talks about FIFA

Now on to diet and exercise *Wiggles hands in a Wayne's World style transition*

I have to avoid having too many Syns early on this week because of the upcoming stag do. Slimming World have the following to say about saving Syns for the week:

"At Slimming World we don't recommend that you save all your Syns up for the week, just so you can have a few drinks on a Saturday night. Depriving yourself throughout that week is like putting yourself in a tight corset. Before Saturday night arrives, that corset could well have been flung off, and your eating plan been pushed aside for the week…then the month… then the year."

(From here - this requires a Slimming World log on).

I do not struggle with saving my syns up for the week; it's the approach that I have always taken, largely because there's nothing with syns in it that I really want that wouldn't take me well over the recommended daily intake (yes, I could theoretically have one packet of crisps, but I know it's not likely to happen so unless I'm absolutely positive that I'll only eat a single packet I find it better not to start). 

Being on Slimming World hardly feels like I'm depriving myself anyway. I didn't drink in the week (often..well, not very often) before I started, so only drinking at weekends doesn't seem a hardship, and I've actually come to prefer fruit and pickled onions and other healthy snacks to the stuff I used to eat; I feel about 100 times better than I did when I started and that helps keep me on track too. 

Clearly what works for one person might not work for another, so if you're on Slimming World I would follow their advice unless you're sure that you can manage without treats in the week (or can replace the treats with more healthy stuff).

Tuesday 1st July

(That's not right, is it? It can't really be halfway through the year already...)

Healthy A: Milk. Yes, again.

Breakfast

Wholemeal roll (healthy b) with bacon & cherry tomatoes

Lunch

Baked potato with beans & super rice

Dinner

Slimming world chips with pastry-less quiche (bacon, onions, tomatoes, spring onions, yellow pepper, mushrooms, cottage cheese, eggs) with runner beans, sweetcorn & broccoli (that's the veg I have to make so that all of the kids get at least 1-2 vegetables that they like and A. and I get our 1/3rd of a plate super free, although the quiche is largely super free).

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, yoghurt, fruit.

Exercise

45 minutes running (5.5 miles, took 48 minutes).

A lack of inspiration

...in which I just post what I've eaten today

The kids are being surprisingly well-behaved today so I don't have any amusing anecdotes about them and I doubt anybody's interested in my World of Warcraft activities so...here's what I ate today. Sorry. I'll try harder tomorrow.

Sunday 29th June

Healthy A: Milk

Breakfast

Peach, raspberries, satsuma lemon yoghurt

Lunch

Roast chicken (no skin), boiled potatoes, roast potatoes (made with Frylight), carrots, sweetcorn, broccoli, gravy (~1.5 syns)

Low Syn cheesecake made by Mrs N. Mullerlight with vanilla quark, sweetener & 4 biscuits as the base - around 3 syns.

Dinner

Bacon (fat removed, fried in frylight) with lettuce & tomato on a wholemeal roll (healthy b)

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, fruit, yoghurt

Exercise 

30 minute run (~2.5 miles)
15 minutes exercise bike

The joy of the run

...in which I consider the attractions of running

Today, I have been for a long (by my standards) run of 5 miles, which I did in around 50 minutes. My legs still feel OK and I probably could run a bit further - after a flurry of facebook comments I'm now tentatively considering signing up for another half marathon, despite what my legs thought of the last one I did.

I would be interested to see what sort of time I could do it in now that I'm carrying a lot less weight and am generally fitter and have more time to train....watch this space, as they say.

Anyway, running...there's a strange sort of attraction to it. When I run, there's nothing but the effort of putting one foot in front of the other, and the sound of the music through the headphones. It's a good time to think about stuff, and it's actually kind of satisfying to finish a long run and feel as if you could go further.

This afternoon I took the Youngest Child into town, and we stopped off in Costa for a coffee (in my case - black with sweetener since I didn't have my milk allowance with me) and a cake and a "creamy cooler" in hers (which she decided she didn't like in the end). While we were there I saw a guitar in the local music shop for £60 (I do actually play the guitar), and was super tempted, but held off as I already have about 5 guitars and probably my wife would not be too impressed at me bringing home yet another one....

Saturday 28th June

Healthy A: Milk

Breakfast

Bacon on a wholemeal roll (healthy b) with tomatoes

Lunch

Fruit (Nectarine, orange) fat-free yoghurt, slice of ham - I wasn't very hungry for some reason.

Dinner

Home made potato wedges, garden peas, sweetcorn, broccoli, gammon (fat removed, fried in Frylight).

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, fruit, yoghurt, some sort of free sample sweet from Mollie's (I'll count it as 0.5 of a syn - I have no idea what it was, some sort of small hard ball coloured gold).

Exercise

45 minute run

15 minutes exercise bike