Today's food diary

I'm mostly doing this for the benefit of the rest of my SW group so no fancy titles or blog post today. Today was a rest day from exercise, but I did do some housework so that probably counts ;).

Here's a picture of breakfast. Yes, that's diet food.

Food!

Healthy A: Milk
Healthy B: 4*Crispbread (with cottage cheese)

Breakfast

Cooked breakfast (bacon, sausages, baked beans, mushrooms, scrambled eggs, fresh tomato - 0 syns since I used Slimming World sausages and some of my milk allowance for the eggs)

Apple & Fat Free Yoghurt

Lunch

6 Chicken drumsticks (all skin removed)

Pickled Onions

Fruit

Dinner

Slimming World Singapore Noodles (ready meal from Iceland) with mushrooms

Snacks

Pickled onions (about 1.5 jars!)

Fruit

Yoghurt

Of fitness and fiddles

...in which I consider the old adage.

Well, not really, although it is an odd saying. Is a fiddle really fit? It might be fit to play, but it might equally be a wreck with broken strings. Maybe "as fit as  fiddle in good repair" might be a better simile, but it doesn't really roll off the tongue.

Anyway, on the subject of fitness, today I ran 3 miles. Which is what I've considered a short run about 2 months ago (when I did the Shrewsbury half marathon), but now it definitely does not feel like a short run; what's more, I ran the first mile in 7:38; this was my average pace over the half marathon, but after doing that today there is no way I could have done another mile at that speed, let alone another 12. 

So I guess that shows that fitness disappears really quickly if you don't maintain it (I'm making efforts to get it back now; running 3 times a week and gym 3 times, with 1 rest day).

So, today's food. No syns again today, for I am being super good at the moment...

Healthy A: 250ml Semi Skimmed Milk

Healthy B: 60g wholemeal roll

Breakfast

Nectarine, apple, grapes, fat free yoghurt

Lunch

Pasta with crustless quiche left over from yesterday

Dinner

Beef stew with pasta

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee/diet coke

Pickled Onions

Fruit

Chicken drumsticks (all fat removed)

Today's food diary...

Not much time today so I'm just going to list what I've eaten today. I'll try to get back to more regular blogging over the next few weeks.

Quite proud of myself as I went to Shrewsbury today and managed to resist staying out for lunch so I stayed in control.

Note: this is very low in Syns (none at all) because I'm making a serious effort to get back down to target, so I'm avoiding them - I will be having more next week as long as I have a decent loss this week!


Healthy A: 250ml Semi-skimmed milk

Healthy B: 60g Wholemeal roll

Breakfast

Fruit (apple/nectarine/plum) with fat-free yoghurt

Second Breakfast

Bacon (fat removed) on wholemeal roll with fresh tomato

Lunch

1/2 a roast chicken (yes, to myself), all skin removed with a salad pot (no dressing, just washed)
Noodles cooked in beef stock with mushrooms (cooked with the noodles)

Dinner

Crustless quiche with onions & peppers; pasta; beans; sweetcorn; mixed veg (runner beans, carrots, peas, broccoli)
(I had mine without cheese so It had no syns since I'd already used my HEA for milk).

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee * 4 (with milk from HEA allowance)

Pickled Onions

Fruit (free/speed)

Fat-free greek style yoghurt

Exercise: 1 hour in gym; 30 minutes resistance/core work, 30 minutes cardio (20 minutes HIIT on Elliptical, 10 minutes on bike).

The Final Countdown...

...da-da daa-daa, da-da da-da daaaa etc.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist. Actually, not sorry at all).

The countdown that Runkeeper has for the time to the marathon currently looks like this at the time of writing:

This is somewhere between exciting and scary. In some ways, I'm really looking forward to it; the atmosphere at these events is usually really positive and exciting, and this time I know I've done pretty much everything I can to prepare properly so I'm hoping for a decent time (for a first-time marathon runner).

In other ways, I'm a bit apprehensive; however prepared you are, running 26.2 miles is hard. It's 4 miles further than I've ever run before, and after 22 I was utterly exhausted.  

With that said, I didn't eat enough beforehand for the 22 miles and the weather was hellish; the weather for Sunday is looking a lot better, which I'm very relieved about (10mph wind, overcast but not raining). 

I've already done my meal plan for the next 3 days; it has to be said it's not particularly Slimming World friendly, but then the goal is to store as much energy (as glycogen) in my body as possible, which means eating carbs and lots of them. Apparently I should expect to put 3 - 4lb on over the next 3 days and then burn it all off during the race.

I'm still (slightly) above my target range, but I will get back there sooner or later. At the moment I know I'm drinking too much wine and still having too many snacks; it would be great if I was back at target at Monday's weigh-in, but realistically that probably won't happen.

Mild self-torture

...in which I experience the joys of a foam roller.

In a fit of enthusiasm for this whole running thing I have bought one of these things:

This is called a "foam roller" (other brands are available). They are supposed to facilitate "self myofascial release". You put your weight on them at various points and sort of roll along them, as the name implies. There's an article about how to use one here: A runner's guide to foam rollers.

So, you think, (or at least I thought) "it's just foam, it'll be fine". And then I tried to copy some of the suggestions in that article.

Calf...well, not too bad. Bit painful on the arms if you do it for too long because they're supporting most of the weight of your upper body, but no pain, no gain I guess. Same for the Tibialis Anterior (try saying that after a few beers). Front of the thigh, not too bad...and then the Gluteus (the bottom of the buttocks, if you're not sure).

Imagine being kicked by a donkey. No, harder than that. An Arcturan Mega-donkey (thank you, Douglas Adams). A really angry Arcturan Mega-donkey. Now imagine that the pain from the kick is somehow constant rather than a sharp spike followed by relief. 

Got it? Right. That's a bit like what it feels like to attempt to put your weight on one of your buttocks with one of these things underneath you. Really, I have no idea who invented this idea but it must have been someone that really hates people that exercise. Apparently they're a good way of easing out aches and pains in muscles, although I suspect that actually you just feel better after you get off it because it hurts so much when you're on it.

I'm still within my target range at Slimming World, but we're cutting down a little this week (since we might be living on the credit card if a contract doesn't turn up soon, and I've put a couple of pounds on over the last 2 weeks) so I may well lose more weight. 

I'm up to running around 20 - 30 miles a week (two 5 - 7.5 mile runs in the week and one 10 - 12 mile run on a Sunday, along with 2 - 3 visits to the gym a week), so the preparation for April's marathon is going pretty well at least.

Is that it?

....in which a milestone is reached.

Today was Monday, and therefore weigh-in day; I was pretty sure that I would get to target this week, but not absolutely certain, so it was a great relief to get on the scales and have it confirmed (I lost 2lb, so I've now lost a total of 4 stone 1lb (25.8kg, for those who prefer measurement systems with less character but more logic) since January).

As an illustration of what that looks like, there's a before/after picture at the bottom of this post.

As another illustration, Claire the Very Lovely Consultant brought a wrapped up box of....something,,,(I assume it was stones) to group tonight, and had us pass it round. It weighed a stone, and it's very hard to believe that I was carrying 4 of those around with me; a stone is a lot more than I realised. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to run more than about half a mile carrying something that heavy.

The challenge now, of course, is to stay at target. I don't have to pay for Slimming World now as long as I stay within 3lb either side of target; my wife has managed this for well over a year now. It's surprising how many good habits you pick up over 9 months of eating sensibly and exercising, so I'm hoping I won't find it too difficult, but time will tell. Plans to keep me at target are already afoot....(see below).

Since I know myself, and therefore know that I tend to have an attitude of "well that's done" to things I've already achieved, and also know that healthy living is not something you "achieve" and then stop doing, I have already set my sights on a new target. It's a little extreme, but after running with Amy and managing 21 miles the other day I believe I can do it, so I've signed up for a marathon. Um. Gulp.

To be specific, I've signed up for the Greater Manchester Marathon in 2015...since it was Amy that inspired me to do this, I have decided to run it for the Isabelle Lottie foundation, which raises funds for children and young adults with brain tumours (I also have a cousin who is directly affected by this).

If you can afford to and would like to donate, my BT "mydonate" page is here: https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/chrisnmanchestermarathon. 

If you'd rather, you can donate to Amy's page here (it goes to the same cause, but she's prettier than me and really deserves it): https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/53marathons

Here's the obligatory before/after picture:

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....

So near and yet so far...

...in which our intrepid hero is almost but not quite there.

It is Monday, and therefore it is weigh in day. I have lost a pound since last week. I am feeling a bit ambivalent about this. On the one hand, it's nice to lose any weight, and a pound a week is around my average; on the other hand I was really hoping to get to target tonight. I needed to lose 1 more pound to do that, so I am really, really close now.

Of course, the wine on Friday/Saturday (I can have alcohol again now) probably didn't help; one of my favourite Merlots is on offer in one of the supermarkets at the moment, so clearly it's a conspiracy to make sure I don't get to target too quickly. Those naughty supermarket people, tempting me with their fermented grape juice.

Other than alcohol, it's been a fairly good week food-wise. I've made a couple of things that I made up the recipe for on the spot with what we had in the fridge and they were pretty yummy (according to other people in the family too, not just me)! There was some cider on Monday as well as the wine and I had a couple of moments of weakness involving the kids' definitely-not-healthy leftovers, but I did keep under my allowed syns for the week.

Exercising is also going well. I went out for a pre-breakfast run on Sunday (powered by a single banana) and did 9.5 miles; this is the longest I've run since the half-marathon and I've recovered really quickly - I was a bit achy yesterday afternoon but that's hardly a surprise, and I was fine today - fine enough to go to the gym, even.

I'm intending to run a couple of 5 mile runs this week (hopefully one on Wednesday with Amy from http://www.53marathons.co.uk), and then do 10 - 11 miles on Sunday; if that goes well, then I will think about signing up for another half-marathon, but this time I'll do sponsorship and stuff.

I think these Sunday morning runs will be a regular thing now, at least as long as the weather stays good; I went out at 6:40 on Sunday, just as the sun was rising, and although it was chilly (which isn't much of a problem for very long when you're running) it was lovely to run in the slowly growing light. We live in quite a rural area and there was mist on the fields as I ran past, and as the sun rose it gave the mist a sort of pale gold glow on top.

There's a certain peace about the world at that time of morning too; a kind of silent anticipation of the new day, with all its possibilities. There's only you, and your thoughts, and the music, and the need to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and it's a wonderful kind of solitude.

Sorry, got all poetic there for a moment. In other news, I had an interview today for a new contract; I have no idea how it went really, although I didn't feel as if I gave the best account of myself I could. Still, if this one doesn't work out there's plenty of others around (a contract is unfortunately a necessity in the next month or so).

Anyway, that's it for tonight....more may be forthcoming this week. Or maybe not till next week. Until then....

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.

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).

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.

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).

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)