Xylophone Ribs

Cheese

2012-01-22T23:13:00.001Z

And the thing is, I'm not going to 'go on a diet' - that is, alter what I eat. It's bound to fail in the long run. You can lose the weight all right, but it's sure to go on again sooner or later. Not if your weakness is for several packets of crisps and a couple of Mars bars every day, the thing to do there is just stop eating them. But if you've got a healthy and sensible diet, there's very little to give up.

So I'm going to eat anything I want, but a lot less of it. Small portions, never clear my plate unless I'm the one who's chosen the amount of food in the first place. And if I'm still a bit hungry, that's no bad thing. Think of being hungry as the body using fat.

I'm not giving up cheese again. Life without cheese isn't worth living.

Z's back

2012-01-21T09:56:00.001Z

I haven't weighed myself for months. Too lowering to the morale, and I wasn't about to do anything about it, so better not to know. However, yesterday I pulled myself together and clambered awkwardly on to the bathroom scales.

I rarely use these in any case, actually. I normally put my contact lens in (and take it out) downstairs, so I don't find it that easy to read the dial. And we've got these fabulous balance scales which we keep in the porch, where you stand on a platform and then add the weights and slide a bar until the balance tips. But I just wanted an indication yesterday, so bathroom it was.

I'm pretty sure I've lost a pound or two in the past week, because I haven't been eating all that much. But I was gratified, all the same. I'd only put on 5 pounds. Sadly, not all my clothes fit any longer, but if I get going again, I should lose that in a few months. Yes, when I was young and keen I might have said a few weeks too, but it takes me ages and I hate becoming discouraged through over-optimism.

So it seems that I'll be posting again here. And this time, I'm not stopping until I weigh under 9 stone. Not the least likelihood of ever getting to my old (when young) weight of 8 stone 4 pounds, but that's all right. Under 9 will be fine.

Well under 15.

2011-12-23T07:38:00.001Z

Well, it's all working. I weighed myself at my folks' yesterday, fully clothed and wearing a fleece, and the scale said a fraction, a tiny fraction over 15 stone. Which means it's more like 14 stone 7ish. Though later, when I find someone nearby with scales, I will weigh clothes to make sure!

Feeling very pleased with self, especially as still running under 20 miles a week. Cutting right, right back on beer may have something to do with it... Though I weighed in after 5pm, which they say not to do, the wise people that they are. So maybe the weight loss is greater? Whatever it is, i'll take it.

Only thing that worries me about weight loss is the lady attention that follows. I have a mind too, women of shropshire! I'm not just a sex object!!! Though I am that as well, of course.

Anyway, so far, so good. Expect under 14 by mid February...

...and under 15 again.

2011-11-24T09:33:00.002Z

It's all going rather well. The new exercise regime is interesting - I am both stronger in my gait and faster as a result of running fewer miles, quicker. And yesterday, I ran up one of the biggest hills in the area, and down the other side, without any real problems.

Lots of people have been saying "Crikey*, you've lost a lot of weight", but I haven't really. I've firmed up in some places, and I have lost some fat, but I always think of weight as numbers, and the numbers are largely consistent.

Except, I made a game-changing alteration - I pretty much stopped drinking. In three weeks, I have been drunk precisely three times, and each time I have A) not enjoyed it and B) woken up thinking 'what a waste - I woke up feeling so good every other day this week and now I feel like this!'. I'm retraining myself to not enjoy it at all, and I must say, it's working!

When I don't drink, I am often up at 5:30am for a 6am run, back home, stretch, wash up, make sandwiches for The Child, wake Wifelet up with a cup of tea, then walk the hounds. After a drink, I still walk the dogs but that's about it!

Anyway, I feel like weight is actually moving now that my exercise has changed, and my consumption habits. I've enjoyed sobriety more than I thought I would, but the urge to misbehave remains, and I hope it always will.

I weighted myself at my parents' house last night, and the scales revealed I weighed 15st 2lbs, or just a shade under. Fully clothed, and after a solid day's eating and drinking. So I reckon I can reasonably claim four or five pounds for my clothes, which puts me quite comfortably under 15st. And that's worth celebrating with a doughnut.

Just kidding.

But it is.

I haven't been this light since I started running, and weighed myself after massive fluid loss in my first half marathon (somehow still a personal best of 2:08). I feel absolutely fantastic, and I haven't even started the next marathon training cycle yet. Everything looks achievable, even - dare I say it - 13.5st. Or even less.

What's been really strange, and I pointed this out to Wifelet to her surprise yesterday, is that I have lost muscle mass from my legs. They've shrunk. Unless it was cunningly disguised fat, of course.

The worry - and this will sound dumber than dumb - is that women will start finding me attractive. I don;t know why, but that annoys me sometimes. It's hard to explain. Of course, if my wife were to find me utterly irresistible, that is a bonus and a damn fine one. Everyone else can just look.

....Now I HAVE weighed myself...

2011-11-02T11:27:00.002Z

...and I'm still 15 stones 2lbs, despite a concerted drinking effort etc since I last weighed myself. Actually, I haven;t been drinking a great deal. Much less frequently, too. Most evenings I am in bed by 9:15, and awake bright and early for a run or a long dog walk, or both. Most days, I cover around 9-10 miles before breakfast; four running, the rest walking hills with the dogs.

Dogs, plural - we are now dogsitting Darcy, a beautiful Wisla cross boy, for the next couple of years. His owners are in Dubai, so we decided amongst us that he would have a much better quality of life here in Shropshire than in sunny Dubai, and he and Millie get on well, so it's win-win.

Anyway, I'm really pleased that my weight is consistent. I also just changed my running routine, so two runs a week are now much faster. So it'll be two easy runs (four miles each), two faster runs (one two miles, one three miles) and one long run (probably just six miles, but adding a mile a week to it) for a total, when I'm ready (I'm building the mileage slowly, it helps to avoid injury!) of 19 miles a week as a base to build on. By the time London comes around next April, I will be running 40-50 miles a week.

I shall look like a racing snake.

In other news, I have stomach muscles. You can't see them yet, but you can feel them. A nice by-product of the exercises I do to keep my arse strong.

Oh, and I'm now getting paid to write about running, so there's absolutely no excuse not to immerse myself in it now... Racing Snakesville, here I come.

I haven't weighed myself

2011-09-02T12:38:00.002+01:00

...but lots of people have commented on how 'healthy' I look, and that I have lost weight. I don't think I have, but I feel pretty excellent. Maybe I'll weigh myself soon.

This is the longest injury-free period I have had from running since I started. Little niggles, annoyances, nothing major, but enough to put me off for fear of a bigger injury. Now I'm super strong, I have stomach muscles, and my legs are frankly pretty awesome. Even my arse is rock solid, or as close as it'll ever get. So I feel good, and I feel very, very strong indeed. By the end of next week, this will also be the first year I've competed in three races - one full marathon and two half marathons. I feel I could have done a lot more, as well, but I'm building toward a lunatic project next year, and something much bigger in 2013.

In short, I feel great. I even had a beer-free week recently which was a real eye-opener - I had loads of energy, woke up naturally most mornings, went to bed very early every night and my running was wonderful. Hmmmm. Perhaps there's a lesson there.

...and over 15

2011-05-12T15:44:00.000+01:00

Weighed myself at the doctor's today and he reckoned, allowing for clothes etc, I am about 15st 2lbs. Which, considering I spent the week drunk after the marathon, and had a chest infection two weeks prior to that which meant no exercise, is pretty fucking good, I think.

Have run 15.5 miles already this week, will do another 5.5 in the morning, plus a 13.1 mile half marathon on Sunday. That will, assuming I do it all, make this the first week ever, I think, where I have run more than 30 miles. And the first 15 wasn't even that hard. Mind you, that's how they get you…

Beer is slowly taking a back seat in my life after I asked myself a difficult question or two in another blog. I'm out tomorrow celebrating my beautiful wife's birthday, and after that the next time I drink might well be when I am in Spain at the end of the month, or in Macau a few days after that. We shall see. But the weight, I can assure you, will come down. I aim to be around 14 stone by the end of the summer. THere, I've said it, it's in print*.

The doctor said to me this morning, "If you're going to do a lot of running, you need to look after yourself better." All that expensive doctorly education was not wasted on me, I can assure you.

*If I have ever made any other such declarations, they are rendered null and void with this one. Even if I didn't actually do them. Especially if I didn't do them.

Under 15...

2011-03-23T10:27:00.002Z

...stone, that is. And if I had managed my diet more effectively, I would be a heck of a lot lighter than that. I've been able to run 20+ miles a week (hell, 20+ miles in a single run) for the first time in ages recently, and the weight's come off nicely. I weighed myself at my folks' the other night and the scales said 15st 3lb, so I allowed four pounds for clothes to put me just under 15stone. Which is... 209lbs, US Fat Fans. Lightest I've been for a while, but there is more to come. I've signed up for another race after London for a different hospice, though it's only a half marathon. But it means I have to keep going, and there's not going to be any time for any 'what do I do now, where's my motivation' kind of thoughts post-London Marathon, which is good.

In short, if I drank less beer, I would be loads and loads lighter. So that's the next plan...

Z goes to work on an egg, if not a bike

2011-01-26T11:48:00.000Z

I've not had a lot to say. Unusually for me, however, I haven't said anything.

I've not taken any exercise for the past couple of months, I have to admit. I went on holiday at the beginning of November and, not too long after I returned, the weather turned cold and the roads weren't suitable for cycling. Phil kept on cycling mind you, but even he had a couple of falls on the ice. I wasn't going to take risks and besides, it was damn cold.

This week, I finally got back on the bike and, not in the least to my surprise, found that my fitness level was on the floor. I did cycle up a hill that I couldn't manage when I first started cycling, more than three years ago, but that really isn't saying a lot. And I haven't been on the bike since - okay, that just means I didn't do it yesterday, but I won't today or tomorrow. Might on Friday.

Someone in a comment on the other blog suggested I use a Wii - yes, possibly, but the thing is, would I? Frankly, I'd find it really embarrassing in front of the Sage and he's often around. It'd be just as embarrassing to shut him out. And I've little idea what exercises are involved - okay, don't tell me, I've got to google it. Ronan has a Wii and I've played games on it with him, but he doesn't live here any more.

I've been eating an egg for breakfast most days instead of porridge. It certainly is as filling. I sometimes don't want lunch - at least, not at lunchtime. Thing is though, if I skip lunch or have very little, I get tired by the time dinner is ready around 7.30. It's too long to wait. On Monday, for example, I had a banana at lunchtime and some yoghurt, toast and Marmite about 4.30 when I arrived home again. Not sure if this will be a good idea. It's an interesting thing that one egg is really filling at breakfast time, when it wouldn't be enough for lunch. I poach it and have it on dry toast.

Actually, it's lovely, so I hope I won't get fat on it! I fill the kettle, put it on while I get everything ready and pour a glass of juice, put water in a pan when it boils, put a slice of bread to toast, crack the egg in the water, make tea, flip the toast while the tea brews, take the pan off the heat, infuser out of the mug, put toast on plate, drain egg on piece of kitchen paper, put onto toast. The only extra time over making toast is the time it takes to boil a pint of water instead of half a pint. We have fresh bantam eggs every day, so I can always have a new-laid egg (fresh eggs are the secret of good poaching - even a week-old egg's white will start to spread).

The extra few pounds I mentioned back in June haven't vanished. Got to do something. There isn't the incentive now, just shows how I need an impetus to do anything. Saying "I must" isn't enough.

Definitely lighter...

2010-11-24T14:20:00.002Z

A few weeks (well, a couple of months) of regular running has had an effect already, it seems. Weighed myself a few weeks ago and was around 15 stone 3lbs, which is 14 pounds less than I weighed when I did it at the doctor's seven or so weeks ago. Progress.

Days when I run go like this...

6am: Alarm goes off.
6:20am: Get out of bed, get running stuff on.
6:45am: Go for a run.
When I finish run: Have a quick bite to eat and a drink
8:20ish: Take dog for a walk
10:30ish: Come home from walk
10:31 to 3pm: Eat. A lot.

Today, for example, I did just over 6 miles. Went out to a very frosty -3ish at 6:40, got home, went to shop as we had nothing for breakfast, then took the dog out for a two-hour walk. So before I've had breakfast I've covered up to 12 miles already. Virtuous, moi?

I wouldn't say I am looking skinny or anything, but I'm looking healthier, and certainly relaxed. Muscle tone is excellent, and with the exercises my physio has given me my stomach is toning as a by-product.

In short, the weight is coming off as I can run regularly thanks to my physio and some hard work by me. Happy days. I'll weigh myself sometime soon and see if it's as good as it feels...

I'm in!

2010-09-21T11:47:00.002+01:00

The 2011 London Marathon, that is. So that means running, and cross training, and no excuses. Even work might have to take a back seat to this at some points. I only have a couple of international trips in the meantime too, so nothing should really interrupt the training.

Which of course, means I will be as a whippet in a few short months. Got my training mapped out in my head already, and it's started nicely. The added pressure of doing it for a wonderful local charity has had a very positive mental effect. The chap who phoned to tell me I'd got a place couldn't believe that I was pleased about it! Apparently a response like mine is unusual.

In other news, I am taking steps to become a best-selling author, so I can work a bit less. That'll help, too.

I've been a bit lax...

2010-08-17T13:53:00.002+01:00

...in every way. I haven't put any weight on (as far as I can tell), but I cancelled my gym membership because money is tight to say the least. I was running more, but work has knocked that on the head. I'm still walking the dog at least a couple of hours every day, but it doesn't quite get the heart pumping in the same way.

I have however applied for a golden bond place to run the London Marathon next year for our most wonderful local hospice. If ever there was an incentive to train, they are it. I needed that kind of push, so hopefully I'll get in and it'll be good for everyone involved.

I haven't gone unfit or nuffink, just not getting out regularly. Take today, for example. I thought I might get a lunchtime run in, as I had a dreadful night's sleep so I couldn't get one i this morning before walking Millie (she will run with me, but I prefer to do that with her away from roads and to get to places like that, you need to drive, and I don't/can't). I woke up an hour late, took the dog out, came home, had to go and take some photos for an article, then remembered we had a man coming to change the electricity meter. So no electricity, and no work getting done. Lunchtime run gone, as I had to stay in with him, and I ended up falling asleep. Might get the run in tonight, I honestly don't know yet. Probably not though. So I will do my knee exercises, and try it all again tomorrow, because running early works best for me.

I've been thinking about my health an awful lot lately, and my diet too. As I have a close relative of IBS affecting me (I foolishly ate a pear this lunchtime; it has already been evacuated, and it's only 2pm), I struggle to eat as healthily as I once did. I don't have a bad diet, but there's too much meat in it for one thing. It's partly essential though, as everything else seems to have me on the loo...

Too much information, I know, I'm sorry. But it plays such a big part in my life.

Both my parents have been in hospital recently, one having a kind of femoral bypass, the other finding out they need a double heart bypass and a valve replacement. Understandably, that had me thinking about diet, and how it's been thus far in life, and how it might need to change. But the barrier is a simple one - I eat anything green, and me and the toilet become best buds for a day.

Gah.

I've not given up though. Just letting you know. And if the golden bond application is accepted, I'll even be weighing myself regularly, just to see...

Z does up her trousers. Breathing in.

2010-06-18T19:51:00.000+01:00

You thought we'd given up, didn't you? Well, in my case, the fact is that I haven't been dieting. Sadly, back in the spring, I relaxed a bit and that has meant that I have put on weight. I put on a skirt that I couldn't do up, yesterday. Although it was always snug, this is the clincher in my awareness that I've put on a few pounds.

I can't bring myself to weigh myself. And if I did, I wouldn't tell you. Though I haven't - I mean, I'd say "I've weighed myself and I'm not telling you" or else I'd simply lie and deduct a few pounds.

Oh. Wait. Now I can't, because whatever I say, you'll assume I'm at least 5 pounds more. Hmm.

I know, let's just assume I've put on 5 pounds.

Anyway, I'm still a size 10, because I bought a pair of trousers in that size only last week, and you may think that means there's not a lot to worry about, but I have a small frame and I should be a small 10 or even an 8. I don't know if I've got the will to do anything about it - but I also know that if I don't, the odds are that my weight will creep up by a few pounds a year until I'm back to square Z.

Oh bother. I think I need some encouragement. But, since Badge and I never post, there's no one left to read who will give it. Woe.

Badgerdaddy is a Good Influence

2010-03-07T16:55:00.000Z

Assuming, that is, that running is some sort of Good Thing, which I have yet to be entirely convinced of. As I mentioned on the other blog, I ran down the drive on Friday morning, because I was late. Today, quite voluntarily and simply for the hell of it, I ran home down the drive. That is, it was a gentle canter rather than a gallop. I'm terribly out of condition. Quite shocking that I can't possibly run more than 100 yards, and even that leaves me wheezing.

I have no aim or ambition in the running stakes. Just that, having walked slower and slower over the past year or two, it's really quite exciting to move a bit faster under my own steam. And I seem to make quite a bit of it.

Getting to know me

2010-02-24T13:30:00.000Z

It's interesting to read Badgerdaddy's post below, because of the couple of weeks I spent recently not drinking alcohol. In total, I had a week on half rations, a fortnight off the sauce altogether and then another spare week on a glass of wine (a small one) per night.

I take his point entirely about "wanting a drink" meaning you're thirsty. I found some time ago that, particularly in the summer when I come in of an evening wanting a glass of chilled white wine, it's best to start with a glass of water and, once the edge has been taken of my thirst, I'll enjoy the wine just as much but the first glassful will last more than a few minutes. Indeed, I do try to remember to consider whether I want something to drink because I'm thirsty before I automatically reach for the wine bottle.

By the way, last summer, scouting around for something non-sweet to add to gin, I hit upon pink grapefruit juice. Excellently refreshing, much more so than sweet tonic water or similar fizzy mixers.

Anyway, about laying off booze. I don't generally like sweet drinks - I like fruit juices all right, but they don't hit the spot with dinner in the evening when you're used to wine. I don't care for squashes and, although lemonade or Coke once in a while is something I fancy, it's rare and always on a hot summer's day, usually when I'm suddenly tired and need a quick boost. When thirsty, I usually drink water. Or tea.

I drink tea without milk, so builder's tea isn't for me. I drink a whole range of teas - at present in the kitchen there are about 8 black teas, a couple of green teas and several fruit and herb 'teas'. They include Badgerdaddy's redbush tea. Well, not his personal supply. His need is greater than mine. I buy my own.

In that month, I drank whole lots of tea. To start with, as my pre-dinner drink, I was having tomato juice, which worked for a while but I couldn't face it any more when I came home from hospital. But after a while, I couldn't face yet another cup of tea and I was fed up, if that's the word, with water. I was very pleased to get back to lovely wine.

I'm still being fairly moderate - I am pleased, at any rate, to note that I didn't have a problem with limiting what I had or even with stopping altogether - but I'm enjoying a couple of bottles a week. I'd crept up to about three - I think I was probably a bit sorry for myself and having an extra glassful because of it. And a pint of beer would be enough. But for me, tea is no substitute. Not even redbush.

Living and learning

2010-02-21T12:54:00.003Z

I had a revelation about a month ago, involving alcohol, and it's meant something of a change in attitude to drinking. I realised, weirdly, that when I think "I really want a beer" what I mean is I really want a drink. So I swapped beer for redbush tea, and as a result have been drinking far, far less.

I still have evenings where I go a bit mental, but much less of them now. Usually if I am away – for example, I got shitfaced in Munich a couple of weeks ago, and in London about 10 days before that. But I didn't enjoy either occasion particularly, and I know it came out of a kind of boredom both times.

So, what does this mean weight-wise? If I weigh myself in the morning, I'm around 96kg I think. That's a guess; in the evenings I'm around 98 or 99, which is not a guess. But it's steady, it's not really going up or down, and I feel good. Still dog walking a lot, but running has fallen by the weigh-side as I've just had my busiest time of the year work-wise. Still working on my knees, so to speak, and they're nice and strong; I've been dreaming about running too, and have verbally agreed to do a marathon in autumn, so cross your fingers. Gym work is progressing very well, since the enforced layoff due to work and travel.

But the change in attitude to drinking is the big change for me. Last night, I had seven bottles of beer. That's just over 3.5 pints. I didn't enjoy it especially, I just did it because I had decided I would. Daft as that sounds, I do that because next time I think it's a good idea, I'll remember the last time. And it will be a while before it seems a good idea, anyway, because it wasn't particularly enjoyable.

I bought a bottle of wine last week, just something cheap my boss had recommended, and it lasted three nights (third night I had none – WonderWife finished it!). I felt rather proud of myself. All change in habits here.

Still, as we're absolutely flat broke, drinking less is probably a very good idea...

In other news, our bag web shop is up and running; anybody wanna buy a one-off handbag or shoulder bag?? I can maybe do you a deal...

PS: I recently met one of my all-time heroes – that means of the three that are alive, I ony have to meet one now... I met Dame Kelly Holmes in Munich airport, and actually went up to her beaming and just said "You're my hero, you and Paula are the reason I started running!" She was absolutely lovely. So nice, but I was utterly starstruck – I forgot to even ask for a photo, or an autograph.

Bugger! moments like that make me want to blog again!

Better oot than in

2010-01-24T07:20:00.003Z

If Mr Farty will excuse using the name of his blog for a title.

I shall be severely disappointed if I haven't lost a pound or two in hospital. I'm eating very light food but I still can't keep it all down. I'm supposing that all my energy is going into getting over the shock of an operation and there's not always enough left for digestion. "are you passing wind?" asked the nurse. I admitted that I'm not always nice to be near. This is a good sign, apparently because it demonstrates that at least my digestive system is working.

Yesterday, I had three half slices of toast and a little marmalade, a small glass of orange juice and a plain yoghurt for breakfast, pea soup, grilled plaice and vegetables for lunch and couldn't manage it all, a few wine gums in the afternoon and a baked potato with tuna, salad and fruit salad for dinner. This last proved more that I could deal with.
I suspect that the Sage is planning to give me lots of good red meat on my return home, to build up my strength. I may have to hold back for a few days. Not that it wouldn't do me good as my HB is down to 9 because of the blood I lost after the operation, but it seems I'll have to be patient.

Oh, right. I am a patient. It comes in the job description.

Z resists temptation. Mostly.

2010-01-12T18:42:00.003Z

This cold weather is quite trying for a dieter. It's terribly tempting to succumb to nicely warming fatty and carbohydratey things. I'm having to use reserves of willpower, normally kept for emergencies, not to eat biscuits. It's a bit like councils that are fast running out of grit. A few days ago, since I was going to spend a cold day shopkeeping, I added a little milk and a spoonful of muscovado sugar to my morning porridge.

Darlings, what a mistake. It was so much more delicious than my usual solemn brew that I've been wanting to repeat the experience ever since. Indeed, on the day, the Sage brought me a hot bacon roll from the caff and I couldn't manage it all, so whether harm was done is a moot point, but having only put on a few pounds a year to bring me to my sorry state of chubbiness, I don't want to risk going that way again.

Does my hip look big in this?

2009-12-12T16:33:00.004Z

I'm slightly concerned that I may have put on a few pounds, but I don't quite want to find out enough to actually weigh myself. Clothes still fit, but the trousers that were fine back in the summer are just a shade snugger, as I found when I wore them on holiday for the first time in a couple of months. I think they are anyway.

I'd been too busy before I went away to cycle every day, and hills are really difficult at present. I need to cycle most days to keep up muscle tone as I'm a puny old thing, left to myself. Additionally, and increasingly, I've not a lot of strength in my right leg to use for the extra effort needed on a hill. Twice this week I had to get off and walk. This means that there's not all that much incentive to cycle, and so it goes on. I'm quite strict with myself though and do make the effort most times.

The diet has certainly stalled. I've continued with the change in my eating habits, in that I don't eat biscuits or other snacks normally, but I've relaxed to an extent. Today, for example, I've eaten a biscuit, and ice cream (at the theatre) and some cheese. And taken no exercise to work any of it off. Tonight, I've made a Bolognaise-ish sauce, which I'll have with spaghetti or a baked potato. And a couple of glasses of wine. Not wicked, but not dieting either.

I'm wondering if I'll have the fortitude to use the time I'm in hospital to kick-start the diet again. I have no problems with opting for the most low-fat and virtuous thing on the menu and there will be no possibility of eating anything between meals, except fruit I suppose. When I get home, my family will look after me for a while. I'll have to hope they don't lead me astray.

I wonder if my new hip will weigh more or less than my old one?

Apple pie. And ice cream. Bad Z, bad.

2009-11-09T18:27:00.003Z

I'm quite silly. I made an apple pie last night. Fortunately, the Sage ate three quarters of it. And I only topped the apples with pastry, I didn't bottom (?) it too. But, as I said before, I do have an unaccustomed desire for puddings. Also, I'm hungrier than usual. Mostly, I'm eating fruit (in moderate amounts), raw vegetables and the odd slice of dry bread or toast, but I've also eaten two packets of crisps in the past week and I find it hard to care.

I'll be terribly fed up if I start putting on weight again and have to struggle all over again to take it off.

I've been meaning to say, I found in a long-unopened drawer a skirt I bought years ago in M&S. I would have been in my late thirties when I bought it, I should think. It's a size 10 and the measurements stated are waist 24 inches, hips 34 inches. Blimey. And it used to fit me. I haven't even tried to put it on now, it would be too embarrassing not to be able to get one leg in. There was also a pair of trousers, also M&S, and they, also a 10, said 25/36. They are still very old but, obviously, newer than the skirt. Now, measuring about 27/37, I'm a size 10 again. When I was a teenager, I didn't know anyone, however skinny, who was less than a 10. Now, if I weighed the 7 stone 10 lbs that I couldn't help being when Al was a baby (I was a 10 then) I'd probably be a 6. Oh well. I suppose it sounds good to be a smaller size, even if it isn't quite realistic.

Hmmm and hmmmm again.

2009-11-08T12:38:00.002Z

Well, I'm back hovering around 100kg again, but I really don't mind. I've been running again, and I'm very pleased about that. Not least because on Saturday, I managed to combine it with other things I wanted to do, where in the past I might have just run and left it at that.

Saturday morning, I went for a run around 7:15, and saw a beautiful sunrise. My iPod playlist is just perfect for running, and I've been pruning it for some time now (nearly five years) to get the perfect blend of long, slow songs and upbeat, uplifting... And some plain odd stuff. The standouts this week were Bruce Springsteen's Girls In Their Summer clothes, peaking right at the top of a hill I decided to run up quickly. The dolphins surged right at the top with the song, and I couldn't help but grin. And Pearl Jam's new album backspacer, which is a very, very nice running companion as it's their most upbeat in years and has a bit of a punk spike to it in places.

Anyway, after my 30-minute run, I got home, stretched, changed then took the dog for a 90-minute walk, then got home, changed again and went down to the gym to do some upper-body weights. I tried doing bicep curls with a 20kg weight (44lbs, Fat Fans) and failed, and I like to think it's because I'd already done some sets with 14 and 16kg weights, and done dips and pull-ups. Yes, that must be the reason.

In short, I feel very good. Dog walking gets me out absolutely every day, and adding running to it is making me very happy. Next week, we shall try adding swimming last thing in the evening to that mix, and we'll see where I end up. Probably heavy as ever, but considerably more solid.

Z is still here

2009-10-31T20:01:00.002Z

This blog still exists, even if it's hardly ever updated.

Things go on much the same. I weighed myself yesterday on the bathroom scales - I put in my contact lens once I'm downstairs, so I have only the vaguest idea of what it reads, but I reckon I've lost a pound or two or three - certainly not gained, which is splendid news because I haven't actually been dieting.

I made various vows for the autumn a while ago, which I can't quite remember now (yeah, I'll reread sooner or later) but I know it included keeping up with the aquacise. Well, scrub that. I actually can't, it's not laziness. The exercises included a lot of balancing on one leg and then the other, and I can't balance on my right leg for long because the hip cracks and gives way, which isn't as bad as it sounds. And when you lean back into the long thin foam thingy, I can't do that because it hurts to stand up again. And it's too energetic overall. So pah to that.

I found my cycling limit back in September, when I went nearly 20 miles in an afternoon, and that was a shade too much. 15 would have been okay - I was okay of course; that is, I made it back, but my leg hurt for a few days after.

As to what I eat, still carrying on being sensible. As I said, I'm not really dieting, but the effort not to put weight on won't stop ever. Portion size is one major issue, and I suspect it is for a lot of people who think they eat the same as thinner friends. If you are eating with friends, or if the food is really tasty then you are tempted to clear your plate, even if three-quarters of what's on it is actually enough.

The other difficulty is the onset of colder weather. I've made sticky toffee pudding twice this month. Yes, everyone adores it - and actually, the pudding is not that bad, being simply cake with a whole lot of dates in, not too wicked at all. But the sauce, oh, that sauce. Butter, sugar and cream. All heated up with walnut and poured over. Just too delicious for words and a pound on the hips in every mouthful. I confess, I want proper puddings. Regularly. I've been craving stodgy sweetness for a week now and all the low fat plain yoghurt in the world ain't making it go away. I am telling myself I can justify it because my husband would be so thrilled and I'd only need eat a tiny bit - I lie. I will be a fool if I give in.

Anyway, I haven't made any such thing tonight. Though I have wanted food at odd hours. However, I've eaten several sticks of celery, two satsumas and a banana instead of biscuits and cake - not that there's any cake in the house. Instead of toast and jam, perhaps.

Much lighter, actually.

2009-08-31T11:16:00.003+01:00

Which is nice.

Weighed myself at my mum's again this morning, sans coat and boots, and the scales said I was about 15 stone 5lbs, which is a lot less than I thought I was. In fact, I'm a bit blown away by that. 97.27 kilos. Haven't been this light for a while – not since training for my first half marathon, in fact. [Side note, by the end of that half marathon I was 14 stone 10lbs (about 206lbs, US Fat Fans), though a lot of that was fluid loss. That's the lightest I've been in years, and it's only 8lbs away from where I am now.]

I'm very, very happy this morning; and all this while still drinking beer. Hurrah!

Did you hear me at the back? I said HURRAH!

Lighter, again.

2009-08-26T13:32:00.002+01:00

Yes, I am. My new new approach has worked, mwaaaahahahaaaaaaaa!

I got swine flu late in July, the day before I was due to go on holiday, as recorded here. Been walking the dog on a long walk every morning, and a medium one in the evening, and I have visibly lost weight. Not loads, but I'm certainly under 100 kilos again. I weighed myself this morning at my mum's while wearing a big waterproof coat, hiking boots and soggy jeans (the soggy bit is all-important…), and her scales said I was about 16 stone 4lbs, or 104 kilos. I'm pretty sure you can take off the four kilos in clothing… Can't you? Anyway, it certainly puts me under 16 stone, which makes me very happy indeed. Especially as, with work and time constraints, I've not been swimming for absolutely ages. Will hopefully start again on Thursday or Friday this week.

It's a gentle weight loss, but it's satisfying, and all the walking is changing my body shape a little, but not losing any strength, which is perfect. I couldn't lose my outrageously muscular legs – they are my beloved's favourite part of me (well, in the top five), so they have to stay.

When I get down to the gym this week, I'll use their scales and find out the good news more accurately.

I'm burbling. Offski.

A new approach

2009-08-05T11:24:00.002+01:00

Well, I'm still a porkster. And as well as the running was going, when I ran over six miles, the grind started in my knee again, which was a bit upsetting.

So I changed the plan. I haven't run for a while, and I'm looking into a different style of running as an experiment. It's very, very different, and may or may not solve the knee trouble. But that's in the future.

Right now, I'm walking 6-10 miles every day, thanks to our beautiful new dog Milly. We go for a long walk in the morning, while everyone else sleeps, then we go for another longish walk in the evening. Some days, she gets another walk in the middle of the day too, but not usually by me.

So I'm putting the miles in, in a non-stressful way. And I've started swimming again, which is tough and I'm enjoying. The plan is to walk the dog early, work, make dinner, walk the hound again, then swim lengths late evening. It's a very relaxed way for me to take exercise, and it's working for me.

I'm tiring easily at the moment, and I doubt I could handle a workout or a game of tennis – I had flu last week, and with the number of cases of swine flu in the town, I'd be amazed if it wasn't the porcine variety. It sucked, and it's left me a little weak and easily tired, but I'm getting there. And it came at the shittest time – the day before I was due to go on holiday with WonderWife and crazy stepdaughter, in fact. So they got a week away, and I managed to join them for just a couple of days at the end of it.

Enough of my burble. I'm also easing back into work with the whole tiring easily thing, and should really have a go at getting something done today...

Z perseveres

2009-07-18T22:49:00.002+01:00

It has struck me, in the past couple of weeks, that I'm finally getting a bit fitter. By the way I cycle, mainly. My bike only has 3 gears, which is quite complicated enough. But now I go up most hills in 2nd gear because 1st doesn't give enough resistance and I feel stronger generally. Still don't want to think about the bulging calf muscles, though at least I suppose muscles are better than fat.

Anyway, it's taken long enough. But it shows perseverance, don't you think?

35

2009-07-13T15:01:00.002+01:00

Well, this might be the mid-point of life for me, if I'm lucky. Or the first third. Who knows? But 35 feels quite grown up in a way no birthday previously has before. And with it, the desire to change sweeps back through me, reminding me that it's very easy to get fatter and fatter.

I must start relying on my wonderful wife more – she doesn't need me to cook every meal for her, and I can sit and eat my own food with her and my lovely stepdaughter. Or I can go to the gym, then come back and eat and spend time with them.

Swimming is a recent discovery for me, and a great early-morning exercise. Combining that with a good diet, loads of veg, and evening exercise will be good for me. Because, let's face it, since I started contributing to this I've lost a total of about 6 kilos, which I then put back on in about ten days.

I duscussed this with WonderWife recently, and said to her that she must have noticed how quickly weight falls from me, and how quickly it can go back on. The 6 kilos came off and went back on in a total of about three weeks. It went back on because of beer, mainly.

Beer, as Alistair MacLean once said, is the key*. I know all this, yet I get nowhere. How I wish I had more time.

*I believe this was also made into a movie in the early 1970s.

Statistics

2009-07-06T17:02:00.001+01:00

Much the same eaten today as yesterday so far - we can't be bothered with the details can we? I mean, how many pots of plain yoghurt and slices of dry bread can one read or write about.

Feeling that I'm a little neater around the waist, I measured it, but there's not any difference from the last time, when I weighed several pounds more. Just to see, I measured the rest of me - 35 1/2, 27, 37 1/2. The same as at the end of last year, but I have lost weight, so that means that the bits between must have gone down a bit. Such as the muffin-top area. Which, above all, is what I'd love to lose. Indeed, I'd say that I wouldn't mind at all if my bust/waist/hip measurements remain exactly the same, if I had thinner thighs, arms and midriff.

Certainly, I'd say that the cycling helps the bum and thighs. I don't want to think about the possible Girton calves I'm gaining.

I read back some way to find out my measurements last time I used a tape measure - I must say, Badge and I have talked some sound good sense on occasion. I should read our own archives more often, for inspiration.

Z diets

2009-07-05T13:44:00.001+01:00

So, here we go again. So far today, I've had

Breakfast - 1 slice dry multi-grain bread, 1 small pot (150g) plain yoghurt and 4 strawberries
Lunch - 1 slice dry multi-grain bread, a helping of cottage cheese - about 100 calories-worth - a tomato and a chunk of cucumber. When they're cooked, I'll dissect a couple of globe artichokes, which I'll have with a squeeze of lemon juice rather than butter or vinaigrette.

Later in the day, the family have invited us to go crabbing with them. No doubt we'll have ice-creams - the Mr Whippy sort in a cone, which I suspect are fairly low fat and high sugar.

This evening, I'll have a salad, then a pork chop with various vegetables from the garden, more strawberries and a couple of glasses of wine.

To drink otherwise, I'll have water and milkless tea.

Z starts again

2009-07-04T15:11:00.000+01:00

One of the good things about this time of the year is that it's too hot to cook much, so I'm eating very simply - a lot of raw vegetables and salad and a great deal of fruit. I'm even remembering to drink a lot of water. That is, a lot by my standards. I think this is helping to ensure that the heat has no effect on me at all, except to make me cheerful. Well, I'm always cheerful of course *cough*.

So, assuming I haven't put anything on in the last two or three weeks, I've just about met the original target; that is, the doctor suggested I lose a couple of stone. But since my hip is getting slightly worse and there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it, the only way I can place less strain on it is to weigh less.

So, now I seem to have talked myself back into dieting again. I always used to feel most comfortable at about 8 stone 4 lbs (116 pounds, about 53 kilos) - I'm not sure if that's quite realistic for me, but how will I know if I don't try?

Z gets back on the scales

2009-06-15T08:40:00.000+01:00

...and is pleasantly surprised. I haven't weighed myself for ages because it hasn't been convenient - with my Victorian scales in the porch, one can't do the early morning weigh-in in the nuddy which, let's face it, is the only one that counts. And, as either I'm going to spend the morning wall-building or I'm in a hurry, I either wear jeans (heavy) or don't have time. Anyway, today I did, so I put on a summer skirt and a teeshirt and came down to weigh myself before going to wash my hair and dress in wall-building clothes.

9 stone and just under half a pound. Yes, I'm surprised too. That's 27 pounds I've lost since the start of this. You might think, and you'd not be wrong, that this is not a vast weight loss in 19 1/2 months, but as I've said before, it's not the speed of the loss that matters to me so much as its continuation and its permanence. The really good thing is that I've not been really dieting, just eating carefully, and in a way I really can sustain, and yet I must have been losing about a pound a month, which is absolutely fine. I've been feeling that I'm a pretty normal weight ever since I got to 9 1/2 stone, which is why I've been fairly relaxed - it's been frustrating that I'm so relaxed but, and I think this is the reason so many diets fail, you can't pretend about it. If someone says "I really should lose weight" then they aren't going to, however porky they are.

I've been too busy to get on the bike as often as I'd like - if I've got only 20 minutes to do the shopping there's no point in spending 15 of them cycling, but I have been very active, mostly in the garden. I'm sure it's the activity that's tipped the balance.

Now I've lost weight, I've got really flabby thighs. Hm.

Z muses

2009-06-07T18:17:00.001+01:00

I went to a wedding yesterday and received compliments on my appearance and weight loss (this is so double-edged, as it so evidently means "gosh, now you aren't nearly so fat as you used to be!). And today, a friend whom I see regularly asked me if I'd lost more weight because it looked as if I had.

So maybe I'm doing something right after all.

Still haven't actually weighed myself though - that is, I occasionally pop on the bathroom scales, but I rarely have my contact lens in when I'm in the bathroom and they are old scales with a wobbly needle, so although I can see that I'm still the right side of 9 1/2 stone, I can't tell by how much.

Anyway, the more I think about it, the more sure I am that a lot of us who want and need to lose weight and eat healthily and take exercise simply eat more than we realise we do, because we've been doing it for so long that we don't notice. I've been observing people and, on the whole, the slender ones stop eating when they've had enough and the fat ones clear the plate. The fat ones pour cream onto a gateau which already contains whipped cream. Having been on holiday with a group of people recently, I couldn't help but notice that if they had cereal, they put more in the bowl than a standard portion. And the little individual jars of jam were scraped clean - a thin person used the amount needed for the roll. So, if you asked each of them to keep a food diary, even when they wrote down the same thing, one of them would have eaten much more than the other, and been quite unaware of it.

The thing is, I think I've got to understand what not to do if I want not to put weight back on. It's all right when you're dieting - you just avoid what you're supposed not to eat. But it's so easy for the quantity to creep up. And it is all right to have the occasional tasty extra - but again, 'occasional' can easily become several times a week.

Not given up yet

2009-06-05T21:28:00.000+01:00

I'm still alive, and I'd post if I had something to say. My weight still stays pretty well the same, and I still know that I'm eating to not put weight on rather than to lose it. It's a bit desperate in that respect - I sort of think that I'm going to have to resort to eating hardly anything for a couple of days to lose a couple of pounds and then revert to normal for a few weeks, and do that every month. But I know that crash-dieting is silly and pointless - it's just to kick-start, I suppose.

At this time of year, at any rate, it's easy to eat loads of fruit and veg and not bother about much else. Except, you know how it is. I was given a box of Bendicks Bittermints the other day. Now, how can a girl resist that? I don't even want to. I don't care. A year ago I would, but that was a size ago. I have no ambition to be less than a 10 - indeed, I don't know if it's possible without being really thin. I would like a smaller waist and smaller thighs, to be sure, but the hips are fine.

But I mustn't relax. I'm not dieting for how I look, but to stave off a new hip as long as possible. If only there were a more immediate cause and effect. One needs a reward. But virtue is its own reward, isn't it?

No, I'm not.

2009-05-15T07:28:00.000+01:00

Weighing myself today, that is. Went out for a meal last night (Thai) and it was really very nice, but as soon as I stood up at the end of the meal, I knew an evening on the toilet wasn't far away. Something irritated my stomach hugely - probably eating prawns, as I've been staying well away from seafood lately. Mainly because it's a 'Go Directly to Toilet' card in the game of Monopoly that is my life.

Do not pass go, do not collect £200.

Etc.

And for all my grand plans for this morning (mapped a five-mile route out in my head yesterday that I was going to try on a run), I'm not doing anything. I slept horribly, and am still very, very bloated as I type this. I must stick to very plain foods, it seems. Which is fine, as I'm very happy eating an unadorned baked spud with chicken breast. But it does limit eating out. Night before last, we went to the cinema and the ladies wanted to eat at Nando's, so we did. One look at the menu and I was having two helpings of plain corn on the cob, and a side of garlic bread (which I ate a mere three quarters of). Everything was in a spicy sauce, and I do mean everything. It was proclaimed with pride on the menu that everything is in some kind of shitting sauce.

Maybe not an actual shitting sauce. Don't take that too literally.

Anyway, lessons are being learned. I really wanted to run this morning, but in a good way, and not to the bathroom. Grrrrrr.

No beer, so good.

2009-05-13T13:52:00.001+01:00

Well, it's a bit like 'so far, so good' isn't it?

Seriously though, enjoying the 'no beer' so far. It's actually 'no alcohol', but that might take a kicking when I leave for Macau at the end of the month. That said, the hotel has three outdoor pools which I might well make use of, plus a big gym by the look of it. But apparently the humidity will be 100 per cent, so I'll only be using running shoes indoor, which is a shame.

Feeling great, having to stop myself over-exercising, got plenty of energy, and I feel like I look pretty okay, too.

So far, so good. I'll weigh myself on Friday and see what it says.

New motivation

2009-05-10T20:52:00.000+01:00

I went for a really lovely run this morning. Did four miles for the first time in ages. My knees feel fantastic, my muscles feel... Very, very good.

At the end of the third mile, or thereabouts, I passed the 'gentleman' that shagged my girlfriend when I was 21. He was supposed to be a friend of mine, and it disappointed me greatly. I decided to leave town, this being a small place and everything, and went on a pretty great adventure.

I came back here a few years ago, and he was the first person I bumped in to. Turns out after I left, he even took the job I vacated, the imagination-free fucker.

So anyway, he recently became a father of a ginger creation, I forget what gender. Good for him, I congratulated him when I saw him in the street. I meant it, too. He's always wanted kids.

But when I passed him at the end of mile 3 this morning, he was pushing a pushchair, and had one of his girlfriend's other two children with him. And he was looking straight ahead, chuckling.

How passive-aggressive can you be? I have no doubt that this was for my benefit, despite me being on the other side of the street. He and the older child had not communicated at all, it's a long straight bit of road, and there was really no reason for a chuckle other than the fat fucker wheezing along on the other side.

So me being me, and not being passive-aggressive so much as I am plainly direct and unafraid of fuckwits, I shouted 'Morning!' very loudly, he replied, and I called out as I passed: "Chuckle up, buttercup!"

Not my most creative retort, but it felt great at the time. And it hardened my resolve to do the two marathons I have on the calendar; I even went to the gym this afternoon, despite the four-miler, to do more work on my legs and keep them strong so I can stay fit and keep going and going and going…

I often think I should thank him for driving me away from this town, but then I catch myself and remember what a turd he is. He is nothing and no-one – but he is a very, very convenient piece of motivation.

PS: I also ran faster than ever in plodding-training this morning – I usually do around 11-minute miles, as it's about keeping going rather than speed, but today did 10-minute miles, without even noticing. Bodes well.

A funny old game.

2009-05-09T10:37:00.001+01:00

Some weeks, I don't get much exercise, and those weeks are not much fun. But most Friday afternoons, I sack work off early and head down to my old school to play indoor football with some of the teachers. This is surprisingly demanding, and generally great fun. The more people available to play, surprisingly, the harder it is – but the fun grows exponentially.

Yesterday though, I was keeping goal for a few minutes and took a very hard shot right in the plums. That was no fun at all.

I digress. The football is often a shot in the arm for further exercise. For example, after an hour's play last night, which was really tiring, I got up at 7 this morning and went for a run. I ran over 3 miles for the first time this year and honestly, could have run five or six. It all felt right, knees felt mostly great, form was good, the weather was perfect for it, everything came together. I added some on o the end of my usual-ish route, an extra half-mile I'd never run before, and cruised through it.

Runs like that are what keep you coming back for more. In fact, I aim to be out there again in the morning. My new resolution, you see, is to give up beer. Oh, I've said it before, but it seems to be one of the main irritants to my stomach. I could drink Guinness for a while, or other stouts, but even that's causing me grief now. So the beer is gone, and right on the full moon too. We'll see how that works out, but I suspect that with more running, it will work out rather well.

I'm in a 10k race in a couple of months, in London, on my 35th birthday, and I would dearly love to beat my personal best at that distance, which is a piffling 56:29 for 6.2 miles. I think I can do it, and from there, the next race might just be a full marathon in the autumn.

I'm rabbiting, I'm sorry. It's been an exciting and very full week, but not in dietary terms, so I'll keep the exciting things to myself for now. My diet seems to be settling down a bit; I'm working out what to cook so I can eat with the ladies, and still enjoy exercise, or not. Working out which days are best to rest, which to push myself. I've been running faster, on occasion, to see if I can, and doing it consciously and in a measured way. I think, honestly, I'm a better runner now, more considered and more aware thanks to injuries and niggles. That might or might not translate into me becoming a racing snake by autumn; we'll see. One of my other resolutions though, is to invest in a sports massage occasionally, and a physio whenever it's required.

Mid-summer, my wonderful wife will have a new workshop outside of town, and I plan to cycle up there for lunch with her every day, all being well, for a bit more exercise. And what a wonderful motivation, too. Just a couple of miles there and a couple back, ideal for lunchtime.

I'm babbling a bit here. I'm still a bit high from my run.

Two obstacles are looming in beer terms – a trip to Macau at the end of this month, and one to Germany early July. Hmmmmmmmm.

Z eats chocolate

2009-05-07T22:23:00.001+01:00

It was a matter of good manners. I went to a meeting in London with a friend. And what a twit I am, I saw the ticket was 8 o'clock and arrived at the station in good time, not remembering until I was actually on the platform that the 8 o'clock from Norwich gets to Diss at 8 sodding 17.

Anyoldhoo, I had a salmon and cucumber sandwich and a packet of crisps and a bottle of water from M&S for lunch (indeed, the crisps were not strictly necessary, what's your point?) - oh, I've reinstated the half cupful of milk with the morning porridge, it makes all the difference between okay and horrible - and then on the train home A produced a bar of Wholenut Chocolate. "Half each" she said cheerily. It was 3 quite big squares. Okay, another day without losing fucking weight, what's your problem?

Huh. Sorry. Not you, it's me. In the evening, I went too long without food and then I drank wine and I'm still irritable.

Today, 1/2 cup porridge, 1/2 cup milk, water. M&S salmon & cucumber sandwich, pack of salt and pepper crisps. 1/2 small bar chocolate. 1 mint sweet. 1 pear, 2 sausages. Asparagus. 2 slices toast. Small of dish of leftover Bolognese sauce. Better part of half a bottle of red wine. 1 banana.

Can't be arsed to work out calories. Don't give a fuck. I'm in one of my moods. Of course, if you were here, I'd be charming. You'd never know.

Oh, BTW, a charming chap got up and gave me his seat on the Tube. Jesus, I'm fucking old. Oh dear. I thanked him and took it,of course. How kind. How humiliating. But really, how kind.

I think I need cheering up.

Z bites the low-fat bullet, and finds low-salt and low-sugar inside

2009-05-05T18:33:00.000+01:00

Yes, well, I'll reiterate that I find it much easier to diet when I do it thoroughly. I can quite understand those people, whose pictures one sees in the popular press, who take dieting too far and become frankly too thin. We can all think of celebs who have done that. It's simpler to eat no fat or no carbohydrate or all vegetables or whatever the diet du jour is, than to eat just a little. And if you have a fat-free diet, you don't miss fat. The more you have, the more you want and it's ever so hard to judge just the right amount, in the shorter term at any rate.

Today, I've not eaten what I've wanted. For breakfast, I had an austere dish of porridge made with water, flavoured with a pinch of salt and some cardamon seeds. Lunch was late as I'd been at a meeting in Norwich, at which I accepted two cups of black coffee and refused the biscuits. For 18 months, I've effortlessly ignored biscuits. But today, the plate of chocolate biscuits beside me (how could my hostess, who is 8 inches taller than me and weighs 2 pounds more, have put them by me?) called to me in siren-sweet tones. I didn't have one. For lunch, I had lettuce, celery, two Ryvitas and two oatcakes. Then I had a bowl of plain yoghurt and some prunes. It didn't satisfy, frankly. When giving the family cakes and biscuits for tea, I ate an apple. I'd brought Squiffany and Pugsley some fruit jelly sweets from Italy and I did accept one. This evening, I found it hard, again, to not eat something tasty and fatty, such as cheese. I had another Ryvita, some raw carrot, more lettuce and cucumber.

Tonight, I'm cooking roast chicken, roast potatoes, carrots and spring cabbage. This will, at least, feel like real food. I think it will take me several days to adjust to a weight-loss diet.

In fact, an apple contains as many calories as a biscuit or two. But that isn't the point. If I have a chocolate biscuit or a small slice of cake, that will reinforce the sugar-and-fat craving that keeps us overweight. Both are addictive - not in a medical sense, like cigarettes or heroin, but in a colloquial rather than a clinical sense, in that they make you crave the next fix. If you eat a packet of crisps every day, you 'need' the salt (another culprit) and fat in those crisps. Frankly, tasty as Ryvita is, you ain't going to crave it. Cheap chocolate, containing enough cacao to raise the spirits and a whole lot of sugar, is almost impossible to eat a little of.

Pah. I'm stronger than chocolate. And I'll be back on the bike tomorrow.

Z aims for thinness

2009-05-04T20:09:00.000+01:00

Oh, by the way, fortunately May does not consider wine to be fattening. This is just as well.

Today, I have eaten porridge made with water and a pinch of salt. This was solemn in the extreme, but an indication of my determination. In future, I shall split a couple of cardamon pods into it. For elevenses, a licorice stick. For lunch, a ham sandwich. If I'd made it, I'd not have added butter but the Sage made it, so it was lightly buttered. Two slices of buttered bread, one slice of ham. In the afternoon, three sesame Ryvitas. 34 calories each. For dinner, a modest piece of beef steak, asparagus, sautéed courgettes, asparagus, new potatoes. Half a bottle of wine.

There is a box of chocolates, given by a friend, on the table. I sigh. I don't eat one. I may eat another Ryvita later.

May could hardly believe how little I eat to lose weight. I told her the truth, however. Honestly, darlings, it's a bugger. If you're fortunate enough, now, to eat packets of crisps, brownies, Danish pastries, you have stuff to give up. I don't. I have to cut out normal food. Except that I'm not going to resort to egg white omelettes, I feel like I live in California and actually care about this sort of nonsense.

Z ate good food

2009-05-04T12:09:00.001+01:00

Well, I don't think I've come home from Italy any lighter. I wasn't too outrageously off-diet, but I certainly ate more than I can get away with. I bought a new skirt and pair of trousers just before I left and I have a feeling they were both slightly snugger by the end of the week. Both size 10, but now that sizes are so much bigger than they used to be, I have to be mindful that, were I to be the weight I was when I was 40, I'd be an 8 if not 6.

I had a long chat, when both of us had quaffed quite a lot of wine, with a friend who is very slender. She is also athletic; at the age of 79 she still plays golf and tennis and walks a lot too. She is very much in favour of not letting yourself go as you get older (let alone when you are young) and she agrees with me that I've a way to go yet. My daughter thinks I've lost enough - I know what's in her mind; my mother became very thin and was, by choice, slightly underweight for years. Sadly, in her last years her thinness was not by choice. I know that Weeza is concerned that I might take dieting to an extreme. I don't think this is likely at all myself, and I also don't think she appreciates quite how small my frame is. Since 10 stone is normal for her and she's only a couple of inches taller than I am, she thinks that 9 1/2 stone is about right for me, but it isn't.

Accordingly, my resolve is stiffened. I'm going to diet properly again, having been quite casual for the past 6 months. I cycled a lot, nearly 25 miles, in the week before I went away, and have walked a lot in the past week, but I had a chest infection for a couple of weeks before that and hardly cycled at all, so things slipped somewhat there.

My friend is concerned about her granddaughter, aged 21, who she says is 3 stone overweight. She has complained of aching joints, and May pointed out that she could be storing up trouble for the future. I asked in what ways she overeats, and why. May thinks that it's lack of confidence, particularly in regard to men - she almost wants to make herself unattractive (I know that big women can be very attractive, but in this case she dresses to camouflage and uses her size as an excuse not to have a boyfriend), she snacks frequently and she eats a lot at mealtimes too. Simply, what she thinks of as a portion is twice what May does. On the other hand, and I tried to hint at this tactfully, if you're lacking in confidence then being told you're fat and it doesn't suit you, by however well-meaning a person, can make you feel worse rather than giving you encouragement. May's firm "you've lost a lot of weight, you look years younger and much better - now lose the rest" is, I know, absolutely true and I respond well to hard facts, but a young and unsure woman may not.

Anyway, no time to do the weigh and measure biz now, but the diet is back on, properly. I said, a while ago, that I wanted to be below 9 stone by November. I'm changing that. The target is my birthday in September. Then I'll look to the next half stone. That probably will be enough.

In Italy, nearly all the women were slender. I don't think I'd overeat for long if I lived there, it'd be too shaming.

Sensitivity in the New Man

2009-04-23T08:46:00.001+01:00

I was paid a compliment by a woman who I know to be absolutely straight-talking yesterday. Not that she was straight talking just yesterday (which she was), she is a straight-talker, and I saw her yesterday.

You know what I mean. I'm lucky Dave doesn't come here with sentences like those.

Anyway, she said when she saw me that I was looking slimmer. I forget her actual words, but it was certainly a compliment; it's been almost a year since I saw this woman last, so any weight loss might seem more pronounced to her. I'm surprised she remembered what I look like, actually.

But I didn't take the compliment well. I don't get a lot of compliments, and if I do they're usually about my eyes, which let's face it are a genetic accident. I responded by saying: "No, I haven't lost any weight. I left some on the train, I have to pick it up from lost property on the way home."

Good response, I thought, but looking back, why on earth could I not just accept the compliment?

Z is stuck

2009-04-21T23:13:00.000+01:00

Spirit is still willing, but so is the will to eat. I know I'm slipping a bit, gently - it's not doing any harm so far but my weight is still about the same - on the bathroom scales the needle hovers a little below the 9 1/2 stone mark, whether by a pound or two or three varies, but there always seems to be some reason not to start that final stern diet.

I have bought trousers and a skirt today for which I can't afford to put on any weight. I suppose that could be considered a start. Could it? One thing is that I've had a bad cold with a chesty cough and so I haven't been out on my bike much at all. I'm better now, so am back on the bike. Today, I was in Norwich so didn't think I'd have to go into town afterwards, but then I had to go out after all, at about 8 o'clock this evening. It was only between 4 and 5 miles altogether, but maybe worked off a bit of that spaghetti Carbonara I misguidedly cooked for dinner tonight. It's noticeable, by the way, that however much I make of that dish it all gets eaten. Tomorrow, I have too much shopping to do to fit in the bike panniers so I'll go by car, but I've a meeting in the evening 3 miles away, so that'll do for the daily exercise.

Next week I'll be in Italy, but I know I'll do a lot of walking there. I daresay the diet will go awry - when in a hotel I eat plain bread, fruit and yoghurt with black coffee for breakfast as a concession to dieting, but afterwards I'm not going to bore my companions with extreme care. Besides, I like the food too much.

In a groove

2009-04-04T14:16:00.000+01:00

It's been a while, because nothing has changed. I haven't been weighing myself because I am pretty sure I'm just the same. In one way this means that I've settled into a new weight 22 lbs less than it used to be, but since I actually wanted to lose 30 lbs or so, it does indicate that I'll have to kick-start it sooner or later. Not this week, i've just bought some cheese and pâté from the market. That's the thing - if I want to actually lose weight rather than simply not put it on, I can't afford any indulgences at all, and when you're overweight and say you're cutting down it's all right to refuse fattening stuff, but when you're not particularly overweight it sounds picky and borderline obsessive.

The good thing is that the warmer weather is making cycling easier. And my hip is hurting loads less. Well, I say hip, but actually it's my knee that troubles me more, but I know it's the strain put on it by walking awkwardly, plus referred pain. I'm managing not to limp at present, most of the time, thanks to the extra 9 mm lift in my shoe and less pain.

I can't nag you enough - if you're now in your 30s and you get joint pains, do lose the weight now. 20 years isn't long, even if it seems it now, and I'm shocked at losing a third of an inch from my leg because of arthritis damage over the last couple of years. I wasn't that fat - that wasn't the cause of the problem which seems to be heredity plus bad luck, but if you're overweight and quite energetic, that's a hell of a lot of strain on your joints. All I can hope to do now is slow down damage: what's done can't be put back.

Of course, in 20 years techniques will be better for repairing problems, but it's still our job to take care of ourselves and I don't think we can rely on that. After all, will the NHS pay for it by then? Will we afford health insurance? Do you actually want major operations? - a replacement is never as good as the original was. I know how I put the weight on, over quite a few years, and it didn't take much extra.

Dietary madness

2009-03-26T14:14:00.000Z

In the last month and a bit, I have, for the first time in my life, been on a diet. First, it was a wheat- and yeast-free diet, for a week. My stomach was no longer so bloated after food. This was compounded by the advice of a herbalist, who suggested a selection of foods I was reacting badly to, and had been for years.

So out of the blue, I became a true salad dodger. I can no longer eat spinach, rocket, watercress, lamb's lettuce... All the delicious, iron-rich leaves. No bananas, either. Or tomatoes, which is rather difficult.

I've cut right down on pasta (and all wheat), cut bread out, and on and off for the last three weeks, have also removed sugar from my diet, which includes beer.

I have so much more energy now, it's crazy. I get up in the morning having slept brilliantly, sometimes go for a run, work all day, graze on oatcakes, houmous, carrots, and the occasional pork pie (that's my wheat fix - a small pork pie every other day from the local butchers which uses only the best lips and arseholes in their ingredients. Actually, they really do use good ingredients, butchered locally, and will happily tell you what's in everything. They're great.). Breakfast is free from starch and is usually some variety of tinned fruit. It's a convenience thing. Often it's peaches, prunes, maybe strawberries or pineapple. Only the tinned fruit that's in juice, with no added sugar.

At the end of the day, I cook dinner for my wonderful wife and stepdaughter, then I go to the gym, and do my food when I get back. More often than not recently, it's been a baked potato (with a little salt on, no butter), and roasted veg (generally calabrese and parsnip) with a skinless chicken breast cooked in foil with a tiny bit of olive oil on it.

The end result? I weigh less than 100 kilos and while my waist is not quite down a jeans size, I am close enough to get away with wearing jeans that are a size smaller. It's a tiny amount that needs to go, and could easily be achieved, I think, with a proper core strength workout. Last night's workout involved some toning of the stomach muscles, with a full one minute plank for the first time in my life*! Oh, and some side planks for the oblique muscles too, which will help.

My weight, according to the gym last night, is 99.6 kilos. I am very, very pleased with that – almost as pleased as I am to have been on three runs since Saturday (short runs, but runs neverthless - longest was three miles, and it was bliss), and three gym workouts too.

The only thing bothering me about being sugar-free is the lack of beer, so I might go 'low sugar' when this week is out, and just reincorporate beer into the diet a little bit on weekends...

In short, it's all good, dawg.

*Actually, I count seconds with saying the number in full, then 'mississippi' - this means my seconds are more like 1.2 seconds long (especially when you get past 12), so that's more like a 1:20 plank, which is awesome!

What? But Z wants everything.

2009-03-09T17:53:00.000Z

Plain porridge for breakfast, Ryvita and Marmite, plain yoghurt and fruit juice for lunch and a banana and more Ryvita this afternoon. Salmon with carrots, courgettes and pasta tonight. Wine, of course. That's it. Those chocolate biscuits do not know the woman they have taken on. I don't even want them any more. They have lost their tasty thrall.

I didn't have time to go to the swimming pool today so Weeza went instead. I think that works just as well, don't you? I didn't, as I'd meant, cycle in to town as it was blowing half a gale and I didn't care for it at all. So no exercise. And none tomorrow because I'll be at an all-day sedentary thing. Still, can't have everything.

Still resisting

2009-03-08T22:57:00.000Z

I'd say that the habit that had put on the pounds was biscuits, but it was also the easiest to break. One often accepts a biscuit with a cuppa out of habit more than hunger, and it's only too easy to take a second. But once I'd decided not to, I realised I didn't need them at all and I've hardly had a sweet biscuit in the last 15 months. But again today, I found it hard to resist. There's no excuse this time, I just fancied a chocolate digestive. Both this morning and this afternoon.

No, I didn't have one. It wasn't because I was hungry, just that I fancied it. I ate some Ryvita this afternoon instead, and I daresay the calorific content wasn't that different. It's not the point though. I think that all I want is one chocolate biscuit. But actually, the chocolate biscuit wants me. It wants to be stronger than I am. It's not.

Z resists the primrose path to biscuit dalliance

2009-03-07T20:57:00.000Z

It's all gone to pot as, having had an attack of sciatica, I'm distinctly unwilling to take any exercise at all. Today I was going to cycle in to town as it felt a lot better, until I got a migraine, whereupon I didn't want to exert myself. The blurred eyesight recurred while I was shopping so I had to wait until that passed for a while before I came home.

I have the feeling I've probably put on a couple of pounds, so in my ostrich-like fashion I'm not going to weigh myself this week. What a fool. Still, hey. There was one small achievement. I opened a packet of particularly delicious chocolate biscuits for the family, put them on a plate and handed them round. I really wanted one. After a migraine I crave sweet carbohydrates. I didn't have one however, and only ate a rice cake. One biscuit would do little harm, but it would still be stupid as I'd want another one tomorrow.

Z has feeble arms

2009-02-25T09:10:00.000Z

I've taken a load of exercise in the last couple of days - loads for me, that is. I've cycled or walked about 15 miles as well as a 3/4 of an hour aquacise session. This took my determination to the limit - I have to say that it's the sort of thing that bores me rigid. I'm deeply disinclined to do things with people, and I found it unenjoyably hard. In fact, there were quite a lot of the more bouncy things that I couldn't do because I don't have the balance with my right leg and having to twist to right myself really jars my hip. I was obliged to explain to the concerned leader that I'm fine, I just have a dodgy leg and I'd do what I could. This is all right as an exercise in humility but it wasn't much fun.

As long as I interpreted the exercises to suit myself, I think it was all right as a work-out. There are a couple of things - I need something on my feet to stop me slipping, and it will also enable me to wear a lift in my right shoe, which should give me better balance.

The other thing was that I discovered how feeble my arms are. Shockingly so. You know the long tubular foam thingy - can't think what it's called - we tied a knot, put it around a leg to increase resistance in the water and waved the leg around. I couldn't push it deep enough into the water to get my leg into it. I can't lift my leg awfully high anyway, but I could barely get the whole tube submerged. I used to have really strong arms, but that was a long time ago.

Anyway, I cycled to and from the pool and later cycled to the high school again. I made it nearly up that hill - I think I could have but I was pretty knackered by then so I walked about 5 or 10 yards just for the breather. I cycled up the drive to the car park, straight past the bike sheds and up the slope to the meeting centre doors, chaining it to the guard rail at the top. I explained to the Head that I'm too lazy to walk 50 yards from the bike shed. This is absolutely true, but you see how I manipulate people's view of me 'she says she's lazy but she arrives all hot and steamy on her bike when she could just drive here - she is being humorous and is not lazy at all, alors' - but actually I am. I'll carry a ludicrous amount of stuff to save myself two trips and in any situation I'll automatically work out the most efficient way to move, to save myself any effort at all. This is evidently the reason I've become so miserably unfit. I'd rather just sit and watch you all frolic around happily being energetic.

Feeling great, feeling shite, feeling good

2009-02-24T09:35:00.000Z

Yes, that's my diary for the last week since being on the herbalist-imposed 'diet'. I felt great. No bread, I think, was the key. No bloating at all, felt good, had plenty of energy, and weirdly I didn't want to eat lots of carbs like I normally do.

Most odd.

I ate fruit for breakfast most mornings, if not fruit (usually tinned, I must confess, as I discovered tinned lychees are a small fraction of their price in a shell. Go figure) then eggs and sometimes a bit of bacon. Snacked on carrots, and sometimes oatcakes. Ate a normal-ish lunch, which may have been egg-related if I didn't have eggs at brekkie, or may have been jacket-potato related, or fishatarian. Evening meal, which generally came post-gym, was jacket potato with nowt on, plus chicken breast and roast parsnip, broccoli and carrots.

But then the diet thing ended, and I was allowed yeast and wheat and all that crap again. We went out for a meal yesterday to a local pub with my mother in law, and I had a vegetable jambalaya for lunch. Interestingly, they listed the ingredients in the menu, except one – and when it arrived it was fucking covered in celery. Bastards.

Salad is part of what's bee disagreeing with me, so I just ate a couple of bits of raw pepper off that, and ate one small slice of garlic bread, and ate my celery-picked-out jambalaya. Then the child only ate half of her lasagne, so I finished that, too. Then I had dessert, which was some ridiculous toffee thing with a small scoop of ice cream.

I felt shite afterward. Huge, bloated, and shite – and it wasn't a quantity thing, despite what it might read like! The jambalaya was a small portion, and half a child's lasagne... well, not a lot. More than most people might eat, but less than I might. And really, it didn't sit well. Felt totally lethargic afterward too.

So I'm still mostly sticking to what the herbalist advised as regards bread and a few other foods - and beer, hopefully, as she's suggested soemthing to help me handle the full moon. Feel fine today after a big-ish cardio workout last night, and fruit for breakfast this morning. I feel better again. Not bloated, just fine. Will work out again tonight, I think I'm on the cusp of 100 kilos... Weighed myself late last night before I left the gym and I weighed, after a day of food and lots of liquid, 102.3kilos. I'm not unhappy with that.

I'm unhappy that I didn't get to spend any time with my lovely wife though. She was tired and went to bed shortly after I got home, which is fair enough as it was around our usual bedtime. But I had to cool down, have a bath, and relax a bit ready for sleepage, so I stayed up for a while.

I digress. Not seeing Lovely Wife is what I struggle with in terms of exercise. Yes, we do some exercise together, but I do love just chilling with her, playing cards or talking rubbish. Have to find some way to make it all work together that doesn't involve getting out of bed at 5am.

Things I would like to achieve before October:
1: Lose weight on a large scale, but sensibly. I'd like to be lighter, but that's why I'm here. I think the herbalist was a significant step toward this. I don't think it would be outrageous to think I could be a couple of stone lighter by, say, mid-July. Especially if I can perform the next step of the plan – I've spent two months making my legs super-strong and injury-proof; next step is road running in the morning, and gym work in the evening. Split it up so I get more time with the family and more benefit from the exercise. I think it's a winner. So from 102 kilos, I'd like to get down to 90 kilos, a loss of around 2 stone, or 28lbs. Another part of this is continuing to play a bit of football, playing more tennis, and I plan to start circuit training in the next couple of weeks to see how I like it. Body feels great, the training has really worked – just need to up things a little bit now and see where it goes.

2: Run a race. Could be a 10k, more likely a half marathon. On top of that, I'd like to beat my PBs, which wouldn't be that hard – 56:29 for a 10k and 2:08 for a half marathon. A sub-2 hour half would make my year, and a sub-50 10k would be outrageous. But just beating my PBs would do for now.

3: Buy some clothes that fit. t-shirts fit fine, but Lovely Wife keeps pointing out that my jeans look ridiculous. I've gone for very loose fitting jeans for years, partly because my thigh muscles are enormous and it's actually not that easy getting jeans that fit them comfortably. Perhaps buying big jeans helped my mind and waist relax into filling the rest of the space too...

Z Contemplates her Navel

2009-02-23T14:37:00.000Z

I'm doing a bit of encouraging self-evaluation. It's not so much for now as for me to look back on in months to come. So if you'll bear with me I'll itemise a few changes over the last 16 months.

End of October 2007 - Weight then - nearly 70 kilos, nearly 11 stone. Weight now - well, it'd help if I'd weighed myself before starting this, but I can't be bothered now so I'll go by the last time I did - nearly 60 kilos, 9 stone 6 lbs.

Cycling - started in November 07, I'm still doing it. I still don't enjoy it, but I've kept going and while I'm not a lot fitter I'm better at it. I was no end pleased to get up two hills this morning that I wouldn't have done in the cold weather.

Swimming - I started gently by taking the children to the pool. Then that tailed off and I haven't been for months. Bad. However, that is being dealt with and I'm going to an aquacise session tomorrow. Weeza is planning to go swimming in a time-share hired in a private pool, if I go too I can do exercises then.

Walking - no worse. I avoid walking much, though I'm all right on flat ground. Now I've been told one leg has become shorter than the other, I should be able to correct that with an insole and I hope that will make walking easier and the limp less pronounced (it isn't always heavy but it is always there) which will get me doing more steady but not strenuous walking. Badgerdaddy kindly sorted out walking poles for me (I think it'll be a long time before I am sufficiently unself-aware for me to use them both) and that will help too.

Help - yes, I've asked for help. This is not like me. It's the final remnant of early shyness perhaps, that I don't like to bother people, that I'm worried what they'll think if I make a fuss, that I'll look silly. It's also a remnant of not being girly. Oh you know, think Famous Five. George might have been an irritating little tit swaggering around pretending to be a boy but at least she wasn't wimpish like Anne, always proudly polishing her saucepans and looking in admiration at the clever strong boys. I looked sweet and girly but I wasn't once you knew me, and I associated asking for help because you couldn't manage or because it was hurty with being girly. Sigh. Yes, I know. Anyway, I'm not either shy or with inapproprate ideas of what being capable means any more. I've asked for advice and I'm taking it, which is equally useful.

This morning, I went into a room in search of a tee shirt among stuff dumped on a bed and caught sight of my bare middle in a mirror on the way. You know when you catch yourself unawares and discover what you really look like for an instant? - well, I found that my middle doesn't look at all fat but it looks very flabby. Also, my outer thighs are fine but inner thighs are distinctly wobbly. I'll aim to build up to doing something about more specific exercises with that in mind, but for now I'm more likely to do them for health rather than cosmetic reasons.

So, targets for this year - and I am not beating myself up about this, I'm not going to be at all unrealistic and it'll all be achievable without changing much about my life.

1 Starting tomorrow, get in the swimming pool. If I can't do it for fun, which I can't, overcome my resistance to 'joining in' and exercise with a class. Success criterion(oh go on, let me be a complete twat here) - I'm still doing it at least twice a month by the end of the year.

2. Buy new shoes as necessary, get used to wearing insoles. Get walking shoes, do more walking, use the pole Success criterion - once I've corrected my leg length, limp less when my hip isn't actually hurting.

3. Lose the rest of the weight Success criterion - weigh less than 9 stone by the end of October. This is so achievable. If I really pushed myself I could do it in a couple of months, but I am not being overambitious, that's when I risk failing and discouraging myself.

4. Carry on cycling. Success criterion I think I've already said it.

Right, if I can do all that, won't I be pleased? And I've got 8 months.

Z isn't a stranger to the chocolate bar

2009-02-17T17:01:00.000Z

It has to be admitted. I don't lose weight by being sensible but not thinking about it. A more-or-less diet has become my way of life, but that just keeps me stable. If I want to take more off I have to work at it.

At least, now the weather is warming up (and I think having my bike tyres pumped up has helped) I'm finding cycling easier. And I'm going to walk a bit more too, in a gentle ambling sort of way. I'm doing these simple little exercises the physiotherapist gave me too, though they will not lose me any weight for sure. I think the point of them is to promote the release of more synovial fluid to lubricate the joints a bit more. But for me, the exercise I take is to tone me and raise my metabolic level, not to build muscle as such. It isn't enough to burn fat either. So it's back to diet.

I'm becoming casual, I can see it. I seem to have decided that if I am pretty strict for a few days I can lose a pound and then relax for the next few weeks. It's a bit dieting for the lazy. Hm. Yes. That seems to sum it up.

I went to see a herbalist...

2009-02-16T09:18:00.000Z

A real one, not a drug dealer. I went to her on Trophy Wife's advice, as some things seemed to be giving me an upset stomach, and I wondered if she might be able to help me with some skin problems.

So anyway, according to her tests, I need to stop eating, which should increase my weight loss considerably.

Actually, what her tests showed were some things I strongly suspected - that my body has a problem with iron-rich leaves, and tomatoes, for example. After our chat, I'm off wheat and anything with yeast in for a week, and then we see how it goes.

On the plus side, I feel pretty good. On the bad side, she also advised no starch for breakfast, and as toast with Marmite is already out, that also rules out cereal. I've had six eggs the last couple of days, so I'm trying to ease off those a bit... What does that leave? Crisps?

Other meals are fine. Though I've been advised off quinoa too. Pasta, apparently, is fine though. Durum wheat is not part of the problem, I am told, as long as I have it in moderation.

It also means, interestingly, that I will make Stepdaughter and TW's dinner, and make my own separately. This is a good thing, as I can eat a bit later, for example, after going to the gym in the evening. They are both used to eating pretty early, which I've struggled with a bit, so this could work quite well, and mean I get some exercise in. I don't like exercising after food, y'see, so this is ideal; exercise after work, until, say, 7pm, then return, wash, and eat. Job done.

I weighed myself yesterday as I'm curious as to what this will do by the end of my seven days, particularly without bread. I weighed 102.5 kilos yesterday, and I must admit, I feel pretty damn good.

Oooh, I could have raw carrots for breakfast, maybe.

Z does up a Zip

2009-02-07T23:20:00.000Z

You remember those boy's jeans I mentioned here and here? I put 'em on again today and, though I've only lost a pound or two since October (oh dear, I'll have to do something about that soon) I could do up the zip with not much trouble at all. I mean, no lying on the floor or anything like that. So progress again.

Unfortunately, all that displaced flesh sort of bulged up over the waistband. Still, shall we not think about that and focus on the positive?

whales aren't always weighed, even at the station

2009-02-03T19:45:00.001Z

Well, I phoned this morning (because I am resolute), and was a bit disconcerted to be offered an appointment at 3 post meridiem et hodie (3 o'clock this afternoon, darlings). I was already dressed in quite light clothes, but changed in the afternoon to less revealing knickers, just in case, and removed my cardi, for ounces count when you are likely to be weighed. I cycled in to the surgery, for it was bright and sunny, albeit cold. Ice still lingered where the sun hadn't shone (no need to check your arses, darlings, I don't mean there).

Anyway - and this is advice for anyone who ever needs to go to the doctor and knows what effect they wish to have - I gave the impression I wanted to. I like and respect my doctor, let's start with that. I also know him and have done for many years, as my children were at school with his, the better part of 30 years ago. He is a fine diagnostician and a fine doctor. He is straightforward and kind, but his bedside manner is a bit limited. He mostly respects you, if you are intelligent, if you take responsibility for yourself, though he is quick to support those who can't help themselves. He switches off a bit if he thinks you are being a wuss. That's fair enough, actually I'd love to be a wuss but none of my family supports that either (actually, my mum did but i didn't like being mummied so I spurned fussing, which is a bit of a bummer now, really) so I have to act strong and independent so that, when I flag, I get the encouragement I secretly crave all the time.

Anyoldhoo, this is the chap who suggested that I called in every few months to tell him how I was getting along, then was puzzled when i did. So it's been a year now. So I was sensible and practical. I explained that I'd been fine; markedly better in fact, during the summer but much worse once the weather turned cold and wet (it was wet most of the summer, it's the combination that counts) and that I didn't expect anything to be done about that, it was simply an observation (didn't actually say that conclusion, shrugs etc say a lot). However, my knee hurts a lot more and limits me somewhat. He asked if it's the same knee as the hip, and suggested it's referred pain. I agreed that I think that too, but that my concern is that my (sometimes heavy) limp might damage the knee or the other hip. I wondered if I might get advice somewhere about what I could do to prevent that.

Darlings, I said the right thing. He said he thought that was a splendid idea and that I can self-refer to the local cottage hospital's physiotherapist. He also said that when I might be referred to a consultant with a view to a new hip is my call. I explained that it's a bit difficult, not knowing whether I'm 2, 5 or 10+ years away from an operation. I explained that he wasn't helping in that respect. I respected his inability to help. Or was that inclination? Doesn't matter. I didn't use either word. "I quite see that I asked you an unfair question, but you haven't actually helped..." was pretty well what I said. He said that if I can wait until post-60, that will be good. But it was meant (I appreciate, as usual it was unspoken) to hint not advise.

He said that he thought my suggestion (physiotherapy) was a good one and we left each other happy. "You look very well" he said at the end, his glance (for I am adept at reading glances) meaning 'you've lost weight and are better for it". I assured him that I'm in excellent health. He didn't suggest weighing me. It wasn't mentioned. We're both very polite, very English and slightly to the upper end of middle class. What is unsaid doesn't need to be said, because we both know what we meant.

That is, he'll do what I ask, but I have to ask and I'll only do so when I have to because my quality of life is impaired to an extent that is not acceptable to me. Neither before nor stupidly beyond. In other words, mutual respect.

Fuck. And other sweary words. On the other hand, I wasn't weighed. which has to be good, yes?

Oh, and he asked me to move my leg about a bit to check my knee. That is, to raise it in a goose-steppingly sort of way, and then to try to kick my own bum. He said my knee is flexible. Which isn't unexpected, I'd have been disconcerted to have been told I've knee problems. Nonetheless, as a result of such exertions, it's been hurting all evening. Will you respect me less if I say 'fuck' again?

He also recommended a stick. Not a walking stick, but one of those poles, you know. Oh dear lord. What a tit I will look. I so motherfuckingly despair. In an awfully British and sensible and slightly upper-middle-class way, of course, as you know.

Fuck.

Z plans to procrastinate

2009-02-01T22:53:00.000Z

i've been quiet, after a brief January flourish, because not much has happened on the dieting front. I cycled into school three days out of five and didn't enjoy a moment of it, mostly because I'm so damn slow. One day, I was overtaken on a slight uphill incline by a lady who I know to be at least 80 years of age. I can't help it and I can't go faster, any more than I can walk faster than I do, or can not limp nearly all the time. I am building myself up to go and talk to the doctor again.

Not that I know quite what I'm going to say. I don't know how much it 'should' hurt or how much I 'should' limp at the stage I am, which I don't know either. I should find out, I suppose, and I guess that's what I'll enquire about. He said, when I first went to him, that it's my call. He'll refer me to a consultant when I ask him to. But being referred doesn't necessarily mean that I think I'm getting near the time I should have a new hip. I find it hard to believe that, though I recognise I could be refusing to accept it. But it doesn't hurt *that* much and last summer it was fine most of the time.

The thing is, I'm okay about the hip. What concerns me is that limping is putting a strain on my knee and my spine and my other leg and that this will bring nearer the time when any or all of them will give me trouble.

There's another reason I'm disinclined to go to the doctor, which is that he will want to weigh me. He nearly had to force me on the scales last time and then I nearly cried, which really rather upset him (which was quite sweet of him). And oh lord, isn't that humiliating - both the being weighed and the crying.

Anyway, I'm going to make the appointment. But probably not tomorrow. I think I can pretend to be much too busy for a while yet.

Mmmmmm, exercise. Again.

2009-01-24T12:21:00.000Z

I feel bloody brilliant. Been to the gym three times this week, and had an hour of pretty intense five-a-side football. I've been shaving up to 500 calories a day off with each workout, and lordy knows how much with the football. I've been eating smaller portions, too, and feel much better for it. Well, mostly I've been eating smaller portions.

After football last night, for example, I had a big-ish piece of coley (which had been coated in flour and nothing else, then cooked on a griddle pan with the tiniest amount of oil used), a few tomatoes, and some garlic bread, just a few slices. I snacked later, with a small slice of goat's cheese, and some sultanas, and that's about it. Oh, and about 10 Pringles.

It's going good – but next week, I'm away with work from Monday to Thursday, and at least two of those nights will involve alcohol. But my legs feel absolutely incredible, the running is going nicely (on the treadmill at least!) so I should get a few miles in while I'm away.

In short, the plan is going smoothly.

No idea

2009-01-23T20:17:00.001Z

I've eaten without thinking about it. I had a Christmas dinner, which was a carvery involving beef and pork, and bread and butter pudding, and I'm chomping my way slowly, with Ro's assistance, through a bar of Green & Black's ginger chocolate, and I ate duck liver pate (excuse me not being arsed to put in accents) and cheese for lunch - just let's take it that the good work of last week is undone, but that doesn't mean I'm off diet as I'll make up for it and I'm happy to lose a pound a month. You can only do so much and I've done it. We've been invited out for dinner tomorrow night and I'll happily eat everything, in quite small helpings, that's put in front of me.

I ran out of time and so didn't cycle into school this morning, and was so glad of that when I came out at lunchtime and found the temperature was several degrees lower, the wind had got up and it was raining. A woman can only do so much. This whole exercise malarkey is getting right on my tits at the best. I think it will have to be accepted that I do it from duty and not from love and so it's only worth appealing to my sense of guilt.

Anyway, tonight I'm getting slightly pissed because it's Friday. Tomorrow, it'll be Saturday. Did I mention we're invited out for dinner? Cheers, darlings. No drunkenness because I'm busy on Sunday, but some merriment and absolutely no sodding diet.

Food diary 9 - where are the veggies?

2009-01-20T20:04:00.000Z

All fallen apart again. Oh dear. Lucky I lost a month's weight in the first week and so have nothing more to prove for a while.

Breakfast - porridge. Yes, one day I'll get fed up and move back to dry toast and plain yoghurt.

Lunch - I went out to lunch and I was the hostess, although I didn't pay (Yay, earth absolutely does not have anything to show more fair) - a tart containing sweet potato, *another vegetable*, Binham Blue cheese. The pastry was a round of puff pastry. On it was some rocket with a light dressing. To follow, chocolate cheesecake adorned with a cape gooseberry, otherwise known as physallis, which quite possibly isn't spelt like that. I didn't eat the last third of the cheesecake, but it was my duty to order, otherwise the others would have felt obliged not to have pudding either. A glass of red wine. I had to. I'd remarked on its antigermacious qualities.

Dinner - kedgeree and peas. It was quite, but not very low fat. Two glasses of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

Oh, and I shared a ricecake with the dog.

Food diary 8

2009-01-19T22:51:00.000Z

Porridge

Leftover kedgeree, which there wasn't much of. Plain yoghurt.

Several ricecakes and two (small loaf) slices of toast and Marmite, no butter

A cookie (I went out at 6 for a meeting and didn't get home until 10)

Leftover cauliflower cheese and roasted sweet potato/garlic/shallots

2 glasses wine

2 squares Green & Black chocolate

Oh dear, what poor nutrition. Can't be bothered to do the calories, which probably aren't huge, but not how I'd choose to eat too often. Shall we count the chocolate and wine as fruit 'n' veg to make it look better?

Z is pleased

2009-01-19T09:49:00.000Z

Indeed, I am. I've weighed myself and I'm 9 stone 6 pounds. The loss of a pound in a week is a lot for me, especially as I know perfectly well I'd put on a pound or two before Christmas which I had to get off before I weighed myself because I'm too wimpish and tender to be disappointed.

I have to confess that both times I've weighed myself only in underwear (though so I had when I was 9 1/2 stone back in October) which isn't a good idea because when I finally return to the doctor for a ceremonial weigh-in, obviously I'll be dressed then. But now I'm wearing jeans and a sweater, so obviously they'd add several pounds and I frankly wanted encouragement and reward.

It's interesting though that last week was the first time I'd actually written down all that I ate, and it seems to have paid off in weight loss. It is boring though, both to write down and for you few visitors to read. But then dieting isn't exactly the most interesting thing you can do with your life and at least this seems to be helping.

Food diary 7

2009-01-18T18:03:00.000Z

I'm finding writing down what I eat as tedious as you are reading it, so I don't think I'll do it much longer. It has been useful though, and is showing me that I'm eating less between meals than I was a year ago. Sure, I'd trained myself to eat ricecakes and veggies, but I still snacked on a lot of them. On the other hand, I'm more relaxed about eating something extra if I want to because I think I can trust myself not to want to do it too often and start getting into bad habits.

I had a big Sunday lunch today but I won't want much this evening. I'm thinking oatcakes, fruit and yoghurt, maybe a bit of leftover chicken.

Anyway, today I started with porridge - bet you didn't see that one coming. For lunch, a slice of roast chicken, a chipolata, half a rasher of bacon, two quarters of roast potato, two pieces of roast parsnip, sprouts, peas. I don't thicken gravy and it's just meat juices, vegetable cooking water, sherry and a stock cube. A glass and a quarter of champagne. An ice-cream cone with a small scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I wonder why I hyphenated that the first time and not the second.

Now I'm going to cut up a carrot or two and eat it with a glass of red wine. Later, the oatcakes etc.

I can't be bothered to work out calories which are boring anyway - it's a useful exercise to check I'm not eating more than I think I am though. What does sometimes surprise me is how you can whack up calories with a small addition to what you normally eat, like a single brownie or muffin, or a cappuccino if you normally drink black coffee, or a sauce on your meat.

I watched that programme about the American boy of 19 who weighed nearly 60 stone. Didn't end up with the feeling he'd get to the 14 stone target, or if he got near it that he'd stick there. Poor lad. What a life.

I have to say, I'm trying hard and I'll be disappointed if, when I weigh myself next, I haven't gone below 9 1/2 stone. I know I'm not taking much exercise though and I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that. I think I'll just have to plug away at the cycling, even if it's only a few miles a week and hope to get more time and enthusiasm in the spring. It's no good saying I'll try the gym at present as I haven't got much spare time and I will simply use that as an excuse not to go. There's no point in saying I won't if I'm determined enough, because I'm not, at present. I'd rather eat less.

I'm convinced. Convinced, I say!

2009-01-18T10:34:00.000Z

By Z's persuasive argument about the whole food thing. About not eating shitloads. Or rather, about eating shitloads and not being surprised when weight doesn't fall off...

So, the plan is to make a few basic changes. I have quite a high-fibre diet, so that won't change; I will make small changes at first, and see how it feels. I usually start the day with four slices of wholemeal bread plus Marmite, and of course come kind of spready lard; I think the spready lard can go. In fact, I may switch to a particularly lovely muesli kind of cereal they stock at my local health food shop, instead. It doesn't have any nuts in, so is pretty damned healthy as these things go. No sugar, all organic ingredients, and it's bloody lovely. And if I'm hungry mid-morning, I need to make sure there are plenty of carrots in the house, as I do love raw veg, as does Z.

Other meals, I need to eat more slowly, and more thoroughly. Be very regular in the timing of meals, too – if I eat breakfast late, then making all my meals late makes sense to me, rather than eating fewer times and probably over-eating each time.

Combine this with a three-mile run every morning except one and four or five gym visits a week, and we'll see progress. The only problem is, will work get in the way yet again? My publisher has enlisted more help for me, with two new contributors to one of the magazines, which is a huge, huge help. So hopefully I won't work myself into the ground, and will have time to do the exercise I enjoy so much.

Think about it – no lardy toast in the morning could see a reasonable drop in calorieness. Combine that with a 400-calorie-killing run in the morning and another 400-800 calories in the evening… Yes, it will mean I actually eat more for fuel, but I will be burning a lot more too.

I think it will work, and give me a bit of inspiration to continue.

That said, I'm off with work for two weeks soon. Five days in London, one in Stansted, then three days in Munich, one in Maidstone, and four in Exeter. That long away from home, eating in restaurants etc... The only way through all that will be to take a lot of running gear, and to actually use it. Hell of an inspiration – for example, there are few things I enjoy more than running in foreign countries. And Munich's lovely. Running in London can also be great fun, as long as you do it very early or very late, and pick your streets with a bit of care; and Exeter has a really lovely canal path for running on, which is perfection itself. And by then, I'll be stronger and fitter too, so by the time I hit Exeter I may have five miles plus in me.

I do annoy myself sometimes. It's clear to me how much I love exercise, but I get to do it so little! Take yesterday for example – the ladies in my life were out of the house, and despite a bit of a hangover, I wanted to go to the gym. But instead, I looked around, saw that washing needed hanging, more washing doing, a load of washing-up too, plus I had to shop for dinner that night… Well, I didn't work out at all. But I did get to do some second-hand book shopping, so it wasn't all bad.

I'm rambling, and talking total bollocks; but thanks for the inspiration, Z. x

Biking weather

2009-01-17T15:05:00.000Z

It is a lot milder today, with a strong west wind. It rained earlier on but when it stopped everything dried up quickly. I reluctantly dressed up with coat and scarf to cycle in to town and found that it was easier than it has been the last few weeks and I could cycle up the hill to the post office. My knee hurt afterwards, and on the way home my other leg was doing all the active pedalling, but it still proves that it's cold weather that causes a lot of the problem.

Cycling home was a real effort though. I did have full panniers, with lots of vegetables, steak, a chicken and sausages, several tins and other food, and the wind was in my face, but the labour I made of it was quite absurd. At one time I almost stopped and had to stand up in the saddle to put all my weight on the pedals or else I'd have had to get off and walk.

Roll on spring. It should be much better then.

Food diary 6

2009-01-17T10:34:00.001Z

I've just discovered a calorie counter to put on my google home page. It is a bit rough and ready, but then so am I. Ho ho. Joke. Anyway, it works out how many you have in each food, assuming they have it on the page - took me a while to discover that wine comes under dinner whilst cider comes under beverages. It suggests that I had about 1200 calories yesterday from an allowance of about 1450 - it gives the allowance for weight maintenance so I put in the weight I want to be, not what I am. It looks about the right amount anyway, I know I can't eat anything like the 2.000 calories a day charts always blithely offer women and not put on weight, but if I were 6 inches taller I'd need that and more, I daresay.

So, today so far - the usual bowl of porridge. And as I said, I reckon that to be 130 calories because of the small amount of milk I have, although the chart says 157. I'll go with the latter and eat it in a couple of ricecakes later, because that will simplify matters.

I didn't have lunch until nearly 3 o'clock (having had the ricecakes) and so stir-fried various vegetables with some chicken that needed using up and Chinese noodles. I shared it with Ro who felt rather lucky, having just come downstairs in search of food, to find me about to cook that late. 237 calories (that is, Chinese Chow Mein noodles seems to approximate) according to the chart.

I'm a little disappointed to find this google calorie counter didn't retain what I put in it so I had to start the day again. So I've added what I'm planning to have for dinner, that is, sirloin steak, baked potato (yes, baking is my default way of cooking potato as I think boiled is dull and anything else is more trouble, also I have an Aga so it means washing, pricking, shoving in and forgetting for an hour and nothing could be easier), kale and tomato with 2 glasses of wine. Actually, I suspect that my idea of a glass of wine is a bit larger than theirs, so maybe I should be scrupulous and add another glass to the counter.

Probably, I'll also have some fruit and maybe some more ricecakes and raw vegetables. I've added all those and a couple of squares of Green & Black's chocolate. Yes, I'm indulging no end today. Or so I intend. This all comes to 1413 out of 1453 calories but frankly I know that if I eat like this every day I'll put weight on, not lose it.

Food diary 5

2009-01-16T20:17:00.000Z

Today was not at all interesting, as far as food is concerned, except that I've worked out that my porridge breakfast contains about 130 calories which is a lot less than I'd thought. It feels more sustaining.

Breakfast -Porridge

Lunch - baked potato (ate skin and all) with cheese

during afternoon - 4 or 5 mini-Cheddars

early evening - 1 rice cake, 3 raw carrots, 1 glass of wine

Dinner - 1 goat cheeses and red onion tartlet, curly kale, calabrese, small baked potato (plain). Another glass of wine.

I'll eat fruit later. Probably a pear and a satsuma.

Oh, and despite the relatively high fat food, I've eaten very little so it's an even day.

Food diary 4

2009-01-15T17:50:00.000Z

I finally got around to weighing myself today. I have some splendid old scales with weights which are very accurate and since the weights and sliding bar are at face level I can read them, which is more than I can do with bathroom scales (yes, I could buy new ones but Victorian is usually better made). Anyway, I am still nine and a half stone - or rather, I'm that again, because I strongly suspect I put weight on and took it off again. So, since I didn't diet for about two and a half months and did rather let go over Christmas, this is not discouraging.

So, today's food -some of which hasn't been eaten yet so I may have to add more later

Breakfast - porridge as usual

Lunch - I went out for lunch, so ate more than usual. Lasagne, 2 tomatoes stuffed with rice, baby corn, peas. Small slice of lemon torte (served with a blob of whipped cream which i didn't eat). 1 chocolate mint.

5.45pm - I large raw carrot, 1 stick of celery, 1 glass of red wine.

Dinner, when I get around to cooking it - A mixture of vegetables, probably turnip, cauliflower, carrot and courgettes, with a cheese sauce. I won't eat much of the sauce. While I'm cooking I'll eat more raw carrots and possibly a turnip. I love raw vegetables. I'll drink another glass of wine.

Possibly a gaining weight day. Evens at best.

Later, I ate an apple and a satsuma.

Food diary 3

2009-01-14T21:58:00.000Z

It all fell apart.....

I went to London and had to go almost straight out to a meeting when I got back. So I hadn't eaten much all day and I ate crisps (provided by me for everyone) at the meeting. I had dinner when I got back. Not many veggies today either. Oh well.

Breakfast - porridge

Lunch - cheese sandwich made with delicious crusty white bread lightly buttered. 2 cherry (I wrote cheery!) tomatoes, 2 slices of cucumber, small spoonful of coleslaw. Half a pint of fine Adnams' bitter.

Tea - a corn cake (which is like a thin rice cake only it's squashed popcorn. One has 16 calories)

At the meeting - some crisps. I'll look up the size of the packet if I can be arsed and estimate I ate 1/10th of it. 2 cheese biscuits (Cheddars)

Dinner - salmon, chips, broccoli. 2 glasses of wine.

Hm. This is as much an alcohol as a food diary, isn't it? There is little chance that I'll cut down. I did for a while at the start of this diet, but one glass of wine is like foreplay without the sex. Nice, but frustrating.

Anyhoo, this goes down as a day when I don't lose weight. However, it follows two days when I should have. I don't think I overindulged enough to put weight on. So, so far we've got minus, minus, level for the week.

*cough* There wasn't much wine left in the bottle. Now there isn't any. Fortunately, wine counts as fruit, doesn't it?. So it's a good thing really.
*cough cough* I just ate a white chocolate Ferrero Rocher (a mixed box came as a Christmas present) as all the others had been eaten. It wasn't worth it. It was overly sweet, not good chocolate and peculiarly dusted with desiccated (note I can spell desiccated) coconut. I think the others will be put in the bin.

Food diary 2

2009-01-13T19:39:00.000Z

Breakfast - porridge

Lunch - 3 bantam eggs (= 2 hen's eggs) scrambled with a smidgen of butter. 1 thick slice wholemeal toast. 1 apple

Dinner - Kedgeree, made with onion, celery, a little calabrese (to use it up) rice, spices, smoked fish, Greek yoghurt, a little butter. Peas. Cabbage. 2 1/2 glasses wine.

Blimey, I'm bored already at just writing down this meagre amount of food. And I'm not cheating. How come I'm doing well if I lose 2 lbs in a month? I reckon I should lose that every sodding day.

I suppose the overeating day will happen any moment.

I'm going to eat an orange. Add to the above, please.

Food diary 1

2009-01-13T19:29:00.000Z

I know that the amount I've been eating has been creeping up. So I'm going to record what I eat for a couple of weeks. It might just get too boring to put down here, but here is where i'll start.

I won't put down every glass of water or cup of tea. I don't usually drink anything (other than alcoholic drinks) but water, milkless tea or milkless coffee and none of those have calories.

I measured the oats I have in porridge and it was a bare ounce - 25 grams, let's say, which I cook with half a cup of milk, half a cup of water and a pinch of salt. According to a porridge oats packet I browsed, a portion is 45g and 340ml milk. I couldn't actually drink that much milk, never mind have it sloshed around porridge. Anyway, I suppose recording isn't enough, so I should sometime work out calories.

I noted what I ate yesterday, so here it is. Day 1 is Monday 12th January

Breakfast - porridge

Mid-morning - 1 small plain biscuit

Lunch - 1 bowl of home-made minestrone soup. 1 slice of wholemeal toast (bread and toast are normally eaten dry)

Afternoon - 4 thick rice cakes

Dinner - 2 sea bass fillets. Cabbage, baked potato (nothing added), roast sweet potato, garlic, shallots in olive oil. 2 glasses rose wine.

Day 2 follows, though may be updated if I eat more later.

Choice

2009-01-12T22:34:00.000Z

Like Badgerdaddy's friend, you can lose a vast amount of weight quickly, but only if you are really overeating and go to a very strict diet and were pretty damn fat to start with. I couldn't do that. Over a period of three months, I was able to lose a pound a week in my thirties, and that was pretty good going for me. I don't think I could have lost much more, maybe an extra pound a month - but I only wanted to lost just under a stone from 9 stone, so there wasn't much scope. If I'd weighed twice as much, I might have lost it twice as fast or better if I'd lived on chips and Coke to start with.

But the thing is, it isn't necessary to be demoralised if you don't shed weight like that. And it isn't necessary for all of us - for no one unless there is a serious health problem. And, just as seeming to eat no more than a friend, but putting on weight when he/she is thin is an irrelevant comparison, dieting stringently yet losing weight at half the rate of someone else is too. This isn't a competition. And breaking the rules isn't putting one over anyone. You can eat whatever you like. It's your choice, Choose it if you want. Just don't say you can't help it because it isn't true.

I've got plenty of friends who 'couldn't' give up smoking. When they developed cancer or a heart problem, they gave up smoking (my stepfather was one of those). I knew I was overweight. When I was told my arthritic hip would hurt less if I lost weight, I did just that (well, I did, I haven't recently). My friend Jo, after having her first baby, was ill for a year. Eventually, coeliac disease was diagnosed, triggered by pregnancy. She really misses bread, biscuits and beer and gluten free substitutes for the first two don't quite cut it. But she doesn't touch them. She knows how crap she will feel and that it will damage her health. Likewise, diabetics adjust. If we give in to a craving, we choose to eat or drink or smoke or do something which we know is not good but which we choose not to resist.

I'm iffy about the idea of dieting clubs although I know they have spectacular results for some people. It's the tyranny of the weekly weigh-in that puts me off - well, as well as me being deeply solitary and unfriendly with no team spirit. But weight fluctuates. Especially among women or those with quirky bowels who save it up a bit (sorry) or pretty well anyone else. I just couldn't deal with the thing of gaining weight as often as I lost it. I know, that's me and the feel-good factor matters more to me than to some.

So, I've pontificated enough, and I wonder how to get started again with weight loss. Actually, I think I've put on a few pounds and lost them again, but I won't have lost any weight until I'm below 9 1/2 stone. I haven't weighed myself properly as I've been so busy (this isn't the pathetic excuse it sounds) but I'm not much bigger as my size 10 skirt is still roomy. Remember how short I am and my small frame, I'm by no means slim.

It doesn't have to be fair

2009-01-03T11:19:00.001Z

Going back to the question of losing weight by exercise (because Badgerdaddy is sure to pull me up over it) yes, it's possible if you do enough. I know a bloke who cycled across America, coast to coast from Virginia to California, in 3 months and, after the first week, realised he had to double the amount of food he was eating to keep pace with the work he did. But he had been training and preparing for this trip and was used to going to the gym and cycling about 30 miles a day, and he hadn't lost weight on that - he wasn't trying to, he was lean and fit already. So if you're going down the hard exercise route, do that for its own sake. I'm sure you'll lose weight, but it'll take longer if you haven't changed the way you eat.

Many of us have dieted before and either lost weight and put it on again or not lost much at all. So I think you need to work out what you are eating wrong and why. We often say that we don't really eat that much and we've got friends who eat a lot more and don't put on weight, but that's got nothing to do with it. If we're overweight it's because we eat and drink more and move around less than we need to. It doesn't help to compare ourselves with others, unless it's to see what they are doing right, maybe unconsciously, and therefore why they are thinner than we are.

Once you know what you're doing wrong, you must address the reason. Then, you need to work out how to get around that. I find that I must always have something to snack on, but if it is pretty uninteresting and low fat then I won't be tempted to pig out on it, and it doesn't really matter if I do. If you have a strong craving for a food, then it's best to go without. Sweet and fatty foods cause cravings. If you have a really low fat diet for a week and then eat some chips, the fat will coat the roof of your mouth and you'll wonder why you never noticed it before.

But there are various reasons we overeat and it's not enough to simply decide not to do it again. For example, if you've been brought up to clear your plate, it can be really hard not to. If you're sociable, then as you chat, you eat and you don't notice how much you are eating. If you are unhappy or lonely, food is a comfort. it's a great comfort. Don't underestimate that. If we don't care much about food then we'll just shovel it in, but if we're a gourmet then we cook elaborately. We may not be aware of hidden fat, such as in dressed salads or sauces. Then there's those of us who eat carefully all week, go out on a Friday night and eat several packs of crisps and nuts with our gallon of beer, finishing with cheese-laden pizza on the way home.

So, identify what makes you overeat and what you can do about it. Just as importantly, work out what you can't help or what triggers you might be able to avoid. Be honest with yourself, but don't do it with an attitude of self-hate. That is part of the problem. We don't like our bodies when we're fat. Eating sensibly is not a punishment. It's a choice. And, sorry to point it out, but it's for life. If you diet, lose weight and then stop dieting and taking exercise, odds are that you'll regain all you lost and more, in a dismayingly short time. No, it's not fair.

Z Declares that she is Right (which may lead to unpopularity)

2009-01-02T20:27:00.000Z

Okay, I'm going to stick my neck out and give advice. And you might not want to hear it, in which case read no further, or you might disagree, in which case tell me and I'll back down, argue or acknowledge different ways of looking at the same thing, or read it and think that maybe I've got a point, whether you intend to be *inspired* by it or not.

If you're saying 'I really should lose some weight', you're not going to.
If you're saying 'I must go on a diet' you probably won't.
If you're saying 'I'm dieting from now onwards, and no, I won't have pudding, thanks', you might.
If the doctor says 'You need to lose weight' you will genuinely try to.
If you quietly decide that enough is enough, you're doing it from now on and you don't care how long it takes or how hard it is, then you probably will give it your best shot.

So, let's say that you have definitely decided to get fitter, lose weight or both. The decision isn't worth a small, hard, shit. Nor is joining a gym or buying a bike. You've got to use it. Consistently. Quite possibly, forever.

I have done it both ways (that is, dieting with and without extra deliberate exercise), so I know that you can lose weight without taking any more exercise, and as you do so, you will move about faster, so that will help. But exercise tones you up and you will, immensely gratifyingly, look thinner than you actually are, so taking some exercise is a Pretty Good Thing, and it helps with the dieting.

Before you go all out with a heavy-duty exercise programme, consider what you want more: - to lose weight or to become fit and/or muscular. Because the latter doesn't necessarily mean the former. A friend of mine, told she had to lose weight before having an operation, exercised like mad but didn't eat differently, and she hardly lost anything. They operated anyway and she feels better, but she's still fat. She now thinks it's impossible to lose weight. Exercise tones and fittens, but doesn't make you lose weight.

Exercise does raise your metabolism, so you're more likely to lose weight if you diet as well. So, if you want to lose weight, exercise enough to raise metabolism and no more. Muscle-building makes you weigh more. And if you're not dieting too, you'll use the increased muscle as an excuse (which may well be true) for not losing weight.

So, you decide to go to the gym/go running/walk to work/cycle/swim. You are full of determination and enthusiasm. You work hard and lose several pounds in the first weekend/week/month. You multiply that by 52/12 and say that's what you'll lose by this time next year.

I'm not saying this is impossible, but it's very unlikely. Lower your expectations. Bear in mind that there will be weeks, maybe whole months, where you will be too busy or on holiday or going to parties and you will not lose any weight at all, and you may gain a couple of pounds. Even if you diet steadily, crash dieting for a year is unhealthy and leads to diminishing returns. Sure, we've all read about the people who've lost half their body-weight in a year, but they are unusual (and I'd like to see them in 5 or 10 years and see if they've kept the weight off, because I think many of them will be bigger than when they started). Most of us aren't unusual. Most of us eat a reasonable diet, with a few bad habits, and there just isn't enough to cut out to be able to lose that much without risking ill-health. Keeping up strength is important, especially when you're over 40, or have small children, or hope to have children, or have a demanding job, or don't want to risk osteoporosis when you're older, or don't want to catch every infection going. This means me and you and every other bugger.

Losing weight slowly and steadily is best and we all know that, but it's boring and a real pain to have to keep buying new clothes in a smaller size (unless you like buying lots of cheap clothes) but nevertheless, it's the most reliable way of losing weight and keeping it off. If you go on a crash diet, you may well lose weight quickly but the odds are you haven't devised a sustainable and better eating pattern and it'll all go on again as soon as you stop dieting.

10% - 15% of your body weight in a year is a really good and impressive weight loss. If you now weigh 100kg (random amount because the maths is easy), wouldn't you love to weigh 90? Or 85? So why do you think you have to lose 1 kg every week for a year? It's not on, is it? You will not lose half your body-weight. Relax. Losing 1 or 2 kg a month is superb. Even half that is good news. Especially if you've actually arrested weight gain. If you've been gaining a steady 3 kg a year for the last few years, gaining nothing is an advance. Particularly if you're fitter and healthier because you are taking some exercise and noticing what you eat.

Ach, this is too long and I've been opinionated long enough. I'll be back with the rest. And I'll still be annoyingly right.

Not quite to plan

2009-01-02T15:56:00.000Z

I had planned to spend my Christmas break chilling, exercising, that kind of thing. I did approximately 50 per cent of those, though. Not the exercising 50 per cent, sadly.

I did get some exercise - myself and Trophy Wife did a very nice bike ride one afternoon, which was a reasonably undulating, if not hilly, six-miler where we averaged just under 10mph. First time I've done any distance on a bike in a couple of years and it felt pretty easy.

I got to the gym a couple of times, and on one occasion weighed myself to discover I am under 16 stone, which is pretty good. The next time I was over, but it was much later in the day in my defence... Last workout was two days ago, and I did something I have never done before - I did exercises with the sole intention of making running better and easier. I did some core strength, I worked my adductors and abductors (muscles on the inside and outside of thigh, but I forget which is which), did some dips (okay, maybe not ALL running focussed, but that was the only one that wasn't), did a bit on the treadmill and, most importantly, did some lunges. 32 of them, to be precise.

I hate lunges. I find them very difficult indeed, and it causes pain in the right arse muscle for a couple of days afterward. It's the kind of pain which tells you, quite simply, that you need to do more of them. The stride pattern starts in the arse, you see, which makes it a very good exercise for runners and non-neutral runners in particular (well, me at least, as it complements the exercises the physio gave me).

Funny thing is, yesterday, I put my undercrackers and trousers on without tripping at all. Sounds daft, but I always, always catch my right foot on undercracker, trouser or both, and I only realised yesterday it's partly because I can't actually raise that foot all that high from standing.

To summarise my Christmas, anyway: I drank lots of beer for four days, then switched to wine, which I drank only on New Year's Eve. Food was in sensible (for me) portions, and regular. When hard exercise was not an option, we went for longish walks and they were ace. Each was around an hour at least. Was nice.

I still feel pretty good, though some more exercise would be really excellent, so I shall be in the gym quite a lot this weekend.

Waist has not shrunk, but I am a gnat's cock away from being a jeans size smaller than this time last year, so I'd say things are moving in the right direction.

More soon.

Z wishes she wasn't a shortarse

2008-12-30T13:48:00.001Z

I've relaxed far more than I should have. I've just finished my lunch, which was a substantial sandwich. Wholemeal bread, lightly spread with mayonnaise, topped with roast beef, horseradish, tomato, cucumber, Stilton cheese and more mayo-spread bread. This would have been fine without the mayo and cheese, but that tipped it into badness. It went right over to unacceptable territory when I added a handful of Twiglets and a glass of wine.

I'd really quite like it if someone said 'pfft darling, that's nothing, I just ate a whole chocolate orange and three packets of crisps washed down with full-fat Coke'. But I suspect that won't happen. Well, it may, because there are kind people out there. But it won't be true.

I have been overeating, I can't deny it. I was so good last Christmas and didn't put on an ounce. Yesterday, however, things really went haywire. I ate a whole lot of Twiglets, two satsumas and an apple, quite a few marshmallows and a slice of Christmas cake. This is over and above meals, obviously. No, I know, none of it was awful and I didn't even eat any chocolate (not that I wasn't tempted, but I'd eaten two squares the day before) but I'm not taking any exercise at all and it's not the way to shed the rest of the weight I need to.

Thing is, of course, I'm older and shorter than you are. I need fewer calories and I'm less likely to burn 'em off. I haven't weighed myself since my triumphant nine and a half stone of a couple of months ago, which has gone beyond self-protective and into the territory of denial.

If only I were six inches taller, I could eat an extra apple with impunity. D'you know, the whole thing has made me so depressed that I've poured myself a second glass of wine? And eaten a jelly baby.

Oh really, pah. And gah. Not to mention bah.

LATER

The craving for stodge has been explained by the onset of a migraine. Huh.

Z prepares for an Afternoon Nap

2008-12-28T15:28:00.000Z

Mind you, I biked in today and I could hardly get the sodding pedals round. I'm weakening, physically, by the day and I don't understand it. I still feel fine, I just have no strength. And the more I do, the less I have.

Humph.

A fortnight to go before Z Toughens Up

2008-12-22T07:20:00.000Z

In January, Al and his family will go away for a week and I'll look after the shop. I'm looking forward to it in a masochistic, what-doesn't-kill-you-makes-you-stronger sort of way. Unless the weather is truly filthy (this is not unlikely) I'll cycle in by 8 o'clock every morning, work for 10 hours and cycle back home again, on a bowl of porridge, a ham and salad roll and whatever raw fruit and vegetables I want to eat.

I need this to get myself back on track. Feeble though I've been for the last few months, I know I can pull myself up to the challenge. Two years ago, I was so stiff and aching that I couldn't get up unaided and, when I'd been on my knees stacking shelves, I had to crawl to the counter to haul myself to my feet again. That year, there was a strong cold wind every day and setting up the shop was frankly miserable, especially when it was wet. The outside display has to go up, because there's nowhere near enough room in the shop for everything and nowhere to put the shelving.

Last year, I wasn't so bad and had already started cycling, so I know I can do it. It doesn't matter if it's tiring, because it's not so over-taxing that it's bad for me in any way. I hope that, by the time it's over, I'll be so used to the exercise and the cold that I'll just carry on and not skulk indoors like I am at the moment.

Having said that, I've no excuse at all not to cycle into town today. The time has finally come for me to finish off the Christmas shopping. I've done all I would otherwise have to go to Norwich for online and the rest will be bought locally.

Z falls off the wagon

2008-12-18T22:32:00.001Z

Big time. I made sticky toffee pudding for lunch, as a friend was coming over and well, blokes like a proper pudding, don't they? And I was going to be pushed for time in the morning, then out and not home until noon. So I made it the day before and as I was serving up the main course, I poured the sauce over, put it in the top oven and left it until we'd eaten our salmon with pea risotto (yes, containing butter and Parmesan).

I ate a pretty generous slice, but it was okay, it was factored in, as in I'll live on rice cakes for the rest of the week, so the wagon was keeping rolling along because I'd allowed for it.

This evening, every time I've been into the kitchen, I've eaten a bit. It's the toasted walnuts on top and the general sticky deliciousness. I think I've been doing quite well recently, I haven't been actually dieting but I've been eating very sensibly and moderately without needing to think about it.

I stopped myself eating pudding in the end, though. I cut a slice of Stilton and ate that instead.

Hey, maybe it's the Christmas whisky we broached this evening, but I feel perfectly okay about it. I may have fallen off the wagon, and I know I'll crave sugar for the next few days, but as long as I don't give in and eat any, it won't take long to get over it.

Unfortunately, there is still a lot of Stilton left. And it was a very good one. That, of course, was the Christmas cheese. I seem to be jumping the gun. As well as off the wagon. Hm. Is there another metaphor to do to death, I wonder?

Z wants to be alone

2008-12-15T22:28:00.000Z

The rather miserable ending to the post I wrote the other day brought constructive advice from Badgerdaddy:- There's no point making yourself unhappy. Even going for a nice walk can be impossible in this kind of weather. Maybe on those days you could go up to the gym and either spend a bit of time on the treadmill (walking and playing about with the incline) or on the cross trainer, which is non-impact and great on the hips. Just a thought - there's alternatives out there for when the weather sucks or you just want to take the car!

It's good advice, and it can help to think about a different way of getting the same or a better result, and indeed I've spent several days trying to gee myself up to thinking I might try it. But I know in my heart it ain't going to happen. I think the only way I manage to get on the bike is to get somewhere. Once I'm halfway to Yagnub, I've got to keep going. I can see the possibility of my going to the gym if I felt all energetic and positive, but not if I'm fed-up in the first place. I really and honestly don't like 'exercise'. I find it boring.

I can enjoy playing a game - I used to love playing tennis. I could enjoy running, in a frolicsome, playing with the dog sort of way, for the exuberance of it - but just as the mood took me. I said some time ago that I used to really enjoy rowing, but that was proper rowing on a lake or river. I just don't see using a machine as the same thing.

I can see, at a pinch, using some sort of a machine if I had one right here. I can even see myself in a gym, once in a while. I might quite like it as a novelty. But i am the very antithesis of a joiner-in. I would not, under any circumstances, join a slimming club. If I did go along to try it out, I would disengage. This is not an attractive trait and I'm making no boast. If I'm not 'one of you' it's not because I see myself as better, worse, even different from you. Just private.

A blogger who writes really quite personal blogs says she's private. Ah, but *ahem, ahem* one can talk the talk without walking the walk (sorry. Really, really sorry. Put it down to verbal shorthand).

The first step is to want to want to. I'm almost there, possibly. But it may never happen that I will join a gym.

On the other hand, a whim may strike.

Possibly, not twice.

Oh, and does anyone know what a cross trainer is? I've sort of heard of it, but I haven't the faintest idea. I could google, sure, but where's the fun in that?

badgerdaddy WILL be a puff'd and reckless libertine

2008-12-14T14:44:00.000Z

...and I'll tell you why, and how this is possible.

One kind soul - well, a kind company - sent me a crate of assorted Belgian beers for Christmas. They usually send champagne, but I'm not complaining. We sampled six bottles last night, oone of which sadly went down the sink as it had both chocolate and coffee in it. It's hard to tell though, as not one bottle has any English on it. But I think chocolate is basically the same in Belgian (Flemish?), and 'gourmetkaffe' is probably 'posh coffee'. It smelled amazing, rich and dark, and would no doubt have sent my heart rate through the ceiling.

Anyway, it was all drunk in a gentle way, tasting each other's beers (myself and Trophy Wife) and having a nice evening. I had a little bit of cheese on oatcakes too. Not a lot, but enough. Cheese is a very rare thing for me to have – it just never occurs to me to buy it, but as TW had been out selling bags on an outdoor market yesterday, I bought her some very nice goaty cheese as a treat.

I digress. I am going to eat a lot over Christmas, but as the usual treats don't really appeal to me I'm going to have the things I do love – roasted parsnips, for example. A beer now and again. Very little wine, though. Too acidic for me to enjoy at the moment. Lots and lots of roasted vegetables, basically. I'm not enjoying fruit at all, and something in salad is disagreeing with me massively, so that's out momentarily.

I'm really rambling here, but I'm on a roll...

Ooooh, interestingly, I think the thing that disagrees with me the most is spinach. I adore spinach, really love it – though TW's herbalist/homeopathic/ dietary lady person reckons that you often crave the thing that is worst for you, or that affects you adversely. Which would make sense in this case, as it's honestly probably the only food I really crave.

Anyway, this year, I have decided I will take some time off over Christmas and new year. I never do normally – there's always a deadline. Well, my deadlines will largely be finished by December 23rd, and my next deadline is not until January 17th ish. I had thought it was the 5th, so I got everything kind of together for that deadline, but it's two weeks later which means I'm going to enjoy time off from the 23rd to January 2nd.

I can't remember the last time I had that much time off without being unemployed. And how shall I use it? Cycling, playing tennis, walking and working out. Oh, and running. Because I'll have the time to do that, and do housework, and do things with the ladies in my life, and have fun. hence I'm going to eat a lot, and I'm going to get as much exercise as I want without worrying about when I have to stop, or how much work I have waiting for me when I finish. All I have to do is my tax return online in the gap between Christmas and new year, and that's it.

I'm absurdly excited about this.

Z will NOT be a puff'd and reckless libertine

2008-12-13T17:02:00.000Z

I've just poured myself a glass of wine. Well, half a glass. Guiltily, I looked over at Ro, who is presently talking to a friend on Skype or something similar. I'm immensely pleased to see that he's got a glass of Guinness balanced on the arm of his chair, so I need not feel guilty at all.

I'm back on track, but with difficulty. I ate another small piece of Christmas cake the day after the first, but fortunately the Sage and Ro had scarfed all the mince pies. On Thursday, I went to yet another Christmas dinner and ate pretty well all my helping of Christmas pud, but not the mince pie that followed, and I've been virtue personified since then. It's not easy at this time of year, because you eat out so much in a party-type atmosphere. it's easier in restaurants in fact, because there's no feeling of being a bad guest if you don't clear your plate and if there's a menu rather than a set meal, you can try to choose lighter dishes. Sometimes there just aren't any, though. Something that sounds light is loaded with cream.

I don't mind the thought of relaxing a bit over Christmas, but I know how discouraged I'll feel if I put on weight, so best not. So I must still follow the steep and thorny path, with the additional hazard of trying to look carefree about it and not harping on about being careful because I don't want to spoil other people's enjoyment.

The thing is, I know only too well that one can diet strenuously and successfully, but then get bored. And that's when you're vulnerable, because you have succeeded in losing weight, so you think that it doesn't matter if you put on a pound or two because you know how to lose it again, but it's not that easy a second time. And, because you're temporarily off the diet, you don't weigh yourself, so when you do you find you've added a good half stone and you are so filled with self-hate that you give up.

That is bloody well not going to happen.

The other difficulty is that my hips hurt and my right knee hurts and cycling is a complete bitch. I hate it, I'm miserable and I'm tired, and breathless after the gentlest hill. This is really taking all my self-motivation. I'm just about managing ten or so miles a week, which I know is rubbish but it really is the best I can do in this miserable weather.

Saved by the Sage

2008-12-08T20:59:00.000Z

The Christmas lecture I went to today, there was coffee and mince pies beforehand and mulled wine and Celebration Anniversary Fruit Cake (Iced) afterwards. I had a cup of coffee and a glass of wine and, since there was food left at the end, several of us took it rather than it be thrown out. I ate my piece of cake on the way home - it was a small piece, but enough indulgence to stop right there.

As I was cooking dinner, I nibbled a dropping-off bit of pastry and it was very good indeed. I said as much to Ro, who agreed - he'd eaten one of the mince pies and said it tasted as if the pastry was made with butter and the mincemeat with brandy. Later, he said he'd put one in the oven. I asked him to put one in the oven for me to share with someone. "A quarter would be fine," I said earnestly. "A third, even half. But I mustn't eat a whole one."

I was on the phone when he decided they were ready, so he came back in with mine. As I was chatting to Dilly, I used my blood donor card (just in case it wiped a credit card) to cut it in quarters and then, when I'd finished the conversation, I hoicked a piece out and ate it. It was very good. Ro was drowsing. I ate another quarter. I spoke to him. He grunted, nearer sleep than wake. I looked at the rest of the mince pie. I picked up a few odd crumbs.

The Sage came in. "Would you share my mince pie?" I asked, passing over the remaining half.

I'll want another one tomorrow, of course. It's better not to succumb at all. But a small victory is better than none.

I am lighter. A bit, anyway.

2008-12-08T10:21:00.000Z

And it feels rather nice.

I'm weighing in at a still substantial 102.2 kilos, but that's more than 6lbs (3 kilos) lighter than I was a few months back. I think I was... 106 kilos at my heaviest this year, which is about 16 and a half stone (233lbs, US Fat Fans); the new weight puts me at about 224lbs, or just a gnat's cock over 16 stone.

Last week I got in three days of lovely exercise, quite out of the blue, as well – tennis on Thursday followed by the gym two hours afterward, then a gym workout on Friday, and more gym on Saturday. All workouts were varied, all left me feeling fucked and pleasantly hungry, too.

Food hasn't changed much - still eating about half a ton of veg a week, hardly any red meat, and it's mostly good. Will be making a few changes soon – will swap pasta for wholemeal pasta, that kind of thing. But that's because running is going rather well, and myself and Trophy Wife have possibly identified a race we'd like to do next year, and it's only four months away, which means getting arses well and truly in gear. We can both run half an hour now, but we'd need to be running just shy of two hours before this one. Not impossible by a long chalk, but there's a lot to be done between now and then with work, living and the like.

Anyway, that's my news, which is pretty good. Am quite pleased; it's good to reach a target, even though hitting the next target will take longer (15 stone, or 210lbs, or 95 kilos) and will probably mean actually being quite committed to exercise... Mind you, last time I trained for this half marathon, I was heavier than this, had recently quit smoking and ended up weighing 206lbs after the race (about 14 stone 10lbs, or 93 kilos). And then I didn't have a great partner to help motivate me and kick my arse, so who knows what might happen this time?

A chip on both shoulders. mm, chips.

2008-12-07T15:06:00.000Z

I'm still not dieting and still mostly eating fairly abstemiously, but it's harder than dieting. It's not that I mind not having the biscuits and stuff, but that expectations are different when someone is dieting. If a group of us are out for a meal I could pass on pudding, saying I'm on a diet, but if I'm not then it looks as if I'm making a point of being virtuous. Agh. You know what I mean. There is a difference.

Also, the weather has been so cold and either it's frosty or wet, so I've only been on the bike a couple of times a week. The less I do, the less motivated I am.

There is good news. I mentioned a while ago a pink wool dress I have from when I was in my teens. It's a size 12, but in those days that meant 34-24-36/37. I put it on today and I could get it over my hips and zip it up easily. I won't say it fits flatteringly - not very forgiving to my unwasp-like waist - but I can get it on, fastened. I won't be wearing it, even if I do fine down a bit, because it's a bit moth-eaten!

It still surprises me that my hips measure 37" and yet I still weigh in the region of 9 1/2 stone because I'd expect to be a whole lot less than that. I know the reason of course - it's the overall distribution of fat; that is, my upper arms and back are more covered, my waist (as I said) is thicker and I'm a C/D cup instead of an A, but having grown up a pear-shape, it seems odd to be more balanced.

Oh, nuts

2008-11-29T12:46:00.000Z

Whilst taking a break from trying to lose weight, I've been taking notice of weak spots in my overeating defences. I'm eating pretty well as I'll eat once I've reached the weight I should be and have not reverted to the chocolate biscuit habit. I've already mentioned the cheese thing more than once, which is something I'll have to watch, but there is another.

Nuts.

When it was fresh cobnut season and then wet walnut season, there was an excuse. They're around for such a short time. But now there are the new season chestnuts and walnuts, and Al has just got in a new bag of peanuts. I made the mistake of bringing home a mixed bag the other night. The Sage and Ro ate a few, but I ate more. I wouldn't have been tempted to eat anything after dinner if they weren't there, but as it was I chomped steadily through. It didn't add up to much, but it was unnecessary.

A friend proudly told me he kept a bag of nuts and raisins or some dried apricots in his car, so that he wouldn't eat sweets. Yes, better than sweets, but it's only a 40 minute drive home, why does he need anything at all? Better to wait and eat some raw carrots and celery while you're cooking dinner. I didn't say this to him. If he had been eating toffees, then of course the nuts are better. But WE DON'T NEED SNACKS.

When I was growing up, we didn't have snacks very often. Some people did - there was a girl called Sandra who seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of sweets, which she was very generous at sharing. I didn't get many sweets and longed for them (though rarely accepted hers, because I couldn't reciprocate). Even rarer was a packet of crisps. I remember once having a bad dose of flu and my mother making up a trayful of tempting little eats - a few grapes, some crisps, some tiny cheese biscuits, a few Midget Gem biscuits - and I stared at them longingly, unable to eat a mouthful. Once I was on the mend, it didn't occur to her to offer them again and I have regretted missing those treats ever since.

I'm best eating proper meals and in my thin days (8 stone-ish) it was good for me to have a small in-between snack to keep myself going, as I didn't eat much at a meal. For example, dry toast for breakfast, an apple mid-morning, a salad sandwich and a yoghurt for lunch, a couple of biscuits mid-afternoon, some crudités early evening before dinner. But they were balanced in with what I ate. These nuts the other night were extras. There was nothing wrong with them in themselves, although I ate rather too many, and they were delicious. But, being a healthy, if high fat, snack, it's easy to think they're all right. They are not. I mustn't do it again too often.

Which way?

2008-11-16T22:43:00.000Z

There are several points where one can come unstuck in the weight-loss stakes, and I've reached one of them. I don't know if I will, however and will have to wait and see.

First, it's going from a wish, an intention, a need to lose weight to starting to do so. Then, after the first enthusiastic rigour, when you've lost several pounds quickly, it's not to give up or at least start to slip into old habits when it gets boring or you crave your favourite indulgences and you feel impatient because the weight loss has slowed, however hard you've tried. If you're doing a lot of exercising, you feel you should be rewarded by weight loss, but it takes a long time to burn off fat by exercise. It does speed up the metabolism and tone you, but actually losing weight with exercise but without dieting takes a long time.

I got through both those stages and now I'm on a plateau. This isn't exactly a dieting plateau, because I'm not trying to lose weight just now - in fact, I said a long time ago that I'm eating the way I need always to eat now, so in that sense I'm not doing anything 'wrong' in any case. But I'm not behaving quite as I have been - partly that's because it's physically more difficult to cycle as much as I did in the summer; but actually it's not as hard as it was this time last year. There are slopes I didn't attempt or got off half-way that now, if I find it tough, I just stand up on the pedals and slog up and wouldn't dream of walking. Partly, I admit, it's laziness. I'm finding it harder than I did a couple of months ago, so I'm less inclined to bother. Last November, I cycled nearly every day, come what may, but now I'm bringing home enough food for two or three days rather than fetching it daily. I can't let this last long, I need to get going - my hip needs the activity as much as anything else.

Of course, if I get going again and lose those final pounds, I'm not in the clear - will I ever be? Last time I lost all the weight (and a bit more) that I'd wanted to, I effortlessly stayed at that weight for several years. I became complacent. You can get away with quite a bit, once in a while. Trouble is, the odd chocolate biscuit or handful of peanuts, whatever your poison is, becomes a habit. And fat and sugar are highly cravable. And if you start to gain weight again, it seems almost impossible to stop.

As I was grating some cheese for a beetroot risotto tonight, I realised it would be the first cheese I'd eaten in at least a week. I've not been in to town on a Thursday, so haven't bought cheese at the stall (and have walked past the tempting deli) for three weeks. So, apart from cheddar for cooking (and for the Sage), I haven't had any in the house. For a week or two, I used it a lot in cooking, but last week it so happened that I didn't. So I've lost the craving - as long as putting it in the risotto doesn't bring it on again. I hope not, I couldn't actually separate out the flavour of cheese from the rest of it.

I've been quite hungry on a couple of days this week. One day, I hopelessly craved sugar. I didn't have any sweets in the house, or I'd have eaten a couple of jelly babies or wine gums. I had chocolate, sesame snaps and biscuits in the house, but instead I ate a couple of teaspoonfuls of the quince jelly I made the other week. I figured it wasn't so bad - fruit juice and sugar only. And one can't eat a whole lot of it.

And I've scoffed huge quantities of raw carrots. A bunch lasts two days - not sure how many that is, 10 or 12, I suppose. That's in addition to those I eat as I prepare them for a meal. I have to do more than we need of all vegetables. Sprouts, leeks, turnip, whatever - I steal bits from the pan before putting them on to cook.

Mystery solved

2008-11-13T22:04:00.001Z

I think I know why cycling has been a bit hard the last few weeks. I went to give blood today and my haemoglobin level is too low. Not by much, and I'm only borderline anaemic, but it explains a lot.

So, why?

Well, I think I might always have had a tendency to a low level of iron in my blood. I recognise how I feel, and it's what I sometimes used to feel like when I was thinner. The only times I've actually been diagnosed anaemic, though, were when I was pregnant and then I used to feel awful and iron tablets, given out routinely in those days, were not enough and I used to have to have beastly iron injections and then follow up with double iron rations, if you see what I mean, to keep my iron level up to an acceptable amount - which for me is over 12. At present, it's 11.4. If it were about 10, I'd feel awful, so I don't want to get worse.

I suspect that generally eating a bit more has kept me going over the past few years. Mind you, I have been aware of iron levels, which is one reason I've been eating more red meat than I would have if I'd been trying to lose weight quickly.

However, I've been eating less meat in the last couple of months or so, largely because I've been eating more fish. I still have lots of vegetables, wholemeal bread and a generally good diet, but it's evidently not enough. So it'll be steak for dinner tomorrow and I'll up my consumption of eggs, dark green vegetables and such things. I will also take an iron supplement - Weeza recommends Floradix - until I feel right. I'll know when I am.

I haven't lost any weight recently, but then I haven't been trying to. As long as I don't put any on, I don't mind for a month or two.

Feeling groovy again

2008-11-13T09:19:00.000Z

Well, I've been for a few runs in the last couple of weeks. I'm still struggling to get out of bed early to do them, and in fact I've only managed that twice; other runs have been on the gym treadmill, which I really dislike so it's the devil or the deep blue sea.

Anyway, the running is going well. I can now run 20 minutes quite comfortably, and tomorrow morning I'll have a crack at doing that on the road. I can usually run better and further on the road, but we shall see.

I am also doing my belt up two notches below the usual... Again. But it's comfortable now, especially so since a session on the gym ball on Tuesday. My weight is slightly lower than it was, but I think this might be down to losing muscle in the six weeks without exercise rather than anything else.

Diet's been great on the whole, not really eating any crap. Sadly though, on Saturday I fly to Vegas for a week. It's in the desert, but in the context of Las Vegas food, desert should mean 'a place without fruit or vegetables'. It is very, very hard to eat nice food there, so I suspect any sushi places I find are going to get hit quite hard. But I am taking my running shoes and all the gear with me, so it won't lapse while I'm gone. We have three days to chill before doing any work too, which could be amusing.

In short, it's all good here. Life's been quite tough the last few months, and continues to be so, but at least I now have the meditative salve of running to help put things into perspective. It really does help me deal with life, and makes me a happier person too. Yay running.

Boo

2008-10-28T20:55:00.000Z

Maybe it's just the weather. I still feel perfectly well and am not lacking in energy, nor am I tired, but I hurt more than I did. Not more than I did a year ago - it hasn't occurred to me to take painkillers, which I had done whenever I expected to be busier than usual or, if I forgot, as a hasty result of it, and I haven't been kept awake by not having a comfortable side to lie on, and I don't have to crawl to a table to haul myself up from a kneeling position - so I am better than I was, but having been considerably better during the summer, it comes a bit hard to feel creaky and old again. Especially as I'm too proud to admit it. I've told people I'm loads better, and I am, so i can't go back on it. I'm still saying "oh pfft, I'll stave off this operation for years yet." And so I will. Well, I suppose so.

I do think it is the weather; colder and wetter, that is making the arthritis hurt more, but I'm bored and disappointed that cycling is such an effort. I feel that I'm starting from the beginning again, and I don't have the incentive any more. I do have the habit, though, and the stubbornness, so I won't slacken. But I can feel the ache of my muscles, and they feel so much firmer, so why aren't they doing the job without so much effort? It's not as if I'm expecting more than I was - well, that isn't quite so. I know that there are bits of road I could do now that I got off and walked up back in the spring - but everyone else seems to do it easily and I find it so hard. Boo. Though not Hoo, of course. I am stubborn, after all.

Z mustn't become too pleased with progress

2008-10-26T19:40:00.001Z

More compliments, two people today said that surely I don't want to lose any more weight as I look just right now. I've explained that I'm still under doctor's orders; that is, he's advised me to drop to below 9 stone. I can't help feeling more relaxed about it - but on the other hand, if I'm too relaxed I won't lose any weight at all. I'm aware, as I come up to a year of losing weight, that I'm eating a whole less carefully than I did last November. I think that's probably natural - your best chance of getting into good habits is at the start, when you're enthusiastic and disciplined and if you are too much of a killjoy for too long, your social life goes to pot, for a start.

My hip has been giving me some trouble though. I don't think it's anything significant, in that I don't expect that it has suddenly deteriorated, but it is a reminder of what this is all for. It's nice to get compliments, but I need to put less strain on my joints. And, in today's wet weather, my hands weren't all they could be. I'm just at the start of cracking up and I need to keep my body mobile until my liver packs up at any rate.

Z was overoptimistic, and now isn't

2008-10-25T14:15:00.000+01:00

I'm feeling a bit morose and gloomy, because I keep finding all over again how little strength I have. I helped carry some tables yesterday - they are not all that big, a bit bigger than card tables, but they have iron legs and are heavy. They belong to the village hall, but we borrowed them for a doo at the church hall. When Ro was little and we went to the mother and toddler group, I used to shift them without difficulty, but now, having carried a few, my bolt was shot and my arms and legs are still aching today. I made heavy weather of cycling a few miles.

I'm not sure why this is - okay, I suppose I shouldn't expect to be as strong as I was over 20 years ago, but I don't see why I feel no fitter, when cycling, than I did a year ago. I've been careful to eat a balanced and good diet and to diet slowly so that I don't lose muscle rather than fat, and as you know I've been cycling several days a week throughout the year. I don't mind progress being slow, but at the moment I feel that I'm losing ground rather than gaining it. It could be that the arthritis is getting slightly worse and this is counteracting the benefit of losing weight, or it could be that I'm just a bit tired or it may be what I should expect at my age, or it could be an effect of losing weight. My leg muscles are certainly toned, but that doesn't mean they are working better. It's a nuisance because I'd like to be cycling further afield, but it's such a slog when going up the most modest hill that there is no pleasure or feeling of satisfaction in it.

I'll persevere of course and maybe I shouldn't expect more - I said a long time ago that, when thinner, I used to not have much stamina, but in those days I was, at least, pretty strong even if I used up that strength quite quickly.

Ah... Crap.

2008-10-23T09:31:00.000+01:00

I've had a cold for nearly a month, which means while I have not particularly inflated, I have not exercised either; as exercise is at the core of all I would like to do, I'm a bit fucked, really.

I also have FOUR pairs of running shoes waiting to be used. Grrrrrr.

I can't wait to get back to exercising, this bloody cold is driving me insane. But it's so close to gone, can't rush it... So... close...

Z resists temptation

2008-10-22T22:03:00.000+01:00

I was really busy on Friday because it was our auction and there was not time for a proper meal all day. I'd made loads of sandwiches and I ate those, but had no idea of what I was eating. I was tired when we got home at around ten o'clock and ate a small chocolate chip cake - I wanted the sugar but it didn't taste all that special and I realise that if I'm going to indulge I might as well eat something gorgeous and get the full benefit of that deliciousness.

The next day I was still a bit lethargic and spent the whole day wanting chocolate. Chocolate biscuits, to be precise and I had some in the house, although I didn't eat any. I had to do some serious resisting. Now, eating a chocolate biscuit would not be dreadful. It would not instantly cause me to get fat and I do eat a chocolate a couple of times a month - indeed, I ate cake twice last month, one of those being chocolate cake. But I did resist all the same, because I would not have been eating it because I had made a choice to do so but in response to a craving and I felt that would be a weakness and that I'd have wanted to eat another the next day. So I chomped rice cakes and raw carrots instead, and then drank at least my share (though between 3) of a bottle of champagne in the evening.

Now, there's a funny thing. I was wearing my new size 10 skirt and was complimented by several people actually, which was nice, and talked about weight loss with a friend who has lost quite a lot of weight in the past 18 months, though a lot of that is through stress. She has a smaller bottom and legs than I do, but is at least the same size up top. She said she weighs 8 stone 3 and is a size 10. If I'm about 9 stone 7 and am also a size 10, which I am, and my skirt and trousers are not at all straining to be done up, how does that work? I reckon that if I weighed 8 stone I'd be size 6 max. She's a couple of years older than I and had a hysterectomy some time ago - maybe it's something to do with bone density? I dunno.

Pretty Damn Good!

2008-10-16T20:47:00.000+01:00

Look, I'm sorry about this and I will get over it and not harp on about it, but remember please that this blog is as much to give myself heart and encouragement, and also give myself a record of this whole dreary *diet* malarkey, as it is anything else.

I wore my new skirt and jacket today. And, frankly, I looked in the mirror and thought 'damn good'. And I went downstairs and did this'n'that to get ready and then went into the kitchen and the Sage came in and I said "I'm wearing my new skirt and jacket, what do you think?" And the Sage, who usually says "yes fine" without looking, looked and said "You look lovely, and I do like the colour of that jacket - it looks nice and warm too, it's wool isn't it?" I agreed and said that most of my jackets are black, brown or grey and I wanted some colour (it's a sort of red wine colour) and this was the one I found in the sale, reduced to £30 (while my weight is changing so much I only buy in sales).

The thing is, he doesn't ever say anything. I don't think he's ever remarked spontaneously on my appearance and for his face to light up and an opinion to be proffered over and above what I'd asked for is remarkable indeed.

One has to take a balanced view. I might grumble that he hasn't mentioned my weight loss. But. He never mentioned my weight gain or gave any indication that he minded at all. So I can hardly complain if he doesn't say anything now. He is vastly polite and kind and he loves me for what I am, whether big or small. Nothing to complain of there and so much to be glad of. But it was so lovely to receive an *almost* spontaneous compliment.

Actually, Dilly has lost a fair bit of weight in the past few months. I said, today, that I'd seen her walking along the road and thought how pretty and young she looked (absolutely true, I was proud for her) and I also mentioned that she looks very slim. She said that her friend Sarah, who came over last night, mentioned that she had lost weight - "mind you, Sarah was the one who said I was looking fat!" Fair enough, I said, because at least she says the positive as well as the negative.

Anyway, I looked pretty damn good in my size 10 skirt and I received compliments from friends who know I've been dieting and are pleased for me. And when another friend, whom I haven't known for long, said that she sometimes looks in the mirror and is depressed (she is smart and attractive, but in her 70s and let's face it, the only way is down - for me as well as her, if 20 years behind) I said "no, look in the mirror and think "Pretty Damn Good! Appreciate yourself and don't judge harshly if it isn't merited. You look great and you should know it."

Z is normal

2008-10-13T15:18:00.000+01:00

Indeed, I worked out my BMI a couple of days ago, and it came out as 24. Overweight starts at 25, according to this very rough-and-ready calculation - I know it doesn't take into account all sorts of things, including muscle ... but actually it's a reasonable guide for me, because I'm of an average build and physique.

I also worked out how much thinner I could be before I went into the 'underweight' category. Another 2 stone. In fact, I'd have to go down to about 100 lbs before I would be officially underweight.

But anyway, it has encouraged me. Like many - most? - women, I can't estimate my own size accurately. Since I have always looked at myself and seen fattish, I can't really differentiate between degrees of fatness. If I looked fat at 8 1/2 stone, then it didn't make much difference being 10 1/2 stone, because I still looked fat. I had to be near 8 stone to recognise that I was about right, and even then I was aware of the size of my hips and I didn't have thin legs.

This is stopping right now. I am not fat, I do not look fat and I will not think of myself as fat when I am not, or look into a mirror and see fat. I still weigh more than I will do in a few months, but although I choose to lose more weight and I want to become more toned - yes, Badgerdaddy, I'll give that ball a go, though I'll have to watch that video a few more times before I remember what I'm supposed to do with it - I am looking fine (actually, this is quite hard to type, I keep wanting to put in disclaimers - 'for my age' or 'considering' or 'if it weren't for *insert body part* - but I'm not going to) and I have gone down 2 sizes in less than a year, and that is Damn Good.

So to celebrate, I went and bought a pair of jeans and a skirt, just for the sake of being able to buy a size 10. Funnily enough, I also bought a jacket - a close-fitting knitted jacket - and that's a size 12. In years gone by, my sizing was the other way round. If I had 37" hips, I'd have had a 32" bust. Now, I'm still about 35". That's fine, the best part of my weight gain was getting a cleavage for the first time and I hope I don't lose it.

I am not addicted to weighing myself, it just happened...

2008-10-10T20:53:00.000+01:00

Oh okay, I happened to come downstairs in my dressing-gown this morning to fetch some newly-washed clothes that needed ironing. So, as I'm rarely downstairs in a state of undress, and the scales are kept in the porch, I trotted out there, took off the dressing-gown and weighed myself In The Buff, keeping a sharp look-out for the postman.

9 stone 7 lbs exactly. Hah!

So now what do I do for the rest of the month?

Cheered by this, I toddled back upstairs and tried on those 20-year-old age 13 boy's M&S jeans and this time I could do up the waist. I could only get the zip up about half an inch, but it's still progress.

Weight down, a little

2008-10-09T10:07:00.000+01:00

9 stone 8 pounds, and as there's still 3 weeks of the month to go, I'll revise my target of losing 20 pounds in a year and go for weighing 9 1/2 stone instead; less than a pound difference in the weight loss but a nice round number. I tell people who ask (what's with that, then? Do you go around asking people how much they weigh? At least half a dozen people have asked me.) that I weigh nine and a half stone already, so I should aim to be telling the truth, I suppose.

I always weigh myself with clothes on by the way, but if I'm wearing a belt I might take it off!

I was very, very tempted to make cakes, I just felt in that mood, but I resisted, because I couldn't help pinching off bits of the chocolate brownies as it was, and I realised that I would eat any cake I made; and possibly not the one slice it would be reasonable to permit myself, but little bits several times a day until it was finished. That still wouldn't be so bad, but I know it would leave me with a sugar craving and a general longing for cake. If I'm going to give in to any bad temptations at all, I'd rather they were for cheese.

Having said that, I buy Maltesers and jelly babies, and sometimes other chocolate, to help retain good cheer at meetings - I also provide fruit for those of us who don't eat the sweets - and it's not unknown for me to take one of those, especially if I haven't got around to eating much in a day. If I go just too long without food, then I'll either be so ravenous that I'll not know when to stop or else I'll get a headache and feel exhausted, and a touch of sugar staves either of those off for just long enough to get some proper food ready and into me.

A bad week.

2008-10-06T13:27:00.000+01:00

Not just in terms of waistline, either.

Been away with work from Monday to Friday, and this involved four flights, umpteen trains, four hotels, and some beer. I was quite pleased with my beer consumption, which totalled only 11 pints for the week. This is partly because I had a horrible cold for the week too, I think. But even so, it's less than it could have been. Not much to do on the outskirts of Coventry on your own for three nights, for example.

Food-wise I tried to be a little sensible at least. It's very hard when you're away with work though, as healthy-ish food in airports simply doesn't exist. But I didn't eat too much, on the whole, and got plenty of sleep and did lots of work.

Thing is though, the cold has put the mockers on any exercise for the moment. It's in its second week now, and I still feel like shite (I think this is at least partly down to all the travel and work, and not having the chance to just sit still and recover). So no running, no gym and no tennis or football for at least another week, I think. Barring a minor miracle, I mean.

Here's an example of how shite my week was in terms of incident. I went to Bulgaria on Monday, and came back on Tuesday. I took Euro with me, as I knew Bulgaria had entered the EU in January 2007. The lady at Sofia airport who was there to advise me on cabs etc explained I needed to change it to Lev (or Leva, Bulgarian currency) as no cab drivers would take the Euro and she didn't think anyone else would, either. I changed it. Got back to England late on Tuesday, went to the bank Wednesday morning to change currency back. They refused, as Bulgaria had 'switched to the Euro'. When did they do this, I asked, as I have just come back from there? Today, said the bank lady.*

Grrrrrr.

*Things like this make me think I should still have a blog. Ah well. Shared here instead. Won't do it again though, honest. I put it on here because I then went outside and ate the money.

Let Z eat cake

2008-10-05T20:49:00.000+01:00

I've discovered another nemesis. I made brownies and came home from the doo I'd taken them to with some ginger cake. I crave both. I had cheese for lunch, but only a little and dinner was altogether virtuous (an Indian dish of spicy cauliflower and potato which I served with pizza for the boys - yes, I know, what a hotchpotch - but ate on their own myself) but I sit here wanting a piece of cake. I did eat a rock bun this afternoon. I think that rock buns are the acceptable face of cakes, and I'd expected to eat one last week and didn't, so I'd sort of factored it into the diet already, so it no longer counted. Oh, shut up. Look, I'm only trying to lose a pound or two a month, you know, and I think I'm doing damn well to keep it up all this time. I will have a fruit and yoghurt day if I feel fat in the week and make up for the rock bun, which was worth it.

Anyhoo, I feel quite tempted to make a cake soon, because making the brownies was nice, even though I did cock it up a bit (see the other blog if you need to know) but I realise that I can't risk it, not for a while anyway. If I make cake, I will eat it.

Weigh in

2008-10-01T20:34:00.000+01:00

Today, 9 stone, 8 3/4 lbs. Why is there so often three-quarters of a pound? I'm now in the 12th month of the diet, having visited the doctor on 29th October last year and been told that the pain and lack of movement in my right leg was caused by an arthritic hip. At that time, I was perilously close to 11 stone. I'd call it 11 stone, except it wasn't quite and I still clutch at that straw.

But that isn't what I meant to write about tonight. The other morning, lying in bed, I rubbed my aching right thigh. It was aching because I'd been going up and down stairs and ladders painting my flat-to-let in London. On Sunday, once I was home, I got on my bike, just to go a few hundred yards and it really hurt. My left leg had to do all the work and my right one just went round and round on the pedal - I quickly abandoned my plan to cycle 2 miles to my lunch engagement and went in the car instead.

So, when I felt the hardness of my thigh, I wasn't sure whether it was muscular tension or simply muscle. But the ache is better now and so I tried again this morning. Ooh, muscles! I don't know much about muscles except the ones everyone knows, but it's the ones at the sides and the front. Rock hard, darlings. As I prodded my way down, I could feel when there started to be some 'give' under the skin.

Today, I cycled in to town for the first time in a week (horrible weather yesterday) and it was very windy. I felt the benefit of having used some different muscles last week though - well, I think that's what I was feeling the benefit of, and I felt quite strong. Coming home was a beast though - a strong wind almost in my face and at one time I had to stand up on the pedals to make any headway at all, and that was on a flat road! My son in law said to El that this morning he had felt he was cycling with the brake on.

Anyway, at least I know that the bike is having some effect on my muscles. It's also good for my lungs. I would like to think of another sort of exercise that I actually would like to do, to work some other muscles. Getting out with the pruning saw is good for my arms, but I wonder what else I could do? I don't want to go to a gym, I really don't like swimming and I have to be careful with my legs, so can't walk long distances regularly and I can't run at all, literally. Three steps and I'm lurching.

The obvious thing is rowing, because it exercises the whole body, particularly the trunk and the arms, but the small downside is that I don't have a boat and our boathouse (yes, we have one) is in need of renovation. When we left our dinghy overturned on the bank, it got stolen, unsurprisingly. And it's the wrong time of year to get started, plus I don't have time. This is a project for another year. So, for now, what else? I can't think of anything at the moment, can you?