20th January 2014 - Two weeks in

Why oh why does January take so long to sort itself out and bugger off?

I mean seriously, this month is bloody long.

It feels longer because I'm dieting too. Every day, watching my calories and (especially at work) watching other people eat what they want when they want is getting annoying.

However, it's not all bad. I'm no longer so tired on the walk to and from the office every morning. It's an inconvenience I'd rather not have, but it's largely a positive one because it's forcing me to walk a couple of miles every day. The inconvenience I still can't stomach is the distance from my desk to the tea room at the office I'm working from now, but I'm sure I'll learn to live with it (or crack up and melt down in a caffeine deficient moment).

The diet itself is going alright. I've cheated a couple of times but I'm still making more sensible choices. For instance, where if I was really being lazy and wanted a takeaway, I'd order a whacking great big pizza, now I'm ordering chicken kebabs, which are better for you. They're still not great for you, but it's better than all that bread and cheese. On the one occasion in the last fortnight where I did get a pizza, it made me so ill (from the grease, I'm assuming), that I have no desire to have another one any time soon.

The food I'm making on a nighttime is getting better too. A particular favourite that I'm enjoying is Gammon steaks, sweetcorn, new potatoes, pineapple and dry fried eggs. It's so very simple, but so delicious and filling. The main one I'm enjoying is my home made bhuna curry. Adapted from the recipe I used to make a fish curry for a party before new years, I've made it a couple of times now and with chicken it's just amazing. Very filling, very tasty and great for these cold nights.

This morning, I weighed myself for the second time. I didn't weigh myself on the first week of the diet for reasons that I can't quite remember, so last week was the starting weight for this bout of dieting.

This week has me dropping 5lbs which I'm over the moon at as I wasn't confident I'd lost any weight at all this week. More impressively as well, my wife, who has always struggled with diets, has lost too. So we're in it together and losing together. This has made me very happy indeed.

For this coming week, I'm going to be starting my exercise regime up again, starting with a run tonight. It's been about 6 weeks since i was running properly so if I'm honest, I'll be amazed if I can manage more than a mile and a half, but we all have to start somewhere. Hopefully I can be back up to 3 mile runs in a few weeks.

6th of January 2014

So last week's start to the healthy living didn't start. I'm weak, so sue me.

However, today is the proper start in my eyes.

Food wise, I've been good and low calorie. A recommended portion of cereal for breakfast and a sensible lunch.

That said, 45 grams of breakfast cereal is absolutely nothing in the bowl.

I've managed to avoid temptation at work too. Mostly because the canteen in the new office is bloody expensive, but I've also been strong. A weekly event in the new office is croissants delivered for breakfast. I must have walked past them 5 or 6 times but I didn't crack and I resisted. I love croissants so this is a big deal for me.

Further to this, the new office is encouraging me to exercise more.  For a start, as I'm working as a contractor I'm not allowed to park on site. The closest secure car park is nearly a mile away from the office, so there's just under 2 miles of walking a day. The tea room is about 100 paces away from my desk which means I'm managing more milage for my large daily intake of caffeine. Hopefully this will have a nice effect on not only my fitness but my waistline.

It's only day 1 but I'm trying my best to be strong.  Hopefully I can keep the positive mental attitude up.

So I did this

Yeah, I'm insane. Despite my grumbling an hour or so, I've entered the draw to do The Great North Run in September.

I must be cracked in the head...

2nd January 2014: For Fuck's Sake...

24 hours.

I couldn't make it 24 hours without a meltdown.

I'm not going to make excuses. I could say I had a bad day at work (I did), I could say I had such a bad night yesterday that I'm exhausted today (I am), but I've come to realise that excuses don't address the issue.

So it all started so well. I was coping alright at work without the smokes and even had a calorie controlled lunch (small sandwich and a vegetable sushi pack). This afternoon though, things just got weird.  I hit a wall in terms of tiredness, the nicotine gum started making me feel sick and I started to crack.

Cue an infuriating drive home and a lot of grumbling on my part and I just snapped. I bought some tabs and had a kebab wrap for my dinner. Yeah, when I fall off the wagon I leap off it with a lead weight around my neck.

It wasn't all bad. Considering how careful I was with my lunch, I'm still under my target for the day with my calories. I also did something I rarely do. I ate my dinner slowly, stopping as soon as I felt full. Normally I eat quite quickly and aim to clear my plate. It's incredibly rare that I leave any food, so I'm counting that as a win.

The smoking thing is what has annoyed me the most. I know a lot of people have issues in the early days of giving up, but I at least hoped I could have lasted more than 24 hours before I cracked.

I am going to hope that tiredness was the main issue so I'm going to try and get a good night's sleep tonight and try to stop again tomorrow. I definitely want to be smoke free over the weekend, when I can chill out and avoid stress as much as possible.

Ah well, it's a marathon, not a sprint...

The Last Smoke

It's a funny thing when you decide to stop smoking.

No matter how much you've convinced yourself that you want to stop smoking, the final cigarette is a looming, destructive bastard.

You see, when you're hooked on something as insipid as nicotine, your brain can play tricks on you. How ever much you hate smoking and however strong your resolve is to quit, if you have a "final" smoke it is like breathing in the nectar of the gods.

You savour it, you enjoy it, you reminisce about the times when it was cool and cheap to smoke, all those great times with your mates sat around an ash tray and enjoying yourselves.

It's corrosive and horrible. Plenty of times I've wanted to quit and never actually stopped because that last cigarette was just too damn sweet.

I've just had what I hope is going to be my last smoke and for the first time, I felt complete indifference towards it. The last cigarette didn't feel special, it didn't draw up the good times. No, all that was going through my head was "it's 11pm, windy and wet out here, I'm sick of this shit".

Maybe this is what it is to quit and really mean it. Every other time I've had that yearning to buy some more and it's usually ended up with me doing exactly that.  Not this time though, which is very curious indeed.

Hopefully this time I can stick to it and not fall back to what boils down to a very expensive way to slowly kill myself.

Being as overweight as I am AND smoking is a recipe for death before 40 and I don't want that. I also don't want to turn into one of those ex - smokers who condemns everyone who still is smoking. I just want to be healthy and have a bit of change in my pocket to play with.

That's not too much to ask, is it?

January 1st 2014

Ach. Wait. What?

It's New Year's Day? Christ on a bike, when did that happen?

No matter, there are things to be done now. As is customary, I went on absolutely ridiculously this Christmas season. Lots of food, far too many drinks and too many cigarettes. While I may not have a hangover, I am feeling a bit crap in myself.

It's been a while since I blogged last, so here's the quick catchup. In September I started running. The idea was to get into a state where I could do the 2014 Great North Run. I was really enjoying it too, getting up to regular runs of about 3 miles or so and managing it comfortably. I hurt my back this month which has stopped me from running, however I will be picking this up again next week.

In terms of the smoking, I will be stopping again. I managed to do the whole of October without smoking so I know I can do it again with minimal discomfort. That and i've got no money so smoking is something I really could do with kicking.

So here it is, the first day of the year and the last day of living unhealthily. When my current pack is empty, there will be no more cigarettes, exercise commences again next week and the diet starts tomorrow.

As in 2011, I have a wedding to go to in April, so I WILL look good for that.

Bring it on

19th August Part 2

Erm.... yeah, alright then :-/


So, I went to the gym tonight and got my initial weigh in. It's not pretty.

27st 2lbs

Thats 172.5kg, or 380lbs.

This is officially the heaviest I've ever been. Seriously, I've never been this big before in my life. I'm actually disgusted at myself.

The gym session didn't go well either. My fitness has dropped so much I could barely manage half an hour of light cardio. I'm such a mess right now.

However, onwards an upwards. There's only so long I can sit mithering at myself for letting myself go so badly, especially considering how hard I worked in June.

So this is the way I'm looking at it; I managed to go to the gym tonight when I could have easily stayed home, I've been tracking my food and come well under my daily allowance and I'm back at the start of a hard process.

I know it won't take long to start losing weight again, so I'm not allowing myself to be demoralised by this.

I'm going to try. I have to try. I don't want to be this size forever.

Till next time