Major balls-up in the memory dept - 25% non-smoker

Great start to day - got up at 5am

Was on the road nice and early, did fifteen miles in a little bit over an hour. Had written out my morning todo list the previous night and planned to take the Incognito bike to Lumbards as soon as they opened at 8am which I did, going well so far.

Had loaded car up with the Incognito, a spare front wheel and a spare back wheel. Put my fruit in and what have you. Even dropped Phil off at school on my way to work. I'd typed out a list out for Lumbards of things that needed doing - right side crank, rear derailleur fitting, wheels to be put on Raleigh, 7 speed cassette, lots of stuff which I'm hoping won't cost too much but it'll be a grand bike when it's done.

So had loads of stuff done already, got the bike stuff dropped off at Lumbards before they'd really had time to open and communicated the list to them.

Everything going to plan, even got to work for ten to nine which is good going, all things considered, setting off at that time in the morning.

So parked the car up at work, got out, went to the boot - imagine my surprise when found out I had forgotten to bring my bloomin laptop!! What an eejit!!

So ended up borrowing another one from IT Support and worked on some programming on one of the bespoke system for most of the day. Had planned to do this anyway but still irritating - don't think I've ever got to work before without my tools!!

Never mind, was up and running in half an hour. Liz passed on an old picture of mesen and Bad Reputation (a top rockin metal band I was in at the time!) from end of the eighties, so I'm going to post that up sometime soon. Was a big fella back then to be sure!!

Finally it's worth mentioning that I'm a quarter non-smoker now having not had a drag on a ciggie for three months since 2nd July 07, Tony told me in Spain that once you've gone a year you're officially a non-smoker. I ought to thank the government for their assistance but I didn't really want to stop that much and I don't half miss em and I really don't like being dictated to in this nanny state.

Blog Update: Friday 10th Aug

Blog Update: Friday 10th Aug – managed to get some bandwidth yesterday so was able to do an update on the blog and read my emails. Two of which were from folks telling me not to get down about the weight gain gain, you’re on holiday, loosen up. Thank you for the support, people, I do appreciate it.

I do lose perspective sometimes but it’s natural, I guess – have come a long way with the weight loss and since stopping smoking the weight loss has been slower and feels hard fought for, so to bang on 3.5lbs in a heartbeat and wipe out all of July’s loss and a bit of June was a bit crushing.

3.5 is also a bit of a magic number in the sense that it’s quarter of a stone, you don’t ever want to be putting on a quarter of a stone do you?

Positive ending : still not smoking even though the ciggies are cheap here (have now lasted 5 weeks and 4 days). Am not even using the patches at the moment – they’re useless with sun tan lotion it seems!!

Smoking in Spain and not bloomin doing it!

Here's a new thing - am posting in my lunch break, about now I'd be enjoying a lovely cigarette, but I don't do that now and am more than a little worried about smoking when I go on hols where the ciggies are cheap and the days are long and more than a little alcohol-fueled.

Danger areas –

• Drinking in Spain – Beer goggles will change my perspective on what smoking is – it’s just a fag it won’t hurt. Yes, it will you’ll give yourself permission to start all over again.
  
• Smoking in Spain – It’s a different postcode - no, it’s not, it’s smoking you fool, what are you thinking?
  
• Fags in Spain – they’re cheap, you’d be a fool not to take advantage of low price. They’re still fags, you loon. Are you not getting any of this??

Good reasons not to:-

• I don’t have to sneak off so the kids don’t see me smoking.
• I don’t have to sneak off so she who must be obeyed doesn’t castigate me for my stupidity.
• I don’t have to hide/find ashtrays.
• I don’t have to worry about disposing of cigarettes in the street and being beaten up by non-smoking local police.
• I don’t have to waste any money on cigarettes.
• I don’t have to worry about running out of cigarettes.
• I don’t have to worry about smoky breath and burn out 20 toothbrushes in a fortnight.
• Think about all the extra time I get not smoking.

Is that enough rational thinking I wonder? - it ought to be!!!

Weekend Update of all things

Been a good weekend in some respects and and a bad 'un in others. Weather has been diabolical today when me and Lucy were supposed to go to the Highland Gathering in Ashbourne. However, managed to get sunburnt yesterday - see pics in previous post to see what I mean!

Mileage for bike was achieved - 102.606 at an average of 12.5 mph which is okay as I now to do the Tour De Ashbourne run which means plenty of hill climbing and one short 32.3mph max descent.

Me and Lucy went swimming this morning which was okay - Lucy's only just seven so she's not yet brill at it but she did manage 24 widths of the pool with me in close attendance - I'm not the greatest swimmer in the world so it was good for me to get back into the swing.

Golf was lousy again - managed a few pars but got hacked off from the start when pulled my first drive and because Ashbourne Golf Club is such a mess for club golfers at the moment I couldn't find my ball which wasn't a great start and for the last four holes I picked the ball up in a bit of a huff - blame it on stopping smoking. On the positive side the majority of drives found the fairway if a little bit shorter than of late.

Stopping smoking is going very well apart from the behavioural changes - mood, irritable - no good excuse for it but at least I'm off the ciggies. 2 weeks in and so far it's okay.

Food Optimising is going much better - have not strayed from the path at all so am expecting a better result tomorrow if we weigh in monday - am continuing to weigh in on Thursdays in any case for sake of consistency in my records.

12-07-2007 Week 21 Weigh-In – Disaster Strikes – 1lb Gain - Aaaagh

Disaster has struck on two fronts: Wednesday night I dropped my googles4u.com rimless glasses and broke them like a fool. More importantly and definitely more worryingly is that yesterday's weigh in revealed I’d put a pound on this week.

I could say “it’s okay – it’s first time it’s happened in 21 weeks of steady losses”, however, the truth is I’m gutted and worried at the same time. I know I’ve only been food optimising 70% for the past few weeks and I reckon I’ve become blasé about it and now I can’t sustain the weight loss. I had five pints of lovely Stella Artois last weekend at my cousin’s wedding so I could blame it on that but the truth is I’m not on track diet-wise. I’m certainly fine on the exercise front getting an hour to an hour and a half every day but the food has gone to hell of late and needs looking at carefully.

On the positive side I’ve not had a ciggy for 11 days now which is a good thing! The downside of not smoking seems to be a sudden hunger which is taking some dealing with – didn’t have this at all for the first twenty weeks which I smoked through all the way so need to look at the danger areas and work through it!

Immediate actions:-
1. Zero alcohol this weekend
2. Minimise bread
3. Explode the biscuit barrel.
4. Only Slimming World Healthy Extra Cereals not Aldi Benefit no matter how gorgeous and Special K-like.

5. Check out http://www.slimming-world.com/ for some lifeline online inspiration.

6. Possibly ought to be first - start a food diary from Saturday!

Current figures:
Start Weight : 18st 11lbs
Current Weight : 14st 9lbs (93.07 KG)
Loss this week: -1lbs (Gain! avg: 2.76lbs per week)
Total loss thus far: 4st 2lbs in 21 weeks.
New BMI: 26.62 (Height: 6ft 1.5in (1.87m))
Blood pressure ten reading average: 117.9 over 75.2 (in Feb it was 144.9 over 91.1)

Stop Smoking Update

It’s day four of non-smoking and have not succumbed to a crafty one as yet.

I had chronic stomach ache on Tuesday (to the extent of going a deathly shade of white and having to go home at 3pm) and had a weird stitch/chest pain this morning on the bike so there are hard times ahead but not really had cravings, which is what I need. Patches are irritating on the skin for the first 20 minutes after you put them on but okily dokey after that. Am using the Nicquitin CQ 21MG patches at the moment and they seem to be doing the trick. Watch this space.