Enough is Enough

After several years of drought, we've now been invited to a wedding in the summer of next year. And, unlike the most recent weddings we've attended, it is likely that we'll be called upon to dance at this one.

In a convergence of events, we've also recently returned home from our most recent trip away, and getting back onto the scales made for a fairly horrific experience. The one slight mitigation there is that any trip away always leads to a spike, and it always drops back to normal. But, inn all honesty, things have been in a fairly bad way there for a long time, rising gradually since the halcyon days of 2009. Repeated goals to reduce this have gone completely neglected, and so we arrive at today.

The upshot of all of this is that enough is enough. Time to take this one seriously, and sort it out.

So Much For That

My "theme of the month" didn't really amount to anything - due to the gym being so exceptionally busy in January my ability to get properly stuck in proved to be very limited; I didn't actually get started on the diet properly; and no other areas got even slightly addressed (although they were in a pretty good place to begin with).

So that's basically a write-off.

Theme of the Month: Fitness

It's unlikely that I'll have a theme for every month this year, and there's a good chance that I may repeat a few. However, for the month of January, I'm very definitely setting a theme, and that is fitness. This is motivated by my repeated failures to lose any significant weight over the last several years, coupled with not really getting started on the fitness programmes I've had set up at the gym. Still, we'll need to see how it goes - simply setting a theme doesn't actually mean it's done.

I've made something of a start on the theme this afternoon, with my first trip to the gym of the year. It went okay, but wasn't spectacular - there will be a fairly long period of building up the routines until they cover all of the programmes I was given. But that's fine.

But there's more to fitness than just going to the gym. Another part of it will be fixing my diet, which has been excessive for too long. (That starts tomorrow; due to a family birthday it doesn't make much sense to start today.) And then there are other aspects of fitness: mental, emotional, psychological. Not to mention a more general fitness in my lifestyle - a general tune-up of finances, another round of decluttering, and so forth.

So it's going to be a busy few weeks. But a worthwhile one, I think.

#1: "Lethal White", by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

Irn Bru 1901

This has been out for a couple of weeks now, but I've only just been able to track down a couple of bottles. I'd started to think that reports of its existence were yet more of the fake news that has so come to plague our existences.

There's a lot of fake news surrounding Irn Bru. But I've ranted about that before, so I'll not repeat it again.

But it is a truly remarkable coincidence that, just as Barr's have been forced to issue a profit warning, they just happen to find a handwritten copy of the 'original' recipe, and it just happens to be close to, but not quite the same as, the old version. Gosh, that was lucky!

Anyway.

This 'new' product is a horrible, even disgusting, price gouge. The RRP is £2 for a 750ml bottle of the stuff. This is made worse by the painfully limited availability - I actually paid £4.98 for two bottles. By way of contrast, Coke costs £3 for 3 litres in Tesco. (Technically, Coke should cost more than that. But Tesco has it on a near-permanent reduced price offer - either two 1.5 litre bottles for £3, or 1 litre bottles for £1. It's extremely unusual for neither of those offers to be running.)

Still, I felt I had to pay it when I had the chance. But that's too much for it to be more than a very occasional indulgence.

Upon getting home, I gave it a try. It's fizzier than the old stuff, the main effect of which is that it takes longer to pour. But that's fine. And then came the taste...

It's okay. It's certainly better than the new "full fat" Irn Bru.

But it's not as good as the old version. As with the new "full fat" version, it tastes like it's missing... something. However, I'm not able to pinpoint what that is - the "full fat" version is very obviously missing sugar, with the artificial sweeteners very clearly providing a hollowness in its place. But that criticism can't be levelled at the 1901 version, which actually has more sugar even than the old version. I would suggest caffeine as the missing link, but I'm not sure.

There is one other thing of note. A lot of the cheap Iron Brew (and, indeed, Sugar Free Irn Bru) substitues tend to have a fairly nasty metallic aftertaste. I had assumed that that was caused by their own use of artificial sweeteners. However, that theory can now be discounted, because it's present here, too. It's very muted, to the point of almost not being noticeable at all, but it is there.

The upshot: I miss the old version. As a substitute, this is better than nothing, but it's not a match. And it's far too expensive. I will have it again, though as I said it will be an occasional indulgence rather than a regular drink, but I'm still waiting for the real thing.

A Broken Habit

After a rather frustrating summer, the gym is now almost back to normal - the boys' club that had block-booked one of the changing rooms has ended, the other changing room has reopened (cue the inevitable joke about waiting for a bus...), and the gym itself has reopened after its own renovation.

Unfortunately, my habit of actually going to the gym seemed to have been fairly comprehensively broken - I've made it along three times in the last couple of weeks (and plan to go again today), but each time I've found the whole process annoying, boring and, frankly, pointless. Basically, the good habit that I had painstakingly established over eighteen months has been comprehensively broken by my enforced absence.

I'm now finding myself unsure of what to do next. What I should do is request an induction on all the new machines, and to have one of the trainers compile a new exercise routine, and effectively begin again. What I'll probably do is soldier on as things are for a while, getting increasingly annoyed, and possibly then drift away from it. And what I'm strongly considering, given that the annual renewal is coming up soon, is just cancelling.

All of which is yet another reminder of just how hard it is to build and maintain good habits, and how easy it is to slip back into bad ones.

#43: "The Verdant Passage", by Troy Denning
#44: "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", by C.S. Lewis (a book for Funsize)

A Poor Substitute

It looks like my plan to switch from Irn Bru to Coke (or Pepsi) is a non-starter. Over the past several weeks we've been drinking fairly copious amounts of the stuff, largely because we've needed the sugar hit to counteract the extreme lack of sleep.

Unfortunately, the main effect of this has been to leave me twitchy and strung out, with a side order of not being able to sleep at night (though, of course, I could readily sleep during the day, when I ideally want to be awake...).

(I should also note: at one point, my go-to replacement would have been 7-up, that being another of the four drinks that didn't use artificial sweeteners. Alas, during the Christmas break I noticed that it, too, had changed over. Disturbingly, that change was made without any notice, which is rather concerning when you consider that a small number of people react to these things much more strongly than I do. Anyway, the net effect is that my choices are now Coke, Pepsi, or nothing.)

So it's no good. Once my stockpile of Irn Bru runs out, and unless Barrs come to their senses and bring back the original formula (which I'm losing hope of), I guess I really will have to just learn to go completely without.

(And, worryingly, I notice that some diluting juices (Ribena) are now also making use of artificial sweeteners. At this rate, I'll be down to water and nothing else.)

Gym and Bear It

Ever since work moved to our current office about 5 years ago, I have been a member of the university gym. It's actually a very well-stocked gym (except for the lack of a swimming pool), and at a very reasonable price - and, indeed, it's even more reasonable since I'm technically classed as university staff (for book-keeping reasons) and so get a lower rate, and work subsidise the membership.

That said, any price is still too much if you don't actually use it, and despite the occasional visit over the years, and despite a brief flurry a few years ago, I haven't really had my money's worth. Indeed, about two years ago they built a whole new facility, and in all that time I'd only actually been back once - and that was for lunch!

Late last year, a couple of months after moving house, I received some spam-mail from the gym. This was sent to my home address, was duly redirected in the post, and so reminded me that I needed to update the gym with my new home address. Then, on the morning when I was about to head over there to do that, I received an email from them, noting that I hadn't been in a while and inviting me to come along for an induction session.

That conveniently all tied up as a big reminded that maybe I should think about going.

And so, the big development of 2018 so far (albeit one that is soon to be eclipsed) is that I've actually been going to the gym regularly.

It's worth noting that this isn't a New Year's Resolution, largely because I don't do those, but also because this all started up in the last working week of December. Indeed, I even went over to the gym on Tuesday the 27th, though that proved to be a mistake (since it was crazy busy).

I'm still not convinced that it's doing me more good than it's causing me pain, but never mind. The big challenge, though, will be to resume going after the arrival of Tadpole - that last flurry of visits I mentioned stopped as soon as I had my first holiday of that year, so taking a break is known to be dangerous...

#3: "On the Road", by Jack Kerouac (a book from The List)

That's it! I did it!

Following the extensive dancing at the concert last night, at today's weigh in I got the pleasant surprise that I have finally hit my target weight.

As a consequence of this, I won't have to be quite so obsessive about the diet in future. Although I do want to avoid regaining lots of weight - I don't really want to go through another fourteen months of dieting.

Still, I think I shall have some Irn Bru, and maybe even some chips, to celebrate.

Updates

The cold I caught on the 2nd of January, and therefore threw off by the 23rd (three weeks later) unfortunately came roaring back. I don't know why this is - it has broken both the "two colds a year" and "three weeks only" rules. My best guess is that it's a second strain, which took advantage of the relative weakness caused by the first cold to slip in. If this is right, I should be back to full fitness by the 13th of this month.

Unfortunately, progress with the diet seems to have slowed to a crawl, possibly as a consequence of the cold, or perhaps simply because it becomes increasingly difficult to progress as one nears the goal. As of this morning, there are eighteen pounds to go. This takes me past my mini-goal at fourteen and a half stone, and puts me within striking distance of my mini-goal at 200 pounds. Perhaps more important: I weighed fourteen and a half stone when I left university ten years ago and, barring one brief spell in 2005, I haven't been under that threshold since. If the current rate continues (doubtful), I should hit my target weight some time in May.

A week ago on Friday, I decided to try to stop biting my nails, this being the last of my bad habits. Unfortunately, this has proven to be a very difficult one to break, not least since most of the time I'm not even aware that I'm doing it. Apparently, it takes six weeks to break a habit. I managed eight days.

The goal of reading 52 books in the year remains on target. At the moment, I'm just over a third of the way through "Diamonds are Forever".

The band continues to progress. We're now at a point where we're consistently playing our competition tunes better than we did at any point last year. There's still of lot of work required, but at this stage I think the biggest problem the band is going to face is one of confidence when we get onto the competition field. This is probably the point where something goes horribly wrong...

My Star Wars campaign got off to a great start at the weekend. More on this later.

Saw "Yes Man" in the cinema yesterday. Annoyingly, we arrived ten minutes late, and they started the film a mere eight minutes late. Seriously, if they're not going to be consistent in their lateness, how are we to plan our days? Anyway, it is a good film, although not Jim Carrey's best ("Dumb & Dumber" holds that position, and most likely always will. I'm also partial to "Liar Liar", "Bruce Almighty" and, of course, "The Mask"). There may be more on this later, also.

I have been watching "Stargate: Atlantis" a great deal recently, having borrowed the DVDs from a friend. It is a good show, although I can't help but worry that they're exhausted every possible storyline in the Stargate universe.

The last few episodes of "Battlestar Galactica" have been fantastic, and I'm definately enjoying "24" this year (although I don't like the president they've got this year). "Lost" is back, but is a horribly muddled mess - but with 30 episodes to go, I've reached a point where I'm going to see it through to the end.

And I think that's just about everything.

23 pounds and 49 books

I'm still seeking some proper goals for this year, but for the moment I do have two that will suffice for the moment.

The week of Christmas and New Year is always a bad time for diets. I decided to take the dangerous and unwise step of simply coming off the diet for that time, with a view to resuming it this week on returning to work. The danger there being, of course, that it's very easy to restart a diet 'tomorrow'.

As it happened, I did restart the diet on Monday, then dropped off it again for two days, and then resumed once more on Thursday. Hopefully, it will hold reasonably well for the next few months. My target, as before, is 184 pounds, which represents a drop of 23 pounds from this morning's weigh-in.

The other goal on my list is to read more. And since goals must have targets, the target is a mighty 52 books in the year, or an average of one per week. A 'book' will be defined as being the contents of one set of covers. So, a 150-page novella will count as one, as would "Lord of the Rings". A short story collection will count as one, as would the collected works of Shakespeare. However, quality will not be a factor. Neither graphic novels nor magazines will count, but since I don't actually read either of these, this is a non-issue. Oh, and the paper doesn't count either, and neither does anything online.

Oh, yes, and the measure will be books finished. Which means that both the book I was reading on December 31st (which I finished early on the 1st) and "Twenty Years After" (which I'm about 250 pages into, and have been for some time) will count, while any books that I abandon will not count, and neither will the books I carry over to 2010.

In order to track my progress, I'll be providing a numbered list of books on this blog as I read them. The first three entries can be found at the bottom of this post. However, I won't be offering any sort of a review of the books. Partly, this is pure laziness on my part. Partly it's because I wouldn't be reading the books if I didn't think they'd be good. And partly it's that if I committed to doing reviews I would never be able to keep to the 52 book target.

So, that's enough for now. I'm off to do a bit of light reading.

#1: "Excelsior: Forged in Fire", by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels
#2: "Moonraker", by Ian Fleming
#3: "How to Fossilise Your Hampster", by Mick O'Hare

My Year in 2008

As I am away next week, and highly unlikely to have internet access, I have decided to do my end-of-year review early. This means, of course, that some or all of these notes may already be inaccurate before the end of the year, but that's just a risk we'll have to take.

This could become a monstrously long post, as it has been quite an eventful year. In order to try to avoid this somewhat, I'm going to gloss over an awful lot and speak in generalities. If you want more information, it can probably be found elsewhere in the blog, as I've blogged about many things over the year. If not, then by all means ask, and I might answer. Or not.

My Year in... Work

How to comment on a year in work, when the one solid rule of this blog is I don't talk about work? Well, probably the key thing is that I'm still in work, and we're still relatively busy at work, both of which are very much good things. All in all, it has been a pretty good year, although not the banner year that 2007 turned out to be.

In 2009, I intend to do better again, and I also intend to actively seek out new challenges (within the same job). Mostly, though, I'm hoping to get through the next year or two, which could be quite hard given the economy.

My Year in... Band

Perhaps the biggest disappointment of 2008 were the competition results for the band this year. There was, initially, some hope that we might do quite well, but this was soon dashed. Okay, we won at Calender, but that was really a fluke. There were also too many last places, and the failure to even qualify at Cowal.

However, the year ended hopefully, with the band learning some new tunes, and improving in general. The fund-raising performances over the past two weekends were also very encouraging.

And, finally, the band once again have a full and (I hope) stable committee, and a dedicated and stable (I hope) Pipe Major and Lead Drummer. This shift in personnel leads me to be optimistic for the year ahead.

My goal for 2009: I would like to see the band continue to improve, for us to win a few minor prizes, to not come last in any competition this year, and to at least qualify at the four Majors we are attending. Also, we have trips to Ireland and France to look forward to.

My Year in... Gaming

I might as well get through all the disappointments together, I suppose. Gaming was the second one. This year saw the release of the fourth edition of the "Dungeons & Dragons" game, which should have made it a really good year for gaming. Alas, it's not a particularly good game, so that was disappointing.

More disappointing, however, was that we found it really quite difficult to actually get together for a game. Frankly, I'm too busy, especially on Saturdays, which means missing a lot of weeks. And there's a certain extent to which the group has now gone too long without any new members - we seem to repeat the same patterns over and over.

In 2009, some of this will have to change. It is my intent, certainly, to block off the first several Saturdays in a row for gaming purposes, and to make these an appointment not to be missed. We'll also need to try to find some new players, and I need to come up with some idea what we'll do if (now) we have, indeed, rejected 4e D&D as our game of choice.

My Year in... Love

There is absolutely nothing to report here. More depressing still, this is in no way surprising.

Something will have to be done here.

My Year in... Resolutions

I don't make New Year's Resolutions, as I discussed in January. However, back then I did put together a list of things I wanted to get done this year. Every single item on the list was resolved to my satisfaction. (The big move didn't actually happen, but it will happen in February. My only real concern now is that I need a bunch of new furniture, and I have a horrible feeling I'll just miss out on the sales.)

My Year in... Travel

Another success. This year I visited a new State in the US, a new country in Europe, and two quarters of the UK. Oh, and France.

Next year, I'll probably be cutting back on the travel, as money is likely to be a bit tight for a while (a mortgage and a whole new bunch of insurances to pay, a new car to save for, and furniture to buy). Plus, the exchange rates make this a poor time to travel. Still, I already have a trip to France booked, and if I can just contrive a reason to visit Wales I will hit all four quarters of the UK next year.

My Year in... Faith

In 2006, my faith was rocked right to its core. Rebuilding that has been a long, slow and painful journey, fraught with setbacks. Progress is still being made, but remains slow. And I'm still not back to where I was, or its equivalent.

My Year... Overall

Actually, 2008 has been quite a good year. It's something of a surprise that it's over so soon.

There have been a number of lessons learnt, and a significant number of things done. More than anything, though, it represents a good platform from which to move into 2009. Now, I need to come up with a to-do list...

And finally... the last weigh-in

As of this morning, I was at fourteen stone and eleven pounds, down two stone and one pound from my starting position three months ago. This is a little over halfway towards my target. I fully expect the next two weeks to represent something of a setback, and have decided not to worry about it too much (nor take my scales with me).

However, the big weakness of the diet remains that it is supposed to be matched with a series of work-outs, none of which have happened. That will have to change.

Twelve Weeks

On Monday, the diet will be twelve weeks old. Other than the inevitable slip that occurred when I went to France, it has stood solid over that time, largely because it is founded upon the principle of eating more often, rather than less.

As of this morning, I have lost twenty-five pounds, just under half of my target (52 pounds).

So, it's going quite well.

Qapla' !

As of this morning, I have gotten rid of the weight I gained while in France. I have also (re-)attained the third mini-goal for the diet. I find this to be good news. (Although, I'm not entirely trusting of my scales. They're mostly good for ensuring that the trend remains downwards, but not necessarily an exact figure, while both the mini-goals and the final goal are exact figures. Still, they're probably good enough for government work.)

In case you're wondering, the title of this post is, indeed, Klingon. It means, "Success!" Yes, I know that the use of Klingon is both bogus and sad. I don't care.

Oh, and to the person who complained about a lack of updates when we spoke at the weekend: this makes five for this week. Does that meet your expectations?

Assessing the Damage

Whenever I leave the country, some nasty people break into my house and recalibrate my scales, adding six pounds to my weight. For reasons unknown, they even manage to do this when I hide the scales in inaccessible places, or even if I throw out my existing scales and buy new ones. It's really quite annoying.

Seriously, though, travelling is always a major diet-breaker. Not only is the routine shattered, leading to eating odd amounts at odd times (in restaurants that tend to use rich oils and fats to improve taste at the cost of high calories), and not only is one expected to take a drink when others do (oh, the horrors!), but there's also the problem that you never quite get to sleep as much as you should, which further knocks things out of alignment.

This particular trip was also expected to be really bad: on Monday we were taken to an expensive French restaurant and treated to a five-course feast. Oh, and unlike previous 'five course' meals I've had, this one didn't include coffee as one of the courses. Oh no, this was a proper five course meal, consisting of a pre-starter (salmon), then a starter (foie gras on couscous), main course (beef steak with more foie gras and potatoes), cheese course (a goats' cheese and apple pasty - which seemed quite odd, but was rather nice), and a desert (chocolate cake with caramel sauce and ice cream). Plus copious amounts of red wine, and coffee.

So, it was with a measure of some trepidation that I stepped onto the scales this morning. By Sunday, I had managed to shed 20 pounds, but how far had this set me back?


The answer was 4 pounds, which is less than I had feared. Still, a setback. The diet has resumed this morning. Hopefully, the new weight should be removed almost as easily as it was put on.


Oh, one other related fact: on Tuesday Kilt/Man was in action at the photo shoot. My kilt was purchased almost three years ago, and was made for me as I was then. It had become a little snug in the interim (one of the reasons for the diet starting), but is now back to fitting as it should. I'm told it created quite a stir.

Busy, busy, busy

This month's theme, it seems, is busyness. I'm going to be extremely busy on every front, and things don't look like they're going to let up any time before the 1st of November. At which time they'll probably still be quite busy, but maybe not as busy as my current busy state. Work's busy, the band is busy, my life is busy... busy, busy, busy.

As I said, it's something of a theme.

As per usual, I'm not going to talk about why work is busy, or any of the marvellous plans I have to complete the assigned tasks on time. Let me just say: it's very busy, and I'm planning. Oh, I have such lovely, grand plans...

The band are playing at events in Falkirk on both Friday and Saturday, both this week and next. Saturday of this week is particularly notable as I'm going to be the guy in charge. A chance to flex my PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER, I think. Additionally, this may well be an opportunity to shmooze some local dignitaries, and perhaps arrange some fundraising gigs over the winter. While all this is going on, we also have our first committee meeting of the year on Tuesday, at which I once again will have to make use of PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER in the chairing of the meeting. It will be important that what I said about "not just talking about all the fundraising we could do, but actually getting on and doing it" actually gets put into action. And we're also learning lots of new tunes for next year, both for regular use and for competition purposes.

It's quite busy.

As a consequence of the band being in action over the next two weekends, my weekly RPG has had to be cancelled. This is somewhat unfortunate. However, when we do get back, we should be shortly finishing the Warhammer campaign that has been running these past months, whereupon we will start a test game of D&D 4th Edition. This should be interesting - I have deep misgivings about the new system, but am determined to at least give it a fair assessment.

And then there are my so-called leisure activities. See, in order to fit everything in to my absurdly packed schedule, I have to schedule such things as reading books and watching TV with the same rigour as everything else. So...

In fiction, I have just finished "Krondor: the Betrayal", which was a decent book but definately not the author's best work. The next book on my list is "The Pale Horseman" by Bernard Cornwell, which is a good read thus far (but then, I'm only 14 pages in!). I should get that mostly read by the end of the month, I think, after which it's "Twenty Years After" by Dumas (because I do sometimes read actual literature).

In RPGs, I'm currently reading "Barony of the Damned" for Warhammer, which will be followed by the third book in the "Castle Whiterock" set, followed by the "Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting", and then the fourth book in the "Castle Whiterock" set. This probably doesn't mean much to many people, but this might: that's about 550 pages of reading, of which I'm hoping to complete at least 300 by the end of this month.

In TV, I'm all caught up on "Prison Break" and "Bones", and am only two episodes of "Heroes" behind (the BBC - I believe American TV is slightly further ahead). "South Park" starts this week, and I've decided also to give "Fringe" a go, despite hearing some bad things. So, that fills up a good five hours a week, which is rather more than I can really spare. Additionally, I have five movies on my Sky+ box that are waiting to be cleared (something I really want to get done - I've been too far behind for too long). The plan there is to watch all those movies by the end of the weekend, and then move into a maintenance mode.

The diet proceeds apace. Last week, it looked like I might have hit a plateau, but now it appears that I may have broken through it. The diet has now passed it's 30-day trial, and will proceed onwards. I'm now a little over a quarter of the way towards my target, which is pretty good going, I think.

And not-quite-finally, there is THE BIG ONE. As we know, the last remaining undone item on my (public) annual to-do list is the purchase of a house followed by a move into said house. About six months ago, I decided to wait-and-see what house prices would do in Falkirk over the following six months, which proved to be a wise move. House prices in Falkirk seem to have dropped rather sharply this year, meaning that a property that was sitting right at the limits of what I thought I could afford a year ago has dropped about a third of its value. (It's still right on the edge of what I can afford, but that's due to the credit crunch - previously, I was constrained by the amount I could borrow as a multiple of my income; now I'm constrained by the deposit I could afford to put down.) Add to that today's significant drop in interest rates, and things are really starting to come together nicely.

And that's where things stand at present. Naturally, with everything this tightly organised and scheduled, something is bound to happen any moment to throw my schedule out of alignment. I dread to think what that might be.

Social Etiquette

You know, I'm pretty sure that when someone excuses themselves from eating the buffet at a party on the grounds that they're on a diet, the socially correct response is something along the lines of "oh, how's it going?" I'm reasonably certain that the best thing to do is not to spend the next few minutes until you get distracted trying to persuade that person that they should eat the buffet anyway on the grounds that diets don't apply on days ending in a 'Y'.

In any case, the diet remains intact. The party itself was fine, although I left early. There was karaoke, and I decided not to give the other band members the opportunity to force me to sing again. You'd think they'd have learned their lesson after last time, but no.

The diet itself is proceeding apace. I finished the Sugar Puffs this week, and have brought the Shedded Wheat into play. This makes for a far less pleasant breakfast experience than was enjoyed before, but is also rather effective.

As of this morning, I have hit my second mini-goal, having lost 12 pounds to date. Also, the Korean Style Pepper Steak stir-fry I cooked yesterday was something of a success, although it was a little too sweet, and not quit savoury enough, for my taste.

This morning, I'm going to attend my local church, instead of travelling 20 minutes to my 'home' church, on the grounds that most of the people from my home church are away for the weekend, affording an ideal opportunity. Of course, if things there work out too well, this could create a controversy going forward...

Details of the Diet

Since Molly asked for it, here are the details of the diet.

At the start of the diet (last Monday), my weight was a whopping 236 pounds. My target weight is 184 pounds, representing a reduction of 52 pounds. My initial hope had been to drop about a pound a week over the course of the year, and thus reach the target. However, as of ten minutes ago, my current weight is 229 pounds, representing a drop of 7 pounds in ten days.

The plan itself is a modification of the Belly Off! plan found here. Specifically:

Breakfast:

• 2 Shredded Wheat with semi-skimmed milk (actually, at the moment, I'm still on the Sugar Puffs)
• 1 small (150 ml) glass fruit juice - was apple until this morning, will be orange from tomorrow

Snacks (10:30 and 3:00):

• 1 pot fat free yoghurt (Muller Light fruit yoghurts to be precise - I prefer the layered ones, but am trying various options at around 100 calories)

Lunch:

• 1 sandwich. Options are meat (3 slices of sandwich meat (was turkey, currently chicken, may try others) on 2 slices of Medium brown bread, thinly spread with about 1 teaspoon's worth of Dijon mustard (might try low fat mayo instead), with lettuce and tomato), tuna (unlikely, since I'm suspicious of all things fishy), or peanut butter (bit of a surprise this one - anyway, it's peanut butter on 2 slices of Medium brown bread). I have the sandwiches triangle-cut so they look bigger; unfortunately, and ironically, this also makes them quicker to eat.
• 26 almonds. Yes, that is an awfully exact number.
• 1 apple, currently Braeburn. Might try bananas instead next week.

Dinner:

• 1 main course, of whatever takes my fancy. Monday was a pizza, Tuesday fajitas, today was Waffle Wednesday, tomorrow is fajitas again, Friday may be chilli.
• 1 can Irn Bru, chilled and transferred into a glass before drinking.

At any time when a drink is not listed, I'm allowed water only. However, I also take one bottle of beer on alternate days (Estrella Damm comes in 4-packs, which makes this the most natural frequency). Additionally, if I'm really hungry of an evening, I may grudgingly be allowed a snack of a further 12 almonds.

Weekends are a little odd, since apples, tomatoes, yoghurts and other things seem to most naturally come in packs of six. At the moment, my thinking is to treat Sunday as any other day, but to adjust Saturday, removing the snacks, but instead having a slightly larger and more variable lunch (though I may go for one of Subway's lightest sandwiches instead), and a takeaway in the evening.

The only major extravagance in all of this is the Irn Bru, but I steadfastly refuse to give it up (and, as we know, Diet Irn Bru is pure evil in a can). It might also be worth noting that virtually nothing on the list is deliberately low fat, low carb, or a diet version (except the mayo, which I'm currently not having anyway, and the yoghurts, where the fat-free ones come in bigger pots, so I can eat more). However, the whole thing pretty much is a low-fat low-carb diet.

This diet works for me, mostly for three reasons: 1) It's showing results - how it fares when the going gets a bit tougher remains to be seen, 2) I thrive on routine, which means I don't really mind eating essentially the same lunch every day (besides, dinner remains varied), and 3) I've always been good at having the discipline to set patterns and stick to them (hence the very specific snack times listed).

And that's it. The thing that's missing at the moment is a formalised exercise routine, but I'm working on that.

Sandwich Disaster!

After church last night, several of the youth contingent were complaining that there was nothing set up for them to do. I suggested that they could retire to my abode, where they could, em, watch me put together my turkey sandwich for tomorrow (actually, today). They respectfully declined.

This proved to be the wrong decision, as the sandwich making process took a sudden turn for the unexpected, when I found that the turkey had gone off, and become inedible!

This led to a conundrum: what to do? Do I head out to Tesco (at 10 o'clock - nearly bed time) to get new turkey? Do I make a substitute sandwich? Or do I forget the whole thing and just buy lunch (which turned out to be haggis, neeps and tatties)?

Well, I didn't go to Tesco until this evening. And the substitute sandwich I am allowed is peanut butter, of which I had none. Plus, I'd already applied the mustard to my only two slices of bread, so that option was right out.

In the end, I cut three very thin slices of cheese, and had those in place of the turkey, leading to a cheese, lettuce and tomato sandwich, with hint of mustard. It proved to be a triumph, even if a slight cheat. I have since invested in some emergency peanut butter.

The diet itself is going rather well. In fact, I'm a little concerned that it might be going a bit too well, given that it's a bad idea to lose weight too quickly. For the moment, I'm going to assume that I was 'naturally' quite close to the balance point, and that the weight loss is just a consequence of shifting things around quite a bit. However, I'm going to have to keep an eye on it, just in case.

And I've not even brought the Shredded Wheat into play yet.

TomatoQuest

No, it's not the name of a new game show I'm hosting, nor even some divinely-appointed task to renew hope in the land. Instead, the title refers to my epic task while returning home on Sunday evening, the purpose of which will shortly become clear.

It is with some regret, and a deep sense of shame, that for the second time ever I have elected to go on a diet (the irony of this, given my previous anti-diet rants, is not lost on me). A key part of this diet has involved re-arranging my day, so that 10:30 is no longer apple time, but rather a time for sober reflection, and the consumption of yoghurt, a further yoghurt has been added at 3:00, and lunch has been downsized to a turkey sandwich (plus dozens of almonds and an apple - let's not go crazy here).

Anyway, last weekend, having returned from Lisbon, I went to Tesco and purchased the turkey required for the sandwich (I already had the bread). I also purchased a jar of dijon mustard, a step that was inherently risky - I've had disputes with the checkout assistants over the manliness of purchases before, and am on thin ice following the low fat mayonnaisse incident (my defence, then as now, was that it comes in jars, and is therefore inherently manly). Frankly, if I ever have recourse to a recipe involving feta cheese, I have no idea what I'm going to do.

So, having purchased the required components, I downloaded the recipe for the turkey sandwich (my sandwiches have never quite seemed right before - it turns out the bread is supposed to go on the outside. Who knew?), only to find that it required also lettuce and tomato. Naturally, neither of these were available to hand.

And so was born TomatoQuest.

Anyway, I'm now three days into the process of phasing in the diet. It's not an instantaneous step, you see - I have a box of Sugar Puffs to finish before I can switch to Shredded Wheat for breakfast (it's not as much fun, but has the advantage of taking longer to digest), and I have some ice cream and crisps that need eaten up (not together, you understand). That should be done by the end of tomorrow, and then it's on with a month's trial of the scheme.