Virtual Friday

It’s the last day of July. The sun is shining and (even) Croydon looks relatively pretty today. Plus I am off work tomorrow in order to sing at a wedding, so I have a definite end of week feeling. Oh, and it seems we just won the Test match too!

The diet/exercise regime is obviously working because I have lost ten pounds in the month of July. And that’s dipped my weight down into a new number of stones which makes me happy.

Looking back at the month, what is odd is that there was a period of a week up until a week ago where I really lost very little, and I also really ate very little too. The obvious answer is that eating too little slowed my metabolism down and so I didn't lose the weight. Since then I have consciously upped the calories and the weight has started to shift again.

I think the exercise has a large part to play in this. In general I am at the gym four times a week or more, and there will be at least 30 minutes of fairly vigorous cardio involved in that. Plus I have also started to try and fit in a walk every day. It turns out it’s quite easy to fit in a walk of about 4km around Croydon over lunch, which certainly shifts some calories, and makes me feel better. And I haven’t been mugged once yet.

So, whilst I realise weight loss will slow as I move towards target, I am in sight of the goal now – the stones number is the right one. I may not make it during August, but a real prospect surely of hitting target by the end of September. And then comes the difficult part – maintaining it.

I can’t speak for women, but most men do like competition, and setting/beating targets. So I do walk more now I have a phone app that tells me how far I walked – “oh if just go that way that will get me up to…” and the little “yes” I express (perhaps out loud) when the weigh in is good. But maintaining will remove at least that second goal. “Yep – as is” is a lot less motivating. I’ll see how that goes when I get there.

In other news I've only three more days at work before I take some holiday. In part this gives rise to panic – as a just about manageable workflow looks anything but when I think I’ll have two and a bit weeks when I'm doing very little of it. But a larger part of me is looking forward to the break. I've started planning what I want to do – catch up with some family and friends, do some writing and quite a lot of music, and generally relax too. I suspect eating well will be harder – because it’s easier to be tempted by food when just at home rather than in the office. But then I have more time to spend burning calories too.

And I'm looking forward to tomorrow’s wedding – we are singing four pieces through-out the service, which will I'm sure be followed up by a catch-up in the pub. Happy days.