You Put The Load Right On Me

Still catching up from the blogging desert of recent weeks, and as you will notice, am doing so thematically rather than in any sort of temporal way.

So today it's about all things health and wellbeing.

Earlier this year I was investigating the 5:2 diet. It seemed OK to start with but played merry hell with my energy levels. I simply couldn't exercise on 600 calories - in fact it made sleep difficult. Plus I more than compensated on the other days. Now, the diet does proclaim some benefits other than pure weight loss, in terms of levels of certain enzymes in the body etc. But as I didn't have the kit to check any of those, I can't comment. I just got to the point that it got in the way of life and made me unhappy. And so it was never going to work for me*.

But I then did find that towards Easter, my weight was creeping up again. In fact by Easter or a little after it had crept up by half a stone compared to where it had been at Christmas. This is a sort of elephant-y creep - not overly subtle. I was still going to the gym, and the cause was simple. Eating too much. Both at meals and as snacks. Mid-afternoon chocolate bars were creeping in, and late night biscuits and cheese.

In other words - all the stuff that we know is bad. I wasn't overly happy and I ate. Better than self-medicating with booze or worse, but not great.

Well, I'm pleased to say I have managed to get on top of that again. The extra weight has come off (with a bit more as well). I feel much better, and feel I have found a "diet" - way of eating is a better phrase - which works for me on an ongoing basis. Let me tell you what I've done.

• Regular readers will know I was getting uneasy about eating meat. And so I cut down. Then I stopped meat altogether, but kept in the odd bit of fish. In the last month I have been completely veggie. And I have felt much better. Less bloated, and more energy to exercise. Which has meant more exercise.
• I usually don't eat breakfast. When I do, I then start to feel really hungry again about 11am. If I don't I feel OK until about 12:30. So that is simple.
• I am eating a lot of fruit. And veg but more of that later. Certainly five a day of fruit alone. If I am hungry, I will have fruit.
• Lunch is tending to be salads or similar. If I want something else it will be a wrap, not a sandwich. In part this is because the choice of veggie sandwiches is, basically, cheese.
• Evenings. I am avoiding pre-cooked or convenience stuff. Cooking fresh (perhaps a big pot of something for three days or the freezer). Having had a house for some time with kids who disliked 'bits' in their food meant I got out of the habit of eating what are basically vegetable stews. Loads of veg, plus kidney beans, lentils etc. Or a stir fry.
• Frozen veg is cheap and convenient - you don't have to worry about stuff going off. So I will eat more of this, and less of the big carbs providers - less pasta and rice. (These were I think the things that always did for me - because I ate too much of them.)
• If hungry in the evening, toast with some nice jam, or cereal does fine.
• Oh, and no booze - not that I do anyway, but just remind you of that.

And as the weight has come off, I have both pushed up the gym exercise. More weights (I did very little before) and more cardio. To the point where I am sometimes genuinely exhausted after the gym, rather than just slightly sweaty. And as the weight comes off, the cardio gets easier. So three times a week I'm doing an hour on a bike or bike and run. Next will be some interval training I think.

In addition to this, I am trying to walk a bit more - especially in the nice weather. Just wandering around last Saturday, shopping and enjoying the sun and I walked about four miles. Pretty good, but had I not thought about it, I wouldn't have realised it. Plus walking keeps one a distance from the kitchen...

Which leads me to - measurement. It won't surprise you to know I've got a bit obsessive about this. I'm using MyFitnessPal on PC and IPad to track everything I eat, and all the exercise I do. This is really easy - pretty much everything you do it already has the values for. Plus I use my phone to record walking distances etc for input. Lets me see what has gone well, and badly. And gives me something to be vaguely proud of when I have had a good day.

The next goal is to try and embed all of this - so that it becomes a weigh (geddit?) of life and not just a novelty. If I can get to that point then I feel that I can keep doing this forever. Of course, come the winter weather it always gets harder - suspect soup will be an answer there - and my forthcoming ten days off may test me.

So, it's all good. Except for cigarettes, which I still crave. If I am around smokers, I have to really fight not to give in. The good news in this is that even if I do give in, I then have no desire to have one the next day. Whilst it would be much better to not smoke at all ever, one or two once a month probably won't kill me. Well, it might well, but you know what I mean!


* I know lots of people it has worked for - and am not criticising the diet - just saying that at that time and in that place it wasn't for me.

Routine

I may be starting to cope better with the 5:2 diet - sleep seems to be normalising and I haven't felt any more hungry today than I usually would. This is good as I'd been starting to feel this wouldn't work for me.

Overall, in fact, the year seems to be becoming normal - or in other words I'm getting back into a routine. So, I now need to get back and revisit what I want to do with my time this year. I can't say blogging is routine yet - I'm still having to force myself to find time. But I am determined to continue with it, even if certain blogs (this one) aren't going to be the most enlightening.

What isn't normal yet is that I am struggling to 'get into' work in the way I would like. I am having to force myself to do things. Luckily there is loads to do, but I've yet to build up any enthusiasm for doing it.

So what you might think? Why does that matter? Well, in part, I may be more likely to do things better if I am enjoying them - though this is arguable. But without doubt, I need to enjoy work - it takes too long out of my life to only be a slog. Seven days into the year, this doesn't worry me yet. It usually takes a couple of days to get into it. But I am hoping to see a shift by the end of this week.

That's it for know. Off to rehearse Mozart's Requiem.

How far has this society fallen, Mr Wonga?

So, back to the 5:2 diet today. And I managed to go to the gym. But, god, I'm tired now. Really wanted to watch the programme about the Bank of Dave guy and payday loans on C4, but I'll have to catch it up tomorrow.

I think the presence on these companies, and the glorified pawn shops on the high street show how far down this country is. Yes, I'm pleased people have an alternative to loan sharks, and that someone with no cooker can get a loan for a new one to feed their family. (We used to have something called the social fund that did that.) But not at two-fucking-thousand percent APR. I'm quite a small 'l' liberal; I don't like banning stuff. But I have to say, any loan that costs half as much again per year to pay off, let alone twenty times, should be prohibited as usurious. Easy as that.

Then we can get on with being a proper human society and getting rid of that kind of poverty.

I've yet to see a politician who admits that we are going to have to pay more tax in this country, but if we are ever to balance the books we will. But whilst we may differ over Trident, or the probably unaffordable triple-lock on pensions, lifting people out of poverty must be the easiest area for us to agree on.

The Christmas cake is no more

Not sure if doing something twice, other than perhaps crystal meth, could be deemed a habit, but two lunchtimes back at work and two blogs written. Although Blogger does have an IPad App, I’m not confident in getting everything right with it, so I type the text into email, mail it to myself and then correct /format, tag and post on the desktop machine. At the weekend I shall be away from a computer for 48 hours so will be forced into posting direct – let’s see how it goes.

Yesterday I was both quasi-jet lagged (going from getting up about 9am and going to bed past midnight to having to be up at 6:30) and on day one of my 5:2 eating plan (not using the ‘D’ word). Result was that by about 7:30 I was really lacking in energy. This may need a rethink – how am I going to manage the gym and not eating? Obvious answer is to shift the two days to non-gym, so likely Tuesday and Thursday. But that feels unbalanced. My immediate concern with the 5:2 would be that I'd just go crazy on the next day and eat twice as much. It's early, but at the moment the desire to get a benefit in return for yesterday's hunger is holding sway.

Still, hot bath, in bed by 10, asleep not to long after, and a good night’s rest, followed by the last (small) piece of Christmas cake for breakfast, and I feel much brighter today. And that’s just as well, because I have my first Voxcetera rehearsal of the year tonight. We are starting to work for our March concert – the Mozart Requiem, Britten’s AMDG, Purcell and Essenvalds (no – I haven’t either). Can’t wait.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

I’m sure many of you had a similar experience this morning when the alarm went off at 6:30 or similar. Can it really be this dark/cold and windy? Oh yes.

I was pleased that my train was only a couple of minutes late, and reasonably quiet – the posh schools either had an inset or a late start.

Today is apparently Blue Monday - the most miserable of the year (copyright all newspapers) as people face up to the never-ending bleakness of January and being skint etc. I was actually quite looking forward to today – my first in work since 20^th December, so I've had the same holiday as most school kids. And I feel much refreshed for it, but did feel that I was starting to drift. Yes I was making it to the gym etc, but I probably got to diminishing returns by about New Years Day. So this morning (I write this in a snatched early lunch-break) has been about trying to figure out what is urgent and what is important, and how I should be spending my time over the next couple of weeks. I have that horrible feeling that there is something really urgent that I should be doing but haven’t remembered.

Oh well, it will probably occur to me this afternoon.

Elsewhere, I rather enjoyed Sherlock last night – my only criticism after last week’s trains farce being that I wish Benedict could have mimed playing the violin a bit better – using perhaps two strings and a little hand movement. But a nice episode that wandered seemingly aimlessly, before coalescing around a rather nifty plot. The programme was called “The Sign of Three”. There is a Holmes short called “The Sign of Four” which I haven’t read for years, but the name Sholto and killing at a (temporal) distance rang a bell – not sure much else did, but correct me if I am wrong. (I have tried to write this obscurely enough to avoid spoilers.)

And today is my first day of 5:2 dieting – after so many friends and work colleagues have extolled it. I am skeptical (of course) – as much of my willpower as anything else. I eat healthily anyway, but like Goldie the Blue Peter dog, do not know when to stop.

I won’t be writing a blow-by-blow diet blog but will let you know how it is (and I am) shaping up as we progress.