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Monday 4 January 2016

Back to Blogging...

...in which it's another new year.

It appears there's no way of stopping new years arriving, It also appears that even though I know it's entirely a fictional construct and that if you really want to change you don't need a new year to do it, I'm incapable of not using them as an excuse to make resolutions, some of which I even manage to keep.

Now that the house has been de-Christmassed, the children's birthdays are all over (2 of our children have birthdays very close to Christmas - one just before, one just after), and we've stopped eating chocolate for breakfast and drinking wine for lunch (mostly) I thought maybe I should start writing blogs again, since it seems I barely bothered last year.

I've only been within my Slimming World target for one week in the last year; most of the time I've been a fair bit above it (although I am still about 3 stone lighter than when I started). Now that the inevitable gorge-fest that is Christmas is over my first resolution is to get back into my target range by the end of February; that means losing about 2lb a week, which ought to be doable.

I have managed to keep up with my running at least, and I can still do 10 miles or more on a Sunday without too much trouble, so my second resolution is to do another marathon and half marathon this year; I'm likely to do Shrewsbury half marathon (hopefully they'll actually make sure it's a full 13.1 miles this year after last year's "oops, we went you the wrong way" mess that chopped 0.5 miles off the course). I think I'll do Chester Marathon as that's in October which gives me more time to train than most others, as I'd really like to aim for a faster time than I got in Manchester last year (plus it's cheaper).

Other resolutions...well, I bought myself a new acoustic guitar and amplifier over Christmas (I did trade in a couple of older guitars), which are both very nice; the amplifier has 2 channels which can be used concurrently, so I can also plug a microphone into it, although amplifying my voice isn't necessarily the best idea in the world (reverb and an EQ does help a bit though). I'd like to do more with music...resolutions should be measurable though, so I think I'll commit to learning at least 1 new scale per month in every position on the neck and recording at least one song per month.

Finally, I will attempt to write at least one blog post a week, mainly about how I'm doing with the other resolutions. Hopefully that will motivate me to actually stick to them, but we shall see...

Oh, here's a picture of the new guitar and amp:


Friday 11 September 2015

Today's food diary

I'm mostly doing this for the benefit of the rest of my SW group so no fancy titles or blog post today. Today was a rest day from exercise, but I did do some housework so that probably counts ;).

Here's a picture of breakfast. Yes, that's diet food.



Food!

Healthy A: Milk
Healthy B: 4*Crispbread (with cottage cheese)

Breakfast

Cooked breakfast (bacon, sausages, baked beans, mushrooms, scrambled eggs, fresh tomato - 0 syns since I used Slimming World sausages and some of my milk allowance for the eggs)
Apple & Fat Free Yoghurt

Lunch

6 Chicken drumsticks (all skin removed)
Pickled Onions
Fruit

Dinner

Slimming World Singapore Noodles (ready meal from Iceland) with mushrooms

Snacks

Pickled onions (about 1.5 jars!)
Fruit
Yoghurt

Thursday 10 September 2015

Of fitness and fiddles

...in which I consider the old adage.


Well, not really, although it is an odd saying. Is a fiddle really fit? It might be fit to play, but it might equally be a wreck with broken strings. Maybe "as fit as  fiddle in good repair" might be a better simile, but it doesn't really roll off the tongue.

Anyway, on the subject of fitness, today I ran 3 miles. Which is what I've considered a short run about 2 months ago (when I did the Shrewsbury half marathon), but now it definitely does not feel like a short run; what's more, I ran the first mile in 7:38; this was my average pace over the half marathon, but after doing that today there is no way I could have done another mile at that speed, let alone another 12. 

So I guess that shows that fitness disappears really quickly if you don't maintain it (I'm making efforts to get it back now; running 3 times a week and gym 3 times, with 1 rest day).

So, today's food. No syns again today, for I am being super good at the moment...

Healthy A: 250ml Semi Skimmed Milk
Healthy B: 60g wholemeal roll

Breakfast

Nectarine, apple, grapes, fat free yoghurt

Lunch

Pasta with crustless quiche left over from yesterday

Dinner

Beef stew with pasta

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee/diet coke
Pickled Onions
Fruit
Chicken drumsticks (all fat removed)