Since the weather has turned nice, I've gone out for a couple of walks. I had a short walk on the common the other day, and this morning after breakfast, I decided to just leave my house, set off in whatever direction I felt like, and just keep walking. I ended up having a very lovely walk of approximately 5 kilometres, burning a nice number of calories due having to haul my disgusting fat carcass around with me wherever I go, and coming home feeling rather satisfied with myself.

What I discovered along the way is that on the outward journey, when I didn't have a particular destination in mind, I felt like I could pretty much go forever. I kept walking and walking and walking until I had got quite a distance away from my house. And I was enjoying it; I found some nice little scenic areas, even, which you will see photographs of punctuating this blog post. It's always nice when you find pleasant green areas within a reasonably sized and generally quite busy city.

The moment I felt like I was "on the way back", though, things became several orders of magnitude more difficult. It's weird! It was like a switch flipped in my mind, a big countdown appeared (figuratively speaking), and I was aware of quite how far I still had left to go before I could call proceedings to a halt. I had to take several breaks on this "return leg" of the journey, because I kept getting to points where I felt like I wanted to get home, but also where I wasn't sure I had the energy to make it all the way back without stopping.

Okay, it doesn't help that we live on top of a hill, and thus whichever direction I set out from when I go for a walk, I always have to end my journey by climbing a hill that might not look that steep, but which is always absolutely exhausting to walk up. Well, it is if you're a fat shit like me, anyway.

Still, I feel like if I had just kept walking "outwards", I could have probably made it even further afield. Could I have made it into the town centre? I don't know — maybe. I wasn't far off making it to one of the local shopping areas. And if I had made it there, I could have always stopped for a coffee and then even got the bus back home if I had really wanted to.

Perhaps that's the answer. Just walk and walk and walk outwards, then for the return journey catch the bus. Is that cheating? I don't think it is, is it? Not if you are able to make the outward journey significantly longer as a result of knowing that you're not going to have to walk back again.

Maybe I'll try that next time out. I just need to familiarise myself with the bus routes around the area, I guess!

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The post #oneaday Day 673: Journey, not destination appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

This is a meaningful, worthwhile step because although "1 stone lost" is also a milestone, it somehow feels more significant when your actual weight has a particularly noticeable difference in it — like the "stone" figure being different. This, to me, is a good sign that what I'm doing is working — and, more to the point, that it's something sustainable that I'm not about to get bored with and give up on in frustration.

The trouble with a lot of diets is that they become demoralising and boring. And very few things make you want to eat like boredom — at least that's the case for me. What I've found, by calorie counting each day, is that I can still enjoy all the things I like to have and still lose weight. Along the way I'm finding ways to be more "calorie efficient" with those things that I like, too, while not feeling guilty about having an occasional treat — usually within the boundaries of the daily calorie count, but I've found that having a day a week when you "cheat" does wonders for the morale.

I'm sure the challenge factor will increase as my weight lowers and the number of calories I can have per day falls accordingly, but one thing that I've found having successfully stuck to this for quite some time now is that I'm not feeling the same urge to want to overindulge that I have done in the past. I'm finding that having a modestly sized breakfast, lunch and dinner and a number of guilt-free snacks throughout the day keeps me going and well within the calorie count. Essentially it's following the principle of never allowing myself to get hungry enough to want to demolish an entire large bag of Doritos or something.

Like I say, though, the best thing I've found so far is that I'm able to enjoy things that I just plain like eating, and haven't had to turn to the sort of "success stories" you read in weight loss magazines — you know the sort of thing, "I used to have a massive fryup for breakfast every morning, now I start my day with a glass of water, half a banana and a handful of chia seeds". Nope, I can still quite happily have cereal with chocolate in it for breakfast, a bacon sandwich or noodles for lunch and pretty much whatever I want for dinner.

Of course, I might lose weight more quickly if I was having more salads and vegetables and fruit and whatever — but I have to be realistic about this. If I eat something that I don't enjoy or don't find filling and satisfying, then I just end up wanting to eat something I do like later, and I end up having much more food than I really need. Right now, with the weight I am, I need a decent amount of calories just to keep ticking over, so I'm going to continue enjoying the success I'm having the way it's working at the moment. When I weigh significantly less and will need much fewer calories per day to continue losing weight, then we'll have a look at even "healthier" options as means of keeping the weight off.

For now, this is working. And I'm pleased about that. It's making me feel like I might actually be able to do this; I might actually be able to beat this. Let's see how things are looking in a few months' time.

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The post #oneaday Day 638: Actual progress appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

So, January has been coming to a close. How are things going?

Not all that bad, really. The only thing I've been lax on for Things I Wanted to Achieve In January is piano practice. I've been so tired and achey of an evening that I just want to zombie out, and sitting with proper posture at the piano has been the last thing on my mind. I am starting to feel a bit better, though, particularly with good progress in other regards, so I will try reintroducing that to my "routine" shortly, along with some more exercise.

The most notable progress so far has been on weight loss. Since I started sticking properly to the calorie plan, I've lost 10 pounds. This is good! Of course, there is still a lot more to go, but it's a good start, and proof that what I'm doing is working.

What's particularly good about what I'm doing is that I feel like I've found a plan that offers a good balance between me not feeling like I'm starving myself — which can end up with me just wanting to binge, which is counterproductive — and still allowing the weight to come off. I know, realistically speaking, that I can't expect 10 pounds to fall off every two weeks — the first weeks following a new plan are always the "easiest" for some reason — but as long as the general trend skews downwards over the medium to long term, I will be satisfied.

And the nice thing is that I'm by no means depriving myself of Nice Things. I had some digestive biscuits yesterday! I had some Cheez-Its at lunchtime! I might have a bacon sandwich for breakfast tomorrow! The important thing, as is probably obvious to the vast majority of people who are not My Size, is moderation. Eating a measured, weighed-out portion of Cheez-Its and taking the calories into account? Fine. Getting a whole big bag of Cheez-Its and eating all of them in a single sitting because I have no self-control in that scenario? Not fine.

It's easy to feel like a supposed "portion" of something is stingy, but in actual fact it can be quite surprising how satisfying a "portion" of something can be. To return to the Cheez-Its, a "portion" is 30g, which is actually quite a generous helping of them, and certainly not depressingly unsatisfying. The only thing I've found myself exceeding the "recommended" portion size on is sultana bran cereal; 30g of that really is stingy, and 40g is much more satisfying for not that many more calories, so that's where I've settled on that.

Of course, I've been here before, with Things Going Well for a couple of weeks and then just falling off at some point afterwards, usually with the flimsy justification of depression, tiredness, illness, frustration or any manner of other things. But right now I'm feeling pretty good about how things are going, and the possibility of being to maintain this over the longer term. So let's hope I can actually stick to that and see where things go from here.

I know I can do this. I've done it before. And it will make my life so much better if I can accomplish it again. So I will keep at it.

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The post #oneaday Day 601: January progress appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

I went to the doctor today. My knee has been playing up for a while, and got particularly bad over the Christmas break when it was especially cold. I suspected it was little more than my knee going "you're too heavy, sort it out", but I just wanted to confirm that it wasn't anything more serious. (It wasn't. I am too heavy and need to sort it out.)

I came away from the appointment feeling oddly invigorated, though. I'd ended up being there for about half an hour in total, approximately two minutes of which were spent actually examining me. But my doctor apparently wanted to talk today. And I was happy to let him.

It started with a rant about politicians. I'd come to him as a result of one of those "e-consult" things because my surgery is apparently incapable of activating their online appointments system, and I hate doing the 8am rush to phone for an appointment. My doctor apparently doesn't think all that much of the e-consult system — I don't either, as it happens, but it seemed like the most reliable method of getting at the very least a call back without having to sit on hold on the phone for hours — and expressed some considerable frustration at how government guidelines have given him "quotas" of routine and emergency appointments to fulfil.

Now, I'm sure we're all familiar with the technique of requesting an "urgent" appointment for something that is absolutely not an emergency, and I suspect it's that sort of behaviour that has led to these quotas. But I was more than happy to let him go off on one about how politicians had no idea what it was like for actual surgery staff, particularly now that the practice he works at, originally intended for no more than 9,000 patients in total, is now serving more than 16,000 people, with more registering by the week, it seems.

After examining my knee and telling me I'm fat (in a more polite way than that, and he was apologetic about it) he then told me about his own personal history dealing with weight loss, a genetic predisposition towards being on the larger side, exercise and suchlike. It was an interesting conversation, even if it was a tad one-sided — like I say, the poor chap clearly wanted to talk to someone about absolutely fucking anything, and I was more than happy to let him. Although he was clearly frustrated about things, he's also a nice, friendly chap, and I know very well how helpful it can be to just have someone who is willing to listen sometimes.

So, all told, I have a feeling that my doctor may have got more out of my appointment today than I did. Still, it was reassuring to know that there's not actually anything wrong with my knee — I just need to lose some weight. And I'm working on that! It's been nearly a full week on the diet plan now, and it's been going pretty solidly so far. Let's hope that leads to some actual, tangible results.

And Dr. W? I hope you feel better soon. I know all too well how frustrating government interference in your profession can be from my time as a teacher, so you have my sympathies. I wish I could reassure you that things will get better from hereon, but… well, you can see the state of the world right now. Hang in there. You provide a vital service to the community, and I hope you know how much people like me appreciate your work.

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The post #oneaday Day 595: A nice chat with my doctor appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

One of the reasons a lot of people — including myself — find it difficult to stick to a diet is because so much "healthy eating" advice out there is seemingly designed to suck all of the joy out of anything to do with food.

I read a particularly good (bad?) example of this on BBC Food earlier, after it was linked to from the front page of BBC News. "Are we getting breakfast all wrong?" the headline asked. "How much does it matter what we eat in the morning and when we eat it?"

Having read the article a few times, I'm not entirely sure what its actual point is, because there seem to be multiple threads running at once. Firstly is the fact that here in the UK, we tend to be quite set in our ways when it comes to breakfast, while in other cultures they tend to eat "leftovers or [food] similar to [that which] you would have for lunch and dinner", according to NHS GP and chef Rupy Aujla. Then there's the question of when you should eat breakfast, for which the advice seems to be "whenever the fuck you want, or miss it completely and have a decent lunch if you feel like it".

Then there's the usual health scares — people who eat breakfast are "also found to be likely to smoke more, drink more alcohol and exercise less", while there is apparently "convincing evidence that consuming breakfast, compared to skipping breakfast, has positive impacts on short-term cognition and memory". So if you have breakfast, you'll spark up a fag and get pissed while lounging on the sofa, but at least you'll remember all of it the next day.

At one point the piece attempts to convince us that "a breakfast of tomatoes, mushrooms, baked beans and a glass of juice" is a "fry-up" and repeats the bizarre advice that "no matter how much [juice] you drink it will still only count as one portion", then goes on to shame the juice-drinkers because "fruit juice is basically as sugary as a typical candy bar". The piece then advises that we should "use an (environmentally friendly) straw to bypass your teeth" if you are drinking juice, but, of course, says that we should all just drink water because it's "a healthy and cheap choice" that "has no calories and contains no sugars that can damage teeth".

I get why all these things are said. We do all eat too much and do terrible things to our health, but the solution to having issues with food is not to make eating a joyless chore, because in my experience all that does to you is increase cravings for things you "shouldn't" have. And in the worst cases, that can lead to bingeing way more than you would have under normal circumstances.

As with anything, the real answer seems to be moderation. It is difficult to keep cravings under control, particularly if your brain chemistry is particularly prone to taking things to excess, but so far as I'm concerned, far better to have a good, solid breakfast that fills you up and makes you feel good first thing in the morning than a handful of nuts, berries and wood chippings that will have you reaching for the crisps and Penguin bars by 10am.

As for me, today I've eaten pretty much what I want and I still have a bunch of calories left over if I fancy something a little later in the evening. And that has happened because I have taken care with moderation in what I've eaten so far today. I don't feel deprived of anything and I don't feel like I "need" to demolish a packet of biscuits, say — but at the same time, I also know that if I do fancy a biscuit or a cake or something, I have enough calories left in the budget that I can have one if I want.

So you know what? I might just do that. I might just do that.

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The post #oneaday Day 591: Joyless healthiness appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

As promised the other day, I have been following the diet and exercise plan for the last two days. It has been going well so far! I've been under my calorie budget both days (there is still some of today left, but I have enough calories left that if I want a little snack later, I can have one) and I've done 30 minutes on the under-desk elliptical trainer on both days.

Unsurprisingly, I don't feel any different and/or better as yet, but I am feeling quite positive about this particular attempt. I have some healthy and low-calorie snacks (that don't suck) in the house, and interestingly enough I haven't really been feeling "cravings" during the day — it's those cravings that inevitably do me in on other occasions, so it's a positive sign that I haven't particularly been feeling them over the last couple of days.

I even have some recommendations! Ryvita Snack-It Thins. These come in crisp-like flavours and are like 30 calories each. They're a nice crunchy snack by themselves, or you can put some cheese or something on them, or dip them in something. And unlike a lot of "flavoured" crispbreads and suchlike, these actually have a good amount of flavour to them. I got the prawn cocktail and salt and vinegar flavours, and they're both excellent. Better 30-60 calories for one or two of those than 100 calories or more for a bag of crisps. Although I'm not feeling guilty if I do fancy a bag of crisps at any point.

I also got a bunch of yogurts because I really like yogurt. I was never a big fan of it when I was a kid — particularly if it had "bits" in — and would never, ever pick yogurt from the daily dessert options of "fruit, cheese, yogurt, ice-cream" when offered by my mother. But these days I can happily enjoy even a tub of plain yogurt without anything in it — there's something about it I just find nice and refreshing, plus, again, it's probably better to pick a yogurt than a chocolate pudding. Yes, I know some yogurts have a shitload of sugar, fat and calories in them, but you have to allow yourself some pleasures if you don't want to go mad.

I bought a hazelnut yogurt from Sainsbury's yesterday. I wasn't sure what to expect — on one previous occasion when I've had a "hazelnut" yogurt it actually ended up being more "chocolate", but in this case, it actually was a regular yogurt with little bits of real hazelnut in it. I'm not sure it's something I'll buy again, but it was certainly interesting — and pretty low on the calories, too, since it was a low-fat yogurt.

For breakfast I've got myself some Weetabix and Sultana Bran because I'm a weirdo who unironically likes both of those things, and both of them go just as well with yogurt as they do with milk. Frustratingly, the bowl of Sultana Bran I poured myself this morning had I think one solitary sultana in it, but fortunately I like just plain ol' Bran Flakes too, so it wasn't a huge loss. The bag will be getting a good shake tomorrow.

The one thing I haven't done yet is reach out to seek some help from the psychotherapeutic angle. There's a big form I have to fill out and then I have to have a phone call with someone, and both of those things are daunting tasks that I don't want to face just yet. I'll see how I feel about tackling them over the weekend — before that, though, I have a nice relaxing Friday night to enjoy, and some HeroQuest to play tomorrow!

So there's your update. I know two days isn't long, but I wanted to acknowledge, as much to myself as anything, that I've made a solid start. Now to keep it up!

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The post #oneaday Day 588: Two-day report appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

I didn't buy much in the Black Friday sales this year. In fact, I only bought one "thing" and one Steam game (Mini Motorways, which is lovely).

The "thing" I bought is an under-desk elliptical trainer thing, ostensibly for "seniors", but also, I figured, eminently suitable for someone like me who needs to get some exercise, but has difficulty with the whole "motivating oneself to go outside the house" thing for various reasons.

Also I wanted something that would allow me to give my legs in particular a bit of gentle exercise, and that I could use while doing other things, and that wouldn't be discouragingly difficult to use for someone as unfit as I am.

I forget exactly how I ended up looking at these things. I do know that the first product I saw was a vibrating foot massager thing that supposedly "mimicked the motion of walking", but just looked hilarious to see people using in the promotional videos. From there, it recommended me these under-desk elliptical doodads, and from there I picked one that 1) had good reviews and 2) wasn't obscenely expensive, and now here we are, with me the proud owner of a Lubbygim [sic] Under Desk Elliptical Machine Quiet Motorized Leg Exerciser with Smart Remote, 12-Speed Manual Programs Auto/3 Auto Programs LCD Display & Bidirectional Motion for Home/Office.

Yes, as that absurd product name will probably tell you, I was shopping on Amazon. As loathe as I am to further line the pockets of billionaires and contribute to the exploitation of workers, they had something I was looking for, offered it at a good price and got it to me in good time. So /shrug, I guess.

And the thing seems pretty good! Its supposedly "non-slip" feet do, in fact, slip, so I have paired it with a non-slip mat (which also slips, but less than the feet did) and installed it under my working desk, so now I can make use of it during the working day, on my lunch break and any time I'm just sitting in my study doing things. The way I have it set up makes it ideal for using while watching a long YouTube video or TV programme.

It's a fairly no-frills device. As the ridiculous product name suggests, it has a fully manual mode where you can control the speed and direction of the pedals, and also three automatic modes that vary the speed and direction over the course of a half-hour programme. I'm not entirely sure if the three different programmes are supposed to be varying degrees of "difficulty" or intensity, but I'm assuming they are; I did a "programme 3" earlier and it seemed to spend a lot more time at the higher speeds than the rather gentle "programme 1".

What I like about it is that it's easy to just stick on and let your legs do the walking while you forget about it. This, to me, is the optimal way to exercise; the absolute worst thing you can do while attempting to get some exercise is to watch the clock, because that's what makes a ten-minute session on a treadmill feel like you're hiking up Mount Everest. With this thing being the way it is, though, today I've found it absolutely easy to put in nearly two hours of wibbling my legs around a bit in total. And that, I hope, will be beneficial in the long term.

I'm under no illusions: this thing doesn't offer an intense enough workout to really play any significant role in exercise for weight loss, but that's not why I wanted one of these. I just wanted something that would get my legs moving a bit, because I spend all day sitting working, and all night sitting entertaining myself, and frankly my legs are old and stupid enough to have started going "nope, not having that" any time I want to get up and actually do something. And I don't like that. It worries me a bit; I don't want to end up in a situation where I just can't use my legs. I'm pretty certain that it wouldn't come to that without some sort of drastic accident, but I also don't want to put myself in a position where it's even a slight possibility.

And so sticking this thing on and going vrr vrr vrr for at least half an hour every day is my way of preventing that. Hopefully, anyway. It's only been two days so far, so I'm not entirely sure I'm feeling any specific benefit just yet, but over the long term, I hope it will help me be even a little bit more active — or I'd settle for it just helping my knees hurt a little bit less.

See that? Personal growth, that is. Probably.

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The post #oneaday Day 542: Vrr vrr vrr appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

One thing I always find difficult to get my head around is the concept that "adults need around 2,000 calories per day", as quoted on most nutritional information labels. Because there's one thing that counting calories each day makes very clear to me: it is very easy to burn through 2,000 calories or more (as a big lad, I can have a few more and still be within my "allowance" for theoretically losing weight) while barely realising it.

I had a Meal Deal the other day that calculated to well over a thousand calories. A thousand! For a thousand calories I want something better than a soggy supermarket sandwich and a bag of all-right-but-nothing-special crisps. (Okay, there was a chocolate bar and a Red Bull also. But still.)

I know the answer to this is "eat more fruit and vegetables", since both of those things are, in theory, 1) filling and 2) low in calories, comparatively speaking. But they're so boring. That's the trouble. If fruit and vegetables were more interesting, and if they didn't run the risk of going off before you have a chance to get to them, it'd be much easier to prioritise them. I suppose the answer to that is to not have things in the house that you'd rather eat than fruits and vegetables, but I tend to find that is when you start getting into the "I'm bored of everything we have in the house, I'm going to go to the shop and blow a thousand-plus calories on a Meal Deal" territory, which is counter-productive.

So what's the answer to that? Balance, probably. But it's frustrating when you, say, have what feels like an eminently modest breakfast (a bowl of cereal, say) and an unremarkable lunch (a jacket potato, for example, or a simple sandwich) and you've blown through so many calories in the process. And if you eat less, then you just end up hungry and wanting to eat more, and you overcompensate with snacks.

How the bloody hell does anyone get through a day with just 2,000 calories? More to the point, how does anyone stay slim (or at least "normal-sized") with the myriad, highly calorific temptations that are everywhere in modern life, even if you're not specifically going looking for a "treat"?

If I can figure all that out, this whole "weight loss" thing might be much easier. But unfortunately I'm not any closer to working things out just yet. Maybe it's one of those things where you just have to take it a bit at a time. Perhaps the next time we go shopping I'll try and prioritise some form of nice fruit for snacking purposes rather than other, potentially more calorific options, and then go from there. We'll see.

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The post #oneaday Day 539: Adults need 2,000 calories a day appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

On this particular stint of post-holiday weight loss, I have thus far lost 13.4 pounds, which is as near as dammit to a stone. (I have to look up how many pounds are in a stone every time, because Imperial is stupid, but it's still the default way one weighs oneself here in the UK, despite us being metric in every other area of life.) Granted, on said holiday I put on a lot of weight, so this is pretty much putting me back to where I was, but at least I know that much is possible, and thus it must continue to be possible to lose more.

There's no secret this time around, no fad diets or artificial restrictions on what I'm eating: just simple, straightforward calorie counting. And it appears to be working! For now, at least. So long as I stick to my limits for the vast majority of the week, I can even have complete days off — such as my work trip to London, or yesterday, when Andie and I both just fancied a nice treat from the local bakery — and still lose weight. This is good!

It takes a little mental adjustment to recalibrate yourself to a calorie limit, particularly if you've been less than attentive to your daily intake, but once you're there, I find you can gradually start to intuit how much you can allow yourself per day. And, given that I'm a big lad and thus naturally burn a fair amount of calories just by existing, I have not, to date, felt like I'm having to "deprive" myself of anything. I can even enjoy multiple chocolate bars per day — so long as they're not, say, 750g Dairy Milk bars.

I say there's no secret; I guess the one thing I would say that I've… I don't know if learned is the right word, but I've certainly established it firmly in my mind at this point… is that it pays to understand the things you reach for when you fancy a snack or a little treat during the day. By ensuring that we always have reasonably low-calorie offerings in the house for when we both fancy such things, it means we are much less inclined to go to the shop and buy a big bag of Haribo or the aforementioned 750g Dairy Milk bar.

I had inadvertently trained my mind into thinking that something wasn't "satisfying" if you could consume it quickly, and that really doesn't have to be the case at all. Lidl do these fake Kinder bars on their "Mister Choc" brand that are small enough to be about 100 calories each, and even though you can devour them in three bites, they're enough to stave off cravings for quite a while. If you want to go even lower calorie, then "Skinny Whip" bars or own-brand equivalent (I think Lidl's are just called "Whipped") are about 76 calories, and pretty much as good as something like a Milky Way.

I've also pretty much switched entirely away from cans of pop to squash with carbonated mineral water. I have a thing, particularly with diet soda, that I don't really know how to describe — I get to a point where it feels like it will be undesirable to drink them, because it… not burns exactly, but doesn't feel nice going down. I find this is much more likely with diet cola drinks than diet fruity sodas (Fanta, fake Lilt etc) but there are definitely times when my body goes "no fizzy pop, no". At those times it is seemingly absolutely fine with some orange squash made with carbonated mineral water, so I've been drinking quite a lot of that. And that, in turn, has been helping me just drink more generally, which I think is helpful.

I feel a bit better, too. After the holiday I was feeling exhausted, achey and generally Not Good, and the reason was because I was heavier than I'd ever been. I still have a very long way to go before I am where I want to be — the long-term, often unattainable-feeling goal is to lose enough weight to finally get this damn hernia that I've been suffering with for a very long time treated — but right now, I am feeling more positive about all this than I have done for quite some time.

Hopefully I won't find myself reaching a plateau any time soon, because that is always the worst feeling, and involves having to completely rethink the habits you thought you had established… but that hasn't happened thus far over the course of the last month, so here's hoping that things continue in the correct direction for at least a little while yet.

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The post #oneaday Day 492: Character progression appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.

I got off my arse and went for a walk this evening. I'm going to try and make a bit more of a habit of this. I know I have said this before, but since I am starting to see some success in establishing the good habits necessary for weight loss, I should get some exercise in there too, as that will help with the whole calorie deficit thing, as well as getting my body generally moving and hopefully a bit less stiff (not in a good way) than it has been for the last [x] years.

I mostly like going for a walk, even if in my current state I am painfully slow at getting anywhere, particularly if there is any sort of incline whatsoever. The annoying thing about where we live is that we're sort of at the top of a hill, so whichever direction I set off in to go for a walk, inevitably at least some of the way back involves going uphill to varying degrees.

I've tried a few different routes on various occasions, and the most… acceptable I have found strikes a good balance between being reasonably picturesque (a significant portion of it involves walking through the local cemetery, which, although maudlin, is also quite pleasant and peaceful), being a decent distance to get some reasonably good exercise out of, and not having overly difficult changes in elevation for my battered and broken body to have to contend with.

I find cemeteries quite interesting. I often find myself looking at the graves; part of me wonders if I'll see a name I recognise, but the rest of my brain explains that is fairly unlikely. As such, I find my own life briefly touching the fleeting existences of complete strangers and pondering their circumstances, and what kind of people they were. Sometimes there are clearly tragic stories, such as the extremely ornate memorial which had been raised to a baby who lived less than an hour. At others, there is clearly family history, with little quotes and well-wishes from people — usually couples. Sometimes it's just a simple expression of remembrance, such as with the rather out-of-place looking grave with the simple wooden cross marking its location, surrounded by more elaborate marble headstones.

Supposedly Benny Hill is buried in that cemetery. I didn't go looking for him; I just remember happening to notice his name marked on Google Maps when I was pondering a route to take before I left.

I thought about getting some sort of fitness tracker up and running before going, but then the part of my brain that is specifically trying to disconnect from stuff like that took over and reminded me that I don't need or even want "numbers" — the important thing is just getting out and doing it. Yes, yes, I know we're all supposed to do 10,000 steps a day, but all I find when introducing metrics into the mix is added anxiety. Just get out there, do the thing and be happy that you did it.

So I did!

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The post #oneaday Day 482: Among the dead appeared first on I'm Not Doctor Who.