1892: Shrunken

Slimming World meeting tonight, and I’d lost another 2.5lbs this week. That means for the last 9 weeks I’ve consistently been losing weight, and I’ve now lost a little over 2 stone in total.

To say I’m pleased is an understatement. I still have a long way to go, of course, and I intend to keep doing what I’m doing as it seems to be working, but it’s been heartening to see the lifestyle changes I’ve made since joining the programme having a noticeable and positive effect.

There’s a few major changes to what I was doing before that have taken some adjusting to, but which are now fairly comfortably part of my usual routine. Firstly, I’ve cut right back on dairy; I used to drink a lot of milk which, of course, has its own health benefits, but which is also calorific and packed with fat. I’ve never been a mega-fan of cheese — I like it well enough, but I can happily live without it — so that’s been fairly straightforward to cut out, too. Instead, using the Slimming World “Healthy Extra” system, I limit myself to one latte in the morning (with 250ml milk measured) or 30g of cheese in a meal. I can spend some “Syns” to have both in a single day — I did tonight, in fact — but I’m now pretty much in the habit of keeping my dairy intake controlled.

Secondly is keeping an eye on what I drink, as this is probably where a lot of calories have snuck up on me in the past. I like to drink cold drinks, particularly cans, so I’ve switched exclusively to diet or “Zero” drinks instead of the Fat Cokes I used to enjoy. I’m still not a huge fan of Diet Coke, but other diet versions of popular drinks have proven surprisingly palatable. I actually think I prefer Diet Pepsi to regular Pepsi and Pepsi Max now, and Fanta/Sprite/Lilt/Dr Pepper/Irn Bru Zero are all pretty much indistinguishable from the “real thing”, and those are all drinks I like, so the fridge is kept well-stocked with those for when I want a cold drink, and it’s squashes or water at other times.

Thirdly is the aforementioned “syns”, keeping an eye on what other things I’m eating over the course of the day. The nice thing about Slimming World is that a lot of food is “free” (i.e. you can have as much as you like — and this includes stuff like pasta, rice and lean meat) but you also have the flexibility to use these “syns” to slip some extra stuff in there, too. (The “syn” part is from “synergy”, not “sin”; they’re supposed to complement the “free” foods and fill in the gaps for a balanced diet with things like sugar, fat and whatnot — the things that can easily get out of control, but which are still necessary for a decent diet.) Checking syn values of various foods has been eye-opening, and also helps me to make better choices when things are on offer. This doesn’t mean I can’t treat myself — indeed, when I went over to Boston for PAX, I pretty much took a few days completely off from the programme as it simply wasn’t practical to follow when I didn’t have full control over what I’d be eating — but it does mean that I can think more carefully about what I’m eating and drinking.

So it’s going well so far. I’m sure the weight loss will slow down or even stagnate at some point, but it’s encouraging that I’ve managed to lose so much so (relatively) quickly. A few people have commented that they can see the difference, and for once, I think I can, too. I’m still not happy with my body — I have a lot of weight to lose — but I’m happier with it than I was nine weeks ago, and hopefully that pattern will continue. Whether I’ll make it into the realm of the normal-sized people I don’t know — genetically, the odds are stacked somewhat against me — but I can but continue trying.

1850: All Wound Up

The last couple of weeks have been shit. And they are likely to continue being shit. Particularly tomorrow which, without going into details, promises to be a real humdinger of a never-ending, toilet bowl-splattering, sloppy half-digested poo of a day.

I shan’t go into details for various reasons, but suffice to say I am Not Having a Good Time. I feel marginally better now than I did earlier today — more on that in a moment — but for the most part I am reaching one of those “troughs” with regard to my emotional state and mental health. And oh boy, it’s a deep one. I’d go so far as to say that there have been times in the last couple of weeks when I have been feeling pretty much as bad as I did when I hit my previous lowest ever ebb back in 2010 when my then-wife and I parted ways. That’s not a record I particularly want to try and beat.

There was one positive amid all the crap, though, and that was that at Slimming World this evening I had successfully shed another 3lbs, even amid all the stress, anxiety and depression that the last couple of weeks have caused me. I candidly admitted during the group session that my ongoing success — I’ve now lost over a stone in total — was one much-needed positive thing in the middle of a horrible period in my life, and that I was thankful for the support the group sessions — and the overall structure and targets of the programme — were providing me in this difficult time. I walked away with the “Slimmer of the Week” award, which was somewhat unexpected, and which netted me a bag full of (healthy, “Free Food”) goodies. So that’s good.

Almost everything else is shit though. And it looks like continuing to be shit for the foreseeable future right now.

I could be pleasantly surprised. But I’m not holding my breath.

Perhaps I should. Shit stinks, after all.

1638: Trying Again

I went to the gym today. It’s a bit of a trek from where we are now, particularly without a car, but I felt the need to get out of the house for a bit rather than sitting alone in it all day fretting about whether or not I should be doing more to get a job.

They say that doing some exercise is a good idea when you’re feeling low, and for sure I’ve been feeling physically somewhat shitty as well as mentally recently. Thus I figured doing something to loosen up my stiff, tired, stressed-as-fuck body would probably be a good idea, but I didn’t want to go too crazy right away since it’s been a while since I was in a good routine. (I don’t know how likely I am to get into a good routine this time around, but I have done it before, so never say never.)

I decided that I’d try a programme I’ve had some success with in the past: the Couch to 5k system. For the uninitiated, this is a regime where you do some running three times a week, beginning relatively slow — just under half an hour of alternating a minute of running and a minute and a half of walking — and gradually working your way up to, in theory anyway, being able to run 5km — or at least to be able to keep running without stopping for half an hour.

I’ve made it through this programme once in the past, and it had a noticeable impact on my fitness. I’m not sure how much it helped me actually lose weight — I really struggle to shed weight, which is hugely demoralising when embarking on an exercise programme — but it certainly got me feeling fitter, less likely to get out of breath and so forth. It’d be nice to be able to keep it up enough to get back into that state.

The previous times I’ve tried this programme I’ve done it outside, running around my local area. It’s easy to feel self-conscious when doing this, but I normally put some loud music on and its straightforward enough to tune out what’s going on around you and focus on what you’re doing.

The difficulty, however is that the environment outside is less than predictable. The weather can vary, the surfaces on which you’re running can vary and there are hills to go up and down — usually at particularly inconvenient moments. As such, I decided to give it a go on the treadmill today — a predictable environment that I’m in full control of, in an air-conditioned room rather than being under the blazing summer sun.

It worked really well, and I was surprised that I managed to get through the first day of the programme without too much difficulty. I felt something of a “wall” about halfway through the session, but I pushed through and kept going rather than giving in to the little voice in my head urging me to stop and relax for a moment, and before long I was at the end.

My musical accompaniment for the session was the soundtrack to Final Fantasy XIV, whose battle themes make for an excellent workout accompaniment. I’ll definitely be making use of that playlist again, just to add a little drama to proceedings.

I’m in two minds as to whether to go back tomorrow and do some weights work before continuing the programme on Wednesday, or whether to just have a rest tomorrow. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow, I guess.

1595: Other Side Up

A sense of low self-worth tends to coincide, oddly enough, with those times in your life when things aren’t going all that well. The time when your actual worth is lower than it could be, in other words.

I’m going through one of those phases right now, and it sucks. There’s only so much I can do about it in the short-term, though. But there are probably at least a few things I can do, starting with outlining all the things that are causing me stress, anxiety and depression right now. This isn’t for the benefit of any of you kind enough to read my self-indulgent ramblings: I’m simply hoping it will prove to be something of a cathartic exercise, or something.

Okay. Number one on the list of Things That Are Getting Me Down is the lack of job. I still technically have a job until the end of June, of course, but after that I’m on my own. Far from making me feel relaxed, though, I just feel incredibly awkward about the whole situation. I’ve pretty much been cut off from the rest of the staff — partially voluntarily, since I didn’t really trust myself to contribute meaningfully to staff meetings when at risk of bursting into tears at any moment — and am being largely left to my own devices. With the site’s shift in editorial direction, I don’t have to worry about news stories, either, so that takes a bit of pressure off, but it’s still a bit of a weird situation.

The main thing causing anxiety in this instance is the fact that I don’t yet know what I’m going to be doing after the deadline of the end of June is up. I have a few applications in, but I’ve only heard from one so far, and that was a rejection. I have some more positions I need to apply for, but I also have to contemplate the possibility that I might not get any of those, which might leave me in a position where there doesn’t appear to be anything worth applying for. What do I do then? Aim lower? That doesn’t sound right, but it might be the only option.

My issue, as I’ve pondered on these pages once or twice in the past, is convincing employers that the work I’ve done for the past few years is directly relevant to something that is… well, not directly related. I am good at writing about video games. I am good at writing in general. However, I worry that there’s still a certain amount of “stigma” around professional games journalism, like it’s not a “real job” and that, when attempting to apply for a position at a “real” company, I’ll be judged negatively for the hard work I’ve put in over the last few years.

This is an irrational and probably completely incorrect assumption, of course, but as I said, I’m simply spouting off the things that are causing me anxiety right now.

Unrelated to the work issue is the fact that I’m just generally feeling pretty shitty about myself at the moment, particularly with regard to my body image. I’m painfully aware that I’ve put on loads of weight over the last few years, and I can’t shift it. When I get depressed, I often turn to comfort eating, and it’s a difficult habit to break. Right now, I’m making a conscious effort to try and eat more healthy things wherever possible, but sometimes you just want a chocolate bar or a cookie.

I can feel the additional weight translating into unfitness, too. I get breathless, my legs ache and creak, and I feel crappy most of the time. I need to get up, about and being active again, but I know that for a good while after I start doing it, it’s going to hurt. It’s going to be difficult, I’m going to be gasping for breath and I’m going to feel like I’m not making any progress. And the prospect of that is putting me off doing it in the first place — which, of course, is making me feel worse about myself.

I think I need to try and ease myself back in with something reasonably “easy” like swimming, and later graduate back to the gym and running and the like when I’ve built a bit of strength back up. I feel like a useless lump at the moment, so I don’t know how long that is going to take, but I feel like I probably should start on this sooner rather than later. This week, perhaps; I already joined the gym in town shortly before we moved, so I just need to try and get into some good habits, getting up early and going in the morning.

If I can stick to that, that solves part of my semi-conscious objections to indulging in regular exercise and the like. My main issues are that I get too ambitious too quickly — deciding I’ll go to the gym every day every week, for example — and then lose motivation quickly, and also that I feel like taking time to do exercise is time that I’d rather spend doing literally anything else. I don’t really enjoy exercising while I’m in the state I’m in at the moment; it’s demoralising, embarrassing and painful. I need to work through that pain, somehow.

All of the above, then, is conspiring to make me feel monumentally crap. I wish I could say that I knew things were going to be okay, and I have plenty I should be grateful right now — not least of which is the fact that Andie and I now own our own house, and with a little more work on it, it will be very much how we want it. But there are more immediate concerns weighing on my mind before I really feel like I can relax and enjoy that, and I need to figure out how to address those sooner rather than later.

1512: Fatigue

I joined the gym again yesterday, and got up early to go this morning. Now I feel like shit. I feel the two things are not coincidental, though the “feeling like shit” part, to be fair, was lingering in the background before the “going to the gym” part, so going to the gym probably did not help matters.

I am in a frustrating situation in that I clearly need to do some exercise — I’ve been feeling super-crappy recently, getting out of breath far too easily, and something I’ve done somewhere along the line feels like it’s knackered my left knee — but actually getting back into a good routine looks like it is going to be difficult. It will, of course, get easier over time assuming I keep it up, but it’s getting that initial burst of motivation going that is going to prove challenging, I feel.

My most positive experience with fitness was back when I worked at the Apple Store in WestQuay here in Southampton, and the gym and pool complex was both practically next door to where I worked, and on the way home. Consequently, it was pretty easy to just drop in, do some exercise either in the gym or the pool, then head home and have my whole evening ahead of me. It got me into good habits and made me feel reasonably good about the effort I was putting in — I’m not sure whether or not it actually helped me lose any weight, but part of it was just the mental wellbeing it brought about. I still wouldn’t have described myself as particularly “fit” but I was certainly a whole lot better than I am now.

The difficulty with being unfit is that it makes the process of actually getting fit infinitely more difficult to get started with. When it’s uncomfortable and painful to engage in exercise, the idea of voluntarily putting myself through that is not at the forefront of my mind. But I need to; hopefully it will be something that gets easier relatively quickly and helps me improve my motivation. Because right now there’s not a lot of it there — though some of that may be due to the fact that I don’t think I’m very well.

Going to get some good rest and then hopefully kick this thing off in earnest at some point in the next few days. I’m looking forward to having a swim, actually; it’s been quite a while since I had a good swim, and while I’m not very good at it — I’m painfully slow, even when doing “fast” strokes — I do find it to be quite a relaxing experience, so that could be the ideal thing to ease myself back into things.

Anyway, for now I’m off to bed. Apologies for the self-pitying nature of today’s post but, eh, you’re probably all used to it by now. G’night.

1470: Move

Well, I did it; a little later than intended due to an all-round shitty week last week, but did it nonetheless: I got up early and battled through my own sense of inadequacy to have a very slow run, kicking off yet another attempt at the Couch to 5K program.

My trouble with getting up, out and exercising at the moment is the fear that it’s going to be difficult and painful. The rational response to this is “well, of course it is” but the irrational side of me uses that as a reason to want to put it off. I’m not sure why, though, because putting it off for longer is just going to make it more difficult and painful in the long run, which will just make me feel worse, which is ultimately somewhat counter-productive, to say the least.

What I’ve found I need to do in the past is try not to worry about what other people think of me, and try not to compare myself to others. I am woefully unfit and rather overweight, so of course I’m not going to be able to run as well as that guy with the frighteningly muscular legs who just overtook me. It’s hard not to compare and want to push yourself, though — but in my current physical condition, pushing myself too hard just makes me want to stop completely which, again, is ultimately somewhat counter-productive.

What I generally try to do is to blot out the outside world as much as possible. When it’s crappy weather like this, I put on my hoodie and put the hood up, and put some loud music on to encourage me to give it my best. Today I had on my “Gym Battles” playlist from the last time I had a half-hearted fitness drive, which includes a selection of anime themes plus battle music from a variety of RPGs — all of which make fantastic exercise music, I might add. The soundtrack to Split/Second also makes for brilliant running music, so I can highly recommend that if you have a copy.

Now I’m back and about to have breakfast, and my legs are aching. I’m sure they’re going to hurt even more later and tomorrow, but that’s an oddly satisfying feeling — it’s physical evidence that you’ve worked hard and done something positive. So long as it doesn’t continue aching for too long, that is!

I’m going to try and support the occasional running with some Wii Fit. I don’t want to set myself too ambitious goals so I get disheartened and don’t stick to them, but at the same time I also don’t want to waste my time. I’ll have to experiment a bit and see what works for me in the long run.

For now let’s hope I can keep this up for a while at least.

1278: Christopher Walkern

So the whole “go for a walk for some exercise” thing has been going pretty well. I’ve managed to get up early and get out every day since I said I was going to, which bodes well. I am, however, probably going to take the weekend off so I can enjoy a lie in.

I’ve been walking for at least an hour each day, usually covering a distance of just under 4 miles or so. I usually follow pretty much the same route — up the road to the Common, wiggle around a bit in this side of the Common, cut across, walk down the road into town, walk through the vaguely attractive parks on the edge of the city centre, walk past the station and back up the other end of my road to finish where I started. It’s a big loop, and there’s a mix of flat, uphill and downhill walking all the way, so there’s a bit of variety and challenge in places. It’s still relatively “leisurely” compared to gasping and wheezing my way through a run, though, which makes it infinitely more appealing for the moment even if it isn’t quite as good for me.

One of the helpful inspiring factors while I’ve been walking has been the use of audiobooks. I don’t normally listen to a lot of audiobooks or podcasts any more, because I don’t really have a suitable situation in which to listen to them. I can’t listen to them while I work, because I have proven to myself on numerous occasions that I absolutely, positively 100% cannot write anything more than notes while someone else is talking in the same room, whether they’re a real person or a recording. However, when all you’re doing is walking aimlessly for the purposes of exercise, an audiobook or podcast is ideal listening. You’re not running, so there’s no real need for some music with a sense of “pace” to it; you can take your time and take in the words of whatever it is you’re listening to.

The accompaniment to my walks this week has been the audiobook of a Dean Koontz novel. I had a couple of Koontz works recommended to me a while back and enjoyed them — I read those, rather than listened to them — so I decided to take a chance on another one. It’s a bit bigger of a “risk” to try out an audiobook, since they’re significantly more expensive than eBooks or even just, you know, books. Still, I haven’t been disappointed so far; the story is interesting and the narrator appears to be pretty good, too, which is nice. (The novel is “Lightning,” if you were wondering. I have no idea if this is considered “good” or not by Koontz fans, but I’m enjoying it.)

The other nice thing about audiobooks is the fact that it allows me to enjoy books without having to actually read them. I have nothing against reading and actually enjoy it rather a lot, but it’s quite hard to make time for it when I have lots of other things I want to do as well. Reading is something I like to do when it’s quiet — much like writing — so I can’t really do it in front of the TV, and I certainly can’t do it while I’m doing something else. Audiobooks allow me to enjoy a book while I’m doing something else, which is ideal.

So that’s that. I’ll be taking it easy for the weekend, then continuing this new regime next week. Let’s see if it helps at all.

1275: Got Out

I successfully put my proposed plan from yesterday’s post into action today. Now it is just a matter of sticking to it.

Walking isn’t as inherently satisfying as running, because it’s not as obviously tiring. But it’s still a reasonably good workout — Runkeeper assured me that I had burned a significant number of calories by the time I got back home. In total, I was out for just over an hour, and walked about 3.5 miles in total.

I’ve always been something of an indoor person, but I do like just going for a walk sometimes. This is a surprise to me, because the idea of “going for a walk” was bewilderingly ridiculous when I was young. Why, I thought, would you ever just go out with the intention of not actually going anywhere? Why, I pondered, would you ever just go out without a final destination in mind?

Well, now I’m a little older, I can appreciate the answers to those questions a little more: the reason you would do those things is simply to appreciate the things that are around you, and perhaps discover some interesting new things in the process.

I’m not sure when my attitudes changed on this note, but I have a feeling it was when I was forced to move back home for a while after my marriage broke down. Staying in the house just made me feel exceedingly depressed all the time, so I welcomed any excuse to get out and do something, even if that “something” wasn’t really anything in particular. I’d go out for a run around the area; I’d go out for a walk to the local woods; I’d walk out of the village by one road, all the way around its perimeter and re-enter from a completely different angle. In the process, I found myself exploring places that I’d either never been to before, or which I hadn’t been to for a significant number of years.

When I go out for a walk, I enjoy it when I can find myself surrounded by nature. Again, I note that I’ve never really been an outdoor person, but I do feel something of a curious affinity for the greenery of forests and otherwise wooded areas. I enjoy being under a canopy of leaves, sunlight dappled on the ground through the few breaks in the green ceiling above me. I enjoy the crunch of twigs and dead leaves underfoot as I walk down a dirt path; I enjoy seeing peculiar, twisted, gnarled trees that have grown in peculiar directions for reasons known only to themselves.

I’m reasonably fortunate where I am now because I’m pretty close to Southampton Common, which has a lot of greenery. There’s a lot of open space, too, what with it being a common and all, but there’s also plenty of wooded areas with well-worn pathways to explore. There’s also a creepy graveyard on the boundary which is interesting to wander through.

I’m going to try and get in the habit of going for a walk every morning if possible. It worked out quite well today — I got up early, went out, walked for an hour, got back, had breakfast, had time to chill out for half an hour, then started work, and I didn’t feel like I’d “wasted” any time. Whether or not I feel “better” is a matter of some debate, but I can’t really expect to feel significantly different after just one day, can I?

Well. Let’s stick with it and see what happens, anyway.

1274: Get Out

As I mentioned a few days ago, I’m feeling a little low. Whether this is a symptom of some sort of summer-related Seasonal Affective Disorder or if it’s just a symptom of my ongoing depression I don’t know, but I am feeling a little low.

One of the reasons I’m feeling low is because I feel fat and gross. I always feel fat and gross, to be fair, because I am fat and gross, but there have been times when I didn’t feel quite as bad about myself as I do right now. Those times had one common factor: I was indulging in a regular exercise routine, either at the gym and pool, or out on the roads running.

I haven’t done any real exercise for quite some time for various reasons — mostly a lack of motivation related to depression, which just feeds the cycle and makes it worse, I know, but also just recently the blazing hot weather we’ve been having every day hasn’t been helping either. The last thing I feel like doing when it feels like a greenhouse outside is picking up my pace to anything more than my usual walk, let alone persisting at that pace for 30-45 minutes at a time.

Consequently, most of the good work I’ve done on running in the past has been largely undone, and I’m a mess with regard to fitness. I don’t really know what to do about it, either; I just feel completely unmotivated and have absolutely no desire whatsoever to go out and “better myself”, but at the same time know that if I don’t I’m going to continue along in this funk not really wanting to do anything.

This Oatmeal comic got me thinking somewhat, because I recognised a lot of the things he was talking about therein. It’s almost — almost — inspired me to get up and go out this evening, but I’m not really feeling it right now. I may make a start on some sort of regime tomorrow, however.

What I’m thinking I might do is rather than jump straight back into the demoralising experience of being a fat guy trying to run, I’ll just try and do a long walk each day. That’s something that feels “doable” and “achievable,” and from there I can always work my way up to doing something a bit more strenuous. I’m not talking about a casual amble, just to be clear; I’m talking about a brisk walk for a significant distance for somewhere in the region of 45 minutes to an hour. I live right near Southampton Common, which is the ideal venue for such perambulations, so I may just start taking advantage of that fact.

Here’s my plan, then, which it remains to be seen whether or not I’ll be able to stick to: I’m going to try and get up reasonably early-ish — i.e. considerably more than half an hour before I’m supposed to start doing work — and head out for a walk in the morning before it gets too unbearably hot. Then I will come home, have breakfast, relax, chill out and start work. Hopefully that small change will have some sort of impact, if not on my body then at least on my mental state.

I’m making no promises as to whether or not this is actually going to do anything, but having good intentions is a first step at least. Let’s see if they lead anywhere.

#oneaday Day 903: Running Review

I’ve been running through the Couch to 5K programme again, no pun intended. If you’re unfamiliar with this well-paced running programme, check out the image at the end of this post for more information. Also, play through Emi’s path on Katawa Shoujo and you’ll really want to do it.

Ahem. Anyway. Tonight was the first day of my fourth week on the programme. I’ve done it through to completion once previously, but that was quite a while ago now and my fitness has lapsed somewhat, so I decided to start again. Week 4 is where the pace starts to step up a bit and the jumps in difficulty begin to become more noticeable. For example, tonight I did two three-minute runs and two five-minute runs; on the previous trip out, I did two minute-and-a-half runs and two three-minute runs.

I got on pretty well. I didn’t have to stop at all, and I paced myself well. Said pace is still fairly glacial compared to people who aren’t carrying around as much weight as I am, but I’m satisfied so far.

One thing I remember noticing last time I did all this and am noticing again now is the fact that running is good stress relief. It’s actually probably exercise in general, but I’m finding it particularly apparent while running.

When I say “stress relief” I don’t necessarily mean “making the stress go away”. If it was possible to just make stress dissipate… well, then the world would be a much nicer place. (I also don’t mean “stress relief” in the same way that J-List refers to “stress relief toys”. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry.)

No, what I mean, in fact, is that running seems to “shake things loose” in my head. Stressful thoughts which have been clogging up my head all day come to the fore, particularly when reaching the end of a session. This isn’t always a massively pleasant experience, but it can be helpful and cathartic in the long run. It’s easy for stressful thoughts to get “backed up” and simply cause you to “feel stressed” all day for no specific reason — releasing these thoughts helps dissipate that vague “meh” feeling, though naturally you still have the specific thoughts themselves to deal with.

The human brain is weird.

Anyway, I’m happy with my progress on Couch to 5K so far. I remember being impressed with myself when I made it through the last time I did so, and being even more impressed when I successfully made it through an entire 10K race in London. (Okay, again I wasn’t especially quick, but at least I didn’t come in last place!) I’m contemplating setting myself some sort of target such as another race somewhere so I have something to aim for — the end of the programme is all very well and good, but where do you go from there?

Well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. For now I shall enjoy the small victory of successfully running for 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 3 minutes and 5 minutes without stopping.