#oneaday Day 638: Actual progress

I'm pleased to report that my weight loss efforts are actually making some meaningful progress. Not only have I crossed the "1 stone lost" boundary, I've also crossed a bit of a "plateau" I had felt stuck at for a very long time, meaning the big number at the start of my weight has gone down by one.

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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#oneaday Day 586: Commitment

I'm back from The Day At The Office. I haven't set my office PC back up again yet though, so no tablet drawings for now. I'm tired and can't be arsed to faff around with wires right now, so it's plain text for today I'm afraid.

Anyway, as I said yesterday, I'm pretty determined to make 2026 the Year I Beat My Weight. Not, as in previous years, the year I beat my previous record for "highest weight Pete can be", but rather, the year I figure out exactly how to get on top of losing it.

I have a several-step plan that I will begin pursuing from tomorrow. (Today is a write-off due to all the travelling and the Wingstop we just had for dinner. We had the Wingstop with the full knowledge that we're both going to be Eating Healthy from tomorrow.) Here are the several steps:

I will use the Lose It! app to track my daily calorie intake, and keep below the daily recommended number of calories that will supposedly allow me to lose weight. In doing so, I will continue to enjoy the things I enjoy, but in better moderation. I will not be switching to a "half a banana and a handful of chia seeds for breakfast"-style diet, because that will probably make me want to kill myself.
I will count calories even if I go "off-plan" and have myself a "treat", to better educate myself in potentially how much damage I can do to my efforts if I "treat" myself too often.
I will do at least 30 minutes of exercise per day, on some combination of my under-desk elliptical machine and/or the treadmill that we have now set up in the spare room.
I will not use the calories burned during exercise as "bonus calories" to have additional Nice Things.
I will research and reach out to some form of psychotherapeutic support to help with my efforts.

That last one, I think, is going to be the big "different thing" I try this time, and I suspect it will be helpful. As I mentioned yesterday, while I mostly found my referral to the weight loss programme via the NHS to be unhelpful, the one aspect I really did feel like I was getting something from was the counselling aspect. Through talking therapy, I felt like I was able to start looking at my behaviours (conscious and unconscious) that have led me to this point, and to figure out ways I might be able to modify them. Unfortunately I had so few sessions that I don't feel like I really got anywhere — but I feel like if I had been able to spend more time with the therapist in question, we could have made some progress.

One thing that came out of those few conversations, and something that I find my thoughts returning to, is that some of my behaviours are consistent with a pattern of addiction. Anecdotally, having had experience with other people dealing with addiction, I would be inclined to agree. I recognise this. I recognise patterns in myself that I have seen in other people who were struggling with addiction. And I feel that is an important starting point. As with any addiction, though, the struggle will always be in breaking it, little by little. Because you can't really go "cold turkey" (so to speak) with food — unlike various forms of chemical abuse, you still need food to operate normally, and thus breaking any sort of food-related addiction is more about developing a healthier relationship with food rather than completely breaking your "attachment" to it.

But I'm probably getting ahead of myself there. Fact is, I think having some sort of Professional Help would be… well, helpful. Up until now, I've been hesitant, because Professional Help is 1) relatively expensive and 2) daunting to find your way into. 2) applies doubly in my case, because my social anxiety makes it a huge effort to be able to make contact with a stranger, but also it's overwhelming to see the sheer number of therapists that are out there, and having absolutely no idea who might be "right" for me.

Thus I think rather than taking the "roll of the dice" approach and just stabbing randomly at a huge list of therapists in my area, I'm going to try making use of an organisation known as The Empathy Project that operates in my area. This is a small, non-profit organisation based in the town I call home, and I can't remember how I stumbled across them, but I seem to have added myself to their mailing list at some point. What I have read about them online seems positive, however, and thus referring myself to them seems like it would be a solid starting point, if nothing else.

So, tomorrow, I am kicking all this off. I will be counting calories, I will be exercising, and I will be referring myself to someone who might be able to help me through this. I'm feeling oddly positive about this right now, so let's just hope I can keep this mental momentum.

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#oneaday Day 542: Vrr vrr vrr

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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#oneaday Day 478: Counting Cals

As I've alluded to a couple of times recently, the latest attempt at weight loss has been centred on counting calories. And thus far it's actually been going reasonably well — as is often the case when embarking on a new campaign of doing this, I lost a decent chunk of weight in the first week, but this week it's slowed down again, though it is still going down, which is good.

As my past experiences doing this have shown, the crucial thing is to be constantly aware of what you're putting in your mouth, and thinking carefully before you stuff anything in there. Recording everything helps you to be aware of such things, and in the process make some better choices.

Now, "better choices" doesn't have to mean "I stopped having any bacon sandwiches ever, and for breakfast now I have half a banana with a handful of chia seeds and am miserable for the rest of the day". No; it means "I had a big lunch, so I should probably go easy at dinner". Or it means "I treated myself to a McDonald's breakfast, so I probably don't need a lot for lunch". Or it means "I've had three bags of crisps today already, I probably shouldn't have any more".

Working within those simple boundaries, you can set limits for yourself without feeling like you're missing out on things. When counting calories, you absolutely can still have a nice cake if you feel like one, but that probably means you should hold back on the snacks (or have lower-calorie snacks) for the rest of the day. And it can sometimes be surprising how easy it is to save calories by making a few little swaps here and there.

I've never been hugely fond of salad, for example, but drench it in enough salad cream and it can be quite a pleasant (and filling) accompaniment to a simple meal, like a piece of breaded meat. And a plate of salad, even if absolutely drowning in salad cream, is quite a lot fewer calories than a big pile of chips.

As it happens, the only chips I've had since starting this time around were on our Work Day Out, when I was necessarily somewhat limited in my options for dining, so I thought I would just enjoy that day as I saw fit, without guilt.

My challenge in this upcoming week is going to come in the form of my monthly trip to the office, which usually involves me grabbing something to eat on the drive down, or perhaps from the supermarket next to the hotel, or the hotel restaurant. On previous occasions, I'm mildly ashamed to admit that I have made less-than-stellar choices when choosing what to eat — after a long, tiring, boring journey, all I want is to have something tasty. This time, I'm going to try and pay at least a bit of attention to the choices that I make. I can still satisfy myself; I should probably try and do so without devouring a huge bag of Doritos and two frosted yum-yums, as delicious as they are.

I'm still feeling pretty good at the moment, then. Things are moving in the right direction and, crucially, I'm not feeling bored or frustrated with what I'm eating. That last part is particularly important; there's nothing worse than being bored of what you're eating, because that's the time you're most likely to think "that was disappointing, I'll make up for it with an entire chocolate gateau".

Not enough calories left for a sandwich before bed, sadly, but I think I'll probably survive.

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#oneaday Day 459: First full day away

After that curious no-man's land that is the first day of one's holiday yesterday — the period where you spend most of your time travelling and getting settled — today was our first full day of rest and relaxation. And it's been thoroughly pleasant. We haven't done very much, but I have certainly enjoyed what we have done so far — and the day isn't over yet.

I promised myself before we went away that I would try and be at least a little bit active while we were away. I am really feeling every one of my years and every one of my stones right now, so I made a little commitment to myself: I would buy the £15 gym pass for while we were here, and I'd go and do a little something each day. I also (correctly) determined that the walk to and from the complex where the gym is would almost certainly be adequate cardio, so that would leave me free to focus on some strength training, which is probably what I really need at this point.

As it turned out, the signposts pointing to the "sports plaza" where the gym is told me a little white lie: while the Center Parcs app suggested a walking route that was less than a mile, the way the signposts took me actually ended up being a whole lot longer. Not a terrible thing from a health perspective, but a slight shock to the system when I was expecting something a little shorter. In total I reckon it was probably about a mile and a half rather than the 0.7 miles I was expecting — I know for "fit" folks that probably doesn't sound like very much, but believe me when I say my body is in a right old state.

The gym here is tiny, but it was also completely deserted when I went there, which was absolutely fine by me, as it meant I could take my time over the exercises I wanted to do, and wouldn't have to feel self-conscious about anything other than the full-length mirror that allowed me to gaze upon my disgusting carcass in its entirety while doing exercises. Oh well. The very fact I was in the gym should make me feel a little better about things, as at least I'm taking some steps — and my thinking is that if I can smash through that initial "wall" of resistance to exercise while I'm here and have no other stressors or distractions to worry about, I will hopefully be able to maintain some better habits when we get back home, too.

Thus far it has just been nice to be away. No notifications from Microsoft Teams, no social media garbage, no Discord, no people PMing me for customer service issues. I needed this escape, and I feel like I need to make a few changes at work when I get back. Those are things to consider on my return, though. In the meantime, I'm just going to enjoy this pleasant forest retreat, the lovely surroundings, the wildlife that occasionally comes to visit, the swimming pool, the private bubbly bath we have and, of course, the good food. All of life's worries can wait until after I get back.

After all, that's what a holiday is supposed to be about, right?

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#oneaday Day 347: The pump

I've gone to the gym for the last two days in a row! Go me. I think I will probably take tomorrow off, but I went yesterday of my own volition and today to make up for the bratwurst we had for dinner, since I'm counting calories at the moment.

I go back and forth on my feelings towards the gym. There are times when I resent "having" to go (and, honestly, with the state my body's been in for a while, I do "have" to go) but there are times like the last couple of days when I actually feel like it's quite a pleasant experience. And it's for different reasons at different times.

Yesterday, I was feeling a bit down and miserable; I was having one of those evenings where I spent several hours not really doing anything worthwhile, and got to about 9pm feeling frustrated at how I had wasted the evening. So I decided that rather than sit around continuing to do nothing, I would do something productive and go to the gym. I dug out my cheap-ass wireless earbuds that don't really block out any external sound but which are adequate enough for listening to podcasts or YouTube videos, queued up a video I'd half-watched earlier, then went to the gym and did 20 minutes on the treadmill followed by about 30 minutes of resistance stuff on the machines.

And y'know what? I felt pretty damn good afterwards. My mood had lifted and I didn't feel anywhere near as frustrated as I'd felt prior to leaving the house. I'd still wasted a good few hours of the evening, of course, but it didn't feel like it mattered (because, let's face it, it doesn't, really) — and anyway, I'd made up for it by going and doing something that officially falls into the category of Bettering Oneself.

This evening, meanwhile, I had made myself a little anxious by knowingly going over the calorie limit I'm supposed to be following with dinner, but then I recalled the calorie consumption I had recorded from yesterday's session, realised that this would more than make up for the "overspill", and resolved to go and have a decent session. Once again, I got the shitty wireless earbuds and set the latest Giant Bombcast to playing while on the treadmill, and managed 30 minutes without too much difficulty. It normally takes me quite a while to muster the motivation to do more than 10 minutes on the treadmill, but today it was easy.

It's all about how you occupy your mind while you're doing those exercises, I think. At least, it is for me. If I'm just walking on the treadmill and I don't have anything to distract me from the tedium of the endeavour, even just 10 minutes feels like an absolute eternity. But if I have something compelling, interesting or just plain amusing to listen to while I'm doing the tedious thing, the time passes way faster, because I'm simply not paying attention to the time.

It's the same phenomenon we found in secondary school German classes. We spent so much time clockwatching in those lessons that they felt five times longer than any other lesson we had at school — one time I really freaked my friend out by using the countdown timer on my Casio watch to make it look like time really was running backwards — but if they had been a tad more engaging and interesting, I'm sure they wouldn't have felt as long. No disrespect to my German teachers, who were doing their best, but National Curriculum and GCSE-level German are set up to not be very interesting and engaging to study. At least, they weren't when I was at school.

So yes. I think the secret of gym success is to have something to occupy your ears and, in the case of the treadmill, your eyes, too. If you're looking at a screen to watch a video, you're not watching the clock. Bonus points if your gym's treadmill has an arrangement where you can physically block the clock screen with your phone or tablet. Or just lay your towel over the top, I guess.

Anyway, like I say, probably going to have a day off tomorrow 'cause my muscles are a bit sore after two days of pumping it (at weakling levels) in a row. But, so long as I continue to have good stuff to put in my eyes and ears while doing the boring bits, I think I might be able to keep this up for a bit. Let's see how it goes.

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#oneaday Day 267: Do some exercise

For a little while, my left knee has been absolutely killing me. It hurt to bend it, it hurt to kneel down, it was even quite painful extending and bending my leg to go up and down stairs. It was getting so painful that I was reaching a point where I was genuinely quite concerned I had somehow fucked it up beyond all hope of recovery despite not having actually done anything to it other than "be fat".

Taking advantage of a brief (brief) moment of motivation earlier today, I decided to set up the treadmill my wife bought a little while back, and which the pair of us have failed to make good use of since it arrived in the house and we realised we don't really have a super-convenient place to keep it. I plonked it down in front of the living room TV (where it just about fits between the sofa and the media cabinet) and plugged its ridiculously short cable into an extension, then into the wall. Then I set it going at a gentle 3.5 speed (mph, I presume) and just did ten minutes while I watched a bit of an episode of Friends.

When I got off, my knee wasn't in agony any more. It's still a little bit painful, but it's not at the "oh my God, are they actually going to have to chop my leg off?" level of pain it has been in the last week. So I am forced to conclude that after many, many years of a largely sedentary lifestyle, my body is finally reaching a point where it is literally screaming out for me to do some exercise. Which is nice.

I joke, but it sort of is nice to have some actual, unavoidable motivation for doing some exercise. I'm not averse to the idea at all — numerous gym memberships, periods of going swimming regularly and even just about surviving a 10K in the pre-COVID days will attest to this — but summoning up the motivation in the last five years has been really difficult, particularly if "doing some exercise" involves putting in some effort before you can even start — getting equipment out, getting changed, rearranging a room or driving to the gym.

But the treadmill, currently propped up against the wall in our living room, is reasonably easy to set up — I just have to move the coffee table out of the way, plug it in and we're away. So I'm going to start doing just a little bit every day. Just ten minutes at a time to begin with, as I don't want to overwhelm myself and kill off that motivation before it leads to any sort of productive gain in ability level or fitness. Just ten minutes of putting these tired old legs to a bit of use, and apparently that works wonders.

Who knew? Everyone did, of course, but sometimes it helps to have a little reminder that people who tell you to get some exercise aren't just talking out their arse or trying to get you to do something you don't want to do. It actually, really does help. So I'm hoping starting slow will help with the feelings of physically painful lethargy that have been becoming increasingly apparent since COVID. And we'll see how things go from there.

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#oneaday Day 208: Yet another new beginning

Yes, it's 2025! Hooray and all that. I'm sure all of you are winding down after the holiday period, and I suspect many of you are not relishing the idea of returning to work tomorrow. I know I'm certainly not — and I like my job. Still, at least it's only two days before another weekend, then we have to get properly back to the grindstone as normal.

Doubtless many of you are contemplating new year's resolutions, too. I certainly have been, even though I know they generally don't lead anywhere particularly productive. I am determined, though, to make this the year that I have a positive impact on my physical and mental wellbeing. I have been in a sorry state since the COVID lockdown years, and I want to get back to a state where I'm feeling vaguely human again.

To that end, tomorrow is a fresh start on Being Sensible With Food. I'm not jumping into anything like Slimming World or WeightWatchers or anything — just doing what the wife and I were doing before the holiday period, which is counting calories and being sensible about what we put in our mouths each day. I'd also like to make an effort to drink much more water each day, too; it is commonly cited that when you think you feel hungry, you're actually thirsty, and drinking plenty of water throughout the day helps deal with that very well indeed.

Only trouble is that the water which comes out of our taps is rank. It's always been kind of minging thanks to us living in a hard water area, but just recently it's really started reeking of chemicals, too. Actually, just recently it hasn't been so bad, but back in November or so it was barely drinkable. (Then we completely lost water for about a day and a half in mid-December, so that was nice.)

So yeah. My plan for action is to get up early, kick off this process by weighing myself before breakfast, and taking care to record everything, ensuring I don't go over the calorie limit each day. I was actually doing pretty well with this before the holiday season hit, so I think it will be fine to get back to this. I just need to stick to it over the long term, which is where the NHS app that helps you track calories comes in. That aims to get you following the programme non-stop for 12 weeks to see what an effect it has, so my first and only resolution this year is to do that 12-week programme.

That is, as they say, a Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-based goal. SMART, if you will. From there, we'll see how it goes. I'm feeling vaguely positive right now, so time to knuckle down and get on with it.

If you're in a similar situation, where you want (or need) to achieve something to better yourself, best of luck with it. I suspect the year ahead is going to be challenging for many, but if you take care of yourself, that's one fewer thing to worry about, ain't it?

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#oneaday Day 141: Progress report

It's been nearly a week that I've been following the NHS 12-week "Weight Loss" app programme so far, which basically just means I've been counting calories for 6 days. But I've been pleasantly surprised by a few things. I'm yet to weigh myself to see if anything has happened as a result of this week as yet — I've set "Monday morning after the really long morning piss" as the weekly weigh-in — but as with most things like this, the programme is as much about getting yourself into decent habits as it is about making number go down.

The thing I've been most pleasantly surprised about is how possible it is to eat "normally" and enjoyably without breaking the calorie bank. In the last week, I don't feel like I've really had to "give anything up"; when I've fancied some crisps, I've had some crisps, when I've fancied some chocolate, I've had some chocolate. The important thing is paying attention to those things and ensuring you don't do them to excess, and being honest about counting them. As such, even though I've had crisps and chocolate and a few other bits and pieces most diets would probably count as "naughty" on some diet plans throughout the week, I've still come to the end of each day below the calorie allowance I have.

Now part of this is because I'm a big lad and thus need a few more calories than someone who is normal-sized, but I figure cutting back can be a gradual process. In thinking about what I'm eating and counting the calories, I'm already finding myself thinking "well, I can probably do without that and it will save me 250 calories". For example, with lunch today I eschewed a bag of crisps and I didn't really miss them. I suspect long-term I can retrain myself to think that lunchtime doesn't have to involve a bag of crisps, and thus a bag of crisps can be mentally moved from "expected part of lunch" to "occasional treat". That seems like a positive step, for sure.

This is a positive move. One of the reasons I have found myself struggling with more "plan-based" approaches in recent years is the feeling that I'm "giving things up" and "missing out" on them. When you specifically rule out certain things from your diet, it turns out that you really crave them. And while when I did Slimming World 10 years or so back I could handle that, this time around I've really struggled. And thus it was time to try something different.

As I say, so far it remains to be seen if what I've done this week has actually had any tangible effect or if I need to step my efforts up a bit, but from next week I'm planning to start being a little more active again.

Y'see, part of the reason I'm in the state I'm in is due to the COVID years. The whole lockdown thing, coupled with general laziness, caused me to gain a bunch of weight, stop doing any sort of exercise and even start feeling a bit uneasy about going outside generally. That's not a good place in which to find yourself, so I need to start taking additional steps to sort that out, and getting back into a gym habit will be a good means of doing that.

The reason I haven't done that this week alongside starting the calorie counting is I did my back in somehow while we were away on holiday, and it's just starting now to feel like it's a bit better. I didn't want to agitate it with exercise, so I've been waiting until whatever the problem was appears to have "healed", and I think it's pretty much there. So from Monday, I'm going to make an effort to go to the gym at least three times throughout the week.

I think I talked about this elsewhere, but I also plan to not overwhelm myself by suddenly starting a long, intense exercise routine. I'm going to begin by just going and doing, say, 20-30 minutes walking on the treadmill. I have a bit of a mental block where I feel like "just" doing that is a waste of time, but when you're in the state I'm in, it's absolutely not. Ideally what I'd want to do is maybe one day 20-30 minutes on the treadmill, then the next day just do the strength training machines, then alternate back and forth between them. That way, over the course of the week, I can end up having done the "recommended" amount of exercise, and I'll have also done a bit of both cardio and strength.

I don't yet know if my mental wellbeing and willpower is quite up to that as yet, but it's something to aim for at least. For now, I'm going to count "went to gym at least three times" next week as a success, and anything more than that is a happy bonus. And that will kick off on Monday, giving me tomorrow to relax a bit, make sure my back is in working order and mentally prepare myself for what's ahead.

I want to beat this. I know it's possible, and I know it's going to be hard work. Right now I'm feeling oddly motivated, so I wanted to put pen to paper and actually express that. Whether I feel the same way on Monday remains to be seen, but these sorts of things always have to be one step at a time, slowly but surely.

And so here I am, taking those slow but sure steps. Here's hoping they prove to be both worthwhile and sustainable.

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#oneaday Day 136: Reset and Restart

Now that I'm back from holiday — and had a thoroughly lovely time, aside from apparently putting my back out because I am an old man — it's time to get serious about the ol' weight loss. I'm fed up of treading water and making no progress, so I'm trying a bit of a different tack. Slimming World unfortunately hasn't quite been working for me this time around, so I have instead decided to try the NHS weight loss app. This is pretty much just a glorified calorie tracker, but it has some helpful articles and things that pop up over the course of following a 12-week plan, plus encouragements to check your progress at sensible intervals rather than obsessing over things daily.

I'm also intending to get back into the gym when my back feels a bit better. I have a casual half-plan to alternate cardio and strength training days so I neither overwhelm myself with too much "stuff" on a single day, nor do I feel like I'm "taking up" too much of my personal time with exercise. I know I should consider exercise a valuable use of my personal time, but the reality of the situation is that I'm still in a position where I somewhat resent it. That needs to change, and it's going to be a gradual process. So establishing a simple, manageable and minimally intrusive routine is what I think will work for me.

Same with the food. I've talked a little on here about my experiences with food and why I've ended up the way I am, and based purely on anecdotal evidence, I feel like I'm struggling with a kind of "addiction". Y'see, I've seen people struggling with addiction (to substances other than food) and, as unpleasant as it is to think about and admit, I recognise a lot of similar habits in myself.

Where someone with an alcohol addiction can't resist buying a bottle of vodka from the shop and hiding it upon getting home, "self-medicating" with it in secret even if other people know that's what they're doing, I, too, will find myself at the shop telling myself I "deserve" something that is bad for me. Often multiple things that are bad for me, compounding the problem. And I know they're bad for me, because I'll inevitably scarf them down before I return home and take care to throw away the evidence of my secret shame before doing so.

And it absolutely is a form of "self-medication". I eat to relieve all sorts of things. Boredom, sadness, tiredness, loneliness; any sort of vaguely negative emotion, my body's conditioned response has become "eat something". And that's got me into a terrible situation that with every passing day it feels harder and harder to escape from. I'm ashamed of myself and disgusted with myself, and yet still these behaviours persist.

But I am, at least, aware of them. And gradually changing those behaviours is what I'm trying to do with this new, simpler approach. Today I have come in under my calorie goal and still have enough remaining for a nice glass of milk to accompany bedtime. I haven't accompanied every trip downstairs with a chocolate biscuit or a bag of crisps, and honestly I haven't really missed them. I had a decent breakfast, a perfectly acceptable lunch and a good dinner, none of which were the depressing sorts of things you read in slimmers' "success stories". And approaching things this way has not left me feeling like I'm "missing out" on anything.

Because that was one of the problems I was having with Slimming World this time around. While their plan is effective if you can follow it, if you get into the mindset that you're "not allowed" certain things, that just leads you to crave them more. And then you indulge those cravings a little bit "because just one won't hurt", and before you know it you're completely sabotaging your own efforts, completely conscious of the fact that you're doing so.

That's what happened to me this time around. I had got myself into the mindset that I could "get away" with the odd little "cheat" here and there, but the odd little cheat here and there turned into near-constant cheating, to such a degree that I was actively hampering my own efforts.

And honestly, there is nothing more depressing than reading something like this:

What I used to eat for breakfast:

Bacon sandwich

Fried Egg

Sausage

Beans

2 slices of toast

Large cup of coffee

What I eat now:

Small handful of chia seeds

Berries I foraged from the weeds in the back garden

A couple of twigs

Pond water

It is possible to lead a comfortable, healthy lifestyle without living exclusively off bits of old wood chippings and leaves. It has to be. There are myriad normal people around the world who happily exist on a day-to-day basis, able to enjoy an occasional coffee and a cake and a Tesco Meal Deal for lunch without ballooning to an absurd size. The key, as with anything, is not to do the "treats" to excess. And that is the difficult bit, because treats are delicious and can often induce a temporary feeling of what appears to be happiness and satisfaction

But it's temporary. Then comes the regret, and the self-loathing, which you end up wanting to… you get the idea.

Anyway. This is a fresh start. Nothing that came before matters. There shall be no guilt, no regret, just determination. I will see how things go from here. It can't hurt to try.

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