How I lost my lunch.

For once this is not a euphemism.

I prepared my food for today last  night as  I always do.  Morning fruit, lunch itself and afternoon fruit.  When carrying the boy and his accoutrements out to the car this morning I put my lunch box on the bonnet so I could get him into his seat.

You can see what's coming can't you?

Vivienne called me 15 minutes later to ask why my lunch was spread all over the street in front of the house.

The Plank

Assume the pressup position.  Now, lower yourself down so your forearms are on the ground taking the weight.  Make sure your hands are separated, no clasping, straight back and hold.  For sixty seconds.  Now do that again three more times.

Nightmare.

And my clothes don't fit me no more...

Jeans, shorts, shirts, T's, nothing fits me any more.  In fact it would be quicker to list what does still fit: shoes.  And socks.  This is going to get expensive...

Preparation is key

Vivienne and I were up until about midnight last night getting the flat ready to view.  The upshot of that was that I didn't have the time nor energy to prepare my lunch for today.

So I bought a sandwich from the local supermarket instead.

Disgusting is all I can say.  I can't believe that I used to regularly eat that shit.  The salt was just overwhelming, I couldn't actually taste any of the ingredients.

Never again, preparation is King.

A blog about nothing in particular.

In response to Dear Leaders request that we blog every day, here's a blog about nothing in particular.

Yesterday was an odd one.  Baby boy was not very well - throwups and crying in the morning.  Very strange as he's normally at his best in the AM (just like Daddy...)  Ordinarily this wouldn't be a problem for me because he's with his Mummy and she knows what to do.  She, however, has gone back to work this week and BB is being taken care of by his Grandparents.  Now I know that they love him plenty but I still had a slight unsettled feeling all day.  I compensated for this at home in the evening by having two boiled eggs, rather than the customary egg whites.  I'm not sure what difference this makes in the real world but it made me feel better.

Today I had a call from our estate agents to arrange an "urgent" viewing on our flat.  This means that at the end of a busy day I will have to go home and organise the flat so it's ready for Friday after work.  This will involve variously bringing the dining table back from storage, finishing the woodwork painting in the hallway, de-cluttering two kitchen cabinets and dropping more boxes off to storage.  Something's got to give.  I have a sneaky suspicion it's going to be a full workout.  So, in the spirit of a previous email from Dear Leader, tonight the leg work goes, as does the arm work.  All that will remain will be the jump rope, abs and shoulders.  I'll probably get a sweat on carrying boxes anyway.

Hmm, turns out this blog was about something after all...

Cheater cheater real food eater.

I literally couldn't take another night of egg whites so I made the decision this afternoon to cheat for dinner tonight.

So I had an omelete instead.  I had some courgette, aubergine and a small amount grilled chicken in it and that's it.  Not much of a cheat, admittedly, but a cheat nonetheless.

It's made a huge difference in my attitude however.  Kevin sent a very interesting email about visceral fat today and I think reading that and enjoying an actual meal for the first evening in a week has re-energised me and re-focussed me to my goal.  I've realised that it's quite important to step back from the whole thing every so often to remind oneself what the whole point is.  It's too easy to lose sight of the intent, lose focus and just get pissed off.

Tomorrow is day 35 - the end of week five.  I go into week six with renewed energy and an excitement that I haven't felt since day one.

So it's not really cheating at all then is it.

"Come in Mr Bond. I've been eggs-pecting you."

I love eggs!  Aren't they amazing?

They're so versatile.

You can boil them, poach them, fry them, scramble them and you can microwave them (apparently they go off like frigging grenades!)  You can fling them, throw them, fire them out of a cannon and drop them on people from a great height.  You can blow the yolk out and crack the empty shell on your younger brother's head (of course you don't actually need to remove the yolk to do this but you'd better have a mop to hand...) You can sauté them and you can fricassee them (exactly the same as sauté but with a slightly larger egg) and if you've got enough road to get one up to 88 miles per hour you're going to see some serious shit.

I'm hungry.

I was going to say "I'm starving" but that's patently untrue.

Two egg whites, an apple and a banana do not a happy boy make.

I'm very well aware of why I'm eating what I am but I don't have to be thrilled about it do I.

Just keep imagining a big tuna pizza. And I can't wait for my gargantuan breakfast tomorrow morning.

Day 30 update

I am now one third through this process.  My thoughts?

It's been hard.  The strict diet, the constant exercise, the organisation.  It's been hard and it's just getting harder every week.  The diet gets more stringent, the work outs get more hardcore (hockey steps can fuck right off, but that's a different story...)

It's been hard, but it's worth it.  I feel energised every day.  I feel full of life.  I can see the changes in my form.  It's just going to get harder from here on in but I'm fully committed.

Updates:

Diet - Not once have I eaten or drunk anything which I was not allowed to.  I have not eaten one sliver over the allotted amount.

Exercise - I have missed only one night of jump rope (I spent the whole day doing manual labour and sweating to death anyway so I don't count it as a cheat.)  I have missed only two days of full workout (so pushed with the house-sale deadline that I couldn't stop.)

Doing okay so far...

Twenty-six seconds later...

Pretty unsatisfied...

Tonight's dinner

I'm an idiot.

I just made the fatal mistake of looking over next weeks exercises all at once. I feel exhausted already.

I've always printed them all out at the beginning of each week but I've been very strict with myself and not allowed any peeks at what's to come. It's easier that way to get through each day with no knowledge of what's coming tomorrow.

Big hill to climb this week, that's for sure...

A treatise on treats.

I've just been advised by our dear leader that a small treat is now permitted. Be it a couple of glasses of wine, some nuts or some chocolate it's now allowed. Just the once though presumably.

However, and it's a big one, I feel like I'm making real progress in this process and I feel uncomfortable about allowing this. I feel as though to have a treat now would undermine the progress I've made.

I suppose that the best frame of mind is one where nothing is forbidden but one continues to follow the philosophy "eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

Wine it is then.