And that's when it all started going wrong.

I had a blog post written that I decided I would hold off publishing until July so I could have a six month roundup of my thoughts on how my resolutions had held up and how I was doing fitness wise, well, since I first put fingers to keyboard on the post and the first day of the seventh month, it all went to hell in a handcart.

My diet is utter dog shit at the moment, I'm trying to avoid eating badly and get more sleep, exercise more and continue to lose the weight I've gained over the last few decades but I seem to be almost deliberately sabotaging myself, I was really happy that I hadn't had anything with alcohol in it for almost six months, I had some in the cupboard that was left over from Christmas, well after I started my new job, I felt like I would have 2 cans in celebration of actually having a job with decent hours, allowing me the luxury of actually having money, instead of basically pocket change.

Now I'm not blaming the new job for this, that would be a stupid thing to do, since the job doesn't force me to eat the things I do, or drink alcohol and stay up till 6am singing songs and drinking, it doesn't keep me awake and cause me to feel too tired to get my arse to the gym, or my fitness classes, my job does none of these things, its just a place I go to earn a living, serving people with things.

The blame is entirely my own, which is why, I've not lost anymore weight since I reached 13st 11lbs (193lbs) in fact, my weight has gone back up, then down and back up again, at my last weigh in, I was 13st 12lbs which I was pleased about, as I've not gone over the 14st mark yet. I keep saying I'll knuckle down and get things back on track and I really mean to but since I'm sitting here writing this post at 3am having drank I'm guessing something with caffeine in it, I'm not feeling particularly tired right now, I guess I'm also lucky that my job has me on shifts that start at 4pm, which would give me enough time to get to the gym, or pool for a bit of exercise.

So, I yet again have made yet another promise to myself, that I will get off my arse and get down to the gym for my fitness classes, stop eating all kinds of unhealthy foods and get back on the no alcohol bandwagon, since it seems I'm drinking a large amount of calories whenever I do have a drink, it isn't just a couple, its much more, like the 2 bottles of weight watchers wine, then the 35cl of rum and full sugar irn bru. 

I just need to get back to it with no I'll just have one last thing then the diet starts tomorrow style fanfare and just start the day eating much better and actually do some exercise and stop staying up so late, hopefully the next time I write about how my journey is going, this will be a slightly large blip but simply that, a blip.

I hope no one thinks this is some form of self pitying whine, all oh woah is me and not my fault type of post, its just me being honest with myself and I guess the rest of the world/people I know, so please don't think of it as that. So I'm going to publish this post, step away from the computer and get my self to bed and push myself off to boxercise in the morning, since I'm hoping to test the bodybugg and see just what I burn with the class.

New job, new issues.

It seems having a new job makes a real dent in your fitness routine, for the first few days it was humping stock around and refilling shelves getting the shop ready for opening, then it was learning how to use the tills and serve the customers, then it was learning all of the procedure I need to follow as a supervisor, especially the part about not serving the underaged with tobacco or alcohol.

For the most part its been pretty easy, I've been mostly doing closing shifts, as I live so close to the shop, so I get to close down tills, sort out newspaper returns and lock up, making sure the shop is nice and tidy for the next day. The one thing that's taking some getting used to, is the stock control, in relation to products that have a short shelf life, like bread, milk and cooked meats etc. luckily the bosses understand that this is new to some of us, so they're not being too hard about any mistakes that've been made so far.

The challenging people we think are underage has been remarkably smooth, with only a couple of complaints from people, who if they had id, would have been served, so it all balances out in the end. my diet has been slightly all over the place and I've not really done much in the way of exercise, as I've been pretty tired but I'm putting this down to being on my feet for hours at a time, when I've not done long shifts in months, that and I'm getting to bed later, I've been drinking energy drinks to keep me going which means I've been full of caffeine, which has a knock on effect.

Although I put on a little weight, I seem to have lost it again, which means I'm back to the same weight I was three weeks ago, so now I need to knuckle down and get my diet back on track, more healthy less unhealthy, since I seem to have had energy drinks, chocolate bars, alcohol and been eating way more than I should have been.

I did finally receive my bodybugg from Lilliana, which means I can get a more accurate calorie burn for the times, I'm a work, or when I'm doing my fitness classes, it weirdly counts every calorie burned including the ones you burn, when not actually doing anything, so I need to take away around 1.5/6 calories per minute for the period I was exercising, so I was albe to work out that I burned 705 calories working today, marred only by the fact I massively overate foods with a high fat content.

The night after the night before.

So last night, I had a few more drinks than I was planning on having and ordered a pizza, from one of the only places open at 3 am, Susan woke and decided she wanted a chicken burger, so we went with the one place that we thought didn't sell one of those crappy breadcrumb coated deep fried chicken burger but selling proper fillet chicken strips, that seem to be actual chicken breast in a bun with salad. It turned out to be the wrong place and the pizza was only just warm rather than piping hot but I didn't really care at that point that I just ate the thing.

Weirdly I didn't wake up with a raging hangover but merely felt very warm from the alcohol and feeling a little thirsty, I didn't feel hungry but I guess that was because of the pizza, so I had a cereal bar, a little more sleep before heading off to work, for a couple of extra hours. I came in from work and didn't feel like making anything, so when Susan suggested a takeaway from our favourite Indian place, I happily went with her suggestion, they got our order slightly wrong and we got an extra portion of rice rather than the delicious tikka starter but since they are such good quality we didn't mind too much.

It made me realise that drinking large quantities of booze causes me to not only eat takeaway on the night but also seems to have me wanting it the next day as well, this means I'll have to avoid drinking too often in future as I really want to avoid getting back into back habits.

Still I'm not denying myself some of the unhealthy foods, so it should make it easier to eat them less often.

So close to six months dry.

I started my new job and after a long day shifting stock and stocking shelves, I really wanted to buy two bottles of the brewdog beer that we're going to sell but since the shop doesn't open until Thursday, I couldn't really do that, so I came home and decided that I would have a couple of cans that I've had in the cupboard since New Years eve, I had a quick check on myfitnesspal and the internet and discovered that they were about 230 calories each, which wasn't too bad, so I added them into my daily intake.

As I was half way through the second can, I got that familiar feeling of, the alcohol starting to take over and I decided to open the mulled wine, that I never drank over Christmas, I'm also feeling like having some form of takeaway, although I'm starting to feel a little drunk, I still feel in control, which considering my tolerance for alcohol should be much lower, is quite an achievement on my part, since my usual Saturday night would have been an eight pack of beers and a takeaway afterwards. So on that score, I'm winning even though I'm still considering the unhealthier food, I'm not just going through the usual Saturday night motions and now I know that this is going to be a rare occurrence, so I'm going to make the most of it.

I suppose in one respect, I'm using it as a way of seeing if I would fall back into old habits were I to choose to have alcohol, on a more regular basis, or would I be able to control myself, so that I could avoid having to work extra hard burning off the calories, I'd taken on board in the form of alcohol and takeaway, one thing I do know is that my tendency to drink more alcohol once I start is normally what gets me into trouble, not with the law but deciding to do silly things like drinking more than I really should.

Some of my silly things I've done have been to use my bike to go and buy snack foods when drunk, realising after I saw the police that I could have been arrested for being drunk in charge of a pushbike, or to take my very young children out for a trip to the 24 hour garage, at three in the morning, visiting the local graveyard on the way back home, which the kids loved unsurprisingly but my wife wasn't very pleased with, I call it being an exciting dad, social services call it being irresponsible, well they probably would have done if they'd known.

So sitting here not feeling very drunk, when I really should be, makes me think, yes I do enjoy alcohol but I should continue to limit myself, lest I fall back into old habits and undo all my hard work to date.