New year, new...

Yet again January has rolled around and has called upon that time to make new resolutions which last as long as the Christmas break does and yet again I tried to make changes that would improve my health, through clearing my account on myfitnesspal and trying to eat a balanced diet but of course, it didn't last too long until I was tired and ordering food in was the easier option.

I do have an issue that is causing me to question my health in a much deeper way, that since I got back from World's Toughest Mudder, if I try and do anything slightly strenuous, it results in discomfort in my chest, which the Dr thought had been a heart issue, due to the heart disease in the family but one ECG later and the consultant doesn't seem to think it's a heart issue, I thought it might have been dust that had become trapped in the lining of my lungs but there's no wheezing that the Dr could hear.

So I'm stuck in this weird place where I can't really start to exercise but really need to since I have quite a few events this year, with two Toughest events and another World's Toughest to look forward to, hopefully whatever this is will get sorted and I can actually try and get faster than last year when running or at lease be able to take part without having to stop because my chest is giving me issues, only time will tell I guess.

Starting again, again.

Well my plan of keeping regular blog posts seems to have fell by the way side, although I am using a journalling app to keep a daily diary of things I've done on a day to day basis, I've discovered that my memory is seriously bad, Matthew was diagnosed as having adhd which based on the information that suggests it comes from the parents would explain to me why I sometimes focus all my attention on one thing for months on end then lose interest in it, as if I'd never had any interest at all.

Its also coming up to tough mudder season, the time of year when myself and other like minded lunatics, descend on the countryside and complete a 12 or so mile course of mud, obstacles, cold water and shocks, I missed out last year on completing all 6 events, so this year, I'm aiming to get almost every event under my belt, sadly Dublin is out of the question due to the costs involved, still that'll be a potential 7 events, I have to choose from.

I'm building my fitness back up and getting some miles under my feet, I was also thing about perhaps starting to think up a boot camp of sorts to prepare people for what to expect when they compete in one of the events and also what they should be wearing, to avoid becoming injured or ill when taking part.

The next thing to do is work out what kind of training people should be doing to get over and under each obstacle, so I can go from there.

A new year of sporting fun

So I decided to try and do some exercise on a daily basis and had this whole plan mapped out which has sadly gone all to pot, I have been getting back to fitness class and have managed to shed almost all the weight I put on over Christmas and following the slimming world plan I've been making some lovely food, I got back to using my fitness pal just to see how many calories I've been eating following slimming world.

I've meant to get back to my running but have been finding excuses to not get out there, the usual its too cold or wet allow me to not get back training for the tough Mudder events, if I don't get training and bring my weight back down I'll have problems getting over obstacles and don't want to fail doing the human gecko this time.

It looks like there aren't three events in a four week period this time, which is good since I could barely run the last one in Wales. I've also got plans to compete in a triathlon and a zombie event happening in Newcastle this year.

So a busy year of sporting events planned, along with Lee's 18th in Barcelona to look forward to, I might even get Matthew to do a tough Mudder event with me, if I can get him out running.

Tough Mudder Part 1

I'd heard about the Tough Mudder when I was sat in the pub chatting to Chris, who that mentioned someone he knew was doing it, so I thought I would look into it as it sounded like hellish fun. I opted for the November one as it would give me enough time to train and get together the money for competing. Well the training part never actually happened aside from fitness classes and hitting the gym.As it was going to be awkward to get to the event on the day, as I wanted to be refreshed, I decided to stay over on a campsite the night before. 

The morning arrived and as there were no buses or metros at that time in the morning, it was a taxi ride over to town, weirdly the taxi driver used to be our milkman way back when. I'm also glad I had a jumper with me as Newcastle central station is a cold place at 5am. Although I was waiting around I was glad to not be sprinting to catch the train like I normally am whenever travelling this way.

The journey went as most do, although a low point of the journey was managing to tear off one of the earpieces to my headphones, halfway into the journey leaving me with no music or video option it would also happen to be my better pair of headphones. A highlight would be getting off the train and finding a fiver on the platform at Manchester station.

I eventually arrived at Wrenbury and it turned out to be a tiny little village, so not very much there but it seemed nice enough. I got the tent setup in the site at the Cotton Arms and met Mark and Tom, two guys who did a Tough Mudder in Scotland, they told me the sort of thing I should expect tomorrow and how their first one went.
They've said a lift would be ok but might be cutting it fine for my start time, still its a lift there.

I decided that I would have a walk up to the Mudder site to see about pushing my time back which was a rather long four mile walk up to Mudder site road, a wander round looking for an official and then a long walk back via the Cholmondley arms, then after a pint and bumping into Mark and Tom, I headed back to the campsite when I noticed that Chorley was only a mile away from the turning onto the campsite road so I thought I might have a look and that's where the problems started. There is literally nothing there except some houses and a postbox, after a while walking down the road I decided to try crossing the field to get back onto my original road. This simple task took me the best part of two or so hours, I had no battery so couldn't check maps, I ended up walking in the dark and managing to step in several pools of mud, which made me glad I was wearing them for the run.

I managed to get sort of cleaned up and made some food, before heading to the pub to secretly charge my phone, make use of the WiFi and enjoy a few drinks, I did discover that I had crossed four fields and walked through a dairy farm, I didn't take part in the pub quiz and decided to retire to bed. This was when the problems started, it seems I'd forgotten to tie the tent inner to the poles and it had leaked in quite considerably. I managed to use a water bottle to bail out most of it and discovered it was still leaking in and realised what I had done, so after tying the inner up I went to bed. It was only when I was woken by a feeling of damp that I discovered more pools of water so I bailed them out again, this continued all through the night with either the church bells or feeling of cold wetness waking me up. It seems my plan of a restful night went right out of the window.

Eventually the alarm sounded and I decided to get up, try and get warm. I had a chat with the gents from another tent who were doing the run and borrowed a couple of carrier bags to line my shoes and warm my feet, this didn't quite work so I popped on a pair of socks which still had little effect but I knew it might help during the run. After my packing up my gear, I waited for Mark and Tom to arise before wandering over, for my lift. We got to the car park, as they were getting changed I said I would meet them at the starting area and wandered towards it. After picking up my participant pack, I quickly phoned home and got myself ready.

Part Two

Last week reviewed

So I'm sitting here on a Monday afternoon, with a smile on my face, I had my weigh in this morning and I had lost six lbs, which I was pretty surprised at, it means I weighed 13st 2lbs (184lbs) I also looked over my diet for the last week and it was certainly a lot better than it had been for the week before. I increased my output and decreased my intake and still managed to enjoy puddings and the Iceland takeaway meal components. I also feel a lot better in myself, happier in general, I suppose writing out my problems as I see them was quite cathartic and forced me to stop coasting and beating myself up, I had a quick check and discovered that the beers, mini rolls, babybels and scone weighed in at a rather shocking 2017 calories and 77g of fat, this was on top of what I'd eaten that day.

I've also avoided having a meal when I've been on my break and having something small like a low fat mousse, or a crispbake, just to alleviate and hunger pangs I've have, as a result I've been able to keep to my daily allowance, I did worry that I might have been under eating by exercising and sticking strictly to my allowance but based on the last couple of days, I seem to have been balancing it out, going over my allowance but still having a reasonable deficit according to the bodybugg.

The moment I finished the last blog post, I decided I would walk to and from Newcastle for cheap cinema Tuesday and saw the Bourne Legacy, which was a pretty good actioner, though it seemed to tail off towards the end , the walking resulted in a small blister on my foot but that's the price of getting fit. I also managed to get to the gym on Wednesday and Thursday, then had my Boxercise and Spinning classes on Saturday.

All in all, I guess you can say, I had a much better week and seem to have reignited my interest in my fitness, this is pretty important since I've signed up for Tough Mudder North West UK in November and I'd like to finish without feeling like I'm going to die.

Impulse control problems *check*

I'm failing, I don't think there is any other way to put this, that simply I'm failing. It took me so long to write the last blog post again, that, my good intentions that I started with, faded away and left me back at square one as it were. I also realised that I have an impulse control problem, I realise that people who've read my blog posts are probably sitting there thinking, no shit Sherlock, oh course you have one.

Soreen Maltloaf

I can't remember if I mentioned this in one of my other self reflection posts that I did but the realisation hit me like a sledgehammer to the face, when I sat during my break at work and ate two maltloaves, for those who are unfamiliar with this food stuff, its a malty sweet bread, that's a bit like marmite, you either like it or you don't, they are low fat but calorie dense, so one loaf has 690cal but only 4 grams of fat.

Then just last night, I bought myself four cans of beer and although I didn't get happy drunk, I must have gotten drunk as I wolfed down six mini babybel cheeses, six cadbury mini rolls and a clotted cream scone from Asda. I realise that when you're drunk you tend to eat badly due to not being fully in control but I ate the maltloaves when sober, I intended on having a small portion but couldn't help myself, I think deep down I've known that I had this problen which is one of the reasons that I've never touched any kind of class a recreational narcotic, simply because I'd probably end up with a substance abuse problem.

The lovely Quinnbee on Fitocracy said "Don't let the 'maltloaf' undo your amazing work!" which are words I really want to live by but I seem to be in a vicious circle, I eat badly then hate myself for not making better choices, or over eating, then resolve to make better choices and then trip myself up. I seem to be allowing myself to do this, after all, when I started knuckling down at the start of the year and made the progress I've made, I didn't have so many 'food choice accidents' I really don't know what's wrong, its almost like I want to derail my progress, whenever I walk near my local river 'the Tyne' I get a slight urge to throw my phone into the water and I've no idea why, its like I'm determined to say to myself you don't deserve nice things, the same with my health, either I don't want to lose anymore weight and achieve the flat stomach™ or I want to live with the perpetual oh woah is me victim mentality.

I guess part of it stems from the way I've always been, I take an interest in something, then for months, that's the thing that holds my interest, until it suddenly doesn't, I've always done this, with games, programming, tv, reading, blogging etc. it seems that, I'm now losing interest, in getting healthier, which is why I'm not focusing on it as much as I was or should be. I'm still going to the gym but not as often as I should, though saying that, I could do some form of exercise in the house, I'm just not pushing myself into doing that.

So mere weeks after pulling my socks up, it seems my socks have been taken off, washed, dried and hidden in the back of the drawer and I sit here yet again, going over yet another failure in maintaining my diet and exercise routine. With this in mind, I really want to say, that's it I'm pulling up my proverbial socks and getting back to eating properly and exercising more but that seems like a waste of time even typing, I suppse I'll just have to see what happens in the next few weeks and hopefully I'll get myself back on track and continue to get stronger and fitter.

So let's see what the next week brings and if I manage to reignite my interest in my health.

It was like a bolt from the blue.

I read something on my fitness pal, that was a list of things about fitness and weight loss and it just occurred to me one of those things rings very true. Up till now I've been working towards this 'goal' of losing weight and getting fitter, like it was some quest in a game and not a point in my life's journey. I've been sort of thinking once I reach a certain weight, everything will fall into place and life will be better.

Like once I've reached my goal weight, or rather the goal of a flat stomach, then I'll be done and can chalk it up to a job well done, till I realised, I'm never going to stop actually watching what I'm eating and pushing on with the exercise. It's weird that I've came to this conclusion this far into my journey, what actually surprises me more is that it never properly occurred to me before, merely hinting at the lifestyle change that needed to be made, I guess this realisation has been there in one form or another over the years, since, I've avoided using butter or margarine on anything and eating a healthier variety of bread.

I mentioned this to my wife and her friend, who were having a quiet drink and my wife's friend, who runs a weight watchers class, that she has seem so many people who get to their goal weight, then stop attending the classes, only to return having put on the weight that they lost, I've always known that going back to eating the same foods you ate before you decided to change, would result in the weight pilling back on but the epiphany of knowing with crystal clarity, that I would have to be careful what I ate for the rest of my life, was a bit of a shock.

Still, now that I've had this sudden realisation, I can move on and reach my goal, then carefully maintain my weight, allowing myself treats but ensuring that I exercise enough to compensate for the calories that I've eaten. This will be where the hard work really starts because as hard as it has been so far and it has been at times, that will become point 0 where I need to carefully balance my calorie intake and exercise output.

My guess is that, I'll enjoy looking and feeling good, that I'll automatically make the better choices, that I need and never again be the overweight bloke, who wasn't happy with the way he looked but didn't have the motivation to do anything about it.

Can you please, stop the hammering.

I love swimming, the whole thing of floating in water, propelling yourself along using only the power of your arms and legs, its great and aside from the initial getting into the water, which tends to be cooler than you are, so is a little bit of a shock. The only thing I'm starting to get annoyed with, aside from my inability to do any stroke other than breast, is other people.

Not all of the other people you realise, that would be silly me using a public swimming pool, if I hated swimming amongst others, no, its the incredibly inconsiderate swimmers that go to the pool. If you swim you'll know what I mean, these are the people, who will come with a friend or two and then instead of staying together, they tend to swim with the width of another person between them, talking to each other. I'm not some grumpy old curmudgeon who thinks you should swim in silence, no but at least try and swim a bit closer together if you're going to slowly swim and talk.

Other people who annoy me are those who don't seem to be able to swim without drifting across the pool, its not that difficult to swim in a straight line surely, I try and avoid swimming in the space others are using but sometimes you can't help it, these people also have a tendency to not try and avoid you in anyway, which means you have to try and swim round them, so you don't end up kicking or hitting each other, so when people don't try and avoid you, it makes it more difficult to stick to your swimming line.

My local pool holds lessons for the school kids to help them learn to swim, which is brilliant since everyone should know how to avoid drowning, the downside is that the new pool gets cut in half length ways so you have even less space to swim, so when people are generally inconsiderate to others by not adjusting how they swim, I find myself enjoying my swim a lot less than I should.

I don't know if I'll ever manage a swim where I encounter no inconsiderate swimmers but I'm hoping there are fewer of them, if I go early in the morning.

I've also noticed that swimming seems to make me need the toilet, regardless of how many times I've been before getting into the pool, its even given me a rhyme, that I quote "need a shit, swim for a bit"

*puts on a short woolen hat and eyes up the other prisoners*

I've kept hearing about this workout program called Convict Conditioning, which I've discovered is a book, that I've, let's say acquired as a pdf file. It comes from a program of calisthenic or bodyweight exercises that Paul Wade developed whilst serving twenty years in prisons in America, it gives you a history of the exercises and some of the people who used them to achieve incredibly strong and athletic bodies.

It starts with very six exercises that with enough effort the reader will be able to do themselves, with each exercise broken down into ten steps, that go from relatively easy through to the incredibly impressive, like vertical pull ups, using a door frame whilst standing upright, to a one armed pull up, which requires a lot of dedication but impresses anyone who sees them being done.

So starting tomorrow, I'll be starting this program with the very simplest steps and going from there although I can do a number of pull ups and chin ups now, I'd like to be able to do more and one of the side effects of following the program is to improve the condition of the joints and other body parts. The author even advises that jumping into step five can make it more difficult to get all the way to step ten.

So hopefully I'll be soon doing many more pull ups and handstand push ups.

Looks like the black dog is rearing its head

I've had a couple of down days, where I've not really been to the gym, or been bothered that I wasn't doing any exercise, I didn't rush for the ice cream or sweets but just thought, screw it, I'm done what am I bothering for, this is a waste of time, I couldn't pull myself out of the funk, I guessed it was my downswing to my upswing of late, it made me realise I can still have moments of depression that last long enough to almost throw me off my journey to a fitter me.

I managed to get out of bed early enough to attend Boxercise today, since through staying up late, or being extra tired, I've missed it for about three weeks, which was damned annoying, I still had a niggling give up feeling going on but I got in there and punched bags, kicked pads and ran, I then went into the gym and challenged myself to row ten miles on the rowing machine which I did but felt pretty drained afterwards, managing it in an hour and twenty two minutes, I may try for more miles in future but will be finding something softer to sit on, as the little seat starts getting really uncomfortable.

I'm so very close to being sub fourteen stone, to give up now, means I've wasted the last few months and I'm just not prepared to do that, I'm going to push myself on, since I felt much better once I'd finished at the gym and had a spot of really healthy lunch.

I am also going to take part in a Tough Mudder event in November, ten to twelve miles of obstacles, water and mud, it looks fantastic, the only problem I'm having is the travel, it seems there is no direct bus links between the nearest station and the event site, I also need to camp overnight as the earliest train wouldn't give me enough time to get there, still these are obstacles I'll overcome.

I think I may also start training for this event on Tuesday, the first day in May, which seems like as good a time as any and this should hopefully pull me out of the current funk

Who's the guy that's a hit with all the scales, that's right Wildheart Baby

So I'm finally free of 3 stone or 42lbs as the people over the water like to say, this is quite literally a great weight that's been lifted from me, I no longer carry the equivalent of

• a 15-foot canoe
• a 3-year-old child
• an average human leg
• a Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier
• five gallons of water

 Thanks to things that weigh 40 pounds

I look a damn sight better, I'm eating a whole lot better and more importantly I've stopped eating as much as I used to, so I'm no longer having a large bowl of cereal and then having another one, as the first tasted so nice. I'm exercising a whole lot more and at times annoyed at myself for getting out of shape, through bad habits and just not caring about my health.I think my ultimate goal is to have myself a flat stomach, since I've never had one of those and it would be nice to finally have one, I still have a little way to go, since I still have a tiny spare tire. I've already had people say I've lost more than enough weight but not for me, I haven't, I'm doing this properly, no starvation diets, no ridiculous ideas of how little I should weigh.

I think part of the problem with the last time was sustaining an injury whilst walking Alfie after a long 12 hour shift on my feet almost the entire time. He pulled me forwards as I chatted to my mother on the phone and my left heel struck the ground and I suddenly felt an huge pain and an inability to actually walk on it. I let it heal for about a week or so, I was able to walk in it but as soon as I tried training, the pain flared up and I ended up, lightly limping home. I did compete in the race I was training for but that was the last I ran, sadly my healthier eating regime seemed to also disappear soon after this. Occasionally I would get still get the pain, which I knew meant until it healed fully I wouldn't be able to train anymore.

I've not felt the pain in quite some time, which leads me to think that the injury is finally fully healed and losing the extra weight can only help matters. I guess that I should have been more careful, that you can get an injury from the simplest thing, which is one of the reasons I'm going to get someone to check my form to ensure that I'm lifting the heavier barbell weights correctly, as I don't really want to put my back out, as I'm approaching middle age, that would be an injury I probably wouldn't recover fully from.

Although I'm enjoying writing the blog posts, I should really be writing other stuff as well, otherwise it'll seem like I've become a bit weight loss/fitness obsessed.

What do you mean I shouldn't do that.

Since I've joined Fitocracy, I've seen some many positive stories and pictures of people losing weight and getting fitter/stronger, there are also a number of stories where people have had bad experiences with other users of the gym they attend. Most stories seem to be of the annoying people who go to my gym, or these total fools were trying to lift something extra heavy but they were lifting it improperly, so will do themselves a permanent injury.

There are a few that have really annoyed me and those are the ones where the member is a Woman and they've had some total misogynist clown, point them in the direction of the cardio machines and away from the free weight/resistance machines, or commenting on how they won't be able to do a certain exercise, like pull ups because they're a bit overweight. This is massively shitty behaviour, having seen some of the workouts people have posted I'm constantly surprised at the number of Women posting lifts they've done that I can't do yet.

So when some insecure Man makes a dumb comment, it really annoys me, they are judging a book by its cover, they have no idea what anyone can do, so why make comments like that, my guess would be they are either scared that they might be shown up by 'the weaker sex' or because they seem to think that Women shouldn't be in their space, touching their weights, either way this is the kind of thinking belongs in the Victorian era.

It doesn't matter what kind of exercise that anyone does to get themselves fitter, these days there should be no, Men or Women specific exercises, hell the only thing that Women can do that Men can't is actually give birth, though in the case of Trans people that line is being blurred. So in the spirit of no specific fitness classes, I'm going to give Pilates a try because I hear its a killer set of exercises.

Musings from the pub.

I was sat in the pub on a Friday night, which is an unusual thing for me these days but it was a TweetUp, a chance to meet and greet friends you have on Twitter, so I popped along as I've not had a night out in a while and whilst I was there the group I was in started talking about diet and exercise, the usual chat of what kind of exercises that we tend to do, I mentioned that I was using MyFitnessPal to log my food intake and my exercise output, which has really helped me to make better choices about what I put in my mouth.

One of the people I was chatting to Neina, is one of those lucky people who never has to worry about putting on any weight, they've always been thin and never have to worry about what they eat, she mentioned they having a Sister who has been using a "nutritionist" (for that read an app they downloaded) and it told them that they should be eating 1,400 calories a day, they'd also been exercising as well and they were wondering why they never lost any weight, which caused this Neina to feel like sighing loudly and hitting them upside the head with a clue by four. Her Sister didn't even realise that by eating a low number of calories and then exercising her body was only taking in around 1,000/1,100 calories which is half the amount an adult Woman needs just to live and that her body was probably in starvation mode and holding onto those calories since it had no idea where the next ones might come from.

Once she'd explained to her Sister what was happening, the Sister started to understand why she wasn't losing weight and that she would change her dietary intake accordingly. I suppose it goes to show that without a proper understanding of how the body works, people can end up doing all kinds of bizarre "diets" that don't really work and end up causing the dieter to gain more weight, once they've stopped sticking to it.

We also talked "cheat days" and although its a very popular term is a rather bizarre way of thinking, since there is nobody you're actually cheating against, if you eat that chocolate cake, or those nachos, who's going to win, well nobody is going to win, as its not a contest or exam you're taking part in. If you actively deny yourself something, telling yourself that's a "bad food", what will happen is you start craving the very thing you're trying to avoid, then when you do give in, you'll probably end up eating way more than you intended to. Which sort of happened to me at Easter with the chocolate eggs, though I put that down to only wanting to eat chocolate on that one day.

It can also send you into a guilt spiral, where because you've just eaten three burgers from the local burger joint, that you were craving, you then feel guilty for having eaten them, so then get a bit depressed you've "broken your diet" so you then go and get something else that's probably unhealthy to eat, to comfort yourself for not sticking to your plan, which in turn brings you down so on and so forth.

Neina also made a very good point that your body has no idea, what you're putting into your mouth, it could be a piece of toast, or a piece of cake, all your body knows is that you've fed it energy, it doesn't give a damn where the energy comes from, so whether you eat 500 calories worth of biscuits, or you eat 500 calories worth of steak and chips/fries all the body knows is here's 500 calories, let's use them accordingly, aside from the steak being better due to the other nutrients it contains, energy is just energy.

So let's all eat what we like but in moderation, take those three chocolate biscuits from the tin, then put the tin away, so you don't eat more of them just because they're in front of you and everybody repeat after me

"EVERYTHING IN MODERATION"

 Once you remember that, you can have that chocolate or enjoy that side of chips.

I found a new gym.

I'd heard about the gym at the local stadium that was meant to be be pretty good, the one I've been using is alright but tends to become a little unusable at the busier times, though they have around 10 treadmills, and quite a number of other pieces of cardio equipment, they only have dumbbell free weights, no barbells and a number of resistance machines for strength training. So when the gym is full, you sometimes have to wait for equipment to become free, which can be a bit of a pain.

So when I heard that the gym at the stadium was large, I thought well it can't be that big. I really wasn't expecting the amount of equipment I found when I walked in the door, they have the usual cardio equipment but they also have a large range of barbells and dumbbells, so it brilliantly allowed me to complete some of the fitocracy achievements I couldn't complete previously, it also means, I can do some proper strength training, which should help with my ongoing weight loss. The whole muscle uses more calories and all that.

I normally train on my own, due to mostly having internet friends and that my offline friends tend to be too busy for training, which is normally fine but I felt a little uneasy in the weights section, with other people having a training parter or knowing other people who were there but this should pass, when I've been a couple of times, especially if I know how to do the lifts properly and don't look like a proverbial fish out of water. I'll probably stick to my usual gym for most of the time, due to it being so close but I'll definitely be paying the stadium gym a lot more visits over the next few weeks.

Still, a longer distance means, more exercise on the bike ride there, so its all good.

That's a normal amount of weight loss, honestly.

I was reading a post on fitocracy.com the other day where a member was somewhat annoyed that in the 5 weeks since they'd started using the site and exercising more, that they'd only lost ten lbs which works out as being two lbs a week, which is about the right amount of healthy weight loss. I commented that if they don't think they've lost a good deal of weight, they should take ten one lb bags of sugar or flour and start hefting those around to see just what, ten lbs actually looks like and more to the point, what it actually looks like.

It got me to thinking we seem to be expecting almost instant results, we start watching what we eat and exercising more, when weight loss doesn't work like that. Weight is the most annoying thing due to our genetic make up and the fact that its really light, it takes nothing at all for the tallow fat to get stored ready for use, but quite a lot of work to start removing it. Fat, is so densely packed with energy that a single lb contains 3,500 calories, which is said to need about sixty two miles of running to remove just one single lb.

So the best course of action is to eat properly as starving yourself will cause the body to retain even more calories, due to you 'starving yourself'. You need to raise your metabolism through exercise and eating, since the body will realise that you need more and more energy to maintain your day to day bodily functions, like breathing and beating your heart.

So far, my journey towards better fitness, has lead me to expel thirty four pounds, which is not something that, I could see myself carrying around anymore, so hopefully, I'll have changed my behaviours and continue to lose the excess lbs.

Easter chocolate over indulgence

Ever since I made my resolutions at New year I've been actively avoiding chocolate, partly for the calories and the fat but mainly because it contains so much caffeine, I have a big problem when it comes to caffeine, where it seems to really affect my sleep, causing me to stay up late for weeks on end.

So I decided that I would allow myself some chocolate on Easter Sunday as a little treat for all the hard work I've put into improving my fitness and weight loss. I had a choice of a cadburys egg head and a green & blacks dark chocolate mint egg. I went for one of the egg heads and noted down the calories, which turned out to be only 400, which was pleasantly surprising, a short time later I got the urge to for another egg head, which I ate reasoning that it was relatively low calorie/fat.

I thought to myself, well since I've had the others I'll have myself the green and blacks, I can do some exercise and work off the calories, so I dropped it to the floor since it was proving hard to break the shell, I discovered it was really thick chocolate which was quite surprising considering how thin most chocolate eggs are these days.

I then set about munching the chocolate whilst Susan went out to her Parents house with some sweets for Sophie, from my Parents & Grandparents, I demolished the egg even though I felt quite full from breakfast and the other eggs, still its one day out of 365 and when they're gone that's it with the chocolate, also we weren't having our dinner till much later as per a usual Sunday.

I sat around watching tv then decided to start tidying our bedroom since it had stuff lying everywhere and looked a bit on the untidy side, which I'm glad I did, as I turned up all kinds of things I'd been looking for, like my little netbook power supply and the charger for the hair clippers.

Time started to get on, so we went downstairs to make a start on the dinner, as we were preparing it, I started to feel a little light headed but I put this down, to having gotten up too quickly, though I realised it was something else, when the feeling got worse, until I was crouching on the floor clutching at my stomach and my head feeling quite light and uncomfortable. The last time I remember feeling this ill from overdosing on caffeine, was when friends visited to do a Gowalla trip that I'd created and we visited Starbucks twice in one afternoon, though I did get a high from it and bounced around like a happy idiot.

I tried being sick in the toilet as I felt like I wanted to throw up but that didn't happen, I just squatted there feeling ill, wanting to vomit with nothing happening. I gave Susan a hand with putting the dinner out, then sat and ate my way through some it, before deciding I'd had enough. I couldn't even do the dishes and headed off to bed. After falling asleep snuggling up, I found myself awake at 1am and still feeling ill from all the caffeine that was floating around my system, still wanting to be sick and having that sinking feeling, that I'm not getting back to sleep but feeling really tired.

I lay in bed unable to sleep, so decided I would watch Get Carter, which I manged to view about half before deciding I was so hungry I would have to get something to eat and had such a craving for soup. So I popped downstairs and had myself a tin with some bread. Still unable to sleep I decided to watch some tv, till I had an email notification which made me suddenly want to listen to music, so I listened to some music whilst watching tv. I lay there and the bairn came downstairs so we chatted about thus and that and eventually decided to get up. I then spent the rest of the day, feeling dead tired and listless, napping on and off not really doing much of anything.

Since I sat there at 1am feeling sorry for myself and wondering how long it would take till all the caffeine was gone and my sleep returned to a more regular pattern also how long would it would take me to burn off the fat and calories I inhaled. It also made me decide that it was the last chocolate I'd be eating, since it caused me to binge eat the stuff like some kind of crack addict. It also made me realise, that I have a tendancy to over do things to my cost, be it food or booze, so having not eaten chocolate in three months, I manage to consume my entire days calorie allowance in chocolate, I'm pretty sure my saturated fat intake was that of about four days, which is pretty horrific.

So after a terrible couple of days, I'm going to start being 37 by continuing my exercise regime and healthier eating.

Another week another single post.

Somehow this daily blogging doesn't seem to have taken off like I thought it would, more remembering occasionally then thinking I should probably update it, still been avoiding booze and chocolate, 21 days now which is nice, even stuck to tonic water at my Father in-laws birthday meal the other night. Grandma's 90th birthday is tomorrow, so we're all going to see her and sing happy birthday at the home, there's supposed to be some kind of turn being put on, likely the guitar guy doing the 60's hits I heard the last time a resident had a birthday.

Nissan is still pretty good, we did spot welding and kaizen which is 'continuous improvement' aside from the theory on the board we did a timed peg slotting, a planks puzzle and a production line building plugs, where we managed to make 5 plugs the first time, due to the way they lay out the production line, then we improve it and make as many as we can, which turned out to be 22 plugs, with 2 that were unsaleable

I've also started to use http://www.fitocracy.com/home/ which is a fitness tracking site which turns exercising into a game, where the more you do, the more you level up, there are quests and badges to 'win' so it's given me the get up and go, to get up and get out there, putting one foot in front of the other, even going to the gym today.

Hopefully I can also motivate myself to personal blog a bit more often and also finish my coll3ctive posts sooner.