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Posts tagged with "Losing Weight"

Good Mint Off

Monday, 4. February 2008, 16:20:00

Lots of things on my mind today: let's get started.

On the fitness front, I've been having a look at Badminton. I play badminton already, on a very casual, as-and-when basis, and regret not being able to do it more often. I played it at school waaaay back when and in my last year at Primary managed to win both the men's singles and mixed doubles. (I also won the chess trophy for the second year running and helped win a regional, inter-school life-saving competition - people were getting sick of seeing me up on the podium that year, I can tell you! But I digress...). Obviously, considering the weight-loss I need to do, those halcyon days are well behind me but Badminton would be a really good way of burning calories and toning up my legs, improving stamina and quickening my reflexes; getting me fitter, in other words. A cursory search online reveals that an hour of Badminton could potentially burn up to 600 calories for someone of my [current] weight! This would explain why, when Tony and I last played it, we came away from that hour both bright red and wheezing like faulty steam engines!

Well, Tony, I hope you're ready for this because we're doing it again this Wednesday! :D

I've been having a look at the rules, too. It's been so long since I played a proper match, and during the last session both Tony and I were trying to mine our memories for how to play properly. We hit upon a workable arrangement but both vowed to bone up before we met on court again. Well, I've done that, and have become a little clearer, but there are still details that escape me. Online guides tend to be one of two types:

1) The strict rule and letter of the law, clause by painful clause
2) A superficial ABC of the game: Hold racquet A. Hit shuttlecock B when it comes near you.

There seems to be a gap here for a well-written, detailed, yet accessible online guide to the game that any novice could pick up and read and have fun with, and also learn a thing or two about the professional side of how to play. A gap which gives me ideas...but that's for another time.

Confusing the matter further is a revision to the official rules, designed to make the games quicker. I'm not sure if the have actually become official yet or not (more research need) but I like the fact that no matter who serves, either side can claim the point. Tone and I were basically doing this last time anyway, so I think we'll adopt the new rules to avoid confusing ourselves. If it makes for a faster-paced, less drawn-out game then all the better.

Tomorrow's Goal: Do some weight-training! :eek:

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Weight Loss Report - Week 2: Crushing Negativity

Friday, 25. January 2008, 16:18:37

Alright, yeah, okay. :o:

For two weeks in a row now I've approached my weighing sessions with a sense of impending doom, bracing myself for the crushing disappointment of non-achievment. And for two weeks in a row I've come away from said sessions picking my jaw from the floor and with a sense of delight bursting from evey pore. I lost 4.5 lbs in my first week and another 2lb loss was recorded yesterday. Both times I feared the worst: both times I was wrong.

Next week....I think, perhaps, I may possibly go nuts, pull the broom out of my ass, and allow myself the teensiest, tiniest little spark of optimism. After all, I've certainly achieved something losing just under half a stone in a fortnight! Maybe I should start enjoying myself a little! :wink:

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The Scales O Doom!

Thursday, 24. January 2008, 11:11:41

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"A Blog Post in which the Hero relates his week, welcomes an old friend to the blog, and explores some of the eccentricites of his behaviour, both in general and using some recent examples..."

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Weight Loss Report - Week 1: JUMP AROUND!!!

Thursday, 17. January 2008, 19:23:47

So how much weight has Granty lost on his new slimming crusade....?

ONLY FOUR and a HALF MOTHER-FRAKKING pounds! In ONE FRAKKING week! :D :D :D :D :D :D :hat:

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A Weight On My Mind

Wednesday, 16. January 2008, 20:32:05

After a week of solid and determined slimming, my first weighing session approaches!

It has been a fun and interesting week, full of new dishes, new foods, and new ways of preparing them. My portion sizes have halved, thanks to a week-long 'Fast Fix' program, so-called because it's a detox type affair designed to flush out toxins, remove excess fluids and prepare the body for the real slimming to come, which should – hopefully – be slightly more generous in what I can eat.

I've managed to stick to the book...mostly. I was taken aback by how much was in my cupboards that I now can't eat (I hate wasting food), and by how much they want me to eat that I never normally buy. So a little creativity has been in order to try and supplement for things I wanted to eat but couldn't. Oh, and there have been two regular meals, one cooked at home for a friend (a Goan curry = yum!) and one eaten out in a pub close to work.

In my defence, I did order the Greek salad, and only drank one solitary pint of delicious Belhaven Best, but I started with a soup...and rolls..and butter....and the soup was HUGE....and...too tasty to leave. awww So when I imagine if I've lost any weight at all during this traumatic change to my eating patterns, I'm not hopeful that I've lost much, if indeed anything at all. But even half a lb would be a glorious gift from the heavens, a sure sign that I'm on the right track. :smile:

And hey, sorry I haven't been around much this week. My muse seems to have left me for the moment. I wrote a huge long thing to post yesterday, then got home and hated every word. And I haven't really done much that interesting to tell, apart from buy a new set of sexy, slinky phones for the house and get myself a new keyboard. See? You look bored already! Truth to tell, all my brainpower is fixed upon my new goals - after work takes its daily tribute there doesn't seem to be much left for the ol' blogging. In the meantime you'll just have to amuse yourselves, as I'm sure you all can. If I think of anything, it'll go here - I'll definitely pop back and let you know the outcome of tomorrow's session! - but for a while I may be simply dropping sparkly little nuggets of comment on other people's blog posts.

Don't worry, it doesn't mean I've stopped loving you. :wink:

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Wot a Week That Woz

Saturday, 12. January 2008, 13:07:33

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Hello all! :smile:

No smutty pics this time around, you'll be glad/sad to see (delete as appropriate). I thought I'd better have a clean post to avoid any further embarrassment. I was at work, you see, innocently writing a comment in my Shoutbox when a colleague passed by from behind me and gleefully told the entire office I was surfing porn sites, an entirely sackable offence. A little bit of thought would have prevented this but as I've had one thousand-and-one distractions this week I don't think I can really be blamed.

I didn't half blush though! :o:

It's been a funny old week, this my first full week back at work since the festive holidays. Some holidays drag on too long and you do start looking forward to the simple rhythms of a working life again, but I hadn't quite reached that stage yet. Coming back for a full week seemed like cruel and unusual punishment.

This feeling wasn't helped by my needing to clear a backlog of overdue orders and emails, while still having to deal with the dozens of fussy little complaints, alterations and issues reported to me on a daily basis. Monday and Tuesday passed without much excitement, Wednesday was horrible – just nasty. Thursday was amazing thanks to the feeling of making real and significant progress at long last, on a number of fronts, while Friday finished on a bit of a sour note. All part and parcel of the working experience, as I'm sure a great number of you can testify.

On the financial side, the agency I work for managed to screw up my pay - and that of my colleagues – for what seems depressingly like the thousandth time. I'm down about £70 this week. It's not a huge problem, I won't incur any bank charges or anything like that, but it is infuriating that after three years those fucking monkeys I work for still can't get a simple thing like pay right. They're supposed to be sorting it, and we've been promised the deficit paid into our accounts shortly (touch wood) but I remain deeply dissatisfied at not being able to rely on them for such a fundamental part of our contractual relationship. I don't suffer incompetence well, and would give anything at this point to part company from such a shower of total imbeciles.

Staying on the subject of incompetence, The Carphone Warehouse have once more failed to reach the lowest of my expectations. Remember back in October (the 7th) I was promised £150 due to their mis-selling me a phone a few months previous? No, I still haven't received their cheque, despite being told it would take only 28 days both on that date AND when I phoned to chase it on the 23rd November. It's on the way now, allegedly - I made damn sure they knew I'd been promised this twice before and wouldn't be happy if the 3rd time was NOT lucky - but it's going to take...you guessed it...another 28 days. :irked: If it fails to arrive this time they'll be cancelling my contract and paying me a lot more than £150 for my inconvenience!

Ok. After all that kvetching I think I should end this post on a much more positive note.

As some of you may know I'm currently rather unhappy with the amount of weight I've put on since entering this sedentary office-based lifestyle 3 years ago. My waist has expanded several inches, I feel tired and heavy all the time, and I'm growing heartily sick of feeling so desperately unfit.

Enter Scottish Slimmers.

After hearing lots of positive word-of-mouth regarding their services locally, and some patient research, I decided to take myself along to a meeting on Thursday night. I had intended to go only to see what I could expect, but ended up joining when an inner voice started screaming at me to stop pissing around and sign up right bloody now (My inner-voice can be quite harsh when it wants to be). Basically, I don't feel I can afford to waste any more time; I have to start losing the weight now, particularly if I want to fit back into my Kilt by my birthday in June. Scottish Slimmers should give me the support I need, and promises an average weight loss of 7 lbs per month (meaning a full stone in two). I aim to lose about two-and-a-half/three stone, so I estimate about 6 months work altogether, depending on my metabolism and other factors beyond my ken, but I'm prepared for a longer haul if needed.

It's a daunting prospect. I'm not good a long term commitments like this but hope the weekly meetings will help keep me on the right path. I need to do this as a long-term platform from which I can launch myself into the next few challenging years of my life. I need to change my habits to a more active mode. I need to learn how to eat properly. There have been lots of little steps over the last 24 months leading up to this, so now is the time to start putting it all together and making the changes that will lead to a happier, more confident, more active me. Hopefully, at long last, I'm going to get this right. :up:

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