Dangers of Step Aerobics

days 11-16

Creiky, been a busy bee this week, oout and aboot. Missed swimming on wednesday and tried to go on friday when the pool is shut, doh! As a penalty, I had to do Rosemary Conley's - The Best Rosemary Conley Workout In The World ... Ever! If you ever get the chance to see it its well worth it. There is Rosemary, with her buddies all doing the exercises, there is a lady to the left who is super fit and a older lady to the right doing slightly less energetic bouncing around. The lady to the left is a 'Julia' type person from George Orwell's 1984, smiling and over energetic. Rose tries her best to smile all the way through the exercises, the smile drifts from 'cheese' to 'near grimace' and back again, made in a few takes one presumes, its impossible to smile for that long. The rest of the cast remain smiley faced throughout ( over 60 minutes of action packed smiling). It was fun to do the video, projected in my front room, so it felt a little like I was being given orders by a vertically challenged uman' bean. Rose is a kind of mumsy librarian, authoritative saying 'do the box' or 'arms over'. It got to be a little annoying as she's constantly on to the next move, and combining, swing-your-arms-right-round with step-forward and back, the speed that it all changes around makes it very difficult to catch up. after 'two large circles with your arms and step to the left twice' and your shaking hands with the pot plant on the windowsill and the pot plant is shaking hands with your cream carpet, i mean, honestly! How big do they think peoples front rooms are?

But anyway it was good fun, in a embarrassing sort of way, i never actually thought of people actually doing it in there front rooms in front of the telly after Eastenders or the pub or something.

Went a' walking in Derbyshire, did about 10 miles, lovely, lovely.

Because I didn't go swimming this week, I don't know what weight I am. The shape of my hips have changed, I can't rest my arms on the fat bits. My belly has grown a little due to having a few beers and a pizza, argh, I thought it was going to be easy. Just got soo sick of diet coke and mixer, blergh. anyway, if I am back swimming again this week, i think I can work off this weeks over indulgences.

When I was a kid we once had to do Step Aerobics at school, I don't know to this day why they were making kids do step Aerobics, anyway, me and my friend steve were getting a little bored of left up, right up, left down, right down, left up, right up, left down, right down, and decided that we could improve step aerobics by doing it quicker, and quicker, and quicker, until I miss placed my foot on the step and landed with all my weight on my little foot. I broke the bone just before the little toe, ouch. I got taken home and had to wait for my mum to take me to hospital. When we got there this horrible nurse lady gave my foot a massage in a 'does this hurt' kinda way, yes it bloody did! We get the foot x-rayed and sure enough its got a break in it. I get a plaster cast on my leg, and after about a week the cast starts to break around the heel and down the sides, so I go back in to hospital and have a new one put on, and a week later that breaks to. My Dad decided that he could improve greatly on the hospitals pitiful excuse for a cast, and fibre-glasses both legs, (fiberglass being the stuff that the bottom of boats are often made from!) I chose to decorate it in a nice sea blue and algae green, spray paint, it was a master piece. That cast never fell apart!. When we finally went back to have it removed the doctor freaked out 'I have got to get this off before my boss sees', but it wasn't him who put it on....there are somethings you will never quite understand, and that is a mystery, that will stay with me for the rest of my years.

Can bowling count as exercise?

breakfast - cardboard flakes, fruit
lunch - wrap, low fat cottage cheese etc
dinner - not had it yet.

Today, I feel like I should be doing more. I was going to do exercise on Sunday but it was rainy, so couldn't go walking and I had already done swimming on Saturday. Gym? you have to be inducted 'Gym Inductions - on Saturday, when the moon is half and the wind is in the north- easterly direction' thanks, not much use at 2pm on Sunday. So I kind of feel like I have missed a exercise session. I might just go and run around a bit, chase small children, or cars, that could be fun, 'no wait! my hands caught in your doooooooor!' or something. and when I get caught by the police, I can tell them that I am doing excercise, and they would have to prove me wrong, and it will be all so funny, and in the end the police people will be laughing, coz its all so weird, and i say, maybe arrest all joggers, and they say, because 'they go round and round and round' and we will all sing Blur, and forget about all this silly nonsense about being arrested for chasing cars, and we will all be best mates and go down the pub. The End.

fat-tains blog supplementary.

Jeans. My jeans don't fit. They never did. shortish legs. massive thighs, normal
waist, means that all my jeans are saggy in the ass, and probably a size too big round the waist, just so they don't crunch, ahem, the inner thigh.

I wore some trousers with bulldog clips down the back and I looked way cool! Well sort of, It was really odd to see the shape, as a bloke you never see the real shape, with big shirts and ill fitting jeans. It looked all drain pipe like, just like the cool kids in the indy bars.

Saw a bloke in the pub the other day, and he was huge, like a big walking pyramid, and i thought poor bloke and then I thought, no that's rude to assume that, he is unhappy because he wears shirts large enough to be a tent. Then I thought oh no, I think that he is wearing a tent that's just as rude as thinking he should be unhappy coz' he's huge. Then I got distracted by a passing moth or something, maybe a shaft of iridescent light.

Was served by a bloke who must have been 7ft tall, he was absolutely huge, and the name on the cash till console in a you-are-served-by way said 'Stretch'. I mean, honestly, do you really need to point it out? And then, get this, another bartender came over who was as tall and even wider! I wasn't served by him so i never found out what his name was maybe something like, 'really big bloke' or maybe 'large', or 'My parents are giants and i am a giant toddler, lost on the way to the pay pit'. But something descriptive I imagine, my name would be 'slightly fattie' just in case there was a confusion at the bar and the chicken tikka with rice got mixed up with the bangers and mash with half a cider, and then A) they would know who to blame B) I could differentiate myself from huge and stretch, so that people would see me as an individual, not just someone who was smaller that the really big bartenders. But I will never work in that bar with huge and stretch, so I guess i don' t need to worry.

You're the One for me, fatty
You're the One I really, really love
And I will stay
Promise you'll say
If I'm in your way
You're the One for me, fatty
You're the One I really, really love
And I will stay
Promise you'll say
If I'm ever in your way
A-hey

All over Battersea
Some hope; and some despair
All over Battersea
Some hope; and some despair
Oh ...


You're the One for me, fatty
You're the One I really, really love
And I will stay
Promise you'll say
If I'm in your way
You're the One for me, fatty
You're the One I really, really love
And I will stay
Promise you'll say
If I'm ever in your way
A-hey


All over Battersea
Some hope; and some despair
All over Battersea
Some hope; and some despair
Oh, oh ...


You're the One for me, fatty
You're the One I really, really love
And I will stay
Promise you'll say
If I'm ever in your way
A-hey


You're the One for me, fatty
You're the One for me, a-hey-hey
A-hey
A-hey
A-hey
A-he-he-he-hey

WEIGH IN WEIGH OUT

day 8/9

So, the first full week of my getting fit experiment and I have lost 1.5kg which is great considering i was going for 0.5kg a week. I am better at swimming, can now swim a mile with not to much stress.

I was told by a good friend JRF, to cut out the bread about two years ago, to lose weight, so finally i have. Before the regime i would often have 2 slices for toast and then two rounds of sandwich for lunch with cheese and mayo etc etc, and possibly a pizza late at night. bergh!

The diet coke drinks are now making me very sick, so am trying to vary it with gin+ slimline tonic or wine. Not great but better than a pint.

I am also allowing more leniency with the diet as I am way over target at 1.5kg, the amount of exercise seems to cancel out any drinking that I am doing.

It was really windy today and i didn't get pushed over so I still have some way to go.

sat breakfast - carboardflakes and fruit
sat dinner - veggie mush with rice and pork chop

sun breakfast - cardboard flakes and fruit
sun lunch - Salad sanwich, low fat cheese + a meaty snack thing from ALDI
sun dinner - fish and boiled potatoes

life at 1 mile and hour

day 6/7

Went swimming and did 1 mile! 50 lengths. Weighed in at 92 kg which means I have lost 1kg in only a few days. Snacked on large amounts of fruit, and did 10 press ups, squats and sit ups. So feelin' alright! It was difficult but I didn't feel as tired like on wednesday. The other thing I have noticed is the colour in my face, its more healthy and reddish, rather than white with dark eyes. Amazing.

I worked out why i couldn't get up in the mornings - My house mate and me decided that it was summer and we didn't need the heating on in the mornings, and we would turn off that wasteful boiler. Couldn't hardly open my eyes. anyhoo thats fixed.

In sort of celebration of losing 1kg I went out and drank loads of free booze, which I needed to do, wine and sprits mainly, rather than the fizzy stuff. Which was a shame in diet terms, but i really felt like it, normality slips back in.

Woke up with a rather large hangover and the shakes, so decided that I would eat a huge 'sub' type sandwich, it was wonderful, pure joy.

Snacked on more fruit, including some larger-than-they-should-be strawberries.

Might go for a cycle tomorrow, as my pects still hurt from Thursdays swimming.

Why doesn't human poo make good compost?

Why doesn't human poo make good compost? Is it too acidic? Not fluffy enough, like er, horse shit? or is it that we are too good at taking out the good stuff? Or is it because we eat meat and dairy products? And if so is monkey poo bad for the earth?(are monkeys veggie?) would vegan poo make better compost?

Honey nut cornflakes, almost 50% sugar. "Cornflakes with your sugar sir?"

I am looking forward to tomorrow, swimming in the morning, 50 lengths is a mile, I did 40 last time, maybe just maybe I can do it. Doing a mile is far cooler than 40 lengths. Breaststroke only, don't think I can manage front crawl yet. Might even try a few of the recommended 'press ups, sit ups, squats etc', but could hardly get out of bed this morning, I don't know if its to do with the weather or the diet, but its been really difficult to get up recently, and generally feel more tired during the day. Gonna get shed loads of fruit tomorrow.

Low fat, what a fix. Went to Weatherspoons, (actual this time) because I was in another city not because I need to go to the pub everyday. Five bean chill, only 5% fat! and then it comes with salty tortilla chips (which I didn't eat) I am sure these can't be low fat. Tad misleading, perhaps?.

Hopefully going to do badminton on the weekend, easy exercise!

Breakfast - cornflakes
lunch - reduced fat cottage cheese, riveta crisp things, salad, (no dressing), fruit juice.
Dinner - five bean chilli
snacks - coffee (i was driving) and orange and two bananas

Real Men Don't eat Quiche

day 4

Breakfast - Cardboard flakes and cornflakes (mixin' it up because I am running out of the cardboard)
Lunch - Wrap with two eggs - is this bad?
Dinner - Lean german sausage and olive oil mash (tastes better than it sounds)

In the pub again today, I must really love it there, had a full fat coke, ordered incorrectly, i wanted a DIET COKE, but felt all shy because I asked someone else to get it. "hey do you want a drink?" "Yes, I will have half a diet coke", "hee, hee, hee" as my mate walked to the bar. There is something inherently funny about a young male ordering a half of diet coke. I mean my friends not a nasty person. Just even the thought of me having a HALF with Diet in it brought a titter/snigger. bastard (lower case because I don't really mean it).

I have a stag weekend coming up soon and I think the diet may have to, for the sake of my masculinity, take a break. "Beers all round lads? and TWO for the STAAAAAAAAG!" "(make mine a vodka and diet coke)" "WHAAAT!" and so on and so on you get idea. They're just incompatible, diets/stag weekends. But the question is, how does one take a break, do i starve myself before the weekend? Do i run up and down the stairs instead of taking the lift, using the unlikely childs game of "beeeetttcha!" as a reasoning to get all sweaty on a night out ? This will be a calorhoriffic holiday. Beer, beer, beer, pizza, beer, fry up, pizza, beer. Wama'gonnadoooo? Its likely to put me back a week or two on the old weight loss programmme. If i was perhaps going on the holiday with my mates it might be ok, i could get away with, you know, drinking less but, on a Stag do its all about over eating, farting and beer, beer, beer till your sick and maybe then a strip joint (god no!).

When lads are about, any sign of weakness becomes a huge joke, like vultures watching over a dying man in a desert, ready to swoop in and push him head first into the sand. I have faith in my friends not to be complete tossers, but its like going along and drinking water. I really don't know what to do. I have until easter weekend to come up with a sneaky plan. Yes, if i was a real adult, I would stick to my guns, let them have their laughs, their fun, and let them get over it, but I don't want to be the centre of attention, not on a stag doo anyway.

Yesterday I was explaining my programme to some friends, I was explaining that you know, I felt less bloated. "how long have you been doing it for" , "oh three days" "Pa hahah! I can see the weight falling off!" it's kind of funny, but then also its getting to be a bit annoying. I specified that 'I probably hadn't lost any weight yet'. why should it be so odd to try and lose a bit of weight? I have a few people, say oh yeah "I'll join you" in quite a throw away sort of way, in that they're downing pints whilst discussing the merits of a balanced diet. I mean, I like being the funny guy, but I really didn't set this one up as a joke. Maybe its funny because its so odd. Maybe it's funny because the way I approach it, or who I am. Maybe I shouldn't tell everyone, maybe I should be a closet dieter! But in effect telling people I know is away of putting pressure on myself to keep with the programme. I am looking forward to Saturday, to see if the programme has made any change to my weight at all, see if all the decisions and all the humiliation and all the diet coke have been worth it.