Month: May 2011

Categories
diet L3 lesamy Less is More

L3 Week 11 – One Week=One Meal=Two Hours=One Pound

So last week I only lost 0.6lbs and was a bit down about it. However I knew it was just a blip and partly to do with timing and so on (both the day before and after I’d had weighings significantly less).

However yesterday I was faced with a dilemma. I haven’t had a freebie since my birthday which is over a month ago and co-incidentally the same time I last saw M. And she’s going on holiday at the end of this week for two weeks. So the question was whether to meet up and when, and the best day was looking like yesterday. But that would imply a freebie the day before I weigh myself. I had a few choices

  • weigh myself yesterday (before going) and count that (Sunday is the new Monday)
  • put it off until another night, possibly after M.’s holiday.
  • go, weigh myself today as normal and just go with it on the basis it’s a long game, it’s just a number etc

I wasn’t really too happy either of the first options. The whole point of a meal out with M. being a freebie is that I don’t want people around me to have to change their behaviour to accommodate me. By switching to a less convenient day aren’t I doing that anyway? Plus it is just a number in what I know is a downward trend. And a freebie at this stage is reasonable.

So enter secret option number 4 – part a. I weigh myself yesterday, not to have it replace today’s reading but just so I can say (to myself and on here) “well maybe I put on weight but that’s just the freebie”. So I did and yesterday’s weighing was 273.4.

Anyway I went, met M., ate, drank and had a lovely time[*] and that was that. Weighed myself this morning expecting/fearing that I’d put on a little – 274.4lbs – i.e. last week’s number!

But of course whilst that could be my official weighing as it was today, usually I take the reading after my walk. Secret option number 4 part b – which I only just came up with half-way through the meal last night was to extend my normal walk a bit, just to make extra sure that I pushed that number down a bit. And sure enough at the end of my walk I was 273.4lbs.

So what have I learned? That I can put on in a single meal what I lose in a week’s sticking to the diet (scary, though I think I already knew that really), and that I can lose it all again with two hours of exercise. And that all this is just 1lb. I need another 49 of them to reach my (first) goal.

Mostly it just re-inforces what I knew which is that sometimes the timing throws out the numbers but so long as the trend is still down, take the long view.

Lost: 1lbs
Lost so far: 30.8lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 2.8lbs
Weight: 273.4lbs (19st 7lbs)



[*]and not (just) because of food and drink. It was nice to see M.

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diet L3 lesamy Less is More

L3 Week 10 – Only A Little Down

I’ve played on the double meaning of ‘down’ before now but well it’s appropriate again.

I’ve had various thoughts throughout the week about what  might write about, mostly to do with the fact that it’s getting tougher again. However I fully expected to be another ~2lbs down to cap it off and as you can see I’m not.

However one of the things I have been inspired by this bloke is the fact that it really does vary and there are plateaus and bounces back up even when you are sticking to the diet pretty well. So in that context a little is better than nothing when the direction is still down.

Lost: 0.6lbs
Lost so far: 29.8lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 2.98lbs
Weight: 274.4lbs (19st 8lbs)


Categories
6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, Persuasion – Jane Austen (pages 2788-3092)

Persuasion by Jane Austen

I’ve been a fan of Jane Austen TV and film adaptations for years but Persuasion is the first book of hers I’ve actually read.

It concerns Anne Elliot the daughter of Sir Walter Elliot, who at the age of 19/20 was persuaded to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth given his lack of wealth and status relative to her own. Now, eight years later, Captain Wentworth, rich and respectable enters her life again, but does he still feel the same way about Anne? And if he does will they able to be together or will events and other people conspire to keep them apart?

I think you can guess the answer.

Since I started 25 Books I’ve intended to read an Austen novel and I had chosen Persuasion because it was one of two where I did not know the story already. The other Northanger Abbey, is I understand, very different to her other books and so I thought I’d leave that until later. I have a feeling that Persuasion is not considered amongst the best Austen, so I don’t know how much of my reaction to it is from that or other factors.

My reaction being that it was very enjoyable but not up there with my experience of the TV/film versions of Pride & Prejudice , Sense & Sensibility or Emma. Part of that I’m sure is the language, which is archaic enough for me to have to work at it. I’m sure my pages/hour stat has taken a hit during this book. Certainly there were several times when I had to re-read sections, particularly great long convoluted sentences with several semi-colons. However it improved towards the end. Partly I got more proficient at on-the-fly-in-my-head-translation-into-modern-English and partly there was more dialogue which tended to be more straightforward anyway.

The story was full of what I consider Austen standard fare – a good-hearted sensible slightly put-upon sister with pompous and/or silly relatives, apparently honourable men who turn out not to be so, apparently cold or indifferent men who turn out to be far from it, misunderstandings about who may or may not “be attached to” (which either means fancy or be engaged to depending on context) whom, various secrets and of course the happiness of being suitably married – which equates to respectability and financial stability.

I think the plot works well in introducing all the various misdirections and obstacles to Anne and Wentworth’s romance. It certainly seems to all shift into gear significantly in the final third of the book. There does seem to be more of an inevitability to their eventually re-uniting than I would have expected. In that sense it’s less of a dramatic reversal of fortunes as in P&P and S&S – but maybe that’s just the way those were edited by various modern writers/producers. Overall though it works – the good end happily and that’s how it should be!

8/10 – a good (very) old-fashioned rom-com.

Categories
6000 pages book reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, A Game of Thrones – George R R Martin (pages 1954-2788)

A Game of Thrones

Normally I start these reviews with a brief synopsis of at least the first part of the story, to give an idea of what the book is about as well as what I think of it. That’s tricky here because there’s so much to cover. Let me try…

Set in a fantasy world that’s similar to but clearly not medieval Europe/Asia, most of the action of A Game of Thrones takes place in the land of Westeros a.k.a “The Seven Kingdoms”. Some few centuries previously these were distinct kingdoms but they are now ruled over by a single monarch from the “Iron Throne”. This monarch, King Robert Baratheon took the throne by conquest from the previous “mad” king and has been ruling for 20 years or so.

As the story begins there is trouble brewing with threats to the throne from within – political machinations, assassination and intrigue at court and without with the remaining heirs of the old kings who are trying to raise an army to attack from overseas. There’s also a possible threat from the frozen north beyond a huge wall to defend against outlaws and the mythic White Walkers, zombie like creatures which many believe have been extinct for thousands of years, if they ever existed at all. The outlaws and wild animals though are real and it’s the job of the Night Watch to guard the Wall and defend the Seven Kingdoms.

A Game of Thrones is one of those books that switches point of view with each chapter headed with the name of a character. We follow about 6 or 7 characters in this way. I have mixed feelings about this. On the on hand it’s good to get the perspective of different characters with different loyalties and motivations. To start to empathise with someone who is on the opposite side of a war to the character in the previous chapter is good in that it stops everything being a kind of black and white morality – which some fantasy suffers from. However the action is then split across different places and Martin plays that trick of building up the tension nicely, coming to a cliff-hanger at the end of a chapter and then switching to a completely different story, which slowly becomes engrossing, tension builds… and so on. It’s a style that has its merits but can be frustrating too.

I definitely enjoyed this book and it was easier to finish than say Under the Dome. In this book whilst there are fantasy elements – the White Walkers, talk of dragons (once again presumed extinct), magic and years-long seasons (“Winter is Coming” is the slogan of one of the Northern kingdoms) – most of the story is to do with the intrigue and politics of gaining or retaining the Iron Throne. With a slight change of wardrobe it could be a 21st century political thriller. But it is engrossing and the characters are well drawn and sympathetic.

A Game of Thrones is part of a series – A Song of Ice and Fire – which is currently up to five books with at least one more on the way. So the story does not so much end as it does find a convenient place to break off. In fact there are plots unresolved, characters missing in action and so on. That said it did feel like a natural place to put a pause but given this I’d’ve been just as happy if that pause had been at 400 pages rather than 835. Still good for the page count.

Will I read the next five books? Perhaps. I’ll read some shorter ones first though.

8/10 – Good solid fantasy with sympathetic characters, an intriguing world set up and lots of intrigue.

Categories
diet L3 lesamy Less is More

L3 Week 9 – A New Phone and A New Milestone

OK so the phone thing is only just barely related to L3 but it’s hard coming up with titles so give me a break huh?

Ahem.

I just bought a new phone. It’s a rather snazzy android smart phone and I could go on about how wonderful it is quite a lot. I could, but I won’t. However what I will do is talk briefly about a cool app I installed which I can use to track my weight, my eating, and my walks. OK so I have my spreadsheet for the first, my whiteboard on the fridge door for the second but the third…

This app (Nooma) uses the phone’s GPS to track how far I’ve gone and plots it on a (google) map. It uses the phone’s motion sensor thingy as a kind of pedometer to measure my steps. And it will audibly tell me at regular intervals how far I’ve gone, what my average speed is and how many calories I’ve burned. I love it. Though I had to change the default interval from 1min. I did an hour’s walk yesterday and it was quite distracting having my podcasts etc interrupted quite so frequently.

The measuring of the eating thing is interesting. It uses a system where you categorize foods into green, yellow and red based on types of food and you can then add items in various sizes which account for a number of calories. So your lunch might be 2 medium yellows and a small green. It’s a way of keeping a rough calorie count, together with some idea of balance, without adding up everything – which is obviously what I do now. I like the concept but I don’t trust myself on it yet. I can convince myself that that sandwich was a medium not a large or whatever but I can’t argue with the calorie count calculated (by me) from the bread and meat and so on. But maybe when I reach maintenance…

OK so the milestone was 2 stone lost. I’ve been anticipating this for a couple of weeks and so it feels both good to get here and (slightly) like it’s been a while coming. Relief rather than outright joy. Which is probably unfair on myself since it’s only been 9 weeks (and 8 if you ignore my initial week of no loss).

I guess it feels like I should be further along. Part of that has to do with one of my computers. A password on there (to be changed once I post this!) is “fourstone” to commemorate that particular loss during Lesamy. I had to type it a few times the other day and it irked me to realise I wasn’t even half that yet and it already feels like, well not like things are slowing but that the challenge is setting in.

However updating my spreadsheet today I noticed that whilst I am down 2st on the start of L3 I am actually 3st down on my initial weight for Lesamy. So actually I’m a lot further forward – in only 9 weeks – than I have any right at all to complain of. So good for me!

Lost: 2.4lbs
Lost so far: 29.2lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 3.24lbs
Weight: 275lbs (19st 9lbs)


Categories
diet L3 lesamy Less is More

L3 Week 8 – The Tragedy of the Disappointing Cup-cake

I have to admit I was nervous about Monday’s weigh-in. You see I was going out in the evening for a couple of beers with some guys from work. I wasn’t worried about that per se. I figured I deserved a freebie and I knew I would re-lose any gain before next Monday. But why did it have to be a Monday? (Because someone who now mostly works from home was in the office) It meant I wouldn’t have the chance to weigh myself after my walk and before my meal. And although I will take any weighing from the day as the ‘official’ one, that is usually the low point and it can be as much as a pound or more lighter.

Fortunately when I weighed myself in the morning I was at a very respectable – actually virtually indecent 😉 – loss of 4lbs. So I no longer worried about the evening and didn’t plan to weigh myself again at all. So when, going for my regular afternoon coffee only to find the canteen was out of power, I decided that I therefore had some calories in hand and could afford to start my freebie early anyhow.

Which is a long introduction to the fact that I had a cupcake. And it was ok. Just ok. The frosting was nice but the cake itself was a bit dry. And despite the hyperbole of my title this is not really a tragedy, but it is one of the frustrating things about being on a diet: that when you budget for, or allow yourself the indulgence of, a special treat, it better live up to that specialness. If it’s merely ordinarily nice, pleasant or just ok then it’s a bit disappointing.

Which actually I realised is all just a sign that food becomes too important when you’re dieting, even when you’re being successful. Or it can do. And that is a little disappointing. But it also spurs me to try harder. One day I will shrug off my disappointing cupcake as easily as I denied myself it in the days and weeks leading up to it. Then I’ll know I’m in this for the long haul.

For the record the rest of the freebie  I drank a little too much and ate more than I intended – even for a freebie. And the fish and chips were nice but probably not nice enough if you know what I mean. Especially since I seem to be struggling to get back down to where I was on Monday. Still half a week to go…

Lost: 4lbs
Lost so far: 26.8lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 3.35lbs
Weight: 277.4lbs (19st 11lbs)


Categories
reviews

Discworld II

Today is one of those days when I have free time and there’s very little I have to do, plenty I could or ought to do but not much I really want to do, so I end up feeling restless.

I think they call them Sundays.

So in lieu of anything actually useful or interesting I thought I’d write in my blog. You lucky, lucky people!

Discworld II

I spent a fair amount of yesterday and today playing Discworld II. It’s a game from 1996 that in order to play I had to install an emulator called scummvm. In fact I own the game, used to play it on my first PC[*], but I still have to play it through the emulator.

It’s a point-and-click adventure game of the kind I’m not sure they make any more. If they do they’ll be web-based these days.

It still holds up well. Mostly I think because it’s well written and acted. It’s got Eric Idle playing Rincewind and Rob Brydon doing most of the other male voices with Kate Robbins most of the female ones. The basic gameplay is that you have to collect a series of items in order to fulfil quests. Getting the items usually involves using other items in combination and interacting with the game characters in a few predefined ways. When you complete a task there’s often a little “cut-scene” where the action plays out as a little movie.That makes it sound dull but it’s the humour in the dialog, in the scenarios and the cut-scenes that makes it entertaining for me. The puzzle element less so. Sometimes it feels like you have to “use” an item with every other possible item in every location before you figure out what to do. Of course there are clues in the dialog if you spot them, and there is a sort of logic to most of it. It also helps if you’ve read the books.

I did cheat a little towards the end. There are four acts an an epilogue and I used a walkthrough for one item in act four and for the epilogue (which only consists of about 3 or 4 actions in any case)

Anyway it was fun. How much of that is nostalgia and how much the game I don’t know.

And since this has sort of turned into a review –

8/10 – this non-gamer enjoyed this retro game.

(goes back to change title of post)

[*]Sort of. I played Discworld on my first PC. It was one of the first things I did with it. Later when Discworld II came out I needed a higher-spec PC to play it. I ended up upgrading mine more or less sucessfully (though I did blow up my flatmate’s CPU along the way).
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diet L3 lesamy Less is More

L3 Week 7 – Nothing then Something

I spent most of the week not seeing the scales drop. I suspect that’s largely because last week was such a large drop and part of it was dehydration – it being so hot then and it being cooler now. But also I guess it proves the thing about weighing yourself every day being potentially de-motivating due to the fluctuations.

In fact even this morning I was still at a point where I would have had a small increase. However due to my walk I did measure a loss in the end.

Lost: 1.8lbs
Lost so far: 22.8lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 3.26lbs
Weight: 281.4lbs (20st 1lbs)