Progress? What progress?

I've jumped on the scales a couple of times this week at unusual times and there's no great movement either way. I've resisted for the past couple of days though because I had a "bit of a bug" a couple of days ago meaning I moved around with a great deal of caution. Because of that I popped a couple of Immodium (loperamide) so now food's going in one end...and staying there. Maybe I'll do all the weighing and measuring tomorrow.

Slight problem on Friday because I'm off to France for a week. On my own. As I'll be stuck in front of this keyboard for most of the time working, there is a huge temptation to hit the local supermarket and stock up on some of the local produce. As I'm in Normandy, this means dairy products. The butter is the best on earth and on fresh warm bread it's...well let's not dwell on it. I'll do a before and after, eh?

Oh dear - minor disaster!

Complete lack of discipline again yesterday (Wednesday). I had to visit a client and as he lives in central London, nearly 200 miles away and because we invariably have a very nice wine to go with our lunch, I always go by train. I always book well in advance too as I can save £100 by doing that. Trouble is, the cheapest ticket I could buy for the down trip to get me to London for a sensible time when I booked back in December, was in First Class. It was only about £16 more and I wasn't paying, so I got it. I've never travelled first class before because usually the cost is extremely prohibitive. What's more, a friend of ours who knows about these things told me "Oh, you'll get a free breakfast. Nice." Nice.

Now, British railway companies have traditionally had a bit of a bad press when it comes to their food offerings. The Pullmans don't exist anymore and my line is operated by Virgin, who the media have been out to get at every opportunity. All I can say is that as soon as I tasted the wholemeal toast and had a bite out of the sausage in my "Full English" I was sold, and for a day at least, any pretensions toward a healthy day's eating went straight out of the window. "Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper" is the saying and I was quite happy to do this until my client suggested we went for lunch . He dines well and usually at either of one or two restaurants locally. Yesterday was one I hadn't been to before and I was good, I didn't have a starter. That would have been whitebait, which I love, but I resisted. But I did have duck with apple sauce, green beans, petits pois, spinach and sautéd potatoes. And a very large Irish whiskey and half a bottle of splendid wine and an absolutely divine creme caramel (served by the campest waiter in London and real laugh!).

Too much fun. Salad tomorrow. Grrr!!

I'm so good...

I had a sudden urge to weigh myself this evening. Not sure why as I usually try and do it at the same time each day, in the morning after my bath and all that mullarky. Anyway I was pleasantly surprised because I'm down to 14 st 6 which means I've lost 5lb in total so far.

What's really good is that this has been achieved solely through healthier eating and not a special diet or much extra exercise. I take the dog for a long walk 4 or 5 times a week and we both have a little jog along the way but that's about the only concession I've made to strenuous exercise so far. If I have a snack I try and have something not too fattening like fruit or a slice of Ryvita. I think I've had two packs of crisps in two weeks and only two sausages in all that time and believe me, that's pretty good for me.

It's because of this steady approach that I think it's working. I don't feel the craving for snacks like I used to and any I do get are minor and usually easily overcome. Still not feeling self-righteous though. How can I when this is only what I should be doing?

And...guess what? It's not hard. I know that's an old cliché but I'm pretty certain that most of the problems people have with trying to lose weight are psychological. They're convinced they're not going to do it so it never happens. Go with the flow. If it doesn't start to come off straight away, don't worry. Stick at it. If you're just eating less or healthier then expect to have to wait a few days before you notice anything because you'll probably compensate by drinking the odd extra cup of tea or overdoing the healthy snacks.

Moreover - be honest and don't lie to yourself. Did you really not snack earlier? I used to know somebody who claimed he ate good healthy food but was nearly 30 stones. He used to drink a large can of evaporated milk a day though and somehow it had become so much of a habit that he didn't notice it or account for it in his daily intake. We knew this because we found his stash of Carnation in the office one day. Another friend is very overweight yet can't see that the bottle of cream liqueur she gets through every week in her coffee and her almost total lack of exercise is a contributing factor. Admitting you've not been as honest with yourself as you'd hitherto believed can be just as big a victory as losing that first pound.

Here's to next week!

Slimming, Norwegian style.

Inger Lise (Lise or Inglesia - it depends), Sharon's eldest daughter, moved back to the land of her birth, Norway, a couple of months ago to be with her beau, Ivan.

Love is obviously affecting her eating habits as she's noticed bits getting larger here and there. She's now joining in the slimming blog thing at this place. There's also a link in my sidebar. Go and say hello but for heaven's sake don't give her your phone number :)

Climbed back on again...

I just thought I'd let you know that I'm back on the salads and all snacks are healthy ones. I'm feeling better for it too. I'm not hugely active as I work from home, so I can forego breakfast unless I'm doing something strenuous in the morning. I don't feel quite so bloated and that will eventually help with the acid reflux I suffer from (I've got a hiatus hernia - possibly a side effect of smoking for 25 years. Glad I gave up). I really do need to do this!

What's more, my system seems to have got used to the extra fibre. (Cover your eyes, disgusting fact alert) Did you know that if you "wipe" more than five times you've got a potential problem? (Heard that one on the radio the other day). Let's just say I'm doing much better on that front than I used to be so even if I'm not losing much weight yet I'm doing well elsewhere.

Oops. It's Fat Sunday

Shame to say, I fell off the wagon a bit today. Made a large stew and ate most of it. Dumplings as well. Bugger. Oh well, it happens. Still got next week.

Weigh-in

I'm not getting religious about this so these weigh-ins will only be periodical.

Did the business this morning and it's mixed blessings: the weight hasn't changed so at least I haven't put anything on. The measurements are roughly the same as well although there's probably a half inch off around the trouser waist. But I'm not going to get bothered by it. I've lost weight in the first week and I'm taking a bit more exercise. I just wish I could actually get to bed at a serious time instead of 3 am because the longer I'm up, the more I'm going to snack.

Haven't worked out what I'll be eating later on but I think it'll probably have leaves in it and make me unpopular at close quarters. I'm surprised though, even that effect isn't as bad as I thought it would be!

Salad recipe No. 1

This is a little self-indulgent as I'm not exactly Gordon Ramsay but as I'm going to be eating a lot of these, and they seem to be working, I might as well share my efforts.

Very simply, I had a trawl through the fridge to see how I could augment the usual lettuce and handful of other leaves that I used as the basis for any salad I make so, what went in last night was:

A handful of iceberg lettuce leaves and a small handful of mixed leaf from (OK, I know I shouldn't but it's a space thing and the waste goes in the compost) a supermarket ready washed bag.

1 sliced Herta hot dog sausage

a handful of chopped red and orange capsicums

1 largish tomato, cut into 8 segments

A sliced spring onion

4 mid-sized new potatoes and a small knob of supermarket's own rip-off buttery spread (the kind with the jokey name made to sound like "Utterly Butterly" but half the price)

1 lemon and parsley smoked mackerel fillet of around 100 grams

A teaspoon of Morrisons' own French dressing.

Pepper to taste. Note - NO salt! The only additional salt I ever add is a pinch or two to the potatoes. Salt is hugely bad for your heart and there's enough in the sausage already.

A few drips of Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce

What's special about this? Nothing much except that I added the knob of buttery-like spread to the pan of drained spuds, flaked in the mackerel and very gently heated it. I then added the dash of sweet chilli sauce and a bit of pepper to finish it off. It was simple, took 20 minutes to make and is relatively healthy (a nice helping of omega-3 oils from the fish helps nicely), has very little unsaturated fat and only around 5-600 calories if you care about that sort of thing. Nice.

And he's off...!

It's been a couple of days since I last checked in so it's time for an update.

I've kept the snacking down to a real minimum, just the odd breadstick or dry multigrain Ryvita instead of packets of crisps and Bombay mix. I've had smaller breakfasts, again just crispbread with a various savoury toppings (which I've decided I won't necessarily cut out either) and I've so far eaten two rather nice salads for my evening meal. I haven't exercised a great deal more but I did take the dog for a long walk on Tuesday evening and I'll do it again tonight. As for the habit changing, not a lot yet but it's difficult at the moment trying to work out exactly what I can alter. Taking the dog for a walk is a diversion I ought to do more of as I've been horribly lax in that area; as much for the dog's sake as mine. Give me a few more days on that one!

But...but...I weighed myself a little while ago and the rather amazing thing is, I've lost 3 lb already!! Eeee! I'll go to the foot of our stairs and it's a miracle and all that mullarky. That's one and a half bags of sugar in a little over two days. Quite astounding and I'm pretty chuffed about it. I haven't done any measurements today, I'll do those in a couple of days. What's more, I don't really feel hungry anymore and that's a real bonus. It takes a smaller amount of food to kill off any hunger pangs than it used to so I'm well pleased about that. So, it's working, I'm happy and everything's hunky dory. I'll post details of last night's salad in a while as I thought it was simple but rather nice.

So, how did it go?

Do I feel self-righteous yet? No. Hungry? Yes. Glad I started? Of course. What's more I feel slightly more vindicated in my choice of strategy. I've always been a fan of the common sense approach to anything and in this respect, my approach to losing weight is that I need to change my lifestyle slightly. Do things differently, eat different foods at different times. Break habits.

Imagine my surprise when I saw The Independent earlier. It had an article on a new book, currently ranked 14th at Amazon but of which I was completely unaware until today, called "The No Diet Diet" and it provides a surprisingly close variation to my own philosophy. Briefly, I understand the premise behind the book is that conventional "eat less calorie" diets don't work because, like all animals, we have the hunger relflex. Hunger makes us want to eat and eventually we'll succumb to it. Animals in the wild don't pass up food easily as they never know where their next meal will come from. They expend energy in looking for the next meal so remain at a healthy weight. We don't. We graze and then lounge around watching telly, safe in the knowledge that our next meal isn't strolling around the Serengeti, it's already dead and in the fridge. Psychologists (don't ask me which ones, they never say in these articles) have estimated we spend up to 85% of our time stuck in a web of habits so breaking habits that lock in detrimental behaviour such as grazing can only be good for our health. Or so the theory goes.

I must admit, it sounds a good premise. I've never been one for routines though but it has given me pause for thought. Maybe there are things I do which can break the need to eat at certain times. It certainly worked for me when I gave up smoking; there I'd very consciously decided I wasn't going to smoke first thing or after certain meals. I never let my new habit set itself and constantly refined the times at which I would allow myself to smoke. Eventually I set a date and time to stop and I've never looked back. Now I feel good!

It starts here.

It's worse than I thought! When I got up this morning I took some measurements. I apologise for my non-accommodation of the various continentals among my hordes of readers by only publishing these in the imperial codes and British format but here's a quick guide; 1 lb (a pound) equals 0.454 kilo and for my US friends a stone is 14 lbs. One inch (1") equals 2.54 of your little Napoleonic centimetres. However, it doesn't matter what format the measurements are because when all's said and done, I just want the buggers to get smaller.

Now the scary bit. My weight was 14 stone 11 lb. I'll save you the conversion - that's actually 207 lbs. I am 150% the weight I was when I left college over 25 years ago. But where am I carrying it? I expect to be a bit more thickset than I used to be but it's quite obvious where lots of the lard resides: round my waist. I took two measurements this morning, one around my navel and one where my trouser waist would be. The latter was 41". The other a touch over 43". How I managed to fit into a new pair of 38" trousers on New Year's Eve, I don't know. I'd be interested to see where clothing designers take their measurements from (the same place gentlemen placing 'personal' ads on the internet do I suspect - a vivid and optimistic imagination).

I've done a little research to find my ideal weight. There doesn't seem to be a great deal of consensus on this and for my height, 5'11" and medium frame size there's a hell of a lot of leeway (good!). This site, Changing Shape, suggests that I could be anything between 11 stones and 12 st 2. Intriguingly, were I Pakistani I'd have a better chance of gaining my ideal weight as this site, Paktaste.com only starts at 11 st 6 and goes to a whopping 13st 11 lbs! So it's a run round the block and off to the Mogul for plate of ghee for me tonight then. No, I think I'll settle for aiming for 12 stones. It seems a fair target weight, setting a challenging 2 stone 11 lbs to come off but allowing a gentle nod to middle age.

So what have I done today? Well, I've only eaten crispbread so far. With topping. Yeah, well I like cold meats and patés and stuff and it's got to go hasn't it. And it IS all I've eaten so far. But, here's the interesting thing - I've been taken in already: I read all the nutritional info and was rather stunned to see that a slice of Multigrained Ryvita is 37 calories. Pardon? Yes 4 I had. Well, they're nice. This isn't going to be easy.

What the hell happened?

25 years ago I could run 100 metres in around 12 seconds and I had a 30" waist. Now, at 45 it would take me 12 seconds to run round my waist. Life has conspired against me over the last decade or so and I'm paying for it. I like value for money and I'm not getting it so the time has come to do something about it.

I'm not huge, I'm just growing out of control. I've noticed bits that used to be skin and bone now having a layer of fleshy padding. I've got man boobs that wobble under my t-shirt (which is odd as the chest is often pulled taught by my expanding gut). Whereas I used to be a whippet, I'm now an overweight labrador. I look at pictures of myself now and frankly I'm shocked. Even my other half's mother, who's only known me for around three years, has passed the odd comment.

One hugely scary thing is that I notice pains in places that shouldn't be painful. I'm a bit of a hypochondriac there but with good reason. My gorgeous partner Sharon had a massive jolt almost three years ago when she suffered a blood clot that almost killed her. She ended up losing 90% of her bowel as a result and is now fed intravenously. That was caused by smoking but the lesson was there to be learned; don't ever take your health for granted. I gave up smoking on June 11th 2003 but the benefits of that have been negated by the change in our lifestyles. I gave up work to keep house when Sharon became ill and because of her condition now, I'm handy to have around. Consequently I now work largely from home sitting on the sofa with a laptop and a packet of crisps whereas before I was quite active.

Genetically I've inherited many of my maternal grandmother's line's physiological features (I've recently grown a beard and last week my mother showed me a picture of a cousin of around the same age I've not seen for years who also has one. We could be twins). The main trait of the line though is not the slightly bulbous nose and shortish legs, it's an alarming capacity to get lardy that develops in early middle age. My eventual corpulence would seem to be pre-ordained although thankfully Grandma lived into her 90s.

So what's to do? I don't really fancy doing a diet for a start. I lack the discipline for all that idiot calorie counting and point scoring. Similarly, I won't go the slimming club route; I'm not into that kind of public humiliation (says he,writing a blog). I'm hoping that by writing this blog I'll just start examining what I eat and how I exercise in the hope that a subtle change of attitude will work. My basic knowledge of biology and physics tells me that if output exceeds intake I will start to burn fat but if done sensibly I can still enjoy myself. Thankfully I'm not obsessive about things so I'm not about to starve myself in the interests of bloggery. I want to eat healthier food but I don't want to go without the treats. Should be interesting!

So, starting when I get up in the morning (no, that's not a cop out, it's 2.15 am where I am!) I will weigh myself and take some vital statistics. Then the fun starts.