Chris is Still Too Fat

179 lbs folks !

That is WORSE than previously ! Despite what I thought was a vigorously active week on the bike amounting to more than 9 hours in the saddle, mostly rough off-road stuff, it seems that the scales were unimpressed. Ah well. Just plod on. Not despondent; just disappointed.

Actually, from an exercise point of view, it has been quite a good week, rather helped by the Spring-like benign weather. Crocuses are popping up everywhere and, after getting a memorable gas bill yesterday, I will be pleased to leave winter behind once again. Knee still giving trouble. Will it ever heal ?

A trip to the USA, once more, beckons in about 3 weeks. It would be nice to have my weight firmly established in a descent by then. So I will just have to maintain vigilance.

No excuses therefore. More effort needed. Let's see how it goes, eh? Back whenever.

ChrisITF

Well, it's been a mixed bag of fortunes since Saturday and last report, folks. Went out on bike then for my usual hare round the woods but decided, in deference to various nagging injuries, to act my age and take it a bit easier. On Sunday trotted off to see a steam train operating on the Watercress Line at Alton. Marvellous ! But I think I walked a bit too far and have been house-bound ever since with my left knee continuing to give me grief. Not good. At this rate I shall be installing one of those stair-lifts here !

Had a look on Google at the knee joint. Strewth ! No wonder it is easily damaged. What kind of evolutionary process developed that ? Intelligent design ? I think not ! When one considers that the internal combustion engine has been described as a bad design well developed, I think the knee must run it pretty close !

Today though, I managed to come downstairs without too obvious a reliance on my right leg. But I know what will happen; I will get a day without discomfort, go for a run the next day and wreck everything. I never learn. Anyway, enough of this genuspection. Hmm .. I think I have just invented a new word here. Genuspection : consideration of one's knees. Well, you read it here first, folks !

As far as food is concerned, I am a bit better controlled but I have given up counting calories in detail. Just got bored with it, as I am sure you were. Not bored with food though and still consuming pretty much all family meal leftovers as before. Not much gets thrown away here.

Got a new coffee percolator for Christmas ! So I am now working my way through the various coffees of the world as offered by Sainsbury's. (Not keen on Javan). Not so sure that coffee is all that good for me but I like it. And it fills me up, the better to avoid another shameful raid on the biscuit barrel. So, on balance, coffee is probably a good thing.

Mild outside today. Makes a change. Bike or walk ? Bike I think. But first, a mug of Peruvian coffee.

Probably back Saturday.

ChrisITF

Well .. sort of. At least my weight has not actually increased this week, folks, and is still on 178 lbs. Be thankful for small mercies, I was always told, and I am.

A 5km walk on Wednesday, a nightmarish visit to the dentist (£470 .. and it hurt my mouth too) on Thursday, so no exercise that day, and a gentle 35 min solo run yesterday, upsetting the slow healing process in my knee, completes the exercise picture of the week.

Eat less, exercise more, is the intended regime once again and I am s l o w l y winning this battle once more.

I plan to get the bike out today. Not been on it for some six weeks now, so I had better get the oil can out too. The way to make more use of the bike and less of the car is to make it far more difficult to get the car out of the garage than the bike. At least, that is the theory. An even better one would be to have no car, I suppose. Anyway, I will now put the bike against the car in the garage so that I would have to shift the bike to get the car out, which should help. We shall see.

So, if we include this afternoon's walk down to football, that is today sorted. Sunday is at present totally unplanned but that will probably not last too long with Mrs CITF on patrol. Then a free week beckons ! Umm .. except Monday, when I have firmly been invited back to the dentist again.

Think of me kindly at 1400 hrs on Monday, won't you ?

ChrisITF

So this dreary winter drags on. Managed to get out for a 5km walk on Monday in the rain. Knee stood up to this surprise exercise OK. Thus emboldened, accompanied by my dear Mrs CITF, went for a gentle run yesterday in the still hibernating woods, dodging the shrinking patches of ice and an overflowing stream. Gave up after some 2km though. Knee had had enough. So here I sit; sunny and frosty outside (-2C). Perhaps try another walk later, when it's a tad warmer ?

Food ? Rather not discuss that.

And I've got toothache. I hate going to the dentist. Aah, .. woe is me.

ChrisITF

No change on the weight, I'm afraid, folks. Still stuck on 178 lbs, but thought I should at least touch base here as it has been two weeks of comparative silence from me.

Definitely in the mental doldrums right now. Still carrying an injured knee, picked up while washing the car (!), though I confess I have now undone the slow repair progress by digging the sledge out of the loft last Monday and generally not acting my age on a local snow-covered hill until I was exhausted. Paying the price now and dunno how long it will be before it will bear my weight without hesitation once again.

So, in summary, I have not run at all or ridden my bike since about 10 January but I hope to make exploratory forays out this week once the remnants of the snow disappear. Of course, Mrs CITF is in same boat, though without injury, so we may well try to progress together.

No foreign jaunts on the horizon; the miserable economic situation has seen to that. So that's alright then, as far as the project goes. However, I have to summon resolve once more for an attack on the flab even though my current enthusiasm is low. But the fact that I am writing this at all I think is a good sign, even if it is not yet quantifiably supported.

It has been a hard, cold winter by UK standards. Spring and the renewal it brings cannot be too far away now ?

ChrisITF