Monday 28th June

Well I guess we all have to come down from this football style hangover that we seem to have been collectively indulging in. I think I'm so past it that I won't even go on about it - just roll on August and the start of the new season. Yay.. (whispers) Go Villa!!

This isn't going to be a long post because as this evening has been going by I've been feeling just that little tingle at the top of the head that whispers sweetly, migraine.. migraine.. take pills now.. and I haven't, and really must go and do so. With my last cup of tea (ginger) of the evening.
Anyhow tomorrow is library day, I'm hauling my sorry self up to the tenth floor - yes, the delights of the theology department, where I can drag out the actual physical copies of Acta Sanctorum - no I still can't download the damn thing - so looks like I'm in for the hard copy version. I shall copy and take it home to work on it with dictionaries and grammar books to hand (it's in Latin..) I can also start mining the no doubt inexhaustible depths of Analecta Bollandiana. We're also having a sort of meet up of History pgs, in the pub natch.
Went to the fliks last night with Aimee, we ended up seeing this Wild Targets thing. It wasn't bad... but mm.. I don't think I'd describe it as being good either. You know the sort of thing I mean, in my opinion it needed a lot more work on the script, the plot.. the cast was good though. Anything that has Rupert Everett & Bill Nighy in it can't be all bad - that was my operating theory going in to it. However Nighy is a bit too creepy in it, & Rupert Everett just isn't in it enough. And the girl -- the one everyone's running around after - is frankly just too whiny and self satisfied, irritating to hell.
Ah well, yes, I must go get my migraine pills.

17th June 2004

It's gone midnight, and I've been veging out for a couple of hours, but I'm.. hungry. I have never managed to get a lock on whatever it is in my brain that correlates diet with hunger. I'm not actually hungry, I tell myself, I just want to eat something. I find myself fantasising about things like jam sandwiches, which I wouldn't touch in a month of Sundays, and this afternoon I almost binged out on rice cakes - if one hadn't been revoltingly overly-salty, I would have ended up eating half the packet. Perhaps the over- salted one was added by the manufacturer in the knowledge they were saving someone from a binge.
Actually I have to admit I really like rice cakes. There's something about the texture of them that seems, well, ok, sponge like, and I'm not talking about the variety that comes with buttercream and sugar. Did you not suck the water out of sponges when you were very small? I'm afraid to say that I did, and what's more I quite liked it!

Back to the diet. I have actually lost some weight, just not this week. However, last week I lost 5 lbs, which I think is probably enough to be satisfied with in a fortnight. I would like to loose this weight both hopefully for some time to come (let's not be over-optimistic here! No stupid promises like forever!) and well, loose it too fast and its a sure thing that I'm trying to do this too fast, and eating too little and will end up going off the deep end in a fast food joint or something. So 5lb over a fortnight is ok, it's a substantial loss. Thing is, well, I'm not too sure that I'm actually sticking to this that well. Take today for example. I had the smoothie for breakfast, still love those things, then tuna salad (with no dressing!) for lunch, and tonights dinner was chicken breast - all 4 oz of it, roasted - ha! roasted. Wrapped in foil and baked in the oven - I had to tart it up with something, so I rubbed lemon zest and black pepper all over it, so yes it did have a bit of flavour. I steamed the veg - carrots, potato and green cabbage, and I finished off with a cherry low fat yoghurt. I had an apple a bit later - it's the snacks that get me, because as I think I mentioned last time, come four, five o'clock I want tea and something. Something today was supposed to be two rice cakes and a teaspoonful of peanut butter. I ended up having four slices of wholemeal toast. Am I freaking out where there's no need to freak at all? God only knows. We'll see if I loose anything this week, and if not, well I shall need to do something. It's not like I'm stuffing myself full of chocolate or stuff like that. And that has to be an improvement.

Apart from this life this week has consisted of football and miracles. I take down my miracle records - for the database that my dissertation will be based on, and I listen half heartedly to the football. I have to admit, I did actually stop with the miracles to actually sit and watch Spain get decimated this afternoon - firstly because frankly it was so unusual, and secondly because Fernando Torres has a new hairdo that makes him look pale and interesting. I couldn't quite make out if this was actually his real hair colour, or he's a strange natural mouse blonde. Whatever, he's got a very good hairdresser. I hear the voices of my brothers rumbling in the background, enough with the fashion critique, what about the football? Yes.. mm. I think a lot of people are saying that at the moment. I have yet to see a match that has really caught fire. I did see the North Korean man weep, allegedly with pride at representing his country, but couldn't help wonder if partly it was down to fear at what would happen to them if they lost. I thought Gerrard was just brilliant. I don't care what Franz however you spell it thinks about it, but I did think they weren't anywhere near as bad as the media are currently making them out to be. I'm afraid I was a big Gerrard supporter when the whole captainship thing was an issue in the first place, and I hope he goes on to show why he should have been appointed in the first place. Ok, the whole court thing was a bit dodgy, but hell, over and done with now. I like to see Liverpool men do well. Nothing to do with the fact that I'd take MU over Chelsea anyday, but well, family and all that. We have connections to Liverpool and I always like to see them do well. Well shod of Raffa too I think.
Ok, now to steer myself away from the controversial opinionated bit.. miracles. I've got a whole pile waiting to be input into the database, but it's come time to do the test querying bit. In fact I really should be taking the instruction manual to bed with me to try and figure out how I do it, but I think that's pushing it a bit and I'll leave it till tomorrow morning. It's going to take me forever anyway. And if that wasn't enough, the blasted vpn client went corrupt on me again last night, what is it that makes a perfectly straightforward program that worked last week suddenly stop working when you've done nothing to it? God only knows.

What else? I have the date for my jury service come through. July - so at least it will all be over and done with before next term starts. Alas, the law will prevent me from including any juicy details, so you can expect to hear a lot about sitting around and waiting for things to happen I expect. I've applied for a couple of new jobs, but heard nothing as yet - one I definitely don't expect to hear anything from as it's with the Scottish Ballet, and I expect they will be flooded out with hot young marketing grads. Still as I keep telling myself, experience might just count for something. Its Friends marketing, that sort of thing, and it's been a long time since I last passed through a stage door. Still we can cross our fingers and hope.

Ah well, the witching hour has come and gone and at least I no longer feel hungry. I'm off to bed!

Friday 7th June

Ok, time to come clean... I've been dieting. I'm not going to go into any sordid details of exactly how much weight I'm trying to loose, or have lost. Some things shall remain forever secret twixt me and the scales. But none the less, I've been at this about a, well I was going to say a week, but I think it's more like two now.
It was the knee that was the final straw. I've been having problems with my knee for a while now, ever since I had a bad fall a couple of years back, and I'd been limping around over the past few weeks - I felt like it wasn't healing, then it was, and anyhow I was thinking about it and eventually decided that really you couldn't expect a relatively small joint like a knee to take the constant pounding mine must get. Loose some weight I thought, it'll do them both good. Hence..
So then I have the big decision of ok, what sort of diet am I going to follow? I can't tell you how much I hate the whole Weightwatchers thing. I've done the whole turn up at the church hall thing to death - the last time, Jo and I decided to do this together, and both of us went (on a single occasion) to join the group in Bradford on Avon. It was held in the simply stunning thirteenth century hall - I couldn't tell at the time whether it was a church hall or a village hall, or what sort of hall it was, but the half-timbering and plaster work was stunning, and worth the visit - sort of. Now this has to be a good, four, perhaps even six years ago. We felt nervous to start with because there didn't seem to be many people around, and frankly none of them that we could see appeared to be in the slightest bit FAT. One or two of them could have stood to loose a couple of pounds, but - jesus, Jo and I could have outweighed two of them singly by ourselves. Add to this that most of them were wearing designer gear, and that they all of them didn't appear to be inclined to talk to us - well you'd think that on it's own would be enough to finish us off. However, there was a further horror in store. As the class started, it became apparent that one woman was attending accompanied by her daughter, who couldn't have been more than about 12. She was a lovely little girl, bright and friendly - if I remember rightly, she was the only one to have looked in our direction even if she didn't speak. She was plump. She was plump in the way that my mother would have described as puppy fat. That I would describe as puppy fat. The sort of fat that in a couple more years, even in possibly twelve months, would completely have disappeared, yet this poor child was being dragged into a 'class' of adults, presumably comprising of most of her mother's friends, and was completely targeted by the class leader. Both Jo & I were totally horrified. We couldn't understand why the mother was behaving so inappropriately as to not seek out a more suitable group, if she felt her child needed to be subjected to the rigours of a diet class in the first place. Personally, I would have had her down to the swimming pool or some sort of high level physical activity before I'd subjected any child of mine to that. As it was, the next week we found a far more suitable group for ourselves - we did loose a few pounds, but like most of certainly my dieting experiences, it went back on within a few months of stopping the class.
So. No class for me. But as a (relatively) experienced dieter, I know that these things work, the whole weigh me in front of others somehow produces it's insidious effects - you do loose weight. But I'm not into this sort of thing on my own at the moment, I just really don't fancy it. I'm online now, and there's loads of online dieting services, I thought I would give them a go and check them out. So in short, I've signed up for the Grauniad's diet club, Eatright it's called.
It's a strange sort of experience. You go through all the joining process, pay up (and none of these things are cheap - but I'll get on to the real devil in the piece later) and put your details into the system. I.E. - how much you weigh. At the time - no scales. No I don't keep a set of scales about the place capable of weighing me, only the average kitchen variety. So that involved more expense, go buy a set of scales. I used the weight I'd been given at the doctors when I joined the new surgery, which had to be over a year ago, and frankly I think I'd done my best to forget that as soon as she'd weighed me! As it turned out, it wasn't that far out, although I'd overdone it by a stone. So I can't tell you how much weight I've actually lost yet, come next week, yep, then I shall be able to say yes, I've lost X pounds.

Anyhow when you've done all this, you then choose your meal plan, and get down to selecting your meals. This comes in a 7 day format, which would have been convenient had I decided to start this diet on say a Monday, but no I had to get the big commitment bit on a Thursday, which now comprises my day 1. I'm going to fiddle around with it a bit, and try and get it to run properly, I'll do myself a new week plan from Monday if I can and perhaps that'll make it run properly. Anyway, my meals seem to be nice enough, I've even had a few that I really like - Red lentil and Walnut salad for example, and an Apple and Walnut Salad - ok, maybe too heavy an emphasis on the walnut motif here, but hell, I like nuts! I had an extraordinary experience the other day when I opted for the Chicken Fried Rice meal one evening. Have you ever measured two ounces of dry rice out for yourself, and then cooked it? I was looking forward to this, rice - again like nuts, a favourite food. What I ended up with was a bare desertspoon full of cooked rice, that got me scraping those odd grains that always stick to the pan out! Horrified does not describe how I felt in relation to this!
The other thing that I have to say has really got to me over these past couple of weeks is the extent to which food immediately takes over the brain the moment that the concept of 'diet' is decided upon. My day's are becoming dominated by, ok, wake up, where's breakfast? It's not a meal I normally eat, and I've been able to have a smoothie for this, which I'd recommend to anyone who's normally a non-breakfaster being forced to contemplate food at whatever hour of the day you normally rise at. My smoothie comprises of a glass of fruit juice (I've been going for cranberry, it's a good mixer), in the blender, with a banana, and an ounce or so of berries. I've been on the strawberries for the past week, tomorrow I branch out to blueberries. Fancy having to measure an ounce of blueberries. Six or so I should think. The punnet will last for a month at that rate. So anyhow blend and drink. The resulting substance will see you through to eleven at least, and is actually drinkable, and enjoyable. I now find that I can tolerate the slice of wholemeal toast and teaspoonful of peanut butter about then. Yep, literally, a teaspoonful of peanut butter. So depressing..!
Then it's lunch. Lunch is normally a good meal for me, I'm not used to eating vast quantities, usually it's a sandwich and cup of coffee, so the red lentil salad, or a tuna salad - these are good substantial meals to me. But then we get to my downfall.

Tea, I love my tea and slice of cake - I like to come home and have tea, and then I'll eat a dinner, and yes, I feel it is dinner that has done the damage over the years. Particularly combined with the tea say an hour and a half beforehand. No cake now for Tess.. sniff. Now I have my snack, which is normally some form of cracker, with teaspoonful of peanut butter, or a spoonful of hummous, something wholefoodie. I'm getting used to this. I've even had fruit on a couple of occasions. Dinner - well dinner's a whole different story. I've taken to racking up the vegetable content so that I don't go mad about nine thirty and find myself devouring half a loaf or something. And that's where the demon money comes into all this. I went to Asda on Monday, and I'm telling you I spent £80. Horrifying. And what was this on? Vegetables that's what. Extraordinary quantities of vegetables, and it's the middle of summer and this stuff is supposed to be cheap now!!! No chance. God knows if I can actually afford to loose weight, that's what I say. Good quality, varied types of vegetables are expensive. It's awful. And it just goes to show you why so many people are overweight right now, they can't afford to be thin!

I shall stop here now. I need to go and find something wholefoodie to eat.