Mr Fat - an update

I have to confess to having become a little bit despondent over the last month or so.  Don't get me wrong I am still of the mindset that losing weight, for me at least, is to be taken at a leisurely pace. But, it seems that I reached an impasse around the 19st 10 lb mark 276lbs. It didn't seem to matter that I had reduced my calorie intake and that I had increased my walking/exercise regimes, I just seemed to be static and in fact a couple of times I even went back up to 20 stone.  Last week, Thursday, I said to Ishbel that I was pissed of explaining the situation and she in her usual way reassured me, wives eh! always there whether you want them or not and in most instances the rock we that we rest on...

Someone said to me recently, "you are a fat bastard and YOU smoke, but, like a tortoise, unless the fags kill you which they probably will, you may well live for another 50 years"! What a thought that is, mind you that will make me a 105 when I die, so is that so bad?

So I said, "and why do you think I am like a tortoise"?  and the reply was this.

"Well you know that some tortoises can live up to 200 years of age and the reason for that is that they, as a living creature and like their internal metabolism, works at a much slower rate than most other creatures on the planet and this 'laid back' approach is one of the reasons they live so long.  You are a bit like that you never rush about and you most certainly do not appear to be in any hurry to lose that gut you have been carrying about for so long, but, (and this is the bit I liked most) you are still a bastard but not quite as fat".
The reason I liked it was because it was true, not the bastard bit you understand, the other bit. I see it and I feel it. I have said it before in other blogs, that losing the weight is making a tremendous difference to me and then of course there was the lifting of the spirits at the end of last week.

(Just found this 4th October) Tortoises: 255-years-oldA zookeeper tends to Addwaita, a giant Aldabra tortoise, at the Alipore Zoological Garden in Calcutta, India.
A tortoise’s long life span has been linked to the reptile’s slow metabolic rate. Experts reckon as a general rule, animals with a high metabolic rate die early, and those that burn energy more slowly can live on for decades. Reports in the media are frequently claiming that the world’s oldest tortoise has died – take Harriet and Tu’I Malila for example, who died at 175 and 188-years-old respectively. But, Addwaita, a tortoise that lived in Bengal is estimated to have been around 255 when it died, making it just a toddler around the time of the American Revolution. Its age was verified by a technique called carbon dating, confirming Addwaita as one of the oldest creatures of modern times. His long life ended when his shell cracked and a wound developed some months before his death from liver failure in March five-years-ago.

Remember I said that I mentioned to Ishbel about not losing any weight, well added to that was the fact that I was running a bit late on Thursday and Friday and so did not get my morning exercise done on the Friday.  I hadn't gone for a walk on Thursday night and decided not to, because I was fed up on Friday also.

Well, stuff me with a baguette filled with cream cheese and salmon, but I weighed myself on Saturday morning and I had cracked the 19st 10 barrier and had gone down  to 19st 9lb. So, straight on to the exerciser and then later that day before the grand kids arrived I went for a cycle run too.  then of course it was stuffing the face when the kids arrived with home mad Tapas on Saturday and a Magnum of champagne as a day early birthday drink for Ishbel.

Now on Sunday I am normally the first one up anyway and then I get the grand kids up and we have breakfast together before Granny and the parents surface and I had intended to do that but get on the exerciser before breakfast with the kids, but as usual they so knackered me on the Saturday that I slept in and was the last one up and so, no exercise was had.

Sunday birthday dinner was again home made with crusty bread and olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping and olives, although you have to be quick with them as 5 year old Shannon will happily demolish a whole platter of these and still eat her dinner, followed by two different kinds of chicken, thighs in sweet chilli sauce and breasts in lemon butter with garlic and pumpkin seeds and various other little herbs thrown in, with potato wedges and onion roasted in chicken stock (and I forgot to add the chorizo but nobody noticed or cared) with lemon rice mixed with peas and carrots  - so not a lot of exercise or walking done that day!

Monday morning, slept in, so no exercise, carried out the morning ablutions and thought, what the hell, stepped on the scales and roast me over a hot barbecue but I have now dropped down to 19st 8lbs or 274 lbs.  So, all my worrying was for nought from the middle of last week and the message is; stop worrying, I chose to do this slowly and there will be peaks and troughs, but I am still getting there and still feeling good.