Weight up!

Two things happen every year on the last Sunday in October. Firstly British Summer Time ends and the clocks go back one hour. Secondly I magically put on a few pounds in weight.

Now we’re not talking about crash diets or anything drastic, but I’m trying to puzzle out what happens to cause this. In the dim and distant PM time (pre-marriage) I weighed in at about 10st 7lbs and ran like a whippet. Nothing to do with fitness, mainly ‘cause I was poor in managing what little money I had. After paying rent and the previous month’s bank overdraft, and having a post pay day blow out of fish and chips and pub lunches, I lived the rest of the month hand to mouth. If it wasn’t for my then girlfriend, now wife Linda, I’d probably have wasted away.

Weight crept up a bit over the years until I peaked at well over 12st and decided the gym was calling. Combined with calorie counting I got down to my fighting weight of 11st 6lbs, before gradually creeping back up to near 12st again.

When my blinking bladder gave us all such a fright in January 2008 and I thought I’d got a battle on my hands it was time to get into fighting shape again. Think I went a bit too far; gym and calorie counting got me down to 10st 10lbs, but I guess it wasn’t the best time to start losing weight at that rate… probably appeared as though I was on my way out, looking a bit gaunt… back up to 11st 6lbs.

So why have I suddenly whopped on a few more pounds? It’s not the lack of activity… still hauling myself around the squash court twice a week, tennis and pitch and putt once a week (suppose the pool & darts don’t count in this context!). Maybe with the nights coming in it’s a subconscious need to stock up for the winter, though I’m not planning to hibernate any time soon. Should I give up my one weakness… McVities Dark Chocolate Digestives, wine, and whisky?

So I’m planning to beat those scales by…

• eating with my other hand, and maybe even using chopsticks
• making sure I’ve cut my finger nails, trimmed what little hair I’ve got and exhaling before stepping on the scales

Of course it could be something to do with my birthday falling at the end of October. Got some lovely gifts, including chocolates, all eaten now, and whisky, which is warming up the evenings. Still struggling to master the new Samsung HMX-U10 HD flash camcorder. Spent £12 on a 4gb sd card which gives me 45 minutes of recording time. Now find the graphic card on my PC isn’t up to the job of displaying the film, so that’ll be another £50 to fit a newer one. Ho hum.

On the allotment it’s dig, dig, dig as I make gradual progress in lifting up all the raised beds. Still waiting for onions seeds to sprout. Took some blackcurrant cuttings. Tomatoes in the greenhouse just about finished… they’re still flowering but the fruit are struggling to turn from green to red. Need a recipe for green tomato chutney. It’s our first Hill Rise Allotment Association committee meeting tonight so lots of plotty type things to discuss.

I’ve started doing posts on specific vegetables so I have record of when to plant and what to do. You can access the details on the right under ‘Labels’ by selecting the vegetable (e.g. garlic) or the season (e.g. ‘Autumn planting’).

 

Technorati Tags: Weight