Week 2: My Rambling Disaster

My Rambling Disaster

Now you may find this amusing I can tell you for a fact it was not.

In my redoubled efforts to lose weight I have taken up walking. Everyday I walk up my hill and around the rim before going back down again breathlessly to the car. The walk in total is only about 2 miles disappointingly, but you do climb 350 feet, so it's not easy for a fatboy like myself. When you reach the top the view is spectacular and you get a very real sense of history as you look down the ramparts. It's not hard to imagine marauding attackers trying to mount its hillocks. nowadays its home to hungry sheep and crazy ramblers.

So yesterday, I had reached the top of the hill at about 6.30pm, a time I can only suggest is rush hour on Maiden Castle, complete with Mums and Dads, small children and dogs, complete with kite fliers and ramblers.

Now my beautiful fiancée has a habit of calling me at inconvenient moments, she calls me when I'm on the loo, she calls me in the middle of an argument, and she calls me when I'm in the bath. Yesterday she called me up the hill. I was about as far away from the car as I could have been. Now it's very windy up there, and she wanted to talk. It took me about two seconds to realise I couldn't walk and talk at the same time. There was simply too much background noise. I had no choice but to sit down and create a little shelter.

Now when I walk, I have to pull up my shorts. They are nicely big on me and feel comfortable most of the time, but I buy bigger shorts because I find the shorts that fit when you are stood up, tend not to fit so well when you are sat down. When I am walking however, they have a tendency to slip down and I end up looking like a teenager destined to get piles. So naturally I pull them up, over my belly. There they stay securely in position. Perfect. When I sit down in a rush however, if my shorts arent pulled down to under my belly, they stretch when they shouldn't. This normally causes me to feel like I have been sliced in two by a cheese wire. This time however, my button gave up the ghost completely. I can still see the sun glisten against the shiny brass, as it flew off down the hill.

One thing that most plus size men don't tell you about is the problem with loose fly. Effectively zips have a habit of flying south a little too often. It's an easily managed problem normally, but with no top button it does present a challenge.

So imagine my predicament. Up, on top of my hill, with a pair of shorts that are desperate to be free, with a number of young families and dogs roaming around, and sheep running away at every turn. I planted my hands deeply in my pockets and kept them there for he entire journey down (with the odd discrete zip-up), trying to look as nonchalantly cool as I can. No mean feat.

My subterfuge nearly worked too, if it wasn't for an over enthusiastic labrador, who thought now was a good time to leap up on me. His owner, an elderly couple, rushed over to help me but stopped at the last when my exposure was revealed. I had to tell them the whole story so as not to look like a sheep-fancier, but I'm definitely not sure I convinced them. What are two elderly people doing with such a strong dog anyway?

So embarrassed and ashamed I returned to my car and hid.

I am walking up my hill again today. I hope I don't meet them again. I just can't take it twice.

Being Good

As you can tell, lots of exercise. I felt like someone had stolen my calf muscles on Saturday, and replaced them with solid rubber, because I couldn't bend my legs at all, but by Monday I was all back to normal.

Being Bad

Not too bad actually. I may have eaten a couple of chocolate covered ice creams, but I have also made sure I have eaten little and often. Little being the key. Plenty of salad and fish.

A New Start

Looking back on the few weeks I worked on my weight, I noticed the depression building up in me. When I gave up smoking it took me a few tries to go cold turkey before I actually went cold turkey. I knew I could do it, I just hadn't yet. I think that's how it works sometimes. You want something to happen but you have yet to resolve for it to happen. Your determination isn't complete yet.

I felt more and more depressed about my lack of weight loss, its true, and the more I read up on the effects that swimming has in particular (for toning but not for weight loss), which has always been the one exercise I could do okay at, the more own I felt unhappy. It's astounding how easy it is to fall off a wagon you don't think you can stay on.

There is a significant problem about exercise. Good exercise makes you sweat, but as we have learnt, it also makes you hungry, hence you need good diet too. The problem I have is that I find my muscles tighten up and cramp up before I get sweating. My lungs squeeze and suck an increasingly audible and some what painful levels. My knees cramp up and my back stabs me in the back. I want a solution, but I can only presume the little and often idea holds firm.

In my readings walking is said to be the best thing, a brisk walk preferably. I'm not walking up my hill briskly,perhaps I'll have a think about brisk walking.

Anyhow so I am back on the weight loss trail. I'm starting again, and this is therefore week 1, again. I know this entry is short for me, but I am still not happy I fell off the wagon and into a chocolate haze, but I'm okay now, lol, it wasn't that bad, but there was chocolate and mayonnaise and too much of stuff.

Finally I just want to say as I was walking up my hill in one direction, a lady her daughter and their tiny dog were walking up the other way. I saw them climbing the steep slopes. Her daughter was about 7 and clearly totally knackered on the way up. I could hear her petulantly saying "How much further is it mummy!". Her face was red and her breathing as hard as mine, and yet on the way down I saw them ahead of me, and she was literally running down the hill.

I don't know where the energy comes from. I wonder if she simply forgets how hard it was to climb, her body has forgotten how tired it is. Maybe this is the trick of clearing your mind completely. Whatever the reason I lamented the innocence of youth, and their abundant energy. Nothing is too far, or too long. You have to love them.

Being Good :

Walked up my hill today. First time since I snapped my Achilles. No problems with the foot now. I noticed the muscle above my right butt cheek hurt like hell on the way up, but not so bad once I rested at the top, and not so much as I went round the hill and down.

I played a few lanes of bowling on Monday, my right leg has been causing me problems all week, it just feels completely weak, but it can't be so bad. I made it up the hill after all.

Being Bad :

A New Start means I'm not going to dwell on it. Next week will be another story.