Creak!

Something tells me I'm starting to get old. It starts in the morning. Where once I would spring out of bed with nary a second thought after a good 12 or 13 hours sleep, I now barely make it to 7 hours without needing to get up for the bathroom. If my back doesn't complain, my feet do and I stumble off on the long, chilly ramble to the loo.

To try to mitigate the twinges, I've bought an orthopaedic pillow. I make regular visits to a chiropractor and a sports massage therapist: they inflict more pain on my to try to make me forget the other dull aches.

I've got a huge wishlist for Christmas, but what would really make me happy is a new pair of slippers. My old ones are nearly worn out from shuffling around the house.

When I watch Have I Got News For You and they have the "publication of the week", the audience laughs at the dull and prosaic nature of the featured periodical. I just think that a magazine about plywood, or wool, or rawlplugs, sounds really interesting.

I've already started hoarding some magazines: Q, Viz, Private Eye, Amateur Photographer and other soft porn. Soon I will start to hoard old newspapers, building them into a labyrinthine, erm, labyrinth which will fill the house, waiting its moment to collapse, trapping me without food or water.

To try and fend off this ultimate humiliation I must make an effort to keep (get) fit(ter) and healthy(er). I've already started this effort by jiggling my leg up-and-down rapidly while sitting at my desk. And I have started walking to the elevator, instead of getting someone to push me there on my office chair. I should be fit as a butcher's dog within days.

Oh, hang on. It's nearly Christmas. OK - I'll start again in the New Year...

It's Not My Fault I'm Fat... Blame Society!

Now look - this report is absolutely ridiculous. People are now being told that it's not their own fault if they put on weight. Apparently the whole infrastructure of society is to blame for more people becoming obese.

What a load of crap! And I speak as someone who is overweight and could do with slimming down by a couple of stone, but I have no illusion that the reason I'm a bit lardy is all down to ME and me alone.

Now, it may be true that cheap and convenient food is more and more calorific. Yes, there are more labour-saving devices around. There are lots of ways that our lives are made more convenient. But all that does is give us excuses for bad lifestyles. None of the things mentioned in the report force us down that road!

I (and 99% of the population) have a choice:
Buy awful ready-meals/pizzas/burgers/kebabs OR buy lean meat/fish and fresh veg to steam at home (where the act of actually standing up and cooking will increase one's calorific output)?
Sit in front of the telly OR go out for a walk or a bike ride?
Drive to work OR walk to the train station?

Releasing stories to the press which appear to take the responsibility for peoples' health out of their own hands will have the effect of making the awkward and lazy hordes (of which I am one) even less likely to do anything about their lifestyles themselves. These Foresight people really have scored an own-goal.

Ideas

Last night I ate far too much rich Italian food and so got my new regime of healthy eating and exercise off to a poor start. Tonight I’m out - attending a Front of House course at the local theatre and then to an Ottershaw Players meeting to start writing our 2008 Farrago – so I can’t see any possibility of a healthy dinner and a 10-mile bike ride.

On the other hand, I’ll probably have a good laugh and a beer or two, so that’ll be fun.

One thing that’s been occupying my thoughts recently is the fact that I have no decent ideas for an arresting visual image to use for advertising Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime. There’s a synopsis over at the play’s blog – if anyone has any great ideas for something that would make an eye-catching poster, I’d be grateful for the input. Oh, and if your design is used, you will win a pair of tickets to see the play!

Wait for Weight

I was a bit stuck for a subject to blog about today. Then I read my sister's blog where she's announced her plans to lose weight and track her progress in weekly posts.

I think she's very brave. Sure it's a great motivator, knowing that you will be sharing your successes and failures with the world (or the little of the world which reads your blog!), but I think if I was to try it I'd have more failures than successes and it would turn into a record of my terrible self-control and greed.

But I'm sure that Jo's will be a far more positive experience! Yes, it will. Indeed it will.

I know that I need to lose a couple of stone (28lbs). I'm slimmer than I was about 4 or 5 years ago, when I think I hit a peak of around 17 stone, mostly due to eating junk and no exercise.

A couple of years ago, I was down to around 14 st 10 lb, which was heading in the right direction. Eating 'proper' food and getting out on my bike 3 or 4 times a week worked wonders. But for some reason it ground to a halt...

I think it was doing the London 2 Brighton bike ride. After that, I was so knackered that I didn't get on my bike for months and the healthy eating took a bit of a back seat, so the weight's been creeping up again.

Today I went to a seminar for work at Ascot race-course. The path from the station to the course has a steep uphill section at one point. I'm ashamed to say I was out of breath and feeling unfit very quickly.

Time to get on the bike again. Only now I'm training to get my weight down and not just aiming for a charity ride...