purplerabbits

I have more or less decided to come to London overnight on the 16th August and come back on the 19th. It will be a short visit, but should leave me time to do some of the stuff I'd like to do, such as visit the BM and try to read some hieroglyphics, turn up at the Liquid Lounge and see what that's like, visit Murder One and spend too much, maybe go to Tate Modern or somewhere I haven't been before, see some friends...

Meanwhile, I haven't been writing much in this journal, because I feel I don't have a lot to write about. Work continues to be a pain, but is slightly less grinding misery than it was, I read a couple of excellent books (I recommend Barcelona Plates by Alexis Sayle), I go to the pub with my friends, who most of you don't know.

And I'm sticking to my diet. I have lost 10 lbs in the last four weeks, and find it difficult not to go on about it.


I decided for reasons to do with health and convenience rather than looks, that I needed to lose weight. I've always been wary of diets before, since I was put on a lot of really stupid ones as a child, but after having done my stint on anti-depressants, and the anti-anxiety training, and getting the job etc, I feel that I am finally ready for the big one. Certainly I wouldn't have been ready before I sorted my mental health out a bit, what with weight loss being such a fraught issue for Western women...

I'm using the Hacker's Diet, by John Walker. This is basically calorie counting with some neat devices for keeping track of your weight loss. I like it because it uses an engineering approach to the problem, with very little bullshit or psychology. There's also a neat application for the Palm called the Eat Watch, which plots daily weight with a moving average, and gives a good idea of your progress without all those peaks and troughs you otherwise get due to water. I intend to keep using this even after I finishing losing weight, as it gives good early warning signs if you're putting it back on again.

The stuff I like about this diet is that I can still drink, and eat steak and bacon and crisps and stuff, as long as I count the calories. The bad stuff is that food companies in the UK often don't put calorie counts on stuff, or try to conceal the truth by listing calories for ridiculously small 'portions', for packet sauce before it's been made up with milk, and for loads of stuff after it's been 'cooked according to instructions' (i.e. if you're grilling it, after a certain unspecified amount of fat has drained off). I'm becoming a reluctant expert on this kind of thing...

I'm being a bit more flexible than John Walker, by carrying over calorie deficits from day to day. This means I can drink at the weekend and gives my graph a characteristic peak just after the weekend, but doesn't seem to be affecting the overall trend.

I'm also making some small attempts to do exercise. I was slightly shocked with myself when I found that the first stage of the Hacker's diet exercises left my head and heart pounding in a way that I would classify as 'painful'. I am walking to work every day (it's only 15 minutes), and going for the occasional longer walk and even swimming, all of which is an improvement on before. I expect that the exercises will hurt a lot less when I weigh less.