Just for the record!

I forgot all about this blog!

I am now fifty!  Did I get fitter? Yes, a lot.  Did I lose weight?  No, curses!

I think my cycling blog says it all really

The training began in earnest in March 2016 (having just turned fifty)

http://fairlyweatheredcyclists.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/its-march-ive-gone-mad.html

and culminated in Ride 100 in London.  100 miles that I was very proud of!

http://fairlyweatheredcyclists.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/the-london-ride-100.html

I'm still cycling, now got to focus on the weight!

Well that took longer than I thought

What the hell happened to July?!

Last month was one of the most intense busy months of my life.  I was not due to return to work until 1st August, so I had the whole of July to reorganize and settle back to life in the UK.  It was tough!  

However, amongst the chaos of readjustment I did manage to achieve a few things:-

The recipe books are all consolidated and have found a new home.  It doesn't quite fit all the books, so I am evicting the cakes and desserts recipe books.   They will be banned and exiled to the garage.

Unfortunately, the books are wedged in so tight, it is almost impossible to browse through them.  However, I have discovered a marvellous new concept in the UK - Riverford Organic Recipe Boxes.  Riverford are one of the two major organic food delivery companies in the UK and as well as delivering regular organic vegetable boxes they can deliver weekly recipe boxes.  Everything that you need to prepare 3 organic healthy veggie meals delivered to your door.  

What's not to love?!  Riverford is in!  They are now scheduled to make weekly deliveries to our house and this is a change that I am very happy with.

Exercise - in the latter part of July I was able to do a few bike rides, so at least a bit of a kick start to exercising.  A couple of surprises though - hills and traffic!  I don't like either of them.  However, I have no choice, these elements will be a part of cycling in the UK, so I will just have to get on with it.  The hills will get easier over time and I have added a big bright light to the back of my bike for use in the daytime.  I hope this helps.  Some car drivers are great and slow down and give you plenty of space, others less so.

The Gym - today I finally made it back to the gym and went to a body pump class.  Thank goodness I enjoyed it and was glad to be back.  In Montreal I tried a few classes, but they were in French and somehow you just don't get that motivated if you don't understand what is going on.  The gym that I have returned to has a lovely big studio. with mirrors all down one wall which reflect the big glass wall opposite which overlooks a big green park.  A very uplifting gym.

Working - an important part of the new lifestyle will be making sure I can manage my work life balance properly.  Something I have always been notoriously bad at.  My work days will probably be 4 days a week in London and 1 day a week in St Albans.  I think that working in London can be beneficial because it will always involve more walking, rather than working in the 'burbs where you get into the car on your driveway and get out again at the office car park.  However, I must manage my hours so that I can get to the gym and do some classes.  This is vital!  I must also figure out how to make healthy lunchtime food choices.

So, the baseline.

I found that I did in fact have 3 sets of bathroom scales (how did that happen?), but only 1 set was working.  I had planned to do a weight comparison between the scales and choose the most favorable.  However, I was not about to try and find spare batteries for the other scales in a house that temporarily contained more worldly goods than you can shake a stick at. The house is better now after 6 trips to the dump and 9 trips to the charity shop.  Anyway, I digress because I am trying to avoid recording my weight in a blog, that, although I haven't told anyone about, will exist out there on the internet.  The only working scales recorded my weight as 11 stone and 4lbs.  There I have said it, put it down in black and white, in bits and bytes and recorded for posterity.  That is 158 lbs or  71.7Kg.

Next I have to figure out a target!

So it begins......

It's 30th June 2014.  My last day in Montreal.  I have been away from home for 5 and a half years, and I am not happy with my weight and body size.

and omg, fifty is on the horizon.

Tomorrow I will be back in the UK and I will begin a new lifestyle.  I need to choose the right lifestyle to make sure that I can get in shape before I turn 50 in 20 months.

• I need to set my kitchen up so that it is conducive to cooking delicious healthy meals.  I have many new recipe books, so do I build a new bookcase to display the lovely books, or do I glue an old iPad to the kitchen wall so that on-line recipes are available all the time?  (I don't actually have an old iPad, this would involve buying a new iPad, in order to demote the current iPad to being the old iPad!)

• I need to go back to my old gym and get the class schedule and figure out what classes to join.  Current thoughts are spinning for cardio and body pump for muscles.

• On 9th July my shipping from Canada will arrive and all my worldly goods will be delivered back to. me.  (Ok all my worldly goods will get added to all my worldly goods that stayed behind and were stored in two garages on the initial departure from the UK). In the shipping is a set of bathroom scales.  I need to weigh myself on these scales and set the baseline.  I could also weigh myself on my original bathroom scales that were stored in one of the garages and see if there is a difference between the two sets.  Perhaps I haven't put on weight at all, perhaps the new scales lie?  Anyway, I feel a major garage sale coming on, and one of these scales is due to go out, I think we all know which one is getting the bullet.

There I have stated my intentions out loud.  Although, if I don't tell anyone about this blog, does this count as out loud?