Category Archives: Diet and Weight Loss

a very Fyne house…

By | | Diet and Weight Loss, General Mumblings, House Stuff
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Two whole years again, but now it’s time to start blogging again. Why? because some pretty incredible things have happened…

The first was being diagnosed with a life-changing condition, and suffering a fairly rapid decline in my health, the second was purchasing a lovely wee house on the shores of loch fyne.

So, the illness. I have a gene which is carried by about 17% of the UK population – a version of the Human Leukocyte Antigen called HLA-B27. Combine that with the common gut bacteria Klebsiella Pneumonia, and I get my spinal bones slowly fusing together and an excruciating level of pain… it’s called Ankylosing Spondilytis, and it is not fun.

Facing the prospect of only being able to work for 3 or 4 more years (if I was lucky), we set about finding somewhere good for the spirit to retire to – a bungalow somewhere by the water, with a nice view. We had a short list – waterside, with a forest nearby for walks, and a nice view of the mountains.

That, as it happens, is one bloody expensive list if you want it within a reasonable commute from Glasgow… so we cast our net a little bit further… and found St Ronans; a lovely wee bungalow right on the east shore of Loch Fyne.

We bought it in January 2013, and have been gradually doing it up ever since.

Oddly enough though, the AS diagnosis is actually a good thing – because after a decade of worsening pain and gradually decreasing ability to move around, I have two things – an answer to what is happening, and a method of control and treatment. Turns out there is way to block the activity of the Klebsiella Bacteria – by eliminating Starch from my diet, I have been able to completely recover in a little over six months… by locking out rice, potatoes, bread and pasta, I now have no pain, and essentially the prospect of a normal healthy life.

So, suddenly, our retirement home with the slightly negative undertone has become the chance of a lifetime to build a grand design. We’ll be turning it into a two storey building, adding a viewing deck, and possibly a hot tub… it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

weight loss, the violent way.

By | | Diet and Weight Loss
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I have found my preferred form of exercise for losing weight – and what do you know, it involves smacking the crap out of something. I’m sure everyone is truly amazed but there you go. 😉

We got a heavy bag along with the assorted ironmongery needed to hang it from the roof of the deck, and a set of gloves. Actually, to be completely accurate, we got two sets of gloves – a big set of 12 oz actual boxing gloves for me, and a small set of baby blue mitts for Jen. She looked at the pink ones, and just couldn’t do it.

My first outing was not great.

Working in IT, I have often felt that I am probably a bit ‘soft’ – I imagine that digging ditches for a living would make you a bit more solid. A few minutes with the heavy bag confirmed that – my wrists felt like I had been run over, my knuckles were all red and inflamed, and if truth be told, the hardest I had hit the bag… well, I would imagine a good number of teenage girls could hit a bag harder than that.

Some more googling revealed that, in all probability, I wasn’t doing it right.

I vaguely remember seeing boxers wrapping their hands in bandages, but hadn’t quite understood why… and now I do! I got myself a set of everlast wraps, followed a good intro online and got myself some wrapped hands. ooooh.

ian's wraps

Whether it’s the effect of the wraps, or a subtle bit of suggestion about yellow spandex… but I suddenly felt that I no longer had soft keyboard user’s hands, but a set of Wolverine claws. I resisted the temptation to punch the wall (much) and slipped on the big gloves.

I guess the fact that my wrapped hands could fit easily into the gloves, which now fitted a lot better, should have given a clue as to what went wrong the first time.. and man, can I hit hard 😀

ian with heavy bag

Since we decided to lose the weight, I have lost over fifty pounds. As the picture shows, I still have a long way to go, but the 20 or so pounds I need to lose to get back into the healthy range will be a bit less challenging when there’s a way to build up a good sweat that’s this damn satisfying 😀

A new low… weight that is!

By | | Australia, Diet and Weight Loss, Food
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The diet/exercise regime is doing very well – I clocked my lowest weight today since about ’97. I have got back down to 102.8Kg.

basically, this means that since landing in australia, I have shed 10lbs.

Notice that, as a child of the United Kingdom’s screwed up attitude to metrication, I swap between lbs and ounces, stones and kilograms without being able to work fluently or comfortably in either. I judge weights of people in stones and pounds, small (useful) stuff in grams and kilograms, but have a complete inability to switch between them (without asking google).

I have been forcing myself to work in metric only – why should I be disadvantaged because of backwards idiots who still cling to ‘imperial’ measurements? – but find it awkward.

Anyways, whether you call it 102.8Kg or 16 stone 3, it’s a darn sight less than I used to weigh (at my peak, I was 124 kg, 19 stone 7). I’m basically about 40lb down from there.

Jen is doing even better – she has lost sixty pounds as of today..

Part of this is eating better, and part is exercising more – today, a lot more:

And then, the piper must be paid.

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Back to work, and that means back to the weight loss and diet. Time to survey the damage from all that beer, the monster paella servings and various cakes and biscuits.

ouch.

My weight is back up to 106.1Kg – nearly 6lbs heavier than before christmas. I’m hoping to be able to go up to Exmouth at Easter and be able to enjoy the beach without well meaning folks trying to roll me back in the sea..

so, I did the only thing i could – I Wiiiiiiiiiiii’ed 🙂

Twenty Minutes. Oh yeah. 

I raised the Wii fit balance board up on a couple of phone books (about 12cm off the ground) and did twenty minutes of free step with the pace set to max. This will do the trick!!