Category Archives: Noteworthy

Weightless

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I have kept to a regime of diet and exercise since the start of May 2011. In that time I have gone from about 220 pounds and a 40″ waist down to 160 pounds and a 30″ waist. I have replaced all of the clothes in my wardrobe more than once and gone through two belts. I couldn’t have imagined 5 years ago that I might have achieved this sort of weight loss. I think I’ve weighed more or less 210+ pounds for the last decade. I probably weigh as little now as I did 20 years ago when I finished my degree course at the University of Huddersfield.

How did I lose so much weight? Willpower and green tea, I think. Effectively, I cut my calorie intake down to 3/4 than 1/2, hitting a low of around 1000 – 1200 calories at times. I would eat 300 calories of high fibre cereal and a coffee for breakfast, something warm and filling like soup and a fibre-rich yoghurt for lunch, then a fairly standard dinner, with restrained portion size. I cut out cake, biscuits, chocolate and other treats. I switched from tea and coffee with milk during the day to leaf green tea. I also snacked on small portions of vegetables and fruit during the day when I got hungry, alternately with cups of green tea or water to keep my stomach busy and avoiding hunger pangs. I never needed to eat more than cup of soup and a yoghurt for lunch because I never really got hungry – and by the end of the day a light dinner would be all I needed.

I balanced out a whole new diet with exercise, too. I took to riding a stationary bicycle for 20 or 30 minutes a day with some light aerobic exercise to warm up and cool down. More recently I have added weights to the equation along with stretches for my stomach and butt to try shaping up the bits where I have lost my weight. When the weather got too cold for a workout in the garage on the bike, I took to using a workout package on the PlayStation instead, using wrist weights or a resistance band to raise the difficulty of the exercises.

I passed my 40th birthday this month and, like I said, I now weigh as much as I did when I was 20. I had a health check five years ago and another a fortnight ago. I have gone from an obese BMI rating down to a healthy one, and my blood pressure has gone from worrying to acceptable. I eat plenty of fruit and veg, drink plenty of water, and can walk up a couple of flights of stairs without losing my breath (something I couldn’t have said last May).

I got through the process with willpower – and I guarantee without medical intervention you’ll need some of the same. At times I would face a challenge – and willpower saw me through. I would see doughnut, a slice of pizza, or a chocolate bar and my willpower would allow me to walk away or get myself a cup of green tea instead. Now, I can walk into a bakery or supermarket and not worry – I simply don’t feel the call of temptation anymore. I suspect science involved somewhere in the form of dopamine management. Dopamine levels in the brain handle the reward system of the body, so when you eat chocolate or cake you can favourable sensations, but next time you might not get so much unless you eat more or opt for a glazed doughnut instead of a sugar one. Yes, I’m simplifying the concepts and process, but dopamine works somewhere along those lines. I seem to have managed my dopamine delivery system so that simply seeing something sweet and sticky doesn’t kick off a tsunami of pleasurable feelings that must end with cake. I have built up my willpower levels to not only abstain, but actually not feeling bothered at all.

I might feel tempted to write-up more about what I’ve done to lose almost 5 stones over the last year if anyone might get some benefit out of it themselves. I certainly feel a great sense of achievement. Eating healthy and exercise have now become a part of my life that doesn’t feel like a chore. I eat well and exercise because I want to and I enjoy it. By keeping to my diet and exercise, I can feel better as a person and do more. I can run to the end of the street without puffing and panting for the next 10 minutes in recovery. I can try on something size M or even S, and look in the mirror without squirming. It feels good to feel good.

Deferring to Jefferson

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I like it when I find a quote that really means something to me.

Thomas Jefferson said – “Delay is preferable to error.”

It’s quite possible you could sum up much of my character in that quote. Indeed, I get this very feature of my character picked up in personal development reviews year in, year out.

Paul, they say, people have commented that you don’t get involved enough in meetings. The other day, they’ll inform me, when we had that meeting with so-and-so, you didn’t say anything for the first half of meeting.

I don’t consider ‘delay’ a weakness. I know for a fact that other people have commented on those very individuals who launch into the fray simply to add something without really adding anything or perhaps who just want to hear the sound of their own voice. I’d ask the people who question my approach exactly what the people speaking for the sake of it really add to the occasion.

I recently attended an interview for a job where part of the assessment involved participation in a group discussion. Assessed and assessors all sat around a table in a large room facing each other. A non-participant handed out a sheet to each of the assessed and told them to read the outline for the session, then clicked a stopwatch and walked out of the room. The sheet explained the situation for discussion and explained what outcomes the assessors expected – namely a high level plan to resolve the situation outlined.

Now, I’m a slow reader. I frustrate myself with this trait, but I haven’t managed to find a way around it. I faced a piece of paper with three or four paragraphs on it – so, I just got down to reading, knowing that the others would likely finish long before me. Halfway down the sheet, everyone else started talking about the situation. I half listened and half read, knowing as I went that I’d need to read it again before all the detail sunk in.

Yes, I could have improvised. I could have taken a stab at throwing ideas out there, half-formed and potentially ill-advised. I could utter the first words and sound like an idiot. Or I could choose to keep quite and continue to absorb the incoming information.

The others in the session started having an entirely reasonable discussion about the situation, while I finished reading once and then started from the top again. I slipped a piece of scrap paper off a pile, drew a Sharpie from inside my jacket, and proceeded to scribble a mind-map type web. The hub of the diagram contained a note about what I needed to consider here – finding some kind of high level plan of resolution – and from there branches and twigs reached out to bubbles that outlined the key issues and how they interrelated.

I daresay, it might well have been 5 minutes before I managed to say anything at all. By then, I had read the paper three times and scribbled out a map of the whole situation. I took my Sharpie, stood up from my chair and suggested I bullet point the situation, fuelled by our discussion, as a means to outlining a plan of action.

I’m certain I did other things that day that might have supported by suitability for the role; but, in that moment I felt I had made the right decision, to read, consider and reflect before saying anything.

I delayed for good reason – and I often do. I would rather utter my first word with confidence. Other participants might get in dozens or hundreds of words before I offer a single input to the session; but, I prefer to offer something considered and constructive, with ideas and evidence to support what I have to say.

So, thanks Mr Jefferson. You uttered something worth saying, and it made my day.

Damned Snow

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Having breathed a sigh of relief in my last post that Manchester didn’t get the snow reported at the time, I can say we did get a bit on Tuesday. I know, because the first footstep I took outside met with a surface like glass, and I ended up crashing to the floor, twisting my ankle and doing something painful to my big toe. I now hobble around the house looking mournful and pathetic, unable to do much other than potter. I can carry on doing work, so I’m not a complete loss to society.

I think, as I fell, I had it in mind to concentrate on using my ass to cushion me, because a work associate did something seriously painful to her elbow last year falling with arms outstretched. When I informed a friend of my predicament, he exclaimed – “Isn’t that something old people do?”. Oh yeah… I feel the healing waves of compassion and concern washing over me.

Current reading:

[amtap book:isbn=0552773905]

Planely Mad

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The Japanese intend to chuck 100 paper planes into orbit. Constructed from silicon treated, heatproof paper and measuring around 20 cm in length, the places will depart from the International Space Station and head earthward. The planes will cover around 300 miles in their journey and most probably land in the sea. However, I’m midly concerned what might happen if they don’t! How much damage can a paper place cause if it has travelled down from orbit and covered about 300 miles to really top up base velocity? Can we expect people to suffer severe injuries from smouldering paper planes travelling at terminal velocity? What about birds? Or planes? Has someone actually taken a moment to really think this through?

Compare and Contrast: 2

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Suicide bombs. Unrest in Chad. Public sector pay cuts. And Holly Willoughby’s cleavage. I had to raise them again, because another tabloid did yesterday, with another front page picture and a claimed plethora of complaints. To be honest, Holly wore a nice dress with dropped frontage, but nothing eye-watering… nothing like Jodie Marsh’s number from ‘The Mirror’ last week.

Quite why this poor woman has drawn such ire from the press beggars belief – I mean, these articles question her judgement and highlight the distress she’s causing (to about four people)… while selling more papers with some nice colour photos. The paper noted that Phillip Schofield complimented Holly on her dress as a veiled reference to all the media coverage and that Holly appeared to look down towards her cleavage as if acknowledging what he co-presenter really meant. To me, the picture looked like Holly had decided to refer to her script in a moment of amnesia bought on by embarrassment.

Of course, you know if she comes on next week dressed in a burka, she’ll still get a couple of pages coverage in all the gutter press…