Another of those 'writing something for the sake of it' posts

I have just spent the last 40 minutes writing the most depressing blog about being a failure and having no money. I sensibly deleted it all before inflicting it on anyone unlucky enough to stumble across my blog.

I'm only writing a post because I read a blog post earlier, and it was funny, and I thought I might be able to come up with something half decent. I'm planning on writing rubbish until something worthy pops out. The blog post I read earlier, for those interested, was THIS ONE.

The only thing good that's happened of late is my weight loss. I've lost 3 stone since August. I've managed this with DDP Yoga and by ditching gluten and dairy.

It's a weird thing, when you're a big fatty and you lose a fair amount of weight. I don't see ANY difference in my appearance at all. Yet, I see people I've not seen for a few months, and they can't believe how 'skinny' I am.

Now, I hate the 'skinny' thing. I know I'm not. I can still pinch more than an inch. I can grab a handful! I like to correct people and say I'm just a bit less fat.

The only way I'd know I'd lost weight, if it wasn't for scales and other people saying so, is clothing.

Over the years, I have bought and been given some nice clothes. The majority of these had never fit me. But I kept them. Mostly in those vacuum bags, up in the loft, but the odd thing still hung in my wardrobe. A pair of trousers I bought in 2003 were among the things in the bags. They were expensive (for me!), and they were tight back then. I got a couple of wears out of them, though. One occasion was a stag do. We went to the Gardening Club in Covent Garden. These trousers fit me now, with room to spare. I'm rather pleased about that.

Around this time last year, I spent £110 on 3 Lacoste polo shirts. I felt terrible for doing such a thing. The most I had ever spent on a polo shirt was £12. When I bought them, I got a size '5'. They were tight. Like, painted on tight. The sort of tight that, when I wore one out, my mum would say 'untuck your top, it looks better'. It WAS untucked. It was just that the bottom of the t-shirt finished at the top of my jeans! I could have bought a 6 or a 7 (no S,M,L,XL in Lacoste land, it would seem), but I thought I'd get the 5 and when I lost weight, they'd fit better.

How many times have you done that? Bought something too small or too tight, because you know it'll fit 'when' you lose weight? I've done it loads. Hence the bags in the loft (am I a hoarder?). This is the first time I have ever managed to actually fit in to something, though. The t shirts now hang around the bottom-of-the-pocket area (or mid thigh?). Yay!

I still have a lot of weight to lose, though. Well, I think I do. So I will carry on doing what I've been doing. I'd like to have a face one day. I reckon I'd be verging on average if I had cheek bones and a single chin!

Anyway, that was far too 'me, me, me' for me. So that's where I'll end.

Not the mildly amusing post I had hoped to write. Still, a post all the same. Maybe I'll start to do one every day (another of those statements in the same class as 'it'll fit me when I get thin'). I know I won't, though.

Big love

xx

ERMAHGERD! ERTS 'BERERMAHN RHERPSERDER'!

ERS THERS DA RERL LERFER?

ERS THERS JERST FERNTERSER?

CERGHT ERN A LERNDSLERDER

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BERCERS ERM "ERSER CERM, ERSER GER"

LERTL HERGH, LERTL LER

ERNER WER DA WERND BLERS,

DERSNT RERLER MAHTER TER MAH,

TER MAH

MERM, JERST KERLERD A MAHN

PERT A GERN ERGERNST HERS HERD

PERLERD MAH TRERGER, NER HERS DERD

MERM, LERF HERD JERST BERGERN

BERT NER ERV GERN ERND THRERN ERT ERL ERWER

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CERER ERN, CERER ERN,

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VERER, VERER FRERGHTERNIN MAH

GERLERLER, 

GERLERLER 

GERLERLER,

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GERLERLER,

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MAHGNERFERCER

ERM JERST A PER BER, NERBERDER LERVERS MAH

HERS JERST A PER BER FRERM A PER FERMAHLER

SPER HERM HERS LERF FRERM THERS MAHNSTRERSERTER

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WERL U LERT MAH GER

BERSMAHLER! NER!

WER WERL NERT LERT U GER! –

LERT HERM GER

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WER WERL NERT LERT U GER! –

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WER WERL NERT LERT U GER! –

LERT MAH GER

WERL NERT LERT U GER! –

LERT MAH GER!

NERVER NERVER LERT U GER! –

LERT MAH GER

NERVER LERT MAH GER! –

ER N, NER, NER, NER, NER, NER, NER

ER MERM MAH, MERM MAH, MERM MAH!

LERT MAH GER

BERLZERBERB HERS A DERVERL PERT ERSERD FER MAH

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S U THERNK U CERN STERP MAH ERND SPERT ERN MAH ER

S U THERNK U CERN LERV MAH ERND LERV MAH TER DER

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ER YER,

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NERTHIN RERLER MAHTERS

ERNERN CERN SER

NERTHIN RERLER MAHTERS

NERTHIN RERLER MAHTERS

TER MAH

ERNER WER DA WERND BLERS...

I'm A Fool

Last night I decided I was going to do something today. I did my mental risk assessment and method statement, and it seemed like a good plan.

Today, I tried to implement the plan. It started badly. I had planned for certain variables, and decided that if certain things happened, I would abort. But, being an idiot, I tried to improvise after the bad start.

I should NOT have done that.

I'm a fool.

#vaguebook

xx

It's been a while

So, the last time I posted, it was about my boobs. Well, I still have them. The time(s) before that, it was about not being fat at 30. I'm 30 years, 2 months & 10 days old now, and I'm still fat. A few weeks back, I weighed 17 stone (for the first time since 2001). I'm now just under 16 and a half. Anyway, still fat.

So, what's been going on?

I have posted about football before. This year has been very good on that front. My first year as a coach, and nothing but a coach, with Hollands & Blair in the Kent Invicta League. Although our final league position was poor by our standards (finishing 3rd, 5 points behind the champions), we had a good run in the Kent Senior Trophy, and ended up being the lowest ranked side to ever win it. As a goalkeeping coach, it's nice to know that we had the best defensive record in the league, and between my 1st team keepers, we kept 17 clean sheets. I had set a target of 15. Pre season starts in 2 and a half weeks, and I can't wait to get back out there.

Away from football, the only real thing of note I've done of late was the Yorkshire Dales Three Peaks Challenge. This was done on May 26th, and my body still hates me for it. Physically, it was the hardest thing I have ever done. It was tough mentally, too. I've climbed Ben Nevis before (a fact I mentioned to anyone within earshot on the day of the walk), and thought I'd be fine on this 'challenge'. Regardless of the fact I have a ruined knee (see earlier posts - also something I told everyone and anyone about on the day), I thought I'd be ok.

Basing everything on Ben Nevis, which I did absolutely NO preparation for, I did the same again. No training walks, no training anything. Just thought I could turn up on the day and do it. I've walked up a mountain before, you know. I'm the one with mountain climbing experience...

This challenge, obviously, incorporates three peaks (fucking big hills). They are Pen-y-Ghent (691m), Whernside (728m) and Ingleborough (723m). There's also a big long trek between these big fucking hills. In all, you walk 26 miles. It took me 11 hours. I finished 20 minutes after everyone else in my group because my body died and I didn't want to be the one that slowed everyone down.

My body didn't really die, of course. I hit the 'wall'. Now, I think I'm mentally tough. Actually, I KNOW I'm mentally tough. And, until now, I thought people who talked about 'the wall' were just people looking for excuses. I assumed that they were just mentally weak, and that it was all a load of bollocks. Well, now I apologise for that assumption.

I hit this 'wall' about 15 minutes (of normal walking/climbing) from the top of the final peak. I had 2 hill faces to scramble up, then I was at the top. But my body wouldn't work. It refused, point blank, to go anywhere. It wasn't because of pain. Pain is a constant in my life, and doesn't cause me much bother. Anyway, I actually didn't hurt that much. My legs just refused to go, and I was stuck. My brother tried to get me going, telling me he knew I could do it and all that kind of stuff, but I sent them off ahead. I knew I could do it, too, but it was just going to take a little while.

Anyway, I got to the top in the end. I made a deal with my legs. We'd go 10 paces, then rest until we could manage another 10. So that's what happened. It took me nearly an hour and a half to do the last bit, but I did it. I then power walked the 5 miles down the hill, back to the village, with Scott Mills podcast for company. It took me under 2 hours to get down, and that walk DID hurt, but I just wanted to be off that hill.

Now, I should mention something that happened much earlier on, on the long walk from the first to second peak.

The one and only thing I had read about this challenge was on a forum. The subject of the post was 'AVOID THE BOG!!'. I read that this bog was a short cut. It took 45 minutes off your journey. But, due to the recent heavy rain, the bog should be avoided. The writer of the post was a local, who, it seemed, was an experienced 3 peaker. He said that he had gone through the bog and ended up waist deep in stinking mud. So, with this nugget of information, I told everyone we needed to avoid the bog.

So, being armed with maps of the area, we did what any sensible person would do. We followed the crowd. Fuck looking at maps, these folk in front clearly know the way. Whilst following the crowd, we noticed a different crowd going a completely different way. A short cut, perhaps? Hell no. WE were on the short cut. THE short cut. You know, the one through the bog.

After realising we were on the bog (it took a couple of partially submerged feet and some twisted ankles for this to happen), I start telling anyone and everyone that I'd read about this bog and we were supposed to go around it. I was even telling strangers, and incorporated my bad knee and my good mate Ben (Nevis) in to every chat.

In one such chat, to an older dude, I'm just telling him about the dude sinking, when I vanish. I lost my left leg, up to the knee, in the bog. I laughed, my brothers nearly died laughing, the dude chuckled and offered me a hand up. So, out I get, stinking of the horrible wet mud, and continue the chat.

It must have been 4 or 5 paces after, when I lost my left leg again. This time up to my nuts. So I try to get out using my right leg, and that sunk, too. Panic. I flopped my body to the ground, throwing my arms out (a la starjumps), actually worrying I would sink. I didn't, obviously. I managed to grab weeds and drag myself out. My brothers were in tears of laughter, and I was having a giggle, too. But, fuck, did it stink. Really, really bad. And having soaking we feet wasn't nice. It was great for morale (everyone else's, like). We laughed about it for the duration of the walk. The incident also provided me the opportunity to tell one of my brother's female colleagues that 'the last thing I expected from the weekend was to be nuts deep this early on'. I don't think she got it. And my brother told me off for saying it, too. What can I say, I'm a child!

Anyway, I'm bored of writing now, and no doubt nobody will have read this far. So I'm going to stop.

Until next time. Peace and fucking, yeah?

xx

Body Silk Clinic

Yes, Body Silk Clinic. A beauty salon,if you like, to really simplify it. The sort of place that I would only ever see myself entering if I was going to do a job there.

Yet this evening I was there for a treatment.

My 'Not Fat At 30' campaign has been faltering. With only myself to blame. Yet, last week the campaign took a (perhaps slightly) bizarre twist. After replying to a message asking for a man with 'moobs', I was asked to take part in a case study that should see me be slightly less fat (around the chest area, anyway!).

So tonight was the first treatment in a course of 8. I got myself up to the clinic in decent time and checked myself in. I was given 3 forms to fill out, which I did. These places are used mostly by women, and the forms proved this with questions about 'cycles' and stuff. Clearly, being the proper grown up I am, I answered all of the questions on my forms. I'm sure the clinic will be pleased to know I don't suffer from a 'heavy flow'.

In the clinic waiting room, I felt really out of my comfort zone. A scruffy, overweight, beardy electrician sat in a place like this sticks out like a sore thumb. Still, it was only me there, so not to worry!

Oh. Actually. Wait a moment. Ah yes, I've come on (what you'd call at school) an open evening. Now, when I arrived, I was offered some water. I was ok, so declined. But as the glamorous looking ladies arrived for 'open evening', they were being greeted with wine and strawberries. I'm not complaining. I don't like wine anyway. But it felt a bit uncomfortable being there when these people were arriving at this lovely looking place, being greeted in such a way, and then they have to take a seat next to me. My saving grace at this moment, I feel, was my work jumper. They see it says 'Hopkins Electrical' on it, and assume I'm there to work, not there for a treatment.

After the first lot of people dispersed in to various rooms for consultations, 2 more women arrive. They get their wine and strawberries and talk to the manager, who offers one of them some kind of facelift (which, by the looks of it, was done with some kind of 'love bite' machine). So one sits down on a little treatment table and the other sits next to me. This is where they spy a poster advertising 'Strawberry Laser Lipo', which has before and after pictures of a female bottom area and a male chest area, and have a good old chuckle. One says to the other 'as if any man's going to come somewhere like this to have his moobs done!', after which ensues more giggling. This is the point where I'm called in for my treatment. The Strawberry Laser Lipo on my moobs....

The treatment was performed by a lovely lady called Sharon. We had a chat, I got semi naked for her, she took pictures of me, she drew on my chest and then took some measurements. After explaining what would happen for the treatment, I got on the treatment table and had the clever laser thing (technical term) strapped to my chest. It kind of looked like something a suicide bomber would wear, but it was comfortable enough and it was lovely and warm.

Anyway, 10 minutes later I'm up and getting measured again. In those 10 minutes, this suicide bomber's waistcoat has lasered just under an inch of moob off. And I'm told after I do my 20 mins of cardio (which I've now done), they may shrink even more.

Good, huh?

I have 7 more treatments to go now. I'm hoping they shrink enough moob quickly enough to say 'oh, we'll just take a few inches of that beast of a tummy off, too', but I doubt it'll go that quick! Every little helps now, so I'll be grateful whatever the outcome!

xxx