Wednesday Weigh-In - 9 April

Last week's scales leap didn't really come as a surprise. Eat more than your body needs and take away your regular source of exercise and that sort of thing will happen. Last Wednesday I was feeling seriously run down. Later that day little man was sent home poorly from nursery and prescribed antibiotics, meaning more interrupted nights and a day off work on Thursday while he was embargoed. Not exactly what I needed. By Friday morning I was feeling pretty rough myself and struggled through a meeting in London and tied up some loose ends at work before abandoning ship in search of a bed where I wanted to curl up and cry.

As it turned out, with a rare opportunity to go to the pub as a couple, my wife and I still made it out for a couple of hours rather than waste the use of a babysitter. I managed half a J2O before I started falling asleep at the table in mid conversation. Last of the hardcore drinkers is not a title I can associate with myself these days!

The last time I checked the scales was on Saturday and they read 14st 3lbs, a reflection that I'd been well off my food in the previous 24 hours rather than dieting like a boss since the last official weigh-in. My appetite hasn't really picked up much since then as I've continued to be under the weather. The little man has been a bit more co-operative over the last two nights, though on both occasions I've still ended up leaving my bed midway through the night and settled down with him.

Thoughts are already shifting towards my next fundraising challenge. I'm signed up for a half marathon in London in October, which hopefully gives me enough time to rehab my knee and get it ready for some serious mileage again. I'd been looking forward to participating without the pressure of doing so for a charity, but having spent the last couple of days at Brainwave Centre so my little man could be assessed, I get the feeling October's run will end up as a means to generate funds for his continuing involvement in the programme. In a nutshell, they help kids who have had a difficult start to life to achieve their potential. Over 2 days we sat through a number of physio sessions, joined in with hydrotherapy and came away with a tailored workout that will hopefully help with his physical and emotional development.

Back to me and the diet, I'm not overly worried about the waistline. I didn't want to get unwell but it was rather inevitable having been around a snotty toddler with very little escape. The one good thing about feeling so rough is it has put an end to the constant hand to mouth activity that had become habit in the past fortnight. Post Easter I'll assess the damage and take things from there. In the meantime, hopefully the germs clear up and the appetite will return. Just not too much!

Step Away From The Rabbit Food

Today I took my youngest to see his neurosurgeon. 11 months into his life and many, many medical appointments later, this shouldn't have felt particularly out of the ordinary. But this morning as we fought through commuter traffic to get into London, something was different. I felt rotten and the last place I wanted to be was crawling through the roadworks on Hammersmith Flyover.

Needs must though. As a parent you have to do what is right for your children, and while this always promised to be a routine appointment, there was a never a thought about cancelling. True to form, the appointment barely lasted 10 minutes, which after an hour and a half journey into town, hour of waiting and more than an hour of journey home seems like an awful lot of effort for very little reward. Fact is, a short session with a neuro is a positive outcome, and so we continue to get on with our lives until the next time.

By the time I got to work, I was feeling worse. My body felt fatigued, perhaps a delayed reaction to my run on Tuesday night. A chesty cough troubled me from time to time and I found it difficult to concentrate at my desk. It rapidly became clear that this was not going to be a day for the diet and I needed to step away from the rabbit food. I had plenty of sugary pick-me-ups and got through the afternoon before getting back into dad mode.

It is important when dieting to recognise when to put things on hold. If feeling under the weather, your body needs to heal and that may mean dosing up on comfort food. The best way to achieve weight loss is taking a long term view, so a little bit of sugar in the short term to help get over temporary ailments isn't going to hurt.

Today I could justify chunky KitKats and the like, but I'll be back on form again soon.

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Guilt Free Lunch

Way back in January when I started out on this weightloss mission, I wrote an article in which I declared Subway Is Dead To Me, With the exception of a special day in February when my little one was born, I have steered clear. Today I broke with the convention and enjoyed a footlong 'Big Beef Melt' on honey oat bread, toasted with cheese, served with lettuce, cucumber, green peppers, pickles and drizzled in sweet onion sauce (for some absurd reason they didn't have honey mustard so had to go with an alternative).

Here it is in its full glory

Damn that Sub looks good!

I savoured every mouthful and scoffed the lot. Now, this isn't exactly my usual behaviour, or at least it hasn't been over the last 10 months or so. I usually get by with a pretty humble salad for lunch these days, which is just as well because making this a regular option would prove costly, both to the wallet and the diet success. The fact is though, a treat once in a while is allowed, and I think my circumstances today justified it.

I was awake from just after 3 after the little one decided he was no longer asleep. Poor little thing has been teething and plagued with the sniffles, so it has not been uncommon for he and I to get acquainted during the night. However, unlike most other nights, he really was determined not to go back to sleep. Blowing raspberries, pulling my ears, chuntering away. Any sleep I managed between then and 6 was patchy in the extreme. The alarm went off and it was action stations, needing to get the two of us out of the house quickly and on the road.

Today was an appointment with the neurosurgeon to discuss the results of a recent MRI scan on his head and spine. Unfortunately to get there meant joining the commute into London. It wasn't a good sign when I had to queue to get onto the M4 in the first place. The radio told me what I didn't want to hear; an accident further down the road causing delays. We'd set off with plenty of time to spare, but this was not what was wanted. Tired, grouchy, a little nervous about the outcome of the appointment, and with raspberries blowing at me from the back seat while pootling along at a snail's pace, I realised that I hadn't had time for breakfast. Fortunately I'd had the sense to have some cans of diet pepsi on hand to provide a caffeine boost for the journey, but even so, this was not the best way to start the day.

It took a while to get into town. Typically little man fell asleep towards the end of the journey meaning when we parked up he woke up grumpy and made pretty clear his demands for milk. Fortunately that soothed the beast and brought back my smiley boy. The appointment followed soon afterwards and there was much relief when told there was no change from the previous scan and we continue as we have been doing for the last few months. No need for any operations, just get on with life and scan again in a number of months time.

I managed to get little man to his nursery just in time for him to sit down with the other babies for lunch. Home via the GP to request a repeat prescription and then off to work for the afternoon. Still no food and by the time I reached the office I'd been awake for more or less 9 hours. Subway was calling out to me and why not. It had been a long morning. The treat was justified, Best of all, that is all it was. A treat. A one off. There will be no repeat. I'll be munching on my spinach and cucumber tomorrow. I'll have had my porridge for breakfast. I'll be returning to what has served me so well over the last year. Self control is the single most important factor when it comes to dieting. Right now I have have it, and so long as that remains the case, bad habits won't creep back in.

So here is to an occasional guilt free lunch. You served me well today Subway, bringing me out of a sleep deprived, anxiety filled morning and setting me up for the rest of the day. But having met my needx, you can go back to being dead to me once more. See you again in the future some time.