Contracting in Warrington

I have spent the last few months working in Warrington, and it looks like my contract is going to be extended for quite a bit more. I have had a difficult decision, to carry on working so far from home with one hell of a drive each Monday and Friday, or to hunt for something much more local. The advantage of working where I am is that it is a big customer, guaranteed to pay their bills on time. The only disadvantage is location. That said, quite a number of my colleagues are long distance commuters. One does the journey from London daily. Now the darker, colder (I almost said wetter, but the summer wasn’t great either) weather is here, then getting up on that Monday morning for a four-five hour drive is less and less attractive.

Back to Gym and swimming

Good eating at the B&B has led to a gradual increase in my belt length, and I am starting to see the yo-yo weight loss/gain cycle swing back. So, refusing to give in, I have joined a local gym (in Warrington) and for the last few weeks have managed to get there 4 times per week. A couple of gym sessions and a couple of long swims each week should stave off the creeping waistline. In fact, I have already noticed a small decline.

Cycling at the weekends is on the backburner too, I’m afraid, as Alison has been unable to ride due to her running injury. So, the new cycle roof rack has hardly been used. Oh well, not long till spring.

Drupal odds and sods

I am still enjoying the Drupal CMS, and keep toying with moving this blog back. I have been experimenting with a site with more static pages and less timeline orientated, but still retaining some blog-like features and think that Drupal will give the best of both. I have also managed to do some freelancing on Drupal, so not diluting my skills with yet another system seems a good idea.

iPod Classic

I am saddened to keep hearing rumours that Apple may be dropping the iPod classic as the flash based storage devices have a lot of advantages. I see this, but the 160Gb Classic has enabled me to ditch an external brick I was using for camcorder footage and backups while away from home, so please, please don’t ditch it Apple, until you have at least a couple of hundred gigs of flash on a device.

I am very concious that I haven’t been writing here lately. My career in contracting has dragged me half way up the country to Warrington to work. This involves a five hour drive on Monday morning and again on Friday evening, and staying in a B&B without internet connectivity in between.

This has seriously impacted my non-work personal activities. Monday and Tuesday evening are wiped up by tiredness from the early Monday start and Friday evening by travelling. Wednesday and Thursday are restricted in by lack of connectivity, Saturday and Sunday feel better spent doing things with my family that I haven’t seen all week!

I have a long list of things I want to blog about, and also I have been finding it hard keeping up the physical exercise. I have been managing my 2000 meter swims twice per week, but thats been it.

Hopefully, the routine will settle in soon and I’ll be able to get things back to normal.

Alison did the Race for Life again this weekend. This time, because of all the training with the Colchester Harriers she nervously put on her green vest over her normal running gear. I think she was nervous of looking like something she wasn’t. Hah! Silly girl! She proved she should be wearing a running club vest, by coming 18th out of nearly 2000 people.

WELL DONE!!!

Now, she is pondering doing a 10 mile race this weekend coming. Go for it!

Quite a lot of “experts” seem to say that the only true path to long term weight loss is to change your life style, not to follow a restrictive diet.

Unfortunately, most of the information out there is based around dieting, and the lifestyle advice they give is “simply follow the diet for the rest of your life, and you won’t put the weight back on”. Somewhere, I have an Atkins for life book – no hope!

Of course, being restrictive diets (which most of them are; calorie restrictive, fat restrictive, carbohydrate restrictive) they require a very substantial commitment to become a new lifestyle.

The main difference that Paul McKenna brings to our dining table is that he isn’t giving us a diet to follow, and then suggesting we make that diet our new lifestyle. He is saying “I have observed thin people, and they have a different relationship with their food. I can teach you how to have the same relationship with food”.

In addition, he has noticed that overweight people that have become “serial dieters” create even worse habits – such as allowing themselves to get extremely hungry before eating, and then eating until bloated.

His “four golden rules” are simple techniques which enable us overweight people to emulate thin people in their eating habits – and with a bit of “mind programming” from his CD, it becomes less conscious and more automatic.

I stopped trying to follow his CD 7 months ago, after losing something like 22 lbs in 5 months, I have put back on about 5 lbs. This isn’t great, but nowhere near as bad as the “bounce back” after trying other diets – hey, you can put 5lbs back on in a week when you stop doing Atkins.

So, if you want to lose weight in the long term, change your lifestyle – and you don’t need to become an overnight fitness freak, or persuade yourself that all your favorite foods are evil. You can just start following four simple rules.