We went to the London Eye the other week, and I managed to get a few nice sunny photos during a break in the rain, you can see them on my SmugMug gallery

I was browsing the MacRumors forum and saw a thread for Junes photos, and there was a lovely picture of Westminster. I realised I had a similar picture from my London Eye trip, which I had felt was too poor to publish. But, I applied a similar post-processing treatment that the other guy had done, and voilà...

A little experimentation with the camera

In Wales last week we were walking along near a building, and I saw a black canvas barrier next to a walkway. I thought it’d make a nice screen for a portrait to be set against…

I did it! 200 lengths of Witham’s Brampton Centre swimming pool, or 5000 meters.

We got there about 45 minutes before the start to find a few people milling around uncertainly and after joining them for about 10 minutes I noticed that the pool was being emptied of the regular swimmers and that a table was being set up next to the pool. Down we went.

The organiser at first told me that I was the only mad one doing the 5000m personal swim, but she was wrong! There were three of us – one guy was aiming for 75 minutes and does regular Triathlons, a lady was aiming for 100 minutes, the same as me.

The start was very informal, just a “you can start whenever you’re ready” we were told. It certainly had changed from 6 years ago, there was no timing this time (my last Swimathon resulted in a certificate with the time and distance, not this time). Alison improvised using the stopwatch application on her phone.

We got off to a reasonable pace, and the 100 minute lady and I were swimming at almost exactly the same pace. I found it quite difficult leading, and let her past – she must have found it similarly hard because 10-20 lengths later she would let me past – and so on for the first 100 lengths. At this point I was on schedule for my 100 minute target.

Triathlon guy was indeed considerably faster, and we did our best to let him past each time he came around, but I suspect that we slowed him down a little. Around 100 lengths I started to flag a little and the other lady pulled away, eventually to lap me at around 130 lengths at which point she started to slow too. I went past at 150 lengths and was intending to do a sprint length or two to open up a small gap since I was again finding too much pressure having someone right on my heels.

As I turned after the first sprint length my calf spasmed in agony and I sunk like a stone. I forced myself to the edge and pushed myself up onto the side, rolling my traitorous leg out of the water and stretching like crazy. The Triathlon guy had finished quite some time before, and he came over and advised me on the correct stretches and a couple of minutes later I returned to the water to carry on.

Of course, now I had not only lost a few minutes, but had a very tender leg that was hovering on the verge of cramp – which meant that I couldn’t push off from the side each length and had to be very careful not to kick too hard. So, the last 50 lengths were quite slow – surprisingly I made up a couple of lengths on the other lady but she still came in a couple of lengths before me.

But, I not only succeeded in my 5000 metre swim – but I smashed my previous personal best by over 10 minutes with a final time of 1h48m27s.

I’m going to keep this one quick ;-) As you know, I can’t keep off them scales and have a new “low” of 14st 9.6lb, which is 205.6lb, 93.4 Kg, BMI 32.3 or 15lb to go.

I’m sorry to say I had a massive pizza attack last night, eating half of a Domino’s large meat feast on my own. I didn’t have the more usual (recently) reaction of feeling full straight away – perhaps it was just too temptingly delicous. Any way, I paid for it by feeling really bloated with swollen fingers and generally grotty all evening.

Today my appetite has been non-existant, so I must be becoming acclimatised to eating what I need (in general!). Historically, over-eating has not affected my appetite on the following day.

Here is the latest snapshot, compare to December 2004 owned up to recently and you can see that things are changing already:

I have been naughty and weighing myself every day. I’ve got to stop, but I think I’m needing reassurance that the program is still working. As such, I can report that I am now 14 stone 13.6 lb (209.6 lb, 95.3 Kg, BMI 33.0) and just under 19 lb to go before the first major milestone – that is not being “technically” obese any more.

I feel all self conscious writing this now, since I have discovered that there are at least a couple of people out there that are actually reading this. Hi there!

Below you can see how I was in 1998 after my first successful diet, and how I was just before starting this “program”. I don’t feel that great publishing this latest picture, but when I have lost all the weight again it will feel good comparing them – I hope!

1998

December 2004

I am still following the rules quite well, but have only listened to the CD a couple of times in the past week. I think I ought to try harder as it would be a shame to fall off the wagon. I am starting to think this could be something long running, since I find that following the rules is becoming subconscious, and I am not feeling inconvenienced in any way by doing so. The only time that I “stray” is when I have one of my favorite dishes, and then I want to finish the meal because it is just so enjoyable.

I am feeling lighter on my feet, more comfortable in my clothes, more full of energy and looking forward to the next few months. With most diets I have attempted to follow recently the first few points would apply, but the last one of looking forward to the following few months would probably not. I would be getting bored and frustrated with my food by now, and this is certainly not the case.

Alan and I went swimming again this week and I managed the same distance as last time. Due to overcrowding of the medium speed lane, we moved to the fast lane (which wasn’t that fast) – this was a mistake as I suffered from extreme exhaustion shortly after stopping. I had to lie down on a bench in the changing room while I recovered. I’ll endeavor not to push so hard next week.

Oh, and the chocs are still in the drawer.