Up at 7am, computer on 7.10am. An 'experiment' to be useful straightaway. So if I have 'urgent' emails or PMs I won't know about them till later. Current plan is to do Body Balance which I missed last week. For food the plan is to go easy on the potatos getting more bulk from veggies (focusing on those that will perish) and topping up calories from bread and houmous. Plans can be broken. Indeed it was hard to stick to the no-emails commitment - broke it a little (progress not perfection?). 90 min reading. 30 min emails-and-CPH break (also phoned college and hopefully they'll call me back with info about Nutrition course); 30 min eating, food prep and getting ready.
10.17am: headed for gym (MP3 off). New class co-ordinator Laura had previously said she'll sample the classes once she starts her new role - Evidently today she was in Pump. She stayed for 10 minutes of Balance before making a dash for it, leaving the yoga mat behind. A latecomer at 15 minutes was turned away by Jo so subtly I almost missed it. First time I've done balance in 3 weeks. First time I've seen Marie since mid-March (before they went on holiday). Heading back (MP3 on). Kelly wasn't at her station when I popped in. Brief chat with my neighbour (the only one I know in this building of 25 flats) about police response times. Back 11.53am.
Noon till 1.30pm: half-hour eating and food-prep; 15 minute catch-up call with Nash (finding it tricky to multi-task that with anything else); 40 minutes to write-up Wednesday (this is getting out of hand)
2nd outing 1.30pm-3.10pm featured catch-up with Kelly who had news of Nina's "gym date" and an hour at the pub with Rob with his brother and his friend who remembered me (but I didn't remember him). I found some of the topics a bit superficial and boring or perhaps irrelevant, oh well.
Back home for approx 2 hours. This included a 50 minute call from a self-centred Majhid who rather rudely was trying to intimidate me into calling his new premium-sport-via-internet subscription provider for technical support. Again was rather aware of my inability to effectively multi-task. Another reboot was necessary. The other time just got away from me here and there (including food and 10 minute rest). Mum was briefly over to donate some produce. By 5.15pm, 591 calories and 1,203 grams (49 kcal/100g).
3rd outing - left for gym 5.17pm (mp3 off). Jason also evidently bored with current Step so we did tracks I don't have perfect memory for. Pump with Sandra who told me off for not having my thumbs around the bar (for deadlifts and upright rows). Kelly had a busy day (and a busy evening to look forward to) and was tired - I decided to skip sauna. Sandra warned us she'll be away for a couple of Thursdays. Cycled home (MP3 on). Home by 7.21pm.
For the next hour and 45 minutes, 10 minutes of reading the rest spent eating (including the rest of the fruit I acquired today) and other time-wasting. Lights off and nap at 9.05pm.
Woke up 2 hours later ready to finish the rest of my calorie with calorie-dense options (bread and houmous), again more than an hour squandered before being useful. I keep recording time against checking emails despite generally not opening them (currently 103 outstanding). Another hour of late-night reading. Bedtime at 1.33am. Reading topics: EventWaitHandle, Monitor, ReaderWriterLock, ThreadPool, Mutex, Backgroundworker.
Food: 7.23pm-8.45pm and 11.09-midnight: 1059 calories and 1100 grams (96 kcal/100g). Main 'players' together accounting for 87.9% of calories = 1450: potatos 530 (32.1%) houmous 410 (24.8%) bread 304 (18.4%) satsumas 206 (12.5%)
Up at 7.45am, starting with a 25 min online session. At 8.10am switched the computer off. Morning rituals; assembly of a large salad; and also conducted a 'potato experiment' as detailed below:
The way I prepare and calorie-count potatos, and the significant portion of my calories they make up probably means they are the largest single source of error. So when I say I'm eating 1650 calories per day (as I do at present), I might be eating significantly more. The first possible reason for error is the calorie counting information I chose to use:
- Little Gem Calorie Counter: 100g of 'baked potatos' 77 calories, 2.2g protein, 0.1g fat, 18g carbs
- nutritiondata.com (using USDA database) lists 100g 'Potato, baked, flesh and skin, without salt' as 93 calories, 2.5g protein, 0.1g fat, 21.2g carbs.
If I used USDA figures instead I could be eating +20.8% more than I'm currently recording
Secondly, the extent to which I cook them. Here is a one large potato, cubed, at various time points:
t=00:00 354g 100% raw
t=10:39 230g 65% like boiled potatos
t=15:23 165g 47% already crispy
t=17:45 138g 39% more crispy
t=20:07 111g 31% some cubes mildly burnt
If the calorie counting figures refer to potatos baked at a consistency somewhere between my 2nd and 3rd readings (230g and 165g) then by weighing my potatos when they're crispier and therefore lighter I am potentially giving myself a substantial discount and might need to count 40-50% more calories at the less crispy setting!
A bonus point goes to anyone who can guess the obscure but at the same time 'logical' reason for the weird time-points used in this experiment.
Breakfast was heavy - 983 grams (not including the liquid weight of 2 coffees). Email backlog keeps expanding (105 now). Part of a tooth filling fell out whilst chewing on my large salad. This isn't good news.
Went on physicsdiet.com and looked at my recent weigh-ins. On my birthday (April 30th) I weighed 55.5 kilos, but for every one of the 8 days since I've been a full kilo under that - will it stick despite my 10% increase in calories (now on its 7th day) and the plans for additional increases? For the challenge I think I might report the loss incrementally.
10.15am left for gym (MP3 on) Step started late because of search for missing Microphone (ultimately succesful, it was tucked in behind the stereo) it was actually missing yesterday afternoon too so Jason and Sandra had to shout. Jo has now swapped the 'back end' (tracks 8 onwards) for an older release so we're only doing tracks 4-7 from the current Body Step. Christine left her step high after track 4 and I took that as my 'license' to remain high as well for tracks 5-8. There wasn't so much as a look from Jo, she's learning to accept the things she cannot change :-). During the workout had a missed call from a private number, so annoying (might be College). Cycled back (MP3 off) home by 11.56pm.
12.20pm: 1:20 reading during a 2 hour period then a 1 hour time-wasting break (included eliminating a backlog of 48 blogs and some radio comedy).
3.15pm: 0:25 reading; 0:25 rest; 1:10 reading; 0:30 time-wasting to include going downstairs to wait for mum who was selling on a head of lettuce and some toilet paper; 0:25 reading. By 6.20pm, 1,145 calories and 2,464 grams (47 kcal/100g).
6.13pm got picked up for OA. 7 of us - 6 sharing. We read step 7 and I related to low self-esteem and humility being easy to confuse with each other, also shared about fear and (separately) the unpredictability of weight loss. Then on to AA (35 at the meeting; yes, I counted) where I related to many of the shares. One person asked me if I wasn't speaking to them, nothing of the sort! I walked home, deliberately chosing to have a conversation with myself rather than resort to MP3. Home at 9.12pm. An attempt to leave food until I'm hungry or else bedtime. Read for 20 minutes. Tried to rest but Majhid called. Read for 25 more minutes then a nap at 10.35pm.
Woke up at 1.10am staying up for an hour. Started with food 1.14am-1.30am: 505 calories and 203 grams (249 kcal/100g). A very light-weight (= calorie-dense) no-nonsence mid-night snack to round off my typical eating included 3 slices of bread and some houmous (now close to being out of the latter). Bread pushed protein intake right up.
Also some time-wasting and a final 30 minutes of reading - bringing the total to 4:35 for the day (Subject matter: continued to read the Threading section under ".NET Framework Advanced Development", covering most of it today). 2:12am bedtime.
Got up at 7am; I tried all 5 of my CR2032 batteries and none brought my body-fat scales to life (using the last battery was a struggle in recent weeks as it took an ever increasing elaborate effort to literally kick it into life in the morning). My back-up scale was reporting my body fat as 18.5% and I was having none of that. Breakfast was potatos and more potatos. Also online.
8.23am headed out (MP3 off). First stop hardware stall at market (£1.50 for a CR2032 battery). Gym: shower, sauna, Combat (Dave and Marie made it - their first time with this ageing choreography). Pump (Chrissy floored me with Chest (20kg) and Triceps weights (17.5kg) which I couldn't keep up with). Cycled home (MP3 on) back 11.27am.
11.26-2.15pm: Got my body-fat scale working again (14.5% is a number I can live with); cooked and ate multiple batches of potatos; washed the rest of the sack of muddy potatos and realised I had space for another one; guided Majhid through purchasing 35 Watt speakers for his laptop. Spent some time online and caught up with audio. Did feel a bit swept up.
2.15-3pm: outing: briefly spoke with Nash; munched on salad I took with me; Kelly too busy; market stall out of sacks of potatos; chat with mum (whose self-measured blood pressure is consistently high and her HR climbs up to an unmanageable 189 bpm when walking on the treadmill; she's cutting back on salt but clutching at straws in terms of avoiding medication); Kelly busy again when I returned; briefly yielded to MP3 on walk back home.
Home by 3pm. 0:37 reading. Rest/nap 4.13pm-5.18pm. At 5.33pm a half-hour call from Nash about nothing much apart from observing the recent price increase on TalkTalk bills and the assymetery (I'm tied to TalkTalk for an 18 month contract which means I cannot re-negotiate my deal but they can change the terms - digging into the terms the price increase now means I'm now allowed to leave them yet there's not much choice in the market apparently last week they bought out Tiscali their main competitor in the UK). I decided to make peace with the price rise for my mental health. Yet my resentment about my useful time being stolen by useless phone calls remains festering. 6.01pm back to reading (0:57).
As recently as 6.15pm quite sure I was giving the AA meeting a miss, but ultimately changed my mind, starting to get ready at 6.58pm and out of the door at 7.07pm (MP3 on). By 7pm, 1,140 calories and 1,797 grams (and 63 kcal/100g).
Glad I went. I did listen to the chair and shares but also pre-occupied with my own thoughts. Thought it interesting that I had a resentment against Talk-Talk, an institution, given that my fear of going through program relates to making financial amends to institutions. About my resentment last week relating to the sweets and people who know me not getting my addiction, up till now I couldn't see my part but suddenly it occured to me that when I came to the AA meeting in that 'Jack Daniels' T-shirt I was being just as disrespectful to their problem as people have been to mine. (If I would have shared it might have been to make amends to the group - but I didn't share.) The daily reflection was about fear and I also thought about that fear I have that is currently preventing me from taking positive action steps towards becoming a Body Combat instructor. Reflected on those by talking aloud to myself on the cycle ride home (no MP3), establishing that it is a lot more than just being nervous about 'networking' and not having a go represents the easier path, the path of less resistance. Another thought I had was about whether I could resist following up CPH topics I'm watching or checking new posts for spammers. Of course I'd want to do these things eventually but clearly checking every 4 hours or sooner is a symptom of a problem. Responding ASAP to a PM is one thing, but obsessively being on top of the forum is something else. Perhaps I can try staying away for 24 or 48 hours at a time, just to test the water. I doublt I will initially be succesful. Home by 9pm.
Nina contacted me on facebook because her mobile phone was destroyed and she had no other means of communication. As with Kelly, because I know them from frequent contact with the gym we've been relatively late exhcanging any information about each other (surnames etc.) as compared with other people in my life. The meat of the conversation was to confirm a time for Sunday's run which should be 3pm. I am also to bring back-up food for Jamal's pasta-based dinner.
10.18pm back to reading (0:46) at 11.04pm unable to concentrate fell asleep. Up again at 1.20am, used up the rest of my calories and computer off by 1.29am but took ages to fall back to sleep pre-occupied by my Body Combat issue.
Food 9.07pm-10.51pm and 1.25am-130am: 510 calories and 700 grams (73 kcal/100g). Used salad to bring up protein which was flagging and potatos for calories and amusement (and the last of the homous). The 1.30am snacking was part of a slice of bread and raisins - calculated to quickly use up remaining calories. 3.7lb potatos made up 1288 (78% of total) calories.
Reading topics: finished the last of 'Threading'; and re-started 'Design Guidelines for Developing Class Libraries', covering 'Guidelines for Names', 'Type Design Guidelines' and 'Member Design Guidelines'. Only 2:20 of reading today.
Up at 7.30am. Morning weight peaked at 56.0 kg (123.3lb) though after 4 hours of 'light' (for me) eating it was down to 55.0kg (121.1lb) - not sure what to make of it. Clearly my weight is flactuating I got unusually low readings for a week and now I'm back to higher readings, will the real Slim Shady please stand up. Computer on 7.45.
Something I read about the new TalkTalk tarrif changes (free local calls during the day and free calls to 0870/0845 after 6pm from June) indicated that existing customers won't get them automatically and I didn't trust the flimsy web form I used yesterday to have worked so I tried calling them, customer services at 8am and after a less-than-reassuring call also sales after 9am. I established that 'Essentials' is the same price as the package I was previously on (both are 75p more than what I was paying until a month ago).
Writing this diary does take a while but not a reason for me to stop or significantly change it. It is productive than some of my other time-wasting vices. The online backlog stands at 129 emails and 18 blogs (emails are steadily growing but blogs get ocassionally trimmed down).
At 8.35am spent 10 minutes erasing all traces of user 'vforme' which included deleting 23 spam PMs they directed at other forum members - hopefully I intercepted early enough so that at least some members didn't have to read the advert or click the 'clickbank' affiliate link.
8.44am-12.20pm during this period managed 2:13 of reading. 12.20-1.46pm: with the run planned for 3pm I started preparing 'backup' food to take to tonight's dinner function at Jamal's, ending up with 11 half-full pre-weighed takeaway plastic trays together weighing approximately 750g. During this period I was munching and also allowed in plenty of audio. Stayed another hour at home (managing another 0:24 of reading) before heading out at 2.45pm, snack in hand. By 3pm, 614 calories and 876 grams (70 kcal/100g) - potato dominated.
Run 3pm-4.10pm the 'usual' route to the lakes (felt some mild pain during the run probably starting halfway) with some discussion arising from Nina's new love interest playing a 'hot' and then 'cold' game over a 6-day period; sauna till 4.45pm; shower and changed into smarter clothes then waited for the girls who predictably took longer to get ready - they went for a 'casual' look wheras I found it easier to go for 'smart casual'. We got over to Jamal at 5.30pm so we were half an hour late.
At Jamal's I had some spaghetti but no sauce, lots of his home-made salad (lettuce, tomato, onion and celery), one tortilla chip, both red and white wine and some strong Turkish tea. In all I had just under a third (236ml) of a bottle of wine, amounting to 3 'units' wheras the girls were driving and aimed for staying under the limit - I got a comment about drinking a lot, perhaps because I started by attacking the wine. For food, Jamal cleaned up his plate. I cleaned up mine, served myself 2nd and 3rd helpings of salad and eventually dug a little into my backup food as well. Meanwhile the girls had big eyes when it came to being served but having finished their beef-and-tomato based bolognase sauce they hardly made inroads into the large bed of white-flour sphagetti underneath. Kelly amused me by being direct about her preference for meat. At around 7pm we moved up to the balcony where we drunk the Turkish tea and looked at photographs. We stayed there until around 8.20pm so almost 3 hours. As I left Jamal's and later in the evening my left knee was feeling quite bad, a lot worse than during the run! I got home at 8.45pm.
At home I had the opportunity to assess the damage from eating food that doesn't normally feature in my plan: 5.45pm-6.40pm: 394 calories and 1204 grams (33 kcal/100g) -- 223 (13.5% of daily) calories from the 'rubbish' category: red wine (86), white wine (72) spaghetti (56) coffee (5) tortilla chip (4).
Food at home 8.54pm-11.30pm: 642 calries and 923 grams (70 kcal/100g), calories coming largely from potatos (and goji berries which don't normally feature).
Managed 0:53 reading after 10.30pm, so a total of 3:30 for the day. Topics today included Member Design Guidelines and Designing for Extensibility (under 'Design Guidelines for Developing Class Libraries), Asynchronous Programming Design Patterns, BackgroundWorker Component. My eyes demanded a rest at 11.47pm.
7-day food shopping totals: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0.33 + 0 + 0 = £0.33 (clearly I had enough food in my fridge this week)
Got up at 8.30am. It turns out that the nutrition course is not part-time but an intensive one so less useful in terms of keeping me in counselling or being a social setting but I may still do it for interest if it is ar the right price though it is over a year away so a decision can wait. Yesterday's diary took about an hour. My knee pain is affecting me whether walking to the kitchen or laying in bed.
Started being useful at 9.40, a long 5 hour stretch with roughly an hour of breaks throughout. In addition to reading I also wrote a program (threads with BackgroundWorker) using Visual Studio 2005.
At 2.42pm just as I had turned the computer off and planning to have some quiet time Majhid called for an hour. He said he noticed his router lights flashing and we confirmed his DSL Uptime was only 18 minutes (similar to a problem I had with my broadband a while back). Of course he is nervous about calling technical support and will put it off until it is absolutely necessary. In the meantime he wondered whether his computer was slowed by a virus. Naturally he does not bother updating his virus checker and the version he had installed stopped being supported 11 days ago. A re-boot made his system usable enough to be able to download and install that. As soon as I was done with him, mum returned my call.
Finally back to reading (0:30) at 4.03pm. I then really needed that nap, barely managing to peel myself out of bed after 50 minutes rest. Made myself some potatos which, as per yesterday, took with me and finished at the gym. Was planning to use the MP3 player on the way but instead was talking to Majhid about his laptop's power adapter. By 6pm, 891 calories and 1,499 grams (59 kcal/100g).
Shey starts combat late so despite being late I didn't miss any. She had a full class and I enjoyed myself, only slightly hampered by injury. Kim's Step was a different story - as soon as we started using the step (i.e. track 2) I decided it wasn't for me. Kim wondered why and I pointed at my knee. I was hardly graceful walking down the flight of stairs - limping would be a fair description. Cycled away (MP3 on) home by 7.30pm.
Allowed myself to do whatever (online, radio) started to be useful again at 8.41pm. An hour later started to multi-task reading (and eating) with uninstalling Visual Studio 2005 and related components in anticipation of later installing Visual Studio 2008 and related service packs which I (correctly) anticipated to be rather lengthy tasks. I also anticipate my hard drive to be almost entirely full after the installation. At 0.34am wanted to switch off computer but installation of VS2008 is still proceeding.
Reading topics: Multithreaded Programming with the Event-based Asynchronous Pattern; F# functional programming language; Exceptions; Serialisation; Collections and Data Structures; Class Library Design Guidelines (Designing for Extensibility; Design Guidelines for Exceptions; Usage Guidelines); Visual Studio 2008 ReadMe.
Food 7.49pm-0.16am: 759 calories and 756 grams (100 kcal/100g). Lighter day than usual. Potato dominated (1220 calories = 74%; 1584 grams = 3.5lb). Ate the last of the potatos from the small fridge so switched it off. I still have some potatos in the larger fridge but not many so I'll be very keen to find some in the market tomorrow.
Got up at 7.45am and VS2008 was still stuck partway through installation so had to kill that process and hope for the best. Gut reaction was that knee was feeling better. I tried to 'repair' the installation but the only visible option was to install the not-yet-installed 'SQL Server Express' on the C:\ drive (1.5GB free space) so instead started the process of installing "Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1". At 8.30am I noticed that British Gas, who actually owe me £12, direct-debited me £38. I'm due to leave them tomorrow and as things stand they owe me £50 less 12 days of usage so I called them for clarification. I hope they'll be as prompt at returning my money as they've been at helping themselves to what is not theirs. I guess I shouldn't have paid last month's bill - then we would have been about even. This took me up to after 9am. I needed to leave the computer on to let the Service Pack installation proceed. Fearing the laptop will over-heat I flipped it over.
At Body Pump, Jo was trigger-happy not letting people in if they haven't booked. In fact we had 2 spare bars and people should only be turned away if those who booked turn up to claim their bar. Jo volunteered that she did Combat last night and I asked "Where?". It turns out that she was hiding in the corner in the same room I was at but still poor of me not to have observed! Cycle rides to the gym and then onwards to counselling = no MP3.
At counselling I was talking about fear (context = becoming an instructor and starting relationships) but my counsellor zeroed in on how I use the MP3 player to avoid being in touch with feelings of boredom and loneliness and challenged me to address this more directly in future sessions. Back in town by noon instead of heading home went to the market and bought a sack of potatos, transporting it home. Then took the trolley back to Waitrose and retrieved the bike which was still parked at the market. Home by 1pm. The computer was done installing and required a re-boot. Returned Majhid's call, we stayed on the phone until 2pm, then online time-wasting.
Majhid's computer speakers arrived so I got another call from him. 3.40-4.35pm was a break from the computer. I got about 45 minutes of reading in all for the afternoon, somewhat disappointing (topic = LINQ to SQL: .NET Language-Integrated Query for Relational Data).
AT 5.25 started getting ready. Left shortly after 5.35pm. By 6pm, 648 calories and 1,106 grams (59 kcal/100g) At the gym got onto a computer and continued reading for a short while. Angela found me upstairs and got me to join the crowd downstairs. We didn't go too far. Last night I apparently missed Nina who was at the sauna, she in turn missed her guy (due to an honest miscommunication, it appeared to me). I told Angela about my injury. I took breaks during the hill training at 'Wikid Hill' (a steep one). Nina decided to do body pump so I joined her and Kelly for the first 3 tracks (warm up, squats and chest) before making my escape.
Cycled to AA (MP3 on). Nice to be greeted. Chair was 10 months sober with background in gambling and alcohol. During the meeting so tired I was sure I'd fall asleep as soon as I got home. MP3 off on way home. Got in 9.26pm.
Mum found a ridiculously generous amount of celery for £1 which was waiting for me. Computer was on at 9.43am, initially focusing on MSE (finished that at 10.21pm) then another 45 minutes on time-wasting - a combo of food, radio and eliminating blogs backlog). 15 minutes of reading before a decision to call it a night at 11.24pm. Food 9.30pm-11.23pm: 495 calories and 620 grams (80 kcal/100g), mostly potatos. Evidently I'm playing a game of how few veggies I can eat and still not go under protein target.
Woke up at 2.10am and finished off my calorie allowance. Quickly, no messing around - mostly with 5 slices of bread: 507 calories and 243 grams (209 kcal/100g) - then straight back to sleep. The bread is an 'unexpected' source of protein so I overshot my target by 10g. Of course I know bread has protein, I just wasn't banking on having so many calories left over at this point in the day (night).
Up at 8am. Got the diray out of the way then lingered on CPH. Left for step at 9.18am. Jo asked if there were any injuries - I waved but either did not attract enough attention to myself or Jo decided I'll know what to do as she did not acknowledge. Hannah pointed out a spare step I could use - it was at level 1 and I didn't adjust it upwards. By track 2 I knew I'd be in pain regardless and the sensible thing would be to go home but it isn't just a workout, it is about dancing, choreography and it is a social event, a room full of people, a performance. So I gritted my teeth and stayed. Hannah saw I was struggling and after track 4 suggested I found someone on an old-style step who didn't mind swapping. I did this and was on 'level 0' for tracks 5-10, which was a little less painful. Clearly I need to give up running for a time. I might need to do the other things people are suggesting I do (stretch and ice my knee throughout the day, or go and see the doctor). After running, step is the next most painful thing at the moment, followed at 3rd place by Body Combat. Christine wondered whether I should be revising at the gym, given that my exam is today. Cycled both ways without MP3. Home by 10.48am.
After some 'deliberate' time-wasting I was back to reading 11.54am-4.03pm, today's topic remains the long white paper "LINQ to SQL: .NET Language-Integrated Query for Relational Data". Reading was somewhat on-off (read 17, break 32, read 11, break 15, read 58, break 13, read 4, break 5, read 30, break 21, read 19, break 8, read 16). Total time reading = 2:35. Then started getting ready to leave. Left at 4.25pm. By 4.30pm, 555 calories and 814 grams (68 kcal/100g).
Finally started revising for my exam whilst on the bus to Bletchley. Single fares have gone up (was £1.60 now £1.70). Got there at 5.20pm. Waited for Nina in the carpark. Saw other candidate Dave and his volunteer (girlfriend at a guess). Nina made it at 5.40pm. I showed her around the gym and "pre-warned" her about the way I'd be instructing her during the exam - this was the first time I actually instructed another person in well over a month so it was useful revision for me. We then went to the loo and waited till 6pm. After a pre-amble the exam started. I glossed over a few formalities (forgot to ask about injuries and exercise experience...) and other nerve-induced mistakes included forgetting to mention areas and muscles worked when introducing exercises and in some of my exercises forgetting to show how to deadlift the dumbells off the floor.
Tom (my course tutor, acting as examiner) fast-forwarded progress in places. Mainly this meant cutting out the 25 minute cardio session to 4 minutes. The majority of the exam time was thus spent on the resistance component. Exercises: dumbell lunges, leg press, pec dec machine, upright row (cable), lat pulldown, dumbell lateral raise, lying triceps press, leg extension machine. So basically all of the exercises I planned minus the biceps curls, and the 'leg extension machine' was a surprise exercise inserted to see if I could instruct something I have not practiced (the lateral raise was also a 'surprise' exercise but by coincidence it was in my plan, so it wasn't a surprise to me!).
The main feedback I received was that I could have said more encouraging words whilst my participant was performing the exercise (to fill out those gaps) and that at one point (leaning over to change the pin on the leg press) I was over-familiar which is something to watch out for with a real client. Also 'working on my confidence' was suggested. On the positive side both Tom and his 'boss' Ian (who was monitoring him for the first set of assesments) said my teaching points were spot on, which in my head I saw as the most important part of gym instructing and potentially my weak point (and when I've been revising, my focus has always been on putting those teaching points into my heard). Bottom line was that I passed - I am now a qualified instructor.
At that point it was 7.35pm and I thought we might still be able to catch a good portion of Body Combat or even just go to the sauna but she was under pressure to cut the evening short so she dropped me off at home. On Sunday I suggested she took my 21" TV (I've given up television over 5 years ago) to replace the one her kids blew up but she was quoting her friend who incorrectly advised her my TV "isn't digital" and therefore will not be compatible with Sattelite television (not so - at the time I was a sattelite TV subscriber). She might yet receive my unused TV but not today). Naturally she wondered whether I'll put my new qualification to use - I explained this was never my intention. She drove off and I went indoors - home by 8pm.
After a major row in perhaps August of last year I've given Tracy a wide birth but today took a chance on her and we had a good Instant Messange catch-up. Also took calls from Majhid, Hadar and Nash - the last one as per usual extending beyond the natural course of conversation. Managed 35 minutes of reading before deciding I was tired at 11.15pm. Woke up at 2.30am, finishing my calories by 3am with bedtime at 3.25am. My untouched-emails now number 141.
Food pattern:. 8.10pm-11.10pm: 426 calories and 493 grams (86 kcal/100g). Mostly potatos. 2.35am-3am: 669 calories and 282 grams (237 kcal/100g). Mostly bread. Wow, only 1589g (3.5lb) of food eaten today - you have to go back to April 20th 2008 (more than a year ago) to match such a freak day. Another observation is that the liquid in my 6 coffees weighed more than my food. Vegetables only weighed 200g today. That's too low for me or indeed for anyone!
I was never very good at small talk, always focused too much on getting details correct and getting to the point. Maybe because things like that are usually either right or wrong, no judgement issues.
I think socializing takes practice just like most things, and then practice builds confidence, which is really the main thing. And realize that most people have their own issues to deal with and don't focus on you as much as you might think.
Up at 8am. Started with CPH things (including redirecting 31 subscribers to Molly's old deleted diary to automatically watch her new one - I like to flex my techie muscle). Diary write-up 45 minutes I bet I'm not the only one spending this long diarising. When I was done diaraising I still didn't read - it was eating and radio for a further 40 minutes.
I may be impatient but I'm pretty sure my 'new' microwave oven (the one donated by mum a short while ago when I broke the glass plate on the other one) seems to be less efficient than a short while ago, my potatos take noticeably longer to cook to the same level of crispiness than only a short while ago (for example the times I used in the 'potato experiment' I detailed last week would now no longer be adequate). Perhaps this device is on its last legs!
Headed out 10.10am (MP3 off). Bumped into Sam (she's still about 7-8 months pregnant and still instructing 7 classes per week which is why we no longer see her in our gym as often) I mentioned passing my exam and we got onto my confidence and how important it would be to 'fake it'. She's booked on a Body Pump course for October. Then into the studio - looked like I missed a big 'event', evidently there was cake and dressing up for Louise's birthday, practically all over by the time I arrived. Body Balance was busy so for the first time I had to use 2 regular mats instead of a yoga mat (of which we seem to only have 12 at the moment). The regular mats provide more cushioning which was nice but if you put your feet on different mats you can and will slide apart! Body Balance is a no impact class and I was in no pain. Afterwards a chat with Marie who after moving has to put up a temporary lack of internet and the kind of telephone confrontations with customer service operatives that I have nightmares about. Heading out MP3 on. Kelly to busy to see me. Back home 11.52am.
Finally reading by 12.20pm - 38 minutes on. 20 minutes rest (included a visit from mum - I finally have my cashback cheque for last month's claim). Another 66 mins reading. Another long break at 2.20pm - must have really needed this nap as I woke up 2 hours later! another 20 minutes reading post-nap. By 4.51pm, 497 calories and 831 grams (60 kcal/100g).
Left at 4.51pm. Went over to the shop and caught up with Kelly, then headed over to the gym (MP3 on) forgot that Nina was coming to Body Step so didn't have a Step out for her. I started on one riser but actually tried 2 during the workout and whilst it hurt a little it was nothing compared to Wednesday morning, so I guess rest is going to be key to my recovery. I commit to not running on Sunday! At Body Pump, Sandra was away as expected but the original replacement 'Mandy' was replaced and we had instructor Kelly making another appearance. Nina had an abs class while I read about 'LINQ' on the (very slow) internet terminals for perhaps 20 minutes before we both went for the sauna for an hour. I expained to her how I came to be administrator of CPH and why CPH high ranks on Google (hope I haven't bored her completely). Hot water was broken at the gym and a member of staff in the know suggested if this is still the case tomorrow they might shut the gym at lunch if it happens I hope that's after my Step class is finished! MP3 was on at the sauna whilst waiting for Nina and when cycling home (got in 8.56pm).
Started reading at 10pm. Then I found some videos and decided to watch them instead of reading ( Windows Development for Beginners, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/beginner/bb308806.aspx ). I think this is a good move for me because I've been leaning towards MP3s and other audio (radio) today so rather than expressing my powerlessness over boredom, I get to leverage this and consume some audio training materials instead. These videos aren't very visual so they allow multi-tasking, in my case I was preparing vegetables which will hopefully see me come out of the present very-low-veggie rut I dug myself into this week. I had those videos playing till bedtime which was 1am.
Food notes: 9.03pm-0.30am: 1153 calories and 1079 grams (107 kcal/100g). I continue to get a substantial amount of calories from bread - however remarkable my obsession with potatos, there still seems to be room for bread calories, not something I imagined would be possible on 1650 calories. I continue to be exploring what it is like to eat less than 2 kilos a day (shame it seems to come at the expense of these all important veggies).
Up at 6am (unusually, no mid-sleep interruption!). Continued with videos from 6.35am.
My ability to multi-task the videos with something else ((because I could take them in by listening, without the need to watch) had me being able to do most of my regular time-wasting tasks (checking CPH for spammers, checking for urgent emails, processing blogs). In fact, I visited Lyle McDonald's forums, something I've been holding off on for a month and there were about 80 topics I need to catch up with, quite a sizeable chunk of work. My maling list digests backlog is now over 150. The mailing lists I am not paying attention to but still powerless to unsubscribe from include: 'Eat2Live', 'FatfreeVegan', 'Fasting' and 'Calorie Restriction'. This current avoidance exercise started on April 27th. Other multi-tasking included eating, re-arranging fridge to make room, readying recyclable materials for collection.
After a few hours of listening to videos I felt distinctly over-stiumulated and indeed of a brief rest. Headed out at 10.06am. First stop = drop off paper and cardboard recycling (an excellent example of habit-forming - I used to think recycling was too much bother and now it's effortlessly integrated into my routine), second stop = deposit cashback cheque in bank. third stop = body step (clearly still injured but able to tolerate a high-impact workout, a world of difference from Wednesday morning). Jo has now introduced track 6 from the older Body Step release that was already forming most of the tracks of our workout, and it is very familiar because it is a different mix of the track 2 of the current Body Combat 39, most distracting! My first opportunity to chat with Christine and tell her what my exam was like (her exam is this Wednesday). MP3 on to and from gym.
11.52am brief 'pit stop' at home to drop off bike and bag, head out to buy a 2nd 25 kilo sack of potatos (last one was purchased on Tuesday). When mum became aware she suggested I have a potato problem. My first instinct was to disagree. When fruit is available I usually prioritise it over potatos and indeed I think I act more obsessively around fruit as compared with potatos. Potatos have also had a hand in a subtle lowering of the overall weight of my food, which might cause my stomach to shrink (which would be a good thing). Made it home with the potatos at 12.20pm.
At 2.45pm I was done with the series of videos I started last night so at a bit of a loss - what should I do next. When I read, I tend to 'go around the houses', learning things in detail. That's all very well but the videos tend to cover subject matter more broadly, giving overviews and one could argue they're a more productive use of time. Looked back at my video-watching history, piecing it together from my "stack" of links to re-visit. I was watching WPF videos and then decided to instead seek out Windows Forms videos (an older technology but with more prodcutivity tool support), I then specialised in a subset of videos about forms with database access using DataSets and then started to learn about the new way of accessing data, called LINQ - that's 4 different 'pools' of training videos.
3-5pm watching various videos. At 5pm got out for a chat with Kelly (who was busy lifting very heavy panes of glass!). Back home at 5.30pm and got ready for OA. By 5.50pm, 711 calories and 1,357 grams (52 kcal/100g).
When mum came to collect me she brought over the post, including a super-advanced copy of 'Body Combat 40' (which will not be launched in my gym for a good month). We parked near OA and I had a good chat with her. We numbered 7 at the meeting, including a newbie (who used to have a 'traditional' ED but clearly has moved in the other direction) unusually for a newbie she actually shared (we all got to share, a first for a while). After the meeting I had a 'hanger on' feeling, like an 'outsider'. Especially when a couple of people were talking about TV sitcoms. Later in the evening this will become somewhat ironic. It was just after 8pm by the time I made AA so no time to make myself a drink and no seat. Yet this very busy meeting had plenty of gaps between shares as people were reluctant to take the floor. In one of those gaps I finally shared - about how I've been afraid to share at AA meetings in recent weeks and about being sorry about wearing that Jack Daniels T-shirt to a meeting (a few months back). I was home by 9.10pm.
My brother has been in touch via email, recommending a Channel 4 sitcom called 'Inbetweeners' ( http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-inbetweeners/catch-up ) and my evening featured 2.5 episodes. At around 11pm I turned my attention to Body Combat 40. Last time I started with the DVD and later moved on to the music and choreography notes - this time for a chance I tried doing it the other way around. I only learnt track 1 (1a upper body, 1b lower body). The DVD did clarify some misconceptions so I guess Angela was right when she said the DVD was necessary as learning from notes alone isn't feasible. I rounded off the evening with a little bit of reading as I was feeling a bit over-stimulated.
After a 3.50am toilet break lay in bed failing to fall back to sleep. At 5am gave up on the idea and got up. At 6am spent some time getting Body Combat 40 Track 1 from the CD onto the computer and into my MP3 player. Watched more episodes of the TV program (and ate, and packed food for later in the day). Eventually calmed down and did some reading, too.
Left home at 8am. Though about speaking to Hannah but she wasn't at her gym. Had a quick shower and almost fell asleep at the sauna (lack of sleep already catching up with me). Combat was busy and I enjoyed it. Pump was also busy.
During my cycle ride to Bletchley I kept replaying the Body Combat warm-up track - reciting the choreography. I was in the studio at 12.20pm and practiced. Jo arrived early so I got the chance to instruct a live person. The session consisted lots of revision time for Jo and Christine - in fact they each had an entire mock exam. I was OK for Jo's workout but I pulled something near my left knee at Christine's warm-up and sat half her workout out before feeling brave enough to try again. Left at 4pm and took it easy on the way home. Stopped at poundland but they were out of compressive knee bandages.
Home at 5.30pm and found a 'sleeve' that is probably going to be as good as. Audio at home till 7.20pm included remaining episodes of 'The Inbetweeners' and the Horizon program ("Why Are Thin People Not Fat"). By 7.26pm, 913 calories and 1,548 grams (59 kcal/100g). Read for 10 minutes but then at 7.30pm turned computer off to explore the idea that I was shattred due to lack of sleep last night. Sure enough I quickly fell asleep only waking again at 9.20am (confirming the wisdom of skipping the AA meeting).
Did some reading (about 'standard query operators' for 1:20, then after 11pm shifted attention once more to videos, staying on those for the rest of the evening. Food 9.26pm-1.02am: 737 calories and 539 grams (137 kcal/100g). Bedtime 1.42am.
Took a while to shed those cobwebs, let's say "awake" at 5.55am. Started by watching videos about DLR (dynamic language runtime - a specialist technology for writing your own loosley-typed scripting language with support from the .NET framework). At 8.47am a welcome break when a re-boot was required.
9.05-2.11 most of these 5 hours spent revisiting my book "Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform, Forth Edition". I originally read 4 chapters (140 pages) of this book over a few weeks - the idea was that being a book it would be easy not to get side-tracked, which is exactly what seems to be happening to me. As this is material I've covered before this served as a re-cap and I did it mostly as audio (which of course meant multi-tasking it - for example with veg prep).
A break from 2.11pm was followed by a 2-hour nap - woke up at 4.30pm and got ready for the gym (watching Track 2 of combat in the background). By 5pm, 790 calories and 1,352 grams (58 kcal/100g).
At 5pm left for the gym (MP3 on), set up my step and then met Kelly before her run. She gave me an 'elasticated tubular bandage' which I swapped over for what I was wearing (a tight 'aquasleeve' left over from the catheter leg-bag days). At step Jason acknowledged that I was 'gracing the class with my presence'. I found the class bareable. Maybe in more pain than Thursday and Friday, but not as bad as Wednesday's Step, and I didn't have any sharp-pain episode like yesterday. I decided one 45 minute class was enough and didn't stay for Pump (I worked out yesterday and will do it again on Tuesday - I shall get my 3 resistance workouts in!) instead - and unusually for a qualified gym instructor - I made a rare trip into the actual gym (shock, horror) where I performed a 3-set pyramid of dumbell chest press - 14kg, 16kg and 18kg - managing 9 reps on the 3rd set - I arrived at the poolside complex at 6.45pm, 10 minutes before Kelly and Nina who in addition to the usual lakes also extended the run to include a bit of the Willen neighbourhood. I think Nina is easily turned off people if recent events are representative. I think I was a bit less chatty than usual. We called it a day at 7.50pm. MP3 on, home at 8.16pm.
Today I was actuely aware that (once more) I am shoving a lot in my mouth - in the evening made a concious effort to only put one potato cube in my mouth at a time!
Mum got silly amounts of romaine lettuce for £1 and gave me half as a present (6 large heads!) so I found those when I got home. Earlier in the day I had an excuse to multi-task useful audio with time-wasting activities (online and food) and this left me with a sense of entitlement to the latter. I initially tried to achieve the same, with two materials (a video about Windows Presentation Foundation; and Chapter 5 of my book) but both proved too demanding of my attention. So what did I do? for two hours from 8.45pm, I gave up and time-wasted (cooking potatos, catching up with CPH and blogs etc.)
I did eventually turn this around, 10.45pm-0.35am was focused on the afformationed tasks. In fact I impressed myself by going from page 140 to 197 in one evening, time-wasting and all. With the first 140 pages the information was fresh to me, but having spent a lot of time reading MSDN topics I found the current chapters to represent a useful re-cap with few surprises.
I use a 4-year-old ancient mobile phone to manage my appointments. A peek at tomorrow revealed a forgotten and almost-missed Hematology appointment for tomorrow morning. Forgotten because it was set a year ago - an annual checkup. I do hope the hospital remember that it is on or it will be a wasted journey.
Food 8.25pm-midnight: 860 calories and 837 grams (103 kcal/100g). A few more veggies than recent days. I always have something designated as "fast food", a way of using up the rest of my calories when I no longer wish to elongate the eating experience (for example by eating potatos which are time-consuming to prepare). Fruit usually gets priority when in stock. Recently I systematically went through a large amount of frozen houmous and then through several loaves of bread - I think my last loaf will last me through Monday and maybe Tuesday and I wonder what I'll move on to next. Peanuts? Muesli? Pop-corn? Perhaps I'll surprise myself and invest in fruit. Bedtime was 0.35am.
Thamks to both. Oh my it looks like I didn't post Monday's diary yet and it is already Wednesday afternoon.
Monday 18-5-09
Woke up at 3.25am and by 3.40am realised I wasn't falling asleep so got up. Running my hand over the left knee I do notice it is subtly hotter than the right knee, I guess a sign of swelling or inflammation. Later in the day I would periodically be in knee pain, not as a result of doing anything - for example just laying in bed. Perhaps it is getting so bad that I'll see a doctor about it, or abstain from all forms of exercise?
3.40am reading for about an hour; 5am diarising
At 5.40am started to plot a plan to 'renew' my 4.5-year-old, 38GB-hard-drive computer by essentially re-building its hard drive 'from scratch'. Planning is very important. My ACER's recovery process wipes the C drive but preserves the D drive:
- what personal files and settings do I wish to rescue from the C drive?
- What can I delete from the D drive and what can I archive to my usually-disconnected external drive?
- What applications do I currently have installed and which ones do I actually use? (do I have a CD or install location for everything I'll need?)
- My computer will be unusuable for an unquantifiable length of time - probably days so it is essential I also port the calorie-counting program that I have come to rely upon into this 'other excuse for a computer' which I've probably not turned on for a year. When I asked Nash for what ended up being a 'switch' I had already sketched the need to connect the 2 computers in case rebuilding my laptop became necessary.
Planning included downloading the latest version of NaturalReader. The downside is that there's no keyboard option for pausing text-to-speech the way it was previously possibe. On the upside the speed control is now more refined so I can have the text spoken quickly without artificially speeding up the audio (in Media Player or the MP3 player). Downsides include more keystrokes or mouse-clicks per MP3 file generated, and the hotkey interface for having things read out aloud has been profoundly broken. Which version I'll end up using is therefore debateable.
At 9.35am headed out to hospital for the hematology appointment. I had my blood test almost straightaway. Unusually it hurt for quite a bit afterwards. The wait for the test results was about an hour - during this time I practiced tracks 1 and 2 in the waiting room. A woman who was reading asked me turn the volume down (there's a big difference in volume between text to speech and music and I wasn't aware). I remember previous ocassions in the same waiting room when I've come complete with kilos of veggies and I do much less of that in general (now only if I'm away from home for the whole day). And practicing was a positive use of time - progress.
My bloodcount is now 14, more 'normal' than it has been before and the hematologist will sign me off if this is still the case in a year's time. After saying goodbye I sheepishly returned to ask my forgotten Vitamin D questions and he agreed that as a vegan supplementation isn't a bad idea.
As I was 'in the neighborhood' I scouted the location of tomorrow afternoon's appointment. At the bank withdrew £30 in coins (the majority of my cash expenditure is coins; I currently give £2 at OA, £1 at small AA meetings and 50p at large ones). Also a brief chat with Kelly who unfortunately let Angela know that I've already got my hands on Body Combat 40. Angela grumbled about June 21st being a key date - she won't be happy with me. Back home at 12.06pm.
Arranged a dentist checkup in 3 weeks. Had the radio on. At 1.30pm switched my ancient 'backup' computer on, eventually tweaking the FireWalls so they'll see each other. Got my food app working on the backup computer. Located the applications I'll need to install. At 4.20pm took a call from my new doctor - he said the hematologist (from this morning's appointment) called him about elevated pottasium blood levels, we scheduled a repeat blood test. Finally at 4.55pm I was as ready as I could be to wipe my C drive and breath new life into my laptop. I got as far as restoring the computer to factory settings and it was time for Combat. By 5.51pm, 691 calories and 1204 grams (57 kcal/100g).
5.55pm left for Combat; Got there just in time (because the class was running late). We had to skip track 6 to make time. The class was so busy Shey didn't have a mat for conditioning or stretches. Someone I know had mentioned they narrowly failed a vocational exam. Home at 7.21pm - cycled with MP3 on and at home plugged it directly to speakers.
My knee pain (just lying in my bed) is now quite bad. Perhaps soon I'll be desperate enough to see a doctor, or actually avoid exercise in general and not just running.
Wasted an hour trying to move Program Files and Documents and Settings from C: to D: by hacking the registry - including time to reverse the changes when I realised it wasn't going to work. The only change I ended up making was to help additional apps installed from this point onwards to default into D:Program Files. By 10.46pm the priority #1 task, to restore my food application back to the laptop was complete. I continued installing applications and performing Windows Updates until bedtime which was 2.16am.
Food 8.26pm-1.11am: 959 calories and 747 calories (128 kcal/100g).
Up by 6.15am. Reorganised my bag letting go of a few things I don't need to carry with me everywhere (e.g. Angela's precise movements on marathon day; a birthday card) a step towards eventually letting go of the clutter altogether at a future point. Computer on 6.30am. Continued trying to make the computer work and installing applications. After installing Yahoo Messanger was able to chat with my sister.
It was getting late - left at 9.17am (MP3 on) Got to the class with 3 or 4 minutes to spare so it was lucky that Kelly and Marie had set me up already. Decided to increase calories from today to 1700. Rushed off to college (MP3 on for over half the journey then turned it off for the last bit, to calm myself down) and printed a snapshot of my life (Google Reader, Yahoo Mail, weight and calorie graphs, this page of my diary, how many calories and grams I've eaten in recent days and the food detail for yesterday) this took longer than expected so was 5 minutes late for counselling, a session which calmed we down as was nervous about seeing the psychologist for the first time. There is something to be said for the trust relationship you can build with a counsellor over what has now been a period of over 2.5 years. Headed over to the facility where I was seen (MP3 off - my head already buzzing I didn't need any extra stimulation) I was busily catching up with food I packed and re-reading what was said about me at my first encounter 5 months ago.
The focus was to figure out what I want to change. I did make some progress on time-wasting in the last 5 months so maybe it will be about fear change and control. Though perhaps I oversold my success with time-wasting. Kept toggling MP3 player on and off during the ride home, story of my life. Home at 2.15pm. (Next week's appointment is a 3.7 mile bike ride (each way) or a £3 bus day ticket if the wheather is awful or my injury is playing up.)
2.15pm had internet connection problems (eventually resolved by a reboot and reset of the modem). Caught up with CPH and personal mail. Researched high potassium levels: it could be my low sodium intake - or my food (my multivitamin has 40mg, but 100g of baked potatos are 535mg - and I eat multiple of that 100g. Finally it could be some level of kidney failure. (or perhaps a combination of all 3). Some beans and green vegetables (e.g. spinach, chard) are also high. (At 358mg per 100g, bananas which are everyone's go-to fruit for potassium, have less; when looking at potassium-per-equicalorie serving the green vegetables win the potassium race by a mile). Also chatted to sis, ate potatos, continued installing things and updated this diary. Overall it felt as though I wasted the afternoon so I wasn't pleased.
6.36pm spent 15 minutes starting to process Chapter 7 of the book before deciding I needed a nap. At 7.28 somehow tore myself away from bed. By 7.40pm, 898 calories and 1,212 grams (74 kcal/100g). Left for AA. A bit tearful and shaken up. A 'substitute' chair and secretary nevertheless profound. Did my best to be in the moment by not using the player. Home at 9.21pm.
Unsubscribed from most of my remaining email lists (exception made for a couple of low-traffic OA lists) and marked emails as read, thus email backlog down from 177 to None. 9.56 look over Google Reader (69 items) but could only find one blog I felt comfortable unsubscribing from. Radio was on from 10.18pm. Also caught up with MSE - done by 11.18pm. After investing calories in a variety of whole-grain options I discovered another loaf of bread hiding in the freezer and so finished with that. A small amount of reading and my eyes were shutting by 0.25am.
Food 9.22pm-0.05am: 802 calories and 453 grams (177 kcal/100g). Very light dinner and day overall.
Got up 7.45. Received rescheduled date for a general medical examination at Aylesbury for 2 weeks from today - reviewing my diary for medical, dental and psychological appointments there are a total of 6 appointments in the first 8 days of June! Curiously gym booking system wasn't showing Saturday's classes had to book via phone. Further online hicups make me wonder about problems with browser page cacheing. Various technical changes - everything seems ok at 8.45am. Drawn into CPH left for gym 9.18am late!
Then discovered I had a 'fast puncture' on the back wheel. I inflated the tyre but it was flat before I got to the gym (roughly 8 minute journey). Step was less busy. Hannah set me up on a 'lid' but there were no raisers so I swapped it for a new-style step. Kept it at level 1 for all tracks except peak track 4 where I raised it to level 2. Asked mum to stock up on Inner Tubes if she goes anywhere that sells them. Home by 10.50am.
Located my spare inner tube, wrench and levers. By noon I had finished the job, including tidying everything away. Computer on. Noticed that Internet Explorer 8.0 breaks some of WowBB's features, especially the javascript editor buttons that bring up little forms for adding links and images, though I could still do it long-hand using square tag syntax []. I timed the process of cooking a large 490g potato (20 + 8 + 2 + 1.5 = 31.5 minutes) which in the process reduced to 100g (and no, it wasn't burnt at this point - rather, just the way I like it). 1.15pm radio on; blogs; 1.25pm looking at laptops on Tesco Direct website at Phil's suggestion - there's a 3GB/250GB/2.1GHz machine ( http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-3481.aspx ) for £380. More hard drive space would be nice and 50% more RAM is apparently essential for Vista - but there's the rub, I'm not sure if I'm ready for Vista. Just fear in another disguise, I guess.
At 2.32pm left for would have been a 'potato run' if not for the fact Wednesday is not an outdoor-market day. Instead queued at the bank for a transaction. Would have chatted with Kelly but she was busy with a collegue. Going to the market, the bank, the department store and back home I jogged part of the way (which I rarely do). Home by 3pm.
Watched a few more minutes of the WPF video, let the computer read out some of the chapter about Exceptions (and looked at some code examples), had a 20 minute rest. Predictably also time-wasted, audio making its first appearance at this point in the afternoon. I also watched Combat Track 3 a couple of times. By 5.42pm, 706 calories and 738 grams (96 kcal/100g) - calorie density higher than usual for the daytime on account of the bread.
Left for Combat around 6.50pm (no MP3). Neither Nina nor Kelly made the class. At 7.50pm as we were starting track 8 I made a run for it, only slightly late for the AA meeting (phoned Kelly to catch up whilst cycling). Got my coffee at the break after the 45-minute chair - and was the first person to share (about 6 different things in the chair's story that I identified with). Home by 9.40pm.
10.06pm-10.17pm reading; 10.17pm-10.53pm Nash called, unable to read but did some much-needed vegetable chopping instead; 11pm-11.32pm online, initially multi-tasking with 'good' audio about garbage collecting, later swapping this over for radio comedy; back to reading for a bit; midnight-1.25am nap; 1.25am got up, finished my calories, then stayed up for another half-hour reading. Now up to page 311 in C# book. Bedtime 2.34am.
Food 9.50pm-11.52pm and 1.24am-1.55am: 994 calories and 1171 grams (85 kcal/100g). Now out of bread again. Became a little more 'efficient' with potato cubes today by daring to leave a large quantity of potatos cooking unobserved for 20 minutes at a time.
Up at 8am after 2 mid-sleep interruptions. Online till 8.45am. Then called mum till 9.20am. Some reading - and skipped the Balance class. 11.30am nap for an hour. Reading for 15 minutes.
Majhid called at 12.45pm - he was planning to disable features of his firewall which might apparently speed up his computer or his connection to the internet which I didn't think was that brilliant an idea (what with him not actually knowing the purpose and funtion of a FireWall) I mentioned the overhall that my machine had undergone and he was considering the same. At 1pm I switched him to the mobile phone continuing to talk to him while going on a potato run (till the point I had to pick the 25kg sack with both hands).
Back at home and after putting the potatos away, back to computer at 1.35pm. At 2pm headed out to meet Rob and his brother Tim at the pub (on the way there noticed rigging for what is apparently a large short-distance cycling competition later this evening which was blocking roads and affecting bus services). Chatted about various topics for example the variability of prices of the same product in different towns when purchased in the same supermarket chain, and how my town Milton Keynes apparently has the 4th worst unemployment in the UK. Tim's lunchour was over and after he was off I signalled unwillingness to let things drag on - made it back by 3.20pm.
For an hour I multi-tasked listening to C#-related materials whilst doing my online time-wasting. Then about half an hour 'pure' time-wasting. By 4.50pm, 772 calories and 979 grams (79 kcal/100g).
Left at 5pm. Asked Hannah about Combat - she said no - oh well. Step with Jason (who didn't have a go at me when i pre-cued a couple of moves); Pump covered Mandy (who apparently taught here 4 years ago - before my time) - she was confident. 3 spare bars so an almost full class. Nina and Kelly both had better things to do, I guess I might make the sauna on Sunday. MP3 on; home at 7.25pm.
7.45pm useful 8.45pm-9.45pm off-course 10.10pm-10.25pm computer off 11.30pm-1.25am nap 1.25am-1.55am food. Thought about bed but instead re-started on reading 2.13-3.22am, getting up to page 474 (advancing 163 pages in one day - surprised myself). 3.22am bedtime.
Food 7.31pm-10.54pm: 639 calories and 780 grams (82 kcal/100g): mostly potatos. 1.31am-1.47am: 289 calories and 79 grams (366 kcal/100g) featuring chocolate-oatmeal-cookie-dough (165) and popcorn (120 calories).
I received a letter about installation of sockets to receive digital TV. After over 5 years of not using a television set I'm pretty sure it will be a bad move to start again so I certainly don't need them. If they came and installed them in the corner (where apparently they want to) it will cause some inconvenience. Installation of the sockets is free, but only if they're installed in July. I have to pay about £260 for the facility over the next 5 years whether I use it or not. I can pretty much guarantee that so long as I live here I will not need these services the way an ex-alcoholic does not need a good deal on booze. I called to confirm some details - there will be an extra charge if I change my mind and need them to come and install (or more likely, an extra charge for the person who lives in this flat after me, just in case I ever move into a better place, or don't live forever). It means I can't offer television services to any guests or to anyone that chose to live with me here. Doing nothing is the option that makes sense to me, though. I hope I have not misunderstood.
8.24am: Doing larger batches of potatos in the microwave is more energy efficient than smaller batches. If the batch is twice as heavy, the microwave time increases but does not double. Yet these batches now take over 30 minutes. Have I missed a trick? Would a normal oven (after all, they're called 'baked potatos') be more appropriate for the job? If the cooking time is less affected by the cooking quantity then it stands to reason there will be a quantity beyond with it is more energy and/or time-efficient to use the oven. Actually I didn't get as far as the oven, instead chosing to experiment with the Grill on the same device. I picked too high a setting (6 and 5 are both too high) burning the tops of my potato cubes whilst leaving them practically uncooked. I had to deal with the smoke alarm as well. 'snoozing' didn't work for long - I had to unscrew it from the ceiling and find a different spot for it for a time - and eventually 'finished off' those potatos in the trusty microwave. Later in the day I yahoo-messaged my sister who reported using the microwave for a variable length of time (depending on quantity) before crisping the potatos 5 minutes each side in a low to moderate grill (not high!)
Also in the morning, surcumbed to watching the next episode of 'the inbetweeners' TV program. At 10am mum arrived with spinach (and a postal ballot for June's election). I left for Body Step around 10.20am (which wasn't well-attended) getting back 11.50am to find mum delivered extra produce (kiwi, melon, cucumber). More fruit means fewer potatos. By 12.30pm I was done with yet another online-catchup (=time-wasting) session. 1-1.35pm an outing to catch up with Kelly and hear an interesting update about Nina. 2-3pm nap. 3.17pm onwards reading (and chatting to sis). By 5.40pm, 672 calories and 1,823 grams (37 kcal/100g).
Mum picked me up at 5.40pm, washing in her machine, at OA by 6pm. Extra large meeting of 13 including one person returning after about 2.5-3 years absence (before my time), a newbie, last week's newbie returning, and another new to us who has been going to meetings in London. I shared about potassium and the psychologist. A bit late for the AA meeting anyhow felt as though I'd spent enough time in AA meetings recently. I can always make up for it tomorrow or Sunday should I chose to. Home at 8.05pm (skipping AA meeting).
8.17pm-11.03pm: 1028 calories and 1808 grams (57 kcal/100g). At 3631 grams today was heavier than yesterday. Could this be because I ate 1643 grams of fruit? I decided that from tomorrow I will count potatos using the USDA figures (21% more calories, so I guess 21% less potato). I got about an hour's reading in the evening before 11.30pm bedtime (to page 533).
My first mid-sleep interruption was 2.12am. On what would have been my second interruption at 4.25am I decided it wasn't safe to risk going back to bed as my presence in Bletchley was essential. At 4.40am turned on the computer.
Mum and Iain both had things to say about the laptop. Mum pointed out that it looks as though it was on sale and the price is due to go back up in 2 weeks. Iain pointed out that the processor was not as good as I understood it to be - it turns out that with 2 different laptops by the same make at the same price I got my wires crossed. One laptop has the good processor but a small screen and less memory, the other laptop has the extra memory and normal screen. This makes it less of a deal so I'll wait. Iain suggested I could look at a replacement hard drive as a stop-gap measure. Indeed it appears that for £40 you can get a 160GB 2.5" IDE drive (£66 for 250GB), that is if I dare physically install it and then follow-up with re-installing everything (and this time the Recovery CDs might not work so it might be somewhat more complicated). More emails to Iain in the late evening about this. GParted is a CD-bootable partition utility. A large hard-drive might best be partitioned into 128GB segments. There's something called a 'caddy' etc.
Yesterday iPlayer instructed me to install RealPlayer and then spectactularly failed to work. Today I uninstalled and re-installed and still nothing. After some more Googling it turns out to be an Internet Explorer 8 issue (this browser has been nothing but pain ever since I migrated, espcially with Calories Per Hour) which was resolved by a hard-core tweak to the registry settings relating to the RealPlayer browser add-in. I wish I could say I was productive for the 3.5 hours till 8am, I'd be lying if I did.
At 8am headed out to Bletchley, MP3 on. Stopped off at ASDA to purchase 2 x inner tube spares. Arrived at courtside around 8.45am. People began to arrive. Jo had 2 volunteers (veterans of the same Personal Training course she passed last year), Christine brought along a friend. Sam from the daytime course (who has passed ETM since we last saw him) came along to make up numbers. Jo went first followed by Christine. They only made minor mistakes - for example Jo kept us holding a pre-stretch (normally 8-10 seconds) for over a minute as she thought the assesor spotted something wrong and was waiting for her to observe it. I felt my knee hurting (especially moves like grapevine and hamstring curls) so just toned it down so I could survive both of their exams. When I was chatting to Jo's female volunteer she said she works at one gym but works out at Virgin and have I ever been there (er yes, that's my gym and I go there every day... though I guess she wouldn't know if she's not into studio classes!). It was suggested we could disperse but we all stayed till 11am to find out that both candidates passed. Christine was beaming with smiles. This is the kind of exam that can change lives. It was sunny outside. I didn't put my long trunks on so had not pockets and couldn't use the MP3 player which is just as well. Home by 11.50am.
At 12.30pm unpacked bag, discovered my phone (forgot it 'on silent', return Matthew's call). Got ready to leave. By 12.45pm, 509 calories and 1,327 grams (38 kcal/100g). At 12.52pm headed out to Slug'n'Lettuce (MP3 on) to meet Rob and Matthew. After one 'round' left said pub and walked to Whetherspoon's via pharmacy (Matthew got Ibuprofen) got there 2.20pm and stayed there till almost 7pm. They went on to The Barn whilst after 6 hours (and 4 black coffees) I was nevertheless spent. Conversation was interesting in parts. I left for home (MP3 off) chosing to skip AA given how tired I felt. Home at 7.10pm.
Only turned computer on at 8.27pm - until that point I was preparing vegetables in silence. Around 9.30pm was listening (to chapter 13, 14 and part of 15) and was online too - also editing future chapter text to generate future audio. However did not actually advance the more intensive task of actually reading said book.
Food - by 11.48pm had eaten 1035 calories and 2712 grams: 7.11pm-11.48pm: 526 calories and 1385 grams (38 kcal/100g) - veggies and potatos.'only' 575 grams of potatos for the day. First day using the higher (USDA) calorie numbers for potatos and concious effort to not burn them.
Final food - by 0.34am, 1,700 calories and 3031 grams: 11.52pm-0.34am: 665 calories and 319 grams (208 kcal/100g) - cinnamon oatmeal cookie dough, pop-corn and red kidney beans. I did consider leaving those 'last few calories' to a mid-sleep snack but thought better of it. Computer off at 0.50am, bedtime was 1.15am.
Up at 7.35am. Soon enough it was 9am and main accomplishment was creating a complete laptop-powered 'computer workstation' by recruiting the 17" screen I picked up a few weeks ago (though never even tested to see if it functioned). Then online-catchup till 10.20am. Listened to audio from C# book.
11.30am-2.30pm: more energy on upgrade-laptop-hard-drive, including turning computer off and failing to get the current hard drive out (to look at it), popping out to visit a shop and a market stall to get quotes for hard drives and for just installing a hard drive (if I buy one online and need assistance), downloaded 'gparted-live-0.4.5-2.iso', burnt to a CD, booted and played with this Linux-based utility. Also spoke to Nash that made the compelling point that I should probably hold off spending £66 for this upgrade until it becomes necessary. It is cost, time and inconvenience.
3-4.15pm nap. Then mum came over with rhubarb, jerusalem artichokes, a bike tyre and wet washing to hang to dry. By 4.55pm, 751 calories and 1600 grams (47 kcal/100g).
5.05pm left for the gym, briefly spoke to Kelly before her run - she was exhausted (having spent most of the day selling unwanted items at a car boot sale). I attended Step and Pump where Jason was acting a bit like a diva. Classes were at half of capacity and the room was too hot. Skipped the stretch to join Nina and Kelly for Jacussi and Sauna. Around 8pm met up with people at the beer garden of a nearby pub - 5 to begin with, already too many for me. I have a resentment relating to Chantel who did not add me to her FaceBook and this already impacted the way I've dreaded adding other people since. She had a go at me for 'needing to put meat on my bones' being slightly overweight perhaps she is threatened by my normal (BMI approx 20.5) appearance. I wasn't getting much from the social setting and left after a little more than an hour - home by 9.25pm.
Food 9.45pm-1am: 949 calories and 1300 grams (73 kcal/100g) - rhubarb, potatos, peanuts and sunflower seeds. Finally did some reading (to page 630). Computer off 1.31am.
Up at 7am. At least a couple of useful hours. 10.30am-noon: caught up with Jon from my old gym - he has now left it for another gym. Usually I'm the one calling so it was good to have this reversed. Noon: TalkTalk operative called to tell me there was something wrong - the change of tarrif I requested in May did not go through so local calls I thought were free would in fact be charged for though With any luck I'll be processed in early June. 12.15pm another hour of reading.
1.20pm rest 2-5pm long nap. By 5.40pm, 941 calories and 1,432 grams (66 kcal/100g). Headed out to the gym (MP3 on but it was a C# chapter, ha ha) for a sparse (9 of us) bank holiday Monday Combat class covered by Cassi. I like the way she squeezes in teaching points that others miss out. Afterwards we had a chat on instructing, in the past she has mentored new instructors allowing them to shadow her we also talked about being careful with people's egos. Home by 7.40pm.
A couple of hours reading then another nap 10.07-11.50. Woke up to eat the remaining 503 calories. Food 8pm-9.23pm and 11.54pm-0.15am: 759 calories and 765 grams (99 kcal/100g). Potatos today amounted to exactly one kilo. End-of-day calorie dense foods notably included Muesli and salted peanuts. I'm done with the last of the kiwi fruit. After one final hour of reading was on page 722. Computer off at 1.35am but unable to fall asleep for at least 30 minutes.
Up at 7.30am decided to stay up for fear I'll otherwise miss Pump. Catch-up for 20 minutes then reading. At 9.10am left (MP3 on = C# book). A busy class. A new person (might just be a one-time guest) was smiling throughout, reminded me of my early days at this gym (February 2007) delighted to be back in the studio after a 4-month absence from classes and was smiling (and unable to figure out why everyone else wasn't...). Carol made a rare appearance - ditto Marie. Jo thinks she saw Shey (who is apparently also an actress) in a clip of a film shown on television, an interesting twist. (no MP3 on way home) back at 10.50am.
Reading from 11.15am. Nap 12.11-12.42pm. Left at 2.27pm (MP3 on) cycling to Wolverton (first time - arrived 25 minute early). Wasn't sure what to do with myself in the waiting room. The one-hour session with the psychologist was over in no time. There had been a basic misunderstanding I thought these were initial sessions before a longer pattern but apparently not (and I'm a sceptic as far as what can be achieved in a further 1 or 2 hours). Anyhow I have some 'homework' to jot doubt notes about emotions, thoughts and reflections about situations as they arise. Next appointment in a fortnight. Cycled home no MP3. Also briefly stopped over to see Kelly. Home by 5.30pm.
Reading 6-6.20pm and 6.42-7.14pm; quick nap to 7.30pm. By 7.35pm, 1,021 calories and 1,376 grams (74 kcal/100g). Left 7.40pm (MP3 on = book) for my first AA meeting since last Wednesday. Already heard their first chair - this was their 3rd. One person collecting her 3 month chip I must have seen her not long after she walked into the rooms. Home (no MP3) by 9.23pm.
Reading 9.55-10.50 (including MSE for 20 minutes). Nap 10.50-0.40am (er, 3rd one today?) food for close to an hour and some time 'online'. Last mini-stretch of reading till bedtime 2.11-2.25 finishing on page 793.
Food 9.31pm-10.18pm and 0.41am-1.32am: 679 calories and 686 grams (99 kcal/100g). Had popcorn twic today. If I used my nuts, raisins and popcorn calories towards potatos I could have had an additional 550 grams (on top of the 967g I did have).
Up at 7am and straight into an hour of time-wasting. At 8.05 started watching combat dvd (so far have got as far as track 5 for viewing, track 3 for practicing). At 9.17am (I'm getting later and later) left for Step (unlike last Wednesday did it at my normal step height. It hurt but not as much as it did 2 weeks ago which was my worst pain to date). At one point Jo cued using '4 3 2 1' for a joke directed at Christine (who passed her ETM exam on Saturday). On my way home Kelly updated me about Nina (If I make arrangements with people I tend to double-check the details which may seem 'anal' but at least I don't have to be disappointed. It must be a personality trait!) I used the MP3 player in both directions. Home at 11.05am.
Useful for a brief while 11.40-noon. At noon parents arrived with a shipment of catheters and some allotment vegetables marking the start of a lengthy time-wasting session. For the first half-hour or so audio was C#-related but afterwards a free-for-all, during this time dealt with produce new and old, somewhat hard to justify the length. Useful for another 20 minutes then a half-hour nap to recover. 4-5.20 useful.
At 5.20pm text from Kirsten to suggest I should go ahead and buy my train ticket in advance (hospital visit in 2.5 weeks). This is the first time I'm travelling to London since early March and I got stuck figuring things out. It appears there had been a 30% price hike in the cost of a return ticket to London, making it now the same price as the more expensive option that includes unlimited local travel. This somewhat threw me. Not that I have a choice of course I'll just have to pay the extra from this point onwards. Apparently we have 'deflation' yet all the prices I pay are going up, don't make me laugh. Done booking my ticket by 6.30pm.
From 6.40pm was re-watching the combat DVD. By 6.55pm, 994 calories and 1,647 grams (60 kcal/100g). Left at 6.56pm (late!!) yet somehow was still on time for Angela's "7pm" Combat class which was rather popular (about 35 of us including Kelly, Nina and instructor Jo). Afterwards a brief chat to Angela about my injury (and the ETM course). Sauna and Jaccussi. MP3 even in the changing rooms. Home at 9.23pm.
I noticed a bug in the new version of NaturalReader: when converting a mixture of large and small text files to MP3, sometimes small text files generate huge MP3 files (e.g. 30MB instead of 3MB) which start with the audio of the small file in question with the rest of the MP3 being the audio of the previously-converted large file. This meant that by listening to a relatively short portion I would be able to delete a large file and reclaim the disk space and this certainly appealed.
I multi-tasked this with food (for once maximising my potato intake instead of resorting to nuts or grain for the 'final stretch') and also with copying the rest of the chapters in my PDF book to individual text files and then starting to edit them (to remove code samples and tables which I don't wish to be read-out-aloud). This meant that today was not centered on actual reading - finished the day on page 810. 0.40am bedtime.
Food 9.23pm-0.23am: 706 calories and 915 grams (77 kcal/100g). High potato day 1335 calories (78.5% of total) on a low fat (4.5%) day which at 803 grams of veggies was higher in veggies than recent days (high by weight, not by calories).
Up at 8.15am. By 8.52am done writing up diary in silence. By 10am done with online catch-up (with radio on). Spoke with mum and got ready. 10.25-10.53am a 'potato run' - I looked for cauliflower leaves as per mum's suggestion but didn't find any. There were two palletes of potato sacks one almost full the other half gone I was served from the latter which I guess were older, certainly found a few erm blemishes. More notably unlike the last few batches these potatos have dirt on them and need washing.
Got useful at 11am with the book. 1.07-2.21 was a de-tour to learn about "Application Settings" infrastructure from the MSDN - this demonstrated my eagerness to bury myself in irrelevant detail, something I must guard against (ha ha I'm doing it right now, detailed review of the day!). Got back to the book. 3.50-4.10 rest - almost a nap. At 4.45pm had a 'side by side' potato and popcorn calorie-for-calorie comparison and now that I'm "charging" myself more for potatos (not over-cooking them = well at least not deliberately; and using 93 rather than 77 kcal/100g for my calculations) it is pretty clear that popcorn is coming out as the clear favourite! Mum showed up with a small quantity of leaves she managed to 'score' at the market. By 4.55pm, 702 calories and 797 grams (88 kcal/100g).
Left for the gym at 5.05pm (MP3 on playing chapter 23 of the C# book). The gym has swapped over the male and female changing rooms so that their male maintenance staff can have extended access to the female changing rooms = they have no urinals (obviously), more mirror-and-hairdrier stations, a 'privacy' changing room and more space. (I asked Nina for her impression of the male changing rooms and she also spotted the ways in which the grass is greener...). Jason's mum saw my bandage and showed me the 'patella brace' she was wearing for her knee problems. Got a step out for Nina; Jason was playing his music on the stereo to check for levels and based on this I worked out the need to rotate the steps. Kelly arrived for Pump. We were expecting Sandra to be back after a 2-week abscence but got Mandy from last week as cover. She seemed more relaxed and at home, as was I (she was less of a mystery, and my friends were by my side) so I did some counting-out-loud and cueing etc. Whilst waiting for Nina to finish her half-hour Abs class I listened to the MP3 chapter in the sauna. Nina went to do Abs while I went straight ahead to the Sauna (listened to MP3 chapter some more). I saw Laura the class co-ordinator (the 'next step' is supposed to be for me to ask her to write me a 'letter of affiliation' so I can do a body combat course) I "chickened out", a mixture of fear of confrontation/rejection and fear of the mamoth task that a 'yes' would represent. About an hour with Nina in sauna and jacussi - home by 9pm.
Evening audio memorably featured 'the fit cast' and 'collins and herring' podcasts both of which I've been putting off due to their length. Otherwise the evening was about the food but I did do a tiny bit of reading as well, ending on page 872 by bedtime which was midnight.
Food 9.14-11.35pm: 998 calories and 1046 grams (95 kcal/100g). Could have had more potatos and less popcorn/peanuts/raisins, but felt time spent eating was already excessive as it is. One tin of red kidney beans makes reaching my protein target fairly effortless.
Awake at 4am and failing to fall back to sleep was finally up at 5am - batch-washing the rest of the potatos in the sack I purchased yesterday so I won't have to wash them later and identifying which ones require more 'urgent' attention - managed to do all of this in silence.
At 5.45am computer on (with audio). By 6.30am done diarising and online-catch up. After a short break a long session 6.36-9.10 of text editing (of future chapters of the C# book) concurrent with general audio time-wasting, notably those 2.5 hours went "just like that" audio is a dangerous foe. Online catchup and a half-hour break from the computer to recover and re-centre. Then 15 minutes of alleged actual reading.
Left at 10.18am listening to MP3 (chapter 24) - sunny weather perhaps contributed to low turnout just 12 made Body Step. Silence on way back - home at 11.45am and settled into reading by 12.10pm. I found today's material, chapter 25 about WCF = windows communication foundation (distributed computing) particularly hard-going (taking some of it as audio and needing to go over certain sections twice), requiring a long nap 1.22-3.37pm (something I'll find it difficult to arrange in an office environment). More reading followed.
At 5.10pm mum showed up with some 'heat rub cream' for my knee and assorted produce (to include satsumas - I've been fruit-deprived) so I stopped reading and started working on those projects (with audio). At 5.50pm mum returned - with some pears from the market (most calories from this point in the day would come from pears instead of potatos!). By 5.55pm, 1,163 calories and 1,434 grams (81 kcal/100g).
We left at 6pm so I was the first to arrive at OA and did most of the room set-up. There were 10 of us (8 sharing) and I enjoyed post-meeting chat. Got a lift back into town only a minute late to my follow-on AA meeting which was also great. Walked home in silence, home at 9.11pm. General time-wasting for an hour then 13 minutes of reading before I decided I was tired. Food 9.10pm-9.57pm: 373 calories and 837 grams (45 kcal/100g) - pears and potato.
After napping 10.19-11.47pm, got up to finish the 163 calories I provisionally left myself for veggies. I did have some veggies but most calories were (surprise, surprise) from pears. 11.47pm-0.05am: 164 calories and 511 grams (32 kcal/100g). A sizeable chunk of reading 0.15am-1.09am managing to survive until I finished that horrid chapter (now on page 915) and off to bed.
Up 7am, on computer from 7.12am. applied 'heat rub' and workout felt less of a strain presumably not just a coincidence. Time-wasted to 8am, diarised till 8.20am. Left for gym at 8.25am. Washed my hair for the first time in 2 weeks. Chrissy ("strong girl") was virtually unrecognisable _to_me_ for a time simply because she has swapped over from blonde to brown = I'm always caught off-guard by how bad I am at recognising faces! Marie thinks I ought to be eating around 2000 calories, I explained I'll probably get there but will do so rather gradually. Only 23 made combat - perhaps due to the sunny weather. Chrissy had beaten me chest and also the french presses at the end of the triceps track. Home by 11.35am. MP3 both ways (chapter 24).
Listened to the end of chapter 25. Then something random caused me to review a year's worth of files (about 130) in the My Documents folder, a personal history lesson. Then looked back over my diary to see when I started my study task and found "I read the introduction to the PDF book about C# my sister emailed me." in the entry for Friday, May 20th 2009 - so that's over 3 months.
At 1.13pm had a break from the computer leading to a short nap. 1.50-2.35pm was an outing to take advantage of the sunny weather, catching Kelly for the last 10 minutes of her break and then listening to the player (finishing chapter 24 and then listening to non-productive audio). At home decided to catch up with Lyle's forum (for the next 2 hours to 4.33pm), increasing backlog from this particular source from 146MB to 300MB.
At 4.50pm mum arrived with produce - fresh cauliflower leaves and allotment jerusalem artichokes. I needed to dispose of all the old leaves in the fridge which were in a dire state, the jerusalem artichokes needed brushing mud away and sorting into soft vs hard and this took plenty of time (multi-tasked with Lyle forum audio).
My copy of Windows Search was broken so I downloaded and re-installed it. By 7pm, 1,071 calories and 2,326 grams (46 kcal/100g). I prioritised pears over potatos to the natural conclusion of eating the remaining 1.35kg (~3lb) that were purchased yesterday.
At 7.10pm left for AA (MP3 on) getting there moments before the meeting. The chair was unusually short - shares were good. Mine was the last share = about still having to keep up with things or feeling left out. Cycled (MP3 on) getting home at 9.02pm.
A potato experiment showed my current baking technique reduces weight to 41% of raw (after 10 minutes for 200g raw). Spent some time moving certain MP3 files away from the main directory to subdirectories where I might perhaps forget about them or at least de-prioritise them compared with some others. Today was more audio-dominated than the recent past. Finally did a bit of reading as well, on "WorkFlow Foundation" a subject that still seems obscure to me. Page 936. Bedtime 0.15am.
Food 9.12-11.23pm: 629 calories and 1194 grams (53 kcal/100g). At 3520g, the heaviest of the last 8 days (thanks to 1783g from fruit). Primary calorie contributions from starchy veg 45.8% and fruit 34.7%, together 80.5% of calories. Protein from red kidney beans, veggies and some lamb.
Speaking of potatoes, are you going to tell us the "obscure but at the same time 'logical' reason" for the times on the first potato experiment? I give up.
t=00:00 354g 100% raw
t=10:39 230g 65% like boiled potatos
t=15:23 165g 47% already crispy
t=17:45 138g 39% more crispy
t=20:07 111g 31% some cubes mildly burnt
good, if you look at the time increments, they are:
10:39 = 9:99
15:23-10L39 = 4:44
17:45-15:23 = 2:22
20:07-17:45 = 2:22
One of my previous microwaves had a '00' button so you could easily enter a whole number of minutes. This one doesn't so the quickest way to specify a time period is to dial the same digit 3 times and press the start button. Hence the unfeasible '9:99' which is 9 minutes and 99 seconds, or 10 minutes and 39 seconds
That's funny, because I came so close to saying there must be something wrong with some buttons on your microwave, but I thought you wouldn't appreciate it. I caught the 4:44, 2:22, 2:22 pattern but the 10:39 had me stumped. Tricky. Now I must say you caused me to do some "time-wasting."
At 9.40pm computer off and back to sleep till 12.25pm (missing the possible AA outing to Bletchley). Made a note about two American phrases that really grate with me recently, one is starting a sentence with "As well," instead of "also," - the other is using "much different" instead of "rather different". (I haven't polled any brits to see if they have a similar reaction to me.)
At 12.50pm finally turned my attention to that 'workflow' study material. 2.06-2.27pm was a short outing to soak up some sun. At 3.20pm my parents dropped off some chard and lots of jerusalem artichokes. 3.35-5.15pm was a long call from Nash, a verbal version of his diary for the week, if you will. At 3.50pm (15 minutes into the conversation) realised I could multi-task by processing some of the produce. By 4.30pm, 877 calories and 1,892 grams (46 kcal/100g).
Left home at 5.10pm (whilst still on phone with Nash). Did Jason's (poorly attended) step class but decided not to stay for pump and have more relaxation time instead. I'm wondering whether my injury is finally beginning to heal. Had a quick swim and then on to the jacussi and sauna - initially on my own and then joined by Nina and Kelly when they were done with their run. We heard that a memberl's teenage daughter (suspected anorexic) is still losing weight. MP3 on, home by 8.10pm.
First 'generally online', later moved to Use iPlayer to watch the BBC weight-loss program which several people have mentioned whilst cleaning, stripping, sorting and storing the large quantity of jerusalem artichokes - done by 10.20pm. After 11pm a bit more 'workflow' reading - to the end of the chapter. Page 959 by 0.45am.
Food 8.54-0.20am: 823 calories and 951 grams (87 kcal/100g). Respectable amount of non-starchy veggies. Potatos accounted for 41% (by weight) and 64% (by calories) of daily totals.
Up at 8.10am. From 8.25am listened to 'workflow' audio. 9.12-9.28 a short 'failed' outing (the free body-fat analysis at Boots was a short term promotion related to Alli being newly available in the UK without prescription) - although Holland and Barretts currently have a 'sale' on fish oil capsules these are still cheaper at 'zipvit' so I'll wait till mine all run out and if they've not been cheaper in the meantime I'll buy them online.
10.40-11.20am - outing to attend repeat blood test for potassium levels. Nurse Betty already knew that this was a test for potassium and did not allow me to add on a vitamin D test - obviously the systems at this practice are less lax than at my previous one and come next March I might even have to fight for my annual fasted blood cholesterol test. Cycled home shirtless to get some benefit from the sunny day. MP3 player 'on' both ways.
From 11.45am was reading about "Windows Forms". Out of fresh fruit but still in the mood for some so opened one tin each of sliced peaches and pineapple cubes. Perhaps I will be replacing this ageing laptop sooner than I think - it turned itself off again (overheating?) at 2pm and that's despite my attempt to maximise ventilation by reting it upside-down so the vents almost all of which are on the underside get maximum exposure to colder air. At 3pm met mum downstairs and received some allotment rhubarb.
My battle with audio is two-fold. The primary issue is addiction to it as a means of numbing my feelings, of creating a safe environment where I am stimulated to the point of being content or in reality being divorced and subdued from reality the way someone else gets when taking some other drug of choice - it shares other characteristics with addiction such as being unable to give up after 'just one', remorse and regret. Time away from audio is time when I am myself, I am fully concious able to think and feel and life is not 'speeded-up' and wasted-away. However there is a secondary force that pulls me towards audio - a decision about what is important enough for me to include in my life. Once I commit to following certain content, I will put it on a (virtual) pile of things to do later and subsequently get anxious if that pile is always growing i.e. I'm unable to keep up with my commitment. There is an on-going process of reviewing what it is that I should keep up with. To give an example, I am currently not making any effort to keep up with the "My Diaries" section of CPH. If I discovered I only had 3 months to live I would not spend that time catching up with the diaries. Indeed I should probably use this criteria more often to determine what deserves my attention. Wheras not long ago I was fighting my instinct to drown myself in audio I now find myself squeezing it into every 'dead moment' in order to be a more efficient consumer. When I am dominated by the secondary concern of not keeping up with my commitments I still consider the possibility it is 'my disease' (the primary issue) talking to me. Isn't "information overload" a term for this situation where we're all exposed to more information than we could possibly use and we need to be selective about it?
3.16-4.46pm more "Windows Forms" - got up to page 986. Then a half-hour nap. After 5.20pm got a call from my Doctor - potassium levels (4.3 in March, 5.0 a couple of weeks ago) were 6.0 this morning. I did not mention my embarassingly high potato intake to him. He arranged for someone in 'general medicine' to see me at outpatients tomorrow afternoon. That's a VERY quick referral!
By 5.45pm, 809 calories and 1,540 grams (53 kcal/100g). Left at 5.45pm. A well-attended body combat with Shey - she mixed up the tracks said she was already in posession of DVD and learnt some of the new release but didn't yet have a CD - she'll do new stuff next week so if I'm hoping to learn it before everyone else I had better do so soon. Spotting my knee bandage she asked me about the injury before the class.
On Easter Monday 7 weeks ago (April 13th) I was mesmorised by "a pink-top girl who I've not seen before who 'knew what she was doing' in terms of combat moves." well she was back on another visit (pink top and all) and again attracted my attention with her dance moves and her tendency to pre-cue (something I've written about at length, how some instructors approve of it and others don't!). She had let on she's been doing combat for a while. From her enthusiasm I have to wonder whether her regular club is teaming with combat enthusiasts to a greater extent than ours because surely one would feel self-concious about being such a performer unless one was surrounded with people of like mind. I'm not saying this girl is otherwise unattractive but I do seem to value confidence and knowing-what-you-are-doing in the female of the species, there is definitely an observable pattern here.
After the class Shey asked me whether I had done anything about becoming an instructor yet which gave me a chance to ask her for help - and she said yes! Now it all rests upon what Laura the GC (group class co-ordinator) will say once I muster up the strength to ask her for the necessary letter. In a rather different conversation (still in the gym) a female acquaintance suggested I was gay no thanks! ("maybe you're bisexual?"). On my way out had a rare conversation with Jenny (who was with me in my previous gym, used to be into combat but is now more into running) and then returned my sister's call and had a chat. Home by 7.50pm.
At home looked up potasium some more, apparently a DRI of 4700mg has been established for adults 19+ in 2004 and this has been championed by the dairy industry given that dairy products are some reasonable sources of the mineral. High potassium can lead to 'tingling' and this is something I've experienced but I've put it down to my limb (always my right hand) 'going to sleep' given that I lean on it whilst using the laptop and lying in bed on my right side. More serious issues are heart murmors and heart attacks! A diet with less than 2000mg of potassium is considered a low potassium diet, one with 2000-4000mg is considered a high potassium diet (this was from a website geared towards helping people with impaired kidney function). One suggestion was to keep fruits and vegetables to no more than 5 servings where one serving was defined as 80g (i.e. 400g for all fruits and vegetables).
I was kind-of hoping to do learn body combat but the evening was squandered mostly with eating and food prep (and catching up with audio) so no such luck. Certainly there was no reading either. 1am bedtime.
Food 7.50pm-midnight: 891 calories and 1019 grams (87 kcal/100g). Potatos, popcorn, oats, muesli, peanuts, rhubarb and veggies. Altogether 'only' 602g of potatos today. Grains made up 30.9% of calories. If I have to give up potatos I'd like to do so after finishing the 50 kilos or so I have in the fridge and for a time I'll be using jerusalem artichokes by way of replacement.
Computer on 4.17am (having been up from 4am and too hyper to sleep due to recent developments relating to body combat). After some general catch-up was useful for a time during the 5-7am period, finished the 'Windows Forms' chapter and started on 'Windows Presentation Foundation' (getting up to page 1005) though I recognise I was partly throwing myself into this task to avoid learning body combat choreography simply because that is now the priority and I'm great at distracting myself from whatever needs doing. Naturally breakfast included potatos because I was aware they might be taken away from me later in the day and was already rebelling against that.
7.05-8.45am did actually watch the combat DVD. The idea was to watch the tracks I have not watched before so I'd have a clue about them if I had time to kill in a situation where I had access to my player and notes, though got distracting watching and re-watching tracks 4 and 5 which I've watched before, for example understanding how the Kata moves fit with the music. Later in the day I would misunderstand the way track 5 is written up in the notes entirely my fault so watching the DVD is important will have to do more of it at some point.
Left early for the gym as hoped to catch Laura the GC. Reception told me she was expected at 10am so went ahead and set-up for Pump. Met Marie who referring to the "sweets incident" (see write-up for Sunday May 3rd shortly after my birthday) wanted to make up for it by providing an alternative present - so I got a bunch of raw nuts and seeds, very much a perfect fit for me and and an indulgance I was unlikely to provide for myself, including raw pistachio nuts and pine nuts two favourites! I practiced combat track 4 for about 5 minutes before the busy class started. Found it difficult to be 'present' in the class due to my 'washing-machine brain' occupied with thinking about the impending conversation with Laura. Instead of doing Abs I went out looking for Laura but she still wasn't in (I was given bogus information earlier). Afterwards headed to counselling - took advantage of the rare sunny weather by cycling topless.
At counselling I used pen and paper to try to guide me into covering all the topics I wanted to mention. I have too many things to simultaneously be stressed about. Counsellor agreed with me that it appears I'm being short-changed by the psychologist. Afterwards at the computer room in preparation for the afternoon's potassium-related hospital appointment printed a document about the (high) DRI for potassium, one with lists of low-potassium foods and 10 days of food diary detail - I also took an earlier Combat-related document and edited it to summarise what I wanted to say to Laura.
Left college at 1pm, headed back to gym. Whilst cycling contacted FitPro and unexpectedly combat courses of interest are fully booked but put my name on "standby" for the June course and if not available then the one in August. This isn't a big deal but if I had known about this I could have put my name down beforehand so a bit of a shame (live and learn). The gym's office is a secure area but someone was just coming out and was able to attract Laura's attention, had the much anticipated conversation. I explained what I hoped would happen. She said she'll speak with her collegues (she didn't deliver an 'outright no'). It was very much a relief to have finally done it. Clearly my destiny is in the hands of others but logically I should not have feared this encounter, after all the worst that can happen is that I am refused the opportunity to become an instructor and that is no worse than not asking.
Got home at 1.42pm for what seemed like a "pit stop". I was at home for exactly one hour barely finding enough time to have a snack and chat to mum. Together we came up with a list of things I must not forget to bring up at my appointment and then I was off, a little too late for comfort. At 3pm just before my appointment took a call from Nina who heard I intended to run. I might have thought that earlier but it didn't seem very likely but I didn't want to let her down. I explained about being in hospital (which would have been news to her). Saw the doctor whose attitude drove home the seriousness of the situation. I've been given the wrong figures - 2 weeks ago potassium was 6.0 and yesterday it climbed to 6.5 (the reference range goes up to 4.4) he would order an urgent repeat blood test, I would wait in hospital for the result, and if it has gone any higher I would be admitted in for urgent treatment! Having described my bladder-enlargement operation he came up with a novel theory - potassium might be excreted by kidneys to urine but then the piece of small intestine which now lines up part of my bladder might in fact be reabsorbing it into the body. This might not be actually happening but well done to him for coming up with it. They weighed me at 59kg which normally I'd consider an insult and insist on taking my shoes off and so forth but I didn't really care. Whilst waiting for the results I caught up with Kelly (who had been alerted to developments by Nina). The result eventually came through as 5.5 with the suggestion that delays processing blood samples in non-urgent scenarios might tint the results. We agreed I would stay away from potatos and on Monday morning (in 6 days time) come back to hospital for another 'marked-urgent' test to monitor my potassium level. I called Nina and Kelly to update them. At this point in addition to being unsure if my knee would appreciate a run I was also exhausted (only 3 hours sleep at night) and decided not to run. By the time I got home I had been away for 3 hours.
Earlier during the long wait in hospital it was decided by mum and myself (after having her look tomatos up on nutritiondata.com) that I should not 'go halves' with her on a large box. Now at home I discovered the extent of my headache, pretty much everything I eat is high in potassium, fruits vegetables beans nuts and seeds, it is everywhere, a mine-field. Grain is pretty much the only place to go. I was playing with nutritiondata's Nutrient Search Tool looking for low-potassium foods in various categories, nothing helpful came up. There are two ways of looking at potassium content - per weight and per calorie. Looking at things per weight brings home the point that it will be difficult to 'eat heavy' on a low potassium diet - there will be a restriction on just how much my food will weigh, the per-calorie numbers will help me see what foods could potentially make up the majority of my calories.
The original plan was to catch up on rest so I'd be good to consume the AA meeting but obviously that didn't happen. Nevertheless decided to go. By 7.45pm, 1,034 calories and 1,008 grams (103 kcal/100g). Again left late (a recurring theme). The chair was a person who after years in the program, gradually left it. He didn't drink but he realised he was on dodgy grounds and recently made a come-back. With the day I've been having I would have loved to share but the meeting was just too busy with "non-stop" shares, all I have are the few words I jotted down into my phone as the meeting was progressing "vomiting washing-machine-brain having-no-defence a-disease-that-can-kill poor-me worry-or-pray god's-will". Initially I could barely hear snippets of the chair as my mind was racing a mile a minute (the afformentioned washing-machine-brain at play here) but the meeting had the desired calming effect on me and well worth attending.
I decided to extend my home-grown computer system to track potassium. In order to add a field to the MySQL table I would want to install a GUI tool (so I don't have to author an ALTER TABLE statement by hand) yet once installed the tool ('MySQL Query Browser') repeatedly crashed the server demon whilst attempting to access metadata in the 'mysql' database (probably the 'proc' table which contained the inaccessible stored procedures). Having installed MySql 5.1, I then imported into it a wholesale dump of MySql 5.0 - this was bad news because the structure of the internal tables in the special 'mysql' database have subtly changed from version 5.0 to version 5.1. This happened 2 weeks ago (why did I have to upgrade from 5.0 to 5.1 and cause myself this headache?). After carefully backing up the current mess of affairs I restored back to a freshly-installed 5.1 server and then very carefully selected what would and wouldn't be restored into it. Luckly I still had the source code for the stored procedures as well. It was somewhat nerve-wrecking to at different times not have a working version of MySql Server, never mind the calorie-counting application that I rely upon. At 1am I was able to celebrate a stable point with the application working again.
Not all rosy though - not sure what caused it (probably recent changes I've made to the database) but editing a row in the food table causes it to go funny (show up as #DELETED) until I refresh the table. This is a pain so I've looked into it a little but ultimately nothing I do is fixing it and this is a potential minefield which could take days to fix. There is a simple work-around to refresh the table so I'll need to learn to live with this bug.
Food in small amounts: 9.30pm, 10.28, 11.30, 1.07am, 1.53-2.12: 666 calories and 240 grams (278 kcal/100g). Today was lighter than any other in ages, clearly due to (finally) stressing over the potassium content in foods available to me. When I was eating I noticed the beginning of tooth pain on the left side of my mouth. Bedtime was 2.45am.
Up at 6.30am (after less than 4 hours sleep) - I'm building myself an unsustainable sleep debt. Despite yesterday's observation that time spent resolving the Microsoft Access '#Deleted' rows issue is time wasted I had another go, updating to the latest ODBC MySql driver and associated reading and messing around attempting to install MDAC (XP SP3 says MDAC is not relevant to it), and Jet 4.0 (am on latest release) giving up around 7.30am. Some internet-based time-wasting but also various tasks just so I can shrink my to-do list. After yesterday's super-low food day had an atypically low weigh-in 3lb lighter (If I became one of those people who never eat vegetables I could be that weight every day, arguably then it would be my actual weight, not an attractive proposition though). Started writing up yesterday's diary, still not finished by 9.10 when I headed out.
MP3 on = memorising a combat track. Before class, updated Marie on potassium issue. Step was busy with a person turned away for lack for step (what a difference compared with last Friday). Felt I had tons of energy for the workout and my injury only bothering me a little bit. More instructor-related chat with Marie then left (MP3 = blogs) home by 10.49am. Decided to risk it on with a small potato.
11.17am-12.51pm: not sure how long I've had a serious issue with the internet, yesterday I was downloading large files with ease yet today everything was intolerably slow and the internet cutting out every 5 minutes. Also noticed that my SNR (signal to noise ratio) setting that was previously set to 12 when I had similar problems in December was now showing 6. The internet was so slow that the speed test wouldn't run. I had three conversations with technical support, three of them lengthy. At one point I swapped microfilters and disconnected the cordless phone. If the problems recur over the next couple of days I have direct access to their 'hotline'.
Made some use of the restored connection for catch-up before updating this diary too. At 2pm called Phil at work for a chat. By 2.40pm had looked up potassium levels for every food I've had in the last 24 hours. Around 2.40pm looked up potassium in everything I've had over the last 24 hours. Attention then turned to making changes to my calorie-counting applicaiton. Dug around - at 5pm found my now long-forgotten web-based food listing interface which (after some program modifications) allows me to create queries that list foods by potassium content, for example:
What can I eat that is lower in potassium per unit weight, so I can fill up my stomach? (certain specific fruit and veg) http://www.tinyurl.com/potassium100g
Whatcan I eat that is lower in potassium per calorie, so I can reach my calorie target without overdose? (grain, nuts/seeds, selected fruit) http://www.tinyurl.com/potassium100kcal
By6.55pm, 785 calories and 645 grams (122 kcal/100g). Left at 6.55 but somehow wasn't late for combat. Had lots of energy for a busy combat class. Afterwards Angela talked about upcoming races and her competitive streak. Sauna very brief less than 30 minutes. An ex gym member with an girlfriend from the US is being systematically isolated from former friends who suspect she'll have him relocate with her. On way home called mum back and spoke about potassium and vegetables and plans for tomorrow. Home by 9.05pm.
The demands of the low-potassium lifestyle I am adopting, at the very least for this one week are most reminiscent of late 2008 when I was persuing the holy grail of an uninterrupted night's sleep by forcing dinner to be no more than 350-400 grams. At the same time, whilst at the one extreme 1700 calories of pasta is a low 527mg, if I want to eat any bulky things with my calories I have to account for every 100g, with rhubarb at 96mg near the bottom and potato at 535mg near the top. This indirect emphasis on a low-in-weight diet is in turn reminiscent of my time with Atkins where I still had to be accountable for those green veggies.
My post-gym session was less about potassium and more about getting packed and organised for tomorrow's trip to Aylesbury. I had a pile of paperwork and I needed it sorted logically so I'd be able to quickly extract a relevant document in a hurry. To begin with I was distracted by the computer. Nash called at 10.24pm and this was my cue to focus on the paperwork. Continued chatting with him till midnight. Computer was off at 0.40am.
Food 9.14pm-0.35am: 915 calories and 283 grams (323 kcal/100g). A higher fat (31.6%) lower carb (52.9%) due to more nuts and seeds.
Day spent on more urgent tasks: potassium project and tomorrow's trip. Combat choreography and C# reading did not get a look-in.
Got up at 5am, noticably anxious. With computer off got dressed and packed, focus on food preparation to eat for breakfast and to pack to take with me. When all done (6.30am) went on computer with last minute nerves about exactly which local buses I'll need in Aylesbury and how to catch them. Left home at 7.05am but the 7.20am bus never came (several of us at the bus stop waiting for it). Around 7.45am I called the medical centre and was advised if I arrived 10 minutes late they cannot guarantee fitting me in. Felt agreived as I was already being asked to allow plenty of time (7.05am departure for a 9.50am appointment is 2 hours 45 minutes). Tried contacting the call-centre but they only open at 8am. Walked back home.
At 8am called centre. Was offered an 11.30am appointment but the busy staff would not allow me any time to check whether public transportation will get me there on time so forced to accept an appointment for a different day. Initially felt relief at the delay but afterwards decided I'd rather get this event over with. Confirmed online that there is an 8.45am departure which will likely get me there, called call centre again to re-arrange and headed out for 2nd time at 8.20am. This time the bus did come. The driver told me where to wait for the next bus. The next driver (upon being shown a map) was helpful in showing me where to get off. The map helped to locate the centre. I had arrived at 9.59am. This was ironic because had I still had the 9.50am appointment arrangement I would have been seen promptly. In a word, public transportation and rigid appointment times don't make happy bedfellows.
As it was I had to wait 1.5 hours for my official appointment and as they were running late themselves I was in fact only seen by noon - during this time I drunk water from the fountain, visited the toilet, caught up with my eating, tried to pick up combat track 6 (which I've never seen on DVD) simply by reading notes first in silence then whilst listening to music. I also refreshed my memory of what I wrote down on my medical form as this was filled in some time ago - in January.
The appointment lasted about 30 minutes. The doctor was a black lady but not the same one as last year. I showed various appointment letters from the last few months and mentioned physical and other issues. The appointment and the build-up to it had been very stressful for me and I guess the doctor had been reasonably sympathetic to this. After a further toilet visit at 12.30pm I left the centre. Got to Aylesbury bust station at 1.15pm and waited half an hour for the next departure. Initially hoped to still make my fortnightly pub outing with Rob but tiredness descended on me. Indeed I got concerned about falling asleep and missing the bus. I made home at 2.50pm.
The sensible thing would have been to go to bed but I'm not sensible. In the morning I depleted the last of my wholewheat pasta (a low potassium food) and my next unlikely target was some white long-grain rice, another food I am unlikely to deliberately eat on any other day given its low satiety-per-calorie experience. My rice experiment showed it expanding from dried to cooked by a factor of 3.4 (in contrast with the packaging which suggested a modest factor of 2.3). I discovered that it wasn't possible to add new foods to the food table. This was because when recently editing the structure of the MySql table my finger slipped and I made the automatic time-stamp field part of the primary key. When I undid that accidental change not only did it solve this problem but also the one of updated rows appearing as '#Deleted' which I wrote about a couple of days ago. I discovered my mistake rather unglamourasly by doing a character-by-character comparison of the CREATE TABLE statement from a fresh dump of the database compared to the backup from 2 days earlier. Solving the mystery was a relief.
At 4pm mum showed up with lots of produce. I guess she thinks that I am well supplied with other things I'll be leaving potatos well alone. The connection or logic is less obvious in my mind. I lay down briefly and almost missed the workout but mum showed up again at 5pm and our chat woke me up. By 5pm, 1,092 calories and 1,124 grams (97 kcal/100g).
At the gym I set up a couple of steps and bars. Immediately before the step class had a conversation with someone who discovered the diary and was unhappy with how they were written up. A threat of sorts was also made - something about college. Most readers of this diary have not met me in real life (and the minority who have already know me quite well) yet regarding a person who only knows me a little - well if they find this diary it gives them quite an insight and at that moment I felt somewhat violated even though it is quite possible I had previously mentioned the diary to them and simply forgotten. After finishing with the front-end Jason forgot to ask us to take our steps down. I was oblivous as I was pre-occupied with the previous matter, "a million miles away" (he made a joke about it).
Sandra announced that after 7 or 8 years at Virgin she would be leaving at the end of the month. Kelly arrived late and missed the announcement. We will miss sandra. Not for her timing and awareness of music, but for her personality and sarcastic comments. Whoever we get next will have a job growing into the role. If Nina and Kelly give up on this pump then I might switch back to mornings and take Thursday afternoons off from the gym. I found the workout 'less painful' than usual because I was still distracted! Even as the workout was progressing I was hatching my escape plans, telling Nina that I'd be skipping the sauna. With the obvious similarity between today's events and Kelly's gripe last year I discussed the matter with Kelly before heading home. I need to remember to make this diary more about me and less about other people.
I was home at 7.33am and immediately started reviewing and editing. An hour later I realised I was distracted - at this point I was busy correcting the way I had systematically misspelt an instructor's name in my write-ups. I am so easily distracted! More online stuff. At 9.40pm saw sense and had went to bed. At 1.10am up again for 25 minutes to use the toilet and inhale the last of the calories before going back to bed!
Food 7.32-9.40 and 1.09-1.35am: 608 calories and 862 grams (71 kcal/100g). Potassium ok but perhaps higher than I'd like. Probably goes hand in hand with increased food weight for the day (1986g today vs 928g yesterday). Percentage of 'rubbish' higher than usual at 6.5% thanks to white rice.
Computer on 7.11am. By 8.26am (finally) posted Wednesday's entry. 30 minutes on CPH and emails then over an hour on yesterday's entry. Suddenly my alarm was going. It was 10.15am and I wasn't even dressed. Left at 10.25am and of course was late for Step. Jo ribbed me a little for it ("should we make an example of him?"). Afterwards spoke with Corel about knee injury and potassium in foods ("you should eat more calories"). Home by 11.50am.
Asked a friend from OA if there was a club outing tonight, reply was negative. Talk-Talk has changed the way you check their bills - I've decided I don't have the time or energy to ask for a refund for the £0.84 they shouldn't have. Regarding my freakishly lower weight the last couple of days, well one theory centres around eating food that weighs less - had another one though: sodium and potassium are balanced in the body - lower potassium means lower sodium means less water retention. Does that ring true?
More ways of looking at potassium in foods: these two look at servings of food with 100mg of potassium, showing the serving size and calories in that serving (only showing foods I currently have at home): Sorted by calories in serving ( http://www.tinyurl.com/calsortpot ) and Sorted by weight of serving ( http://www.tinyurl.com/wgtsortpot ).
First real attempt to make headway sorting the produce purchased and received yesterday. Radio catch-up too.
3.10-4.20pm: outing to meet my new GP. Updated him on potassium state-of-play. He didn't refer me for my knee as it is improving (RICE = rest ice compress elevate). He added the words 'Vitamin D level' to Monday bloodtest's paperwork.
5.05-5.25pm: shipped all my old cauliflower leaves to mum and took even more fresh ones for myself (about 5.2 kilos / 11.5 lb). Handy as only 142mg of potassium per 100g (or 70.4g cauliflower per 100mg potassium).
By 5.55pm, 519 calories and 1,187 grams (44 kcal/100g). An OA person picked me up and we were first to arrive. I placed a new packet of artificial sweetners in the drinks box (I'm the only one using the artificial sweetners or indeed the cocoa powder, both of which I provide or I guess I'm storing my own). 9 of us there - 7 sharing - reading was Step 8. I spoke about the things on my mind with my lift and before the meeting which was handy as otherwise my sharing time wouldn't have been enough. Got some useful feedback about amends. My share was about my somewhat eventful week. One person shared about time-wasting (giving up facebook and big brother) which naturally I can relate to. Another OA member gave me a lift on to AA - as usual very busy but I was early enough to get a seat. It was a bit silly to try for a 2nd meeting as I almost fell asleep in my first meeting. Unlike Tuesday this AA meeting had gaps and I tried my luck and shared (about potassium and my general difficulty with the 'this disease can kill' concept as applied to my non-alcohol diseases) the bonus of this was that afterwards an alcoholic 'outed' themselves as a member of OA (who happens to go to a meeting in another town which is why I've never met them). Home around 9.15pm.
2 weeks ago I accidentally installed a ZoneAlarm security suite Trial instead of an indefinitely-free version of the firewall-only version and now that the trial has expired and all functionality (including firewall) became unavailable I annoyingly had to uninstall and lose my settings before I could install the correct thing.
I spoke on the phone with Nina from 10.30pm till 0.30am, not something I usually do. If I spoke this long with Nash (and I do) I'd be upset, largely because Nash choses to speak to me when there's nothing to say. This did not characterise this conversation though. Tomorrow would be a busy day so turned computer off at 1.06am.
Food 9.25pm-0.55am: 1181 calories and 850 grams (139 kcal/100g).
Alarm woke me up at 7am. Stayed at home longer than usual for a Saturday - packed a racksack for a long outing (ended up being out for 7.5 hours). Watched combat track 7. By 8.40am, 106 calories and 438 grams (24 kcal/100g).
At 8.45am headed out, dodging light rain. Combat wasn't very busy. Pump was almost full. Afterwards rain appeared worse. Nash didn't want to give me a lift to Bletchley. Checked out the bus stop - it was a 20 minute wait for the next departure. Decided to save the £1.70 (only had to buy a single as Nash would have given me a lift back) and brave the weather. On the ride to Bletchley listened to combat music.
Got there at 12.10pm - Nash arrived about 15 minutes later and I had a go at instructing him through the first 3 combat tracks. The candidate arrived with their volunteers. Technically myself and Nash were surplus to requirements - in all there were at least 10 of us. That means I could have done Strawberry Fair (though the weather for this Cambridge outdoor festival was likely equally bad). It was a pain to witness them make a couple of major slip-ups: whilst building up their curve they got stuck around levels 2/3 (low arms stage) for too long and then suddenly jumped to level 5 (high arms AND impact) missing out level 4 (high arms no impact). Secondly for both pre and post stretches they mostly remained on teaching cross so didn't observe from different positions. The assessor wondered around the room and requested extra stretches (clues that the candidate did not appear to pick up on). This took us to around 2pm. I decided to stick around and find their fate (At the time I predicted a fail). Nash reminded me we could use the room for the combat run through which we picked up from track 4. Rather than join us, the other volunteers dispersed as soon as I turned on the music. I did fairly well until I got to track 7 which got thoroughly (and repeatedly) messed up. I was still repeating track 7 when the candidate came in - they passed (part of the assesment involves getting 'questioned' about things they did wrong and the opportunity to turn things around - I remember this bit from my own exam) and all was well. (In other news on Friday's tests which I had a passing interest about there was a mixture of results.) At 3pm I tucked into some cauliflower at the cafeteria and shortly afterwards I parted from Nash and started cycling back.
Finally home at 4.10pm and tucked into more food. Food 3-5.30pm: 343 calories and 446 grams (77 kcal/100g). A much needed nap from 5.45pm.
Got up at 9.10pm (that means I had skipped the AA meeting). Uncharacteristically spent a 'useful' hour watching tracks 7 and 8. Then a blur of eating, emails and blogs (finally caught up online 0.45am). Food 9.09pm-1.31am: 1251 calories and 515 grams (243 kcal/100g). Percentage of rubish propped up by white rice and "ice-cream wafers". Computer turned off at 1.41am but still trying to fall asleep by 2am.
Up at 6.20am. It was raining and cold and I had to dress up as if I was outdoors! A possible trip to the AA meeting was ruled out. First order of the day was dealing with 'jacobjero', an indiscriminante spammer with 40 messages to their name. Why should he chose to place over a third of their effort into the FL4I sub-forum, exclusively populated by owners of the FL4I plan, with an advert for the FL4I plan is anybody's guess. This, together with clearing the online decks took me to 7.02am - followed by a 40 minute computer-off break.
NaturalReader 7.0 keeps crashing on the convert-to-MP3 function but NaturalReader 6.6 cannot create really-speeded-up files so I've been miffed but made a pleasing discovery that the programs co-exist so I can convert a file with 6.6 whilst listening to current selection being read-out-loud with 7.0.
My virtual shopping list for the most efficient ways to ingest low-potassium calories consists of rice, pasta, crispbreads (crackers) and bread. Looking up potassium content for other foods I happened to have around revealed that ice-cream wafers (another refined grain product) are also in the frame (though I wouldn't buy more of them once they're out!). A cupboard scan reminded me that I've had something called 'pearl barley' for a few years but not been brave enough to cook it. An internet search revealed cooking methods, including a 'rice cooker' and this reminded me that a few months ago I finally unearthed the missing part that would make my vegetable steamer into a rice cooker. Thus a project was hatched: I shall learn to use this new gadget and try out some pearl barley.
Went throught the list of available fruits and veggies in order of increasing potassium per 100g and created ready-to-eat portions for the lower-potassium choices - these included canned peach slices in syrup. Eventually wrote up and posted diary entries for Friday and Saturday.
Looking up original versions of songs from body combat 40 proved to be an enticing distraction. Instant Message chat with sister. Watched tracks 9 and 10. I called gym to confirm Jason's classes are covered.
I downloaded the USDA nutrient search tool from http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=5720 to speed up potassium lookups - I was planning to develop something with the version of SR21 you can download in Microsoft Access format but this seems like a reasonable application so maybe not just yet.
Mum left her car parked by my flat and I had to go down to pick up allotment rhubarb and spinach and a couple of salads from Tesco. By 5pm, 1050 calories and 1609 grams.
Headed out getting to the gym at 5.15pm, tried to practice some combat in the available time. At 5.30pm there were about 15 of us and no instructor. I went to the office to ask (again) if the class was being covered - during my absence the cover instructor arrived. She did a release from about a year ago that she was a bit rusty on - more rusty than us, as Jason has done most of it in the reasonably recent past. Emma who yesterday was back from absence due to holiday was 'in the house'. Michelle was covering Pump but I wasn't in the mood. Would have arrived early at the sauna but decided instead to stop and chat to Yin (who has taken up a couple of courses at college) and also texted Tracy (evidently I'm still her 'go to' person for diet concerns). The mood at the sauna was 'busy'. Had a conversation I found uncomfortable. As I left the gym I was reflecting on where the fine line was between advice a warning and a indeed a threat - this distracted me. Before I was far gone I reached for my phone to check the time and realised I didn't have it, luckily I was allowed back in and phone (and padlock) were where I left them in the changing rooms. Home at 8.23pm (MP3 = combat).
Having decided to do tomorrow's blood test in a fasted state am aiming to eat the majority of my calories before the gym outing, ready to scoff the rest shortly after my return home. So, food 8.52pm-9.21pm: 650 calories and 377 grams (172 kcal/100g). This is so very much not ETL and I'm looking forward to being told to eat what I like. Admittadly if this will be a long-term thing I will focus on whole-grain equivalents (wholewheat pasta, brown rice, whole cooked grains etc). I've put up with this experiment for 5.5 days. I believe I fell asleep at 9.40pm (somewhat spontanous I didn't put the laptop on standby, I guess I needed this).
Up at 7.30, combat music 7.42. one last day to mentally enjoy a low morning weight (52.5kg = 115.6lb) before my regular diet will push it right back up! It was suggested I could present myself for the blood test as early as 9am but I have no specific appointment time. One self-imposed constraint is that I will fast i.e. not have any calories until I'm back. I drunk several cups of hot water with artificial sweetner which taste not a million miles away from my sweetnened coffee and cocoa drinks.
I don't have fridge room for yesterday's spinach and rhubarb but transferred them from plastic bags to open-top boxes so they can at least breath. Later in the day I'd tell both mum and dad not to bring me any more produce if it is safe for it to stay unharvested as it'll probably last longer on the plant.
After 20 days at 1700 calories I am due my next increase today: 1750 from today and for at least 1 week and no more than 3 weeks (the overall plan is to perhaps go as high as 2000 but visit every increment - 1800,1850,1900,1950,2000 - letting the metabolism adjust to extra calories so there are no fat-gain surprises!).
Around 8.15am turned my attention to the computer - CPH, emails and blogs. 2 hours later still on the computer. (At the time I thought this was a 'win' as it temporarily kept me away from the blood test and thus from eating.) Calculated my average potassium intake over the 5 days to the 7th (yesterday) was ~3600mg which is approximately 38% compared with my intake on the 31 days up to and including June 1st (last Monday) which was ~9500mg.
Left for hospital at 10.25am. In all was there for 20 minutes 10.40-11.00 - seen one nurse and chatted to another - told them about my 'fasted test' theory, how I've taken sodium down and about my plan to go home and celebrate with a potato. They thought I was mad and explained how extra potassium amplifies the body's electric systems (the heart is driven by electric pulses unlike skeletal muscle which is driven by nerve pulses) - also talked about the weight loss. Back home by 11.20am - combat MP3s playing throughout. My high-potassium eating started just before noon with some baked potato.
Around noon discovered that CamRing (http://www.camring.ucam.org ) which I am part of has made 80 one-hour lectures (spanning 6 years) available to its limited membership. During the day I incorporated a 90-minute lecture about the EDSAC (one of the first working computers - mid 1950s) with people who were around at the time. However did not that much luck with a couple of other lectures. In any event whilst potentially interesting this will be hard to incorporate into my life unless a specific lecture is relevant to me.
Around 1pm attempted to use my GP surgery's "book an appointment online" system, login details of which I was provided with on Friday, starting a chain of computer-related events. I failed to log in and the front page did say that some IE8 users are experiencing problems. By no means my first issue with IE8 (previous issues included iPlayer / RealPlayer and the Calories Per Hour editor and I'm sure others I'm forgetting or not aware of). I downloaded IE7 which would not install because a later version (IE8) was on the machine. The Remove button was absent for IE8 because I installed Windows XP Service Pack 3 chronologically after IE8. So I uninstalled SP3, which curiously removed every trace of Windows Media Player 11 then uninstalled IE8. Finally able to install IE7 and also put WMP11 back on. Downloaded SP3 (all 316MB of it) and installed. Then there were about 40 outstanding Windows Updates to apply in 2 separate goes. Do you hear the word "re-boot"? Having started this project in the early afternoon I was still rebooting at 11.30pm.
At around 11am the nurse suggested results would be available in an hour so at 1.40pm tried calling my GP surgery for lab results. Some confusion as person tried to give me last Monday's results. I explained and they said they'll call the hospital and get back to me (but they never did). The GP did not call, either - perhaps they only call with results if they're "bad" and/or action on my part is required. Thus I was doing all my potassium-based indluging without reassurance that last week's actions have placed me in the clear as far as suspicions of a dodgy kidney unable to filter potassium go. Mum suggested to give them a day before following up, that's fair enough.
Outing 2.25-4pm: mum (who asked me to remind her a day in advance of future appointments as she doesn't keep a record of the lifts she has agreed to) drove me to Wolverton for a dentist check-up. (MP3 playing combat in the waiting room.) The dentist wants to work in 3 teeth (2 on the right, one of the left) - one where only one wall is left (he wants to put on a crown but I said to try a regular filling one more time), one OK-ish showing signs of decay from the front to drill into it, and a third one a filling from the top but also requiring drilling (and also identified top left as an area that needs extra brushing). As two injections are required he decided to do it in a separate appointment. Mum decided to be unavailable for a lift in June so we scheduled this work for early July. I then made the most of being in Wolverton by researching some food prices - Asian shop: 500g brown rice £1.09, Netto: kilo white rice 79p, 500g refined spaghetti 39p, 200g rye crispbread 49p (stocked up on this one).
Back home for almost 2 more hours - continued various projects (fixing computer; the EDSAC lecture; potassium computer project; eating) but tried minimising them to focus on body combat. All week I've been working on learning the new release which Shey said she'll be bringing to us tonight. Earlier in the day it was about listening to music in order to cement the relationship between the music and the moves and work on pre-cueing. Now I wanted to re-watch the DVD paying attention to technique for the moves and how they are being coached - but I left it too late to be able to watch the DVD all the way through, instead focused on the short 'TIPS' segments interactively linked-to from the beginning of each track. The last hour in particular very much felt like last-minute cramming for an exam.
By 5.30pm, 857 calories and 1,785 grams (48 kcal/100g). Left at 5.50pm continued to practice tracks 1 & 2 as I cycled. A full class. Shey announced she still has not received her CD - so after a week of intense learning and practice the pressure was off and I have (at least) another week to 'do it for real'. I again held myself back from offering mine (if she doesn't have the CD then she might not be practiced at cueuing the moves) we still had lots of fun doing tracks from the last 18 months. I tried to pay attention to the way Shey was delivering the various components but unltimately glazed over as I relaxed into my workout. In track 5 there's a bit with alternating body rips and I was trying to guard with the alternate hand - what was surprising was that Shey actually noticed and complemented me (that's amazing observation skill or alternatively my poor technique on that move has been winding her up). With new Combat now provisionally next week I shall continue practicing every now and again but will probably back off for the next few days.
Since walking in pain out of Step on (I think) May 11th I had not done Kim's class - that's 4 weeks. I do other step classes so no excuses anymore. The reward, apart from Kim's personality and the opportunity to once more do selected tracks of the 'current release' of Body Step which both Jo and Jason have moved on from, was to be re-united with Saffron from my first gym who has now joined mine. She is as serious about exercise as me and as big a fan of the studio so I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of each other to make up for the almost 3 years since we were in daily contact. Home by 8.25pm.
Had an IM chat with Rob, to include discussion of the new F# language (a functional programming language - haven't used one of those in 18 years) and the merits of purchasing the MSDN (to own a selection of operating systems and development tools). When the conversation turned to music I was trying to impress him with the various tracks that make up the combat release.
Food 8.54pm-0.35am: 893 calories and 890 grams (100 kcal/100g). The day ended with 8271mg of potassium (240% of yesterday's intake). Percentage of calories from 'rubbish' food was kept at 0.2% (contrast with 39.6% yesterday). Fruits and vegetables finally in ETL quantities. Altogether food weighed 2675g - high compared with recent days. Slightly out of practice and burnt one batch of my potato cubes.
After another stretch using the USDA search utility to attempt obtaining more potassium figures for foods last eaten in March and April, at 0.30am finally decided to suspend this project. Worrying about potassium food and simultaneously eating high-potassium foods = priorities clearly out of step. In general I had an overall feeling of dissatisfaction with how my post-gym evening time-management went - I need to 're-focus'. Computer was off at 1.30am.
Up at 6.30am. Felt bad about the rhubarb still being unrefrigerated and somehow found room for it. Morning weight jumped to (53.5kg = 117.8lb) still on the light side but no doubt a sign of things to come. On computer 6.57am. First priority was to write-up up yesterday for the hour to 8am. Then read the tenants newsletter, snacked and got ready. 8.21-9.15 online session.
Left at 9.15am (MP3 = combat). Got to the studio with 5 minutes to spare. Set myself up and continued combat practice. Helped a couple of new guys set up their stations. Jo announced that some low-number classes are "under threat" including her own Body Balance on Thursday and both AM and PM Body Jam on a Monday. Afterw Pump stopped to chat with Saffron who explained that the equipment at my previous gym (originally all brand new) is falling apart after years without sufficient maintenance and various underhand behaviour of the new owner/manager team to include silencing customers who dare to complain. I was enjoying the chat until I realised I was running very late.
I missed the first 13 minutes of my counselling session. On my way there dad explained that he needs to clear an area of the allotment so the choice is to receive fresh spinach or have it go to compost so whilst I'd rather have had it staggered, spinach now is better than spinach never. Counselling was relaxing. On the way home I called the surgery and they confirmed they now have my results but a doctor has to see them first so hopefully they'll call me later. Home at 12.25pm.
Sorted through produce (pak choi, spinach and chard), chatted to my sister on messanger and cleared online backlog. At 2.43pm cycled to Wolverton. Surgery called = yesterday's potassium was 4.4 which is in the reference range (results for Vitamin D not yet available) - I guess at the next available opportunity I want another potassium test (fasted but when eating my regular high-potassium diet). What we know now is that there's nothing in principle wrong with my kidneys - they can lower blood potassium when given some assistance (low potassium + fast). The thing to come out of my meeting with the psychologist is that I need some definite things I wish to change about myself - specifics. I need to come up with those in the next couple of weeks and they need to be things I'm willing to work on right now as opposed to some future point in time. I listened to combat on the way there but on the way back once the combat music ran out I listned to speech. Called Kelly for a chat. Home by 5.15pm.
After snacking and being online, 6.26-7.36: Jon picked me up and drove to his house, first time I was there or indeed met his wife. As previously agreed I spent just under an hour introducing her to salsa dancing. She's a beginner but I'm not so we danced a variety of moves and I wasn't bored. Afterwards was treated to some fruit and driven back home.
Home was a pit stop. By 7.40pm, 904 calories and 1,354 grams (67 kcal/100g). Headed straight out to AA (not even enough time to switch MP3 player on!). Very good chair. Towards the end I shared (about the psychologist and needing to want to change). Stayed behind to put some chairs and tables away. Cycled back (MP3 on). Home by 9.30pm.
Food 9.35pm-0.30am: 846 calories and 1453 grams (58 kcal/100g). At home had rare online chat with Tracy, tucked into mangos that mum purchased on my behalf in preference to potatos. Read the MSE bulletin. Did not feel as though I achieved much today overall. Computer off 0.45am.
Up at 7.50am to look at post including a letter relating to the medical examination I attended at Aylesbury last week. 8.07 computer on. diary posted by 8.15. online catchup to 8.36. Tried to get back into the reading project I abandoned over a week ago (topic is 'Windows Presentaiton Foundation', starting on page 1006). At 9.15am left for the gym (MP3 = combat). A well attended step class (Jo changed the front end as well as some other songs). Chatted with Saffron and together we booked classes for her (I accidentally pocketed her membership card so when I was almost half-way home I was recalled back to the gym, oops). Home at 11.23am.
After some online catch-up did some reading. Reading places demands on my concentration and by 1.40pm I realised I needed a nap - though I didn't realise to what extent - got up 3 hours later. Some reading and eating. By 6.45pm, 1,050 calories and 1,842 grams (57 kcal/100g).
Left at 6.55pm (MP3 on). Attempted to introduce Saffron to Kelly and Nina ... and Angela. Enjoyed my workout. I got to the waterside complex before Nina and Kelly and wondered whether they were in fact coming but they did show up eventually. Home by 9.10pm.
Decided to catch-up with Lyle McDonald's forum (yes, another distraction), also took a one-hour call from Nash. Bedtime was midnight (finishing on page 1031).
Food 9.16pm-11.30pm: 700 calories and 1302 grams (54 kcal/100g). This was day 2 of getting through a sizeable quantity of mangos - by my estimation the other 5 mangos will be gone by the end of tomorrow.
Up at 7.30am. Feeling pekish, I prioritised food. small amount of reading, lots of audio. By 9.17am it was time to go. When Saffron puts up her chest weights it will be both her and "strong girl" at 20 kilos so reminded myself what that is like and lasted till almost the end of the track. Lots of people came out to support Body Balance which is under threat of cancellation. Noticed Laura but she looked busy with 2 other staff members fussing over the microphone in the spin room. Looked around the sale at Julian Graves but everything (nuts, seeds, dried fruit) seemed expensive - luxuaries I won't spend money on at this time (might feel differently once I'm completely out of those though). Home by noon.
Was due to run out of Mangos today but mum bought another lot of 10 which were waiting for me when I got back. A 2-hour rest period from 1.37pm.
Last week I extended my UK-centric calorie-counting program to report potassium intake. The work involved a bunch of structural changes and a substantial research-and-data-entry effort (inputting potassium levels for 249 of the 614 foods in my database of foods I have eaten or intend to eat). The one and only source I have identified for potassium content of foods is the "USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 21" (either looked at directly or through the many websites, like nutritiondata.com, which include information from it). Today I had the urge to think some more about this. Those people who use FitDay (another website tied into the same database) to record their food have the advantage of having to hand an analysis of their intake of every micronutrient of interest. In future I might have a need to be aware of some other nutrient (Folate perhaps). If I was following 'proper' CRON (Calorie Restriction with Optimum Nutrition) principles then I'd be wanting to ensure that I get my RDAs of everything every day. I downloaded the Access-format version of the database and exported the NUT_DATA table to MySql via ODBC and then dropped all but the three essential columns (the table was still a massive 36MB at this point so I moved it to a separate mysql database). Even though I already did a similar research and data entry task for potassium, I'm just not looking forward to repeating it in order to tie in my currently-consumed foods to the NDB of their most-similar food item. I can choose to complicate things by allowing some of my food items to translate into a 'recipe' so they are defined by different proportions of multiple other foods (think about salads for example). After spending some time looking at this I decided this entire feature is a "nice to have" but not important enough for me to do right now. I can come back to it later when I'm more motivated.
Later in the evening I did decide to rewrite the 'dayruntotal' view (this shows how calories and grams accumulate during the day - I sometimes use it to look at how many calories I was up to by a certain point in the day). As a 'view' it took minutes a it was O(n) and n is now about 650 days. I've re-written it as a stored procedure and it now takes 1/650 of the time it took before - the order of a second.
For reading I advanced a pathetic 5 pages before deciding I need to switch over to WPF topics at the MSDN website (but didn't stick with that, either). At 11pm took a call from Hadar. Computer was off at 0.30am.
Food: by 3.12pm, 654 calories and 1,038 grams (63 kcal/100g); 5.05pm-10.30pm: 1096 calories and 1305 grams (84 kcal/100g).
Up 7.30am, computer on 7.54am. Mum called - it turns out some technical problem with RSS feed meant I haven't read DiseaseProof for 2 weeks - yet mum using the low tech method of visiting the site remains up to date (she wanted me to be aware the Fuhrman wrote about binge eating). Looked up some NDB numbers. (It is a menial task, not much thinking involved, akin to other time-wasting.)
Left around 10am (MP3 on) first stop bank to deposit a small cheque. Then waited for Body Step. Afterwards brief chat with Jo about her instructing history (she started her ETM course in September 2005 - exactly a year before I did - which means she's now been instructing for about 3.5 years. She talked about "the challenge" - a part of every BTS course where you're taken to the limit of what you're physically capable off. She suggested I approached Banantayn gym - perhaps I will.) Afterwards tried to see Kelly who turns out to have 'double booked' i.e. arranged to meet hubby for lunch so I briefly met him (for some reason thought he'd be taller?) before getting home for 12.21pm.
1-2pm got an email from a "real-life" person and spent some time removing them from diary. The entire afternoon was time-wasting = preparing vegetables concurrent with audio. Indeed the concern that I'm overwhelmed by audio that I'm unable to catch up with will soon be invalid, backlog currently standing at less than 700MB. After 5pm got a few minutes of calm laying down with the computer off. By 5.21pm, 783 calories and 1,792 grams (44 kcal/100g).
For a change I didn't ask for lift to OA (last week person seemed reluctant) so for first time in a while cycled there, trying a different route inspired by one of the 'run club' outings. Left at 5.56pm (MP3 on) and was there by 6.11pm. (It is downhill!) There were 12 of us including a newcomer. 7 sharing (mine about how potassium was probably partly to blame for my rapid weight gain at the end of 2008, how I plan to periodically do 'potassium detox' to see lower numbers, and about the parallel between step 6 and the readiness to let got of character defects in the context of the homework the psychologist gave me (it occured to me that I might want to mention low self esteem too). I left promptly at 7.30pm (missing out on meeting-after-the-meeting) starting the uphill cycle ride (MP3 on) getting to AA 8.01pm a few seconds before the meeting started. 36 people. 2 newcomers both sharing - one of them "not sure he's an alcoholic". I always get a lot of out the AA meeting and it is so different in character from the OA meeting. MP3 on again as I cycled - got home at 9.13pm and stuck with no audio till bedtime. Computer on at 9.34pm. Managed almost an hour of reading cincurrent with eating. Food: 9.13pm-10.55pm: 967 calories and 1370 grams (71 kcal/100g). Computer off at 11.08pm.
Got up 7.35, quick breakfast (computer off, audio off). 8.11 cycle to gym (MP3 on) shower, sauna (MP3 on), combat, pump, (MP3 on) another sauna then cycled back.
Home 11.39am (MP3 off). Caught up with online things by 1pm (includes submitting complaint to iPlayer about a missing program). 1.08pm computer off: snack & rest. 1.30-3.45pm nap. 3.50pm reading about WPF for 50 minutes. Meal for over an hour. A bit more reading. By 7.10pm, 989 calories and 2,003 grams (49 kcal/100g).
AA outing: left 7.13 arrived slightly late. I'm at step 1 re time-wasting: I may have managed to restrict audio to outside the home but this has not translated to productivity I just spend more time on 'food breaks'. Left 8.35 home 8.58 noticably tired and weak on cycle rides. MP3 on.
Food 9.02pm-10.50pm: 761 calories and 975 grams (78 kcal/100g). Changed protein target from 60 to 70g due to er 'muscle envy' (despite IGF1-related recommendation to cap it at 60g). Computer off 11pm.
Up 5.30am computer on 5.50am. Online catch-up for an hour. Hardly any reading before deciding at 7.20 to turn computer off. Didn't expect to but slept for a further 2.5 hours - total sleep has increased in recent days.
Got ready and left at 10.17am. Lovely sunny day. Stopped off at Netherfield to check out price of popcorn (which I'm almost out of) 85p for a 500g bag (£2.99 for the 2kg bag is equivalent to 75p). Continued on to Bletchley, arriving at AA meeting with 5 minutes to spare. 19 at the meeting. Took advantage of a gap to share about some odd behaviours I had (and to an extent still do have) around alcohol and about the current desperate state around my time-wasting. I felt it was worth the treck. Left at 12.40pm and realised my back tyre was completely flat. Called mum for assistance - in the meantime walked over to the Bletchley Sainsburys (popcorn 95p/500g, red kidney beans 25p!) and then onwards to Tesco. on the way stopped at Kwik-Fit where the guy kindly pumped my tyre up - so I actually cycled the rest of the short way to Tesco - where popcorn was 95p, red kidney beans were 19p and a large sweet potato was reduced to 38p (got that). Walked the bike (deflated again) to a carpark across the road and waited for mum.
Mum arrived in dad's car. Unlike mum's car which can take my bike, the boot on this one does not shut. Mum brought some cable and I did my best to tie the car boot door so it was 'fixed' at the partially-closed angle rather than flailing wildly. We drove to ASDA. Between the two of us we had no credit or debit cards though so the plan to fill up dad's car with petrol (the reason for choice of car) had to be abandoned. I went in first, failing to find the popcorn. Mum had better luck because after failing to spot it she asked for help and on the 3rd attempt found a member of staff who knew where it was. Better yet, it was 52p. I (at this point guarding the partially open car) asked her to get 10 packets. It was a long wait for mum to finish the shopping, at one point I came back into ASDA failing to buy another spare inner tube (they were out of size 26") but discovered they sell new tyres (for £10), seeing where the popcorn was kept, bagging some pears and bananas a moment after they were reduced and visiting 'the facilities'. I was home a 3.20pm which arguably I could have beaten had I started to walk the bike directly home the moment the AA meeting had finished, but this way I had fruit and popcorn.
After catching up with food, after 4pm I tended to the bike. A few weeks ago mum bought a 2nd hand tyre complete with 2nd hand inner tube at a car boot sale which I inflated at the time. It still had air in it. The guy at Kwik-Fit was rather derrogatory about the state of my tyre so I decided it would be a good move to chuck it, fit the 2nd hand stuff and hope for the best. Last time it took about an hour and this time I was more efficient and got it done in 20 minutes though I have a feeling more work will be required to make the back wheel 'free-wheel' properly at some point. By 5.05pm, 1,032 calories and 1,743 grams (59 kcal/100g).
At 5.15pm left for the gym. I ran with Nina and Kelly to Willen. 100 meteres or so before arriving at the lakes and I started feeling my left knee - and not in a good way. We walked for a bit and then I let the girls run around both lakes whilst I lay on a patch of grass, watching a large family play a variation of the game 'catch' where if you failed to catch the ball you were 'out' for the rest of the game. (I didn't have the MP3 player with or doubtless I would have done that instead.) The girls found me and I had a go at running. Still felt my knee but ran with them for most of the way. Took the MP3 player with me to the sauna as I knew I'd be waiting for them. Home at 8.20pm.
I reloaded my almost-empty MP3 player with more files ready for tomorrow's trip. I am getting 'dangerously close' to catching up with my audio backlog and I know that when that happens I become less selective. Trimmed, sorted, washed and stored today's consingment of jerusalem artichokes. Once more allowed audio to 'creep' into the home environment.
I prepared 1273g (2.8lb) of low potassium vegetables (1666mg altogether) in case circumstances dictate a 3pm blood test and I decide not to have a fasting test - though if possible I'll be trying for an 11am fasted test before I tuck in. This is a trip to London which includes meeting a friend at noon and an ultrasound scheduled at 2pm. I'm hoping to make it back to the gym for Combat at 6pm.
Food 8.21pm-11.05pm: 668 calories and 1548 grams (43 kcal/100g). It is rare for my late night meal to be less calorie-dense than my daytime food - I guess finishing every last one of the pears I bought earlier helped (543 calories - 31% - from pears today). I've gone a little easy on my animal product restriction and had 3 x 50 calorie portions - as food is getting more expensive it makes sense to eat that which I've already paid for and which is taking valuable freezer space (and even in the freezer it won't last forever). Computer off 0.10am bedtime was around 0.30am.
3.20am unable to fall back to sleep after loo break so got up. Weight at that point 55.5kg (highest in recent days). Fasting but wanted something so hot water with sweetners. Sufficiently intrigued by tutorial to download sample and play along. With less than 3 hours of rest I predictably needed more - computer off at 5.30am slept again till 8.35am. Online catch-up, got dressed and packed up (tiny amount of reading too). Left at 9.25am.
Lots of 'dead time' today - cycling, walking, waiting at train and tube stations. Spent most of that time revising Combat listening to it about 4 times altogether. First stop was the hospital. I was out of there within 10 minutes having got lucky with the blood testing which meant I did it in the fasted state. Ate on my way to the next appointment to meet my friend for lunch. She has a couple more weeks at her job - she's still looking for the next one. She echoed recent concerns about using real names of people on the internet. Afterwards drunk my litre of water and headed back to hospital for the ultrasound. During the long wait for my appointment I started re-reading a book about low self-esteem I have not touched in a long while. At 2.10pm (10 minutes after my appointment time) I made a fuss as my bladder was bursting (this because I had not been to the loo in 3.5 hours and despite already needing the loo drunk the suggested litre to avoid possible disagreement with their staff). I was seen shortly afterwards and all done by 2.30pm (this ultrasound seemed somehow more thorough than previous ones). Continued reading on the train home. A de-tour to pick a library book and home by 4.25pm.
At home unpacked my bag, caught up with eating. My sister emailed to say I won't be getting a lift to her party. Trouble is in the intervening period the cost of the train has doubled and I'm feeling stingy so as things stand I won't be going. I considered going if I managed to sweeten the deal with a £5-off-train-fare offer but the website (The Trainline) made it impossible to book the journey I required. Spent ages on this.
By 5.50pm, 716 calories and 1,325 grams (53 kcal/100g). Headed out to Combat which once more was a 'mix'. At this rate I'll be bored with practicing the new release before it is even launched. I wasn't fooling myself though I was pretty tired and didn't make myself stay for Step. Was out of the gym just in time to catch up with sis (side-stepping whether MP3 would feature on way home but almost 'done' by police car for the way I used mobile phone whilst cycling on the road). Home at 7.20pm.
Couldn't connect to the internet. Briefly reflected that it would be sensible to turn computer off but instead wasted the next 1.5 hours trying to make it work. It failed at the 'NSLOOKUP' level so I recruited Nash who eventually gave me alternative DNS servers but this made no difference. I rebooted the laptop and restarted the modem and was on hold in the TalkTalk queue for ages, eventually hanging up when I realised that the problem "sorted itself out" or rather was somehow resolved at their end, what a waste of time.
I've previously put off installing the sizeable 'MSDN' on the hard drive arguing that this is approximately 2.4GB I don't have spare, yet this was a wake-up call to my dependency on a live connection so at 9pm I started to download it. With IE7 a file download simply slows your computer down. This was the case even when I assigned the IEXPLORE process a 'BelowNormal' priority and started a 2nd "AboveNormal' priority for browsing, which was less than usuable. Still insanity rained:
I (very slowly) registered a few more email addresses for the £5-off-rail-fare promotion before realising that there's a good chance it is pointless unless I use them to book journeys over the next 2 weeks. Decided to book tickets for my next London hospital appointment (due in September) hope it stays the same as I don't think the ticket is refundable.
Then (from around 10pm) as I decided the best thing to do was "online catch-up" which was done approximately as efficiently as if I had dialup. At 11.30pm I had a large ISO file and (having no DVD burner) no idea what to do with it. After some research a cracked version of WinRAR presented itself and the MSDN finally got installed by 0.21am. Computer off by 0.31am.
Food 7.20pm-midnight: 1034 calories and 419 grams (247 kcal/100g). Calorie-dense snacking. Low potassium day (just 3056mg) - I revisited 'pearl barley' one of the low potassium friends I made last week and once more reflected on how wholewheat bread is a fantastic solution for eating low potassium calories in a hurry but does not satisfy as much as an isocaloric portion of popcorn or for that matter barley, rice or wafer ice-cream cones. 30% of calories from refined grain 'rubbish' and I have zero associated guilt about this (would I feel this way about the ultimate in refined grain, say vodka?).
This morning I Weighed 53.5kg = a kilo less than yesterday (54.5kg) but still a kilo more than lowest I weighed last week on the low potassium stretch (52.5kg) so I decided to stick with low potassium for another day (even though the bananas in the fridge are calling my name etc.) to see if I can keep in touch (ever so briefly) with the 'lighter me' (is this insanity?).
Computer on at 8.23am. Perhaps the £5-off offer would work for me? I decided to go to sister's party if it would and wondered whether booking the tickets differently (as 3 separate journeys all added to the same shopping basket) would let me use that website. Ironically the website was broken in a way it had not been last night (when I booked September hospital trip) and wouldn't let me see the shopping basket. At 8.46am started to get ready, a quick snack in lou of breakfast and out the door at 9.07am.
10.35am: MP3 on for cycle ride to gym. Before pump had a go (diplomatically I hope!) at addressing my concern about a friend's poor technique with lateral raise and upright row shoulder and upper back exercises. As it happens in this class today the instructor tried to correct someone else's technique and they recoiled, showing you never know what to expect when correcting someone. I rushed on to counselling (arriving early). Enjoyed the sunny weather and MP3 was off so I could think about how to best use the session. I used pen and paper to stay focused - tried for an overview of all my issues and candidates for CBT. Without prompting counsellor agreed that low self-esteem was a good target. They also brought forward that I wasn't comfortable with 'silence' and inactivity, not letting myself experience it instead going for my low-quality obsessions he classified as things I "want to do" wheras my "should do" things are my priorities. We talked about whether dealing with my obsessions should be the target for CBT I said I'm not sure if I'm ready to let them go. We drew a triangle diagram for the 3 things.
This year college is rather late to publish next year's part-time prospectus. I used the computer room to look up course options for next year and then walked over to the admin office to put my name down for a couple of easy courses with a book-keeping theme, the idea (as ever) is to facilitate continuation of my counselling arrangement and I'm hoping the course itself will have minimal impact on my life (beyond clashing with one of my Step classes).
12.20pm: cycle ride away MP3 off again, more 'should I go to the party' thoughts. Historically have brought lots of vegetables with me and eaten non-stop. I do find the situation uncomfortable, a social situation with large number of people who I don't know very well, away from the comfort and security of home, many hours away from home, and the train fare is a lot of money when compared to (for example) my food budget. Yet I know I should challenge myself through the discomfort and I can actually afford the expense given how relatively rare it is. As a further challenge I could try to make it a low-potassium trip and just find things to do other than eat. I justified drinking alcohol (as it is low in potassium) and almost immediately had a thought about junk food like chocolate. The readiness with which the thought came made me uncomfortable. I changed which way I was riding several times during this deliberation (homeward, towards train statin, homeward, towards train station) in the end I made my decision and ended up in the station travel office. A trainee attended to my needs and the bill came to £2 more than it would have been online. I asked for a breakdown so I could figure out why this was the case. I failed to be satisfied and his senior collegue took over and magically managed to shave quite a bit off the price so I ended up paying £3.50 less than the best price I was able to establish with my online searches (for the same journey the very same trains). It was valuable insight into the way thing worked! Having in principle worked through my issues about paying more for the journey, it ended up being a more affordable £10.50. I will do my best to stick to my no junk food commitment but alcohol will be ok. Party isn't for another 5.5 weeks.
At 1.15pm I was back in the centre and failed to find Kelly. Went in the sun and tried to read instead. She showed up a little later for a brief chat. When I've had enough of reading I finally got home at 1.50pm, making up for lost time on food front.
Before long (2pm) computer was on - original intention was to diarise but got distracted to time-wasting (including audio) only pausing at 3.25pm when I lost connectivity in a repeat of yesterday's events. Connectivity restored after 12 minutes. Gave up on myself at 4.15pm and turned computer off. These 2-odd hours represent the worst part of today. I don't know if I'm blowing things out of proportion in terms of beating myself up or whether I have a genuine issue with loss of control, there you have it. Tried reading the book fell asleep 4.38pm slowly drifted back to awakeness by 6.20pm. 6.30pm computer on no connection. 6.38 connection restored - catch-up to 6.54. Diarised to 7.28pm.
Got ready and left at 7.40pm (up to this point 954 calories and 739 grams = 129 kcal/100g) MP3 for less than half of the cycle ride to the meeting. A memorable chair. I rarely think an AA meeting was a waste of time but they can't all be great. I really enjoyed this one though! Returned dad's call - he wanted to know if I will be able to eat high potassium foods like jerusalem artichokes which he is planting for the next season. I assured him that I'll find room for them in my diet. Earlier I did reflect that there are 4 possible configurations and I we haven't done exhaustive testing:
- high potassium diet and a random test: 5.6, 6.0, 6.5, 5.5 - these are the high readings that have raised concern
- low potassium diet and a fasted test: 4.4 (last week) - a good result but difficult to interpret which had the bigger impact
- high potassium diet and a fasted test: 4.3 in March - a good result but was it a fluke? I'd have more peace of mind with my choice of high potassium diet if I had an opportunity to repeat this configuraiton - to this end perhaps I should phone UCL and chase up yesterday's result. It will probably be a hassle to get through to someone willing and able to dig for them! (Even if repeatable there are still questions as my nightly fasts are usually far shorter than the fast I endure for a fasted blood test so what does this say about the typical potassium level in my blood on an ordinary day?)
- low potassium diet and a random test: I've never had this done (unless the results for some blood test I had before I started healthy eating are available: this takes me back to 2004 or earlier. If it can be argued that fasted results are meaningless (because I don't fast on a daily basis) then such a configuration would become the only meaningful baseline by which to judge the performance of my kidneys and then compare with the high numbers for high potassium random tests.
After speaking with dad switched MP3 on till I was home at 9.30pm. Snacked and continued diarising till 10.12pm; done posting yesterday's diary at 10.35pm (!) after further online distractions. A final hour of eating to push through the final 684 calories in about 200 grams (demonstrating that even lightweight meals can be stretched out - 8 different foodstuffs featured).
Food 9.32pm-11.35pm: 848 calories and 276 grams (308 kcal/100g). At 2296mg, lowest potassium intake since records began (655 days ago) - I'd be surprised if I don't register a lower (water-related) weight tomorrow (before assaulting those potassium rich foods, naturally). After I was done eating I noticed a data entry error (inputting rice as boiled rather than dry) which resulted in 52 calories overspend for the day - oh well!
Computer off 11.51pm. Up reading for an hour (overall got from page 20 to page 38).
I have ocassionally toyed with the idea of getting qualified as a fitness instructor, to teach classes. It costs at least £1000. There is an Exercise To Music qualification and then add-on modules like Body Pump, Body Combat etc. Who knows, I might do that course one day.
Update well it looks like that "one day" will be soon enough (more later)
Up a 4.35am reading for 30-45 minutes before drifting back to sleep. Up again at 7.30am focus on eating and food preparation. Left at 9.08am (MP3 on) to do Step. Home at 10.51am (MP3 on for journey and stayed on at home for a bit). Computer on 11.05am. 11.18am-12.17pm Majhid had internet connectivity issues (similar to mine) as well as a new-to-him VGA and HDMI capable LCD TV he wanted to connect to his laptop. Online catch-up to 1.35pm - audio background once Majhid was gone. Mum dropped produce when I was at my workout so worked on sorting that and then 'general food preparation' (for example my jerusalem artichokes are actually growing inside my fridge and need re-trimming!). Altogether 3 hours on this. This would have to count as the lowest point of my day.
4.15-4.23 tried to chase up blood test results from Monday - hospital won't give them to me but will fax them through to my GP. 4.35pm was called by my club's GC to say she's decided to write me a 'Letter of Affiliation' (see entries for June 1st/2nd) big Yay! within 10 minutes called FitPro's "training department". I'm #1 standby for the course starting in 10 days locally though more realistically it will be the one in August (still just 6.5 weeks away). (Texts, calls and IM conversations as you'd expect.) Sent them proof that I'm ETM qualified through the post as per request.
At 5.35pm headed out for GP appointment. Vitamin D test from last week still not available (I am to leave it a week and phone for results). We chased up the fax mentioned earlier so I have my result: after 7 days of high potassium eating followed by a 12 hour fast, it measured at 4.6 (UCL use a reference range 3.5-5.1 so that's normal according to them). This parallels my mid-March result so confirms my kidneys sort out any excess potassium if given some time to work it out of my system - nice to be reassured. A quick stopover at home (6.20-6.35pm). By 6.35pm, 1,028 calories and 2,216 grams (46 kcal/100g).
The class co-ordinator was checking that everyone doing classes had indeed booked - I worried this meant Nina might not get her workout but luckily less than 30 people turned up so she was fine on this ocassion but a close call. I told Angela my news and she said "well you can take over my class" - I do hope she's not feeling threatened by me as she is universally loved around here (and that she's not jaded enough to contemplate giving it up - she's been teaching Combat since release #10 that's almost 8 years.) She was playing to the newbie girl (as was I). Afterwards collected the physical manifestation of my 'letter of affiliation' ("I'm giving you a chance - just don't let me down!") and off to Sauna and Jacussi with Nina who had her own exciting day including a surprise (to her) hospital appointment relating to her op which is now just 15 short days away. Home at 9.23pm.
Googled a bunch of things, for example Body Combat designer tops (which unfortunately appear to start at £41.55 including shipping), as well as netting my two 'random' posts (see above). Nash kept me company with his weekly update before deciding it was his bedtime (10.08pm-11.36pm). Focus on audio and food fro 0.15am.
Food 0.28am-1.41am: 722 calories and 799 grams (90 kcal/100g). At 9974mg, potassium intake was 273% higher than the average of the last couple of days (2676mg). Computer will be off by 2am so I can have a hope of being awake for tomorrow's morning classes.
