PigPog

Left – January 2007. Right – December 2007.

This time last year I’d given up on making resolutions to lose weight. I’d pretty much resigned myself to always being obese and figured that’s the way it would be until the inevitable health problems took over and I kicked the bucket. However, as you will no doubt have read from previous entries, that all changed back in April when I joined Slimming World. And it was business as usual tonight – although everybody else was busy with their New Year’s celebrations so I had my Consultant all to myself. The easiest Slimmer of the Week win yet! Mr Scale took some convincing that my impeccable behaviour over the festive season should be worth a weight loss, but on the second go agreed to let me have the pound, which made my total weight loss for 2007…

Eight stone or 112lbs or 50.8kg

This year I am making a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight, but in the knowledge that I am going to achieve it. In 2008 I will reach my target. It will happen. Because I believe in the plan and I believe in me. Bring it on. The journey continues!

2007′s almost over and done with. The year has been quite a ride for me, exactly as the great man once described with a full quota of ups, downs, thrills and chills. It didn’t start terribly well, though. During the last two weeks of February and the first week of March, I lost my job, our eldest cat died, and a couple of weeks later my Grandma died. Unemployment and two deaths in the space of four weeks… at that point 2007 really didn’t hold much promise. But it picked up, so let’s get on with the Awards.

Television Programme of the Year

And the nominations are…

• The Simpsons – still a classic even though I have to rely on YouTube and my DVD collection now.
• QI – Stephen Fry cannot put a foot wrong, and this show is always worth a giggle.
• Top Gear – A no-brainer here. The new Fab Four – Clarkson, Hammond, May and The Stig. Although it’s the only reason we use our TV these days, it hasn’t won.

The winner is…

Life On Mars

Good telly should pull you away from your worries and plant you firmly in another world. The comatose adventures of one DCI Sam Tyler did just that for me. We watched series one over a couple of days back in March, at the time Lucy was slowly drifting away from us, and we knew that the day we part company was approaching. John Simm’s performance as Tyler and Philip Glenister’s fantastic Gene Hunt was the escape I needed. And the soundtrack was excellent – especially the way they timed the ringing phone in the 1973 office spot on with the ringing phone at the end of the song Life on Mars.

>”They reckon you’ve got concussion – I couldn’t give a tart’s furry cup if half your brains are falling out. Don’t ever waltz into my kingdom acting king of the jungle.”

>”Who the hell are you?”

>”Gene Hunt. Your DCI. And it’s 1973. Almost dinner time. I’m ‘aving hoops.”

Music of the Year

No nominations, one outright winner. And it’s a big “No shit, Sherlock” as the Music of the Year award goes to…

Velvet Revolver – Libertad

No, not just because of that top-hatted Les Paul tickler. This is a great album. Tracks like Let It Roll and She Builds Quick Machines have been great companions in the gym and when out walking. The Last Fight has been one of my anthems of the year. A great soundtrack to the year I started my own fight for libertad.

Event of the Year

2007 certainly hasn’t been boring. Nominations for event of the year:

• Manchester Apollo, 11th June 2007 – for five minutes I was close enough to Slash to indulge in a little passive smoking. A brief moment of squeevana, but I wasn’t fit enough at the time to fully enjoy the show.

• St Andrew’s Church Hall, 23rd April 2007 – it was the scariest moment of the year, but walking into that church hall has changed my life completely. And it made the winning event happen.

• St Andrew’s Church Hall, 3rd September 2007 -

Winning Woman of the Year at my Slimming World group. After years of zero self-esteem, this spurred me on to keep going. I’ve lost about another 40lb since then.

People of the Year

• My Mum – for getting through that nasty surgery, for kicking cancer’s arse and for all her help and support this year.

• My adopted sister Annie – for being easily the most unique spirit I’ve ever met. I was fortunate enough to meet her a couple of times this year and I’ve gotta tell you, nobody shines as bright as that star. Really. Love you, you mad, mad woman!

And the winners…

Frankie Pankiewicz, Katrina Barker and every Slimming World member I’ve met this year.

Anybody remotely connected to Slimming World has helped me turn my life around and lose over 100lb in my first year. Thanks to these people I’m heading into a new year feeling more positive than ever. Thank you all. The journey continues!

So, 2007, it’s been nice knowing you. Bring on 2008!

Diaries – arg! Twitter – arg! Music from flat below – arg! Desk space – arg! Mouse – arg! Browser – arg!

Hm. I’m starting to detect a pattern. Maybe I should walk away from my cluttered desk area and open myself a nice refreshing can of calmthefu*kdown.

Arg.

I used to take the proverbial out of my husband for the way he’d constantly be fiddling around with his ‘system’. He’d scribble his thoughts and ideas into notebooks, various sizes of filofax, various digital devices, but nothing really sticks and he’s always changing his mind. It seemed quite hilarious and very odd to me, until a week or so ago. As 2007 prepares for the final curtain and 2008 waits in the wings, I also find myself in need of a comfortable and reliable way of recording my food diaries and other bits and bobs.

This year, as I settled into doing Slimming World, I played around with various different ways of keeping a food diary and planning shopping lists. I had a Hipster PDA for a while, various notebooks and two different sizes of Filofax. I ended up settling with a Paperblanks diary that the Organisational Master himself bought for me back in Nottingham last year. It worked a treat. So, you’d think the solution would be easy… get another one? Yeah, I thought that too until I couldn’t bloody find one. Our local suppliers seemed to run out of any diaries around, er, Christmas…

In the absence of the obvious answer, same again for ’08, I went on the hunt for a suitable replacement. It seems no other diary has the same layout as the Paperblanks, and most seem to think that weekends don’t need as much space as the rest of the week. I looked at Filofaxes, and in a moment of utter lunacy bought a cheap ‘personal’ size one. I was happy with this for a while, until I tried using it. It just doesn’t feel right. There’s not enough room, the damn thing’s too big, and it’s not a Paperblanks diary, dammit!

So today I’ve tried going the way of the DIY Planner, making my own special custom diary with space to write everything down, little tickboxes for what day I’m doing and… feh, it smacks. Frankly it requires more time using Excel than I’m willing to when I’m not being paid.

Michael, it’s no good. I’ve got to get a Paperblanks. Nothing else is going to work. You know how it is. That’s why you’ll be asking for your A5 Lyndhurst back in a couple of months, and this time I promise I won’t take the piss. I know how it feels now.

Festive greetings to all who have been following my regular weight-loss blether. Hope you’re having a fun and relaxing Christmas Day. Here’s an update on the past couple of meetings.

17th December 2007

Missed last week because when I wasn’t working, I was sleeping or staring into space wishing I was sleeping. I had a little gain the week commencing the 10th, so was doing my best that week to ensure a substantial loss to catch up. I did the usual thing of concentrating on the Superfree foods (free on both plans), but I also kept an eye on how much I was having. Yes, it’s possible to eat and eat and eat on this plan, but I had the feeling that I perhaps wasn’t paying enough attention to quantities and found myself over-eating and making myself feel a bit off.

By the next encounter with Mr Scale, I’d lost 4.5lb (2kg), which earned me another sticker and certificate, and you know how much I like my stickers and certificates.

24th December 2007

Last night’s meeting didn’t see a capacity crowd. Not surprising, really.

I didn’t know what to expect because I’ve been really tired for most of the week, and although I stuck to the plan pretty well, I had the feeling I was coming down with something because from Wednesday or thereabouts, all I’ve wanted to do is sleep. But I put on my fancy frock, because I felt like showing off, toddled off to group and said hello once again to Mr Scale. It was another good one – 5.5lb (2.4kg)! This brings me into the holidays with a total weight loss so far of:

7st 13lbs or 111lbs or 50kg.

One pound away from another award. Three and a half pounds away from my first official Interim Target. Three and a half pounds away from being the right side of 20st. Approximately a year away from my target weight. You know, missing out on stuffing, mince pies and all of that doesn’t seem too bad now.

My Christmas Food Diary

In case you’re wondering how I plan to get through this worldwide day of food and inactivity, here’s my food diary for today which is, of course, an Original day:

Brunch (didn’t get up until after 10am!)

• Scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, 2 slices of Nimble.
• Coffee

Snacks

• Grapes, clementine, and a cereal bar

Dinner

• Roast Ostrich with mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, asparagus and peppers.

Drinks and other treats

• Half a Tesco Finest Bottle Conditioned Ale (4.5 syns)
• Green & Black Miniature Chocolate Bar (4 syns)
• Double Jack Daniel’s and Coke (5 syns)

Exercise

Knickers to that, sunshine. It’s Christmas! What kind of obsessive fruitloop do you take me for?

Okay, time to go and see if that Ostrich is done. Until next week, service continues as usual as the journey continues!

I recently switched back to using my Pocket Lyndhurst Filofax. Notebooks were going ok, but for the question of where my ‘GTD-style’ lists went. I tried putting them on the computer, but I never got around to even putting them there in the first place. I came up with a couple of different ideas for mixing them in with my usual daily notes, or putting them in the back of the same notebook, but neither felt right. It would either take too long to find a list when I needed to quickly check something, or it would take too long to copy the lists over every time I started a new book.

I did toy with the idea of just not keeping lists at all, but things kind of fell down without at least having a shopping list on the go, and I concluded that lists are good, I just need to be more careful about filling them up with things that I have no intention of actually doing, then using them to torture myself for procrastinating. Simplify.

The Filofax could work in a simple linear way, like a notebook, for general daily scribblings and notes, but could also have lists in another section, easy to find, and rarely needing copying out again.

The only problem I found after a while of using it again was that even the Pocket size was a bit too big. It fit in my jeans pocket, but it really packed my pocket out, and was big enough to be awkward to get in and out of it.

After lots of pondering and comparing, I finally ended up buying a Mini (smaller than a Pocket size) Guildford from Staples. I picked up a ‘today’ ruler, and lots of lined paper at the same time, along with just a little plain paper. I grabbed a set of subject dividers from WHSmith back in Tiverton, and so far, things are going well.

The Mini size doesn’t fell too much smaller when using it as a Filofax, but it feels much more reasonable to use as a wallet, where the Pocket always felt a bit ridiculous. Time will tell how well I stick to it in the longer term, but I’m certainly liking it so far.

At least this time I wasn’t alone – Sam was having great trouble settling on the right thing to use for a diary for next year. With doing Slimming World, having the right format to track her eating for each day is important. A combination of Filofax and WHSmith held the answer for her, too, with a smart new bag bringing it all together.

The plan we had recently for making PigPog all about Visual Arts wasn’t really working out very well. We’ve not been updating much still, and most of what we have done has been personal stuff, not much more than catblogging. Rather than fight the inevitable, I’d made a few more adjustments to try to bring what PigPog claims to be more in line with what it is.

• We’ve got rid of all the old set categories, and now only have ‘tags’ that we stick to things ‘on-the-fly’. It doesn’t make much real difference, but at least there aren’t a bunch of unused categories listed at the top of the form when we add new entries, taunting us, and saying “These are the things you’re supposed to be writing about”.
• I’ve tweaked the Tag Cloud interface, which should now make a reasonably easy and fun way to find stuff on PigPog. It’s all still a bit time-based, but it’s nice and automatic.
• We’ve dropped the ‘Visual Arts’ tagline. It now just says “Michael and Sam”, which is about as far as we want to narrow things down.

Stuff that we may do different or change in the future:

• We’ll probably try to do more short blog posts, putting more into PigPog than Twitter.
• A new logo would be nice, but I’m not sure what. The current landscape photo was just the first thing that came to mind that matched the colour scheme, and I didn’t intend it to last.

I’m writing this post on my handheld coming to you live from the hand-picked guatemalan coffee shop at the local hand-picked guatemalan overpriced food and pants emporium. It’s only 8.30am and already the place is heaving with people desperately stocking up on supplies for tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I’ve got to go to work in a bit. I could quite happily sit here all day watching shoppers clear the shelves of mince pies and stuffing, but instead I’ve got to go in to work and spend the day wondering when we can go home.

It’s business as usual tonight, though. Off to Group as usual so I’ll be back later with a festive Slimming World update. Now to sink this espresso, turn off the Nano (thanks, Michael), shove it back in my cavernous new handbag (thanks again Michael!) and be on my way.

A happy Christmas Eve to all, wherever you are.

See you later.

It was my ‘funny’ week this week, so Mr Scale reported a little gain of half a pound. So, let’s gloss over that one this week and enjoy this photo of me celebrating last week’s achievement instead:

So it would seem that every four weeks or so I hit a little glitch. Hmm. Had some good advice on how to deal with such times – acting as if it’s my first week, looking everything up, counting and measuring. I did that last time, and it seemed to work. So, onwards and downwards! The journey continues …

We had a bit of a trip out at the start of November, to Budleigh Salterton and Sidmouth, and happened to be around Sidmouth for the sunset over the beach.

At the same time, looking the other direction gave a completely different view – it barely looked like time for sunset at all:

We walked along by the sandstone cliffs:

Finally, we climbed Jacob’s Ladder, back up to where we’d parked, before heading for home: