Weight Loss

Today I want to write a about something which has plagued me for several years now: "Weight Loss".

I was never fat as a little boy, in fact I was fairly skinny. I remember being amazed that one of my friends weighed 32 kgs when all I weighed was 27. Now I weigh almost 4 times that!

I joined the police in 2003 weighing about 16 1/2 stone. That was fairly heavy. I could still carry my weight quite well and was able to pass the police fitness tests, which were much harder then than they are now... But, nevertheless, I was still fat.

In March 2004 I started a diet. By October I had losst 2 1/2 stone and by Christmas I had lost another 6 pounds. My waist went from being a 42inch waist (almost 44) to being a 34 inch waist. I could run to level 11.3 on a bleep test, which is fairly good.

My weight fluctuated between 13 st 6lbs and 13 st 12lbs for the next year and a half. Recently however I have become complacent. I didn't learn that I could no longer eat whatever I wanted and still maintain the shape I was in. Round about the time my third daughter was born, in September 2006, I weighed about 14 st 6. I have since put on about a stone and a half. I weigh almost 16 stone again. The heaviest I have been for a very long time.

I went for a run today. I hardly made it to twenty minutes.

Today I have started doing something about it.

Tomorrow morning I will weigh myself and find out exactly how much I weigh. Next Sunday I will update you with my progress.

See you soon.

PS: The feet in the picture aren't mine!

Catchup (not Ketchup)

Over the past nine days I have been very busy. I went to another Worship Central Conference up in London and it was very very good. If anyone is interested in finding out more, please go to their website, www.worshipcentral.org.





I then had to go back to work, which was fine.





The fence panel blew down again. Well, I say again, it was actually the fence panel next to the one I replaced last time. I didn't buy a new fence post this time. I didn't buy a new fence panel either. A few strong nails and a couple of swear words later (mainly when missing the nails...) and the fence appears as strong as ever.





I'll test it out in the next storm...

More DIY ineptitudes...

Sunday evening I bit the DIY bullet again and tried to carry out some fairly simple plumbing. I had to disconnect the wahing machine as someone was taking it away. We were getting a new one, you see.

I turned the taps of under the sink to stop the water flow and then disconnected the pipes from the back of the washing machine...

Suddenly I was being sprayed with a jet of water so strong it could rival a fire engine's pump. I was soaked, the children were screaming, the dog was barking and the poor lady who had come to collect the washing machine was left holding the baby while Becky rushed around trying to find towels to mop up the lake that was threatening to engulf not only our kitchen but the whole of our ground floor.

I finally found the tiny little valve which turned the water off. It was hidden under the sink, through a tiny little hatch and down some stairs leading into a small basement room which was guarded by 3 tigers and a hungry elephant... Well, it was quite hard to find anyway...

So I disconnected the old washing machine, leaving the kitchen sink and the dishwasher out of commission for a couple of days.

The new washing machine arrived. It looks awesome. I decided to attach it, but this one only has space to attach one pipe, whereas the last had 2... I worked that puzzle out but then had to connect the exhaust pipe to the U-bend under the sink...

Unfortunately I had given away a vital part of the U-bend to the lady with the washing machine. I hadn't realised that at the time, so had to replace a whole U-bend.

So, a job that should have taken 5 minutes, took almost two hours and included a trip to B&Q, a new U-bend, a lot of water and stress levels going through the roof.

Sometimes I think I should just leave these things to professionals... I'll stick with playing guitar...