Let it snow

This week I have discovered a new form of excercise – shovelling snow. We have about 8-10 inches at the moment, and on Tuesday the kids stayed home and I got quite a bit of excercise building a snowman and an attempt at an igloo (not very successful). Then this morning I had to clear a path down the drive for my wife to do the school run, with a silly little shovel not designed for the purpose – that was hard work.

Walked to/from the station again today, and also had walks of over an hour on Sunday and Tuesday, so I’m having a good week for excercise already. Will probably walk to station at least once more this week, because it’s easier than digging my car up! Not quite so good for food, slipping back into snacking and deserts quite a bit and portion sizes may have crept up at the odd meal too. It hasn’t been terrible, but several biscuits a day kind of thing. One day was much worse – Monday I think. Today has been better. Been struggling to catch up with work all week and when I’m chasing my tail like this I can easily drift into a short term mode where nothing but surviving the day matters, and then I lose motivation. Also missed my proper breakfast Monday/Tuesday – that always mucks my day up. Porridge rocks!

I’ve been staring at red things a lot following my last hypnotherapy session, which are supposed to increase my motivation. Is it working? I don’t think so really. I’m also struggling with the hypnotherapy MP3 this week, have abandoned it part way twice because I just couldn’t get into it. Maybe it’s just got too repetitive, or maybe I’m just in the wrong frame of mind.

Ordered my Swingball on Ebay on Sunday, still waiting for it to show up. Not that I would get much use of it just now with all the snow, which doesn’t look like going any time soon.  But I still want to get my hands on it, it’s another positive step.

More Hypnotherapy

Wow, just got back from my hypnotherapy session, which today was quite an experience. We did much deeper hypnotherapy today, and it felt weird (in a good way). The best way I can describe it is when you feel semi-concious in the night while dreaming, and actually think you are awake until you realise you can’t move. I lost touch with my arms completely, thought they had gone totally numb, but they came back bar a slight tingle as soon as I was brought round.

The main purpose of the session today was to talk to the different “parts of me”  – the one that still wants to eat chocolate and the one that is working on changing my lifestyle and getting me fit. I had to give them names, which felt a bit silly, but once we’d got past that it seemed to flow naturally enough. So now we have (fat)  Fred the chocolate man, and (Slim) Jim the new lifesyle Guru, who have agreed to work in harmony to help me achieve my goals. Fred, apparently, is a well meaning but slightly misguided soul who just wants me to have a bit of fun to break up my long working days, and thus far has only been able to think of eating confectionary as a suitably short diversion. We have decided to try and find some other diversions instead, preferably onces where I can expend a bit of energy as  I get so fidgety sat at my desk all day long.

The main conclusion of the session is that I’m going to buy a swingball set for the garden. The good thing about having kids is that I can pretend it’s really for them so I won’t look like a complete nob. Then instead of going to the kitchen for a biscuit I can go outside and whack the ball round for a few minutes. I think this could help a bit, I have never grown out of the simple pleasure of hitting or throwing a ball, but I never get to do it as I am all grown up with responsibilities, and my kids can’t throw more than a few feet yet or catch anything other than colds. I may also buy a punchbag for when it’s raining, or when I’ve just spoken to someone from the public sector, or British Telecom.  Ideally I’d like a little home gym, but don’t really have the room. Don’t really want it cluttering my office, and the remainder of the house is full of childrens toys & clothes, and my wife’s shoes.

We also re-enforced all the messages we did at the last session. And a new thing that Wanda did was try and plant in my subconcious a message that every time I see the colour red it will increase my determination. Will be interesting to see if that works, though I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be aware of it if it does.

I’m very motivated at the moment, which I was even before the session today but even more so now. Feeling quite confident too. I’m starting to really believe that 2009 will be the year I change my life for he better. And not in a “I must believe it for it to work so I’m going to say I believe it” kind of way. I’m philosophical too. I know it’s very early days, and after 30 years of being out of control and more failed attempts to change than I could possible count, the form book clearly says I will still be fat in 12 months. But this time, I may just defy the odds. In fact there’s a thought. I’ve read about people putting bets on themselves to lose weight, I wonder if I could do that. It would be a great extra incentive:)

My fitness challenge

Today I am excited. I have received my entry form for what I’ve decided will be my mid-year fitness challenge, the Yorkshire three peak walk. This is something I discussed with Wanda, my hypnotherapist, and we agreed that it would be great to have a positive goal to focus on, rather than a list of things not to do. We did some work under hypnosis on visualising myself crossing the finishing line – it seemed powerful at the time though hasn’t really stuck with me. I think now I can officially enter it’s going to seem more real though, and I have another hypnotherapy session next Friday so we may work on it some more I hope.

This involves a circular walk of around 26 miles, climbing the three highest mountains in Yorkshire (not very high, all around 2500 ft) for a total ascent and descent of over 5000 feet, with the traditional challenge being to complete it in 12 hours.  There is an organised charity event for Heart Research UK so I’m going to try and raise a little money for them in the process, but I’d be lying if I said that was the main motivation. I want to set myself a challenge that I know will take significant weight loss and excercise for me to be able to achieve.

The event is on 20 June, the day after my 44th birthday, so I’ve got five more months to shift weight and get much fitter. This gives a purpose to my walking know, and I couldn’t have a better birthday present than crossing the finishing line within the 12 hour target. I think I’ll try and round up a team from the office too – there are several ultra-fit types there who could do this any day of the week with no prep. But being part of a team would give me an extra incentive not to let the side down. The lightest I’ve been any time in the last 10 years is about 260lbs (18 st 4 if you’re British and not good at your 14 times table), so that’s my loose goal for 20 June – seems realistic, that would be 60 lbs in just under 6 months. But really if I complete the walking challenge it will be mission accomplished.

Happy days

I’ve just been for a little walk, and even managed to persuade my 6-y-o son, Isaac, to come with me. It cost me a trip to the toy shop, but what the hec. We had an hour in the park then walked the 2m or so back home through a little woodland path we discovered during the Christmas holidays (we’ve only just moved to this house in December). And after moaning about being tired and asking if we could get a taxi(!) he got stuck in and really enjoyed himself. He raced on in front, named a tree after himself after climbing it (well, sitting on the bottom branch), and we sat on an escarpment and watched trains coming and going from the station hundreds of feet below. This is what life is for.