Weight - The Carrying Thereof

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2006

I started a blog with a Singaporean buddy, PC (Paul), back in 2006 which was intended, well let me quote...


"This is intended to be a chronicle of gut-busting proportions.

Two generously proportioned Singapore based guys share their fun and frustration, ha ha, as they attempt to deny themselves one more helping of Chili Crab and enter the previously forbidden realms of puchasing off-the-shelf clothes,
ha fucking ha..."


I had already dropped a lot of Kgs to get to my best weight in many many years, in order to not look quite so morbidly obese for my high-school's 20th anniversary back in Geelong. For some unfortunate reason, my belly seems to be annoyingly non-participatory when it comes to getting it off. If and when I do lose weight, it preferentially comes of my legs and my arse. I have a dreadful fear of turning into a toffee apple - a fat bellied, shiny old perv with skinny legs and a skanky arse.

At the reunion, one of the guys, now taller and moderately trim, whom we considered in school to be a nerd and a chubby non-sportsman (but in retrospect was probably normal) said to me:

"E@L you've got so... fat!"

"Yes, thanks," I replied. "I have lost a lot recently. Thanks for noticing." Cunt.


9 February 2006


4 April 2006


9 May 2006
Well that didn't work out too well, did it?

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2007

Start again?


4 April 2007

8 April 2007

11 April 2007
And...

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2008

This year mysteriously left blank.
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2009

Hmmmm. Tut tut, E@L.


14 December 2009 -

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2010


10 April 2010
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2011


2 January 2011
Holy mother of shit! 10 days post Christmas and look at this! (I was above 130Kgs when I returned form Geelong, so 2kgs came off in just a few days/ No doubt that last shit helped a lot.)


5 February 2011


13 February 2011
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2012

I had a horrible time skiing in Nagano, where the powder was waist deep in late January of this year (2012 I mean). Certainly I couldn't walk up in ski-gear to the lift and had to take the shuttle-bus for just one stop. I was exhausted after two runs and my muscles kept locking up in the most dangerous of situations... After day three when the weather set-in, that was it for the rest of the week, even when the sun came out. I was in the coffee-shop all day. I could only just make the slight walk up the hill to the onsen in the evening.

I decided that skiing next year (maybe Austria in 2013) was going to be different. 2012 was going to be the year of turning it around.


12 March 2012


21 April 2012
Was working hard at it: gym, swimming, smaller meals, greatly reduced alcohol* (let's not get silly), just chipping away. But not entirely comfortable in the chest department. GORD? Or the atrocious genes (terrible, don't ask about my family's cardiac history) making their sub-endothelial presence felt??


22 Jun 2012 -Woohoo! Broke the 115 barrier!
Not just walking, I was now doing 2min bursts of jogging on the treadmill interspersed with my incline and pace modulated walking, and I could easily jog for the bus now, or dash across the flashing-green-turns-red pedestrian crossing without getting short of breath, but there was that occasional and transient pinpoint of retrosternal annoyance...

So, I was a bit worried becasue I had a trip to Europe with Izzy et al coming up, and sought out a cardiologist (had to go third choice, everyone else was on leave) he sent me for a PET scan and stress test. Result? ... ALL CLEAR!

10 days later? I climb that high San Gimignano tower in the heat, feel that pinpoint grow, become like an enlarging spring winding up tighter and tighter. Heart attack, oops, I mean Angina Episode.


11 September 2012
Yep my strict regimen isn't all that strict and isn't all that effective. In fact I am concerned that too quick or too drastic a change in lifestyle will not be sustainable and will set me yo-yoing again, as the numbers above reveal.

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2013


13 Mar 2013
Slowly. Essentially I have been on a moderately strict low-carb (in particular very low sugar and fruit juice - i.e. minimal fructose), low alcohol, protein rich, fibre-rich, normal/high fat Atkins-style Diet: low GI essentially. Note the minimal recidivism over the last 12 months. On this variation (recommended by another cardiologist, one of our clients), and on Lipitor and BP medication, last time I saw said cardiologist, he was concerned that my cholesterol was TOO low and that my blood pressure was TOO low. I just need to lose more weight, he said.

And today, I was accidentally dragged out to what turned out to be pre-St Patrick's Day drinks and, under protest, knocked back, as I said against every good intention, two delicious pints of creamy, chilled Guinness. I had started with soda water, but at $8 a pop (ha! Singapore!) my back-hairs bristled. I was not happy with my lack of resistance, though I fought off the puerile goading of my health-harmful friends ("Have another drink, ya big giiiiiiiirrrrl!" Because girls don't drink, do they, Evil K?) and, for a variety of other reasons as well, decided to head home.

I will wait until next week to weigh myself again and I see the cardiologist in a fortnight. Two Guinness, how pathetic am I? (You can read that two ways I think?)

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Weight?

You've got to carry it a long time, trust me.


2:45 - 3:17
E@L

* Don't suppose any cares but my lower gastro-intestinal system seem to have developed something of an intolerance for alcohol as it passes through, red wine in particular.