Wednesday 31 October 2007

The Dieting Man: Tuesday 30th October 2007




Alrighty There People!

Well, today was a good day. Not only did I succeed in not eating any junk food, but I successfully completed ten minutes on the exercise bike, my Wii fitness exercises, three rounds of boxing the bags, and two fights. And guess what? You can check out pictures and videos of the aforementioned events!

I didn't have any cereal for lunch today, instead I had an apple and a banana.

I was wrecked when I finally got in at 9.20, but that didn't stop me hopping onto the bike, and burning off 9.5 calories as I blasted through 2.64 miles of my kitchen. Finishing that, I booted up the Wii, and went onto the fitness, which calculates your age. I did rubbish, scoring a ridiculously high 58 - check out the image below!


Then it was onto the bags:

Round 1 - 32 bags - Watch the video
Round 2 - 31 bags - Watch the video
Round 3 - 29 bags - Watch the video

After that, I started the fights. Check out this fight with Matt - he absolutely annihilated me!

Succumbing to defeat, I went on to fight Elisa, and I beat her to the ground in no time. Unfortunately, the camera got knocked in this video, but you can still hear it!

So, two silver stars for me, and tomorrow I'll try and do better with the fights!

Until tomorrow,

Adios!

The Dieting Man

Tuesday 30 October 2007

The Dieting Man: Monday 28th October 2007

Alrighty There People!

Well, I haven’t blogged for a while now, and it’s because I’ve just been so busy with lots and lots and lots.

I haven’t been on the Wii for ages, I haven’t been on the exercise bike again since I last blogged, and I’ve been eating flapjacks, cakes, and chocolate. And Ben and Jerry’s. What am I trying to say? I’ve totally gone off of the rails.

You know, someone once told me that if I put up a chart, and give myself a gold star for doing well, it would serve as motivation for me.

So I’ve made myself a calendar, and I’ll give myself one silver star for each day that I eat no junk food, and one silver star for each day that I do my full round of exercises – that’s ten minutes on the bike, Wii Fitness, 3 rounds of Bag Training, and 2 Fights. At the end of the week, if I have 14 silver stars, I get a gold star. Woohoo!

So this started today, and I managed to go the full day without any junk or bad stuff, although double chocolate muffins, iced buns, and roses were being passed around the office. But I managed to turn them all down!

Then, I got on my exercise bike, and did ten minutes (travelling 2.43 miles, and burning up an almighty 9.1 calories!).

Following that, I completed my 3 round on the bag, scoring 31 on round 1, 30 on round 2, and a humble 25 on round 3.

Then, stepping gingerly into the ring, I faced Elisa for fight one. Bearing in mind that I had 1455 points, she had 1505 points, and it’s been a while since my last fight…

Anyway, round one was really vicious, I managed to floor Elisa 3 times, but she floored me 4 times – and the last time I didn’t get up. That’s right, the fight was over in round one.

So I lost ten points, and went on to round two – where I floored Elisa before she had even managed to get a few swings in. Amazingly, she didn’t get up! Round 1, first knockdown, and she stayed down! That earned me a whopping 67 points, which I was very grateful for. So I swaggered out of the ring with 1512 points. Nice!

So today, I gained 2 silver stars. Tomorrow, I hope to do the same.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Until tomorrow,

Adios!

The Dieting Man

Friday 19 October 2007

Why Do We Keep Paying Exorbitant Amounts of Money for FOOD?

Alrighty There People.

I'm quite angry at the moment. I went shopping last night, at my local ASDA, and I had a goal in mind - not just to get my weekly supply of food and necessities, but also to do a comparison.

You see, when we go shopping at places like ASDA, Tesco, Sainsburys and the like, we have a choice of three types of food: Brand name foods, such as Heinz, Wall's, etc; the supermarket's own brand of food, in nicely designed packaging; and the cheap stuff - SmartPrice at ASDA, Value at Tesco, and Basics at Sainsbury’s (I think those are correct) - these are just the food, in plain packaging, with it's description and nutritional information.

Now, the prices we pay for these differing packages varies greatly, but generally, the food is the same. So when I did my shopping last night, I made a comparison - of the branded foods, ASDA's own foods, and ASDA's SmartPrice foods. For the purposes of this 'test', I made a list of 20 food and drink items that may be bought in a typical week. I avoided other items, such as bodycare items - toothpaste, shampoo, shower gel, etc; and things that you can pick up in supermarkets, such as pots and pans, crockery, cutlery etc. I concentrated purely on food.

Here are the shocking results of the price difference between branded foods, ASDA foods, and SmartPrice foods:



If you haven't quite digested that, take a look at this summary:


And if you need any more help working out what this means, these charts may help you:


Now, I know that sometimes only Coca Cola will do, or you'd rather a tub of Ben and Jerry's than ASDA's own offering, but to be honest in the past I've bought branded foods, ASDA's own foods, and SmartPrice foods, and sometimes you just can't taste the difference.

So why, people, do we need to be so fashion conscious, and spend exorbitant amounts of money on brand name foods, when we could be saving hundreds - yes - hundreds - of pounds each year on something so simple as food.

Please feel free to discuss.

The Dieting Man

Tuesday 16 October 2007

GeekyNerdy Bumper Stickers

Alrighty There People!

These are hilarious bumper stickers (I love bumper stickers, hence the link over there on the right), and these are bumper stickers that are ideal for geeks and nerds.













My fave has to be the n00b driver one, but I think that the HTML colour ones are perfect for any geek or nerd.

At only $3.00, these bumper stickers are well worth it, IMHO.

Here's all the links:

n00b driver
http://www.cafepress.com/n00bdriver

Black HTML
http://www.cafepress.com/000000black

Blue HTML
http://www.cafepress.com/0000ffblue

Red HTML
http://www.cafepress.com/ff0000red

Yellow HTML
http://www.cafepress.com/ffff00yellow

White HTML
http://www.cafepress.com/ffffffwhite

I'll keep you up to date with the diet soon.

Until... later...

Adios!

The Dieting Man

DIGG THIS!

Friday 12 October 2007

The Dieting Man: Wii Boxing and The Special K Diet: 11th October 2007

Alrighty There People!

I had my choleseterol taken today. I don’t know anything about cholesterol, but mine was 5.95. Apparently, if it was 6, I would have been sent to the doctors. Fantastic. So, I was told that I mustn’t eat any junk – biscuits, cakes, etc etc. I was weighed in at 13.5 stone, and my waist measured an enormous 38.5inches. So I was not best pleased. I’m going back in December to see if I have improved at all, and meantime I’m really going to work hard. I think that now I’ve seen numbers down in writing, it’s hit hard that I need to do something about it.

So. Last night, I went to ASDA to do the shopping. The only thing I bought that I shouldn’t was a tub of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream – it was on offer for £2.00, and I couldn’t resist. But I steered clear of chocolate bars, biscuits, cakes, muffins, the lot. Instead, I headed for the fruit section, and got a bunch of bananas, five apples, five oranges, and a mango. I don’t even know what to do with a mango, but I thought it might be interesting.

Then, I got in (at quarter past eleven), and after putting the shopping away, climbed onto the exercise bike for ten minutes. After that, I hooked up the Wii, and started to do battle. Results below:

I went on the Fitness first: A round on the bags, a round of Power bowling, and a round of accuracy golf. My age? 22. Nice.

Then on to my 3 rounds on the bags:

Round 1: 19 bags
Round 2: 18 bags
Round 3: 35 bags

Yeah, that’s right – rounds one and two, I was just warming up. Check out the results on round 3. Rock on.

Confidently, I stepped into the ring, wondering who I would be facing first.

Fight One:
I was up against Eva. This was someone new, someone flexing their 1399 points against my 1289. I was raring to go. It had been a while since I had been in the ring, so was slightly apprehensive, but the adrenaline was coursing through my body. I started lashing out, hurtful blows that pulverised Eva. She only got about two jabs in to me. She was down, out cold – to the count of ten. Rock on! An easy victory, and 56 points to add to my belt.

Fight Two:
Now I was up against Jake, another n00b to me. He wielded his 1409 points with pride as he swaggered into the ring.

We started boxing. I knocked him down. He got up. He knocked me down. I boxed him to within an inch of going down, and the first round was over.

The second round started, and I flew in, a flurry of furious fists. He was down, out cold. He succumbed to my fists, and I gained another 68 points. End of the evening, and I was on 1413 points. Nice.

And thus I start with renewed vigour – exercise, diet, a whole new me.

Keep up!

Until tomorrow,
Adios!

The Dieting Man.

Thursday 11 October 2007

The Dieting Man: Wii Boxing and The Special K Diet: Thursday 11th October 2007

Alrighty There People!

Thought I’d update you with the latest.

First of all, bad news. No milk and no Special K means that this morning’s breakfast was jam on toast.

More bad news: I didn’t go on the Wii last night – I’ve just been so shattered recently, that I’ve been going to bed mega early. Well, mega early for me, anyway.

I’ve just read this article on getting better sleep, so I’m going to put these into practice and see what happens…

Okay, onto the good news: I went on the exercise bike last night! Ten minutes. It’s been ages since I was last on it, so I took it easy – only just breaking a sweat. But I was checking out the ‘on board computer’ – sounds snazzy, but it’s not – and according to that I only burnt 7 calories. So how long would I need to go on to burn off an entire chocolate bar? Hours or days?!

More good news: I was talking to my wife last night about my weight, and saying that I want to go back down to 9 stone, which is what I was when we met. She wasn’t happy – she said that I was ‘a rake’ when we met, and the lowest she wants me to go is 11.5 stone. So that’s my goal: To lose 2.5 stone. Which doesn’t sound that bad really. Not compared to what some of these guys did in a short space of time…

So. From today, Thursday October 11th 2007, it’s no more junk food AT ALL. It’s going to be healthy food. No more coffee, hot chocolates, chocolate milkshakes or coffee mochas - it’s going to be lots of water and lots of smoothies. I’m going to try and eat 5 pieces of fruit and/or veg each day. I’m going to go on the exercise bike for at least ten minutes each day, no matter how wrecked I am, and I’m going to do Wii Boxing every day, again, regardless of how tired or exhausted I am. Nobody said that losing weight was going to be easy, and until now I’ve been just messing around. But I intend to get fit, keep fit, and lose some of this flab. Yeah!

And, of course, I’ll keep you posted.

Until tomorrow,

Adios!

The Dieting Man

Wednesday 10 October 2007

Alton Towers: The Day I Stopped Oblivion

It was cold and wet when we got up at 5am. I ran downstairs like an excited kid about to go on holiday – on an aeroplane for the first time. I grabbed myself a bowl of Special K, and hungrily wolfed it down. I filled the kettle, and set about making a cup of tea for the other half – she won’t even get out of bed without one. Checked my email, checked some web stats, got washed, got ready.

I then set about organising the food bag, and in the back of my mind, a warning went off: Don’t forget about the diet. Hmmm. Diet. Stuff the diet, this is a day of fun!!!

So I crammed lots of nice stuff into the bag: Yazoo, Chocolate, M&Ms, crisps, and, of course, sandwiches.

Then we waited for our ride. The plan was to be picked up at the house at 6am, then go on to our second point to pick up the others at 6.15. We got to the second point at twenty past six, and waited patiently. For ages. The other car didn’t show up. I phoned. They were running late. I wasn’t pleased. So we went to McDonalds for the rest of the people in the car to get breakfast. I just got a coffee.

We went back to our waiting point, and waited. Finally, the others show up – at seven o’clock. So now we’re running 45 minutes late. Alton Towers opens at 9.30 – there was no way we were going to make it for then. So we blast along the motorway, making good time. We hit a bit of traffic, but it wasn’t bad. We got through that, and barrelled along towards our destination. Then we hit trouble. The road was closed. There had been an accident, and the police had shut the road. So our driver (who had refused my offer to bring SatNav), then tried to renavigate the route. He took a different road, but that took us to another part of the road that was still closed.

Then, the driver of the second car needed a pee. For crying out loud, we’d already stopped twice for him! Strengthen your bladder mate. Alton Towers was gonna start filling up!!!!

So we pulled over, he peed, we carried on. This detour had added an extra half an hour to our journey. I was seething.

We pulled into the car park. It was pretty busy. Great. THEN, there was great debates as to what to take in. Would it get colder? Do I need a coat? Hat? Gloves? Scarf? Should I bring all the food? Should we move the cars? For Pete’s sake people, if you stop deliberating we could be queuing for Oblivion by now!

FINALLY, at twenty past eleven (that’s right: 11:20) we were on the monorail. We paid and entered the park, and headed for the rides.

The first one that we went on was the Spinball. That was great. Me and two others went on it, but as our carriage came into the ‘station’, the ride broke down. Unbelievably. For ten minutes, I was stuck on this ride, as all around I could hear the screams of terror and delight of others, who were on rides that were still working. Aaaargh!

After being released, we rushed over to Oblivion. Man, was I looking forward to this. We only had to queue for ten minutes or so, which was great. It wasn’t as busy as I thought it would have been. We finally got onto the ride, and I was sitting front row, far seat. I slyly took out my Nokia 3250, twist and shoot camera/video phone. I was going to video this beast!

The ride started, and immediately you are on a 45 degree ascent. Clang clang clang clang clang, as you are being drawn up by the machine. Suddenly, the machine stopped.

Now, I’ve been on Oblivion before, and I knew that it was not supposed to stop at this point. A vague warning bell sounded in my mind – again.

Suddenly, a pre-recorded message was blasted from invisible speakers:

“Please be aware that video recording equipment, cameras, and mobile phones are not permitted on this ride.”

Oh cak.

The girl sitting next to me said, “They’ve caught you!”

Looking directly in front of me, I could see CCTV cameras, but I thought, “Surely not!”

Anyway, I very slowly folded the phone back into normal position, and wedged it back in my pocket – hard to do when strapped in and at a 45 degree angle.

I carried on smiling like someone who is enjoying the ride, hoping against hope that they hadn’t seen me. I was wrong. They had.

We waited for what seemed an eternity. Then the unthinkable happened.

They had sent a staff member to CLIMB up the side of Oblivion, complete with rock climbing harness gear and everything.

She called along “Row 1, Seat 1 – please pass your phone along.”

I had no choice. I dug it back out of my pocket, and handed it along the row.

Then my mate called out to the woman “Do you want my phone too?”

“Are you planning on taking it out on the ride?”

“No.”

“Then no thank you.”

She then radioed down to the control centre that the phone had been confiscated, and the ride continued to climb.

Now I was worried. Would they keep my phone all day? Maybe send it back to me the next day? Would I get thrown out? Would security be throwing me? Would I be forced to wear some kind of ‘Naughty Boy’ clothing so that crew at other rides could keep an eye on me?

Anyway, the ride carried on – it was fantastic.

I got off the ride, and the woman that had had to climb Oblivion came over to me. I couldn’t believe that she was smiling. She handed me my phone, and that was that. You have no idea how relieved I was!

Anyway, we then had lunch – I couldn’t believe it, but then again, I was quite hungry.

After that, we went on the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory ride – if you’ve got kids, they’ll enjoy it, if you haven’t, give it a miss.

Then Rita – Queen of Speed. Oh my word. It totally blew me away. Words cannot describe the speed or the rush that that ride delivers. Just go on it.

The Corkscrew – that was the ride I queued the longest for. It was good, but not fantastic, but I would definitely ride it again.

From there, it was the Runaway Mine Train – good, but it hurt my ribs because you slide around in the seats.

Nemesis – fantastic. Apparently, you experience the same G’s as a space shuttle launch. In other words, its bone crushingly great.

The Ghost Train is okay, you have to shoot loads of baddies all the way around, which gave me hand strain.

We then went on the River Rapids – large yellow inflatables that get you soaked if you’re not careful.

Then I went on the Teacups, because they’re just fun.

We finished off with Spinball again, using our Priority pass that we had gotten for our inconvenience earlier.

I’m gutted that I didn’t get to go on Air, and I would’ve loved to have done Oblivion, Rita and Nemesis again.

Anyway, from there we went to the new Crazy Golf course, which costs a fiver, but was really good and took about an hour, and then we headed home.

So Alton Towers was great – but don’t try to video any of the rides. They just don’t like it.

Tuesday 9 October 2007

The Dieting Man: Wii Boxing and The Special K Diet

Alrighty There People!

Apologies for not keeping up with this - I think it's been nearly two weeks!

Alton Towers rocked - I managed to stop Oblivion by trying to video the ride - more on that later. I haven't actually done any Wii boxing since then, as my back has been playing me up, and my asthma too, so need to take it steady, but I will be getting back into that and giving you all an update soon.

Actually eating a bowl of Special K whilst writing this, so somethings are still the same ;)

Check back later for the full Alton Towers story!

Later!

The Dieting Man

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