Cheers

Alan

The generosity and support I am receiving is just astounding, I am trying not to dismiss it, but to take it in and use as fuel for my discipline. Not as a fear that I’ll let anyone down if I don’t change my life, but as a positive to know that others will get a kick out of it as well.

Maggie just proves to be an amazing woman, inviting my son in to the last part of class and having him participate. He loved it and is already talking about the next time he can come along. I’m just happy he gets the opportunity to see what I am doing and what it is all about.

Anyway off to Ballarat for the afternoon / night and then tomorrow am going to hit the gym for a workout before taking the young man to Tennis. Then off to see the mighty Bombers take on Geelong.

I feel great at the moment, opposed to Thursday and Friday when I felt massive. I feel thin today which is great.

But this week a loss of only 0.8 kilos.

But I suppose a loss is a loss, and that is a good thing. It’s better to be 127.2 kilos than 158 kilos. I am glad that I feel that I want more loss, but I also realise that I need to work a bit harder for it. I can’t turn 27+ years of self abuse around in a week or 17.

Ok, so what did I learn this week?

• Can’t eat poorly for 3 days and work it off  qucikly.
• 3 exercise sessions in a week isn’t enough.

So what will I do diffferently next week?

• Eat well all week
• Limit Fat Food Friday to lunch only
• At least 5 exercise sessions

Temptations to confront this week

• Ballarat on Saturday at friends for party
• Football on Sunday
• Tuesday night management drinks
• Thursday night staff drinks

Strategy;

• Eat home prepared meal for lunch before leaving
• prep vegetables to have with barby on Saturday evening.
• Take roasted almonds to Footy (Go Bombers!)
• Carry water bottle at party, drink constantly.
• Tuesday night, just drink water (easy as I am not much of a drinker these days)
• Thursday night, I’ll miss the drinks as I need to pick up my son from school.

Most importantly though is I’ll be aware and alert of not letting myself down and mark down the victories over temptation as I go.

Check out a great site that I’ve been using since the start of saving Alan called Zealog, it allows you to chart your progress on anything you may want to measure from the crazy to the mundane. I use it for updating my weekly weight and measurements.

Saving Alan's Weight Chart on Zealog.com

This weeks weekly numbers in a more traditional format;

A disappointing week ... again.

If you haven’t sponsored me yet, make sure to hit the Support Alan tab in the menu and help out Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute.

Here’s the link.

The ABC 774 Blog

Richard and I worked together back in the early 90s at Triple M Melbourne and have only caught up a few times since, but I was grateful for how he treated the subject and that he didn’t let me off in a few areas. I haven’t listened back to it yet, but I know within the interview there were things I raised but didn’t expand on as time is always of essence.

The blog becomes the opportunity to review the interview and talk about many of the subjects in more detail. One thing I mentioned was that I don’t see myself as the big heavy guy (although I know I am) and sometimes I get horrified when I catch my reflection in a window or mirror.

Unfortunately photo’s don’t lie .. here a shot from this afternoon post interview, I was a little shocked when I saw it, but there’s my current reality, but that doesn’t mean it always has to be.

In the ABC 774 studio with Richard Stubbs post interview.

Without thinking I said yes. Tonight, the night before going on air with Richard I have what may be classed as buyers remorse, wondering whether the story will resonate with anyone or will I cop criticism from self interest groups – I don’t know what to expect at all. But I trust Richard to get me through it and to start me on a new path of discussion that I haven’t yet touched on in previous blogs and that is why am I obese – the between the ears story.

Then again he may not touch on that, it’ll be interesting to see where the conversation goes.

So if you’re interested tune in at 1.30pm, Wednesday 27 May to have a listen, if you can’t then I am sure there will be some podcst version of it on the 774 website.

Is going overly public a good idea? Hope the story resonates.

Thank you for your support, please spread the word to your contacts, let see just how far we take this from my small network and really raise some serious funds for Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute.

• Julie Long    $2 per kilo
• Mark & Marlene Fry     $1 per kilo
• Peter Applebaum    $5 per kilo
• Heather Albrecht    $100 donation
• Annie Sargood    $1 per kilo
• Peter Burley    $1 per kilo
• Larry Clark    $3 per kilo
• David Hamilton    $100 donation
• Chris Gray    $10 per kilo
• James Manolios    $1 per kilo
• Alan Long    $2 per kilo
• Marcus Lovett    $5 per kilo
• Martyn Thomas    $1 per kilo
• Jill Hennessy $3 per kilo
• Elizabeth Hoyle $1 per kilo
• Mark  Peaker $150 donation
• Amanda Daniel    $1 per kilo
• Leigh Oneill    $1 per kilo
• Declan Long    $1 per kilo
• Rob Manning    $2 per kilo
• David Chinn    $25 donation
• Craig Reardon    $1 per kilo
• Nik Kontoulas    $2 per kilo
• Simon Herd     $25 donation

So far based on my weight loss of 30 kilos we have raised $1,720 and we add another $44 for every additional kilo lost, hopefully we can get that up substantially over the next few weeks with the balance of my network and a bit of other help.

Thanks to all my new sponsors – Marcus, Martyn, Jill (comrade), Liz, Leigh, David, Rob, Craig and Nik and a special thanks to Mark Peaker and Amanda Daniel who don’t even know me.

And thanks to my foundations sponsor big sis’ Julie and the first wave – Mars & Mark, Heather, Peter, Chris, Annie, Pete, Lazlo, David, Chris, James and Simon.

The gist of my understanding is that if you have high rick of heart disease in mid life, and then proceed to lose weight later in life you tend to lose muscle as well, and end up being at a higher rick of premature death and illness. The study was done in Finland and is featured here on Medical News Today. The thing I want is quality of life, if I die younger than planned at least my quality will be improved, versus remaining overweight, living longer but struggling and just surviving – there’s just no sense in that.

One of the great things about the program I have developed is that not only do I burn fat, but slowly build the muscle up and so I wont end up with large slabs of skin hanging off me when I get to my weight target.

I let the weather put me off going for a walk tonight, I should have gone to the gym. I justified with being busy and needing to do some work at home and prepare for tomorrow. I then went a step further and ate take-away because I forgot to take something out of the freezer, where as within the same amount of time I could have easily have bought something from the supermarket and cooked in the similar time frame. So now I am staring at a poor weigh-in this coming Friday.

I am feeling a little flat, coming off a little bit of a chest cold, and having not exercised since last Thursday I am letting myself off a little bit too much. My emotions rule pretty strongly at times and give me a sense of justification and I really need to be more aware and  little tougher on myself or maybe find a tactic to help me avoid this behaviour. Maybe a little Temptation vs. Me scoreboard on my phone, makes me conscious of what I’m doing, gives me a chance to see the moment with clarity and gives me a pay-off, a victory.

I am going to Bikram Yoga in the morning, which means getting up at 5am and getting into a hard session, and it is hard. A friend Georgina sent me a personal note saying “the first 3/4 was great, the last part made me swear never to go back – then, driving home I felt like I was 8 foot tall and could conquer the world!!”, so I am looking forward to heading to the office in the morning.

I have some exciting news to share tomorrow about the fundraising aspect of SavingAlan, so make sure you come back tomorrow.

In the meantime make sure you visit the Support Alan page and sponsor my efforts for the benefit of Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute.