This was a challenging month. The school term was over. Kid A was behaving dreadfully due to the lack of routine. Partly because school was over, and partly because we went for a few weekend getaways, and a week in a hotel when a new bathroom was installed in our house. This disruption added up to pretty stressed parents and children. Though the long term benefit will hopefully outweigh the short term negatives on that one.

I was also out of my routine and the goals for exercise entirely dropped every week. Also being outside of the house more often than not led to a bunch of bad food choices so I essentially put on all of the weight I had lost this year to date.

There were some dark days in July mentally. But eventually we got home and into routine so it started to settle down. Setbacks come and go and progress is iterative on these things.

Health Update

I got bad news that my liver now has more fat in it than last year putting me at higher risk of liver damage. There is still no actual damage but this has renewed motivation to tackle that. I educated myself more and have struck this plan:

• Intermittent fasting (16:8) – meaning I eat between 12pm and 8pm daily. This I believe gives your body time to burn some fat. I am only drinking coffee or water/squash during the 16 hours. A hot drink does wonders. I have never done this before. My natural mode was always to not eat breakfast so this has been ok.
• Sleeping earlier – meaning I avoid late night bad food choices and have more energy the right way.
• Counting calories – this has always worked for me because it is such a pain to record things that it introduces a barrier to throwing something in my mouth. The goal is 1800 ish a day which is enough to have two decent sized meals and some snacks. Weekends may be a little more relaxed I am not sure I will see how I go.
• Ready Meals – I do not normally eat ready meals regularly but I have found the “Be good to yourself” range at Sainsbury’s is convenient and has a good amount of protein (>20g) and range something like 320-390 calories a meal. I will do this for one meal a day to make counting easier and to make the breaking of the fast easy with something known.
• Light exercise – I have been a big fan of jogging this year as it is great for mental health. However, I don’t want to do that initially while adapting to the new eating habits. Yet I need to lose visceral fat (around organs) and a bit of weight training and stretching is good to support that.
• Distraction – after each meal I play the play station for 15-30 minutes. This occupies my hands and mind and feeds the brain dopamine. This is to let me ride out that 15 minutes after eating. During which time your body tells your brain that you are in fact full so it prevents over eating.

That is the plan and it has worked alright so far. The first full week of it we are 6 pounds down and optimistic. The journey has to start somewhere and it has started here.

Other Stuff

Life rumbled on and some good stuff did happen. So I have summarised it in photos and briefly:

• We travelled a bit – yes this added to the chaos of being out of routine but we put in some miles and some good times were had. We stayed at an Air BNB that felt like bloody Skyfell. Nice to catch up with my cousin and brother. I went back to see my mother and had a lovely Saturday out in the sun.
• Spiderman: Miles Morales – I played this game entirely through twice getting almost all of the achievements. It was really short for what people would call a Triple A title. Great fun but I was able to literally run through the thing in 18 hours the first time (and I mean 100% completion with all missions, side missions, and collectibles). The Arkham series of games all took far longer. Still I loved it enough I have committed to the 2nd game on pre-order.
• Bowling – we went bowling and watched the second spiderman spider verse thingy. Which we were outraged to discover had a second part (so the story didn’t end) and then now I have read part 2 is delayed.
• New Bathroom – major home improvement having a bathroom that works properly, is easy to clean, and has some nice touches like underfloor heating. The place we moved into really sucked. That is several years we had to put up with complete nonsense! Downside I am now very poor. So swings and roundabouts.