Tomorrow is my turn to do early morning support. I shouldn’t still be awake at 23:42, as I need to get up at 05:00 !!! So the usual routine tomorrow would be get up late, rush out of the house and grab very very unhealthy breakfast at the station in London to ‘make up’ for the fact I’m on support (didums – poor davey wavey!).

I’m beginning to realise that time keeping affects diet, health and habits. I should be doing more walking than I am. But because I’m often late, I don’t have time to walk to the station and end up driving (or catching a taxi from the office after I leave late). Also when I’m in control of time I can plan for eating healthy food, but when I’m in a rush it’s just the vague justification I need to eat something unnecessary. There’s something to this, and I need to boil it down to some positive habits – more on that as I figure it out.

Suffice to say that going to bed late has a serious knock on affect throughout the rest of the next day, and it’s probably something I need to address soon!

Either way, I’m feeling positive generally as I can honestly say I haven’t put a foot wrong in 18 days. Even I’m impressed with that. I know it’s not about being perfect, more about building habits. Having this blog and the record of the Habits feedback, and the supportive messages I’ve received have all really helped. It’s such a simple and effective system for me that I’m genuinely surprised it’s working so well.

Goodnight all, and if you’re reading this on Friday, think of me.

Habits

Regular day working in London.

Habit 0: Blog on JustBigBoned.com every day

This (and updated Habits).

Habit 1: Take a different walk through the train station

Tough this evening. Pangs started before I even got to the station. Locked my eyes and my mind on the target of getting to the platform, and consciously focused on it for my entire journey through the station. Even to the point of only breathing through my mouth so that I didn’t get any wafts of food smells. Made it though, and got straight to work on the computer as soon as the train pulled up and forgot all about being hungry!

Habit 3: Pause before eating. Take your time and enjoy

Almost forgot at dinner time, but remembered at the last minute.

Habit 4: Always choose one of the top 2 healthiest option

Major hunger pangs at 16:50 today, so into the office cafe and brought a plumb, banana and packet of grapes (rather than the traditional blueberry muffin).

No opportunity for the following though:

Habit 2: When I’m feeling poorly I deserve as much fruit to eat as I want

Habits

Day at home (in between contracts). Relaxed, caught up with some sleep and did some coding.

Habit 0: Blog on JustBigBoned.com every day

This (and updated Habits).

Habit 3: Pause before eating. Take your time and enjoy

Still good.

Habit 4: Always choose one of the top 2 healthiest options

Was hungry this evening, wanted a snack. No bananas, but had a weetabix, some blueberries squished up and spread over the top and as tiny amount of milk as I could manage. This in preference to my ‘past life’ evening snack of choice of two rounds of toast with cheese slices on top microwaved for 1 min 30 secs (ie toast in a pool of molten cheese and grease).

No opportunity for the following though:

Habit 1: Take a different walk through the train station
Habit 2: When I’m feeling poorly I deserve as much fruit to eat as I want

Habits

Regular day working in London.

Habit 0: Blog on JustBigBoned.com every day

This (and updated Habits).

Habit 1: Take a different walk through the train station

No problem (porridge for breakfast at home helped this morning).

Habit 3: Pause before eating. Take your time and enjoy

Every meal – still working well for me.

Habit 4: Always choose one of the top 2 healthiest option

Porridge for breakfast with no sugar. Skinny cappuccino’s, and fruit from café. Total vending machine avoidance

No opportunity for the following though:

Habit 2: When I’m feeling poorly I deserve as much fruit to eat as I want

Habits

Started today with a “Fasting Blood Test” at my local surgery. This was arranged during my last trip to my Doctor regarding my cough. She asked me about my weight and whether I wanted to try an appetite suppressant. There’s no way I want to mess with stuff like that. I mentioned this blog and how I’m trying to approach it. She suggested that we check my cholesterol level, thyroid function, and some other general bits and bobs.

I’m not good with needles, so it was pretty stressful for me. Couple that with not having eaten for 14 hours and I was shaking like a leaf. Once out of the Doctors, I caught myself in the midst of a massive Doughnut desire again. Two for two on trips to the doctors, and looking back I suspect that I’ve virtually always complimented a trip to the Doctors with a Doughnut chaser! Crazy that I never even realised before. Not this time – went home and had cereal and toast and then off to work.

Apparently I should get the results by Monday, so I’ll blog anything pertinent that shows up.

I’m starting to realise that my sleep pattern is the next thing I need to work on. I need to figure out how that works, but I’ll be blogging more on that tomorrow.

Summary today though – I did well with all the habits I could.

Habit 0: Blog on JustBigBoned.com every day

This (and updated Habits).

Habit 1: Take a different walk through the train station

Absolutely.

Habit 3: Pause before eating. Take your time and enjoy

Did this well today.

Habit 4: Always choose one of the top 2 healthiest option

Cereal for breakfast rather than Doughnut. Skinny Cappuccino with sweetener in the afternoon.

No opportunity for the following though:

Habit 2: When I’m feeling poorly I deserve as much fruit to eat as I want

Habits

A quiet Sunday. Didn’t get out of bed until about 10am, and then spent most of the day in front of the computer, programming. Debs brought me all my meals, so she made my choices for me today (hence habit 4 being a “didn’t get a chance” one).

Weigh-in this morning’s looking good – total loss of 2.6kg since the first measurement 2 weeks ago. Happy that there’s little error in the weight measurements, but the other statistics from those scales seem to be all over the place. For those, and the Blood Pressure measurements, I think I’ll take the first 2 weeks average as my starting point, but since the weight has shown very very steady progress throughout, I’ll stick with the measurements I’ve taken as being accurate enough.

Habit 0: Blog on JustBigBoned.com every day

This (and updated Habits & Body Statistics).

Habit 3: Pause before eating. Take your time and enjoy

Every meal. I’m getting into this a little more now, in that it’s becoming a bit more automatic.

No opportunity for the following though:

Habit 1: Take a different walk through the train station
Habit 2: When I’m feeling poorly I deserve as much fruit to eat as I want
Habit 4: Always choose one of the top 2 healthiest option

Habits

A Saturday with the family in Worthing, Brighton & Crawley. Ate out at lunchtime and in the evening. At each stage I chose one of the healthiest options I could see. They didn’t always work out that way, but I’m deciding more and more that what matters is the fact I’m trying. If I can build that habit alone it would change my life. For instance, at Frankie & Bennys this evening I felt it was too cold for salad (freezing cold outside and we’d been walking on the beach earlier) so I went for the healthiest warm meal I could see – BBQ Chicken & Ribs. A quarter chicken and half a baby ribs portion, with Jacket pot. How on earth could I know from the description that the Chicken was fried??? But I tried. Further more (and very much in the vein of the burger ‘Bit But’) when it arrived and I realised it was fried, I took all the (lovely) greasy skin off, and I suspect much of the fried ‘badness’ went with it.

What I eat on any one occasion doesn’t matter, but having the Habit of trying to eat a healthy option will change my life. I realised today that I’ve been doing that since I started this blog, but now it’s time to make it explicit…

I commit to doing Habit 4: Always choose one of the top 2 healthiest options.

Habit 0: Blog on JustBigBoned.com every day

This (and updated Habits).

Habit 3: Pause before eating. Take your time and enjoy

Wow this made a difference. Have to say that for the first time in years I really felt satisfied after eating just a main course in a restaurant. This is the BBQ Chicken & Ribs mentioned above. I virtually never feel this satisfaction. It’s usually either lingering hunger, or bloated sickness. It was a great experience. I really enjoyed feeling satisfied. I had no desire to have a desert. Really this wasn’t me just being good. I was happy and full (without feeling ill) and just felt nice. Very very weird for me but very very cool

Habit 4: Always choose one of the top 2 healthiest options

This is the big one. And I’m sticking to it – I’ve been doing it for days, but the 30 day count starts here

No opportunity for the following though:

Habit 1: Take a different walk through the train station
Habit 2: When I’m feeling poorly I deserve as much fruit to eat as I want

Habits

A work day on the clients site in London. Early start though (left home at 05:30). Had porridge at work which was lovely.

Habit 0: Blog on JustBigBoned.com every day

This (and updated Habits).

Habit 1: Take a different walk through the train station

Avoided the Bacon Rolls this morning, and likewise with the Burgers this evening.

Habit 3: Pause before eating. Take your time and enjoy

Finding this one difficult, but always remembering at least during the meal if not before, so counting this as practising the habit even if it isn’t as good as I’d like it to be – I’ll get there.

No opportunity for the following though:

Habit 2: When I’m feeling poorly I deserve as much fruit to eat as I want

I’ve uploaded this morning’s Body Statistic measurements. Weight wise it’s actually starting to look like a slight day-on-day trend which I’m suprised about, but we’ll see if that holds out. It’s definitely looking like the scale’s measurements (other than weight) have massive built-in error. Enough error in fact, that it might only be worth measuring them monthly. But the weight measurement seems pretty stable.

Habits

A work day on the clients site in London.

Habit 0: Blog on JustBigBoned.com every day

This (and updated Body Stats).

Habit 1: Take a different walk through the train station

Didn’t have a chance to have breakfast this morning. Usually a classic Bacon Roll situation, but the different route made it easy to avoid. Chose to go into Boots and get a small flapjack to see me though to lunchtime. Also re-routed on the way home. All good.

Habit 3: Pause before eating. Take your time and enjoy

Yep, still working well for me.

No opportunity for the following though:

Habit 2: When I’m feeling poorly I deserve as much fruit to eat as I want