Aaaah. Sunday.

It truly is my day of rest. It's the one day of the week when I don't do any serious exercise. I will walk later in the day cos that's for pleasure (not that I don't enjoy the harder stuff).

Yesterday I did the 90 minutes on the bike. (I do 50 minutes mon-fri then 90 minutes on sat). Using the parameters set by Fireman Sam on Thursday and trying a new program I really worked hard. In the afternoon I did 15 minutes on the punching bag and then went for a walk. I had planned to go for a good hour and a half but was struggling after 30 minutes! I guess I have finally found out what it feels like to workout so hard that I am truly knackered. Well, maybe a little bit knackered! But it was a good feeling to know that I really did not have the energy to go on and on. I suppose this proves that things have ratched up a notch or two in the energy levels this week.

I still have this cold. It's NOT the flu as some people insist on calling it! It's just a bloody nasty cold. Maybe we should start calling colds viral infections so that those who need something that sounds worse than a cold can feel better!! The good thing is that instead of eating crap and drinking buckets of alcohol and generally giving up any healthy aspect of my life, I have pushed on and still exercised. And I do feel better for it. I have enough sense to not overdo it and would certainly stop if I felt worse. Hopefully this will stop me from becoming as sick as some people who have had this bug.

One and Three were home for dinner last night. We had steak. It was yummy. And I had three glasses of wine over the course of the evening. Better than a bottle and half!!! I could probably have done without but it's the habit thing. Saturday night dinner always has wine. Maybe next week I'll only have a glass which, in retrospect, I would have been fine with last evening.

I bought the last Harry Potter book yesterday. We got to the shopping centre about lunch time and the queues had dispersed. The first bookshop (with whom I have a loyalty card) didn't have any books on display and refused to ask so I went to another one which had stacks of them. Every shop was 'discounting' them. Most hardback books like this will retail for about $50 and they were being sold for $30. Won't affect the profits, though! What a phenomenon. I saw the latest movie on Friday with Three. It was OK. A good movie but the book was so much better. I am reading Wild Swans at the moment (a great book about China during the early days of Mao) and am about halfway through. Do I put that on hold and start HP or do I finish it with the delicious anticipation of a really good book waiting? What a dilemma!!

Today is a glorious Melbourne winter's day. Cold, clear and sunny. Three is at work. Two is coming home this evening and One is going to the movies with a mate. I would love to go for a walk this afternoon with Himself. I wonder if I can talk him into doing the two hour walk by the creek. If not I might just have to go by myself.

When Fireman Sam came around on Thursday he brought a personal training diary for me to keep. I have no problem with filling in the bits about the exercise I do but when he told me to write down everything I eat I freaked out. Big Time. This was too much like weight watchers or any other diet thing. I was amazed at how fucked up my head has become with dieting and how terrified I am of doing anything vaguely resembling dieting because it screeches "failure" at me. I have to focus on the fact that this is a tool for me to work out what works best for me. I don't have much of an appetite lately and I realise that I need to eat to ensure that I don't lose muscle density instead of my fat stores. According to Fireman Sam I need to eat within 10 minutes of a workout and I will then feel hungry later in the day (which is good) and I can snack on nuts to take the edge off hunger between meals. I have tried this over the last couple of days and still find I am eating because I realise I haven't eaten for a few hours rather than cos I'm hungry. Or, and this is probably more likely, I have stuffed around with my metabolism and suppressed my natural triggers for so long, that I know longer no what hunger is until I'm ravenous. Something else to work on. But one thing is for sure. Diets are fucking EVIL!

I am seeing my doctor on Tuesday. One of my goals is to get off my medication and I think that I have come to a stage where I can negotiate the weaning process. I hope that my doctor agrees because I intend to come off my blood pressure medications regardless! I can monitor myself at work (and have been and my BP is really good at the moment) and if it starts to creep up then I will have to go back on them but with the weight loss and the amount of exercise I'm doing I should be getting to a point where I can do without the meds. The cholesterol will remain to be seen. I'll need a blood test for that.

What a self obsessed entry. At least it's positive!!

The Mermaid is still struggling to come to terms with the death of a close friend. He and she were a couple many, many years ago and while she has been married and divorced a couple of times since then they had always remained close and he was a very special person in her life. When her bastard of a husband decided he didn't want to be a husband and father any more and left her with two very young children this chap became more of a father figure to those kids than their real dad. He was always there at Christmas and birthdays and other important milestones and was just 'there' for them always. He was obese and had type 2 diabetes which he didn't manage well at all and this caused some serious heart damage. He went for bypass surgery but died on the table. Very sad for those left behind but a blessing for him as he would not have cope with life as an invalid and that was a very real likelihood. I haven't seen her this upset since bastard husband dumped her (he was having an affair with a colleague who was pregnant (to her own husband) - how tacky is that!)

OK. Time to do something. I've had a bowl of Uncle Toby's temptations (date - yum) for breakfast and a cup of coffee. The oats were OK. A bit sweet for my liking, I prefer to make my own with rolled oats, but a pleasant easy change and One likes them which is good as he's not a breakfast eater and will take them to work so he can have something nourishing and filling. He is looking to buy a car and will have to borrow the money so is becoming quite aware of where he's spending his hard-earned cash so food is now being prepared at home and taken to work ... funded by Mum, of course!!

I'm doing split days this week which is never fun but it will be interesting to see how I can fiddle with my exercise. I have a lot more to do now, and it will be tricky to fit it all in on a work day. I'll have to do some in the morning and the evening.

Have a good week.