Well, I let it all hang out, relatively anyway.

Friday night drive down was a nightmare, not only did I have Glastonbury traffic coming at me I also had round the island race traffice going with me. We made it in the end and the reward was sweet and sour chicken and 3 bottles of wine. 4.30am start was a bit of a killer but we made it with the help of coffee and flapjacks.

We had a 1.5 hour sail to the start line and then positioned ourselves to see the first boats go off. The racing was a little hairy at times, we heard about 9 mayday calls for people overboard, someone unconcious with a fractured skull, a couple of sunk boats, etc. We had a few near misses but were largely unscathed. I spent most of the time on the winch and was out of breath for long periods.

The rest of the crew had tongue and mustard sandwiches at 9am (for lunch), I had apples and my bar. We had more flapjacks for lunch, the other boats were so close going around st Katherines head that we were able to share our flapjacks with them, them having to watch their heads on our boom, use watch our heads on the booms of others. 4 abreat running in front of a force 6 with a following sea, it was very exhilarating, stressful and to be honest, very scary.

We completed the race in around 8.5 hours. We beat Lewis Hamilton on "Hugo Boss" but only because they got disqualified for crashing into another boat, writing it off and leaving them stranded.

The race record was broken.

Arriving we had champagne, wine, dinner out in Cowes (dreadful), I even had gin and tonic and a few pints of bitter. Sunday morning I had a fry up and then ham and cheese for lunch. I had a steak on getting home and a large G + T.

The net result was 2lb gain to 13s 4lb this morning. I am sure that it will drop off this week. (I hope so anyway).

Ho hum, back to work.

Howdy dudy,

Its now week 5 RTM and officially all people on this apart from me have given up. Proving that this diet is quite hard I suppose. As for me I recorded another 2.5lb weight loss taking my official weight to 13s 4lb, from 18s 1lb. I am now a size 32" waist from a slightly tight 40". Therefore things are quite rosy.

I have had a serious revelation this week that fruit is a food that triggers me to eat excessively. On the first three days of this week I ate well over 10 pears on each day, and after I had done that I started reaching for other things like chocolate, chicken legs, nuts, dried fruit (loads of that) etc. It was almost an uncontrolled frenzy that lasted all day, reacdhing for something every 30 minutes. On virtually all occasions I was telling myself that I didn't need the food so shouldn't have it but carried on anyway. The consequences were that I had cronic wind and stomach aches (but was still eating!), I had sugar highs and then crashes, becoming very short tempered and agressive when I crashed. I recognised it fully yesterday morning and the result was to have only one piece of fruit in the day, it worked! No loss of control.

Week 5 lets you have booze, I know that I have had it anyway but to recognise the fact I had a 1994 Rioja with the wife last night, it was nectar. As a token jesture I got up extra early and added 0.5 miles to my morning walk.

I also get two protein based meals a day now, I am only having one today as I am going to be very busy and will not have time. Having more meals from now on is a good thing and will stop me feeling so hungry all the time, the weight loss should now stop but I would still love to see those scales go under 13s in the morning (just once!). Tonight I head off to the round the island race and I am going to test my new diet skills in the real world. Its all very well sitting at the top of our hill smugly losing weight but this weekends I do it in anger at restaurants and during serious physical excersions. The weather forecast is rain!

One negative thing, and I am not sure if I recorded this on my last post, is that the dog has got the onset of severe arthritus, exaserbated by all the walking we have been doing. I have literally walked the legs of my dog! He is on medication and now a spritely as a pup.

Anyway, got to go and do some work.

Right ho, not sure what is going on with my head. Making some slow steps forward looking at why and when I am eating. Recognising that control is needed by not always quite demonstrating it. Realised that I sometimes eat things and don't enjoy them. Drink still a big temptation. Using my building hobby to knock off the pounds, rendering at the moment which is quite physical.

Racing my mates 50ft yacht this weekend in the round the island race (Isle of Wight) so no doubt will be very boozy but 4.30am departure on Saturday. I intend to let it all hang out. In october we went to the pub all night and put to sea at 2am, woke up half way to France, so carried on and had dinner then went to channel islands on a massive pub crawl for three days. I could be a water gypsy! Taking the wife for the first time, should be a baptism of fire, have had to fork out for appropriate clothing for her (should have seen that coming!).

Eaten a lot of dried fruit today which I shouldn't, it is giving me a lot of wind which I am trying sort out with peppermint tea. Work busy and stressful, not sure what impact that is having.

Also, Mr Woof (my labrador) has developed chronic arthitus exasserbated by the 2 miles we are doing in the morning and evening. Vet has put him on some stuff to sort it but he is very stiff and so I can't go as fast.

Old rugby captain got in contact today about a ball (the dinner and dance type not hte oval one!), going back to play next season as a result.

Chin up peeps....

I am not really sure how I am doing. My weight is stable at around 13s5lb in the mornings however I drank on Friday, Sat, Sun and last night, I've been eating chocolate and peanuts etc but working like billio to keep it off. I am focussing again today. I am destroying fruit bowls at an alarming rate, 7 pears before lunch yesterday.

So, really confusing. I will have lost weight at weigh in tomorrow but only just I think.

I am also still finding it hard to cope around my Dad leaving. I have tried approaching it from every different angle and I always come up with the same answer. He took a rational and considered decision to have very little further to do with my life ever. He does expect interactions to be on his terms in the future and I have inherited his responsibilities towards his mother. I still want nothing further to do with him but I am tempering this as my brother is likely to want to come back to the UK sometime and I don't want to lose contact with him.

It is still very difficult.

Not a great week food wise and I write this with a glass of wine but I lost another 3lbs. Again i strayed but made it up with excercise. Been as low as 13s 7lb, but official weight is 13s 11lb. Just eaten chicken or fillet steak salads all week, with 2 food packs. in fact I ate week 3 food with tomatos but I am getting there. Beginning to change my understanding of what I need to do.

Steak tonight has given me terrible wind!

Right ho, on reflection a bad week and a good week. Yesterday I would have said it was a bad week. But I am now on my own in group, no one else comes, its great as I can go "me, me, me!" to the Councillor and this made it back into a good week.

My perspective after one failed week of management was that I came into management thinking that the hard bit was over and this will be a lovelly and insightful 12 weeks of introducing the foods that I missed in a controlled way. Don't you believe it, deciding what and when to eat is very difficult as is controlling portion size.

The facts of my indescretions!

Saturday - Large Scotch in evening
Sunday - Large Scotch in evening, pringles, cashew nuts and snickers icecream, massive hand full of prunes to clear me out
Monday - 3 food packs by 10am, Dinner in London, bottle of Rioja and seasme oil and seeds with salmon
Tuesday - 4 food packs in total, 3 by 10am, and main meal, large Scotch in evening, crisps, 2 snickers icecreams
Wednesday - 3 food packs by 10am, Large Scotch in evening
Thursday - Trip to pub as I organise a beer festival and had to meet with the committee - soda water only

The upshot, sorry everyone, a 3lb loss and I now fit into size 34" jeans comfortably. I put this down to the massive effect of the prunes, it certainly sorted out a back "log" (ho, ho, ho) of food packs. Unbelievably unpleasant and painful but I think that it was a 6lb loss, no kidding! My weight has been going up for the last 3 days. I have also been excercising like mad as I know that my eating has been out of control.

The councillor is gob smacked about my loss and said that I should have put on about 4lb. I was sitting with her smelling chocolate and noticed that I had a big lump of snickers on my jeans. Opps.

The meeting with my councillor was excellent. I felt sorry for her as she went away on a holiday that she didn't want to go on and her locum buggered up her business. Literally half the people that she deals with accross all her groups failed miserably last week, everyone was unhappy and in difficulties. It just goes to show how important the councillor relationship is in remaining focussed. She is so patient and understanding, I really did not value her enough before. Don't get me wrong though, what I put in my mouth is my responsbility and down to me and me only. However I pay a lot of money to go to this and I expect them to use standard tools to ensure that I leave for the week motivated and knowing what I should be doing and not pissed off with the wrong food packs....

She sat with me for 1.5 hours and I went through everything. I felt unable to bring myself back under control (well I did until yesterday monring at which point I read myself the riot act and rolled my sleeves up), I have also suffered from major mood swings. From this I learnt that a few things.

1.) Firstly drinking in the evening causes me to eat the next morning, I have always known this but this brought it home.
2.) I have now changed my food pack habits to move to 1 in the morning, 1 at lunch and one when I get home then my meal. This is preparing me for going down to 2 food packs soon and is my own initiative.
3.) Portion size and drinking too much are my main problems.

Water wise I checked out what the situation was. The locum told my Councillor that I was drinking 11 litres a day. This proves to me that she was not listening. I told her I was drinking 6 and on one day I drank 11. My Councillor says that the book states a minimum but as I am so active with my building works and excercise regime 6 is not a problem. Therefore I have switched to carbonated only so I will drink less. I will reduce to 5 what I am taking in.

I believe that I have actually had a wobble, this was triggered by me wanted an excuse to go back to my old ways under the guise of a "wobble". The wobble didn't start until I became out of control!

I feel confident and motivated about the upcoming week

My impression of this diet was that the hard bit was losing the weight, management would be a lovely learning curve where you would appreciate every meal for the variety of what you consumed after the blandness of the packs. As a man being told "Eat 4 of these a day and nothing else" is as easy as it gets, even if you don't like doing it.

Well this is not the reality of it. I appear to have lost all self control. I can eat the chicken salads, they are great, its just I am also nibbling here and there. They tell you that you can have as much chicken as you like, so I have two breasts (I would never have dont this before). Last night I had a glass of wine, the night before we had people 4 years olds staying and I ended up having a scotch. I nibbled on nuts and a few crisps, I even nibbed the end off a snickers icecream. Lastly I have been nibbling on prunes to try and sort out my digestion.

To combat the extra calories that I will have picked up with this nibbling I have been doing extra building work and dog walking and my weight is still going in the right direction but it is a concern that I will balloon. I have asked my wife to try and encourage me rather than say that I am slim enough and can have a drink. Drink leads to nuts and crisps.

Eating the packs makes you constipated, eating the packs and food is worse. You get constipated with more volume. I have never suffered in this way before and I have to say that it is very painful indeed and I think that it may be giving me piles! There are some stories best left unrecorded but this side of things is a major drawback of the diet.

I am staying in a really nice hotel tonight which has the most fantastic breakfast, I cancelled the breakfast already and will just have food packs in my room.