Words of wisdom from Mel Gibson

I know, there are so many things wrong with that statement. But bear with me.

I was having my usual lazy Sunday morning yesterday. Mark was off riding his motorbike and Jake was who knows where sleeping off Saturday night's party.

So, all I had to do was watch rubbishy movies, in between doing loads of washing (22 rugby jerseys, 20 pairs of rugby shorts, 21 and a half pairs of rugby socks).

What Women Want was playing - the one where Mel Gibson can hear what women are thinking. Towards the end he was moping around his palatial (they're never anything else in the movies) apartment, missing Helen Hunt, who he'd managed to get fired about the same time as he realised she was The One For Him.

He wandered over to the fridge, stared into it for a moment, muttered "You won't find her in there" and closed it again.

See. I told you. Words of wisdom from Mel Gibson.

Yes, folks, emotional eating neatly summarised by American movie magic.

Funniest thing I've heard in years

To help me through my weight loss slump, lovely Margaret has suggested I try a new form of exercise. Great idea, love, but skipping?

In case I haven't mentioned this before - I have the co-ordination of a brick.

Truly. I am about as co-ordinated as Liberace's house.

You could sell tickets to watch me skip - a 'How not to skip' seminar.

On my kickboxing DVD, there's quite a bit of 'fake' skipping - you know, skipping without the rope. I suck at that, too.

Basically, I suck at any sport where you use an extension of your hands. Golf, pool, tennis, anything like that. Actually, I think I'm pretty good at pool after about 10 beers, but no-one else would agree with me.

Thank you all for your support from my last post. Lots of great thoughts and suggestions that I'll sift through and work into my plan.

By the way, Marg, the skipping idea made me laugh, but I loved the way you put the rest of it into perspective.

Avoidance

Notice how good I've got at avoiding any talk about eating and my weight?

Just can't seem to get my head into it at the moment (by moment, I mean the last few months!).

I went back to counting points for a week. This was successful, in the form of a 500 gram loss, but I hated it. I just can't cope with the routine and discipline of counting and tracking anymore. The points system is very good and I lost stacks of weight using it, but it's just not my thing right now. I'm back to a very vague form of NoCount, but I'm sure my weekend of drinking (and hangover eating) will preclude any loss this week.

My exercise is still good, but the whole eating thing really is eluding me. I know WHAT I have to do and HOW to do it, but just can't seem to actually DO it. (no Nike ads here please)

I know some of you will tell me not to beat myself up. After all, I lost almost 55kg in just over a year, I deserve to cut myself some slack.

NO I BLOODY DON'T!

I want to lose another 6kg. I don't want to still be trying to do that at Christmas (when, by the way, my whole family is descending on my place).

So, what to do? I really can't seem to find an answer to that question at the moment.

Rugby rules my life

I know lots of readers are Aussies and don't give two sh*ts about rugby. Tough luck, you'll just have to skip this one if it bores you!

The All Blacks were playing the Springboks here on Saturday night.

A perfect excuse to start the build-up at noon on Friday - by having lunch with Colin Meads, Ian Kirkpatrick, Buck Shelford, Frank Bunce, Josh Kronfield, Bull Allen, Andy Haden, John Hart and other assorted rugby rockstars. Okay, so there were 500 other people there as well, but I'm sure the ex-ABs were there especially for me!

Having planned not to go back to work, there was no holding me back from the wine. I did manage to hold back during the charity auction though. I don't think Daniel Carter's cute enough to pay $4500 for a pair of his signed boxers!

After the lunch a mob of us moved on to the Cavern Club - and I moved on to the G&Ts. Quite a few of them. Actually 'lots' might be a better adjective. But at least I was home not long after midnight - there were some who were out till after 4am.

A slow start on Saturday morning. Jake took great delight in having to take his mother into town to pick up her car. It's usually the other way around.

His team had a good win on Saturday (finally!) and it was great rugby weather - fine and clear. Damn cold though.

So, out to Petone for an early dinner before the rugby (and a few more G&Ts for good measure), then catch the train into the stadium for the game. Damn bloody cold now.

No more drinking at the stadium. I don't drink beer and their wine is poxy and expensive.

The ABs rock!

Stair swear

Yes, for the record, I did use a swear word (actually several) when I dropped my car keys down the stairwell yesterday.

I have worked in the printing industry for over 20 years. My swear repertoire is indeed impressive.

And there is a particularly satisfying echo in the stairs.

Feeling the effects

Two work days into my 'use the stairs' week.

Quadraceps are very tight and so are the hip flexors. Butt feels fine (and I reckon it looks pretty fine these days, too!).

Have questioned the sanity of this idea a couple of times today, but I'm figuring I'll break through the pain barrier sometime tomorrow.

Stupid moments so far:

• Automatically got in the lift and went down to the ground floor - so I went back up to level 4 and walked down
• Dropped my car keys while walking up - they fell down three flights. I guess that's one way to add in extra steps!

Think thighs!

When I arrived at work this morning, only one of the four elevators was working.

I have officially declared today a 'use the stairs' day.

My car is parked three storeys down in the basement of the building across the road. I work on the fourth floor of this building. I have already been to my car twice today.

My clients are one floor down and the courier room is two floors down. I always use the stairs for these anyway - and I go to each about half a dozen times a day.

I also live in the three storey house

That's a lot of stairs.

That's damn good for the thighs and glutes.

Forget about just one day. I'm making this a 'use the stairs' week.

Care to join me?

Almost over...

Friday of the second week of the school holiday at last. They'll be back at school next week. Phew!

School holidays are pretty easy for me - no having to worry about taking time off or trying to find a holiday programme that doesn't think playing in the motorway tunnel is a good idea.

But the holidays are so damn expensive!

Now, I'm not one of those mothers that hands lots of money to the kids to keep them amused in the holidays. Nope, Jake has to fund his own fun.

It's the extra food that costs all the money.

We reckon in a normal week Jake costs us about $150 to feed. I know that sounds like a lot, but we do keep a decent stock of convenience foods around, both he and Mark are enormous meat eaters and remember Jake does play half a dozen sports that need body-fuel.

Remember the days when one of those little multi-packs of chippies was a snack? A full-size pizza is a snack for kids like this.

You'd think we'd go through less food in the holidays - after all he's always out. He's slept at home maybe five times in the last two weeks.

But large amounts of food can be consumed in the quick visits home to shower and change clothes!

Of course, I don't help myself. I've always encouraged his mates to spend plenty of time at our place (at least then I know where they are). I attract them with all the things teenage boys love - 42 inch TV, X-Box, a fridge full of soft drinks and, you guessed it, food. Not to mention the Rugby Channel.

They're all very good and know there are some things in our pantry that are out of bounds. But we go through huge amounts of: spaghetti, instant noodles, creamed rice, chippies, bread and juice. They do a fairly good job of cleaning up after themselves too.

And then there are the sausages. A bunch of boys came over after rugby training the other day for a poker tournament. I told them I'd cook them up a feed before I went out for the evening. That feed consisted of three dozen sausages, onions, Watties tomato sauce, American mustard and two loaves of sandwich bread (which has to be white, no slipping any of that healthy brown muck past these boys). I stupidly thought that would be plenty and that they'd have some leftovers to snack on later. WRONG! All gone before I left the house. And when I got home there were 10 pizza boxes in the rubbish as well. At least I don't get to pay for those.

Now, before anyone decides to jump all over me for letting them eat so much junk food, let's put their consumption in perspective. These boys are all jocks and play at least two top-level sports. Most of them are doing Elite Physical Education at school and know more about nutrition and the body than all us weight-loss bloggers put together. Several of them are so serious about their sport they've never had alcohol - these are 17 and 18 year old boys! Jake definitely reduces his eating when he reduces his exercise.

And I know some of them eat fruit - because I always take bananas and apples to the 1st XV two hours before a game!

Points vs. NoCount

I've been doing NoCount for a few months now. And I really like it. But, let's face it, I'm not exactly losing much weight. There's nothing wrong with the plan, and it's definitely the plan I intend to follow for maintenance.

The main issue is my self-discipline. (As a slightly sick aside, am I the only person here for whom the words 'self-discipline' conjure up the scene from A Nun's Story where they beat themselves on their bare backs with knotted rope? Have I even got the right movie?) My portion sizes have been creeping up and the interpretation of fruit and veges only for snacks has become somewhat liberal. Of course boysenberry ice-cream is a fruit.

So, this week I switched back to tracking points again. Because I've got just over 6kg to go until I reach goal and I don't want that to take another three months.

I'm quite enjoying tracking again, but I see it more as a short-term aide than a long-term way of eating. It's also quite hard to adjust to only getting 19 points a day! That's quite a bit less than when I was on the points plan before.

The kitchen scales have made a reappearance as I get back into weighing, measuring and tracking my food. And writing it down...

This also makes it clear to me that I haven't overcome my 'food issues' and need to do a bit more soul-searching - particularly into why I use food as an avoidance tool.

Tuesday 11 July

Our family is deeply saddened this week by the suicide of one of Jake's team mates from last year. This tragedy was made even worse by the fact he was found by one of their other friends.

Those of you with teenagers in your lives, please make sure they know how much you care about them. Not just that you love and support them, but that they have somewhere to turn when they need help. I really believe we need to discuss this specific issue with them, not just make vague mutterings about handling problems.

Sorry to post about something so unhappy, but we need to take action to help each other.

Bugger the soccer, how about the rugby?

Okay so the Italians won the World Cup, but did anyone notice the All Blacks kicked serious Wallaby butt on Saturday night?

I just love those boys. I love the fact that (captain) Richie McCaw had so much energy left at the end of the game he stayed on the field and played touch rugby with the reserves. I even love that Jerry got caught have a sneaky pee just before kick-off. What a bloke! I particularly love how grumpy Gregan gets now that his constant yapping has no impact on the referees.

Ahhhh, rugby....

More from my walk...

There are these handy distance markers around the waterfront at Oriental Bay. I've never managed to find the starting point, though.



















Wellington is a great city for coffee. Unfortunately, the very funky Havana coffee caravan wasn't open for business.



















But the lovely people at Caffe Eis soothed my craving for a trim flat white to go.


















Wellington Railway Station was my turnaround point. Time for a toilet stop and to stock up on water. Very quiet on a Sunday - nothing like the weekday commuter hell.



















There are some great buildings on the waterfront, both old and modern. Lots of pubs, shops and eating places. There are green spaces and playgrounds, sculpture and sculptural looking bridges. Is this collection in front of the rowing club art or marine junk that was too hard to haul away?



Almost home. Ours is the second townhouse from the left. The only problem is, now that I've walked over 21km on the flat, I have to climb the hill to the house.

Endurance test

There was too much wind on Sunday for me to do my 50km bike ride, so I opted for the 21km walk instead. To make it more interesting, I took my camera along. And now Blogger won't let me load all the photos, so you'll have to take it in installments.



This is part of the view from our balcony. It's an unusual view for Wellington, in that we can't see the sea, apart from a tiny sliver past the airport. Probably enough for a real estate agent to advertise it as expansive sea views.

After about 3km through the 'burbs, I reach the sea at Miramar wharf. There are always a few hardy souls fishing here. Every spring there'll be a story in the paper about a monster snapper one of them has caught.

This wharf is also the current parking spot for the ship used in King Kong. There are discussions about sinking it for use as a diving wreck. If they don't hurry up it will sink itself.

Making use of one of Wellington's renowned natural features, the city council have put in quite a few wind sculptures. This is the Zephyrometer - a 33m high orange needle on a gimbal, which sways in the breeze. We can see it from our house and judge how wild the day is. I have seen the Zephyrometer almost parallel to the ground.

There's a row of lovely old boathouses in Evans Bay, in every condition from dilapidated to resplendent. The paint jobs range from bright colours, through faded and peeling, to whatever was cheap at the latest fire sale. Some of them have numbers on the doors, but the numbers are out of sequence - some sort of 'in' joke, perhaps? This one is a favourite with wedding photographers.

Just by the way

I have written a long post about my long walk yesterday. It means nothing without the photos and Blogger is doing its 'I don't feel like loading photos' thing again.

So you'll just have to wait.