Pedaldogs progress

Name:
Location: Lancaster, United Kingdom

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

The start!

So, it’s about time I took a serious look at my life and see how it has been.
I think I’ve had a lot of good chances, taken many of them, and screwed most of them up. I’ve been selfish and greedy most of my life and I have no concept or ability for self denial. I’ve always started out any major changes or events with good intentions but never seem to have carried it through to the end. Job changes, two failed marriages, now a tenant when I have owned my own houses and a ridiculous, for my situation, amount of debt to business, friends and family.
It’s not looking very good is it?
The serious accident in 1996 (*1) changed the whole of my life without any help from me. I admit that getting the motorbike that I had the accident with was a self indulgence but the results were so big and are going to be felt for the rest of my life!
Looking at the state of my health at the moment I have to wonder just how long the rest of my life will be.
I am 45 years old and 5’ 8” tall.
I weigh 276lbs 19 stones and 9 pounds.
I smoke, varying amounts at the moment but has been 50 daily for a long time.
I do little or no physical exercise these days.
My body Mass Index is 41.1. Over 25 is morbidly Obese!
I think maybe it is time to do something about it and try to make positive changes.

I just finished reading a book “Diary of a Fat Man” by a New Zealand guy called Paul Jeffries and he lost 10 stones in 12 months. He was financially secure and was almost obsessive in his methods. I can’t do it his way, can’t afford it financially as much as anything else, but I do applaud his success and am going to use him as a role model.

We’re a day away from the new month of March 2007 and I will use that as a starting point for my “Trials and Tribulations” with an end date of 15th April 2008, that’ll be 12 years from the accident.

Excepting a win on the national lottery or something I can’t hope to have reduced the amount of money I am paying out in debts by much, if anything, in that time. I’m booked for over 20 years with the debt management company.
There are things I can change for the better though and the way forward is simply making my own decisions and sticking to them. I can make some difference financially in that I will have paid the family debts off by then so I’ll have a bit more money free. At the moment I spend the majority of what I have on cigarettes, food and more cigarettes and food. Both of these things are the main target of my time.

I should weigh somewhere near to the 11 stones 7 pounds level with my height and body frame, that’s a massive weight loss of 118 pounds to make in about 55 weeks, just over 2 pounds a week average! I enjoy eating and actually feel that I am missing something out of my life if I don’t eat when I want to. Problem is what I eat as much as how much. I’m not a fan of the specific diet types and plans but the G.I. diet seems to be a good, workable, one so I’ll look closer into that. Three years ago I was riding, albeit slowly, around 400 to 500 miles per month. In February this year I’ve done less than 50 and that has to have a big effect so I am going to start riding again whether I feel like it or not. It’s cheaper than a Gymnasium at least as I already have bikes and trikes. Most days I am out with my brother and the 1st thought is “Where are we going today?” followed swiftly by “And where do we eat?” This has to stop, for both of us that one. There are days when I can hardly walk with the pain and weakness resulting from the accident but there are other days when it’s just lack of motivation and willpower. I have to start thinking in the positive again. I need a few BIG changes and a lot of small changes, hope they add up to a good result.

I have smoked since I was a child of around 9 years old! I used to do milk rounds or paper rounds and the money was spent on smoking in the main. Things haven’t really changed much in 35 years or so. I want to stop smoking but I don’t want to stop smoking, if that makes any sense? I realise that the pleasure of the cigarette is mainly the relief of the craving from the last one but it IS a pleasure. I’ve gone up and down over the past couple of years and managed a few days here and there with none but it’s always crept back up to full time smoking again. It is restricting me in so many ways, health and finances, and it was smoking that was the root cause of losing my mother in 1996. I have been diagnosed as asthmatic so I am working an uphill road with a sack of coal on my back, the legs are bound to quit one of these days! I’ve felt pleased with myself when I’ve got through a night with only a few smokes but any is too many and I have to accept that now. I’m not going to do the “Last call” and smoke like a chimney until the start but, even if I do have some, it ALL STOPS in the new month. Again, financially, this will help me to pay some of the family debts quicker so I can actually have some money to do the things I should be doing and feel healthy enough to do them.

I need to start taking care of myself and my life in general. Clean and tidy myself and my surroundings. I used to be pretty house proud and these days I am ashamed of having a new visitor to see the squalor that I let myself live in. I’m going to do a Planned roster for household and personal things and try to stick to that all the time, maybe improve it in time?
I’m going to try and keep a record in general of the year or so involved and that way I can look at what works and what doesn’t work for me. I expect I’ll take a few wrong turns but as long as I pass the finishing post I’ll be a lot happier.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

I tried...... Honestly

Having read back and thought a lot I realised I had to make a positive start.
Spoke to my Nephew, aged 17, and arranged a ride from Lancaster to Preston and back. total of about 44 miles. As I am out of practice, older and overweight I relaised I would be slower than him so I lightened the luggage by taking only the basic tools with me. BAD MOVE
16 miles in I could hardly turn the pedals and I thought it was just the hemiplaegia having a bad on so I urged him to go on alone and I would turn back and make it slow home. Set off and within a mile or so I realised that BOTH my legs were struggling. Stopped and looked at the bike and the bottom bracket had unscrewed itself against the chainring and was locking it from turning. I had to get rescued by car as I had left the tools at home. If I had them with me I could have made it rideable within 5 minutes or so. Felt even more guilty when I found out that Nephew had got caught in snow and rain, no weather gear as is the fashionable youth of today, and had called for a car to rescue him as well.
Best I can say is that I tried and will keep trying. Bad pain today kept me to a 12 mile pootle but I am at least making the first move to getting back in the saddle.

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Saturday, February 10, 2007

A brief history......

Just turned 45 years old, feeling 70!
Back in April 1996 i WAS HAPPILY MARRIED AND LIVING IN MY OWN HOUSE IN sUFFOLK, WORKING AS A NURSE. Set off to work one morning onthe motorbike and the bevel drive siezed up on a Z-bend. High sided me and put me in a "Not expected to survive the night" type coma for a few weeks. Diagnosed as "Traumatic Brain Injuries" which left me partly hemiplaegic, asthma, epilepsy, diabetes insipidus and in a permanent state of headache.
Wife was a nurse at work and, after I got home, a nurse at home too and it all became too much so we seperated. No Bad Feelings. I moved to Lancaster to be near family as carers andfound that I can cope most days. Used to travel a lot and was always very independant so when big brother got me onto a little pedal trike he didn't realise he had created a monster! I've spent over £20,000-00 on bikes and trikes since 1998 and don't regret any of it! I've had a bad health period since April 2006 when we tried some long term medication changes but has just got settled a month or so back and we tried some more changes so it sent me all a wibble again. Luckily I have family near to me or I wouldn't cope at all!
My main things of need these days are physical ones. I NEED to stop smoking as I am £30,000 in debt, on the dole and spending £10-00 a day on cigarettes that are slowly killing me. I need to lose weight. I went to 11 stones after the accident but am now 19 stones and at 5' 9 " that is FAT!
My main hobbies are cycling, camping and listening to music. I used to play but with the brain injuries I have no memory and can't even make sense of reading music but I am slowly trying to get my right hand to move a bit better and play a few basic things on guitars.
I have decided that 2007 is going to be a year of positive changes and, as long as I can get through the drug hassles, I will start to do things that I have shied away from recently. I'll not be as negative all the time, I tend to turn any conversations into a list of my woes, and I will make it to a few of the cycle/camping trips that I missed last year.
Anybody wants to comment I will read my blog at least weekly and would welcome your input.
Thanks for reading so far.

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IDIOT!

I managed to delete all the past posts so I am starting from scratch here.
Total idiot!!!!!

Monday, February 05, 2007

It's always downers!

I thought things were starting to look up a few months ago when I last wrote. Then we changed some more medications and I was in a bad way, still not right yet!
I rpomise that by the end of February 2007 I will post something positive.

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