Well last night was weigh in night and I lost half a pound, now after the the gain last week (and three weeks of losses previous to that) I am not to sure how to take last nights weigh in. On the one hand a loss is a loss is a loss, but should of it have been more?? Well I never got back onto the straight and narrow until Wednesday, I was to frustrated with the previous Monday (last weeks) weigh-in. During the remaining 5.5 days (of last week) there were some unhealthy foods, Sunday lunch is a normal Sunday roast. On the Sunday ride there was just under 1ltr of SIS Sports drink was consumed which is on the face of it, is not diet friendly. But then on the other hand, having just ridden 38 miles I would of burnt off a lot of the energy that I drank, so where does that leave me, well don’t ask me I am just a dumb overweight mountain biker.

I am just going to try harder to keep a positive attitude towards my weight loss and review what I currently eat to see if I can change anything out for something more healthy eating friendly.

Earlier today fellow blogger and mountain biker with a weight issue Clive the Massive MTBer posted a link to a web page that he found, the 6 step plan It outlines how you should handle what happens when you gain weight rather than loose it. I am not going to repeat what it says (you will have to go and read it) but it what I have been told and it make sense so I don’t know why I have not been doing it.

The outward ride to Moors Valley went ok the only bad point was crashing into a tree on the “Through the Forest” trail, caught my handles bars on a tree and the bike just spat me off into the undergrowth fortunately without injury. When I reached the end of the trail for some unknown reason I headed for the main park exit via the road to pick up the Castleman Trail rather than back along forest trails down to the Castleman Trail.

I had marked the GPS where the turn off should of been for the West Moors plantation and the turning turned up as planned on the GPS. I followed the planned route until near the end I was unable to find my exit. In the end I had to take plan b which would take me further away from the foot bridge at St Leonard through a residential area before reaching the A31. I think further investigation is required here as I am pretty sure there is a route from the Castleman Trail to the A31 there somewhere.

Once I had crossed the A31 it was into Hurn Forest and the normal Throop loop return leg as normal……….apart from two punctures. Picked up a puncture going down the path along side Oakdene caravan park. It made a bit of a mess of the slime filled inner tube. I decided to stick a patch on the tube and carry on. Well I got about 2 miles before I felt that backend wiggle that indicates a flat rear tyre. When I got the tube out the patch had lifted and was leaking green slime, not sure why the patch lifted. This time I opted for another inner tube and the slime tube will be investigated at leisure.

A quick check on the gps when I got home revealed a PB of 37.8 miles for the ride, I was pleased with that.

I don’t know how tomorrow nights weigh in will go, I have been trying something different this past week, it has been a so so week eating wise and I took an energy drink with me on this morning ride. So all in all a mixed bag so I don’t know what to expect.

In the end I opted to contact the local council and see if they would help as some of the house that connect to the drain are council house while others are privately owned (all were council at one time). Well they past me from one department to another before I landed at environmental health who were helpful but could not do anything unless I refused to clear the drain (had I gone down that route it would take several day to resolve by which time sewage would seeping from the drains and our toilets out of action). So I contacted the local water company and they said they understood my problem but if I called them out and they had to use a high pressure hose to clear the blockage it was down to me to pay and then recoup the money from my neighbours. So I opted for one of their engineers to come out and make an assessment of the problem before deciding what to do next.

The guy turned up within the hour and let just say he was there for 5 minutes and all my problems drained away. Apparently on the outlet side of the drain there is a U bend (like you have on the back of a toilet). This is to stop sewage from coming back up the pipe if the main sewer floods. So the actual outlet pipe is at about 45degree downwards to the main pipe so there no chance of having a severe bend in the rods when you use the rods to clear the blockage.

One thing that did come to light is that from October 1st, the water company will be responsible for all the drains from the point of leaving the building. So had this of happened after the 1st October it would of been a simple call to the water company.

As I had been sorting out the drains I never got to go for the planned morning ride. I had planned a ride with the wife for Tuesday, she has been out of the saddle for over 12 months following a knee injury and then hayfever induced asthma. So we decided to do the ride in the afternoon. I spent the rest of the morning checking her bike over and fitted a new padded seat cover. In the end all the bike required was air in the tyres, not bad for a bike that has not been used for over 12 month.

I had decided on a simple flat route along the river down to Throop round to Merritown and back to Throop and along the river. Number one son was coming with us as well so not only did I have to ensure the wife would not do anything to injure her knee again and I had to make sure number one son did not ride into the river. Turned out to quite an uneventful 7.8 mile ride, the wife rode of into the distance as I sat back and guided number one son, even he never complained about the distance. He made up for it later that night, he woke up screaming as he had cramp in both his calf muscles….

Last night was weigh-in night and I can happily (if a little bemused) report another 2lb loss. I thought thing were going to be a bit iffy after a meeting with several packets of biscuits last week. I am once again back into the 16st arena and this time I intend to stay in the there unlike the last couple of visits.

Tomorrow I off to somewhere new for a ride and more usually it is a trail centre, after my last trip to new riding area was followed by a visit to A&E I have dug out my knee pads just encase, won’t help my shoulder if I come off but at least my knees will be a bit safer!! More of my road trip tomorrow if I make it back in one piece.

Talking of eating into my will power, in Fridays post < a href="http://xendistar.co.uk/2495-sorting-things-out" target="_blank"> Sorting thing out I mentioned I was getting fed up with sticking my head above the parapet only to have someone knock it back down again. Well obviously somebody did not like me sticking my head above the parapet on Friday night, I only had to wait till Saturday morning before somebody tried to knock us back down again. Regardless of the reason or the outcome, it still eats away at you, making you wonder why you keep going.

Oh well Tuesday awaits…………..or is it a case of tomorrow never comes??

For one reason or another life as been a bit rough for the family these past 12 months, no sooner do we think it safe to stick our head above the parapet we find someone\something is ready to knock us back down again. Now when you have an existence like that your motivation takes a hammering, you become stressed and for me, that means eating as I am a stress eater.

I have managed to stay around the same weight for the past year, while this sound good, I should of lost at least another 28lbs in that time (about 8oz a week!). According to all the web sites I checked, I am still obese (either by weight, height calculation or weight, height bmi calculation).

I was asked why if I was not losing weight why I kept going to Slimming World, that is very simple to answer, if I had stopped going to Slimming World then my weight would of gone back to what it was pre-diet. It is that simple, going to the weekly meeting gets me back on the wagon when I have fallen off. There is just simple encouragement to pick yourself up and keep going.

I have the will power of a flea, we did the weekly shopping tonight and it was a damm hard journey around the supermarket, particularly as everytime I stopped with the trolley to let the wife catch up it was always next to the cakes, pies, biscuits or sweets all the things I would love to eat. Got to the kitchen and toilet aisle’s and I walked straight through them without stopping, I wonder why?? It is just so damm tempting to put those wrong foods in the trolley and say just this one.

So the question I asked myself on Tuesday while I drove to Sussex (and back), was what am I going to do about it? I still want to loose the weight, I may have lost around 4.5 stone to date but I still have a long way to go yet to be where I should be so I need to keep going. I need to get\find some will power, I need to try and stop things from stressing me out (I work in IT, it is not going to be easy). I need to learn to say NO! But not to other people, but to myself, I am quite happy to say no to somebody if they offer me a cake, but when it is me asking myself if I should have a late night snack or that bar of chocolate, I normally say yes, which is what has got to stop.

So what have I done this week, everything I have eaten this week has been correct to my diet, even to the point of weighing out the correct amount for me to eat. The wrong thing I have eaten are as follows, 2 crisps (that is individual crisps not packets), 3 chips and a 1/4 of pizza. Yeah real small amounts but I have to say I have eaten them because if I don’t say anything about them I hide them away and convince myself that I have not eaten them and before long I do it again and then again and……………..

I sorely want to loose the weight, I just need to do it……..

As I never rode last weekend I have been out for two evening rides this week which were quite enjoyable. I tried something a little different on both rides, the first ride was a short ride but ridden a little faster than I normally do. The second ride was part of a route I normally ride but done in reverse. I tried riding this a little faster which I think worked. The idea of riding faster was to make myself work a bit harder on the bike. Looking at the weather it looks like it might be the only riding I get this week.

Sunday morning dawned and I was up and out for a ride, did my normal loop around Throop and Hurn and went up to Ashley Heath Country Park and tried a few new bits up there. I did not have the gps with me but I would guess the ride was about 27 miles in all.

Having seen the weather forecast for the rest of the week yesterday I decided to finish early (to compensate for working Saturday morning) and go for a ride yesterday afternoon. I headed for the local heath as I had not been over there for a few weeks and it showed. There was one section of heathland that had been burnt and new greenery was well and truly growing through the black burnt earth already, last time I was over there that area was green heathland. An enjoyable 2hr ride, nothing exciting, just enjoyable.

Last night was weigh in night, I did not go last week as we were supposed to have been returning from a short break (on the Monday), although we did not go away in the end I still decided not to go last week weigh in. So it was with a little trepidation that I got on the scales last night and I was happy to see a pound loss. I need to get something sorted on my weight loss because I just can’t get my head\full commitment into my weight loss at the moment despite wanting to loose more weight.

Tomorrow will be my third day of working from home and I am starting to get cabin fever, Thursday I have to go out for work but fortunately it is not to far away and then on Friday I have the hospital apponitment and then I have a meeting near Southampton.

While my shoulder is getting better, I now have a fairly full range of movement of my right arm now without pain (until I try to either push, pull or carry anything) trying to sleep is a nightmare. The only position I can lie in without pain is on my back but I can’t sleep on my back. Lying on my left side is reasonably comfortable but the position I rest my right arm in soon become uncomfortable and I have to turn over. Well I would turn over if I could, I can’t lie on my right side as my shoulder is still to painful. I have tired lying in various new positions but they feel so alien I can’t get to sleep. Then when I do fall asleep I will turn over in my sleep and then wake up in pain as I turn on to my right side.

We won’t go into Monday nights weigh-in the weight loss went out the window which based on what I ate after Wednesday crash is hardly surprising, just got to try and keep the food intake sensible this week and hope I can get back on the bike Saturday.

I have just swapped the rear wheel over from the Cannondale to the Whyte (fortunately they are both Mavic 717 rims with Hope Pro2 hubs). To be honest the Whyte wheel is not looking to good, I found a another broken spoke (a third) and this one had broken the shoulder off the nipple, it was still stuck in the hole in the rim and it was only when I was checking each spoke that it came away in my hand. Several other spokes felt loose but that maybe because the wheel is out of true, have to wait till see what the LBS says.

In my very infrequent “what dead animal have you seen when riding” column, on Sunday I saw a dead Otter, to be honest I have never seen a live Otter in the wild only in zoo etc. It was at Parley Cross roads a busy local junction, about half a mile from the river. It had obviously had been run over and either crawled of was picked up and dropped onto the grass verge. To be honest I did not know that we had Otters in the area.

Finally another picture from my gallery

Kite buggy racing at Westward Ho!

It was weigh-in night tonight and when I got on the scales they showed a loss, not a big loss but a loss non the less. I was a little disappointed as I had expected a bigger loss having ridden the last three days, I have had no easter eggs or hot cross buns, but hey a loss off any amount is better than a gain.

I rode through the golf club car park and stopped at the top of the trail, removed my cycle helmet, switched the Veho on and then hit the trail, I then spent a couple of hours riding around the heath dodging the fire engines. Apparently the local chavs had tried to set the heath on fire (which they do with regular occurrence), I could smell it but never actually saw the fire (or smoke). I actually managed to cycle through the clay pit (a small section of muddy\clay area along side a pond) where the Fire Brigade Landrover was being winched out after getting stuck much to the amusement of the Firemen.

Here a video of the early part of the ride, I have more including the above Clay bit section still to edit.

Saturday was another great days and another great ride again on the Cannondale, more XC this time as I crossed the local heath, crossed the main road into Delph woods and then on to the Castleman trail to Upton House and back. Not sure of the exact distances as I was using my phone GPS and it said that the signal had been interrupted several times but it recorded a total of 20.3miles. Along with the 12 or so miles on Thursday my butt was letting me know that it did not like the unsprung rear end of the Cannondale.

Sunday sort of fell apart. I had intended to get up early go for a ride and then get back in time to watch the start of the Formula 1, well as I never got out of bed early enough, so I decided to watch the F1 and then go riding when it finished. As I am watching the F1 wife decides that she needs to go to Poole so I postpone the ride to take the wife to Poole. Unfortunately we only got about 50yds down the road before I found the car had a flat tyre. Now have you ever tried find an open tyre centre on a Sunday?? Thankfully the third tyre depot we tried was open, unfortunately it also seemed to be the most popular tyre centre in the area, we left 2.5hrs later. After returning from Poole it was case of eating lunch, it was now a bit warm for a ride so I opted for a late afternoon ride. From a heat point of view the timing was perfect, it was lovely and cool, but from a fly catching point of view it was a nightmare. every time I opened my mouth to gasp for air I was swallowing midges & flies. While my butt was ok with the ride (I took the Whyte, my legs felt quite heavy by the end of the ride.

Tonight was weigh-in night and tonight was a loss night, now just have to stick to the straight and narrow till next Monday.

Since Monday I have been fighting Trojans, or to be more precise, fake Trojans. The type that pop up a fake security warning saying you have 20,000 infections on your PC, enter your bank card details below and watch us empty your bank account!! Just a pain in the arse to deal with (goes well with the pain in the groin).

Well last night was weigh in night and it was a loss. Bit of a surprise really after what I ate of Friday and Saturday, but hey I will take it. Just need to get my mind into gear and get into a new number (e.g. 16st area).

As spring has sprung (and despite the forecast rain tomorrow) here is a view of summer for you.

Sunset over Poole Harbour

Last night was weigh in night and I managed to get a small loss, all of half a pound, but a loss is a loss. I think the low loss of the past couple of weeks is down to eating to much bread. I normally only have bread at lunch times, normally only a couple of slices one or two times a week. But last few weeks it has been more like 5 or 6 times a week. So going to watch how much bread I eat this week and see how it goes.

After the weekends credit card scam attempt I phoned the company concerned and asked them about the comments I had been reading about the problems on bike forums. They were well aware of what had been written and while not admitting there was a problem they did say their systems were being checked by independent security consultants. Now I am not saying that there is a problem with this companies security but there is to much smoke for there not to be a fire, so if you have purchased items on-line from Chain Reaction Cycles, then keep an eye on your credit or debit card accounts or better still cancel them and get new cards issued.

Not a lot else planned for this week, was thinking about going for a ride tonight but lack of planning (read not putting the battery pack for the light on charge) and not feeling great killed that idea, so it look like only two rides at the weekend. Saturday’s ride will be an out early affair so that I am back in time to sort the bike out and then make myself comfortable for the 6 nations rugby climax on Saturday afternoon

Went for a couple of rides at the weekend, the ride on Saturday was not until late afternoon as I had to replace the bearings in the headset which a local bike shop had cocked up. Not impressed when I found out what the cause of the problem was. I should of gone back to the shop but I just don’t have the enthusiasm to argue with them, better of sorting out the problem myself, avoiding the shop and getting on with life.

The ride was a bit of a disaster as I started to suffer from chain suck, not the best thing to happen in the middle of the forest in the pitch black, so I cut the ride short and headed for home, still managed around 16 miles. That is the last ride on the Canondale now until the bottom bracket and crank are replaced. Sundays ride was out in the New Forest, my legs were feeling a bit heavy from the ride the night before, added to that the mud I found in places, it was hard work. Did not help when I took a wrong turn and ended up having to walk through a bog, still managed 17.6 miles.

Dentist early this morning for root canal round 2, the gunk he put in my tooth on the last visit to kill the nerve worked as I could not feel him drilling it out. Then he found the third nerve which was very much alive so the dentist filled my tooth with gunk again and I have to go back in about 4 weeks to have the third nerve removed.

Yesterday there was no riding, as forecast it rained and the wind blew. I spent yesterday morning servicing my DMR V8 pedal from the Cannondale. I had to stand the bike in the rain to remove the pedals as there no room to put the bike on the floor in the shed (bike normally hangs on the wall). I had intended to set the new chain up on the bike (actually measure the chain to ensure it is the correct length. But with the bike dripping wet from standing in the rain I was told in no uncertain terms the bike was not allowed into the kitchen, so that a job for one night in the week. I spent yesterday afternoon editing a bit of video I took with my Muvi Digital Camera. Editing the film was easy, trying to get the film into a format I wanted was a pain in the arse but I got it sorted in the end.

Unfortunately I ran out of time to upload it last night and as I had intended to post it in my blog I never got to write this blog. So I started the upload this evening when I got back from Slimming World, well at least I though I had. Checked the PC 40 minute later 0% uploaded, seem like the upload process fell over before it started. So I restarted it and it is going quite slowly and has another 45 minutes to go as I type so it has missed tonight blog post, ho hum.

When I got up this morning and lifted the blind over the window I realised that the car had not moved off the drive since Friday night, don’t ask me why it came to me at that moment as I don’t have a clue. In fact I only went out the house on Sunday to go to the shed, when the daughter came in from work at 4 o’clock we had to unlock the front door for her as it was still locked from where she had locked it when she left for work at 8 o’clock yesterday morning.

Then there is the cycling, I need to find the balance of the right food to eat (and drink) before and during a ride. I am ok going at my pace on a 25miler, but if I try a longer ride or I ride at a faster pace then I start to get problems with my calf and thigh muscles. Tomorrow I am hoping to do the same ride as I did the other week out to Moors Valley and back but I intend to ride the complete cycle trail at Moors Valley this time rather than start a 1/3 of the way round. The extra bit riding to the start of the trail and then the extra third should see me over the 30 mile mark. But my thighs tighten up last time and I ended up riding quite slowly. Tomorrow I want to also do the ride quicker than I did the last time, that means I can expect my muscle problems.

Now I know a lot of the food to eat prior to riding and during the ride, but two favourites I hate, Porridge and banana’s and they are pretty good diet wise as well. So there are two out the so called best energy foods out the windows to start with. Other favourites like energy drink and energy bars are not exactly diet friendly, which is ok on the one hand as I will burn them off, but I want to burn the stored energy I am carrying around with me. I don’t want to take on-board the calories before or during the ride just so I can go the distance. I have several idea’s in my head for food tomorrow, which one I will choose I don’t know, you will have to read my blog tomorrow to find out.

I came across this over the weekend, many of you know the rides that the Likes of Evans Cycles ride itevents and Wiggles Super Series of cycling rides well I found another one Whyte Enduros They have a couple around that I may be interested later in the year.

Prior to going to the dentist the network at work went awol so not only could nobody at work do anything (11 sites across the UK) I was unable to do anything from home either. Support company did not help when they turned round and said they could login OK. Eventually the network turned up for work, even now we are still scratching our heads wondering where it went. The afternoon bubbled along with the usual IT related problems.

Tuesday, more IT problems one followed the other and more lack of support from a support company (different company than the one mentioned earlier). I had to phone them after waiting 4 hours after the problem was reported and the problem was resolved in 2 minutes.

Wednesday and my early morning departure for head office in Worcestershire, traffic was horrible so I was 15 minutes later arriving than normal. A simple 10 minute job took over an hours to do. Some parts I ordered arrived looking like bits for a jigsaw puzzle. About 30 minutes before I leave, all hell let rip, the payroll PC spat it dummy out and I had to sent a file off to support but it refused to be copied so the 2 minute copy and e-mail turned into a 30 minutes battle of wills. Then two printers decided they did not like printing and somebody asked why his e-mail with 25mb attachment was not arriving despite sending it 5 times, oh the joys of IT.

This morning as I was working from home I decided to have a bit of a lie in, as I dozed in bed I was rudely awoken by my works mobile phones being thrust in my face, our Northampton branch could not login. Further phone calls revealed that it total 5 branches could not login after our network supplier had a major outage.

This was followed by more fun and games with the non-printing printers, a request from a manager to set-up there department now on a new system who was too busy to give me the required information 6 months ago when we installed the system.

Not to sure I want to get out of bed tomorrow…………….

Monday was weigh-in night and my 3 week losing streak came to an end, 1lb on. I was not surprised as there had been some major troughing over the weekend. This week to date has been pretty good, but the weekdays normally are, it is the weekends that it all falls apart.

I does not look like I will be going on the ride with Rafe and the MBS crew this Saturday, rain and high winds on the top of a hill is not my idea of fun. In fact the weather is looking better at home so I think it will be a early morning local ride and then back home ready to watch the second match in the six nations rugby.

Finally, the new post notification that should appear on facebook when I post a new blog is not working at the moment, it should work but it does not, ho knows why………………

So the day was spent cleaning and prepping the Whyte ready for next weekend oh and guess what I found when I got the bike out the shed this morning, another flat front tyre!! It was a very small leak which took several attempts to find, checked the tyre but did not find anything poking through. Think it might be time to invest in some of those self sealing slime filled inner tubes like these. I have also added a reminder to the calendar to give the bike a once over Friday night as I don’t want another Saturday morning like yesterday again in a hurry.

The ride I am doing is an easy ride (allegedly) on the Ridgeway in Swindon or starting at Burberry Castle to be exact. It is being organised by MBS (mountain biking in Swindon), more details can be found here. So that why I decided not to ride this morning to rest my knee ready for next weekend.

As well as bike prepping this morning I have been PC building for a friend of ours this afternoon. She needed a PC for her daughter as there were nightly confrontation in her house over who was going to use the PC (Facebook Vs homework). So out of the old dead boxes I had lying around I have managed to build another PC for her so at least there will be some piece in there house hold.

It is weigh in night tomorrow, it has been reasonable week so far, so I am hopeful. Unfortunately I have the dentist as well tomorrow for a bit of root canal work, should be interesting as I don’t do injections………………………….

Last night was weigh in night and it was another loss, 1.5lbs to be exact, not as much as I would of liked but a loss is a loss and considering the bottle of wine, meal out (father-in-laws birthday) and some hot cross buns I consumed during the week I will take it. I really want to keep on the straight and narrow with the diet this week so I can have a good loss and get rid of this xmas baggage I am still carrying.

Hopefully going to start editing my first Muvi film to night (it is currently importing into the editing software as I type), it is not going to be anything special but hey I will have some fun.

Sat down and had a think about the work I need to do on the Cannondale last night and it is going to have to wait till funds permit, I have spent a bit more money on the bikes than I intended to this past few week and as sod law would have it, one of the items I need to replace on the Cannondale is on a very good deal online at the moment, don’t you just hate it when that happens?

Intending to have go riding both days this weekend, which is something I don’t think I have done since the beginning of the year. Then the following week I am off to Barbury (near Swindon) for a ride. I want to try and find another long route (25\30 miles) I can ride from home. I have several around the 12 to 20 mark I want to push the distance on a little bit. I could do the ride I did on Sunday but ride from home but then a third of the ride is road riding (main roads at that) but I hate riding on the main roads and there no real alternatives.

My calf and thigh muscle have stopped aching now which is a bit of a relieve as I lost count of the time’s that I went to get up out of the chair only to whimper from the pain of my calf muscles stretching.

My new cassette has arrived for the Whyte, it is a nice shade of pink, “Pinkslip Pink” apparently (it was £2 cheaper than the red one and £4 cheaper than the green or gold ones)!! Can’t fit it yet as I need to buy two new long reach sockets as Whyte has a strange axle set-up and two nuts that hold the axle on the wheel are in a deep recess on each side, so it will have to wait until Saturday when I can get to the shop to buy the sockets. So the likelihood I will only do one ride this weekend which will be on Sunday.

Have a meeting at 8am tomorrow morning at head office a 130 miles away so will be up earlier than normal so will need to make sure that I get an early night.