Did you see that Vinegar is being renamed as ‘Vi’?

And Arnold Schwarzenneger is going to be Arnold Schwarz?

I’m losing weight at high speed. Initially that was fine, but after not even 2 weeks I’m in danger of it going too far the other way and just being really thin !

Already I’m eating far more than I was for the first 11 days, but it’s still falling off me. Another 2 KGs in the last 24 hours, and probably 10 KGs at least overall.

I’ve proven that weight loss is easy, you just have to exercise more than you were, and eat less than you were, at the same time.

It’s THAT EASY.

I’m going to have to reduce the arm crank or triple my calorie intake then.
Hmmm. I look at the ‘ distance cranked in an hour’ and yesterday on the third of my 3 separate hour long cranks I beat my best ever distance, so I haven’t lost power ( or its been compensated for by improved fitness ).

Maybe I should just eat loads of chocolate every day?

I can’t be sure, but I think I have lost something between 10 and 14 kg over the last 12 days.
I can’t be SURE because I’ve only just found a way to weigh myself – that is i bought an industrial type hook with integrated electronic scales that arrived 2 days ago.
By hooking that into a hoist that lifts me up, I can weigh.

The weight loss is drastic though. I lost 6 kg over 24 hours. By weighing myself ( with Carer’s help ) at the same time first thing in the morning I’m taking away the variables.

I wish I’d taken more pictures as I’d gone along too. Only got a few at the start ( which is the main thing ) and then none for the next 7 days. I have taken them for the last 3 and will continue to from now on.

I can certainly see the difference! I’m not trying to starve myself.. and I think I now need to eat more than I have been doing, before I disappear altogether.
I don’t seem to be losing any power to crank the handle, so that’s not suffering at all, and neither am I excessively tired or anything, but blimey I’m leaner. I’ve only done 12 days and I’ve 18 left. I’ll change tack and up the food intake and see what happens.

I’ll gauge what I do for the next 18 days by what I see in the mirror.

This Sunday will mark 7 years to the day that I got on my bicycle, on Fathers Day, for the last time. About 6 hours after getting on I was lying in a road with a broken back and spinal cord severed, a broken collar bone, and 13 ribs broken on my right side. I also smashed my cycle helmet to pieces, sustaining frontal lobe concussion.

Over the next few hours I was helicoptered to a French hospital, had had 2 heart attacks, major emergency surgery and and was put into a coma.
More was to come, as , in no particular order, organ failure followed, a tracheotomy inserted, pneumonia was contracted, and feeding through tubes became the only way to nourish my rapidly wasting body.

Welcome to paraplegia ! Not the most fun club…

It was months before they even lifted my battered onto its new legs .. the wheelchair… in which I will always remain.

Sounds grim doesn’t it? Amazingly though, I’m smiling genuine smiles again, and have consistently positive thoughts. It took a while, having had many other knockdowns after my physical injury… but hey I’m a Fighter, me.

As society around me finds out what it’s like to suddenly be deprived of normal stuff, I look on and think ‘ ahh if only you REALLY KNEW what properly going without the so called essentials is like – health, mobility and a body that can stand up and walk.

So smile peeps, because worse things can definitely happen to you!
❤️

Day NINE.

My rather EXTREME exercise regime is definitely paying off.

Forgotten how much I like suffering.

Already I feel ( and I can’t ‘ feel ‘ most of me ) quite different.

Another 21 days and I may have actually disappeared.

Given Covid 19 has a thing about obese people ( who as a consequence of obesity – and ok this isn’t straightforward in EVERY SINGLE case – have more arterial furring up, higher blood pressure, weaker and more overworked hearts etc etc ) I thought I’d see what I could do about the spare tyre that seems to have appeared around my middle.
Given I can’t stand up, let alone run… or cycle, or go to body pump classes etc etc, my options to aerobically exercise are limited ( to say the least ). I do however have a ‘ crank ‘ machine ( Ex gym machine gifted to me by my pal, Dan ) that i can now use ( after 18 months of allowing my metal and screws to ‘ set ‘ ).
I started using it for 20 minutes a day, then an hour, and for a week or so for 3 hours a day, that I split into 3 separate hours.
It’s pretty well known that if you exercise ‘ on empty ‘ that is that you exercise first thing in the morning, having eaten nothing, you burn bodily fat. This is what I did for years, pre injury. So I do an hour ( and wearing a heart monitor my heartbeat is around 110 which is ideal ‘ fat burning zone ‘ ) first thing, and then I have a small amount of oats with a few berries. Then I visit the bathroom.. and having had an hour’s break i crank for another hour.
Some time later I do a further hour. I’ve got an old iPad next to the Crank on which I can watch BBCi Player, to make the time go faster.
So my ‘ proper exercise’ has been for about a week, accompanied by in general only eating uncooked veg and fruit, along with hard boiled eggs and tins of tuna. I’ve seen my temptation to eat chocolate/ sweets almost disappear, from Very Tempted to Not Bothered At All.
I think I’ve only had 2 glasses of wine and 1 gin and tonic altogether in the last 2 weeks, which I’m sure is a tenth of what I’d normally have had.

Before my injury, I’d occasionally think about ( the impossible I know ) transplantation of ‘ my brain and mindset’ into a fully functioning but obese body, it being an experiment to see whether my mindset could transform that body from obese to lean ( something that the previous owner of the obese body claimed was really hard/ impossible to do…

Now I find myself in a body that is even more difficult to transform, because a good half of it doesn’t even work!

But I’m up for a challenge, me. I know what’s it’s like to have an impressive physique, and that isn’t going to return ( after 7 years of paralysis ).. but I do KNOW that I can make a fair bit of difference to the body I do have.

And the thing is that IF A PARAPLEGIC WHO DOESNT HAVE MANY OPTIONS CAN SHED THE POUNDS, THEN THE ABLE BODIED HAVE NO EXCUSES…

I’m going to post pictures/ maybe video of the before / during and after one month’s training. I have 3 weeks of 3 hours a day to go, and then I’ll post the pictures.

I don’t know how I’ll be at the end ( and I’m not going to stop altogether after a month ) but already after a week the difference is obvious.

Eat less and exercise more ( at the same time ) to lose weight.
I don’t think it’s rocket science.