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.

So I said to Wendy …

Would you cut my hair ? Just take a centimetre off ( and pointed to the bits I meant.

What Wendy HEARD …

Can you cut all of my hair so that it’s all a centimetre long?

Sure, she said.

I thought she was taking her time over what was surely a small job.

Return of the Human Tennis Ball. …

Dominic Cummings…

Drove to a castle to ‘ test his eyesight’ …
You what?

I’ve been an optometrist for 33 years. I can categorically say that in an eye examination I’ve never thought to ask ..

‘ so what’s your vision like when you visit your local castle ? ‘

Good grief.

So black African Americans are up in arms at the relaxing of lockdown measures. They are more likely to die from Covid 19 than their white counterparts.
In Africa itself, black ( and most people there are ) people are not dying in their droves.

So you have to be black, and live in America, to be vulnerable? What if a black American moved to Africa then? Would this save him/her? And what if an African black moved to America? Would that spell death for them?

When, on the news, we get those collages of pictures of the dead ( of all colours and ages ) it’s absolutely notable that pretty much all of them, other than those who have other crippling conditions ( and the photos are not necessarily ‘ current’ , having been supplied by grieving families who tend to submit ‘ best ‘ pictures ) are OVERWEIGHT.

In America, obesity is ( literally ) a massive problem. In impoverished Africa, excessive food just isn’t a financial option…

It strikes me that this virus targets the fat, who are by and large unfit, who therefore have weaker hearts/ cardiovascular systems, and less able respiratory systems, and it so happens that there are an awful lot of fat black Americans in America.

That’s not anybody’s fault ( in almost every case ) other than that of the individual for over eating and under exercising.

Black, white, yellow, old or young .. eat sensibly and do enough exercise. I don’t think that’s anyone’s responsibility other than your own.

So…

with no dentists open still, and tired of being the only redneck in Brentford, I explored the Make Your Own Replacement Tooth options out there.
For about fifteen quid you can buy this plastic stuff called CREADENT which allows you to mould a tooth to go in the gap.
I didn’t have a lot of faith that for only a few quid you can look ok, so I’m pleasantly impressed and surprised that actually the stuff is brilliant. I mean it’s not perfect, and it’s not an exact colour match etc but hey it’s better than looking life the village idiot for months, right?

See! You can’t even tell ! 😂

We agreed some compromises and adjustments.. you could say then that Wendy came back with my tail between her legs…..

And she missed me !

Well I coulda told her she would..!

Apparently 29 London bus drivers have died from Covid 19.

That leaves about 2000 of the unhelpful f*****s to go.