Eating right, getting fit and losing weight

Last Christmas I weighed 12 stone and was as unfit as I can ever remember being. I almost couldn't get into the gym at work because my blood pressure was right on the edge of being too high. Anyway reaching the edge of your clothes is all very well if you can afford new ones but being from the North of England and, I quote a friend I worked with in London, "a typical northern tight-arse" I decided something needed doing if my wallet was going to survive a future shopping trip.

I've never had to diet before but knew enough to know that killing yourself on the Atkins diet, or starving yourself on the Cabbage soup diet were daft so I bought the "You Are What You Eat Cookbook" by Gillian McKeith and changed what I ate.

I also stumbled across Don Lemmon on the Internet and found his mix of eating right and exercise more my thing. So I ordered his Book 1 (available from his web site below - stick with the page as there's a lot of info and if you read it all it does make sense). It's a really interesting read and teaches you a whole lot more about food - He basically splits food into 12 groups and teaches you how to combine certain foods and eat others separately. It's more of a life-style change and unlike other fad-diets you don't stop eating carbohydraytes or live on salad, but eat good food, more often. And to top it all he's a real nice guy who answers your emails and encourages discussion at his board http://www.liesandpropaganda.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2

And what's great is Gillian McKeith agrees with some of what he says so you're never stuck for a recipe - I've learnt some great new dishes and now do all our cooking rather than just most of it :)

Anyway, the long and short of it is that I lost a stone and a half, dropped a couple of inches off my waist, got fit and look better than I did when I was 21 (I can even see my abs - at 36!). And I'm never hungry because the Know-How diet encourages you to eat.

It's great and it works. What are you waiting for?

ViSOR - at last!

I am proud to say I helped design and code bits of ViSOR (along with quite a few others who I shared a hard working, often drunken time in London with). It has been live a while and answers a lot of the Bichard enquiry points about Police forces not previously sharing information on nasty people, and yet has never been recognised in the press, or by the Home Office - something I've found very frustrating as it works well, has addressed a lot infrastructure problems within police forces, and is liked as a system by the people who actually use it. Try getting them to say anything nice about the pre-historice Police National Computer (PNC) and you'll she why we are so proud of ViSOR.

Anyway, recognition of a superb system at last:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4163764.stm

Holiday Pictures

The last few days in Cornwall were great with lovely weather and nice days out. The journey home was also a relief as it took 4.5 hours less than the journey down and we were home for 14:30.
The Family pages (http://www.sherlock.co.uk/pictures/July2005/) have been updated with some of the holiday pictures (email me if you need the username or password)

Cornwall - Days 2 and 3

At last the weather has improved and we're having some great days.
Cornwall is surprisingly dog friendly and we've found a few beaches that we can take Molly to, and they're actually nice sandy beaches as well (you usually need to don mountain climbing gear to safely negotiate the rocks on a beach that allows dogs).
So, we've had an enjoyable day emptying rock pools and today we went to The Lost Gardens Of Heligan. What an amazing place! It is a large family estate that slowly fell into disrepair after most of the staff died in World War 1. In 1991 work started on renovation and it is now pretty much as it was, which is very impressive indeed. Rather than waffle forever it's easier to point you toward http://www.heligan.com/
And when we got back to the 'cottage' they had even cut the grass! The hidden downside to that is we are now in danger of decapitation from low flying frisbees and Christopher's latest sport of Rugby. It doesn't really bother me, except maybe when he knocks my beer over...