I’ve been a bit non-specific of late in terms of my goals, and that probably hasn’t helped my cause, you know? It’s good to have something to aim for, I mean something tangible. I seem to remember the last time I mentioned any kind of goal I was planning to hit 215lbs by Christmas and clearly that didn’t work out too well. I went in the opposite direction and behaved like a right bloody ejit. But that was then, and this is now.

The Shitbird Scale rained on my parade a bit yesterday but as far as I’m concerned I’ve had a great week. With the exception of a close encounter on Saturday evening with a handful of Ferrero Rocher – which I don’t even like that much but they were there – I’ve closed out my first week off the white stuff and it’s gone well, so I was more than a bit pissed off when the number nudged up by almost a pound.

However, I reacted like a grown-up and wrote it off as a load of bollocks. I’ve had a good week therefore whatever weird shit is going on with the number, it’s not fat weight gain. Let it ride, see what it says next week and don’t sweat the small stuff. Granted, it was said with a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp, but it was still said. And that’s progress.

Anyway, speaking of goals…my first holiday of the year is now booked, for the middle of May. You know me, my feet were getting distinctly itchy and already I feel better knowing there’s a piece of the world just waiting to be explored. That gives me four months to get back to my lowest weight from last year, which also happens to be my lowest weight in years. That’s the challenge I’ve set myself, and it’s about 35lbs lighter than I am now so it’s going to take some doing but you know what, bring it on. The holiday’s my incentive to work hard.

That hard work started yesterday morning with a session in the gym. My friend Nic was there and egging me on…try the stair machine she said. Try the battle ropes. Try the TRX straps…it’s all good fun. And you know what, it actually was good fun at the time. It’s good to try new stuff. Well, all except the stair machine which was just undiluted torture after the first thirty seconds…I lasted five whole minutes, and I thought that was damn impressive.

It was later in the day when it stopped being fun and started being ‘I can’t fucking move‘. My bum cheeks felt like bowling balls and my arms felt like lead. On the upside, it stopped me from snacking my way though the evening because my arms refused to  follow the instructions coming down the pipe and my hand to mouth dexterity would’ve been a little shaky. I’d bought a kilo of cherries earlier in the day but I couldn’t even face the thought of lifting up the cherry pitter so they stayed in the fridge and I stayed in my armchair.

I tried to shake the duvet down when I went to bed last night but my attempt was so utterly feeble that I chose instead to sleep the night covered by a handkerchief-sized bit of duvet cover while 90% of my duvet lay bunched up in the opposite corner. To be fair, those battle ropes have probably put me out of any duvet-shaking activity for the next month at least.

However. It hurt, but it was supposed to hurt. My fitness has gone backwards in the last six months, and nobody said clawing it back was going to be easy, did they? Apparently though, my muscles have memory so they should in theory be able to get their shit together fairly quickly providing I turn up to workout and try hard. So I’m going to turn up at least three times a week, and I know once I’m in there I’ll be grand. Between that, and the swimming I reckon my goal is do-able.

Those fucking stairs though…

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