~ The Weight Loss Challange ~

So I made a promise to myself and so did my wife that this year we will together work on our weight loss.  We both set a target and got on with it.

I wasn't really that heavy but I wanted to trim down to a suitable size in preparation for the London to Brighton bike ride 2016, so I set a target weight of 78kg.  My start weight was 84.4kg.

I am happy to say that this morning I achieved that goal after 74days in a row (logged by the MyFitnessPal app).

So what did I do?

I basically thought to myself that I will not crash diet I have the health of my heart to think about and didn't want to put any un-needed stress on my body.  I wanted to enjoy my weight loss and thought there has to be a simple formula.

Eat less
Eat more veg
Eliminate Fizzy drinks
Drop the snack foods
Grill ALL my meat
Count those calories

You might have noticed I didn't put down "Exercise"?

Well I wanted to be realistic to my health and I thought if I do all the above will I need to exercise at all? so I made it a test to see if it could be done while doing my normal everyday activities.

I work in IT so I have a desk job.  My health, hours and family life make it near impossible to go to the Gym on a regular basis.

I like to ride and I do TaiChi once a week so how do I make this work?

So firstly I bought a FitBit band to monitor my steps and give me that constant motivation everyday to get up and move.  Friendly "steps" competition with my wife and friends gets you moving.

Fitness Pal, counted those calories, weighed my food.

I decided at first that I want more control on my lunch so out went the buying food an in came the cooking food.

I would buy:

Beef Steak
Chicken Breast
Fish

Cut them up to make them weigh 100 grams (RAW) and grilled them for lunch.  I would then have with this either:

Brown rice or
Broccoli

For breakfast Mon-Fri I had two eggs and 25g of Smoked salmon. (EVERY WEEK)

I managed to keep this up for about two months and watched the weight fall off.

At home we grilled EVERYTHING. added more veg to our meals and continued to weighed everything.
Junk food was out, I haven't had a slice of pizza for over three months!!

During all this my exercise was no more than 2hrs a week of Tai Chi.  The odd 10mile bike ride (3 times, yeah I know really bad)  and that was it.

I made the change in diet my priority and it has worked out fine. along with trying to get 10,000 steps in each day.

So you see there is no magic to loosing weight, none of those stupid magic pills or weight busting shakes.

Going to the gym would have made this process quicker but not if you are not mentally ready to really loosing the weight.

What's the point in counting your calories and then going to the gym, burning 500Kcals off and then thinking oh ill have a chip shop chips and pie for dinner?

Do you know how many calories are in chip shop chips and pie!!!

Check this out 200g of French fries is between 300-450Kcals ALONE!!! add that to your dairy and you will be shocked how much calories pile on.

So look this is my story I'm sure I could have gone in more detail somewhere, I been typing so long i have lost track.  So if you want to ask me anything just post in the comments below and ill be glad to help.

I may have met my goal but now I have to focus on bike training and just manage my weight form no on.

PEACE!!!

Filling the Gap from 2013

Well its a new year and a new me since 2013.  It sure has been a long time since I have updated this and thought now is the time to "report in"

My Pacemaker has been ticking along greatly since it's first implantation of 2010 but then a little thing happened last year September 2015.

So I'm at my new job and my mobile rings.  It's the Barts Hospital.  I have this cool device you see that monitors my heart activity and ICD from home so my old 6 monthly visits to the hospital is all but gone.

Yep I'm WiFi baby this is really the future and I tell my son that I am part robot/cyborg and you know how cool that sounds for a 7 year old.

Anyway sidetracked, so Barts Hospital state that they need to see my right away to go over the results of my last lot of scans form my home system.  I was like OK but I'm in the office right now could I not come after work?

Hay Ho the answer was no, so I explain to my boss I'm sorry but I have to quickly pop out at lunch and might be a little longer than my 1hr.  Two shakes of the tail and I'm off.

3hrs later get seen and the assessment is grim. Now you see this was a Friday and I had great plans for the family and kids for the weekend.  But now the doctor tells me

"Mr Pratt I'm sorry but it seems your ICD has a serious fault and has been sending out false readings taking you very close each time to getting a shock"

FFS!!!! (I said in my head)

So this means...yep it needs to be swapped out today. Looool just great.

So I update work, wife and family in Jamaica and head on home to pack a hospital bag.

Two days later I'm out of hospital with a brand new ICD.  The recovery period was horrible as the cables that lead from the ICD to my heart had pretty much fused with my veins and when they pulled them out it scared the entire route to my heart so my left shoulder and arm was killing me for at least two months oh man wouldn't wish this pain on anyone but not sure everyone goes through this.

The plus side is technology has moved on so well and my device is state of the art, only due to stock issues did they not give me the newer one that allows you to even go into MRI scanners if you need to in your life.  How cool is that :-)

So it's been 5 months since my new ICD implant and cool new home monitoring system (smaller, faster better) and all seems well, in fact all is really great.

I have had a chat with my doctors at the hospital and they have even said it's ok to exercise more and I got the green light to take part in the BHF London to Brighton cycle ride something that I have wanted to do since 2011.

You cannot imagine the joy this brings as I was such an active person.

So 2016 I have decided to take drastic action in my health and well-being.  An all new diet to help reduce that growing waste line back to an acceptable target.  Got a new bike and starting to slowing rack up the miles on practice rides in the park of 10miles a pop.

And once again I have a fund raising page to help raise money for the BHF who have undeniably done so much for me.

I will start to update this blog a lot more with my training and progress on my ride so watch this space.

PS:  I want to give a mini shout out to Harriet Southwood a Media Officer from the BHF.  She contacted me and has been working with me to write up a profile on my condition and plans for the cycle ride.  It will appear in my local papers telling everyone about my story over the last 5 years.


If you wish to donate to the cause please take a look at my Just Giving page here and thank you in advance.

~ Thursday January 10th 2013 ~

Happy New Year!!

Hope you all had a good time.  It's that time of year again when the pacemaker is needing a checkup, this is a short gap as they were concerned on the VT's (Ventricular Tachycardeia) that I was still getting, so they scheduled me for a 3 month visit.

The last three month months have been uneventful really except for a scary palpitation earlier this week. It just came on so suddenly while I was on the bus home thought it was going to shock me.  I logged it so I will mention it to the ICD Unit next week.  Weird feeling on this one is it made me tingle all over I thought it was a heart attack for a split second lol that would be ironic wouldn't it.

Well since the checks are not until next week I will give you all an update on the results of that then.  However it's been on my mind for a while and I have a few questions that I will ask the Consultant.

So the last time I saw the consultant he outlined that I shouldn't do any exercise, mild low intensity exercise is ok, thus I have kept at my Tai Chi (though this can be intense at times, you have to come to my class to believe it).  I started to consider doing pilates at home just to help with core strength and get that tummy down.  Now the question I'm going to ask is this:

1)  I'm not allowed to exercise therefore I will put on weight, now putting on weight is not good for the heart so....?

You see where I'm going with that question don't you lol is it me but it feels like I have been setup to die.

do exercise possibly collapse and die
Do no exercise and get huge then die of heart failure
do...don't...do...don't...

Sorry if this sounds morbid but you have to be real about these things but there are times where I just stare off into my thoughts and these things run around in their.

Will there be a cure for ARVC soon?
What will be the advancements in pacemaker tech that might give me back my active lifestyle? (and man I was active before all this)

Oh another thing happened  one day at work a guy was trying to play a prank on my with a pen that shocks you if you click it, and a few of the other staff members were like "No don't be a dick he has a heart problem!!"

I couldn't believe they even remembered I had a problem and just that one act of care...man it really hit the spot of kindness towards me.  I was very grateful and the guy felt so bad but he didn't know so can't blame a guy for trying a funny prank.

Anyway until next week!!

Laters!!