Dateline Wuxi, China, Thursday April 18, 2013

No surprise here.  Only what I must expect if I eat and drink whatever I feel like eating and drinking.  Obviously I haven’t changed my eating habits to stabalize at a reasonable weight.

This morning I weighed in at 99.5kg.

Ruth weighed in at 65.7

I’m beginning to think I should abandon Phase 3 and start Phase 4, Recovery.  But there you have it.  It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion as I climb back  up toward the weight I started with in April of last year.

Dateline Wuxi, China, Thursday April 18, 2013

No exercise this morning.  Ate whatever I wanted all day.  Now drinking huang jiu.  What is going on here?

Well, tomorrow I’m going to start the day with 31 minutes on the elliptical again.  When you fall off the waggon, the only ting to do is to climb back on.

Dateline Wuxi, China, Wednesday April 17, 2013

Did my 31 minutes on the elliptical this morning.  ‘Nuff said.

Dateline Wuxi, China, Tuesday April 16, 2013

Two explosions reported near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.  So I guess we’re in for more war on terror shit in the Untied States.

I did my 31 minutes on the elliptical this morning.  The machine is really falling apart.  I stopped at the halfway point to check the tightness of the bolts holding on the big wheels, but the one I expected to be loose wasn’t.

Last night was bad.  Three shots of scotch before bed, plush a half an inch off the block of cheese.  Tonight will be as bad because we’re not eating at home.  We’ll be eating downtown.  Sigh.

Dateline Wuxi, China, Monday April 15, 2013

Holy crap.  Did I really miss more than a week of posting to this site?  My last post was on weigh in Friday at the end of week 6. I’ve really fallen off the waggon.

Weigh in Friday last week was really disappointing.  I’m back up to 98.0kg from 97.2kg the previous week, which I thought was disappointing enough.

Ruth is also up.  She was 64.4 on Friday, up a whole kilogram from 63.4 the previous week.  That’s 2.2 lbs.  Yikes.

I don’t seem to be able to resist the French bread with Irish butter at lunch, and I’m sipping a scotch as I write this.  What is going on?  I’m going to put it down to depression and stress over our upcoming move back to Canada.  But seriously, I need to get a grip.  I’m starting to feel it.

The only good news is that I’m still exercising in the morning.  31 minutes on the elliptical trainer, even on the cheater day, which this past week was a doozi.

Dateline Wuxi, China, Friday April 5, 2013

We missed a couple of days of exercise since the machine went dead.  Yesterday we rode our bikes to Auchan for groceries, which probably makes up for a lock of the elliptical trainer.

Yesterday the repair guys showed up and put a new belt on the elliptical trainer.  I was really surprised at how fast this happened.  They charged us 119 RMB, about $20 Canadian, and they were here for well over an hour.  Unfortunately, the firsts time they put the machine back together, the computer wouldn’t work properly.  It would go up to full resistance, then drop down to a fraction of that, then drop down completely.  They took it apart again, trying to find the problem but finally had to give up.  I told them not to worry about it.

I set up the machine for full resistance, then pulled it’s plug.  So it works fine as an exercise machine now, except it doesn’t tell us our time or calories burned.  We can live with that.  The iPad has a great timer on it and I’m just going to assume that if I breath hard and sweat a lot I’m probably burning enough calories.

So, 31 minutes on the elliptical trainer this morning, burning about 600 calories or so.

Weigh in today was disappointing again.  I’m back up to 97.2 from 96ykg. last week.

Ruth is up to 64.4 from 63.4kg. last week.

Not surprising given that we’ve both been eating French bread with butter with our lunch soup, and I’ve been snacking on hong shu pian (sweet potato chips) and peanuts in the evening, washed down with far too much scotch.  I’m not going to say it…not going to say it…. oh damn.  I must get strict with the program again.  I must.  I know this.  Why did I have to say it?

Dateline Wuxi, China, Sunday March 31, 2013

That’s it for the elliptical trainer.  This morning it finally broke.  It’s been running rough lately, as noted in previous posts.  But this morning it started making a scraping sound and then with the noise of a spring breaking loos and a snap it suddenly went to zero resistance.

I took it apart and discovered that the belt connecting the main wheel to the resistance wheel had broken.  It’s probably impossible to replace the belt, and we’re not going to spend any money on repairs since we’re leaving China in three months and will not take the machine with us.  So that’s most likely it.  We may make a phone call to see if we can find a belt, but… not likely.

Don’t know whether to be happy or sad.  I have been hating that machine for some time.  The computer is so difficult to set, because half the buttons don’t do anything when you ask them to, and it’s been running rough.

Today we rode our bikes to Wanda Plaza and back, with a stop at Auchan shopping centre for groceries.  I worked up a sweat and was breathing hard.  That’s over an hour of bike riding, so it’s probably equivalent to whatever I would have done on the elliptical trainer.

Dateline Wuxi, China, Saturday March 30, 2013

Doing okay today.  I did 604 on the elliptical trainer in 31 minutes.  Felt very toxic to start, because we drank the champagne last night to celebrate Panda’s first paying client.

A good day.  I’m now sipping a scotch and eating peanuts.  I won’t document all of the bad cheater day stuff I’ve been eating, but suffice it to say that I’m not holding back.

Dateline Wuxi, China, Friday March 29, 2013

I weighed in this morning at 96.0 down from 97.5 last week.  No idea why I should have dropped a kilo and a half. I’ve been a bad bad boy, except for the exercise every single morning.

Except this one.  I got answering emails and only had time for about 15 minutes on the machine.  That was enough to get me sweating and panting, but I didn’t bother keeping track of the calorie count.

Ruth weighed in at 63.4 down from 65 last week.  So we’re both moving in the right direction for no apparent reason.

Dateline Wuxi, China, Thursday March 28, 2013

610 calories on the elliptical this morning.  Dripping sweat like a shower nozzle.  Breathing hard.  I guess that all means it was what I should do.

The machine is really getting nasty.  It’s like running on a road with unexpected potholes at night.