Sunday, October 30, 2011

Less of Me ... (if not for good, then for now at least)

Although I fully intend for it to be for good, but the road to hell ... and all that.


Allow me to take you back in time to the summer, when the hedgerows were verdant and the mysterious yellow orb in the sky appeared a bit more frequently than at other times.


'Twas July of this year when Dong and Shazzerooneypoos joined Mrs The Millbrooker and me for a week of eating good things, drinking decent wine and having outings in the Breton countryside. On one of those outings a photo was taken by my ever-loving which caused a sharp intake of breath in yours truly.
Ah yes, it was a lovely day out at the Moulins de Kerouat. If you ever find yourselves in Brittany within a reasonable distance of the Monts d'Arrees, I recommend a trip to this "eco-museum" - fascinating stuff.


Anyway, we picnicked by the Breton games which are mostly there to entertain school parties and as I dug the day's sarnies from the cool bag, Mrs The Millbrooker took a snapshot. The snapshot, above, of (L-R) Shazzerooneypoos, Dong and Jabba-the Hut.


I know some of it is a trick of perspective, I also know that worse photos exist that demonstrate how fat a Millbrooker had allowed himself to become. But it was this one that  made me mutter lots of stuff about "taking drastic action". In the photo above, I'm sporting what are known within Millbrooker Towers as the Shameful Shorts. This is because they are a 44 inch waist, or bleedin'-great-fat-bastard, size. And, whilst they weren't painfully tight, they weren't exactly loose either.
Well, drastic action was taken. Which is why I can use the past tense about the Shameful Shorts. After we returned to Blighty and after I'd recovered from the weeks of treatment for the iritis flare-up that I had on holiday I started calorie counting and refusing booze except at weekends.


I then started a regime of brisk walking to/from work (so that's about four and a half to five miles, four or five days a week).


I don't know exactly how heavy I was when I started the "drastic action" because our scales were bust, but I reckon I must have been knocking up pretty close to 16 stone.


I got onto the (new) scales this morning to find I'm below 14 stone for the first time in years. 13st12lb to be precise, thanks for asking, and feeling bloody good about it, too.


Still some way to go and then the challenge of being sensible and self-aware enough to keep it off, but so far I'm quite chuffed with myself.

2 comments:

Judith said...

It's a good feeling, isn't it. Congratulations!

The Millbrooker said...

Thank you my Kiwi friend, it is indeed feeling good!