Day 7 - Sleepless In Seattle/Bournemouth
Seven days in now and so far so good but I am really starting to notice the impact this diet is having on my energy levels. Had to go to a meeting in Tauton this morning so that meant an early start and, depending on traffic, potentially a 2 hour drive. Which is fine when you're firing on all cylinders but I'm not right now.

As I am meant to be consuming a minimum of 4 litres (8 pints in old money) of water a day I grabbed a couple of bottles of water and dutifully sipped at them throughout my drive and I figured that if I really needed to I could stop at a service station and make full use of their facilities. Unfortunately the traffic was probably the worst I've ever seen it and, as a result, I was starting to panic that I wouldn't make my meeting in time. Translate that in to 'no pit stops for me' and, as you can imagine, I ending up running in to the office, bent double in pain and desperate. You would think it would be easy at that point for me to just throw my bags on to reception and dash to the loo but NO. This office is more secure than Fort Knox and in order to get through any door, including the toilet doors, you need a pass and in order to get a pass you need to sign in AND in order to sign in there needs to be someone on reception. This morning, of all mornings, there wasn't anybody there. Lord help me, I am about to have an accident! A very pathetic 'Hello' managed to raise someone's attention and I was finally given the magic pass to relief. Phew! That was a close shave I don't want to repeat in a hurry.

The meeting itself was fairly brain heavy but, having held back the flood waters, I was awake and alert and I think I provided a positive contribution, and 6 hours later it was time to make the drive home. Plenty of pit stops for me.

Oh, almost forgot to mention, the lemon bar..............my new LL foodpack choice. It's the same as the fruit one in that it's got that same playdoh texture and awful 'yoghurt' coating but inside it's a lovely soft yellow colour and is satisfyingly sweet yet at the same time sharp enough to cut through the aftertaste of the white gunk. Very nice indeed.

Decided to go to the gym with Joolz - who offered to stand behind me in case I pass out. Twenty minutes on the cross trainer had me sweating & light headed and my pulse was up to 152 even though I taking it relatively easy. Previously my heart rate would've been at around 129/132 fort that pace so that was quite worrying, but I've got to go back for a second medical in 3 weeks so I'll mention it to the Doc. (As an aside, we have to have a medical every 4 weeks on the LL and you can't carry on if you don't produce the required Drs certificate. Personally I think that's a really good thing) Anyway, I was shattered after the cross trainer but that's hardly surprising considering I had only consumed 250 calories and had just exercised 200 of them away. So Joolz & I had a quick sit down break before cracking on with a round of weight training - the usual drill, chest press, lat pull down, leg press blah blah blah - followed by some ab work, which resulted in much hilarity as I tried to do some crunches without emitting a sound equal to a bomb a bomb exploding - yes, the wind is still with me!

Woolly popped in for a quick chat and said that he could see that I had lost some weight around my face - one chin down!! - which was nice as I haven't noticed anything at all and was starting to think that maybe the 9lb weight loss had come from my toes or something.

Anyway, by the time I got home I was incredibly tired and just needed to sleep so I crawled in to bed at 9.30pm knowing full well that, somewhere in this Town, there were probably 7 year olds who were staying up later than me! Hey ho!

And that should be where day 7 ended - in a full, satisfying, exhausted sleep (dreaming of sex - yes that's still happening too). But no. For the next 3 hours I was back and forth to the toilet every ten minutes or so. No bloody wonder I'm dehydrated the amount of liquid I'm getting shot of. Talk about frustrating! At one point I even started to consider my options:

1. Stay where I am and just wet the bed - not really an option at all but the thought did cross my mind briefly.
2. Get a spare duvet and pillow and just go to sleep on the loo for the night.
3. Keep dragging my barely awake body out of bed every time.

Obviously I chose option 3 but 2 was under very serious consideration. Thankfully I finally fell asleep around 1am so that was day 7.

Thought for the day: I wonder how much incontinence pants cost????
Oh & because I was bored.......................you have to try the Simpsons Personality Test. My results were:
***You Are Barney***
You could have been an intellectual leader... Instead, your whole life is an homage to beer
You will be remembered for: your beautiful singing voice and your burps
Your life philosophy: "There's nothing like beer to give you that inflated sense of self-esteem."
The Simpsons Personality Test http://www.blogthings.com/thesimpsonspersonalitytest/