I found it so hard to be without my mate and knowing he was never coming back that I spent hours looking for a puppy to take in to help take my mind off losing Benji. After some research, we found a dog that I thought would fit in well with what I was looking for. So the daughter and I went out to pick him up from the breeder. We came back with a fabulous little Blue Merle Border Collie I named Myrddyn, which is the Welsh name for Merlin (Myrddyn was Welsh and the name became anglicised to Merlin). I expect we’ll call him Merlin day to day because none of the family can pronounce his name properly 😀
Bearing in my age and physical condition this might seem a bit of an extreme choice since these dogs need a *lot* of exercise and training to make them suitable for a family home. However, the dietitian, the physio and the surgeon all told me I *must* exercise to encourage weight loss by stimulating my metabolism and the easiest way was to walk at least 30 min each day, and preferably twice a day.
The puppy is far too young to walk yet (and isn’t ‘lead trained’ yet either) so for a while, I’ll take our other little dog called Grover who is a Fox Terrier/Jack Russel cross. He’s supposed to be a ‘mini’ but it’s pretty big compared to the size we expected. Still, he’s a good dog and also needs exercise so it’s all good.
As you can see from the weight chart, my weight is slowly dropping, so far to 138.7 kilos. The overnight drop was partly caused by my stupidity in trying to eat too much too fast yesterday. I was already feeling ‘full’ when the daughter and I went out for breakfast at a local cafe. A few mouthfuls of coffee and part of an omelette and I knew I was in trouble. Almost immediately my stomach rebeelled and I had to get into the toilets to cough some back up. Sadly this in no way alleviated the problem and it just got worse, and worse. I threw up most of the food I’d eaten and it felt like the previous week’s food as well. God, I felt dreadful. In the end, I’d say I ate virtually *nothing* all day so losing weight overnight was almost inevitable!!
Guess what?? Yup, tried eating some of the omelette I’d brought home with me and already feel like crap… again.
The dietitian told me I must only eat a teaspoon of food at a time, chew well and wait 40 seconds before the next spoonful. Yet again this morning I ignored her advice… and again have immediate regrets. Why I can’t just listen and save myself this pain I’m yet to understand.
Anyway, I’ll leave this for now and get on with the walk or I’ll never go. I might make a detour to the sink first to try to get rid of the excess food. So, so stupid… 😦
Edit: I went off with the dog but it’s already *very* warm out there so limited the walk to 15 minutes and I’ll try to do another 15 minutes this afternoon… say around 6:00… that’s on the assumption the temperature has dropped enough. There’s no point in forcing myself to do a full 30 minutes straight off after not having done anything for months. Actually, I’m also thinking of getting back to swimming sometime this week if I can persuade myself. The ‘resistance’ walking I do in the pool would be a great help in building up some stamina!
The Eclectic Interweb 