Chocolate Day.

It might not be a good thing to be eating chocolate when I'm working so hard on my diet but I'd declared today Chocolate Day to take the sting away from having to go into hospital for another spinal injection. It wasn't quite as bad this time though I did have the same uncommunicative surgeon and I wasn't very happy with the standard of care by the theatre nurses. In fact, being the old fusspot that I am, and hoping that it might improve standards in the the future , I complained to the ward staff nurse when she came to do my obs after the procedure. And what was my gripe? Well, the nurse, (I think she was a nurse, last time I had an anesthetist who introduced himself), after chatting to me while doing the blood pressure then left me lying on the trolley being poked with needles by the surgeon while she stood to the side and chatted to the other nurse about what she was going to cook for her husband's supper. I am not a wimp but I could feel sharp needles poking into me and was wincing and drawing in my breath each time and I would have felt a lot better if someone had noticed and perhaps bothered to reassure me. I did not need to be overhearing how her husband doesn't like his dinner too late. Having looked forward to some guilt free chocolate I found this new Galaxy bar too sweet but the minty Aero was still good.

Yes, having decided to take matters in hand I have been dieting for 5 weeks now. I find it only too easy to abandon my good intentions so I made this smiley chart to keep myself motivated. Don't laugh, it works. The red faces are for good days when I've kept away from sugars and fats and the pencil days are when I've fallen from the straight and narrow. I weigh myself fanatically every day which I know you are not supposed to do and do the 'official weigh in ' on a Monday morning. I gave myself a week before doing the first weigh-in as I didn't want to give myself a heart attack. I'm aiming for a loss of 2lbs a week and have already reached my first goal which was half a stone by Easter. If I lose 21lbs, the ultimate goal, my BMI will be 25 and I'll be only 2 lbs away from healthy weight, yes I know that 2lbs should go as well. I'd love to be able to do some regular exercise but the combination of my back and arthritic knee makes it awkward. Last time I took up running, I hated the actual running and so got immense satisfaction when I was able to run 1.7 miles every day but the knee couldn't take it. Even the exercise bike makes it worse. So I'll just have to stick with reducing intake. Hopefully weekly updates will help me to keep eating sensibly.

Linas and I got caught in a heavy rain shower walking to the car, (the hospital thought he was taking me home as they don't like you to drive yourself), but since then there has been some wonderful sunshine. I was so tempted to go out to garden but one of the side effects of the injection is to lower your blood pressure which can make you quite dizzy.

Even bending to take photos was a little unnerving so I left this blackbird to enjoy the sunshine in peace and headed indoors to take things easy.