Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

[tggzzz]

Oh bloody hell. Decided I'd catch up on the thread finally (been super busy) and got a face full of the other 80 year old stripper. I am now officially ruined

Sympathy: zero.

Relevant phrases include "architect of your own misfortune", "self immolation", "destroyer of discord channels".

[Specmaster]

Well, surely the District Nurses and indeed practise nurses are provided with suitable PPE gear FFS.

The paramedics on Christmas Day never bothered with PPE but they were told I had Covid, bless them, they gave me the full mot and all was ok.

Most of the PPE is designed to reduce the chance of the wearer infecting someone else. The PPE designed to prevent the wearer being infected is clumsy and often needs someone else to help don it; clearly impractical at home. Then there's the issue of someone at home being infected by the roving professional, possibly by transmission from the previous person they visited.

Paramedics are heroes, where the definition of hero is "choosing to put themselves in harms way". They are probably younger than district nurses and GPs. Since the chance of infection and/or complications doubles for every 6 years of age, that can be significant. Example: a 72yo is at 128 times the risk of a 30yo.

Summary: it ain't clear!

I think it is far clearer than that, the PPE that is required is a suitable face protection with filteration to filter the water droplets as this is the means of transmission. The type you describe is what they would wear in hospitals when they have wards full of people with Covid coughing and sneezing, something that I have not done. In fact I don’t have any of the symptoms at all, I feel normal in every-sense.

We only took tests because my son contracted Covid because a woman doing her shopping was coughing and sneezing everywhere, and my son bent down to look at wrapping paper, she did so full in his face. A few days later he started being feverish and took a test, positive, and isolated himself. A week later we took tests because we were going to visit Mother in Law for a couple of hours Christmas Day, and she had just been sent home from hospital after having a stroke, at 92 she is frail and vulnerable.

Because I’ve been triple jabbed and had a booster, I only have mild symptoms and we have face masks in the house, and have always worn them when shopping or having my ankle dressing changed, so think the fact I have Covid, should not prevent normal dressing changes in a well ventilated room, laying down, my ankle is some distance from my face and the risks extremely low.

[mnementh]

Soooo... Anybody got any New Year's resolutions...?

mnem

[Specmaster]

Yes, this saga I’m having has made me decide to seriously lose some weight and once I get the leg and ankle sorted, I’m going to do more walking and burn some of my lard off. Small steps to start with, like parking further away from the shop so I have to walk more. Then start taking short walks around local area and build up to longer walks to the city centre etc. I don’t think I’ll be tackling anything as remotely ambitious as those hikes bd goes on, but enough to increase my overall level of fitness.

[tggzzz]

Yes, this saga I’m having has made me decide to seriously lose some weight and once I get the leg and ankle sorted, I’m going to do more walking and burn some of my lard off. Small steps to start with, like parking further away from the shop so I have to walk more. Then start taking short walks around local area and build up to longer walks to the city centre etc. I don’t think I’ll be tackling anything as remotely ambitious as those hikes bd goes on, but enough to increase my overall level of fitness.

I'm unconvinced about the usefulness of small amounts of exercise for directly losing weight: look at how many calories are burned by typical exercises. That doesn't mean there are no indirect benefits, e.g. less time for eating.

I find it effective to ruthlessly count calories. For every ingredient, jot down the amount and later on add up the calories. Hence spoon of oil for cooking is 40 cal, a vodka is 100 cals but add orange juice and it is 200 cals. That will give you an idea of where the calories are coming from, and you can choose whatever means suits you to reduce them.

E.g. replace a bag of crisps with some freshly popped corn without any butter etc on it. Bigger bulk, slower eating, fewer calories. Or replace vodka plus orange juice with vodka, sparkling water, and a splash of lime juice (not cordial!)

Another benefit of losing weight: blood pressure reduces by a surprising amount.

[Specmaster]

Yes, this saga I’m having has made me decide to seriously lose some weight and once I get the leg and ankle sorted, I’m going to do more walking and burn some of my lard off. Small steps to start with, like parking further away from the shop so I have to walk more. Then start taking short walks around local area and build up to longer walks to the city centre etc. I don’t think I’ll be tackling anything as remotely ambitious as those hikes bd goes on, but enough to increase my overall level of fitness.

I'm unconvinced about the usefulness of small amounts of exercise for directly losing weight: look at how many calories are burned by typical exercises. That doesn't mean there are no indirect benefits, e.g. less time for eating.

I find it effective to ruthlessly count calories. For every ingredient, jot down the amount and later on add up the calories. Hence spoon of oil for cooking is 40 cal, a vodka is 100 cals but add orange juice and it is 200 cals. That will give you an idea of where the calories are coming from, and you can choose whatever means suits you to reduce them.

E.g. replace a bag of crisps with some freshly popped corn without any butter etc on it. Bigger bulk, slower eating, fewer calories. Or replace vodka plus orange juice with vodka, sparkling water, and a splash of lime juice (not cordial!)

Another benefit of losing weight: blood pressure reduces by a surprising amount.

Oh, I’ve already reduced the amount I eat, I don’t really drink much at all, I still have 3 bottles of beer out of 6 in the fridge that I brought last Christmas, and spirits, nah, I only have scotch if I have a cold, and I’m still drinking a bottle that my late Father in Law brought for which be back in 1998 at least, he passed away in 2000.

I replaced sugar before that even with sweeteners but I admit to being partial to a biscuit or two, especially if I’m busy and concentrating on something, I have been known to eat a packet in the process. I loathe any form of fat, cut of the fatty part of any bacon, which I rarely have, eat mainly chicken breasts, which are very lean in their own right, beef maybe once a year, no pork.

So my Sunday dinner consists of fresh carrots, chicken, peas, runner beans, sometimes broccoli or cauliflower, spuds a couple of small Yorkshire’s, and most days skip lunch and have an evening meal, which maybe, cheese sandwich, small pizza, poached egg on toast, or occasionly a McDonalds chicken sandwich (no mayo) small fries, milk shake, once a week we have a chicken curry, home cooked chicken in 1 cal, boiled rice, and we buy from Chinese shop, curry sauce.

So I don’t think I do too badly, but I’ll stop buying biscuits, then I can’t be tempted.

[mnementh]

Same problem I have... you can either go low-carb and have some small flexibility in how much you eat, or count every calorie. You really can't do both. I need to eat low-carb for many reasons... but I love my breads, taters and pastas. It's a constant battle.

mnem
*yo-yo-ing dwagon*

[Specmaster]

Don’t care too much for pasta, but I do love bread, especially fresh granary or sea salt and pepper bread, yummy, and I also love my taters as long as their either lovely and flourly or new ones like Jersey Royals, I can’t stand the cheap ones like Whites, just like having water on your plate in semi solid state

[tggzzz]

So I don’t think I do too badly, but I’ll stop buying biscuits, then I can’t be tempted.

My examples were merely intended to indicate how the details might lead to surprising ways in which you could reduce your calorie intake. Being an engineer, if it.can be measured then I'll measure it, and measurements trump suppositions.

[mnementh]

Yeah, when I'm on the diet I allow for and count 150 calories for the ~liter of coffee & 3 measured TBSP of cream I drink in the morning. For me, that little extravagance is non-negotiable. But as you say, ruthlessly counting every component of everything you put in your mouth is necessary.

As for the benefits of small amounts of exercise... that is entirely wrong. As little as 20-30 minutes of real exercise... provided it is enough to actually make you break a sweat... done regularly 3-5 times a week will raise your basal metabolic rate considerably compared to a sedentary lifestyle. And once you do get to the point of doing it regularly, you feel better in general and actually have more energy for doing other things.

Right now we're all in "finishing off the holiday goodies" mode... then back on the lo-carb and exercise regimen for me and hopefully, wifey as well.

mnem

"urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp!"

[tggzzz]

As for the benefits of small amounts of exercise... that is entirely wrong. As little as 20-30 minutes of real exercise... provided it is enough to actually make you break a sweat... done regularly 3-5 times a week will raise your basal metabolic rate considerably compared to a sedentary lifestyle. And once you do get to the point of doing it regularly, you feel better in general and actually have more energy for doing other things.

Such things were behind my comment "That doesn't mean there are no indirect benefits, e.g. less time for eating". However I haven't researched the reason and validity for such claims, and don't understand them. Hence my reticence.

The "more energy for other things" bit is on the borderline of being relevant; however many calories you consume and whatever you are doing, if you get fatter you need to reduce the cals, or if thinner then increase them.

[Specmaster]

Well, when all is said and done, I never had any symptoms or felt really felt unwell throughout my Covid stint, other than on Christmas Eve night in bed. I took my usual painkillers because of my ankle, I can’t avoid laying it down on the bed and it hurts, then in the early hours I felt really cold and pulled the duvet up and snuggled in. It turned, I was actually sweating I found out later, when I went to the toilet in the night I was unable to stand, just kept flopping down on the bed. Scared SWMBO who called my sons who tried to pull me up so I could go. When I came back to bed I struggled to get in bed and SWMBO called an ambulance as she feared the worst.

When it arrived 7 hours later, the paramedics took temps, salts pulse, blood pressure and ECG readings and told me I was way too hot and that was caused my spell earlier, they got a fan, and switched it on, gave me paracetamol and within minutes I was ok, I was able stand and walk unaided. They told me that my reaction to feeling cold, pushed my temperature dangerously high.

Since then I have not had a temperature, headache, sore throat, runny nose etc, feeling perfectly normal, even my sense of taste, smell etc, normal. The only issue was then my ankle and the Cellulitis which was extremely painful. Standing or sitting, made no difference, my leg ballooned and blisters etc were just pouring liquid down my leg and into the ankle dressing. The only time my leg was normal size and not leaking was when in bed, so I had no option but stay in bed.

I know my weight does help with my leg, so I have already reduced the amount I eat, just finished the mince pies off and I weighed myself and was pleasantly surprised to see that I appear to have lost 12lbs over last few days even though I could not be more sedentary if I tried. So once my Cellulitis and ankle improve, I’m sure that some short walks will help even more.

[Cerebus]

So I don’t think I do too badly, but I’ll stop buying biscuits, then I can’t be tempted.

Oh dear. Oh no no no. Didn't you know:

Biscuit Tin.jpeg

Said biscuit tin currently holds my "small adhesives" collection, the biscuits having left this world - via me and thus onward - many moons ago.

[mansaxel]

As for the benefits of small amounts of exercise... that is entirely wrong. As little as 20-30 minutes of real exercise... provided it is enough to actually make you break a sweat... done regularly 3-5 times a week will raise your basal metabolic rate considerably compared to a sedentary lifestyle. And once you do get to the point of doing it regularly, you feel better in general and actually have more energy for doing other things.

Such things were behind my comment "That doesn't mean there are no indirect benefits, e.g. less time for eating". However I haven't researched the reason and validity for such claims, and don't understand them. Hence my reticence.

The "more energy for other things" bit is on the borderline of being relevant; however many calories you consume and whatever you are doing, if you get fatter you need to reduce the cals, or if thinner then increase them.

This movement part is a "everybody wins" scenario, not a Trump-style scenario when someone else has to lose for you to win. Even moderate exercise will tip the scales in small but quite noticeable amounts that will, in time, clearly enhance all the other necessary parts of a method.

We are, in an evolutionary sense, very much built for a wiry hunter-gatherer existence, and the times since we actually did that are very short on an evolution timeframe. Abandoning that mindset of movement and moderation (the latter earlier from scarcity now from restraint) leads to damage which evolution will not repair in any human time scale. As we went back to work after the pandemic I noticed how much the walking between home, bus, underground and work meant to my well-being. I should up the amount; mostly need some urge to get me away in the morning.

[tggzzz]

As for the benefits of small amounts of exercise... that is entirely wrong. As little as 20-30 minutes of real exercise... provided it is enough to actually make you break a sweat... done regularly 3-5 times a week will raise your basal metabolic rate considerably compared to a sedentary lifestyle. And once you do get to the point of doing it regularly, you feel better in general and actually have more energy for doing other things.

Such things were behind my comment "That doesn't mean there are no indirect benefits, e.g. less time for eating". However I haven't researched the reason and validity for such claims, and don't understand them. Hence my reticence.

The "more energy for other things" bit is on the borderline of being relevant; however many calories you consume and whatever you are doing, if you get fatter you need to reduce the cals, or if thinner then increase them.

This movement part is a "everybody wins" scenario, not a Trump-style scenario when someone else has to lose for you to win. Even moderate exercise will tip the scales in small but quite noticeable amounts that will, in time, clearly enhance all the other necessary parts of a method.

We are, in an evolutionary sense, very much built for a wiry hunter-gatherer existence, and the times since we actually did that are very short on an evolution timeframe. Abandoning that mindset of movement and moderation (the latter earlier from scarcity now from restraint) leads to damage which evolution will not repair in any human time scale. As we went back to work after the pandemic I noticed how much the walking between home, bus, underground and work meant to my well-being. I should up the amount; mostly need some urge to get me away in the morning.

Agreed, especially the "necessary" vs "helpful".

There's also the "new" 5+2 concept, where you fast for two days a week. It seems intriguing and to be gathering some support. Time will tell, of course.

The key point is not to rely on someone else's opinion/experience/habits/diet, but to work out what the individual is doing and how it can be easily and reliably modified in a helpful direction in their daily routine. Avoiding "silver bullets" and "cargo-cult practices" are key!

[tggzzz]

Here's one for anybody in "IT". Worryingly I'm not sure which of these job titles have ever existed. Perhaps we ought to start a poll to see how many could apply to BD, or mansaxel, or...

Happiness Concierge
Citizen Codeherd
Stack Auditor
Diffusion Architect
Task Nomenclature Reimagineer

FFI: https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/03/ ... ob_titles/

[mnementh]

And lets not forget "Senior Vice-President In Charge of Implementing Policies Which Could Destroy the Company"...

mnem

200w.gif

[Zenith]

"Diversity Officer" was one I saw advertised just after the company I worked for went off on a diversity trip in the late 90s.

It was not open to external applicants, and only to internal applicants at or above a certain grade. It wasn't a job in its own right and it was not to impact their existing duties. It had no powers and they couldn't do things like take part in the recruitment process. It was just a title.

[Cerebus]

Here's one for anybody in "IT". Worryingly I'm not sure which of these job titles have ever existed. Perhaps we ought to start a poll to see how many could apply to BD, or mansaxel, or...

Happiness Concierge
Citizen Codeherd
Stack Auditor
Diffusion Architect
Task Nomenclature Reimagineer

FFI: https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/03/ ... ob_titles/

I certainly ought to have had "Engineer Herder" among my past job titles.

When I had to leave admonitory notices in the PC Magazine Lab they used to be signed "G. Kahn, Labs Discipline Officer". (Edit: Having now got around to the article in El Reg I see it was written by Rupert Goodwins who was a colleague at PC Mag at the time.)

[Cerebus]

"Diversity Officer" was one I saw advertised just after the company I worked for went off on a diversity trip in the late 90s.

It was not open to external applicants, and only to internal applicants at or above a certain grade. It wasn't a job in its own right and it was not to impact their existing duties. It had no powers and they couldn't do things like take part in the recruitment process. It was just a title.

No, not just a title. Also a scapegoat to sacrifice to any hungry regulators or wandering herds of self appointed do-gooders.

[bd139]

Yes, this saga I’m having has made me decide to seriously lose some weight and once I get the leg and ankle sorted, I’m going to do more walking and burn some of my lard off. Small steps to start with, like parking further away from the shop so I have to walk more. Then start taking short walks around local area and build up to longer walks to the city centre etc. I don’t think I’ll be tackling anything as remotely ambitious as those hikes bd goes on, but enough to increase my overall level of fitness.

I'm unconvinced about the usefulness of small amounts of exercise for directly losing weight: look at how many calories are burned by typical exercises. That doesn't mean there are no indirect benefits, e.g. less time for eating.

I find it effective to ruthlessly count calories. For every ingredient, jot down the amount and later on add up the calories. Hence spoon of oil for cooking is 40 cal, a vodka is 100 cals but add orange juice and it is 200 cals. That will give you an idea of where the calories are coming from, and you can choose whatever means suits you to reduce them.

E.g. replace a bag of crisps with some freshly popped corn without any butter etc on it. Bigger bulk, slower eating, fewer calories. Or replace vodka plus orange juice with vodka, sparkling water, and a splash of lime juice (not cordial!)

Another benefit of losing weight: blood pressure reduces by a surprising amount.

Good advice. I do the same, but in a high technology way. I subcontracted it out to Nutracheck ( https://www.nutracheck.co.uk/ ) who do a nice app that allows you to zap things and record what you have eaten easily. You set an objective weight and activity level and throw your age and height in and it gives you a calorie estimate for the day and allows you to track it. That was how I originally went down from 115Kg (253lb) to 65Kg (143lb). Think it costs £24 a year at the moment (about an evening's beer drinking in these parts!). Using it to maintain 63-68Kg now. I will put a little on during winter as you need some more energy storage I find. If I don't use it I tend to put on a lot of weight (quick bounce back up to 75Kg - doh).

Ergo it works. Very well. It's efficient, easy to use and doesn't require any stupid fad diets which have other health consequences. You can use it to monitor sugar / carbs intake as well.

Worth pointing out, without denigrating the idea, but exercise is a terribly inefficient way of losing weight so don't attribute that as a good thing to do as the objective. The most efficient way is to eat a lot less stuff. I mean you can eat that mars bar if you want but to get rid of the energy it'll cost you an hour and a half walk. Sucks doesn't it but that's the reality. If you do a lot of exercise you tend to put on a lot of weight. For example if I do a 50km hike (31 miles) I will typically consume a load of crap (carbs/protein) and put on up to 2Kg and have to lose it again. Slow and steady is the game.

Typical day example is today: I hit a total of 1396 calories consumed and I'm full. Not a lot! That was some shreddies + skimmed milk + sugar this morning with a black coffee (no sugar!). Lunch was a gunpowder chickpea jalfrezi ready meal from Tesco and a chocolate mouse. Had some bread and jam for tea (on nice seedy bread). Snacked on some mini pretzels and a banana and some raisins. Walked 5.3km (3.3 miles) back and forth to Tesco and the school.

Eat less than you burn, light exercise, regularly. That's all you need to do. Highly recommend it. Fixed a number of health problems I had as a side effect.

[bd139]

Yes, this saga I’m having has made me decide to seriously lose some weight and once I get the leg and ankle sorted, I’m going to do more walking and burn some of my lard off. Small steps to start with, like parking further away from the shop so I have to walk more. Then start taking short walks around local area and build up to longer walks to the city centre etc. I don’t think I’ll be tackling anything as remotely ambitious as those hikes bd goes on, but enough to increase my overall level of fitness.

I'm unconvinced about the usefulness of small amounts of exercise for directly losing weight: look at how many calories are burned by typical exercises. That doesn't mean there are no indirect benefits, e.g. less time for eating.

I find it effective to ruthlessly count calories. For every ingredient, jot down the amount and later on add up the calories. Hence spoon of oil for cooking is 40 cal, a vodka is 100 cals but add orange juice and it is 200 cals. That will give you an idea of where the calories are coming from, and you can choose whatever means suits you to reduce them.

E.g. replace a bag of crisps with some freshly popped corn without any butter etc on it. Bigger bulk, slower eating, fewer calories. Or replace vodka plus orange juice with vodka, sparkling water, and a splash of lime juice (not cordial!)

Another benefit of losing weight: blood pressure reduces by a surprising amount.

Oh, I’ve already reduced the amount I eat, I don’t really drink much at all, I still have 3 bottles of beer out of 6 in the fridge that I brought last Christmas, and spirits, nah, I only have scotch if I have a cold, and I’m still drinking a bottle that my late Father in Law brought for which be back in 1998 at least, he passed away in 2000.

I replaced sugar before that even with sweeteners but I admit to being partial to a biscuit or two, especially if I’m busy and concentrating on something, I have been known to eat a packet in the process. I loathe any form of fat, cut of the fatty part of any bacon, which I rarely have, eat mainly chicken breasts, which are very lean in their own right, beef maybe once a year, no pork.

So my Sunday dinner consists of fresh carrots, chicken, peas, runner beans, sometimes broccoli or cauliflower, spuds a couple of small Yorkshire’s, and most days skip lunch and have an evening meal, which maybe, cheese sandwich, small pizza, poached egg on toast, or occasionly a McDonalds chicken sandwich (no mayo) small fries, milk shake, once a week we have a chicken curry, home cooked chicken in 1 cal, boiled rice, and we buy from Chinese shop, curry sauce.

So I don’t think I do too badly, but I’ll stop buying biscuits, then I can’t be tempted.

Sounds reasonable. Always the killer is quantity. What is notable though is the bacon fat is fine to gobble up. Plus it's the best bit. I was going to write a book called "lose weight by eating bacon" because I must have eaten several pigs worth in the last 3 years.

One poisonous thing I was always taught by my parents was that I had to clean my plate. This "war time rationing" attitude turned pretty dangerous through the general ubiquity of food in the 80s and 90s. The ex wife used to construct the meal on the plate due to her ability to have eyes the same size as her belly (bitch mode off now) which did not help.

Biscuits are fine too. I have a couple of bourbons on a regular basis.

Moderation is key and that took me a year to develop

[bd139]

Here's one for anybody in "IT". Worryingly I'm not sure which of these job titles have ever existed. Perhaps we ought to start a poll to see how many could apply to BD, or mansaxel, or...

Happiness Concierge
Citizen Codeherd
Stack Auditor
Diffusion Architect
Task Nomenclature Reimagineer

FFI: https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/03/ ... ob_titles/

Lead Principal Dung Roller is my official job title. The prefixes are verbatim, the suffix is accurate.

[bd139]

Such things were behind my comment "That doesn't mean there are no indirect benefits, e.g. less time for eating". However I haven't researched the reason and validity for such claims, and don't understand them. Hence my reticence.

The "more energy for other things" bit is on the borderline of being relevant; however many calories you consume and whatever you are doing, if you get fatter you need to reduce the cals, or if thinner then increase them.

This movement part is a "everybody wins" scenario, not a Trump-style scenario when someone else has to lose for you to win. Even moderate exercise will tip the scales in small but quite noticeable amounts that will, in time, clearly enhance all the other necessary parts of a method.

We are, in an evolutionary sense, very much built for a wiry hunter-gatherer existence, and the times since we actually did that are very short on an evolution timeframe. Abandoning that mindset of movement and moderation (the latter earlier from scarcity now from restraint) leads to damage which evolution will not repair in any human time scale. As we went back to work after the pandemic I noticed how much the walking between home, bus, underground and work meant to my well-being. I should up the amount; mostly need some urge to get me away in the morning.

Agreed, especially the "necessary" vs "helpful".

There's also the "new" 5+2 concept, where you fast for two days a week. It seems intriguing and to be gathering some support. Time will tell, of course.

The key point is not to rely on someone else's opinion/experience/habits/diet, but to work out what the individual is doing and how it can be easily and reliably modified in a helpful direction in their daily routine. Avoiding "silver bullets" and "cargo-cult practices" are key!

Intermittent fasting is probably good for your basic hunter-gatherer measurably and on paper but I'm not sure it's good for the mind. I mean I can't really get through the afternoon without a snack.

[mnementh]

Good advice. I do the same, but in a high technology way. I subcontracted it out to Nutracheck ( https://www.nutracheck.co.uk/ ) who do a nice app that allows you to zap things and record what you have eaten easily. You set an objective weight and activity level and throw your age and height in and it gives you a calorie estimate for the day and allows you to track it. That was how I originally went down from 115Kg (253lb) to 65Kg (143lb). Think it costs £24 a year at the moment (about an evening's beer drinking in these parts!). Using it to maintain 63-68Kg now. I will put a little on during winter as you need some more energy storage I find. If I don't use it I tend to put on a lot of weight (quick bounce back up to 75Kg - doh).

Ergo it works. Very well. It's efficient, easy to use and doesn't require any stupid fad diets which have other health consequences. You can use it to monitor sugar / carbs intake as well.

Worth pointing out, without denigrating the idea, but exercise is a terribly inefficient way of losing weight so don't attribute that as a good thing to do as the objective. The most efficient way is to eat a lot less stuff. I mean you can eat that mars bar if you want but to get rid of the energy it'll cost you an hour and a half walk. Sucks doesn't it but that's the reality. If you do a lot of exercise you tend to put on a lot of weight. For example if I do a 50km hike (31 miles) I will typically consume a load of crap (carbs/protein) and put on up to 2Kg and have to lose it again. Slow and steady is the game.

Typical day example is today: I hit a total of 1396 calories consumed and I'm full. Not a lot! That was some shreddies + skimmed milk + sugar this morning with a black coffee (no sugar!). Lunch was a gunpowder chickpea jalfrezi ready meal from Tesco and a chocolate mouse. Had some bread and jam for tea (on nice seedy bread). Snacked on some mini pretzels and a banana and some raisins. Walked 5.3km (3.3 miles) back and forth to Tesco and the school.

Eat less than you burn, light exercise, regularly. That's all you need to do. Highly recommend it. Fixed a number of health problems I had as a side effect.

Yes, and you are already active well above the "sedentary" base metabolic rate I was talking aboot when we started this discussion. A few sessions a week doing any exercise hard enough to make you break a sweat (even walking up a mild incline can be more than enough) for 20 minutes will break you out of that "sedentary" (for lack of a better description: human bear in hibernation) base metabolism and back up to a "normal" rate where you actually burn the number of calories the doctors tell you that you'll burn "just standing around". Depending on the person and just how long they've been a office drone or stuck at home, that difference can be shocking.

Once you get past that point, then it is always the same simple equation: Eat less, move more. Don't guess aboot the "eat less" part either. Weigh it up, count every calorie, or get into some app that does it for you. And yeah... the amount of exercise required to "burn" x number of calories gets pretty linear, even flat. Then it's a lot less misery to eat less than to move more for the same weight loss.

Moving more can mean a lot of different things; it doesn't have to be high-impact at all. My regimen in Tejas was 20 minute upper body workout with dumbbells alternating days with 20 minutes walking around the jog track by my house, as slow or as fast as I could manage, even taking breaks if need be... just making sure I spent 20 minutes on my feet in as little time as I could tolerate it.

mnem
*toddles off to not eat a pork chop*