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Haha, I saw a female of the species of the lower class 'chav' sitting in a bus shelter (waiting for a bus to take her back to her council estate, quite obviously!) with a good four inches of 'builders crack' pressed up against the perspecs of the bus shelter. Some bloke came along and slapped the glass where her buttocks were pressed on the other side. I had to run away just so I could laugh out loud!!!!!

...but aside from bottoms, I did my keep fit today. I also try to have my 5 a day. I love oranges, especially the ones in Waitrose - they're really juicy and easy to peel too. Better than stuffing yourself with cakes!

Three glasses of wine and 2 chocolate oranges = 5 a day

If you asked them nicely, they might let you touch their toes...

Slow weight loss is best - stays off longer, I believe. Not that I'd know...

Poached egg? Bleurgh...

I had a very nasty surprise this morning, December began and I'm back over sixteen stones. I lost almost 6 stones in 2012 and began 2013 at 14st 10lbs. Not good - and I cannot blame home cooking and inactivity for this.

The answer is to not get on the scales. I only do so at the docs, and they measure it in hectares anyway so I have No Idea what I weigh.

I have weighed myself weekly since the beginning of 2012, but it's only this year when I stopped seeing Imran, my Health trainer that my weight has been on an upward trend. Last Christmas he was really pleased with me I'd lost such a huge amount of weight and dropped four trouser sizes. However I have a link between food and moods no amount of psychotherapy can cure. If I'm unhappy I eat to counteract it and 2013 has been a very unhappy year for both myself and Teresa. She's gained a stone too. Plus the lack of daylight and colder temperatures makes me want to consume lots of feelgood food (usually very high in calories) such as pies home made meat dishes, baltis, chocolate and LOTS of CAKE!!!

I could alternatively obtain the telephone number of my local corsetier...

You need a SAD lamp! They are brill

Feg wrote:You need a SAD lamp! They are brill

I would get one if I could afford it, I've seen how much they are in Boots and even in Argos.

I started 2013 at 14st11lbs and ended it at sixteen eight. The year that a massive Sainsburys opened five minutes walk away.

I was going to put my piano lesson money into CD storage, but I think a corset, ie belly storage would be a more sound investment!!!

Dave, look at Maplin for a SAD Lamp. I bought our one there - paid under £50 for it.

thanks Fiona. I'll take a look at the website. I do need one as I certainly feel like a different person to how I was in July when it was sunny and in the high 20s every day - even in the rainier summer and autumn days. I'm usually better in January anyway as I am a natural Christmasophobe and I get a sense of tremendous relief when it's all out of the way.

Even when we had snow last January and March I never felt as bad as I do now. I really wish I'd have been born on the summer solstice (like Prince William) instead of the winter one!

I have the opposite problem in that I hate the summer and can't wait for it to end. Easier for me to sit in a dark room though! My friend uses a SAD box and it's helped her no end. If you can do it, go for it, Dave.

It's something I WOULD get if only I had the money. I'm beginning to detest this time of year and I think the reason for this is because my brain isn't producing the serotonin it needs to properly function, it needs light - which English winters (and even dull summers) do not provide it with.

I've been diagnosed as having SAD years ago and I've been on SSRI's for 16 years but I'm becoming tolerant to them and they're losing their effectivity. I'm now looking at natural and holistic methods of producing the hormone and the SAD lamp is the most natural method there is. St John's Wort is considered to be the best natural antidepressant but it is not advised to take it whilst on chemical SRI's and I'm on anticonvulsants also.

Is this the one you mean, Fiona??

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/sad-light-box-a20hw

I don't know how effective they are, I've seen these on JL's

http://www.johnlewis.com/lumie-energy-s ... ox/p151500

I suppose they're like everything, you get what you pay for. I really do need one soon, I really do feel like there's this yoke on my back and I'm too tired to go about shifting it.

The Maplin link is the one I'm talking about. I have one (my son has diagnosed depression) and my Mother has one too.

I have to admit that it is not used regularly but when we do put it on, it is a comforting yet bright light. I use our one more when I have sewing or other close work to do and my Mum reads by hers.

The JL one is very neat but at nearly £140? I think not!

That's not the most expensive SAD lamp I've seen. Boobs have one for £179.

I'll pop into Maplin next time I'm in Solihull and take a butchers at that one. I know I need one very soon. My wife has told me I'm a grumpy old (expletive) and have been like that for a few months. And I know why. Because I feel so groggy all the time. Plus I'm Uncle Dick of taking SRI's that my body has become tolerant to. One visit to my GP and she'll put my bleeding dosage up which will mash up me brain and end any possible dreams I may have of learning to play the piano.

I tend to trust John Lewis though.

Trust JL or not, there is a big difference between £45 and £140

I work on the basis that £45 is worth spending to find out if it makes a difference and, if it doesn't help, well not too much money spent.

If only you could 'try before you buy', but I would have to see the product first. Strange, it's quite bright today here and I've done quite a lot of things. Will still be dark at 16.00 though...

Found out this morning I'm back in obeseland. 188cm and 105.5kg equals obese even for a male. I should be 88kg (I've converted to weighing in metric for 2014) but I've noticed when I disrobe at night I've got this raw red band around my waist and it's very sore indeed.

The SAD light might also help me, albeit indirectly, with my relationship with food as increased energy levels and higher dopamine levels may lead to less of a craving for cakes etc. just to feel good.

At the diabetes thingy I went to we were discouraged from weighing and measuring, but just told to cut a length of string and put it round the waist so the ends touch. Then use the string as your gauge; if it no longer meets you know you have to stop stuffing, if you have to lop a bit off you can pat yourself on the head.
I use elastic...

I didn't know you were diabetic, Gill. I've had four tests for diabetes despite my previous heavy sugar/alcohol diet and each one has come back negative. Doesn't mean that I experience lots of light headed spells, tiredness/fatigue and I'm as weak as a feather despite my obese size.

I suppose corsets are made to be inconspicuous nowadays (in terms of looks anyway, whether you'll still hear them creak). My grandmother, whom you can read about in a book entitled 'Driving Miss Smith' always swore by her pink corset which she referred to as her 'plate of armour'. I suppose gallant knights never had skidmarks in their armour though

Depends how frit they got, I expect...

Gill the Piano wrote:Depends how frit they got, I expect...

Frit?

I'm a bag of sugar lighter. My wife is a bag of sugar heavier. Also she's had to have daily baths for over a week due to back pain. She's also been medicated consequently and every time she's on meds for summat it messes up her Enoch Powell's. And she's had less to eat than me this week!

I do hope she's okay for Buckinghamshire on the 29th!

Frit = Bucks for frightened. You better lern yersawf the langwidge if yer cummin dane eer, buoy...

I didn't think there was a 'language' in Buckinghamshire, apart from RP.

There is/was a dialect but you don't hear it often. Eric is broad Bucks and people ask him if he';s from Devon! We are infested with Londoners who move here to take advantage of our selective system - after b*ggering it up by stuffing their children through private crammers and having them tutored, thereby scraping an artificial pass and taking a place from a true local who would have got there without tutoring/cheating. They don't seem to understand that the 11+ is an IQ test and if a child doesn't belong in a grammar they'll be miserable; far better to be top of a secondary like our nephew and niece were.Rant over...

I often wonder, even though I am vehemently against selective education and grammar schools, what their policies are towards that rare thing in modern times, school music education. I went to state schools and there was a reasonably good music policy but this was before the effects of Queen Margaret I's 11 year supreme reign took hold and Bliar's subsequent cuts to music education services (probably so he could afford to make more bombs and weapons).

Not that that has anything to do with slimming, or indeed the price of bread, fish, piano lessons...

Most grammar schools of my acquaintance are ambivalent about music; they expect the music director to produce showpiece concerts and little geniuses (geniiiiiii?) on various instruments BUT 'it's a nice hobby, dear, but hardly a careeeeeeeer...'

But at least there ARE musical directors. Children need music in their lives - and I'm not just talking about classical music in a snobby way. The gist is that there is more to music than what Capital might spoon feed them. There is folk music and stuff other cultures, Western and otherwise would consider as 'pop'. Look at Indian music for example, it's not just Bollywood hits, there are raagas, spirituals, Islamic nasheeds, British bhangra and golden oldie old stagers like Asha Bhosle, Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi.

It's too much trouble to teach music because it's, as you say, a fringe activity. Plus it's something kids might actually take an interest in and learn. Further cuts may signal bad news for state school sports departments, with extra-curricular football training not paid for by education departments but by television companies.

That's my rant over. I could go on LBC. But they don't have Lefties and hippies on there, no siree.

They do; James O'Brien is a bit of a lefty/bleeding heart liberal by his own admission...
I love bhangra! No idea who's who or what's what but if it's on the tranny i turn it up.
Art & Music are always the poor relations of education; nice hobby dear, but not a career.

Would be good if music and dance were to be used constructively to combat obesity in schools, a growing problem in a culture obsessed with food advertising, McDonalds and Bake-Off

Which brings me quite neatly back to the title of this 'ere thread what I started!!! Been a naughty little Leftie today, one fried egg for lunch and 2 fried pieces of plaice for dinner. I think I'm a little bit scared of too much weight going off too soon!

ps. take a look for the following English and Scottish bhangra outfits on Youtube:

The Sahotas, B21, Alaap, Bombay Talkie, Apna Group/Apna Sangeet

and check out this lovely romantic Bollywood clip that always stays in my mind with Kumar Sanu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOWvnwxGFzg

I've found high-powered Brum bhangra to be a natural serotonin producer in the past. I don't know why I don't listen to more of it. The Asian stuff I go for nowadays is either classical/raagas/'morning music' or Islamic 'qawwals' from Pakistan remixed or otherwise from people such as Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

We have a Ravi Shankhar 'Rough Guide' CD in the car that I bought after I went to the Beatles attractions in Liverpool in 2012 and learning of his involvement and influence on the groups' latter albums and solo George Harrison stuff.