Disorder update

Original Post 23/11/2011

I couldn't get an appointment yesterday, by the time I got through on the phone (10 mins after they opened) all of the appointments had gone. I did get a phone appointment and the Doctor said I need to come in for a face-to-face consultation, so I have to go in this afternoon. On the plus side I think I've managed to regain control and I've had a good two days. I'll post again after my appointment.

EDIT: Well I had my appointment and the Doctor has referred me for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I am still waiting for my letter to find out what exactly is going to happen.

Disorder

Original Post 18/11/2011

I came to the realisation the other day that I have an eating disorder. I have always had a problem where I will binge on certain foods. I'm not talking about having a little more than I should, everyone at some point or another will over-eat. I'm talking about full-on binge sessions where I will eat 5 chocolate bars in one sitting, or a whole pizza on my own. I will eat even when I'm not hungry and if I try to stop myself I will feel depressed. I also get annoyed and then depressed after a binge eating session.

Today I remembered that when I was around 10 I used to spend all of my £5 pocket money on sweets (and those were the days when penny sweets actually cost 1p and a fiver was a fair amount of pocket money) and eat them in one sitting. I remember being weighed at some point during primary school (year 4 or 5) and one of my peers gasping at my weight (he had come over, against my will, to see what I weighed). When I got to secondary school I was very overweight. I have no idea what I weighed but I remember feeling like crap. I got to the point where I wouldn't eat breakfast or lunch and then binge when I got home as I was so hungry. I used to hide my uneaten lunch in my room so my parents wouldn't find out. They did eventually and I managed to convince them that I just wasn't hungry. In reality I think I had convinced myself I wasn't hungry, but I just didn't want to eat around other people. One of my first memories is walking home from school with my mum and she had bought me an ice cream. Everyone else was having those 10p ice lollies but I had a full-size Magnum and I remember one of my classmates gasping when he saw what I had. My mum had/has a real problem with saying no to me and whilst I don't blame her I think this has had a big impact on my problems now. By the time I started uni I was a relatively normal weight. By the time I finished I had eaten my way to being 5 stone over weight. I have lost 4.5 stone of that weight but now my grip on the situation is slipping. I am really sacred of ending up where I started. I am by no means happy with myself at the moment but I am happier than I was a year and a half ago.

I think that maybe I felt slightly neglected as a child as my parents were constantly having to sort out problems with my Brother's children, and so food became a comfort. This is the only thing I can think of for my eating habits now. I have decided to make an appointment to see the Doctor in the hope I can get some help, and I'll blog again after.

Weight loss Update II

Original Post 10/04/2011

Well the last update I made wasn't entirely accurate. I went a bit mad over Christmas and gained about 8 lbs! It took longer than I thought (and wanted) to get back to 14 stone 7 lb. Progress was slow so now I have joined a group. This is helping a lot as I now get access to the Slimming World website which has lots of useful information. The recipes section is particularly good and the syns calculator is handy. I worked out how many syns I used to eat on average and it was slightly shocking. On SW you are allowed between 5 and 15 syns per day. I used to eat 180 syns per day before! No wonder I ended up about 5 stone over weight. Anyway, since joining the group I have lost 1 stone. I stayed the same last week but since the two weeks before that I lost a total of 9 lbs I'm not annoyed. I decided to have some pick 'n' mix yesterday which would have been over my syns but I'm not going to dwell on it. I'd rather that than blow a whole day or worse on eating crap.

I'm still on target to reach my goal of 12 stone by July. That means I need to lose a little under 2 lb per week which I think is achievable. I'm going to join the Uni gym tomorrow as the membership is cheap over the summer. It works out at about £12 per month which is good. Hopefully exercising will speed up the weight loss and make sure I reach my target on time. Below are my weight loss statistics so far:

Weight loss - 48 lbs, (3 stone 6 lb), (21.77 kg)

Weight loss % - 20.08

BMI 25.9 (nearly into the normal range!)

Weight to target - 1 stone 9 lb.

Customer Services IV - update

Original Post 11/02/2011


Well I finally got a reply from Amazon, one month after I sent my letter. They have refunded the P and P charge but are refusing to cover the other costs. I replied saying that I wasn't happy about this and issued them a letter before action (before you start a small claims court action). They still refused to cover the costs. I have shopped with them for at least 8 years but that has now ended. I have spent literally thousands with them over that time and they are quibbling over about £40. I have told them this and have demanded a reply from their MD who sent an email in December saying that they would 'make sure' Xmas orders would be delivered on time. According to the Oxford English dictionary the term 'make sure' is to 'establish that something is definitely so ; confirm:' which essentially guaranteed that my order would arrive before Xmas. This clearly didn't happen and they are refusing to man up and take responsibility. Obviously any company would take all the orders they could over Xmas as it's the busiest time of the year, but if they fail to deliver on time then they should be liable. I suggest that you think twice about shopping with Amazon over the Xmas period and if you see that Citylink are going to deliver your package then cancel the order straight away.

Customer Services IV

Original Post 13/01/2011

Well I decided to order a new TV in December. I've had a Playstation 3 for a while and wanted to make the most of the blu-rays that I have. I looked around and decided on the Sony KDl-46EX503. Amazon had it for the cheapest price and if you ordered before the 24th December you could claim the VAT back, which worked out at about £100. I placed the order on the 16th and paid extra for quicker delivery. Now the weather wasn't very good across the whole of the UK during December. There was lots of snow that caused the roads to grind to a halt. Despite this, Amazon guaranteed to deliver all pre-Christmas deliveries on or before the 24th December. The TV left Amazon on the 19th and was being sent by Citylink. I checked the Citylink website and the tracking info said it would be delivered between 07:30 and 17:30 on the 21st. On the day I checked the website again and it still said it was going to be delivered on the 21st, even though it wasn't 'out for delivery'. I tried to get hold of Citylink by phone but they had an automated message saying they were receiving too many calls to take my call. I sent an email but didn't get a reply. Despite the tracking info saying it would be delivered nothing arrived. I waited in the next day, tried to get hold of them via phone and email but still no delivery or reply. On the 23rd I managed to get through on the phone (they were taking calls if you repeatedly tried and were lucky enough to get through) and was told it was at the Ashford depot for delivery. I drove to the depot to collect it (which is about a ~ 67 mile round trip ) and was told it was still 'somewhere in the Midlands' and they had no idea when it would arrive. I managed to get hold of the head office number and called them on the 24th as the tracking still hadn't updated, and still said they would deliver on the 21st. I was told that it definitely wouldn't arrive in time for Christmas as it was at the Coventry depot. I offered to make the 400 mile round trip to Coventry to collect it but they said they have no idea where in the warehouse the package would be, so I'd have to wait for it to arrive at Ashford. I asked if they would give me a specified delivery time when it did finally arrive as a gesture of goodwill and to save me waiting in all day and the supervisor said she'd monitor the situation and contact me when it arrived. Now Christmas day was a Saturday and as the Monday and Tuesday were Bank Holidays Citylink weren't open again until the Wednesday. I checked the tracking info all day Wednesday and still no change so I called the main enquiries number. I was told that it had definitely now arrived at the Ashford depot and was scheduled for delivery but until it was loaded onto a van she couldn't say when it would be delivered. Ecstatic that it had finally made it to somewhere local, I called the Ashford depot to confirm I could collect it. Imagine my annoyance when I found out that it was still in Coventry. I asked to speak to the depot manager to get him to find out where it was but he was 'unavailable', as was every other manager at the depot. Probably because they were fed up with pissed off Customers.  I called head office again to try to find out where the TV was and when it would arrive. They said it was still in Coventry as there was a 5 day backlog at the Ashford depot. I asked them what a '5 day backlog means' as it had been sat at Coventry for 7 working days so surely it should have moved by now. All they could say was that there was a 5 day backlog and it should be delivered 'soon'. I asked was it likely that it would be delivered for the new year and they said no. By this point I am indescribably pissed off. They were blaming Amazon for accepting orders that they couldn't fulfil.  I don't see how Citylink managed to end up with a backlog. If they couldn't deliver to people so surely they couldn't collect from Amazon at the same time? If there was any kind of backlog it would be at Amazon. I'm assuming this is also true as the TV wasn't dispatched until two days after I ordered it. I have no idea what the hell Citylink were playing at though. It's absolutely outrageous that they weren't taking calls in the lead-up to Christmas and never bothered to reply to my emails. Now before you say that 'it's not just Citylink that had the problems it was all the couriers' there are hundreds of post saying that deliveries with Royal Mail, FedEx etc. were delivered fine. People are STILL reporting that guaranteed next day delivery items aren't being delivered even now and the snow has been gone for weeks!

Two such forums are posted below.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/forum/cd/discussion.html?ie=UTF8&cdForum=Fx2VNIOBYFU5MPA&asin=B001DTETLS&cdThread=Tx9I9WMV3SVL17

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews93418.html

The TV finally arrived on Monday 3rd January. Normally I would have praised them for delivering on a bank holiday but this is the least they should have done. I was out when they tried to deliver it so they left it with a neighbour. I wasn't very happy about this but at least I got it eventually. Obviously the supervisor who said she'd call me when it had arrived at Ashford never did. I doubt there is anyone at that useless company that can do their jobs properly.

This is by far the worst example of customer service I have received. I spent about £15 on phone calls just for them to tell me they couldn't take my call. It also cost around £25 petrol for the wasted journey to the Ashford depot based on false information (I'd go so far as to say outright lying to get me off the phone). They have blatantly lied to me on multiple occasions. I have written to Amazon requesting they reimburse the out-of-pocket expenses and have a week left to reply to me. I'll update you when I have a reply.

Weight Loss Update

Original Post 04/01/2011

Well it's been a while since the last update so I thought I'd post a quick update. My most current weight is 14st 7lb which means I have lost 2.5 stone. The diet is going well and I plan to be at my intial target weight of 12 stone by the Summer.

I'll blog again soon with more details of the progress so far.

End of Week 7 - Weigh Day

Original Post 23/08/2010

Well I think the scales I were using last week were a bit off. I'm weighing myself both on Wii Fit and with my bathroom scales. Wii fit said I had lost 3 pounds and the scales said I had lost 5 so I averaged it at 4. My weight last week according to my bathroom scales was 15st 8lb. This week the Wii said I lost 4 lb and the new high precision bathroom scales I have bought gave the same weight as the Wii so I'm assuming a 4lb weight loss this week is correct. This puts my weight at 15st 6lb which is only a 2 pound difference from last week, so I's assuming last week's weight was wrong.

I went swimming for the first time in ages last week and managed to swim half a mile. I went again today and managed a whole mile (probably a bit more as I lost count and rounded down to be safe). Feels good to be doing exercise again and hopefully the high weight loss will continue. I don't want to lose too much too quickly though to avoid horrible amounts of loose skin.

I have now lost a total of 23 pounds which is a total of 9.6 % of my original body weight. Very near to my second goal of losing 10% so I think it's time to make some more goals.

Goal 1 - Get my weight into the 14st regime.

Goal 2 - Reach 14st 7lb. This will mean I have lost 2.5 stone.

Goal 3 - Reach 14st 1lb. This will be a total loss of 3 stone and once I have done this I will treat myself to an annual pass to Thorpe Park as I love theme parks.

Weight last week (revised) - 15st 10lb

Weight this week - 15st 6lb

Weight loss this week - 4lb

Total weight loss (revised) - 23lb

End of Week 6 - Weigh Day

Original Post 15/08/2010

A massive four pounds lost this week. My BMI is now under 30 which means I am no longer Obese! Really pleased with the progress. I have lost a total of one and a half stone in 6 weeks. Hopefully I will be able to wear my awesome replica matrix coat again this winter as I had outgrown it.

Weight last week - 15st 12lb

Weight this week - 15st 8lb

Weight loss this week - 4lb

Total weight loss - 21lb

End of Week 5 - Weigh Day

Original Post 15/08/2010

Another two pounds gone this week. My BMI is nearly under 30 now and I'm now under 16st which is a personal milestone.

Weight last week - 16st

Weight this week - 15st 12lb

Weight loss this week - 2lb

Total weight loss - 17lb

End of Week 4 - Weigh Day

Original Post 01/08/2010

Another week down and another 2 pounds gone. Not as much as last week but it's likely to go up and down. Well that and the fact I had a pizza mid week. I won't be doing that again. Felt really crap after and it impeded my weight loss

Weight last week - 16st 2lb

Weight this week - 16st 0lb

Weight loss this week - 2lb

Total weight loss - 15lb

End of Week 3 - Weigh Day

Original Post 27/07/2010

I lost another four pounds this week. Much better than the previous. I'm just 1 lb off losing a stone which, in three weeks, isn't bad at all. I've found the plan really easy to stick to and I'm eating less than I used to. I did a bit more exercise last week and I'm going to try to do more this week. Hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll be exercising every day.

Weight last week - 16st 6lb

Weight this week - 16st 2lb

Weight loss this week - 4 lb

Total weight loss - 13 lb

End of Week 2 - Weigh Day

Original Post 27/07/2010

Week 2 I lost two pounds. I was a little disheartened after the previous seven pound weight lose but apparently week 2 is usually where people lose the least due to the body going into starvation mode.

Weight last week - 16st 8 lb

Weight this week - 16st 6lb

Weight loss this week - 2 lb

Total weight loss - 9 lb

End of Week 1 - Weigh Day

Original Post 11/07/2010

Well today is the end of week one which means weigh day. I have eaten so much food this week I thought there's no way I've lost anything and probably gained some weight. Yesterday I had two big pots of vanilla yogurt. I have sometimes had two jacket potatoes with beans for one meal. Other times I've had two platefuls of quorn-beef hash (Quorn mince mixed with baked beans and topped with mashed potato). I've had countless yogurts and small amounts of chocolate, endless fruit and veg, fruit mixed with natural yogurt. Yesterday I had a meat day. For breakfast I had a massive bacon and lettuce roll for breakfast. I had a homemade burger topped with bacon and cheese in a bun for lunch. Slices of ham. So I was both surprised and pleased when I jumped on the scales and found out I've lost 7 pounds in my first week. That took a whole point off my BMI so it is now 31. I'm really pleased I have survived the first week. Sometimes it was hard when other people were eating burger and chips or chocolate. I just ignored it and thought to myself that I want to lose the weight more than I want a burger or big bar of chocolate. The headaches have gone now. I think I didn't have enough to eat on the first day. I did have a 'fuzzy' head for a few days while my body was adjusting to the quite extreme diet change but this has now subsided and I feel better than ever. Hopefully next week will be easier, not that this week was hard at all because I never felt hungry. I may update during the week if I'm having a bad time. If not I will update with my weight next week.

Weight last week - 17st 1lb

Weight this week - 16st 8lb

Weight loss this week - 7lb

Total weight loss - 7lb

Customer Service III

Original Post 09/07/2010


Why is everything so difficult? I was checking my bank statements today and noticed a direct debit that I had cancelled had been reinstated (by the company, who had been informed I wanted to cancel and told me to do it myself). Now the reason I cancelled this direct debit was because a free product never arrived (see previous Customer Service blog for details). So, being somewhat annoyed, I phoned up to speak to a manager to find out what was going on. She looked into it and called me back saying that they have my account as cancelled on their system. I can't cancel the direct debit so hopefully they won't take any money. But why should companies be so incompetent that I have to do all of the running around? I also had to phone up another company that sent me a letter saying I owed them money for a different subscription that has now finished, only to find out they had made a mistake on their system. It really annoys me that I feel like I have to do everyone's jobs for them and don't get anything in return, sometimes even the product I have paid for!

Week 1 - Day 1

Original Post 05/07/2010

Well I have decided that enough is enough. It's time to lose the weight I gained while I was at Uni. I have gained so much weight that my BMI is now 32. This puts me in the 'obese' category which means I am at a greater risk of various illnesses. I have tried to change what I eat over the past year or so but it hasn't worked so I decided that I need some structure to losing weight, which is why I have decided to follow the Slimming World (SW) plan. I don't generally agree with 'diets'. You have to eat half a lettuce leaf with grated carrot three times a day and because you're starving yourself your body goes into survival mode and you lose weight slowly. Then, when you have lost weight, you start eating like you used to and it all goes back on.

SW, on the other hand, allows you to eat as much of certain foods as you want. You don't need to weigh anything, calorie count or exclude certain foods. The only thing you have to do is separate carbohydrates and proteins. You can eat both but not on the same day. If you decide you want to eat meat you can have as much non-processed meat as you like. A whole chicken? Not a problem. Rack of ribs? Go for it. Eat until you are full. If you want things like chocolate you can but in very small amounts. Now some people might complain about how little processed foods and high calorie / high fat foods you can eat. The way I am looking at it is that I have eaten too much of these foods for too long which is why I am so overweight now.

So today's the first day of the new eating regime. I'm not feeling hungry but have a slight headache due to the sugar withdrawal. This would happen regardless of the eating plan I decided on so I have to just get on with it. It should pass in a few days hopefully. I think it would be a good idea to set some mini goals. Looking at the big picture is off-putting so hopefully this will help.

Goal 1 - reach a weight of 15 st 7 lb. This will bring me into the overweight catagory and out of the obese one.

Goal 2 -  reach a weight of 15st 4 lb. This will mean I have lost 10 % of my body weight which is recommended for anyone with a BMI of over 30.

All together I have to lose a shocking 33% of my body weight to reach my ideal BMI of 22. I have a long way to go but I am determined to succeed.

I will update in a few days on my progress.

Customer services II

Original post 11/06/2010

It's bad enough when a private company provides shoddy service or doesn't fulfill their contract, but at least you can resort to the claims courts. What's even more annoying is when a company like Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), who aren't accountable under the law (ie you can't sue them), also provide a somewhat poor service. Fortunately I haven't had any bad experiences with HMRC but I was watching BBC's Watchdog and other people have. One lady had been declared dead by HMRC not once but THREE times! It can't be a nice thing for a government agency to inform you that you're dead when there's nothing wrong with you. Other people had overpaid and have been waiting months for refunds but haven't received them due to 'computer problems'. In my opinion 'computer problems' is a poor excuse for a crappy service. Now I have no delusions that an organisation like HMRC isn't allowed to make mistakes, they deal with tens of millions of people every year. But when they do they should sort it immediately. There is also the hypocrisy where if you under pay they will not only charge you for the lost interest (higher than the Bank of England rate) but they will add on another 5% admin fee. If, on the other hand, they owe you, then that's all you get and count yourself lucky you've got that.

Just a mini-rant today. But tomorrow is a new day and I'm sure something else will piss me off!

Customer Services

Original post 09/06/2010

Well I have finally decided to start a blog. There are many things I have opinions about and it's probably better that I rant about them somewhere, so a blog seems the best place. Recently I feel that customer services in general has taken a turn for the worse. I mean it's never the best thing when it comes to big companies (although some are better than others) but just recently I feel I have been doing people's jobs for them. For example: I recently subscribed to a magazine that had a promotional offer where they gave you a choice of free gifts. One of them happened to be season 4 of Supernatural. Since I didn't have it, and wanted to get it, I decided on this. I got the first magazine after a few weeks but no sign of the DVD. I phoned up and they said they had just received the DVDs and they were being packaged and sent so I should receive it within 10 days. A couple of weeks later I phoned again to find out where it was and they said they had run out before but now they had another batch in they would send it to me ASAP. Yet again a couple of weeks go by and nothing. I phone again and they assure me it will be sent out and I should receive it within 10 days. Now I happen to have worked in customer services so I feel I have a right to make comment on this issue. It is completely unacceptable for a company to expect a customer to wait this long for a product (even a free gift is covered by consumer law as it forms part of the original contract). Had I been the person who had received the call I would have had a DVD sent special delivery to keep the customer happy, especially as they have been promised several times before the item would turn up and it didn't. The company simply said that it would be 10 days. No surprises that it didn't turn up a couple of weeks later so I cancelled the magazine and sent an email stating why I was unhappy. So far I haven't received a reply. Companies don't seem to care about individual customers, it's only a problem if they lose many so sometimes you have no option to put up with crap service.

After graduating and before I started my PhD I had to pay the full council tax rate and as soon as I could I sent the council a copy of my exemption certificate. I continued to pay the full amount for a couple of months so I called to find out what was going on. They said they couldn't locate the certificate and I needed to send another. Already this has caused me to waste the little time that any PhD student has for themselves, because someone else can't do their job properly. I complied and eventually they reduced the rate to the correct amount. I requested a refund of the over-payments I had made after starting my PhD and they sent me a cheque. Now I pay the council tax from my own personal account via direct debit so they know the details of the payee. But they sent me a cheque with both mine and my girlfriend's names and as we don't have a joint back account I couldn't cash it. I called them back up and they said they would send another (that's all they said, they made no requests at the time). So from what should have been a simply matter of me sending them a form and them charging me the correct amount has already wasted a lot of my personal time. After several weeks and still no cheque I call AGAIN and they inform me that I need to send them the cheque back (yes the one that they could cancel and the one that I have ABSOLUTELY no way of cashing without going through the hassle of setting up a joint account) before they will issue me another. Now why the f**k didn't they tell me that the first time I called about the cheque and save me the hassle of calling again? Plus the lost interest on the money that they probably wouldn't even think of (it's not the money more the principle). There seems to be the attitude that if you don't get paid much then you shouldn't care about your job. This is absolutely the wrong attitude. Regardless of pay everyone should do the best job they can (and there definitely shouldn't be cash incentives for people to meet targets).

I have many more instances of crappy customer services but I will save those for another time. Hopefully my next blog will be less complaining.

Calming Music

A couple of pieces of music that I listen too when I need to calm down. Not that today has been particularly stressful. Yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vcFFf9aa7k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1sYkJHipvg

Let me know of the piece(s) of music you find calming.