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.

Friends

Well I've decided to move over to blogger after having heard good things about it from a friend. At some point I'll move my (few) posts over from my other blog. I really should blog more but don't have (or more accurately make) the time.

I thought my first post should be about friends. I have the best friends in the world (OK, pass the bucket around). A difficult friendship ended recently and I thought that this person wouldn't have an effect on my life anymore, but I was wrong. It certainly wasn't as bad as when we were 'friends', but it was still draining at times. I have been leaning heavily on the person I consider to be my best friend and she has been there every time. For this I am eternally grateful. There was much drinking last night (for reasons I can't go into at the moment) which seemed to make things a whole lot better, even if it was only temporary. Don't worry, I not going to turn to drink (often!). I think we've decided to do this more often (making sure my friend doesn't mix her drinks), as it's a good opportunity to air our feelings about life in general. I had never taken my friendships for granted but it really makes you see how good your true friends are when someone else is a constant drain and the main source of you feeling like crap. In every (good) friendship there is give and take but when one person is always giving and the other is always taking you start to lose perspective and this becomes the norm. That's how this went on for three years and I am ashamed to say that I defended this person when they were really indefensible on several occasions. I allowed him/her to be rude and disrespectful to others and didn't step in when I should have. The positive that comes from this is that now I am a stronger person and everything is in perspective. I won't allow someone to be disrespectful to my friends again.

Well that was all quite heavy, next time I'll try to be a bit lighter!