Time is passing, it’s now less than five years until I will hit forty years old. So he’s an update on what progress I’ve made over the last year towards 40 things to do before I’m 40.

Updated 40 things

• Have a piece of writing published - (10% Complete)

I’m marking this one as 10% Complete, as I’ve had an article on Obsolete Gamer posted. I have plans to continue writing for Obsolete Gamer, and to start writing for some other websites too.

• Learn to cook, properly. - (10% Complete)

I’ve started to cook the majority of my own meals, but they are only simple meals. I beginning to wonder, how I should define being able to ‘cook, properly’ properly.

• Sort out a proper diet, so I eat many different health foods - (100% Complete)

After a bit of research I finally got a diet sorted a few months back. I’m now eating healthy and making sure I get all my required dietary supplements.

• Have 15% or less body fat - (95% Complete)

Not long ago I posted about my Body Fat being measured at 15.5% which make me just short of my goal of 15%. You might also remember I abandoned a goal of 10% body fat as I thought it was overly optimistic goal. I think when I hit this goal, I’ll replace it with the 10% goal again.

• Read all of the BBC Top 100 reads - (20% Complete)

Twenty books read now, and I can’t say I really fancy reading many of the ones left, but I’ll keep plodding on.

• Join a Gym. - (100% Complete)

I also posted recently about joining the gym, so this one is complete.

That’s it for now, hopefully I’ll get some more of this completed before this time next year. Keep an on posts using the 40 things tag for further progress,

So I’ve been a Gym member for 2 weeks and 2 days now.

I’ve signed up a for some Personal Trainer sessions at the Gym as there is an offer on these at the moment. The offer is, If I visit the Gym 20 times in my first 8 weeks, I will get these sessions for free. I’ve already visited eight times in just over two weeks.

Part of this Person Trainer session is getting a health check. The health check was quiet interesting, it turns out I’m in ok shape at the moment. You remember on the last post when I said I was going to focusing on my Body Fat Percentage. My Body Fat Goal on 40 things to do before I’m 40 is to get my body fat down to 15%. I’ve been measuring Body Fat using my cheap little body fat reader I’ve got. When I started the diet it was just over 25%. The week before I started the Gym the little body fat reader said I was down to just over 20%. However when I got my Body Fat measured properly during a health check at the gym, it was measured at a meagre 15.5%, which was a massive surprise. So I’ve almost inadvertently hit my Body fat goal for 40 things already.

The plan now, is to start putting on more weigh and build a bit of muscle. Lets see how that goes…

The diet has come to a major turning point.

I’m still losing about one lbs a week, making it a total of 25lbs lost in eight weeks, but rather continue on losing weight I think I’ve reached a point where I am happy with the weight I am now, and I want to focus on my Body Fat Percentage, getting below 15%. So I’m going to start adding a few things that have been missing from my diet back in, increase my Carb intake (but not by too much), but still cut out all the crap such as fast food, caffeine, alcohol and fizzy pop except maybe on special occasions.

However, the big news is that yesterday, I took the big step that I’ve been talking about for the past five years and joined a proper Gym. I finally bit the bullet and paid out for a full years Gym membership. Now I’ve spent that money, I will not waste it by giving up after a few weeks. I’ve got a session with a personal trainer tonight to work out a programme for me, and after that hopefully I’ll be able to work out at least two or three times a week.

Joining the Gym also has the added bonus helping me catch up with my Podcast backlog, as I find Podcasts the perfect distraction while I’m working out.

Last week saw a very rare occurrence. Suzanne and I went out twice! On Wednesday we were at a charity night out. It’s was a good night, thanks to the diet I drank Pepsi Max all night, two of the them did have shots of vodka in them, but don’t worry about it there is no Carbs in Vodka.  The second night out was on Saturday and was a early celebration of Suzanne’s Birthday. I will not tell you how old she is, but I will tell you we celebrated at a BBQ her mate hosted at her place. It was Quorn Burgers and Sausages for me, and I was driving I was on the Pepsi Max with no Vodka.

I had my first Eye Test in three years at the weekend, and for a change I thought I would go back to wearing Contact Lens. I used to wear Contact Lens about 12 years ago before I first met the Suzanne, but when we moved into together and Conor came along I forgot all about them and went back to wearing glasses. Having worn Contact Lens in the past I though this time have the fitting would not be embarrassing as the first, in which I was a complete baby and very rubbish at getting the lens in my own eyes, however the long years of not wearing Lens have taken there toll and I could put the lens in at first so I felt like a complete tool. I did get them in eventually and I’m going to be trying them out for a week, just to make sure I’m still OK with them, but I shouldn’t have any problems.

My Birthday 35th (and the 40thing update) is approaching a little more quickly than I would like. I plan to soften the blow this year with a new phone the HTC Desire and I’m also thinking of treating myself to a Xbox 360. I should be able to get one cheap, as the new Slimmer model is out soon. Also if I get one that has been banned from Xbox Live, as I’m not bothered about playing online, it should be even cheaper. Let just see if I can get to August without changing my mind about buying one.

As you have hopefully noticed by now, the blog has gone through a redesign, this is mostly because I’ve been playing with Fireworks lately, I forgot how good it is for website design. I’ve got another few project in development at the moment which I’ll tell you all about when they are closer to completion.

Just a quick update on the diet for those who are internested, and before you think no one is interested I’ve recently heard that @londonfilmgeek was inspired by my updates to give the Vegetarian low Carb diet a go.

Another week gone and the diet is still going well. Monday’s weigh in showed a loss of another 3lb since the week before. My total weight lost is now a rather massive 23lbs. Wii Fit tells me I’m at my ideal BMI and I’m beginning to see parts of my body I haven’t seen it a long time, so I’m beginning to think this may not need to lose a lot more weight (I had originally planned to lose another 9lbs) and that  I just need to continue to get my BodyFat Percentage down, which is now just over 21%, quite a bit down from over 25% it was five weeks ago. I’ve completed one week of one hundred press ups and two hundred squats and I did some other exercises last week, but I think I need to spend more time exercising.

Being smaller is a great excuse to buy news clothes, so yesterday I popped into town and bought myself a few Small T-Shirts, and a pair of Jeans with a 30inches waists

Evening All, it’s a brand new week and I feel motivated for a change. I’ve been a bit productive lately as managed to empty out my Gmail inbox, and RSS Reader, all I need to do now is complete all those outstanding tasks I’ve got listed in Remember the Milk.

First I’ll give you a Diet Update. At Last weeks weigh in, which I never got around to blogging about, I had lost a 1lbs, and this weeks, which was done this very morning showed another 3lbs lost. So I have not lost 20lbs since 17th April (35 days). This week I’m add some more exercise (on top of Karate Training), I’m going to be doing onehundredpushups and twohundredsquats. I’ve complete Week 1, Day 1 for them both today.

Some family news (there will be a lot more of this in future). I’m officially married again, as my replacement Wedding ring has arrived.

Speaking off the family. Last weekend we visited Stewart’s Park, as the Fun Fair was there and it was the Help for Heroes fun-day, with things like World War 2 re-enactments, and World War 2 armories to view. There was a child’s assault course, which Conor had a go on.

We saw the local Police Helicopter landing and taking off from very close range. We also visited the Army Cadets’ tent, and had a look what is in an 24 Hour Army ration pack  (a special Yorkie bar, which is not for civies). Conor thinks he might join the cadet’s when he is old enough. I’m sure he’ll change his mind in the next two years he has to wait.

The fair was great fun too, although Conor would only go on the Bumpers Cars and the Jumping Frog rides with me, and I think I enjoyed the Jumping much more than he did.

I’ve been enjoying the Football at the World Cup, despite missing Today’s seven goal match. I’m not bothered by the Vuvuzelas like everyone else seems to  be. However what has made this World Cup more interesting is the ability to gamble (not with real money, mind) on the results on the ObscureInternet Forum.

While we had a spot of Sun I manged to get on top the gardening, however given these bouts of Sun followed by Rain, I’m sure it will not be longer I’ll need to do it all again.

This weekend (just gone) me and Conor had a nice walk into Town (and back) so he could pick some Games for his Birthday. This really was just an excuse for us to visit all the games shops in the town play some games and talk about stuff from E3. It also was a sneaky bit of exercise, as we got in about 5 miles of walking.

In other bits of Conor news he’s got the Panini World Cup Sticker book. Which reminded me of my Mexico 86 Panini World Cup Sticker books from all those years ago. Also Conor has a date for his end of School prom, he was asked by a nice young girl who was the recent winner  of School talent contest. We didn’t have Junior schools proms in my day, and I don’t remember getting asked to any dances, so fair play to the lad. Oh, he still daft like, on Sunday he gave me a Father day card he had forgotten to sign.

I’m still reading. I’ve recent read both Watership Down and Animal Farm (from my Books to read list for 40 things) and have started to read Black Beauty (All animal related).  Watership Down is a great book, I wasn’t expecting it to be so good, because I think it had it down as being rather depressing after watching the cartoon when I was little. If you’ve not read it, I insist you go and read it as soon as possible. I’ve also recently finished listening to the Audiobook of  Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman. It’s a prequel to his His Dark Materials trilogy, and worth checking out if you read the Trilogy. I’m now listening to The Teaching Company’s History of the United States, after enjoying their History of Russia course last year.

Game playing wise I’m pretty much addicted to playing GTA IV at the moment. I’ve even given the Multiplay, and that seems like fun too.

In website news (you’d knew I’d get there at some point) ObscureInternet has a new design, it’s what I’ve called Version 3.3 Update. It now has a fancy new featured articles bar, with images from eight random but recent articles and a new footer (which I’m not completely happy with)

If you want to have a look at the evolution of the ObscureInternet design, pop over to my DeviantArt Page, I’ve uploaded some images there.

WordPress 3 has been released so both this Blog and ObscureInternet have been updated. I’ll be working on a new design for the this blog soon, as I’m very bored with the existing design.

Finally my first article for Obsolete gamer is now up and available for reading. I’m not completely happy with it, but it’s a start.

When I rack my brain for memories it does appear I do have some sort of a rudimentary  life. In the last post I failed to mention that I’ve been to another Wedding, and a 18th birthday party celebration recently.

I also meant to mention the books I bought while travelling to and from Ireland. WHSmith were having a half price sale (in their Airport and Train station shops only) so I picked this lot up.

Speaking of books, which I believe I was, I’ve been reading quiet a bit lately. I’ve read the following books in the last week or so, Sh*t My Dad Says, The Twits, Artemis Fowl, The Death of WCW, and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. Two of those are my 100 Books to read list!

Oh, and if you are wondering when I’m going to update my 40 things last, I plan to do it in the first week on August.

My only bit of website news this time, is that I have started to write for Obsolete Gamer. So keep any eye out for my posts on some classic Video games.

Since my diet posts are about as popular as the ginger one from Sex and the City, I’ll just briefly mention that Week 3 of the Diet is complete, I’ve now lost 16lbs and my Body Fat is now under 23%.

Finally, the wife and I celebrated our 7th Wedding Anniversary at weekend, and I celebrated in typical fashion by losing my Wedding ring. Frustrating, but what can you do. A replacement has been ordered and I’m just waiting for it to arrive.

The second Week of the diet and final week of detox was a lot easier than the first. I think I’d gone through Carb and Caffine withdraw in the first weeks, so the only thing I need to worry about in the second week was sticking to my three meals a day and not being tempted into eating any high-carb food that I would normally. It’s very tempting just to a slice of toast or even a chocolate bar, but I’ve just got to fight the urges.

I’ve been finding my energy levels return to normal after feeling very tired during the first, I think the important thing is to make sure I’m getting enough Protein. I’m eating a lot of eggs (about three a day) and also having Protein Drinks as well.

I only managed one session of Karate training, because of schedule conflicts on Thursday, but I managed to complete the week and the detox. I can now add another 5 carbs to my daily allowance.

My final total weight loss for the week was 4lbs, which makes me 12lbs lighter than when I started.

So many things have happened since my last proper post, and yet so few.

As you may have read (in my least popular posts of all time), I’ve started my diet. I haven’t had a hair cut, because I’m growing my hair (again) let see how long I go this time.

I’ve started a new Blog for my political writings,  and I’ve connected with some great new people because of this. Sadly I missed a night out with them because of my stupid diet detox. I’ve also taken my old karate blog out of hiding, I might countine to update it, but I’m making no promises.

Gaming wise both Conor and I have mostly Playing Battlefield Bad Company 2 online, as it’s a very good online game. I’ve also managed to finally play through Batman Arkham Asylum and I must say it’s an excellent game. I shall be replaying to get all the secrets I missed, and maybe even try my hand at the challenges

In real world news, the family had a quick visit to Ireland over the Bank Holiday weekend for my cousins wedding. Here’s a picture of the Happy Couple arriving at the Wedding, which was at Bundoran in the Republic of Ireland.

Recently Conor and I had free ticks to see the TFM Cash for Kids Charity Match at Middlesbrough FC’s Riverside Stadium. It featured the TFM Radio All Stars Team 2010 (I only reckonised Craig Hignett, Curtis Fleming, who hasn’t change a bit, and some turkey from Hollyoaks) against Macks Pride of Teesside Team from local company Macks Solicitors. The match wasn’t the greatest, but it the TFM All starts won on Penalties after it was 2-2 at full time (There was a very dodgy goal given for the Mack’s despite a blatant hand ball). Here’s a picture of my and Conor in the crowd somewhere…

Speaking of Conor he has had a busy time of it, he’s been away from home for an almost week long trip with school twice! Once to London, where he brought me back one of those ‘my son went to London and all I got was this lousy t-shirt’ things, and once to the Carlton Outdoor Education Centre. He’s also visited  Bemish Museum and Ormesby Hall on school day trips. The same day we went to the TFM match he had seen Prince Charles and got this Picture taken with Middlesbrough Mayor Ray Mallon and Middlesbrough FC Chairman Steve Gibson.

I wish my life was as interesting as his.

Day 5 – 156 Pounds

Slightly surprised I only lost a 1lb this morning, after last nights Karate training exertions I though it might have been a little more, I did however feel bit more tired today. Another omlete this mornings, although it was supposed to be scrambled, as I’m getting fond of my egg based breakfasts.

If I keep losing a 1lbs a day I’ll hit my goal in about a month, which would very cool, but I’m taking it one day at a time.

Day 6 – 155 Pounds

Another 1lb gone this morning, looks like a pattern is developing one, I will not mention again unless it changes. Scrambled eggs this morning.

Day 7 – 156 Pounds

Gain 2lb today, however this is because I weighed myself in the evening instead of the usual morning time. Horrible day today, felt a bit down and seriously considered quitting, however by evening I was fine again and wanting to continue.

That’s week one Completed!