My (Un) Healthy Fight Begins Now

I need to lose weight.


There's no getting around this fact and I'm now starting the fightback. I've done it before so I know I can do it again but that doesn't mean it'll be easy.

The 2004 Model Looking Svelte
(I look pretty good too!)

I now weigh more than I ever have and it shows. I've known this to be the case for a while but it struck me particularly earlier when I happened to fall upon (ok, I admit, I was deliberatly looking for) this S4C BBC iPlayer footage from the Welsh Liberal Democrat conference in Cardiff last weekend. I usually watch back my media performances to pick up pointers on how I can improve but the only thing that I could notice this time was how fat I look in the face.

Well, I've already began to combat this but it needs to be taken up a few more notches. I have now, as of last week, with thanks from the lovely Elizabeth Evans, a cross-trainer in the house which I've started using and which I need to get into the habit of using on a regular basis.

The 2008 Model in Thailand after 6 months in the Gym

The Gym and Me (circa 2007-2008)

I've been here before.

Back in 2007, having said for years that I'd go to the gym to get fit (more so than to lose weight), I finally bit the bullet and went there for a solid 6 months at least 2 or 3 times a week. I lost weight and it naturally made me eat healthier and gave me more positive energy. It took a while getting going on the bike, treadmill, rowing machine, cross-trainer and the like but once the habit was made, I'd almost go as far to say that I enjoyed it. Then in early 2008, I had a holiday to Thailand and when I came back home to Cardigan, with a shot bank balance, I wasn't able to continue with my membership. I should've of course gone freestyle and gone for runs around the patch but that never happened and gradually over the past 3 years, I've slipped back to where I was back in the summer of 2007.

The 2009/2010 Model - A Hunk of Burning Love
or just on the Way Down?

Being Mayor of Cardigan in 2009-2010 certainly played it's part. The dinners built up but more than that, I never had any time spare to look after myself properly. But since then, over the past 12 months, I haven't rectified that.

So I now find myself needing to get back into the routine that served me so well 3 years ago.

A Matter of Eating Less, But More Often
But what I've learned from speaking to friends over recent weeks is that getting fit in itself won't be enough. Yes I need to eat healthier, that goes without saying, but then I'm confident that that will come naturally as it did 3 years ago.

What I do need to learn to do however it to eat regularly. I have had a propensity, without even realising it, to go long periods without eating and then eating a lot in one go. Because of my on-the-go political workload over the years, perhaps I have unwittingly found myself deciding to avoid some meals to save time for work to be done in the knowledge that I can do all of my 'eating' in one fail swoop later in the day. Certainly, the concept of having a regular breakfast, lunch and supper isn't one that has settled into my psyche for years - probably since I left for University 10 years ago. So my body, under such an onslaught of not knowing how long it will go before the next meal, will store what I do eat to compensate for the hours and hours that I can go without eating.

The 2011 Model - Time for Action

Not exactly a healthy lifestyle is it!

Yet, it's only in recent weeks that this particular fact has resonated with me. So it's now a matter of eating less, but eating more regularly and working that cross-trainer to lose the pounds that I will also save by eating less (sorry, pun intended).

So this post is really a personal 'call to arms' to myself to remind me visually of what can be achieved and what needs to be achieved once again.

It'll also spur me on knowing that I'll have let others read this. Yes, I have no excuses, I know you'll all be watching!

Voice Box Transplant 'Miracle'

'Progress' can often be a double edged sword..

But in the medical world, 'progress' more often that not has positive conotations.


Brenda Jensen

 Today, the BBC reports here of another medical 'miracle'. Over the years, the boffins with brains have found how to translplant various organs in the human body to enable the continuation of life.

The first successful organ transplant was of the cornea in 1905. The kidney was first successfully transplanted in 1954, the pancreas in 1966, the liver in 1967, the heart again in 1967, the hand in 1998, and the first full facial transplant in July 2010.

Voicebox Transplant - Brenda Jensen's Miracle
Well now in America, after 11 years without a voice, Californian resident Brenda Jensen can talk once more with her own voice after a pioneering 18 hour operation on her voicebox proved successfull. It's only the second time a voicebox has been transplanted but the first time in history in which it has been done at the same time as the windpipe.

She has not been able to speak since 1999 when it was damaged during surgery. Since then, she has been unable to taste or smell food, could breathe only through a hole in her windpipe and could talk only with the help of an electronic voice box.

13 days after her operation, she was able to whisper her first words "Good morning, I want to go home". Slowly, her voice has stengthened and she is now able to speak for lond periods of time.

This is the story...



The Wonders of Modern Science
It's incredible that as a human race, we have become so sophisticated that we are able to achieve with success these complicated procedures.

I could feel tears welling up in my eyes as I saw the news and this incredible story earlier. To imagine being without a voice for over 10 years and then, by a miraculous operation, to hear it once more must be an unbelievable sensation.

Well done to the surgeons that succeeded in this mind-boggling achievement. They are pioneers who follow in a long and proud line through history and through the 20th century especially.

Much of Mankind's greatest achievement have come from this - Science, Science, Science.