Fifteen - Love

I won the first point. I didn't stumble at the first hurdle. This is quite a big thing for me. I have stumbled at the first hurdle so many times before. My patron saint is Saint Chris Rea: "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". I could have given in. There were so many temptations last night to eat something else and go "just a little" over my calorie allowance. There was the thought flitting across my mind trying to convince me that I'd been conservative in estimating certain calorie values and I really had some room to spare. But I didn't give in, I didn't let the thought win.

So I win the first point. 15 - 0. And the tennis analogy is a good one, I think. The first point on day 1 and it's 15-0 in the first game of the first set. Still an awfully long way to go to win the match. What would JWT have done if after winning the first point against Federer he'd convinced himself he'd got it sewn up, wrapped up and done already?

And equally it's important for me to know it's just the first point. Nobody remembers now if JWT won the first point against Federer, or against Djokovic in the semi-final. But they do remember that he beat Federer and lost to Djokovic.

And the analogy works further. I can afford to lose a point (a day) and still win the game (in my case, the game is a week). But it feels a lot better to have a comfortable service game where you hit the lines, serve aces and blast winners, than to scrape through a tense nervy deuce game peppered with double faults, net cords and unforced errors.

So I'm not letting up in this point (today). I'm pushing on for 30 - 0. My serve was good but the return came back over. We're trading baseline groundstrokes and the point today could still go either way.

More exercise yesterday sees me with a 2,050 allowance today (as compared to 1,650 yesterday). I am liking the use of yesterdays calorie burn - they are done, banked, no questions. It stops the "I can eat a bit more and then go for a run tonight" attitude, which inevitably fails when I don't go for that run...

I think I need that definite calorie number that I can go up to but not exceed. It's a mind trick that seems to work for me so far, and it feels like it resonates with how I tick.

Had a good PT session this morning with some serious leg work. The temptation is going to be to eat more because I've worked out and feel like I need the fuel. And 2,050 cals is still not very much, and 400 more than yesterday is not very many more either.

I am sitting at work dreaming of the possibilities for using those "extra"calories. The chilled can of gin and tonic sitting in the fridge and calling my name is top of the list at the moment...I know they are empty calories, but if I survived yesterday on 1,650 with no empty ones, I can blow a few today, can't I? And they are mighty tasty and satisfying empty calories too...

I think it all depends on how hungry I get during the afternoon - if a second protein shake is required to get me through until dinner, the G and T is out (until this game is won, at least). If I manage without the second shake, well, we'll just have to see...Robinsons Barley Water instead maybe??? Appropriate but too many calories and carbs in that too!

Also worth noting, on the tennis analogy front, that had he lived, it would have been my dad's birthday today. My dad was the biggest tennis obsessive fan and player you could imagine. So much so it pretty much destroyed our family.

Somehow it seems appropriate that I use tennis to lose weight and therefore NOT destroy mine.

RIP Dad.