Tesco DVD Rental

Decided to take advantage of Tesco's free trial of their DVD rental scheme to see how it all works and whether it was for me or not.

I signed up for a 21 day free trial (search the net for a code to increase the standard period from 14 to 21 days) on Tuesday night. The scheme costs £7.97 per month allowing 1 disc out at anytime. Once the account is activated you add a list of films to your selection (they recommend a total of at least 20 titles in your list to make sure there will be a disc available).

On Wednesday morning my account status showed that the film at the top of my list had been dispatched by first class post. Disc arrived safe and well Thursday morning. So far so good. To cut down on costs they ship the disc in a custom case with no artwork or the usual bumph. For a box set they will ship each disc in order after you've shipped the latest one back. For 2 disc editions where the second disc is just full of extras they may not list the second disc as available (fine by me, I never watch the extras).

Once you've finished with the film you just place it in the provided return envelope (first class pre-paid) and drop in a post box. Be careful though as the return envelope is the same envelope used to post it out to you so be gentle when you open it.

Dropped the return in the post box this morning so should be with them by Monday. I'll check my account regularly to gauge the speed of turnaround they achieve in shipping out my next selected film.

So far it seems to work quite well, the real tests to come are; speed of turnaround, order of preference in my rental list compared to what they ship out and (gawd forbid) how they deal with a lost disc either outbound or inbound or a faulty disc etc. Will I cancel before my free trial is up? No, at the moment I intend to keep it up after the freebie ends, £7.97 a month for an unlimited amount of DVDs (albeit 1 at a time) is a good deal. Their database claims over 30,000 titles available and after extensive searching and browsing they appear to have everything I'd want (mostly older classic films). Most films have a review attached with user ratings and comments included as well. Nice.

Did I rip and burn it? Yes.

Self Image

Feeling down? Fat? Ugly? A total loser? Never fear, there is someone out there who's in worse shape than yourself.

Quite possibly the greatest page to be found anywhere on t'internet. Ladies and Gentlemen, meet... Tron Guy (I wonder if he's from Reno?)

Warning: don't look if you're eating otherwise you'll spray the screen or throw up or both.

What would you do...

... if your work asked/told you they wanted you to move to a different country? Would it be a difficult decision or would you be sitting on the plane with your bags packed before the question had even been finished?

I turned down a move to Chicago about three years ago as I'd recently got myself settled in the new house. Never spent more than a few seconds thinking about it before saying no (much do the amazement of the American bosses). Personally the quality of life I can live in Scotland is far and above that which I could expect in the US. I'm not talking about the financial aspect (I'd expect to earn considerably more) but just the day to day experience. My visits to the US have left me with the feeling that it's a souless place to live (I've spent time in Chicago, Dallas, Memphis and Denver). Maybe not representative of the bright lights of LA or New York but we don't have facilities in those cities (wouldn't make much difference though if I'm honest). I just find it all a bit fake and plastic, lacking in soul... my opinion.

This time we're being asked to move to Reno, Nevada. Hmmmm... no said the three of us who remain in Scotland and no said our partners. Now we have Bonnie and Clyde and Lesley has her beautiful grand-daughter Ellie so the decision wasn't exactly difficult. No disrespect to Reno, I'm sure it's a lovely place, but it's not for us.

Have to wait and see how the big bosses take this latest knock-back. Will they keep us on beavering away in Scotland or is it redundancy for the lot of us? Who knows, interesting times.

Fat

I've become obsessed with fat since my diagnosis, not the weight I carry around but the fat content of the food that I eat, which my Liver stores and is slowly (I hope, very slowly) killing me.

The recommended daily maximum intake of fat for a man is somewhere between 90-100g and for a woman 70-80g. For us fat, lazy westerners our actual intake is probably considerably more. Now, as I have NASH, fat can be deadly. To reduce the speed of damage I must stop feeding my Liver fat, and in the past couple of weeks I've started to take steps to do just that.

First thing was to find out how much fat was I eating and then figure out how to reduce this amount. A short term crash diet will do no good whatsoever, any change I make to my dietary intake is for keeps and therefore must be sustainable (not easy for someone who ranks chocolate up there with air and water as necessary requirements for life). Most packaged food has labels detailing the ingredients and amounts contained within along with nutritional information for fat, salt, sugar, calories etc. Checking the labels of everything I ate for a couple of days was a real eye opener.

A 30g bag of Walkers Cheese & Onion crisps contains 11g of fat. I'd usually have 2 bags for my lunch. I love Chicken Salad sandwiches but crisps are a necessary addition for full enjoyment. A total of 22g of fat in those two bags alone, sheesh what must my daily total be? Lunch at work also requires chocolate. My usual purchase of a Twix and a Marathon (you may call it Snickers but I will not) to keep me going through the afternoon contains an amazing 32g of fat (18g in a Marathon due to the peanuts and 14g in a Twix). Feck me, lunch at work and I've had over half the daily recommended maximum amount of fat without actually eating any real food. It's a wonder I'm even alive.

So what to do? As I said the maximum daily intake for an adult man should be in the 90-100g range but as I suffer from NASH I should really aim for less than half that at 45-50g maximum (in reality as little as possible should be my longterm aim). Can I do it? Yes, of course. Cut out the crap and eat real, whole food instead. For the past week I've stopped the 2 bags of crisps totaling 22g of fat and replaced with 1 bag of Ryvita Minis at less than 1g of fat per bag with my lunch. To replace the chocolate bars I've been having Special K and Alpen cereal bars with approx 2-4g of fat each. Along with 2 pieces of fruit and a chicken sandwich packed with salad I'm not exactly going hungry (far from it) but I've slashed my fat intake for that one meal by a huge margin. Obviously I've not eaten my last chocolate bar but they will become the exception rather than the norm.

At home easy changes made were to switch from Lurpak Spreadable 80g of fat per 100g to Flora margarine 59g of fat per 100g (but a quarter of the saturated fat). Light mayonnaise instead of full fat, sweetcorn with no added sugar or salt, Cereal bars instead of biscuits, tons of fresh salad, no cheese (except for low fat cottage cheese) baked potatoes instead of chips, no fried food, no takeaways, wholemeal bread and rolls and salad with everything (lettuce, carrot, cucumber, sweetcorn, spring onions and red peppers, lovely), Apples, Bananas, Stawberries, Grapes and Honey Dew Melon. I've never ate so much food in my life.

Can I maintain it? Yes, I think so. Once the cycle of lazy, convenience food has been broken I'll do it. I've not missed my crap diet one bit these past 2 weeks which is a real positive sign. By educating myself where the real crap is to be found (chocolate bars, biscuits, ready meals, processed food etc) I can steer clear of it for the majority of the time allowing the odd occasion when I can let my hair down with a takeaway or something (no more cheese loaded pizzas though). As long as it remains a rare rather than regular occurrence I should see the benefit in my Liver function results, higher energy levels and reduction in my weight (currently suffering a bit of a plateau). As ever, I'll post my progress here.

Health Update 43

Long time no post. I've been very busy at work, catching up with all the things that never got covered while I was off and stuff that I'd let slide over the past few months.

Got my results from the Liver biopsy last week and, as I predicted, the diagnosis is NASH. Interestingly though the Doctor explained that it's actually a Genetic defect which has come increasingly to the fore with the increase in obesity, crap diet and less exercise. The old adage that I'm fat because of my genes is in fact, true (to an extent). My Liver is incorrectly programmed and instead of burning fat it stores it instead. The condition has only been known about in the past decade and the long term effects have only been realised in the past couple of years. Ultimately the fat stored in the Liver causes the same damage as alcohol abuse (Cirrhosis and then death).

So what to do? Lose weight, eat less fat and help your Liver to burn fat (exercise). Obviously alcohol is a no-no as this will just add fuel to the fire and speed the descent towards Cirrhosis and death (no biggy as I've been practically tee-total for five years). As the disease is relatively newly discovered the drugs are still at the experimental stage. The Doctor said any drug treatment was for more advanced cases and the best thing I could do was lose weight. As he explained it, by slowing down the damage the Liver was suffering due to storing fat I would most likely die of old age than Liver failure. Regular blood tests to check my Enzyme levels (Enzymes feed off dead Liver cells therefore the more Enzymes the more dead Liver cells the quicker the damage) and a Liver biopsy every 10 years should be enough to judge the speed of damage and my long term longevity. Obviously if there was any advance in treatment then that would be considered.

I have lost about 12-14lbs in the past 6-7 weeks which is good. A more fundamental change to my lifestyle will be required to maintain this and reduce the speed of Liver damage. First thing first is to research the dietary requirements for someone suffering from NASH. Hey ho, onwards and upwards.

Tags: Health