A grey rainy Monday - in midsummer

Well it took me nearly 2 hours to get in to work today - should have been40 mins. And I spent 1 hour 10 mins on the Jubilee line, doing a 15 min journey. Then they turfed us off and I had to walk the rest of the way in the wind and rain.

And that's after getting up at 6am (okay 6.10am) to go running and realising from the weather that that wasn't a good idea. We have a (fairly basic and unpleasant) fitness room in our development. We pay almost £3k a year for service charge but the gym STILL isn't working - I last reported the treadmills as out of order at Easter and they're still not working, nor the steppers, nor the exercise bikes. And there's a huge hole in the ceiling. Our management company are the worst I've ever come across - beware buying anywhere that Peverel OM run, they've increased our service charge by over 120% in the 8 years we've been there but they do no decoration/maintenance and the charge goes up every 6 months. Our estate manager "doesn't have time" to talk to residents by phone or in person or to respond to letters. They really are beyond appalling.

I used a weird bike type thing and a cross trainer (as the only two machines which were still working) for 15 mins each but it was an annoying, depressing and stressful experience.

On my scales I have lost a distinctly unstellar 3lbs this week. This is the most I've lost in 2 weeks so I suppose I ought to be grateful - especially after my smack table binge last week - but I just feel weary about it all. Going to keep going until 25th August and then I'll see how close to goal I am and whether I can bare to go back to it after our 12 days in my brother's Welsh caravan and our weekend away for bf's 50th in the New Forest - which will make it 22nd September.

I read something really concerning in The Diet Delusion which I am slowly trudging through. It's not an easy read - very techy - but really eye-opening. There were a couple of experiments on "starvation diets", one in particular had a group of mentally tough men only allowed 1200-1500 calories a day (so a lot more than VLCD). They became unusually obsessed with food to the extent of collecting recipes (this was in the 50s when men didn't do such things!) and developed an incredibly sweet tooth (teeth?!) - a few even had psychological break downs. Moreover, when they were allowed to eat again, they massively over-ate, still claiming hunger, and put on all the weight they'd lost and some. Sounds scarily familiar. I'm not proposing stopping LL though - I'm already doing it so it's a bit late but it is interesting - in a scary sort of way. I'm hoping it's a case of forewarned. Don't think I'll mention it at group tonight though - they're not sciency sort of people!