Fitting in a quick blog post this week before a few days away celebrating my wonderful partner Mike’s 70th birthday! It’s all a surprise, so to avoid giving the game away, I’ll tell you all about it in next week’s blog. We’re travelling about an hour and a half from home and, rather mysteriously, I’ve instructed Mike that we’ll need to pack a load of firewood… and his swimming trunks! That should keep him guessing.
This week started with a bit of disruption as we replaced both my cooker hood and induction hob with new models that can be connected to the internet.
“Why on earth does a cooker hood need to be connected to the internet?” I hear you ask!
Well… my previous cooker hood looked very smart and worked perfectly well, but there was one rather significant problem. I couldn’t actually operate it! The touch controls were completely inaccessible to me – something I hadn’t considered when I bought it around ten years ago. I tried everything I could think of: a stylus attached to a stick, touchscreen gloves… nothing worked. Every time I wanted to use the extractor fan, I had to ask someone else to switch it on.
The new Neff hob and extractor use Home Connect, which allows them to communicate with each other. Simply turning on the hob automatically starts the extractor fan. Better still, I can control everything using my voice.
“Alexa, switch on the hood.”
“Alexa, turn the hood to full power.”
“Alexa, switch on the hood light.”
You get the picture!
If you’d like a tour of my adapted kitchen and to see some of the many little changes I’ve made to enable me to cook safely and independently, there’s a video I made a few years ago here
Whilst voice-activated smart technology offers an extra level of convenience for many people, for those of us with physical impairments it can provide something far more valuable – genuine independence.
Alexa now controls much of my home, including the lighting, speakers, window blinds and every radiator. I also have a rather clever (and admittedly rather expensive!) Geberit bidet toilet. I haven’t yet explored whether it can be voice-controlled too, but it automatically opens and closes the lid, washes, dries, extracts odours, and even warms the seat. I have to admit, on a cold winter’s morning, a heated toilet seat is one of life’s little luxuries!
My culinary discovery of the week has been crumpet pizzas.
I’d made a batch of pizza topping mixture previously and frozen it in portions, so using that, a couple of slices of pepperoni and a sprinkling of grated mozzarella and Cheddar, I popped them into the air fryer for just two minutes.
The result? A delicious, surprisingly filling little pizza for only 186 calories each. They’re quick, easy and will definitely become a regular lunch in this house.
As for Wegovy, this week I took my first increased dose of 0.5 mg, having moved up from 0.25 mg.
So far… very little appears to have changed.
I’m still finding that I have to work quite hard to keep both my appetite and my sweet tooth under control. I know it’s still very early days, so I’m hoping the increased dose simply needs a little time to build up before I notice any real difference.
Weight
Whilst I’d have loved the increased dose to have taken the edge off my appetite immediately, I’m reminding myself that these medications don’t work overnight. Patience has served me well throughout this journey, so I’ll give it a little more time before drawing any conclusions. BUT I am getting dangerously close to the top of my maintenance range! I also remind myself of how far I’ve come on this journey in 14 years….
Weight this week: 56.15kg (8st 11.8lbs)
Weight last week: 55.95kg (8st 11.3lbs)
Weekly loss/gain: -0.2kg (-7.5ozs)
100% – 5 months 14
days in weight maintenance range (54 – 57kg or 8st 7lb – 8st 13lbs)