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We were on the way home by 9am as I breakfasted on an apple and some brazil nuts - I try to avoid hotel breakfasts as I eat too much (and pretty much nothing available works with my new diet) and I didn't want to waste time scouring the streets of Liverpool for healthy food on a Sunday morning. Bex had had a bad night's sleep, having been woken by revellers singing Happy Birthday (not to her) outside the hotel. I'd slept through. I got to 7.30am which is almost unheard of these days.
It's a great thing to have a tour manager. Two consecutive nights of RHLSTPS (which remember takes four weeks to do) takes a lot out of me. I didn't sleep in the car, but was too zombified to drive and the time passed quick. Remarkably I didn't even need to stop for a wee.
I was back home just after midday, pretty hungry, but had a big tub of vegetable chilli waiting in the fridge. It's been hard to eat high scoring zoe meals on the road - even Pret salads come out pretty average, but I ate healthily by the standards of any other diet I've been on and I seem to have flicked the switch and am not really snacking between meals and am rarely hungry. So I don't know if it's the Zoe die that's working or just the fact that I have turned myself off and on again and reset things. It goes hand in hand. I've been following the advice of the app for a little over a month now and have lost 5kg. But I am also not eating sweets, biscuits, crisps or much in the way of bread or potatoes and have only had a Solero a week instead of every day. Also I have cut out diet drinks, sugar free gum and pushed more towards fish or beans than chicken or red meat. I think if you do these things too you'll probably lose weight without the app.
It struck me last Monday that I'd got into the habit of getting back from RHLSTP for a midnight feast that would largely be treats and be at least 500 or more extra calories, but I didn't want to do that after the Pappys gig.
I'm now only 2kg away from fitting back into my suits (which is always a good indication) but this lifestyle feels sustainable and I am enjoying doing the cooking. I made a stir fry of all the stuff left over in the fridge tonight with tofu, kale and loads of veg and it was lovely. I know it doesn't sound it. Scored 88/100. And there's some left for breakfast.
I've been eating stir fries for breakfast for ages (when I have the ingredients) and I recommend it. Talking to Danny Robins the other week we (but mainly I) came up with the idea of a podcast about what people have for breakfast. It's the question that you're generally asked by technicians when you're testing your mics on a radio show (especially in the morning) but I think it might be quite revelatory. Danny and I had an interesting chat anyway (though it wasn't recorded!)
Nice to see the family again - they were out at Catie's dad's birthday when I got home, but I joined them later and did some pass the parcel. I don't think the kids had noticed I'd been gone. I'd missed Phoebe's football yesterday and her team won 9-0. I wish I'd seen that. The things I give up to bring you the pleasure of my comedic stylings!
Very tired by the end of this long weekend. I am doing the next section of the tour without Bex has she had other gigs in, so I hope I survive that. But very much looking forward to it. It's been lovely not doing much live work, but it's pathetically fulfilling to be back on stage again.
