WTF! Is the UK metric or not??

This topic contains 16 replies, has 9 voices, and was last updated by Humphrey 10 years, 6 months ago.

Viewing 17 posts - 1 through 17 (of 17 total)

Lockie

2:42 am
20 Oct 13
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I’m about to start the fast diet but can I get something off my chest (weight off already?). What’s with the use of pounds, stone, inches etc – I thought the UK was metric so WTF? Michael in his excellent book starts well with kgs with lbs in brackets but by the time he gets to his tables of personal before and after measures regresses to the old imperial measures with no metrics at all.
I’m the first to admit that losing two pouunds sounds like a lot more than 0.8 kg but would people either give the offical metric measures or at least convert for us who live in a metric world (which is most of it apart from a big recalcitant one that shall remain nameless).
Phew! Now I feel a lot better and think I just might be able to start on my diet journey (in kgs only but will convert to lbs for those unable to).

maureen55

3:48 am
20 Oct 13
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Hi Lockie
I only started last week and haven’t read the book yet. Did 2 days in a row Tues/Weds but think I will do Tuesday and Thursday next week. Whichever way, I felt good afterwards and am looking forward to my next FD.

Couscous

5:16 am
20 Oct 13
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Hi Lockie and welcome to the forum. Now, as regards metrication and the UK…….
Our unelected masters in the EU decreed that goods and services shall be sold/offered for sale using metric measures. However our historic pounds and ounces/Feet and inches can I understand be shown legally along side such metrication so long as they are both similarly sized. Goods and services must be weighed and sold using metric measures not pounds and ounces. Yet…. when advertising/selling land we still use good old Imperial measurements such as Acres.
Me, I am a pounds, shillings and pence man. What is wrong with yards, feet and inches, Furlongs, (still used on the race course) pounds and ounces, Hectares and Acres. So Michael, in his wisdom and like me, due to his age reverts to good old pounds and ounces because so many of us golden oldies still live in and for “The good old days”.
P.S. Can you guess I am anti European.
Keep us posted with your progress and good luck.

rockyromero

1:17 pm
20 Oct 13
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@couscous
“P.S. Can you guess I am anti European.”

I didn’t get that feeling, although it just seems to be that there is a lot of doublespeak in the measurements.

How do you know if you’re discussing currency or body weight, when you mention pounds?

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Humphrey

1:31 pm
20 Oct 13
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I suspect anyone in the UK around 45 or older will be weighing their own bods in stones and pounds. Everyone younger or in other parts of the world, well, you just have to live with our eccentricity – it’s what makes the world go round. If you tell me about your weight loss in kilos I automatically divide it by 2.2 so that I can understand what you mean ;). Vive le difference.
And how do we differentiate between currency and weight? We’re a bright lot and context is all.

rockyromero

1:49 pm
20 Oct 13
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@humphrey
“And how do we differentiate between currency and weight? We’re a bright lot and context is all.”

I get that.

Notice that in one sense you want more pounds, and in the other sense you want to lose pounds. Right?

Well, yes, the context of it all.

Here’s the catch. Your subconscious does not get context.

It gets in a loop.

This loop may be sabotaging you at some level.

I’m not living in a Brittish world, so I may be missing something here. Obviously, you have lived with this for centuries and are successful, in spite of this double meaning.

Or are you?

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annette52

2:32 pm
20 Oct 13
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It’s all part of our charm.

Humphrey

2:32 pm
20 Oct 13
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I can’t see how semantics can sabotage weight loss (apart from my eye rolling tendency when people get confused over lose and loose). And my success or otherwise is in no way related to needing a certain amount of £’s and wanting fewer llbs. But it’s an intriguing point. We could talk perhaps about needing plenty of loose change whilst wanting to lose llbs.

rockyromero

3:03 pm
20 Oct 13
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@humphrey
“We could talk perhaps about needing plenty of loose change whilst wanting to lose llbs.”

Here’s the other aspect: I want to gain muscle weight, gain pounds of muscle, and lose the fat.

In essence, at some level, I would be pleased to be at the same weight, only exchanging the fat pounds for muscle pounds.

Weight becomes irrelevant, in this context. Actually, I would even want to gain weight with muscle mass.

At the conscious level, this makes sense to me.

My point is that at the subconscious level, this is contradictory, and the conflict may be undermining our success.

As we all know, our subconscious is much more powerful and it’s what drives our behaviors.

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Iwant2Bincontrol

3:07 pm
20 Oct 13
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Humphrey I hope you don’t lose your pants if they get too loose.

Lindyw

5:23 pm
20 Oct 13
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I was tempted to join in here – but for the sake of international online relationships will refrain.

Couscous

6:51 pm
20 Oct 13
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Hi all, thank you all for the hilarity and like Lindyw I will refrain from adding to what must be some of the funniest comments to date.
Good luck to you all.

Lockie

6:12 pm
21 Oct 13
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Thanks everyone for the comments; interesting to see the old system is dying hard in the UK. Here in the former colony of Australia we converted to metric measures in 1966 so anyone born in the 60’s on is pretty well sold on metric. Being of the older generation I can still remember some of my tables but it’s getting murkier with time. I still say something is two inches long (or was that six inches?)but interestingly no-one refers to stone or pounds any more. Seems kg has conquered even us oldies and pounds have gone the way of home delivered milk.

But I have to tell you the good news – I started IF yesterday and I’M STILL ALIVE! It was tough. I was tempted but held out. I started the day with a skinny latté – I couldn’t give that up and then nothing apart from horrible green tea till night when I had a light dinner and no wine (I did whine a little!) so now I’m up at 4 am and having a real tea avec milk with some almonds (no muffins left)and looking forward to today and a future of IF.

anniemac

6:33 pm
21 Oct 13
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Hi, just wanted to say how funny you all are, it really cheers me up reading these comments. How about debating feet and inches as opposed to metres and centimetres next………am I 1.60 metres or 5 feet 3 inches tall ?

rockyromero

8:28 pm
21 Oct 13
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@anniemac
“am I 1.60 metres or 5 feet 3 inches tall ?”

Probably.

However, we determined that you should gain as much money as you can while reducing your fat weight.

Or as they must say in Britain: Gain as many pounds as you can, and lose even more pounds.

➰

Lockie

8:51 pm
21 Oct 13
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Well anniemac, from those measurements I’ve deduced that you are short.
A measurement of 6ft conjures up a better mental picture than 1.8m I have to admit. One gets fairly adept at converting since one ft is close to 30 cm and a help to convert metres to feet (mountains. plane heights etc) simply divide by 3 and multiply by 10 for a close approximation. v.v. for feet to metres, multiply by 3 and divide by ten.

Humphrey

5:42 am
22 Oct 13
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Ha! I’d LOVE to lose my pants (trousers and/or knickers) if they get loose, only not in public!!