Wednesday Weigh-In 31 July

So the end of July rolls by and we're about to hit the last five months of 2013. Going by quickly, eh? It means I've been doing this now for 7 months with some degree of success, though the diet has certainly had its ups and downs. The long term view though has been good, with more that 2 stones shed since January 2nd, and it is important to take stock on what has happened over a lengthy period rather than zero in on individual days.

With that in mind I'm not going to admonish myself for a typically gluttonous visit to my mother's house at the weekend. I knew what to expect before I got there, and demonstrated scant regard for self-restraint. Fruitcake, pizza, burgers, cheese, crusty bread, cheesecake. You name it, I ate it. Still, that sort of behaviour doesn't happen often and so pigging out once in a while won't affect my long term goals.

In the short term, well things don't seem to have hurt. Last week I weighed in at 16st 5lbs. This week I am 1lb lighter. All things considered, that is a great result. Another lb bites the dust!

I notched up my 4th 5k run on Saturday, again improving my PB which now stands at 28:02. The hope for the coming Saturday is to dip below 28 minutes for the first time. If I can continue to chip away at my time, whilst shedding the occasional lb or two, I'm going to be a very happy man.

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Forward Progress

parkrun logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don't know what specifically it is about Saturday mornings that makes me feel so rough. There was a time when it would have been half a dozen pints and a dirty kebab that accounted for it, but it has been some years since that was a regular occurrence. To be honest, the newer slimmer (older) me would probably struggle to consume on a night out as I managed in days gone by, not that the opportunity comes about too often now I'm the proud dad of two beautiful boys.

This morning, just as last Saturday, I didn't feel my best. The sore neck that was was impairing me has improved a lot after finding a better pillow combination and managing to get some sleep with the weather cooling down. And yet after polishing off my branflakes, all I really wanted to do was crawl back into bed rather than head off to Black Park for my weekly ParkRun.

However, head off I did. I've no excuse not to now, after my other half bought an annual parking permit meaning I don't have to scrounge together £2.50 to park my car to do the run. If I don't use it, I'll be in trouble, so looks like my Saturday mornings for the foreseeable future will be spent killing myself in a pair of running shoes.

It is funny running outdoors. I'm used to hitting a treadmill at the gym, where I have the choice of music or Sky Go on my phone to keep me amused, or failing that Millionnaire Matchmaker or Emerdale on ITV2 to laugh at while going along at a steady 12kph. But when I'm running outdoors, I leave the phone at home and just focus on the course. Except my mind never lets me just focus on running. Today it was telling me there was no point in entering the 10k in September because I'll just embarass myself. It was trying to convince my body that I'd have to give up when I hit the 2k marker, which in due course I managed to miss and suddenly found myself at the 3k marker instead. It had me believing I'd run slower than last week and possibly slower than my previous runs too.

And yet when the result came through earlier this afternoon, another PB had been notched up. 23 seconds off last week's time, finishing a respectable 28:02. Link to my ParkRun times True it isn't quite as swish as my brother-in-law who recorded a sub 25 minute run today up in Bradford, though he politely informed me that circuit is a lot easier than mine!

Given I've not engaged in any meaningful cardio exercise since the run last Saturday morning, I was delighted to have topped my PB. It felt like a struggle throughout, but I'll happily feel dreadful every week if it keeps knocking 23 seconds off the time. I'd like to think that at some point I will find it gets easier, though I somehow doubt that. Still, an obvious target for next week is to dip below 28 minutes and if I do that I'll be ecstatic.

So tonight, I'm going to enjoy my now traditional Saturday night bottle or two. I think they're merited after giving up an hour of kids TV this morning to go and run myself into the ground. Weightloss in the week followed by a PB at the weekend. Things are progressing nicely.

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Wednesday Weigh-In - 24 July

After several weeks of non-movement with the bathroom scales, today has seen some action. I'm delighted to say they have gone in the right direction. The last few weigh-ins have had me at 16st 8lb. Today I am 3lbs lighter.

YES!

While I have been upbeat in my last few weigh-in articles about levelling out, I will admit there was a degree of frustration involved. Like anybody else, when dieting you want to see things happening to reward you for your efforts. I've had my running endeavours to keep me happy but to have had another week on 16st 8lbs would have been blimming irritating. So to see that 3lbs have disappeared in the last 7 days is both relief and excitement.

I've now lost just over 2 stone since the start of the year. My first weigh in had me on 18st 6lbs and a target was set of 41lbs loss to get me back to 15st 7lb, which is what I weighed on my wedding day some 5 years ago. I've 12lbs left to go before I hit my goal and just over 5 months of the year to do it. I don't want to be presumptuous, but that does sound increasingly possible.

My stint at daddy day care may actually have worked in my favour the last couple of days. While I've not managed to get to the gym, I have found that the fridge is my friend after all. My lunch and dinners have been heavily loaded with spinach and mushrooms, and bread has been removed from the diet. I don't attribute a 3lb loss completely down to this, but I can't discount it either.

So, it is with a spring in my step I go forward today. The weightloss is ticking along again, my running continues to improve (a 58 second improvement on my 5k PB on Saturday) and I've enjoyed a few days with my boys. Definitely been a good week.

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Well I'm just a modern guy

Today is the first of a three day stint of being a stay at home dad. My wife has returned to work following her maternity leave and for the next three days, I'm at home with baby (and his brother). The parenting side of this holds no fears for me. I'm adept at changing nappies, serving baby rice and playing ridiculous board games where you stick a plastic bee on your head and have to collect magnetic balls hands free. No, the only thing that worries me about the next few days is me.

Let me explain. My achilles heel in my bid to lose weight is the weekends. Aside from half an hour on a Saturday morning when I pretend to be Sebastian Coe, I'm far less active than I am during the week, and eat a lot more. Going to work offers me more structure in that I've got a lunch hour where I can get to the gym and back, and be regimented on what and when I eat. At home with two young boys, the gym is off limit and the fridge is not my friend.

So the next three days present something of a challenge, not least as the weather today is meant to get stupid hot again which may prohibit extended periods at the park or even an evening jog when my other half gets home. But I know I've got to make this challenge work, because this is essentially a trial for what will become a full-time vocation in a few weeks time.

I'm taking advantage of the recently changed laws on paternity leave and will be taking September and October off in entirety, as an extension of my wife's maternity leave. Two months at home with my little one, while getting his older brother settled into his first term at school. It is something I've looked forward to ever since finding out we were expecting, and all the more so after my initial paternity leave was by and large spent living in a hospital, following the birth and subsequent surgery.

Quite how being a modern dad and taking additional paternity leave will work out remains to be seen. When push comes to shove, I can't imagine being out of the office during the busiest month of the year will make me many friends, though the timing is purely coincidental. Despite the modern world supposedly embracing equality and diversity, it will be interesting to see if putting family first will have a negative impact on future career prospects. It shouldn't, but then women of child bearing age shouldn't be discriminated against in the job market either, though regrettably it does happen.

Enough pondering about the job. My task at hand is to be daddy. September/October should be easier to maintain discipline as there will be a structure to the day, walking my eldest to and from school, providing some light exercise whilst pushing his brother in the pram. As for this week, I'll just have to be on my best behaviour, avoid the pitfalls of the food cupboards and try to ensure I'm not sat on my backside tapping away at the laptop throughout.

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When Saturday Comes

We Brits love to moan about the Great British Weather. When it rains, we tut and scoff. On the couple of days a year it snows we scream blue murder. When the sun finally comes out to play like it has during July, we all rush down to Argos to buy desk fans and complain about it being too hot. No wonder the Australians call us the whinging poms (how's the Ashes looking down under right now???!!)

I've tried my best to keep positive about the weather over the last few weeks but it has been difficult. With the long hot evenings, the temptation to open a nice cold can or two has been strong. BBQs aren't exactly weightloss friendly and any resemblance of sleeping pattern has gone the way of the Australian top order. Simply put, in sticky conditions, sleep has been at a premium. I'm not somebody who relies on a good night's sleep, but when it because an ongoing problem, life becomes more difficult. 

For the last week I've been nursing a very sore neck brought about by sleeping awkwardly. When I feel crap, I don't feel like exercising. When I'm tired, I feel like stuffing my face with sugar. That I've managed to maintain three trips to the gym a week and stay clear of the bad stuff has come as a surprise, though I've rather made up for that with weekend consumption.

On Saturday morning, apathy kicked in big style. I'd had my bowl of bran flakes. My eldest was watching Spiderman. My youngest had his bottle of milk prepared for when he woke from his slumber. It was 8.25am my neck was in pieces following another sleep deprived night. Whoever owns a cockerel on my estate will be getting a visit from Colonel Sanders when I find out who the culprit is. I had virtually talked myself out of pulling on the trainers and heading off to my local ParkRun, but somehow found the resolve to do it. Five minutes later and I was in the car.

My third attempt at the Saturday morning 5k felt like a struggle from the word go. I went off a little more quickly than I was comfortable with meaning by the 2k marker I was gasping for whatever air I could get into my pathetic lungs. On my two previous runs I'd spent a good minute walking to recover my breathing on more than one occasion. Even though I was struggling I didn't let myself repeat this, instead slowing for 10-15 seconds before setting off again. This became frustratingly repetitive as I never really got back to a comfortable rhythm. In the last kilometre I found myself giving an Andy Murray pep-talk as I got more and more annoyed, and muttering Come On Graham seemed to help. 

When I crossed the finish line, I was somewhat surprised to see I'd finished 166th. My two previous positions were 247 and 206. There was a noticeably smaller field at Black Park, presumably because of the 10k taking place a few miles down the road at the Dorney rowing centre. I felt somewhat downbeat when I got my time recorded as I thought it was probably my slowest time to date. I didn't have a running buddy to keep me motivated this week and that combined with numerous but shorter slower phases meant I wasn't expecting an improvement on my last run.

Imagine my surprise then when mid Saturday afternoon, whilst flaking out on my bed trying to get my neck comfy, I got my time come through by text. 28 minutes 25 seconds. A full 58 second improvement on my previous best. I went online to check the results as I didn't quite believe it at first, but there it was in black and white. My PB not just bettered, but smashed. Best of all, I know there is still plenty of room for improvement.

So the next time I feel a bit crap and demotivated, I only need to look to yesterday for inspiration. From being perilously close to giving it a miss, to running faster than this overweight unfit bloke has run before. The take away and ciders that followed last night won't have done any good for my weightloss aspirations, but felt just reward for getting off my backside.

It can be very easy to give in to that little negative voice that makes you believe you can't do something. At 8.25 Saturday morning I was convinced I couldn't run that morning. By 9.30 I'd completed the course and demonstrated to myself that I'm capable of doing things that I think are beyond me. When Saturday Comes is a phrase more associated with football (and terrible acting from Sean Bean), but right now I can't wait for next Saturday and hit the course again.

Rio 2016 here I come

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Wednesday Weigh-In 17 July

Television programmes about weightloss; discuss. Normally I wouldn't give them my attention. Celebrity 'Fit' Club, Britain's Biggest Loser, not really my thing. I watch tv to be entertained, not to endure other people's misery. It came as a bit of a surprise then on Monday night when I found myself watching Sky Living and was mesmerised by the Fat: The Fight of My Life. The reason why, was because the subject of the show was a guy in his mid 20s, topping the scales at 27 stone.

Rewind the clock 7 years and I could have been that man. OK, I never weighed quite that much, but I wasn't far off. I didn't much care about how big I was. I didn't think I would ever love or be loved. I didn't expect life to improve and all I really did with myself was eat. Excessively. Sometimes food for comfort. Sometimes food just because I had nothing better to do. It rather fills me with dread to think about where I would be right now had I not started to diet.

Anyway, the TV show was much as what you would expect. Fat guy meets a mentor. Mentor makes him work hard and sweat. Fat bloke starts to lose weight at the rate of knots and his life turns around. He lost 10 stone in just under a year. Phenomenal effort and he looked so much better for it. He got a job that he liked, moved into new and improved accommodation and started to pursue his ambitions. Fair play to the guy.

True, there were one or two obligatory make the fat man cry moments on the show, which I didn't feel were really necessary. When I think back to my participation in Making Slough Happy, I've always been particularly grateful that footage of me blubbing during video diary shoots never made the final cut that was broadcast.

Since watching that show, my thoughts have switched to the bigger picture. I can put myself under pressure to get a 'positive' result on a Wednesday morning, but the long term outlook is what really matter. I'm not that 24 stone guy who was eating himself to an early grave a few years back. Yes I'm a bit heavier than I'd ideally like to be right now, but things have been improving steadily on that front this year. As my weigh in picture today shows, I'm 27lbs lighter than I was when I started Year Of The Diet. I now run 5k's for fun, improving my time by 43 seconds at the weekend on my first run.

Third week running - despite weekend booze and BBQs

I'm happier, I'm healthier. I've not gained weight. I know a lot of people who get disheartened when the scales don't budge, but I don't. Obviously I'd prefer to see the numbers going backwards, but as long as they aren't shooting upwards, I am doing my job, managing my weight rather than letting the old demons get the better of me.

I used to be that guy

Now I'm this guy

It would have been great to have lost weight this week. I didn't. I'll move on. The weightloss will come.

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Wednesday Weigh-In 10 July

Not a whole lot to be excited about so far as the weigh-in goes today. After a number of weeks of seeing the numbers go backwards, this week they've flatlined. Considering the food and drink excess of the weekend that I described yesterday, this doesn't come as much of a surprise and I've certainly no complaints. 

Apologies for the sideways shot - No Gain

So the positive spin is that I've still lost 12lbs over the past 6 weeks, I've completed a 5k run and according to one colleague at least, I'm visibly slimmer. No need to change what I'm doing at the moment then, just carry on with what has served me well to date. 

The first challenge of the week comes today when there is a buffet lunch available at a meeting I have at work. Restraint in the face of a table full of food is not one of my strong points! On Friday lunchtime I know I will be eating out ahead of a meeting and have already been carefully running my eye over the menu so that I have a good idea of what to get, rather than find myself plumping for a giant mixed grill or something equally daft. A bit of forward planning never hurts.

Without a birthday to justify diet breaking this week, I'm hoping to get down to 16st 6lb ahead of next week's weigh-in. That would mean 2 stone have been lost since the start of the year and then I can focus on shedding the last 13lb of my original 41lb weightloss target. All being well I'll be doing my second 5k ParkRun on Saturday morning and will be interested to see my progress on the initial run last weekend. If anybody fancies joining me, head to Black Park ahead of a 9am start and register online at Parkrun.com

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Birthday blitz

It is safe to say that I'm glad I'm not the Queen. Having two birthdays a year would make it doubly difficult to keep restraint over a birthday weekend. I became another year older on Saturday (but not necessarily wiser) and justifiably decided that I'd step back from the diet and enjoy myself. By Sunday night, bloated didn't even come close to describing how I felt.

The weekend had started so well. On Saturday morning rather than enjoy the luxury of a lie-in, I joined my local ParkRun even and completed my first ever 5k. I'll freely admit it was a struggle at times, and on several occasions I had to slow to walking pace to get some air back into my pathetic lungs, but in a time of 30:06 I completed the course. Here is my result on the world wide web for everybody to see

Now, several things annoyed me about the run. Firstly, the fact I had to keep taking breathers highlighted that my overall fitness level is not great. I knew this already but it was flagged up to me in a big way, and has cast some doubts on my ability to run a 10k in late September. Lots more training to be done between now and then I think. Trying to maintain a steady pace without an LED panel telling me how fast I am running proved difficult and I think the next time I do the run I'll have to be wary about not running too fast, and if that means pootling along rather than using up energy to overtake other runners then so be it. Finishing directly behind two 14 year olds was a bit of a kick in the teeth, while the time when it came through was a touch irritating, given that had I shifted myself around the circuit in 7 seconds less I'd have broken 30 minutes.

Still, it was a first effort and once I get to know the course a little better and become more practiced at running outdoors I can see my time improving. I've noticed further up the leaderboard is a former colleague of mine who consistently finishes around the 27 minute mark. Maybe next time I'll look out for her and follow her around the route.

So, once the run was over, a bit of a free for all took place over the rest of the weekend. Bacon butties, birthday cake, Pimms, BBQ, afternoon cider, it all added up to a weekend of gluttony. More than ever I've come to appreciate the value of sticking to a regular once a week weigh-in, because at varying points in a 48 hour period I saw a 9lb differential on the scales. What will count is what I see in my bathroom tomorrow morning, and thankfully I've had a couple of days to work off the excess with the usual lunchtime treadmill action. Monday's effort was a bit of a struggle but today went much better.

With the birthday out of the way, I can concentrate on my weightloss goals as well as upping my fitness. Since mid-May I've come quite a long way, losing the best part of a stone and going from utter novice on a treadmill to running a 5k. Things are definitely moving in the right direction, and a colleague remarked at me earlier today that I had lost weight. Always nice when other people notice a difference.

The weigh-in comes tomorrow and I'll accept whatever the outcome is. Last Friday morning I was looking good for another loss, but then the weekend happened. I've lots to be positive about rather than dwell on a temporary predictable blip. All being well I'll be doing the 5k again on Saturday and my aim will be improvement on my previous time.

Under starters orders

Today was my last training run before I tackle my first 5k on Saturday morning. A lunchtime in an air conditioned gym is a bit different to what I can expect on Saturday in Black Park, on what is meant to be a glorious summer's day, but I'm pretty happy with how I've progressed since getting on the treadmill for the first time in a long while back on 16 May.

For the first time today I managed to run 4k without slowing, and had it not been for the fact that I did not want to push myself too much before Saturday I think I could have managed the full 5k. I had plenty of energy in reserve and even managed 4 x 1 minutes sprints during my warm down. When I see that finish line on Saturday, I'll be looking to end the run as quickly as possible!

So I've got my running shoes. My Parkrun barcode has been printed and laminated. I've got a mate coming along to do the run with me (love you Shaney!) and I've got some change ready for the car park. All that remains to be seen now is can I convert my treadmill running to an outdoor timed event? I'm feeling confident, and will post results on here on Saturday.

Lunchtime activity 4 July - gobbles up breakfast and lunch calories

Slower beginnings back on 16 May

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Wednesday Weigh-In 3 July

Well here is a bit of a turn up for the books. I've managed to lose 2lbs this week taking me down to my lowest weight of 2013. Here is the evidence

Loving those numbers going backwards

I'm going to consider this as a birthday bonus, because I had not expected to lose weight this week. The following sentence is likely annoy a lot of people, so consider this a health warning! When I've eaten cheesy enchiladas, take away from Pizza Hut, polished off 4 Damme Cold beers, showed little restraint in eating party food at a 4 year old's birthday and demolished moussaka and raspberry panna cotta from the M&S Dine 2 for £10 range, I'd have little complaint at levelling out or had the numbers nudged upwards. Well done me then, even if I don't really think my efforts of the past seven days deserved it.

That said, my increased food consumption has coincided with stepping up my running somewhat. 4 trips to the gym covering circa 20km will have gone some way to burning off the excess, and apparently helping to tackle the long-term flab. Back to the gym shortly to road test the new trainers and grease the wheels for hopefully another successful week of weighloss.

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