Me vs Statistics

Not surprisingly the start of the year brings about lots of talk about diets. I'm not the only voice evangelising about losing weight as part of a new year health kick. Newspapers have been talking about them, the bloggosphere is full of new year resolutions vowing that this will be the year that weight will be shed. Channel 5 dedicated two hours to a programme the other night in which they tried to debunk myths about dieting which made for very depressing viewing. Everything in that show was so negative that by the end of it I felt like saying 'sod it' and reaching for the Pringles.

Following a suggestion from my old school friend GourmetMum I recently signed up as a member of BritMums. I know, I know, what is a guy doing joining an online community of mums? Well, they take dads as well for a start, plus with no obviously comparable collective of male bloggers, it made sense to join this pre-existing network. In the forum section I posted a link to this site and suggested that if any other members were looking to slim down in 2014, they may want to have a look. My only reply to date read as follows

Not for me. Allegedly only 10% of diets work and most people end up fatter than they started

Hey, thanks for the encouragement! I don't expect everyone to want to sing from my hymnsheet, but really? Even if those statistics are true, that is no reason to buckle under unfavourable odds. Hell, if I made my choices purely on high percentages, I wouldn't have enjoyed the company of my gorgeous little boy this afternoon. (9 out of 10 diagnosed spina bifida pregnancies are aborted in the UK)

I'm not daft enough to think that dieting works for everybody, but then I know not everybody will work hard to make a diet work. It requires motivation, dedication and the ability to resist temptation, traits that served me well last year and I hope will continue to do so in 2014. I've written several times in the course of this blog about my motivation so won't go over old ground in this article. Resisting temptation is probably the most difficult to achieve. I've had my struggles with this at times, but being able to say no is fundamental for achieving weight loss. Just today, my eyes lit up at the mince pies and Christmas cake that was on display at my mother's house. They say the first taste is with they eye; in this instance that was the only taste I had.

As for dedication, this can take many forms. Sticking to your diet plan, abstaining from alcohol, settling for something nutritious on a Friday night rather than opting for take away. I demonstrated my dedication today by ignoring the weather, donning a ridiculous jacket and got my arse running. It would have been so easy to stay put in my warm lounge hearing the rain pounding the outside world, but instead I kept to my plan, ran my 5k and felt all the better for it.

Tango Man sighted near woods - Photo by John Tipping

I didn't lose more than 4 stone in 2013 because of luck. I made my diet work and having done so I'll be damned if I'm going to become just another statistic of someone that allowed themselves to become fatter than before. If the numbers aren't on your side, don't be afraid to the exception, rather than the rule. Somebody has to break the mould, and that somebody might as well be you.

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