A few days ago I found myself talking to the mother of one of my friends. She'd not seen me for a while and so came out with a question that I'm getting used to answering. 'Have you lost more weight?' I was asked. After giving a positive reply the inevitable follow up question came my way - 'How do you do it?' At this point I declined the invitation to plug Year Of The Diet as I'm not entirely sure that wading through 9 months of blog articles would come up with a satisfactory answer to the question. Instead I summarised in a single word what I think has been the secret to my success. Persistence.
Throughout this process I've been trying to identify what works for me, and persist with that formula. It is all very well just saying eat less, exercise more, but if you don't find a sustainable diet plan for yourself or discover something that makes you want to pull on your sweatshirt and cause yourself pain, it is unlikely that the success you crave will be forthcoming.
On the food front, I've kept things simple. Cereal for breakfast, a large but light lunch and a proper sized dinner. Alcohol restricted to a couple of drinks on a Saturday night. Takeout restricted to a once in a while treat. Minimal snacking between meals and of course
Subway is dead to me. I'll admit that there are days when there is quite severe deviation from the plan. Only a couple of days ago I had what is best described as an "off-day". My little one delivered a rude awakening at 4am and decided that he was not in the mood to allow me to go back to sleep. I thought middle of the night feeds were well behind us but on this occasions it was a question of needs must. I conked out on the lounge floor some time around 5.30 before my eldest came down at 7 wanting breakfast and getting ready for school. What followed during the morning was a recipe of crisps, biscuits, yoghurt, before eventually my compulsion to eat ended after a monster 6-egg omelette filled with mushrooms, green and red peppers and spinach for lunch. For the rest of the afternoon I enjoyed that mega bloated feeling!
Despite the off-day, things will get back to normal. My diet thus far has worked and for it to continue to be effective, I must persist.
The same goes for exercise. I have to remind myself from time to time that I am still very much a novice when it comes to running and learning as I go. Last Saturday I got things pretty wrong with my 5k. Pre-race I was talking to one of my office colleagues about work and the discussion got me thinking in such a negative manner that when it came time to set off, I was angry. Rather than harness this and channel my frustration at recent events into a positive force, I rather erupted and set off at what for me is an unsustainable pace. The net result was a very demoralising last 3500 metres and while I still got round completing the course in a decent time, I was left feeling pretty disappointed with how the run had gone. The following morning, rather than take up the welcome option to head back to bed for an hour of catch-up sleep, I instead opted for a run around Slough Industrial Estate, deliberately pacing myself with a view to find a rhythm I could work with. And while my run ended well before my intended finish due to fatigue (running back to back days not ideal) I proved to myself that I could do this.
When I got to Black Park yesterday morning I was determined to have a better run. I opted to leave my headphones at home. I didn't bother with the RunKeeper app. With the 10k only a couple of weeks away I had this marked down as a training run in which I could go along comfortably rather than chase a PB. It was just me against the course, albeit with about 350 or so other people. Setting off at a steady and measured pace, I soon found myself running alongside a ParkRun veteran, with more than 250 runs under her belt and someone I have found overtaking me towards the end of most of my runs to date when I have been wilting. I decided at that point to use her as my pacesetter, and for the first couple of kilometres let her dictate my pace. All was going well and I felt that I was running somewhat within myself. Usually between the 2nd and 3rd km markers I find myself slowing to walking pace to catch my breath. Not this time though. Feeling good I decided to up the pace a little and run my own race, leaving the pacesetter behind. For the first time I completed the circuit without walking and my reward for running non-stop was slicing 23 seconds off my personal best, breaking 26 minutes to boot. I clocked 25:57, more than
4 minutes quicker than my first effort a couple of months ago. Had I kept running alongside the veteran, I'd have finished just outside my PB, so probably just as well I changed tactics.
The time was an added bonus to be honest. I hadn't set out to run a PB, but it came to me as a result of my running persistence. The most pleasing aspect was that at the end of the race I felt really good and could have run for quite a while longer which bodes well for the 10k. I need to get out and do a longer training run this week to give me a better idea of what to expect, but things are pointing in the right direction.
This week
could see me hit my target weightloss. If I don't quite manage it, I know that sooner or later I will. Persistence has been the key to my success to date, and persistence will be key to achieving future goals too.
