Winners Wear Yellow

My goal for 2014 came a little closer to reality today. You've probably already seen me mention the fact that I'm running my first half marathon in March (yes yes, just the once or twice!). Well, today waiting for me when I got home was a package that contained this.

Well a marathon man needs a snazzy vest

Yes, I am now the proud owner of my very own Shine running vest. And all it is going to cost me is one Saturday morning where I will be dragging my body round a circuit of just over 13 miles. That seems fair, right? The truth is I'm pretty indebted to the charity. They were a helpful ear when we had so many questions about Spina Bifida after my son was diagnosed with it during pregnancy. They made a difference to our family, and do so for many others who find themselves in similar situations. I'd say that was worth pushing myself physically and drumming up some sponsorship in return.

Having received my lovely new bit of kit, I decided to take it for a road test. Yes, I went out for a run last night too but that ended prematurely due to the weather, whereas this evening the were no rainclouds in sight. I went out and ran just under 4km before I came to the conclusion that running with partially weary limbs into a headwind was counterproductive. I walked for a bit, then got bored and picked up the pace again, running for a further 2km before a final stroll home. Shine have the hashtag #WinnersWearYellow - from tonight's efforts I'd say the vest is fit for the half marathon but I've got some hard graft to put in to get me ready.

As selfies go, this is not a keeper

One thing that struck me during my run tonight was just how many fast food joints there are nearby. I passed a kebab van, several fish and chip shops, a Chinese take away, lots of non-descript chicken/burger outlets, a McDonalds, a KFC, a Subway, pizza parlours, not to mention several Indian restaurants. No wonder we're turning into a bunch of fatties in this country with so many high calorie outlets in close proximity. There was a time when I ate McDonalds every lunchtime. I can also remember a time when I ate a kebab pretty much every night. If we are to believe that we are what we eat, it really isn't any great surprise that I was a 24st tub of lard. Nowadays all of the above are a rare treat, but well off my agenda until I've got back down to pre-Christmas weight.

Tomorrow will be my first Wednesday weigh-in for a while. I've little doubt that I will have shed some of the Christmas excess but quite how much remains to be seen. The bigger challenge right now is getting myself ready for 22 March and those 13 and a bit miles. I've got my vest. I've got my motivation. The question is have I got what it takes to get to the finish. Time will tell.

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Guilt Free Lunch

Way back in January when I started out on this weightloss mission, I wrote an article in which I declared Subway Is Dead To Me, With the exception of a special day in February when my little one was born, I have steered clear. Today I broke with the convention and enjoyed a footlong 'Big Beef Melt' on honey oat bread, toasted with cheese, served with lettuce, cucumber, green peppers, pickles and drizzled in sweet onion sauce (for some absurd reason they didn't have honey mustard so had to go with an alternative).

Here it is in its full glory

Damn that Sub looks good!

I savoured every mouthful and scoffed the lot. Now, this isn't exactly my usual behaviour, or at least it hasn't been over the last 10 months or so. I usually get by with a pretty humble salad for lunch these days, which is just as well because making this a regular option would prove costly, both to the wallet and the diet success. The fact is though, a treat once in a while is allowed, and I think my circumstances today justified it.

I was awake from just after 3 after the little one decided he was no longer asleep. Poor little thing has been teething and plagued with the sniffles, so it has not been uncommon for he and I to get acquainted during the night. However, unlike most other nights, he really was determined not to go back to sleep. Blowing raspberries, pulling my ears, chuntering away. Any sleep I managed between then and 6 was patchy in the extreme. The alarm went off and it was action stations, needing to get the two of us out of the house quickly and on the road.

Today was an appointment with the neurosurgeon to discuss the results of a recent MRI scan on his head and spine. Unfortunately to get there meant joining the commute into London. It wasn't a good sign when I had to queue to get onto the M4 in the first place. The radio told me what I didn't want to hear; an accident further down the road causing delays. We'd set off with plenty of time to spare, but this was not what was wanted. Tired, grouchy, a little nervous about the outcome of the appointment, and with raspberries blowing at me from the back seat while pootling along at a snail's pace, I realised that I hadn't had time for breakfast. Fortunately I'd had the sense to have some cans of diet pepsi on hand to provide a caffeine boost for the journey, but even so, this was not the best way to start the day.

It took a while to get into town. Typically little man fell asleep towards the end of the journey meaning when we parked up he woke up grumpy and made pretty clear his demands for milk. Fortunately that soothed the beast and brought back my smiley boy. The appointment followed soon afterwards and there was much relief when told there was no change from the previous scan and we continue as we have been doing for the last few months. No need for any operations, just get on with life and scan again in a number of months time.

I managed to get little man to his nursery just in time for him to sit down with the other babies for lunch. Home via the GP to request a repeat prescription and then off to work for the afternoon. Still no food and by the time I reached the office I'd been awake for more or less 9 hours. Subway was calling out to me and why not. It had been a long morning. The treat was justified, Best of all, that is all it was. A treat. A one off. There will be no repeat. I'll be munching on my spinach and cucumber tomorrow. I'll have had my porridge for breakfast. I'll be returning to what has served me so well over the last year. Self control is the single most important factor when it comes to dieting. Right now I have have it, and so long as that remains the case, bad habits won't creep back in.

So here is to an occasional guilt free lunch. You served me well today Subway, bringing me out of a sleep deprived, anxiety filled morning and setting me up for the rest of the day. But having met my needx, you can go back to being dead to me once more. See you again in the future some time.

Persistence is key

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.

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Last Cup of Sorrow

It is probably no coincidence that the second most prolific day of the week for me in writing for this blog (after Wednesday weigh-in) is a Tuesday, so that I can my excuses in nice and early. All good intentions for the past week rather got blown out of the water as the Bank Holiday Weekend descended into a first class example of over-indulgence.

It is a shame really as things had got off to such a good start. Buoyed by the sight of unfriendly numbers during last week's Wednesday weigh-in, I made a couple of trips to the gym and picked up my running intensity. Meal sizes were restrained and snacks left in the cupboard. But as is so often the case when trying to be proactive about weight management, life intervenes.

On Friday morning I was up at some ungodly hour. Breakfast should never be eaten when the clock begins with the number 5, but circumstances dictated an early start. One commute and several hours of medical appointment later, which wasn't without it's moments of mild panic and concern, I found myself walking down Denmark Hill towards Camberwell feeling stupidly hungry and surrounded by the welcoming sight of Nandos, Subway and Pizza Hut. Which did I choose? Well none of the above. My tuna and cucumber wraps prepared at stupid o'clock would do nicely. But then before my long overdue picnic in a London car park, a detour into Morrisons brought me face to face with the devil.

During the morning, I'd received tweets from the Placement Officer fraternity encouraging me to get involved with #MuffinFriday - and lo and behold I did. This little badboy was added to my lunch

Cherry, chocolate, cream, calories!

Now in isolation, I think this would have been just reward for an early start, commute into town and stressful stop/start journey home on a damp Friday afternoon, caught up in half term/Bank Holiday traffic. However, that sort of mentality inevitably had the domino effect and the rest of the long weekend was filled with that lethal combination of minimal activity, excess food consumption and a few pints a night to round things off.

It is therefore pretty safe to assume that the scales tomorrow morning will not be terribly favourable. Even my effort today at going to the gym in my lunch break was thwarted by my stupidity in walking there from the office in torrential rain only to discover when I got there that I'd left my membership card back in my pedestal. The walk back in the rain, combining with the tighter feel of my clothing after the weekend excess only served up a stew of negativity and gave me a lame excuse not to march back to the gym.

Tonight, I know I have one last bottle of Magners which is currently chilling in the freezer. I've just enjoyed some summer trifle and will be washing that down shortly with the fizzy apple stuff. The scales tomorrow will provide a new baseline to move forward from and I'll be flicking that diet switch. I'm going to enjoy my last hurrah, then it is high time I got #YearOfTheDiet back on track.

Crunch Time

This blog will become pretty quiet in the next week or so. It won't be because I've lost interest or because I've given up on the diet, though the latter may be true in the short term. Quite simply, there will be more important things at hand than typing away about the daily challenges of long term weightloss.

In approximately 36 hours, my family will expand with the arrival of a new baby boy. 9 months in the making and here we are on the verge of meeting our new addition. I'd like to say I'm feeling the same as I was ahead of the birth of my elder son, which was a mixture of excitement, anticipation, bewilderment and nerves. However, things are a bit different second time around, which is explained in a bit more detail over here courtesy of my brother-in-law's Just Giving page.

I'm approaching the coming days partly with a sense of trepidation but mostly feeling relief that my son is finally going to enter this world. While I've heard from many people that this has come around so quickly, in truth it has felt like a lifetime since the 20 week scan revealed all was not as expected. The next week will present some extremely testing moments, but it will be worth it all when I'm given the all clear to give my son a long overdue cuddle and share that father and baby bonding that every new dad cherishes.

On the diet front, I'll do my best to avoid the sweet machines in the hospital. I find it somewhat ridiculous that in a place meant to help people get better, there are mars bars waiting to vend in exchange for coinage. I'll eat as healthily as possible though won't beat myself up when the Subway and Nandos down the road provide greater practicality. When the time is right, I'll break my alcohol abstinence and enjoy a beer or two to wet the baby's head. I've got a few bottles chilling in the fridge and I think I'll deserve one.

Wish me and my family good luck - things are about to get a little crazy.

Shed the lbs for £19!

I don't know about you, but I never really bought into the Groupon thing. Maybe it is because I'm not based in a big city and therefore not really in a geographical position to take advantage of discounted restaurant meals or seventy-five per cent off a session sticking my feet in a fish tank. Whatever the reason, the only deal that that made me sit up and take notice, was a heavily discounted packed of football coaching sessions for my son. £13 instead of £80 was such an obvious bargain that not even I could pass on the opportunity.

However, in amongst the predictable junk email I found in my inbox this morning, came this little beauty from Nectar, promoting their daily deal. Apparently for just £19 I can lose weight through hypnosis! You can see the ad below, and lets not forget about the 38 nectar points for every purchase.

Hypnosis can turn me into a flat-bellied woman on the beach, apparently

The question that has to be asked then is does this work? Anybody? I mean, why on worth would I choose to bully my subconscious and stomach into submission through a strict regime of food and beer control when for less than the cost of 4 footlong Subway lunch deals I can lose weight for seemingly no effort on my part.

It doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. I'll be the first to admit that beyond occasionally watching Paul McKenna shows when I was younger, I don't know a great deal about hypnosis. I watched one of my friends supposedly be hypnotised at a beach party in Tenerife on a boozy holiday when I was in my early 20s, though it later transpired that he had simply fallen asleep courtesy of drinking too much. 

I'm therefore not going to discredit a whole industry based upon no sound evidence but I just can't see how this will help. Maybe you've been through a course and swear by it. Get in touch and tell me why it works. I'm genuinely interested to know more. Did it help you lose weight or did you find yourself wondering why you handed over your cash? Maybe you've seen the deal and are giving it a shot. Share your progress and put this doubting thomas right.

I'll be keeping my £19 in my pocket on this occasion. For me shortcuts are not the answer, no matter how they are marketed or discounted. This is my battle of mind over matter. Willpower and determination are my tools for success, and they don't cost a penny.

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Subway is dead to me

I don't know if it is just silly season at the moment, but certain sections of the right wing media seem to be trying to whip up a storm with regard to junk food. Labour 'should consider banning Frosties' was one article that caught my eye this weekend. Diane Abbott wages war with fried chicken was another. I'm not really interested in the politics of the stories, but I would be annoyed if there came a time when our elected officials dictate what you can or can eat.

I didn't get to 24st by eating celery and tomatoes. Over a prolonged period I overate. Some of that was junk food. Most of it would have been fairly decent food but in elephant sized portions. What went into my mouth was my choice and my responsibility. Unless there is legitimate medicinal reasoning for withdrawing certain foods, such as beef when mad cow disease was on the agenda, government has no business telling me what I can and can't eat.

When I was eating a kebab every night of the week, I knew it was not good for me. Now I am on a diet, fast food outlets are strictly out of bounds. At least twice every working day I find myself facing this

Subway, conveniently opposite the office I work in

Nobody has ever forced me to eat there, and I won't be doing so for the forseeable future. Mind over matter. I'd love to eat there every day, but to achieve my goal I can't. When I've lost 41lbs I may well go and grab myself a footlong to celebrate, but until then Subway is dead to me. A diet is a subconscious decision to lose weight. I don't need politicians, however well meaning, intervening on my behalf.

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