What motivates a man to diet

Three days into the diet, and I've forgotten just how tiring it can be when your body has an endless supply of fuel cut off. I've moved beyond the stomach burn sensation and instead found myself lethargic. It has been tempting to reach for some sugary badness, but I've resisted so far. I'm writing this at 2.30 and dinner time seems a long way off.

As things stand, I don't have a specific target to work towards in 2015. I'm not booked in for any long runs, though I'm quite tempted by the idea of the North London Half. A course that runs right through Wembley Stadium certainly appeals, but it comes around a little too soon for me to get into any sort of shape. Having done the Royal Parks Half back in October without a great deal of training, I'm reluctant to make the same mistake again.

I guess my main motivation remains as it was when this blog started out a couple of years ago. I wanted to be fit and healthy for the sake of my boys, and that hasn't really changed. I'm not going to be much use to them if I continue with the gorging I've done in recent months. There are too many reminders in my life right now which demonstrate the fragility of our existence, and it would be a waste of my time on Earth if I continue to eat myself to an early grave.

Later this week, I plan to attend the funeral of a guy who I've been going to football matches with for over a decade, He passed before Christmas at the tender age of 34. I wrote this tribute which was published in the Slough Town programme for the match against Burnham that was due to be played yesterday but was called off due to a waterlogged pitch. I've been to more than my fair share of funerals over the years, but rarely have I had to go one for one of my peers. It certainly puts things into perspective and makes me realise how lucky I am to be alive and have a family of my own.

This month marks the 25th anniversary of my father's death. As someone who lost their dad as a child, I owe it to my boys to ensure they have a daddy who is fit, healthy and around for the long term. And so gaining control of my eating, cutting down on drinking and returning to fitness is my immediate priority. As such, there will be plenty more photos like this appearing in the coming months to chart my progress.

I was too big for my running vests and shirts - I won't be forever

I'm a believer

Yesterday marked the first phase of my diet. Stop eating junk, restricting myself to a regular three meals per day. Today I got phase 2 under way, namely dragging my sorry self kicking and screaming into exercise. Since completing the Royal Parks Half Marathon back in October, I've only been out for a run once. The overeating I described yesterday has inevitably impacted on my fitness levels and it was fair to say I was not expecting much from myself.

During the second half of 2013, I was a regular at the Black Park parkrun. Last year, it fell from my weekend routine and I think that contributed to my malaise. With that in mind I treated myself to an annual parking permit yesterday so that I've no excuses not to get myself out of the house on a Saturday morning.

When I was woken this morning, there was quite a downpour going on outside. With both boys sleeping uncharacteristically beyond 7.30, I could have been forgiven for keeping snug in my bed. However, I knew that going for a run this morning was important, perhaps more so for my psychology than my physicality. Rain or no rain, I was doing this.

First #parkrun for some time beckons. Not going to wimp out despite the heavy downpour
— Graham Kaye-Taylor (@bigfatrebel) January 3, 2015

After driving through the puddles of South Bucks and parking up, I did have to question my sanity at being there.

Definitely one of those mornings where I ask myself why? #parkrun pic.twitter.com/GcdOjCMju6
— Graham Kaye-Taylor (@bigfatrebel) January 3, 2015

Fortunately I had an old friend to point out the obvious.

@bigfatrebel black park looks er um #wet
— Stephen Hale (@Wisey999) January 3, 2015

Meanwhile others were more supportive

@bigfatrebel because you'll feel great afterwards!
— Laura White (@sugarfloat) January 3, 2015

@bigfatrebel these are the mornings that make the difference :)
— Steve Gaffney (@sdgaffney) January 3, 2015

I couldn't agree more with the last point. It did make a difference. The sense of achievement from making it round the course is palpable. My body and mind felt lifted, and though a couple of hours later I'm feeling somewhat weary, doing this today has set me on a good course for the coming weeks.

I'm hot, sweaty, smelly pretty darn unpleasant but for the first time in months I feel alive #parkrun
— Graham Kaye-Taylor (@bigfatrebel) January 3, 2015

My time was not important today. I barely dipped inside 30 minutes and was my second slowest finish over the distance. But I didn't care. Today was about waking my body from it's slumber and surviving. The time will improve as my waistline contracts and my fitness levels recover. I'm not convinced I'll be getting back to sub-24 minutes 5Ks any time soon, but that isn't my motivation right now. You have to learn to crawl before you run after all.

What I have now is a mental baseline. I know that I can do this. I know that on a wet and miserable January morning I can go for a run. Come Wednesday and the first proper weigh-in of the year, I will know that I can get my weight back under control. Self-belief is incredibly important to achieve successful weightloss. I know it is only 3rd January, but I'm a believer once again.

Elvis has left the building

Over the festive period, I found myself watching a documentary on Elvis Presley. Towards the end of his life, he piled on the lbs through overeating, becoming a bloated caricature of the man he once was. I don't need to wear Blue Suede Shoes, or check into Heartbreak Hotel to tell me that in the past couple of months I have overdone things. Unlike the King of Rock 'n' Roll, I will be taken corrective measures to stop my decline, starting today.

The diet is back. I opted for porridge this morning. It has clearly been a while since I've had some as I forgot to empty my Oats So Simple sachet into the bowel before I measured my milk, which led to some confusion. I then managed to spill porridge on my jeans twice. Not a great start to the day but at least the food side of things was in order.

This morning I've not eaten anything else. The burn has been there. It has been a long time since I've felt it and am quite surprised at how quickly my body has told me to fuel up. This probably explains why.

As recently as October I was comfortably under 15st. The scales this morning gave me this reading

Even factoring in Christmas, that is an irresponsible weight gain. I've added approximately a stone and a half in two months. And it shows. I've had to dig larger jeans and t-shirts out of my wardrobe. My belt is barely going round my waist. I'm looking and feeling chunkier. And I hate it. I knew I was getting bigger too, but was in a bit of a tailspin and unable to do anything about it. If I'm not in the correct frame of mind, I am my own worst enemy and have been locked into self-destruct mode. I don't know why a change of calendar year makes a difference but it does for me. A chance to wipe the slate clean and regain control.

I'm having soup for my lunch, but will pass on having any bread or rolls with it. Then a long afternoon beckons waiting to eat this evening. Perhaps doing this on a non-work day was not such a good idea. Time will tell.

A New Year. A New Start. A New URL?

Happy New Year one and all. May I wish you and your family all the very best for 2015 and hope it will be a year that brings both happiness and health.

2015 is kicking off for me in the same vein that every New Year's Day has in the last 7. Feeling slightly hungover and awake far earlier than I would like to be courtesy of a child. That late night session of Prosecco and Jelly Tots SEEMED like a good idea at the time, but sat here on a cold Thursday morning when I smell and taste of both, have two boys vying for their's daddy attention, and a cat suffering from isolation issues, I'm coming to the realisation that heading to bed a bottle earlier and without quite so much junk in my system was probably the wiser choice.

I've not been making too many good decisions of late. Whereas 2013 was my self-proclaimed Year of the Diet, where in a year of family adversity I thrived under pressure, losing 4 stone along the way, 2014 was a year where despite running 2 half marathons, I finished the year reaching for larger clothes. The last three months of the year in particular saw me hit the self-destruct button and undoing a lot my previous good work. It is easy I suppose to sit here on January 1st to make proclamations about reversing my slide, but I do have history on my side in terms of starting a new year with fresh motivation and willpower to make a positive change to my waistline.

Before I get on with the dieting business, I'll enjoy today. Well at least as much as you can enjoy feeling rough and with a Slough Town match this afternoon. But once the date rolls to 2nd January it will be all systems go. I'll jump on the scales tomorrow morning to shame myself but also give me an indication of just what I need to do in the coming months.

My weekly weigh-in day will recommence on Wednesdays, and I'll endeavour to pen more articles for this blog than just the obligatory toes on scales announcements. Follow my progress throughout the year and feel free to leave your comments along the way. If you're also looking shed a few lbs, let's do this together.

Finally a note for your Browsers. YearOfTheDiet.com will go offline in the next few days. Instead you will want to bookmark YearOfTheDiet.co.uk - a slightly cheaper option from my hosting company and one that I hope will be just as easy for my readers to remember.

Out with the old. In with the new. Less of the junk. Time to dispense with the excess weight I've recently acquired.

We both enjoyed Christmas. He didn't expand. I did

The Secret of My Success

Towards the end of last year, I toyed with the idea of sharing what I typically eat when I'm engaged in full diet mode. However, for whatever reason, my 'Diet In December' concept never really came to fruition. I was asked by a colleague earlier today share my secret on what I eat, given I've been pretty successful in getting back on track post-Christmas, and so this entry will show you.

Breakfast is typically a low key affair nowadays. In the winter months I eat porridge and with somewhat limited time in the mornings what with getting two boys up and ready, I opt for the easy option of Oats So Simple. Two minutes in the microwave and ready to eat. They come in a variety of flavours and recently introduced a Heaps of Fruit range which made a change from the Golden Syrup ones which I'd got a little bored of. Porridge does a great job of keeping me filled up until lunch, and because it is hot it can't be eaten too quickly.

Hot Breakfast

For lunch I tend to have a salad, and by salad I mean just that, not a pile of mayonnaise infested 'salad' that you tend to get offered in salad bars in supermarkets. Pictured below is a very basic lunch, comprising of baby spinach leaves with some Spanish chorizo slices to offer flavour. There is no dressing or sauce. Sometimes I'll chop cucumber or pepper to add a little crunch. The green stuff doesn't have to be spinach and I often rotate between baby leaf salad or rocket. Chorizo can be subbed for meaty alternatives, or for something a bit different smoked mackerel. Spinach is brilliant stuff and you can eat a mountain of it for minimal damage. It does get a bit difficult to eat a lot, so I like to use the chorizo slices as mini wraps.

Yes, this really is my lunch

After two relatively small meals, I need to have something more hearty for my dinner. Having already scaled back during the day, I'll be damned if my main meal is the size of one of those 'light option' ready meals. I've given two examples below. The first is spaghetti and meatballs. Nothing too fancy here, just some oven baked meatballs, spaghetti and a pasta sauce. After a day in the office and getting the kids to bed, I make no apologies for the fact that the meatballs are not home made and the pasta sauce is out of a jar. In an ideal world I would prepare both myself, but that is unrealistic on weeknights, particularly if I'm also trying to get out for a run.

Meatballs, sauce, spaghetti. Simple and yummy

Dinner number 2 here is something I might typically eat on a Tuesday night before the Wednesday Weigh In. Like anybody else who faces public scrutiny, I'm going to give myself the best chance of a positive outcome the following morning by having a lighter meal the night before. In this case, there is leftover roast chicken, served with lettuce, spinach, peppers, cucumber and on this occasion I treated myself to a little coleslaw. I wouldn't eat this more than once a week as like I said above, I need a good dinner following a small lunch and breakfast.

A lighter dinner before the Weigh-In

Other dinners I regularly have include spaghetti bolognese, ideally made with extra lean beef mince rather than the really fatty stuff, chicken curry or pan friend chicken served with penne in a carbonara sauce. I'm not averse to a frozen pizza from time to time, so long as I don't do it with extras like garlic bread.

So those are my typical meals. What do I eat in between times? Well, usually not very much at all is the honest answer. I do best when I completely cut out snacks, bar the occasional bit of fruit or yoghurt. If I feel the need for a sugar burst, a small handful of sultanas does the job rather than opt for chocolate. I don't drink tea or coffee, and my staple drink during the day is Pepsi Max. There will be nutritionists who point out the evils of aspartame, but if there is a calorie free drink that contains caffeine that I enjoy drinking, I think I'm allowed one vice. Critics of diet drinks say that people will crave sugar as a result of consuming them, but I don't really find that to be the case.

I'm not a total food nazi when I'm dieting. I don't stick to this formula 7 days a week. If I want a bacon sandwich at the weekend, or a bit of cheese on toast I will. When my other half and I are exhausted after a long week, the occasional take away is more than justified. But typically I follow this plan at least 5 days out of 7, and combined with my ongoing exercise, the results are there for all to see. 

Now, for anybody reading this and is thinking about following in my footsteps, I will provide a word of caution. To my mind, one the main reasons why people fail with their diets is because they opt for a crash diet rather than something more measured. To coin a phrase from Ed Balls, they go too far, too fast. What I have displayed above is what I eat now as a 14 stone man when trying to shed a few pounds. If I had attempted to follow this formula when I was a 24 stone man, I would have failed very quickly indeed. If your body has been used to being fuelled by a large amount of calories, it will not respond well to a dramatic reduction. Scale back your portion size gradually over time, rather than cutting off the majority of the fuel supply.

To get where I am now, I have reduced my food intake over a prolonged period. Breakfast is now a simple bowl of porridge. Previously it would have included a banana with it. Before that a large bowl of Bran Flakes.

Lunch is now a very simple salad. It started out as a sandwich comprised of 4 slices of bread with a carrot on the side. First the carrot went. Then I scaled back to 2 slices of bread. Now I've ditched the bread altogether and gone for greens.

The same can be said for dinner. If I have a curry at home, I very rarely include a naan, which previously would have been a must. The amount of pasta or rice I cook is now measured too and is less than what I ate when I was much bigger.

I wouldn't even recommend cutting down your meal portions to begin with. The place to start is all the extras that are consumed during the day. If you're eating three meals a day, with some snacks and a glass of wine in the evening, the first things to go are the extras. I only drink one night a week now, typically a Saturday night having been for a run in the morning. It is rarely more than a couple of glasses of wine or cans of beer. Snacks don't feature at all or at least very rarely, so no tubes of Pringles in front of the tv or a sneaky slice of toast when I get home from work. If you eat these on top of your usual three meals, ditch the extras and you should notice a difference. Then, and only then, you can think about where else you can trim some calories.

So there you have it. The secret of my success is less sexy than the 5:2 diet, or any of these other fad diets that people invest a lot of time and money into. I used to eat a huge amount, but slowly scaled back and continued to do so as the weight came off. Exercise helps of course, ensuring that your burn more calories than you consume, but with a little discipline and not taking things too quickly, you can lose weight through portion control.

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Wednesday Weigh-In 8 January

Welcome to the first Wednesday Weigh-In of 2014! It feels like it has been ages since the last one, though in reality it has just been three weeks. On that day I proudly mounted the scales at the lightest I have been in my adult life as 14st dead. In the intervening weeks, Christmas happened and I well and truly let my hair down, with my 2nd January baseline putting me at 14st 11lbs.

In regaining some sense of diet control, I always expected to claw back some of the Christmas excess. I went back to work on 2 January giving the perfect opportunity to restore myself to a simple three meal a day routine, rather than dipping into food and snacks at any waking moment. I've been out running three times since Saturday morning clocking up just over 15 kilometres, which my app reliably informs me means I burnt an additional 1600 calories.

The result of which is pretty pleasing. In the last six days I've got back into 'Normal' territory according to BMI and moved in the right direction towards where I want to be with my weight.

6 days later, a much better morning view

Still a bit of work to do to get back to 14st, but I'm pleased to have dusted off the cobwebs and got the diet operational again. While it was good to relax for a couple of weeks, I feel so much better when I'm not indulging to excess. Let's hope I can stick with it.

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In Praise of ParkRun

The first day of the 2014 version of the diet came and passed without too much difficulty. After the pretty horrible weather that saw out December and welcomed in January, I probably should have taken advantage of a dry evening and pulled on my running gear, but I listened to my body and decided otherwise. It is one thing going from the festive excess to a much more measured intake of calories, but it would be quite another to pound the streets in the dark. My body is going to be confused enough as it is without additional exercise on top.

So the half marathon training has been put on hold, at least for a couple of days while I settle back into diet mode, but Saturday will bring around my favourite time of the week. Long gone are the days of lie-ins or watching Soccer AM over a fried breakfast. Since July my venue of choice for a Saturday morning has been down at my local parkrun participating with several hundred others in a free timed 5 kilometre run. I've been doing this most weekends since July last year, and is probably no coincidence that my weight loss really took off from then onwards.

parkrun logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you've not heard of parkrun, the premise is pretty simple. Register once online, take your personalised barcode to any of their hundreds of events, and run. It is completely free to participate and you get your results by email or text later in the day. You can even chart your progress by going online to view all of your parkrun results and there are all sorts of statistics on there to get excited about if you're so inclined.

I was put onto parkrun by a twitter follower who had noticed I was blogging about running on a treadmill last spring. At his suggestion, I went along to see what all the fuss was about and I'd have to say that recommendation was spot on. I've met a terrific bunch of people who volunteer their time to put on the event every Saturday morning, without whom parkrun would not exist. Any reservations I may have had about turning up to one of these events as a complete novice were very quickly cast aside. Sure there are some serious runners who race off into the distance never to be seen again until the following weekend, but there is no stereotype that adequately describes a parkrunner. There are men and women well into their senior years, parents running with children or even pushing babies along in strollers. People like me looking to get fit and others making their way round in a more leisurely fashion, enjoying a bit of exercise on a Saturday morning.

I usually attend the Black Park event but because there are so many of these dotted around the country, you can indulge in a little parkrun tourism. I've been to the Bradford run on a couple of occasions whilst visiting family and the welcome you get there is phenomenal, with great support from the stewards, not least when you tackle the fabled 'Teeny Tiny Hill'

Having had parkrun recommended to me, I'm more than happy to encourage others to get involved. I've had a couple of colleagues join me from work before, my brother-in-law, a friend from the football club has come along with his sons and from a brief interaction on Facebook earlier today it looks like an old school friend will be joining me on Saturday morning.

If you are looking for something to get you more active in 2014, don't be afraid to give this a go. It doesn't matter if you're not Mo Farah, as you are only racing against yourself rather than the other participants. Who knows, you like me might find an inner runner inside of you that you never knew existed.

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Pizza, Pasta, Pudding!

The blog has settled into something of a repetitive beast in recent weeks. The traditional Wednesday weigh-in has been joined by a staple article in which I talk about my latest run. This probably hasn't made for the most interesting of reading, particularly if the concept of putting on a pair of trainers and shorts and making yourself hot and breathless is about as appealing as a slice of damp bread. So breaking from the mould, pun intended, instead I'm going to write about a treat I enjoyed yesterday evening.

Eating out hasn't been high on my agenda in my bid to lose weight, but with the kids in the capable hands of grandma, my wife and I enjoyed a rare trip to a restaurant on our own. It was nothing too extravagant (our appreciation comes from a full and happy tummy, rather than Michellin stars), but a nice quiet meal for two at Prezzo was just the order of the day, not least as it is rare these days to be able to do so.

Even though this was a treat, part of me was still thinking with the diet hat on. I've written before about the perils of social eating and while I'm not averse to hogging out once in a while, I wanted to be relatively restrained and not go overboard. With that in mind I had spent a bit of time looking through the online menu in advance of getting to the restaurant. The starters didn't look all that impressive so that was an instant area to save on calorific intake. Knowing that I was designated driver meant I could ignore the beer and wine menu too.

That meant when it came to ordering, I was quite happy to go for whatever I wanted. We decided rather than go for individual meals we would do some mixing and matching. We opted for the Steak and Rocket VIP pizza, which sounded great on paper but didn't quite live up to expectations. I can understand not putting rocket and cherry tomatoes on the pizza until after it has been cooked as they would be destroyed in the heat, but to not do that with the red onion was a mistake, and several mint imperials and brushes of teeth later I'm still tasting onion some 16 hours later. We also plumped for the 2 classic pasta deal, with my wife enjoying a penne with salmon dish while I had a chicken option.

Half a pizza and a portion of pasta sounds like quite a lot, particularly when we had a mixed salad side on top, but if truth be told it wasn't too onerous. The pizza was very light, while the pasta was quite delicate and not smothered in sauce. I certainly felt less bloated from eating this than I would have done from a takeaway pizza option. As a result, I decided to plump for a dessert and thoroughly devoured my sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream.

Red onion aside, it was a lovely evening with good company. An enjoyable treat and one that I don't think will cause much damage to my weightloss goals. I ran Saturday morning (blimming well actually, taking 71 seconds of my PB for a 5k) and resume my lunchtime gym activity today. Therefore any excess from Sunday night will soon be eliminated.

When I reach my goal, and I definitely will, I know that the diet won't stop in its tracks. Having lost weight in the past and then seen it return with ease, I understand that simply putting on the handbrake would be a backward step. I'm never going to be a pristine athlete or slim Jim, but just as I've worked hard to lose the lbs this year, I'll have to keep things going to make sure I keep the weight off.

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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 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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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The last 36 hours have provided a snapshot of the highs and lows of dieting. There have been some moments to be proud of, times when temptation has been given into, and times when the shackles are well and truly off. We'll think of them in a Clint Eastwood inspired analogy - quite simply The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Lets start with The Good.

I've upped my game somewhat in the exercise stakes. As regular followers of this blog will know, my secondary aim for the year beyond achieving target weightloss is to run a 10k race. This goal is getting closer to becoming a reality as I'm going to be joining a number of my office colleagues in participating in a run towards the end of September. I've got about three months to get myself conditioned and I've every intention of doing myself justice and not just finishing the race but also breaking the 1 hour mark.

Yesterday my plan for the gym was to reach 5k. This was achieved, though it did require slowing to walking pace several times to catch my breath. However, 5k was travelled and just inside half an hour, which at this stage I was very pleased about

Thursday's trip to the gym

I went back to the gym again today, and tried to see how far I could get without slowing down. I managed to run 3k straight before I needed a breather. As you can see, 5K was notched up again. It was probably not wholly advisable to duplicate the training on back to back days, and I may well pay for it over the weekend, but I am happy to have hit the mark again. Laterally thinking that is 10k run - but combining the two sessions and running them back to back rather than with a 24hr gap will be a challenge

Friday's trip to the gym. Same distance, a touch faster

The Bad came in the form of dinner on Thursday night. After a stressful day for my other half, I very quickly and without hesitation agreed to buy take out for dinner. Pizza Hut was ordered and it goes without saying I devoured mine. I've learned in my many efforts to lose weight that on the times when you do give into temptation, you can still do a bit to help yourself. Rather than have deep pan, I opt for the Italian base, and I tend to go for a pizza with spicy toppings. I do enjoy the taste of jalapenos, but they also serve a purpose of ensuring the damage is minimised by staying in the system for a shorter period of time. You know what I mean, and I'm not going to spell it out!

A treat after a rough day is not a bad thing. I'm not one of these people who justifies what they eat by the amount of exercise they undertake, but I imagine that 5k either side of an unhealthy dinner will provide a little more leeway than if I had just gone ahead and scoffed my face.

Yes, I had a lot more to eat than a BBQ dip

The Ugly is a reflection of where I'm at this evening. Left to my own devices, bar the company of my kids, I've cracked open a beer to round off a long and tiring week, after a long and tiring week the week before. One has already become two. How many more are drunk will determine just how ugly things become.

There is cold, and there is Damme Cold

Beer and pizza are not traditional friends of weightloss. The fact I've exercised a bit doesn't really excuse them, or make for a balanced diet. What damage is done we'll have to see come Wednesday for the next weigh-in. But for now, I'm going to say cheers, enjoy a cold one and then face the weekend where I hope to restore some level of order in my food and drink consumption.

Mind over malaise

So, after 'resting' the last couple of days to allow my leg a little time to heal, I was very much looking forward to attacking the treadmill today at the gym. My kit was packed in my bag and I'd even parked up next to the sports complex this morning to ensure that I would go. However, as the morning wore on, apathy and indifference began to enter my thoughts. Did I really want to do this today? Why not just pick things up again on Monday?

As I walked to my car I was still undecided. It was very much a question of take it or leave it. And I left it. Rather than go to the gym I headed to a well known supermarket chain to get a father's day card. I then drove back, parked in the exact same spot, and utterly disgusted at myself I took my gym bag out of the boot and did some training after all.

Dieting can be an easy thing when you're motivated. Making sure you stick to it on those days when you really can't be bothered are the ones that can decide how successful you will be. Today was a small moral victory, mind over malaise. Here's hoping that I won't have to fight with myself too often

The weekend starts here

It is Friday night and after several days of getting back into the dieting groove, inevitably things are becoming a little more difficult. For most of the afternoon I've been trying to keep my mind from thoughts of take out and cold beers, and writing this now I'm pleased to report I've stayed away from both, but I know that the rest of the weekend will present its challenges. A working day provides distraction; a weekend at home means 48 hours of temptation.

I've kickstarted life into my diet by entering a post-Easter detox. Nutritionists would likely disapprove but I've been living off porridge. Not in the three meals a day sense, but close enough. Porridge for breakfast. Porridge for lunch. Proper dinner in the evening. Believe me by the time I get to eat at night I am ravenous! This is just a short term measure, to get thing rolling but it is quite effective and given how bitterly cold the weather has been this week, three hot meals a day has been very welcome.

How things will pan out this weekend I'm not too sure. Staying away from my 4 year old's Easter Eggs should be straightforward enough, but the lagers in the fridge and the Pringles in the cupboard may be harder to resist. One thing is for sure, if I do give in to temptation, I'll have spent the last three days wasting my time with Oat So Simple. Wish me luck.

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