Closing In

                In four weeks’ time, I will be twenty-six years old. I am 13st and 7lbs (189lbs) and only 7 stone off my target. This is entirely achievable, although I think I have to bring my daily calorie amount down a little to manage it safely. This means that in a year I will have lost 5st and 8lbs – 78lbs – without significantly impacting my lifestyle. Sure, I eat less and work out more but that hasn’t taken away from what I do as hobbies or general interests – if anything it has added to it. But, inarguably, there has been change and that is what I am posting about today.

                Biggest change? Eating habits. This is probably obvious but that doesn’t make it any less important to discuss. I do eat less – and less often. I now nibble at nibbles, rather than devour them en masse, and I snack on fruit over crisps or fast food. Deserts I avoided anyway but I’ve started having these now as a good way to compliment an otherwise-healthy meal when I’m low on calories so I don’t have to stuff my face with spinach leaves or other salad in a confused binge eating session. I very rarely have crisps at all now, and only drink sugar-free drinks (for the most part. Recent Red Bull moments have basically banned that from my list of acceptable drinks altogether), both of which have been a massive influence in both my weight loss and general eating habits. I still have these things occasionally, but nowhere near as often or in as large amounts.

                Second biggest change is the amount of physical exercise. Again, this is pretty obvious if you talk to me or read this blog but it is, again, still important. I am walking places more, running places more, randomly doing press-ups or sit-ups occasionally when I’m bored or waiting on something. I find myself more able – and more willing – to exert myself physically and do physical labour or activity. It’s a pretty awesome feeling, and very liberating. Sure, actually doing actually requires effort but it seems I’ve got a lot more of that to give now.

                Next a little bit of a negative; I’ve become more judgemental of my appearance. Conversely one could argue (as I’m sure one of my brothers would) that caring more about you appearance isn’t a bad thing and I can’t disagree with that statement. It just becomes a bit of an issue when I find myself judging how I look compared to how I want to look, rather than how I did in the past. I think it’s not necessarily fair on myself and might make me appear vain. I also worry about how my hair looks, which isn’t a thought that’s really gone through my head before now. This concern does, however, provide a constant source of motivation. I just hope it hasn’t made me overly-critical.

                Apart from those changes I’ve noticed my conversations have become a lot more focused, or at least I have had a lot more focused conversations. This happens to anyone who gains a lot of knowledge very quickly on a specific subject, I think, and since my friends know I’ve been finding out a lot about the subject so they have been asking me questions about this specifically – which is a compliment – so I don’t think I’ve lost my ability to have diverse conversations. However, I do take interest in a lot of conversations and articles that I previously would have ignored and my twitter account is plagued by any number of fitness/diet related tweets from myself or people I have followed purely for that reason.

                I have a lot less free time. This is probably a good thing – I used to spend my time on a whole host of time consumer and fairly unproductive tasks and time-spends. I now feel I achieve a lot more on each and every day, which is immensely satisfying, and I really appreciate it when I spend an evening relaxing or by myself. I’ve recently reaffirmed to myself that I am cripplingly introverted, and part of my apparently perpetual exhaustion is propagated by my plentiful public activities on top of work and personal life. I wouldn’t say I don’t enjoy it, but I am very busy now. I get very little time to myself – yes, this is totally my choice but if I want to enjoy my life I have to do things I enjoy, right? Seeing friends, doing things, actually indulging in my plethora of hobbies, they all take time. Really it’s a bit of a timetabling miracle that I find time to get my blog entries done some weeks.

                I’ve also become more grateful to people – for a lot of things. Support, encouragement, little phrases I used to consider just lip service have all started to mean more to me (probably because I think I’ve earned it) and each and every time someone says something along those lines to me it makes me feel like I have achieved something. So I am grateful, for that and also for everyone who comes to the gym with me, even if it’s not every week, or talks to me about food and dieting or shows their support in other ways, great or small. It has shown me exactly how good my friends are and I can only be grateful to them for it. I hope I show it enough, and regularly.

                Lastly I have become a lot more judgemental and damning of people who are selfish or ungrateful. I am guilty of behaving in this manner – hopefully a lot less often now than previously – but this has been something I’ve tried to actively remove from my behaviour. I find as detestable in myself as I do in others, and I’ve found it a good judge of someone’s character to see how they react when I tell them they’re being ungrateful. People who throw it back in my face and say they have nothing to be grateful for, or that they deserve better anyway, are the kind of people I’m trying not to associate with.

                It’s mainly due to a fear I’ll start replicating this behaviour, which would be horrible. I tried to explain it to someone as them spreading negative energy and attitude, and that it would infect my spiritual balance. I was only being semi-serious – I do believe that a person’s outward expression of energy and emotion can strongly influence another’s, but I was trying to see how far I could push the argument before they called bullshit. It was about the time I started talking about their negative energy creating evil spirits which then escaped from them and tried to possess others she started getting suspicious.

The point behind this tangent is that I’m trying to avoid this behaviour in a very proactive manner; I’ve come to understand that if you focus too much on what you think you deserve other people will start thinking you deserve lesser and lesser amounts. I forgot that for a short time recently and my general life satisfaction really did take a hit as a result. Yes, you absolutely have to live for yourself BUT you also have to live with other people, and they will be far more willing to offer you things if you offer something to them. Unless they’re a complete ingrate, at which point you should let them know and/or leave them to it. Alone.

So that is how my diet and weight loss has affected me, from my point of view. I would love to hear any feedback or opinions friends and/or readers have had from either seeing me in person or from a change in tone, style and attitude in my writing so please let me know – yes, this partly an attention seeking, ego-feeding request (to which I can unashamedly admit :D ) but it would also be very interesting to know what people thought. So let me know, and let me know as well if you’re dieting or have changed your eating or exercise habits recently how you think it has affected you. Comparing stories is always good – we could have a camp fire with smores, if we found a low-calorie smores substitute.

Another Week Down, Another Week Biting Dust

               I do not know how much I weigh, at time of writing. The gym scales say 13st 8lbs, which would be awesome, but since I haven’t used them in some time it’s not a fair comparison. Also, after a weekend of slightly controlled excess, I would have expected to weigh a little more than normally but I guess I didn’t eat much on Sunday as I spent most of my time on various trains. I feel great though, slightly less tired than normal and I’ve felt my cravings a lot less than in previous weeks.

                So what have I done to change my eating habits this last week? One of my work mates told me that humans were not designed to eat three big meals a day – we are in fact intended, biological, to have five or six smaller meals. This is tied into the hunter-gatherer history humanity has whereby we would travel around looking for food, eating a little, and moving on before being found by predators or hostile humans. So I thought I would give it a go.

                I delay my breakfast until I get into work, eating at around 0850 rather than 0800. This is constituted of an egg and ham on toast, an egg and ham sandwich or a mixture of various sliced meats with an egg on toast for a calorie total of approx. 200-350, topped up with a small glass of milk before I leave for another 50. I could have a larger glass but I hate milk so limit it to this for my own contentment, but still have some because it is disgustingly healthy.

This keeps me satisfied until lunch time – and sometimes a little longer depending on whether or not I had a larger breakfast due to gym commitments in the evening. I usually work through my lunch now, allowing me to leave work at 1700 rather than 1800, and it also means I have less idle time for my stomach to get in touch with my brain about its insecurities (“Did that sandwich make me look empty? I feel empty…”). Lunch is a tomato-wrap with various filling fillings but is nearly always chicken in salad cream, three slices of salami, and a mixture of onions, rocket and cucumber. Yes, the tomato-wrap is being chosen under the probable misconception that it is healthier than a plain one. I total this as approximately six hundred calories but don’t have it all at once. For one thing, half a wrap is filling enough and for another I don’t have time to get to the deli at work, order the food, get back to my desk and eat it all. I save half of it until my afternoon break, around 1500 and then top myself up then. This keeps me full all afternoon.

I usually hit the gym around 1800, traffic allowing, and stay there for an hour to an hour and a half. I am not hungry during this time and keep a bottle of water with me at all times when possible. The physical activity keeps my mind off food and I’m not hungry for about half an hour afterwards – just long enough to get home, showered, and started on cooking something just as I start feeling some small hunger pangs.

Perfect, right? Well, not quite. Part of this evolutionist theory is that we’re constantly moving around. I work in an office; there’s only so many times I can go get water and even that is probably not representative of trekking across countryside or savannah in search of food. The other problem is that my evening meal is usually fairly substantial to compensate for the work I do at the gym. Why don’t I eat less? Because I eat little enough already. I am cutting down a little bit but I’m still wary of lowering my calorie intake too far, especially as I’m burning 800-1200 at the gym on average. 

How can I remedy these problems? As regards the supposed-to-be constant movement there is very little I can do. I’m still doing a little bit of exercise in down-time – finish a chapter, do twenty press-ups, finish writing a page, do ten, for example – but it’s difficult to fit incremental exercises into my daily regime simply because I have a sedentary job. I do what I can – use the stairs rather than the lift, walk the long way back to my car (why don’t I run to work? Three miles in the morning might only take me half an hour but I’d have to bring my suit in a bag and that would be a hideous thing to do. Same goes for cycling), make sure I walk through every aisle in supermarkets (ignoring the strange looks I get from staff members). But aside from getting a new job, which is difficult and there’s no guarantee I’ll have much more freedom of movement if I do, there’s little else I can manage.

As for combating the unbalanced meal size of my dinner I could just increase the size of each of my portion-meals over the course of the day. This would bring them up to a minimum of four hundred calories which is actually quite a lot of food for me – take into account my limit before exercise is only 1420. The upshot of me repeating that information for the millionth time is that if I don’t go to the gym – which does happen – then I may not be able to eat dinner. The reason I have the unbalanced meal is that I don’t want to over eat earlier in the day and then have to skip the gym for whatever reason (usually a toss-up between emergencies, social invites or laziness when it does happen).

So that is my new diet plan with the reasoning behind it, the supposed advantages and the obstacles I’m aware of. If anyone else has thoughts on this, or experiences, please let me know. If it is a terrible idea I’d quite like to know. It’s getting close to being simply overcast rather than cloud-haunted in England and I might need to consider buying yet more new clothes with the season change. I’d rather my weight didn’t make a surprise return unexpectedly because this idea is as flawed a tactic as Custer’s Charge. 

It also conveniently allows me to excuse eating half a wheel of blue cheese and a lot of pasta over the course of Saturday. Definitely a coincidence :D

You Eat What You Earn

Last week was a lazy week. Only two gym visits and not one, not two but three whole cheat days. It didn’t go ideally to plan, and as of this morning I was about the same weight as last Monday, although I weighed myself after breakfast. Some of you might wonder how much I eat for breakfast that it matters what time I weigh myself in the morning but it can make all the difference sometimes – even if it’s only in my head some mornings.

                So how am I planning to fix this? Well, I’m not really sure. I’m going to the gym tonight and Wednesday, but I’ve been booked out tomorrow as well as the weekend and might be busy on Thursday night. So it may be that I don’t have that much time. I’m going to be trying to sneak in a session on Tuesday quickly but it’s not looking good. So it looks like a week of thin rations rather than plenty, and back to dieting basics. However I’ve encountered a few problems with this, having tried it last week.

                I really don’t like pasta any more. I stopped eating it so much since I started going to the gym, as I had more calories to use up and could have a wider variety of foods as a result, and having tried to go back to it as a low calorie, filling meal I’ve found I don’t find it appetising in the least. Weirdly, rice tempts me powerfully but is not as good a supplement as it takes more of it to fill me up and I’m pretty sure is less healthy. If I’m incorrect please correct me so I can have it without feeling like a diet-traitor. I’m also going off kale. I don’t think I ever really liked it, if I’m honest, but it is far too good for me to not eat. Coupled with my drop in interest for pasta it makes my evening meals a bit of a chore. “So you don’t have to eat anything in the evening, right? That’ll help the diet!” – Not really. I still need to eat to live.

                So how am I going to solve this conundrum? Well, I could talk to people who cook and find a couple of low calorie meals to make, varying my diet a little (shock horror) and making sure I never really fill my food life with too much of the same thing. This is probably the best plan I can come up with, so I should really make an effort to enact it. The problem is my evenings are quite busy and cooking can take an unfortunate amount of time. Yes, I know I keep saying we make time for the things we want to do but I don’t want to cook really; what I actually want to do is eat without having to work for it. That’s a very, very lazy outlook, I know. And when I do cook I do enjoy it but it still seems a bit of a chore when I think about it in advance, mostly due to the time it takes to do it rather than the effort. So what I’m looking for are quick, healthy, low calorie meals which require minimal effort to prepare and are fairly filling.

                Do not, do not, say salads. Yes, I appreciate my aversion to them seems mildly unintelligent and counter-productive but I don’t find them appetising at all. Maybe I need to learn to enjoy them, and this is something I am getting closer and closer to experimenting with. They are not something that I want forced upon me though. Part of my reticence is spawned of fear they won’t fill me up, which sounds pretty dumb now I come to voice the concern – I could always, you know, eat more to compensate as something lacking meat and carbohydrate isn’t going to have a massive calorie count to it so that shouldn’t be a worry. And yes, I know I can actually add some meat to them if I want a bit of carnivore-friendly flavour. It’s something I will look into, at some point, but before I push the boat out that far I’ll look for alternatives I feel more tempted by.

                So do I have any of my own ideas or am I just going to beg for them? Well, basically every woman I’ve spoken to has decided to mock my ability to cook based on the fact I’m a man and therefore am genetically unable to. Contrary to this, I can; it is definitely a ‘won’t cook’ issue for me. Tonight I’m probably looking at a risotto, which I appreciate is not the height of culinary genius but I’ll be honest; ‘cooking’ of any variety is basically heating things up to a specific temperature for a specific time. Yes, you can add herbs and spices and such, and I do, but it’s not a secret, ninja art taught only in shadow and quiet whispers. I don’t want to belittle those who can cook really well – you certainly have an admirable talent. What I want to say is if someone applies themselves they can probably prepare a meal of a fairly impressive standard for an amateur. I’m not saying any one can be a chef, but nearly everyone can be a cook.

                What am I trying to say, apart from perhaps digging myself into a hole with culinary experts and professional kitchen preparation artists everywhere? Simply, that anyone can cook. Get your ingredients, don’t be an idiot when you choose how to prepare them, make sure you don’t burn them, don’t drop them on the floor. The real trick is knowing what goes with what and when to mix them; the rest is just observation and light lifting. Yes, fire can be scary. Sure, you might get it wrong. Ideally check with whoever you’re cooking for that they eat what you’re going to prepare – having made this mistake it was very awkward half way through the meal when the other person revealed they didn’t eat one of the things I’d put in there. It wasn’t an allergic reaction, but it wasn’t a best pleased one either.

                Why is this relevant to dieting? Two reasons! One, it allows you to control your intake with a lot more detail and therefore you will find it easier to diet/not over eat. Again, it still requires a measure of self-control but even one of my work colleagues, who admits to having all the self-control of a small child that is high on sugar and has been set alight, is managing it now he’s preparing his own food. It also gives you a sense of satisfaction and pride in what you’re eating, a sense you deserve to eat it. I like to think this is linked to hunter-gatherer instincts rewarding you for your hard work.

                The second reason is that dieting can be expensive if you buy pre-packaged or pre-prepared diet food/meals. Actimel don’t price their yogurts and more cheaply than full fat ones because they’re giving you less stuff in them, and all types of food that sell themselves on containing less of X, Y and/or Z appear to cost more for the pleasure of their consumption. However, buying your own ingredients can be very cheap, as long as you’re not importing the finest ostrich meat from Australia or having caviar for breakfast regularly. I find that either the meals are cheaper if you buy the ingredients separately or you get a lot more meals out of the same amount of money as if you bought pre-prepared branded food stuffs. And you learn a life skill: sounds like a bargain.

                I therefore recommend doing you own cooking if you’re looking to lose weight, sticking with my theme for DIY dieting. The best way to do a thing is to learn as much as you can about it, so empower yourself with some creative cooking knowledge and get to it! Or, if you’re like me, do what you did at university in a desperate attempt to avoid awful malnutrition issues and find some succulent solutions to starvation which are both simple and satisfying.

H2Open your mind

                Yes, that is a horrible post title but it’s about as good as you’re going to get from me on a Monday morning. After an intense week of exercise, I have to admit I have sadly failed Drogo week. It started well, with me hitting the gym Monday through to Thursday, but Friday I didn’t get time and Saturday/Sunday I definitely didn’t make the time or effort. But now I do know that I can gym four days in a row, so it wasn’t entirely wasted. I now weigh in at 13st 9lbs, 191lbs or 86.6kg so while my progress has been slowed it is still there – an advance as implacable as that of a glacier, or that’s how I pitch it.

                I hope you’re already for a SURPRISE RETURN of actual diet-related advice, rather than exercise which has become a strong theme of this blog for the last month or so. That’s right, diet-fans; there is A NEW DIET HOPE! So what’s it about? More adventures into vegetables that are nearly inedible raw? A fantastic, calorie free form of rice or pasta? Chocolate you can eat free of guilt? 

                No; it’s water. Comes out of taps, the sky and people’s eyes on several occasions – although I only recommend one of those for drinking. As most people are aware the human body is somewhere between seventy and ninety percent water depending on what source you use/believe. This means, to the amateur scientist that I am, that our nutritional intake should be seventy to ninety percent water as well and hence I am now drinking about two litres of water a day. This was a big deal in the 90’s (some readers may not remember that glorious, bygone era) and I’m quite impressed I’m actually keeping up with it. 

Now, I appreciate that water has little mineral content (depending on the quality of your pipes) and that the main upshot of drinking a lot of it is that you have to answer nature’s call regularly or get good at sitting in awkward positions for long periods of time. However, it can theoretically reduce the amount you eat. My view: fill your stomach with water (next to no calories) and it can’t fit any more food in it, so you don’t get hungry. Not the most professional view but since being a nutritionist requires fewer certifications than being a car impact test dummy I will still claim to be one.

 

To reinforce my point with something a little more powerful, my very diet-knowledgeable friend explained it worked because we get a large portion of the water we need from food intake, so drinking more plain water – or high-water content drinks like squash – will effectively teach your stomach to crave water rather than food, and the difference between hunger and thirst. Whether it is actual condition or simply the psychosomatic kind it has worked for me. My snacking habits have almost completely died off, which is helping with the satisfaction and contentment side of the diet a lot. I’m sure it’s made a difference to my food intake as well. I should possibly talk to my friend more about the diet thing, since a lot of her advice was actually quite good.

One of the great things about water? You can drink it anywhere. No one looks down on people drinking water (except for certain social groups on a night out) and a lot of work places encourage it – by keeping yourself regularly hydrated you’ll find your concentration is better, your mind more responsive and you generally feel less tired and sluggish. I’m not just saying that based on what I’ve read; my experience has been of those effects as well. I also do have to make more trips to the bathroom, obviously, but that’s just more exercise. Also helps avoid my legs going to sleep from sitting in the office for nine hours of my day. 

To aid with my water drinking ways I have withdrawn my sponsorship of any carbonated drink at work – in fact, any drink apart from water. It helps the water dispensers are plentifully placed around the office and, personally, if I can hit ten cups of water in a day I consider it a success. I’m currently only on eight with a half hour to go, which might entail a quick chugging session before I leave but it has certainly kept me awake. I have over eaten today, currently sitting on 1210 of my 1420 calories for today but I am going to the gym tonight (#notanaddict) so that’s okay. I am going to try and go four days this week but at some point I will be trying a control week where I go back to the original plan – just diet, no gym. This is to measure (in a really unrepresentative and mostly non-scientific manner) what, if any, effect exercising has on my weight loss. I am hoping the result is ‘none’, in that I lose the same amount of weight in both weeks regardless of exercise. This will mean I am eating appropriately for the level I am exercising. 

But that update will have to wait at least two more weeks! For now, diet-fans, remember; don’t get irate – HYDRATE! Keep an H2Open mind and waterever you do, waterever you go keep drinking and don’t let your diet dry up.

Drogo Week

               Another week, another pound! I’m now 13st 10lbs, 192lbs or 87kg depending on your measurement preference. I fit comfortably into my 34” jeans as opposed to only just and have even more clothes to throw out. So plenty of good news, right? I’m also getting plenty of compliments too, so I have absolutely nothing to complain about. Or do I?

                I do, because I’m from the First World and as such have grown up looking for the flaws and imperfections that make my brilliant life ‘incomplete’. What am I complaining about? Myself – some might call that unusual but it is the purpose of this blog, really. What did I do? I cut my gym session last night by forty five whole minutes. I was still there for an hour and a half, and I did only cut it short because between finishing work at six, eating and getting to sleep at a decent (ish) time squashing in a gym visit of longer than an hour is difficult. The other issue was I had fallen so far behind in calorie count I had to make up by eating that I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to if I carried on through with my work out plan. I wasn’t exhausted when I left but I was tired, and had travelled fifteen km over three machines so it was by no means a wasted trip. I just feel I let myself down by not staying longer, and I’m also going to eat slightly less afterwards as I felt rotten after what was actually quite a healthy dinner of pasta, bacon and kale (cooked) – it was just an awful lot to eat at once. 

                Today my legs only ache a little and my upper body is fine, so I clearly didn’t do enough work. How to remedy this? Easy; I have created a contingency plan to compensate for this perceived failure and/or increase in ability. Now, being one of my plans, it is obviously considered, well thought through and suitably measured as a response. It certainly does not suffer from an abundance of ambition or an absence of appropriate expectation.

                This week is DROGO WEEK! I’ll be running to and using the gym every day until Friday, and most likely being increasingly tired verging on exhausted every day until Friday too. I definitely didn’t decide on this while under the influence of testosterone – which a friend has convinced me is a mind-altering drug. Regardless, that is my resolution and I will remain resolved to rectify my restrained exercise regime: If I can push myself harder, I should push myself harder.

                Now, just to prove I have given some thought to this titanic (ish) tactic I will point out that I will not be doing the same thing every day at the gym – for instance, having done thirty five minutes on the treadmill (5km) and the same time on the cross trainer (7.25km) yesterday, I will not be using them today. I’m looking at 30 minutes rowing and 35 minutes cycling. I did do ten minutes rowing yesterday for 2.3km but pushed myself too far considering I haven’t done it in about a month. I’m pretty sure if I pace myself I can manage half an hour. My brother’s comment on my rowing yesterday was pretty positive; “You looked pretty good but sounded like a Viking.”

                This is a review I will amenably accept – my music play was too loud for me to hear myself over but I have recently updated my work out playlist so rather than just being everything on my phone it is an actual playlist. It is formed of what I would consider manly, motivational tracks, so mainly metal or things like the Skyrim theme. I have crafted it after a conversation with a friend about the effects of testosterone after which I came to two conclusions; firstly I would use the sauna after every work out to calm down and secondly testosterone is the perfect biological fuel for the fires of my fitness rebirth. Ergo, the new playlist is full of tracks that were written and played after the writer/performer had injected themselves with about 250cc or equal parts testosterone and adrenaline. Currently it’s about thirty minutes in length but I’m planning to build on it. As a bonus I have substantially increased my collection of Scandinavian metal, so it has had non-exercise benefits too. It has certainly kept me motivated and pushing my limits to breaking point.

                The message this week is one of rediscovery. Don’t let your workout – or your diet – become stale or stagnant. It won’t keep you interested or enjoying it, and will make it a chore rather than a challenge, arduous rather than an adventure and embittering rather than empowering. Entropy is the only constant, the only real law of nature and therefore real rebels resist it rather than being rambunctious hipsters. Do not give in to laziness – it leads to inertia and to entropy, which leads to something much less exciting than the Dark Side. You should live your life, not just survive it and so I encourage you to vary your routine – boldly go where you haven’t been before, eat what you haven’t eaten before and do what you haven’t done before. Rediscover the enjoyment you can have from exercise or the satisfaction you find in dieting, or discover something new about those things. Hopefully you’ll even like it.

This Was Honestly Written on Monday

           So it's Monday again! And in the effort of returning to a regular posting schedule I'm writing this before I go to the gym. This morning I weighed in at 7.2kg, which is roughly 13st 11lbs. I believe that is because I weighed myself after breakfast - rookie mistake - so I hold out hope that I've actually lost weight since last week. The all-you-can-eat Chinese on Saturday won't have helped that goal though.

            At the time of writing I feel fat. I'm at 1200 of 1420 calories and a massive 900 (approx) of those were for lunch. It's a horrible mix of sleepiness, pain and being satisfied. However, I decided to eat so much because my last few gym visits have burned more calories than I ate on those days. Which sounds great except I was literally running on empty for the last 20 minutes or so - not an enjoyable experience. Especially as the television offerings were not very palatable; the Antiques Roadshow failed to steal my attention from work out pains.

            Which brings me to the point of this post; tactical distraction. This applies to both dieting and exercise, so should hold some value regardless of why you read this. I'll start with the diet side.

            Hunger strikes. Undeniably, it does so with an accuracy and reoccurring frequency that would turn lightning electric green with envy. Someone once told me your stomach has two modes - full & empty. After some thought my take on this is that your stomach is a binary communicator - like a spoilt and ungrateful child it only talks to you when it wants something. The rest of the time its communication skills are off. It is an air-raid siren; when it speaks it is only ever bad news.

            Worse, it's needy. While you relax and have no other worries - while you are otherwise perfectly content -  it will bother you, niggle at your mind, worry at your attention like a very small dog with no teeth until you sate it. Even when it doesn't really need feeding. This is mainly where the danger lies; when you're feeling safe and secure it will hit your empty mind with a demand to be made full. It will fill your mind with the demand to be full until it's all you can think about. So you cave.

            Your muscles do something similar during exercise. They cry out in desperation as your work them, like a pack of fat children sent into the mines for the first time. The more you work, the more they complain and weep lactic acid tears until you're convinced the one and only thing you can do is stop and break down, joining them in their misery and eventual relief.

            Yes, distraction is the escape plan! Hungry? Do something! Read a book, play a game, go for a walk (away from food retailers), just do something! If your mind is distracted by active or cognitive functions, concentrated on more serious bodily concerns the your hunger will be sidelined. Muscle burn and fatigue is a tougher signal to jam. To begin with if you're exercising well you'll be using a variety of muscles groups and the will bombard you in merciless bio-electrical unison. Again, your mind craves less base stimulus. Music helps, films more so if you can find one you like and something to watch it on. Conversation is the best distraction I've found but I do end up speaking quite loudly in an unfortunately Ron Burgundy-esque fashion (1:36).

            So, what, in fact, is my advice? Prepare distractions when you get ready to go. Got a tablet? Download some films. Bring you phone along and some ear buds. Prepare a playlist that will keep you heart pounding and your brain in the primal state designed by evolution to keep you running from large, angry predators. Go with a friend and gossip a bit (as long as you're okay sharing it with half the gym if you're anything like me) or compete with them.

            You mind is designed to protect your body; unless you actively resist your willpower will give out long before you damage your muscles with exercise. It sounds difficult to believe but that's your brain already working its protective, subconscious magic. Do not plateau. Do not surrender to the temptation of weakness. Do not be Samwell Tarly. Nature did not design the human body to be inactive, unresponsive or weak. You have the fluid grace of a pouncing tiger, the raw strength of an angry gorilla and the undying determination of the lone wolf inside you - you just have to find it. I've spent awhile unearthing it and I'm still doing so. I'm hoping it's like an iceberg and there's a lot more yet to dig up. The only obstacle is your reasoned self-doubt and & your very human susceptibility to self-delusion. Your ability to do a thing is measured first by your belief you can do it, not by your actual ability to. (0:22)

            You may even find new things to enjoy - somehow the Narnia films have got me through a couple of runs despite my original dislike for them. So prepare you distractions, ignore the pleas and pains your body bombards you with and battle towards a brighter, lighter you.

No Snow, Plenty of Food

           A very Merry Christmas time to you! Or whatever time of year you're celebrating at the moment - just as long as you enjoy it. It has been distinctly drizzly and drenching in the English South, varying from the former while I'm inside to the latter when I leave a building. Apart from falling water, I have also had plenty of food during the festive time - has my weight suffered?

            No! Happily - I am now 192.5lbs, 13st and 10.5lbs or just over 87kgs. This is great news, and no I didn't do it by avoiding any kind of main meals or by cutting down on what I ate during those meals. I did it by making sure I stuck to my calories - and usually did so in a single meal - or by getting to the gym/going for a run on days I new I'd be eating a lot.

            This made Christmas and New Year about the same as the rest of the time I've dieted, as far as dieting went. Sure, maybe I had to do a little more exercise and maybe I had a bit of a food coma on Christmas night BUT I didn't have to reduce the amount I enjoyed myself on any occasion. Which is obviously a massive plus.

            As far as the gym goes I am now regularly running for 65 minutes and average about 9.2km in that time. I don't enjoy it for the first twelve minutes, the space between minutes thirty-two and forty-nine but I am pushing myself to maintain the practice. Eventually it will become easier and then comfortable, at which point I will have to up my speed so I still make progress with it. I'm doing heavier weights now as well so when I leave the gym I'm exhausted, hungry, buzzing with energy and immensely dehydrated. Survival advice: Don't talk to me between the end of a gym session and the end of my shower afterwards. I don't make for good company. Some people might find that hard to believe - some, I'm sure, would try to argue that I never make good company - but it happens. It's a problem I'll look into solving in the near future but for now I just have a long, hot shower which seems to do the trick.

            My one failure (dietwise) this week/ten period has been the KFC I had on New Year's day when I got back from London. It was glorious, I loved it, and it really hit the spot (and was technically within calories) but about two hours later I regretted it - I got hungry again. A friend (who's identity I forget at time of writing but I was grateful to for the following information) posted an image on Facebook about why you get urges for certain food groups and possible alternatives that are less fattening; this is potentially a diet-saver for those who have problems. Helpfully I did save the image:

            Pretty neat, right? I haven't tried it out yet but I'm going to be stocking up on kale like it's going out of style. Nuts and Seeds also seem a fairly good snack-food but I appreciate some people have allergies and others might be aware that nuts are actually considerably more fattening than their size suggests. I may even try seaweed but what I've done to solve my 'salty food' craving is to have a pasta meal (not microwaved or pre-packaged) and then adding salt to it. Seems to work - I appreciate it isn't exactly solving the problem but it's got to be better than eating unhealthy things with more salt in. I'm immensely suspicious of eating seeds as I have a childhood fear of plants growing out of my stomach if I eat their seeds from some fairytale or other but I might even give that a go.

            Last bit: Thank yous and stuffs. My brothers Matt and Marcus (as well as the rest of my family) are a continuing source of encouragement and have started joining me at the gym when we can all make it. My friends Paul and Lofty also join me at the gym quite a lot and their compliments and encouraging comments/challenges keep me going. Chris Enfield, Eddy Cara, Dan Drummond and Stuart Merritt are also inspirational by example - I don't talk to them so much as the others but credit where credit is due; they don't all work out, they weren't all overweight but they have all given me reason to keep to trying whether they know it or not. Other thanks: Michael Measures, Cat Haley, Kate Brady, Michael Oswell, Richard Bailey, Dan Adams, Eddie Hopkins, John Dulle, Shereen Fever, David Dyson and everyone else who's said a couple of encouraging things to me when they've had the chance (or complained to their partner about their lack of effort in losing weight after seeing me). There are a lot more people who should be on this list but in the interest of not making this seem like a list of names I'm saving the others for another time. Honestly, I appreciate every word said to me about it so don't stop.

            Not a shameless call for people to feed my ego. Never.