EXERCISE

The dreaded E word!

For more than two years now, I've got out of bed at least five mornings a week and headed straight to the gym. Do I enjoy it? - Not particularly! Yet I do miss it if I don't go for a few days.

All of my working out has been aerobic, which for the uninitiated means walking, running, or using the elyptical in my case. I'm pretty happy today because I achieved a personal best, running six miles in under 50 minutes for the first time - 49 minutes 28 seconds to be exact. While I was trying to stay focused on the treadmill this morning, I was waxing philosophical about the importance of working out.

Here's my accumulated wisdom on the subject -

1. If you push yourself too hard at the start, you probably won't keep it up.

2. You musn't be intimidated by the muscle-bound misfits around you.

3. Start by doing just what you can do.
When I was over 330lb, I walked one mile at 3mph - that was all I could do!!!

4. Keep pushing yourself a little more - at decent intervals.
I increased distance first, working up to walking for 60 minutes at 3.2mph. Then I started gradually increasing the pace and the incline until I was doing 4mph for an hour. I am talking about one year after I first started - that's how gradual it was.

5. You don't have to kill yourself to make it happen, you just have to be consistent.

6. Be sure to have something that distracts you from watching the time.
I love my IPOD, especially at the gym when I can spend 70-80 minutes listening to good music and sermons I've downloaded.

7. You need to have decent sneakers if you're going to work out seriously.
I hear that for runners, sneakers are dead after 300 miles. They may still look good, but the bounce has definitely gone. So splurge - you're worth it!

Exercise is an essential part of getting fit and staying healthy, but a sensible approach to it is necessary too.

SCAREY

Last night I caught a bit of a scarey program on The Learning Channel about a father and son surgeon duo who are doing gastric bypass operations.

I saw another episode of this a few weeks ago and was staggered at how huge some of the people featured were, yet they rolled out some even bigger patients for the show this week.

I thought about a gastric bypass operation myself a couple of years ago, until I heard a surgeon say this -

There are two ways to lose weight - diet and exercise or surgery, diet and exercise.

Up to then I thought surgery was a magical cure-all, but I came to realize it was still only one part of the equation. Since diet and exercise are componenets whatever way you go, I decided to let the surgeon keep his knife in its sheath and bypassed the operating theater.

Surgery is always risky and while I know those for whom a gastric bypass has been positively lifechanging, I know others who have experienced horrendous side-effects.

Diet and exercise do work!

BETTER WEEK

It has been a more focused week, probably helped by the fact that we were in Montauk for three days, spending much of it at the beach. I must confess I had a tough time several afternoons when I went for coffee at the Baker's Shop and saw his amazing display of cakes - but I survived.

I planned my exercise in advance as well as my diet. On arrival I set my odometer and discovered that it was exactly 3.1 miles from Hither Hills National Park to where we were staying. So that gave me a 6.2 miles (10K) course for my morning runs. There were a lot of hills and running on the road is tougher than on a treadmill, so I worked out pretty well - before relaxing on the sand with a book.

Planning is important - but I said that before ... and before ... and before!

PLANNING

I've said this before, but it bears repetition - planning ahead is the key to survival.

We're heading out for a few days and a good deal of thought has gone into what we'll eat while we're out in sunny Montauk. It's important to have the right things at hand, so we've thought through virtually every meal during those four days (considering Montauk prices, we're only allowing ourselves the indulgence of eating dinner out one night).

Not only will preparation time be minimal, but the food will be healthy too.

Being away from home is often an excuse to binge, but since I binge whilst at home far more often than is good for me, I'm planning to stay on program as we enjoy a brief break.

If you're going to succeed, you gotta plan - otherwise you'll just eat whatever junk is within reach.

DIET PILLS

Today a new light dawned for the hopes of our quick-fix society, 60% of which are obese, as the first ever over the counter diet drug went on sale. The pharmaceutical company responsible for ALLI, as it is known, will be laughing all the way to the bank.

The stuff flew off shelves as people rushed to scoop up the latest miracle drug, following a long tradition of snake oils and other remedies too good to be true.

If I get it right, ALLI blocks the body absorbing 25% of the fat a person consumes. Of course the fat then has to do something else, so it exits the body in the form of loose stools and other potentially embarassing bowel events.

So the bottom line is, you pay a small fortune to swallow something that plays havoc with your insides. Wow, that's smart!

Here's a better idea. Hold on to your money and reduce your fat intake by 25% all by yourself.

That way you'll save cash, lose weight and need less changes of underwear in the process.

CUTTING MYSELF SOME SLACK

The blunt facts are these -

My goal weight is 200lb

The maximum weight WW wants me is 202lb

My lowest weight is 199lb

My current weight is 200.6lb

There isn't a lot of flexibility there, so here's what I've decided, I'm going to go back into weight loss mode rather than maintenance, with a view to making 195lb my bottom line. That gives me a little more room for movement, which may not be a bad thing.

So thats's the plan!

THE GAP

I've had to totally replace my wardrobe several times over the past two years, but although I once loathed it, I like clothes shopping nowadays so it has been no great hardship.

I used to go into a store and embark on an often fruitless search to see if they had anything whatever in my size. When 3X tends to be tight on you, there's generally not a lot on the racks that you could wear. Thankfully things have changed.

It's no secret that I like wandering around Kohls now. You can get some great bargains there - but although they don't have an outstanding selection overall, I like to buy jeans in the GAP. They do something few other stores have picked up on - they sell pants in odd sizes.

Since I've about finished losing weight, I thought I was stuck in an awkward situation where 36 was too big and 34 was generally tight. Enter the GAP and their 35-inch waists.

I love the GAP!

GETTING THERE

Monday means Weight Watchers and weighing in.

Time to see how I had fared in my pursuit of a return to an acceptable weight after a couple of weeks off track that netted me a whopping seven pounds gain. I lost 3.4lb of that in one week and was looking to shed the remaining 3.6lb over the past seven days.

It wasn't a routine week, with one day of binging, a lot of meals out and less exercise than normal, so I was fairly content when the scale showed that I had dropped 2.2lb. That puts me back within the acceptable range and leaves me just 0.8lb above my target weight.

I can lose the rest this week. The secret is focus!!!

MAKING IT WORK

Sometimes it's harder to stay on track than others. Planning is the key when your routine is disturbed.

I've had a couple of early starts this week and therefore did not run in the mornings. So knowing I had to be out early today too, I decided to run a bit on the road instead of heading to the gym. I save around 15 miniutes travel time that way and although I only had time for 3.2 miles today, as they say back in the county of my son's birth, Yorkshire, Owt's better than nowt. Which loosely translates into anything's better than nothing.

Ate breakfast, lunch and dinner in restaurants yesterday, but that can be done without going nuts. Breakfast was half a small melon in a diner, lunch was sushi (just 3 points) and though I have no idea whatever of the points value of dinner in an Indian restaurant, I took what I considered to be as reasonable an option as possible - Dhosa.

Dhosa for the uninitiated is a large pancake made from lentils, filled with potato and other vegetables - plus more than a few tasty spices of course! It's generally breakfast in India, but I enjoyed it in the evening in Stony Brook.

It takes some doing, but you can make it all work if you really want to. It's wanting to that's the problem!!!

THAT'S MORE LIKE IT

Okay, we're writing yesterday off.

It all started with a slice of pizza at my grandson's birthday celebration (pizza is totally acceptable on WW's program) and after that I ate everything in sight for the evening.

There are possibly deep psychological reasons for that kind of binge, but let's not even bother going there right now!!!

The main thing is this - that was yesterday and this is today.

Today, although I didn't get to the gym this morning because I had an early breakfast appointment (and didn't fancy running on a treadmill at 5.30am), I did stay on program with my food. Ate good and plenty, but kept to my 26 points.

Tomorrow I'm out for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but I have a plan!

I'll let you know how it goes.

UH OH

Bad day - Binge day!

Thankfully there's tomorrow!!!

DAY TWO

There was a searching start to the second day of my focused week during which I need to lose 3.4 pounds. You see, I usually give myself Tuesdays off from the gymn and sleep a bit longer instead. But I figured since I have a couple of early morning appointments later in the week, I'd better go exercise while I can. Well, at least that was my conclusion, but it did involve a little personal battle while sleep was still beckoning.

I don't enjoy working out. I've said that before. But I have to do it. Weird thing is, I miss it when I don't go.

Ran four miles on the treadmill and then did two miles on the elyptical. Mixing it up a bit helps, as did listening to the podcast of a friend of mine preaching last Sunday.

Only eaten 18 points so far, so there's plenty left for munching on this evening!!!

26

That's Day One just about done and I've kept to the WW program that gives me 26 food points. The biggest challenge has been to pass on buying coffee while I was out this afternoon and this evening.

There's nothing wrong in coffee itself - I simply do not subscribe to the school of thought that says caffeine is bad for you. Humbug! (Unless you have a medical condition of course). I don't drink too much of the lovely stuff because I take it with a lot of milk and even though I drink skimmed, it all adds up.

I passed on carbs at dinner time and had extra veg instead - figured a bagel this morning covered the carb spot for the day. That left me with plenty of points for a snack tonight.

So there we go. Day One of clawing my way back has gone well.

SEVEN DAYS FROM NORMAL

Okay, it's Monday and I followed my normal routine for the day after Sunday. Went to the gym and did 7.2 miles between the treadmill and the elyptical - most of it on the treadmill - and then off to Weight Watchers.

So here's the official verdict - I'm still 3.4lbs up on where I was three weeks ago. That puts me 1lb over the maximum I can be as a lifetime member (that figure is 2lb over goal). Confused yet?

So the plan is to drop that 3.4lb this week and I figured I'd detail that journey here, just because I like writing and I'm egotistical enough to think there might well be at least one person in the world who could care less about how I get on with this.

This morning's workout was a good start to the day and I now have a 26 points food allowance that I must not exceed for the day. It's lunch time and 12 of them have gone already, which is unusual, but we did stop at the nearby bagel store after WW today.

A bagel is not usually a good choice. It costs 6 points, which is the equivalent to six slices of high fibre bread, but let's face it, now and again a bagel tastes good. The whole point about what I am doing when it comes to food is I'm trying to balance my eating and not simply cut out everything but rabbit food and water. So a bagel's quite okay - so long as you count it.

Back later!

MAINTAINING PERSPECTIVE

Earlier this week I mentioned that the scales showed me a whopping seven pounds up after two weeks of too much wandering from healthy eating.

As I suspected, much of that was fluid and it dissipated over the course of a couple of days (I bet you needed to know that!), but there's still two or three extra pounds around that are really troubling me.

I know that I'm not alone in this, but here's the problem - in my mind it's almost like I have put back on all the 133lbs that I lost. I'd swear my clothes are all tight, I look much fatter and I feel disgusted with myself.

So I have to keep telling myself that it's just a couple of stinking pounds and not the whole lot. I have to remember that one good focused week will see me back where I want to be, so I just need to stay on program - and that's what I'm doing.