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If this blog teaches us anything it is that there is zero point in me attempting to go on a diet. Sure I can make it work for a year, sometimes even eighteen months, but then slowly and surely (or last year quickly and idiotically) I put it all back on again.
BUT here we go again. Two years ago I attempted to lose 25 kilos to prove medical science wrong and show that I shouldn’t be at my BMI weight. Over the year I went from 97 kilos to briefly getting under 80 and ended up around 83. Last year despite staying relatively trim til June, the rigours of looking after a baby and not having the energy or time to exercise, plus a return to light but regular drinking, I kept putting on weight and ended 2015 at around 94 kilos. Which is dispiriting of course, to be almost back where I was. And although I think I look a bit better when I am little chunky, I am more concerned about staying healthy and alive (and it was the responsibility of impending fatherhood and wanting to see my daughter become an adult that spurred me on before). And being able to run long distances at a speed I’d never got to before (culminating with that personal best Half Marathon) was such a wonderful feeling. It’d be nice to get back to somewhere approaching that.
So I am back on my myfitnesspal app and getting proper use out of my Apple Watch (it’s only really useful as an aid to exercise, most of the rest of the things it does are enjoyable flimflam) and trying to build up my lost stamina. I mean, it’s pointless, of course. Even if I succeed in getting back to an acceptable weight (and I’d be very happy to be back at about 83-85kg as at least my swanky new clothes will fit again) I know that something will go wrong somewhere down the line and I will be back at this weight that my body wants me to be at. You know it too. It’s been a running (no pun intended) theme over the last 4784 days (and before that). Also I am fast approaching my sixth decade on the planet and things are getting a bit creaky (my lower back pain has returned, though that’s often to do with being a bit too heavy). But I have to try and I have to hope that this last leap will be my leap home.
If this blog teaches us nothing it is the triumph of experience over hope. But failure is my meat and potatoes are my potatoes (which contribute to the failure) and I have spun my trademark plucky falling short of my ambitions into a successful brand. I mean I am not the most successful purveyor of failure as a comedic commodity, which obviously means that I am the best at it.
But my life is once again a video game where calories equal life points and if I am running out of them I have to do some more exercise so I can get more food. My run today started well and I felt pretty good, but after a mile I was done. But I walked around the shops and then walked home, meaning I had enough points for some lamb chops and a yoghurt (which was just a one-off treat, I don’t eat them all the time, whatever you may have heard). Me1 is back at the helm, but Me 2 is lurking with a big bag of giant chocolate buttons and some fine malt whisky, though can be staved off for a while when he realises that every run is a competition against his clean-living, squeaky-clean, monogamous, boring counterpart.
I yoyo my way through life. And not in the fun way that involves an actual yoyo.
I did manage to play Tripodic across two triple word scores in Scrabble today. So my life isn’t a complete waste.
