The long, dark teatime of the soul

I've always loved this title, which I've nicked from a Douglas Adams book (see left); it seems to capture the feeling of limitless gloom that comes with any internal struggle. I've been doing a fair bit of internal struggling over the past few days. Mark and I went away to Devon for our birthday weekend (conveniently enough, his birthday is on the 5th of July and mine is on the 6th) and I don't know whether I was suffering from birthday-itis (it's my birthday and I'll darn well celebrate any way I want to, even if it means coming off the diet); having reached the fuck-it zone (the weight's not coming off, so what the hell) or a bout of self-sabotage (you've lost 10 kilos, you're doing just fine, why struggle any more), but I tucked into ice-creams, a delicious apple and raisin cake, plaice in a buttery sauce, pork with crackling... You get the picture.

Having lost control of myself, though, I found myself waking up in the middle of the night and fretting about it. I am committed to losing the weight – even though it's tough going at the moment – apart from anything else, I don't want to lose face in such a public way, but my progress is slow at the moment. Has been for a while.

So I've returned to London fully committed to the notion of getting to grips with my inner demons. My diet has been at its most successful early in the year, partly because the diet shocked my system into losing weight and partly because I was in control of what I ate and when I ate it in a way that I'm not during restaurant review season. Given that it's going to be hard to stick to a diet (I can try, but I have to compensate for potential slip-ups) until September, and that I've decided that my goal is to lose 4.5 kilos to take me down to 80 kilos by the time of my post-wedding party on September the 6th, ramping up the exercise seems to be the logical way to go.

I had a word with James about it, and we've decided that my initial tactic (to go for two runs a day) isn't a realistic proposition. He thinks I'll just become bored very quickly and that it will prove to be a retrograde step. Instead, I'm going to up the intensity of what I'm doing when I work out by myself. James set me a running challenge (at least once round the outside of the park, then interval training for a second lap), which I'm already on to. He's also going to provide me with a skipping rope (it seemed so easy when I was a kid, but at the age of 44 it doesn't seem quite so much fun any more) and a couple of kettle bells. I'd never heard of kettle bells (right) before, but James explained what they were and said that they produce results pdq. I'm pretty sure that using them is going to feel like torture, but if they get me to where I want to go, I'm up for it.