No excuses – well, maybe just a couple

I'm sorry, I've been totally crap about posting anything on this blog for a while. I could put it down to the end-of-year rush at work, or I could lay the blame at the door of my computer – it's been getting slower and slower for a while and I eventually took it into the workshop to have the hard drive cloned and then doubled in size. That's when I was told I'd nearly knackered it by only having four gigs of hard drive space free. Anyway, the new drive was re-installed with no problem, but getting some extra RAM into the thing proved challenging – it was on order for days before it finally came through, and I was computer-less for over a week, something I'm not used to and which makes me feel distinctly uncomfortable...

Added to which, I had an exercise triumph – I managed to plough my way through five kilometres, although it took me nearly 40 minutes to do it – quickly followed by another exercise nadir. When I woke up the day after my five-k run, I could barely stand. I'd done some damage to my knee that left me limping. It's taken me almost a fortnight to be able to walk on it without getting a twinge, and it turns out that I'm not the only person to suffer a similar setback just at the point when everything seems to be coming together on the exercise front. The next posting on this blog will come from James, who has a theory as to why this might be...

Another milestone, quite literally...

I managed to push on through my 2-mile barrier yesterday. I planned a new route for my run and just went for it. True, by the end my legs felt like jelly, but I just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and I made it. I've found there's a bit of a psychological trick to it too. I divide the run into segments and push myself until I get to the end of each segment – then I tell myself I should get through at least one more segment. Sooner or later, you end up so close to the finishing line that it seems like a shame to give up...

I'm dreading this 5k run

I've tried and I've tried and I've tried, but I can't seem to break through the 3k barrier. With only six weeks (at the most) to go before I have to do this 5k run that James has put me up for, I can't see how I'm going to make it.

I spent the last couple of days in Geneva, on a commission to write up some restaurants in a deluxe hotel there (I'll post about the trip in full soon, and, yes, I know, tough job...) and spent some time in the gym while I was there. In theory, running on a treadmill should be easier than running on the street or in the park, but I still can't crack my 3k limit.

I'm rather beginning to dread this particular challenge...

A threatening email

I've just received the following email from James, the trainer I work with most of the time.

'Just been on Google and our run this morning was 0.9725 miles. 3 miles by the end of the year is not a problem. Anyway you've done it with me before. This time though, we'll take out the walk parts of the ratio.....

Have fun'

Now that's what I call a threatening email...

Ow!

This is Gemma (right), who came and gave me my training session last week because James was away in Canada at one of the eight (!) weddings he's going to this year and Phil couldn't make it.

So, Gemma drew the short straw and rocked up here on Friday morning (Laszlo went ballistic as she wheeled her bike into the hall, but she didn't seem to mind and even earned brownie points by saying he was 'lush'). Anyway, she's a teeny-tiny girl – not much over five foot, I'd guess, and she looks like she'd blow away with one good puff of wind.

I can't quite put my finger on why, but training with her felt slightly different from doing a session with one of the guys. It might have something to do with the fact that she's very softly spoken, and her dictats seemed to be phrased as suggestions rather than commands (not that James bullies me – it's just that when he asks for 10 squats or a jog round the park, refusal is very clearly not an option). And, attention seeker that I am, I got off on the fact that Gemma praised everything I did. It was great – I felt like I was some kind of super-athlete rather than a panting, tubby forty-something bird.

But somehow, despite the feeling that this was a low-key session, I ended up aching like a bastard all weekend. I'm sure it wasn't the fast-paced jog that kicked off the session and left me out of breath right from the get-go. It can't have been the boxing – Gemma looked like she'd fall over if I'd punched any harder. The lunges? Well, there were only a few of them, interleavened by some sprints and walks. The press-ups were fairly tough, but I only did two dozen, and two dozen of the triceps dips off the front of the bench. Oh – and then there were the pelvic raises with one leg off the floor – they were hard going, but were they really hard enough to leave me walking bandy-legged as a cowboy in some two-bit Western?

Nope, I can't quite put my finger on why, but somehow an easy session with Gemma turns out to be a bit like spending an hour in boot camp.

The 10 (weight loss) commandments

According to James, there are 10 commandments you should bear in mind when trying to lose weight. In no particular order, these are:

1. Forget the idea that crunches will get rid of your belly fat

You can't pick and choose areas where you'd like to burn fat. In order to burn fat, you need to create a workout that includes both cardiovascular and strength training elements. This will decrease your overall body fat content.

2. Forget the idea that stretching before exercise is crucial

Some studies have suggested that stretching actually increases muscles' susceptibility to injury. They claim that by stretching, our muscle fibres are lengthened and destabilised, making them less prepared for the strain placed upon them by exercise. You might want to warm-up and stretch before a run, but if you are lifting weights wait until after the workout to stretch the muscles.

3. You should eat before you exercise

Fuel, which you get from food and fluids, is required to provide the energy for your muscles to work efficiently, even if you are doing an early morning workout. Consider eating a small meal or snack one to three hours prior to exercise. Breakfast on fruit, yoghurt or wholewheat toast.

4. Lifting weights doesn't make you bulk up

Most women's bodies do not produce nearly enough testosterone to become as bulky as a body builders. If you do find yourself getting bigger then you should simply use less weight and up the number of repetitions you do.

5. Fat is not always bad for you

Contrary to popular belief, there are plenty of good fats out there that are essential to promoting good health and aid in disease prevention. These fats occur naturally in foods like avocados, nuts and fish, as opposed to the fats present in manufactured foods. By including small amounts of these foods at mealtimes, you'll feel full longer and therefore eat less overall.

6. Restricting calories is not the best way to lose weight

True, cutting back on calories and moving more will help you to lose weight and maintain the lean muscle mass needed to boost metabolism. However, people usually think they need to take drastic measures to lose weight (for example, by eating fewer than 1,200 calories a day), but this does not usually provide adequate fuel for the body and may slow your metabolism in the long run, leading to a vicious circle of never-ending dieting. Drastic measures rarely equal lasting results. Instead, aim to eliminate 100-300 calories consistently from your daily diet.

7. You can't eat as much as you want, even if the food is 'healthy'

A calorie, is a calorie. Although porridge is healthy, if you have two large bowlfuls of the stuff every day, the calories add up. You must be aware of portion sizes because you need to limit your caloric intake in order to lose weight. However, understanding how to balance your calorie intake throughout the day can help you avoid feelings of deprivation, hunger and despair.

8. Exercise doesn't turn fat into muscle

Fat and muscle tissue are composed of two entirely different types of cells. While you can lose one and replace it with another, the two never convert into different forms. Fat will never turn into muscle.

9. Eating late at night won't make you gain weight

There are no magic hours. We associate late night eating with weight gain because we usually consume more calories at night, and we tend to do this because we often deprive our bodies of adequate calories the first half of the day. Start the day with breakfast and eat every 3-4 hours. Keep lunch the same size as dinner, and you will be less likely to over-indulge at night. If you do this, you can enjoy a small late-night snack without the fear of it sticking to your middle.

10. You don't have to sweat to be exercising efficiently

Sweating is not necessarily an indicator of exertion – it's your body's way of cooling itself. It is possible to burn a significant number of calories without breaking a sweat: try taking a walk, doing some light weight training or working out in a swimming pool.

Damage limitation

I'm still not getting much change out of about 85 kilos, but then it is review season (as I might have mentioned already). Some magazines pay for your meal, allowing you to dine incognito, but the one I work for prefers to accept complimentary meals from PRs, which means the restaurant knows you're coming.

Now I'd rather eat anonymously when I'm reviewing, of course, but I do truly believe that the people in a kitchen can either cook or they can't – and if they can't they can't disguise the fact when the reviewer pitches up. Sure, it means that I sometimes get fawned over by the waiting staff, but it's very easy to take note of how the other diners in a restaurant are being treated and how happy they look. So, although the situation isn't ideal, I don't feel that my critics morals are being compromised quite as severely as it might appear.

The main downside, as far as I'm concerned this year, is that if a restaurant knows you're coming some of them tend to throw their best possible dishes at you – sometimes several courses of their best dishes – often with great wines to match. Under the circumstances, it's very difficult to turn anything down. I'm trying my best not to finish everything on my plate, but several recent meals have challenged me in that respect – in fact I was hard pushed not to pick the plate up and lick it clean at Lindsay House, Richard Corrigan's Soho restaurant. Another place I've been really enthusiastic about is Nahm, a Michelin-starred Thai restaurant that serves stupendously exciting food and offers an equally exciting wine list. The only downside to the place is the stultifyingly dull décor.

Anyway, I'm getting away from the main issue, which is that I've got to face up to the fact that if I'm eating out three times a week between now and the start of September, the diet isn't going to progress very fast, if at all. There's no point in beating myself up about it – I've just got to accept the reality of the situation and deal with it.

I'm balancing things out by sticking to the diet at home and doing a fair bit of exercise. With James' encouragement, I made it all the way round Clapham Common the other day – albeit by running for 10 minutes, then walking for five before picking the pace up again. It took 35 minutes in total, I felt like I was going to die – or melt, whichever happened first – but I made it...

Ow, that hurt!

I should be punching the air in triumph. Yesterday morning, I managed to run a mile and a half. I know it was a mile and a half (almost to the yard) because James had showed me a great website (http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/) that allows you to plot a route of your choice and it then works out the distances involved.

So, yes, as I was saying. A mile and a half. It took me around 20 minutes (I could have probably walked the distance in 25, so I wasn't exactly moving fast). My calves and feet were aching by the time I rounded the corner for home – and boy have they ached ever since. So much so that I think it would be foolhardy to go for another bout today (or at least that's the excuse I'm giving myself).

Anyway, I think I've reached a consolidation point. Over the next week or two I'm going to focus on that distance until I can do it comfortably. I'm off for a nice, relaxing warm bath now...

Why I hate summer

I'm exaggerating, of course. Like any normal English person, I crave the sunshine – partly because we seem to get so little of it.

But I hate the sunshine when I'm exercising. When I'm exercising alone, I try and make sure I get my run in the early morning, before the heat really kicks in. Before 9 is my ideal, but life seldom works like that. To begin with, I find it hard to resist dealing with emails while I'm having my morning cuppa, and things tend to spiral from there... Before we got Laszlo, it wasn't unknown for me to be sitting at my desk at three in the afternoon, still wearing my dressing gown, with a stone-cold mug of half-drunk tea at my elbow. These days, I'm compelled to give Lasz a walk, preferable by lunch-time, so I'm no longer the dressing gown devotee I once was, but I still manage to find plenty to do before I get myself out the door in my running shoes.

This morning, for instance, I didn't get out until nearly 10, by which time the sun had cranked up a considerable amount of heat. It didn't stop me from getting round the park's perimeter twice (a distance of just over a mile and a quarter, as measured by my car's odometer on Saturday - big yay!), but it would have been easier to do had the temperature been somewhat cooler. Bring on the drizzle, that's what I say.

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.

There is no alternative

I think I may have mentioned that five weeks off the exercise programme has had a serious impact on my fitness levels. I had been planning a half-hour run for the day after the exercise (in fact I'd gone into the park that day to limber up), and was doing two laps of the park with ease, but on my return from Greece I found myself hard-pushed to make it once round the park.

I've only had three sessions with James, but he's been pushing me hard – instead of exercising at a constant intensity, he's been working me in full-on bursts of activity. He says this will get me back to where I was a bit quicker, but I'm not exactly sure of the rationale behind this (he promises me he's going to write a few words for this blog explaining the whole thing).

In any case, I made it round the park – just – on a couple of occasions last week.

However, my scales are stuck at somewhere between 84.7 kilos and 85.1 kilos (they seem to fluctuate). And, horror of horrors, I'm now about to launch into an intense period of restaurant reviews that will last right up until my (very) post-wedding party (Mark and I are having a belated celebration with a group of friends at the beginning of September). I'm due to eat out at least twice a week at some of London's best restaurants every week until then. I'm going to have to try and exercise some willpower, of course, but I suspect that's not going to be enough if I want to be down around 80 kilos on the day (after all, I'm going to have to look at the pictures for the rest of my life).

So the only alternative is to crank up the exercise. On a near-daily basis – daily if I can make myself do it. This morning I gritted my teeth and made it twice round the park. The last 40 metres were hell – it felt like I was running through treacle – but tomorrow's run may be a bit easier.

A quick update

I took my first bit of exercise since the accident today. My knee is still slightly stiff, and I can't kneel without a twinge of discomfort, but I decided that it was time to bite the bullet.

A few weeks of enforced rest have taken the edge off what little stamina I had – once round the park was OK, but twice would have been pushing it. Instead my second lap consisted of quick sideways jogs, a few sprints and some step-ups onto the park benches.

I'm off to Greece at some obscenely early hour tomorrow and will probably be off-line until I get back on Saturday week. The good news for anyone out there logging in on a regular basis (my apologies for the patchy blogging over the past couple of weeks) is that once I'm back I won't have any trips longer than two or three days at a time for quite a while. So normal service should be resumed shortly.

More good news

When I went to the doctor to get my stitches taken out on Monday morning, I got some good news. Early in January, James measured my blood pressure and it was on the high side of normal. According to Monday's readings, however, I'm right back in the mid-range. This exercise lark must really have some benefits...

The first rule of jogging

Today I learned something new. What I learned was that the first rule of jogging is that you must always, always look where you're going. As you can see from the picture above, I didn't.

I was out in the park with Laszlo, trying to loosen up my muscles after my last session with James had left me feeling a bit stiff (serves me right for not stretching right afterwards). James and I were due to go out on Clapham Common tomorrow morning to see just how far I could jog when I put my mind to it – the goal was half an hour.

So, there I was, being a good girl, pootling round the park, not really looking where I was going – in fact, actively looking over my shoulder because Lasz had stopped to play with a Jack Russell – when I tripped over a shallow hole in the path and went sprawling.

I've badly skinned the palm of my left hand, but that's nothing compared to my left knee – I've got a deep, deep gash just below my knee cap. It's really quite gory-looking in real life. I was meant to go out for a review dinner tonight, to Lindsay House. I was really looking forward to it, but I've got a sneaking suspicion Mark may come home in half an hour and insist I go to hospital and get my leg stitched up.

I'm also not convinced that I'm going to make the half-hour run tomorrow.

Drat, drat and double drat.

Still, if I ever wanted proof that journalism was the right career move for me, the fact that my first thought on getting home was that I'd better get a picture of the injury to post on the blog seems to provide ample confirmation.

Something weird happened while I was away

I never thought I'd say this, but while I was away, I got kind of fidgety from lack of exercise. I found that I was actually looking forward to going for a run on my return. I even found myself, on the second morning in Tbilisi, down in the gym (inappropriately attired in linen trousers, a singlet and a pair of Converse trainers, but there you go...) jogging on the treadmill.

Maybe they're right when they say you can get addicted to exercise. What a horrible thought...

A double celebration

Much to my surprise, after my kachapuri and kebab fest, I've come back weighing somewhat less than I did when I went to Georgia. Maybe misery has a purpose after all...

85.4 kilos. Hurrah!

Plus I managed two laps of the park again yesterday morning. The fact that spring has sprung while I've been away, with a consequent rise in temperature, makes things a tad more difficult than they were when the weather is cool and overcast. It's not much fun jogging in the sunshine (I feel like someone whingeing about a half-full glass, but it's true). But if I can haul myself out of the house before about 10 in the morning, it's not too bad.

Breaking news

After I managed to make it all the way round my local park (see above) at the start of this month, James and I set a new challenge: to make it twice round the park. According to James, who's googled the info, twice round the park is somewhere just over a mile – a distance that would have seemed impossible a couple of months ago, when twice round the tennis court brought me out in a fit of wobbles.

So, after the triumph of one lap of the park, the new target was set, and James' reckoning was that I should get there in about six weeks' time, which would have taken us to the middle of May.

Last night, however, I had dinner with Jon, one of my oldest friends, who was telling me that he went out running last weekend for the first time in living memory and managed to keep up with some country friends of his, regular runners, for an hour – although he did say they were very kind with their pace-setting. I still don't know how he managed it; by my reckoning an hour's running, even at its most gentle, must cover about five miles, a distance that would give me a heart attack or heat stroke, whichever came first.

But Jon's account of his weekend run did make me feel challenged, so I prised myself out of bed (a challenge in itself, for some reason my bed seemed ultra-comfortable this morning) and went out to the park, determined to make it round at least a lap and a half. I did better than that, though – I made it round twice. I feel knackered, but I also feel really pleased with myself, and that's a good feeling.

Ramping it up

I once had a boyfriend who used to go for 50-km cycle rides on Sundays for fun. The relationship didn't last long because, quite frankly, I'm not that kind of girl. In short, I'm not one of life's natural exercisers.

But, three months in, I find I'm quite enjoying my sessions in the park, albeit in a strange, grudging kind of way. Sessions with James are always a bit of a challenge. There's plenty of variety: some days we focus on running; on other days, although the aerobic intensity is maintained, I'm made to alternate between what James refers to as shuttle runs (short bursts or jogging/running/walking), along with walking or running backwards (something I find very challenging) and my new 'favourite' (a pet hate, actually), skipping. James started things off quite easily, a few weeks ago, asking me to skip for 20 turns of the rope. Then he ramped it up to 50, and if I stumble or trip, the count is reset back to the nearest 10 and I start again. Now I'm being asked to skip for a minute at a time. A minute doesn't sound like a long time. If you're fit, a minute may not be a long time. But (as I found out when I used to be a junior producer at a TV station) a minute can be a very long time when you're trying to fill it.

Things got even worse the other day when James stretched an elastic band out, about six inches off the ground, and asked me to jump across it sideways, both feet together. These inocuously named bunny jumps require an awful lot of muscle tension to power them. And landing is pretty hard on the calves, too.

And when we're not doing aerobic work, we're working on my muscle tone and balance. Boxing still plays as important a part in the routine as it ever did, and the moves are still the same – only now I'm asked to reach further, punch faster and a certain amount of choreography is now included in the routine, with jabs, crosses and upper-cuts interwoven with high knee-kicks.

Another old 'favourite' is step-ups onto a bench. James often gets me to start a session by getting me to jog (or walk backwards or sprint sideways) between benches, then step up a dozen or so times leading with my left foot, then moves me on to the next bench, where I repeat the exercise leading with my right.

Gradually, over time, the intensity of the exercises are being stepped up. And although I end up feeling wiped by the end of each session, I'm no more wiped now than I was at the start.

A ray of sunshine

Even though I feel guilty (see earlier post) about my lack of posting and my lack of weight loss, a couple of rays of sunshine have pierced my gloom.

The first is that, on Friday, I ran the whole park. By the time I got the whole way round, I felt like I couldn't quite get enough air in my lungs, but I made it. And, as James said, I was only four days behind schedule. My next challenge is to make it twice round the park – a distance of around a mile and a quarter. James reckons it's going to take me six weeks to do it. I'm determined to get there earlier if I possibly can, and aim to do as much running between sessions as possible in order to make it happen.

The other good thing that is starting to happen is that people who have no idea I'm on a diet are starting to remark on the fact that I've lost weight. Maybe things are starting to tighten up, despite the fact that the scales aren't showing any significant loss of poundage.

A long country walk

Last Sunday, Mark and I drove out to Kent with Laszlo to meet up with a couple of friends for a long country walk. After a bit of initial confusion – Katrina missed her train, so we had to go and pick her up from Sevenoaks rather than start our walk at Knockholt as we'd planned, then the GPS system took us the long way round to Sevenoaks from Knockholt, where we'd been waiting – we set off from the car park at Knole House, a splendid Jacobean mansion that once belonged to Vita Sackville-West's family.

The house (small castle, really) is surrounded by a deer park, a fact we weren't initially aware of until Laszlo disappeared over the horizon in search of new friends (or possibly fresh venison – it's kind of hard to tell what's going on in his little furry mind sometimes). By the time we'd reclaimed him, we were already 1/4 of a mile into our walk.

We then tramped through some woods, down a length of road, then skirted the edge of a golf course for the best part of an hour. The highlight of the pre-lunch bit of the walk came as we passed along the fringe of one of the holes. Two young guys were teeing off several hundred metres away, and I don't think they'd played much golf before because one of them hit the ball off course. It banged into a tree just in front of us, then dropped to the ground like a stone. Laszlo was on it like greased canine lightning, and scooped it up. He was about to bugger off with his prize when I leaped on him and got him to drop the thing. We apologised to the golfers, who at least had a sense of humour about it and didn't seem too angry.

Lunch was a not-terribly-healthy salad in a pub in a small village. The prawn and avocado salad looked like the safest bet on the menu, but the prawns came covered in gloopy Marie Rose sauce. Still, it was a pleasant enough spot for a bite (and a pint for everyone else – I stuck to a spiced tomato juice).

Refreshed, we set off again, and ended up in some dense woodland. The paths were very muddy, not to mention steep, so we slithered uphill and back down for a while – I was feeling the effects on the backs of my thighs by this stage, and was discreetly trying to catch my breath at the top of each hill. Katrina, just back from a walking holiday in the Breacon Beacons was having no such problems, and was striding along, OS map in hand. Lasz (right, in the Easter snow), too, was in fine form, bouncing along, running from the front of the pack to the back to check we were all making it alright. Then, just as we came to the end of the woods, we stumbled across a house that had chickens pecking around loose in the front garden. Laszlo saw them before we did, and was off. Mark took off after him and, for a minute or two, we were entertained by the sight of Mark chasing after Lasz, who was in hot pursuit of a terrified hen. He wouldn't have known what to do with one had he caught it, so I wasn't too worried (nor was the owner, luckily) and eventually Mark grabbed him and put him on the lead.

By the time we got back to the car park, we'd walked about six strenuous miles. We all slept well that night, particularly Lasz, who twitched strenuously in his sleep. I'm not sure whether he was dreaming about chasing deer, golf balls or chooks.