Day two of the great porridge and soup diet has hit a bit of a snag. I've run out of clean saucepans.
As great as porridge is, and I do genuinely love it, making it in a saucepan does add an element of arsery and as I've been working elsewhere this week, in a proper office, I've not had time to wash them up.
So was back to corn flakes this morning.
I know porridge can be done in the bowl in a microwave, but that always ends up a right mess. For some reason, no matter how hard I try to get the measurements right, it always seems to explode and I'm left with the inside of the microwave looking like an accident in a fireworks factory in a leper colony. Ew.
Running with the FB Running Club tonight, hope it's not too grim out there.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Monday, 2 November 2009
The Porridge and Soup diet
I know I have about as much patience as Basil Fawlty on a bad day having to put up with a coach-load arthritic 90-year-olds attending a pet sloth convention, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to see some kind of payoff on the scales after running 8 flippin' miles in the cold and wet last night.
But no, the digital dictator in the bathroom mocks me with its stubborn reading of 16 stone, still. In fact that's more than I was this time last week.
So I got a bit huffy and kicked them across the bathroom floor and was mildly satisfied by the crashing sound it made against the skirting board, the mechanical equivalent of bone-crunching.
I guess that packet of Maryland choc chip cookies I rewarded myself with last night wasn't really the sort of reward that would do me any good. And if push comes to shove I have to admit I didn't need to finish Amy's pasta for her either, especially as she had barley rested her fork at the edge of the plate before it was scooped away to my side of the dinner table.
I think this is the hardest point, denying myself lots of food after having gone out and done loads of exercise. In my head it should mean I can eat what I like, and maybe a few years ago that was true, but not now. Of course.
I feel that while my training is going well and there's some real good progress being made in the mileage I'm racking up, all the wobbly bits are still wobbling and the fight against the flab has rather stalled.
This is annoying because of course the lighter I am the easier it will be to run, but also because I set myself this ridiculous goal of losing eight stone by the time I line up for the marathon, which is now less than 6 months away.
So, in a bid to make some real progress in the war on lard, I am adopting a radical new diet recommended to me by the eminent sports and nutrition expert Professor Marc Cooper, fresh from his recent sacking by the Government on account of his opening remarks on the Committee for the Reduction of Anal Palpatations which went along the lines of "Now, I'm not doctor, but..."
Anyway, Marc suggested a while back that a diet of porridge for breakfast and soup for lunch has worked wonders for a friend of his who shed loads of weight sticking to that and not snacking.
I have some faith in this approach as when I had my record-breaking healthy year a few years back I did eat a lot of porridge and it was great for releasing energy slowly and providing energy all day, and all that.
So from today my breakfast and lunch is going to be more predictable than a Jordan and Peter Christmas reunion, and I will be enjoying a bowl of porridge in the morning, and one of the many tins of Heinz I stocked up on at the weekend for lunch.
I tried something similar with SlimFast a little while ago, sticking just to their milkshakes, but got very bored and quite repulsed by the thought of milkshake ever again, so ditched it.
I'm hoping the little dollop of jam in the porridge, which is a lot less bad than you might think, and a range of interesting soups may stop that happening. I'm determined to give it a go this week and see if it makes a difference at my next Weight Watchers weigh in next Monday. I've decided not to go this week.
Plus I'll be doing a few runs this week to help. I'm kinda getting into the winter training thing. In the film of my life which plays out in my head most of the time, running the cold and dark is the real heroic part, like in Rocky when he's training in Siberia. The Downs in the winter are very much the same.
Sunday, 1 November 2009
8 mile and running
If I see another thirtysomething bloke walking around the supermarket with his arse hanging out of his jeans in a pair of manky pants, I'm going to really think hard about maybe saying something.
If you're a 19-year-old lingerie model, of either gender, with a body like an ironing board, I must admit it probably looks kind of cool to have your finest pair of CK's popping out the top of your jeans, but not if your clearly in your mid-thirties doing the weekly shop. It borders on offensive.
Sainsbury's in Clifton Down is a regular source of amazement, but luckily my daily trip didn't distract me too much from my plan to do a big run today.
I wanted to get up to about ten k today but did more than that and ended up running just over 8 miles.
It was one of those great runs when everything just went right and felt great.
I had the right tunes on my iPod, the conditions were good, although I did cop a shower half way down the Portway, and I just felt like I had so much energy in my legs that I could keep going as long as I wanted to.
I started off on the Downs, headed down the Portway, came back up Bridge Valley Road, past the zoo, back on to the Downs and round the smaller half again. I hadn't intended to run that far, but I swear I could have kept going if I was meant to do the full 26.2 miles tonight.
It felt great because I only did 2 runs last week, but maybe the fresh legs helped. It took me 1hr and 55mins, which is about a six hour marathon time. No surprise, still carrying a lot of weight and in fact I'd be happy with six hours, if I could keep going that long anyway.
It was a great morale booster to the training to be able to run all the way, now hoping it will be reflected in my weigh in tomorrow.
I'm also hoping the big bowl of pasta I had for dinner and packet of cookies earlier won't have done too much damage. But after running for nearly two hours I was a bit hungry.
Went to a wedding party last night (lime sodas all night) and caught up with lots of people I haven't seen for a while, and was surprised by how many of them read the blog, so thanks for the support, and thanks again to all those who have donated in the last day or so. It's all starting to come together and for the first time I can start to imagine myself on the start line on April 25 and taking on the marathon.
If you're a 19-year-old lingerie model, of either gender, with a body like an ironing board, I must admit it probably looks kind of cool to have your finest pair of CK's popping out the top of your jeans, but not if your clearly in your mid-thirties doing the weekly shop. It borders on offensive.
Sainsbury's in Clifton Down is a regular source of amazement, but luckily my daily trip didn't distract me too much from my plan to do a big run today.
I wanted to get up to about ten k today but did more than that and ended up running just over 8 miles.
It was one of those great runs when everything just went right and felt great.
I had the right tunes on my iPod, the conditions were good, although I did cop a shower half way down the Portway, and I just felt like I had so much energy in my legs that I could keep going as long as I wanted to.
I started off on the Downs, headed down the Portway, came back up Bridge Valley Road, past the zoo, back on to the Downs and round the smaller half again. I hadn't intended to run that far, but I swear I could have kept going if I was meant to do the full 26.2 miles tonight.
It felt great because I only did 2 runs last week, but maybe the fresh legs helped. It took me 1hr and 55mins, which is about a six hour marathon time. No surprise, still carrying a lot of weight and in fact I'd be happy with six hours, if I could keep going that long anyway.
It was a great morale booster to the training to be able to run all the way, now hoping it will be reflected in my weigh in tomorrow.
I'm also hoping the big bowl of pasta I had for dinner and packet of cookies earlier won't have done too much damage. But after running for nearly two hours I was a bit hungry.
Went to a wedding party last night (lime sodas all night) and caught up with lots of people I haven't seen for a while, and was surprised by how many of them read the blog, so thanks for the support, and thanks again to all those who have donated in the last day or so. It's all starting to come together and for the first time I can start to imagine myself on the start line on April 25 and taking on the marathon.
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Thank you
On Wednesday I launched my fundraising campaign by emailing and sending messages on Facebook to everybody I know, and some people I don't know very well, basically begging for money.
The response has been fantastic and I would like to say thanks to everybody who has pledged so far.
Thanks to the donations on www.justgiving.com/simonpeevers in the past four days I have managed to reach ten per cent of my £3000 target, which is a lot healthier than the 1 per cent I had before.
This is just the start of what I am hoping will be a long and sustained campaign to hit the target before too long.
Anybody who has done anything similar and has any useful tips would be great to hear from.
It does make me feel more determined to finish as well and I've a couple of good training runs this week.
This weekend I'm looking forward to a big run, about 10K, the first for a while. Hoping to do it before the rain engulfs the entire country as they said on the weather.
This challenge is really important to me personally, not because it plays to my vanity and wanting to look better having lost lots of weight, but genuinely because of the fantastic work done by the surgeons, nurses and everybody else at Southampton General Hospital, and the follow up treatment in Bristol.
I still can't believe that they were able to crack open my chest and stick a new part in my heart, sew me up and give me a new lease of life without me feeling a thing. It's a routine op for sure, but still pretty bloody amazing that we are able to do that.
So it's really in honour of them and the great work they do that I'm more than happy to put myself through a few months of physical pain. Which is ironic considering how hard they worked to make sure I didn't feel any pain.
So thanks again for all your donations, and thanks in advance to anybody who is thinking about making a donation and helping to beat the UK's biggest killer.
www.justgiving.com/simonpeevers
www.bhf.org.uk
Monday, 26 October 2009
A leap forward?
Pic caption: A bit like how I imagined myself running in the rain tonight
I feel I've managed to grow a little over the past 24 hours.
Not in a physical sense, and in fact I've lost 2 lbs since my last weigh in. Current fighting weight 15st 12.5lbs.
What I mean is that last night, Sunday, I went out for a run as per my schedule which said I should be running for an hour.
But it just didn't happen. I felt like crap, my legs wouldn't work properly, and I just didn't want to be out there. Not in the way that sometimes you don't fancy it but push on and it gets better.
It was almost a primal sense of hostility against the very environment around me, the forboding skies, the wind and general autumn gloom in the air.
Some might say I just couldn't be arsed, which is possibly true as well. But the weirdest thing I've discovered is that if I go running after a hard day at work, I can really get into it and feel really strong and enjoy it.
But if like on Sunday, I've done less with my day than the Equal Opps Officer at the BNP, I find it a real struggle to actually run any distance. I wonder if my muscles find it harder to deal with if all they've had to flex for is finding the remote.
So, back to my original point, about growing and that. I gave up the run after the first few minutes, I did keep walking the route though, but in the end jacked in the whole thing and I was out for about 40 minutes. Probably about 15, maybe 20 tops was actually running.
Normally when that kind of thing happens I get more moody than a sulky teenager who's just been told Muse have split up. However, because I know I can run for an hour plus, I chalked up last night's aborted effort as a bad day, and instead of spitting my dummy out and thinking I'm never going to get better, resolved to get back out there tonight.
And hey, whaddya know, tonight I had a great run, did an hour and five mins without stopping, and even put up with the driving rain.
This means I can take a mature attitude to these things and not just give up at the first sign of struggle, which at 34-year-old is probably the least you might expect of a grown adult.
I went back to an old route I haven't done for a while, which starts at the Downs, goes past the Zoo, up through Clifton Down and then round to the Suspension Bridge. Over the bridge, which is great with all the lights of the city below and the lights on the bridge, then though Abbots Leigh, and back again.
I think it's somewhere between four and five miles, can't be sure, but it's a great route, despite the worrying lack of street lighting in parts, and I love running over the bridge. It's a bit like if you live in London or Paris and you have Big Ben or the Eifel Tower on your route, which I'm sure Londoners and Parisians alike would scoff at but the bridge is as iconic and just as great a symbol of engineering genius. It is to me anyway.
The second half of the run was a bit wet as it started hammering down but it only added to my own sense of heroics as I crashed fearlessly through puddle after puddle, laughing in the face of precipitous downpour.
Hope I've not given myself a cold mind.
The weekend just gone marked an important milestone in the plan as it is now six months exactly until I'm on that starting line with a million others, wondering what the hell I'm doing there.
It made me think I've really got to start taking the weight loss seriously, so I was glad to have lost a couple of pounds today.
And I've also got to pull my finger out with the fundraising, so anybody who's got to this end bit without falling asleep, and who feels like sponsoring me, please check out the Just Giving button on the right of the page, every donation is much appreciated.
Monday, 19 October 2009
One hour plus run
Managed to do my first one hour plus run since starting my marathon training plan.
There was a fairly chilly breeze blowing around Bishopston as I stepped out into the early evening, my pastey white legs braced against the cold.
The first ten minutes was the worst as usual, but it was even more painful as my calf muscles felt really stiff, so I had to walk for a bit to get up the hill.
But after getting out on the flat of the Downs it all got much better and after about 35 mins I was purring along like Jenson Button cruising through Sao Paulo to the chequered flag. Sort of.
It struck me as I plodded round that it would be a really bloody good idea for Bristol City Council to stick some lights all the way around the Downs. I mean, for all the money that gets caned on bus routes and pointless dribbling fountains in the city centre, why not do some good and light up the Downs so that during the long dark winter months people like me who actually want to spend their evenings running around outside, can do so in safety and without fear of being mugged, murdered or stumbling upon some horrendous dogging/swinging/outdoor car sex antics, which are really best left on dodgy websites a long way beyond the firewall of the imagination.
Still, unlikely to happen in my lifetime I expect.
I finally made it home after one hour and eight minutes. I had intended to go out longer, but thought best not to wear myself out with a heavy workload to get through at the moment as well.
Next meeting of the FB Running Club on Wednesday.
There was a fairly chilly breeze blowing around Bishopston as I stepped out into the early evening, my pastey white legs braced against the cold.
The first ten minutes was the worst as usual, but it was even more painful as my calf muscles felt really stiff, so I had to walk for a bit to get up the hill.
But after getting out on the flat of the Downs it all got much better and after about 35 mins I was purring along like Jenson Button cruising through Sao Paulo to the chequered flag. Sort of.
It struck me as I plodded round that it would be a really bloody good idea for Bristol City Council to stick some lights all the way around the Downs. I mean, for all the money that gets caned on bus routes and pointless dribbling fountains in the city centre, why not do some good and light up the Downs so that during the long dark winter months people like me who actually want to spend their evenings running around outside, can do so in safety and without fear of being mugged, murdered or stumbling upon some horrendous dogging/swinging/outdoor car sex antics, which are really best left on dodgy websites a long way beyond the firewall of the imagination.
Still, unlikely to happen in my lifetime I expect.
I finally made it home after one hour and eight minutes. I had intended to go out longer, but thought best not to wear myself out with a heavy workload to get through at the moment as well.
Next meeting of the FB Running Club on Wednesday.
Friday, 16 October 2009
Running down the clock
Just back from a great run. I was down to do a 40 minute jog this evening, but thought I would push it up to an hour because I didn't do anything last night.
So after slogging up Cranbrook Road and getting onto the Downs I was feeling really good and headed for a route which took me an hour last time I did it.
Against the backdrop of the blood-orange sun setting behind the Downs I trogged along pretty well, trying not to go too fast and enjoying the thumping beats in my earphones drowning out the sound of the traffic, (if only I had something to keep the fumes out of my lungs, but I refuse to wear a mask).
I deliberately didn't look at my watch until I got back home and I was amazed to find the run had taken me 50 minutes. I can't believe I've knocked ten minutes off the run since I did it last time.
I must have been taking it real slow last time, and maybe I got a little ahead of myself tonight, but either way I've knocked a load of time off and that feels great.
Going for an hour and 20 on Sunday. Just the small matter of a wedding in between now and then.
But actually I'm even more amazed at Coronation Street. For a start I cannot believe it's been a year already since Liam died, cruelly cut down in his prime thanks to that dodgy Tony bloke. And now he's proposed to Maria and she's engaged! Unbelievable. No wonder Liam's ma's upset, indecent haste indeed!
Kevin Webster makes the most unlikely philanderer and I just don't buy the whole little affair between Craig Charles and that old trog.
Good to see Leannne Battersby back on her feet though, as it were.
So after slogging up Cranbrook Road and getting onto the Downs I was feeling really good and headed for a route which took me an hour last time I did it.
Against the backdrop of the blood-orange sun setting behind the Downs I trogged along pretty well, trying not to go too fast and enjoying the thumping beats in my earphones drowning out the sound of the traffic, (if only I had something to keep the fumes out of my lungs, but I refuse to wear a mask).
I deliberately didn't look at my watch until I got back home and I was amazed to find the run had taken me 50 minutes. I can't believe I've knocked ten minutes off the run since I did it last time.
I must have been taking it real slow last time, and maybe I got a little ahead of myself tonight, but either way I've knocked a load of time off and that feels great.
Going for an hour and 20 on Sunday. Just the small matter of a wedding in between now and then.
But actually I'm even more amazed at Coronation Street. For a start I cannot believe it's been a year already since Liam died, cruelly cut down in his prime thanks to that dodgy Tony bloke. And now he's proposed to Maria and she's engaged! Unbelievable. No wonder Liam's ma's upset, indecent haste indeed!
Kevin Webster makes the most unlikely philanderer and I just don't buy the whole little affair between Craig Charles and that old trog.
Good to see Leannne Battersby back on her feet though, as it were.
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