How to lose 2 stone in 2 months. Week 1

Starting Weight                                                                    Week 1 Weight

In order to start my preparations for the 2012 Wiggle Dragon Ride, Last week I started on my mission to lose 2 stone in 2 months. This is my first weekly update.


WEEK 1

I set myself a number of goals:-

1. Start giving up smoking.
2. Get (completely) pissed only once.
3. Cycle 50+ miles on friday.
4. Do 50 sit-ups every day this week.
5. Purchase some annoyingly expensive trainers.
6. Run a few miles on friday and sunday.

Here is how the week went.....


I'm very glad the first weigh-in shows a decrease in weight as I'm sat here with the mother of all hangovers, after a night of drunken debauchery with my work colleagues. I thoroughly succeeded in getting completely pissed, which reflects my attitude towards this entire venture: one of complete dedication. Seriously, the point of point 2 was to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed per week. Me and abstinance don't get on very well, but this week I've done very well and been sober for 6 whole nights.

On friday I went out with a couple of Coventry Wheelers (one of them being Graham Milne, a work colleague), joining them for their regular friday outing. The friday ride tends to attract the retired club cyclists and I hoped for a group of geriatric gentlemen to ease me gently back into the saddle. Unfortunately, the only grey haired bloke to turn up was a fireman and he didn't look that different from Lance Armstrong. To compound this unfortunate turn of events, I'd left my two drink bottles on the sink at home, leaving me with nothing to drink for the ride.

We set off from Coventry and looped around the Warwickshire countryside in gloriously chilly winter weather. The ride was actually managable, with parts of it pushing me into the red. We stopped half way round at Wellesbourne Airfield cafe. I had a coffee and then chugged a big bottle of orange juice, which turned out to be just enough fluid to get me home comfortably.

The last ten miles into Coventry became something of a voyage into pain for Graham, which is unusual. With a mile left to his house he pulled over and told me to carry on. I informed him that I was enjoying watching him suffer, so wouldn't be going anywhere. Grimly he rode back home a shadow of his normal self. At the end of the ride he reflected that a bowl of cereal prior to the ride was probably too little fuel to ride on. I'd stuffed my face and was feeling good considering my current level of fitness. I can tell the next time we go out he'll be back with a vengeance.

Brooks Adrenaline DNA. Reassuringly expensive.

After completing the route, I paid a visit to Coventry Runner on Burnaby Road. I'd phoned them the day before, and found out that gait analysis was £20, but would come off the price of a pair of trainers. Both staff were available when I arrived, and Dave kindly brought me drinks of water whilst Sandy gave me a standard pair of trainers and took me to the running machine.

I started running whilst a video camera recorded my foot-fall and Sandy watched my gait. After a minute Sandy asked me to stop running and loaded up the video footage. I was expecting my gait to be slightly odd because I walk quite distinctively (read bizarrely). And it was immediately clear that my feet were pounding the runner at a strange angle. Both feet were skewing off perpendicular whenever they hit the surface of the runner. Sandy explained to me what my foot was doing and then brought me a pair of Nike's which were built up to compensate for my gait.

I ran for another minute and she showed me the footage compared to the original footage, side-by-side. Amazingly (for a non-runner), I could clearly see the change in my foot-fall. Now I was landing both feet in a perfectly straight line with my legs. It was clear to my untutored eye that I needed a built up pair of trainers.

After trying 3 or 4 pairs on and explaining to Sandy I only want to run for 30mins to 45mins every day or so, I picked the Brooks trainers (pictured). The first proper run will be tonight, as I ended up cycling 66 miles on Friday and didn't have the energy to run that evening.

And I will have to run! Looking at the weight loss for week 1, I'm going to struggle to meet my goal. Fortunately I have an Ace up my sleeve. At present, half my working week is spent on early shifts (8am-4pm). To get us through these earlies, one of the team started up Lunch Club. Only open to a select few (people who can eat a lot of food .... mainly blokes), Lunch Club comprises of a selection of fine meat and batches, layered with salad and piri-piri mayo magic, garnished with crisps, tomatoes and the occasional slice of Pork Pie.

There's only one rule in Lunch Club: There is no Lunch Club  :(

Needless to say, this is a bounty of calorific goodness. I ride to work and have justified Lunch Club to myself based on the need to replace burned calories. If i'm going to lose enough weight, Lunch Club will simply have to go. It's a shame because it took me almost a year to get into it, and now I will be struck off forever, never to be spoken of again.

Regarding the two remaining items on my list, these have been almost utter failures. I gave up smoking for half a day but caved in. The plan is to get prescribed some Champix in order to remove my willpower from the equation. I haven't managed to find time for an appointment yet. I'll do that in the next couple of days.

Regarding the sit-ups, I haven't done any.

Perhaps the most important lesson to learn from Week 1 is not to give up. I haven't completed all my goals, but this is almost irrelevant when the only aim of this exercise is to lose 2 stone. I will be increasing my exercise now that I have running trainers, and after that great bike ride on friday, I feel the urge to push the miles on the bike as well.

With this in mind I've set myself new tasks for this week:

1. Give up lunch club.
2. Run at least 3 times this week.
3. Eat sensibly.
4. Drink no alcohol whatsoever.
5. Cycle extra miles on the way to work for at least 2 shifts.
6. Do 100 sit-ups every day (by way of punishment for my terrible performance in week 1)

Fingers crossed!