Excess and Exercise

This week has been a blur of food and running. Therefore, as someone who is trying to lose a few pounds, it has also been a week of finely tuned balance.

The blur began last week on Wednesday with The Impossible Session. With a night out on Thursday (scoffing my face with fish and chips in Bradford) I felt I had no option but to force myself to attend the 'hard' Wednesday night session at running club- please note: 'hard' is placed within the inverted commas for emphasis and in no way suggests any form of irony... Trust me! - So, we set off to the starting point where Pete described the session: run out for 8 minutes, come back in 7. Take a 1 minute recovery (1 minute? That surely can't be enough??!! - it wasn't!). Then, run out in 6 minutes and return in 5; out in 4, return in 3 - all still with a 1 minute recovery in between - and finally, out in 2 and return in 1. We duly undertook the session which required pushing out and literally sprinting back and, to be fair, I was doing very well at arriving back in the allotted time. Until the final interval of course, as this one was actually, physically impossible. By this point, I was pushing out at about 8.30 min miles; even with my poor maths skills, I can work out that to return the same distance in half the time would require me to run back at 4.15 min miles. Yep. Impossible. I can't - obviously - run that fast! I ran back as fast as I could instead.

The following night, I stuffed my face with fish and chips in celebration of Mik's dad's birthday (happy birthday Sean!) and completion of the impossible session. On Friday, I stuffed my face with cake and pizza; on Saturday we took Doris for a long walk, so I could stuff my face with Chinese; on Sunday, I walked the 6 mile round trip to the city centre so I could stuff my face with Sunday dinner (guilt free) and then I took Doris for another 3 mile walk.

Come Monday, you'd think I'd have had enough of stuffing my face. No, you're right, not if you know me... In fact, if you know me well, it'll be no surprise that I dutifully continued to stuff my face with sandwiches, wedges and the-nicesest-chocolate-in-the-world when I visited Slattery's tea rooms for a 'ladies-what-lunch' catch up with the girls.

By the time I left Slattery's, my stomach ached with the excessive delights I had stuffed it full with, so, naturally, by 7pm I was out running 23 hills at running club. Ouch.

Unfortunately... Or maybe, fortunately, these 'stuffing my face' exploits are due to continue for the rest of the week. In fact, I am currently sat on a train heading to London where I will be taking my mother for an surprise birthday afternoon tea... Nom, nom!

Thankfully, in all of this, I have one saviour; that which will hopefully save me from gout, obesity, or just simple stomach explosion: myfitnesspal. I have installed this little, trusty app on my iPhone, and have been using it to ensure that my excesses have not become excessive! And, despite the slight obsession I've developed with the thing, I think it's doing me good. I've always maintained that dieting is not about denying yourself things you want, or denying your body food it needs; that's not sustainable. If I had been doing that, I would have given up and gone 'off my diet' on Thursday with my fish, chips and curry sauce - I didn't mention the curry sauce before did I :-o - Instead, I've been keeping my excesses balanced with my exercises. Granted, I've not been eating the most nutritional diet in the world this week (so the gout is still a possibility) but I have managed to keep losing weight! Woop! All I have to do is keep the average calories, over the week, below the red line on the pretty little graph (shown below) and it doesn't matter if the little, daily green ones turn red every now and then! Simples!

And perfect, as I'm off to stuff my face with more food... Ooooh, and maybe a few glasses of wine... What? I'll have a salad tomorrow!