I Am Going On A Diet - DON'T YOU TRY AND STOP ME!

[PMC]

Oh jeez...  The post holiday training regieme starts in earnest here too.

I must have stacked on at least 10lbs since before xmas and I need to get myself trim again.  I spent most of the past month coughing, sneezing and fighting off a nasty infection that resulted in an enlarged lymph nodes.

I found I was struggling at the gym for fitness and still haven't quite got over it yet.  I went biking several times over the holidays and was left floundering way behind everyone else.

Still, on the bright side I demolished a bottle of scotch, a couple of crates of beer, made a dent in a bottle of 10 year old Polish vodka (it was a choice between drinking it or cleaning my bike with it) and a substantial amount of food.  

So now my mission is to get back to my normal 165lb ideal weight, (75kg) and build up my fitness once again.  The fridge is full of stir fry, rabbit food and low fat yoghurts and alcohol is banished from my cupboard until I get back in shape.

Only problem is, at three different people have phoned to suggest that we "all go out for a few drinks" in the next couple of weeks...

[PMC]

IIRC it works out that 3,500 calories are stored in a pound of fat.  

3,500 may not sound a lot when the recommended daily intake of an adult male is 2000 calories, but believe me it takes an age to get rid of.  

Ideally you want to burn more calories than you take in.  Say if you set yourself a moderate target of burning 250 - 350 calories a day in addition to your 2000 then in a fortnight you'll have burned off a pound of flab.

Problem is that your body has other ideas.  It likes hanging on to fat.  After all, in the wild fat is used to store energy for when it's needed so your body won't tap into the fat reserves unless it needs them - think about it as like an overdraft account and you get the idea.

To burn 250 - 250 calories a day, you're looking at 25 / 30 minutes running/cycling/swimming.  

[PMC]

Well good luck CU_Amiga.  It takes some willpower but eventually you learn to love exercise and being in shape...

This time eight years ago I quit smoking, doner kebabs and other unhealthy vices in order to get more out of exercise.  If I don't work out for a few days I get really grumpy and I need to do get a fix somehow.  Believe me, I always used to be the person LEAST likely to become a fitness freak, during my student days I was surviving on beer, chilli sauce, chips and cigarettes.