Friday 27 January 2012

What's worse than a giraffe with a sore throat?

A whale with a thyroid problem. It's OK, I'm allowed to do thyroid jokes; I've been there, I've suffered. After Greenpeace's recent attempt to roll me back out to sea, I'm probably allowed to do whale jokes too.

After reading Jj's rather splendid Maturing Nicely blog I've been pondering weight loss and weight gain...and it turns out to be as you might expect: it's easy to put it on and a lot harder to get it off. Remember, I have a brown belt in physiology!

Let's assume that a hypothetical person (we'll call him Erwin H., because we don't care for Erwins and it's an anagram of 'whiner') eats a Mars Bar's-worth of unnecessary calories per day. Erwin stores as fat 280 calories every day; with 3500 kCal/lb gained, that's 2st 1lb of weight gained in a year. In five years, he's pretty much doubled his bodyweight and even wearing a hat doesn't make him interesting.

To get Erwin back to a normal BMI, we have to ease him off the Mars Bars or get him to burn more calories to compensate. He's going to have to run a couple of miles to use 280 calories and another four or five each day to burn a pound of fat a week. That's forty five miles, each week, every week. Crikey. You're going to have to ditch the confectionery, Erwin, and probably another 400 calories besides!

Add in the fact that Erwin's basal metabolic rate falls with age (he needs fewer calories to maintain his vital functions) and this year's balanced intake/expenditure is next years gain of 10kCal of fat each day...or a pound of lard a year. Depressing, no?

Well not really; it's still a case of eating less and moving more, just that it really pays to watch the food intake, even down to that last Mars Bar. Or you could always buy an interesting hat.

Wednesday 25 January 2012

Sex appeal.

Please give generously.

I shall, as is my wont, be completing the Severn Challenge for charity (I do a lot of good work for charity but don't like to talk about it.) I also once won a pair of sunglasses for improving from dreadful to almost average during one day of a stage race, though I don't like to talk about that either. Neither does my partner in crime from that glorious day, 'Hasn't entered yet Dave'...Remember, finger on the picture at the top of the page, chant 'enter, enter', that's the spirit.

I notice from the disreputable online haunts which I frequent (and you probably frequent too) that it's that time of year again. You know, when people start asking 'How do I raise money for my cause? They want £1000 in return for giving me my London Marathon place.' Or 'Please will you cough up some cash so I can have a free trek down the Inca Trail/ to the top of Ayers Rock/ into the Number 2 reactor at Fukushima; if there's any left over, I'll donate it all to Save the Marmoset.'

It used to be simple back in the day; you asked for sponsorship to run a marathon and people sponsored you to do just that; nowadays it's all cake sales and 'Bring your Marmoset to work' days (or 'the first £900 goes towards my NBC suit')

I can promise you that you'll get none of that from me. I'll be running the Severn Challenge because I want to and entirely at my own expense; if anyone would like to donate to my chosen charity, I'd greatly appreciate it, but there's no obligation and no pressure. No marmosets will be harmed if you don't, I promise.

'Hang on a minute,' I hear you mutter, 'you've wittered on about the 'appeal' bit, but you promised us sex.' Well, I'm now below twelve and a half stone and have the finely-turned legs of a Victorian dining table, but I'm no Brad Pitt. Sorry.

Monday 16 January 2012

What's white and enforces the law?

The Fridgealante.

I returned from my run the other day to find the emergency services on my drive; police, ambulance, fire brigade, the lot; they were about to take down the front door with a battering ram.

'Oi!' I shouted, not unreasonably, 'What do you think you're doing?'
'Sorry sir,' replied a young constable 'but the staff at the chip shop hadn't seen you for so long that they got worried and called the police!'

Weight loss is going quite well. I'm down to 12st 7 unofficially, so only a fortnight behind schedule; I've also run two consecutive 50 mile weeks and I'm feeling good.

I also note that Chrissie Wellington is following my lead in not racing IM this year; for me, it's all about the run!

Sunday 8 January 2012

Core blimey

guv'nor, that's not a very original pun...but I have been indulging in a regular* stretching and core strengthening programme, courtesy of a DVD presented by an Aussie woman named Sherelle...or LeAnni...or one of those New Age names. I read an article recently that claims that your memory starts to deteriorate in your mid forties; I would post you a link, but I can't remember where I saw it...

The DVD is called Yogalates and is, unsurprisingly, a combination of swimming and kite-surfing. They are two activities that, in the comfort of one's own lounge, mostly involve stretches and core work. Leonora (or whatever her name is) is one of those incredibly flexible, yet irritating, people, who have you bending into positions you've not been able to explore since puberty hit and your bones calcified; you, sweating, panting, shaking, hurting; she, comfortable, relaxed, talking in one of those singsong voices that  grown-ups use to small children.

She makes manifold interesting statements during the DVD; 'feel where the breath is moving in your body' (my lungs, mostly); 'keep breathing' (world-class advice); 'this exercise will aid your digestion' (that's a euphemism for 'make you fart a lot' right?)...but it is, amazingly, starting to work. My heels are getting alarmingly close to the floor during downward-facing dog; my 'warrior' is looking more warlike; I almost know my 'balasana' from my elbow. My hips are feeling looser, I'm sitting up taller and I've survived a fifty mile week unscathed.

So is it making any difference to the quality of my running? Absolutely no idea, but I'm going to stick with LaRochelle and her strange contortions for the duration and see what happens.


* remember, regular doesn't mean the same as frequent; Halley's Comet is pretty regular at once every 76 years.

Tuesday 3 January 2012

Bad science

I'd like to endorse my new 'Chocolate Biscuit Diet', possibly the most exciting concept in weightloss since fat people were invented.

On New Year's Day, I had a large lunch (beef, Yorkshire puds, the works and very nice it was too) then ate nothing but chocolate biscuits (and drank tea and water) for the next 24 hours.

I weighed myself before bed on NYD and came in at a whopping (sorry, too much tabloid TV) 12st 13.5lb. In metric, that's about as much as a small island off the Scottish coast.

Having been for a run the following morning (after chocolate biscuits for breakfast) I weighed in again (same scales, same spot on the floor) at 12st 9.25lb (in metric, about as much as Rockall) an immense reduction of 4.25lb (one of the Inner Hebrides) in a day! I owe it all to chocolate biscuits.

Send me a one-off fee of £9.99 (or local equivalent) and I'll tell you which brand of chocolate biscuits I ate; send me an extra £19.99 (or local equivalent) and I'll even send you a box.

Now that's bad science.