I’ve been taking it easy since the Bath Half, giving myself some recovery time, though I did manage to wander out for a 5K last Sunday, and a 5K today, too.
But my thoughts recently have been more on eating than on exercise. Because, despite taking up jogging, my weight has been remarkably static. Checking back to some numbers I captured on Skinnyr.com in August 2009, pretty much when I took up jogging, I can reveal the massive effect one and a half years of regular exercise has had on me: I have put on a pound.
A single, solitary pound. That’s the difference between my weight now and my weight back then. And not only that, but it’s a pound in the wrong direction.
So, yet again, I think I need to concentrate on my eating for a bit. The exercise is definitely doing me good, and I’m a lot fitter than I would have been without it, but at over seventeen stone, I clearly need to lose a bit of weight by adding some calorie control as well.
Being a geek, I have, of course, started off my diet by purchasing technology. I’ve bought a Withings Body Scale, a Wi-Fi-connected scale that will record, graph and share your weight. If you look over to the sidebar of this blog, in fact, you’ll see a (slightly ugly, sadly) weight widget that has probably got a pretty recent reading on it — which was sent directly here from my shiny new bathroom scale, a few seconds after I last stepped on it.
If you want to know more about the Withings, I’ve written a detailed review on my more geeky blog, here.
Also on the technological side, as suggested by my friends Hal and Rowly, I’m using MyFitnessPal.com to record my meals and stay below a set calorie limit.
My plan is to drop half a stone before the Bristol 10K in May, which should (a) be a realistic target, and (b) make sure I don’t feel quite so lardy as I plod around Bristol in front of hundreds of onlookers.
I’ll probably be trying to get out for at least a couple of runs a week from now on, just because the weather’s getting nicer — it was definitely Spring today! — and it’s lighter in the evenings, and I’ll just tag occasional progress reports on my weight onto the end of my normal “I’ve been for a jog” posts. And we’ll see how I do! Wish me luck…
Very best of luck! I am back on that eternal crusade and have managed to lose the weight I put on while being a project manager in Spain. (There’s another made-up statistic for you, a direct correlation between project management and weight gain…) Far less chocolate, more veg and (punishing for the unfit) pilates video is working slowly but steadily.
We’re here until Oct/Nov now, so come on out anytime!
@Arline
Thanks! And well done on dropping the Spanish weight (though I’d personally have guessed a direct correlation between being in Spain and weight gain, but maybe that’s just because I like tapas a little too much…)
Yes, will have to see what my work life is going to bring me later this year before I know when I’ll be free, though 🙂