Start with the numbers: in 2 weeks, I’ve lost 5.5 pounds. Just fine with me. I’ve had some lovely social, food-oriented times and have not been craving sugar or alcohol at all. Again – just fine with me.

In fact – I’ve been feeling so well that I turned down a third glass of wine because I didn’t want that foggy head the next morning. (I know; I’m a cheap date.) But that’s such a victory that I’m going to cling to it for a while. Will let you know if it happens again!

This is heavy hormone week and I struggled with the super low calorie days. Luckily, I’m a grown-up so I ate enough to make it bearable and still kept them “pretty low calorie” days at 800 and 950 calories.

I’m trying to think of exercise, NOT as something that earns me more food, but as a new rhythm of life. To that end, I’ve noted whether my moving is:

• r/w – run walk – 11 – 12 minute mile
• walk  – as in a power walk – got to be under a 15 minute mile
• o&a – out and about – I count it as a 20 minute mile though my pace is faster than that when I’m on my own.

Last week I had 1 walk, 3 run/walks and 5 sessions just out and about, burning off over 2,ooo calories in the process. I reckon I put in somewhere around 10 o&a miles of walking just going to the train and walking across town for errands.

What was hard?

I will never like the fact that I have to be so focused on food and weight in order to lose but there’s no other option. The only time weight has just fallen off in the past 10 years, I was either ill or very very stressed (or both) and it was incredibly scary. What gives me hope is that in a few weeks I’ll be able to scrap the two VLC days and start eating to maintain my weight. I’ll be in Canada for five weeks so it will give me a chance to establish new eating and exercise habits in that home too.

But that’s looking way forward – a proven toxic behaviour when it comes to weight loss for me. I need to picture the me I want to be – but concentrate on immediate behaviours. So I guess I’d better eat breakfast and get on with the day.

Daily Weigh is still going on if you are that thrilled with numbers.

Last week I lost a couple of pounds and this week I seem to have put them back on – despite eating and exercising to plan.

So what am I going to do?

I’m going to keep pushing through until something happens.

I’m going to keep running and walking and journalling and being positive that my health is being improved even if the scale isn’t doing anything positive.

I’ve said it before but I certainly need to remind myself that this isn’t really the “last 10 pounds”.  Mentally, I’m at the end of something but, physically, my body could lose another 25 pounds and still be healthy.   So I just need to keep doing this – and do my best to ignore my projected weight loss figures for March. That kind of counting unhatched chickens only leads to discouragement.

I’m keeping this positive mindset because I’ve been reading up on the subject of visceral fat – the fat that sits inside your body and around your organs.  Here’s what I’ve learned:

• There’s no doubt that I have an “at risk” shape. Even though I have a healthy BMI, I should lose another inch or two off my waist to be really healthy in the body fat department.

• Exercise will work on this kind of fat – even in the absence of weight loss – so I will keep moving whether the scales move down or not.

If you want to read more, look at these Obesity Panacea posts:

• This one talks about how exercise reduces visceral fat even if it doesn’t have a large effect on weight.
• This one talks more in depth about the relationship between exercise and weight loss.

I’m not big on military imagery but this weight loss thing certainly has some parallels with “warring”.

These past 2.5 years have been a series of battles won and lost, interspersed with periods of peace – and it’s time for the “last battle”.

The first thing I want to point out is that the enemy is not my body.  And the enemy is not food.  Those are both good, no, wonderful things and my closest allies during these next few weeks.

The enemy is my own attitude – that is, the sizable commitment gap between what I want and what I’m prepared to do to get it.

This week I’m prepared to close that gap by throwing all my ammunition at these last few pounds.

Ammunition?

Burning off at least 200 calories through exercise no matter what.

• a 2 mile run
• a 3 mile walk
• 2 hours of shopping
• Those are daily minimums.

The thing I’m not going to do is spend one whole day doing nothing because I know that I’m going on a 5 mile run the next day.  While the battle is raging, this has got to be an everyday commitment.

Eating with exacting discipline.

• Breakfast lunch and dinners will be the same for 4 days at a time.  Boring but it makes planning and shopping easier.
• All ingredients weighed and measured.  ie The 1/4 of milk I usually journal for coffee is actually 3/8.  That won’t matter a bit in a few weeks, but it matters in battle.
• Eating more than the recommended 5 a day of fruit and veg. This means snacking on carrots even when it’s easier to grab a cracker.

Counting the cost.

• As someone in the bible wrote, “No one goes into battle without first counting the cost.”  Really?  I do it all the time with predictable results.
• The cost to me this week is no wine in the house.  At all.
• The cost is eating very carefully during the day when I’m going out for dinner in the evening.
• The cost is choosing what I’m going to eat at the restaurant before I go – and sticking to it.
• The cost is not being a very flexible human being when it comes to food choices.  I will stick with my decisions even when they are socially a bit awkward. (This is my biggest “cost”.)

I will keep up this lack of flexibility (regime, dare I say, “diet”?) until the scale is really moving.  Then I’ll rethink my strategy.  I’m assuming that I will be eating like this until I leave for Canada at the end of March.

And what has prompted this last push?  I’ve made a decision that, whatever I weigh when I wake up on my 50th birthday will be the lowest weight I will ever aspire to again.  I’ve had enough of “ought” and “should” and even “want”.  Time to hit real middle age with my head high  – no matter what I weigh.

In the meantime, realising that I am serious about that has made me think that I will be very disappointed if I don’t ever keep that promise to myself to get down to 140lbs and live with it for a while.  Hence the battle.

(Now, where are my bagpipes?)

Before the summer I felt like I’d turned into a “RUNNER” – you know, someone who runs for pleasure – one of the despised.

And then, after a summer of living in a place where running just seemed impossible, I felt like I was no longer a RUNNER but a sloth. (But a sloth who hadn’t been attacked by a small dog on the seawall, thank you very much.)

It turns out that I had, in fact, run precisely 21 times in 6 weeks covering a total of 79 miles.  That’s it, my whole running career since around 1983.

On a positive note, I managed to shave 15 minutes off my 5 mile time in just three or four runs per week.  That, I’m proud of.

So I guess I can do it again.  I tentatively set out for a 3 miler last week and didn’t bother timing.  I also gave myself permission to walk as much as I wanted.  I’ve done a couple since and have gone through my usual teeter-totter thinking…

• teeter:  running helps my mood

• totter: running gets addictive

• teeter: running is free

• totter: the weather is crap

• teeter: running is quick

• totter: running becomes obsessive

My final decision is that the mood enhancing, quick benefits outweigh the addictiveness and lousy weather.

I’ve decided to change things up a bit and go all metric.  I’ve mapped out a 5k and a 10k and done baseline speeds for each.  I can still cover the 5k in just under 35 minutes – not too bad for a sloth.  The 10k, however has a baseline of 80 minutes – so lots and lots of room for improvement.

I’ll try not to be too boring about running times but it’s good to know where I’m starting from so that, in 6 weeks I can come and celebrate how much I’ve shaved off that 80 minutes.

By the way – by RUNNING,  I mean running till I can’t take it any more then walking till I can breathe again. I’m not crazy. Or all that fit.

On that note, I’m kind of looking forward to running when I’ve finally got a whole head of grey hair.  I’ll be the only old lady on the roads in this community, that’s for sure.

The entire time I was traveling, I ate with what could be called reckless abandon.  No calorie counting, no thinking “gee, is there way too much sugar in this for me?”, no thinking about “diet” at all.  I figured that I would be walking so much that I would burn it off.

And it’s true.  I did walk a lot and did burn most of it off.  But here’s what I forgot to factor in – the habit.  Once you throw away good eating habits for bad – even if it’s for only a 2 week period – you have to relearn the good habits, and it takes a lot of time and energy. Because of that, I’m stressed, eating too much, and struggling to get back in gear, thinking “Did I really have to have dessert at every meal?”

My point is that I need to start rethinking “vacation mode.”  For years, it was an excuse to eat with impunity. I’ve controlled it somewhat and now will try to temper my eating, and increase my exercise to a certain point.  But what I really need is to just continue to eat like I have been, albeit with somewhat different foods.  It is harder – I’m usually eating a lot in restaurants and don’t have access to a kitchen – but it’s no excuse.  Every place I go has had open-air markets where fresh fruits and vegetables abound.  I could easily buy something there and have a picnic, rather than go to a restaurant.

Or if I do go to a restaurant, I don’t have to order the speciality with meat, potatoes, dumplings and bread.  I could just get a salad and some lean meat.  Instead of sampling the nation’s cuisine at every meal, I could do it just once or twice a week.

In fact, when I came back, I was telling my neighbor about the trip and the food.  DeeDee is originally from Germany, and I mentioned how much meat and bread I ate while I was there.  She laughed and said, “Well, Germans don’t eat like that every day!”.  Duh.  Of course they don’t – they also eat salads and fresh vegetables.  In fact, DeeDee (who is rail thin), only has bread on special occasions.

Food for thought.

Le weekend is over again.  How does that happen?

It went well: socially fun, foodly balanced, exercisedly active.  And, even though I picked Holland from the beginning, the right team won the World Cup.

The foodly balanced social time was a huge bonus for me.  I did that classic WW thing and looked at the menu online before I went, made my choices BEFORE the wine was poured, and stuck to them – alway crucial, that one.

The conversation was great, alcohol was limited in the best way, and there were jugs of water on the table (still not that usual in the UK).  It was a truly lovely evening.  Must learn to repeat that behaviour……….

Yesterday friends phoned to go for a quick walk.  The husband’s spine is in a bad way so it had to be something fairly sedate.  Luckily we live in the land of urban seaside walks so a dash (slow dash) around a marine lake did the trick – followed by half pint at the pub.  One just about paid for the other but it was worth getting away from the work sitting on my dining room table. (Note – put office back into functional position this week.)

Exercise?  I managed to run 2.1 miles without stopping.  Well, except for a quick 20ft walk to catch breath at the top of a hill but I’ve decided to ignore that.  I didn’t get any faster over the whole 3 miles than when I alternate running and walking, so I guess that jog was pretty slow, but it felt like I was finally getting somewhere with my lungs.

So that’s my question:

What is it that makes you (as in me) stop exercising at a given point? I’ve tried to work it out as I come to the place where I HAVE TO stop running.

• Is it the lungs?
• Is it the heart?
• Is it the legs?

The husband says it’s the brain.   I have to say, ever since he said that, I’ve been pushing myself that little bit harder and getting further and further before I stop so maybe he’s right.

I’ve also been making plans for when I’m away for 6 weeks this summer.  I can tell you from here that I probably won’t be a dedicated with the running.  Is that self-defeating?  Probably.

HOLD IT!  I was going to excuse myself from running on the grounds that running looks weird in the little rural village where I will spend the summer.  Really?  And how “weird” will it be to come back to the UK in September and not be able to run a mile?  How much do I want what I say I want?  Enough to risk looking a little strange to some locals who just happen to think that running when there’s no one chasing is a futile activity?

Sigh.  Yes.  And, of course, I’ve got the magic hat & sunglass disguise so they’ll never know who it is anyway.  Seriously, I run past people I know all the time and they never notice.  Walking, they tend to see me – I must be faster than I thought.

Well that little motivational self-talk wasn’t what I was expecting….now on with the week.

Yesterday I ended up with a digestive complaint that doesn’t need to be described here. Ick. I haven’t had anything like that for years.  So I stayed in, ate sparingly, and went to bed early.

And what do you know, I feel fine today.

It was tempting to spend a little more time curled up on the couch but I decided to try to be as disciplined about exercise as I have been with food.  Not easy.  Not natural. Not ever accomplished before!  But I’m trying.

Here’s the plan:

Every week I aim to walk/run 1 x 2 miles, 1 x 3 miles, 1 x 4 miles and 1 x 5 miles.  I don’t care about the order or the specific day but I’d like to get to the end of each week having covered 14 miles at a good pace.

Walks with friends and loved ones are just icing on the cake but not replacements for the above.

Can I just recap for a moment?

In just over 2 weeks:

• I’ve decided what number I want to see on the scale.
• I’ve set a date for that goal.
• I’ve planned my weekly eating.
• I’ve set a weekly exercise target.

This is not me.  This is not anyone I have ever been.  I promise that I will never ever ever become smug in this endeavour.  Or assume that I’ve actually arrived.  Or assume that I will be this disciplined forever and always.  Or be confident that I will never be fat again.  Never ever ever.

But I’m going to take advantage of this stranger presently living my life and see if I can’t embed a couple more good habits.

Reading about other people’s running is like reading about their computer problems: makes you want to stick a pencil in your eye just to relieve the boredom.

However, I’m at that lovely early stage in my relationship with this particular form of exercise where I’m still slightly in love. I find myself thinking about running with something vaguely resembling hunger. I can lie awake at night and imagine the feeling of general well-being that moving brings.

Then, in the morning, I put on the gear, plug in the ipod and (crucially) hide behind the baseball cap and sunglasses, and head out the door.  Within 2 minutes the fantasy run disappears and it just hurts.

Yesterday I decided to run rather than walk out the door and see how far I could go before I needed a break.  I managed almost a mile then walked a bit then picked it up again then walked a lot, managing only to run a minute or so at a time. The overall result was 3 miles in 35 minutes.

Here’s my question:  If I can cover 3 miles alternating running and walking, why can’t I just cover it all at a slow steady jog of 5 mph?

It’s a mystery.  Maybe my natural running pace is too fast for my current level of fitness.  I guess I don’t really know what it feels like to run 5 mph. Yesterday I covered that first mile at 6.5 mph – will have to work on that.

Anyway – while I was loping (let’s call it that for the sake of broadening vocabulary and not because it’s an accurate description of my form) – while I was loping along I started setting fitness goals.  I could envision doing this every day.  I would gradually increase the running and decrease the walking.  I would be running my whole 5 mile route by September.

Then I remembered reality.  As soon as I start setting those kind of goals, I quit.  As soon as I go through my little pocket calendar and project how much weight I will lose by my birthday, the whole plan falls apart.  As soon as I work out how much money I can save by Christmas, the budget flies out the window.  As soon as I decide to run a 10k race, I will give up running.

I love the idea of planning and setting goals but the reality just doesn’t agree with me.

Insight! That kind of goal setting requires a certain steadiness that I don’t possess.  I harbour a fantasy that I will one day be a measured human being but the fact is that I’m more at home with a Feast or Famine lifestyle.  Maybe Peaks and Troughs is a better description.  It’s not actually All or Nothing – more that I love a rhythm of life which is sometimes full and buzzing with activity and sometimes calm and pretty much devoid of responsibility.  Most people seem to get through life at a steady jog but I much prefer to alternate sprinting with resting.

Ha! Believe it or not, I started writing that last sentence with no idea that there was a connection between my approach to running and my approach to life. Interesting what comes out while blabbing.  Well well well.

I don’t have a lot of time but wanted to report back on my fitness assessment.

I went with my lovely daughter who feels pretty much recovered from several years of chronic fatigue syndrome but hasn’t been able to exercise in all that time.  Because she’s been worried about putting on weight and not eating right, I thought momentarily about signing her up for Weight Watchers – but really only momentarily.  I thought about all the money I’d paid into the WW coffers over the years and about how much better it would have been if I’d spent that money getting in shape and learning about nutrition.  So that’s my 21st birthday present to her – 3 months of weekly visits to a personal trainer.

We met with our lovely new trainer, Svetlana, to go through the Polar BodyAge fitness test.

I was pleasantly surprised by how chilled out and unselfconscious we were about our less than perfect bodies.  I got the feeling that Svetlana mostly meets women who hate their flaws and aren’t happy even with the good bits.  I think she was a little surprised by how matter of fact we are about our own and each other’s bodies.  It seems that years of watching Trinny and Susannah together have made us very blunt about such things – in a loving and (we think) funny way – but it must seem a bit strange to an outsider.

So here’s how it panned out for me:

Nutrition was good though I was describing my normal diet at home with the husband rather than what I’ve actually been doing to myself for the past week. (yes, “doing to myself” is the best description I can find.)

Cardiovascular, strength and flexibility were all fair or average – so no surprise there and a pleasant change from “poor” when I did an assessment eight years ago.

The big surprise was my body composition which, using skinfold measurements, was only 23.5% fat.   I guess  my skinny limbs balanced out my fat tummy because the belly definitely needs shrinking but there are no bingo wings in sight.

And the final pleasant surprise is that my body-age is two years less than my real age.  I turn 49 next week but my body is only 47.  And, apparently, my goal for the next few months is to get it down another 12 years.  (oh, really?)  So I will be 35 by summer.

The daughter had good news too: she’s officially a beautiful young woman who just needs to do a bit more exercise, tone up her gorgeous curves and eat breakfast – not nearly as de-conditioned as we thought she might be.

I have a session next week to plan out my exercise routine for the coming months and I’m looking forward to it more than I thought I would.

This afternoon I went for a run rather than blog because:

• the sun peaked through the clouds
• I had journalled to point that I realised there was nothing left for a glass of wine
• I actually felt like exercise. (Please don’t get excited – this doesn’t happen very often)
• Or the right planets aligned.

Because I did a long (for me) 4.5 miles yesterday, I decided that a quick 2 miles would be enough today.  I trotted off out the front door with 2 goals for this particular jaunt:

• To do the 12 minute fitness test.  I only just figured out yesterday that my ipod has a stopwatch so I thought I’d give it a go.  I managed (according to gmaps pedometer) to cover 1.84 km (1840 metres) in 12 minutes which puts me at the top end of “average” for my age.  I’m happy with that.  If I can cover just another 60 meters, I’ll be at the bottom of “above average”.  That’s a reasonable  short-term goal, I think.

• To run as far as I felt I could – then keep running to the next lamppost or other suitable landmark. It hurt but I did it whether I’d been running for 5 minutes or 1 minute.  One day, I’d like to run for a whole 30 minutes without needing to walk but for now I just want to learn how to push myself when I’m working out.  I’m a wimpy exerciser and find it hard to go that bit further or faster at the gym but somehow it was easier when there was something physical to aim for.

I used to be too self-conscious to run on my own outside but I’ve discovered a wonderful secret.  Ready?…….wearing a baseball cap.  Because no one will recognise me wearing a baseball cap, right?

Don’t answer that.  It’s helping so I’m going to keep doing it. Sunglasses make it even better. Plug in the ipod and it’s like a full-on cloak of invisibility.