The Disaster Diet

Like so many people out there, it's my New Year's Resolution to be a little more healthy. Except it's not really a New Year's Resolution - it's something I've been trying to do since joining my local running club in September.

I hoped running would be the miracle cure for my podgy belly, but while my calves started toning up, and my general fitness levels improved dramatically, I wasn't losing any weight.

I think the problem was - I had just hit the point where I was starting to burn enough to combat my eating and start losing weight. Then Christmas came around. The cold weather, plus limited time (and inclination) to run, over eating, a return to drinking alcohol (not much, but enough) have all eroded my stamina and fitness.

So I've been attacking it afresh, starting this week with a serious increase in mileage, training for a 10k race in May around my home town. And this just happened to coincide with a sponsored slim at work.

I'm not a great runner. In fact, I'd go as far as to say I am the least natural runner in the whole running club. To improve to the necessary levels for a 10k race, I'm going to need all the help I can get. And losing the extra chub around my middle can only help.

So I signed up for the sponsored slim. I've found the possibility of public shame is a big motivator for me and the thought of today's weigh in - the first after our baseline weigh in - has kept me from attacking the left over Christmas treats.

Being not enormously overweight, I was worried that I would not lose anything. Or that I would fail utterly, as I have at every diet ever in the past, and put on weight. To try and avoid this possibility, before the baseline weigh in, I ate lunch, drank a bottle of water and didn't relieve my bursting bladder. I weighed in at 11stone4 and felt confident that I would at least not get heavier than that.

There was no trepidation when I went to the weigh in today. I had been good with my portions, I ran 7 miles. My overinflated initial weight meant there was a large margin for error, so there was no chance of humiliation.

Except there was.

Apparently I have lost weight. Some weight. Just... not as much as the sponsored slim thinks I've lost.

4.6 pounds. Oops.

I know there's no way I could have lost that much. Short of starving myself, that is, which I haven't been doing.

Ah well, my dietary disaster does at least mean I'll score a good amount of sponsorship (it's by pounds lost) and a need to keep losing a consistently good amount of weight will be extra motivation not to crack into the biscuit tin.

I thought I'd try and reboot my better cooking habits as well, hence the post here. I've got a recipe from the sponsored slim for a casserole that I want to try out (just as soon as I get my hands on a casserole pan) and will post the probably inevitable disasters that ensue.

And in terms of tracking my actual weight loss - on my scales, first thing in the morning, before eating and with no clothes on, I weighed 11st last time I checked a couple of weeks ago. I will check again tomorrow morning and report back!