How to lose a stone in 2 months

(well, what worked for me!)

I started trying to lose weight in earnest the week after the Keswick to Barrow run - actually, I'd made the decision a week earlier, but reasoned that a carbo-loading week wasn't the best time to start!

The trigger was reading up on EAH via the work of Tim Noakes' Lore of Running', and reading Professor Tim's comments on his diet - almost Paleo-diet, but the key thing is to cut out carbohydrates.

So I've cut out carbohydrates pretty hard, and found it remarkably easy to lose weight, see profile below: (and bear in mind that pre-this sample, my weight had been static at ~82kg for at least a decade. Also my training profile hasn't changed since November last year, so it isn't the training (alone) that's been doing this)

 

(The outlier to the right is my target weight - 75kg)

From Tim Noakes' interview, this means eliminating:

• Sugar (Must be completely removed from your diet)
• All sugary drinks including cola drinks and sweetened fruit juices
• Bread
• Rice
• Pasta
• Potatoes
• Porridge
• Breakfast cereals
• Some high energy fruits like bananas
• All confectionery – cakes and sweets
• Desserts
• Artificial sweeteners and products containing these products (like “diet” colas)

Sounds tough - especially the 'what the hell can I eat for breakfast?' conundrum, but it's all pretty easy in practice. 

For breakfast I have a bowl of salad, with nuts/ cold ham/ poached egg/ whatever protein on top, and I've really got into it as a juicy start to the day. When I'm away from home, a full-English breakfast but without toast, fried bread, hash browns and definitely not any sort of juice. It amuses me that I can lose weight eating what most people assume is a really unhealthy breakfast.

And that's the crux really - we've been brainwashed into thinking that fat is the enemy, because fat is the reason we're all overweight, right? 

It turns out that's wrong - what's important is reducing blood sugar levels, because that's what causes an insulin response, and triggers fat-deposit rather than fat-burn.

Apart from finding it so easy to lose weight, the other surprising thing is that I've only had a healthy BMI for about 5 weeks - before that (and for the last 4 ultra-marathons I've run....) I've been technically overweight.

The next thing to check (post the 100-mile bash!) is my cholesterol, which was mildly elevated a year ago. Since the dietary recommendations to deal with high LDL is to lose weight (esp visceral fat), and to increase HDL is to lose fat and reduce sugar intake (and notably, no advice to reduce fat intake, other than trans-fats), I should be better on this score as well.

Update to follow....

Live tracker now available!

Woo hoo, the tracker is live! Link here.

Here's a preview - it's not updating, just a graphic. Click it for the live version (once I've started!)

thoughts on my running companion.....

Dare I?

Oh well, it's not as though he'll read it.....

Most of my longer-distance training since October last year have been with one particular running companion, starting with 6 then 8 miles, building to the regular weekly 15-miler we do together over High Pike and Skiddaw.

That's 220+ miles together in total, so I'm getting to know his little foibles - running style, likes/ dislikes, how he comes with distance/ weather/ diet etc. I think we generally run well together.

Pace-wise, we're close over a distance, although at the start he's much quicker than I am, and copes with this by running ahead and then back again. Later on, with a few miles under our belts, he slows a bit and keeps a steady pace with me. He's very good uphill - when I'm slowing with the effort, he hardly seems to notice. He's not keen on blowy ridges, which the Skiddaw summit usually is - he tends to stay close to me, and his enthusiasm for racing off to greet other walkers gets cut back a bit - although he's always got an eye on a rucsac being opened; the chance of someone else's food is always a temptation!

A couple of times his terrain-reading ability has let him down - there's a big pool cunningly disguised as soft turf just below Skiddaw House, and he's been through it a couple of times, the first time I thought I'd be going in after him! To be fair, I would have gone straight into it myself, had he not got there first. Then between Grey Knotts and Brandreth (10 in 10), he went straight into a real peaty bog, and came out looking like an upside-down chocolate eclair!

I'm still slightly surprised by his ability to cover the distances we do together, and above all I love seeing him racing about on the hill - he's clearly in his element! I don't suppose there are many under-2s who would take it all in their stride either - I just got lucky with my choice of running companion!

Alfie the Puggle:

The last weekly training run??!

I ran what is possibly my last weekly run on Saturday, given that I really ought to be tapering next week....although with a new pair of Sketchers shoes in the post, I should also get some miles onto those as well! (BTW, these are an identical pair to my existing best shoes, Go Run Ultras to gve them their full title. Great shoes, which I'll devote a blog entry to in due course..)

This was a fairly slow-paced run - still way faster than race-pace - at an estimated 3:45 or so, no accurate timing since the Garmin lost satellite reception at a couple of points. A nice steady run though, a biting wind on top, but nowhere near as severe as when John & I did it back in February!

<Update>
On looking at the Garmin Connect data again, it turns out that in spite of only 'counting' the time the watch thought I was moving, hence discounting the lost-satellite time, my Fenix did in fact capture the total elapsed time ie total run time - 3hrs 28.20.
Which is double-good, because it means I broke the 8:30 barrier for only the second time, and......it didn't feel like a fast pace at all. Bodes well for the event.....