Well, it’s been a little while since my previous update — two weeks, in fact — and quite a lot has happened.
I started this blog to document my attempt to shift my spark: to move some of the energy and attention I’d allowed to become overly focused on certain parts of my life back towards the things that are genuinely important to me, but which I’d gradually neglected.
I used to run five times a week. I’d cycle two or three times a week and swim intermittently. Motorsport — particularly car racing — was also a significant part of my life.
Over time, stresses and challenges gradually eroded those things. COVID-19 exacerbated it, and eventually it became a downward spiral where physical self-preservation became almost non-existent.
Poor diet, regular beer consumption and a lack of motivation to exercise work remarkably well together. Unfortunately, they also make climbing back out increasingly difficult.
A conversation that made me think
A few years ago, my brother decided to embark on his own journey to lose weight and become healthier. He won’t be afraid to admit that he was never a fan of PE at school and wasn’t exactly the sportiest person in the village.
Now he’s lost weight and trains consistently. There are obvious physical benefits, but perhaps more importantly, he seems to be in a much more positive headspace.
Last month, we spent more time together than we probably have since we were teenagers.
While I was offering him some thoughts about where he could take his training next, I found myself reflecting on my own path.
There was something slightly ridiculous about sitting at his house on a Monday evening, drinking beer from his fridge while he drank water, as we planned his week ahead: training, food, runs carefully deconflicted with leg sessions in the gym, and his 10K road-running league races.
I was giving him advice while doing almost the exact opposite myself.
The next two days were spent travelling, which gave me plenty of time to think.
I decided that for the next ten weeks, I was going to make a concentrated effort to shift my spark.
My alcohol consumption had become excessive. I didn’t — and still don’t — consider myself to have had a problem with alcohol; it had simply become far too regular and far too easy.
The last beer I drank was the one from my brother’s fridge on 20 July.
The plan that immediately went wrong
My original idea was to follow a fairly strict diet using high-protein meal-replacement drinks for breakfast and lunch, then concentrate on eating a healthy evening meal.
There was only one problem.
I ordered the wrong product from the retailer because I wasn’t shopping in my native language.
Instead of meal-replacement powder, a large box of protein shake powder arrived.
It turned out to be a useful mistake.
One of the things I’d discussed with my brother was getting some proper guidance. I’d recommended a personal trainer to him — someone I’d heard incredibly positive feedback about from others.
That prompted a fairly obvious question:
Why wasn’t I doing the same thing?
And, being someone who has always been interested in technology and data, I wondered just how much information I could integrate into the process.
Quite a lot, as it turns out.
My Garmin watch provides sleep scores and records my walks, runs and swims. Cycling data comes from both real-world rides and virtual sessions on Zwift. My food diary records what I’m eating, and my connected scales provide another objective measure of progress.
Rather than returning the mistakenly ordered protein powder, I spoke with my trainer and asked for help building a sensible nutrition plan around real food.
We established the overall objective: get from 173% of my target weight to 100%.
But rather than obsessing over that enormous gap, we looked at my lifestyle and identified small changes that could actually stick.
Starting with breakfast
Breakfast was the first obvious one.
More often than not, I used to skip it entirely. I’d get out of bed as late as possible, get out of the door and either grab something on the way or eat several hours later.
Now, breakfast is one of the first things on my mind when I get up.
It’s repetitive, but it works: low-fat Greek yoghurt, muesli, a protein shake and black coffee.
And breakfast was only the start.
My various online platforms now talk to each other. My food diary allows me to track my intake closely and follow a nutrition plan that can adapt around my training.
At the moment, I’m also fortunate enough to have the opportunity to train twice a day when it makes sense.
That brings me to probably the biggest hurdle of all.
Walking through the gym door
As a teenager, I was forever on wheels. Bike or rollerblades — I wanted to get out of the door as quickly as possible and spend the entire day outside.
Even during my much more active period just over ten years ago, cycling and running made up almost all of my exercise.
I’ve always hated going to the gym.
I’m not entirely sure why. My form is reasonable and I understand what I’m supposed to be doing, but I’ve simply never enjoyed being there.
It’s similar to running on a treadmill. I’d genuinely rather run outside in the snow.
As the downward spiral in my fitness and weight continued, however, everything became more difficult.
Going to parkrun became harder. Getting on the bike became harder. And if I already disliked gyms, walking through the door when I felt increasingly self-conscious about my size was harder still.
Whether I was running, cycling or going to the gym, I convinced myself that everyone around me was judging me.
I follow a fitness blogger on YouTube who once described the undocumented period of his own transformation. He would turn up to parkrun and run the course, but sometimes avoid going through the finish because he was embarrassed.
That resonated with me.
I’ve only bailed out of a parkrun once.
But I’ve skipped starting far too many times.
Two weeks later
Fast-forward two weeks from that conversation with my brother — me sitting there drinking his beer — and things already look rather different.
I’m now at 167% of my target weight.
More importantly, I’ve completed two weeks of foundation building.
These aren’t foundations for a ten-week crash diet. Hopefully, they’re the building blocks for something much bigger: looking after myself properly, becoming more resilient and, ultimately, being a better version of myself for the people around me.
So far, those foundations look like this:
- 22 workouts logged on Garmin, including eight gym sessions
- 22 consecutive days logging my food, without exceeding my suggested calorie intake
- Significantly reduced carbohydrate intake
- An average Garmin Sleep Score approximately 30% higher than two weeks ago
The number on the scales is obviously encouraging, but I’m deliberately trying not to make weight the only measure of success.
How I feel matters more.
This morning, I’m heading to the gym for a chest session — and the significant part of that sentence is that I’m now comfortable doing it.
I’ve also created a weekly ERG workout on Zwift that I can repeat to assess changes in my fitness. Same intervals, same power targets, repeated over time. If my body eventually has to work less hard to produce the same output, that’s progress I can measure.
I’m also waiting for my bike to be repaired so I can get back outside and enjoy what’s left of the summer in some wonderful countryside.
But the most important metric isn’t my weight.
It isn’t my power-to-heart-rate relationship, my Garmin Sleep Score, calories consumed, kilometres ridden or kilograms lifted.
It’s how I feel about what I’m doing.
And perhaps even more importantly, it’s the effect that feeling has on the people around me.
At the moment, I’m riding a wave.
The challenge isn’t to make that wave bigger and bigger until it inevitably crashes. It’s to turn what I’ve done over these first few weeks into something normal. Something sustainable. Something I simply do.
A fairly long blog post this time, partly because one of the website plugins broke and stopped me updating the site from my phone.
That’s fixed now.
So there’s another small habit to build: making these updates part of my weekly routine.
The foundations are down.
Now I need to keep building.
