Cool Turkey

Five days down. Infinity to go. Assuming I live forever of course, which is the plan.

As it turns out running every day isn't nearly as difficult as not consuming cheese, chocolate, wheat, sausages, alcohol, cake, pies, takeaways, bacon, croissants, ice cream or anything else that isn't unfortunate enough to be a vegetable or a pulse. Although having said that I've not done that much running yet.

The NHS is a great thing. Sometimes more in principle than in practice, it's true, but it's a great British institution which sets us apart from the rest of the world and I'll countenance no argument agin this. Especially when it has provided me with Laura. Laura is a young lady who voices the free Couch to 5K podcast put together by the aforementioned institution to get fatties off the sofa in pounding the streets, presumably hoping fewer of them will keep turning up at the doctors with niggling complaints. Like diabetes and heart failure.

Anyway I may not be quite the target audience but I'll take all the help I can get. I've jumped straight to week 3 as, without meaning to sound boastful, I can already run for three minutes at a time without stopping. You're supposed to do three runs a week, then move on to the next episode. Laura guides you through it accompanied by music so horrifically inoffensive and bland it's all I can manage not to do a little sick in my mouth. Listening to it while running is like being stuck in the world's biggest lift. But I will persevere as Laura has promised to get me running for 30 minutes at a time and she seems like the kind of disembodied voice who delivers on her promises.

So last week went: Wednesday:run, Thursday:rest, Friday:run, Saturday:run. Sunday I dusted the bike off, and surprised myself with a 7 mile cycle ride around the country park where the 10K run will be taking place in August. I couldn't believe it. It was utterly exhilarating, I've no idea why I stopped cycling or how I forgot how much fun it was but I can't wait to get out again. Obviously I got lost and it got dark and I swallowed half my weight in midges which I now know are not an acquired taste, but they won't put me off.

I need to get one of those apps which measure how far you cycle so you can then show off and annoy your friends on Facebook, although I suspect 7 miles is at the lower end of the facebook-bragging scale.

Today I was running again. Week 4 of the podcast. Laura is getting tougher now; we're running 5 minutes at a time with just 90 seconds of walking between. Not too bad really though, it's within my comfort zone but I expect I'll hate her guts within the next couple of weeks. At least she seems to change the music every week.

So I really am cutting out all the bad foods and feeling pretty terrible (and constantly hungry). The headache is possibly dehydration but I also read in the paper today that it could be my body craving sugar. I don't eat all that much sweet stuff but the article said that if you drink alcohol, you'll be satisfying your body's need for sugar that way, and when you go cold turkey on it you'll get the same reaction as anyone with a sweet tooth. Makes sense I suppose.

Having said all this, I leaped merrily off my shiny, recently assembled wagon on Saturday and enjoyed a beery day out with friends watching my beloved Reading FC snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and fail to reach the Championship playoffs. In fairness I avoided all manner of football ground food compared to which the McDonalds and KFC round the corner are like Holland and Barrett. But I did have a few (5) pints and a packet of peanuts in the Nags Head afterwards, having hazily remembered that peanuts are a lot better than crisps, health-wise. Which is not to say that they aren't full of salt and fat but I was at least trying a bit.

I might also have had a little bit of cake and cheese after dinner as well. But we were entertaining, darling.

Other than Saturday I have been very strict for five days now and it's going ok. A constant feeling of burning in your stomach is the feeling of it shrinking, I'm certain.

Right so it's 5-a-side football tomorrow night, then I shall reacquaint myself with NHS Laura on Wednesday. Onwards and upwards, with a bit of sideways and possibly a smidgen of backwards along the way.