Battle of the Bulge - Week 5

*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP - THE TIME IS 06.45, THE TEMPERATURE IS 5 DEGREES WITH SHOWERS, THE HEADLINES ARE...*
My alarm said, as it tends to do these mornings. My wife is 9 days away from giving birth to our first child, she wakes several times during the night and by the time my alarm shouts at me, she's so tired she can't hear it. I roll out of bed, throw on the tracksuit and a woolly hat, off I go for a 3 mile jog/walk.

I used to cal it a walk/jog, but recently I've noticed that once i'm warmed up, I can jog for longer than that dreaded first day when I struggled to run for more than 10 metres. The pain in my feet, the muscles around my shin burning and my mind asking me why am I not still in bed, tempting me to stop and say "I'll start tomorrow".

If you've battle(d) with the bulge you'll probably know what I mean. The physical battle is a tough one, you can only do what your body will allow you to do, but you can also do more than your mind tells your body it wants to do. Winning that battle when the mind tells you to stop, that's where you won the war. Looking up that hill or at the marker you set yourself, it's ten metres away and your mind says stop, but you keep going till you reach it, that's where you won the war.

Every time you tell yourself that you can't do it, you're right. Every time you tell yourself that you can do it, you're right. So which of these attitudes will get you the results you want?

My goal is to be able to get off the couch with minimum effort when my baby arrives into the world. I don't want to be struggling to reach him/her as they head for that coffee mug on the table, I want to be the dad who wants to play, who wants my child to have energy and a thirst for playful discovery. I want to be alive when my child is older, I want to be a part of their adult life.

The greatest gift I can give my wife, my child and myself, is to be healthy. Every morning that alarm goes off and I want to stay in bed, I just remember the goal, it becomes easier, it becomes enjoyable, it becomes routine. And, it works. I've lost 20lbs (just under 1.5 stone or almost 10 kilo) in five weeks.

Thanks to Paddy Cunningham www.ptpaddy.com for his expertise, encouragement and advice.

I'm losing it...

The Future...
I'm sitting on the couch enjoying something on TV, my baby is crawling towards the cup I left on the coffee table. I can see it coming but something is stopping me from preventing it. My minds eye knows that if I just reach forward to pick up the cup, the impending reality could be altered. I can't, it's not that I don't want to, it's just that I'm so unfit I can't move fast enough. I raise my voice and shout the baby's name as a distraction, to try and slow them down, it doesn't work. The baby is successful in this mission, as she will be in countless others through her life. She grabs the cup that is filled with hot liquid and tugs on it...

The Present...
I don't want that to be the reality of the future, well of course I want my child, She or He, to achieve countless missions they set out on, but the tugging on the cup, the not being able to get off the couch quick enough, the seeing what's coming and not being able to stop it, that's the bit I don't want.

So just like Marty McFly in Back To The Future, I know what is coming and I'm going to do something about it. The estate I grew up in had a man who owned a De Lorean car. I often wish he was still around so i could try what Marty did, t would save me hours of hard work and I could probably keep eating foods that I don't need and living a life non conducive to active fatherhood. Alas, he is not here and I need to do this the long way.

The Plan...
I will lose at least 3 stone (42 lbs) in weight by the time my unborn baby can crawl. We, my wife and I, are scheduled to meet our baby on 20th November. I intend by then, to be almost half way to my goal.

The Method...

• Number 1: Want it more than you want your current habits.
• Number 2: Listen to someone who knows something about it.
  "If it wasn't grown and it didn't live, do you need it" he said to me.  "Think of your goal about being a daddy" he said to me.
• Number 3: Do what someone who knows something about it tells you to do.
  "I want you to walk for 20-30 minutes every day" he said to me. "Don't eat bread this week" he said to me.

The Result...
In week one, with Numbers 1-3 above, I offloaded 8lbs. In week two, with numbers 1-3 above as well as 2 days with a little bit of jogging, about 15 minutes in total, I offloaded 5lbs.

Back to the future...

I'm on a gym programme now to help burn fat by increasing my internal furnace, AKA metabolism. I'll keep you posted, if you like?

*Special thanks to Paddy Cunningham for working with me on this. Visit his site http://www.ptpaddy.com/