Since May I’ve been slowly getting back into running because running is a great way to lose weight. I’ve taken it very easy as I know, being overweight, I’m prone to aching knees and shin splints if I ramp up my running too quickly.

Fortunately all has gone well and last Sunday (30th August 2009) I completed the Foxtrot 5 (a local 5 mile road race) in just over 52 minutes. Not a particularly quick time (the winner ran it in 26.5 minutes) but considerably better than last time, when I ran it in 60 minutes. Most importantly I really enjoyed it and being unsure of my progress I’d started off slowly for the first three miles – chatting to a fellow runner – before picking up the pace for the last two miles, one of which was a nice long gentle downhill.

The Foxtrot 5 not a particularly complex race – there’s no chip timing or any of that – but it’s well organised and has a friendly atmosphere. The course is primarily country lanes (I only recall seeing a single car and one tractor) and bit of bridleway, there’s a few small hills but nothing too strenuous – a great first race for those looking to lose weight and wanting something longer than a 5K.

In fact, I had so much fun that I’m now looking for more races to enter in September and October and I’ve entered a trail running series (Coastal Trail Series 2010 – I’m going to do the 10K races) with a view to completing the The Clif Bar 7×7x7 Challenge – 7 races in 7 months on 7 different courses.

As I mentioned in the post Deciding To Lose Weight – Reflecting On Dietary Habits I’d picked up the habbit of supplementing my healthy lunches with a large amount of crisps. Probably because I like savoury/salty food. However crisps would no longer feature in my new healthy approach to life – they had to go.

It’s not that easy though is it. Lunch just isn’t complete unless you have something else with your drink and sandwhich, so I had to find a replacement for the crisps. The obvious answer, given we’re all continually advised to consume at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables per day was to substitute either fruit or vegetables for the crisps. So that’s exactly what I did.

It took a while to find something I was happy with. I tried apples, but I seem to have some sort of allergic reaction – annoying as I really like apple. Next I tried raw carrots, but I’m not a big fan of their taste. Bananas are great but I was in danger of eating nothing but bananas (I often had one for breakfast). So finally I settled on grapes. 12 to 20 grapes – depending on whose figures you believe – are a portion, they contain a good range of vitamins and minerals and despite containing a log of sugar aren’t really adding that many calories (around 60kcal per portion).

So that was my next small step on my weight loss journey, eating fruit to lose weight – beats eating crisps anyway!

On the 3rd November 2008 I decided to lose weight. I’d spent too long focus on business and not enough time taking care of my health. That had to change. So I decided I need to lose weight and to make sure that I was going to stick to any weight loss scheme it had to work quickly.

So I set about exploring ways to lose weight as quickly as possible. As I’ve never believed in fad diets, or in the idea of “dieting” in general so I wasn’t prepared to “go on a diet”. Besides I already ate fairly healthily getting in a good selection of fruit and vegetables every day and as I love cooking most food is freshly prepared at home.

That said I did believe there was room for improvement in my normal diet and I recognised a few bad habits that I’d picked up:

• Using a large plate – my wife and I had been given some very large plates as wedding presents and fell in to the habbit of using them.
• Crisps – although I typically ate relatively healthy lunch (brown bread sandwiches with lots of salad) I’d picked up the habit of eating a large number of crisps with lunch.
• Chocolate – although I’ve never really been a big chocolate person, I’d taken to eating some most evenings when my wife had some (my fault not hers).

The first step towards weight loss was clearly to break these habits.