28 Days of Pain - Day 23

By Jamie Hill

Reasons to lose weight #609 - Someone said I had a 'bubbly' personality the other day.

I like Sundays. They're officially my Day of Rest during this 28 Days of Pain that I'm doing. Actually, scratch that, I hate Sundays, as they're also the days when I do my weekly weigh-in.

So far my weigh-ins have been pretty disappointing efforts. In fact they would be marked 'Must Try Harder' if they were an 11 year old's school homework. In the first week, I lost a single pound. Then last week, the second week, I lost absolutely nothing. So up until now, I've lost one pound exactly.

And today, I went on the scales and I'll tell you in a minute what they said....

I'm trying to get you all suspenseful before I tell you at the end of this blog what the result was. It's an old trick to try and get you to read to the end. You could always skip ahead and look to the end what the result was. I've even boldened it up so you can find it easily. Did that? Good, well what did you think? I bet you sneak a look at your Christmas presents as well.

I've found 'calories' to be bloody weird things. For the past week I've been having these 'Weightwatchers' meals accompanied by very low calorific piles and piles of veg to fill me up. And I've been sticking to it.

The only problem with eating so much veg is that I now, if you don't mind me saying, stink. That's right. Each brussel sprout is a fart waiting to happen. This hasn't been very pleasant for the people around me but at least I always have spare seats around me when I go to the cinema.

For some reason, I feel I've just broken a taboo by saying that I've been farting a lot. It's like something that should remain unsaid. But I'm not embarrassed. I fart a lot and I'm proud!

So, apart from being smelly, I've been feeling pretty good for the past few days. The 'pain' element of this 28 Days of Pain seems to have disappeared.

Another thing that I don't understand about calories is that apparently when I go on my five kilometre runs I'm losing 550 calories a time according to my Nike + app. Yesterday it said that I lost 831 calories from my run.

I'm not counting these minus calories to any of my total calories I'm allowed because I don't really understand how it works.

Actually, if I'm really, really honest I don't actually understand what a calorie is. How come veg has hardly any but fruit has loads?

According to Wikipedia it's a unit of food energy so it doesn't really exist. It's a measurement unit that you can't hold. It's not a real thing. So if I'm using loads of these 'calories' by doing the running and cutting down on my 'calorie' intake by eating less how come I've got any energy left at all.

If they're energy, why are they bad? I'm really confused. I don't understand. I was never any good at science. I'm just going to accept that a 'calorie' is what it is and just follow the packaging on food and on the internet to let me know how many I'm having or not.

Anyway, after all that, cutting down on these calories coupled with the running finally seems to be working.

This week I finally lost some weight! I'm bloody happy about if you don't mind me saying as I was beginning to think that this was a complete waste of time.

Right, before I started I weighed 17stone and 1 pound. Last week I weighed 17stone. And this week I weigh....

(drum roll please)

16stone and 10 pounds.

That's a loss of four pounds in the past seven days. I'm ecstatic. That means I've lost five pounds overall so far.

If I don't lose another thing during the next seven days I'll be happy with the result. Although I want to lose another two pounds so that I can say that I lost half a stone during the 28 Days. It's achievable.

Right this week goes like this....

Monday - 5 km run plus not eating more 1500 calories.

Tuesday - Fasting day - I'm not to eat more than 1,000 calories.

Wednesday - 5 km run plus not eating more 1500 calories.

Thursday - Fasting day - I'm not to eat more than 1,000 calories.

Friday - The final day of 28 days of pain will see me doing a 5 km run plus not eating more 1500 calories.

Saturday - As the climax of everything, I will be running 10,000 metres in tribute to my new favourite athlete Mo Farah.

For previous blogs and for the rules of the challenge visit http://www.theocelot.co.uk