Day Five - First Magic Trick

Run 6km, 1 set sit-ups

It's Day 5 of exercise, no booze and better diet, and I feel really good. In these last 4 working days, I made more progress with writing my book than in the last 2 weeks, plus the edge has definitely come off my stomach. One basic difference - I don't feel so incredibly FULL all the time. What a relief.

It means I am feeling the benefits already both physically and mentally. I've also come through two big tests - the first being Holland's semi-final win on Tuesday ( cue massive Amsterdam street party - 80,000 people in a park just a km away from my home could be heard 'til 2am). Normally I'd be boozing it up with the rest of them but I decided early in the day not to get involved. Yes, even I'm impressed.

The next test was this evening, a friend coming round wanting to work together on his website. Normally I would use it as an excuse to drink loads of beers, eat junk and stay out late (like i need an excuse. Sometimes my excuse is "no-one's coming round..."). Today I told him "I have some beer for you, water for me" so he knew what to expect. He wasn't impressed, but it's my body that's in trouble, not his.

But will-power is where it all becomes difficult and just trying hard is not enough. My Dad once said to me (when I was telling him some rubbish about how next year would be much better than this), "that's interesting son. And what are you going to change to make that happen?" Bloody hell, I thought, you mean I have to change something? I thought it would just get better, somehow, you know, by just, intending it to be better...

Now, I have a secret ingredient that helps make that change - and deal with the real source of being able to maintain any diet or change in your life.

It's all about vitamins and amino acids. Really.

Last year, I listened to a program called "How to quit without feeling s**t". The guy who wrote it, Patrick Holroyd, was the first person with a diet plan that made any sense to me, because he looked at what makes it difficult to maintain diets, rather than the contents of the diet itself.

In short, it's about understanding what affects our mood-swings and our needs, what makes us eat comfort food and how we can get out of that habit.

I'm gonna continue this tomorrow, to keep the postings short and to keep the suspense hanging....