Getting there

It does finally feel as if I am back to where I was pre-Covid. It’s taken a lot of patience and a lot of hard work – and it will continue to take a lot of hard work – but I do feel like I’ve crossed some sort of threshold.

My last three runs have all been inside 6:00/km, which is really as fast as I’ve ever managed to go anyway, and I’m not very close to dying like I was when I did that back in April. In hindsight, that was a fairly foolish effort, and I’m only half proud of what I achieved.

Run-wise, at least. Staying alive was a quite a coup.

Football is fun again, rather than impossible, and my legs ache because I’m exercising, rather than because they’re full of interleukins.

It’s only taken 15 months.

Home for the footy

Couple of runs in the crazy wind this morning. One for the stamina, one for the speed. And then a more gentle walk around the village and into the Agulhas National Park.

Can like to feel exercised.

And then back home to Cape Town in time for the second half of the match at the Riverside.

All the fun of the fair. And early to bed this evening.

Day 717 – But weight, there’s less!

When I got Covid, I lost a lot of weight very quickly. Like 10 or 12kg in a 7 days. And that was because I was literally too weak to eat anything. I was surviving on Lucozade alone (well, and Myprodol, but that probably had limited effects in the weight department).

Once I was through the acute phase, that weight went back on fairly quickly (probably because it came off pretty quickly as well), which is good, because that initial weight was quite a good weight for me to be. However, over the next 6 months, being fully able to eat and drink (more than just Lucozade), but not being able to do any exercise (see 6000 miles… passim.), I gained a lot more weight.
And that was bad, because that was a bad weight for me to be.

So now I have started with some gentle exercise again, I’m happy to report that I’ve finally been losing a bit of mass. And I don’t need to go into details here, but last week, I managed to pass a significant milestone weight on my weight loss journey. And that means that I have lost 7.2kg since the beginning of the year. Again, this weight is coming off fairly easily because it went on easily and it isn’t meant to be there. A bit of gentle temptation and sensible behaviour, and it goes to wherever spare weight is mean to go.

Given the way I have lost weight thus far, I’d imagine that I’ll pop back above the milestone weight – giving the digital display on the scales and extra 50% work to do again – before I stay under it. But that’s fine by me, as long as the general trend remains downwards.

Now come the hard yards, though. I’m not quite back down to my pre-Covid weight (yes, I have put on that much), and I’d like to shed a couple more kilos on top of (underneath?) that as well, so the next bit might go a little more slowly. But I’m confident that it will go.

Would I recommend Covid as a weight loss plan? Well, yes and no. It’s clearly extremely effective, but it does come with some utterly horrific side effects. So overall, probably not.

Would I recommend eating less and exercising more [thanks, TA] as a better method? Certainly.
But all within reason: unless there is some urgent medical issue that requires immediate and drastic weight loss, be gentle on your body and if it needs a beer or to every now and again, give it a beer or two every now and again.

There’s definitely more to life than a target weight.

Day 298 – Back to it

It’s Monday the 18th of January. Notable for a couple of reasons.

It’s my Dad’s birthday. Not specifically a 2021 thing – it’s happened many (many) times before on the 18th of January. Happy Birthday, Dad!

And it also marks the return to whatever passes as some sort of normality this year as well.
The kids have gone back to school (don’t ask me, because I don’t know) and I went for my first run in ages. This is because they need to learn stuff and I need to sort out my lack of fitness.

I’m not expecting the school thing to last – at least not in person. That would be foolish and dangerous (and potentially a bit naughty, too?). But our two are now well-versed in the art of online learning, and I expect at least some of that to get done over the coming weeks.

We now have two High School kids. And if there was ever something – aside from one’s lack of fitness and the realisation that you’re not that far behind your father – it’s having both your kids in High School.

And so a gentle 5+kms to get me feeling a bit younger (and hopefully thinner, eventually). Hot stuff (the run, thanks to the prevailing meteorological conditions, not me), but it felt good. Even the beagle had fun. I’ll keep you posted on my continuing progress.

Even though I had to get up worryingly early this morning, I’m still feeling positive about today and the fresh starts that we’re making.

This has (so far) been a good day.