I didn’t so much fall off the wagon this weekend as strap a rocket to the wagon, launch it down a really steep hill, firing it into a solid brick wall catapulting me so far that I ended up landing in a completely different timezone !!

Lets backtrack.

Friday 9th August – 6am

I was in the gym last night – was a hard session on the treadmill. I ran further and faster than I have for years and the legs were a bit wobbly. I needed to push myself as I was very very near to another goal – 95Kg. I had set that goal to be met at the end of August, but I found myself mid-month and so close to achieving it. I was going away for the weekend and I really wanted to be able to say I was 95Kg, which put me into the 14 stone bracket – somewhere I had not been for 12 years. If the session was hard, and given I had only consumed 800 calories that day I expected the numbers to give me good news. I had woken up at 5am, feeling hungry – I hate waking up feeling like that. I know it is a sign that my body is in ketosis, actively burning up my fat reserves, and lowering the weight, but it still feels horrible. I tossed and turned and at 6am I had to give in, I needed to eat and before that I needed to weight myself. Going to bed I had been 95.3Kg so I knew the numbers would be good. Step on, feet in same position, scales on their marks so the act of measuring is always uniform. I haven’t got my glasses on – again, to keep the act of weighing uniform so I do struggle to see the green LED signal. I think it says 94Kg something. Step off, glasses on, 94.8Kg, 20.3% bodyfat. Smashed it. Doing the conversion on my phone and it says 14st 12lb – I like those numbers, I like them a lot. That is pretty much 5 stone lost and I don’t care if I am a pound or two off the exact mark, 5 stone lost is what I am telling people this weekend.

Back to the present

The smouldering wreck of the wagon can be seen on the horizon and I have just stepped off the scales again – 96.8Kg and 20.2% bodyfat. Now I know I am about to start transitioning off Fast800 and try to resume a fairly normal diet, but lets review just what did get consumed this weekend.

Friday (Total Approx 1900 Calories):

Breakfast: 2x Hardboiled eggs, 10 black olives, 30g Feta cheese, large green bell pepper

Lunch: My new Beef Bolognese sauce mix, 20g Feta cheese

Dinner: 55g protein shake.

All the above were pre-wagon launch, then we hit T-0 and lift-off

Second Dinner: Goats cheese tart, salad and a big bowl of fries. Followed this up with a gluten-free carrot cake, scoop of ice-cream and dollop of whipped cream. When I got back to my weekend apartment I topped this off with two slices of white bread toasted and a biscuit.

Saturday (Total approx 3000 Calories):

Breakfast: 3x big sausages, 3x fried eggs, 3 x rashers, 2x black pudding slices, 1x white pudding slice.

2nd Breakfast: 3 slices of white bread toasted.

Lunch: Fish and chips (2 VERY large chunks of battered fish) and plate of fries.

Dinner: Didn’t get one. Probably at this point I will explain that this weekend I am working on our annual Connemara 100 mile road race. I am covering a couple of the checkpoints that the runners have to pass through and I have been up since 5am, and on the road since 6am. Food is likely not going to be regular and will probably have to eat what I can get my hands on.

Extras: 1x Donut, 4x slices white bread toasted, 2x mini Crunchies, 4x biscuits, 2 more slices white bread toasted. 3x Jaffa Cakes. 2x bottles Heineken Zero

Sunday (Total Approx 2500 Calories):

Breakfast: 3x hard boiled eggs on 2 slices white bread toasted. 1x mini Crunchie, 2x biscuits.

Lunch: Fish and Chips followed by apple crumble and ice cream. 2x bottles Heineken Zero

Supper: Sandwich of beef and 60g Mozarella with Olivio spread on wholegrain bread. 8x chocolate digestives.

I am now sitting here feeling ill and fairly sorry for myself. My stomach hurts, I am bloated and my bowels are in turmoil and I can feel an IBS attack coming on. Do I regret it – not at all, I enjoyed every minute of it. I worked a hard 24 hour shift in Connemara and spent it in the company of my best and most dearest friends.

A blow out is good now and then, but it does demonstrate something very important as part of the journey. You simply can’t go from Fast800 to resuming what was my previous diet lifestyle. There has to be transition, and lessons learned for what food stuffs are eaten have to be carried forward. Blow outs are good, but they shouldn’t become the norm.

Looking to the horizon, I can’t see the wagon – what I thought was smoke rising from its ruins was simply mist on the hills. I am still sitting firmly on the wagon, I simply had a premonition of what could be if I was careless, and I don’t want that. I don’t want that old life back again. I will spend 2 days putting my body back in ketosis, and by the end of the month I will be back around the 95Kg mark, hitting the target when I was supposed to. Normality resumes. Just need to plan the next few weeks carefully, keep the wagon away from the edge of the cliff.

Postscript

I saw a bunch of people this weekend I haven’t seen for close on 12 months, those who know me well enough commented on my new figure ‘half the man I used to be’, ‘looking good’ – everyone genuinely interested in how I had achieved it, and all in support of the ‘how’. Made me feel good, not that I was looking for that level of affirmation, but still nice to receive the compliments. Probably the best comment, and one that I hope is an indicator of what I have done to my body in the past 3 months. ‘You look younger, I would put you in your late 30s now’. At the age of 49, I will take any level of age reversal.