Thought i’d give you something a bit different to read this Monday morning.
There’s enough doom and gloom landing in your inbox as it is, so you might as well start the week having a laugh at my expense.
Because I nearly missed the football after getting myself locked in a public toilet.
Not one of my finer moments.
I was waiting for the minibus, had a bit of time to kill and nipped into the public loos.
When I went to leave, the big metal gate across the entrance had shut.
I pulled it.
Nothing.
Hit the emergency exit button.
Gave it another go.
Still nothing.
I was locked in.
I’m not particularly bothered by small spaces, but I’ll admit I got that horrible little feeling in my stomach.
Who do I ring?
How long before someone finds me?
And how much stick am I going to get if I miss the match because I’m stuck in a bog?
There wasn’t even an emergency number on the wall.
Luckily, two lads in a work van pulled up outside.
I shouted them over, managed to get the gate open a crack, and between them and a couple of lads from our minibus, we got it open far enough for me to escape.
Lovely.
Football back on.
Dignity slightly damaged.
The odd thing is, I hadn’t given that gate a second thought.
Yet it turned out to be my biggest problem that afternoon.
And I see something similar with people trying to lose weight.
They’ll worry themselves silly about eating a banana, then not give much thought to what happens between Friday evening and Sunday night.
Bread gets blamed.
Potatoes are off the menu.
Pasta is apparently fattening.
Fruit has “too much sugar”.
And eating after 7pm?
Might as well give up now.
Where does half this stuff come from?
I’ve had people tell me they’ve cut out bread, then admit they’re starving by mid-afternoon and picking at biscuits while making tea.
Or they’ll eat a tiny salad for lunch because they’re “being good”, get home ravenous, and spend the evening raiding the cupboards.
It’s not that they’re doing nothing.
They’re putting in loads of effort.
That’s what makes it frustrating.
They give up foods they enjoy, spend ages reading labels, and still can’t understand why their weight isn’t shifting.
So they get stricter.
Less bread.
Smaller meals.
Another rule.
Eventually they think, “Sod it”, and go back to how they were eating before.
Sometimes they didn’t need another restriction.
They needed to look at the right things.
Start with the whole week, not just Monday to Thursday.
Say you eat a bit less than usual for four days, saving roughly 300 calories a day.
That’s 1,200 calories.
Then Friday comes: takeaway, a couple of drinks.
Saturday: lunch out, a few snacks.
Sunday: big roast and leftovers in the evening.
It’s easy for those extras to add up and cancel out what you did earlier in the week.
I’m not saying bin the treats.
I enjoy one myself from time to time.
But if your weight has been stuck for weeks, have a look at your weekends before you start blaming potatoes.
And you don’t have to weigh every mouthful to do it.
For one week, write down what you eat and drink.
All seven days.
Don’t leave out the handful of crisps while you’re making dinner or the wine after the kids have gone to bed.
You might spot your answer pretty quickly.
Then look at protein.
A sandwich isn’t a disaster, but one with some chicken, tuna or eggs is likely to keep you fuller than a couple of slices of toast on their own.
Try getting a decent protein source into breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Greek yoghurt, eggs, fish, meat, beans, tofu.
Keep it simple.
Movement matters too.
Three strength sessions a week is a good target, but what about the days in between?
If you’re at a desk all day, driving home and sitting down for the evening, start with a 15- or 20-minute walk after tea.
That’s far more useful than worrying about what time you ate it.
And get some sleep.
If you’re running on five hours a night, you’re probably going to feel tired and hungrier the next day.
You don’t need a fancy supplement to fix a bedtime that keeps creeping later.
Try putting your phone down half an hour earlier.
None of this is complicated.
That’s the point.
The basics are easy to overlook because there’s always someone online telling you to stop eating another perfectly normal food.
So if you’re trying to lose weight and getting nowhere, don’t immediately cut something else out.
Look at what you’re actually doing for seven days.
How much are you eating and drinking?
Is there protein in your meals?
Are you moving outside the gym?
What’s your sleep like?
Pick the biggest gap and work on that first.
You might still need to adjust how much you’re eating.
You might need to sort your weekends out a bit.
But at least you’ll be fixing something that’s likely to matter.
And you can have a jacket potato while you’re at it.
As for me, I’ll be checking the exit before I go into another public toilet.
One night in a locked bog would have been quite enough character building.
-Ryan
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