The Five Hundred Mile Diet
The radio and television airwaves are choked with chatter about diets, fitness regimes and various offers to lose three stones in one month while still enjoying as much chocolate pudding as you can eat. Or did I imagine that last one?
Over the years I've tried various diets. I gave up going to a slimming club because the woman who led the sessions spoke to us like five year olds.
I had some success with the Atkins diet but became disillusioned after watching a ±«Óãtv TV Horizon documentary which pulled apart the science underpinning Dr Atkins theory. A friend bought into the South Beach Diet for all of 48 hours and then told me he simply couldn't eat the recommended recipes.
Lately I've been trying to decipher various versions of the low G.I. diet, but have been put off by all the graphs and charts and the lack of photographs of chocolate pudding.
So, I start my own fitness phase on the 10th January and have decided to invent my own system which I'm calling the Five Hundred Mile Diet. It's inspired by that song from and based on my own exercise preferences of walking, jogging and cycling. I've also read enough nutrition books to know which foods are good for you (fruit 'n' veg) and which aren't (millionaire shortbread).
So here's the system:
Common sense healthy eating. Lots of fruit, veg and water.
No alcohol for first month then one glass of wine in a blue moon
No stupid snacks. Let's be grown-up about this.
An exercise challenge in which I have to accrue five hundred miles by walking, jogging or cycling.
There's no time limit to reaching this total, but after I reach five hundred miles I have to begin the next five hundred and reach that total in a period which is ten percent shorter than the first five hundred. So, if I reach the first five hundred in 10 weeks, I have to do the next five hundred in 9 weeks. Simple.
Also, I love walking. Not serious hill-walking or anything...just walking around streets and cities. It's amazing how many programme ideas come to you that
way.
