Time to get serious

Well I've left it a few days since I last blogged. The relentless onslaught of information about my health kick was becoming both tedious and boastful.

I mean it would only be an interesting story if I had a spectacular fall from grace and was found collapsed in my bedroom, in a pool of the Colonel's 11 secret herbs and spices, suffering from a KFC induced coma.

There has been no such wobble (apart from my belly when I'm exercising) and I even managed to resist the array of culinary wonders on offer in London during a weekend visit.

Making the right decisions and eating healthily is becoming second nature. Even when I was surrounded by amazing aromas and visions of succulence in Greenwich market I opted for a lamb and salad wrap with houmous. Impressive I know.

However London did provide temptations, such as coffee and beer, that meant some of my exercise and healthy eating were undone.

This made me realise that I have to dedicate myself to a nutritional programme that was more strict and far more challenging. Just being on a reasonable programme is too open to interpretation and rule bending.

So as of Monday (I've been a bit late in writing this) I have switched to a strict weight loss programme that basically entails......you guessed it meat, veg and nuts but literally nothing else.

I'm not allowed fruit, dairy, starchy veg (potatoes or parsnips) or any dark meats.

The new programme demands I eat four meals a day and eat nothing fun for the next 14 days. The worst part is having to eat meat and fish for breakfast. Just when I was getting used to banana and yogurt!

So far I have eaten cod for breakfast, homemade tomato soup for lunch, then a prawn salad mid-afternoon and finally a lovely pork loin stew.

It's going to be even harder, I know, but I'm a man that likes a challenge. I just need to be inventive with my meat, if you know what I mean.

Don't worry, I've got Heston on speed dial!

My first steps....

So today could be the first day of the rest of my life. The first day where fitness becomes routine and a permanent feature in my existence.

I have to admit I approached the first exercise session of my new health regime with some trepidation. Eating healthily is just a case of substituting bad food for good food whereas exercise requires effort and drive.

The programme is easy ........... on paper. I read it, probably under some illusion that I was Mr. Motivator, thinking that someone with athletic prowess like myself (again I was delusional) would breeze through it and within a couple of days I would be running marathons and crushing metal with my bare heads. I was wrong!

My exercise consists of four minutes of running, then one of walking, repeated five times. This might not seem much but 20 minutes of running is a lot from a man who's most rigorous exercise for the last two years has been chasing the ice cream van down the road.

The aim is to find a decent pace, running around 700m every four minutes. This is by no means a blistering pace but the idea is to build my fitness during the first week of exercise.

Following a three minute rest after the running/walking I then launch myself in to a body weight circuit. This consists of: 20 squats, 20 press-ups, a 30 second plank, 30 sit-ups, 10 split squats (either leg) and 10 tuck jumps. Repeated three times.

Again, this circuit isn't mind blowing but try telling my big, red, sweaty face that when I'm struggling to complete even the first set.

This morning was hard and after this week the work will increase, and it will get harder, but I've taken my first steps in to fitness and it feels good.

I was worried that once I had finished I'd feel like rewarding myself with a fry up but, if anything, feeling sweaty, knackered and achy only made me want to eat healthier. And I think therein lies the key to sustaining the programme. Changing the way I live and the lifestyle choices I make improve me, and as long as I continue I will feel like I'm constantly moving forward.

So I had some lovely (bland) natural yoghurt with banana, and nuts, for breakfast. Chunky vegetable soup and some houmous with carrot sticks, oh and nuts, for lunch. And for dinner I had steak with sweet potato and, you guessed it, nuts.

I know harder times lie ahead, when my zest and excitement about the programme fade, but I must always remember the end goal.

John F. Kennedy once said: 'Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.'

Change is coming

Someone once said that a change is as good as a rest. That will be last time I mention the changes I am making in the same breath as the word rest.

I am embarking on a personal challenge. A challenge of both willing and will power. A challenge that could be truly life changing.

I'm taking on a rigorous exercise and nutrition programme.

But why would any self-respecting student undertake a programme that involved no alcohol and not even a sniff of fast food? Well not solely because I want to lose weight. Not even because I want to give my appearance a 'face-lift'. And definitely not because it is a new year and I want a new start.

Lethargy is a disease that can creep in to every day life and cripple progress. I want to banish it from my life. I am now six months from graduating and it is time that I must fulfill my potential. I want to be fit, active, proactive and healthy.

I have attempted health kicks and diets before but all of those were vanity projects. The problem with vanity projects? In order for them to work you have to be vain.

I am an arrogant man, but not vain. I have always considered personality and intelligence worth more than appearance, something that is obviously lost on most of my 'peers' at the University of Bedfordshire.

So this new programme is different. I have recognised that laziness and unhealthiness are holding me back and I'm about to unshackle the fast-food, beer and fried food chains.

Take this blog for example, it's always been brilliant so why would I stop writing it? Because I couldn't be bothered. Why have I not been putting my comedic brain to good use and writing the next big sitcom? Too lazy. And why have I not been down the gym sculpting the body that this beautiful face deserves? Too busy eating.

So I have utilised my friends in high places to acquire the nutritional programme of a Premier League footballer. The same friend has devised a gruelling exercise plan to supplement this (I say gruelling, it isn't that bad but I'm scared if he reads this he'll make it harder).

Following the nutritional guide for an elite footballer is a daunting task but if an unimaginative, pampered millionaire can cope with it why can't I?

Basically it's all about meat. Meat and vegetables and not much else. Oh, I nearly forgot nuts. So meat, veg and nuts. Literally any slang words for male genitalia are considered good for you.

I went shopping for all these good foods today and it was a surreal experience. I walked past biscuits and sweets without stopping for the first time in my life and straight to the museli, that looks like it's been swept straight from the floor of a wood craft workshop. Then to the gluten free section for some pasta. And finally to an aisle that must have been designed with squirrels in mind. I never knew there were so many different types of nuts, seeds and dried fruit. I just grabbed the most interesting looking ones. Apparently I have to have a handful with each meal, which could be interesting if I have to put them on top of my museli. Surely that's too many nuts for any man, even one with testosterone levels like mine.

I proudly produced my goods in front of an uninterested, unimpressed middle-aged checkout woman named Denise. The glamour of a footballer's diet quickly evaporated.

Over the coming days and weeks I will be explaining what my diet and exercise routine consists of and how I am coping with it. I hope to prove that if a man that loves food as much as I do can do it then anyone can. Hopefully I might even become a Premier League footballer if I follow it (or at least pull a Page 3 model).

Tomorrow I start my four weekly circuit. Tonight I had my first proper meal of the programme. It consisted of chicken breast, brown rice and mixed veg. To say it was a taste sensation would be a lie, but you can't beat the taste of success.