Losing weight: an update

OK, it's a while since I adopted this 5x2 diet and promised I'd keep people updated - the original post from September is here.

There has been some qualified success. The first thing I'd have to say is: do not assume that if your jeans are more or less spray-on, really ought to get the next size up, that you're going to shrink two waist sizes within three months. This, if it's going to be sustainable, is not going to happen.

However, there has been progress. I'm still wearing the same jeans but I need, really need, a belt. And I've lost (FX: DRUMROLL) just over two stone. The shape would probably have changed more if I hadn't managed to develop an ingrowing toenail, which has limited some of the exercise possibilities (this has been treated, is improving and I was back in the gym yesterday).

But here are a couple of pics of me from BBC appearances - before the diet:

And after:

Now, nobody should kid themselves I'm an oil painting, obviously. And it's been gradual (and will continue to be). Having had the cysts removed from my scalp I can have a shorter haircut, which helps.

But there's definitely a difference. I can recommend this diet to anyone who's serious about losing weight permanently.

Heaven is the first haircut in weeks

A handful of you may be aware that I had minor surgery at the end of April - just the removal of a few cysts from my scalp. It was all supposed to be over very quickly, better in a couple of weeks.

Hah.

We pause here for a quick wallow in self-pity and snarling about stitches and wounds going infectious. Tell you what, let's just put a quick picture in:

That's me, the day before a major stage presentation, a week or so after I was supposed to be 100%. The bandage pinged off during the presentation.

I was not delighted.

Later the head bandage shrunk to a plaster and people kept asking whether I'd been in a fight. Nobody had accused me of looking hard for...actually, no, it's never happened. Until now. Oh, and of course you can't have a hair cut with all this going on.

Yesterday - finally - the plaster came off and I went to the barber. Almost flew. Frankly they could have cut my head off and got a good review.

Towel shave

But I do feel I must recommend all blokes have a hot towel shave every now and then, and if at all possible do it at The Valet in Addiscombe or one of its concessions at local hotels. I had the "Casino Royal" (yes I know the book and film have an 'e' on the end of 'Royale', it's a barber, you think they care?) which costs £45 but honestly, it's worth it.

You start off with a pre-coating of Proraso Eucalyptus undercoat. This refreshes and stimulates the skin, and then they put a hot towel over you. You then get a close shave (or three; the trick they use is to take a little hair off often, which is gentler and less prone to provoking a rash).

There's a clay mask for extra cleaning. There is cleanser. There is a total of five hot towels. Nobody, repeat nobody, is allowed to disturb you during this hour of completely indulgent time.

Then I switched to the other chair for my first haircut in months. I spent £29.50 on a decent re-style, after all that growth it needed it; I asked them to model it on Jose Mourinho, and when they'd picked themselves up off the floor they did their best (Lucky I didn't ask for George Clooney). It looks unusually good - for me anyway:

No doubt I'm biased by this being my first fully de-bandaged day since 30 April, and this being the first picture I've seen of me from that angle without a large visible cyst on the side of my head. But I feel genuinely refreshed, the attention to my wants from the guys at the salon was superb as always and I'd certainly recommend it.

(And yes, good of you to ask, I have indeed lost a little weight).

Steptronic: comfort shoes that look good

OK, first the nasty bit - I have achieved an ingrown toenail. It's simple enough, you cut your nail too small and it goes unpleasant.

So, all my decent work shoes - Church's and soforth - suddenly don't fit. It would be wrong to say that the pair of Steptronic boots I was sent were designed specifically for that, but I do find them wearable and that's something.

This probably won't apply to most readers (I mean, why would it?) - so let's see what the PR blurb says about the construction and why these are comfortable:

"All Steptronic Footwear has a patented 100% flexible rubber sole, it's made up of ridges at a particular 45 degree angle that ensures that the shoes bends with your foot at all times, and goes back to shape easily. They also have a sheepskin lining, not the furry side as your feet would be too hot, the sheepskin is within the inner of the shoe, ensuring bounce, comfort and breathability. The company boast that they are the most comfortable shoes you will ever wear."

They are indeed very comfortable. But, as the PR person comments, the above description will leave you expecting something hideous and grandfather-ish. Here's a picture:

This is the Aldershot Black style. I went for the Bassett Brown boot. The leather is very soft, they look good with a blue or grey suit but also work with jeans.

Oh, and given the complexity of the construction I think £99 or so per pair is a pretty good price. Given that it's going to be a month or so before I'm back in ordinary boots (no, the nail isn't complicated but my diary won't let me get it seen to before mid-May) I've ordered a pair of black formal boots too.

No, they're not as formal as my usual 'meetings' footwear. But for the price they're going to get me through, and quite honestly the ones I have are a pleasure to wear.

Dryathlon - raising dosh for Cancer Research

A quick break from Christmas presents today and a look to 2013, January to be precise. Tomorrow I'll be blogging about Christmas drinks; Tuesday will be Christmas Day (I know this stuff, I've Googled it) and a week later...I'll be abstaining from alcohol for a month.

People who know me will most likely have fallen off their chair at the thought. And certainly I enjoy a drink, not to excess but a good meal like, say, a really excellent steak, without a good red is not my idea of fun. Nonetheless there's a scheme called Dryathlon.

How it works

The idea is that I (and thousands like me) will abandon the bottle for the month, give the money we would otherwise have spent on booze to cancer research and (here it comes) get our generous friends and readers to sponsor us.

(If we fall off the wagon then we have to give an extra £15 to the charity so even if I don't keep it up we're still raising loads).

So, season of goodwill and all that, if anyone felt like sponsoring me for however small an amount you felt appropriate, here's my JustGiving page.

I will of course report back at the end of January on any weight loss, improved energy levels and other undesirable side effects the absence of alcohol has on me. Meanwhile, Ill urge people to drink responsibly and sensibly in what remains of 2012!

Running socks and skipping ropes

OK, been busy so it's been quiet in here for a little while. But following the piece a few weeks ago on my attempted lifestyle change I can confirm that around half a stone has vanished in three weeks with a belt notch being tightened on my suit yesterday. No, it didn't hurt and yes, I know leather stretches so this probably wasn't a whole "notch" in real terms.

The exercising I mentioned - using a skipping rope - hasn't gone quite so well. I've been testing some socks from Runbreeze and can confirm that if you find ankle socks/trainer liners comfortable they certainly do the job of cushioning your foot and keeping you cool just as you'd hope.

I've been using a digital skipping rope (pictured) from Kettler. I can confirm that this does the job - counts the time you've been working out, tells you about the calories you've been burning, or at least it did until I let my daughter loose on it. It came back with the display dead, I have no idea why, she couldn't have run out the battery that quickly.

Nonetheless it's still fine as a skipping rope, albeit one with a lighter cord than many people will be used to so you have to work harder to get it over your head. This is where the other component comes into play; you know, the unco-ordinated, immovable heavy lump attempting to skip for the first time in forty years when he wasn't particularly good at it anyway. I tend to last about two minutes before getting tangled up, so if I'm honest the 'cardio fix' running alongside the calorie reduction hasn't gone quite to plan. I will persist.

Still, three weeks, half a stone. I'm not at all distressed at that so far.

Related posts: Attempting a lifestyle change

Attempting a lifestyle change

OK, it's like this. I'm heading towards 'can no longer claim I'm in my mid-forties' territory, and my dad died when he was 49. I don't smoke so I'm not that worried - much - but I'm aware that my weight, for example, is not my best friend.

So, having started to get into better habits thanks to the Fitbit I bought a couple of months ago I'm looking into other areas for permanent change. This Horizon programme, which you can watch until someone who owns the copyright takes it off YouTube, certainly offers food for thought:




It's 50 mins or so long but worth a look. I've also received a pair of sports socks which I'll be testing for this blog and have been promised a digital skipping rope on test, too.

I will let you know how I get on. At the moment I'm wearing 38in waist jeans from Wizard with a certain abdominal overhang (that's claret-gut to most). By Christmas I'd like a considerably flatter stomach and to be getting comfortably into 34in.

Why am I doing it this way? Because a couple of weeks ago I had the house to myself a few days. I thought, right, I can do something about this. I can go to the gym because there's no distraction, nobody to remind me that the lawn needs mowing or something, nothing to get in the way.

And work being work, I didn't. I just couldn't find the time. This tells me that my lifestyle needs changing urgently; if you can't look after yourself, Clapperton, you're going to go the same way as your father. My brother was 14 when our dad died; I'm not going to voluntarily leave my daughter at the same point in our life. But I have to work.

So, 15 mins skipping in the garden before a shower involves no travelling time, no real inconvenience, just getting up marginally earlier. And cutting down to 600 calories two days a week involves very little in the way of interfering with work appointments and soforth - I should be able to fit perfectly happily around other people, they won't notice.

With a bit of luck it'll cost me a fortune at the tailor because everything will need taking in.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, yes - announcing this in public is intended to help encourage others to do something similar where they need to, but also to embarrass me into keeping it up. I can't tell you guys I'm going to lose weight and then not do so. I'll let you know how it goes.

Hey fatty, how's the sport? Fitbit research

There's a great piece of research bound to do the rounds over the next couple of days. The makers of Fitbit, a sort of extended pedometer which monitors how many steps you've taken, how many stairs you've walked up and down, how far you've gone, have looked into how much lard we're all going to put on around our waists by watching sport rather than doing it this summer.

Men have admitted to watching four hours a day of sport (which if you're watching a tennis match isn't much), with 5% saying they'll happily watch 42 hours a week when the Olympics are on. A fifth of us confess that we can't fit exercise into our lifestyles.

I'm overweight and this is where the Fitbit has started to help. It acts as an ordinary pedometer but then it starts doing clever things (and before you ask I bought it after having it recommended, no freebies, no discounts). The website is the clever bit because it starts telling you how you're doing compared to the average.

Take my own example. I walk the dog twice a day, I go up and down stairs a lot, I walk to the station when I have to - I was a little perplexed at just why I'm this shape. The Fitbit site told me in about 24 hours that a lot of the calories I take in are unnecessary - not just through the obvious stuff like "cut down on the drink" but also I hadn't taken in how many calories were in a glass of orange juice, nor had I measured how large my bowl of cereal in the morning was. Cutting this down a bit was no trouble.

More importantly in spite of walking the dog I find my average daily steps are about 60% of those of the average male of my age. It all slots into place really easily after this.

If I could change one thing about the website, it would be that it's so American. This isn't a criticism as such, but when all of the calorie measures for fast and pre-packaged food refer to foreign products it's much less easy to guesstimate how much you're taking in. Nonetheless in identifying a few areas I could be changing quite painlessly, this little widget is very useful.

It also tells you about your sleep patterns by tracking your movements. I thought I was sleeping badly and blaming a lot of tiredness on that, taking ages to get off... It turns out that I'm not, my imagined 'ages' is about ten minutes long and I sleep like a baby. Inactivity is the answer.

At £79.99 it's not dirt cheap but for a report like that on my lifestyle I would have paid a lot more. You can get one from Amazon through this link.

Is your head in danger from the sun?

Flickr: sarahstierch

I've never been one much for hats but I was at Wimbledon last week and there was - however briefly - this yellow thing in the sky. Although I have a full head of hair I also have a couple of cysts on my head - harmless, I've had them looked at, my dad had them so I know where they are and that they won't hurt - but, and here it comes, they do give me exposed patches of skin on my cranium. This, for someone who has no particular desire to drop dead of cancer too early, is not good news.

So I've been considering the options. A lot of men at Wimbledon were wearing baseball caps. I hate baseball caps with a passion. They are functional but they really look cut price - and on checking the prices of the straw panamas at the souvenir shop I saw I was right. £49.50 for something you're going to wear only once or twice when we get a bit of sun, if you please. That said

So I did the only decent thing - went to Amazon and found something similar albeit without the Wimbledon colours in the band (note to self: who cares?) for £34, which was much more comfortable. Of course I can't try it on, but you compromise a bit sometimes. It's fair trade and it's also a traditional panama in that you can fold it up. One of the Amazon reviewers takes his on holiday in a sawn-off picture tube, the sort you pick up when you buy a print at a gallery. I'm glad he thought of that as I had a nasty feeling mine was going to end up smelling like the Pringles tin into which I was going to stuff it.

Alternatives are available including fiddling around with sun block; for people with a completely bald head I'd recommend this as well as the hat. For a patchy bloke like me, the hat option will do fine for the moment.

Socks appeal: Incredisocks

Ah, the old socks appeal joke, never gets old, does it. OK, maybe it does - but anyway, I've been testing a pair of Incredisocks from Incrediwear. The idea is that they're impregnated with a few whizzy extras to stimulate blood circulation and help with a few other health issues.

For example, they have a 200 thread count for extra comfort - which is going to be more important to hikers and sportspeople than blokes walking between meetings as I was - and they're designed to regulate temperature efficiently, and the weave promotes dryness.

They did so pretty well and as such are very well suited to diabetics, of which I'm not (knowingly) one. What I liked about them, in my usual shallow way, was that the ones I was sent, in black, didn't stand out as somehow therapeutic; so often you see these things and they're in garish colours or very obviously for hiking or sport. I would imagine, assuming they do alleviate some of the symptoms of diabetes, that City workers (who'll be able to wear these without drawing attention to themselves) will welcome these.

OK, I like a splash of colour in my socks. That's up to me, but it's nice for once to have the choice. They're available from Vital LIfe.

Seacret skin care

One of the things about being a male lifestyle blogger is that you get sent quite a lot of skin care products and a load of men end up wondering why you're bothering. Growing up as I did in the 1970s when using deodorant was a bit girly you can start to see why the idea of skin care ranges seem a bit odd to the male of the species - we're used to looking and feeling a bit rough.

This view always surprises me a bit, though. By all means we're used to it but we're also used to dragging naked razors over our skin on a daily basis. So I'm quite pleased with two of the products I've been sent; Seacret after-shave balm is soothing and odour-free and yes I think I look a bit less spotty for using it. ProActiv Solutions' day treatment has a similar effect; Seacret seems to work better on my skin and you can make what you want of that.

Seacret also sent me some shampoo (which works well enough, pictured) ands mineral-rich peeling gel (it says here) to get rid of dead skin buildup on your face, which would also give you a shaving rash. It's a brand I'll be watching with interest - women still tend to be more interested in this stuff than men, which is odd as they tend not to shave their faces.

If you do have difficulty with your skin after shaving here are some basic tips:

1. Face should be clean - this doesn't mean a quick rinse, it means a wash, preferably with a non-soap cleanser as soap can gunge up your pores. A scrub with bits in (or 'scruffing lotion' or whatever your supplier calls it) once a week will get some extra gunge out.

2. Hair should be softened - water is very good at this, I find a dab of shaving oil or my favourite Proraso shaving preparation helps too - this isn't obligatory.

3. Decent shaving cream - ask a good barber. I use Coates and sometimes The Bluebeards. Apply with a brush as this will raise your facial hair and make it more accessible to the razor.

4. Decent razor with a sharp blade, washed frequently. OK, I'm fussy so I've gone for the Merkur Futur which isn't going to be to everyone's taste let alone budget (although replacement blades cost pennies so over a couple of years you do save money). Very gently, aim to reduce rather than eradicate hair - then repeat from step 3. Change the blade frequently.

5. Rinse excess soap off in cold water, this closes the pores up

6. Moisturiser or after shave balm like the Seacret stuff above or the many other products I've reviewed here from time to time. This helps your skin recover from the razor being dragged across it.

7. Scent if you like but top of the neck/chest (unless it's very sunny, you can burn yourself) and maybe back of the neck. So many people put a scent on newly-shaved skin, it stings like hell and they wonder why they go red afterwards. Your face needs about five hours to recover completely before you start splashing smellies onto it.

Prostate cancer awareness month

OK, serious blog post time. No picture, even.

It's Prostate Cancer Awareness month. The most common cancer among men, 10,000 of us die of it every year and if you're over 50 - and I know this site is aimed at people starting at a younger age but some of you are in that category - there's no reason your GP won't happily test, advise on prevention and try to see you don't end up as one of that 10,000.

I don't fall for the various bits of cancer charity propaganda saying "we can beat this" - we're not immortal, something's going to get us eventually. But you can shorten the odds through lifestyle and getting yourself checked periodically.

Tomorrow I'll write about brightly coloured shirts or something - but meanwhile do have a think about getting your prostate checked if you haven't already done so.

Bluebeards helps fight cancer

Just a quickie today, normal service will be resumed very shortly (half term last week) but I did want to draw everyone's attention to a new campaign by shaving company The Bluebeards. It's about testicular cancer and it's trying to draw attention to the fact that a quarter of we blokes never check ourselves for changes in shape and other danger signs.

This. Is. Lunacy.

During the seventies and eighties, the female cancer lobby did an admirable job of highlighting breast cancer and ovarian cancer. Prior to a lot of campaigning people didn't mention those illnesses, they were a taboo, and guess what - people didn't check themselves and died unnecessarily early in some dismal cases. This awareness continues and is an excellent thing.

Blokes, meanwhile, like to kid ourselves we're pretty much immortal. We don't need to check ourselves, we don't get cancer, we don't go to the doctor much because we don't need it, right? And anyway, feeling for new lumps and changes is embarrassing, and what we don't know won't hurt us, seems to be the logic.

Well, dream on, folks, that's not how it works. Bluebeards is working on building awareness and I'm pleased to support them. Campaigners on female cancers have set and continue to set an inspiring precedent - it's time to get over ourselves and join them.

Dry December and the middle aged

Flickr: Tim Pearce, Los Gatos

As regular readers will know I'm temporarily off the booze because of a mild gum infection (cleared up now) and antibiotics, and of course you always have to finish a course of antibiotics even if the symptoms have cleared up.

So I'm feeling fine but am unable to drink until Thursday evening - well, technically Thursday lunchtime but I'm not a midday drinker. All of which leads me back to last night's Inside Out London, that link should work for one week on iPlayer, in which BBC London journalist Wendy Hurrell documented her staying away from alcohol for the whole of December.

It's worth watching if only as a reminder of the stuff we all know about alcohol. In excess it does harm, not only to you but to people around you, and you're likely to notice benefits from cutting down or cutting it out even if you don't classify yourself as a heavy drinker. We all know this stuff but a reminder never does any harm - it's well made and some of the facts on what it does to your health and appearsance are worth going over again.

Of course Hurrell isn't "one of us" - this blog is primarily aimed at the over-35 male; I'm certain she doesn't qualify as a male and I have serious doubts as to whether she's seen her 30th birthday yet, not that it's any of my business. The programme covers older people too.

My own experience has been enlightening from a number of other angles. It's only been five and a half days so not comparable with Hurrell's experience but there have been things I'd expected to improve which haven't done so. Sleeping patterns - I tend to wake up a few times overnight - are pretty much unchanged, although last night was good. Any thoughts of "cut down the alcohol and you'll sleep better" have proven so far illusory.

Likewise feeling more alert and refreshed on waking in the morning; I'm still the same drowsy, incoherent waste of space I've always been first thing. And nodding off in front of the telly, let's not even go there. Talking to my friends I wonder whether that's just a fortysomething thing. The only difference now is that instead of thinking "this wine must be stronger/lower quality than I thought" on finishing a glass after dinner and dozing off, I'm now thinking "either this orange juice is off, this programme is unbelievably soporific or I'm genuinely knackered".

On balance this is positive. Blaming tiredness and lethargy on alcohol and deciding I would do something about it 'eventually' was sloppy thinking. You don't have to underestimate the harm alcohol can do to understand that attributing every bit of fatigue to it could be masking an underlying issue which isn't drink related at all.

It's only been five days so I wasn't expecting a radical change in wellbeing. And I'm not going to fall back into the habit of having wine with a meal because we "might as well" and it's easy. I'm sure I'll lose a little weight by cutting down, which will reduce my risk from heart disease, diabetes and all those other things we all understand and know as we order the next pint.

Nonetheless, going without it for a few days and noticing so little difference in so many areas has left me determined to look again at a few other areas of my life - diet, stress and exercise in particular - and stop using "I really must consider cutting down on alcohol" as an excuse not to do anything else.

What would you give for a better body?

Flickr: Tucia

Now this is just silly. According to the BBC's website today, many men are unhappy with their gut. That's not the silly bit, I fully accept it and am not desperately proud of my own. Body image, the piece goes on to say, is no longer (if it ever was) an exclusively female thing.

I'm OK so far on that. I set up this blog with the idea of writing about and for men who were a bit concerned about their appearance but who feel that from early middle age we're a bit abandoned by the style mags and media in general. I have no problem at all with someone wanting to demolish the myth that fat is an exclusively feminine issue, that we don't care how we look, that we're as attached to the idea of being better as anyone else of either sex, regardless of orientation (I don't buy into the idea that self-image and dress sense are exclusively gay things, either).

No, the silly bit is where the BBC has fallen for a bit of spurious research. I hate spurious research and as a jobbing journalist I get plenty, believe me. I dislike it strongly when it actually gets coverage. This one is from the University of the West of England's Centre for Appearance Research (I didn't make that up) and it says - wait for it - 35% of men say they'd give up a year of their lives to have a better body - flat gut, more muscles in the upper body, you know the sort of thing.

Oh, really? They'd give up a year of their lives? What does that actually mean, though? They'd allow someone to come and shoot them a year before their allotted time, if that could be calculated with any certainty? They really wouldn't mind telling their family that healthy though they felt, they'd made this agreement for a decent set of abs so it was now time to go off to Switzerland and face the end a bit earlier than absolutely necessary?

It's a ridiculous statement to make and frankly a stupid question to have asked.

I have a much better one. If you or I were seriously that unhappy with our bodies that we felt we'd shorten our lives to improve them, how come we're not shortening our days by half an hour or so to go for a quick run? Pair of trainers, shorts, t-shirt, 20 minutes or so a day before the usual shower, you think we won't see a difference if we combine it with less fat and sugar?

Of course there are time constraints. There are families to look after, kids to prepare for school. There's always going to be something stopping a lot of us. Nonetheless, the idea that a third of men with an average age of 40 are so concerned that they'd shorten their lives to get fitter (which incidentally is more likely to lengthen life) when in reality they can't find half an hour four times a week to do something about it is more than a little preposterous.