Challenge accepted!

A week or so ago, I was challenged to stop whining/complaining/talking about my fitness and health and do something about it. I've made plans before, but I'd always fallen over because I'd had grand schemes about putting together a series of meal plans that would help any weight loss and that by having these meal plans in place, I could safely nip off to Tesco or Sainsbury's and do my shopping, safe in the knowledge my pre-planning would mean I could always cook up something healthy and by having a lot of these meal plans, I'd never get bored eating chicken salad 6 days a week.

I've never completed that plan, so any token effort at doing more exercise always fell flat on its back as I'd learned that diet is far more important than exercise, plus I like booze too much (well, the boozing that went along with socialising). Trying to collate that kind of nutritional information is a lot harder than it seems as there's loads of it and it can all be very contradictory.

So, here we are again... another post about wanting to lose weight and get fitter. I have reasons this time beyond simply thinking that I should - KfW2's wedding, the corresponding trip away in the sun and a 10km run that I've signed up for next Spring.

I should start now, but the Christmas season is almost upon me, so any thought of cutting out the booze or going on a diet is pretty pointless, so I have come up with a two stage solution:

Stage 1 (pre-Xmas):
100 Pushups
200 Situps
Some Planking exercise
Reduce portion size of food
Go to the gym when possible

That's stage one and should see me through until Xmas. There's not a lot there that can go wrong and it's more about bedding in good habits than looking for results. Sit ups and push ups I can do in the house without any special equipment and should get me in the mindset of setting aside an hour a day for exercise.

Stage 2 (post-Xmas):
Go to the gym regularly and make it a routine.
Change diet to eat more healthily and avoid fast food and junk - possibly formulate a diet plan.
Cut down on the booze, at least for the first couple of months.
Start proper training for the 10km race (I can do some in the gym, but there's no substitute for road running)

And that should be enough to get started. Hopefully, if things are going well, I can look at the post-Xmas plan and tailor it accordingly to something a bit more ambitious if things are going well.