My ki-fit caused much amusement (Fiona “the experiment”) and questions were asked in the pub last night after our running club session. And as I supped back my bottle of Budweiser and snacked on chips, I was happy to tell them that I had a room for both – and my mammoth 800 calorie run meant it didn’t matter!

And, now I’m getting into the swing of it. The first couple of days I found logging everything I ate labourious, now I’m finding it interesting. If you do it properly you can learn a lot. Online reports can be downloaded with a nutritional analysis of your day (this does depend on you inputting all the data of the food you eat, ie protein, carbs, fibre etc – most of which you can find on the food labels). I’ll be honest mine has been a bit haphazard, but where I have entered all the information, I’ve found that the balance can be improved – less fat, more fibre!

And logging food has made me conscious of what I’m eating. For example, knowing that a pie chart will appear at the end of the day showing me how much fat I’m consuming made me opt for marmite rice cakes instaed of crisps last night (on returning from pub!). It was sitting in my consciousness. Just now I had a home-made smoothie made up of half a banana, blueberries, frozen fruits of the forest and raspberries, and a bit of orange juice. Again, logging everything has made me more aware and think twice before opting for a quick fix biscuit or bar of chocolate.

I run daily, but if I was just starting out, and wanting to lose weight, knowing that I was going to burn 1100 calories (as I did today, a two hour run on the hot and hilly downs), would motivate me to get my arse out the door!

Also, I’ve noticed that I’ve put on a few pounds since I cut back on personal training and become more sedentary, and desk-bound . Not surprising when I see that I burned 150 calories in about 30 minutes at the running club session last night, and all I did was a 5 minute jog warm up, and walked a few hills (the group ran 10!)… I’ve cut out five hours of personal training from my week, which probably adds up to around 1,000 calories.  Again, if you’re trying to lose weight, and you can see how many calories walking up the stairs instead of using the lift is burning for you – you’ll be motivated to keep doing it!