My body is a temple...

Unfortunately however, that temple is the Temple of Doom from the Indiana Jones film of the same name, meaning that it’s slowly sinking into ruins, has fallen into disrepair, has a large population of Thuggee cultists and has both small children hunting for treasure inside it and an extensive minecart rail network running throughout.

The one thing I can proudly announce though is that said Temple (Doom or otherwise) now has a non-smoking sign proudly bolted to the front door – I’ve remained smoke free for (checks handy NHS application) a total of 188 days, 5 hours 54 minutes and 55..56..57 seconds. In this period I’ve saved myself a grand total of £1,129 and 47 pence.

So, boldly onto the next step of a Fitter Happier David™.

As a child I always had a terrifyingly high metabolism. I could eat anything - sweets, crisps, biscuits, household pets, innocent passers by, concrete bollards, etc, and not put a single pound on. I remained rake thin for most of my life all up until the glorious/disastrous moment when I discovered the joys of drinking heavily a decade or so ago – and then the rake stopped being quite so rake-like.

A decade of lager, real ale, drinking on school nights, crappy diet and lack of exercise have taken their toll – I'm still (mostly) thin in arms, leg and face albeit with the addition of an Alfred Hitchcock belly. Which, if I were more like my father, I’d pat contentedly whilst announcing, “Well, it’s all paid for.”

I'll be honest in that the extra weight had crept up on me - It hasn't been until I've been looking at photographs of me in my Dredd costume that I've become really aware of it. Tight leather is not very forgiving to beer bellies. If I were a real Mega City Judge, I've have been forced into doing a desk job by now.

But if I can give up smoking, I can lose weight, right? How hard can it be?

After many recommendations and success stories with friends of mine, I started Couch to 5k a few weeks back but the weather got bad so I used that as an excuse to stop – although I’ve started from scratch again and am dedicated to sticking with it now.

I'm tracking my diet with the free web/Android application MyFitnessPal and am monitoring my exercise (trying to walk a lot more again as well as the couch to 5k) via the free web/Android application Runkeeper. It's early days yet so I'm a little obsessed with entering the calorie values for every single thing that passes through my gob, but I'm finding the whole process fascinating.

That's fascinating as in "Oh my fucking lord, how much crap have you piled into yourself over the years?".  A grim morbid fascination.

So, early days yet but I plan on sticking with it. I'm feeling better in myself already, and the progression of the whole Couch to 5k thing is so gradual that it's no huge struggle as of yet. Having somebody to do the exercise with is also, in itself, a godsend.

So, it's been a while since I made a post here, but rest assured - normal cynical non-exercise related service will be resumed with the next blog post. Just keep using "your" instead of "you're" on facebook, clicking on stupid facebook links or being overtly racist and I'll get round to you in due course.

"When you're younger you can eat what you like, drink what you like, and still climb into your 26" waist trousers and zip them closed. Then you reach that age, 24-25, your muscles give up, they wave a little white flag, and without any warning at all you're suddenly a fat bastard" - Rimmer, Red Dwarf