Fit To Drop 8: A glacier vs the slippery slope of indulgence

The graphic can't lie. Way over the usual calorie consumption, but thankfully even further over the activity line this day.

Life’s plot is never in straight lines so why should my weight graph be any different?

More bluntly, my holiday brought a heavy (much too heavy) fall from grace.

First the case for the prosecution. In one week I put back on the weight I’d lost in the previous five, bouncing back 2kg to 95kg. No beer belly, but a definite roundness returning to the middle-aged stomach.

Now the case for the defence. Have you ever been on a cruise, m’lud? They start your day with every possible combination of breakfast, virtually encouraging you to have something before the Full English – with copious toast to follow. Then there are three or four courses for lunch. And an afternoon tea of sandwiches and fancies that would normally ensure you foreswear dinner. But no, that comes along with another enticing four or five courses.

I know I could have declined (I did sometimes, I swear), but that wasn’t all in the way of temptation. The wine and cocktails were enticingly reasonable. There are even little packs of biscuits in the cabin and chocolates on the pillow on the night.

In further mitigation I should stress we did use the well-equipped gym on the P&O Ventura several times during the week-long Norway cruise (and believe me the treadmill is an interesting place even when the ship rolls just a little). My wife and I also hiked for several hours for a shore trip on to a glacier. In fact my KiFit gizmo showed I was well up on my normal exercise levels (the illustration linked from above right  shows the analysis of my glacier trek day). Ironically, although reasonably logically, the calorie top-up probably even gave me more energy to exercise.

The judgement is measured in belt notches and the ice-clear sentence means facing the trek to lose that weight again, hoping to put the slippery slope of (not-too-regretted) over-indulgence behind me.

* In a couple of days, I’ll be looking at the gizmo’s recommendations for varying what I eat. And follow the “Fit To Drop” tag below for previous blogs.

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• ayeesha ali

  You have a calorie deficit – so why the weight gain?You put on 4.4lbs in a week.That’s 0.63lbs a day = approx. 1300 calories surplus.This is certainly not shown in the graphic above.

• ayeesha ali

  any chance of Martin King responding – even if no-one else does?

• http://www.facebook.com/people/Martin-King/100000846914914 Martin King

  Be patient with me! That’s a one-day graph. See also my next blog about the difficulties of estimating the calorific value of meals when you eat out. I was obviously wildly over-optimnistic on holiday.