My 'Food Story' - Part 2

I left home to study for a degree when I was 19. During my three degree years I kept fairly active, taking part in basketball, volleyball and potholing on a regular basis. Although I needed to spend a lot of time studying, there was always a bit of free time for sports. Luckily for me, I never got into the whole alcohol thing so didn't abuse my body through that route! Success at degree level led to me going on to take up postgraduate study - and this is where things started to go downhill as far as my weight and fitness was concerned. I literally did nothing for two whole years but study – and most of this, as you would expect – sitting down on my backside. Even had I not been so dedicated to my academic cause, there were few opportunities for activity anyway because I was studying away from home and commuting to University each day. Apart from consuming valuable hours of the day, this is also meant I did not develop such close bonds with my fellow students and lost out on the socialising and other activities. Having kept my weight to around 11.5 stone through most of my degree years, it had now crept up to 13 stone.

However, probably the best period of my life was about to arrive.....

Armed with a Master's degree, I got a great job in Manchester, passed my driving test and was able to commute to work much more rapidly than I'd been able to commute to University. For a few months, all was rosy. I was doing a 9 to 5 job and had LOADS of time to spare in the evenings – time I hadn't had for years because of the studying. But after a few months of this luxury I got bored and began looking for a hobby to fill my time. A colleague at work suggested I take up jogging.

Mmmm, I hadn't done any of that sort of thing since being at school – I was not sure my body could hack it. But she kept going out for her gentle jogs along the canal side during lunch breaks and my curiosity got the better of me. Before long, we had both entered the Liverpool Tesco Women's 10km Run and were into heavy training. We were both aiming to do it an hour. After about 4 months of training, the race came, she took 64mins, I did it in 55. The bug had bitten – I was an addicted runner, clocking up 40-45 miles per week.

I won't bore you with the details, but over the next few months I entered the London Marathon, took up swimming with a vengeance, and even started cycling. Within a year I was doing full-length triathlons (1500m swim, 40km cycle, 10km run), biathlons and loads of road races – and lovin' it. And you know the best part? I was eating like a horse (really) and LOSING weight. Without any effort on my part, no diets, no calorie counting – I was down to 10 stone 4 lbs.

So what went wrong?