The FFS programme

I have lost nine kilograms and ten centimetres in ten weeks. More importantly, I am trying to make myself ready for whatever comes next.

It has been several months since I gave you a proper update on my health.

Next week, I receive test results that I hope will confirm I am free of prostate cancer. This is my second time through treatment. If the cancer returns again, the treatment pathways will be more aggressive.

I cannot control what the results say. I can do something about the physical condition in which I receive them. I need to be fit and ready for whatever comes next.

This has led me to what I call the FFS programme: Fatness, Fitness and Strength.

The initials also capture my reaction to having to do all this again.

I have been lucky to find Ethan, a gifted personal trainer near where I live, who has helped me turn a vague intention to get healthier into a proper programme. My week is bookended by sessions with him on Monday and Friday, with another on Wednesday when I can fit it in.

We do weekly weigh-ins and baseline tests every six weeks. Ethan then revises the programme, usually by finding new ways to expose muscles I had forgotten existed. Ten weeks in, I am already worrying about what fresh misery awaits me in week 13.

But the structure works. The sessions are in the diary. Someone is expecting me to turn up. The exercises become harder as I become stronger. I no longer have to negotiate with myself every morning about whether I feel like training. Mostly, I do not. I do it anyway.

The nutrition is going well too. I am close to full keto and drinking almost no alcohol, apart from occasional pit stops for events such as my son’s graduation. I did not even have a pint to celebrate Andy becoming Labour leader, although I was delighted for him.

My food is simple: protein, plenty of vegetables and an industrial quantity of cauliflower rice and gallons of extra virgin olive oil and Hunter and Gather avocado oil.

Breakfast is what I have come to think of as my Super Bowl: chia seeds, psyllium husk, assorted seeds, Skyr yoghurt, raspberries and olive oil. It’s not Michelin star but it does keep everything moving. Keto can bung you up. There is no elegant way to put that, so I will not try.

After ten weeks, I have lost nine kilograms and ten centimetres from around my belly. Against the distance I still have to travel, that is only a tiny start. But it is a real start, and I am pleased with it.

The main lesson I have learnt is that fitness returns much faster than fatness disappears.

Your heart and lungs improve. Your legs become stronger. You recover more quickly. You can feel dramatically fitter while the mirror remains moderately unimpressed. It is entirely possible to make genuine progress in the gym while still losing a fight to get your favourite shirt to fit.

Some clothes I could not wear at the start of the year now fit again though. I was particularly pleased that my favourite The Cure T-shirt fitted last week. Others remain a work in progress. I would say my wardrobe is offering encouragement but not full on applause just yet.

I am aiming to lose about two pounds a week. I know I could lose more by eating less, training harder and turning the whole thing into a military campaign. But I am trying to find an equilibrium. A programme I cannot sustain is just a more elaborate way of failing later.

Strength is also becoming more important to me. I do not just want to weigh less. I want more muscle, better balance and enough physical reserve to cope with treatment if the cancer returns. The number on the scales counts, but so does what my body can do.

Calling this the FFS programme is a joke, but not entirely.

I once lost eight stone and have since put nearly all of it back on. Only an idiot would do that, I sometimes tell myself. FFS indeed.

But self-abuse cannot last for ever. Losing the weight proved that I could do something difficult. Regaining it showed that losing weight and living permanently at a lower weight are different challenges, even though I managed it for five years. It’s a head game and the first diagnosis of prostate cancer kept me away from Lime bikes and lifting weights for too long.

So this second attempt cannot be another race towards a target date or a triumphant declaration of victory. My FFS approach meant there is no finish line. There is only the next meal, the next session and the next decision.

Next week’s test results will tell me something important. I hope they bring good news. Whatever they say, I will receive them nine kilograms lighter, ten centimetres smaller and considerably stronger than I was ten weeks ago.

I am doing it all again. This time, I intend to make it stick.

FFS.