And it had all started so well. Fresh out my morning shower I emerged to discover my wife had made me banana on toast in a show of moral support after I confessed to my healthy eating plan.
The gym remains a secret, you see, until I can at least prove to myself that I can maintain the momentum in actually going as well as some actual results.
Only then will I feel confident enough to reveal all without fearing the raised eyebrow and the inevitable ‘oh yes, how long do you think you will last this time?’ Not that I blame her given my past record, and not that she’d mock or be cruel.
Just resigned to the fact that hubby, ie me, is a serial great plan maker who doesn’t always deliver. So it was touching to see the banana not hastily spread across the seeded batch, but sliced delicately to be savoured along with the cup of tea that accompanied it.
My rucksack I’d packed the previous night, the still gleaming white trainers belying their four year age, an oversized t-shirt ready for the fray.
I even made the train in plenty time, bounded up to the office to check some emails before heading to LA Fitness just around the corner from work.
When it all started to unravel. First there was some work to be done, urgent because a deadline was fast looming. No stress to be worked off, just time consuming.
Ah, time, the enemy that would deny my body the regime it needs. Because as the clock tocked and ticked I knew that if I were to dilly dally just a little more, then I’d have to give it a miss until the afternoon. I knew that I had to take a train to see a guy 45 minutes away for a business meeting.
Which is kind of where it all went wrong. Of course I could have had a coffee, water or peppermint tea. But it was a Starbucks and I just HAD to have a Chai tea latte – venti too. And spare me the skinny option, this is a drink that has to be savoured.
Especially when accompanied by a blueberry muffin. I know, I know, the guilt started to riddle through me from the first slurp, and because I felt bad I ordered a second. When my client suggested a quick lunchtime pint I did resist twice, but caved at the third request.
It was clear he had more to say, and out it came over a pint of McEwan’s 70. I did extract myself from his company after that one pint, though, fleeing to meet some other chums.
Safety in numbers. Except it was in a bar. They like a drink. And being a quiet Tuesday that’s exactly what happened. My second pint of the day lead to a third, but fearing for my gut I refused the fourth John Smith’s, settling instead for a smaller bottle of Peroni lager.
Of course five bottles later and it was time to attend the launch of a political think tank down the road. A launch party, if you will, with free wine – decent stuff too as five glasses of testing was to prove.
Food had been absent all day, at least since the banana on toast, so half a dozen of the tiniest crumb coated deep fried haggis bites were deemed necessary.
And then the guilt returned. I trudged away from the event, shame faced at my weakness and headed for the train.
A two hour journey home to mull over why I’d given into temptation so easily. After all, it would have been easy to have stopped earlier. It would have been easy to stick to water.
But in good company, sharing rare banter and meeting new, useful business contacts, possibly lucrative ones too, then it is even easier to go with the flow an excuse of sorts, but not one that will do the scales of injustice much good when I next heave my hulking torso upon them.
Which was why on the final part of my journey home I dipped into my coat pocket and pulled out an apple I’d tucked there in the morning as a snack and devoured it. Every little helps, as they say.
And boy do I need all the help I can get.
