After a day off back to normal eating (if you call weighing your food and working out the calories normal), my weight chart restarted its downwards trajectory after the one-day binge blip.
More importantly, the swelling in the knee had receded enough overnight that I could fully bend the joint again. It still isn't perfect, that is going to take a while, but it felt safe enough to venture out on two wheels again. I only rode 10km into town to pick up the car from near my wife's office and I took it very gently. But it was good for the soul.
But I want to return to the food theme. I've become quite interested in this field in these two short weeks and I hope I have the willpower to start eating with a bit of sense when I return to full training.
You read about all sorts of different methods and diets for athletes (or anybody for that matter) to get to and maintain their ideal weight for their given sport. Whether it be low fat, no carb, gluten-free, veggie/vegan, the newly in-style 5:2 fasting diet, or any other regime, each have their supporters and detractors.
But in my, admittedly very limited experience, all you need to do is cut down on your portion sizes. I'm still eating chocolate every day and putting butter on my bread and toast but I'm down to one or two squares of Lindt Dark from my usual three or four, and I'm spreading my Lurpak a bit more sparingly than before. At dinner I'm making sure I bring a plate of food out of the kitchen to the table instead of the previous habit of placing large bowls of what's been prepared out family style. I would ALWAYS have more than one plateful, but now I'm eating like a normal person and sufficing with one.
There have been some greater concessions. I have given up my daily cake, which has been an afternoon routine for my son and I for most of the 13 years he's been around, but a digestive with my cuppa is working out just fine.
And I've also cut down, but not given up my beloved southern Indian vegetarian food. Instead of my favourite thalis with their rice, bread and five or six small dishes of wonderfully prepared veggies, I'm mostly opting for a plain dosa, that tasty rice-lentil flour pancake which comes with a delicious bowl of sambar and two healthy chutneys.
Talking about all this food is making me starving and there's still two hours till dinner. I think I'll have some grapes, a small handful of grapes ;-)