First-hand Fitness #3 | On Independence: Day 601

A lot can happen in six hundred days. The world can go from Spocked to Spockless, leap unceremoniously from the middle of the Clone Wars into the Rebellion, and even send Nickelodeon’s newly-minted Ninja Turtles scurrying from their sewer lair to take refuge in a house; a very big house in the country. Six hundred days ago, I could rattle off Doctor Who production codes from memory, quote Star Wars scripts verbatim; I could even use semi-colons properly. Now, such crucial skills may not be as sharp, but I can tell you how many grams of protein you’ll find in an average pea, and what you’d need to eat with it to get all the necessary amino acids to build and maintain muscle (it’s wheat, as it goes).

Indeed, for me, the last 1.65 years have been about experimenting on myself through nutrition and exercise. Partly to control arthritis (which I’ll discuss in great detail in a later post), largely to look good, but mostly to give myself a hobby that doesn’t involve drawing upon my toddler-knackered brain too much, I’ve bulked up and trimmed down and even grown half an inch taller (?), aided all the way by apps the calibre of MyFitnessPal and Runtastic.

But now I’ve been as big as I can be without getting fat (or taking drugs), and as lean as I can be without losing muscle and being “skinny fat” (or taking drugs). My colleague-offending, largely plant-based diet has now become so ingrained that I know by heart what I need to be scoffing each day, and, perhaps more importantly, what to steer well clear of.

And so, for my next experiment, I’m going to go sixty days without using any of my beloved apps. If I can cope without them (i.e. maintain or improve upon my current vital statistics and stay symptom-free), then I’ll do away with them for good, but still recommend a six-hundred day course on them to anyone looking to improve their knowledge and/or condition. If I can’t, then they’ve proven themselves to be truly indispensable, and I’ll still be annoying the missus with them for many years to come.

The MyFitnessPal app is free to download from the App Store. Since my 2012 review, it has been updated to encourage weight gain as well as weight loss, depending on your goal. Runtastic is also free to download from the App Store, with the more feature-packed Runtastic Pro costing you £3.99.