The Lazy Journalist – Improving but still yearning for chips...

I won’t bore you too much with the health stuff, but to paraphrase Spike Milligan, I told you I wasn’t quite right.

On the upside, it’s all relatively treatable and reversible with continued changes to my lifestyle and diet.

In terms of lifestyle things are going well. I’m approaching the end of week three at the Prince Regent and grateful for everyone’s support.

The gyms visits, although still sporadic, are becoming slightly less of a bind and I caught myself briefly enjoying a few minutes of Pilates. That’s not to say the Pilates classes aren’t great but it was the first time I found myself confidently doing my thing, rather than grimly getting through it in the knowledge it’s doing some good. There’s even talk of starting an additional exercise class.

Whisper it, I’m starting to feel the benefits...

Obviously I’m still as fat as a pig, but my energy levels are, little by little, starting to stir and rise above the level of the living dead. However, like a brain-chomping zombie I still find myself hostage to my diet, although generally I find myself thinking about chips rather than human flesh (unless I see Gemma Collins on the TV).

After an initially chippy-free week I found myself soaking up a bit of sun at Brighton’s weekly Street Food and Maker’s Market in the grounds of the Brighthelm Centre off Queens Road.

In hindsight it wasn’t the best place for a recovering glutton – desperately trying to ignore the whiffs of jerk chicken, paella and all sorts of other great grub, while making do with a tomato and avocado sarnie (on wholemeal bread, obvs).

Whatever enjoyment I was experiencing was swiftly curtailed when I saw a toddler eating some magnificent-looking MASSIVE chips (they were genuinely big, it wasn’t just his small hands).

I tried not to stare, and apologies to his parents if I did, but they looked awesome. And when he dropped a couple of them I found myself thinking that if the family left... I could snaffle the abandoned chips from the floor.

Fortunately, they stayed put and soon after my lunch partner bought a portion of loaded fries and I was able to, at least temporarily, quench my insane chip-lust with a ‘couple’ of those.

Further apologies to anyone reading this who has a healthy relationship with food, but I’m starting to realise mine can be more Kurt and Courtney, than William and Kate.

On a more positive, less-fantasising-about-eating-someone else’s food off the floor note, I am, mostly, starting to improve my diet.

Green tea is my new flava, and in the past fortnight I’ve doubled my intake of fruit and veg for the year, which although dreadful in itself, is definitely a start.

Next week I’ll try to write slightly less about food. Who knows I might think about it less too? And Brexit will go ahead and be a great financial success? And we’ll all be living on Mars within 20 years?

To find out more about the gym and classes at the Prince Regent visit www.freedom-leisure.co.uk