The Bearded Belly Chronicles – Chapter Five: The Battle of the Bounce Back
The Bearded Belly Chronicles – Chapter Five: The Battle of the Bounce Back
This Week Stats
Current Weight: 148.5kg 📈
Last Week's Weight: 148.3kg 👎
Weight at the Start of the Year: 159.7kg 🚀
Hours
Fasted: 133.2. That is enough time to watch Braveheart 55 times. That means fifty-five
rounds of William Wallace yelling "FREEDOM", fifty-five slow-motion
cavalry charges, and fifty-five chances to shake my head at the historical
inaccuracies while still getting completely caught up in the drama. If I had spent
my time like that, I would be wearing a kilt and painting my face blue by now.🎉
Water Drunk: 30.5 litres. That is 61 cans of Irn-Bru. Enough to fuel a small theme park, make my insides permanently orange, or give me the ability to taste colours. If I had drunk that much Irn-Bru instead of water, I would either be levitating from sheer sugar overload or legally required to list "carbonated" as my blood type.
The Highs, The Lows, and The
Weekend Crash
Thursday and Friday were two of
the best days I have had in a long time, mentally. Then, like the old saying
goes.... what goes up must come down. And down I went, crashing straight into
Saturday and Sunday.
I woke up Saturday morning
feeling awful. Sad for no reason. That zip I’ve had so far in 2025? Gone. Why?
No clue.
To make matters worse, both kids
had hit that end-of-term collapse. The thought of no school for a week had sent
them regressing through the evolution cycle until they were basically
feral. Knowing I was about to abandon Jess with the kids for three days
while I flew to Scotland, I needed to step up. She deserved some Jess time.
So, off we went, me and the kids
to Nuneaton for a visit to a friend and a trip to the play park. And just like
that, the zip came back. I ran around after the kids, properly involved. Fun, engaged,
not something I could have done just weeks ago. Brilliant!
And then, down to earth with a
bump on Sunday. An even harder crash landing than Saturday. And again? No idea
why.
The anxiety of travelling, the
thought of the airport, the disruption to my routine, and that nagging fear
that I could not quite place. Food shop needed doing, and for once, the kids
were brilliant. Helped me out, no fuss. We made it to lunchtime, and then BANG. Tommy
was Done.
Full-blown dysregulation.
Refusing to do anything. And then the questions start.... did I miss the signs?
Could I have done something differently? There was nothing we could do now
except ride the storm. His anger left the house in chaos.
We tried a family walk in the fresh
air to settle Tommy in a different environment but no luck. he part way around
the walk he lashed out at his brother, hurting him. Then we separated. Walking
separately just me and him, that finally did it he was back as if like magic
and nothing had ever happened.
The Seatbelt Realisation
Monday
arrived, and I sat down on the plane. I pulled the seatbelt across and clicked
it in.
And something else clicked too.
Somewhere in my subconscious, I must have been stressing about my last flight. The one where I needed a belt extender. The one that made me feel embarrassed. But today? I buckled up. No extender. And room to spare
It was only then that I realised how much that moment had been weighing on me.
The tension eased, the clarity returned.
now it was time to face the day and deal with the shake-up to my routine. Couldn't exactly take six 2-litre bottles of water on the plane, so job one after landing? Find water. Get back into my rhythm Travel is part and parcel of my job, but routine? Not so much. I'm trying to learn to be agile, to roll with the changes......even when they throw me off. before, I'd have written this whole week off. Told myself, Cool, I'll start again Monday......except that Monday wouldn't come. Not for six months. Not until I looked in the mirror and had that moment of "Shit. I need to do something…... Again"
This time,
I was not doing that.
Monday: The Battle of the Drive-Thrus
The day started well.
That donut-shaped devil on my shoulder made a comeback on Monday. Travelling, renting the car. I was feeling good. Tootled off to Starbucks, got some water, keeping myself on track
then, towards the evening, the downward spiral began. A Teams meeting that went south, followed by a ‘quick’ 20-minute drive through Glasgow that somehow became an hour and ten. That's when the Donut Devil saw its chance. Every drive-thru, every glowing sign......it was a battle just to keep driving
Ronald and the Colonel tried their hardest to get me to cave but I managed to ignore them. When I arrived at the hotel, I thought I had won the day.
I decided to be sensible. Find a supermarket, grab my tea. So, back in the car, off to Asda. Except somehow, I walked out with 2000+ calories of food....and didn't even register it happening
A well-timed call from Jess snapped me out of it—just before the noise in my head steered me straight into a McDonald's drive-thru, ack to the hotel to eat. Told myself I’d be smart, hid some of the food away so I wouldn’t eat it all.... well, that Didn’t work.". Within ten minutes every single crumb was hoovered up.
And just like that, I'd had my first real binge...No getting away from it.
My first real binge in months.
I sat there, stomach aching, stuffed full. And then the guilt hit. The embarrassment. Once again, I'd lost control. so, I crawled into bed, feeling awful. Hoping sleep would wipe it clean.
Tuesday
started well.
I went to Aldi first thing. Twelve bottles of water for £2.15 instead of £2.99 per bottle at Starbucks. That felt like a win.
Then I realised something.
For weeks now, I had been chewing gum constantly without even thinking about it. It was just there, in my car, and I always had a tub. But on Monday, I had none. That was the day my brain spiralled.
I had read somewhere that chewing gum helps people with ADHD because the constant movement gives the brain something to focus on, like a grown-up version of a fidget toy. The moment I popped a chewing gum in my mouth, I felt something shift.
Had my brain been let loose in the Highlands of Scotland without its usual chewing gum reins?
Maybe.
Maybe not. But I could feel the difference.
Then, out of nowhere, Tuesday spiralled too.
Greggs.
Then McDonald's.
Then a drive to the pub for dinner.
Thirty minutes was all it took for everything to unravel.
I needed space.
That night, I drove to the Car Park in the Sky. I needed to sit with my thoughts, alone, looking down at the lights of Glasgow, feeling like I had failed.
Then Martin messaged me.
He had read my blog. He sent me his plus one method.
The +1 Method is a simple but powerful mindset shift. Instead of dwelling on failures or setbacks, you focus on doing one thing better than yesterday. Just +1.
It is not about massive overnight changes. It is about small, consistent improvements.
- Had a bad day? +1 by drinking more water tomorrow.
- Binged today? +1 by making your next meal a better choice.
- Felt overwhelmed? +1 by taking five minutes to breathe and reset.
The idea is that every small win stacks up. You do not need to be perfect. You just need to be better than yesterday even if it is by the tiniest margin.
Some days, +1 might be just getting through the day without giving up. And that is okay. The goal is to keep moving forward, no matter how small the step
I had heard it before, but this time, it hit home.
Yesterday, I got knocked down. I got up. Faced the day. Got knocked over again.
But I am not giving up.
Tomorrow, I dust myself off from the sausage roll crumbs and go again.
Friday Morning: The Battle in My Head
Next Weeks Mission: Understanding My Body
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