Rostov

First of all, congratulations on everything you've achieved over the last three years. It sounds to me like you had a plan that was working, that you've tried something else, and that hasn't worked so well and has made you unhappy and stressed. So I think going back to what you were doing before sounds like a sensible move. Sounds to me as if the reason you lost the weight and have kept it off is because you adopted sustainable habits that you've kept going which worked for you physically and psychologically. I think when you get to the last 20-30lbs of weight to lose it becomes much harder to lose and takes much longer. This can be a bit dispiriting if you're used to much faster progress, as the plateaus become more regular and last longer. Also, the sacrifices/changes that are needed can be harder to make - it's harder to find calorie savings and harder to find new ways to burn calories that you're not already doing. It's a difficult time for many people - and I'm kind of back in it now that my weight has crept up a little and some of my own habits have slipped somewhat, and I need to find a new and better balance myself. It may be that a further change is needed to lose the last 30 pounds from what you're doing already, but from what you've said I don't think that change is going to be found through calorie counting and other forms of intense focus. I think my instinct would be to go back to what you were doing and look for any further small changes, and then see what works.

It's scary. Sometimes I think people with weight to lose think that losing that weight will solve all their other problems too, and unfortunately that's not the case. But it works the other way round too - when I was overweight there were things that I didn't need to worry about because I was overweight. For example.... no point in trying to look good or dress well because I'm overweight, no point in trying to find a partner, various activities are either difficult or impossible or just plain embarrassing. Truth is that being overweight was generally an excuse for not worrying about/not doing most of those things, and now that excuse looks like it's gradually evaporating... I think the main thing is not to freak out and not to panic, and give yourself time. Weight loss takes a long time, and self image adjustment takes even longer. I'm not sure if it's related or not, but although I took up running several years ago after I'd lost most of the weight I wanted to lose, I've only recently been able to run full speed down hill. I don't know whether this was a technique issue, but I suspect it was because I lacked the confidence in my own balance and still regarded myself as much heavier than I really was. That's probably not great advice... if you're freaking out, try not to freak out! But I think it's something that everyone goes through when they lose weight to a greater or lesser extent. Some people lose a lot of weight but can't or won't see it in the mirror, while others see someone who doesn't look like them any more. It's difficult, but worth it.

That's a tough one. So much about leadership depends on context, personality (of leaders and followers), tasks, organisational culture etc. I reckon I've learned two main lessons about leadership, or at least things that work for me in my context. I think there are two great evils.... 1) Alienation - Not telling people why something is important or needs doing. Without the full picture, people are more likely to misunderstand or misinterpret or not pick up on mistakes I've made or suggest better ideas. I think it also needlessly separates the immediate task from the broader picture and/or mission or objective. Sometimes I think managers just don't think people need or want to know the bigger picture (which is often - but as I learnt recently not always wrong), sometimes keeping information back is a result of insecurity. 2) Micromanagement - telling capable people not just what needs doing but exactly how to do it. I absolutely hate this, and I find myself irrationally kicking against it even when the instructions are broadly right. *I* don't need telling because I'm capable, so I resent it, and my pride tempts me to subvert or rebel or nitpick. I think good leaders trust people, explain what outcomes are needed, give them the bigger picture and give them the freedom to operate, while being on hand to advise if needed.

I think I'd qualify as someone who's reached that kind of next level. I used to need 42" waist trousers, now down to 34". Went from being moderately active to very active, took up running etc and so on. I'd suggest looking at things slightly differently, because regarding is as a "long grind" is - in my view - entirely the wrong way to think about it. Don't stare at the summit, stare at the ground ahead. The summit feels distant and unattainable, and likely climbing the next slope/achieving your next goal pales into insignificance compared to the distance to the summit. The danger is that you don't appreciate your successes, seeing them only as tiny steps towards some larger, far off goal. That's bad for motivation and it's bad for being aware of your own accomplishments. You can end up comparing yourself to people who should be way outside your comparator group, rather than comparing yourself with you last week, last month, last year. When I first started on my journey (and a while before I found Nerd Fitness) my thinking was that I wanted to see if I could live a better, healthier lifestyle. I'd got fat because of the consequences of hundreds and thousands of smaller decisions which added up over time. I wanted to see how far a few little relatively painless changes would get me. If I got down from my 42" waist trousers to a 40" or a 38" and then I realised that I loved food and TV and computer games too much, that would still be a satisfactory result, because I'd be a bit healthier, a bit fitter, and I'd know that I consciously chose that kind of life/weight etc. As it happened I achieved that and I found I wanted more, was ready to make diet and lifestyle changes that I would never have dreamed I'd be ready to make. I got fitter and fitter, found running, loved it. In other words, the best is sometimes the enemy of the good. If I'd started with the ambition of 34" trousers, running a sub 3:30 marathon and then tried to work out how long that would take me, I doubt I would have achieved it. That just seems so far off, so distant from my starting point, so unachievable, that I wouldn't have taken the right amount of pleasure from each new notch on my belt and my first 5k run or breaking 90kg on the way down. I would never, never have got the same kick out of my first 5k, my first 10k, my first half marathon if I'd only seen them in the context of an eventual and still far distant marathon goal. TLDR - pick realistic short term fitness goals, work towards them, achieve them, pick new goals.

I read it partly because it was the go-to reference for a long book and partly because I was interested in literature from other countries. I can't remember very much about it, to be honest, but I remember being struck by how different a country and a time it was. The effect and role of religion (Russian orthodox v. Catholicism) in society was very striking, and remember being struck by the fact that it was illegal (and considered incestuous) for a man to marry his sister-in-law's sister, or a woman to marry her brother-in-law's brother. Two siblings can't marry two siblings, if that makes sense, and that's a major plot point. But I really remember very little else - other than being disappointed by the ending, which (no spoilers) turns from being a novel into being an essay about history and historiography, arguing a case that was perhaps controversial at the time but is now widely accepted. As a reader you get the impression from the number of pages left that there's more to come, but actually that's it.... I've read a bit of Russian literature... Crime and Punishment, a few short stories, Cancer Ward (Alexander Solzhenitsyn), heard a few Chekov radio plays and seen Gogol's 'The Government Inspector' performed. I'd probably recommend Crime and Punishment above War and Peace, but they're very different books.

'Rostov' is the name of one of the families in Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' and also the name of at least two towns in Russia, which is probably not a coincidence. Can't remember anything about the characters, but I liked the name. Think I first used it for a D&D character in a campaign many years ago and I've used it for various forums, in other RPG campaigns, and in some MMORPGs. I've got about five or six of these kinds of names that I've picked up from one place or another over the years, and when I can't be bothered to think of something new or original, I tend to go back to my list and pick one out.

Thanks for the link, that's interesting reading and it looks like I'll have to rethink things. I do wonder what the effect of defining injury as narrowly as a single day is - perhaps that's a good thing as it will capture niggles and tweaks, but maybe it's the more serious injuries that we're interested in. I've have a read of the original paper and I don't have the background to understand the stats, but I couldn't help wonder if the kinds of people who are less likely to get injured are the kinds of people who rotate shoes. Also interesting is the finding about injury reduction and playing other sports/cross training. I suppose it's no more expensive overall, but it is an upfront cost, at least until you've got shoes in and out of rotation. As to whether it can't hurt.... well, I suppose it depends on finding a second or third pair of shoes that feel right. But I'm going to go and have a look for a second pair and try rotating...

What I try to do is get a sense of when one pair is reaching the end of its useful life, get another pair, and then gradually break or ease them in and the old pair out so there's no point where I've got a useless pair and a brand new pair. What I *actually* end up doing is getting a new pair, being amazed how much better they feel, and retire the old ones almost straight away. I'm currently on the last of four pairs of identical shoes. Bought the first pair full price brand new, picked up another two as part of a mad clearance offer, then found a fourth in a different clearance as pair two was wearing out. One, two/three, and four were different colours, but the same underlying shoe. Something I noticed was that pair three didn't seem to last very long at all - though I did run two marathons in them. I read somewhere that sometimes older clearance stock won't last so long because they've been passively degrading in the box, but I've also read that's a myth. So... no idea. I'm tempted to think that it doesn't really matter a great deal as long as you've got at least one pair of comfortable shoes that fit. Probably is a good idea to ease out one pair and ease in another as I try and fail to do, but I'm not convinced that any benefit from having multiple pairs on the go at any one time is all that important in the grand scheme of running. I suppose it depends how much money you're willing to spend on shoes and what kind of choice your feet type/shape gives you. I've got quite flat feet, and usually when I'm shoe shopping there's one clear 'winner' and perhaps one other that 'would do'. Think I'd rather run in the best fit rather than rotate to a less good pair, but if I had nice neutral vanilla feet where lots of shoes fitted equally well I might be more tempted to have several on the go...

Think my first question would be about your footwear and whether you've got the right shoes, or whether you had the right shoes and now need to replace them. My second would be about the possibility of running on a softer surface. In terms of running form, a lot of people tend to over-stride. They take relatively long steps and their feet hit the ground hard, often heel first, and as the infographic hints, this has a braking effect - it slows you down and I think it puts more pressure on the joints and associated connecting bits. It's really difficult to explain this, but the best way I've found is to ask yourself whether your legs move like twin pendulums, swinging forwards and backwards, as you run. Or are they moving in short, fast, circles more like they would when riding a bike? I'd interpret "running light" to mean your feet hitting the floor more often, but less hard, I found the key to changing my running form to be taking much shorter strides, but more quickly. That forces you to run upright, means that your feet have to land under your hip line, and most of the rest falls into place. However, it does take a while to adapt, and for the first few runs I found it was pretty tough on my calves until I got used to it. I think changing running form by yourself can be really tough, because you can't see what you're doing while you're doing it, and because it's hard to know what's the right running form for you. Would joining a running club or finding a coach be an option? I've done both - joined a club, and went for a half day course on running form with a coach.

First, congratulations on finding running, and on your success so far. Running a half marathon is no small feat. Can you say a bit more about the feelings of dread you get? What is it you dread exactly, and how does it feel? What are you afraid of, do you think? Does it go away once you're out and running? I sometimes get the "lazies" - can't be bothered, too cold/hot/rainy outside etc. I also used to get the first kilometre panics, when I'd worry that I was feeling too tired too soon before I found my proper running rhythm. Sometimes I worry about hurting, and not wanting to hurt (not getting injured, just of how it feels when I'm pushing myself). At the start of my long slow run, I try to imagine the end of it and get a bit of a sinking feeling about the distance I have to run - I'll be running the other way along the same route, in a couple of hours time, and it seems a lifetime away! I do feel apprehensive sometimes before running club training, because I know I'm going to be pushed hard. But none of these things are dread, I don't think....

First thing to say is congratulations on losing all that weight and becoming a runner.... that's a terrific achievement. Even if it's feeling no easier, the distance you're running has increased hugely. Can you tell us a bit more about your running training at the moment? How often and how far as you running, and are you doing any particular work on your speed? What does your 5k-10k programme involve? I think as a general principle if you want to run faster, you need to do at least some training focusing on speed to get your body (and your mind) used to an increased pace. I think a lot of people tend to slow down a bit as they go through C25K because they're running too quickly at the start, partly because of jangling nerves and partly because of wanting to be finished quickly. But people tend to find their rhythm for longer distances, which will be slower than their C25K stuff.

I was in a similar situation a few years back... first date in a long time, met via the internet. For what it's worth: 1) Try to relax and enjoy it 2) Don't get your hopes up. The chances of striking relationship gold first time aren't that high 3) Take it seriously, but also think of it like a practice run. Even if it doesn't work out, think of the practice/experience/confidence you'll gain. If you're not right for each other, you (and perhaps her as well) will be a step closer being ready for when you do meet the right person. When I did meet the right person, the fact that I'd had a few dates with someone else (fizzled out) and been speed dating meant I was less nervous and better prepared. How much difference that made I don't know. 4) Remember that she's likely to be nervous too, but I'd say move through it rather than acknowledge the awkwardness of the situation 5) Well done on doing this 6) Good luck

Agree with everything Shukar said, especially about expectations. By the sound of it you're more motivated by the experience of running and going to interesting places than by running PBs each time, but I think you have to be prepared to run more slowly in your second or subsequent race. I guess the question would be whether you can do that - do you think you could get round more slowly with less in the tank? Or did getting round the first time take everything you had? What's your training plan like at the moment, and what are your plans for the future? I think nearly everyone would struggle to race two half marathons within two weeks, but with the right training getting round shouldn't be a problem. Though you'd need to think very carefully about training between the two races. As for the third half marathon.... if it were me I'd see if I could find out how quickly places fill up, and see if I could put off entering until later.

I am.... Currently playing Dragon Age Inquisition, as I have been for a very long time, and will be for a while yet. Very excited about the new Mass Effect. Thinking about what to play next. I've never played any of The Witcher series - should I start with the earlier ones, or doesn't it matter? With Mass Effect I'm really glad I started at the beginning, but the Fallout games appear to stand alone (though obviously some familiarity helps). I don't have that much time these days (my heart sinks when someone tells me that I should watch TV show X, but that it doesn't really get good until season twelvety...).

1. I think so, yes. Don't have personal experience here, but plenty of people around here can advise you on lifting etc if you want to go down that route. 2. Yep. My understanding is that it's a good idea to carb load one and perhaps two days before a (half) marathon, but beyond that I don't think having a carb-heavy diet is a requirement for standard running training. One challenge with running (and indeed all forms of exercise) is that it's easy to overestimate how many calories it's burned off, and then eat back more than you mean to. I think one problem with running is that a lot of complex dietary advice that's intended for top athletes - or research that's done on top athletes - produces results that don't really apply to the non-elites. Doubtless complex carb-loading strategies will give Olympic hopefuls an edge, but there's so many other things you or I could and should do *first* if we want to run faster times. Just try to eat a good, balanced diet and the rest will take care of itself. 3. I think pretty much any exercise could have a plan or programme if you like long term routines. But I think the first question should be about what you'd enjoy doing, because if you don't enjoy something, you'll do it for only as long as your willpower lasts. It may well be that you've "done" running and need a new challenge, which might be weight lifting, swimming, cycling, whatever, but it's got to be something you enjoy or that you can see yourself enjoying. Did you enjoy running when you used to run? Why don't you think you're enjoying it any more - is it boredom, frustration that you're not where you used to be, does repeating the running journey not appeal? Are you putting too much pressure on yourself (and being disappointed because you're not as good as you used to be), or not enough (through not having anything to train for)? One option that might be worth considering is a triathlon or biathlon - something that combines running with cycling and/or swimming. One sport that's old, one or two that's new.

There's a series of downloadable podcasts for each run produced by the UK National Health Service (NHS) that'll work on an MP3 player. I used these when I started - much of the music varies between inoffensively bland and terrible, but I rather like the understated, low budget nature of it and the calmness of the coach. A very straightforward "well done" rather than some whooping lunatic telling me I'm "awesome!". http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/c25k/Pages/couch-to-5k-plan.aspx Alternatively, there's always the old fashioned way and timing it on a watch. Having said that, if you already enjoy walking I wonder if it might be a better idea to walk more and at a slightly faster pace, and perhaps think about running once some of the weight has come off. Running does place additional strains on the body compared to walking, and I wonder whether walking would just be a more sustainable, safe, and enjoyable path to take at the moment. I'm not sure what the advantages of running over walking would be at this stage - certainly it'll burn calories quicker and may burn more as the body repairs itself afterwards, but I wonder if those are enough to offset increased injury risk. I'm a huge fan of running, and running helped me lose the last 30lbs or so of the weight I had to lose, and running helps me keep it off now. So I'd always recommend running to someone who enjoys it, or thinks they would enjoy it. I'd never want to put anyone off it, because it's great. But for me, starting with a lot of brisk walking really worked. I took to walking everywhere and taking the scenic route to and from work.

Lots of good advice already. You'll probably find going from couch to 5k is by far the hardest part of training for a half marathon from, er, a sitting start. It's much easier going from 5k to 10k, from 10k to 15k and then the half marathon than it is to get to running the first 5k non-stop. Once you get to 5k you should be in a position where you can run sustainably and comfortably for a decent period of time (around 30 mins, depending on speed), and then it's just a case of extending that period of time. For now, I'd get advice on the C25K bit, and worry about the 5k-10k bit later on. Come back and ask again when you've done it! My advice would be: Run slowly - speed doesn't matter, it's time on your feet. Don't be disheartened if it gets tough in later weeks - repeating a week is fairly common. If it's going great, resist the temptation to skip ahead. Run a little bit faster if you like, but otherwise stick to the programme or risk injury. C25K is about building endurance - you don't have to half kill yourself with every run. Dress for 10 degrees C warmer than the actual temperature when running. Find a 5k race (if you can) to mark your "graduation". Enjoy it. If you're going to be a runner, it really helps if you enjoy it! Some people train for a marathon or half marathon as a kind of 'bucket list' thing to do, or a one-off charity fundraiser, and well done to those people, especially if they don't like the training. But if you want running to be a regular part of your life, it'll have to be something you enjoy - otherwise your willpower will eventually fail and you'll stop. So think about the mental side of things too - would you enjoy listening to music while you train, or podcasts? Does it make sense to train with your friend, or are you fitness levels/running pace too different? Once you get past the first few weeks of C2k5, how might you change or vary your running route to keep things fresh?

I think it's possible to over-think these things, to be honest. I don't think exact times and distances matter very much. I think my first question is whether or not you actually enjoy running. Or, to put it another way, can you imagine enjoying running? Does it appeal? When you see fitter runners in the park, do you think you'd enjoy doing what they're doing if you could? I ask because you said "it's not fun", and I wasn't sure whether that means "it's hard" or "I don't like it". If you don't enjoy running and can't imagine ever enjoying running, don't run. Do something else instead - walking, weight training, swimming, cycling, whatever. If you do enjoy running or can imagine it, I'm not sure I'd recommend starting with hill sprints. That's pushing the difficulty up to "nightmare", which may not be the best idea if you're still learning to play the game. It is intense and will burn calories, but I'm not sure that it'll be more effective than running more slowly on flatter ground for longer. I know there's a bit of a movement around tabata and short intensive bursts of exercise at full pelt being more effective for burning calories both during the exercise and in recovery afterwards, but I'd be more concerned about the increased risk of injury and about the possible effect on your morale and motivation. It's much less likely to become a sustainable habit if you come to dread it, or hate doing it, or associate it only with pain. Have you tried couch to 5k? I think that's a good way of starting running, and that's certainly how I started. I think some people may also argue that you'd be better off sticking to walking at 308lbs and lose some of the weight through diet and less intensive exercise than going straight to running. If you're recovering from health issues I'd strongly suggest speaking to your doctor about safe/effective exercise regimes if you've not done so already. I don't know what those issues were, but the last thing you want to do is make them worse or pick up some new injury or problem. My other tip would be to be aware of the trap of thinking that a bit of running can "earn" you more calories to consume. Obviously it can to some extent, but there's a danger of eating back the calories burnt (and more) through overestimating how much energy has been burned, and though (not unreasonable) feelings that you've done well and earned a reward. Should say I'm not an expert here - all this is just based on experience.

I'd be amazed if you had to worry about nitrogen. The potential problem is "nitrogen narcosis" aka "the narcs". Nitrogen is fine to breathe at the surface and at shallow depths, but at deeper depths/under greater pressure (i.e. the weight of water on top of it) it starts becoming a problem, and has an effect that's a bit like alcohol. Sometimes it makes people happy/silly and swim around offering air to fish, and other times makes people jittery and paranoid. A lot depends on mood, visibility, underwater conditions etc. But the good news is that you don't need to worry about it, because it's only an issue past about 30m, and I'd be amazed if you ended up going much past 10m on the kind of course you mention. There are two problems with going up too fast, and they're related. When you're at depth, air is under pressure (the atmosphere above plus the weight of the water - 10m = 1 atmosphere, or 1 bar). When you ascend, the pressure becomes less and the air expands. So the air in your lungs also expands, and if you don't breathe out, you can risk bursting a lung. The other problem is air in the tissues expanding too quickly and causing decompression sickness (aka "the bends") which is quite nasty. There are two ways of stopping this - one is ascending slowly and breathing as you go, and the other is taking what are called "decompression stops" - you pause your ascent at, say 10m or 6m for a few minutes before continuing. But you're very unlikely to be going deep enough or long enough for a decompression stop - to be able to do that safely means being really good at controlling your rate of ascent and controlling your buoyancy so you can stay more or less at a constant depth without anything to hold on to, and with only your depth gauge to measure. This is relatively advanced stuff, and you won't be doing it. But you will need to remember to exhale slowly on ascent, and to ascend slowly. But you'll be taught all that. If an instructor doesn't see bubbles coming from your mouth while ascending, you'll get reminded. Apparently in the old days in naval diving training the reminder was a punch to the stomach, but I'm sure they don't do that these days. They'll run through any background medical conditions - asthma or a history of panic attacks might be a problem, and some medications don't interact well with pressure. But they'll go through this, and send you to see a doctor for a fitness note if there's anything they're not sure about. As for health benefits, I don't think it's a great form of exercise, because swimming with fins takes a lot of effort from it. But there is carrying the kit around, and it does burn more calories than watching underwater nature docs on TV. It can be extremely relaxing and a lot of fun once you get comfortable with it. I'd say everyone who has the health and the means should give it a go at least once.

I used to go scuba diving fairly regularly - me, my dad and my sister were all divers. I started when I was about 14 and then had to temporarily give it up when I was about 20 because of some medication I was on at the time, and never got round to going back to it. My training was a few hours a week theory and then a similar amount of time in the pool, then training days, then open water diving - so over a much longer period of time. This is about 20 years ago now, but I doubt a huge amount has changed in terms of training - though probably equipment has advanced. First thing to say is that it's an amazing experience, and I'd thoroughly recommend it. There are potential dangers, but properly qualified and registered instructors know what they're doing, and won't let new divers progress from stage to stage if they're not comfortable that they're safe to do so. You'll be in good hands. If the rules are anything like they were when I started, they'll use a "buddy" system whereby you're sorted into pairs (ideally) or threes for each dive, and you'll be told to stay together and keep an eye on each other. You'll also have an assigned instructor - they won't let you swim off on your own at any point, or at least they shouldn't. They'll also teach you diving sign language so you can communicate. The main thing to get used to is breathing air from a tank through a regulator. You have to inhale a little deeper/almost suck a little to pull air into your lungs. The air will taste very dry and your mouth might start to dry out, but you get used to it. When you first start it's almost impossible to concentrate on anything but your breathing, and you'll probably find yourself breathing a lot more than usual. Getting used to being able to breathe underwater and that becoming second nature is a key part of the training. It's massively, massively weird when you start, and it takes time to learn to trust the fact that it's there and not to gasp at it as if the air is going to run out at any moment. Getting acclimatised is key, it's not straightforward, so give yourself time and don't be surprised if it's pretty horrible to start with. One thing they had me do was wear a blacked out mask and be led around the swimming pool underwater, so I couldn't see anything. This was to get used to reduced visibility, which is an issue in UK waters, and to learn to trust the kit. If in doubt, keep your breathing slow and steady, and everything else follows from that. If your breathing is slow and steady, you'll stay calm. The second thing is controlling your buoyancy. You'll be wearing diving kit, possibly a wetsuit or drysuit depending on the temperature, and you may also wear a weight belt. The aim is to be neutrally buoyant so you're not having to fight to avoid floating to the surface nor scraping along the sea bed. This needs occasional adjustment as you go deeper, as pressure affects buoyancy. You'll have an inflate button to inflate the jacket with air, and a vent to empty it. In order to be safe underwater, you need to be able to control your buoyancy, and this takes a bit of experimenting both in terms of practising and in terms of working out how much weight to carry. And because of salt water, it's different in the pool to in the sea. Three skills that you're very likely to have to learn before you go open water diving. They both sound a bit daunting, but you don't do them until you're comfortable breathing. The first is sharing air. This is in case one of you runs out of air, and so you have to share. This involves taking a breath (or two), taking the demand valve from your mouth, and passing it to your buddy. She then vents it to clear the water, takes one or two breaths then passes it back. Key thing here is not to do what I did and adopt a one breath each strategy when my buddy was doing two breaths. I think either is fine, but probably two is better for keeping calm. In training, you'll probably do this on the bottom of the pool. Dunno if they'll ask you to do it open water. The second is taking your mask off, putting it back on, and clearing it underwater. You need to learn to do this in case your mask starts leaking, perhaps because you've got a strand of hair in it, or because it doesn't fit properly, or because it's got worn, or because you get someone else's fin in your face. Like sharing air, this is mainly a task about not panicking. You then replace the mask, angle it, and exhale to blow the water out, and replace it. Once it's back on and mostly clear, it sometimes takes another go or two to completely clear it, but you can see at that point and it's much easier. The third is controlling your ascent. I doubt you'll be diving that deep, but you need to be able to ascend slowly - it's dangerous to do so too quickly. As you ascend, the pressure decreases so the air expands, so (if you're not trained/careful) you ascend faster and can breach the surface of the water like a rocket. So the key is starting a slow ascent and then venting air to slow your ascent without stopping it, and keeping an eye on your depth gauge as you go. Reading and responding to your depth gauge and pressure gauge for your air cylinder are also things you're trained to do. Training is quite serious because there are real potential dangers, but for people with the right training, equipment, and supervision, it's perfectly safe. And it's awesome. Did I mention that? It's all worth it to see the fish, the undersea terrain, to get the feeling of weightlessness, to see the silvery surface from below the water. Completely worth it.

I know next to nothing about restricted diets/food phobias, other than knowing a few people with them - though I've picked up very quickly that it's not a comfortable topic of conversation for them, so I've not asked them any questions, even though I was curious. As with them, I don't want to pry into the whys and wherefores, but given than weight gain/overeating sometimes has an emotional or psychological cause/element, I can't help but wonder whether you're dealing with two issues, or two manifestations of something. And I suppose my question (for you to ask yourself, not for you to answer here) would be whether they're linked, and whether it makes sense to tackle them both at once, or whether that's too much to take on. It may be that there are advantages in taking on both at once - if wanting to eat more healthily as part of a weight loss goal provides an excellent motivation or opportunity to push back on food phobias, that would be great. But I wonder if it might be too much to take on psychologically - weight loss/lifestyle change over a long period of time is taxing on the willpower and in other ways. I remember having to pay attention to the scales, to the mirror, to how my clothes fitted rather than just ignoring them meant I was constantly confronted by how far I had to go, and that was difficult. So if you've not already asked yourself the question about whether tackling both at once is the best thing to do, I think it's worth thinking about, and if counselling is an option and might help, that would be worth considering. Another thing to say is congratulations on your successes so far - if I understand correctly, you're 20lbs down, you managed to keep to what looks to me like a pretty rigorous exercise programme for about five months, and you've cut out sugary drinks and cut back on snacking. These are fantastic achievements, and there are people posting here and reading this who'd love to be in the position of having made that much progress. I think you're right to recognise that it's a long journey along a long road, and that's true for everyone who's got more than a little weight to lose. The key thing I found (speaking as someone who went from 42" inch waist trousers to 34" inch) is to accept that, and to accept that there will be plateaus and apparent plateaus, slow drops in weight, steep drops in weight, the occasional slight increase. I also used MFP, and the good thing about that was working out that to be a bit lighter, you just need to eat like a person who's a bit lighter and then wait. Then you are that person, and if you want to be lighter still, you can do that too. No need to try and eat like someone who's super fit when eating like someone who's just a bit lighter will do the trick. But as time goes by, progress does become slower and harder. One exercise suggestion I do have would be about how much/far/often you walk, and whether walking more is an option. One of the changes I made was to decide to walk everywhere, and fitting more walking into the daily routine can really help.

I'm not an expert either, so take all this with a pinch of salt.... I do as much of my speedwork as possible with my running club. This isn't always intervals, but regularly works on those principles - run quick and/or up hill then rest. Sometimes it's running fairly quickly and resting, sometimes sprints, sometimes hill sprints. The big advantage of doing this as part of a club is that the coach and my fellow runners push me harder than I can push myself, and when I miss training and try to do my own speed work or intervals I try to push myself, but the reality is that I don't feel I work as hard or get as much from it. But I've had to design my own interval training for times when I can't make it, and what I've done is try not to over-think it, try out various routes and routines. I think a lot depends on where you are with your running, what your preferences are, what your goals are, and what resources/routes you have - do you have access to a running track (I don't), relatively quiet/safe places to sprint without scaring pedestrians, daylight etc. I've put together a routine in my local park which has some lovely hill sprints, flat sprints, recovery walks, slow jogs etc, but that's no good in the winter when the park closes before I finish work. So in winter I run around the block which is quite quiet. Last night I ran one complete loop as a warm-up, then sprinted most of one long side (to avoid sprinting near corners), walked one short side, and then jogged the other long side and second short side before sprinting again. This totals about 5.5k, with four sprints. I want to try varying this to one warm up lap, then sprinting both long sides and walking both short sides. That'll be tougher, but I'll see how that goes. I agree with Outback about only using distance as a measure on a running track, but I'd suggest using geography as much as using time as a measure, apart for complete rest (rather than walking breaks). I think it's possible to overthink intervals - I'd say the best way to approach it is to experiment. Just think about where you can run and how you might use the geography/land marks etc. It's a bit of trial and error to work out how much is right - pushing yourself without killing yourself - but the key thing I think is just getting used to running quickly and that feeling of being out of breath, and then recovering afterwards, and doing it again.

Wow, that sounds like a really horrible way to feel. And to be honest, I wonder whether some strangers posting on an internet forum are the right people to help you with it. If you genuinely think that you've made everyone around you miserable and are likely to continue to do so in the future, it sounds to me like your thoughts and thinking patterns and ways of interpreting events are very badly skewed, and I think counselling is almost certainly the best way to go. I think it's likely that you're misinterpreting and misremembering, and drawing entirely the wrong conclusions. You're almost certainly not a super-human. You're just one ordinary person, and your relationships with other people are just one relationship that they have with one other person. They have many more, with many other people. To be frank, you're not a supervillan and there is only so much damange you can do to so many people without meaning to. It sounds to me like you've got a very inflated view of your ability and influence to make people happy or unhappy. As well as everyone else they know and have a meaningful relationship, there's every single decision they make for themselves. You're the centre of your own story, but you're only a co-star, a guest star, or an extra in everyone else's. Google the "spotlight effect" - this is a tendency that we all have to overestimate our own importance and the extent to which we are being watched and judged by others. I'm not special, you're not special. You're probabably focusing only on times when you think you've made people unhappy, and not on the times you've made people happy. This tends to be particularly true of child-parent relationships - you tend to think of the times you've got it wrong and hurt them, and not the times when you haven't, and have brought them great joy in ways you almost certainly don't know about. Google 'Dunning-Kruger effect' - while this is about how the skilled underestimate their skill and the unskilled overestimate, I think it can also illustrate how we take for granted or grossly underestimate the good things we do for people, and focus only on the times when we don't bring happiness to those we care for. And once you're primed to think of negative moments, availabilty error creeps in and that's all you think of. I wonder also if you're confusing things you're responsible for through conscious and deliberate action, and things you're responsible for through no fault of your own, perhaps just by being there or existing or fate or accident. Or, in other words, things you're not responsible for. Thing is, though.... while I think you're almost certainly objectively wrong about making everyone around you miserable.... if that's the way you feel, that's the way you feel. And even if it's not true, if it feels true to you that's a horrible place to be in, and you have my sympathy. I won't say I know how that feels because I don't, but I think most people have at least some experience of feeling utterly useless and that the world would be better off without them. But I think if your thoughts are in that kind of dark place, and in that kind of spiral, it's very hard to get out of alone. So if there's any way you can access some counselling, I'd strongly recommend it. I hope you're feeling better about all this soon - please try to remember all the things that you've done to bring joy or pride or happiness to others.

One possible approach (and one that worked for me) might be to do a bit of a food audit - just eat as normal for a week or so, and just log everything and learn what the calorie content of different foods are. No pressure to do anything different - it's just finding out how calorific different foods are, without judgement or pressure. Armed with that information, then have a look through and look for easy calorie savings, in exactly the same way you can look through a budget. This needn't mean giving up takeaway food or making any huge changes, but just looking for lots of small ones that won't be missed. What held me back for a long time was that I liked my life and I loved my food. I wasn't sure - even with limitless willpower - that I'd even want to be a healthy weight if it meant giving up all those delicious things and munching sadly on a salad leaf. But actually I found there were a lot of calories I was consuming which were poor value - not very filling, and stuff I didn't even like that much but would eat because it was there. Or choices that were about even in taste/enjoyment, but weren't equal in calories. For example, one of my favourite four or five Chinese dishes turned out to be massively calorific, so I just ate it less often. For my lunch I noticed that sandwiches ranged from about 300 to 600 calories. A lot of the 300 calorie sandwiches weren't very tasty and were mainly salad in bread, but I found little difference in my preferences between sandwiches between 450 and 600 calories. So I limited myself to 500 calorie sandwiches, and if that saved me 100 calories per day, for five days that's 500, which is a significant saving. To lose a bit of weight means eating like someone who's only a little bit lighter than you. Do that, and you become that person. If you want more, then you need to eat like someone a bit lighter again, but that's a decision for another time, and it's a decision that gets easier to make if you want to because your body and brain changes. And eventually there comes a day when to get lighter/healthier/fitter/stronger, you need to eat in a way that you don't want to, and the sacrifice becomes too great. And apart from perhaps elite athletes and models, that point comes for everyone. I love running now and I ran my first marathon last month, I want to run faster. But there will come a point at which I can't run faster without significantly more sacrifices that I'm not going to want to make. And that's fine. There's a lot of black and white thinking about weight loss. It's either do nothing, or do everything. That's entirely the wrong way to think about it, in my opinion. It's all about doing a little bit, losing a bit of weight, and then deciding what to do next. Because changing even one habit and losing a pound or two is good in itself. None of this helps with communication, of course - this is how I went from 42" waist trousers to 34" and this is what I told myself. Helping someone else - especially a loved one - is damned difficult. I've no idea if any of this helps in any way, but I think the approach of trying to look to maximise calorie intake reduction for minimum sacrifice is a great way to look at it. It's a system, and if we're nerds, we're good at optimisation strategies!

There's usually a live or current thread around here somewhere about running in general - there was a "first half marathon" thread a while back which was lovely. Please feel free to ask any questions you have here, and I'm sure others will chip in with their questions too. I've not yet seen a question about running posted here that's not got a lot of high quality answers, and I think what this place does particularly well is that we've got people at a lot of different stages with their running. I think this is important because sometimes the person you want to ask about completing your first 5k is the person who's just completed her first 10k, rather than the person who's just won a marathon. In other news, congrats to Dilnad on your first half, and on your fitness journey in general - enjoyed reading that the other week.