Three prime time TV programs in two weeks on my favorite subject of dietary intervention for managing diabetes!  How exciting that this subject is finally getting the recognition and air-time that it deserves. Interestingly there were several claims that this was new science, and yet I was writing about it four years ago and I feel that I am new to the subject! There were also many bold claims that the diets to be described on these shows could save the NHS billions of pounds; this is also a subject close to my heart. The first program was The Big Crash Diet Experiment on BBC1, presen ..read more

I spent last weekend at the annual conference of the Public HealthCollaboration, a charity I’ve been a patron of along with my wife Jane for the last 3 years. The conference was at the Royal College of General Practitioners in Euston Square and was attended by over 300 doctors, scientists, health professionals, journalists and professors. There was even at least one IT consultant, and I have to say that he was feeling somewhat out of place on Saturday morning surrounded by such eminent and dedicated people. There was a packed schedule of 8 talks on each of the 2 days with subjects r ..read more

I was fit and excited and the Brighton Marathon was only 3 weeks away. I’d done every training run but one. Almost everything had gone to plan. I hoped to run under 3:20 and get a good for age place in next year’s London Marathon. But here’s the thing. I was in exactly this place last year; and the year before that. Both times at the last minute I picked up an injury and I’d had to pull out. It’s now been three years since I last ran a road race! And right on cue disaster struck! The day before my last long training run, just walking down stairs at home something went wrong i ..read more

 My current reading diet is mostly inspirational. This is what I need right now, tales of what humans can endure on their own two feet. I just completed the longest event of my life but I still consider myself to be in recovery from earlier injuries. Rest period; I need ideas, motivation. I’ve been travelling for the last two weeks and on my birthday in Columbus Ohio I was given three books; one each from Jane, Cam and Molly; and they were all about running and mountains. Perhaps this was a signal that it’s OK to carry on where I left off in Cartmel 4 weeks ago. Or perhaps that’s j ..read more

In all of the events that I have run since starting on the Low-Carb High-Fat diet I have set out to show what can be achieved when competing on very low carbs.  I have run my fastest off-road marathon on almost nothing but fat and I have successfully trained at very high intensity on a low-carb diet. But I am also aware that many proponents of the diet actually rely on carbohydrates to fuel the prolonged high intensity work that often comes when competing. I hoped that with good pacing I could stay within my fat-burning zone (perhaps 80% of my VO2 max) for the time taken to run a fast ..read more

It’s been another strange year for running and me. Much like last year I was injured in the spring and couldn’t take part in the Brighton Marathon. I have not made the start line for 5 of the last 6 classic Brighton road races and the 6th was cancelled due to high winds!   I picked up an injury training for the Brighton half and it persisted for a lot longer this time; I ignored the warning signs and suffered badly when I had to hobble home in pain one weekday lunchtime during a light jog around the village.  After several false and painful re-starts an MRI scan in May showed th ..read more

Did you hear the “Amazing†news about the new generation of Statin drugs that was announced at the weekend? The new PCSK9 inhibitors like Evolocumab are even more effective at lowering LDL cholesterol and according to many this makes them a wonder drug. The issue with statin trial data was simply a question of whether it is actually valid to rate a drug on a surrogate endpoint such as lowering cholesterol rather than that of saving lives. However the trials for Evolocumab went further than this, they provided real data on the expected outcomes for patients. Great? It was a surprise to ..read more

 I have been a subscriber to Runner’s World for about 12 years now. Over the years it has provided much-needed advice and motivation, a little monthly run-envy and the occasional journalistic howler.  Lately the howlers have started to become louder and a little more grating, to the point where my wife, a successful fitness business owner, now regularly asks why we bother with our subscription.  My answer is that I care what the running world looks like, even if I don't always agree with it. So many promises This month’s edition includes a six-page block ..read more

About 2 miles from my home is a rather odd path up a hill with no name. There’s a grand view from the top. Locals refer to this path as The Tank Tracks. This is a reference to the fact that it was created and graded by the army during the second world war. The path runs for one kilometre in a mostly straight line up an even sloped hill. The grading is largely crumbled away now but most of the path is still firm all year round and this makes it the easiest local path by which to ascend to the ridge of the South Downs. Two views from almost the same spot taken 66 years apart ..read more

When I discuss the LCHF diet with friends, family and increasingly with my clients all over the world, the conversation generally goes like this: I describe the diet and it’s effect on obesity and type 2 diebetes. I talk about running on fat. I talk about the fear of fat. And it is always at stage 3 that things get difficult. We have an ingrained fear of fat, and saturated fat in particular. The way I try to get past this point is what I have coined “My Cholesterol Chatâ€. But I always fear that I have not got the message across as clearly or as simply as I ought be able to. Here is ..read more