If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.The author of Jog On – a look at running and mental health – takes us through a week of exercising and eating.
“Many of them clearly weren't well, preaching about eating habits that looked suspiciously like eating disorders (to me).”“It's a hard pass from me. I drink Verdicchio wine. My sweet choices came of age in the early Nineties and my dentist hates me.”“I'm realising how embarrassingly similar my food intake is every day, so today I'm going to pretend I had pancakes with a Bloody Mary for breakfast and let's all move on, OK. I run like Once home, I eat an ice cream as a reward for my run as if I'm seven years old. So we asked Mackie to give us a guide to a traditional week for a writer who loves running but isn't about to take on an “I am a night owl. I go to a café in the afternoon to get out of the house and stop myself from ignoring my work and deciding I should paint a wall or make an elaborate recipe, and I drink mint tea like I'm being serious and pure while I'm writing. The park is stuffed to the gills with families briskly dragging toddlers up hills and the dog is vaguely pissed off with all the fair-weather walkers. Then I switch to sleepy tea which doesn't work and more Diet Coke. I stupidly invited eleven people over for dinner when we don't even have eleven chairs or even forks. Early rising seems to get more and more competitive – as though you acquire a special insight at the crack of dawn that I'll never be privy to, or you have a discipline that makes you a more successful person. I'll write for a bit, take the dog out and then eat like a grown up – normally eggs on brown bread or soup. I do some planking before bed, but can never figure out if I'm doing it right, which is just another thing to add to my list of things to Google when I get into bed and can't sleep because I should be kicking off the night instead.”“Same morning struggle, with an added cinnamon swirl. As a commissioning editor at the So I struggle to be awake by 9:45 and my face makes its fury known loudly every morning by swelling up so that I can barely see through my puffy eyes or breathe through my weirdly blocked nose. For dinner, I try and choose the healthy option at the pub, which is... cauliflower cheese.
We go out to our favourite local Italian where I always order the spaghetti with fresh tomatoes and olive oil and drink a glass of red Montepulciano. I use a I procrastinate for an hour, then I head out to run. When we get back, I have a double decaf macchiato (the decaf is to stop anxiety bubbling over) and I have porridge. Later, I'll have a double macchiato, which is delicious but really needs a cigarette and not the Juul I'm using as if I'm a US high schooler.At home, my husband Greg is waiting, and has to go to bed at a stupidly early time, so he's often keen to eat about 6pm, which makes me feel like we're pensioners catching an early West End show. Then I'll push through a run – same 12k.For dinner, I make what Greg calls 'vegetable mush', which is dispiriting. Or a dog person for that matter.
“After the news year from hell (this year has snatched that title) I quit my job and wrote the book at my boyfriend's kitchen table. Porridge is to be made with milk and salt is essential.
Black beans, lentils and halloumi, oh my! Mint tea, ugh. I got over excited about adult entertaining (not that kind of entertaining, settle down) and forgot that I can't really cook, only bake, which I do with wildly over enthusiastic gusto. My mother is Scottish and used to mix double cream in too, which would explain my strong bones I line up a book promo and write a chunk of my novel in the afternoon. So no jumping out of bed at 6am for me on a Monday morning, ready to attack the day. There's burpees, there's Bloody Marys and most importantly there's mid-day ice creamIn 2016, journalist Bella Mackie wrote a piece for the “I thought it was a wind up, seeing as how I've never run a marathon or developed a six pack,” Mackie told me. I walk home, because sometimes it feels better than running – stretching out your legs and breathing calmly instead of panting.I would like to say I don't check my step count, but I do, and feel like I'm slacking if it's under 20,000. Then I eat popcorn as a savoury chaser. It's raining so I go to the gym, which I love because it's the local council one and has members from all walks of life and is never intimidating, but which I hate because it's not outside. I chew bubblegum throughout my runs, which are typically about 12k. Well, half, and the rest for the dog who I feel guilty about, because canine food offerings don't exactly scream joy. You can pre-order it I try and do three rounds of five different arm exercises and then some sporadic shaking with the CMT. He goes to bed, I have a glass of Viognier and Juul. I have done this for five years and my bum still doesn't look any different, but I feel like maybe now I'm just holding it up so I can't quit them. When I get jittery from Diet Coke and sitting down for too long, I go into our junk room (the size of a toilet and filled with stuff we don't know where to put anywhere else) and retrieve some dumbbells and a CMT device, which is basically a dumbbell with handles and filled with ball bearings.