Last night was Halloween. Apparently this has its roots in the old Celtic festival of Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth, causing trouble and damaging crops. These days the worst that can befall you is having a few eggs thrown at your door, so I suppose that's progress.

We bought a large tin of Celebrations and left it by the front door with a view to placating any potential egg-chuckers or ghosts of the dead. This seemed to work as there were no eggs or ghostly manifestations to deal with over the course of the evening.

The night was also notable for the macabre spectacle that was the Barcelona -v- Chelsea game. Here we had some of the most talented footballers on the planet engaged in cheating, diving, kicking each other and haranguing the ref. Just occasionally when they forgot what they were there for they kicked the football around a bit. I thought Chelsea just edged the cheating whilst Barca edged the football so all-in-all a draw was was probably a fair result. ITV got into the spirit of the night by engaging a member of the living dead as their summariser in the form of David Pleat.

Anyway, at half time I spied the tin of Celebrations and thought to myself "Hmm, they look nice". Then I thought to myself "No, I'd better not or I'll end up eating half the tin". Then finally thought to myself "Let me see if I can just eat one and stop there". And that's what I did. The nutritional approach of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle doesn't seem to leave me with cravings for sweet things late in the evening such as I used to get. So, a good evening for me, my programme and my front door. Just a shame about the football.

On a Friday evening we either eat out or have a takeaway. Often this will involve eating something that's not totally in accord with the nutritional recommendations of the programme, but that's ok as you are allowed at least one 'cheat meal' per week. Our favourite is probably the Indian takeaway at the bottom of our road. Its food is every bit as good as any Indian restaurant.

Sometimes we have Kentucky Fried Chicken. Now I know that's not to everyone's taste, but we're curiously partial to it. So, I was pleased to see from this article on the BBC web site that KFC are planning to stop using trans fats in their frying process.

Trans fats are found in liquid oils that have been turned partly solid by a process called hydrogenation. This means they can be used in making foods that traditionally would have used solid fats such as butter, but they have the advantage (for the food industry) of being a lot cheaper and having a longer shelf-life. However, compared to butter they have almost no food value and are every bit as bad at clogging up your arteries.

The more responsible manufacturers are moving away from them. For example if you've found that your Rich Tea biscuits are a bit more crumbly and more tricky to dunk in your tea then it's because McVities have stopped using trans fats.

So, well done KFC. Meanwhile according to the same article "McDonalds promised to reduce trans-fats in its products four years ago, but has yet to find an alternative oil which it is sufficiently satisfied with". Now by 'sufficiently satisifed' I suppose they mean that their costs will go up or the products won't taste as good so their sales will go down. It would seem that they continue to put their profits ahead of any consideration of their customers' well-being.

What very fine weather we had at the weekend. The Daily Mail on Saturday got into the spirit of it by devoting pages 2 and 3 to a feature on how beautiful the countryside is looking at the moment, with all the trees turning. They even managed to restrain themselves from saying how it was all under threat from immigrant workers, asbo-badge-of-honour-wearers, radical muslim clerics, paedophiles and Tony Blair.

We took ourselves off for a walk up to Chanctonbury Ring. This local landmark used to be well known for the fine circle of trees that adorned its crown. The hurricane of '87 put paid to most of those, but it is slowly regenerating up there. We carried on past and found another route back, marred only by the misfortune of encountering some trail bike riders at the only point of the entire walk where it was muddy!

Anyway, it was glorious and I have to say that I felt fitter than I have done in years. If I'm this much improved after seven weeks of this program what am I going to be like after seventy weeks? Do they run Triathlons for the 50+ age group?

So, the big day is nearly here. By the time that I next post I will be a married man.

We're just having a small family affair. We've hired a limo to take us to the registry office. After the ceremony it's a short hop to our favourite Italian restaurant where we're taking over the basement floor. We've hired a musician and a magician for entertainment during the meal. Then it's all back to our place for champagne, speeches, more food and fireworks.

We're all set to go and we're looking forward to it with eager anticipation. The champagne is all lined up in the fridge, so it looks like Eddy's in Absolutely Fabulous.

I'm still planning to do my rowing in the morning, but all bets are off as regards good nutrition over the course of the day. I'll be back to the good habits on Sunday, though.

Our wedding day went off perfectly. Everything went to plan, everyone had a great time and it was a really happy day.

At about 10pm everyone had gone home so we decided to take ourselves off clubbing. A quick search on the net turned up the Casablanca club in Brighton with latino funk listed amongst its music styles. That sounded good so we headed off down there, still dressed in our finery.

It was great. They had a live band by the name of Mandinga who were excellent. We got a few funny looks on account of our age and dressed-up state but we didn't mind that and we happily bopped the night away.

We enjoyed it so much that we may go there again at some point. But next time I think we'll dress to blend in a little more. Or maybe we'll get some t-shirts made up with the title of this piece.

My first meal of the day is always either muesli or Kellogs Fruit n Fibre. I have it with full fat milk. Yes, I know, saturated fat, but what the heck. Despite this the meal is a bit short of protein, so I supplement it with a whey protein drink.

Now the only thing I used to know about whey was that it was consumed by Little Miss Moffat, along with some curds. Or was that Kurds? Little Miss Moffat eating the repressed inhabitants of northern Iraq and eastern Turkey? That seems unlikely but there again a lot of the old nursery rhymes supposedly had sinister connotations. Of course, I meant that the Kurds are politically repressed, not psychologically repressed. Sorry, this stream of conciousness seems to be spinning out of control!

Anyway, whey turns out to be an excellent source of protein. Here's a good article about it if you're interested.

I use Reflex Instant Whey mixed with cold water. It doesn't dissolve too well, leaving it a bit lumpy and unpleasant to drink, but interspersed with sips of fruit juice I find it easy enough to get down.

If you click through to the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle site then almost the first thing that confronts you is a picture of Tom Venuto himself in a bodybuilding pose. Now, the reaction of some men on seeing this might be "I'm not really sure if I want to look like that". And the reaction of most women would be "I'm really sure I don't want to look like that". (Or possible, "Phwoooaarghh", but that's another matter altogether.

Well the good news is that you don't have to look like that. But when it comes to losing fat there is much to learn from the bodybuilding fraternity. For the average man a body fat percentage in the 10% to 14% range would be considered good and lean. The male bodybuilders manage to drive this down to somewhere in the region of 4%, just about on the limit to what is possible. These guys are past masters in the techniques of losing fat and these can be applied to anyone who wants to shed some excess poundage.

By following the program you can go as low as you feel comfortable with. Once you've reached the target shape and size that you'd like to be then you can ease off so that you just maintain that desired state.

“Once I was a forty pound weakling. Now I am two separate gorillas.”
Viv Stanshall

I do my weight training on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings at about 7:15, an hour after I get up. I start with a few gentle Pilates stretches then do five minutes on the rowing machine to get myself warmed through.

The weight training regime that I'm currently on is a full body workout. After Christmas I'll be changing this and going to a two-day split regime. It goes like this, with all exercises done for three sets, one minute rest between sets.

Chest - Bench Press, 6-12 reps
Shoulders - Side Lateral Raise, 6-12 reps
Back - Cable Rows, 6-12 reps
Triceps - Lying Tricep Extensions Across Face, 6-12 reps
Biceps - Barbell Curl, 6-12 reps
Quads - I've a real problem here, I'll talk more about this next time
Calves - Standing Dumbbell Calf Raise, 10-25 reps
Hamstrings - Leg Curls, 5-8 reps
Abs - Crunches (Legs up on bench) - as many reps as possible

If you are interested in more details for these exercises then this site is a great resource. It has over 300 exercises with descriptions and a short video clip, categorised by the main muscle groups.

As I mentioned last time, finding a suitable exercise for my quads is a bit of an issue. The problem is my knees. I think this probably goes back to when I had a motorbike accident about 30 years ago.

The left knee is the worst. It's fine for normal getting around. However if I stand on my left leg and attempt to do a squat then it starts to twinge as soon as the degree of bend away from a straight leg reaches about 45 degrees. So the normal weight training exercises for the quads such as squats and lunges are out of the question and leg extensions also seem to set it off. In particular I don't want to risk damaging my knees further as, at the moment, they are fine on the rowing machine. It's hard to do cardio without fully functioning legs.

So, at the moment I am doing partial one leg squats as shown on this page. I do them with a 10kg dumbell held on the side that's not over the step and I do three sets of 15 reps. For the step I use a Reebok Stepper (bought from eBay for £5.00, well pleased with that) on its lowest setting. It's not ideal but its better than nothing.