How to lose weight instantly

There are lots of fad diets that tell you the way to lose weight is to eat nothing but cream crackers/cabbage soup/fruit on Mondays and sausages on Wednesdays. They're all a load of rubbish. I had four meals today, including two that were principally cheese, and I had a chocolate cake for dessert tonight, with a fist-sized splodge of whipped cream, and I still lost four pounds.

Diet, schmiet. Why everyone doesn't just go for a 7 mile run as fast as they can around Singapore is beyond me. And since I drank about two pints of sports drink while I was out running, I think I really lost about five pounds. It's a good life, if you don't weaken.

Mind you, the weight isn't all I lost. The strap on my old Garmin sheared in two at about the 9 kilometre mark. It must have been so impressed with my athleticism that it spontaneously shredded itself apart. I suddenly felt my wrist get much lighter, and had to scrabble in the dirt my the side of the path hunting for my GPS. Fortunately, it's a big old beast and easy to find in the dark: if it had been slimmed down I'd probably have lost it forever.

It was a tough run. I was aiming for 4:30 kilometres. It's an easy speed, if you don't weaken. I was certainly weakening, ready to stop at 8 kilometres but managing to talk myself into one extra kilometre every five minutes until I was done. By the end I couldn't see: sweat was pouring into my eyes and stinging like mad, and it's miraculous that I didn't kick a toddler into the bay. (Why do people think it's acceptable to take their kids out for a walk at close to midnight? Are they trying to toughen them up for a future of insomnia?)

I got home, stinking, and hid in the shower until I stopped sweating. It's a good life, until the weekend.