The title is, I think, a useful adage for someone who’s been very fit in the past attempting to get themselves back into shape after a while spent being sedentary. The problem is that if you’re already aware of how to exercise and have the skills and know what going at a good healthy pace (I’m assuming you’re a runner here) feels like, it’s very, very easy indeed to go out and overdo it.

For one thing – you are much heavier. I spent a lot of time today walking around with my 21-month-old daughter in a sling (she’s teething and has been pretty unwell, poor thing) and it was rather unsettling to realise that the weight of her plus the sling – 12kg – is almost exactly the amount of weight I want to lose. Now bear in mind that walking becomes much harder and your feet get a lot heavier if you stick 12kg on your torso. That’s a lot of extra weight for out-of-shape muscles and joints to support, and a lot more impact for feet and legs to absorb. Trying to run as if you’re 75-77kg when you’re 85kg is going to put you in a world of misery and injury pretty quickly, as I’ve found too many times already.

Secondly, if you know what a “comfortable” pace feels like you’re likely to aim for that (in my case, I like cruising somewhere just under 5 minutes/km in training) because on past experience it feels right and makes the times on your watch look right. Bad idea! You just can’t do that – it has to be what’s euphemistically termed “slow recovery pace” for a good long while until your muscles and legs are used to it, and until you’ve dropped a few kilos and can have more confidence about starting to push the boat out a bit. My calf muscles are still killing me from Saturday night’s run, and that’s not surprising – but the bad thing about muscle pain that persists for too long is that it will destroy any attempt to get serious pretty quickly, as it’s just too sore to get out most nights.

At this point someone usually mentions that it’s easiest to just go to a gym. I’ve tried. I’ve tried gyms, and I hate them. I really can’t stand the places. Miserable caverns full of miserable-looking people crucifying themselves on miserable machines like something out of Metropolis, nobody (except maybe the weight training loonies) looking as if they really want to be there. I can run for maybe 20-25 minutes on a gym treadmill, 30 if I really push it out, but after about 15 minutes I just want to claw my eyes out. It’s so incredibly dull, and incredibly stuffy, and it’s not outdoors. I’d rather be out running badly in the rain than running well on a treadmill any day. Part of the joy of being a runner is being out in the open – particularly crisp winter nights, in my experience. Without that, it’s just pointless labour. So no, please. No gyms.

So what does this leave me with? Well, in all honesty, it tells me that at least until I’m down a few kilograms I shouldn’t be trying to run hard. I don’t think there’s actually much long-term benefit in running at all right now except the psychological benefit (which is significant). I’m going to try and stick with a fairly heavily calorie-restricted diet for the time being, combined with plenty of walking and activity to help things along (and provide some more wiggle room in the calorie budget for beer and curry). There’s a lot of pride-swallowing happening here. My previous maxim was that provided you’re exercising hard enough you don’t have to worry about food – but the problem with that is that over a certain weight and under a certain level of fitness you just can’t exercise hard enough to not worry about food without injuring yourself and giving up, thus perpetuating the vicious circle of slothfulness.

If you’re really interested in watching, you can try tracking my Fitbit, not that there’s much data there so far as I only got it this afternoon. If you enjoy being competitive about random physiological metrics, you’re welcome to add me as a friend.