Read this first: a lifestyle, not a task

Monday has turned over more new leaves than every tree in Britain put together. "I'll start Monday" is a beautiful lie, because it sounds exactly like a plan. It has a date in it. It feels organised, responsible, almost adult. You can say it to a friend with a straight face while eating the last of the Celebrations out of the tub, using the lid as a plate. What it actually means is "not now", with a calendar attached, and the calendar has a lot of Mondays in it.

I know someone I call Dom, and she is definitely not my sister. "Do On Monday" is her answer to everything. Starting the gym: Monday. Giving up drinking: Monday. Stopping smoking: Monday. Beginning work on the miniature fusion reactor that will power her mechanised Labrador army and let her take over the world: also Monday, after a sit-down and a biscuit. Dom has begun more things on a Monday than anyone alive. The world remains, for now, untaken, and the Labradors are still entirely organic, which is a relief to everyone, especially the Labradors.

I know the lie well, because I've said it too. Most of us have said it so often it's stopped meaning anything, like a word you repeat until it sounds foreign. Monday. Monday. Monday. Somewhere in there it stopped being a day and became a place you send things to die. The trick isn't willpower. The trick is catching yourself saying it, and hearing it for what it is.

So Bootcamp starts with that. Every chapter has a lie in it, usually one I've told. Then we take it apart.

Next: The problem with finish linesBack to the contents

Most diets work. That's the trouble. For six weeks you live like a monk who's fallen out with God. Lettuce. Black coffee. A rice cake, eaten slowly in a dark room, for comfort. The number goes down. You buy new jeans. Then the diet ends, because diets are built to end, like holidays and hostage situations. You go back to your old life and find the weight has been waiting for you the whole time, sitting on your sofa, eating your crisps, wearing your new jeans.

A big review of long-term weight-loss studies found that more than half of the weight people lost was back within two years, and more than three-quarters of it within five. The people who kept more of it off were the ones who kept exercising.¹

So there's no end date here. You're not doing a task. You're changing what normal looks like, for good.

Next: From the sofa to the MatterhornBack to the contents

Picture a man whose entire weekly exercise is reaching for the remote and getting up to answer the door to the pizza driver. On a good week, that's twice. On Monday, obviously a Monday, he decides he's going to climb the Matterhorn. By Tuesday he's on a diet he found on the internet that involves soup and resentment. By Wednesday he's running at dawn in cotton jogging bottoms, which weigh more than he does once it starts raining. Then he does burpees in the kitchen while the dog watches from the doorway, with the look of a dog that has seen all this before. By Friday he can't lift his arms above his shoulders to get a mug down and the dog has lost all respect for him. By Sunday it's pizza again, with a side of guilt, like extra cheese nobody ordered.

Crash diets and crash training ask for too much, too fast, and nobody can keep that up. Not him. Not you. Not the person on the internet who says they can. They're either lying or being paid by the soup.

The Matterhorn is still there. We'll get you up it. One flight of stairs at a time.

Next: How fast is sensible?Back to the contents

If losing weight is one of your goals, the NHS suggests aiming for 0.5 to 1 kg a week, which is roughly 1 to 2 pounds.² That sounds slow. It is slow. It's also the speed that stays.

Not everyone here wants to lose weight, by the way. Some people want to get stronger, sleep better, or play football with their kids without needing a sit-down and a bit of a think at half time. All of that counts.

Next: It took time to get hereBack to the contents

It took time to get here, and it takes time to leave. That isn't a one-for-one deal. Ten years of takeaways doesn't need ten years of salad. But it won't be undone in a fortnight either, however hard you stare at the soup.

Habits do the heavy lifting. In one study, people picked a new daily habit, like a walk after breakfast, and it took a median of 66 days before it felt automatic. Some got there much faster, some much slower, and missing the odd day didn't ruin it.³ So give it two months before you judge anything. Not two days. Not one bad weekend.

Next: Eat slowly. Yes, really.Back to the contents

This is the cheapest trick in Bootcamp. People who eat more slowly tend to eat a bit less, without trying.⁴ Put your fork down between mouthfuls. Talk to someone. Chew like you're being paid per chew by a man with a clipboard. Your food isn't going anywhere, unless you live with a Labrador, in which case it absolutely is, and you've got bigger problems.

Next: How Bootcamp worksBack to the contents

Twenty-one chapters, in four parts: head first, moving, fuel, and out the door. They're in this order for a reason, and the reason is that I've done it in the wrong order and it was rubbish. Each chapter catches a lie, tells you the truth with a source at the bottom, and ends with one small job called your rep. Do the rep, then move on. One a day, one a week. Nobody's timing you. Not even on a Monday.

One more thing. I'm a bloke, and I write like one. It's written for everyone, though, and where something is only about women's bodies, it says so. The full disclaimer is here, along with the one about the badger.

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