Comedian Phil Evans is from Ammanford. He is known as the man who puts the ‘cwtsh’ into comedy. This column appears in the South Wales Evening Post, Carmarthen Journal and Llanelli Star. Website – www.philevans.co.uk
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TAKING STEPS TO GET FIT
Last autumn, a friend of mine who (shall we say . . . ) was “a little overweight” told me he’d decided to do something about it.
His timing wasn’t perfect as we were enjoying a meal of chicken tikka masala, onion bhajis, poppadoms and garlic naans.
It was the weirdest Italian restaurant I’ve ever eaten in.
Rather than take out a gym membership or sign-up for the London Marathon he was going to follow the World Health Organisation’s recommendation of walking 10,000 steps a day.
Last week, I saw him strolling along Fabian Way, Swansea and it was obvious he’d put on weightrather than lost any, so I decided to attract his attention in my usual subtle, diplomatic manner.
“Oi! Chubster!” I shouted – and, fair dos, his head spun around in my direction.
I couldn’t shake his right hand as it was gripped around a half-eaten Greggs pastie – and myright hand contained a half-eaten Greggs sausage roll.
I said, “I thought you were going to walk 10,000 steps a day?” as l brushed little flakes of pastry from my chin.
He explained “I intended to. But I couldn’t findonebuildingin this city with 10,000 steps to walk up and down.”
Which sort of made sense…
I did some research into this ‘10,000 steps a day’ idea to see if it was another number randomly picked out of the air like the ‘Five pieces of fruit a day’ advice of a few years back.
It started in 1964 when the Kyushu University Of Health And Welfare in Japan discovered that by walking 10,000 steps a day, a person could walk off 20% of their daily calorie intake.
So…if we took 50,000 steps a daywe could walk off 100%of our daily calorie intake.
Trouble is, if we walked 50,000 steps every day, at the end of the first week we’d end up in Hereford.
I wonder if there’s a Greggs there?
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Don’t forget it . . .
I remember the days when you could only get petrol, oil and bags of coal from the local petrol station.
How times have changed!
Today, most petrol stations are as well stocked up as the supermarkets, which is a blessing in more ways than one for many men, especially as St Valentine’s Day is tomorrow!
The last-minute chocolates, cards and flowers can quite often save a relationship.
Having said that, Welsh men are actually quite lucky – we get St Dwynwen’s Day on the 25th January, which I’m convinced was created as a three-week pre-warning just so we don’t forget.
Perish the thought!
Last year, I decided to get that special person in my life some lovely flowers for St Valentine’s Day.
The landlord of my local was quite touched and displayed them in a vase on the bar.
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You can follow Phil Evans on Twitter @philevanswales and www.philevans.co.uk
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