The feelings of loss and mortality that have inspired these articles

01 Nov 2026, 21:00 by Paul Fennessy · The42

Paul Fennessy

THE PUBLICATION TIME of this article coincides with the penultimate day of my fitness challenge and, therefore, the end of this series.

I might celebrate with a few beers, but I have become so accustomed to healthy eating and rigorous exercise that I plan to continue this lifestyle indefinitely, with scope for occasional indulgence.

Maybe it’s a mild form of OCD, but the threat of missing a workout or straying from the prescribed diet has become enough to induce a little anxiety. Dropping such a rigid system suddenly will no doubt feel strange.

One question often asked is why I decided to do it in the first place.

I’m not sure if I can give a straightforward answer.

Some people assume I am preparing for a marathon or some other extravagant event – that would be a convenient excuse. But the decision was impromptu, instinctive and unplanned, as the erratic first week indicated.

Ostensibly, I was doing it to support my wife, who has been undertaking the challenge at the same time.

But she had tried it years before, and I hadn’t joined her. So there is surely more to it than that alone.

Part of it is undeniably due to getting older.

That sense of invincibility synonymous with young people dissipates in your 30s.

Call it a ‘midlife crisis’ if you like, although I’m assuming people have done far worse things to combat this inevitable development.

Until about 38, I barely gave a second thought to diet, exercise or anything fitness-related, although playing sports growing up meant I picked up some good habits naturally.

But the activities stopped as I got older, and bad eating intensified. My exercise routine was hardly arduous; walking around the park with the dog once or twice a day at best.

I would regularly get dermatitis and could not really ascertain why – perhaps it was stress, unhealthy eating, a lack of proper exercise or all of the above.

The Covid pandemic and being forced into isolation definitely exacerbated some of these issues, in particular my penchant for takeaways and other bad food. Working from home also meant I was moving less.

A doctor’s visit shed some light on the problem – my cholesterol was “slightly high,” and my folic acid was “quite low”.

That was the primary wake-up call, and for the first time in my life, I seriously considered what I was putting into my body.

Carbohydrates, like pasta and white bread, were now luxuries. The foods I had neglected, salmon and porridge, became commonplace. I made sure at least one meal a day had plenty of vegetables or fruit. I limited myself to one treat every 24 hours, i.e. a chocolate bar, packet of crisps or fizzy drink.

Alamy Stock PhotoAlamy Stock Photo

Within a few months, another doctor’s visit revealed that the cholesterol and folic acid levels had returned to normal.

But the skin issues persisted, as did sporadic feelings of stress and anxiety, while I was no stranger to insomnia.

Yet another major factor in doing the fitness challenge was life events.

The birth of my son in the summer of 2023 changed my life and gave it a renewed perspective. If that didn’t eradicate bad habits and underline the need for lifestyle changes, nothing would.

Not long after, my father began to exhibit some unusual and uncharacteristic behaviour, and it gradually became apparent that he was suffering from dementia – the unstoppable deterioration in his condition since then has been gradual. A seizure earlier this year resulted in more sudden changes, and he has been bedridden and totally incoherent in the months since then.

Last year, my aunt, who was so close that she felt like a third parent growing up, passed away after a period with cancer.