The office weight loss challenge had not been going well. Four weeks in and I’d only lost two pounds. Even Geoff was doing better. Geoff! Mr Cheetos himself. I got home that night and consoled myself with a tub of ice cream and Game of Thrones. Then, I remembered, if at first you don’t succeed...cheat. I spent the next five hours intensely scanning the internet for any way to lose weight without exercising. I rolled my eyes after reading the one millionth comment about how ‘there’s no quick fix to losing weight’.

But then, I finally came across something more promising. A strange web site claimed I just needed to click a link to download and watch a video, and all my problems would be solved. I downloaded and watched the video, and to my disappointment, it was just a video of static white noise. Feeling defeated, I switched off the computer and went to bed.

‘Have you lost weight Daniel?’ was the first thing that my colleague Cathy asked me when I arrived at work the next morning.

I thought of the tub of ice cream and decided it was unlikely. At lunchtime, we performed the now ritual weekly weigh in. I sighed as I waited for Cathy to give me my verdict.

‘Wow Daniel, you’ve lost five pounds!’ exclaimed Cathy.

I opened my mouth in shock and my other workmates shared a look of dumbfoundedness. Geoff looked really pissed off, which was satisfying. On my way home, I thought of the video and wondered if maybe it hadn’t been as much of a waste of time as it had seemed. So, I watched it again, and again, every night. By the weekend I could already see the difference in the mirror, but I was also starting to feel the difference inside my head. I realised I hadn’t even watched TV for two days. Instead I’d been going for long walks, thinking about my life, thinking about my ambitions. I was forty years old, and still single. How had I let that happen?

When I met my friends on Saturday evening for our usual drinking session, they immediately commented on my weight loss, which felt good. I decided to just drink soda water because I wanted to keep a clear head. They all thought there was something wrong with me, like I was ill or something, but I’d actually never felt better in my life. I listened to their conversations about TV and movies and just felt bored. For some reason I didn’t find that stuff so interesting anymore. Eventually I just excused myself and went home early, only watching the static video again before going to bed.

The next morning I woke feeling fresh and energised. I had a strange compulsion to go running. In the past, just the thought of going for a run had been enough to make me feel sick, but that morning, I ended up running several kilometres around the town and back without barely breaking into a sweat. After that, I could no longer deny that something incredible was happening to me.