Category: lesamy

Categories
L3 lesamy Less is More

L3 Week 5 – Crap! A Stone and a Blister

Warning: the title this week is strangely literal.

Which doesn’t mean that I got a blister because of a stone in my shoe. But I did get a blister – just a day or two after I was thinking, “around about this stage is when I start getting blisters from the walking.”

But no, that wasn’t what the stone was about. The stone is the milestone I just passed – my first stone of weight lost.

And the crap – well when I started out for my walk tonight a bird pooped on my head. Direct hit, full-on splat! I wiped most of it off with a tissue, carried on my walk and showered when I got back. Which actually was nice – warm water on aching muscles.

Anyhow – here’s the numbers kids:

Lost: 4lbs
Lost so far: 16lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 3.2lbs
Weight: 288.2lbs (20st 8lbs)


Categories
diet L3 lesamy Less is More

L3 Week 4 – Steady As She Goes!

You know what? 3rd time around it’s harder to think up witty titles and/or interesting things to write – but I’m opting for something inane/functional now rather than leave it til later in the week.

I will say that I am slightly disappointed that my loss this week has dropped to the more reasonable longer term rate that it has. Why?

a) because it’s happened relatively quickly and I have NOT strayed AT ALL from the path lo these last three weeks!

b) because a loss equivalent to last week would have put me at my first stone lost.

Still I can’t say I’m really that bothered. A loss is a loss and it’s not a trivial one.

Lost: 1.4lbs
Lost so far: 12lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 3lbs
Weight: 292.2lbs (20st 12lbs)


Categories
diet L3 lesamy Less is More

L3 Week 3 – Loose Trews

Well my trousers are feeling looser so I must be doing ok.
(no I don’t know why I’ve apparently gone Scottish)

Lost: 3.4lbs
Lost so far: 10.6lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 3.5lbs
Weight: 293.6lbs (20st 13lbs)


Categories
lesamy Less is More

L3 Week 0 – The New Normal

*sigh*

Seriously.

*really big sigh*

OK. I’m back at the point where I want to start trying to lose weight again. And having just eschewed flubbage another cute term for the project isn’t necessarily consistent, but who ever said I was that? Still “L3” is nicely cryptic and terse.

Plus I couldn’t think of anything better.

I’m writing this mainly to register my weight at this new starting point. Which is 304.2lbs. (At least I think so – my scales seem to fluctuate more than they used to – but then maybe I’m nearer the edge of their tolerance)

Anyway I about a stone lighter than I was two and a half years ago when I first tried this. In other words I’m nearly back to what I was. And I feel uncomfortable and I get out of breath easily. So sooner or later I felt I had to re-start the diet/exercise.

So it’s become the new normal, the new default position. At least for what I should be doing. Once I didn’t really think about it and ate what I wanted. Now, even if I do that, I’m doing it as someone who feels I really should be dieting. I’ve become the kind of person I used to feel sorry for – someone either denying themselves or feeling guilty for not denying themselves.

But I feel I don’t have a choice – as I said it’s uncomfortable being this overweight.

Categories
lesamy Less is More

Less is More Week 7 – A Good Loss/Head Start

Lost: 6.6lbs
Lost so far: 22.7lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 3.2lbs
Weight: 272lbs (19st 6lbs)

So that’s an impressive loss right? I might be tempted to think it’s too good if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve had a couple of non-stellar weeks and that I know this week won’t be great for losing weight. I’m spending a long weekend with M. and it’s nice to think that I won’t have to worry too much about ‘being sensible’.


Categories
lesamy Less is More

Less is More Week 5 – Actions

Week 5

Lost: -1.6lbs
Lost so far: 14.9lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 3lbs
Weight: 280lbs (20st)

So it’s not been a great weekend. A misjudged attempt at a ‘freebie’ after 4 weeks of keeping to the letter of the law. A pizza and a bottle of wine seemed like a reasonable treat. But that turned into a pizza and a bottle of wine on both Friday and Saturday and some other left-over treats on Sunday.

I had a lot of time to think about what to say about this, how I feel about it, as I was pounding out the laps around the park, trying to make up as much as possible with tonight’s exercise. But in the end I thought there’s a lot I can say but it’s my actions that will tell. Next week I will lose it back. I need to in the same way that I need to stick to my daily calorie count or not stop at 5 laps when I’ve said I’ll do 6. Because once I start to let myself slip where does it stop?

In a way that’s the problem with ‘freebies’ they’re too undefined. I think my next treat night will have well defined parameters.


Categories
lesamy Less is More

Less is More Week 4 – This Time Last Time…

Week 4

Lost: 3.8lbs
Lost so far: 16.5lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 4.1lbs
Weight: 278lbs (19st 12lb)

So I don’t plan to make a habit of this but as I finished my first (lunar) month I thought I’d compare my progress with last time. On Lesamy Week 4 I had lost a total of 21lbs although I was at 296 – 2lbs heavier than where I started this time. Whilst I’d lost more I hadn’t quite gotten up to the same levels of exercise. I was doing a 22min x 2 walk during the week and 30min x 2 at weekends. Currently I’m doing ~80+mins a day (including walk to and from work) weekdays and up to 2 hours at the weekend. I’m not sure I’ll keep that up (as mentioned last week) but the fact I’m even able to shows that as well as not quite putting all the weight back on, I hadn’t quite lost all my fitness.

The really effective period of Lesamy – from the start to my lowest point – was about 9 months – 37 weeks. I got down to 226lbs – averaging about 2.4lbs a week. So we’ll see where I am in another 33 weeks/8 months. My goal is to hit 224 in a year and average 1.5lbs/week.

Categories
lesamy

Less is More Week 3 – Unsustainable?

Week 3

Lost: 3.4lbs
Lost so far: 12.7lbs
Weight: 282lbs (20st 2lb)

Gotta love these early weeks and the big weight loss.

So I’ve been concerned about a couple of things this week. One is that I repeated my weekend bonus scheme from last week (2300cals on Fri, 2100 on sat and 1900 on sun). The other is that I was doing 6 laps of the park for my evening walk – combined with walking from work and back to my house that’s 1.5-1.75hours.

So on the one hand I’m concerned I’m doing too much exercise whilst eating too many calories at the weekend – hang on you’re thinking, don’t those two sorta cancel each other out? Well sort of but they have something else in common – they’re both probably unsustainable.

1.5+hours is a lot of time every day. On the one hand it’s not like I’d be doing a lot with the time otherwise but on the other it also wipes me out for the rest of the evening. I think it needs to settle down to 1hour/day.

The problem with the weekend bonus scheme is that I can get away with it at the moment because I’ve got that early big loss, I’m doing a lot of exercise and I’ve had virtually no freebies. In a month or two when an hour a night is what I’ve settled down to and I may have the odd meal out or whatever I may struggle to still lose anything if I’m also having extra at the weekend. So I think I need to phase it out. Certainly the next time I have a freebie I’ll have to give it a miss that week.

Still, hard not to be pleased with the progress.


Categories
lesamy

L.i.M. – New Units, New Goals, New Look

So I’ve re-vamped my spreadsheet and I’m now officially working off pounds as my main unit of measurement for Less is More.

I’ve also decided on a few specific goals, to wit:

  • Target weight is 168lbs (12stone) by June 2012, 224lbs (16stone) by this time next year.
  • I’m aim to keep my average weight-loss at 1.25-1.5lb/week – actually slightly more than I need.

OK, so it seems “a few” is really “two”. I did have others but they’re really the how not the what. Plus they haven’t changed that much (1800 cals/day except for an occasional treat day of 2300  unless I’ve had a freebie that week).

I’ve also created a new ticker & graph. I’ve used tickerfactory again because I wanted to get on with it and the one other site I found after a brief search was taking too long to load. It’s up on the “weight graph” page right now and I’ll be putting on my weekly weigh-in posts.


Not really related but something I did at the same time was to tinker with the appearance of my blog – changed the theme, adjusted the widgets on the side and added back the old banner pic (it’s a time-delay shot of Canary Wharf I took.)

That’s all for now – just didn’t want to wait until monday to announce it.

Categories
lesamy

Less is More Week 2 – Keeping At It

Week 2

Lost: 2.3kg (5.1lbs)

Lost so far: 4.2kg (9.3lbs)

Weight: 129.4 (20st 5lb)

A good week as you can see. Obviously a lot of the success is down to the “early windfall” that you get when starting/re-starting a diet. However I am pleased that I keep to my regime much better. First week truth be told I had a bit of a binge at the weekend and was fortunate still to lose weight. Since that pattern of keeping the diet+exercise during the week but letting go at the weekend was what killed off Lesamy I knew I had to address that. I did so by tweaking the formula a little. I allowed myself a higher budget of calories on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (2300,2100 and 1900 respectively). More important probably was that I made sure I did my exercise (I have the blisters to prove it!).

I don’t know if I’ll carry forward the same thing next weekend and in the future. I may just allow myself one higher budget day if I’ve had no freebies that week, or I may have say 500 “weekend calories” to distribute as I see fit. The important thing is to set it in advance (even if only a day) and stick to it – not constantly adjusting it upwards.

I’m also thinking of creating a new ticker/graph. I may see if there’s better sites out there. Also I’m considering dropping Kg and measuring in overall pounds for a number to graph and stones and pounds for my own readability.