Category: Less is More

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L3 Week 15 – Odious Comparison

Sorry about the lateness of the post – I stayed up late last night finishing my latest book and so put off writing this.

One of the things I noticed recently was that I’m constantly comparing myself to how I was doing back when I first started dieting. So I finally gave in and added a comparison graph tab to my spreadsheet. Basically I took my stats from the first year of Lesamy and lined them up with my current efforts. By ‘lined up’ I mean I chose week 3 of Lesamy to be the equivalent of week 1 of L3 as that was the closest to my start weight this time around. Long story short, I’m doing a little less well (39lbs vs 44lbs) but close enough for it not to be a big deal (so I can stop worrying about it and obsess over something else!)

The other thing that came out of this was to fix in my mind the number 231 – which is not quite my lowest ever[1] that would be 226 – but it’s a low that I reached a couple of times and hovered around during summer 2009. Once I’m back in the 230s I’ll feel like I’ve really made up the ground I lost. And, that’s now nearer than my start point.

A big loss this week. Below 19st – yay! A fair bit was dehydration though – very hot yesterday. I’ve got a weekend away this coming Friday so I’ll be happy to stay level next week.

Lost: 4.2lbs
Lost so far: 39.2lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 2.6lbs
Weight: 265lbs (18st 13lbs)

[1]by “ever” I mean since I started dieting/post-2000. In 2000 I was ~17st (=238) and I was only ever going up until I started Lesamy in Sep 2008.

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L3 Week 14 – Back on Track (I Think!)

So my goal for next week – whether I lose weight or not – is to keep to the diet every day.

Weeeellll. I sort of did this. I had what would have been, any other week, a perfectly fine week. I stuck to my diet every day apart from Friday when we went to the pub for lunch (Fish and Chips and beer) and it was raining too hard for me to do my evening walk. I thought about the stepper – and the thought was something like, “God no, not the stepper!”. But apart from that I’ve been good.

The numbers seem to reflect that. In fact I’ve got a pretty respectable two-week average. Which me being me make me suspicious about the scales. But I’ll take the new low figure and change the battery in time for next week.

Lost: 3.8lbs
Lost so far: 35lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 2.5lbs
Weight: 269.2lbs (19st 3lbs)

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L3 Week 13 – It’s Not the Numbers

So, I was all prepared to be explaining a significant gain this week. But, whilst there’s a gain, it’s small. So I think I’ll keep this post short.

However you can safely assume from that that I didn’t exactly follow my diet to the letter last week. In fact far from it. And whilst I’m relieved at the small increase and will probably back to losing by next monday, I am more concerned about getting and staying back on track. So my goal for next week – whether I lose weight or not – is to keep to the diet every day.

Sometimes it’s not about the numbers, it’s about not losing the discipline or, when you inevitably do, about regaining it.

Lost: -0.8lbs
Lost so far: 31.2lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 2.4lbs
Weight: 273lbs (19st 7lbs)

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L3 Week 12 – Do NOT Try This At Home

Here’s an interesting and unorthodox way to lose weight:

  • Mon-Thu follow diet and exercise regime as normal
  • Fri – go out for lunch with big boss over from America. Since this is likely to be a big deal count it as a freebie.
  • Since it turns out not to be such a big deal and you somehow feel short-changed, extend the freebie to the evening. Eat and drink too much.
  • Sat – you’re now hung-over so don’t bother with any exercise and comfort-eat even more once you get to the part of the day where you can actually face food.
  • Sun – weigh yourself first thing to discover you’re 5 pounds up. No big surprise really. However – and this is really the key part of the whole plan – now you get sick with some flu-like virus which means you spend 80% of the day in bed and eat almost nothing.
  • Sun/Mon – fail to sleep but do lose a good amount of water through sweat.
  • Mon – wake up, weigh yourself to discover…

Lost: 1.2lbs
Lost so far: 32lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 2.7lbs
Weight: 272.2lbs (19st 6lbs)

However I was not kidding with the title – this is not how to lose weight. I’d much rather be writing about how I need to knuckle down and lose the pounds I put on due to a bad weekend and not (still) be feeling a bit rough right now.


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L3 Week 11 – One Week=One Meal=Two Hours=One Pound

So last week I only lost 0.6lbs and was a bit down about it. However I knew it was just a blip and partly to do with timing and so on (both the day before and after I’d had weighings significantly less).

However yesterday I was faced with a dilemma. I haven’t had a freebie since my birthday which is over a month ago and co-incidentally the same time I last saw M. And she’s going on holiday at the end of this week for two weeks. So the question was whether to meet up and when, and the best day was looking like yesterday. But that would imply a freebie the day before I weigh myself. I had a few choices

  • weigh myself yesterday (before going) and count that (Sunday is the new Monday)
  • put it off until another night, possibly after M.’s holiday.
  • go, weigh myself today as normal and just go with it on the basis it’s a long game, it’s just a number etc

I wasn’t really too happy either of the first options. The whole point of a meal out with M. being a freebie is that I don’t want people around me to have to change their behaviour to accommodate me. By switching to a less convenient day aren’t I doing that anyway? Plus it is just a number in what I know is a downward trend. And a freebie at this stage is reasonable.

So enter secret option number 4 – part a. I weigh myself yesterday, not to have it replace today’s reading but just so I can say (to myself and on here) “well maybe I put on weight but that’s just the freebie”. So I did and yesterday’s weighing was 273.4.

Anyway I went, met M., ate, drank and had a lovely time[*] and that was that. Weighed myself this morning expecting/fearing that I’d put on a little – 274.4lbs – i.e. last week’s number!

But of course whilst that could be my official weighing as it was today, usually I take the reading after my walk. Secret option number 4 part b – which I only just came up with half-way through the meal last night was to extend my normal walk a bit, just to make extra sure that I pushed that number down a bit. And sure enough at the end of my walk I was 273.4lbs.

So what have I learned? That I can put on in a single meal what I lose in a week’s sticking to the diet (scary, though I think I already knew that really), and that I can lose it all again with two hours of exercise. And that all this is just 1lb. I need another 49 of them to reach my (first) goal.

Mostly it just re-inforces what I knew which is that sometimes the timing throws out the numbers but so long as the trend is still down, take the long view.

Lost: 1lbs
Lost so far: 30.8lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 2.8lbs
Weight: 273.4lbs (19st 7lbs)



[*]and not (just) because of food and drink. It was nice to see M.

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diet L3 lesamy Less is More

L3 Week 10 – Only A Little Down

I’ve played on the double meaning of ‘down’ before now but well it’s appropriate again.

I’ve had various thoughts throughout the week about what  might write about, mostly to do with the fact that it’s getting tougher again. However I fully expected to be another ~2lbs down to cap it off and as you can see I’m not.

However one of the things I have been inspired by this bloke is the fact that it really does vary and there are plateaus and bounces back up even when you are sticking to the diet pretty well. So in that context a little is better than nothing when the direction is still down.

Lost: 0.6lbs
Lost so far: 29.8lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 2.98lbs
Weight: 274.4lbs (19st 8lbs)


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L3 Week 9 – A New Phone and A New Milestone

OK so the phone thing is only just barely related to L3 but it’s hard coming up with titles so give me a break huh?

Ahem.

I just bought a new phone. It’s a rather snazzy android smart phone and I could go on about how wonderful it is quite a lot. I could, but I won’t. However what I will do is talk briefly about a cool app I installed which I can use to track my weight, my eating, and my walks. OK so I have my spreadsheet for the first, my whiteboard on the fridge door for the second but the third…

This app (Nooma) uses the phone’s GPS to track how far I’ve gone and plots it on a (google) map. It uses the phone’s motion sensor thingy as a kind of pedometer to measure my steps. And it will audibly tell me at regular intervals how far I’ve gone, what my average speed is and how many calories I’ve burned. I love it. Though I had to change the default interval from 1min. I did an hour’s walk yesterday and it was quite distracting having my podcasts etc interrupted quite so frequently.

The measuring of the eating thing is interesting. It uses a system where you categorize foods into green, yellow and red based on types of food and you can then add items in various sizes which account for a number of calories. So your lunch might be 2 medium yellows and a small green. It’s a way of keeping a rough calorie count, together with some idea of balance, without adding up everything – which is obviously what I do now. I like the concept but I don’t trust myself on it yet. I can convince myself that that sandwich was a medium not a large or whatever but I can’t argue with the calorie count calculated (by me) from the bread and meat and so on. But maybe when I reach maintenance…

OK so the milestone was 2 stone lost. I’ve been anticipating this for a couple of weeks and so it feels both good to get here and (slightly) like it’s been a while coming. Relief rather than outright joy. Which is probably unfair on myself since it’s only been 9 weeks (and 8 if you ignore my initial week of no loss).

I guess it feels like I should be further along. Part of that has to do with one of my computers. A password on there (to be changed once I post this!) is “fourstone” to commemorate that particular loss during Lesamy. I had to type it a few times the other day and it irked me to realise I wasn’t even half that yet and it already feels like, well not like things are slowing but that the challenge is setting in.

However updating my spreadsheet today I noticed that whilst I am down 2st on the start of L3 I am actually 3st down on my initial weight for Lesamy. So actually I’m a lot further forward – in only 9 weeks – than I have any right at all to complain of. So good for me!

Lost: 2.4lbs
Lost so far: 29.2lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 3.24lbs
Weight: 275lbs (19st 9lbs)


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L3 Week 8 – The Tragedy of the Disappointing Cup-cake

I have to admit I was nervous about Monday’s weigh-in. You see I was going out in the evening for a couple of beers with some guys from work. I wasn’t worried about that per se. I figured I deserved a freebie and I knew I would re-lose any gain before next Monday. But why did it have to be a Monday? (Because someone who now mostly works from home was in the office) It meant I wouldn’t have the chance to weigh myself after my walk and before my meal. And although I will take any weighing from the day as the ‘official’ one, that is usually the low point and it can be as much as a pound or more lighter.

Fortunately when I weighed myself in the morning I was at a very respectable – actually virtually indecent 😉 – loss of 4lbs. So I no longer worried about the evening and didn’t plan to weigh myself again at all. So when, going for my regular afternoon coffee only to find the canteen was out of power, I decided that I therefore had some calories in hand and could afford to start my freebie early anyhow.

Which is a long introduction to the fact that I had a cupcake. And it was ok. Just ok. The frosting was nice but the cake itself was a bit dry. And despite the hyperbole of my title this is not really a tragedy, but it is one of the frustrating things about being on a diet: that when you budget for, or allow yourself the indulgence of, a special treat, it better live up to that specialness. If it’s merely ordinarily nice, pleasant or just ok then it’s a bit disappointing.

Which actually I realised is all just a sign that food becomes too important when you’re dieting, even when you’re being successful. Or it can do. And that is a little disappointing. But it also spurs me to try harder. One day I will shrug off my disappointing cupcake as easily as I denied myself it in the days and weeks leading up to it. Then I’ll know I’m in this for the long haul.

For the record the rest of the freebie  I drank a little too much and ate more than I intended – even for a freebie. And the fish and chips were nice but probably not nice enough if you know what I mean. Especially since I seem to be struggling to get back down to where I was on Monday. Still half a week to go…

Lost: 4lbs
Lost so far: 26.8lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 3.35lbs
Weight: 277.4lbs (19st 11lbs)


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L3 Week 7 – Nothing then Something

I spent most of the week not seeing the scales drop. I suspect that’s largely because last week was such a large drop and part of it was dehydration – it being so hot then and it being cooler now. But also I guess it proves the thing about weighing yourself every day being potentially de-motivating due to the fluctuations.

In fact even this morning I was still at a point where I would have had a small increase. However due to my walk I did measure a loss in the end.

Lost: 1.8lbs
Lost so far: 22.8lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 3.26lbs
Weight: 281.4lbs (20st 1lbs)


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L3 Week 6 – A Night Out and No Blip

It was my birthday on Friday and went out for a meal with M. We went to a chinese buffet place I like and I had 3 plates worth and 3 beers. Also, although I walked to and from the station (equivalent to my lunchtime walk when I’m at work) I didn’t take an exercise walk per se.

Despite this, I still lost a lot of weight this week. So much so that I wondered about my scales again. But I tested them against other scales and they seem fine. Also it’s been really hot this week-end. I suspect a lot of this loss is dehydration. Something I am remedying by drinking more. But not beer, or sugary drinks. Strictly diet squash.

Lost: 5lbs
Lost so far: 21lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 3.5lbs
Weight: 283.2lbs (20st 3lbs)