Tag: dieting

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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)


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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)


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Less is More

Less is More Week 16 – Grumpy on the Knife-Edge

Lost: 0lbs
Lost so far: 34.1lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 2.1lbs
Weight: 260.6lbs (18st 8lb)

I’ve spent most of the last 2-3days feeling very grumpy because pre-official weighing suggested that I would put on weight. Given that I’ve stayed as I was I’m mildly relieved and less grumpy – but I’d already thought up the title and liked it.

The reason behind these numbers isn’t a complete surprise to me. Friday night I had a pizza and a bottle of wine, after having been to the pub Friday lunch-time. Also on Saturday whilst I stuck to my calorie limit I didn’t do my walk – which is equivalent to another 800calories.

So if I had splurged in this way I shouldn’t be surprised and grumpy right? Well yes, except that in the past I have gotten away with more and still lost weight. But it’s not even that, it’s the fact that it feels like I can’t even have one day off without it having an impact. Imagine I’ve hit my target, imagine that I’m trying to maintain that weight – then this week’s result is telling me that I can at most afford to let my resistance slip for a few hours or the odd meal. That I must keep up the exercise and diet at a similar level.

Actually if I was at that level I would probably allow myself to go a pound or three up before I started to worry. Although what it does remind me is what a knife-edge I’m on. The first few pounds will go back on as quickly and easily as the first few fall off.

Ultimately I kept going – forcing myself out for a walk on Sunday and keeping to the diet – because what’s the alternative? Even if I decide I don’t want to lose weight do I want to go back to growing ever larger and finding clothes hard to find? to getting out of breath walking up the stairs? No. And the effort in maintaining this weight is an awful lot like the effort needed to lose just a pound or so a week.

In any case, that’s what I’m currently telling myself. I hope it’s working.

This week I have a regular social event on Thursday which involves a take-away and beer. I shall indulge but with one eye slightly on the quantity. I shall also be aware that I shall need to get back on the diet straight away and that that ought to be enough time to allow for a small loss by next Monday. (One of the other things I keep telling myself is that I can ‘absorb’ a single night/day’s excess and still lose weight but there’s a timing element – Friday can be too close to Monday to make it back – I bet I’m down by tomorrow night.)

Anyway with that I’ll sign off. Not so grumpy as I could be.


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Less is More

Less is More Week 15 – Just the Stats

Lost: 2.8lbs
Lost so far: 34.1lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 2.3lbs
Weight: 260.6lbs (18st 8lb)

Can’t think of much to write tonight but I don’t want to leave it so just the stats. Fortunately they’re good 🙂


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Less is More

Less is More Week 14 (and 13) – in Which I Walk the Streets

Gained (week 13): 3lbs
Lost (week 14): 3.4lbs
Lost so far: 31.3lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 2.2lbs
Weight: 263.4lbs (18st 11lb)

So I had a bad week-end a week ago. And it’s the usual story – taken me another week to lose it back. I really need to stop doing that. It not only slows me down (not so bad actually) but it makes the motivation tougher – I have to work so hard, just to get back to where I was.

But you’ve heard that all before.

Tonight I walked the streets. Normally my exercise consists of walking laps (and other configurations) around the park. But it’s getting darker and I left work fairly late, so I walked the streets instead. I prefer to do this at this time of year because it’s better-lit and I don’t look like a crazy person – I could just be someone on my way home – unless you follow me and notice that I walk so far, turn around and then walk home.

This is only slightly spoiled by the fact that this is the route I used a lot early this year – Jan, Feb time – i.e. the tail end of Lesamy i.e. when I was losing one week only to re-gain the next – and so on. Thing is, my original “streets” walk is a little impractical, well long, given that I work further away from home (but not far enough that that itself is my walk).

Maybe I need a new route. Or I could use the stepper. Urgh! the stepper!! no.

We’ll see.


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Less is More

Less is More Week 11 – Almost

Lost: 2.4lbs
Lost so far: 28.3lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 2.6lbs
Weight: 266.4lbs (19st)

So almost but not quite under the 19st barrier. Still 2st in 11weeks is still good going. Remember that target for the year is 5st so I’m 2/5ths of the way there with about 1/5th of the time gone.


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Less is More

Less is More Week 10 – Not So Bony

Lost: 1.8lbs
Lost so far: 25.9lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 2.6lbs
Weight: 268.8lbs (19st 3lbs)

1.8lbs is a nice respectable loss but I have to admit it feels a little low at the moment. Mind you I wonder if there’s some carry over from last week in there, and if there is maybe next week will reflect some of this week’s hard work.

Whatever. It’s going in the right direction and I’m still ahead of schedule.

Last time I was at this weight I was complaining about “my bony ass” – not something I have a problem with at the moment. I wonder if that’s to do with the fact that I’m not doing the morning sit-ups I was doing last time around. At some point I think I will resume those but not just yet.


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Less is More

Less is More Week 9 – Pushing Too Hard?

Lost: 4.4lbs
Lost so far: 24.1lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 2.7lbs
Weight: 271lbs (19st 5lbs)

Well, I lost back all I’d gained plus a little more. Still I had to push myself quite hard to achieve that. Maybe next time I’ll try to not put it on in the first place!


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Less is More

Less is More Week 8 – Not Too Bad

Lost: –3lbs
Lost so far: 19.7lbs
Average Weekly Loss: 2.5lbs
Weight: 275lbs (19st 9lbs)

So, a gain. A not unexpected gain but one which was not as bad as I feared. Which in itself is both good and bad. Good for keeping the motivation going but bad in that I’m thinking in terms of a gain being acceptable this early on.

I’m 8 weeks in. By comparison, 8 weeks into Lesamy I’d lost 34lbs and never gained. Or if you take a start point of a similar weight (week 4) I lost 26lbs without any gain ‘blips’. Actually 26lbs down is about where I’d be if I’d stayed level the two times I’ve put on weight (though of course we know that some of the subsequent loss is losing that ‘new weight’ – easy on/easy off in a way at this stage).

So reasons to see good and bad. I’m a glass-half-empty kinda guy but I must be holding on to some good or my glass would be full of something not conducive to this whole exercise.

I thought about this a little today. To do this, to keep going, you have to have some sort of inner core of will power. Something you focus on. Something you tell yourself when you want to give in. Last time it was the idea, somewhat vague, that things would be ‘better’ when I reached my target. I’d be fitter, healthier, better looking and people would like me more. It was sort of true (people respond positively to what they see as a positive change with encouragement and that feels like they like me more for being thinner even if it’s not that simple in practice). The thing that caused the metaphorical glass to shatter on that illusion was when I realised that I was almost certainly going to have ‘loose skin’. Suddenly the secret dreams of being “better looking” seemed false.

After this, I’m naturally nervous about the fact that I’ve started the process again and I don’t seem to have the same level of drive/motivation. I seem to have simply decided to start again, what, if anything is my ‘core’ this time? I guess it’s this: that if I don’t move forward I will slip backwards. And quickly. The time it took to regain the weight (not all but most) was scarily fast. More importantly I was soon back noticing the same thing that started me off the first time (which I sort of lost sight of with all my dreams of youth and beauty), the thing that has become not the core itself but my slogan for it:

If don’t keep going I’ll soon be back at the place where I’m out of breath climbing the stairs.


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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’.