Tag: dieting

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Lesamy Week 42 – A Pause

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Even before the recent “plateau-ing” of my weight-loss (which is really an indication of my ambivalence about going further). As the reality of “loose skin” becomes more and more apparent – i.e. visible – I get more and more nervous about ending up with lots of it. The answer I think is to slow down, to give my body time to adjust to being 85lbs lighter than it was. Give the skin time to firm up and shrink back.

So I’ve being toying with the idea of a “pause” – stopping losing weight but maintaining what I’ve got for a while, probably several months. I was going to post a long discussion of the pros and cons but then I weighed myself and discovered that I’ve put weight on again, due probably to a fairly calorie-full weekend, itself due to mixed feelings over the whole loose skin issue.

So I’ve decided to do it. Or to plan to do it. And here’s the plan.

It’s week 42 and I weigh 16st 7lb. In 10 weeks it’ll be 1 year since I started and I should be under 16st by then. That seems to me a good point to start maintaining at. From then on I’ll aim to keep my weight under 16st but not really reduce it. How long? Well at least until Christmas and after that maybe a bit longer too.

In case anyone thinks this is the easy way out “pausing” is not giving up. Not when the whole point is to try to firm up what’s there. I’ll need to keep the exercise going – especially the sit-ups and so on – and I’ll need to still be watching what I eat. I’ll be allowed a little more but I won’t just be able to not care at all what and how much I eat. And I’ll need to do all that without the satisfaction of seeing those numbers steadily fall. I’ll also have to cope with people thinking I’ve quit when they won’t know the real reason.

But I think I can do that. I want to do that. As this weekend has reminded me I actually don’t really enjoy eating loads and loads any more, I get full and feel uncomfortable. And I’d much rather be a fit, but “fat” guy than a “slim” one covering up folds and folds of loose skin.

Weekly loss: -0.5kg (-1.1lb)
Total loss: 39.3kg (86.6lb or 6st 2lb)
To target: 28.6kg (63lb or 4st 7lb)
Current weight: 104.8kg (231lb or 16st 7lb)


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reviews

Lesamy Week 41 – The Week After Effect

This week I think I’m suffering from what I’m calling “the week after effect”. I’ve noticed in the last few months that often now my body reacts to what I do about a week later. So last week’s dramatic loss came on the heels of a weekend away and associated calories (although I was a lot less binge-y than I could have been).

This week – where I have had a week sticking to the diet – I lost less than a pound.

I think this effect is partly because I tend to have my freebies etc at weekends and since my weighing day is Monday it often hasn’t had time to ‘settle’ as it were. Also I think, in terms of loss not showing up as quickly, there’s an issue to do with how frequently I visit the loo. Without going into TMI it’s less often when I’m sticking to the diet and so it can seem like I’m putting on weight because I haven’t yet… well you get the idea (and if not I really don’t intend to spell it out).

So given that I’ve had a good week I fully expect to reap the benefit next week.

Weekly loss: 0.3kg (0.7lb)
Total loss: 39.8kg (87.7lb or 6st 4lb)
To target: 28.1kg (61.9lb or 4st 5lb)
Current weight: 104.3kg (229lb or 16st 5lb)


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lesamy

Lesamy Week 40 – My Mam’s Bragging About Me

Last night my mam asked me if I’d send her some “before and after” type pictures so she could show them to some relatives that are coming over at the weekend. She wants to show them how well I’m doing. I’m quite touched and flattered by that.

It’s been a better week (actually having lost weight again). I hope I can keep it up this time.

Weekly loss: 1.9kg (4.2lb)
Total loss: 39.5kg (87.1lb or 6st 3lb)
To target: 28.4kg (62.6lb or 4st 6lb)
Current weight: 104.6kg (230lb or 16st 6lb)


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lesamy

Lesamy 39 – Another Bad Week

Another bad week – actually a week off the diet in effect because I started with 3 days of freebies (a work conference) then had a stressful couple of days that I took out on alcohol and food, then got ill and then it was the weekend…

Anyway I’m back on the horse again now and glad that I only put on a relatively small amount. Probably means there will be some carry over until next week.

Weekly loss: -0.7kg (-1.5lb)
Total loss: 37.6kg (82.9lb or 5st 13lb)
To target: 30.3kg (66.8lb or 4st 10lb)
Current weight: 106.5kg (234lb or 16st 10lb)


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lesamy

Lesamy Week 38 – Go Back 3 Spaces…

…and by ‘spaces’ I really mean weeks (it’s a board game reference I guess).

After last week’s mega-loss I put it all back on and a bit more. Not really sure how. I know that yesterday I binged but that was partly a consequence of see my weight go up all week even though I was sticking to the diet. Maybe that is finally a case for not weighing myself every day.

Anyway let’s keep this short but bitter. Here’s the numbers:

Weekly loss: -2.9kg (-6.4lb)
Total loss: 38.3kg (84.4lb or 6st)
To target: 29.6kg (65.2lb or 4st 9lb)
Current weight: 105.8kg (233lb or 16st 9lb)


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lesamy

Lesamy Week 37 – Old New Clothes

I had a bit of a weird experience yesterday. A couple of weeks ago I did a lot of laundry. I washed virtually everything I own. And yesterday I finally sorted through it (except stuff I’d worn in the meantime which was waiting to be washed again naturally). I sorted through it with the intention of collecting together stuff I was ready to throw out/give to the charity shop.

A couple of things will explain why this weird.

Over the years as I slowly put on weight I gradually wore less nice clothes. I am not exactly blessed with a keen fashion sense anyway but the bigger I got the harder I found it to find stuff I wanted to wear. After a while I was almost just happy to find anything in my size. I used to hate clothes shopping because I found it so humiliating. Then one day, like a revelation, it hit me – the internet. Surely there were “big and tall” shops online? D’oh! Why hadn’t I thought of that before? It killed two birds with one stone – actual choice in my size and not having to go to a real bricks and mortar shop (with flesh and blood assistants).

Of course there were – though some that claim to be “big and tall” are pretty short and narrow on choice themselves. Even so I discovered a few key places and used my credit card freely to buy some boring conservative clothes in dark colours – but nicely made and tha fit me well. It was quite a confidence boost in a way I hadn’t realised I’d been missing.

That was only a few months before I started dieting. Most of the clothes from that era fit me at my biggest. When I started dieting I deliberately didn’t buy any new clothes at first, and when I pretty much had to I bought cheapish ones figuring I’d grow out of them pretty quickly. It seemed like a waste to spend loads on clothes I’d be too small for in a couple of months. (I’ve gone from a 48in down to a 38in waist in the last 7 months and have had trousers at both those and every size in between.) I always thought a clothes shopping expedition would be part of celebrating hitting my target.

Put this together and what do you have? It means most of my nicer clothes are big and the ones that still fit me are either old and a bit crappy (when I was in that getting-bigger-who-cares phase) or newer and cheap.

So what I thought would feel good – the tangible evidence of so much progress – was at the same time a little sad – giving away clothes that I liked and made me feel good about myself when I’d needed to.

So it was a bit weird.

I think I need to go shopping – buy the odd thing or two that I really like. Even if I won’t be able to wear it for long – who cares? I deserve it.

Oh yeah – numbers –

Weekly loss: 2.2kg (4.9lb)
Total loss: 41.2kg (90.8lb or 6st 7lb)
To target: 26.7kg (58.9lb or 4st 2lb)
Current weight: 102.9kg (226lb or 16st 2lb)

Big drop huh? Am I concerned? Worried about loose skin? A little. But I started morning exercises again today – sit-ups, press-ups and now toe-touching too – designed to at least give that area a bit of stretching. The loss over the last two weeks is about 2.5lb/week so that’s not too bad. I’m keeping an eye on it. I’m reducing my evening walk a little – trying to keep it to an hour – so hopefully that’ll allow me to ease back a little.

To be honest though – I quite like the fact that I’ve had a big loss. Overall I’ve been slowing and this puts me back on track for a before-Christmas hitting of target.


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lesamy

Lesamy Week 36 – A Weekend of Sin versus Loose Skin

I’m going to try to be brief because I’ve got better things to be blogging about tonight and I’d really like to get to them. So…

It’s been another long weekend and a wild weekend, a weekend of “sin”[*] if you will. So another week of losing only a small token amount. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I feel a bit disappointed with myself. I feel like I’ve put back my reaching my target by a week etc. On the other, I feel like part of me wanted to slow down a bit.

Why? Well last week – week 35 – I lost 3.3 lbs, and I know from my daily weighing that up until thursday I was on track for even more this week. And that’s quite a lot, more than the 1-2lbs a week that is supposed to be for the best. And part of the reason I feel this is that I’ve started to notice some floppy flabby bits at my sides. They are, or will become, what is euphemistically called ‘loose skin’ – i.e. rolls of fat.

I’ve always had a bit of paranoia about loose skin since I realised it was a possibility shortly after I started. It’s not a foregone conclusion and even if I develop some it can eventually shrink back over time. I think on balance I’d probably rather be 12stone with a bit of loose skin than 16 without. But I’d rather not have it if I can help it.

And about the only things I can do to help it are exercise – which I’ve not been doing, walking yes, sit-ups no – drinking plenty of water possibly and slowing the rate to the mythical 1-2/lbs a week.

Which is possibly why the mixed feelings. Anyway, even if I do deliberately choose to slow down I think I ought to try to avoid the binge and fast method.

Weekly loss: 0.2kg (0.4lb)
Total loss: 39kg (86lb or 6st 2lb)
To target: 28.9kg (63.7lb or 4st 7lb)
Current weight: 105.1kg (231lb or 16st 7lb)


[*]about that title. It wasn’t really a weekend of sin. It wasn’t even really “sin”. I’ve always, quite deliberately, avoided using negative terms for eating too much. I prefer to talk of “freebies” and going over my “budget” of calories. Eating chocolate isn’t wrong any more than owning a nice car is wrong – but it may happen to be more than I can afford right now. Or I may prefer to spend my money on other things. Anyway I don’t really think eating too much is “sin”, but I couldn’t resist the title once I’d thought of it

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lesamy

Lesamy Week 35 – At Last

So I finally hit 6 stone total loss. I feel like I’ve been on the verge of this for weeks so it’s good to finally get there. And in fact it’s been better than just that milestone, good as that is, I’ve also had a good week’s loss as you can see from below. I feel like I’m back on track.

I guess what did it was that I had – for the first time in ages – a week without freebies. I didn’t plan it that way really, I had tried to be stricter with the diet but I was also totally up for the pub friday lunchtime – but in the end I had too much work to go.

So what have we learnt? Weeks of slackness and too many freebies=little or no loss, a week of sticking to the diet = significant loss. So nothing we didn’t already know. It’s easy to get to this stage and think that things are slowing down because that’s the way it works – but if I go to the pub every week and have other freebies on top then of course I’m going to find it difficult to lose weight. It’s not rocket science.

Anyway here are some numbers:

Weekly loss: 1.5kg (3.3lb)
Total loss: 38.8kg (85.5lb or 6st 1lb)
To target: 29.1kg (64.1lb or 4st 8lb)
Current weight: 105.3kg (232lb or 16st 8lb)


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lesamy

Lesamy 34 Errata

As the observant will have noticed, 3+3+5+5+8+12=36 not 34. So it’s actually 10 weeks and counting not 12. Still the point about things slowing down stands, but it’s not quite as bad as it seems.

While we’re at it I’ve been thinking about a couple of other points:

Exercise – the ‘received’ wisdom is that exercise doesn’t contribute much to the weight-loss. I think this is a case where a wrong perception has swung too far the other way. I was looking at my spreadsheet and discovered that since I started this exercise has accounted for about 29lbs, i.e. 2 of the nearly 6 stone I’ve lost. This comes with the usual caveats about the accuracy of calorie counts on pedometer etc, but still…

Targets – I’ve been thinking more about 14stone as a target. I’m 39lbs away from that and there’s about 20 weeks until the end of Sept – which would be (roughly) the year mark. So even if it’s not my final target, a target of 14stone would be something good to focus on because it should happen this year. At 2lb/week I might even get there around the time of my one year anniversary – though I’m nervous of making it a time-and-weight target as that might be too much pressure.

And we can just see what 14stone looks and feels like. Of course part of the reason I’ve gone for 12 is that that’s what I need to get to to have a “normal” rather than “overweight” BMI. But then that’s BMI for you…

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lesamy

Lesamy Week 34 – No Change, Slow Change

So this ‘rebooted’ thing doesn’t seem to be working.  I had another ‘slack/wild/reckless/whatever’ weekend. After a pretty good week – meaning that overall I lost nothing and gained nothing this week. So I’m not going to do all the stats again – scroll down to Lesamy 33 if you want them.

And of course, as I’ve said before, the worst thing about that is that it just pushes back targets further and further. I seem to have been at nearly 6 stone total loss for weeks. I also made the mistake of calculating when I’d hit 12stone and it’s now looking like Feb ’10.

OK so I just (now) calculated how long each stone took to lose – 3 weeks each for the first 2, 5 weeks each for the next 2, 8 weeks for stone 5 and 12 weeks (so far!) for stone 6.

*sigh*

But the thing is it’s not really that the rate of loss has fallen per se, not when I stick to the diet. It’s that the number of slip-ups and over the top freebies and so on have increased. So if I’m going to keep this going and maintain 1-2lbs/week for the next 8-9 months then I really need to re-boot the reboot.

Mind you, I have wondered about my goal of 12 stone. Today I talked with a guy at work who’s been on a diet the last few weeks to lose a few extra pounds. He’s down to 12 stone he tells me. And he doesn’t really look overweight, slightest of slight potbellies perhaps. Thing is he’s probably 6 inches shorter than me and not a broad. So if that’s how 12 stone looks on his frame on me perhaps it’d be too skinny? I dunno I was 12 stone once and I thought I was overweight at the time.

Maybe I’ll see how I look/feel at 14stone. Which will still be some time off.