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Lesamy Week 23 – The Cost of Freebies

So after last week’s ‘tough week’ this was supposed to be the week where I knuckled down again and started making more serious progress to the next milestone.

Yeah right, erm, ok.

When I first started Lesamy you’ll recall that one of the ‘rules’ was that I am allowed a ‘cheat day’ once a week of upto 2300 calories instead of my normal 1800. I’ve never really done this. What I did instead was invent the ‘freebie’. A freebie is a day, an evening or occasionally a weekend when I stop counting calories. During a ‘freebie’ I can eat and drink what I like and it doesn’t count.

I started this because early on I went to spend a weekend with M. and I wanted to relax and I also didn’t want her to feel like she suddenly had to change her eating habits because I was with her. I told myself I’d still eat sensibly – not have snacks, watch portion size that kind of thing – but I was consciously not going to count calories.

It’s a strategy that’s worked well. Partly because it gives me the regular ‘treating myself’ times that a cheat day was supposed to achieve. However mostly I think because in the early days I could have a freebie and still lose weight. That’s getting tougher.

It’s getting tougher because I’m losing less on average generally so there’s less slack in there, but also because the freebies are getting bigger. That ‘…but still eat sensibly’ bit has gotten a bit squeezed out.

This week for instance I’ve had two freebies and they’ve both been quite big. I hope I’ve learnt from them and will try not to repeat the mistakes.

Freebie 1 was on Wednesday when I finished my final story for Eurofiction. As a celebration I took a freebie. I deliberately went and bought some of the kinds of thing I used to eat a while back – real junk food – microwaveable burgers, pork pie, sausage roll. You know what? I didn’t enjoy them. Too greasy and too much.

Freebie 2 was on Friday when I went to the pub at lunchtime. Normally I try to only have 1 freebie a week but when I get invited to the pub I like to go because it’s social. Unfortunately alcohol is a danger because not only is it calorfiic but it lowers your defences. It had been someone’s birthday and they’d bought donuts – too many donuts as it turned out. So when I got back to the office, a little merry, and saw they were there I had about four. Apart from anything else it made me ill to have so much sickly sugary stuff.

Actually I used to do ok with the pub visits and I can’t help wondering if it’s because of my lunches. It used to be the case that I bought my lunch in town. A fairly low-cal sandwich and baked crisps. However on days where I got an invite to the pub it was invariably too late to buy something so I’d go, eat a pub lunch -usually something with chips – and have a couple of beers. I’d feel guilty but write it off as a freebie.

Since we moved to the new office it’s too far to go into town and I’ve been bringing packed lunches. Which is better but if we go to the pub then I’m drinking on a much less full stomach which means I’m liable to go for snacks on the way back – such as the donuts in this case. So ironically – I might be better off having a plate of chips at the pub.

I make it sound like I go to the pub a lot – actually it’s once or twice a month at most – but I do need to be careful.

Anyway I think I need to reign in the freebies – stick to one a week and remember they’re not supposed to be free-for-alls.

Here’s  my stats for this week:

Weekly loss: 0.2kg (0.4lb)
Total loss: 30.3kg (66.8lb or 4st 10lb)
Current weight: 113.8kg (250lb or 17st 12lb)


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Lesamy Week 21 – Not Giving Up (yet)

TV Program + Blog = Thoughtful

This has been an interesting week. This week I watched a TV program called “Why Thin People Aren’t Fat?” and I read a blog on something called ‘Fat Acceptance’.

This has made me think, which is almost never a good thing.

OK in order to write about this I need to try to sum up what I got from these sources of ideas, otherwise I’ll be here all night. Here goes:

Dieting is bad

OK no, that’s not it. Or it’s only a small part of it. Let me try again.

First the TV program. This was a Horizon program from the BBC. For those that don’t know this means it’s a fairly serious, if populist, science program. They repeated a little-know experiment which showed that some thin people almost literally can’t get fat. What I got from this show was:

  • your body has a kind of built-in notion of how heavy it thinks you should be
  • it (your body) tries to maintain this weight
  • so if you’re “meant” to be fat you probably will be
  • and you’ll struggle to lose weight and put it back on easily
  • which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try but be realistic:

What may be depressing for many people who are overweight [is] to know that a large amount of weight-loss is very difficult to maintain in the long term. However we know that small amounts of weight-loss will make you healthier and actually is much easier to maintain.

Dr Carel le Roux, Imperial College London.

There was lots more than that but that’s the gist of what I got from it.

Now the blog. This is more political. I only read a few recent posts and some with intriguing titles. But what I gained from this was:

  • dieting really is bad
  • because it sets unrealistic expectations
  • and because it rarely works, certainly not long-term
  • i.e. 95% of dieters don’t keep off the weight
  • of the 5% remaining the majority end up working in fitness, gyms, personal training etc
  • i.e. it becomes a full time job keeping the weight off
  • we should rebel against unrealistic images and expectations
  • in particular BMI is a load of rubbish
  • you can be healthy without being thin
  • in fact it’s probably healthier than dieting
  • in case I forgot to mention it dieting is bad

Now all this very interesting and some of it is new to me so it certainly made me question what I’m doing. And that made me a little sad.

Why? Because regardless of whether it’s doing me any good or not the sense of achievement, the satisfaction I’ve gained from actually sticking to something and seeing results has been great. But now there’s reason to believe that I’ll probably find it impossible to maintain and if I do it’ll be like a fulltime job and I’ll constantly feel hungry (one study showed that obese people on a “maintenance diet” still felt hungry all the time).

So am I right to worry or is this typical Shuggie paranoia?

What’s Good About What I’m Doing

Well the good news is that I am already doing some good things. The essence of HAES is eating well, taking exercise and self-acceptance. Well I certainly eat better than I did and I do lots of exercise. More than I did and more than I need simply to lose weight (see below). As for self-acceptance well yes and no. But that’s a bigger issue than just my weight, though I have got sucked into thinking how nice it would be to be “thin” again.

So…

Reasons Not to Quit Lesamy

The first is this “natural weight” thing. How do you know what it is? In the program they said most adults gain only around 20-30lbs across their entire adult lives. At 18 I was 10 1/2 stone, a few months ago (41) I was 22 1/2. That’s a little more than 30lbs. In other words I wasn’t maintaining some natural weight I was getting bigger and that’s not good.

So maybe I do have a natural weight, and maybe it’ll still be fat by everyday standards. But if I’m doing exercise and not eating crap and generally being reasonably healthy then I’ll be ok with that. I’ll have to give up the dream of being thin but I’ve been fat my whole adult life, I think I’ll cope.

I Haven’t Stopped Yo-ing Yet

One thing all this reminded me which I pretty much have known for years is that yo-yo dieting is worse for you than not dieting at all. But I’m not yo-yoing yet. I’m still on the way down. Maybe I will be one of the 95% but maybe not. If I’d had to predict it I would have say that I would never have got this far. I would have said that I would have lost a few pounds , maybe even a stone or more, but put most of it back on again, and so on, a few times by now. So maybe, just maybe, I’m capable of keeping at least some of this off.

And you know what? If not. If I go back up then I’ll just keep up the exercise and healthy eating and call it a win.

Maintenance

But I honestly think I can maintain it.

Why? Because I haven’t been hungry all the time. Despite surviving on 1800 calories a day I’ve felt ok most of the time. If I had to live on this regime the rest of my life, I could. I’d rather have a few more treats every now and then, but it’s not like I’m even missing those completely. Plus that’s a diet based on losing weight. My plan to maintain it will allow me a few more calories and at least one “day off” per week.

Conclusion

So to conclude. I’ve had a lot to think about but that’s actually good. It’s made me really think about what I’m doing and look at my motives and confirm what’s good about it. There’s a lot in these sources I agree with, specifically,

  • need to be realistic, I may always be “fat”
  • remember healthy != thin and fat != unhealthy
  • BMI is dubious at best
  • acceptance is a good thing, self-acceptance particularly

However I don’t think that I’m actually endangering my health right now and the benefits in terms of self-esteem, accomplishment and yes, feeling fitter are real.

So I’m carrying on.

So Many Words – What About a Few Numbers?

OK so you’re bored rigid by now by my meandering thought processes (so why you reading my blog?), what about this week’s stats? Before I post them, a quick word about exercise.

End of last week I developed a large blister on my foot. Right between my big toe and the next one. It wasn’t painful but it made walking, even using the stepper, awkward. So on Tuesday I abandoned exercise for the week. I thought it would be a good experiment. Ever since I got my pedometer I’ve been aware that exercise doesn’t account for very much of my weight-loss, how much would I lose even without it? Here’s the answer:

Weekly loss: 2kg (4.4lb)
Total loss: 29.5kg (65lb or 4st 9lb)
Current weight: 114.6kg (252lb or 18st)

This is a number of milestones. I’m under 115kg, I’m 18stone even and I’ve now lost just over 20% of my original body weight.

So yes it’s mainly the diet and not the exercise that’s causing the weight-loss. Which in a weird way just re-inforces that I need to keep up the exercise because it’s that that’s doing me more good and it’s that that will keep me healthy if I do eventually yo back up.

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Lesamy Week 19

Weekly loss: -0.1kg (-0.2lb)
Total loss: 27.2kg (60lb or 4st 3lb)
Current weight: 116.9kg (257lb or 18st 5lb)

It’s been another week where I put on weight slightly. Although given that it’s only 100g (that’s a small glass of water) I’m seeing it as maintaining last week’s weight. Which I’m quite happy with because I had quite a big week from Tue-Fri. We were moving offices at work and I was helping out. This meant lots of extra hours, lots of lifting and carrying, but also ordering pizzas and a couple of pub lunches.  It also meant that I over-compensated because I knew I was doing lots more exercise (I could feel that as I flopped into bed exhausted). I had a bit of a pig-out on Thursday.

So all in all the fact that I managed to pull it back at the weekend means I’m not unhappy.


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Lesamy Week 13 – My Bony Ass

Since this week is not a SlingInk deadline week and in order to get ahead of the curve I thought I’d do a brief get-it-out-there blog post.

It’s traditional at this point to add some blather about the process of dieting/exercise itself before the big ‘reveal’ of the numbers. Well I don’t have a lot to blather about but just to add to my ‘shocking wrist fat loss’ theme of yesterday, I would just like to whinge say that I find it odd where my body decides to go for its missing calories. i.e. where it chooses to burn fat. My wrists I mentioned and I think my face (though is that just a decent haircut and a shave making me look tidier rather than thinner in the face?)

But one other, um, area, where I think I’ve noticed a change in my behind. Ok, now before you think that I literally must be disappearing up my own rear-end to have noticed this let me explain that the evidence is secondary and I’d quite happily be wrong. Thing is I’ve noticed lately that after sitting down (at work or at my desk at home, like now) for a while I start to feel like my bum is a little sore. It feels like the bones of my whatever-you-call (not the cocyx the other bits) are digging into the chair seat. Now I never noticed this before and my sitting habits haven’t changed all that much, so I conclude that whilst I’m still relatively heavy, but have lost some weight, if I’d lost some on my backside it would explain why my bony parts are pinning me to my chair.

Or it could just be lack of visible progress frustration mixed with my normal paranoia and hypochrondria.

Oh well, here’s the stats.

Weekly loss: 0.6kg (1.3lb)
Total loss: 21.8kg (48.1lb or 3st 6lb)
Current weight: 122.3kg (269lb or 19st 3lb)

I was expecting this to be honest. Last time I had a whole weekend off the clock the effects were carried over into the next week so I was partly expecting that this time. Also I had a lunchtime at the pub on Friday which was also off the clock. (I had virtually no evening meal to compensate but still, alcohol’s nearly pure calories you know.)

I’m not gutted, it’s still going down. The challenge is to make it through the next two weeks (Christmas work do this week and Christmas itself the next) without going up.

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Lesamy Week 12

Well once again the impact of a story due in for SlingInk meant that I didn’t update my blog.

It’s almost week 13 and it’s been a tough two weeks. I’ve had a few days when I went “off the clock” as far as calorie counting went. These were semi-deliberate and I did do something to pull it back – more exercise mostly – but it left me feeling that I’m vulnerable to temptation. My confident feelings that I can keep this up indefinitely have been shaken a little.

I’d still like to see more visible progress. I know, I know it’s there if you look for it, but you really have to look and most people don’t. And if you never met me before well, then I still look like a fat bloke. One weird, vaguely frustrating thing is that I’ve gone done a notch on my watch strap. Yes, I still have a big old belly but I’m losing that all important wrist fat!

Weekly loss: 1kg (2.2lb)
Total loss: 21.2kg (46.7lb or 3st 4lb)
Current weight: 122.9kg (270lb or 19st 4lb)

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Lesamy Week 11 – A Tale of Two Calorie-Counters

So this week the big news is I bought a stepper. It’s an exercise machine that you, er, step on. It’s got pedals and you sort of ‘walk’ on it against the resistance of these hydraulic rods.

Naturally it’s my new favourite toy.

Except that I have to be careful. As I said in a previous post, I’m really too heavy for it. Its stated maximum weight is 100kg and I still exceed that by nearly 25%. However my reasoning was thus:

  • It was cheap – £25.
  • As long as it didn’t break as soon as I got on it – and it didn’t – I can use it occasionally until I get closer to (then below) 100kg when I can use it more often.
  • This is fine since my main motivation was to get something I can use when the weather’s too foul to contemplate walking outside. (I have done at least one session walking around my bedroom. That was a little dull)

Like all these gadgets these days it’s got a calories-burned display (as well as steps done and time etc). And on Sunday, when the weather was in fact inclement I used it “in anger” for the first time. I decided to aim to match the calories burned on my usual weekend-day walk with is ~650 as measured by my trusty pedometer. However I soon downgraded this to 450 (a weekday amount) when I realised how difficult this was.

In the end I did 71 1/2 minutes of exercise over the course of an hour and a half (whilst watching Return of the Jedi) by which time I had allegedy used up the magic figure of 4-5-0. I say allegedly because I normally walk for ~63 minutes and do that much. So do I believe my pedometer or the stepper? Well I suspect my pedometer because it takes into account my weight whereas the stepper just (I think) measures the number of steps and probably has a set formula as to how many calories that is.

Anyway it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that I have a baseline, an arbitrary, though consistent measure for my progress. I’ll only really compare my stepper performance with previous stepper sessions.

Having said that it is tempting to count these calories as real for the purposes of trading against food. I confess that on Saturday, having hit my limit for the day, I did take to the stepper for twenty minutes to earn enough calories for a block or two of chocolate. But I won’t be making a habit of that. Mostly because it’s such hard work that it’s easier to not have the chocolate.

One thing’s for sure and that is the stepper’s more ‘cardio’ type exercise, which I believe is what they call it when it raises your pulse, you’re panting heavily and sweat profusely. Walking no longer does that for me (and I’m not quite ready to transition to running, I’d quite like to be carrying less bulk first). So for that reason I may try to make sure I do one stepper session a week even if the weather does not make it essential.

Oh and the results for this week:
Weekly loss: 1.5kg (3.3lb)
Total loss: 20.2kg (44.5lb or 3st 2lb)
Current weight: 123.9kg (273lb or 19st 7lb)

Pleased with that as it’s another milestone – I’ve now lost over 3 stone!

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Lesamy Week 10 – the pictures

So once again Lesamy is late due to concentrating on getting my Slingink Eurofiction entry in on time.

Oh well, I was going to wax lyrical on whether it’s actually still getting harder, talk about how now, after 10 weeks, willpower issues are surfacing that I didn’t have in week 1, and talk about how I was happy with 10% as a target until I beat it and realised 10% didn’t look as different as I thought it would.

I was going to do that then I came across an old photo and realised maybe I do look slimmer. Bear in mind that before starting Lesamy I was heavier than in the picture on the left.

side-by-side

I smushed my face for a tiny bit of privacy, though you can still tell I think that I look thinner in the face.

In terms of numbers –

Weekly loss: 1.5kg (3.5lb)
Total loss: 18.7kg (41.2lb)
Current weight: 125.4kg (276lb or 19st 10lb)

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Lesamy Week 7 – now with extra week 6!

Yes so you’ll’ve noticed I didn’t post anything for week 6. That was partly due to the fact that I lost nothing last week. In I thought about doing a post just entitled “me” (i.e no “less-o-“)

At least, when I first stood on the scales they read exactly the same as they had the week before. I’m not sure what it was – probably a delayed reaction to eating more at the end of week 5. I then did the usual things, went to the loo and re-weighed myself after my daily walk. Leading to an “official figure” of 0.6kg loss. That really doesn’t amount to much more than a full bladder.

So I worried about that, calculated how many calories I must have over-eaten and so on. But at the end of the day it just made me more determined to carry on.

Which I did and I’m happy to report that I’m back on track. My final figure for week 7 are:

this week’s loss: 1.9kg (4.2lb)

culmulative loss: 14.5kg, 32lb or 2st 4lb.

So, just because I can I’m adding a poll. I promise to strictly ignore the results and do what I would’ve done anyway [polldaddy poll=1072598]

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Lesamy Week 5 – Weekend Away

Firstly apologies because I know I’m a day late with this post. All I can say is I was busy.

Secondly apologies because I know I need to post some reviews or some other non-Lesamy stuff for those of you who just-don’t-care-about-the-diet. I’ll get to that, I really will.

The Land of Temptation

So I spent the weekend at M.’s place. Something I do about once every six weeks, two months, or so. But this was the first time since I started the diet. On the one hand I was determined not to let my diet affect her so I wanted to eat normally (or close to it) whilst I was there. By which I meant I would not count calories just keep an eye on portion size. On the other I knew this would still be more than my usual amount and set my expectations low as a result. Back on the first hand again, when I started this adventure I decided I could have a 2300 calorie pig-out day once a week and so far I’ve had none. So this could be five weeks of treats in one weekend.

How Did I Do?

Well the good news is that I pretty much stuck to the eat normally part. The keep an eye on portion size part went out the window and I was back to the old me portion wise. But I did avoid eating between meals. Mostly.

Friday we had a takeaway, Saturday a home-cooked meal and Sunday a meal out (I had starter and main). In between I had toast and sandwiches and water. We did a fair amount of walking around.

A Gift that Counts

Whilst I was there M. bought me a pedometer which was cool. It’s my new favourite toy. Now my spreadsheet has all sorts of extra info on it. I’ve discovered my normal walk in the park is 3 miles and that I expend ~500 calories doing it (fewer than I thought). I’m using it to make sure my weekend walks, which are non-park and can be a bit random, are roughly equivalent.

I Can Eat What I Want?

Anyway, once I got back from a great, if indulgent, weekend I weighed myself and here’s the shock: not only had I lost weight (I’d’ve been happy breaking even) I lost exactly the same as last week. I lost the average amount I’ve been losing these past 5 weeks. Weird huh?

So that means I lost 2.4kg, 5.3lbs and in total have lost 12kg, 26.5lbs or almost 2st. It means I’m a few pounds away from my 10% reduction milestone. I’d originally planned on hitting that by Christmas.

Time to Slow Down?

This raises the big question of whether I should slow down. I’m still averaging over 5lbs a week, more than twice the recommended amount. And what’s interesting is that my extra exercise probably only accounts for about a pound of that per week. So am I going to slow down, do less, eat more? Probably not. I am starting from a high base and I’m sure the rate will slow. I haven’t done the maths but I suspect that my old diet was something like 3,500 calories a day, or higher and so dropping to 1800 is a bigger change than it might have been. I’m inclined to take advantage of this rate of loss whilst I can. I’m in this for the long haul anyway and it’ll still be next year before I’m at my ideal weight and I’ll be consciously maintaining it for the next year or two. (hopefully after that I’ll have learnt enough good habits to not put it all back on).

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Lesamy Week 4 – Exercise

So week 4 was a week when I was back at work. This presented an interesting challenge – when to fit in my daily exercise walk. At first I tried in the morning before work. This was a 40min walk rather than the 2x30mins I did when I was off work. I did it for a couple of days but it was hard going. Then I tried after work, but walking around the park as the sun is going down is not ideal. In a couple of weeks when DST ends I’d be walking in the dark, don’t fancy that. Thursday I did a special expeditionary walk. Work is moving to a new build a mile or two down the road sometime before the end of the year and so I thought I’d go take a look at it. That made 2x16mins. Friday I decided what the heck and did a walk into town and back (2x22mins).

So perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a shock but after only a week of less (not no) exercise when I went back to my 2x30mins park walk on Saturday I found it tough going. I found it even tougher yesterday. It was foggy when I got up and so I went out wearing my coat. Ten minutes into my walk and the sun came out. I think it was that as much as anything that caused it to be tough. Oh and I painted my bathroom yesterday, which turned out to be more exercise than I thought.

Too Fat to get Fit

In the midst of all this I thought about buying some kind of walking machine, a treadmill or cross-trainer. You can get a cheap one for under £100. I could do as long or as little as I liked and watch TV whilst I was doing so. I saw one they had in Tesco and despite my normal on-a-whim purchasing habits I decided to see what else was available online. I’m glad I did.

It turns out that these machines go from £70-80 to £3000+. It also turns out that the cheaper ones have a weight limit that I’m over. In fact I’d still be over it when I hit my 10% reduction target. I guess it makes sense, cheaper materials means less sturdy means weight limit. As you go up the price scale you get machines that can take more weight but I had to go to £800 to find one that I could be confident of not breaking.

A bit of a depressing irony to find I’m to fat (and poor) to get fit. Actually after checking out ebay I found I could probably get a treadmill for £250ish that would do, but by now I’d completely gone off the idea. Walking into town as exercise may be a bit odd but it’s free.

A Nice Surprise

So after all that lesser exercise I was fully braced for a smaller loss this week. Instead I found I’ve lost 2.4kg (5.3lbs) a total loss so far of 9.6kg (21lbs). I’m down a half a belt notch – by which I mean I can fasten it one notch down but it’s more comfortable at the original one.