Tag: exercise

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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 9 – Now At Last The Truth Can be Told

So the observant amongst you will have noticed something about yesterday’s blog update. No, I’m not referring to the fact that I promised a non-Lesamy post and didn’t deliver[1], I’m referring to the fact that I slipped in an extra little bit of info, almost without comment. I gave my current weight[2]

Well aside from the fact, as M. pointed out that with my references to 10% and how much I’d lost you could work it out anyway, I just felt that maybe it was time to own up. I wanted to use this blog to track my progress, but my vanity/embarrassment was such that I didn’t want you to know how fat I actually am until I was a lot nearer my target weight. It’s easier to admit to having been 22 1/2 stone from the vantage point of say, 16, than it is to say this is what I am now.

Anyway, that and the fact that I was re-reading Lesamy posts, and that it’s monday and I need some words to go alongside my figures for this week, made me decide to take a look back at Lesamy so far and review against my original goals:

I’m doing a few minutes worth of exercise morning and evening. I intend to start slow and build up, so maybe in 3-4 weeks I’ll increase the number/duration of that.

Exercise is one area where I’ve made the biggest changes. I started off walking up and down the stairs 5 times, morning and evening. I did that because I was embarrassed to do anything outside and I had no equipment or anything. I expanded to doing walks into town, then around the park, then longer walks. At a certain point – after a fall actually – I gave up the stair walking and I added in 10 press-ups and 10 sit-ups every morning. These days I average 60-70mins of walking a day.

I’m cutting out snacks and having just the two meals a day that I theoretically already have – lunch and evening meal. I plan to add breakfast in at some point but it’s never been a major meal for me and I don’t want to change too much all in one go so I’m leaving that one until later.

I have stuck to this. I added in breakfast fairly early on when I discovered that the sit-ups were easier after I’d had something to eat and drink. I’m also eating better now, eating more fruit and veg and cooking properly some rather than none of the time.

I’ll aim for ~1800 calories a day most days with the occasional (no more than weekly) cheat day of 2300.

I aim for exactly 1800 calories a day. I will avoid going over by even a few[3] but do my best to use up as many of my calorie ‘budget’ as I can. Usually I’m within 10. I haven’t had any cheat days per se, though I’ve been out for a couple of meals when I go ‘off the clock’ (though with a vague eye on portions).

I’ll expect the progress to be slow, aiming at no more than about 1-2lbs or 1kg loss a week.

I’ve averaged 1.9kg or 4.2lbs a week. My lowest loss was 0.6kg and my highest 3.2kg. I am starting to drift downwards to that mythical 1kg/week figure.

I’ll only weigh myself once a week (and more and you get discouraged with progress or frustrated by fluctuations)

I’ve only weighed myself on one day a week, but sometimes more than once on that day and then taken the best reading. But I’m sort of over that now. I’ve found the best time to weigh myself (after my evening walk but before eating) and I’ll stick to that.

I’ll expect the occasional set back but won’t be phased, will carry on, and will seek support and encouragement.

I haven’t had any real set-backs. The week after my weekend away when I’d apparently lost nothing was a bit of a shock but mostly I’ve lost more than expected each week. Support and encouragement has been mixed. Here and on the Ship I initially received affirming comments but I think people got bored with me. But knowing I’m going to post every week means something to me. The other source of encouragement has been M. who asks me how it’s going and is always pleased when I’m doing well.

My goal initially will be a 10% reduction. Doing this by Christmas is achievable.

I hit 10% (130kg) around the end of October. My next milestone was 127kg because that brings me beneath 20stone. I hit that today (yay!). By Christmas? Well it depends on how much I slow down but I think I’ll be under 19stone and possibly nearer 18 than 19 by then. We’ll see.

It’s been both different to how I expected and in some ways not so different, easy in ways I thought it wouldn’t and harder in ones I didn’t think of. But I know I can and will keep going. I’m in a rhythm now and it’s working.

So, as I said above, I’m now 127kg or 279lbs i.e. 19st 13lbs. That’s a loss this week of 1.5kg or 4.2lbs and a total loss since I started of 17.1kg or 37.7lbs.

[1]or did I? Actually I wrote the update but haven’t posted it yet. I’m trying this new thing where I treat reviews like proper writing and so that means editting which means I don’t just through it up straight away.

[2]Except of course that since it was yesterday, it was really the weight on my previous weight day. I didn’t lose 4lbs in sleep last night.

[3]I allowed myself to go over by 36 calories today as a treat for hitting my target milestone. That allowed me to mop up the gravy from my yummy beef-in-ale casserole with an extra slice of brown bread.

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Lesamy Week 8 – Motorway Driving

Firstly apologies for not writing sooner. Weighing day is Monday and so it’s almost Lesamy week 9. There are reasons for missing the first couple of days (celebrating M’s birthday and wanting to get a competition story in on time) but after that I just got lazy.

Secondly apologies for not writing any non-Lesamy in such a long time. I do plan (famous last words) to do a review later today.

Motorway Driving

I managed to make it to my mid-twenties before starting to learn to drive. It took two years and four tests to pass and then, because I decided that a computer was a better waste of money than a car, I didn’t drive again for six years. At that time I’d just got a new job and was about to move ‘down south’ and I figured I’d need a car. So I got one and took a couple of refresher lessons. Fortunately it all came back pretty easily.

However on the day I was due to actually move I got up at 6am. Why? Because I wanted to make it out of the city before the traffic got too bad, and also to get as far as I could before the motorway traffic got too hectic. I remember joining the motorway for the first time, it was deeply scary. Everyone was going so fast and there were huge lorries everywhere. But I eventually calmed down and got used to it. After a while I was zipping along, moving in and out of lanes as needed. Motorway driving it turns out is easy.

And on my regular trips back up north I experience a small version of that first experience. The first few minutes are a shock to my system (the rest of the time I pootle around town and make runs to the supermarket but not much more) but after that it becomes easy again. In fact it becomes boring. It’s usually a trip of at least four hours and ninety minutes in you can guarantee I’ll be thinking, ok I’m bored with this now, I just want to be at my destination. To keep myself busy I’ll mentally calculate my average speed and my expected arrival time based on that.

And this – I know you were wondering – is where it is like Lesamy. Initially I had some fears and some issues – look back at my first post about results and how I agonized that I was going to miss comfort eating – but then it sort of became easy. I got into a routine, I was exercising and enjoying it, I was getting to recognise that feeling ‘full’ was not the same as feeling so stuffed like you couldn’t eat another thing. But, it’s a bit boring. I can walk down the supermarket aisles and not worry that I’ll falter with all the things that are nice but that I can’t really afford (calorie-wise), but there is a sense that I’m just faithfully carrying on, day after day, focussed on targets, constantly re-calculating expected dates of reaching such-and-such a weight, or expected weight at Christmas.

Many Miles to Go

I’m sure part of this is the same as with the driving. I’ve still got a long way to go before I get there. Getting there, means something different with Lesamy anyway as I’ll then be faced with the challenge of maintaining, which while I’m not quite sure what it’ll look like yet, will I’m sure still involve some walking past nice food a lot of the time. Another thing is that whilst I cherish my spreadsheet there’s a lack of visible progress. At least to me. I have lost more than 10% of my bodyweight, had to go down a few of belt-notches and abandon at least one pair of trousers, but I look in the mirror and I don’t see much difference. M. says she does, and that should mean something because she doesn’t see me every day.

I’d love, though, for someone who doesn’t know I’m doing this to stop me and ask “have you lost weight?” Hasn’t happened yet but I think it will. It’ll probably happen when I start to have to seriously down-size my wardrobe.

But lest I seem too pessimistic I know I can do this. It’s just a question of keeping going, not giving up. I have given up on a lot of things in my life, but I never once turned around, left the motorway and came home.

This week I lost 1.1kg, 2.4lbs. Total loss so far 15.6kg, 2st 6lbs. Current weight 128.5kg, 20st 3lbs.

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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.

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Lesamy Week 3

Another good week. Points of interest:

  • I’ve added home-cooked pasta to my list of meals. This means that I’m progressing slightly more to my eventual goal of not only eating less but eating better. Again this was something I did because it allowed me to make a filling meal with less calories than I’d’ve managed otherwise. (Thus freeing up enough in my daily allowance for some chocolate!)
  • I’ve gone down an extra couple of belt notches – making three in all. I was thinking to myself how this was a great way to follow my progress when I realised that a lot of people use a similar method – it’s called a tape measure! D’oh!
  • I’ve noticed a difference in how much and how well I can cope with exercise. I’m now up to an hour’s brisk walking per day (actually 2 x 30mins) as my main exercise regime. This is gratifying although whilst it still must be burning calories it’s no longer significantly raising my heart rate, so in terms of overall fitness it’s less effective. However the main goal is weight loss. When I’m a little lighter on my feet (literally) I’ll consider some more aggressive forms of exercise.
  • I can now do sit-ups! All my agonizing about “Am I losing it too fast?” is really about “Will I end up with lots of loose skin?” So one of the things I’ve been wanting to do is exercise that will build muscle where I’ll be losing flab – in my case my stomach. However a couple of weeks ago I tried to do a sit-up. First, due to my present centre of gravity, there was the the rather comical sight of my legs going up until I could rock myself forward and then bring my upper body down in something approaching the correct fashion. So then I tried with my feet under the bed. That held my legs down and I did a couple of sit-ups but I soon felt a tightness as if I was in danger of rupturing something. I left it, but then tried again the other day and found that I can now do sit-ups without feeling like I might literally split in half. So a few (very few at this stage) sit-ups have been added to my daily round.

All this has led to this week’s result of another 1.9 kg (4.2lbs) lost. So my new running total is 7.2kg, 15.9lbs or (in English money) 1st 2lbs. I’ve lost more than a stone!

So I’m now halfway to where I’d thought I’d be by Christmas. And my awful confession is that after three weeks of worrying if it’s coming off too fast I looked at the scales this morning and was a teeny tiny bit disappointed that the rate has actually started to slow. I know, I know, you can’t win with me. I whinge when it’s too much and whinge when it’s too little.

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Lesamy – Week 2

Here we are again, monday is weigh-in day.

So what I learnt this week is that even if all you decide to do is limit your calories you end up changing what you eat anyway. It just makes more sense for example to eat an apple instead of one of those low-calorie yoghurt biscuits that I like. The apple is more filling and the biscuits come in packs of two and so even though it’s roughly the same on its own, in terms of what you end up eating it’s two apples’ worth of calories. Similar logic leads me to buy lower fat yoghurts which I can have as part of my lunch rather the thick and creamy ones that would have to be my lunch. And so on.

So even though I started this regime with the idea of not changing too much too soon, I have drifted towards a more healthy and varied diet anyway.

I’ve been off work this week and so instead of my inside exercises I’ve been taking brisk walks in the part every day (2-3miles). This is quite pleasant, I strap on my ipod and head off, and the weather’s been quite nice, although the one day it rained was actually welcome as it cooled me down.

I’m telling you this as it may go some way to explain this surprise:

Weight loss this week:   3.2kg (7lbs)

Total loss so far:  5.3kg (11.7lbs)

I’m still waiting for this to settle down – I really don’t want to lose the weight too quickly – but I can’t deny being happy.

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Lesamy – Week One Results

First week of the new regime over, more importantly first weigh-in. In time honoured fashion I’ll keep you waiting for the result, first some thoughts on what kind of a week it’s been and what I’ve learnt.

Hey this is easy!

Okay, don’t laugh, but in the first couple of days I really thought it wasn’t going to be that hard. Of course almost anything is easy for a couple of days (except maybe holding your breath). I think the fact that I was eating what I’d normally eat, just sticking to meal times and a calorie “budget” made it feel like not that big a change. Of course the effect is (and needs to be) culmative. The later in the week the harder it got. And by hard I don’t really mean that I felt hungry. There were a couple of times when I felt my stomach nagging me but as much as anything that’s because I tend to eat my tea quite late (9pm sometimes) so that doesn’t really count when I could have easily got up from the computer and gone and made my meal.

So what made it hard?

The Real Meaning of Comfort Eating

It’s funny how you think you know about something when you’ve never really experienced it. I’ve always been the kind of guy to eat what I want more or less when I felt like it. So I’ve always associated “comfort eating” with the kind of thing you see on Friends where they eat a tub of ice-cream when the latest boyfriend dumped them. And whilst there are times when I pig out because I’m fed up it’s not something I do much.

The things is, eating less makes you think about when, how and why you normally eat, and whilst it may not fit my previous definition of “comfort eating” there are definitely a lot of times when I eat because I’m bored, or as a kind of “entertainment” – something to do that gives me pleasure. And it’s this later that’s hardest to give up.

Spreadsheet not Helping?

Last time I spoke about how I made a spreadsheet like I did for my Harry Potter Reading Marathon. I think overall this is a good thing. It’s a motivator to watch my progress and I like numbers (which is why, in the end, calorie-counting, which I hadn’t originally intended to do, works for me rather than against me.) However since the parallel was there this automatically made me think about the Harry Potter experience.

I got a tremendous sense of satisfaction out of achieving something that I wasn’t sure if I could do. I did so by keeping an eye on the target, via the spreadsheet, but towards the end there was something of a sense of grim determination about it. In order to make my ridiculous targets I was eating, sleeping, working and reading, and that’s all. I longed to just flop in front of the TV and watch a film but usually couldn’t spare the time away from the books (I still enjoyed them by the way, just not the reading itself, if that makes any sense). Once I’d finished I don’t think I picked up a book of any kind for several months.

So apply this by analogy to my dieting – what I don’t want to do is work hard for a few weeks or months, make some progress, hit my target and then be so fed up that I go back to eating too much and put it all back on, and to some extent the spreadsheet symbolises that. Whatever I do, whatever changes I’m making, have to be sustainable indefinitely.

Soooooo…. back to the “entertainment eating” thing, giving up of. When I’m sitting down at the end of the day thinking I really fancy something, not am hungry, or even fed up or bored, just really fancy eating something, the following train of thought goes through my mind:

“I really fancy something to eat. Not much, maybe a slice of toast, or one of those yoghurt bars.”

“but a slice of toast is 85 calories and the yoghurt bar is 70 and you’ve only got 50 left”

“so? I’m only going over by a few”

“it’s week 1 and you’re cheating already!”

“good point. Oh well think about the target, I’m weighing myself tomorrow. Once I hit the target…”

“Sure but it’s not about just hit-the-target-and-quit, this is your life now – or it’ll not work”

“Oh. So from now on I can’t just eat a slice of toast (never mind chocolate etc) when I fancy it? That’s my life? Thinking twice over a frikking slice of toast?!”

“Pretty much. But it’s only food. Is your life so empty that giving up comfort eating is such a terrible thing?”

(sadly) “yes. maybe?”

We’re not in Hogwarts Anymore Harry

This is all pretty downbeat but I think there’s room for optimism. I think that there are a number of reasons why it doesn’t have to be like the Harry Potter thing:

  • My goal is much more realistic. The Harry Potter marathon was the equivalent of a crash diet adn I’m not doing that.
  • It’ll get easier as I get used to it.
  • The hard part is psychological. As I said I don’t really get physical hunger pangs.
  • I’m starting to exercise. As I get fitter I’ll be able to do more i.e. burn more calories, which means I won’t necessarily be on 1800 calories a day forever.
  • Over the next X months I’ll be aiming to burn more calories than I eat in order to lose weight. Once I hit my target weight, I can find a balance between diet and exercise that allows me to maintain that weight.

So I’m not as pessimistic as the previous section makes it sound. In any case, it’s a helpful thing to have to re-consider the place of food in my life. It reminds me a bit of fasting when I used to do that (for religious reasons)

And the Magic Number is…

OK, I’ve rambled long enough. In the first week on my new diet/exercise regime I have lost 2.1Kg or 4.6lbs. More than I thought but not too much. It is the first week and I know that you always lose most in the initial stages so I’m not expecting to keep up that rate of loss.

But I’m pleased.

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Lesamy

Lesamy, pronunced “Less-oh-me” i.e. less of me, is my new made up blog tag/category word in the fine tradition of flubbage. Technically I suppose it’s a sub-division of flubbage but because it is a project in its own right, a specific endeavour like Buffy Rewatch, it therefore deserves it’s own category and word.

So what is it?

Ok. Basically I’ve decided to try to lose some weight. I have pretty much always been overweight and not minded much. As long as my general health and fitness was ok I didn’t feel inclined to go chasing a particular body image. However lately I’ve noticed I’m not as fit as I was. So I started to think about upping the amount of regular exercise I get.

This led to me deciding, this last saturday, to do specific exercises every day and increase the amount of walking I do. I did this for a couple of days and started to wonder if I’d feel the effect in terms of my waistline and so thought I’d weigh myself. Which led to the discovery that my scales are bust. Which led to the purchase of a new set. Which led me to thinking more about weight than fitness per se.

The Harry Potter Effect

One of the things that occurred to me as soon as I thought about weighing myself was to set up a spreadsheet. Some readers will remember my Harry Potter read-all-the-books marathon of last year, in which my use of a spreadsheet was both a kind of helpful distraction and motivator. Silly but true. So I set up a spreadsheet to record my weight. And really, only because it gave me another formula to plug in I added a column for BMI (Body Mass Index).

That was perhaps a mistake.I knew I was overweight. I thought I was probably “technically” obese. But the number I cam up with seems to be in the “Are you sure you’re not dead yet?” category. Oh well. In the end it’s just a number. I would have liked to make a goal of getting into the overweight category but since that would probably involve somehow stretching to 3m tall I don’t think that’s realistic.

The Sensible Approach

Looking up the formula for BMI did help me in one way though. It led me to some useful, reputable, websites with sensible advice. The Harry Potter marathon was the reading equivalent of a crash diet and I think I was already aware that I need to go for slow and steady if I want to keep the weight off, so reading just that along with some reasonable goals and advice was actually encouraging. So based on what I read I’ve come up with the following:

  • I’m doing a few minutes worth of exercise morning and evening. I intend to start slow and build up, so maybe in 3-4 weeks I’ll increase the number/duration of that.
  • I’m cutting out snacks and having just the two meals a day that I theoretically already have – lunch and evening meal.
  • I plan to add breakfast in at some point but it’s never been a major meal for me and I don’t want to change too much all in one go so I’m leaving that one until later.
  • I’ll aim for ~1800 calories a day most days with the occasional (no more than weekly) cheat day of 2300.
  • I’ll expect the progress to be slow, aiming at no more than about 1-2lbs or 1kg loss a week.
  • I’ll only weigh myself once a week (and more and you get discouraged with progress or frustrated by fluctuations)
  • I’ll expect the occasional set back but won’t be phased, will carry on, and will seek support and encouragement.
  • My goal initially will be a 10% reduction. Doing this by Christmas is achievable.

Having just followed this full regime for a day or two it’s not so hard that I can’t see myself carrying it on – potentially indefinitely as I want to keep the weight off. 1800 calories is a lot less than I was having but with a slightly smaller lunch I can still have what I consider to be a perfectly reasonable evening meal, with a nice desert. I just can’t have all the extra snacks. I have to choose between the nice yoghurt, the ice cream and the chocolate and just have one of those and not all three.

In a word it’s doable.

My Mean Mother’s Method

I said above that I’ve been ok with being overweight in the past so long as I’m generally healthy. However one person in my life wasn’t and that was my mother. She means well but it comes across as nagging. Recently I got home to find an envelope addressed in her handwriting. There was no note or letter, just a clipping from her local newspaper about a guy who’d lost some amazing amount of weight and his secret apparently was getting support through his blog. I just thought “not too subtle mam” and figured she’d thought of me because she associates me with all things computery. And fatness obviously.

A few weeks later having independantly decided to do this one of the things recommended in my reading was to get moral support. There’s no way I’d join a slimming club. I’m just not that much of a joiner plus I knew a guy who did weight-watchers and they were very civil to him but being the only bloke made it a bit uncomfortable. Best case scenario I think you’d be treated as a rare and special specimen and worst case you’d be seen as invading their safe female-only space. Besides it costs money. Bugger that.

So the blog it is.

Hence this.

Hence Lesamy.