I knew that would happen!

The reason I advocate wieghing daily is that you get a more realistic picture of what's going on.

Friday was a good example: I actually dropped 6lbs in 2 days on the scales. Unlikely, probably just slighlty dehydrated that morning.

Now, if I'd been weighing weekly, I've have thought "oh, that was a good week", and thought no more of it until I couldn't figure out why I didn't lose weight next week.

Seeing the sudden dip means I know it was a temporary fluke, and that I should expect my weight to rise a little to compensate. And it has - 17st 2lbs as of this morning. I also know from experience that my weight often stays steady for a few days, then drops rapidly for a couple of days, then steadies out again - I can only assume this is down to the differences between weekday and weekend habits.

And this is why I do the trending... I can see that the overall movement is downwards over the whole week. That' good. That's very good.

I can also see I'm a little way behind my original target of 1lb a week. But that's OK, that'll take me three weeks longer to get there. Since getting to the target isn't the end of the diet and time to start eating for my country again, what difference does it make?

Maintenance Plan

Since I'm on the final straight - the last half a stone to lose - I thought it was time to write out my maintenance plan so that I can't change the rules later!

Original Target: 17 st 9lbs
Maintenance Target: 17st 7lbs. This is a bit lower, partly to make the numbers easy and give me a bit of lee-way under the original target, which is a BMI of under 29.999999999).

• Under 16st 7lbs: Gold Zone: Excellent stuff. Keep polishing the halo. This is where I want to be before a holiday or other blow-out occassion.
  
• Up to 3lbs over (16st 10lbs): Green Zone: Fine, don't let it go any higher. Keep weighing daily to monitor.
  
• Up to 7lbs over (17st): Yellow Zone: Need to cut back and get it back under control.
  
• More than 7lbs over: Red Zone: Step away from the refrigerator and put your hands up. This is the calorie police. You are under arrest for wilfully neglecting the plot.

Once in either the Yellow or Red Zone the "stick to the plot" rules apply until I'm back at the maintenance target weight.

I'll try to stick to the daily weighing anyway - it'll be a good habit to keep up and it doesn't take more than a few seconds each day.

Friday Weigh In - Surprise drop

My weight has stayed pretty much steady every day for the last two weeks... apart from the last 2 days when it's plummeted.

It'll probably go back up this weekend, but the scales this morning reported a record low of 17st 0¾lbs - so a loss of 4lbs over the week and just 5¾lbs to go to my target of 16st 9lbs.

I don't know what I did differently, but something changed. Perhaps working on the car at odd angles is a surprisingly good way of burning calories or something.

Let's see if I can crack the long elusive 17 stone barrier next week! That will bring me into the maintenance plan level for what I want to stay at.

Fat Bloke Thin on diet progress

I'm not the only one struggling to keep focussed here. Over at FatBlokeThin, the man himself makes a number observations I can really identify with.

1. I have the attention span of a gnat that is really preoccupied about something very VERY important that keeps gnawing away at him even when he's not really thinking about it.

Yeah. Me too. And I find I can keep about one change of habit in the forefront of my mind, so if I'm trying to lose weight, trying to be tidier is right out!

2. If I don't get results, I get fed up and change tack very quickly - not big on hobbies, me...

I can identify with that too... I tend to try something for a while - a year or two at most usually until I can do it better than 90% of the population - and then give up and learn something else. It's not a good trait when you're trying to change your lifestyle though.

3. This blog has turned into a digital millstone in some ways. I really like to read other peoples blogs and comment about what they are talking about but the act of commenting starts a reciprocal relationship.........

I can understand that too. For me the blog is very much a conscience of mine, even though I don't get many readers, it's still somewhere that I feel I have to be accountable for my actions without the guilt associated with that accountability in real life. I'm accountable here, but I'm not going to disappoint someone if I fail to live up to the expectations - if that makes sense.

Friday Weigh In - thanks for asking - and a look back to where I started.

I could have sworn I posted a weigh in result over the weekend, but it isn't here, so I can only assume I was hallucinating.

17st 5¼ is the latest result, up slightly from the last weigh in, but given that I thought this was hiding some dehydration from the travelling (it was - the weight crept up for a few days) I'm not worried about that at all.

Life is far too busy right now - lots of fun things to do and things that need doing, so it's hard to keep focussed on losing some weight.

Holidays are mid-November - 10 weigh-ins to go - so it would be fantastic to hit the goal before I go. That means some serious focus between now and then.

I'm looking back at the rules I set when I started out....

"Change No 1: Reduce sugar in coffee by 1/2. So one spoon in a mug instead of two. One and a half in the big travel mug I use at work." Well, I'm more or less there. It's more like two in the big travel mug, but the coffee in the office is quite bitter.

"Change No 2: Limit alcohol intake. Maximum of two beers on school nights (or 1/2 bottle wine)." Hmmm, this varies. Sometimes I stick to it, sometimes I don't.

"Change No 3: Healthier snacks. I just bought a load of cereal bars (2 1/2 or 3 points instead of 5), and stocked up on cereal for the office. " I thought this would be the hardest to stick to, but it turns out to have been the easiest. As long as I've got something to munch when I'm peckish, I don't mind if it's not three bars of Cadbury's Twirl.

"Change No 4: Pub lunches and takeaways. Try to limit to one per week, and aim for healthier choices." I've pretty much stuck there.

With these rules, my daily points intake is around 35-37, which I could get away with when I was on 33 points - now that I'm supposed to be on 31 it's a bit too much, so I need to find a way to reduce the total down a bit. Lunch is the easy target here, I think. I need to start making a salad to take to work once or twice a week. That will give me more variety as well.

My normal day breaks down into roughly these numbers of points (multiply by 70 if you're thinking in calories).

4 for coffees throughout the day
4 for breakfast - cereal, milk, a little sugar, perhaps some fruit
8 for lunch - down from 10
8 for dinner
6 for a couple of beers

That's 32 points, so if I can stick to that plan as an average, I should be getting there.

I also need to dig out the book and start tracking points again. I've been pretty lax about that and it shows in the results.

Andy

Post Trip Weigh In - phew

The morning after getting off the plane, I got on the scales with a certain sense of trepidation. And rightly so, since I didn't think I'd been that good.

17st 4½lbs is ¾lbs up from before I left: pretty good, but I also felt pretty dehydrated. It's crept up to 17st 6½lbs since then, which is a bit of an increase, but a lot better than I expected -- or deserved!

So it's back on the wagon this week; let's see how it goes!

No weigh in, I'm travelling

I'm in the US on business this week, and generally finding it difficult to be good and stick to the plot. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Friday Weigh-in, and the elusive wagon

I've managed to shift some of last weekends gain to produce a weight in result of 17st 3¾lbs. That puts me 1lb down on the previous weigh in 2 weeks ago, which sounds better than it is.

I'm really struggling to stay focussed right now - and with a two week business trip coming up, I don't see much of an improvement on the horizon. I seem to be able to stay with it for 2-3 days, then the desire for something nice takes over, and I start to lose the plot again. I'm also really struggling to stick with habits I established quite firmly to start with - daily weighing and tracking seem like a real chore right now.

I guess I shouldn't be too hard on myself: it's the results that matter, and the weight is still coming off, albeit in fits and starts. But the sun is shining, and what I really want to do is to go and sit in the garden with a beer and a book. And that's 3 points I probably shouldn't have today.

Worst Week Ever

A bbq, a wedding and a business trip, all in the space of 8 days.

This morning on the scales, 17st 10lbs. Not good.

Belgian beer, cheese, more beer, lots of red wine, cooked breakfast, more cheese, ...

Delicious, and I don't regret a minute of it, but it has set me back a bit, and I have a two week business trip coming up.

Oh well..

Blogging while the wife's at the gym

I'm on a roll this morning... three posts!

Again from FatBlokeThin, a link to some subversive commenting on Special K adverts. It just had to be linked!

Philosophical Musings

I've been reading the interview with FatBlokeThin over at wltips.com

"This spiritual change has enabled me to totally change the relationship I have with food and alcohol to such an extent that I do not feel remotely that I am depriving myself as many people do when following traditional diets. I eat healthily and regularly and take alcohol in moderation. This combined with a sliding scale of physical exercise and continued positive thought amount to my weight loss program."

It struck me that apart from the spiritual change, the approach is largely similar to mine. Don't be deprived. Eat healthily, have the occasional beer or three.

However, there's a fundamental difference: my philosophy isn't at all spiritual.

Or is it?

I'm an atheist, and one of the positive aspects of that world view is that you have to accept responsibility for your own actions. You can't pass anything off as being god's will, or "god told me I should...". So I have a very simple choice: I can be fat and unhealthy, I can be skinny, healthy and miserable, or I can be slightly overweight, more-or-less-healthy, and still be happy and enjoy a good meal out and a bottle of wine once in a while.

It's not spiritual in any sense, but the end point is largely the same for both of us. The only real difference is how we got there: spiritual guidance or just presenting yourself with choices and picking one. Of course, often the trick is realising you have to make the choice.

This leads me to another thought, comparing the difference in progress between what I'm seeing and what my wife is seeing: her goal is to get into the BMI=25 or less healthy range. Getting down to 27-ish was fairly easy. Anyone who is vastly overweight can lose weight by eating sensibly most of the time. Getting your body to shed the last few pounds is more of a challenge.

Back to the interview, and another bit that struck a chord with me was "My apathetic view of exercise is legendary but I am working on that with attempts to boost my motivation levels all the time."

I hate exercise. I can't think of anything more boring that trying to exercise for the sake of it. I bought an exercise bike that I've hardly used. I've got a real bike in the garage that rarely moves - the wheels could have rusted in place for all I know. But I've been making more of an effort to do things that are active rather than just sitting in front of a PC. Spending an evening on car repair might not be exercise in the traditional sense, but it's moving around, burning calories, and more interesting that watching TV! A Sunday lunch at a pub is all the more rewarding when you park 3 miles from the pub and stroll along the canal to get there. And you'll burn off some of the excess calories on the way, as well as working up an appetite.

Friday weigh-in, 100th post

This is the One Hundredth post since I started writing this blog.

The Official Friday Weigh in Result: 17st 4¾lbs, so ¼lb up on the week. Not bad in a week when I had my birthday with all the attendant piggery that goes with celebrating a birthday.

The unofficial Saturday Result is more encouraging: 17st 2¾lbs.

That a good way to start the weekend. And the sun is shining, too!

I think the Plateau might be back....

It's going to take me all week to undo the damage of last weekend, and this weekend doesn't look like it'll be much better. BBQ at a friend's on Saturday, which will involve lots of food and beer. And the following weekend is a family wedding, which will no doubt be a weekend of cooked breakfasts and other bad options.

Having a social life is a real obstacle to being thinner!

Plateau Busting over at Fat Bloke Thin

FatBlokeThin is travelling at the moment, and he's found that he's managed to push himself off a plateau despite eating an 8oz chili burger.

It certainly mirrors something I've found: sometimes having a bit of a blow out gets the metabolic rate up and I lose that weight, plus more, quite easily.

I'm not advocating the "stuff your face like it's going out of fashion", but I do think that eating well occasionally helps stop your metabolism from going into "starvation mode".

Friday, oops, Saturday Weigh In

Yesterday morning wasn't a good start to the day. I forgot to weigh myself, and then left my laptop at home. I realised when I got to work, and had to come back home again to get it.

Frrrfu!

Good news this morning, though, 17st 4½lbs. That gets a few more milestones under way: it's my new lowest weight, a great week - 2¼lbs lost, and takes me past the three-quarter point to my goal of 16st 9lbs.

I had a "Doh!" moment a few evenings back: I passed the 18 stone barrier without re-calculating my points allowance; it's now 31 points, down from the 33 I started on. I find I can get away with a little more, so while I could lose weight steadily at 35 or 36 points before, that's come down in line and I now need to be sticking under 35 points.

This weekend won't be good - at least from a diet perspective: birthday dinner and a barbecue this weekend. Quite why we're planning a barbecue when there's a severe weather warning is beyond me. It'll be a laugh, though!

Diet Expectations

One of the problems with weight loss seems to be that everyone wants a quick fix. Yeah, I'd love to be able to do a month long program, lose the excess, and return to what I was doing before. We all would.

But life isn't like that, and a couple of articles over at the excellent Diet Blog are worth a look.

First of all, a sobering review of various trials says that the average weight loss after 12 months was just 6% of start weight. Even if you take my start weight of 273lbs, that's still only about 15lbs or so. Not much.

They also have a "ask the readers" for Weight Maintenance tips. Definitely worth a look. My own process here is slow and steady does it. I'm really trying to make sure I lose weight slowly: the last thing I want to do is to slow down my higher-than-average metabolic rate. If I can burn 300 calories a day more, that means I can eat 300 calories a day more and still lose weight. If I try to lose faster, I'm likely to bring the base rate down, and that will make maintenance harder.

Friday Weigh In

This week's diet lesson: having a cold bad for weight loss. The desire for comfort food when you're feeling miserable is hard to resist. Oh, and my cure for a sore throat might be effective, but it's also a point and a half a go: gargling with whisky.

17st 6¾lbs on Friday, and hovering around there over the weekend. Saturday was too tiring for words, and Sunday wasn't much better. I'm telling everyone I came back to work for a rest this week!

The cold is much better, and I'm back on track for this week. Thanks to Fat Bloke Thin for prompting me that I'd hadn't updated the blog last week.

Friday Weigh In - Falling off the Plateau

Well, not quite a plateau, though the weight loss has clearly slowed for the past month or so. Today's result - 17st 6lbs - is 2¾lbs down from the week before - one of my best losses for a single week.

11lbs to go.

The next mini-goal is a tiny one: another pound means I'll have 10 pounds to go, and lost 3/4 of the weight I set out to lose.

Whoo hooo!

I feel bad that this blog is degenerating into a series of "today I weighed X" posts, but the last few weeks have been something of a struggle to keep on target.

But todays' weight (17st 6¼lbs) broke through several psychological barriers: 10% of my starting weight lost. Two stone gone. 2/3rds of the way to my target. Less than a stone to lose. All of these are now milestones I've acheived.

Oh, and my blood pressure is back to more or less normal with three sucessive measurements under 135/75.

I was a bit under my points quota yesterday, and I expected to be a one-man ravening horde this morning, but in fact I didn't feel hungry at all. At 11am I've grabbed a cereal bar, more to delay the need for lunch, and to say I've had breakfast, than out of any real need.

For readers still struggling, how about taking a look at portion size.

Huge Tasty Lunch

I just rustled up a veggie chilli for lunch. For variety, served with sauté potatoes. 2½ points each. Serves two.

Finely chop 1 onion, 2 cloves garlic, and one de-seeded chilli pepper.
Fry in Fry-lite until the onions start to brown.
While this is cooking, chop a green or red pepper 4-6 mushrooms, and a carrot.
Add it all to the pan with a crumbled veggie stock cube into the pan.
Rinse 1 small tin kidney beans and add to the pan, and a large tin chopped tomatoes.
Throw in herbs and spices to taste: I like mixed herbs, paprika, cumin and a little coriander, and often add HP sauce (no, really, try it) at this stage as well.

Leave to simmer while you boil some new potatoes (250g is 1½points each, included in the above). I did them for about 15 minutes so they were almost cooked. Drain and allow to cool enough to handle. Chop into slices and saute in Fry-lite.

You can either just bung it on a plate or serve in layers in an bowl. Even with a pitta bread as well, it's still only 5 points!