Tuesday 5 March 2013

Weigh-in - Week 88

A much better week this week - 2.4lbs off! So I'm back down to 16st 4.0lbs and heading in the right direction again.

This week I've been much better at tracking and much better at exercising and I credit the exercise with countering the effect of any non-tracked snacking (which I've kept down this week anyway).

I managed to use the Crosstrainer 3 times this week, which is my normal target, so I'm quite pleased about that as I have struggled to get back into the habit of using it on Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday. I've also re-introduced walking into my weekly schedule and managed to get a 30 minute walk in on Friday and another one in yesterday morning. The pain that I had in my legs after my first brisk walk has gone now - I put that down to resting until Friday and then only walking at a gentle, rather than brisk, pace. I shall continue to have gentle walks for another few sessions and then up the pace later.

My worst food day was Sunday, when the "Outlaws" took us out to a carvery lunch at our local Golf Course. It was a fine lunch, but I really shouldn't have rounded it off with a Treacle Sponge with Ice Cream (does Ice Cream have fewer points than Custard?). That and a few drinks made Sunday a high point day and used up all of my remaining weekly Pro-Points allowance.

This coming week will, hopefully not be too bad for opportunities for overdoing it, apart from the fact that I'm going out on Friday night for some drinks with some friends and, on Sunday, I'll be going to the pub to watch England vs Italy in the Six Nations. As long as I keep up the exercise I don't see that these two events should cause too much damage - I'll find out at my weigh-in next Tuesday, I guess.

Tuesday 26 February 2013

Weigh-in - Week 87

Another poor week which has resulted in a gain of 0.4lbs - this is becoming something of a habit, one that I desperately need to break. I'm now back up to 16st 6.4lbs and I'm not at all happy to be here!

I'm still finding it difficult to avoid snacking on things that I shouldn't be snacking on and I'm not helping myself by not exercising! In the past I've been able to rely on the exercise to take care of any little snacks that I haven't tracked, but for the last month or so I haven't been exercising regularly so I haven't had the buffer zone that I've been used to!

I said last week that I intended to use the crosstrainer at least 3 times (Thursday, Saturday and this morning) but I only managed to do it this morning :-( Obviously I've got to get a grip and force myself to do it this week.

I also said that I would start walking again, which I did manage to do on Sunday morning. Unfortunately it's been such a long time since I walked any distance at a brisk pace that I have ended up with rather painful shins. Hopefully the pain will have gone by Friday and I can do another walk then - I'm sure that it's just a case of easing back into it and the pain will eventually subside. I'll try and walk more slowly on Friday to avoid the pain coming back.

Anyway from today I resolve to track everything, exercise more and to lose at least some of the gain from the last two weeks.

Wednesday 20 February 2013

Weigh-in - Week 86

As is usual after a gain, I am late posting this week!

Unfortunately I've gained 2.8lbs this week, which brings me back up to 16st6lbs. I know why I've gained, it's because I've not done any exercise AND I've been particularly bad at tracking this last week. I've eaten out twice (once was Chinese, which always means a lot of points) and I've been snacking a LOT - a handful of peanuts on too many occasions and the odd piece of chocolate. None of this would be bad on it's own, but add them all together and you get a weight gain.

In the coming week I simply MUST avoid all of the little bits of bad and stick to the plan! It won't be easy, but I will do it! I must make sure that I have plenty of points available for Saturday, since England are playing France in the Six Nations and that will involve beer. But, other than that, there should be no excuses for not sticking to the plan this week.

Mind you, this week hasn't started well as I should have used the Crosstrainer yesterday morning and I didn't. My excuse is that I'm suffering from a couple of aches and pains from the Indoor Surfing that I did on Sunday, the reason is that I've just been too lazy to crack on and do it. Well lazy no more I WILL do it on Thursday morning and Saturday and again next Tuesday. In between times, I really need to start walking again, so I'll try and get out for a couple of early morning walks too.

The Indoor Surfing, while a little painful with a couple of falls and knocks, was great fun! We started off using bodyboards and that was quite easy - we even managed to do a couple of tricks with them. After that it was on to trying to stand up on a skateboard sized surf board (it's quite different to real surfing). I found it quite difficult to get and maintain my balance on the surfboard, but on my last go I was able to stand for a short while, so I definitely improved with each attempt. My overall conclusion of it is that the bodyboarding is quite easy to get the hang of and, therefore, more fun sooner while the surfing is much more difficult, but will be more fun once mastered. My son thinks that real surfing is actually easier, once you've managed to stand up on the board (with Indoor Surfing, you start standing up). I do plan on going back for another go quite soon.

Now I need to think of something else to do that I would never have done before when I was 21 stones - a new go-karting track has just opened up near to where we live, so I might give that a go sometime soon.

Stay tuned for more revelations next week, when, hopefully, I will have lost some more of this fat blokes body. Bye for now.

Tuesday 12 February 2013

Weigh-in - Week 85

Well it's been a long time since my last post and many (both) of you may have been thinking that I'd given up trying to lose weight. You'd be wrong, I just gave up posting for a while because I just got to the point where I really couldn't think of anything to write about, so I took a few weeks off blogging.

In the time since my last blog, we've had Christmas and, unfortunately I didn't achieve my Christmas target (to be under 16 stones), although I did get quite close as on my weigh-in for the week before Christmas I was down to 16st 0.8lbs and I was hopeful that the Christmas day weigh-in would yield a good result - it wasn't to be, I'd put on 3lbs before Christmas lunch! Since then I've been hovering between 16st3lbs and 16st6lbs, with this morning's weigh-in bringing me back down to 16st3.2lbs.

I have been a little tardy with my exercise since Christmas, particularly since the Snow in January as it was really much too cold to be using the Crosstrainer in the garage in the mornings. I have kept up with the Yoga, though and I do seem to be getting a little more flexible. I haven't used my kettlebells for months so I will need to restart that when in gets a little warmer.

I must tell you about one of the Christmas presents we got for my son as it turned out to be great fun for both him and me! We bought a ticket for 2 to go Indoor Skydiving at Bodyflight in Bedford. The ticket allowed us to each have a solo skydive and then to have 2 flights together. It really was great fun and it is something I wouldn't have been able to do when I was 21stones (I think there is a weight limit of 18stones, but if you're interested you should check as I might be wrong). If you live within driving range of Bedford (actually there's another organisation that does it at Milton Keynes and Manchester) I can really recommend it.



Another thing that they do at the same location is Indoor Surfing and we are booked in to do that on this coming Sunday, so hopefully I'll be able to tell you about that next week.

Losing all this weight really has given me a new lease of life, I would never ever have thought of trying Surfing or Indoor Skydiving when I was a fat bloater!

Another thing that has happened since the new year is that a mathematician has published a new calculation for determining a healthy BMI. According to the new calculator I am already overweight, rather than needing to lose another 6lbs to get there! Needless to say I like this new calculator. I still think that the BMI is a flawed scale, so I shall stop losing weight when I feel that I'm comfortable, rather than when I get to a "normal" BMI, which I think is an excessively low weight for me.

Anyway, that's my post for this week, I'll try and post again next week to tell you how my son and I get on at the Indoor Surfing.

ThinBlokeInside.




Tuesday 27 November 2012

Weigh-in - Week 74

It could so easily be worse! I went to a party on Saturday night and had quite a bit to drink plus various nibbles and a rather sugary piece of birthday cake. Then I followed that with a larger than necessary piece of rump steak for my dinner on Sunday, complete with a jacket spud, onion rings and coleslaw, washed down with a large red wine and followed by a couple of pints of "Roasted Nuts" from my favourite local brewery.

After all of that, I've managed to Stay The Same!

I did enjoy the party, though, as there were quite a number of people that I haven't seen for quite a while and the were all complementing me on how well I looked have lost all the weight - I practically had NSV's coming out of my ears and it was quite an ego boost too! One of my friends wives (I'm really not sure what the grammar should be for that - it was the wife of a friend and he only has one wife) gave me a cuddle and said "wow, I've never been able to wrap my arms around you before"!

Earlier on in my blogs, you will have read that I was amazed that the odd day of extravagance had virtually no effect on my weight loss. Unfortunately, now I am further down the road, it would seem that it can have an effect! Not to worry, though, the whole point of the weightwatchers plan is that it is meant to work in the real (as opposed to the dieting) world, and in the real world parties do frequently happen! Although not as frequently as they used to, sadly.

Back in this real world of ours, we will have to deal with parties and other things that will occasionally cause a jump in weight - we will do this by immediately getting back on the plan! The main thing that I/We must remember when we've got to our target weight is that the new pounds that want to attach themselves to our bodies are sneaky buggers - we won't see them as they join us one at a time, we might not even see a whole rugby teams worth until, one day, when it's far to late for remedial action, we'll be 2 or 3 stones heavier again. To avoid this scenario, we must continue to weigh ourselves on a regular basis and take action as soon as the scale starts going up.

I have now accepted the fact that I am not going to achieve my Christmas target of being "overweight", so I have amended my target to being "under 16 stones" - 2.8lbs in 4 weigh-ins (including Christmas day) - that should be achievable even with my relatively slow progress. I have accepted that I am unlikely to be getting big losses now and am quite happy as long as I average about 1lb a week - it's definitely more difficult to lose weight when you weight 16st than it is when you weigh 21st :-(

Anyway, here's hoping I lose a bit more at my next weigh-in (it could be a bit tricky as I'm going out for an Indian curry on Thursday night and there's more rugby on Saturday). Good luck with your weight loss efforts and I'll report back next week.

Wednesday 21 November 2012

Weigh-in - Week 73

My apologies for not posting again last week, I was a little down after gaining another 1lb at last week's weigh-in.

I'm a lot happier this week though as yesterday's weigh in showed a loss of 2.8lbs which brings me down to 16st 2.8lbs and back on the downward slope again. It's still possible for me to hit my Christmas target of being "overweight", I just need to lose 5.8 lbs in 5 weeks an average of just under 1.2lbs per week. Unfortunately we're slap bang in the middle of the Autumn Internationals, so more beer than usual is likely to be consumed AND there's likely to be more food & drink related events due to the coming festivities! I know I'm not the only one that is going to have to negotiate the minefield that is Christmas time, but it does get quite tricky.

My exercise routine is still not back to it's pre-holiday schedule, although I am using the crosstrainer more regularly than I have been of late I still haven't re-introduced the kettlebell into my weekly schedule. I am still going to yoga once a week though.

I have reduced the amount of bread that I eat. This is as a result of finding some reasonably tasty and lowish pointed 1 pot microwaveable lunches at Morrison's and also at Asda. In fact the Thai Green Chicken Curry & Rice that I had for lunch yesterday was a mere 8 ProPoints (4 less than my usual Ciabatta & Chicken) and filling enough to keep me satisfied 'till dinner time. Many people on the WeightWatchers forums do claim that they get better weight losses when they don't have so much bread, so it will be interesting to see if things go well for me with the reduced intake, I do know that I feel less bloated in the afternoons when I don't have bread. The only reason I haven't cut down on bread sooner was that I hadn't found a suitable replacement, wraps are ok, but I find it difficult to find interesting things to fill them with.

That's it for this week, I'll be back again next week to share another loss with you.

Wednesday 7 November 2012

Weigh-in - Week 71

Well, after a couple of days of self-sabotage, I managed to keep the weight gain down to just 1.2lbs this week! I'm actually quite pleased with that because it means I'm still below my pre-holiday weight and I think my target of "overweight by Christmas" is still achievable - just.

My first act of sabotage was (very expensive) Nacho's with cheese and jalepenos at the cinema (Skyfall of course) with my son on Friday afternoon - followed by a chinese takeaway in the evening. I probably could have got away with that had it not been for drinks and nibbles at a friends on Saturday evening after the local firework display - the drinks and nobbles turned out to be a lot of drinks and a lot of nobbles after a day where I had already consumed my daily allowance of 44 points! Owing to a slight haziness towards the end of the evening, I didn't even attempt to count the points!

Also, as a result of the drinks and nibbles, I didn't manage to persuade myself to get on the crosstrainer on Sunday morning, so only two sessions this week and still no other exercise besides the Yoga, which isn't designed to help me lose weight.

It's also going to be tricky to keep within the ProPoints limits this weekend as it's the first of the Autumn Internationals on Saturday - England vs Fiji. At least England should emerge victorious from this encounter, I just wish I could be as certain of victory for the remaining 3 matches.