Weigh-in - Week 17

Special - for this week only - 10% Off!

Yes, that's right, a massive 10% of my starting weight! In fact, it's just a little over 10%, but I'm not going to let that stop me from saying, once again, a MASSIVE 10% OFF!

I'm actually quite surprised that I lost anything at all this week. I've not really been overindulging at all, well apart from the lunchtime curry on Friday, but at the same time I don't feel like I've been on track to lose anything. I normally wake up at some point during the week and just feel like I've lost a bit, but I never had that feeling at all this week, in fact quite the opposite I felt like I had gained weight. I suppose it just goes to show that it's not just the scales that can lie, but your body can lie too!

I have restarted my exercise plan, following my painful Achilles Tendonitis, but I am only using the Crosstrainer at the moment. I've used it 3 times this week and have increased my time on it to 28 minutes per session. I'm pointing this activity as a "high" intensity activity as there is no way I could possibly string a sentence together when I'm in full stride. This gives me 9 Activity Points each time! I still have a little pain in my tendon when I wake up in the morning and if I haven't moved around for a while, so I don't intend to try running or jogging any time soon. I suppose I ought to resume my early morning walks, but it is tending to be cold and dark and miserable at 06:00AM these days.

I have noticed that I am feeling the cold a bit more than I used to, so much so that I've had the fan heater on in the office where I work. This time last year the fan would be on for the other workers in my office and I would be complainig that it was too hot! I'm beginning to think that I might have to get some long sleeved shirts for this winter, I haven't worn those for years! Has anyone else found that they feel the cold more since their weight loss, I wonder?

I've now reset my WeightWatchers target weight to 17st 11.9lbs and I really hope to achieve this by Christmas. If I do, I will be absolutely over the moon. I certainly believe that this is an acheivable target as it's less than 1 stone and I've got 9 weeks to do it. Wish me luck and good luck with your own weight loss journey!

Weigh-in - Week 16

Eighteen - with a bullet!

Unfortunately I couldn't find an image for "Eighteen with a bullet" so this one will have to do!

I'm really pleased that, after last weeks gain of 1.4lbs, I have lost 3.8 lbs to take me into the 18 stone region. I am now 18stones 13.2lbs which means that I've now lost a total of 2stones 0.8lbs and am just 0.6lbs away from my 10% target. Oh, and I have gone down another ProPoint in my daily ProPoints allowance.

This week I found it somewhat easier to keep within my allowances, since I didn't go to the Rugby club to watch the Rugby World Cup Semi Final matches, since England are no longer in the competition. Instead I stayed at home and watched a woeful France beat an unlucky Wales (who I'm sure would have thrashed France if they'd had a full team) and then a Rampant New Zealand beat an avarage Australia (who STILL don't seem capable of scrummaging). I think the final is pretty much a foregone conclusion - France - "not many", New Zealand - "lots". I suspect the better game to watch will be the 3rd place play-off between Wales & Australia.

I haven't done any exercise at all this week as my Achilles Tendon still hurts a little first thing in the morning. The pain normally subsides once I've moved about a bit, but it does come back after a period of activity - this is a vast improvement as it used to hurt all the time and walking was painful. I went to see my doctor about it yesterday and she said that there didn't appear to be any damage to the tendon, so that's good. She also gave me some stretching exercises to do to try and resolve the problem and said that I should be ok to do the Crosstrainer, which I was going to do this morning, but I overslept and didn't wake up 'till nearly 6.00AM. I will do the crosstrainer tomorrow morning.

Yesterday I found myself with 20 ProPoints unused at the end of the day! I often find that I have 5 to 10 points left over and sometimes I use them up by having a beer or a bag of crisps, but 20 points is a lot. I decided that I would have a bar of chocolate - Green & Blacks - it was lovely and 10 points for 100g seemed very reasonable. It tasted very nice, but I certainly wouldn't want to waste points on it if I was running short as it didn't seem to be very filling.

All in all, a very pleasing week on the weight loss front, let's hope that next week is equally good! I've set myself a mini target of under 18stones by Christmas - wish me luck!

Weigh-in - Week 15

Disaster! I gained 1.4lbs this week.

I think I know why though - I haven't been exercising and I overindulged at the weekend.

The reason I haven't been exercising is that I have come to the conclusion that the pain in my heel that I have suffered from for a while now is caused by Achilles Tendonitis. The cure for this is to rest the foot, so I haven't been doing any Wii Fit Jogging, Crosstrainer or my early morning walks. The pain has subsided now so that it only hurts when I first wake up in the morning or if I haven't moved around for a while (it used to hurt all the time). I think the cause of it is the Wii Fit Jogging, so I have decided that I won't do that any more, which is a shame because I had come to enjoy it.

I will start exercising again when I have been pain free for a few days, but I shall start with the Crosstrainer only for a while to prove to myself that it isn't that which caused the problem. Once I'm satisfied that the Crosstrainer is OK I shall re-introduce my walks, with the intention of starting the Couch 2 5K program after a while.

Hopefully, if I can avoid too many overindulgances I can get back on track and start to lose weight again without the exercise - I guess time will tell!

Weigh-in - Week 14

After last week's fantastic loss I really didn't expect much this week, especially after my 39 point breakfast on Saturday, and, sure enough, the loss was small - 0.6lbs! Not bad, though, as I was anticipating an STS (Stayed The Same) or, worse, a slight gain. My weight is now down to 19st 1.6lbs.

You may be wondering how I managed to have a breakfast of 39 ProPoints - it's really quite simple, I was watching England struggling to beat Scotland at the local Rugby club. I did quite well to limit myself to just 3 pints of beer, but by the start of the second half everyone around me had had a full English breakfast and I could resist no longer! This probably wouldn't have been too bad, but Mrs TBI decided that we would have an Indian Curry for dinner that evening (and I had to wash that down with some more beer!). In the end I used up 87 ProPoints in one day, something of a record for me. I have decided that I won't be having a curry for dinner on this coming Saturday because I expect the breakfast will be much the same since I will be watching England v France!

Yesterday I decided to start the "Couch 2 5K" plan to enable me to run 5K on the road. I'm pretty sure that I already have the fitness level required to do 5K on the road, but I think my leg muscles and joints need to be introduced to it quite slowly. Yesterday I did Week 1, Day 1 which is a 5 minute walk to warm up followed by 8 cycles of 1 minute of running and 1.5 minutes of walking with a 5 minute walk at the end. I managed this quite easily and the next 2 runs are the same. Even though it was quite easy, I don't intend to skip parts of the plan, so it will take me about 9 weeks to get up to the point where I am running, of the road, for a full 30 minutes. It might take me a bit longer becuase I want to carry on with the Crosstrainer and the Wii Fit Jogging too, so there aren't really enough days in the week to do them all.

Apart from the excesses of Saturday, my eating plan has gone well, I'm still finding it remarkably easy to stick to the WeightWatchers ProPoints plan and, even allowing for 87 points on Saturday, I only ended up using up about 9 Activity Points this week. I normally see using Activity Points as an indication that I've overindulged! I'm sure that as time goes on I may come to rely on Activity Points as my daily points allowance drops and this is probably as it should be.

For the next week, may aim is to lose 2lbs to take me down to below 19 stones which will geive me a total loss of just over 2 stones which I think is a good milestone to pass.