Weigh-in - Week 13 (Unlucky for some)

But not for me!

This week I registered another big loss of 3.6lbs! I really feel, after a few slow weeks, that the weight is starting to come off at a reasonable pace, even though the WeightWatchers tracker warned me this morning that I am losing weight too fast! The tracker will issue a warning if the average loss over a 4 week period is more than 2lbs a week, mine is 2.7lbs for the last 4 weeks, but as it's 2.0lbs for the total period I've been doing the WeightWatchers plan, I am not too worried and I don't intend to change anything I'm doing. I'm sure the loss will slow down again soon of it's own accord.

I've now lost a total of 25.8lbs!

My excercise regime is still going strong, I managed to complete over 11Km in 30 minutes Wii Fit Jogging, twice! I also managed to up my time on the CrossTrainer to 26Minutes this morning, during witch time I covered 11.4Km. As you know, I don't believe the Wii Fit distance to be at all accurate and I know that I couldn't possibly jog as fast on the road - sooner or later I'm going to find out when I start doingthe C25K plan.

I'm now thinking of adding some weight training to my Excercise regime and have been contemplating getting myself a KettleBell (hence the picture). Has anyone else tried using one and, if so, has it been beneficial? What are the best excecises to do with one? Please feel free to comment here or on my Week 13 post on the WW Mens Forum.

I had a bit of a binge on Saturday as Mrs TBI & I went to a friends house for a bit of a get together and we had some rather nice Fish n Chips from the chip shop, plus nibble before we got the Fish n Chips, plus beer plus a piece of banoffee cake. All in all I think the points were up to about 75 by the end of the day. Not quite as good as TheShrinkingMan's 100 points, which I think must be something of a WeightWatchers record, but a valiant effort I feel. It just goes to prove, once again, that one day off the wagon does not equal failure!

I'm now in the process of planning the next week's excercise cycle, since I will be walking to the rugby club on Saturday morning for beer, a fry up and watching England hammer Scotland in the Rugby World Cup. Saturday would normally be my CrossTrainer day, so I think I shall just move WF Jogging to Thursday and the CrossTrainer to Friday. With a rest day on Sunday I shall resume the plan with a walk on Monday morning.

I want to lose at least 2.2lbs this week as that will mean that I will have lost 2 stones since I started, If I can lose more than 2.2lbs, that will put me below 19 stones for the first time in about 2 years! Wish me luck!

Weigh-in - Week 12

Well this week I have recorded the biggest loss for some time - 3lbs, which brings me down to 19st 5.8lbs and earns me another "silver star"(I've now had 3 of them). In case you don't know, WeightWatchers awards a "silver star" for every 7lbs lost, I think that you actually get a badge if you go to the meetings, but as I'm doing WeightWatchers online I don't actually get the badge.

There haven't really been any hiccups along the way this week. I was expecting to use a lot of points on Sunday as I was expecting to have a few beers while watching England v Georgia at the rugby club, but the barman had a late night on Saturday and didn't turn up until the end of the first half, so I only had 1 pint to wash down the Full English Fry-up. This was the first proper fry-up I've had since starting WeightWatchers and, I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it (as I should have for 30 points!). I'm looking forward to another one at Saturday's match against Romania.

My excercising has also been going well and the walk to and from the rugby club will have helped to take care of some of the points I consumed with the breakfast. It was a little cold on Sunday morning though, so I am beginning to think that I am going to need to join the local Gym over the winter period. It's going to get harder to motivate myself to go gor my walks when it starts to get cold, dark and wet in the morning and, as winter draws closer, it's going to start getting too cold to use the Crosstrainer in the garage too. On the upside, if I do start to use the gym, I will probably introduce some additional, or more varied, activities to my workouts and I'll be able to use a treadmill, so I might start to do the Couch 2 5K program.

My body shape is definitely beginning to change:

                                       Start                         Now               Loss

Neck:                              48cm                        45cm                3cm
Chest:                            131cm                      122cm               9cm
Calves:                           50cm                         47cm               3cm
Waist:                            118cm                       114cm              4cm
Upper Arms:                   41cm                        37cm               4cm
Thighs:                            62cm                        60cm               2cm

I have now started wearing a 40" jeans, which were always a bit snug when I first go them but now fit me quite nicely. It just goes to show how innacurate jeans sizes are though - 114cm is 44inches! Although I do tend to let my belly hang over the top of my belt, so I guess the waist of the jeans is below my waist. Anyway I'm now looking forward to losing more next week, good luck with your weight losses.

Weigh-in - Week 11

Well I know I shouldn't be dissapointed with a 1.6lb loss, but I am. This is due to the fact that, once again, I have been taling Sneaky Peaks - on Saturday morning I weighed 3lb less than I do this morning! I put the increase since Saturday morning down to 2 things - I had quite a lot of beer on Saturday while I was watching England struggle to overcome Argentina in the Rugby World cup, followed by more beer in the evening and I also went to a carvery on Sunday afternoon and had too much to eat (including a huge Eton Mess for desert).

What can I take from this? Well, firstly I can tell that Sneaky Peaks lead to dissapointment - if I hadn't weighed myself on Saturday I  would have been very pleased with my 1.6lb loss. Secondly, that it is possible to enjoy oneself on occasion without completely undoing all of the good work - an occasional blip is not going to do lasting damage, it is only when those blips become regular events that damage will be done!

I'm still continuing with my excercise routine, but this week there was a minor modification in that I did the Wii Fit Jogging a day early (and got up to 10954metres in 30 minutes) and walked to and from the rugby club on Saturday (a total distance of 4.5 miles). I'll have to make the same changes this coming week as England are playing on Sunday morning (against Georgia - we shouldn't have any trouble in this match). I shall also be enjoying a Full English breakfast with my beer while watching that match, so I will have to make sure I've got plenty of Weekly Points left to cover it.

Anyway, I'm now down to 19st 8.8lbs from my starting weight of 21st 0lbs - a total loss of 19.2lbs in 11 weeks! I'm averaging 1.7lbs per week, which I am very happy with.

Weigh-in - Week 10

Well this is the 10th Weigh-in and I'm very pleased to inform you that I've lost 2.6lbs since my last official weigh-in. I've now lost a total of 17.6lbs, which is an average of 1.8lbs per week. I have dropped another ProPoint from my daily allowance, which now stands at 53.

I still find it amazing how easy thisWeightWatchers ProPoints plan is! I haven't felt hungry at all since starting it, apart from a little hunger about an hour before most meals - which is probably a good thing. I've not missed any of my favourite foods or drinks because all of them are allowed and I've introduced some new foods to my diet whish are probably keeping me healthier than before (I was never really that fussed about eating fruit and I certainly never ate as many vegetavbles as I do now).

On Friday Mrs TBI and I went out for a meal with some of her friends and I had Piri Piri Chicken with Lattice Fries (it was meant to be potato wedges according to the menu!), which was very nice. I washed it down with a couple of pints of Rebellion Mutiny (one of my favourite ales) and that pretty much used up most of my daily propoints. I followed the main course with Sticky Toffee Pudding and custard, which I had no idea how to point, so I guestimated at 25 points and used up some of me weekly points. I decided that if I had got the points wrong, I probably had ample Activity Points to cover it and I wasn't planning any further excesses between then and this morining's weigh-in.

Asda seem to have temporarly removed their "Chosen by You" Fruit Juice drinks from the shelves, which is a shame as they are 0PPs. I have, however, found a suitable alternative in the shape of "Panda" still flavoured water - No added sugar, No Aspartame and only natural flavours - also 0PPs.

My excercise regime is still going well and I'm starting to really feel the benefits now after increasing my walking pace to just around 15Minutes per mile (15Mins 10seconds on Monday) and increasing my Wii Fit Jogging to 30minutes (is anyone else doing Wii Fit Jogging?). I've also got up to 8.5Kilometers in 20 minutes on the Crosstrainer, but I haven't yet got comfortable enough to increase the time on that. I do plan, at some point, on doing the Couch to 5K plan but I don't want to do that until I've lost a fair bit of weight as I don't want to damage my knees.

I am definitely feeling confident that this weight loss plan can succeed for me and am looking forward to the day when I can say I'm merely overweight, rather than obese (or "morbidly obese", which is what I was when I started).

Weigh-in - Week 9 (Beer 'n' Burgers)

Well after a long weekend of overindulgence I have managed to Stay The Same. Normally I would be dissapointed with this, but as I was at a party on Saturday Night where I honestly lost count of the number of beers I had, followed by a Bar-b-que on Sunday afternoon where the ale was also flowing quite well, I think I've done very well not to register a gain. This of course was not helped by the fact that I had to have a couple of pints when I was at the rugby club watching England's victory against Ireland in the pre World Cup friendly.

For those of you who think it's shocking that I should lose count of the number of pints I had on Saturday night, I should explain that I only poured myself one pint, direct from the barrel, unfortunately this was a magic, never ending pint! Everytime it got down to less than half full, it miraculously refilled itself! It's very difficult to keep track when that happens.

In fact, strictly speaking I've lost 0.6lb this week, but I cheated a little last week to ensure that I reached my 5% goal! I didn't mention last week that my scales have started registering 10ths of a lb since falling from 20st to 19st - as my 5% goal was 19st 13.3lbs and I actually registered 19st 13.6lbs on the scales, I took a bit of poetic license and recorded it as 19st 13lbs exactly, which is what I weighed today. My next target is 10% of my starting weight, which is 18st 12.6lbs and I promise, from now on, to record the 10ths of a lb (so long as I don't go back up above 20st of course).

I experimented with another low point recipe from the WW web site last week - it was a Chicken and Chorizo Gumbo, 5PP's per portion (or 11PP's if you eat half of it in one go!). I had it with a Warburtons Squarish Wrap to soak up the sauce and it was very tasty! I'm sure it would have tasted even better if I had followed the recipe more closely. Anyway, that's now 2 recipe's that I can add to my arsenal of low point meals for when I start to really need them, or for when I need to keep the points low before going out for a few beers.

I managed to stick with the excercise regime of Walking, Wii Fit Jogging, Crosstrainer, rest day and repeat. In fact on Sunday, even after all the beer and feeling a little groggy, I managed a new walking record to average 14.51 minutes per mile! Then, on Monday, I increased my Wii Fit Jogging from 20 minutes to 30 minutes and did, according the the Wii, 10781 metres. I don't believe the Wii Fit distances are in any way accurate, but they do seem to be consistent between jogs so they are a guide for me. It's a good job I'm doing the excercise as this wek, for the first time, I used up all of my weekly points and 10 Activity points!

Hopefully, this coming week shouldn't be quite so difficult to track and should be relatively easy to keep within the points limits. I'm going out for a meal on Friday eveneing to celebrate the birthday of a friend of my wife. I don't expect to be going overboard at this event and I don't have anything planned for the rest of the week.

Weigh-in - Week 8

Finally I've reached my teens!

After being over 20 stones for at least 2 years, I've finally managed to drop down below it! I'm really pleases as it means I've reached my first target of losing 5% of may starting weight, I've also lost my 2nd 7lbs.

This morning's weigh-in showed a loss of 2lbs from last week and now puts me down to 19st 13lbs! I am really very happy as I have achieved the last 3lbs loss while on holiday in Cornwall, where I found it very difficult to track, I wasn't able to get a lot of my normal exercising in and I didn't do any swimming or bodyboarding in the sea, as it was freezing cold! Next year, if we go to Cornwall, I am planning to be thin enough to be able to fit in to a wetsuit!

I think that, where I have been successful is that, although it was difficult to accurately track much of what I consumed over the period of my holiday, I was able to compensate by ensuring that I stuck to my normal breakfast and didn't have excessively large portions of anything. Also, when I had a Cornish Pasty, I didn't have a portion of chips as well! I kept any hunger at bay by ensuring that I had plenty of fruit to hand.

Having successfully negotiated the potential banana skin of a holiday, I am now back into the normal routine of exercise and tracking - made more difficult today as my boss is taking me out for a curry this lunchtime to say goodbye to a colleague who is leaving. I should be ok though as I skipped my glass of milk this morning and am planning to have a Warburtons Square Wrap Pizza for my dinner this evening, so hopefully I should just about remain within my 54 ProPoints for the day. If not, I shall have to use some weeklies, although I want to save them for the 2 bar-b-ques that I am going to this weekend, which will both involve large amounts of Ale (Rebellion of course!).

Weigh-in - Week 7

This week I discovered for myself the perils of the "Sneaky Peek"!

After feeling a bit deflated by my STS last week, I decided that I would have a Sneaky Peak on Friday morning, before setting off on our holiday in Cornwall. It was fantastic, the scales showed 19st 12.4lbs! Unfortunately I have had my official Weigh-in this morning and they showed 20st 1lb, a loss of only 1lb since my last official weigh-in.

While I'm disappointed that I didn't stay below 20st, I am still pleased to have registered a loss on the scales, after all I am on holiday and so my WeightWatching is not as easy as it would normally be. I'm having to estimate quite a lot, and it is possible that I'm underestimating rather than overestimating the points (although I would be surprised if this is happening a lot.

I have done a little bit less exercise this week, as my wife doesn't want me walking along the Cornish country lanes first thing in the morning. I had thought that I might make up for this by doing some body boarding with my son, but when we were at the beach on Saturday the water was freezing. I would have been the only person in the water without a wetsuit on. I did try to get in, I got as far as waist deep but my gentleman's parts felt like they were going to drop off, so I retired to the water's edge to watch my son. The water was warmer on Sunday, but by the time I realised this, the tide had come in and it was time for us to leave. Yesterday it rained and it looks like we'll have more rain today, so I don't think I'll be doing any bodyboarding today either. I have promised my son (an myself) that next year I will be fit and agile enough to take some surfing lessons with him! I think we'll go somewhere warmer for that though.

Anyway, not a bad result this week, but not a great one either. Onwards and downwards!