Weigh-in - Week 35 - 15% Off!

I'm very pleased to announce that following this morning's weigh-in I have lost another 2lbs, which means that I am now 17st 11.0lbs and have lost 15% of my starting weight!

To say I'm chuffed would be an understatement, especially after the ups and downs of the last couple of months! I've now set a new target in the WeightWatchers tracker of 16st 11.2lbs, which will be 20% of my starting weight.

The Sneaky Peaks have continued though and I can say with some certainty that if it wasn't for the beer consumed during the England v Wales match and the following Curry, I would almost certainly have lost more, as my SP on Saturday morning showed 17st 10.0lbs. I'm not upset by this though, the whole idea of the weightwatchers plan is to lose slowly and steadily without depriving oneself of the food and drink that one enjoys. And I did enjoy the beer and the curry!

For this coming week I have an empty diary, so no nights out, no meals out, or at my mum's, and no rugby to watch in the pub. With the complete lack of danger on the consumption front, I should be in for a good loss at next week's weigh-in - what's the betting I have a gain?

See you again next week!

Weigh-in - Week 34

Stayed The Same!

Well it makes a change as, on recent form, I would have expected to have a small gain this week just as I have done after every loss since the beginning of January!

This week I was actually expecting a small gain as that was what my Sneaky Peeks were telling me to expect, especially as I went to my mum & dad's for a family meal (including my outlaws) on Sunday. I find it very difficult to control my food intake when I have a meal at my mum's because, not only is she an excellent cook, but she also insists on offering several differing deserts, each of which has to be sampled. I made some educated guesses at the points, but I wasn't at all surprised by my SP result yesterday morning.

Having said all that, it leaves me very pleased to register an STS at my official weigh-in today. I do think I must be about due a good loss soon though!

Some of my regular readers (do I have any?) may remember that a few months ago I gave up wii fit jogging due to suffering from Achilles Tendonitis, well on Friday I decided that the pain from it has almost completely gone (it only hurts first thing in the morning and only for the first few minutes after getting up) and I would try and restart the Couch 2 5K program. Since I do quite a lot on the crosstrainer, I felt that I would probably be able to start at Week 2, Day 1 - this was a mistake! Firsly running/jogging uses a slightly different set of muscles than the crosstrainer and my thighs were stiff until this morning! Secondly my Achilles Tendonitis came back with a vengeance! I was in quite a lot of pain with it all day on Friday and less pain, but still all day, on Saturday! This morning it seems to have reverted to it's pre-jog levels. Needless to say I won't be trying Couch 2 5K again until the pain has completely dissappeared for at least a couple of months, and even then I shall start on Week 1 no matter how fit I think I am!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to another week of tracking and exercising (on the crosstrainer every other day) - the only thing that I have planned that might cause a bump in the road is watching England v Wales in the pub on Saturday afternoon, which will obviously use up a few weekly points. Luckily I don't have a ticket to the match as that would be even more costly in terms if ProPoints (I did enter a Daily Mail competition to win a pair though, so fingers crossed!).

I'll report back again next week!

See Ya!

Weigh-in Week 33

Finally I've made it into the 17s - This morning's weigh-in was 17st 13lbs exactly, a loss of 1.2lbs since last week! This has been a real struggle for me as in the 17's was my target for Christmas and it's now Valentine's Day! I seem to have been bouncing along on a bit of a plateaux for the last 2 months. On the bright side, I didn't give up, I kept with the plan in the knowledge that it works. It is so good to be able to read the blogs of other men, that are using WeightWatchers to reduce their own weight - most of them have been through the same problems at some point in their journey and knowing this is a real help.

Once again this week I was Sneaky Peeking and, once again, it has been shown to be a bad idea:

Tuesday (Weigh-in)        18st 0.2lb
Wednesday                      18st 1.0lb (bugger!)
Thursday                         18st 1.0lb
Friday                              18st 1.0lb
Saturday                           17st 12.4lb (woohoo!)
Sunday                             18st 0.4lb (bugger!)
Monday                            18st 1.4lb (bugger even more!)
Today (Weigh-in)             17st 13.0lb (woohoo!)

I think that the increase on Sunday & Monday was probably caused by the beers that I had on Saturday whilst watching England struggle against Italy on Saturday afternoon, even though they were well within my ProPoints Allowance - I had 13 Weekly and 18 Activity Points left at the end of the week.

Having finally reached my Christmas target of below 18stones, I have now set myself some mini-targets:

1. 17st 11.9lbs           15% of my starting weight (this is my next major target actually)
2. 17st 7lbs                7th silver star (not that I collect them as I'm an online WighWatcher)
3. 17st 6lbs                50lbs loss and also the wight I was when I got married 14 years ago!
4. 17st 0lbs                8th silver star
5. 16st 13.99999lbs   Under 17st
6. 16st 11.2lbs           20% of my starting weight
7. 16st 7lbs                9th silver star
8. 16st 1lbs                 BMI of 29.9 which would make me "overweight"
9. 15st 13.99999lbs   Under 16st
10. 15st 10.5lbs           25% of my starting weight

I don't know how long it's going to take me to get through that list (on current form, it could be a very long time) but I WILL do it and it doesn't matter how long it takes!

Before I finish, I just want to shout WELL DONE at Tom Hicks for reaching his goal last week! Tom's blog has been one of the things that has inspired me to stick with WeightWatchers, I you haven't read it, I recommend that you do - he's been through all of the highs and lows and has managed to get there!

See you all again next week.

Weigh-in - Week 32

Well, after last week's small gain, I was hoping for a decent loss to make me feel a bit better - unfortunately it was only a small loss of 1lb, which leaves me at 18st 0.2lbs. As those of you who follow this blog will know, I've been trying to reach my Chrstmas target of under 18st for quite some time now and have had a really tough time of it. Now I am so close to achieving that target that it really hurts - just 0.2lbs away! It really can't be that difficult and surely I must make it by next week!

After my dissapointment of last week, I decided that I would have some Sneaky Peeks (SP's) - here is my SP story and, I think, a pretty good indication of why they are not a particularly good idea:

Tuesday (Weigh-in day):             18st 1.2lbs
Thursday (1st SP):                       18st 0.4lbs   Happy :-)
Friday                                           18st 0.4lbs  Happy :-)
Saturday                                       18st 0.4lbs  OK
Sunday                                         18st 0.4lbs   Happy (had some beers yesterday - watching the Rugby)
Monday                                        18st 2.2lbs  What the ...? Sad :-(
Tuesday (Weigh-in day):             18st 0.2lbs  Happy again :-)

I should point out that I weigh myself at home, so all of these weigh-ins were on the same scales and before breakfast (about 07:45 during the week and about 09:00 Sat-Sun). It seems odd that I can remain the same for 4 days, then gain 1.8lbs and then lose 2.0lbs in 2 days. I am, of course, very pleased that my official weigh in day was today and not yesterday, but I will be interested to see what I weigh tomorrow. See? I'm already back in the habit of Sneaky Peeks! I'd worked quite hard to stop doing that!

I think Sneaky Peaks are even more unwise when using different sets of scales because these can vary hugely. My advice to anyone that asks is avoid Sneaky Peaks, but, if you must have them, make sure you're using the same scales and do them at the same time of day.

Looking forward, I hope, to being in the 17's next week!

Weigh-in - Week 31 - Aaaargh!

After last week's loss I was hoping for another good loss this week, but it was not to be! Instead I've gained 0.6lbs, putting me back up to 18st 1.2lbs! I STILL haven't achieved my Christmas target!

I'm feeling quite upset at the moment as I just can't seem to get back on to the downward path.

I don't think I over did anything lats week - most days (Tuesday - Friday and Yesterday) I was within my daily points allowance, I exercised on the Crosstrainer every other day (13.4k in 30minutes). It was only at the weekend that I went over my daily points allowance - this is how it went:

On Saturday we had some old friends coming to visit, so my wife decided that she would do a buffet lunch (which was a good idea as they were very late!). I decided that I would just have some fruit for breakfast (0pp). Unfortunately by the time we started eating it was quite late in the afternoon and I was quite hungry, so I ate quite a lot and, as we all know, buffet food is difficult to track and tends to be quite high in points too. I allocated my full daily allowance to this (49pp). I also had over the course of the afternoon and evening 6 pints of wonderful Rebellion "Roasted Nuts" ale (36pp).

On Sunday we had a late brunch of 2 scrambled eggs, 2 sausages, 2 rashers of bacon, mushrooms and a slice of toast (17pp) and then dinner in the evening was a curry (32pp) washed down with 2 pints of Roasted Nuts (11pp).

I can only assume that I massively underestimated the points i used on Saturday and that having the curry on Sunday meant that there was no time to recover by the time I weighed in this morning. I'm going to have a Sneaky Peak tomorrow morning to see if an extra day is enough to undo the damage. I will post a special report to let you know the result.

This coming weekend will also be a tricky one, although I plan to be a bit more careful with what I eat, as I shall be watching Scotland v England in the Six Nations on Saturday. Obviously there will be an amount of ale consumed, but I will ensure that it is well within my points allowances and I shall make a point of not overindulging on Sunday!

Weigh-in - Week 30 - Oh so close!

I'm so close to my target of getting below 18st that it hurts! At my weigh in this morning I was delighted to register a loss of 2.8lbs, which puts my current weight at 18st 0.6lbs!

It's been my best week for a long time as I am now fully recovered from the illness that affected me over Christmas and the New Year. I've been tracking much better (by which I mean I've avoided the odd bit of comfort food that's just been too small to bother tracking!) plus I've been back exercising of the crosstrainer on a regular basis (every other day) which gives me activity points. Now I don't normally use my Activity Points, I find that my Daily and Weekly Points allowances are enough, but I do think of them as a kind of buffer zone for those odd little treats that don't normally get pointed (like a triangle of Toblerone, for instance, or a handful of peanuts).

I've also been getting more adventurous in the kitchen. On Saturday I made "The Hairy Bikers' South American Chilli Con Carne", this recipe is unusual in that it uses Black Beans instead of Kidney Beans. It took about 3 hours to cook, but the end result was absolutely delicious (possibly the best Chilli I've had for a very long time) and at only 13 Points per Serving it fits in with Weight Watchers quite nicely - I had it with about 10 points worth of Rice and a little bit of garlic bread and washed it down with some beer from my weekly allowance. I've got some maturing in the refirdgerator, so will probably have some tonight (if my current culinary experiment, home made chicken soup, doesn't work out) or tomorrow.

I have to say, I'm feeling a lot happier about this weight loss journey that I have been for the last few weeks, where I seem to have been stuck on a bit of a hilly plateaux. Hopefully this week's loss is the return to the downhill slopes - time will tell!

Good luck with your own weight loss program, see you next week for another report!

Weigh-in - Week 29

Horror of horrors I weighed in yesterday and found that I've had a, small, gain of 0.4lbs this week! It was such a dissapointment that I couldn't bring myself to add anything to my blog this week!

My wife told me not to worry as it's only a small gain but "out of little acorns, giant oaks grow"!

My excuse, if excuses are allowed, is that I suffered from a chest infection over Christmas abd was on anti-biotics up until last Wednesday and I haven't been able to do any exercise on the treadmill since Christmas day (and that was the first time in a fortnight due to having a cold before Christmas!).

I'm now back into the Crosstrainer routine, having been on it 3 times since last Saturday, and I am trying to get back on track and pointing properly (which might have been a bit erratic over the last few weeks).

I've got to lose 3.5lbs to get into the 17stone zone and I'm determined to do it soon!