October 19th, 2009
Has someone put me in reverse or something?
As you can see above this week I managed to lose -1kg. Yes that’s right. Off to a flying start by putting on another kilo in a week. I would love to be surprised by this but I had a week that is becoming all too typical. Friday and Sunday kind of sum thing up, a burger for Friday lunch, fish and chips on Friday night for tea and then on Sunday we had a Chinese takeaway to celebrate me finishing the deck.
It’s starting to take the piss a little and it’s starting to annoy me. So, here’s to a better week 2. This week I’ll be putting together my goals and rewards table so I have some small things to aim for and I’m going to try and get together my motivational montage again.
Goal for next Monday is to be back to 105kg again or more hopefully 104.5kg.
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October 13th, 2009
For the regular readers of this blog you’ll have noticed a distinct lack of posts in the last month. You probably also noticed that my last posts revolved around lack of motivation etc. Well about a month ago I reached the point where I didn’t really know what I was doing with this weight-loss thing anymore. Combined with a bit of a busy time at work and a very busy time at home trying to get the garden finished and I made a conscious decision to just drop the attempts at weight loss for the time being.
My hope was that I would miss it enough to want to start again. And the hope was that when I started again I’d have some renewed vigour about the attempt. I also hoped to wipe the slate clean a little in terms of the efforts I was going to. I seemed to go into a very analytical mode, calculating things that weren’t really helpful. It detracted from what I was trying to do and while the counting of calories and the food diary I’ve kept previously were helpful I think they were a little counter-productive.
The good news now is that I am ready to get right on it.
I’ve been missing the time I spend in the gym and I’m been noticing my motivation for losing weight has been steadily creeping up. Unfortunately my weight has been steadily creeping up with it.
So here it is…12 weeks until the New Year. The new year seems like a good place to stop don’t you think? The aim is to get to 95kg by January. That would mean in total a 20kg loss this year, something I can be really proud of.
At the moment I’m weighing in at 105kg, 5kg over my 30th birthday target and 10kg off of my new target. That means I’ve got to lose close to a kilo every week to hit my target. That’s going to be tough! To help me along I’ve got some learnings from my previous attempts. I’ve got an understanding of what I should be eating and how much of it I should be eating. The what is more protein and less fat. The how much is a fair sized portion but cutting out the unhealthy snacks and spreading things out across the day a little more.
The other things to help me will be my goal breakdown. I plan on rewarding myself for every 2.5 kg lost. I’m not sure what my first two rewards will be but my second two are going to be something along the lines of a music lesson, piano probably, and a martial art lesson, not sure what yet though. I’m also going to be putting together another motivational montage. I put together one in video form that I never finished but it helped me gather my thoughts a little more when I wasn’t posting.
I’m also going back to charting my progress in a simple weight loss tracker graph. I’m switching away from Google Docs and back into my spreadsheet of choice. Why? I like the social elements of Google docs but their chart design sucks and I need to have the graph look nice in order for me to pay attention to it.
So here goes another stab at losing weight. Wish me luck.
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September 6th, 2009
It’s taking quite an effort to sit down and catch up with my blog. I didn’t manage to write a post last week on my progress because I was pretty annoyed with myself. Things haven’t been going well and I’ve really slipped off the pace.
Last week I just let it all go and slipped back into something that feels a bit more natural. I wanted to try and figure out why after a successful first half of the year I’m having such a bad second half of the year. I’m not sure I know what it is yet but it definitely has something to do with my diet. The exercise is going quite well and I’m enjoying the results of doing more weights in the gym. The diet though is making me feel stuffed all of the time. It makes me feel bloated and uncomfortable. I’m not sure whether it’s the quantity or the ratio of foods but something is out of kilter.
The plan for next week is to eat quite healthily, get one weights work-out in and then a CV workout too. Then I’m off to do some serious R&R. Bestival is next weekend so I shall be forgetting all about this weight loss thing and hopefully when I come back I’ll be ready to rock it to the end of year goals.
Tags: progress, struggling, tough times
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August 23rd, 2009
So another week has gone by and another week of no progress. I really just haven’t been on the ball and all the time I can see my goals slipping away. So it’s time to get back on it.
I’ve decided one of the things that’s troubling me is that I’m trying to do too much. I’m spreading my attention to thinly between food and gym and measurements etc etc. Starting from now then there’s going to be 2 measurements I’m going to take, weight and waist/hips measurement. It’s where I want to lose most so that’s what I’ll focus on.
I’ll still be looking after food too but maybe not as in depth.
Wish me luck.
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August 17th, 2009
Well not much to report here this week since I’ve had a week off. So essentially my progress is that I haven’t progressed!
As I mentioned I had a bad back from gardening an generally I’ve been feeling like I’m not making much improvement. So I thought a week off would do me good. I didn’t count calories or anything but I made sure I didn’t go too crazy.
Other than taking a break I’ve been looking at my motivational montage again trying to pick it up and get more inspiration to push ahead with more changes. Sometimes I wonder why I’m trying to lose weight so it’s nice to remind myself every now and then. I’m also going to put together a short video instead of my picture. I want to get a few more things in to remind me why I’m doing this.
This coming week will be week 8 which means I’ve got 3 weeks to show some good progress before I seriously start to think about changing routines.
Wish me luck.
Sid.
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August 14th, 2009
After spending time in the garden all weekend I woke on Monday morning to a back that was not willing to play ball. What with all the bending and digging etc I managed to aggrevate an old back injury and have spent most of the week avoiding anything strenuous, including the gym.
This has meant I’m on a bit of a downer at the minute. My weight is going up and I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere.
FUCK!
Time to go back and have a look at my motivational montage and do a little reworking I think.
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August 10th, 2009
Howdy everyone. Apologies for not posting yesterday. We were a bit busy getting a monster tree stump out of our garden and when we were done we we’re a bit knackered. It meant that all weekend we were getting a fantastic workout. I’ve never been so knackered for ages. I’m not sure how many calories I got through but it was a lot. When we moved into our house we had a 60ft conifer tree which we had chopped down to get more light into the back of our house. The tree went rather quickly but the stump has been there taunting us for a few years. Combine a tree stump and loads of flint walls under a load of soil and you’ve got a lot of work to do. Thankfully it’s out now.
Anyway, onto my progress.
Basically, it sucks…
Not so much weight loss there rather than weight gain. From the 100kg target I hit on my 30th birthday I’m now 2.5kg heavier. I know I’m not focusing on weight loss this time round but I do still want to lose weight overall.
So I’m struggling with my regime this time round. On the one hand I’m adding muscle. I know I’m adding muscle because I can see it and feel it. I’ve got better muscle definition round my legs and arms. I also feel like I’ve lost fat off of my chest. The only problem is I think I’m putting it on round my waist and hips. And since that’s where I want to lose it the most I’m pretty pissed off.
I’m not surprised I’m putting on weight. The extra calories and the extra protein are making sure I do that. My worry is that I keep putting it on and don’t get to lose what I want to lose when I want to lose it by.
So, what to do? I’m not sure to be honest. One thing I’ve been thinking is that I’m just not accurate enough with my measurements. The skin calipers are easy enough to use but depending on where you pinch and how you pinch you can vary the measurement by 4-6mm. That’s just not accurate enough for me. The other measurements with a tape measure are also subject to discrepancies. Take for instance my thigh measurement. If I move the tape up or down a couple of centimeters then the measurement varies massively. Again, just not good enough. So I’ve been wondering about bdy fat analysers and it just so happened Oli Mell left a comment about them too. So I’ll be doing a little research into those this coming week.
On a good point my food intake is getting much better. There’s a couple of days last week where I got it spot on. It’s tough to do but I managed it a couple of times and can do it again. The sticky point is the fat intake. It’s so easy to go over my intake.
Anyway, wish me luck for the next few weeks. I think I’m going to give this regime until week 10 before I decide to change it if my weight is still going in the wrong direction.
Sid.
Tags: body fat analyser, calipers, diet, tracker, weight-gain, weight-loss, weights
Posted in Phase 2 Progress, skin fold tracker, weight loss tracker | 2 Comments »
August 2nd, 2009
I’m sat, wondering what to write and wondering what to think…
I’ve had a couple of weeks now where I just haven’t felt like I’ve been making any progress. At some points I’ve felt good but I’m just not in the groove.
The aim over the last few weeks has been to try and adjust my diet so that I get a good balance of carb, protein and fat. I wanted to cut out some fat in exchange for protein so that when I hit the weights I had enough protein to build some muscle. I’ve also been increasing the amount I eat so that I could increase the intensity of my workouts.
The problem is though I’ve been really busy at work and also we’ve had loads of visitors staying over. It’s meant that I’ve missed a couple of gym sessions and I’ve spent time eating out more than I normally would. Looking at my calorie tracker I’ve been doing a pretty shoddy job, so much so I gave up half-way through last week. But looking at the skin-fold measurement above I’m not doing too badly. I’m not going to think I’m doing OK though because I don’t think I am.
It’s way too easy to eat too much fat so over the next few weeks I’ll be putting effort into making sure my diet is balanced how I want it to be.
So apologies for the bit of a rubbish post but I’ve not got much good stuff to write.
Sid.
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July 29th, 2009
After a few troubles with my website I’m back to report week 4 progress… NO CHANGE!
It was a little frustrating to get on the scales and get the tape measure out and not see any difference this week. In fact after 4 weeks of more weights, more protein etc etc I would’ve liked to have seen more measurable effect.
Having said that I do think things are moving along but I’m not too sure I’m measuring things well enough to spot it. I feel a lot better. I feel as though I am losing body fat and gaining muscle. I can see a little more muscle definition and friends are commenting on how much better I look. But there’s no measurable difference.
So we’ll give it a few more weeks. I’ve really started to get a grip on diet this week. I’m still struggling with fat intake and will need to figure out how to lower that but I’ve got my protein intake up with the help of some protein shakes.
Wish me luck.
Sid.
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July 19th, 2009
For the last week I’ve been tracking what I’ve been eating to a degree that I’ve never done before. I usually hate calorie counting but for some reason this week has been fun.
The outcome…
The graph above is normalised so that what I’m aiming for is that 100% line for all the other lines. Basically I’ve been tracking calorie, carbohydrate, protein and fat intake. I’m aiming for 2800 calories per day which is 15% less than maintenance calorie level for someone my size. Then I’m aiming to get 60% of my calories from carbohydrate, I’m aiming for 160g of protein intake a day and then the rest of the calorie, about 17% of my intake, should come from fat.
The increased protein is because I’m doing more weight-training and need the extra protein to help build and maintain muscle.
Over the last week I didn’t eat much differently than I normally would, I just kept track of it. The numbers are as close as I could get based on the information on the packets of food I used and what’s online for all the things that weren’t in a packet.
You can see from the graph above there is a general trend. Calories, carbohydrate and protein are all on the low side while fat is always on the high side. So it looks like I’m going to be changing a bunch of stuff. The fat has to come down and the protein and carb has to go up.
For the fat it means cutting out pretty much everything that is the least bit unhealthy. Cakes, biscuits, any form of treat is out the window. To give you an idea…a tuna and sweetcorn sandwich with a bit of mayo has about 50% of my daily fat allowance. That isn’t a lot.
For carbs it basically means eating more cereals etc and for the protein I ordered some whey protein from www.myprotein.co.uk. I didn’t particularly want to supplement my protein but there’s o other way I can figure out to get the extra 60g of prtein without stuffing my face with aduki beans, chicken or tuna.
Next week I’m going to have a week off tracking but I’ll track food intake again in a couple of weeks to see if I’ve made the necessary adjustment.
The good news is that I’ve lost weight since last week but the bad news is I’m not sure whether it’s fat or muscle. I think the measurements I’m taking this time round are subject to a lot more variation. You can check them out on my google spreadsheet page.
Wish me luck.
Sid.
Tags: carb, fat, food, intake, protein, tracker, weight
Posted in Phase 2 Progress, food | No Comments »
