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| Back under 17st |
Thursday 21 March 2013
Thursday Weigh-In - 21 March
I'll keep this brief and won't bother with much analysis given it is a Thursday and therefore not my official weigh-in day. But having failed to mount the scales yesterday I found time to do so this morning, and was greeted with this.
Moving in the right direction then after last week's blip. Good!
Wednesday 20 March 2013
Wednesday Weigh-In - 20 March
I know you're expecting to see a photo of my toes on bathroom scales. It is Wednesday after all and that means weigh-in day. Lets just say that things are on hold until later as there wasn't the opportunity to get weighed this morning. With two boys in the house you don't expect to have the chance to oversleep, but somehow that is exactly what happened today, leading to a mad rush to get the baby to his neurosurgeon appointment. Got there we did, just about, with the weigh-in and breakfast among many things to get cast aside to ensure that happened.
Rather than wait until next week, I think I'll break my rules and adopt a Thursday weigh-in tomorrow. After a bit of an up and down week I'm feeling pretty confident to have dipped back under 17st, but I just guess we'll have to wait and see.
On the upside, despite a stressful morning I can be proud of myself for turning down cake. A charity sale just went through my office and rather than get something for me, something nice was bought for one of my colleagues. Lucky them and well done me.
Tuesday 19 March 2013
Every step counts
I'll be perfectly honest. Right now the diet isn't top of my priorities. Living with a 5 week old with nocturnal tendencies rather kicks the stuffing out of you, and getting through the working day without my colleagues finding me snoring away at my desk is becoming more and more of a challenge. Inevitably therefore I am breaking somewhat from the three round meals a day plan and introducing the occasional snack to keep my brain ticking over. However, I've also started taking steps to counterbalance this.
The lunchtime stroll is becoming a regular feature, when the weather permits. To help track progress in this area, I've enlisted the help of an app called RunKeeper. This is essentially a clever bit of kit for fitness freaks to track their runs, but for the less physically actively like myself there is a setting included which covers walking. Enter your weight, and it makes an educated prediction of how many calories you burn in relation to the speed and distance travelled.
So, as you'll gather from the image above, today I walked a touch over 2 miles, burning just over 300 calories, all comfortably within the timeframe of my lunch break. Shortly after I finished this I received a nice email from the app informing me I'd broken my record for calories burned and average speed.
Other features in the app include a map tracking your journey, stored details of previous activities and it even has preset training plans to help you prepare for things like 10Ks, marathons etc. I'm not sure it has a plan set up for me and my sponsored walk next month, but if I ever get my running shoes on it will be good to have this option to help me prepare for a race.
I downloaded RunKeeper for free from Google Play and I believe it is also available for iPhone. Check it out as it is a useful addition to your smartphone, and helped me justify eating a few apples this afternoon!
The lunchtime stroll is becoming a regular feature, when the weather permits. To help track progress in this area, I've enlisted the help of an app called RunKeeper. This is essentially a clever bit of kit for fitness freaks to track their runs, but for the less physically actively like myself there is a setting included which covers walking. Enter your weight, and it makes an educated prediction of how many calories you burn in relation to the speed and distance travelled.
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| What RunKeeper looks like |
Other features in the app include a map tracking your journey, stored details of previous activities and it even has preset training plans to help you prepare for things like 10Ks, marathons etc. I'm not sure it has a plan set up for me and my sponsored walk next month, but if I ever get my running shoes on it will be good to have this option to help me prepare for a race.
I downloaded RunKeeper for free from Google Play and I believe it is also available for iPhone. Check it out as it is a useful addition to your smartphone, and helped me justify eating a few apples this afternoon!
Wednesday 13 March 2013
Wednesday Weigh-In - 13 March
It was always going to happen at some point and now it has. I've gained weight.
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| Back into the 17s |
This doesn't come as any great surprise to me. Firstly I felt last week's weight was a touch generous, with an evening weigh-in not really offering the level of consistency from previous readings. But secondly and much more relevant, I've eaten like a whale in the last few days, and so inevitably I've ballooned. 4lbs heavier than when I stood on the scales last Wednesday.
I could quite easily put together a case for mitigating circumstances. As any parent will well remember, a new addition to the household brings about dramatic change to lifestyle and routine. There have been some pretty rough nights over the last week, with the little man seemingly a night owl while his mum and dad have been clinging to the scraps of sleep we've been permitted to have at night. It is tough to maintain any sort of discipline in this scenario, much less keep to a diet plan when during the day you're struggling to stay awake. A little additional sugar here and there to get me through the day is acceptable. My problem is, I've never been someone who just has a little of something.
Yesterday was a case in point. After a relatively better night, things just imploded and I went on a food rampage. In between breakfast and dinner I managed to consume three chocolate bars, a large sausage roll, chinese satay chicken on stick things, two pre-packed sandwiches, a couple of jammy dodgers, some leftover rice, and some pasta cooked for my son's dinner which he didn't want. That isn't a small pickmeup to get me through the day after a sleep-interrupted night. That is a binge, plain and simple. Did I feel better for eating all of this? Did it mean I operated better throughout the afternoon and evening? Absolutely not. If anything it just intensified the fact that I felt rough, adding a bloated tummy to my list of irritabilities. The only saving grace I suppose is having scoffed all of that down, I really didn't feel like much yesterday evening and just ate a muller yoghurt. Not exactly a balanced diet, but didn't need anything more.
I'm writing this off the back of a better night. I've started my day with a bowl of porridge. The sun is out and I intend to go for a walk in my lunchtime break. I do feel tired but that is just something I'll have to get used to and learn that the only way to improve this is sleep, not through feeding crap to myself. I'm reminding myself of my motivation to lose weight, so that I have the energy and mobility to be a great daddy to my two boys. Even if one of them is a wrecking ball for my sleep/diet equilibrium, I can't use that as an excuse not to push on towards my goals.
So here is to a better week. No more binge. Do what I can when I can without pushing myself over the edge. This week was a blip. Weighloss is a long term commitment. One week does not reverse the two previous months, so long as it doesn't slide into subsequent weeks. I can't control my sleep but I can pick and choose what I eat. The bad stuff ends now.
Friday 8 March 2013
Walk this way
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| Slough Town F.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
In April I will be undertaking a 15 mile walk with a number of friends and acquaintances. My local team (Slough Town Football Club) have a supporters-led end of season sponsored walk and I'll be making the relatively short trip to North Greenford Utd. I say relatively short as previous years have included some frankly ridiculous jaunts to Worthing and Sutton Coldfield.
The club have very kindly adopted the Shine Charity as one of their nominated charities for the walk, presenting me with an opportunity to raise some money for a charity that has become very close to my heart. I'm feeling pretty inspired by the efforts of my brother-in-law who ran the Silverstone Half Marathon at the weekend wearing a Shine vest in honour of his nephew. I'm certainly not ready to be running anywhere any time soon but it remains in my plans to do something along those lines later in the year. The walk will do nicely though as a starting point enabling me to focus my mind on exercise without having to kill myself while still carrying excess lbs.
Wednesday 6 March 2013
Wednesday weigh-in - 6 March
4 weeks on from my last official weigh-in, and I'm finally returning to the scales. This is what they told me today.
So over the last 4 weeks I've lost a total of 8lbs, taking the grand total since the start of the year to a 24lb loss. I should probably throw in an asterix against these figures as I didn't manage to weight myself until I got home from work this evening, whereas my usual weigh-in takes place after breakfast on a Wednesday morning. There could therefore be a question mark or two over the numbers shown in the picture above, but not 8lbs worth.
I'm delighted to have lost weight in the last calendar month. A steady 2lbs per week when life has been extraordinary is a great result and proves to me that I can diet through adversity. For those catching up with the overall story, my son was born on 11 Feb with Spina Bifida, and required immediate corrective surgery to repair his myleomeningocele. During the next two and a half weeks he was in hospital with me either there with him or not far away. I've slept in a hospital chair, on a hospital floor, at a Ronald McDonald house, roomed with my son in a parent room in a special baby care unit and even managed one night in my own bed. So it is safe to say things have been a little disrupted!
Part of my problem with food is that I've always been a comfort eater. I won't deny that over the last few weeks there have been days when I have stuffed my face but on the whole I've kept things in moderation despite the challenges afoot. Now we are home, like all new parents adjustments are having to be made to cope with varying levels of sleep deprivation. I remember as new dad the first time around surviving days by feasting on lots of sugary snacks. Yesterday I came face to face with 2 dozen Krispy Kremes and resisted temptation. I'm allowing myself the occasional treat to ensure I've got the energy levels I need to get me through the days (and the long long nights) but not going overboard.
How things progress from here I'm not too sure. My immediate priority is not dieting, but my motivation to slim down is now in front of me, sleeping, crying, feeding and pooing day in day out. So long as I can keep my wits when I'm at the end of sleepless nights, I should continue to progress towards my weightloss goal.
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| First recorded reading starting with 16 |
I'm delighted to have lost weight in the last calendar month. A steady 2lbs per week when life has been extraordinary is a great result and proves to me that I can diet through adversity. For those catching up with the overall story, my son was born on 11 Feb with Spina Bifida, and required immediate corrective surgery to repair his myleomeningocele. During the next two and a half weeks he was in hospital with me either there with him or not far away. I've slept in a hospital chair, on a hospital floor, at a Ronald McDonald house, roomed with my son in a parent room in a special baby care unit and even managed one night in my own bed. So it is safe to say things have been a little disrupted!
Part of my problem with food is that I've always been a comfort eater. I won't deny that over the last few weeks there have been days when I have stuffed my face but on the whole I've kept things in moderation despite the challenges afoot. Now we are home, like all new parents adjustments are having to be made to cope with varying levels of sleep deprivation. I remember as new dad the first time around surviving days by feasting on lots of sugary snacks. Yesterday I came face to face with 2 dozen Krispy Kremes and resisted temptation. I'm allowing myself the occasional treat to ensure I've got the energy levels I need to get me through the days (and the long long nights) but not going overboard.
How things progress from here I'm not too sure. My immediate priority is not dieting, but my motivation to slim down is now in front of me, sleeping, crying, feeding and pooing day in day out. So long as I can keep my wits when I'm at the end of sleepless nights, I should continue to progress towards my weightloss goal.
Monday 4 March 2013
Get back to what you know
When I started writing this blog at the start of the year, I always knew there was a cloud hovering above February that would likely effect both the diet and my ability to pen content. That cloud came to be on 11 Feb in the form of a 7lb 1oz baby boy. Under normal circumstances a new family addition will alter your usual routine, and as you'll have noted from the blog so far, my dieting success comes off the back of consistent behaviour. With that in mind, plus the knowledge that Jacob's arrival brought additional concerns, I benched the diet for the last three weeks. Today things will get back to normal.
My paternity leave plus an additional week of leave has been and gone, and today I head back to the office. I strongly suspect I'll be spending most of the day talking about babies and hospitals rather than be particularly productive, but whereas I can't control my colleagues wanting to know everything about Jacob's adventure to date, what I can do is regain control of my food intake. I've just started my day with a bowl of porridge with a banana and plan to get back on track with a view to weigh-in on Wednesday.
After initially keeping relatively healthy during my time off, the last week or so has descended into cake, crisps and chocolate. They are no longer on my menu. A return to three steady meals a day will replace eating at will. I voluntarily climbed off this dieting horse, but now I'm determined to get back in the saddle and resume where I left off.
When you find a weightloss formula that works for you, stick with it. That is what I am doing today, going back to what I know. A wee bit of sleep deprivation may present a challenge, but dieting was never supposed to be easy.
My paternity leave plus an additional week of leave has been and gone, and today I head back to the office. I strongly suspect I'll be spending most of the day talking about babies and hospitals rather than be particularly productive, but whereas I can't control my colleagues wanting to know everything about Jacob's adventure to date, what I can do is regain control of my food intake. I've just started my day with a bowl of porridge with a banana and plan to get back on track with a view to weigh-in on Wednesday.
After initially keeping relatively healthy during my time off, the last week or so has descended into cake, crisps and chocolate. They are no longer on my menu. A return to three steady meals a day will replace eating at will. I voluntarily climbed off this dieting horse, but now I'm determined to get back in the saddle and resume where I left off.
When you find a weightloss formula that works for you, stick with it. That is what I am doing today, going back to what I know. A wee bit of sleep deprivation may present a challenge, but dieting was never supposed to be easy.
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