Me vs Statistics

Not surprisingly the start of the year brings about lots of talk about diets. I'm not the only voice evangelising about losing weight as part of a new year health kick. Newspapers have been talking about them, the bloggosphere is full of new year resolutions vowing that this will be the year that weight will be shed. Channel 5 dedicated two hours to a programme the other night in which they tried to debunk myths about dieting which made for very depressing viewing. Everything in that show was so negative that by the end of it I felt like saying 'sod it' and reaching for the Pringles.

Following a suggestion from my old school friend GourmetMum I recently signed up as a member of BritMums. I know, I know, what is a guy doing joining an online community of mums? Well, they take dads as well for a start, plus with no obviously comparable collective of male bloggers, it made sense to join this pre-existing network. In the forum section I posted a link to this site and suggested that if any other members were looking to slim down in 2014, they may want to have a look. My only reply to date read as follows

Not for me. Allegedly only 10% of diets work and most people end up fatter than they started

Hey, thanks for the encouragement! I don't expect everyone to want to sing from my hymnsheet, but really? Even if those statistics are true, that is no reason to buckle under unfavourable odds. Hell, if I made my choices purely on high percentages, I wouldn't have enjoyed the company of my gorgeous little boy this afternoon. (9 out of 10 diagnosed spina bifida pregnancies are aborted in the UK)

I'm not daft enough to think that dieting works for everybody, but then I know not everybody will work hard to make a diet work. It requires motivation, dedication and the ability to resist temptation, traits that served me well last year and I hope will continue to do so in 2014. I've written several times in the course of this blog about my motivation so won't go over old ground in this article. Resisting temptation is probably the most difficult to achieve. I've had my struggles with this at times, but being able to say no is fundamental for achieving weight loss. Just today, my eyes lit up at the mince pies and Christmas cake that was on display at my mother's house. They say the first taste is with they eye; in this instance that was the only taste I had.

As for dedication, this can take many forms. Sticking to your diet plan, abstaining from alcohol, settling for something nutritious on a Friday night rather than opting for take away. I demonstrated my dedication today by ignoring the weather, donning a ridiculous jacket and got my arse running. It would have been so easy to stay put in my warm lounge hearing the rain pounding the outside world, but instead I kept to my plan, ran my 5k and felt all the better for it.

Tango Man sighted near woods - Photo by John Tipping

I didn't lose more than 4 stone in 2013 because of luck. I made my diet work and having done so I'll be damned if I'm going to become just another statistic of someone that allowed themselves to become fatter than before. If the numbers aren't on your side, don't be afraid to the exception, rather than the rule. Somebody has to break the mould, and that somebody might as well be you.

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70

When I started out on the diet back in January, one of the key motivators was to lose weight so as to enable me to be a fitter and healthier man for my son and his then unborn brother. Ten and a half months later and that remains very much a driving force that keeps me on a successful path. I don't just want to be a good daddy in the short term; I want to be around to see them grow up into fine men and hopefully have families of their own.

If he were alive today, my father would be celebrating his 70th birthday. Sadly he passed a little under 24 years ago, denying him the opportunity to see his children mature into adults and produce five wonderful grandchildren. His illness was not preventable, but disease related to obesity is. I've got a responsibility to take care of myself, so that my boys have a dad to be there for the long term.

I've only very recently achieved a healthy weight according to the Body Mass Index. My task is now to maintain it, for my own health and for the good of my family. Motivation indeed.

Happy birthday dad. Wish you could be here.

Wednesday Weigh-In 13 November

After a couple of weeks without scales movement, today’s weigh-in produces a couple of landmarks. Since I weighed myself last Wednesday morning, I have shed 4lbs, taking me down today to 14st 5lbs. In doing so, I’ve gone past 4st in total weightloss in 2013, having tipped the scales at 18st 6lbs on 2nd January. That target of 41lbs loss I set myself seems somewhat modest, now that I’m 57lbs lighter.

14:9 to 14:5 - big week for the diet

The other milestone reached today is that medically at least I am normal. No doubt family, friends and loved ones will scoff at the suggestion that I am in any way normal, but according to the Body Mass Index, that is exactly what I am. I’m not going to be doing cartwheels about this as I don’t hold the BMI with much credence, but it is good to know that if I had to see my GP today, they couldn’t tell me that I’m overweight.

Me normal? Healthy Weight? Surely not!

I’m now on the cusp of being the lightest I’ve been as an adult. In November 2009 I very briefly got down to 14st 4lbs, before the wheels started to come off that dieting effort. With Christmas coming up on the horizon I’ll be honest and admit that I expect to gain a few lbs over the festive season, but I’ve no intention of allowing myself to regress over a sustained period. Before I get to turkey, stuffing and bottomless tubs of Quality Street, I’ve got a good month in which to keep doing what has worked so well over the last year. I’m not going to put pressure on myself to reach further targets, but it would be nice if I can do the following.

Reach 14st 3lbs and not only am I the lightest I’ve been since some long lost forgotten moment in my childhood, but I’ll also weigh under 200lbs. Bearing in mind at my biggest, I was 336lbs, that is some achievement.

Reach 14st dead and I’ll have lost 10st from my heaviest point. That is like a whole person removed from my body.

Dip under 14st and I’m hitting new territory altogether. If I see the scales starting 13st, I don’t think it is realistic to chase anything less, and it would all be about maintaining from that point on rather than actively seeking further weightloss.

I’m getting close to the end of this journey, but there are still a few more miles to go. Whatever the outcome from here, I can look back on the past 317 days with a great sense of satisfaction. 

Wednesday Weigh-In 17 July

Television programmes about weightloss; discuss. Normally I wouldn't give them my attention. Celebrity 'Fit' Club, Britain's Biggest Loser, not really my thing. I watch tv to be entertained, not to endure other people's misery. It came as a bit of a surprise then on Monday night when I found myself watching Sky Living and was mesmerised by the Fat: The Fight of My Life. The reason why, was because the subject of the show was a guy in his mid 20s, topping the scales at 27 stone.

Rewind the clock 7 years and I could have been that man. OK, I never weighed quite that much, but I wasn't far off. I didn't much care about how big I was. I didn't think I would ever love or be loved. I didn't expect life to improve and all I really did with myself was eat. Excessively. Sometimes food for comfort. Sometimes food just because I had nothing better to do. It rather fills me with dread to think about where I would be right now had I not started to diet.

Anyway, the TV show was much as what you would expect. Fat guy meets a mentor. Mentor makes him work hard and sweat. Fat bloke starts to lose weight at the rate of knots and his life turns around. He lost 10 stone in just under a year. Phenomenal effort and he looked so much better for it. He got a job that he liked, moved into new and improved accommodation and started to pursue his ambitions. Fair play to the guy.

True, there were one or two obligatory make the fat man cry moments on the show, which I didn't feel were really necessary. When I think back to my participation in Making Slough Happy, I've always been particularly grateful that footage of me blubbing during video diary shoots never made the final cut that was broadcast.

Since watching that show, my thoughts have switched to the bigger picture. I can put myself under pressure to get a 'positive' result on a Wednesday morning, but the long term outlook is what really matter. I'm not that 24 stone guy who was eating himself to an early grave a few years back. Yes I'm a bit heavier than I'd ideally like to be right now, but things have been improving steadily on that front this year. As my weigh in picture today shows, I'm 27lbs lighter than I was when I started Year Of The Diet. I now run 5k's for fun, improving my time by 43 seconds at the weekend on my first run.

Third week running - despite weekend booze and BBQs

I'm happier, I'm healthier. I've not gained weight. I know a lot of people who get disheartened when the scales don't budge, but I don't. Obviously I'd prefer to see the numbers going backwards, but as long as they aren't shooting upwards, I am doing my job, managing my weight rather than letting the old demons get the better of me.

I used to be that guy

Now I'm this guy

It would have been great to have lost weight this week. I didn't. I'll move on. The weightloss will come.

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Happy Day! - Guest Blog

I'm pleased to publish this guest article from an old friend of mine who has reached their weightloss target. A stay at home mum with two little boys to occupy her time, and has shifted a whopping 36lbs. Prepare to be inspired...

Today is a happy day.  It has been 15 months since I started my slimming journey, and I have finally reached my original target weight.  Overall, I've lost 2st 8lb and dropped 3 dress sizes.

It was my birthday that kickstarted things. I was thinking about what I’d really like for a present.  I realised I desperately wanted to shake off the frumpy baggy clothes and get my sparkle back.  Also, I'm a stay at home Mum with two young boys (4 and 2) and wanted to be able to keep up!  I knew that my eldest would be starting school this September and I genuinely feared the idea of Sports Day and the Mummies Race.  I've never cared about whether I'm the fastest on the field, but I didn't want it to be completely impossible just because I was fat.  Something just clicked, and the motivation was there at last.

A friend of mine runs a local Slimming World franchise, so I called my Mum and asked her if she’d possibly add a bit to my present by paying for the first few weeks.  It wasn't really about saving money - I just knew that if she’d paid for it, I’d feel obliged to go!

The next step was setting a target.  It was hard to know what to aim for.  I looked at BMI charts but just felt terribly ashamed to have got so big in the first place.  Aiming to be ‘Healthy’ just seemed so far away.  So I set my sights a little lower, and aimed to lose 2st 8lb just to get to a nice round number.  It would take me firmly out of the Obese category, and at least that was something.

For the first few months I found keeping a food diary really handy.  I couldn't imagine saying no to all treats so I allowed myself a small something every day, but wrote it down so I’d remember.  I keep a small Dairy Milk in the fridge and will break off 1 square if I really fancy it, rather than reaching for the biscuits.  I’m better at planning our menu and weekly shop now, and instead of cooking separate meals for the boys and us, I cook proper meals for the whole family.  The fridge has so much more colour and variety in it now, I love it.  I'm also more active, usually running around the common after the boys, but I also like to switch on the Wii Fit once the boys are in bed.

I guess because I have allowed myself treats and takeaways along the way, it has been a long road, but finally I've arrived at this point.  I feel like there’s still more weight I’d like to lose actually, and that’s okay.  I'm going to go for another half a stone and see how that looks and feels.  In the meantime, I've got a huge reward coming my way.  For my last birthday and Christmas, I asked my family for clothes vouchers, so in 2 weeks I'm hitting the shops for a new wardrobe.  Time to shine!

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Wednesday Weigh-In - 23 January

Well, another week gone and the diet is holding firm. Three weeks of sticking to my strict regime and it is working. When I climbed aboard the bathroom scales this morning I was greeted with this.

4lbs lost in the last week and 13lbs gone in total. In 21 days I'm nearly 1/3 of the way to my target weightloss of 41lbs. According to the BMI scale,  I am now overweight, rather than obese, which is progress.

BMI Scale - I'm at the wrong end of overweight, but it is an improvement

I'm starting to see positive side effects away from the numbers on a Wednesday morning. I've previously written about going down a waist size meaning I'm wearing a smaller pair of trousers. Now I'm noticing that the shirts I wear at work are a little on the loose side, and so I'll be thinking about changing my attire in the coming days.

When I was shaving this morning there were signs that my cheek bones were starting to re-emerge having gone into hibernation in recent months.

The cravings that plagued my days in the early stages of the diet have subsided. I am winning the mental battle on that front, which makes keeping to a routine so much easier.

In the last week I have mixed things up a little at lunchtimes as I see that as the pivotal meal for successful weightloss. Breakfast sets the tone for the day, but lunch is what you need to keep you going through until the evening. Too little and the urge to snack will take over. After two weeks of having the same fairly mundane sandwich, I've replaced the bread with tortilla wraps to add some variety. I'm finding these more enjoyable to eat so will probably stick with them for the timebeing. At the weekend I opted for soup without bread.

Consistency is something I talk about a lot, but I acknowledge that periodic change is important too. Even I would find it difficult to maintain discipline if I served myself exactly the same 3 meals day after day, so little changes here and there are to be welcomed.

Although I am pleased by my early success, I'm not prepared to get carried away. I'll probably sound as cliched as a football manager, but I am taking each day as it comes and not looking too far ahead. I have a target with an undefined finish point and I prefer it that way. Setting a date by when the target must be reached brings unnecessary additional pressure. For now I'm just going to keep what I'm doing on a day-by-day basis and hopefully that will keep bringing positive results on a Wednesday morning.