Plateau appearing

It's started again - a plateau. Loss per day for the last week and a bit:

3/12 175g
4/12 150g
5/12 125g
6/12 100g
7/12 100g
8/12 75g
9/12 62g
10/12 50g
11/12 37g

So my weight loss is definitely slowing down. Time to bring out an organised plateau breaker - something that I do whenever weight loss drops below 100g. Increase the number of units of protein to 4 per day, and minimise other stuff. So I'm aiming for 4 units of protein today, plus fruit.

One more kg lost

It only took 6 days, rather than the expected 7 - 11 days to lose, but I am pleased to say goodbye to kilogram 14. As said in the last post, going off flour seems to have had a large effect in helping suppress my appetite and helping with the weight loss.

Now onto kilogram 13: gained between 15th May and 9th June, still way too fast, indicating my eating was out of control. Again I want to lose it over 7 to 11 days.

Yesterday for reasons that seemed good at the time I splurged and had bread, sugar, flour etc. This was 'allowed', but I have to make sure that I don't continue on with it today - it was a one time thing.

Unfortunately, I am going through a period of lots of stress - I shall see an end to it in the next month or so, I'm getting depressed and losing sleep and generally suffering. The good thing is that I am not 'emotional eating'. That's because very few people eat 4 or 5 apples when they are upset. So apart from the losing weight, going without sugar and flour etc has another advantage.

Weight today: 79.0kg, lowest weight in 26 weeks.

Losing weight too fast

I have pleasure in saying that I'm losing weight too fast. I should be losing weight at about 150g a day, I'm losing up to 40g a day more than that, so I'm eating high fat food (mainly peanuts) to reduce the weight loss. Not enough to stop the weight loss, of course. Looks like going off flour was a good idea. Current weight 79.4kg.

Another kilogram down

I have been thinking that now with 14kg to lose, I should try to mentally lose each kilogram by itself, and not think too much about how long it is going to take to complete this thing. So, I'll post here each time I lose a kilogram, hopefully that will help me and stop me from thinking it's too much.

So: kilogram 14 - I put this kilogram on between the 10th and 23rd of June, which is a short period indeed. Faster than usual, actually. If I recall correctly, I was under the stress of exams.

So my goal for this kilogram is to lose it in between 7 and 11 days, without any weight gain, however minute. Hopefully this isn't too hard. Wish me luck. Roll on kilogram 13!

Recovered from wedding gain - but was it worth it?

I have finally recovered from the gain that happened when I indulged in the two days of my girlfriends friends wedding. 9 days later. That's a lot, more than I expected it to take. Was it worth it? Probably not. I really need to a) make sure that I don't eat too much during these 'off' periods and b) I need to make sure that when I am over the event, I need to really focus on losing weight and probably counting kilojoules.

Interesting research

I happened to come across research online about the effect on body weight by the US holiday Thanksgiving. Titled The effect of the Thanksgiving Holiday on weight gain by Hull, Radley etc, in the online magazine Nutrition Journal, the address is here. As expected, people put on weight. What I didn't expect was that some people didn't put on weight. The graph above, taken from the paper, shows that the bigger a person is, the more weight that they put on. It also shows that some people actually lost weight over the 1-2 weeks between weighings.

The question is: is this relevant to me? I posted a list of 'off' days recently, where I was allowed to eat what I wanted. Based on the recent time-off period where I went to a wedding, the increase in weight effect I am still trying to get rid of, it seems to be that maybe if I ate normally in these times, I'd finish my weight loss maybe a month earlier. That is definitely worth considering.

I suppose it is hard for me to get away from the old mindset of eating lots of yummy food on my birthday and Christmas day. Ok, that's alright but there are other days there as well.

Going without flour

I'm still waiting for my weight to settle back to pre-wedding, but I'm thinking maybe I should do something to speed it up. Going off flour is that thing. At 6pm today I'll finish the last of my pasta that I've got at home, and I want to have a trial one week period without flour. Wish me luck.

2 days off

On Saturday I went to a wedding. So, I had to make a decision about whether I'd stay on my diet or relax a bit. Since I don't go to weddings very often, I chose to relax a bit. There was a barbeque the next day (with the newly married couple), and I chose to relax that day too. I enjoyed sugar, bread and fried food. That means that I've started to gain weight, but it's only temporary. No real problems.

So what days are 'off' days? I've made a list:

Social group end of year event
Christmas day
New Years eve from 9pm
New Years day until 4pm
Valentines day
My birthday
Girlfriends birthday

These are the days that I'm allowed to eat treats and otherwise banned foods.

Oh by the way, that meant that I broke the 24 day long period without bread, sugar and fried food. I'm pretty proud of that achievement.

Plateau broken

I am pleased to say that the plateau that I recently had has been broken. I don't know why it happened, obviously eating more was a factor, but I don't think that I was eating significantly more, but who knows? It's gone now, and I need to keep track of my weight more, plus my eating values. I suppose I was feeling invincible having such a good weight loss and then it suddenly stopped.

So I'm counting kilojoules. Here are my recent values:

Sunday 12th November 19957
Salada biscuit 625
Cheese slice 271
Apples 436
Rice biscuits 500
Pams Stir Fry Vege Mix 1720
Lettuce 140
Apples 4578
Carrot 1547
Colby cheese slices 2322
Mandarins 1683
Yams 3159
Whey powder 992

Monday 13th November 992
Whey powder 992

Tuesday 14th November 1488
Whey powder 1488

Wednesday 15th November 3000
Coffee and muffin 3000 est

Remember, these are the foods that I bought, not I ate. Average so far is 6359kj, a bit high but ok. I'm aiming for 6000kj.

So my weight is 80.3kj and the lowest weight in 21 weeks.

Plateau approaching

16 days without sugar, bread and fried food, so that's going well. However, my weight loss seems to be levelling off somewhat, in the last 2 or 3 days the loss has reduced to a fraction of what it used to be. Time to start counting kilojoules as before I think. That means counting when I buy it, rather than when I eat it (see a month back for details) because it makes it much, much easier and therefore much more likely that I will continue counting. I'm aiming for 6,000 kj, but I'm prepared to go lower if I can.

3 months to go

I know that I'm risking having egg all over my face when I say this, but I do really believe that I just might be only 3 months away from finishing this diet. With about 14kg to go, and losing weight at more than 150g a day, it looks pretty certain (at this moment) that I'm only 3 months away from success. The last time I was 3 months away was about 3 years ago. Of course, I was still having sugar, and eventually I put on weight again.

The whole 3 month period is important because in my opinion, 3 months is sufficiently short that someone can tolerate a diet for that long. So it's always been some sort of 'holy grail' for me, something that I can start counting down the days to the finish of this thing. My appetite has improved back to where it was before I recently got a stomach bug, and I'm still losing weight.

So yes, my weight loss is continuing well, as the graph above shows. As you can see in the graph, I started putting on weight in early September, which is when my course starting getting intensive and requiring a lot of attention.

Current weight: 80.6kg, lowest weight in 20 weeks.

11 days without sugar, fried food or bread

First, apologies to those few who read this blog. Owing to various faults, some mine, some not, I have had no internet access for the last week. So I have done very well at losing weight, I've lost about 2kg in the last 11 days by not having any sugar, fried food or bread. Also I had some sort of stomach bug that emptied my system and then suppressed my appetite, that helped as well. Anyway, the weight loss is going exceptionally well. I've had to try to eat more because I'm losing more than my maximum desired loss of 150g/day. It's all going swimmingly as they say. Estimated date (yes, this isn't that wise at this point) is 7th Feb next year.

The whey powder has helped a lot. Before I got the bug I was having 4 units a day (about 80g protein) which can be expensive, but I've been on this diet trip for so long, who cares anymore? There is so much more to lose though, about 15kg so it'll be a while yet. Also, my brother seems motivated about his weight loss, well sort of, he paid me $50 because he put on more weight than expected after his overseas trip.

Todays weight: 80.6kg, lowest weight in about 64 days.

65 hours without sugar

Going without sugar, bread and fried food seems to be going well at the moment. Apologies for the lack of postings, I really don't have much to say at the moment. Decided to have fruit these first few days because veges are too expensive. So yes, it's going well. Lowest weight in 30 days.

25 hours without sugar

So far, it's been ok. I have had veges and whey powder which is a bit boring, but I am managing. So I'm doing ok. I think that I can do this, all I need is a little short-term motivation.

Sugar addiction

Recently, I have been trying to reduce the amount of sugar that I'm eating, with poor results. So I decide to not have a 'treat', and the next day, guess what? I'm having a treat again. A few days ago I had a craving for fudge, something I'm not a great consumer of, simply because someone mentioned it a while ago. It's crazy, and totally uncontrollable. I simply can't go more than about 72 hours without sugar.

The answer is to go cold turkey. No more Muffin Break. No more chocolate. No more sweets. The same goes for bread and fried food as well. How long? As long as possible. It's obvious that moderation is not suitable for me. So as of 7pm on Wednesday 25th, I'm off sugar, for as long as possible.

In order to help with this, here are the things I want to do for the first 3-5 days:
increase protein consumption to 5 units of protein a day instead of 3
reduce or stop consumption of high sugar fruit (oranges, mandarins, apples, pears etc)
try not to eat corn (within reason - if it's mixed in with frozen veges that's ok)
I will try to post here every 12 hours with my progress

96 days

Another ok day, bought the following food:
Total 9210kj
Whey powder 1500
Apples 4360
Cabbage 1100
Carrots 2250

Todays intake is roughly:
Total 6502
Apples 1308 4 of 5
Carrots 459 4 of 5
Frozen veges 845 4 of 4
Whey powder 1500
Apples 1090 1 of 4
Cabbage 550 1 of 2
Carrots 750 1 of 3

6502kj is just above what I'd like to be having. Average over the past 4 days is 8951kj, a bit on the high side, but this will drop as time goes on. Not sure what my weight is at the moment, reading this morning was 1kg less than yesterday, probably scale error, will find out in a few more readings.

97 days

Had minimal cravings for sugar today, which is good. I hope that I can last until Friday for my next fix. Spent some money and kj on a fruit drink, not because I wanted it, but because I wanted the container. I needed to mix up the whey powder at the library, and had nothing to mix it in. Hence purchasing the drink.

Theoretical consumption:
Tuesday 17th October 5685kj
Apples 1308 3 of 5
Salada biscuits 750 3 of 3
Carrots 459 3 of 5
Frozen veges 845 3 of 4
Whey powder 1500
Fruit drink 823

Finally, I get less than my goal energy value. It will take a while to get the average below 6500 though.

Spending:
2323kj
Whey powder 1500
Fruit drink 823

Total spending = 26594 / 3 days = 8865kj. Still too high, but getting lower. I assume at this value, I am losing weight. By the way, I am lowest weight in about 1 day, maybe 2. Cool. In other words, my weight has peaked, and is slowly decreasing. There is a touch of sarcasm in those words.

98 days - sugar cravings

Today started off well, before I came to the realisation that I needed sugar. It's been 3 days, which is pretty short but I'm trying to wean myself off that evil drug, slowly. So I went and had a treat - coffee and slice. I'll see if I can manage 4 days from now.


Monday 16th October
9637 kilojoules
Coffee and slice 4000
Apples 1308 2 of 5
Salada biscuits 750 2 of 3
Cabbage 575 2 of 2
Carrots 459 2 of 5
Spinach 200 2 of 2
Frozen veges 845 2 of 4
Whey powder 1500

This is much higher than it should be, same as yesterday. That's because of the coffee and slice, of course.

Spending:

Monday 16th October
5200
Coffee and slice 4000
Spinach -300
Whey powder 1500

You may notice a few things. First, spinach is negative. Although it is very filling, I have realised that spinach is not really very tasty. So out it goes. Yes, I know that there are starving children in India (did your parents tell you this?). Whey powder is listed each day as being bought. That's because I bought about 45,000 kj of it a while back, that is bound to throw off any calculations short term, so it's easier to list it daily rather than when I buy it.

Total spending is 24,271 / 2 days = 12,135 which doesn't mean much at the moment. Give it a week or so and then it will mean something. I have to say that I really like not counting kilojoules. It makes it much, much easier.

I don't remember whether I've said this or not but my brother and I have now got a system going, put on more than 2kg and we pay the other person $50. That is a good motivator for me, but for him - he's allowed 4kg for Christmas, plus just had an overseas holiday where I said that he could put on 5kg, so he has yet to have any real success. So yes, he's 'allowed' 11kg this year.

Good news too, my girlfriend is sponsoring my weight loss with $5/kg. I'm doing the same for her. The issue isn't the money, I want her on my side when I start to seriously lose weight. Similarly, I want her to lose weight as her weight at the moment is far too high in health terms. I offered to sponsor her $30/kg but the condition was that if she put on weight, she had to pay it back, so she wasn't that keen. Similarly for me of course.

99 days - I'm fed up with counting kilojoules

Yes, it's been a while. That's because I've had 2 assignments in my course that needed a lot of attention. So I've put on a bit of weight. Because my course came first, that wasn't really a problem. Now I'm back into the dieting thing.

About 2 weeks ago, I got totally fed up with counting kilojoules. I was constantly thinking about food, because I had to know exactly what I was eating, the weight of it and making sure that I didn't forget anything. Total pain.

The solution was simple, I've known about it for ages, but deferred trying it because it wasn't as useful as the normal method. Rather than count kilojoules of food that I've eaten, I count kilojoules of food that I buy. That means that it's a lot easier to keep records, but less feedback. For each day, I don't know exactly how much energy I've eaten.

So to solve that problem, I use an estimate of how much I've eaten based on what I've bought recently. A 2kg bag of apples might last 6 days, so I divide the energy of the apples over the 6 days. Similarly for other food, ie veges last a shorter time so the period of division is shorter. So everything I buy is divided up into a number of days so I roughly know what value of energy I'm eating.

So that's me for now. I've put on weight, but it's too early to see my exact weight, I need to have a few days of readings first.

Food bought or eaten today: (kilojoules)

Bought:

19071 kj total
Special K 936
Cabbage halves 1150
Salada biscuits 2250
Coffee 500
Apples 3kg 6540
Carrots 1.5kg 2295
Spinach 400
Frozen Veges 3380
Whey powder 1500
Fancy biscuit 120

Eaten:

7193 kj total
Special K 936
Whey powder 1500
Coffee 500 est
Apples 1308 1 of 5
Salada biscuits 750 1 of 3
Cabbage 575 1 of 2
Carrots 459 1 of 5
Spinach 200 1 of 2
Frozen veges 845 1 of 4
Fancy biscuit 120

today was a bit high in terms of energy, I'm looking at 6000-6500kj average.

Oh by the way, last night I went to a barbeque with my girlfriends family. I wasn't looking forward to it, for obvious reasons. Lots of food being offered, and feeling 'obligated' to eat something. Well, before we went I did eat something. Whey powder and an apple. That kept me full, and so at the barbeque I ate only cabbage. That's right. So I turned down beer, wine, chips, sausages, chicken on a long stick, slabs of meat of some description, pasta, bread, salad with lots of fatty dressing no doubt. I probably ate about 500kj, there was something on the cabbage but it didn't seem fatty to taste. What is surprising was that it was cold, and we were outside, so why the cold didn't stimulate my appetite, I don't know.

On the topic of going out when on a diet, if someone says "you don't need to go on a diet". What do you say? "Thanks". Then SHUT UP. Similarly, what do you say when someone says "why are you on a diet?". "Why not?". Put the pressure on them to reply to your question.

Similarly, if someone says why they are on a diet I try to remind myself to say "you don't need to justify why you're on a diet". Someone did that to me about 7 years ago, one of the most flattering and memorable things someone has said.

100 days to go

I'm back after doing a really hard, long-winded assignment for me course. Yes, I've put on weight, but now I'm trying to take it off again! So the cycle repeats. I haven't put on much weight though. Probably only 500g or so. Anyway, I'm trying out the no sugar, bread or fried food diet. 6500kj intake, 3 units of protein, and exercise if needed.

Today I had the following:
Total energy 6513kj
Whey powder 1500
Carrots 1168
Apples 436
Pears 1694
Can of coke 639
Veges 1075

Bad food was the coke, because I am going off caffeine and didn't want a headache today. I'm phasing it out over a few days. A lot of what I ate today had lots of water in it, so I had a lot of bloating, especially later on in the day. Had to undo my jeans a few times, they were so tight.

Day 29

Starting tomorrow, I have decided to start running. Starting off at 2 minutes a day, increasing until I can't manage things anymore. I'll break the running into two pieces when the time gets long, in the morning and the evening. That sort of thing. Also, starting a "days since xxx" record.

xxx will include: bread, coke, KFC/McDonalds, Muffin Break etc.

The big thing is I'm thinking that maybe I won't reach my deadline - mid December. So I want to propose to my girlfriend then, so I think maybe I'll have to even though I haven't finished my diet. This probably doesn't sound much to a lot of people but to me, this is a bad thing.

Day 28

Another bad day, how can things get worse? I don't know.

Day 27

Well, today didn't go that well either. That's because after yesterdays problems, today I just couldn't be bothered. Yes, it's bad, and I've been thinking lots of thoughts about the whole thing. Maybe I need to start exercising. So starting soon, running will be part of my programme.

Day 26: diet blowout

Today went ok, but I drank some coke. Generally, this has a bad effect on me, but I do enjoy it. Things were going fine, but then I had a bit of a 'blowout'. Cravings induced by the coke now doubt. So here's what I ate:

Total energy ????
Whey powder 500
Carrots 422
Apples 832
Cheese slice 271
Banana 667
Veges 756
Coke 600ml 1098
Can of coke 639

Then the bad things happened. I had a small burger at KFC. Totally unexpected, and bad of course. Got home, had 2 bread rolls that my girlfriend had left, that sort of thing. Bad, bad, bad.

Day 25

Today has just been another day for me - trying to control what I eat, that sort of thing. I had a craving for sugar during the day, which is pretty unusual. Maybe I have acclimatised myself to having a reasonable supply of sugar, so going without is putting my brain through a bit of change.

Total energy 5603kj
Whey powder 1000
Carrot 573
Apple 1133
Veges 720
Zone protein bar 878
Biscuits, about 400
Milk 510
Pear 387

Hunger was relatively low, I will try to go down to about 5000kj tomorrow and see what effect that has on me. Lowest weight in 10 days.

Day 24

First, I don't want this to be seen as a 'pity party' (thanks to Jennifer Aniston for that phrase). Looking back at the graph for my weight over the years, one thing can be immediately seen. It is rarely constant. Up down up down up up up down. So my weight is naturally unstable - I lose weight, then I lose the motivation for keeping it off, suddenly I realise that I've gained 5-10 kg and I'm in trouble. What to do? Well, I have devised my 'secret weapon'. I won't divulge what it is, but it is simple and hopefully effective.

Today I ate a bit more than yesterday, still getting to understand counting kilojoules and how much or little I can eat without getting tired. Here's what I ate:

Total energy 5733kj
Apple 309
Cheese slice 271
Veges 688
Hot chocolate 400
Zone protein bars 3514
Coffee 200
Biscuits, about 350

Today I ate 4 protein bars, that was fine but I'm not able to do that for much longer as they are expensie and only come with the whey powder for free.

Day 23: reward meal

Today I am allowed a reward meal, because I've lost a kilogram. Some people would see that as counter productive, and it is to some degree, but I don't think that I can go 3 months without nice food. So I had a nice coffee and slice. Of course. Looking at the graph above, you may notice something. The green line (where I should be) has been moved upwards by about 3kg. That's not good. Yes, really not good. I decided that I needed to acknowledge that it would take some time to lose that amount, and I might as well shift the line. Of course, if I am to finish in December, the slope of the line from now to then has been steepened. That's not good either. So that's 3kg of wasted time, effort, and all other bad things that I can think about.

Enough negativity. Today I ate:

Total energy 9361kj
Apples 917
Cheese slice 271
Banana 816
Veges 720
Zone protein bars 2635
Coffee and slice (est) 4000

So anyway, it's carry on with it all, and see how things go. By the way: I am estimating my chance of success ie 66kg by end of the year. I'd say 75%. Fingers crossed...

Day 22: 1kg down

Yesterday went well counting energy, but today I started to feel the full effect of going without food. No one said that dieting was easy! Here is what I've eaten:

Total energy 5638kj
Whey powder 1000
Carrots 486
Apples 1222
Cheese slices 542
Banana 389
Veges 760
Hot chocolate 400
Zone protein bar 836

I ate a bit more than yesterday, which was not my intention, but when you're hungry, you're hungry. Tomorrow I am allowed reward food for going over a kg boundary, so I might consider having more protein than normal in two days time. Also, today I went to a health store where I buy the whey powder, and a woman who I know vaguely who works there part-time said hello. I don't know why, but I felt unattractive and fat, even though I am definitely not fat. Maybe it's because she was slim and attractive. Yes, even men feel this way, even when they are in a stable relationship. Also, I am losing weight. Current weight: 81.6kg.

Day 21: counting kilojoules

Today I decided that I'd try to count the energy value of everything that I ate, this is written below:

Total energy 4905 kj

Whey powder 1500
Tim Tam biscuit 400
Carrot 171
Apples 693
Cheese slice 271
Banana 326
Sweets 640
Chocolate 183
Veges 720

So I did reasonably well today, the total energy was less than 5000kj. However, I stuffed up by eating a chocolate biscuit in the morning, a few sweets in the evening, and a small piece of chocolate in the evening.

I remember now how when you count kilojoules, you are thinking of food almost all of the time, which does make you hungrier than if you didn't. There isn't much that I can do about that, so I'll have to grin and bear it. Only about 85 days until I finish this, so I can handle this I think.

Day 19: slow recovery

It is hard to understand why I put on so much weight in such a short time. My only reasonable conclusion is that the scales are telling me a number that is wrong to some extent. That is a pain, but I can't calibrate them right now due to lack of a working car. I will just have to assume that the situation will get better, which is what is happening, the yellow dots on the graph are moving towards the green line at a reasonable rate I think.

So far my girlfriend seems to be ok with my losing weight. That will change in time I think, but for the moment I will wait until the negative comments start. There are two choices about why she doesn't want me to lose most of my excess fat: first she isn't going to be attracted to me at my desired weight, second she doesn't like me to be successful with weight loss when she isn't (she wants to lose weight, and isn't being successful at the moment). Time will tell which it is. It's most likely that it's the latter, but you never know, do you?

Those protein bars (actually, 6g fat, 15g protein, 22g carbohydrates) are excellent. They really suppress my appetite. That's the good news. The bad news is that I've gone through about half of the box in a few days, I will be finished by mid next week. That means that I'll just have to do what I planned anyway: whey powder and fruit, plus veges.

Punishment continues: writing what I eat

Breakfast: protein bar

11am another protein bar.

12 noon can of coke

2pm one more protein bar

4pm 600ml bottle of coke

Fruit: 2 apples, 2 pears, 2 bananas eaten throughout the day

5pm one protein bar

8pm another can of coke

9pm one more protein bar

a few small biscuits after that.

Day 18: a bit of control

Things I have eaten today:
Morning: Zone protein bar, 600ml bottle of coke*
Lunch: coffee and slice*
Dinner: cookie*, small bottle of milk, Zone protein bar
Evening: Zone protein bar

Yes, I have my whey powder again, and it comes with some Zone protein bars. At the rate I'm having them, they won't be around for long, I guess.

The graph doesn't look great, but I'm more motivated now I suppose.
* = bad food.

Day 17: diet blowout

Have a look at the above graph. Notice anything? You should notice that there is a big gap in readings after day 11. Also, day 15 is way too high. That's because I haven't been losing weight the way I should be. Time for some punishment: I now have to record my eating. I'll do that until I am back on the green line.

Day 11: steadily losing

Ok, so things are slowly working, but I'm still not doing things the way I should. I still aren't fully onto the modified Zone diet, and that's where I should be. Must try harder. Still on track for mid December for completion. Lowest weight in 9 weeks.

Day 4: Sudden weight gain

So I was losing weight quite happily, and all of a sudden I start gaining weight, as the graph shows. What's the cause? The amount of water in my body. I thought that if a person drank a lot of water, then they would urinate it within a few hours or so, and they would then weigh the same as before. Well, this is not the case. I wasn't drinking much, then suddenly I drank a bit of fluids, suddenly my weight started increasing. That's not a problem really, so long as I know about it, then I can allow for it, in fact the easiest thing to do is to ensure that I drink a certain level of liquids each day, and hopefully weight fluctuations won't occur.

Apart from that, things are going ok. As from tomorrow, I'll be hopefully eating what I should be eating, in terms of nutrients and protein, as I've been a bit naughty so far, and not having all the things that I need.

Lowest weight in 33 days.

Day 3

As expected, the weight loss is going well. Of course, that's because my body is emptying itself of all of the food inside me, I probably haven't lost much fat. But I should include it as actual weight loss, because when I finish this diet, my weight will suddenly gain as my body fills up with food again.

I'm not sure how often to post weights, but today I am 81.25kg averaged, which means that I am the lowest weight in 7 days. I like thinking in terms of "lowest weight in ... days/weeks/months/years" because there is nice feeling when I lose weight so instead of being lowest weight in say, 12 months, the next day I am lowest weight in 18 months. Of course that's because 12 months earlier I started putting on weight.

I have decided to modify the Zone diet: because of various concerns, I have decided on various minimums and maximums:

at least 500g of vegetables (usually frozen)
maximum of 70g of protein
if I am losing weight too quickly, eat a quantity of nuts

I will probably modify that as time goes on and I get the 'feel' for this weight loss.

Day 2: if only...

if only losing weight was this easy. Yes, I have lost weight since yesterday, but that is likely to be the fact that my body is emptying its quantity of food, since I am now eating small amounts. That loss will probably stop in a few days. Yesterday I completed my intake by eating a whole tin (400g) of salmon, which stopped any hunger that would likely to appear overnight.

Because my recent weight graph (to be displayed here in a few days) shows that I am well below what I am supposed to be, I am allowed a coffee and slice. Yes, I had that yesterday, but today I have to have 500g of veges, as well as fruit.

One thing that concerns me is emotional eating. Because I have depression, I am more likely to get myself into a situation where I am upset - and there is nothing that reduces that 'noise' in the brain like 2 litres of ice cream or a Big Mac combo or a large 140g bag of chips.

When this happens (and it will, no doubt) I will have to make a judgement about how much extra to eat. I'm not saying I will and I'm not saying I won't. Usually, it is some external cause that gets me depressed. I may disclose the reason to people here, I'm not sure about it all.

Anyway, that's all for now. Will post tomorrow about what I have to eat for the rest of the day.

Day 1

Today has been what I would call a "high energy, low nutrient" day. That means that I had some cake and a bit of coke, plus a few other things, but little of nutritional value. That's not good, but it's just for today of course. Also some sardines for protein. Not sure how much fish I'll be having, I'm writing this in the evening, and I'll probably have some more food before going to bed. Tomorrow will be different, it'll be veges and fruit, plus the inevitable fish for protein.

Oh by the way, today I am the heaviest I'm been in 18 months. That's disappointing of course, but that's life I guess, you gain weight, you lose it, repeat as required. I've got a plan to stop the repeating, my brother and I have set up an arrangement so the first person to put on 2kg (he is the ultimate yoyo dieter) gives the other person money, and if they want to cancel the arrangement, pays the other person money as well. Although that means I get lots of money, I really just want a stable weight.

Now about actual weight values. In this blog in the last month, I've been writing what I weigh naked (which is how I almost always weigh myself). However, my whole spreadsheet of data is dressed weight (about 2.5kg higher), plus I haven't allowed for the fact that the scales have an error of about 700 grams. Adding those together means that I have suddenly 'jumped' 3kg, which is not the case. I have fiddled with the postings and added 3kg, but if there happens to be anyone out there in cyberspace who tracks peoples weights (unlikely but you never know...), this explains the sudden gain.

That's about it for me today. I do believe that I have lost weight today, no doubt we'll all find out tomorrow.

I've been doing some thinking

Last night, I thought about this whole losing weight thing and how it's not working. So, I have decided to go onto the Zone diet, which I've done in the past. I found it relatively easy. So today onwards, I'm making changes to things. Posting here almost daily, controlling how and what I eat, that sort of thing. I'll do this for about 16 weeks, as I want to lose about 16kg in that amount of time. The important thing is control. Many things will be under strict control. Anyway, that's all for me today. Will post tomorrow.

Things don't seem to be working

I weigh myself regularly, but the old scales show that I'm putting on weight still. I think that I really need to increase the amount of protein that I have. That will happen in a few weeks, but not yet, for various reasons related to money... Anyway, that's the update for the moment. Today I weighed 82.0 kg, highest in a while I think. I'm thinking about having my metabolism measured, by counting the energy of everything that goes into my mouth, but it's such a pain to do.

Finally getting into it

Well, as it turned out, my girlfriend's sister is doing better than expected in the old losing weight thing. That's good for her, and good for me. So I'm finally settled into the eating more protein (she's on Atkins, I'm not) and less high fat/sugar food. Sorry about the lack of contact but... well you get the idea.

Sunday 81.5

Monday 81.3

Time to be honest with myself

Well, last night I went looking at blogs. Weight loss blogs. So I actually found someone who had finished their weight loss. This is a rare find since only about 3% percent of people actually get to lose weight and keep it off. The woman has lost 29.5kg, about 27% of her body weight. How's that for motivation? You can read about Skinny Latte Girl here. I've decided to read the 9 months of writing that she's done as motivation.

Speaking of motivation, mine sucks. It's time to be honest with myself, having treats so often (nearly every day sometimes) is no way to lose weight. So it's time to be more motivated. Unfortunately, with depression, it's easier to put things off than deal with them as needed.

So my goal for today: listen to my Paul McKenna audio, breakfast, 3 units of protein, no treats. That's just for today, I'm not thinking about anything else.

Will post tomorrow saying how I went.

Haven't really started yet

Ok, so I'm back a week later, I have yet to get into the losing weight thing again. I have sort of teamed up with my girlfriend's sister, who needs to lose weight to fit into a bridesmaid dress later on in the year. But this woman can be a bit unreliable, so who knows whether she will still want to lose weight with me? Anyway, I'm waiting for her to go to Weight Watchers, so I'll start then.

The last week I haven't been totally reliable in terms of weighing myself, but here are some that I've recorded:

Friday 81.1

Tuesday 80.45

Wednesday 80.00

Thursday 81.5

That's a general downward track, although in reality it may just been the variability of scales being shown.

I'm back

Well, I'm feeling that I'm ready to lose weight again. A few reasons, first for health, self-image, that sort of thing. Secondly, because if I don't lose the weight, I'm not getting married. Seriously. My girlfriend of 2 years, Becky has never seen me thin. Ok, she's seen me 7kg off my goal weight, but never at the weight that I want to be, except on an old video and in photos.

So the question is, is she going to be attracted to me at 66kg? I hope so, but I want to be sure before I propose. I'm not 100% sure that she will be, so I have to make sure first. That means get down to the weight that I want to be and hopefully stick to it.

So, as I've told her, I'm starting losing weight. A few comments about the last 2 months. Well, about 9 weeks ago I got burgled. They took lots of things, including my laptop, which I have now got a replacement for (finally!). Because I stay over at my girlfriends place regularly, not having a laptop was a pain. It just made things more difficult to get motivated. You know the story.

Anyway, I intend to write daily about my progress and post weekly.

Sunday 81.10kg
Finished off the last of the fancy biscuits and sweets that I'd bought yesterday. Yes, I know that I should have thrown them out, but I am a bikiholic. Seriously. Becky and I went to see a film, had ice cream and popcorn. Didn't expect to lose any weight today.

Monday 81.15
Ate a lot of fruit, which was good, but then got depressed (did I tell you I suffer from depression?) and had both McDonalds and a medium sized pizza. Felt a bit better afterwards, didn't feel guilty.

Tuesday 82.1
Was generally good today, although I decided to treat myself to an afternoon tea to celebrate the start that I'm starting at university again. Fruit later on in the day.

Wednesday 80.85
Too early in the day to write about what I've eaten, but I went looking at blogs. Felt sad. The three that I had been following for a while now haven't lost any or have put on weight.

They are:
Opening my eyes to weight loss
This guy has been trying to lose weight for about 18 months now, with not much success. But he's still trying.

Renee gets fit
I've been following Renee for ages now, but she doesn't seem to lose weight or if she does, it's very slowly. She also has a tendancy to put on weight.

Half the man
Imagine a freight train climbing up a steep, large mountain. Wouldn't you be impressed? There's no stopping it. Then it stops, just before losing 100 pounds. This is the one I feel most sad about.

Are we all destined to be in this struggle for the rest of our lives?

So my daily goals are:
eat breakfast
2 or 3 units of protein
listen to my audio programme by Paul McKenna.

Slowly gaining weight

At the moment, I think that I'm slowly gaining weight. That's because, of course I'm having yummy treats. But that will stop soon, I hope. I don't weigh myself that often, which is a shame, really. Oh well, enough negativity.

Weight is stable - I think

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? At the moment I've put the weight loss on hold, pretty much for reasons of stress. Will fill you in later. Still want to lose the weight, of course.

Starting over again

Well, it's been 2 months since I posted to this blog, as you know this is common for bloggers (and people on a diet), to stop and start a bit. Well, I'm starting over, but this time I'm doing it a bit different. First of all, I'll be listening to my 'mind programming' audio most days, I think that was the reason why I stopped losing weight, I didn't do it consistantly and there wasn't an easy way to do it privately. Now there is.

So it's my intention to daily: weigh myself, listen to the audio, and watch what I eat. Weekly: post here with a graph and comments about how it's going.

I haven't weighed myself recently, but tommorrow I start again. Disappointed that it's turned out this way but glad that I haven't put on much weight recently (will find out how much tomorrow morning).

Generally good week

The week has gone well, I've generally lost weight, but I've been slack in terms of having 'punishment', when I am above the weight I'm meant to be, I don't do anything about it (ie exercise), which I said in the last post (I think). So yes, I'm slack. But apart from this issue, I've done well, I'm losing weight and the point where I reach a peak weight loss rate (87 grams a day) is in sight - about 23 days away. From then it's all down hill, which is nice to know. My weight however is still where I was 2 weeks ago, I peaked and have been losing weight in the last week or so. So I'm good in the short term, and not so good in the long term. Currently losing 63 grams a day. Lowest average weight in 15 days.

A problem and a solution

In the last few days, since my birthday I've been having 'treats' as if it was still my birthday almost. As a consequence, I've been gaining weight. I've been here before, so have many dieters. So the solution is to 'punish' myself by that activity that I hate - exercise. My intention was to lose weight without exercising, which I still think is possible, but now if I'm above that green line on the graph any day, for that day I have to go running. The time that I need to run is the number of minutes equal to the number of times I've been over my limit in the last 14 days. I fully expected to go for a run today, but fortunately I was a smidgen below the line today. To prevent my running now and then in the future, I'll have to be below the line by a safety margin, to allow for variation in weighing values.

Birthday gain

I was looking forward to seeing how my new system (trying to be a specific weight each day) went, and I was pleased that for 5 days, it went well. Then I had my birthday, and I gained weight, but I'm 'allowed' that, I think that even on a diet, you're allowed to over indulge on your birthday. I'm not sure how much I put on, probably about 300-500g.

However, the surprising thing is that today I over indulge again. I have just started at university again, last time I started I put on weight, I have to make sure that it doesn't happen this time too. I bought some white chocolate today, I hardly ever buy that, so something is up with me.

All is not lost though, I'll keep on having the whey powder and fruit, and see what happens. I'm not doing any exercise, though I think maybe I should, just to improve my quality of sleep.

New system

I have decided that I should change the way that I lose weight. Let me explain. I go hungry, eat protein and try to not have treats. That's fine, but the amount I lose each day (or week, or month) is relatively uncontrolled. That's because I generally try my best and that's it. The plan was to lose about 100g a day until I finished.

The plan seemed fine until one of life's changes came along - not a good change, but one nonetheless. I'm not yet ready to divulge to a great degree the intimate details of my life, so apologies if I don't yet tell you. Anyway, that change meant that there was less demand on me to lose weight in a prompt manner. So I have decided that I'll do it differently - rather than lose weight as much as I can, I'll slow it down and have some control on the process.

Because I weigh myself everyday, I decided that I want to weigh a specific weight each day, as close as possible. If I weigh more, I go into diet mode. If I weigh less, I don't go into diet mode. I repeat this process many, many times until I have trained myself to maintain a constant weight, eating well but not gaining. That will take months, no doubt just to train myself.

Another concern is that I reach my goal weight, and what happens? Will I bounce back? I did that in 2001, although there were external issues providing stress in my life.

So my plan is to start off, losing a small amount each day (50g - 350g a week) and slowly increase this until I find it more and more difficult to keep up. When I reach this value, I stay there (or reduce if I am having major problems) until I am 90 days away from the goal. I figure 90 days, 3 months is a nice short period that most people can tolerate. There I will stay, always being 90 days away from the target weight. In other words, the closer I get, the slower I lose weight.

What this means is that I will theoretically never reach my goal weight, although I am sure I will reach it sometime in the future. But it will mean that there won't be a 'bump' as I reach my goal. I won't have to change my eating as the change will be so small that I won't notice it. Anyway, that's the plan. One disadantage of this system is I never reach my goal, so I can never say "I've made it!". But I decided that if I'm 1kg away, I'm pretty much there.

So today, I want to lose 50 grams. Tomorrow, 51, etc etc. I'll graph the amounts weekly so people can see where I'm at. Yes, it adds time to losing weight, but I've been here so long, I don't really care.

A trip away often means putting on weight

Well I was losing weight nicely thanks then I have to drive to my home town 6 hours away to discuss things with my father. However, as often happens, I eat way too much on the drive (I'm almost always alone) there (and back, after all, if you eat a lot there, you might as well eat a lot on the way back). Plus I treated myself to fattening foods while I was there, meaning I ate out a lot, hence my 500g-1kg gain.

This is not a terrible situation, just a week or two and I'll be back to where I was, but I need to train myself not in over indulge. So my goal for the next few weeks is to lose that gain, and then I'll be happy with myself again.

Halfway

Yes folks, I am just over halfway through my weight loss journey. That's the good news. The bad news is that it's taken 11 months to do so, lose 8.8 kg. Pretty slow, yes I'd agree. Click on the graph to see why, lots of ups and downs. Lots of time wasted. I've gained 5-7kg of weight in those 11 months, which I had to lose (as well as the original 8.8kg). So nearly 40% of the time I'm losing not the original weight, but the recent gain. No one said losing weight was easy! It's interesting looking in detail at the graph. The gain in late July was caused by my starting a course at university, it took nearly 3 months to recover from. The second major gain in early November was caused by finishing the same course, 2 1/2 months wasted trying to recover from. That's nearly 6 months wasted just by life changes.

On another note, I'm listening to a "mind programming" CD that comes with a book written by Paul McKenna called "I can make you thin", ISBN 0593050541. I'm not crazy about the title, but listening to the CD every day seems to help. This brings up the issue of weight loss books. I've read a few, and my thoughts (together with reading the readers reviews at Amazon.com) is that no weight loss book, no matter what it's like is going to help a person with weight loss unless the reader reads the book numerous times and structures their life around it. That's why listening to the CD (or others like it, no doubt) helps, but again you've got to listen to it many (maybe hundreds of) times. I'd recommend readers of this blog see whether their local library has a copy. I can't recommend you buy the book, it may just not be any help.

Plateau

Well, I was losing weight nicely and then what happens? I reach a plateau. What is interesting is that looking back at my graphs is that it always happens about 1.5kg after I start losing weight at a reasonable rate. I'm not sure if this is because my body physically holds on to energy more, as it realises that I'm going for it, or psychologically as I just get tired of being hungry all the time.

Fortunately I've pushed through this 'barrier' and I'm continuing downward. However, I am the weight I was 2 1/2 months ago, my life changed a bit (as it does for most people) and I started gaining. Then Christmas came along and a few other things. So that's about 2 1/2 months wasted. Anyway I have 9.25 kg to go - not much and it hopefully will be gone in the next 3-4 months.

Losing weight - for the moment

Well, my current weight loss is going ok for the moment. The whey seems to be easy enough to have - it's quick and simple and doesn't taste awful. So I'm losing weight quickly initially (see the graph above) but the quick loss is slowing down. As you can see in the graph, the diamonds show each daily weight, the white line is the 6-day average and the yellow line is the 3-day average. I look at this graph most days to tell me how I'm going, of course it means that every day there is that feeling of anticipation. Will I lose weight today? Will my average drop by enough? But it's better than say a weekly weigh-in, where there is much more chance to have a problem that you don't know about until it's too late. We all falter, and there isn't a real problem in that, but it's important in my opinion to know when we falter, not a week later.

Because my 6-day average has moved onto another 500g zone (in between 76 and 76.5kg) I had an afternoon tea today - coffee and slice. It was yummy! Muffin Break, of course. Felt good that I can enjoy these rewards and know that they aren't really going to affect my weight loss. I may put on weight tomorrow, but I know that the averages will probably reduce anyway.

Doing well

Yesterday I was really good in terms of eating. I had my whey as planned, it's not bad tasting (well it's flavoured, which helps) and it's a lot easier to eat than either sardines or salmon. However, vegetable protein doesn't have all the amino acids that animal protein has, so I will try to have one meat unit (about 20g) of protein per day. It's been a while since I have been this well controlled. However, I was hungry for a lot of the day, and had a headache as well. I don't have headaches very often, so something is up.

Today I weighed myself, and it's noticeable that my weight has changed. That's more likely to be the fact that the two coffee and slices have exited my body rather than any other effect. I would have probably lost 100g which is way less than the error in the scales or the fluctuation in my body weight. Because of this, I have a simple system to remove fluctuations - I enter the weight into my spreadsheet which averages the last 6 days. Plus it graphs it all as well. It's really simple once it's set up, and because my computer is on all the time (processing seti at home units) I just click on the taskbar and enter the details. Anyway, the average has stopped increasing and will hopefully move downwards from now on.

Attached is a photo that I took about a week ago. Comparing this taken with the one in March last year, when I was 7kg heavier, you wouldn't notice much difference. Hopefully the changes will become apparent as time goes on.

I'll leave it there. Ideally, I'll be at 66kg in about 109 days (early May 2006) which isn't too bad. However, the question is will it happen? Or will I put on the kilos like I've done in the past?

A bit of a problem

Well yesterday, I went out and got my new whey. I also, as stated had a coffee and slice. This is something that I have whenever I feel in the need of a 'treat' - something nice to do either when something is good or when something is bad. I typically go to a mall where Muffin Break is, and have something really tasty. Anyway, yesterday I had that, tried the whey powder, that was fine. But as I was heading back home from my girlfriends place, what did I do? I had a second coffee and slice.

I know why (as well as the slice, I had a cookie as well). It's me having a last 'major treat' before restarting my weight loss. Yes, it's really silly, and it's expensive as well, but it's something I'll do once in a while.

As a result, my weight today (I weigh daily) is up a bit, I am now 76.9 kg. But today I don't intend to have any treats, tommorrow I'll be losing weight now doubt. That's the good thing about weighing daily, I almost immediately know when I'm losing or gaining.

First entry

I thought I'd start my own blog - for the last 10 kg that I want to lose (actually it's 10.8 kg but "The last 10.8kg" doesn't sound quite right). I have lost about 7kg so far - that's 17.3 kg in total that I want to lose.

Today is a special day. Why? Because I'm buying some whey powder. I've never bought it before, but my intention is to use it as a source of protein (which it is). I have found protein especially good for losing weight, the only problems with protein is that it's expensive. My favourite meat, shaved ham costs about $NZ100 per kg of protein. That's just too expensive for me, since I want to consume about 60g a day. A much cheaper source of protein is fish, typically $NZ50 a kg of protein. But sardines, which is what I usually have, are smelly, messy and I'm not really keen on them. Salmon, at roughly the same cost is better tasting, but still messy.

Anyway, I found a good source of whey powder at the same cost as fish. Sure, you have to buy a big container, which will last a month, but it must be better than sardines. As a treat today, I'll buy myself an afternoon tea as a 'last fancy meal', before I start losing weight again. I'll also allow myself treats every 500g lost, I just can't go too long without a good coffee and slice.

As for this blog, it is my intention to post to it weekly. When I finish my diet, I'll post monthly. Hopefully that should keep me on track.