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.