I think I'm going to put my weekly check-in's in this thread so that I have them all in one place & can see my progress more easily.
start:
19-02-2022 - 267/267/175 - 38.1 BMI:
this week:
27-02-2022 - 267/263/175 - 37.5 BMI:
It's the end of my first week & I'm 4lb down. I'm not sure I trust the number after such a short time, but I'm willing to trust the direction.
I haven't really done much except be mindful of portion sizes & have cut out eating through habit/boredom outside of meals. I haven't been particularly hungry & I haven't craved anything - I don't have a sweet tooth or eat much sugar normally out of choice anyway - so what I've been doing this week feels sustainable.
I may even try to get some exercise this coming week to help things along.
week #2 check-in from me. 1lb down this week, which is fine.
I got hungry a few times this week & snacked on my nemesis, bread, which probably didn't help. I will need to find an alternative that will fill me up without the calories. I tried a slimfast shake this week which was vile, so that won't be the alternative.
week #4 check-in from me. 1.5lb down, which makes 7lb total so far, or half a stone in British, which I'm rather pleased with.
I went for a long walk on Saturday, which is probably the most exercise I've had since the start of Covid, & I'm rather creaky today. but it was nice to be out in the sun & everything was starting to feel Spring-like - I felt rather like a bear coming out of hibernation. or maybe a badger.
I just started reading the Beck book & am getting a lot out of it - I've used CBT-type techniques successfully in the past in other contexts. I had been meaning to sit down & figure out how I could apply them to losing weight, but it seems like someone's done it already & I don't have to reinvent the wheel, which is great.
still working my way through the Beck book. there are definitely a few things in there that have hit home, but the tools are helpful & easily apply-able.
I still don't really have a definite food plan - I'm just cutting back on portion sizes, being careful with energy-dense foods & choosing lower-GI carbs.
I've been super-hungy a couple of times - more just through not spacing out my eating optimally than through not eating enough overall. it's good practice in some ways having to sit with the hunger & know that it's uncomfortable but that it's not the end of the world.
week #7. 3.5lb loss this week - 14.5lb total loss.
very pleased with my progress this week - I was genuinely quite excited to get on the scales this morning & was very pleasantly surprised at how much weight I'd lost, which was more than I was expecting. a stone's loss is a nice little milestone - one down, quite a few more to go.
I'm really eating substantially less now & my supermarket bill has gone right down. I feel quite virtuous with my weekly basket of vegetables, wholegrain stuff & whatnot.
week #9. 0.5lb loss in the last two weeks - 15lb total loss.
I've slightly taken my eye off the ball the last two weeks - hence the lack of check-in last week. although though I haven't reverted to what I was eating before I started & gained weight, I've only lost 0.5lb in the last fortnight which is slightly disappointing.
this week I'm going to finish the Beck book & go back to re-read a few passages that really hit me hard first time around.
down into the 17 stone range which is psychologically nice, even if it's 17st 13lb. I was quite surprised I lost anything - I had rather a busy week & wasn't able to eat in as planned a way as I would have liked. I ended up eating when I was *really* hungry a few times, which isn't ideal. I did however have a family lunch today & ate sensibly, no seconds in spite of people trying to push food onto me, so I was quite pleased with myself about that.
a round - literally - 250lb this week. I feel like I'm more back on track this week, my eating was more as-planned & I had fewer times where I had to prepare food where I was already super-hungry.
I was able to have a little more mental space to "play the tape forward" & make an informed decision about whether I wanted to eat whatever it was right at that moment, or whether I wanted to continue working towards my goal of weight loss, health, self-image, etc. & the latter won out each time.
I saw a link elsewhere on the forum to The Hacker's Diet which seems to fit quite nicely with my engineering-type ways of thinking, so I will be reading that this week.
my default response to food is definitely swinging from "eat"" to "don't eat" now, & aligning with my weight-loss goal without the need for so much internal dialogue each time. my overall goal is definitely to change my thinking about food & eating - if I can do this then I can lose - & eventually maintain - my weight at my target level, literally without thinking about it & without feeling deprived. without changing my thinking I would feel constantly like I was missing out, or being punished by not being "allowed" to stuff whatever I wanted into my mouth. instead, I am focussing on my choosing of long-lasting, long-term goals - improved health, mobility, body image, etc. - over the fleeting, learned pleasures of satiety.
1.5stone lost now. I'm definitely seeing some physical changes too - it's not just numbers on a page. I'm a hole or two tighter on my belt, getting up from sitting on the floor is less of a struggle & I can get into some trousers that have been left on the hanger for quite a while.
week #14 - 1.5lb loss this week - 22.5lb loss total.
my BMI is now just a whisker below 35, so I'm now "just" 'obese class I' rather than 'obese class 2', which is a milestone of sorts. I would need to lose 35lb to get down to "just" overweight, but there are ~31 weeks left in the year, so I think that's do-able & is now my new goal.
week #17 - 2.5lb loss in the last three weeks - 25lb loss total.
I have been away for a few weeks in France & seemed to eat almost exclusively cheese, although I was considerably more active than usual, so was rather expecting to have gained a couple of pounds. I was therefore delighted when I got home (I didn't have any way of weighing myself while I was away) to find that I had lost 2.5lb.
two stone lost which is a nice milestone. a long way to go still, but it's a marathon rather than a sprint. at my current rate of ~1.5lb/week my 15st target by year-end looks very do-able - I may revise this to 14st7lb.
I have been wanting to learn to sail for a while but had been putting it off as it's likely to involve wetsuits, which aren't a good look for the fuller-figured gentleman. however, even though I'm by no means svelte yet, I'm going to go ahead with it now as a (non-food-related) reward for my hard work to date. I've probably saved enough on my food bills to pay for the courses too. it's something reasonably active that I actually want to do, so that's another bonus.
MrBadger's log
