Entries Tagged 'My progress' ↓

Hello Blog!! It’s been a long time.

I’ve just been looking back at my fridge graph. I stopped updating it in January, when I started using a paper calendar to mark my weight instead. But I’ll update it soon, I promise.

I noticed that July-August is kind of a key time for me… maybe because that’s when my birthday is. But anyway, my story so far (as far as weight loss/gain goes anyay - I have a lot more life that doesn’t revolve around my weight you know!)

In July-August 2008 I was at my heaviest. Around 84kgs. I was pretty unhappy. I started losing weight after figuring out how to count calories, and following a kick up the bum from a PT, who weighed me every week for 12 weeks. I lost weight slowly, averaging around 0.2kgs a week for the next year. It was up and down, some weeks I lost, some weeks I gained, but overall the scales went down.

I felt good! I started ballroom dancing, I stopped avoiding social events at work, I started dressing nicer, and doing more active things during the day.

In July-August 09 I weighed around 70kgs. I was dating a lot! It was fun By September, I was down to my lowest weight of 67.4kgs. Wow, that felt good! I was running, something I’d never done before, and loving my dance classes. Then three things happened all at once. I hurt my knee. That sucked. I settled into a relationship with K, and stopped dating other guys. And I went on implanon. Those last two things? they were a mistake.

Three months later, I was back up at around 72kgs. Just in time for my sister’s wedding. My face was all puffy from the implanon, and I had gained some genuine weight from exercising less (the knee) and drinking and eating more (all those ‘romantic’ nights in with K - they always involved a bottle of wine and takeaway food for some reason!)

I got the implanon out, but continued with the intermittent bad eating and exercise - For the rest of the year I hovered between 71 and 73kgs.

In July-August ‘10 I weighed 73kgs. Then I broke up with K. That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. But I still used it as an excuse to eat everything in sight! When Xmas came around that year, I just kept eating, and drinking, and eating some more! By January 2011, I weighed 77kgs. That was a bit silly. I put my running shoes back on and by around March I was back at my customary 73kgs.

In July-August 2011 (NOW!!) I weigh 73kgs. So, I’ve been up, I’ve been down, but here I am again. i’m not nearly as bad as I was this time three years ago - but I’m not great either. So it’s time to finish what I started, and hopefully in July-August 2012, I will be at 62kgs, and every year after!

I didn’t come to my own method of weight loss fully-fledged, with an idea and a method all fleshed out and a path fully mapped.  I don’t believe anyone does. Regardless of what weight watchers, Jenny Craig or any of the other weight loss groups tell you, no one method works for everyone, and no one method works on it’s own for the whole length of your journey.

Imagine a cruise ship. (I’d like to imagine BEING on a cruise ship, but that may have to wait a few decades) Anyway, our cruise ship leaves port with a destination in mind. Let’s say Vanuatu. (My sister is taking a cruise to Vanuatu for her honeymoon. I’m terribly jealous )

Our ship sets sail with the bow pointing straight to it’s destination. After a day or so, the captain takes a reading. Currents, winds, and a plethora of other things have combined to push the ship slightly of course. The bow is pointing 1 degree to the left of Vanuatu. So the captain makes a correction, and the ship is back on course.

Every cruise ship and plane makes a hundred course corrections between the start and finish of their journey. They never go in a completely straight line. Neither does weight loss. Why should it? You start with a goal. You do what you need to do and you’re heading towards your goal quite happily. Then you notice you’re slightly off-course, so you make a correction. You add in a new behaviour, or you get rid of an old one.  You continuously research and try new things. It is unlikely that the behaviours which got you to your first mini goal will get you all the way to your destination on their own.

My first step in my journey was to cut out eating after dinner. I lost 2kgs almost without trying. Then my weight leveled out again - I needed to make a course correction. I took up running 3 times a week doing the C25K program. I began losing again, but SO slowly! So I began planning my meals in advance. That helped a lot, my weightloss picked up a bit. Then it leveled out again, so I stepped up my planning. I began counting my calories more precisely.

My next course correction occured when the PT at my gym tested me for my metabolic rate and recommended I drop down to 1300 calories. AND he started to weigh me in each week, so I became accountable to someone else for my eating. That was a big course correction - I was really powering straight towards port for a while there!

But slowly I wandered off course again. I lost some motivation and was finding it hard to resist little treats and snacks. So I began researching mental techniques to stave off cravings, emotional eating and binging. Putting them into place was yet another course correction.

A lot of this blog is about recognising when I am wandering off course and figuring out what actions will correct my course. Ultimately, it is about realising that to consistently lose weight, I need to consistently research, implement and refine new behaviours and techniques to provide course corrections when I need them.

So if you are beginning your weightloss journey, try not to focus on the entire journey as one big step. Concentrate of each little step and change your behaviours one at a time - you will build up momentum in the end.

I did a huge big post here and now it’s gone.

So - here’s the pointy bit - The weightloss fairy took away 0.6kgs this week. If I maintain that till next week I will have officially acheived my next mini-goal - My halfway point of 72kgs.

I’ve been listening to hypnosis CDs and they may be having some effect. I’ve been focusing on my strategies to beat cravings and they are mostly working - I’m still having slip ups on the weekends though. I’m exercising but I’m not being a nazi about it - I can skip a day if it makes it easier to get to my dance class in the evening.

I’ve been doing more social things - I’ve joined social dance classes and a swim squad and I’m accepting more invitations than I used to.

I’ve put in place a system at work to limit my internet use and allocate my time better to my projects, it’s making me much more productive.

Life is good, work is good, weightloss is good, I’m kind of happy.

I didn’t get to weigh in on Sunday, as I wasn’t home, so I weighed in this morning (monday) and found that I had lost 0.2kgs, taking me down to 73.0!! YAY!!! I’ve had a relatively fast trip through the 73’s, next stop the 72’s!!! I hope

My weekend wasn’t great. I had a party at which I had a few more chips and homemade sausage rolls than I really should have. But compared to how much I would have eaten just a few months ago, I actually was very restrained. I think maybe I’m learning.

It’s true. When Iweighed myself on Friday morning I was maintaining at 74.8 kgs. This is despite the fact that I had done no exercise all week. (My excuse was that i was still tired from having food poisoning the weekend before, but really, that was just an excuse, and not a very good one either. I could have exercised if I’d wanted to.)

So from friday morning, where did I go wrong?

1. I had a friday afternoon binge on biscuits at work. That is discussed in my last post.
2. Since I’d already binged, and I knew I was going to have a relaxed weekend, i continued eating friday night, with two chocolate bars and McDonalds for dinner, and PB toast since I had to buy butter to make cakes.
3. I went to an overnight hen’s party this weekend. It was awesome I had lots of nibblies and lots of Vodka. To be honest though, I could have gotten away with all of that and only had a minor gain it was Friday and Sunday that were the problems. In fact, I don’t think I went overboard on the nibbles the way I might have a few months ago.
4. When I got home on Sunday, I was tired so I had Red Rooster for lunch before I crashed in front of the telly for the evening.

So why a whole kilo? i think some of it may be bloating from the salt and alcohol, and it might go away in a couple of days. But to be honest, only a few little efforts at restraint, and a bit of exercise last week, would have headed off this disaster.

I am going to allow myself to be annoyed and cross with myself about this, and remember how crappy that upward line on my graph looks so that next time i am tempted to let go so completely I will remember it and hopefully think twice.

Well, this week I have had another good loss of 0.8kgs, bringing me to 76.8kgs all up. This is well over 5kgs, I’m really pleased!

However, i haven’t had a great weekend. On Friday I did really well at the christmas party, stuck to my plan completely, only to mess up at my parents place that night when my Mum put a bowl of chips (my nemesis!) on the table, and dinner was followed up by apple pie and whipped cream.

Then Sunday I bought myself an icecream on the way to a bbq, as I was getting petrol and it was hot. There was simply no reason for this except it was there, it seemed like a good idea, and I TOTALLY FORGOT I SHOULDN”T HAVE IT!!!

At the bbq I ate 2 sausages in white rolls, instead of the chicken kebabs I had bought with me. Why??? No real reason. I also had another icecream after dinner when it was offered, again, I could easily have turned this down without offending anyone.

Luckily I did quite a bit of exercise this weekend, between the 400m novice swim I did with a friend, and a couple of runs. Still, I’m a bit worried about how my tuesday (tomorrow!!) weigh in with the PT will go.

On the positive side, I moved onto week 5 of the C25K program on saturday. Week 4 is not exactly easy yet, but it’s not gut-wrenchingly hard anymore either week 5 day one went surprising ly smoothly. But week 5 day three is a doozy - it may take me a while to work up to that one!!

This morning on the Calorie King website a member asked what she should do to get her motivation back. This was my response.

- Do some FUN exercise on the weekend, go hiking with friends, hire a surfcat and sail about, go horseriding or rock climbing. You will feel healthy and motivated to keep going durin the week

- read some motivational stories - there’s some on the Calorie King website

- VISUALISE!!! Close your eyes and ’see’ yourself looking thin and fabulous in that swimsuit or flirty red dress. Picture yourself enjoying a healthy meal. Picture yourself in control and calm at a meal out with friends, enjoying the company without needing to have that dessert. Picture yourself full of energy and endorphins smiling as you step out of the gym after a great workout.

Now picture yourself overweight and bloated, slumped in front of the telly with no energy and a packet of chips in the dark with the flickering light of the telly showing your pasty unhealthy skin…

- read some diet books that focus on the mental aspect of weight loss, like the Thin Commandments, the Beck Diet, Think Slim (particularly reccomend that one) or Fattitude

- make yourself a tape or MP3 with your own voice repeating all your favourite weight loss sayings, like “Start where you stand” “It won’t make me happy, it will only make me heavy” or Nothing bad will happen if I don’t eat that chocolate - but something bad will happen if I do - I will stay fat!” and play it every morning on the train or when you get up or whatever. Include some relaxation techniques and motivation for exercise or whatever you most need.

I think I need to do a few of these myself! especially the visualising. Not that I need motivation just now with the PT weighing me every week. He weighed me this morning (even though my normal day is tuesday, I missed this week) and I had lost 1.3kgs. I was so stoked you can’t imagine! I haven’t seen numbers that low on a scale in years!