Diet

[fleetfootmike]

You were supposed to nag me, you lot! Remember?

Ah well. Anyway: started again properly on Aug 1, weighing 289lbs. As of this morning, weigh 267lbs. Not bad, huh? Another 70 or so to go.

Comments

[fleetfootmike.livejournal.com]

Mostly it's eating sensibly. I do, though, strongly recommend the Hacker's Diet, simply because it explains the principles behind losing weight in a geek-friendly and scam/fad-free way, as well as having a sensible exercise program which you can start *slowly* on.

Daily weighing is fine as long as you don't obsess on the daily changes, but the trend. THD provides a nice spreadsheet for plotting your weight trend, which I find very useful (although having said that, my weight is remarkably well-behaved from day to day, without many sudden jumps: part of the trick is weighing yourself at the same time in the same clothes every day - I do it first thing in the morning, after I've come back upstairs with two cups of tea for Anne and I and before I drink 'em). Weekly is fine if it works for you - personally I think monthly is too infrequent for you to provide any useful feedback into your consuming/burning calories system.

The scales we have are excellent: Tanita "Ultimate Scale" ULT2000/2001. Available from Argos, price about 40 quid, *very* precise and repeatable as long as you stand on them properly (as evidenced by the days I get on the scale, look at the result, go 'I don't believe that', and get on again for a best of 3 or 5 - multiple attempts rarely differ by more than 1/2 lb).

I was 14 stone (196lbs) when I graduated, and by general consensus a shade overweight, and definitely unfit. My first target is 200lbs, after which I'll see how I look.

As far as eating sensibly goes, my usual day's intake is:

Breakfast (8am)

A bowl of muesli, with semi skimmed milk

A mug of tea with milk and sweetener

Lunch (1pm)

Salad - cottage cheese, tomato, lettuce, mushrooms (raw), cucumber

A low fat yoghurt

Mid-afternoon (4pm)

Mug of tea as above

Supper (8pm)

Whatever Anne's cooking: usually chicken or pork with veg plus a jacket potato, or pasta.

Dessert varies but nothing overly calorific

And, the important bit: snacks. Through the course of the day, when I feel peckish, I'll probably have a total of about four snacks, two of which'll be fruit/grain bars (Jordan's Fruesli, or Kellogg's Special K bars), one'll be a handful of Hula Hoops, and one a cream or cottage cheese sandwich (two slices of bread, lowfat spread).

Anyway, it works for me: i'm not suggesting it'll work for everyone, but thIt's how I've lost 22 pounds in two months.

exercise

[fleetfootmike.livejournal.com]

Forgot to add, re exercise.

Weight training kinds of exercise will put on muscle mass, this is true. But what you need to be doing with a weight-loss program is some form of aerobic exercise that ups your basal metabolic rate, i.e. the rate at which your body burns calories, as well as toning exercises to unstretch the bits of you that don't have as much flab to hold in as they did.

Again, I like THD's program - it's a ladder, and you start on the first rung, which is basically 2 stretches, 3 crunches, 4 leg lifts, 2 cheats' pressups and running on the spot for 120 double steps, interspersed with 7 jumping jacks. Each rung adds a little more, and the idea is that you go up rungs when you feel that the rung you're on is easy enough that you're up for it.