Compliments

Yesterday was a weird day – I had about six separate people compliment me on my weight loss, and the fact that I was looking realy good. A few even said I shouldn’t look to lose much more weight otherwise I’d start to look too thin!

The weight loss has been a strange thing, because I never actually set out to lose weight at all. It’s true – at the start of the year I was happy enough with the weight I was, and didn’t think I would need to lose weight. The wife had always said that she wanted to lose a couple of stone, but I didn’t feel the need for myself.

And then I started my new job and it suddenly happened – I started to lose weight, despite probably eating larger meals than before. This included breakfast at home and every other day breakfast at work too!

The biggest catalyst for al of this was my decision to cut back my bread intake, along with semi-skimmed milk and, of course, giving up obvious sugar for Lent. What do I mean by obvious sugar? Well, things like sweets, chocolate, cakes, sugar in coffee, that kind of thing – for breakfast I had three Weetabix with skimmed milk, and that was just fine for me. You’ll know that Weetabix does have a trace amount of sugar in it, but you wouldn’t think it if you thought of Weetabix – that is what I mean when I talk about obvious sugar, in that it’s obvious that cakes have sugar, but not Weetabix!

By doing just that, I had dropped down to 14st 13lbs and hovered there for a brief period late July early August until I went up to London with my family to see friends for the weekend, as well as travelling North to see my Gran in Preston. I didn’t consciously overeat, but I did start to eat sugary foods again. This saw my weight creep up to 15st 8lbs, still an impressive weight loss since the start of the year.

It was when my wife spoke to me about Slim & Save that I really got going on my weight loss journey – an acquaintance of ours had completed it earlier this year, and had lost a remarkable amount of weight through following the plan. My wife was keen to follow her example, and I thought that I should at least support her through the first month. We duly ordered our month’s supply of shakes, food packs and snack bars, weighed and measured ourselves and started along the Slim & Save road.

A month later, and I had lost all the weight I’d gained in early August and then some – I’d actually dropped just shy of two stone in that time, and now weighed 13st 13lbs – still in the overweight banding for BMI, but on the cusp of being an ideal weight for the first time in my adult life.

In the last week I’ve continued to lose weight and am, as of today, 13st 4, meaning that I’ve lost precisely 4st since the start of this year, something I’d never thought I’d ever say.

This makes me twice the weight of our son John, who is around 6st 5lbs or so, and puts me well within the green zone on the BMI chart. Do I feel skinny? Actually not really, although some photos my wife took last night of me really highlight that I’ve lost it around my neck, stomach and also the top of my legs.

It’s helping that I’ve started doing sit-ups with the help of an iPhone App called Runtastic – my stomach was grumbling about this exertion when I started, but now I’m cranking out 110 sit-ups a day, it’s no longer complaining as much as it was. In fact, my recovery time is decreasing every day I do it. What’s helping is that I’m moving straight to weights as soon as I finish my sit-ups, and my mind isn’t dwelling on what my stomach is telling it.

Once I’ve completed both exercises, I immediately have my shake for breakfast which makes me feel better. I also take the time to update my menu for the day so I’m tracking how many calories I’m consuming. My average has been around 600 calories a day for the last month, although I have also had a couple of regular meals (a full rack of ribs and fries at TGI Fridays springs to mind immediately).

My routine is set, and a habit is beginning to form – I’ve even started doing press-ups in the evening, although I can only manage 10 at a time right now. But even that is an achievement for me – I’ve never been able to do press-ups before, but I now want my son to be proud of me, and that is my greatest motivator.