The home stretch
Ah, how I love that moment immediately after that time of the month when my body suddenly decides that it doesn't need all that water after all and my weight drops suddenly. It usually stays off too, which is even better. So, this morning, that puts me at 94.8kg/209lb. 95kg/210lb were big milestones for me, and I've made it.
210lb means that I've lost 50lb. On my notional target of losing 100lb, that puts me half way there. I don't know if I can lose 50lb more, or if I want to. Sure, the weight charts say that I can, but really? To be honest, my most important task now is to keep the 50lb that I've already lost off. If I lose the other 50, then that will be brilliant, but I feel comfortable at this weight, I feel happy, and I feel relaxed with my eating. If I was given the choice, get really thin for a while, then put it all back on again or stick at this weight forever, I'd choose the latter option. I don't want to go on ever more extreme regimes to get down to a figure that was originally plucked out of the air. If what I'm currently doing gets me slimmer (and I'm convinced that it will), then that's great. But if it doesn't, well, I'm so much fitter than I used to be, healthier, and happier. So why stress about it too much.
I've done the important bit now. I've lost nearly 20% of my original weight, and my BMI is almost under 30 now (I've been saying this for ages, but it really is. When I first calculated my BMI I overestimated my height slightly, and 95 was the magic number where it would dip below 30. Since then I've recalculated, and reckon that it will happen at about 92-93kg, but I'm not far off that). My waist is 33 inches (doing the BBC's find your real age test last night I was impressed to see that the two options were under 35 inches and over 35 inches, it made me happy to choose the lower of those!), and I'm generally healthy. It's more important to hang onto that and make sure I stay that way than to do anything which will trigger the yo-yo effect.
I'm 14 stone something for the first time I can remember. I've said before that I've never really paid attention to my weight and don't know what I weighed at any point in my life. But I'm fairly sure that whatever those mystery weights were, they weren't 14 stone something. Of course, I must have passed that weight on the way up, but I imagine it was in a speeding through sort of way, not a lingering, and being stable sort of way. When I started this I was over 18 and a half stone, and the 14s seemed a hell of a long way away. t was a horrible realisation when I worked out that the 14s would be only half way there. But now it doesn't seem so daunting. I've done it once, so I might be able to do it again. What's 49lb now? (see, I even got a head start on the second half with that extra lb).
So, the hardest work seems to have been done. I've lost the most important of the excess weight now, and I've thoroughly re-trained my exercise and eating habits. Now all I need to do is to carry on with this. And as I appreciate that I'll have to do that for life, I think the plan is to "lose like I'm maintaining". To carry on doing the good stuff, and to appreciate that my body can't be defined solely by a set of tables. I'll see what weight this regime takes me to, and whether I'm happy there. Based on how I feel at the moment, I suspect that I may well be. I might make my lifestyle a little healthier yet, by introducing new types of fruit and veg, and possibly some fish (a bigger hurdle than even salad was), but I won't change the general approach, which is no counting, no stressing, no obsessing, and no hard and fast rules.
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Training update time. A good weekend of running. Yesterday I did 5k on the treadill, today I did 10k. This was the first time I've really backed up running days, but I see that a lot of training programmes have longer runs on Saturday and Sunday with other runs spread out through the week. So I decided to try that this week, and it seems to have worked fairly well. I wanted to do the shorter run yesterday so that I still had energy in my legs for today's run, and the plan worked. So that takes me to a total of 22.5k for the week, which is more than creditable I think! I still haven't got round to doing the amount of outside running that I was hoping for, the air conditioning in the gym is far more tempting at the moment, together with the fact that I can keep track of distance and time far more easily. But I will try to do some running outside before the 10k, as I know it will help me a lot to practice being a bit less regimented and allowing my pace to alter a bit more over the run to deal with hills, different terrain and other obstacles. Maybe one for next week?
210lb means that I've lost 50lb. On my notional target of losing 100lb, that puts me half way there. I don't know if I can lose 50lb more, or if I want to. Sure, the weight charts say that I can, but really? To be honest, my most important task now is to keep the 50lb that I've already lost off. If I lose the other 50, then that will be brilliant, but I feel comfortable at this weight, I feel happy, and I feel relaxed with my eating. If I was given the choice, get really thin for a while, then put it all back on again or stick at this weight forever, I'd choose the latter option. I don't want to go on ever more extreme regimes to get down to a figure that was originally plucked out of the air. If what I'm currently doing gets me slimmer (and I'm convinced that it will), then that's great. But if it doesn't, well, I'm so much fitter than I used to be, healthier, and happier. So why stress about it too much.
I've done the important bit now. I've lost nearly 20% of my original weight, and my BMI is almost under 30 now (I've been saying this for ages, but it really is. When I first calculated my BMI I overestimated my height slightly, and 95 was the magic number where it would dip below 30. Since then I've recalculated, and reckon that it will happen at about 92-93kg, but I'm not far off that). My waist is 33 inches (doing the BBC's find your real age test last night I was impressed to see that the two options were under 35 inches and over 35 inches, it made me happy to choose the lower of those!), and I'm generally healthy. It's more important to hang onto that and make sure I stay that way than to do anything which will trigger the yo-yo effect.
I'm 14 stone something for the first time I can remember. I've said before that I've never really paid attention to my weight and don't know what I weighed at any point in my life. But I'm fairly sure that whatever those mystery weights were, they weren't 14 stone something. Of course, I must have passed that weight on the way up, but I imagine it was in a speeding through sort of way, not a lingering, and being stable sort of way. When I started this I was over 18 and a half stone, and the 14s seemed a hell of a long way away. t was a horrible realisation when I worked out that the 14s would be only half way there. But now it doesn't seem so daunting. I've done it once, so I might be able to do it again. What's 49lb now? (see, I even got a head start on the second half with that extra lb).
So, the hardest work seems to have been done. I've lost the most important of the excess weight now, and I've thoroughly re-trained my exercise and eating habits. Now all I need to do is to carry on with this. And as I appreciate that I'll have to do that for life, I think the plan is to "lose like I'm maintaining". To carry on doing the good stuff, and to appreciate that my body can't be defined solely by a set of tables. I'll see what weight this regime takes me to, and whether I'm happy there. Based on how I feel at the moment, I suspect that I may well be. I might make my lifestyle a little healthier yet, by introducing new types of fruit and veg, and possibly some fish (a bigger hurdle than even salad was), but I won't change the general approach, which is no counting, no stressing, no obsessing, and no hard and fast rules.
--------------------------------
Training update time. A good weekend of running. Yesterday I did 5k on the treadill, today I did 10k. This was the first time I've really backed up running days, but I see that a lot of training programmes have longer runs on Saturday and Sunday with other runs spread out through the week. So I decided to try that this week, and it seems to have worked fairly well. I wanted to do the shorter run yesterday so that I still had energy in my legs for today's run, and the plan worked. So that takes me to a total of 22.5k for the week, which is more than creditable I think! I still haven't got round to doing the amount of outside running that I was hoping for, the air conditioning in the gym is far more tempting at the moment, together with the fact that I can keep track of distance and time far more easily. But I will try to do some running outside before the 10k, as I know it will help me a lot to practice being a bit less regimented and allowing my pace to alter a bit more over the run to deal with hills, different terrain and other obstacles. Maybe one for next week?
posted by YP at 1:26 PM
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