Friday 8 March 2013

Weight loss blog 3: The new batch

Aaand 97 kilos.  Consistent.  I like that.

Food's great.  I've been trying to mix up the diet a lot lately and so far I'm having some quite surprising success, but it is a little bit severe.  The meal plan is roughly as follows:

Breakfast - porridge on weekdays, eggs on weekends
Lunch - soup on weekdays.  I'm usually eating late enough on weekends that breakfast and lunch are pretty interchangeable
Snack - protein drink on weekdays, not a heck of a lot on weekends
Dinner - at home, something sensible.  Out and about... yeah, that's difficult

And water.  At least 4 beakers of the stuff during the day.  Like, if you're not almost peeing clear, you might want more water.

I found three major problems.  I've not completely overcome them, but:
  • Mid afternoon slump - about 3 or 4 pm all energy just leaves me and I'll become ravenous.
    • The protein shakes help.  They're fairly light compared to a bag of crisps and they're really a fairly potent pick me up.
  • Dinner - not so bad if I'm at home in the evening, but out and about, healthy dinner options are a pain to find
    • Honestly, I reckon your best bet for this is those premade sandwiches in supermarkets.  They're like 500 calories which isn't terrible and they're pretty filling
  • Fruit - I'll eat it and I like some of it, but eating fresh fruit regularly really upsets my stomach.  Reduces the snack options a bit
    • No clue here.  I tried snacking on fruit, just ended up sticky and gassy so now I avoid it

On average, I'm knocking back 1200 calories a day.  Except for one day on Friday/Saturday which is quite often a takeaway day.  It's not great, but eating unhealthy food every now and then is kind of therapeutic.  I mean, I've got a gut full of curry at the moment.  The important thing is to get things in moderation and try to avoid the really horrendous stuff.  I reckon that much less than 1200 is going to result in low loss though, certainly seemed to have a bad effect.

I mean, I never thought I'd lost more by eating more.  That was a pleasant discovery.

Vitamin pills are a big deal, I think.  I'm not eating so much now but I still want the body to respond to the exercise in a favourable way.  And they're not that expensive for quite a large supply.

Protein powder, though.  I've got into this through a guy from work.  "You'll notice a big difference" he says.  Considering that this guy has mentored another colleague into some quite substantial weight loss, I figured I'd see how it worked out.  Well, for one thing it keeps me going throughout the afternoon and gives me a fairly large overall sense of wellbeing.  For another, I really do seem to be having an easier time with dropping the weight on this stuff.  It seems a bit counter intuitive, I thought that stuff promoted growth and muscle gain and all that, but... well, I guess it does and maybe it's just making the exercise easier.

Huh.  There's a revelation.

I guess everything else is common sense, really.  Don't eat until you're stuffed, eat more veg, less saturated fat and stuff.  I'm trying to avoid bread, mostly because nutrition-wise it's not that valuable unless you need the fibre.  I can't say enough about those soups though.  Low in fat and calories and generally full of veg.  That's a really decent lunch for under 250 calories and they're super convenient.

Can't say there's anything interesting going on here, just "eat less, make sure the stuff you're eating is valuable and keep an eye on what's going into your body".

I think the most important thing I've realised though is that after a few weeks, junk food cravings are like anything else that's addictive, you either don't get the pangs as bad or you get better at ignoring them.  Turns out that bodies are pretty good at looking after themselves if you give them a chance.

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