I got fat. Not just jolly fat. I got fat. As those who know me in real life will know, I live alone, I work from home and I pretty much lived off of takeaways. This led to my weight slowly rising due to the fact I was eating terrible food and getting nigh on zero exercise as even my commute to work was from my bed to the PC (via the en suite) and that wasn’t the most taxing of walks.
It had reached the stage where I would walk to the supermarket and be drenched with sweat. Not just a bit of sweat on my brow but my t-shirt would be soaked through on the back and moistening up nicely on the front. I know, such a great look.
The top range of my BMI to be in the ‘ideal’ range is 12st 2lbs. I reached just over 14stone with my BMI hitting just north of 29, as those who follow these things will know that 30 is considered obese. I was on my way to being obese and I needed to get things under control.
A few years ago I got my BMI down to 22 from 27 in about a nine month period. Then I kinda reverted back to type and in the three years since I saw it rise from 22 to 29. Grim. So I needed to get it down once more so I made a few decisions. Firstly as some of you will know I was a caffeine addict. All I would drink was coca-cola which isn’t very good or either your teeth or your insides. For over a decade that is all I drank. In 2010 I changed this and would only have a cherry coke every so often and would instead drink squash. For four years now I have kept up with this. I can only imagine how my health and weight would be had I not made this change.
I bought an exercise bike and put it in my spare room and put a TV in there. The plan was I could watch something whilst riding the bike. I got it in December and it goes up to 32 levels. When I started I couldn’t even turn around the pedals around on level 32 and would be lain prostrate on the floor after 10-15 minutes on level 5 gasping for a drink to quench my raw throat and to stop the lactic acid that was pulsing through my veins. Slowly though I built up my leg muscles and my body stopped hurting and I could build up both the intensity of my workouts and the length of them. Six months ago 15 minutes at level 5 was hard work. Now 100 minutes on level 32 is how I roll.
That was however getting quite repetitive and I think my body was getting too used to it so I have started going out for long walks every so often. On Sunday I had a six to seven mile walk in the warm weather that I could really feel on Monday morning. A lot of that walk was uphill so I was using muscles that I don’t use as much as when I’m on the bike. This has been a problem – I have worked out nigh enough exclusively on the bike and really should be doing a variety of things to get many more muscles used.
Diet wise takeaway food was out but not much else has changed. I have started to cook my own food a bit more often but in general I still eat what I want to eat. In terms of snack food I can still destroy a six-pack of cherry bakewells without too much hesitation but when I do I know that those are the days I’ll work out the hardest.
So about six months on I am now south of 12 stone and my BMI has been in the ideal range for about three weeks now. Even at the end of the day I’m still in the ideal range (in general most people put on around two pounds a day just in food or water weight only to lose that weight overnight). I am proud of this. I’m still not to tip top shape – a long way from it – but yesterday I was walking back from getting the local rag and I noticed that I couldn’t see my belly protruding from my t-shirt and you couldn’t even notice the bump of it, that is quite a significant step.
I have no doubt that had I monitored what I ate more closely and had I been having a more balanced exercise regime that I would probably be at least half a stone lighter already. This is something I am going to work on over the next few months as I look to get down to south of 11 stone. I think 11 stone should be the northern point of my weight and that is what I’m aiming for. 11 stone would be a BMI of 22.7. So my aim is around there and hopefully this time around I won’t let it all slip.
Losing weight has many benefits but most of all it is the health issue. Yes I would love my body to look better but really that isn’t too big of an issue. The fact that I can sweat like anything just due to a light stroll was never ever a good thing. This was the primary issue to take on with this weight loss project and I can see that it is getting better (although still not exactly great).
Losing weight is not easy but if you have determination then it is eminently doable. I think my best advice to anyone reading this and wanting to lose weight is not to worry if you go through days or weeks of losing nothing or nearly nothing. I have had weeks where no weight has come off and found it disheartening but I’d look for reasons why and then try to sort out those issues. Another thing is you can do too much and eat too little. You need 1,500 calories a day inside of you so ensure you eat. I had days where I would hardly eat yet work out two hours on the bike and would wonder why I’d not lost any weight.
Discipline is important but isn’t essential. So you have a bad day and eat a packets of cookies and go to a BBQ and eat some burgers. Such is life. Just roll with it and carry on working out and your body will forgive you. If I can lose two stone in six months and still eat cherry bakewells and chocolate doughnuts by the bucket-load then anybody can lose weight.
Just keep positive and you can do it. I did and I’m starting to feel much better for it both health wise and also mentally with my own body image.
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