Tuesday update

3 posts in less than a week, what's going on?

84.3kg

Things at the moment would be considered a bit delicate. I screwed up, I admit it. As you know, the plan was to be less than the previous weight for the group weigh-in, this is something that I am really serious about. After work, I made a decision to have what I affectionately call greasies, which is sausages and chips. This is a common New Zealand delicacy, if you ever travel here you'll see Fish & Chip shops on many suburban corners selling artery blocking delights. It's inexpensive, fatty and not good for you. I had two sausages and half a scoop of chips.

At work I pretty much convinced myself that it would be a nice thing to do. Funny how that happens, I see myself doing it, and can't stop or back down. I have no idea about the energy value of what I ate, of course my weight increases because of all of the weight of those chips which take a while to digest.

I realise that I shouldn't have greasies, so my pledge is as follows:

If I walk into a fish and chip shop before I reach the 79.999kg, I'll give away $10 for each meal.

Currently I have $30 for a recent effort at weight tracking that I didn't blog about to give away as well. Now, last night I see that Becky has bought some ice cream. Ice cream is my favourite treat/junk food, but I don't buy it often for obvious reasons. I just had to eat some. Not much, but I'm trying to lose weight, not maintain. Another pledge:

If I eat ice cream (of any form) before I reach 81.999kg (exception: birthdays), I'll give away $10 for each time I eat it.

I'm trying to be serious here. I've been at 84 for so long. I need to start losing again.

Exercise:

24th: two sessions of 30 lengths. The first session I made a real effort to swim as fast as I could. I won't be doing that again. I only swam about 12% faster, but I was much, much more tired afterwards.

21st: 22 lengths

20th: 30 lengths

19th: 30 lengths

18th: 52 lengths

Eating plan

84.1kg

There's no denying that I'm struggling with what I'm eating at the moment. As said in my last post, I haven't lost weight in nearly 5 months, and that makes me think that unless I pull my finger out, I won't make my 2 year anniversary to be at goal.

My plan for eating is quite simple: a mixture of veges, meat, whey powder, fruit, cereal and a few other things.

My eating plan starts today.

If I come across food that is not on the plan, I'll write it down on the blog, together with what nutrient values I think it has. My diet is planned to have just over 100g of protein a day, and just under 200g of carbohydrates. It rounds off at just under 6,500kj. I'll see how that works out in terms of appetite. I've had this diet before, and I did find that it made me a bit hungrier than I'd wanted to be, so if that happens again, I'll reduce the carbohydrate amount and add fat (probably in the form of nuts) and see how that goes.

Because I'll be eating a reasonable amount of fruit, I expect that my weight might increase just a bit over the next few days, due to the bulk of fruit eaten when I weigh myself. That's no problem, but at the start of the year, I joined up on a website to record my weight twice a month, and I promised myself to make a real effort at having a new low weight every weigh-in.

This gain caused by the fruit might derail my aim to have a new low each weigh, so about 4 days before each weigh, I'm going low carb to make sure it'll happen. Of course I can't go low carb twice a month (well, I can, but I don't want to) just for these readings, so I'm not sure how I'll go about the transition. I'll figure it out I'm sure. About 500 people provided their weight for the first reading, and after the second weigh in, 204 lost weight.

I'd like a 'reward' meal for each kilogram I lose, so when I reach 84.0kg I'll have one, and try as hard as I can to only have one for each kilogram I lose.

Exercise:

21st Jan 22 lengths (I ran out of time)

I had some breathing problems on the 21st (caused by an allergic reaction) so I didn't swim then, and decided to not swim today just in case I had issues again today.

Once my weight tops out, I'm thinking of aiming for 70g a day loss, then increasing it step by step.

Exercise goals

Day 1 of getting back into it and I weigh 84.0kg. I first hit 84kg on the 5th September, last year (1 day after an 7.1 earthquake in my city that caused NZ$5 billion damage, but thankfully no one was killed, and at least 1000 aftershocks that I could feel, including a 5.1 today). In other words, 137 days wasted. That's not good.

Part of the whole losing weight includes exercise. I don't actually need exercise to lose weight, I lost about 15kg back in 2000 without exercise, but I want to lose weight at a certain rate, and that means exercise. I've used 3 types of exercise: swimming, running and elliptical trainer. Running is definitely the hardest, followed by the elliptical. It's not bad, the elliptical, but it's boring. I can drift off when I'm on it, and it gets my heart rate up to the recommended value, but there isn't really any enjoyment. Plus, it doesn't use as much energy as running, so things take longer. I can't really imagine going to the gym twice a day to use the elliptical.

Having grown up in a home less than 5 minutes walk to a large swimming pool, I have always loved swimming. Usually I'd go about once a week, but I didn't swim lengths, I'd just play around in the water. More than 30 years later, I probably would go swimming once every month or so, so not a lot. About a month ago, I got a 3 monthly swimming membership (about 3/4 of the price of a gym membership, which included the pool use) and started swimming lengths.

The first time I had difficulty, I managed to swim 50 metres, not a lot, before I was too puffed and needed to stop for a bit. That's not much, in fact it's useless. But I wasn't fit, and the muscles needed for swimming weren't really developed. However, I persevered, and today I was able to swim for 30 lengths (each length is 25 metres) with only 5 seconds between lengths where I turned around and pressed the lap button on my watch (to keep track of the number of lengths).

I would swim all day and lose weight at a huge rate, but for one problem: I get tired. Not only do I get tired after the swim, but I get tired for the rest of the day, so deciding on the most optimal number of lengths to do a day is quite difficult. Too little, and I don't lose much extra weight. Too much, and I need to have a sleep afterwards, and I'm tired. I don't know the ideal number, but I'm prepared to find out.

Also, to spread the load over the whole day, I plan on swimming most days twice. Swimming is the one form of exercise that I could do twice a day and not start to hate. Some days I simply won't be able to go twice, but apart from that, if I can go, I hope I will.

My gym membership was pretty much a waste of money, because I didn't go as often as I should have. This time for the pool, I want to keep a record of how often I go, and what I achieve. Why that never happened with the gym, I'm not sure, especially as writing it down on the blog would have been a good idea!

So here is what I've achieved so far:

20th Jan 30 lengths

19th Jan 30 lengths

18th Jan 52 lengths (I wanted to see how many lengths I could do, as it was I ran out of time and had to finish without getting exhausted)

Let's see how many days in a row I can go swimming! I'll aim for a range, at a minimum 30, and a high enough number without overdoing it to the extent that I'll be tired for the rest of the day.