New challenge - Ready for Summer

I have decided to join up to this challenge. Okay, I'm in the southern hemisphere so really it should be called Ready for Winter, but hey, I'll take it anyway. The last challenge went well, and I'm hoping that this one will too. We have to set goals. Here are my goals:

Weight loss: get to goal weight. This is theoretically possible in a 10 week challenge. I'll leave it at that.

NSV: wear my Auckland pants. When I lived in Auckland I'd just finished polytechnic and was about to go to job interviews. I bought those pants (I still remember talking to the salesman, for some reason) at the age of 23 (25 years ago). They should fit at goal. Maybe. At least I hope to be able to zip them up. Fingers crossed.

Exercise: Play my Xbox 360 fitness game with my Kinect. I bought it about 4 months ago and have yet to use it. I want to use it every day, for at least 15 minutes. Not only theoretically possible, actually probable given enough time and effort.

Nutrition: Use my green/red squares to represent perfect/imperfect eating here on the blog. Aim for at least 90 percent green squares. Be in ketosis every day of the challenge. The challenge starts on Monday (NZ time) so I hope to be there by then, if at all possible.

Oh, one other goal. Try to enjoy losing weight! I know that this is a bit of an unusual goal, but really I haven't enjoyed my weight loss journey so far. In terms of a journey, it's like a car ride where the radio has a lot of static, there is a seat spring sticking into your back, and something in the dashboard is rattling. Sure, I've enjoyed arriving at 2/3 towards my destination, but am I enjoying the weight loss? No. I think it's depleting my mental energy stores. I'll have to work on that.

Less than 10 kilograms to goal

75.7kg, lowest weight in 8 months 11 days

I've got less than ten kilograms to lose. Single figures. That's a milestone, no more thinking in double digits about how much I have to lose. Yes, I was at this point back in June last year (and posted about it too...) but sometimes life events come along and you gain weight. Back then I went to the cinema and got a large popcorn, and I'm doing it again. Imagine me, buying popcorn at the cinema twice in one year! Crazy. I'm not sure which film I'm going to see, I usually see one film a week (sometimes it's twice, as during the summer break there are more children's films, and when the children go back to school there is a surplus of films that I actually want to see). It feels good to be back here, although I'm still only lowest weight in just over eight months, when I go past my breakup gain, I'll feel a lot better about things.

My body still has a lot of fat in it. Stomach, chest (probably a size A cup) and thighs. When I drive over a judder bar on my private lane where I live I still feel my chest moves up and down. I keep detailed weight records and I've been heavier for a whopping 10 years in total (11 different periods, starting in 1993).

Now that I'm in single figures, I'm thinking about my overseas trip. I'm starting to stress out a bit, my first overseas trip and I'll be gone for a year. I was thinking of going to Australia briefly to break-in my passport and experience life in another country (NZ and Aus. aren't that different really) but there aren't any concerts that I want to see in the next 6 months. I'll check out aquariums and science museums there and see if there is a good enough excuse to have a week long trip there.

Oh, how is my commitment to weight loss going? Eating: good. Exercise non-existent. I really need to get into the exercise, at least with walking.

Commitment week 4

76.2kg, lowest weight in 8 months 3 days

Thursday morning and I have a visitor. Apart from Becky this is the first visitor I've had stay over. My brother is on the floor in the living room, he's travelling back to his home in the North Island from having his 50th with my father and sister in Dunedin. We had a long talk yesterday which was unusual as we hardly ever have time together nowadays.

I'm having trouble breathing. This is entirely my own fault, I hardly have any visitors which means that the place can get a bit untidy, and when I do tidy it sometimes I have an allergic reaction to something. Today I start a new resolution: tidying every day.

I've lost 0.6kg this week. That's not a lot, and I really want it to be more, but if you're losing you're losing. I had a bit of a carb fest on Sunday night, which may still be an issue for me now. I've found that my weight drops about 80 hours after eating carbs. I'm meant to be doing low carb and be in ketosis all of the time. I can easily tell when I'm there because my urine smells of ammonia.

My weekly question: have I made a commitment to losing weight in the last week?

Generally yes, although my exercise is lacking. I haven't done any. I'm really slack when it comes to exercise, and I'm not sure how I can change that. I need to start walking again. That seems to be the best form of exercise I do, I can do it daily with no feelings of dread.

Commitment week 3

76.8kg, lowest weight in 7 months, 23 days

I'm back from my trip to Dunedin. I really found it hard to motivate myself to eat properly, and the need to exercise. I haven't done any exercise in the last week. When I was there, I found the excuse to have a 'treat' every day. I was doing things there that I hadn't done in about 15 years, and each step I did I decided to treat myself. I knew that the trip would be challenging, and I guess I failed in my desire to eat well. However, I did do well in the actual driving there, and return. In other words, I didn't splurge. Back home in Christchurch, things have returned to normal. Eating properly, but zero exercise.

Very soon I'll be 10kg away from goal. Getting down to single figures will be an achievement. Someone at work complimented me on my weight loss. Only two people here have done it (one of them didn't know that I was attempting to lose weight), the other one said something about 8 months ago, before I became single and had my regain. I've told a number of people who sit next to me that I am losing weight, and I won't be going overseas until I'm at goal. Some understand, some don't.

I get NZ$25 from my father each birthday and each Christmas. About 4 years ago my father gave me my birthday money, but I told him that I didn't want it then, and would like him to keep it until I've finished losing weight. A while ago I decided to buy a smartphone, and use that money for buying it. The Motorola Defy was on special at The Warehouse (a company probably similar to Walmart in the US), $100 off. So I bought it. $299 instead of $399. I'm owed $225 by my father, so only need $74 of my money instead of $174. It's sitting in its sealed box waiting to be used. If I keep it out of sight, I don't think that I'll ever open it when I'm not close to goal. I want to open it when I'm 70kg. I'm also owed a birthday gift by my brother. He often phones me 2-3 days before my birthday asking what I want. I told him that I'd like a passport, but only when I am near to reaching goal weight. That was about 6 years ago, I reminded him about it recently, so it won't come as a surprise to him.

I really don't think that my brother will ever reach goal weight. He just loves to eat too much too often. I don't mean eating just a little bit extra (my situation). He'll fast for a week or two, then have double his energy needs daily. I have discussed with him whether he'll ever reach goal weight, and he's not sure. I offered to have a system where each of us would give the other $5000 when they reached goal weight (so if we both reached it, it wouldn't cost us anything) and he turned me down. We often talk about weight together, and when I reach goal weight, I want that to stop. Whenever he (or someone else) asks me about my weight, I want to always say the same thing. "I'm still at goal weight, x months/years so far".

My weekly question: have I made a commitment to losing weight in the last week?

My answer is no in the trip to Dunedin, and partially now that I'm back in Christchurch. I need to get back to the word "definitely" like last week.