Lowest weight in over 10 years

I posted last week that I was lowest weight in over 9 years, well guess what, I'm the lowest weight in over 10 years.  I've had a lot of milestones in this journey, and the two greatest so far would be reaching halfway (April last year and again following the breakup in October) and lowest weight since mid 2002.  The reason for that is back in 2002, I was struggling.  I was living with my ex who had breast cancer and it was terminal, sadly.  My mother had been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas in 2001 and her condition was getting worse as time went on.  Amazingly, I was still losing weight.  How I achieved that, I really have no idea.  I remember visiting my ex in the hospice, then having a coffee and slice at a nearby mall and then going home for a carb induced sleep, depressed.  Even now, 10 years later it still depresses me when I think of it.

Slowly over the first 9 months of 2002 I lost weight.  We're talking of about 2-3 kilograms over that whole period.  Then I stopped, and started wondering why and if I could lose the rest.  I'm here 10 years later and know that I can continue losing, so it's nice to know that, I've been wondering about it for 10 years.  As it happened, my ex died on the 19th September and 4 days later my mother died in Dunedin, 5 hours drive away.  Six weeks later a range of issues came along that caused me to rebound - I gained 7kg in the space of a few months or so.

My ex and I had to move into a new home as the old one was being demolished about 3 months before she died, I have a memory of weighing myself back then and thinking that maybe I was 'stuck' at 72kg, and couldn't get any lower.  Well as it turns out, the answer is no.  I can continue losing,

On a lighter side, I have just finished my reward for this achievement - I am allowed to eat my chocolate Easter bunny.  We got them at work and I wrote "lowest weight in 10 years" on it.  There is something about writing it down that makes it stick in your consciousness, rather than just saying it in your mind.  It tends to work better.

Thank you for reading, this post has been a special one for me, I've been thinking about it for the last 3 years, and it's good to finally write it.

Three quarters to goal

I've reached three quarters of the way through my journey!  Just under 7 of the original 28 kilograms to go.  This is another milestone (I've had a few along the way) that I'm really pleased to have reached.  I've also noticed that my attitude to weight loss has changed in the last week.  I'm getting excited.  It also means that I'm trying to speed things up by eating better.  There are a few exceptions to that - each kilogram I lose I get a reward meal, but back in October I won a block of chocolate at work.  I wrote on it "lowest weight in 9 years" and it's been waiting since then.  Actually a workmate offered to take the original block and give me an IOU because it may have gone off in the meantime.  There is another reward at lowest weight in 10 years, an Easter egg that's been quietly waiting at work.  "When are you going to eat it?" I've been asked a few times.


Below shows the graph of the last 9 and a bit years.

Looking at this graph sometimes makes me cringe.  It's all over the place, the longest stretch of flatness is in 2004 and was because I lost some weight data I'd had in another spreadsheet that got deleted accidentally.

As a reward for reaching three quarters I'll be going up the hill again for a walk.  It's roughly a 5 hour trip.  I'll probably do that on Tuesday if the weather is good.  I'm not sure when I'll reach goal weight. I'm hoping before the 3 year anniversary of my weight loss and starting this blog on the 3rd of September.

Another week, another loss

I'm trying to lose weight every week, and yesterday (Monday) I lost another kilogram.  73.7kg.  Not long now, only 7.7kg!  I'm starting to feel my ribs.  My immediate thought is omg I'm starving and getting too thin but then I remember that I've got a muffin top and my thighs rub together.  My chest and stomach still "jiggle".  Bits of fat are deserting me at different rates all over my body.

I think about how I would have done things differently if I started again.  If I had known that it would take 3 years to lose 28kg, I would have just aimed for 1kg a month, and had some financial system to keep things working (set up an automatic payment for $10 or so into my father's back account, and getting it back at goal date).

Oh by the way, I had a memory flashback to when I was about 17 or 18.  I was slim back then, of course.  I went to the local shop and bought a packet of chocolate fingers.  Why is that a big deal, you wonder? Because I hardly ever bought packets of biscuits.  I know that it's kind of obvious but I ate differently back then.  Sure, I ate sweets and packets of chips, but it was extremely unlikely that I would have eaten more than say 2000kj in one session.  Sadly, that has changed.  I know that I can get back to my old habits and behaviour, it just takes effort.  Before my breakup, I lost or maintained for about 2 years, 3 months.

Speaking of the breakup, time for a little sharing.  I don't like being single.  I like the sharing and intimacy that having someone special in my life gives me.  Given that I have planned to go overseas for a year, that makes dating here before I leave a bit iffy.  So I never bothered looking for a girlfriend.  As a result I've gotten quite depressed lately.  That's in addition to my normal level of depression.  Recently I've been in touch with a lady who I may meet up with overseas.  Communicating with women using just the Internet is harder than if they are in the same city, you've got so little to go on and wonder what they are really like.  I guess they are thinking the same thing about me.  Anyway, so that's something to look forward to.

Oh by the way, we just had an earthquake here.  Not a biggy.  Anyway, I've realised that I know the feel of an earthquake (I should, having felt thousands of them).  A little bit of shaking, then there is a big shake at the end.  Why that happens that way and not the other way around, I have no idea.  But I'm always expecting the "last wobble", knowing it's the biggest.  It doesn't always happen that way, but it's often enough.  Then I just go on twitter hashtag #eqnz and see where it was located, usually 50 or so people tweet how strong it was and their location.  In todays case, it was a 5.0.  That means that there probably wasn't any damage (typically the easiest damage is bottles of wine falling off supermarket shelves), but most people notice it and pets can get scared.

I'm back, with a new diet

It's been about six weeks since I've posted.  What's happened to me?  Well nothing really, my weight has been stagnant, a little bit up, a little bit down.  Currently I'm at about 74.3kg which is where I was when I last posted.  But I haven't really lost weight in the last 2 months.  That's changing.

I've chopped and changed my diet so many times!  High carb, low carb, medium carb then high carb again.  I've been reading about a diet where you have unlimited vegetables and meat.  It's generally a low carb diet, and that's what I've decided to try for a while.  For meat I'll generally be having fish like sardines.  Not many people would say that they are appetising, but that's the point!  I can overeat on ham, chicken, even meat patties maybe.  But fish?  No way.  The veges I'll probably stick to my usual 500g a day, which is fine for me.  I enjoy veges but it's unlikely that I'll ever have a vege binge.

Exercise.  I struggle with this.  It has occurred to me that maybe it'll take a while before I actually enjoy exercise.  I'm not talking a couple of months, I'm talking about a couple of years.  I guess it's like mathematics, which is what I've been studying recently at university.  It's hard, no one denies that.  But if you're doing the same level after a while, you start to enjoy it.  Crazy I know.  Maybe that will happen with me with the exercise.  After a few years I'll start to enjoy it.  It would be nice to have exercise to give me more energy and a better quality of sleep.  I'll try, I really will.  I'm not fit at the moment, but the upside of this is that the only way is up!

Losing weight each week.  I've had this as a goal before and it has worked really well.  Currently I'm on my third week.  The losses haven't been stunning (0.2, 0.3, 1.0kg) but I'm headed downwards, which is where it counts.

I'll definitely try and post more often, and also comment on the blogs that I follow.  I'm 70 percent finished on this journey.  I want the last 30 percent to be just as social as the first 30 percent.