My last post

It is with regret to inform you that I am now back to where I was at the start of the blog, back in 2009.  Thanks to lockdown and subsequent weight gain, I've gained enough weight to get me back to 94 kg.  That's sad, disappointing and depressing.  I've decided to not post anymore.  I don't know how long I'll keep the blog online, maybe a month or two, maybe forever.  My other old weight loss blog from 2006-2007 is still online.  Thanks for all the views and comments.  I hope I have inspired some over the 11 years it's been going.  If you're losing weight, good luck.  

3 kg a month challenge - on pause

Today I weighed 95.5 kg for the third day in a row.  Why?  Probably because I had Subway, and that is riddled with salt.  Pretty much every food item in a Subway filled roll contains salt, with the exception of vegetables.  But it's disheartening to see the scale not shift, and not know exactly the reason.  Especially at the start.  So I've decided to put the whole 3 kg a month thing on pause, until I see what's going on. 

My new plan is to just keep my intake at 6,000 kJ (yesterday I ate 6,012) and exercise ideally at 30 minutes a day.  However, I currently am not fit at all, so I want to do a gradual increase of exercise over the next 10 days.  So that's an increase of 3 minutes per day.  I may break up the sessions into two per day if I'm struggling with one session. 

Once I reach 30 minutes of running a day, I'll start calculating my metabolism.  That's how many kilojoules my body uses every day.  That's going to take 2-3 weeks. 

What I need to find out is whether I can lose 100 grams a day while eating 6,000 kJ and running 30 minutes a day.  I don't know whether that's possible or not.  If I can't, I'll see whether I can lose 80 grams a day, for a long long time. 

My new challenge is to eat at or less than 6,000 kJ.  What I've been doing is eating slightly more than 6,000, but that has to stop.  Less than, or equal to 6,000 from now on.  My exercise has to start today at 3 minutes of running, and increasing by 3 per day.  I'll post tomorrow on how it's going.

3 kg a month challenge - day 3

Today I didn't lose weight as the graph shows, so I'm below my intended 100 grams a day goal.  That means I need to exercise today, but it's raining, so I decided to skip my exercise.  Let's see what the weather is tomorrow.  I ate 6,004 kJ yesterday, which is ideal.  I wasn't hungry which is probably because I overate the day earlier. 

3 kg a month challenge - day 2

I missed a post yesterday because I was busy, but I've been thinking about speeding up weight loss.  The eternal dream of having fast weight loss.  Can I do it?  I don't know.  I've done it in the past, but not for long periods of time.  Can I lose 3 kilograms a month?  I don't know.  Or rather, how long can I lose 3 kilograms a month?  I decided to have a plan.  One of many, as you no doubt have observed about me.

I want to have three stages of weight loss.  I want to lose weight at 3 kilograms a month, for a certain number of days.  Aiming for 6,000 kilojoules of food intake a day, and up to 60 minutes of exercise a day.  If I'm losing weight too quickly, I'll reduce the exercise.  Tracking my weight every day, am I losing at 3 kg a month (100 grams a day)?  If yes, everything is fine.

One day, I'll be exercising 60 minutes a day, eating 6,000 kJ, and I will be slowly edging below 100 grams a day weight loss.  I'm just not losing fast enough.  The thing to do then is to have a bit of a break, and drop it down to 2 kilograms a month.  Maybe I'll drop the exercise to 30 minutes, and then increase/decrease my food intake so I'm always at 2 kg a month.  Who knows.

I think that I can probably continue at 2kg a month until goal weight, however I do want to live with my girlfriend when a vaccine has been made, but when we live together I'll drop my intended weight loss to 1 kilogram a month only.  That's because I won't have access to the gym, and the Philippines doesn't have numerous parks that New Zealand has.  Running on roads/footpaths is definitely unsafe, so there's not going to be any exercise in the Philippines for me.

Today I weighed at 95.5 kg and I weighed 95.6 yesterday.  That's 100 grams a day, which is what I want.  Let's see how I go tomorrow.

2 kg a month challenge - day 2

A slight gain from yesterday, 100 grams.  Slightly disappointing, but it's probably due to increased salt intake.  Yesterday I ate 8,158 kJ, which is roughly around maintenance intake.  

2 kg a month challenge - day 1 restart

I continued gaining weight after my last post, but I've finally stopped.  I still want to lose 2 kg a month, so I'm going to see if that's achievable.  Let's see how that goes.  Anyway, I weighed 95.2 kg today, which is really high but that's because of all of the salt I've been having.  I've been using my intake tracking app for about 25 days.  I want to post daily if at all possible.  I'll check in tomorrow.

2 kg a month challenge - day 1

I got distracted by the pandemic, so I gained weight relatively quickly and really, I'm fine with that.  This last happened 102 years ago, on the scale of things gaining a few kilograms (or so!) is fine.  Today I feel safe.  A year from now, I may not feel safe.  The virus has such a fast transmission rate (25% increase per day) that it's hard to make decisions.  The NZ government hasn't been perfect, and no one could expect that.  Initially, they refused to disclose testing numbers, and there's been a general shortage of PPE.

I want to lose 2 kilograms a month, and I want to post daily for as long as possible.  How long can I post daily?  Who knows.  I stopped counting kilojoules, and today I start again.  I stopped on the 10th April, which is a shame.  But that's the way it is.  I can't go back.

My weights are:

Friday 93.2 kg
Saturday 93.2
Sunday 93.1

Currently, my trend on my spreadsheet is 50 grams a day, but it's way too early to worry about that.  One thing that I definitely have to do is eat salt every day.  That's because when I haven't been eating salty food for a while, my weight is lower and then I have a salty meal.  Suddenly my weight increases dramatically.  This has a destabilising effect on me and I tend to eat more as a result.  So I need to eat a salty meal every day. 

90 day challenge day 3

Today I weighed 89.1, a rather high gain from yesterday but of course it's not fat.  Food, water, whatever.  I'm not bothered.  Today I ate healthy but I ate too much.  I need to develop an actual eating plan, rather than just 'grazing'.  I ate 8,393 kJ and 121 grams of protein. Tomorrow I want to spend some time on developing a plan, let's see how that goes.

90 day challenge day 2

I never weighed myself today, because I had something to eat during the night, as I was hungry.  That's totally normal after eating a lot of sugar, in fact it's to be expected.  I kind of delayed weighing myself throughout the day, until it was obvious that my weight would be affected by my earlier eating.

I had an awfully large amount of fruit, which is something that I enjoy.  Plus some vegetables, a bit of cheese, and some tuna.  It was a pretty healthy day although I want to change things in the future so I'm not eating huge amounts of fruit.

My intake was 7,658 kJ and 99 grams of protein.  I wanted my intake to be less than yesterday, and my protein was higher than expected, but that's fine.  I'm going to tweak each day what I'm going to be eating, and slowly develop an organised system.

90 day challenge day 1

I got distracted by the impending doom of a global pandemic caused by COVID-19, it's something that I'm worried about.  I do actually feel looked after by the New Zealand government but people are losing their jobs and the government is basically trading off money vs lives, with emphasis on saving lives right now.  The government wants the New Zealand group of islands to be virus free, whether that is possible I have no idea.  With a doubling period of 4 days (10 times in 10 days) it's hard to make decisions since every minute counts, basically.  I remember being shocked when NZ closed it's border to anyone but citizens, permanent residents and their immediate families.

I happened to watch a Youtube video of a 90 day challenge by a woman who runs a website called Bloglates.  She seemed to know what she was doing, and had a positive experience, so I've decided to copy her.  Every day on this blog I will post how I'm going, my intake and my weight.  I might miss a day or two, hopefully that's all.

I want to lose 100 grams a day, so 9 kilograms in total.  Today I weighed 88.2 kg, so by the end of the challenge I want to be 79.2 kg.  If I can't do that, hopefully I can do something near that.

I'll post my intake number at the end of the day.

End of the day intake: 8,389 kJ, 22 grams of protein.  So today, as is pretty much compulsory with me and weight loss restarts, I ate a lot of sugary food.  It's a habit I've gotten used to, I doubt that's going to change anytime soon.  I had chocolate, soft drink, apples, chocolate biscuits and cheese.  Not particularly healthy but I'm fine for one day.

2 months later

Yes, 2 months without posting.  Never a good sign.  However, I haven't gained much, although I'm not sure exactly how much I've gained.  I'll tell you in a few days.

I want to post daily for a while, to get back in the swing of things.  I'm going to have green and red squares, more on that in the next few days.  It's Friday evening now, tomorrow I'll aim for under 6,000 kJ.  Should I achieve that, I'll get a green square.  Otherwise, I get a red square.  See you tomorrow.

Update

So it's been 3 months since I posted, which is never a good sign.  How is it going?  I gained a bit, then I lost a bit.  I'm still struggling to get off sugar.  I arrived back from a holiday seeing Miss Philippines, 4 weeks in the Philippines and 1 week in Singapore.  We hadn't seen each other in 2 years.  That's an awfully long time, due to my father dying.  I'd planned on seeing her after 12 months but my father falling, and subsequently dying put an end to that.  I would not recommend going 2 years (actually 23 months) apart.  You start to forget things.  But you're chatting and Skyping this person who you've forgotten a lot about.  It's a strange situation.

After we met it did not take me long until I'd remembered all the things that made me feel that she was worth waiting 5 1/2 years for.  We get on very well together.  Plus I finally got to meet her daughter, who just turned 18 a week ago.  Things are looking good for our future together, but I'm old enough and experienced enough that things could change for the worst at any moment. 

As for my weight loss, I arrived in New Zealand on the January 1st (if you're wondering whether the turn of the decade is celebrated in a Singapore Airlines flight, the answer is a definite 'no').  The immigration arrival card for NZ is rather long, compared to the Philippines and Singapore.  You notice stark differences between the immigration systems of all 3 countries.  If you're travelling soon through Singapore you'll be pleased to know that you'll probably not wait in line when you leave Singapore, compared to say the Philippines. 

Anyway, when I arrived in Christchurch, I didn't eat anything until late in the day, when I had a large pizza.  As a result, my weight on January 2nd was a bit high, 89.2 kg.  I didn't weigh myself today but yesterday I weighed 87.3.  I've decided to try and lose 100 grams a day, using a combination of sticking to a specific level of food intake and exercise.  Let's see how long that happens, currently I'm losing at higher than that, but I don't expect it to last forever.