Proof that my motivation system is working

Everyone who starts a new diet wonders whether they'll reach goal. I am sure that there have been people who have lost 50kg, been 1kg away from goal, then put it all on and more. How do I know that my new idea is going to work? I don't. But I can make a reasonable conclusion. Since starting the weight loss, today I have lost the greatest amount of weight continuously in the last 9 years. Today I have lost 7kg continuously (my definition: I gain 1kg or more, and reach a recent maximum. I start to lose weight, with occasional increases here and there. I reach a recent minimum, and put on 1kg or more. The continuous loss is the difference between the recent maximum and minimum), my previous best was just under 7kg, in the first half of 2005. Before that, in 2000 I lost 11.7kg continuously, so I'll break that in about 2 months.

Yesterday I posted about how I was going to use running as a motivation, and how I was going to use it. I could not have been more wrong about that idea. I considered deleting it, but decided to leave it in because I want people to see my motivation mistakes and how I figure out how to correct them.

First, I was going to use 30 days as a length of time: if I am further away from the horizontal axis of the last graph in the posting 30 days later, I start running. This goes against my statement in the first posting of the blog: Most people can lose weight for something 4 days into the future. So why am I using 30 days? It's far too long. Second, running is not a good disincentive to lose weight, simply because it's too easy to ignore. Things that are easy to ignore should be used as incentives, rather than disincentives. I can choose to ignore buying coffee at the supermarket, or ignore going to see a film. These are much better disincentives because they are passive.

A much better solution is to use the normal three motivations stated at the start of the blog (coffee, films, swimming) with the graph. Am I further away from the horizontal axis than the last time I (bought coffee, saw a film, went swimming)? If yes, I can't do any of them.

I guess I am caught between two issues - I want to not take years to finish the weight loss. If the longest I can go without a haircut is probably 4 months, then the haircuts at specific weights (90, 85, 80, 75, 70, 66 kilograms) which means that losing weight could take 24 months. That's far too long for me. On the other hand, I know from experience that telling myself that I have to lose at a specific rate will result in me 'rebelling' and giving up. I don't really know if 100g a day loss is achievable long term, if I find myself struggling I can drop it back to 90 or 80 grams pretty easily.

Lowest weight in over a year

Yes, it's been a while. I should have been posting every week, but I haven't posted in over six weeks, so my apologies for that. It's just me being disorganised, for some reason I don't always do what I had planned to do, I can put off things and then the weeks turn into over a month.

I've been losing weight, as the graph above shows, but not nearly as much as I should have, as the graph below shows. Anyway, today I was lowest weight in over a year, something to be pleased with. It's taken so long! Nearly 4 months.

The graph below shows the point where I should be (green line) and the red line shows where I should be running. I've only done about 6 minutes of running, where I should have been running for 30 minutes each day I'm above the red line. The reason of course is that I dislike running, at least initially, and it was unrealistic to expect that I just started at 30 minutes. Also, I'm really hoping that I can do this whole weight loss thing without exercise, to prove that it really isn't necessary. I'm trying to show that what motivates people is far, far more important than exercise or even what you eat.



However, I really have to do something to motivate me, because I've just been spending the last month just cruising along, and hardly losing any weight. The shirt motivation isn't working particularly well at the moment, because I need to throw away two more shirts. I suspect that it's just me deciding that I need to reduce the number of shirts I own, and just taking that way.

On a plus side, I've been having 100g of protein for about 10 days, I started on the 18th of December. I've pretty much decided that my holiday at Piha will have to wait until summer, it won't be warm enough 90 days from now to go camping, or rather I'd prefer it to be warmer. I'll just go about a year from now. All I have to do is eat protein consistently.

I still want to use running as a motivation, but I'll use the graph below, which is the difference between daily measurements and the green line in the graph above. So long as I move towards the green line, however slowly, that's fine. But if I'm further away from the green line than I was a month previous, I'll need to start running, starting off one minute at a time, rather than large amounts that I can't do. I'll figure out the exact method of punishment.



The whole blog thing (where I try to find people who are consistent losers) is interesting. Initially, I found 270 weight loss blogs. Of those exactly 100 posted their weight in November (weight tickers don't count, because I don't know when it was updated), and it's now almost the end of December. Quite a few have gained in December, so I'll let you know next time I do a weigh in (Monday) how many have lost in December.

I'm relieved that I've achieved this lowest weight in over a year. I'm almost 1/4 through the loss, so I've got a lot to go still. I have a feeling that I'm going to make it. I just don't want it to take ages.

Weigh-in

The past week has gone really well, I lost 500 grams, which was about what I expected to lose.

On Monday I watched 2012, the film was okay, nothing special but it's the first disaster film I've seen which had a bit of comedy in it.

Wednesday I saw My Sister's Keeper, this upset me a bit, so I felt like a treat, so had a coffee and slice (flour 8). Then I had dinner with a group that I haven't been with in about a year, so I didn't feel bad having pasta (flour 9). After that, I went home and surprise, surprise, had 3 stale biscuits that Becky had lying around (flour 10). I consider that to be brainless eating. It's been a long time since I did that, hopefully it won't happen too often. Because I had flour 3 times on Wednesday, I'll count each individually, since if I don't it's possible for me to have a brainless binge session.

My weight increased by about 1 kilogram after that meal, and stayed that way until about Saturday. The graph shows a maximum daily change of 200 grams (excepting sudden drops such as on Sunday), which is why the whole kilogram is not shown. By the way, I worked out on my spreadsheet that I've been heavier than what I weigh now for over 500 days!

The 100 day challenges are going well, I'm ahead in terms of weight (I should bank it up and use it for Christmas, maybe) and protein is going okay at the moment as well. I've also decided to try the Shangri-lah diet again. You probably won't know what this is, basically you consume extra light olive oil two hours either side of food consumption, holding your nose. Sounds crazy? Sure, but the idea is that since your brain doesn't "know" you have just consumed food, but does notice that you have more available energy in your system, it suppresses appetite. Does it work? I tried it a few years ago, and yes it does work. But being poorly motivated, I didn't really give it a proper go. Now that I'm consuming a lot of olive oil as an energy source (due to being on a low carb diet) it makes sense to try it again. Also I go through periods when I'm really hungry, and those times I get a bit scared that I'll screw up badly.

100 day challenge

Back in September I decided to do a 10 week challenge to lose 9kg. It was unsuccessful, but that was before I was not having flour on a regular basis. Since the removal of flour, things are easier now, because simply, there is far less choice of food to eat, and those foods I do eat are less enjoyable.

I've decided to do two 100 day challenges. The first is to eat 100g of protein each day. I've tried before, and wasn't successful, but I'll just keep trying. If I succeed in eating 10kg of protein consistantly, I'll give myself a holiday in the place I used to go when I was a child.

The other challenge is to see if I can lose 100g a day for 100 days. This is not necessarily hard, but the issue is consistancy, which I am not good on. I'll still have the Monday weigh-ins, but I really want to finish this whole weight loss next year, and I'm starting to slip in terms of the finishing date, which at the moment has moved on to 27th July at the earliest.

How would it work? Simple: today I weigh 88.9kg, I need to lose 100g a day each day. Over that period is both Christmas, New Year and my birthday. What happens if I am over what I should weigh? 1kg or over, I have to start running, 3 hours a week. I've done that before, with no problems. I can also abandon the project but I have to announce it 10 days before stopping. Let's see if I can do it! I'd say that I can do it, the question is will I?

List of rewards

As you may know, about 6 weeks ago I went for a walk up the local hill, the walk was a reward (I haven't done that walk in years) but it started to rain, so I didn't get to finish it. I want to have a reward every kilogram lost, which means that I should have a total of 28 rewards. I've lost 5kg so far, and should have had 5 rewards by now, but it just hasn't happened for some reason. Last week I got my first reward, which was a new pair of jeans. They were on special and I just couldn't resist, I'd planned to get them further into the weight loss but given that they were cheaper than usual, I just decided to start with them. Of course, I can't wear them at the moment, I consider them to be goal jeans. I have the same type and size sitting in my wardrobe, which I haven't worn in 4 years! Has it been that long? They were rather tight when I did buy them, just 9kg over goal. I only wore them for about a month then started gaining. Now I have two pairs, the jeans that I'm wearing now probably won't make it to goal, but that's ok, since I'll start wearing the skinny pairs 9kg/4 months before goal.

What else is planned as rewards? Again, I plan to walk up that hill three times (about 18, 9, 1kg above goal). An eye test, new lenses for my glasses and sunglasses (which I haven't worn in about 4 years) so that's three rewards, going to the local pool and having a ride in the hydroslide (which I haven't done in about 10 years) at 1kg above goal. I also want other experiences, go to a meeting of a group that I've always wanted to find out about, going for a ride in a go-kart (at two different weights), a new digital camera (my current one is great but it's too big).

The biggie at goal weight is an overseas trip. I've never been overseas, which at the age of 45 is crazy. So I want to go somewhere where it is hot, close to the equator. Nearby too. I'm thinking maybe Indonesia, Australia, that sort of thing. Frankly, the hotter the better. I have yet to decide where, it'll be based on a number of factors, which I'll talk through here no doubt. To be honest I'm a bit scared of the whole idea of going to an overseas country where I don't speak the language. No doubt I will get used to the idea, and enjoy the whole experience. Although I am living with my partner Becky, I will be going alone. The reason for this is that it is a reward to myself, for the work that I have done. Also, if we were to decide to go together, then rather than on my own, then weight loss would turn from something I did for myself, into an obligation. My fear is that I would not reach goal, thereby wasting all the money that we'd spent on tickets. As it happens Becky doesn't want to go to somewhere hot, so it's not an issue. I'd love to go overseas with her, but this trip will be for myself.

An overseas trip is quite a reward, but it's not making me lose weight. I know because I've had this idea for some time, and guess what? I put on weight. Unless proven otherwise, the whole four day system of weight loss motivation is the only thing making me lose weight.

Annoying co-worker

On Sunday at work I had an annoying conversation with the woman who sits next to me. I think it started with me asking her how much she thought a young man who also worked there what his age was. Later on in the day she made a statement about him, saying that she thought he was underweight. I was really surprised by this, since he isn't. Sure, he's skinny, but I really don't believe he was underweight. Anyone comparing him with other people at say a university wouldn't think that. How would he compare with me when I reach goal? I have to say, I have no idea. It's been so long since I've been at goal, I just can't remember that much about how I looked. Anyway, so I have been thinking about what happens if she accuses me of being underweight in the future? It's a possibility.

I hope she doesn't because I'll feel insulted if she does. I don't know if that is an over reaction on my part, but if she does, I almost certainly will move to another desk so I don't have to be next to her. I guess that it's a sensitive issue for me because someone is making a judgement about me which is wrong and also of course I don't like. I've been having weight problems for the last 16 years and if she makes a decision about what weight I should or shouldn't be just makes me feel really annoyed. Losing weight is hard work, and for her to make that statement debases that hard work. She has no medical background, her judgement is based on her own experiences and environment. I have been skinny for the first 25 years of my life, no doctor told me that they were concerned about my health due to that, and I have had a few relationships at that weight, where women have found me attractive and wanted to see me naked, neither of those women made any comment about my weight.

I also need to stop drawing attention to myself at work, in regards being on a diet. People are asking how I'm going with it, which in itself is fine, but I need to not show people the level of protein I'm having, since maybe they'll be making judgement comments in six months. This is an easy problem to solve, I'll just have protein in the car just before and after work, with one or two times during work.

Weigh-in

It's Monday, which means that it's my first weigh-in. The last week I have been all over the place in terms of weight, I started having olives, which contain a lot of fat and salt, and had them about 3 days. They are really nice to eat, and because I'm doing the low carb thing at the moment, it's safe for me to eat them. However, my weight increased dramatically, due to unknown reasons (maybe water retention, maybe not) so on Friday it was a mad rush to eat properly, due to having watched Surrogates the previous Sunday, and wanting to watch a few films early on this week. I think I should eat olives every day, any water retention problems would not show themselves if I did that. I'm thinking that my weight will increase this week, because I'm trying to train myself to have 500g of veges each day. Of course I'll lose as well, so the net change will probably be a loss.

I lost 400g this week, weighing in at 88.6kg.

On Thursday I had flour 7 having spent a lot of money on a scanner (the old one died about 8 months ago). I guess I just can't help myself, can I?
I also bought coffee on Thursday.

What to do at maintance?

I've been thinking about how I'm going to stay at goal, given that most people who reach goal eventually bounce back to some degree (myself included, of course). Given what I know about motivation, I think the best way to stay at goal is to use the same motivations that I have been using when losing. Going to the cinema, swimming, coffee and haircuts. I've decided that I am allowed to do all of these only when I am below goal. That may change, but I'm hoping it won't. People who are successfully at goal usually have some weight value that when they reach it, it sets off warning bells, so I'm thinking why not just use goal weight? Being a kilogram or two below goal weight isn't a big deal. I need to weigh myself regularly of course, based on my own experience, when I don't weigh myself, I gain, it's a reasonably good correlation. So if I buy coffee at the supermarket, go to see a film, go swimming, or have a haircut, I need to have weighed myself that day and been below 66kg.

On another subject, I've been struggling with caffeine addiction for a long, long time. It makes me tired the day after I have some, it's addictive and it generally isn't worth it. Yesterday I had some Coke and I'm hoping that is the last caffeine I have for a long time. The longest I've been without caffeine is 2 years, that was 10 years ago. Can I do it again? I'm sure I can if I control cravings. Last time, I controlled cravings by eating chocolate. When I say to myself "just one drink can't hurt" it's time to go and buy a small block of chocolate. Previous experience shows that the cravings can last up to 6 months.

5kg lost, 23kg to go

Another kilogram down. I'm really getting into the hang of things, and I don't see any reduction in motivation, which is really great. I've been wondering when I'll finish this weight loss, I really tried to not work it out, since I've been doing this for the last 9 years and haven't been successful. Anyway, mid July is the current earliest date. I did think about exercising to speed up the process, but in order to cut out 90 days of waiting to reach goal, I'd have to exercise by my calculations, about 140 hours, it's just not worth it.

I have decided to have a weekly weigh in, rather than when I lose each kilogram. That day is Monday, which coincides with this current kilogram loss. I saw a few films, nothing special though, although I really enjoy going out and seeing them, it makes my day really.

Things about the last kilogram are:
28th Oct had flour 3 due to celebrate the end of stress (yay!)
29th Oct had flour 4 due to a six monthly thing that helps me a lot (can't say what, sorry)
31st Oct had flour 5, helped someone shift, and we had bread and sparkling wine afterwards. I didn't have much bread but it still counts
7th Nov flour 6 felt like a treat because I had a large purchase

So it the last month, I've had flour 6 times! This is much, much more than I expected. I'm not sure when the next time I'll have flour is, but it'll hopefully not be in the next month.

Blogs, blogs, blogs and more blogs!

A while ago, I posted that the average weight loss for weight loss bloggers was pretty much zero. I find this disappointing because I want people to be successful, and also because I want to be around people who are losing weight. My solution today was to get a great big list of blogs, and find out the people on this list who are losing weight consistantly. There has to be at least 5 or 10 percent who do so.

So I went online, and starting at one site Lose 20 pounds in 10 weeks - Sunshine Mama's still losing, by the way and moving outwards on any links. It's rather tedious, clicking on links, but it was worth it. I now have 270 more weight loss blogs in my RSS reader! It's just too many to read, obviously, although if you ever want to read a freshly posted blog post, all you need to do is refresh all blogs and there are a few who have been posted in the last hour or so. As for how I'm going to sort them, they just have to lose weight every month. I'll also be giving shout-outs when people reach goal.

4kg lost, 24kg to go

Another kilogram down. I'm starting to really get confident about the whole thing, and also I've noticed that my pot belly is smaller than it used to be, and it's easier putting shoes on, something that was difficult with my pants done up. I haven't seen a film or gone swimming recently, but on the 19th I had flour caused by starting something stressful, on the 23rd I had it again, again caused by stress. I know that stress is going to be less of an issue now.

Photos

Well, I promised them a while ago, and finally I'm putting them up. They aren't the greatest photos (having been into photography for ages) for all sort of technical reasons, but they'll do.

3kg lost, 25kg to go

Another kilogram down. I'm starting to feel like I'm getting headway with this diet, and more confidence that I'll be successful.

Tue 13th 92.3kg Saw Up(3D)
Thu 15th 91.7kg Saw Young Victoria

First shirt gone

It had to happen I guess, as you may have read in my starting post, I plan on throwing away a shirt each week unless I have lost weight. So yesterday I noticed that I hadn't lost any (gained about 200g) so out goes a shirt. This one is not my favourite, I don't like the roughness of it anyway. I'm wondering how many shirts I'll have when I reach goal weight. Hopefully more than 3.

My relationship with food - part 1

Have a look at the photo above. What do you notice about it? The young man there, aged about 23 is me. I probably weighed about 65kg, although I'll never know because I didn't know how much I weighed back then.

Back then two things were different. First, my weight stabilisation mechanism was perfect. P-E-R-F-E-C-T. My weight never changed, or if it did, I never noticed it. My clothes never got looser or tighter. Everything was stable. Second, my relationship with food was different. How was it different? It would be accurate to say that in terms of my relationship with food, we'd just got to first base. Sure, I'd eat a lot on my birthday and on Christmas day, but apart from that, I don't recall overeating, or eating in times of stress, depression, or celebration.

I have one little gem from the past, when I first arrived in the city I live in, I wrote down all of my spending, because I was short of money. It's hidden away in storage, but when I get hold of it, I can see exactly how much money, and more importantly, what I spent my money on. To me back then, food was a source of energy and not much more.

Anyway, back to the present. I plan to go through all the things involved in my relationship with food, starting with one that seems to be a big thing for me:

Self congratulating.

What do I do when I achieve something significant in my life? I buy something tasty to celebrate. What do I do when I buy something expensive? The same. I congratulate myself when I lose weight (some may see this as a bad thing, although I think it's good so long as it's only when I lost weight). There are lots of things I say to myself ("It's time to treat myself with something tasty").

The one thing that I really, really liked (coffee and mochaccino slice) I can't have now because the slice contains flour. That will change, but in the future I'd like to be different about how I treat food. Maybe I can have fruit instead of something fattening or containing flour. When I start eating flour again, I will try to maintain my weight and that means no more treating myself because something good has happened. As an example, back in the days of when I looked like I did in the photo, when I went to a job interview, what did I do when I had done it to relax? I went for a fast drive on a windy uphill part, just outside town. I couldn't afford something fancy to eat. I want to get back to that attitude.

A shock

Today I got a shock because something bad has happened in another persons life that made me see how important my own weight loss is to me. Without divulging private issues both about myself and other people, it's impossible to say what's going on, but basically it was a 'wakeup call' that something similar to me could happen unless I changed the way I was living regarding my weight loss.

Hearing the bad news I immediately decided that I would change the way I ate food. Sure, my 4 day motivational system is a good idea, but there has to be more than that. Today I decided:

To not eat flour except in certain situations. I'm not sure what these situations are, maybe like being invited to dinner somewhere, or someones's birthday, I'm not sure. What I am sure is that I'm not allowed flour when it's packaged as a treat, which I seem to be having 2-3 times a week at the moment. Cutting out flour is the best thing to do, simply because most of the things that are slowing or reversing weight loss are foods that contain flour. I went without it for a month a few years ago, so I know that I can do it. Sure, it'll be boring, but I think back to the days when I was slim, what was my relationship with food? It's so long ago I can't really remember, but it has to be better than this. I know that I can retrain myself about my relationship with food (less celebratory treats when there really isn't that much worth celebrating).

I don't want to end up like someone I know who is having this problem that has changed their life.

2kg lost, 26kg to go

It's taken a while, but I'm pleased to have dropped another kilogram. I've not written down all of my coffee purchases and going to see a film, but they all are within my updated rules.

Fri 2nd Oct saw 500 days of Summer. This was using the once every 3 months allowance for going to see a film, I guess I used it early and hope that I don't have any problems in the next 3 months when I want to go and see a film, but can't.

Sun 4th Bought coffee

Tue 6th Saw Year one

Counting kilojoules is going well, I'll post about it in the next few days.

Change of plan

I know I haven't posted for a while, and there is a reason for that. I took a break. The reason for this was while I was attempting to lose weight, my weight started heading in the wrong direction again. When this happens to me, the only solution I know of is to do the thing I hate the most (well, almost the worst of dieting) - counting kilojoules.

I have never liked it because it is so tedious. One solution is to organise my food the previous day and work out what I should eat. I don't like this either, it makes me feel like my life is too organised and structured. I'm not sure which one to do.

Anyway, that's the plan for now. 6000kj is the goal, I know I've done this in the past, but that was at a much lower weight, so I don't know if it's suitable now. My body will tell me in the first day or so I guess.

The whole motivation system is going well except I've decided to change one motivation - going to see a film, I am allowed to go to one film every 3 months, even if I haven't lost the weight. The reason for this is that I really wanted to see Fame, and I did, and it broke my original rule because I was over what I'd been last time I saw a film (I love you Beth Cooper). Rather than break rules now and then which will eventually cause me to stop using the whole motivation system, I decided to modify the rules. So every 3 months (Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, Jul-Sep, Oct-Dec) I am allowed to see a film, even if I'm above the last film. Just one film though. I am allowed to save up these allowances and use them later on.

I decided to stop posting what I've eaten and bought as it doesn't give me enough privacy, I feel that people might be judging me and that usually doesn't have a good effect on me.

I'm going to try 10 days at counting kilojoules and see how I manage.

Week 2 day 5

92.5kg. Yesterday I bought for lunch a toasted sandwich (haven't bought one of those for years), muffin and coffee, costing $11.50. I also bought a large quantitiy of whey powder, costing $89.90. It will last 2-3 weeks. My weight increased a bit, back up to 92.5kg.

Week 2 day 4

Another loss, 92.3kg. Yesterday I was depressed so I had a drink and piece of cake when I was out, then I went and bought some meat patties for eating at work. The 100g thing went well.

Meat patties 22.60
Coffee and cake 9.70

Week 2 day 3

Weight: same as yesterday, 91.5kg. Some of you may be wondering why I'm having high energy food when I'm on a diet, especially two days in a row. The answer is simple. If I don't have food that I enjoy now and then, I'll give up and put on weight again. So long as I continue to lose weight, I'm ok with it.

Yesterday I spent $9.20 on a coffee and slice, and 60c on an ice cream.

I'm seeing how many days in a row I can eat 100g of protein. Today I plan to eat whey powder.

Week 2 day 2

Today I weighed 93.5kg, which means I get a reward coffee and slice. Yesterday I planned to walk up the hill overlooking my city, it's a 3-4km walk with a rise of about 500m. Well I walked about half of it, and then it started to rain. I hadn't checked the weather, because it doesn't rain here very often. I decided that I wouldn't do the walk again until I've lost about 10kg because my thighs were rubbing together a lot and it was annoying.

I spent money on a coffee and slice (I decided to treat myself before hand), and drink for the walk. After that I attempted to go to see a film, but my account had no money to pay for the film, so I went swimming instead. By then though I'd bought and eaten popcorn and a drink. Had I not bought the food I'd have enough money to pay for the film.

Coffee and slice 9.20
Diet lemonade 1.00
Pop corn 2.00
Sprite 600ml 3.90

A short introduction to RSS

I read over 100 blogs, on various topics. Some post daily. Some haven't posted in over a year and I'm hoping that the author will start posting again. How do I keep track of all of these posts? RSS. Basically, RSS will tell me when there is a new posting in a blog that I read. Let's have a look at how it can be used.

Suppose I want to see which blogs have been updated. How do I do this? With Internet Explorer 8 I click on Favorites on the top left of the browser, then the Feeds tab.




If you are running Internet Explorer 7, this is slightly different. Click on the orange star on the top left of your browser, then again the feeds heading.

Notice that some of the blog names are bold. This means that there are new postings for me to read. You'll notice as well that I have created different catergories for different blogs that I'm reading. By clicking on the bold text, I can read either the whole blog posting, or a short summary, depending on the settings the author has specified. This page is stored on my computer, which means it can be read when offline. By clicking on the links provided, I can go to either the individual blog posting on the blogs website or the home page for the blog, to see read the whole blog if I want.



It's pretty easy, and once you start with RSS, you may wonder how you managed before.

How do you set it up? Again, it's easy. When you're at a blog that you like, look for an orange symbol in the top right of your browser.




Click on the orange symbol, and you'll be taken to a page confirming you want to subscribe to the feed. Click on that link.




A dialog box will come up asking where you want to save it, you can create different folders for different subjects. For the moment, however, just click Subscribe and you're done.




That's it! Now probably once a day (depending on the settings) Internet Explorer will look for any updated posts in blogs you like reading. You can change the frequency of how often the browser looks for updates. Note that you probably shouldn't set it to very small time periods (like 15 minutes) as it costs the website owners a lot of money when many people do this. There are two ways: right click the blog name on the list in the RSS viewer or with the settings for Internet Explorer as a whole.

RSS has many uses, I've probably just scratched the surface here. One particularly useful thing to know about is when you want to track a particular news item.

Go to Google and click on News. Type in the details of the news item you're interested in. If it includes a name, put quote marks around the name and keep all the letters in lower-case.



Click on Search News. See how the results has a orange symbol? Just click it like before, and you'll have your own individual newsfeed on this subject.

Week 2 day 1

Again yesterday I wasn't able to post due to lack of privacy. Anyway, I seem to be getting into the whole weight loss thing, my weight is dropping rapidly. I'm not sure why it increased earlier. Eating lots of protein seems to be helping a lot.

Today I weigh 92.7kg.

On Sunday I bought a can of coke, $1.50.

Week 1 day 6

I missed yesterday's post due to a lack of time and lack of privacy, I'm hoping to not miss too many posts over the ten weeks. I seem to be getting into the swing of things in terms of eating, however the graph shows otherwise:




Today I weigh 93.3kg but I should weigh 92.35kg. I'm hoping to head in the right direction from now on. I'm posting what I buy, yesterday I bought

Frozen veges $5.21
Croissants $4.69

The croissants were on a whim, probably due to me being cold and busing home. The solution is to fix my car and I won't be cold nearby supermarkets. I want to have a budget of $60 a week for food, but due to the cost of protein, I'll be over my budget for the total period that I'm losing weight. That's not too much of a problem if I am under budget after I reach goal weight.

Today I start having 100g of protein a day. I've had it before, there is no real problem with it, apart from the cost.

1kg lost, 27kg to go

It's taken a bit of time but now I am ready to post regarding how I'm going with my four day thing. Here is what's happened so far:

Friday 4th 94.0 Bought coffee

Sunday 6th 93.8 Saw Orphan, a good film and quite scary. I find these types of horror films best when the situation is something that can happen to you in real life, like what happened in Single White Female

Wednesday 9th 93.6 Had a haircut, I won't be getting another one until I reach 90kg

Saturday 12th 93.6 Bought coffee

Wednesday 16th 92.8 Sort of a recreational day, went to see The Ugly Truth, then half an hour later saw The Taking of Pelham 123. Then I went swimming in the evening. I really must try and go swimming more often, it's relaxing and makes me feel good about my body

So I have lost 1kg. This means I get a reward, which is a walk up a hill overlooking the city where I live. I've never done this walk before (I've walked up most of it, but in bits, and not all at the same time). I have no idea how long it'll take, but I'm guessing 4-6 hours. The reason why I consider this a reward is that it reminds me of someone from my past, we used to walk up bits of it together. This was when I was slim. She is no longer with us, so it helps me think of her.

Week 1 day 4

92.9kg, down just a little. Today is the day when I start organising my food, preferably the day before, as well as writing here what I've bought, and the cost so I can budget for it.

Week 1 day 3

Today I weighed a bit more than yesterday, back up to 93kg. I'm not worried really since I'm getting used to the whole weight loss thing and being organised with what I eat.

Week 1 day 2

Today I weighed 92.8kg, which means that yesterday I probably weighed about 93kg. Yesterday's eating went ok, except I forgot to eat my vegetables. I'm like that a bit, I can forget to eat some foods. Hopefully I can get into a habit so I'll continue to remember.

Apart from that little problem, I ate some tuna, a banana, an apple, and some low carb crackers with cream cheese on them. The day before I over ate, so probably I was relying on a lot of food still inside me. I suspect today will be a bit different. I'll be having a reward coffee and slice because I have lost another 500g.

Week 1 day 1

After deciding to lose 130g a day for 70 days, it occurred to me that maybe I was making a mistake, and it wasn't such a good idea. The reason was I seem to have problems with expected rate of loss goals, they always seem to fail. If I dropped the rate to 100g, which is something I know I can achieve, it would be easier. It would also extend the weight loss period only by 3 weeks, hardly anything given how long I've been overweight. However, I'll just try it and see what happens. The problem with such a system is that life becomes boring, and I don't handle stress as well when I'm on a diet.

Today I didn't bother weighing myself, because I'm going low carb and I know that my weight will drop a lot over the next day or so. I'll weigh myself tomorrow and just imagine that todays weight is 200g above that.

As for food, I'm aiming for lots of protein. The problem is that it's expensive. I guess when I reach goal weight, I can cut back and see if I can spend less money on food, to see if the net cost of being on a diet is no more than what I normally budget for.

Incredible weight loss

A few days ago I loaded up my blog reader with lots of weight loss blogs, for something to give me inspiration to lose weight. Then last night I noticed that Lose 20 pounds in 10 weeks had posted something new. I hadn't really read Sunshine Momma's blog before, I just grabbed some blogs off someone's blogroll with the intention of reading them later. By coincidence, when I read her blog I realised that she only had one day to go in her 10 week test. How much weight did she need to lose? One pound. Today the first thing when I got up was to check her blog. Did she make it? Yes. Congratulations!

I'll let you into a little secret. No one in the weight loss blog sphere seems to have noticed it, but after tracking lots of weight loss blogs over the years (and by tracking, I mean recording dates and weights) guess what the average weight loss for a person with a weight loss blog is? Pretty much zero.

When I say pretty much zero, I mean that sometimes it's positive, sometimes it's negative, but in general it's governed by the people who actually lose weight consistantly, but they are so rare they are hard to find.

Inspired by Sunshine Momma's great performance, I'm challenging myself to lose weight at the rate that she has done. Normally, I'd shy away from these sort of "you should lose at xyz rate" things because I've tried them in the past and they generally are unsuccessful. However, I'm going to try one more time and I'm hoping that Sunshine Momma's success will keep me inspired.

Starting tomorrow, I'll aim for the same rate.

The rules that I've chosen are:

Eat as much protein as I can afford
No treats, except one each 500g lost
Try and not eat too much fruit
500g frozen veges each day

As well I'll be trying to:

Post daily
Graph daily
Post everything I'm eating (but not the amount I have eaten)
How I'm feeling about it

If I get 1kg behind, then I will drop the goal loss of 130g/day to 100g a day, sometihng that I know that I can do for a reasonable amount of time.

Measurements

I thought that it was time to measure my body before I lose any substancial amount of weight. I'll take photos tomorrow. All measurements are in cm.

Neck at half point 41
Neck at base 40.5
Chest at armpits, not inhaled 101.5
Chest at nipples 104
Chest at narrow between breasts and stomach 96
Stomach maximum above belly button 101.5
Belly button waist 105
Hips and buttocks (just above scar) 106
Thigh maximum 59
Thigh half point 53.5
Thigh just before knee 44 (all thigh measurements are with knee on furniture)
Lower leg at maximum 40.5
Just above ankle 24.5
Bicep arm straight 31
Forearm half point 24
all arm measurements are with arm straight.
Total measurements 972cm.

Introduction

Today I weigh 94kg, the highest I've ever weighed. This is not a good situation, obviously. I have a weight in mind - 66kg, which I was at for a year when I was 33 until I broke my arm, which caused a domino effect of gaining weight. Now, at age 45 I still want to be 66kg, and think I've figured out the way to achieve that. I've lost weight, put it on, wasted time, spent money on high protein foods, spent hours over the years running kilometres. All for seemingly nothing.

Looking at weight loss, some things become obvious. Almost all people can lose weight for a week. Some for a month, but very few people can lose weight for a year. I knew about my high school reunion - but what happened when I had 10 years to prepare for it? Nothing. I was still too heavy.

My motivation idea is simple, and based on one principle:

Most people can lose weight for something 4 days into the future.

My system is based on that simple principle. I have 3 motivations which will ideally help me lose weight:

Motivation 1: every week I am allowed (in fact I want to encourage myself) to go and see a film. But only if I weigh lower than I did the previous time I saw a film. If I don't weigh less, I can't go.

Motivation 2: every week I am allowed to go swimming (and again, I will try to encourage myself) but only if I am at a weight lower than the previous time I went swimming.

Motivation 3: when I buy coffee from the supermarket, I am only allowed to buy one bag and only if I weigh less than the previous time I bought coffee from the supermarket.

These 3 motivations are the foundation of this system, with the coffee one probably having the strongest effect on me. They were chosen based on something that I can enjoy and like to have, but I can go without them if possible.

These are good motivations, but together I don't think that they are enough. I need some others to help me as well, or else I'll just cruise along and not really bother, so I've got the two following motivations to speed things up:

Motivation 4: if I have not lost weight on a Monday compared to the previous Monday, I throw away a t-shirt/polo shirt. I do this until I have only 3 shirts left.

Motivation 5: I am only allowed a haircut at specific weights. If I don't achieve that weight, I can't get a haircut.

With these 5 motivations, I think I'll be successful at getting to goal. As to how long it will take me, I don't want to speculate. I've been burned so many times in the past, I don't want to create dates I'll know I'll miss. However, I've chosen a date which I think I'll be able to achieve goal by: 1st July 2012. I've chosen that date because it's roughly 1000 days away. I'm hoping that it'll be sooner than that, hopefully it will. I'll update this date as I feel ok about it coming closer.