Halfway (second time)

Back in mid-April I broke halfway, an accomplishment I celebrated by walking up the local hill (read about it here), and after my recent gain, I'm heading back down again. I'm halfway the second time. Today I weigh 80kg. 14kg to go. I've decided to not celebrate by going up the hill again, it wouldn't feel right, and I'm planning on one final walk just before I reach goal.

This is the fifth week of the Give Yourself the Best Gift challenge. I guess I'm doing ok, I lost about 1kg in the last week, but here is where the hard to understand bit comes along: I didn't do any exercise.

I don't know why I lost so much with zero exercise, and also I know why I stopped exercising: it was too hard. Or rather, when I exercised and had a sleep in the middle of the day, the day seemed much longer. That's because when I was sleeping, my short-term memory was moved over to long-term (with some of it chosen to be written over) and a week of doing this made a week seem just so long. Maybe I'll get used to it, maybe I won't.

I'd like to continue exercising still, but when you're losing anyway, it just doesn't seem worth it. I know that's probably the wrong attitude to take, but if I had to do the whole weight loss thing again, I'd do it differently. I'd start off exercising a lot, a huge amount. I could reduce the number of hours each week that I exercised, but I couldn't increase them. When I thoroughly got sick of exercise, I'd just aim for 1kg a month. I would have reached goal in roughly the same time as it's taken anyway.

Whenever I discuss weight loss with anyone, that's what I always suggest. 1kg a month is roughly 2 apples less a day. Your metabolism probably won't reduce because you're eating less (it'll reduce because you're getting thinner, but there's not much you can do about that), something that I noticed happening earlier in the year. Weigh daily, and try to lose a small amount each day. This wouldn't work for someone with bingeing issues, I have no experience in that, so I can't comment.

When I talk to other people about their weight loss, I generally say the same things. 80% of weight loss is psychological. Lose weight slower rather than faster. Don't tell anyone you're trying to lose weight. Weigh often but smooth out fluctuations to get an accurate reading. Then I ask them a question that shows how motivated they are. I ask them if they could buy a magic pill that they took one evening, and they were at their goal weight the next day, how much would they pay for that pill? Usually they say a couple of hundred dollars or so, which is nothing. I think that the more motivated they are, the more they're likely to pay. Me, right now with 14kg to go, I'd probably pay $2,000.

So there you have it. 7th week of losing every week. Halfway. Still disliking exercise. Nothing's perfect, I guess.