Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Week 35

No Change this week. I remain at 209 pounds, however, I feel fortunate not to have gained any. With one thing and another, I have been out for an evening meal twice, and eaten out at lunchtime three times in the past seven days.

Eating out is considerably more difficult to cope with because I can't really get to grips with the fact that if I'm paying for it in a cafe or restaurant, I feel I have to get my money's worth by finishing everything on the plate, including all the colslaw, mayonaise, rich dressings etc. And what evening meal cannot be finished off without a pudding?

So with my behaviour I was fully expecting to have put on a pound or two. So I feel it's something of an achievement to have stayed steady.

Statistical summary:

Starting Weight: 19st 9lb – 275lbs
Current Weight: 14st 13lb – 209lbs
Total Weight Loss: 66lbs
Weight Lost since joining the Knights of the Round Bottoms: 1lb

10 comments:

fatmammycat said...

One thing Kim- and I'm sure you know this- try not to get to caught up on the weight alone, my friend Sarah and I are big into our sports, she is a yoga fanatic and I like kick boxing and so on. And both of us realised ages ago that you can still change shape, drops sizes and so on without shifting a massive amount of weight. Sometimes keeping too firm an eye on the scales can be a little disheartening. But keep up the great work!

Kim Ayres said...

Thanks for your support fatmammycat. One of the things I'm aware of with this blog is that it is overly focused on the weight loss, perhaps even more so now that I have joined the Knights of the Round Bottoms.

But my primary objective all along has been to be healthier, and the weight loss has been a side effect of that. Through eating healthily I have lost over 4 and a half stone, but am still around 3 and a half stone overweight.

At some point I will have to start increasing my activity and exercise. When that happens, I daresay it will probably start dominating these posts :)

fatmammycat said...

What kind of exercise are you doing now?

Kim Ayres said...

Maybe I should have phrased it "starting activity and exercise..."

Let me see... the house we moved into has more stairs...

Generally speaking, there's not a great deal. I make sure that I walk more briskly these days. And a couple of times a week I will try and make sure I do at least a very brisk 2 mile walk.

I practice Tai Chi most days, but that's pretty much it I'm afraid.

Part of the problem is that I know that any exercise regime, like the eating habits, has to be sustainable in the long term. As of yet, I've not managed to figure out the best way of doing that

fatmammycat said...

The thing about exercise is that it is mostly a matter of habit-and habits(good and bad) usually take a while to develop.
For instance, my job involves a great deal of sitting here at my desk on the computer. However every evening about 4, I tear off to the gym and either do an hour of cardio on the treadmill(I jog a steady 8k) or the bike (25k), sometimes I'll break it up and do half in half, other times I'll use the rowing machine for twenty mins and use the cross trainer(which I dislike)-but it breaks the monotony. I do weights three times a week too, and have a very intensive Kickboxing class on Wednesday, lots of sparring and kicking, very hard on the body, but you feel great afterwards. MY point, and I promise I do have one, is that three years ago I smoked like a trouper and my idea of exercise was to go out dancing on a Saturday night. Then one day, while coughing with gusto through yet another 'cold', I decided that I would do something about myself, and stop complaining that I felt wretched a lot of the time. Gave up smoking immediately, not as hard as I feared, thank you Alan Carr. Once I managed that hurdle, I embarked on my now near love of exercise. But you are exactly right, it has to be sustainable. For me taking an hour and a half everday is a habit. But it is a habit I trained myself into. In the early days I would use every excuse in the book not to go, rain, foot cramp, dreaded lurgee, too late, too early...non- stop. But in the end I always made myself go out the balsted door, and funilly enough, over time, I gradually stopped thinking about it as a chore and became more focused on what it actually was, a benefit for me! If, for whatever reason I can't go to the gym these days, I feel stiffer, slightly sluggish. I miss it.
If you can find something you really enjoy doing, be it five a side football with friends once a week, or swimming, or simply getting up early a couple of mornings a week, putting on your iPod or walkman( for me music is an integral part of my exercise) and walking for about an hour at a decent clip, the jump in weight and size is astounding, everything starts to fall into place. As you get fitter you can start to look at other forms of exercise, like I did. But the walking is great when starting out, low impact, free and best of all it burns the old calories. All the healthy choices and eating you have made are suddenly complimented...and all for as little as 60 mins a day!
I'm sorry for waffling for so long, but I really am rooting for you and think what you are doing is fantastic, so if I seem a bit over enthusiastic and soap box pontificating, I'm so sorry.

Kim Ayres said...

Phew - I got exhausted just reading that!

Seriously though, thank you very much for your input and thoughts.

I'm now working from home and there isn't a gym within 20 miles to join. But at the moment, the idea of at least 60 minutes hard work out each day sounds absolutely terrifying anyway.

What I would like to find is some way of building into the day some kind of reasonable exercise, or activity that I will be able to do every day without stressing about it. Maybe it is just about habits.

You have my respect for turning your life around like that. What were the turning points for you?

You really should start getting your own blog going!

fatmammycat said...

I got my blood pressure checked and it was way too high, and I turned 30, that was it for me. That and my mother is a heavy woman, but she refuses to do anything about her weight except blame it all on a myriad of things that, while are related, are not the cause. I just thought that I didn't want to let myself go to seed, if you see what I mean. Just walk Kim, do it everyday for an hour. Start that way. Aim to do say three or four miles a day. Then see how you feel after a month.
I promise you'll notice a big difference. I'll be 33 in December and I can honestly say I've never felt better.
Good Luck!

Kim Ayres said...

I seem to know so many people who started changing their life in one way or another after they turned 30. When I was 31 I became self employed! I think it has something to do with feeling like a grown up. At 29 you're still in your 20s, which is only just out of your teens. But at 30, you realise that you can't pretend any more and you need to start taking control of your own life.

I'll be 39 next week and it's been an eventful decade!

Sancho Pawnza said...

Anytime you can go out for dinner twice in the week and not gain weight deserves some sort of medal!

Kim Ayres said...

Thank you Sir Semisolid.I think I shall allow myself a brief *smug* moment...

...

...There, I feel better now!