Greetings all, my first post on here I believe, though I used to post on ye olde bikeradar one.
I have lost weight successfully before, but not by any scientific means, literally stopping eating cakes, chocolate, biscuits, and replacing chips with broccolli etc, eating/drinking a nutritious smoothie for breakfast.
I managed to get down to my ideal weight about 7 years ago, but then habits have slipped, few mental health things, job stresses, as well as the busy-ness and pressures of homelife etc (bulk excuses) and I was back up to my previous weight, in fact a bit more.
Last year I had a half hearted effort really, managed to shed 4kg, then I think it was more work related hassle, and I didn't shift anything more, then over christmas I went back up even more, and realised I had to do something about it.
Stumbled on a chap called the fitness chef on reels (Dry British humour) I think it was, who has his own recipes, and tries other peoples and gives an opinion as to how good/bad they are.
There is also an app, which I have subbed to, for £19.99 for 12 months.
On there I am able to track my calories (Not something I have ever done before or thought to do) plus all the other stuff like protein, fibre, fat etc etc.
I'm off to Spain twice this year for a bit of cycling, so that has spurred me on to properly lose some weight, and then really try and keep it off.
My theory/plan is that once I get down to my ideal weight, I won't abandon these lower calorie foods, but will instead perhaps have them 4 or 5 days a week, and then eat what I want/treat myself on the weekend in all likelihood.
My first trip is in around 6 weeks, and I'm fairly confident I might reach my initial 7kg loss target by that point.
If that all goes well, then to get down to what I deem my ideal weight, I'd need to lose a further 3.5kg, but I'm not off again until June, so I would certainly not attack it as aggressively as this.
I also want to do some running, but when I am too heavy it feels even more work that it normally does (I'm not a natural runner) and also my knees aren't massively impressed with it - so hopefully in 6 weeks that will be a different situation.
I'm a stats and data person, so this has actually ended up appealing to be a lot more than I thought it would.
I've only been using it since Jan 22nd (3 weeks today) but so far it's going really well.
The main parts for me that I am finding really useful are:
- Decent range of low calorie recipes - we've made loads of these in the household, and they have almost universally been enjoyed
- The recipes are not too complicated, or require rare/expensive ingredients
- The ability to log my meals during the day, see easily what I have consumed, and what I have left to use should I want to
- I can create 'custom' food, so items I make up, porridge and fruit for example, and then I can add that to single or multiple days
- It has a camera/barcode scanny thing which is pretty useful - think this is pretty standard though
Negatives are the app isn't the most brilliant experience, it can be a bit clunky, and there are two areas to enter your weight, which I don't fully understand - the latter one you can also chuck a load of body measurements in should you want to.
I was adding in my turbo training activities, and the associated calories burned (Meant to be accurate I gather as it's from a power meter) but this didn't then seem to take it off what you had consumed, or at least what you had left to consume if you wanted to, so I've stopped spending time doing that, as it seems to achieve nothing.
Initially it set my calorie allowance at 2150, but I think with my heritage this is high, so have dropped it to 1800, plus I suspect at the age of 49, nearly 50, my metabolism has slowed significantly - in my 20s and early 30s I could basically eat anything and not put on weight.
Progress in those 3 weeks has been dramatic, I've managed to lose 4.1kg so far, so approaching 2/3rds of a stone in very old money.
I'm fully aware that early losses can be more significant, but despite a couple of plateaus and rises in there, the trend is downwards.
It hasn't just been the eating angle, I've also stepped up the exercise, and am trying to turbo 6 days a week, for between 50-90 minutes usually. Mostly fairly hard efforts, but yesterday I rode 50 minutes at more zone 2 kind of pace.
Today is a 75 minute reasonably hard workout.
In general those are burning somewhere around 400-600 calories, which x 6 is substantial.
I do follow these up with a whey protein shake, but then I've done that for years.
Additionally I have been upping my protein intake, more eggs, and some additional whey protein, and was surprised/happy to find that bacon medallions are not actually that bad for you.
I've completely cut out cakes and biscuits, though I do have the odd savoury cracker/Ritz type biscuit. I had cut out chocolate, but a couple of times have had a couple of blocks of 85% dark chocolate, and that seems to be enough now - when I was eating sugary stuff like it was going out of production, no amount was enough :-(
I'm going to have a semi regular lunch of one slice of bread, two bacon medallions and two poached eggs, which to me feels very extravagant for a midweek lunch, but is surprisingly not that bad for you or calorific, and I find very filling.
Another lunch I have been doing, is getting a 600ml container of fresh soup, chicken, or something of that ilk, using 200ml per day, and heating it with either peas or sweetcorn, and then cooking a portion of brown rice or wholemeal pasta and mix it all together - it's really filling, and I find very tasty - good for when the weather is like it is now, and I can get 3 lunches out of one pot.
and another gadget to play with.
