Weight Watcher's Thread
- Thread starter Shaun
- Start date
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jefmcg
Guru
Australian food is much better than uk food on average. More expensive though. Tons of asian influence with authenticiy valued, but wonderful italian, greek, lebanese etc etc. Waves of migration have left their marks. Canberra used to be not nearly as good as the major cities, but it's improving all the time, i gather.Australia, lots of BBQs and beer going by TV. And probably lots of Asian cuisines various
@jefmcg should be able to help with reality however
Downside is Australia rivals the US on obesity tables. And Canberra is buried within NSW which has just introduced some really bad anticycling laws. So swings and roundabouts.
I expect you to send us photos of a cycle tour of canberra district wineries
SatNavSaysStraightOn
Changed hemispheres!
- Location
- ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ 'ɐɹɹǝquɐƆ
Tbh I haven't seen anything in the cycling laws that is worse than the UK..
http://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/customers/cycling/laws-and-penalties
The only thing I need to ensure, and will need to purchase, is a bell for each of our bikes. I'm only n-2 short on that front! Oh and our cycle helmets may not meet NZ/AUS regulations but I doubt someone can tell that from looking at it!
I may also have to get a few rear reflectors as well, but do have red reflective tape that is better than a rear reflector which might do the job... But that's not a deal breaker for me.
EnPassant
Remember Remember some date in November Member
- Location
- Gloucester
Have followed this thread with interest since about mid 2014 (read the whole thing). Recently created an account so I'll add one more to those trying to improve their lives by sharing here if I may.
Steve - Gloucester
Age - 54
Height - 179
Build - Medium
Weight:
This morning - 85kg
Target - 75kg (ideally 70 or even less, but one step at a time)
Historically - Standard skinny teen, put it on gradually over the next decades without quite knowing why or how. (who am I kidding? Beer and junk food for years...)
Start 2014 - 89 kg
Mid 2014 - 90 kg (where I started to do something about it including following along here as a lurker)
End 2014 - 82kg
Start 2015 - 81kg (Ha I've got this weight thing beaten, it's easy, no need to keep watching it, I shall now ignore that thread)
End 2015 - 93kg
Start 2016 - I'm a fool, I think I know better, the scales say otherwise.
Diet:
In - Cheese, beans, root veg, salad, bread, eggs, some soya/mycoprotein meat substitute (Linda McCartney sausages, quorn and such). Coffee, tea, both with milk no sugar.
Out - Meat, alcohol, as much processed food as I can. Seconds.
Never have really - Chocolate, soft drinks, cakes, biscuits. (the odd ones if they are there at some social occasion, but have never consumed these things in significant quantities), Breakfast (never wake up hungry).
August 2015 - Cut all meat, the reason wasn't weight related and I haven't really missed it that much anyway. Still some fish but mostly even that's restricted to those small tins of Mackerel a few times a week (worry about vit D a bit).
Jan 2016 - Cut alcohol. Sort of miss the real ale and Guinness, but not the morning afters.
Things that maybe I should cut out but it's soooo hard - bread, cheese, seconds.
Cycling:
2014 - About 50 miles a week, mostly flat
2015 - Er, um, er.
2016 - Back to about 50 miles a week, sometimes a little more. Still mostly flat, a few hills if I'm feeling brave.
Rest of the time: Sedentary, in spades.
Apologies for rambling on a bit.
Steve - Gloucester
Age - 54
Height - 179
Build - Medium
Weight:
This morning - 85kg
Target - 75kg (ideally 70 or even less, but one step at a time)
Historically - Standard skinny teen, put it on gradually over the next decades without quite knowing why or how. (who am I kidding? Beer and junk food for years...)
Start 2014 - 89 kg
Mid 2014 - 90 kg (where I started to do something about it including following along here as a lurker)
End 2014 - 82kg
Start 2015 - 81kg (Ha I've got this weight thing beaten, it's easy, no need to keep watching it, I shall now ignore that thread)
End 2015 - 93kg
Start 2016 - I'm a fool, I think I know better, the scales say otherwise.
Diet:
In - Cheese, beans, root veg, salad, bread, eggs, some soya/mycoprotein meat substitute (Linda McCartney sausages, quorn and such). Coffee, tea, both with milk no sugar.
Out - Meat, alcohol, as much processed food as I can. Seconds.
Never have really - Chocolate, soft drinks, cakes, biscuits. (the odd ones if they are there at some social occasion, but have never consumed these things in significant quantities), Breakfast (never wake up hungry).
August 2015 - Cut all meat, the reason wasn't weight related and I haven't really missed it that much anyway. Still some fish but mostly even that's restricted to those small tins of Mackerel a few times a week (worry about vit D a bit).
Jan 2016 - Cut alcohol. Sort of miss the real ale and Guinness, but not the morning afters.
Things that maybe I should cut out but it's soooo hard - bread, cheese, seconds.
Cycling:
2014 - About 50 miles a week, mostly flat
2015 - Er, um, er.
2016 - Back to about 50 miles a week, sometimes a little more. Still mostly flat, a few hills if I'm feeling brave.
Rest of the time: Sedentary, in spades.
Apologies for rambling on a bit.
jefmcg
Guru
It's the level of the fines, hundreds of dollars. IE the cheapest of those fines I could find is the bell at $106 is only 3 dollars less than the fine for for speeding within 10km of the speed limit, and the other fines are in the $300-400, which is a lot of money for most people.
Canberra is not subject to NSW law, but it's in a very small territory, so you'll be straying into it often. Indeed, the Canberra suburbs extend into NSW.
(Off topic, so I will shut up about it now. I've already had several rants about it somewhere else.)
EnPassant
Remember Remember some date in November Member
- Location
- Gloucester
Looks as if I'm flying solo here for now, so won't bore you with a long diatribe.
13th May: 85kg
Today: 82.9kg.
13th May: 85kg
Today: 82.9kg.
SatNavSaysStraightOn
Changed hemispheres!
- Location
- ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ 'ɐɹɹǝquɐƆ
Nope your not. It's just that I don't have any scales anymore with them being in Failsworth, Manchester and me being in Canberra, Australia... So weigh ins are a touch difficult until the first pay check arrives and I can buy some. We have a limited supply of cash until it arrives.
cisamcgu
Legendary Member
- Location
- Merseyside-ish
Don't forget that in Australia you are upside down, so the scales will read the opposite direction, e.g . -80kg, so you have to put weight on - or am I getting confused 
SatNavSaysStraightOn
Changed hemispheres!
- Location
- ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ 'ɐɹɹǝquɐƆ
Nah, I just have to stand on my head instead!
SatNavSaysStraightOn
Changed hemispheres!
- Location
- ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ 'ɐɹɹǝquɐƆ
Right, picked up the courage to stand on the scales again after rather a long time.
Done better than expected given the food and meals or I have been living off recently, having moved house 4 times in the last 6-7 weeks and I've got another one to go yet in a weeks time.
I now weigh 63.9kg. I was 78kg at the beginning of the year when I started this diet. That finally puts my bmi back into the healthy range
I'm aiming for a max of 60kg and I guess something like 55-57 kg realistically to get back to where I was before my back went, clothes size wise. I actually weighed 63kg when my back went 18 months ago (I was cycling 1,000 km a month then though) but I'm still 2 clothes sizes bigger than I was then, so given my aim was to get back into those clothes, I have some more work to do yet.
The diet continues and it seems that the new years resolution has not yet been broken!
Done better than expected given the food and meals or I have been living off recently, having moved house 4 times in the last 6-7 weeks and I've got another one to go yet in a weeks time.
I now weigh 63.9kg. I was 78kg at the beginning of the year when I started this diet. That finally puts my bmi back into the healthy range
I'm aiming for a max of 60kg and I guess something like 55-57 kg realistically to get back to where I was before my back went, clothes size wise. I actually weighed 63kg when my back went 18 months ago (I was cycling 1,000 km a month then though) but I'm still 2 clothes sizes bigger than I was then, so given my aim was to get back into those clothes, I have some more work to do yet.
The diet continues and it seems that the new years resolution has not yet been broken!
- Location
- London
Well done. Must have been lots of temptations to comfort eat with the stress you must be under.
SatNavSaysStraightOn
Changed hemispheres!
- Location
- ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ 'ɐɹɹǝquɐƆ
Thank you. It's been hard. It will be easier now I'm no longer living so close to so many vegan restaurants and cafes that were really good. Finding vegan food in Canberra is not hard, every restaurant has something and most have several choices. Even IKEA has a couple of vegan options!
Luckily Australia seems to require restaurants to calculate and supply the calories for everything they sell. The only exception seems to be one off cafes & restaurants as opposed to chains. This has made it easier even if it is all in kjoules rather than kcalories! Australia being one of the very few countries in the world to be fully metric. But it has not been easy cooking our normal meals with me not having my usual kitchen utensils or herbs and spices and struggling to get a lot of our normal supplies. I'm slowly finding the right shops but some of my less common Indian spices haven't yet turned up! Once I have a fixed address I can resort to the internet. They must be available somewhere in Australia!
Luckily Australia seems to require restaurants to calculate and supply the calories for everything they sell. The only exception seems to be one off cafes & restaurants as opposed to chains. This has made it easier even if it is all in kjoules rather than kcalories! Australia being one of the very few countries in the world to be fully metric. But it has not been easy cooking our normal meals with me not having my usual kitchen utensils or herbs and spices and struggling to get a lot of our normal supplies. I'm slowly finding the right shops but some of my less common Indian spices haven't yet turned up! Once I have a fixed address I can resort to the internet. They must be available somewhere in Australia!
jefmcg
Guru
Isn't more that UK is one of the few countries that mix imperial and metric?
Anyway, congrats on the excellent progress. Maybe you should throw your scales away.
Next time I talk to my brother, I'll ask him where you can get exotic spice in Canberra. I expect you may find Indian ingredients harder to find than in the UK, but on the other hand, there are a wealth of other asian cuisines are more popular - and any region with a buddhist population will have vegan options.
Hope it's not too cold for you
EnPassant
Remember Remember some date in November Member
- Location
- Gloucester
Throw the scales away? Not for me, that's how I got in trouble in the first place 
. Obviously I can't speak for SNSSS (an acronym that just rolls off the tongue eh?), but without scales I look down at myself and think, ach that's ok. Weirdly even my reasonably tight fitting bike gear doesn't seem to notice 10kg one way or the other. Certainly no other clothing seemed to suddenly get too tight. Odd maybe I know, but without the scales I almost have no idea.
In fact and I suspect this definitely doesn't apply to Satty (is that any better? Probably not....) part of the issue for me is I have now hit normal bmi (albeit the top end of what seems to me to be a ludicrously wide range of about 20kg) but I still have what used to be termed a pot belly or beer gut and it doesn't appear much less from my viewpoint than it did when I was 93kg, which is partly how I got to be 93kg I think, I wasn't weighing myself and I felt, and I thought looked, exactly the same. I must now have lost the weight somewhere, and others say I look better, but it's a mystery to me where my body took it from if I'm honest.
Anyway, today 79kg, onwards and upwards, er downwards.
. Obviously I can't speak for SNSSS (an acronym that just rolls off the tongue eh?), but without scales I look down at myself and think, ach that's ok. Weirdly even my reasonably tight fitting bike gear doesn't seem to notice 10kg one way or the other. Certainly no other clothing seemed to suddenly get too tight. Odd maybe I know, but without the scales I almost have no idea.In fact and I suspect this definitely doesn't apply to Satty (is that any better? Probably not....) part of the issue for me is I have now hit normal bmi (albeit the top end of what seems to me to be a ludicrously wide range of about 20kg) but I still have what used to be termed a pot belly or beer gut and it doesn't appear much less from my viewpoint than it did when I was 93kg, which is partly how I got to be 93kg I think, I wasn't weighing myself and I felt, and I thought looked, exactly the same. I must now have lost the weight somewhere, and others say I look better, but it's a mystery to me where my body took it from if I'm honest.
Anyway, today 79kg, onwards and upwards, er downwards.
SatNavSaysStraightOn
Changed hemispheres!
- Location
- ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ 'ɐɹɹǝquɐƆ
Pretty much the same here. Not the put belly but the rest around the stomach issue. I don't put weight on around the hips and thighs like most women do, but am much more of an apple shape than a pear shape.
I need the scales to occasionally monitor progress, not get too demoralised when the clothing size hasn't changed for a while and to ensure I don't obsess over that last bit of fat around the middle, not to mention maintain my weight once I have got there.
19-20 kg (more than 3 stone) for a 'healthy bmi' also seems ludicrous to me as well, but it applies to males and females alike.
At least this time around I have a decent excuse for the weight gain
I need the scales to occasionally monitor progress, not get too demoralised when the clothing size hasn't changed for a while and to ensure I don't obsess over that last bit of fat around the middle, not to mention maintain my weight once I have got there.
19-20 kg (more than 3 stone) for a 'healthy bmi' also seems ludicrous to me as well, but it applies to males and females alike.
At least this time around I have a decent excuse for the weight gain
