Weight Watcher's Thread

[Drago]

Don't forget to cycle creatine, 6 weeks on 4 off is fairly typical, give your body a rest from it.

 

[Webbo2]

Don't forget to cycle creatine, 6 weeks on 4 off is fairly typical, give your body a rest from it.

I am not hundred percent sure but I don’t think the current thinking is you have to cycle it.

 

[Drago]

Ah, been a long time since I was on it so things may have indeed moved on.

 

[Webbo2]

Ah, been a long time since I was on it so things may have indeed moved on.

Saying you wre on it sounds like you were juicing🤪 However they say these days it the most researched and most proven supplement that actually has some major benefits.

 

[wafter]

I have started on 5g creatine daily too and have also noticed a slight weight increase. (I am now hovering just below 80 kg.)

I don't mind as long as it doesn't go much higher than that. I want to try to get 5 kg off by next spring.

Over this year my weight loss has stalled, but I haven't gone back to the wild fluctuations that I used to see so no problems there.

I have probably been having a few too many snacks. Cutting down on them should let me average a loss of about 0.4 kg/week through the winter and finally reach my target of 73-75 kg.

Good work with the creatine - are you noticing any benefits? I'm struggling to assess it objetively as there are so many factors at play..

Sounds like we're in a similar situation; with my current compostion I'd like to lose a similar amount and would be very happy with 0.4kg/wk over winter. Realistically however I suspect I'll be doing well if I can hold steady with where I am currently before cutting the carbs back again in the spring... but will try to keep hammering the strength training!

 

[ColinJ]

Don't forget to cycle creatine, 6 weeks on 4 off is fairly typical, give your body a rest from it.

I am not hundred percent sure but I don’t think the current thinking is you have to cycle it.

Yes, I think the consensus now is that it is okay to just keep taking it.

Good work with the creatine - are you noticing any benefits? I'm struggling to assess it objetively as there are so many factors at play..

I just checked - it has only been a month, so early days. I haven't really been pushing myself much on the bike, so I'm not sure. Mind you, I rode up a steep hill today and it didn't feel as hard as I remember it did last time, so maybe...?

I don't eat most of the things containing creatine so it is probably a good idea for me to take the supplement.

... but will try to keep hammering the strength training!

That's something that I need to get into. My legs are fine from cycling and walking but my upper body is weedy. I don't want to bulk up but I would like to get good functional upper body/core strength. My back, arms and shoulders usually give me trouble on long hard rides before my legs do.

 

[wafter]

I just checked - it has only been a month, so early days. I haven't really been pushing myself much on the bike, so I'm not sure. Mind you, I rode up a steep hill today and it didn't feel as hard as I remember it did last time, so maybe...?

I don't eat most of the things containing creatine so it is probably a good idea for me to take the supplement.

Cool - the effects are probably subtle enought to make them difficult to assess if you're not keeping a constant record of many quantifiable high-output activities. Maybe you need to visit that hill more often

There seems to be a lot of stuff on Youtube etc about its benefits in other areas other than muscle (cognitive etc) although I wonder if this is just another fad social media trend..

That's something that I need to get into. My legs are fine from cycling and walking but my upper body is weedy. I don't want to bulk up but I would like to get good functional upper body/core strength. My back, arms and shoulders usually give me trouble on long hard rides before my legs do.

Same; I've always been skinny-fat and lacking in strength; especially upper-body.

There seems to be a growing public interest in functional strength training / maintaining strength into old age (probably because many can see the writing on the wall for most of us - being an island full of sedentary porkers with a health service that's circling the drain).

There's a lot of great stuff on youtube re. bodyweight training that I've found really interesting / helpful and over the past 18 months or so I've been slowly getting drawn in, which is no bad thing as I'm seeing results.

Beyond strength and muscle definition there are some less expected ones too - my posture has become enormously improved since starting the upper body stuff, while I think it's contributed (along with some stretches and corrective insoles / heel inserts) to lessening my weird gait.

IIRC Fitness FAQs and The Bioneer have some great content, but there's also loads of good stuff from smaller producers depending on exactly what you're looking for

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

Just had consecutive days of 92.5Kg yesterday and 92.6Kg today, first time lower than the odd day at 92.9Kg this year and quite probably going back to around summer '23.

How I only gained 0.1Kg overnight is one of those weight watching mysteries...
Two bits fresh fruit
A big dinner, including finishing off what better half left (effectively sprout curry)
Two bits fresh fruit
1 egg scrambled/omlette sandwich
Jam sandwich
~1.5 handfuls of cashews/peanuts
2 jam sandwiches

I could understand losing weight Sunday to Monday, as I did a two hour ebike ride with a good handful of threshold+ 5min efforts on Sunday afternoon, but yesterday I only did a 5min pootle on MyWhoosh trying to set it up after not touching it for ages.

I'd love to get under 90Kg before Xmas (I was 80Kg before long covid began Oct '22), but now we're into autumn, the illogical carb snacking in the evenings is in operation due to Seasonal Affective Disorder I've had for decades.

 

[YMFB]

I weighed myself for the first time in several weeks and was pleased to see I’m down to 87.65 kgs, BMI 26.2.

My last Hba1C had gone up slightly but my diabetic nurse doesn’t want to see me until my annual checkup in May.

I'm still on the Mounjaro.

 

[ColinJ]

I got a pair of black cords for Christmas and made sure that they were the size that I want to be rather than the size that I was at the time. I realised that I will probably never have a 32" waist again but decided that 34" was a sensible/realistic target to aim for.

I want to be able to wear the trousers in comfort (not breathing in and holding my breath!) by the summer. I think I will achieve that. If I somehow lose the extra 2" to get back to my teenage 32" waist measurement then I will use a belt to hold the trousers up.

That was a few years back. I still haven't quite got there! I say it every winter, but here we go again... I'd like to get the last 6 or 7 kgs off over the winter and be able to wear those cords in the spring! If I do, I'll post a photo of the new slimline me wearing them.

 

[Electric_Andy]

My weight has suddenly snuck up on me. Back in January 25 I gave up alcohol, which probably saved me 1600 kclas a week at least. I found I could eat what I wanted (within reason) and not put on any weight. Well, that was only good until August time when I started to notice I'd gained a few pounds. Now at 12st 4 again, I'm trying to lose a few pounds so I can fit into a suit I need for a wedding just before christmas. It's back to rice cakes for breakfast (with spread and marmalade) and staying off the crisps and biscuits.

 

[alicat]

Short read

In October I decided to lose weight after it gradually crept up and some medication that I'm taking is causing me to have no impulse control. Thankfully the GP has added in a second medication that incidentally reduces appetite to neutral. I've found a life coach author, Martha Beck, whom I really like and I've lost 3lb over a month to 12st 7lb.

TLDR
The top of my 'normal' BMI is 10st 10lb. In early October I weighed 12st 10lb. My weight peaked at 12st 11lb as I initially kept a food diary and researched current thinking on permanent weight loss and didn't change my food intake too much at that stage.

Yesterday I weighed 12st 7lb and my waist was down 1.75" at 38.25". I'm really pleased with the progress so far. I'm doing the exercises in The 4-day win by Martha Beck (I love her sense of humour, explanation of how the brain works and encouragement to develop self-compassion. I'm still recording what I eat and trying to notice if I'm hungry or eating for comfort or reward. I'm gradually replacing food rewards with non-food rewards/comfort/treats.

I'm planning to weigh myself every four days (may take that to every 20 days = five 4 day wins) and would love any encouragement you lovely people can offer.

 

[potsy]

After a year or two of steady weight gain I've finally got to grips with things again and have lost almost 2st in the last 3 months.
Cut out bread, crisps, halved my intake of things like rice, pasta, potatoes.
Eating more healthy breakfasts too, replaced the sugary cereals with berries & greek yoghurt.

Not quite back to the slimline days of 2021 but not far off 😀

 

[wafter]

My weight has suddenly snuck up on me. Back in January 25 I gave up alcohol, which probably saved me 1600 kclas a week at least. I found I could eat what I wanted (within reason) and not put on any weight. Well, that was only good until August time when I started to notice I'd gained a few pounds. Now at 12st 4 again, I'm trying to lose a few pounds so I can fit into a suit I need for a wedding just before christmas. It's back to rice cakes for breakfast (with spread and marmalade) and staying off the crisps and biscuits.

FWIW I think rice has a fairly high gylcaemic index, meaning it's rapidly digested and causes a strong blood sugar spike followed by a corresponding crash when the rapid insulin response kicks in. This is what makes you feel exhausted and craving more carbs not long after you've just scoffed a load. The marmalade will likely behave in the same way while the "spread" sounds like an alternative to proper butter - perhaps incentivised on the questionable assertion that "fat is bad, mmkay..." that the mainstream mainstream diet market has pedelled for decades.

How do you find your hunger in the hours after this breakfast? Conventional wisdom suggests that starting the day with a limited amount of lower-GI carbs and lots of protein are the way forward for controlling appetite later into the day. Personally I think soft boiled eggs on sourdough toast takes a lot of beating as a really tasty, relatively blood-sugar-friendly breakfast.

Good luck with it - weight loss is rarely easy; especially at this time of the year.



Things continue to slip my end as expected, however at least I'm pretty much maintaining my weight (fluctuating about a mean of around 73kg with +/- 1kg on the daily weigh-in) and dimensions..

As anticipated my diet's changed significantly since the summer - I'm still doing a reasonable job of keeping off the proper crap, but a lot more beige carbs have crept in (wraps, baked potatos, sandwiches, irresistable-when-reduced cheese twists). I'm typically consuming at least one (alcohol free) Guinness per day while the summer's fruit and yoghurt habit has come back with a vengeance after scoring quite a lot of reduced strawberries / raspberries / blueberries recently... I'm getting through half a kilo of yoghurt every couple of days.

I did have some chips and cheese from a kebab van a couple of nights ago - which tbh didn't really taste like food at all and retrospectively I think will be the last of that muck I ever consume. To be fair it didn't really taste any different to how I remember it - its heady mix of cheap carbs and fat just less appealing in the face of a better base diet and sobriety.

So, from this perspective I think it's somewhat of a win that my weight's not shot through the roof, while aware that things aren't going in the right direction and I don't want complacancy to make this worse.

This week's been particularly bad for cycling as tiredness and crap weather have really hammer the mileage down on the discretionally commute. Time on the rings has also suffered for similar reasons, while I only have one kickboxing lesson this week due to limited availability of the facilities.

Don't really feel great now but today is the last I'll have to myself in the flat until next week and it's sunny outside so I'm determined to make the most of it. Once a breakfast of eggs, toast and black pudding is out of the way I'm aiming for a usual utility run and a session on the rings before retriring to the dark solitude of my burrow and hopefully catching up on some of the lost sleep that's contributed to making my diet (and every other aspect of life) so difficult to manage recently.

 

[Electric_Andy]

FWIW I think rice has a fairly high gylcaemic index, meaning it's rapidly digested and causes a strong blood sugar spike followed by a corresponding crash when the rapid insulin response kicks in. This is what makes you feel exhausted and craving more carbs not long after you've just scoffed a load. The marmalade will likely behave in the same way while the "spread" sounds like an alternative to proper butter - perhaps incentivised on the questionable assertion that "fat is bad, mmkay..." that the mainstream mainstream diet market has pedelled for decades.

How do you find your hunger in the hours after this breakfast? Conventional wisdom suggests that starting the day with a limited amount of lower-GI carbs and lots of protein are the way forward for controlling appetite later into the day. Personally I think soft boiled eggs on sourdough toast takes a lot of beating as a really tasty, relatively blood-sugar-friendly breakfast.

Good luck with it - weight loss is rarely easy; especially at this time of the year.



Things continue to slip my end as expected, however at least I'm pretty much maintaining my weight (fluctuating about a mean of around 73kg with +/- 1kg on the daily weigh-in) and dimensions..

As anticipated my diet's changed significantly since the summer - I'm still doing a reasonable job of keeping off the proper crap, but a lot more beige carbs have crept in (wraps, baked potatos, sandwiches, irresistable-when-reduced cheese twists). I'm typically consuming at least one (alcohol free) Guinness per day while the summer's fruit and yoghurt habit has come back with a vengeance after scoring quite a lot of reduced strawberries / raspberries / blueberries recently... I'm getting through half a kilo of yoghurt every couple of days.

I did have some chips and cheese from a kebab van a couple of nights ago - which tbh didn't really taste like food at all and retrospectively I think will be the last of that muck I ever consume. To be fair it didn't really taste any different to how I remember it - its heady mix of cheap carbs and fat just less appealing in the face of a better base diet and sobriety.

So, from this perspective I think it's somewhat of a win that my weight's not shot through the roof, while aware that things aren't going in the right direction and I don't want complacancy to make this worse.

This week's been particularly bad for cycling as tiredness and crap weather have really hammer the mileage down on the discretionally commute. Time on the rings has also suffered for similar reasons, while I only have one kickboxing lesson this week due to limited availability of the facilities.

Don't really feel great now but today is the last I'll have to myself in the flat until next week and it's sunny outside so I'm determined to make the most of it. Once a breakfast of eggs, toast and black pudding is out of the way I'm aiming for a usual utility run and a session on the rings before retriring to the dark solitude of my burrow and hopefully catching up on some of the lost sleep that's contributed to making my diet (and every other aspect of life) so difficult to manage recently.

Good point about the rice cakes and marmalade, I find if I don't have carbs then I'm hungry. I use dairy free spread because I'm dairy intolerant. Marmalade is quicker than bacon which would otherwise be my preference! But basically home life and laziness has made me greedy and reinforced old bad eating habits.