Thanks both!
The problem is that while I'm eating carbs the craving for more reward is usually stronger than my resolve, and as we all know it only takes a moment of weakness to inhale a 150g packet of crisps, should one have been left lying around.
On top of that I sometimes view larger portions as the lesser of two evils - potentially better to eat more of a balanced and nutritious meal than to curtail its size and end up grazing on crap afterwards as a result.
I know what I have to do; I just need the weather to get better so I can go out more to burn some more energy and reclaim some endorphins from exercise and sun exposure rather than seeking them through food.
I'm still on the creatine too, although I'm not sure what effect it's had (either in terms of desired results or superficial weight gain). Equally I'm not sure if I should have continued taking it since I'm really not doing much strength-focussed stuf currently thanks to fatigue / injury / limited time.
Rightly or wrongly I tend to view fruit as a justifiable evil; yes it contains an amount of sugar (although usually nowhere near as much as more processed sources) but it's tasty and great nutritionally. Sounds like you're doing better than I am anyway; a typical serving might be half a medium punnet of strawberries (probably c.100-125g), perhaps a quarter or a third of a punnet of blueberries (maybe 50-75g) and a handful of pistachios with 3-4 generous teaspoons of yoghurt (probably about 100-125g) of yoghurt.
Writing this has just piqued my OCD so I'll no doubt start measuring these treats in future..
Thankfully I've managed to largely stay off the chocolate (at least in isolation, it was a component in the winter's glorious flapjacks) and yes, it's shocking when you do the maths on exactly how much weight such small (yet energy-dense) treats can add over time. At least dark chocolate's lower in sugar and potentially good nutritionally too.. within limits.
I suspect the cereal bars probably aren't doing you any favours!
How are you finding things now we're on the right side of winter?
Rightly or wrongly over the past few weeks it feels like I've turned a bit of a corner. In summary (as much for my benefit as the zero people who probably, understandably made it this deep into this post) mass started at just under 78.5kg in early May 2025, dropped to a low of just under 71.5kg in early August 2025 and rose again to a high of about 76.8kg in mid-March 2026.
At this point it seems to be declining a little with the 7-day mean currently sitting just below 76.0kg, although the measurements of my waist etc are yet to reflect this modest drop - suggesting that perhaps the decline is mostly water weight.
So, mid-2025 saw a loss of around 7kg over three months for a mean of maybe 0.5kg lost per week thanks to a very low carb diet, an average of maybe 150 miles per week on the bike and a session on the rings once or twice a week. The subsequent gain was around 5.3kg over about 7.5 months for for an average of what, maybe 0.2kg per week thanks to the reversion to a higher-carb diet, excessive eating and a fall in miles covered on the bike over the winter.. although I did do kickboxing for six months which must have helped to an extent.
I've only managed to arrest the creeping growth in my mass thanks to the usual seasonal changes which have made my appetite seem more manageable as I'm not relying on compulsive and unnecessary eating as a crutch for my mental health so much.
I've weaned myself off the flapjacks (which during the winter were being consumed at an average of 2 per day, for about 900kcal total which is quite frankly ridiculous), am still largely avoiding proper junk and have swapped the vanilla yoghurt for a plain alternative. This is lower in sugar (5% v. 11%) and has precipitated smaller servings as it's not as intrinsically more-ish and relies on a balance with the (now tangibly sweeter) fruit to maintain an acceptable taste.
Typically I'm visiting the shop less whilst at work too - a good working day consisting of 2-3 admittedly large sausages for breakfast followed a couple of pittas stuffed with whatever I can purloin from the reductions at the shops in the days before. Sometimes there are slips when I've had a particularly bad night's sleep / stressful day at work but it is tangibly better.
I'm hoping to continue this trend by further reducing carb intake - switching from the pittas to salads for lunch and binning the toast with breakfaxt / brunch eggs... although I don't really feel ready for that just yet.
While I've regained a disappointing amount of mass lost over last summer (5.3kg of 7.0kg lost so about 75%), I'm still down on where I was a year ago and can hopefully start the loss process again a month or two earlier than I did last year.
Of course it would be great to maintain a stable, acceptable mass all year round, however objectively life's about as good as it's going to get currently so some gain over the winter seems inevitable; although hopefully this can be minimised and I'll hopefully manage to cap flapjack consumption at one per day..
I hope everyone else is seeing some progress now the weather's warming up and we're getting more light
Yes, portion size is definitely a problem as the motivation to eat is usually driven by comfort rather than physical hunger.
The problem is that while I'm eating carbs the craving for more reward is usually stronger than my resolve, and as we all know it only takes a moment of weakness to inhale a 150g packet of crisps, should one have been left lying around.
On top of that I sometimes view larger portions as the lesser of two evils - potentially better to eat more of a balanced and nutritious meal than to curtail its size and end up grazing on crap afterwards as a result.
I know what I have to do; I just need the weather to get better so I can go out more to burn some more energy and reclaim some endorphins from exercise and sun exposure rather than seeking them through food.
Sorry to hear that; sound like we're in very similar situations.@wafter... It is very easy to let this happen over the winter - I have too. I am about 5 kg heavier than I was in the autumn.
Part of this is probably due to starting take creatine every day so I would accept (say) 1 kg, but the rest is due to a combination of more energy in/less energy out...
I have been ill off and on for about 2/3 of the winter so I have missed around 9 weeks of cycling. I just calculated that the lost energy expenditure corresponds to about 3 kg of fat.
The other factor is relaxing too much on the food side. I normally allow myself a little more food in the winter, accepting that I might put on a kg or so, but this time it has compounded the creatine and sloth gains.
I have a Greek yoghurt habit too. I allowed myself a spoon on top of the fruit that I have with my muesli every morning. The thing is my spoonful became a very heaped spoonful, and then 2 huge spoonfuls! The fruit intake has crept up too from something like a strawberry, a couple of grapes and a small banana, to more like 2 strawberries/3 blackberries, 5 grapes, 6 blueberries and a large banana. I am going to cut back down to 1 spoon of yoghurt and half the amount of fruit.
Thinking about it... I have also started having a 50 g bar of 85% dark chocolate with my coffee every afternoon. (More calculations...). Blimey, that could amount to about 1.5 kg over 12 weeks! I don't want to give this habit up because (a) It is my daily treat, and (b) There are some good things in dark chocolate. I will make up the difference by averaging an extra 5 km per day on my bike.
The other problem has been Aldi maple syrup cereal bars. I had been buying them as a treat for guests but I now realise that was an excuse to buy them for myself!I have stopped buying them and told guests to bring their own treats, with no spare treats for me.
I'm still on the creatine too, although I'm not sure what effect it's had (either in terms of desired results or superficial weight gain). Equally I'm not sure if I should have continued taking it since I'm really not doing much strength-focussed stuf currently thanks to fatigue / injury / limited time.
Rightly or wrongly I tend to view fruit as a justifiable evil; yes it contains an amount of sugar (although usually nowhere near as much as more processed sources) but it's tasty and great nutritionally. Sounds like you're doing better than I am anyway; a typical serving might be half a medium punnet of strawberries (probably c.100-125g), perhaps a quarter or a third of a punnet of blueberries (maybe 50-75g) and a handful of pistachios with 3-4 generous teaspoons of yoghurt (probably about 100-125g) of yoghurt.
Writing this has just piqued my OCD so I'll no doubt start measuring these treats in future..
Thankfully I've managed to largely stay off the chocolate (at least in isolation, it was a component in the winter's glorious flapjacks) and yes, it's shocking when you do the maths on exactly how much weight such small (yet energy-dense) treats can add over time. At least dark chocolate's lower in sugar and potentially good nutritionally too.. within limits.
I suspect the cereal bars probably aren't doing you any favours!
How are you finding things now we're on the right side of winter?
Rightly or wrongly over the past few weeks it feels like I've turned a bit of a corner. In summary (as much for my benefit as the zero people who probably, understandably made it this deep into this post) mass started at just under 78.5kg in early May 2025, dropped to a low of just under 71.5kg in early August 2025 and rose again to a high of about 76.8kg in mid-March 2026.
At this point it seems to be declining a little with the 7-day mean currently sitting just below 76.0kg, although the measurements of my waist etc are yet to reflect this modest drop - suggesting that perhaps the decline is mostly water weight.
So, mid-2025 saw a loss of around 7kg over three months for a mean of maybe 0.5kg lost per week thanks to a very low carb diet, an average of maybe 150 miles per week on the bike and a session on the rings once or twice a week. The subsequent gain was around 5.3kg over about 7.5 months for for an average of what, maybe 0.2kg per week thanks to the reversion to a higher-carb diet, excessive eating and a fall in miles covered on the bike over the winter.. although I did do kickboxing for six months which must have helped to an extent.
I've only managed to arrest the creeping growth in my mass thanks to the usual seasonal changes which have made my appetite seem more manageable as I'm not relying on compulsive and unnecessary eating as a crutch for my mental health so much.
I've weaned myself off the flapjacks (which during the winter were being consumed at an average of 2 per day, for about 900kcal total which is quite frankly ridiculous), am still largely avoiding proper junk and have swapped the vanilla yoghurt for a plain alternative. This is lower in sugar (5% v. 11%) and has precipitated smaller servings as it's not as intrinsically more-ish and relies on a balance with the (now tangibly sweeter) fruit to maintain an acceptable taste.
Typically I'm visiting the shop less whilst at work too - a good working day consisting of 2-3 admittedly large sausages for breakfast followed a couple of pittas stuffed with whatever I can purloin from the reductions at the shops in the days before. Sometimes there are slips when I've had a particularly bad night's sleep / stressful day at work but it is tangibly better.
I'm hoping to continue this trend by further reducing carb intake - switching from the pittas to salads for lunch and binning the toast with breakfaxt / brunch eggs... although I don't really feel ready for that just yet.
While I've regained a disappointing amount of mass lost over last summer (5.3kg of 7.0kg lost so about 75%), I'm still down on where I was a year ago and can hopefully start the loss process again a month or two earlier than I did last year.
Of course it would be great to maintain a stable, acceptable mass all year round, however objectively life's about as good as it's going to get currently so some gain over the winter seems inevitable; although hopefully this can be minimised and I'll hopefully manage to cap flapjack consumption at one per day..
I hope everyone else is seeing some progress now the weather's warming up and we're getting more light
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