Great work - that's a massive loss and especially impressive if you've manage to retain muscle mass!
This is something I'm currently trying to get my head around.. would welcome your thoughts on the stuff below if you have any
Nice work on the diet - in principle I'd love to be veggie / vegan, however unfortunately my diet is restrictive enough for many reasons (typically minimising carbs and the many allergens I'm susceptible to) as it is and cutting out mean would leave me with next to nothing.
I suspect it's hard getting enough protein from non-meat sources...
So, today's enthralling update.. Down c. 1.1kg on the seven-day mean compared to last Sunday; waist and chest both down 0.9cm, hips 0.2cm...
This is encouraging but hardly surprising since last week involved two days of fasting and low-carb for the rest of it.
I intend to keep the low-carb going and fast when I can, however I suspect a good chunk of this week's loss is transient water weight so I don't expect the trend to continue at the same rate - historically I've managed about 0.5kg/wk so if I can hit that I'll be happy (well perhaps less overly miserable).
While a pain in many ways you've got to love low carb - the weight falling off despite my diet consisting largely of high-fat food that most wouldn't associate with weight loss - sausages, burgers, eggs, cheese, coleslaw... albeit in relatively modest total quantities (large, infrequent meals) and supplemented with some less triggering foods - mushrooms, onion, salad, pickles, nuts, berries and plain Greek yoghurt.
This of course is the beauty of low carb as I feel much less compelled to eat, while in the absence of the massive dopamine hit that comes from carbs everything else tastes so much better.
I've also been comparing my weight and body measurements with past efforts, with varying results.
Compared to this time-ish last year for the same weight my waist is 0.5cm larger (which presumably isn't great) and my chest 1.5cm smaller.. the latter arguably open to more speculation since I'm obviously carrying too much fat in this area and the loss could be due to loss of either fat or muscle.
On the one hand it would seem strange to suddenly lose a load of fat at the chest while gaining at the waist; on the other I've read that lack of sleep (as I've suffered chronically for the past year-ish) can lead to fat concentration at the waist. It is entirely likely that I've lost some muscle as I'm doing less on the rings than I was (I don't seem to have had the energy to do as many sets after injury / illness later last year) however am still hitting them regularly so would have hoped that this would have allowed maintenance if not outright growth.
On top of this the numbers compared come from snapshots during times of fair shifts in weight and body measurements, so are probably somewhat noisy and I suspect I'll get a better picture if I do more regular comparisons.
One thing that's heartening is the comparison to myself during the big Covid weight loss - whereby for a similar weight my waist is now around 4cm smaller, my chest about 1.5cm less and hip about 1.3cm down; or for a similar waist size my mass is around 2.5kg more - suggesting more muscle
In 2020 I got down to a minimum of about 67-68kg; which based upon the above would be comparable (in body fat terms) of around 70kg this time around. Looking at it another way if I can get down to 68kg again I should be leaner than I was last time.
While my head continues to be all over the place I currently feel good about the weight situation - once more it feels like a switch has been flipped; the process feels manageable and sustainable (at least in the immediate term), goals seem achievable and the reward of seeing my weight and waist consistently trending down are sufficient motivation to keep at it
Last edited:
