Weighed myself again yesterday, and it’s now 10kg (22lb in old money) of “passive” weight loss over the last 4-6 months. As in, “putting fewer unhealthy things in my mouth”. Honestly most of that is down to effective ADHD medication; it continues to surprise me just how much of my bad eating habits were a stimulus-seeking behaviour. I still eat terrible food, but bringing down the amount of sugary crap I eat has been easier now than at any other time in my life that I can recall. 10kg feels like a bit of a milestone, and a good point to start making other positive changes. So… I bought a treadmill this morning. It’s actually mostly for my other half’s benefit. Walking is apparently one of the best exercises to build up strength in the muscles around the spine, and it’s what the physios & neurosurgeons have strongly recommended to help her recovery. But it sure as hell won’t do me any harm to get off my arse either… We don’t need to spend £750 just so that she can go for a walk regularly, the real challenge is making a habit of it and removing the barriers to entry. We’re both as bad as each other. We’ve both tried to go cycling or walking regularly over the years, or going to the gym, and both abandoned it at one point or another. Numerous reasons: rain, cold, dark mornings/evenings, dealing with traffic, not having the time to get ready, deeply ingrained self-loathing and body image issues, don’t want to use gross public showers, expensive monthly fees, etc. It isn’t enough to say “well you just have to be disciplined about it”. I can say with some confidence that ADHD can make building a long-term routine, like regular exercise, extremely difficult. I am definitely not alone in that regard. It’s not a question of “discipline” when you have an executive function disorder. So… having a treadmill at home eliminates pretty much all those potential barriers. No need to go out when it’s cold, dark, or wet, no road traffic to contend with, no monthly gym fee, and no one’s going to see you sweating your balls/tits off or making an arse of yourself. Except maybe the cat, but he’s a knobhead anyway so his opinion doesn’t really count! The main benefit will still be for my other half. Usually I do the shopping, but she came with me yesterday. 20-30 minutes of slowly plodding around Sainsbury’s was completely exhausting; she rarely uses the walking stick I bought when she came out of hospital, but she damn well needed it yesterday. She hasn’t got to worry about getting back to the house to lie down when she’s already at home. More regular exercise won’t necessarily help shed weight. Unless you’re on a serious workout plan, it’s mostly down to the type and volume of stuff you put in your face. I’ve still got a lot of work to do there, but it feels more achievable than it ever has.
19/02/24: 134kg (21st 1.5lb) My heaviest weight ever 08/04/24: 132kg (20st 11lb) progress, but sad and really need to start taking it seriously 22/04/24: 128.8kg (20st 4lb) over 3 kg in 3 weeks. My secret? I have also made concerted effort to cooking proper food and been a bit more cautious with portion control, but it's still really good food. Stews, Currys, risotto... Also invented chicken keema fried rice Onion, pack of chicken mince, fry it up with garlic and your preferred Indian spices. 1pack of sugar snap peas, 1 pack mangetout, quick stir-fry then add 2 packs microwave pilau rice (hot) done. Was enough for 3 meals and a lunch.
Had my usual big injection and vampire at my GP today, took the opportunity to hop on a scale there and asked my usual nurse to document my weight 39 kilos gone with only 1kg to go considering my extreme body mod plans
Absolutely - it's not something you can necessarily "slot in" to an existing plan; you may find that you have to build your schedule around exercise in order to keep everything practical and sustainable. There's no way I'd be making it to the gym 3 or 4 times a week without forward planning, which includes my meals, my sleep, and what time I get up in the morning, all of which are built around when I will be training. It takes a hell of a lot of commitment to make something like this become long term reality, but the results are worth the effort. Admittedly, I now feel like a bit of a con artist posting in this thread because everything's basically inverted since I started my "new journey" nine weeks ago. I've become so active that I'm struggling to get maintenance calories in my diet, so I'll eat chocolate and cakes after a meal just to top up the energy for the rest of the day. I'm not binging or snacking, which is great, but damn am I burning it all off!
This would normally be when I post the month's progress. I will not be doing so, as I'm pretty certain it's been a month of regression instead - and I'm cowardly steering clear of the scales. I'm having a bit of a rough time at the moment, and I've slipped back into bad habits. You know what it's like: oh, I'll get back on the diet after my birthday; oh, I'll get back on the diet after I've eaten/drunk these presents from my birthday; oh, family's round, let's have a nice meal, I'll get back on the diet after that; there's a nice pub at the end of this walk, let's have a meal, I'll get back on the diet on Monday; oh, it's nearly the end of the month, I'll get back on the diet in May... I know I need to get back on the diet. I know I'm not sleeping as well as I was. I know I've still weight to lose. But it's hard, as you all know. Still, the week's nearly over, no point starting now. I'll get back on the diet on Monday...
Just weighed myself and I'm back to 101kgs ouch, haven't really done anything since Christmas except eat so kinda expected. Looking forward to get back at it. Reading reviews online for wegovy and its worked for some so might jump on that for like £200 a month.
