Education The weight loss thread

I can gain or lose a kilo in a day, at least some of that gain will be water no doubt.

 

Pro tip: Only weigh yourself after you've had a big dump

 

Arrrgh. So after the perfect storm that has so-far been 2020 i've inadvertantly been turning to food during stressful periods. ie. Downturn in work, human malware, new baby, wife being rushed into hospital etc etc. I am now at my heaviest, weighed this morning at 14st 13lbs. I'm targeting 12st by New Years Eve to start 2021 with a conscious change in diet and putting extra effort into going changing the diet to a low carb / no carb diet temporarily then to a healthier calorie deficit with regular excersise. I'm determined to get into an old pair of jeans before the end of the year.

 

I don't think I've posted here before but I am married to a feeder... I went from 11st 6 in 2000 to 18st something in 2006. From then to 2018 I was bouncing back and forth from 16-18st due to wife penchant for making cheesecake. Then I got a part time job at a bar for a year and went down to 14st. Bar went bust (wasn't me guv) and I went up to 15.6st. Got a tax rebate and bought an Apple Watch 5. I'm now flitting between 14.10 to 14.6 and agree with Gareth... just one thing can wipe out that progress. On the plus side, the Apple Watch motivates me to close my rings on a daily basis that I've kept doing that since mid April. I sometimes check late in the day (around 10pm) and I'll need to pop out for 30 minutes to get it done but I do it!

I've found that replacing bread with wraps is great. Reducing portion size helps immensely. Don't eat after 7pm (I brush my teeth after my last meal to reduce the urge to snack) unless it's a special occasion. I don't drink milk and am weaning myself off of cheese (cambazola is a weakness). My wife is a veggie and I mainly eat vegetarian meals with an odd flexi day for chicken. The Beyond Meat Burger is a revelation as are the Richmond meat-free sausages. I walk everywhere when I go into London regardless of weather. When you realise the amount of steps it takes to get to the tube within the tube station, it's really not that much different in zone 1. I use dumbbells in the evening usually 3 reps of 30 for around 15 minutes.

I'm still flitting around 14.6 and haven't reached the 13st mark on the scales yet. I don't write down my weight in any form UNLESS I'm less than my last recorded weight and I sometimes go two weeks without weighing myself. The weird thing is back when I originally lost weight is that my clothes still felt tight so it's how you hold yourself that makes a big difference. I also donated all my size 36-40 trousers/ jeans and XXL/ XL tops to charity and bought new 33-34 jeans and large tops to make sure I had the impetus to keep off the extra dough and gravy.

I really don't want to pay a gym...

 

I'm focusing on fat loss atm because recently I've been dirty bulking, and having slipped into bad habits involving biscuits and chocolate my waist has ballooned. I always do a U-turn when my waist gets close to 44" (it was 43" at the weekend) and my goal is to get it down to 36", which would be very good for me. I'm also the heaviest and strongest I've ever been in my life, but I've packed on a lot of muscle in the last year and I'm not as "fat" as I have been.

The biggest change I've made is to completely cut out unhealthy foods from my diet (biscuits and the like, not even for dessert) and also to exercise every day. I walk the dog for about 30mins every morning before I start work, and every lunch time I'm lifting heavy weights for 30-40 min sessions. I'm trying to minimise the amount of muscle I lose so I'm keeping my calories relatively high but still under 2K per day, and I'm eating very protein rich food... lots of chicken, fish, and eggs, amounting to around 150g of protein per day (which is a lot for a non-bodybuilder). Research has shown that an increase in protein not only helps minimise muscle loss but also assists in fat loss, probably due to the higher metabolism from having a greater lean muscle mass.

My main measure for this fat loss goal will be my waist rather than my weight, because I don't expect my weight to change a whole lot as I'll likely be gaining muscle at the same time (yes, it's possible to gain muscle while at a calorie deficit, but only if you're already fat!).

My current weight is 15st 5, (215lbs, 97.5kg) and I'll probably check in every fortnight to see if my waist is going down. I can always step up the cardio if needs be - I find kettle bells to be the best for HIIT.

 

I've also taken to using measurements around my waist and hips as a marker rather than the scales. I've taken the measurements a few weeks ago and will do so again in another week or two and see if I need to increase/decrease calories based on that.

 

Scales aren't always a good way to measure weight management because they don't account for changes in body composition. The same goes for BMI. My current BMI is just shy of 30, but I'm carrying a lot of lean muscle as well as the extra body fat, so I'm not even close to being "obese" (although I'm definitely overweight).

I've borrowed my wife's Fitbit to help me track my exercise, and I have to say I like it a lot. I'm not a big fan of cardio and I only do it because it's an important part of general wellbeing, but it's nice to keep track of how many miles I'm walking and how long I'm exercising for.

 

I've got some smart scales (eufy Smart Scale) which seem to do a half decent job of measuring body composition. My only evidence of this is that they showed similar changes over a 2 month period as the ones used by my trainer. The reviews for them were pretty good as well.
I found using a fitbit useful as well but in both cases (fitbit and scales) I used the measurements to track patterns rather than focusing and the measurements themselves.

I have since been using a Fossil Gen 5 smartwatch and wore it with the fitbit for a while. Fitbit seemed to measure my resting heart rate at 5-7 bpm higher than the Fossil. I would love to know how each figure was calculated because comparing measurements normally would be about the same - i.e. both would show my heart rate overnight drop to the same then rise the same in the morning as I walked the dog.

I'm currently weighing in at 205lbs so plenty to lose.

 

Scales slide upward for me last few weeks, mainly a slight change in what I do, work is still very much sit on your backside for 8 hours a day. but been doing interval sprints on the bike so I was bang on 80Kg I'm not 80.9Kg according to the scales 0.8Kg is muscle gain I will say my quads feel larger and there's not a noticeable crease in the outer side of each. also my FTP has gone from 180W to 207W so there is something.
Do need to start doing some upper body and core work, legs are great but upper half is terrible.

 

What is FTP and how is it calculated, I have started to use Strava on my bike commute to turn it into a competition with myself to keep things interesting and saw that in there, my power numbers and FTP are vastly different and just wondered how it relates?

One is about 110w the other 280w, does it mean I am not trying hard enough and only operating at 1/3 my potential?

Two weeks since starting the cycling to work 2 days a week and 3.5kgs off, so that me knocking the 2020/corona plateau on the head, bit weird being the only one in the office though I must say....spooky, I want to source some tumbleweeds for when everyone else comes back

I also use some body composition scales, only cheapy thing from Xiaomi, purely because I got fed up of remembering what weight I was, info is interesting though, the scales seem bang on with respect to weight anyway, my old scales would show a different weight each time you got on and off.

They work pretty well unless you have someone with a fairly comparable body in the house, when I match weight with the missus things got quite confusing Still have the body of a 65 year old apparently, doh

I have been using the mi bands as my trackers, worked well for £20 decided I liked wearing a smart watch so much I upgraded to the fancier Amazfit GTR, still a fairly dumb watch but good for all the pertinent infos and much better to read messages etc on, good couple of weeks life out of it, I use things like the heart rate as I guide really to see if I am putting the approriate effort in but not too fussed on actual numbers, they track well with the gym equiptment though, so good enough for me.

 

FTP is Functional Threshold Power so basically what you can sustain output wise on a bike for a given period, usually its measured over an hour.
Strava does it based on an algorithm but for a true reflection you need what is known as a power meter which measures your output in NM and coverts it to Watts, so for example according to strava my FTP last ride was 186W but thats on a bike with no power meter or heart rate monitor.

 

@MLyons, 10lbs in two months is nice and steady, so you're more likely to keep it off (as long as you're developing good eating and lifestyle habits!).

I decided to do all my measuring this morning, and I'm quite surprised. I've dropped 5lbs in two weeks, and my waist has gone down by around 2.5 - 3". As I've said before, my weight is less of a concern than my waist size because I've put on a fair bit of muscle in the last year, and I'm specifically targeting fat loss to decrease my risk of diabetes and heart disease.

I'm still a bit chonk though... this morning I was exactly 15st (95.5kg, 210lbs). I reckon at a more respectable waist size of around 37" (where I was last year) I'll sit somewhere around the 200lb mark. I'm not a powerlifter by any means and I'm happy that I can bench my body weight and deadlift at least 1.5x, and when I've burned off some more fat I can think about setting new strength goals. I'm getting problems with my joints that I never had in all my years of weight training, which is an unpleasant side-effect of getting old.

 

Everybody knows that you need to maintain a 2:1 ratio of deadlift:bench or is that just me .

As a side note what kind of problems?

I weighed myself the other day and came in at 13st 6lbs/85.2kg which is over 5kg down since Christmas, but don't think my waist is any smaller so not looking forward to my first session back!

 

Heh, if I trained my legs like I did my upper body then I'd easily be north of 400lbs, but I haven't squatted in about eight years.

This year I've been bothered by tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis)... first in my left arm and now in my right arm, and it can be absolute bleeding agony at times. It's common to associate these injuries with upper arm excercises, particularly curls, however I'm pretty sure it's more to do with me forcing my grip strength gains too fast and over-training my forearms. Whoopsie!

 

So its not just me with the tragic excuses from time to time though it is good to see many people owning those excuses and looking to right them.

I seem to have found 3.4kg in about 6 weeks... eating crap and having a poor sleep pattern is killing me.

Anyway, hi!

 

I found 3 or 4 pounds over the past few months - must be muscle!

And hello stranger!