Education The weight loss thread

Big psychological milestone that. Well done you.

 

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.

 

Progress is progress . The main thing is that it needs to be a sustainable and long-term.

 

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!

 

Sugar snaps are heavenly.

 

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.

 

I got down to 15 and a quarter by eating far less. The problem was? I felt ill and weak all of the time and it just wasn't making me lose weight. I don't know whether I can attribute that to the meds I take (a lot, all known for making you fat) but yeah. I think the rest is going to need exercise, so this year I am going to wind down peeing with bikes and actually ride the things.

 

Started on the Orlistat 120mg a few weeks ago, one pill 3x a day. Over a stone down already. The orange poo's and not being able to trust a fart is a steep learning curve.

 

Relative fat mass and lean body mass, I expect.

 

Here we go again! I thought those 20k walks would do wonders for my weight but working in the Amazon warehouse over Christmas at odd hours in the morning required various Monster energy drinks to just get through the shift, told the manager to f*** off in the end and walked out.



Fortunately, I’m still in the same position where I can do exactly what I want (bar dropping the kids off and picking them up from school) so I’ve booked a beach music event in September and aim to just get in as best shape as possible.

Protein, creatine, Mct oil and lots of chicken, ditched the Huel because I want to build lots of size, this never ending cycle goes on.

 

Here’s a funny story for you all.

I was due to leave for mums last Saturday. I had one clean pair of jogging shorts left and had them on. As I went to get up to tip the cold coffee out before I left I tipped it all over my shorts.

Now as we know it’s been a bit warm. Unfortunately all of my shorts had been washed the day before and were still wet.

In a panic I looked through the bedroom drawers and found a pair of quite nice pocketed denim shorts. I searched for a belt before realising I didn’t have one but time was running out so I decided to leave. What I didn’t realise was that since wearing them last I had lost 7 inches from my waist. So whilst going down the stairs, hands full, they dropped to my ankles. Thankfully no one was in the building.

I then had to stand outside looking like I’d **** myself gripping tightly to my waist band.

Never again if that ever happens again I shall wear joggers and sweat a lot.

 

Tennis ball, golf ball, scrunched up paper, put in excess waistband, tie string around it, makeshift downsizer.

 

Made myself cry... Weight loss started on 4.3.2022. I've lost an insane 32.2% of myself which puts me slightly under 100kg. Last time I was this light was late 1991, grew up fast and fat: 6ft and 100+ kilos at 13 in Jan 1992

Calorie counting, portion size control, six small meals a day, treats allowed. That's it

Weight loss be damned, today is a double treat day