Around The Waist – In 180 days

It was amusing that the other day I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen in around 6 months. After the usual pleasantries she then said ‘oooh you’ve kept the weight off then’ in an almost surprised way. I didn’t take offence at this, but it just goes to show that even after loosing a load of weight there is an expectation from people that I’m somehow going to return to my own weight and slip back to my previous weight.

In most cases when people loose weight they do really well, get to a goal weight and then in a short space of time they let it all slip, often putting more weight on than they’ve lost. I know, I’ve done it myself in the past. I think I’ve now passed the main danger zone of Christmas and have been pretty much the same weight for 9 months. As I’m training for a marathon I’ve got an aim in sight. After the marathon I have a number of other races planned and the key to my strategy is to keep something in the diary to make me maintain the success.

Reading the newspaper today, there was a story of a 17 year old girl who is topping the scales at 40 stones, but the sad thing is, she’d previously lot 15 stones and then put it all back on plus a lot more. I wish her well in her pursuit to loose the weight again, but I think her parents need to rise to the challenge too and stop buying her fish and chips.

My weight hasn’t changed at all in almost 6 months so I still get surprised when people don’t recognise me. Last week at a family funeral I bumped into a work colleague. I was surprised to see her there and asked how she knew my uncle, we had a discussion for a few minutes and she interrupted the conversation and said I’m really sorry but who are you!! I was taken aback because I’d talked to this lady on the phone only the day before. When I said who I was she did a double take before she realised it was me.

Sure enough, while I was doing a bit of charity work in a local supermarket today the same thing happened to me twice. Two people who I hadn’t seen for a while approached me to double check it really was me. I still get a buzz when I get unexpected compliments like that.

I was looking through my old photos the other night and realised that I had two photos taken at almost the same spot at the Hoover Dam (below). The first picture was taken at my peak weight of 127Kg, and the one on the right was taken at my goal weight of around 75Kg.

It seems a long time ago since I embarked on this journey. For those of you who’ve followed my progress you’ll know that I promised myself if I hit my target weight then I’ll return to Las Vegas and have my photo retaken at the top of the Stratosphere tower.

Well, the target was hit in July and I’m still around the same weight I was back then. So tomorrow I head down to London and then off to Las Vegas. I finally will be able to do a real before and after picture for the website.

Watch this space for updates.

So, two months have now passed since I reached my goal of 93.5kg. I’m pleased to say I’ve maintained the loss for 2 months without any difficultly at all, in fact, about a month ago I said my weight had settled at about 95.5 kg, well as of this morning I’m hovering around 94.1kg.

A fluctuation of a couple of kg is nothing really and I’m pretty pleased at how easy it has been to keep the weight off. To be fair, the amount of running I’ve done has increased and since my last post I’ve completed a couple of 10k races and the Great North Run.

As long as I don’t slip below 93.5kg again I’ll be pretty happy to continue as I am. I’ll soon be starting my marathon training so may need to find my optimum food / exercise balance to keep my weight steady, but it should be an interesting challenge.

I’ll keep you updated to my progress. Don’t forget my Fund Raising Marathon page is here – please support me.

So, I find myself at 31st August, a full month after hitting and indeed exceesing my target weight.

I am approximately 2kg heavier than I was this time last month which I’m happy with. My weight seems to have stabilised at around 95.5kg which keeps me just under 12 Stones.

As advised by the doctor I started re introducing a few carbs into my diet, slowly, but consistently. The 1st thing I noticed was the immedate hunger. I started off by eating a bowl of museli for breakfast which was very tasty, but by lunch time I was literally starving. The strategy was to increase the size of the portion from the recommended 45g to about 60g and it made all the difference.

I still find myself leaning towards foods with lower carbs and they are becoming my food of choice. So, pretty pleased that I’ve maintained the weight loss for the 1st month of being off the programme.

Keep looking back as I’ll be putting an update on at least once a month.

It’s been nearly a week since I hit my target and officialy stopped recording my progress on the site. I did mention a few weeks ago that I’d been to the doctors and had an ECG and a series of blood tests.

I am happy to report that the ECG and all elements of the blood tests came back well within the normal range and there is no further action required in any area.

I did discuss the phasing in of some carbs in an attempt to stabalise my weight at around the 75kg level. He advised that I shouldn’t over do it because too many empty calories will soon cause the weight to go back on. So, since last Sunday I’ve been introducing more carbs into my diet. I’ve been eating museli for breakfast and on a couple of occasions even had carbs in the form of pie and chips. I’ve kept the exercise up though and so far my weight has remained bang on 74.5kg, which is fine by me.

I haven’t really had any cravings for more carbs, although I have to say whilsts the museli breakfast was delicious, I feel peckish earlier than I did when I was knocking back eggs and bacon. Not sure if I need to up the portion size a little as I went for the recommended 45g with 100ml of milk which was about half a small bowl. Either way, it will work itself out.

This weekend I have 2 evening meals out with friends, but to compensate I am running a 10k race on Sunday morning.

I will do the occasional weight update on here for those of you who are tracking my progress.

Well, the 31st of July has arrived. It coincides with day 180 of my around the waist project. If you’ve been following me then you’ll know I started on a final push to loose weight in January and figured it would take 180 days to get to my target weight.

Back in August 2007 I returned from a holiday in Las Vegas. When I got the photos I was shocked at how big I looked. You’ve seen the incentive photo at the right hand side of the screen, well that was the one. Between 2007 and the end of 2009 I shed about 5 Stones. I managed to keep my weight consistent for almost a year. After loosing 5 stones I went to the doctor for a check over, pretty proud of my 5 stone loss. His comment was, “Well, another 4 stone off and you’ll be about there”. Whilst it was disheartening at the time, I was spurred on and this year I decided to go for a final push and get to the weight which the doctor said I should be. The dates worked out quite nicely and I set myself a goal of 80kg by 31st July 2010. In reality I smashed that goal in early June and have continued to loose weight. So, on Saturday 31st July my weight is at a new low of 73.5kg. I’ve not done many recent pictures of myself on the website, but here I am as of today:

While this part of the challenge is over, I need to move myself into a new lifestyle and maintain the weight. I don’t plan on loosing any more weight, so you won’t see any more charts on this site. Over the next few days I’ll be turning the site into more of a snapshot of what I did with the occasional new posting with how I’m keeping the weight off (hopefully). I’ll be making the pages retrospective.

As I promised myself back in January, if I hit the target then I’ll be going back to Las Vegas to have the photo above (left) retaken. It’s booked and I’ll be going in November 2010. When the photo is taken I will share it with you. That’s all I got to say today except to thank everyone who has supported me through this journey. Some friends, some family, some strangers. All of your comments are appreciated and helped me succeed.

If what I’ve done acts as an inspiration to others then great. If anyone wants to ask my any questions about what I’ve done, get in touch. My raw spreadsheet is available here if any of you wanted to use it as a template for your own weight loss plan.

Over and out………

Today I went to the doctors for a health check up. I’m delighted that he was extremely pleased with my progress and was genuinely surprised at my overall weight loss over the last 3 years.

He asked me for a breakdown of how I’d done it, what kind of food I ate etc and I was really pleased when he agreed with me that a low carb approach is a sensible one and that I’d done very well. He did suggest in terms of longer maintenance of my weight that I slowly introduce some carbs until I gain weight and then stop at that level. Sounds like a good plan to me.

My blood pressure is low-normal and my resting pulse rate is excellent too indicating a good level of fitness. They took some blood tests and an ECG. I’ll get the blood test results next week. The ECG came back perfectly normal. The only piece of advise I was given was to watch my protein intake as eating high levels of protein can be bad for the kidneys in the long term. The blood tests will give me an idea if there are any changes required in my diet.

So, all the people who have kept telling me that my low carb approach was ‘dangerous’, ‘stupid’ etc can keep their opinions to themselves because not only has the approach worked superbly well for me, but my GP is fully behind it.

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If you’ve been following my progress over the last 6 months you’ll know that my big incentive picture at the right hand side of the blog was taken on my last trip to Las Vegas. I weighed in at a whopping 20 stones. This morning I weighed in at a much healthier 11Stones 9 pounds.

Back in January I promised myself that if I get to my target weight I’ll go back across the pond and have the photo retaken in exactly the same spot. That spot being at the top of the Stratosphere tower in Las Vegas. Well I’ve now passed my target and into the final week of the weight loss journey I’m well ahead of where need to be to succeed by 31st of July.

So after a few hours research online I found a pretty good deal going to an excellent hotel later this year. I’ve chosen a better hotel than normal and direct flights because I want this trip to be memorable and a celebration of what I’ve managed to achieve over the last 6 months.