February 2010

After the success of January, I became more and more convinced about the "diet" being less than a bandwagon to jump on and off. It really was about a change of lifestyle, and that I should learn to adapt to the various things life tends to throw at you. OK, so my weight will go up and down, but I could learn to save some calories ready for the odd weekend out.

I signed up to a low-fat diet by following the WeightWatchers plan, which had worked well in short bursts for me in the past. WW assigns "points" based on a combination of calories and saturated fat contained in whatever you eat. The more calories, the more satfat, the more points it contains. Everyone gets a certain number of points a day and it's entirely up to you to decide how to "spend" them.

It's surprised me still how many points so many of the things I take for granted have. The first things to go were bread and chocolate and I stopped taking sugar in my tea.

A spoonful of sugar contains 25 calories. 4 cups of tea a day equates to a hundred calories. This is approximately 5% of the total calorific intake for a man. Shocking!

It was amazing what effect small changes could have.

Weight Change

I started tracking my weight every week at this point. These are my weigh-in results - I weigh myself every Thursday morning before breakfast on the same scales in the en-suite bathroom. I've also set alongside some comments I made at the time of recording my weight

11th February: 17st 0lb

18th February: 16st 11lb "Delighted. 3lb in just a week. Look forward to more of the same. Target is 16st 9lb for next week - should be OK as I'm just under the 16.11 ;-)"

25th February: 16st 7.5lb "What?! Too much to be believable I'm afraid. Although I know I've genuinely stuck to [WW] points this week, 3.5lb is a little on the high side. Expect 0.5lb next week, if anything."

Measurements

Not content with measuring what I ate and what I weighed, I thought it would be helpful to me to take some critical measurements. This is important for keeping up the morale when the weight loss isn't as expected!

Here are the starting points in all their glory...

Waist 122cm
Chest 114cm
Calves 45cm
Neck 46cm
Upper Arms 34cm
Thighs 61cm