Well my friends I’m very sorry for the lack of updates over the last week but there’s been a lot going on. Anyway, weigh in stuff first. As I couldn’t make my official weigh in this week due to the mother in law’s birthday this one is unofficial. I lost another 3lbs in week 2 of route to management. My morning true weight currently stands at 13 stone and 6lbs and a BMI of 25.5. A far cry from the 22 stone I nearly weighed just 22 weeks ago. I’ve been getting more and more comments about me looking a bit skinny but they do tend to come from the same people. I think maybe it says more about them than me but with that said I don’t want to lose any more and I’m sure it’s being said with the best intentions. It doesn’t make it any easier though. The funny thing about this situation is that I feel like I’m eating ALL the time. I’m not sure how I can up the calorie intake to stop the weight loss. I’m hoping it’s all to do with ketosis. As today is day one of week 3 of the Route to Management plan I can now have low GI fruit. It’s quite a long list and includes the likes of apples, pears, nectarines, Sharon fruit and 100% fruit juices along with a loads of others. I would imagine that eating this is going to pull me out of ketosis due to the natural sugar content and therefore out of the fat burning zone. Problem here is that you drop another food pack in week 3 so not only am I trying to up my calories in general, I’ve now lost another 125 a day by losing the shake. I guess one of the problems is that all the foods on the allow list are so low in calorie that I’d have to eat a mountain of stuff. I’m hoping coming out of ketosis will stall my weight loss on it’s own but at the end of the day I’m still only having around 800-850 calories a day and burning 1100 a week on the treadmill. As I don’t know what my current metabolic rate is I have no idea how many calories I’m burning just sitting on my backside either. If all this sounds a tad on the confusing side then let me assure you it’s cos it is! My food diary has been the key though that’s for sure. I’m recording everything I’m eating along with the calorie/fat/carb content etc. I keep telling myself to enjoy eating quite a lot of food for a low amount of calories cos once the more complex carbs/ high GI stuff comes in during the later weeks, it’ll be much easier to up the calorie intake. Also, as the carb intake will be higher too, my body will turn to that for energy before fat. Phew, well that’s the theory anyway. So the theme this week is slight confusion but still on track. I’m confident that I’m following the plan and it’ll even itself out in the end.
I mentioned that I feel like I’m eating all of the time and well, I almost am! Allow me to give you a flavour. This is today’s menu. I’m even adding an egg to up the calories a bit…..
7AM – Mandarin Muller light yoghurt with a Sharon fruit
9:30am – peanut bar with coffee
11:30 am – Apple
13:30pm – Mushroom soup
4pm – pear
7pm – Salmon fillet with hard boiled egg and Salad
8pm sugar free jelly with fat free fromage frais.
Now that’s quite a lot but it’s still less than 800 calories and only contains 26g of fat (7g saturated). 74g of carbs though so my experience with the Atkins diet tells me that should deffo bring me out of ketosis. With a bit of luck my glycogen stores will begin to refill too now so I’ll start putting a few pounds on and ‘plumping up’ a bit. With that said though, today is treadmill day so my net calorie intake is still only gonna be around 500. I’m reluctant to slow it down though as I’m enjoying the treadmill at the mo. Anyway, also new on the menu this week along with whole eggs, fruit and extra veg is some more protein choices. Most meat types are in now and I’m considering some steak at some point this week. I must admit I’m liking the protein and salad combo I have going on right now in the evenings. I guess it’s with the snacks that I need to be more inventive. A 2 egg omelette with ham and pepper is on the cards at the weekend so I’m looking forward to that for a bit of a change. May even be a rebel and sneak a bit of ketchup too. I’m gonna be adding in a glass of orange juice from tomorrow too. That’s an easy 100 calories right there.
So I’ve had a couple of developments that have kept me away from the blog this week, one was about preparation for deviating from the plan and the other was more emotional and an eye opener. Anyway, the practical. I ate in an Indian restaurant last night! This is where I deviated from the plan. I had some off the bone chicken tikka as my protein which was fine but I also had some mushroom and cauliflower side dishes. Now I’m not supposed to be having cooked veg and I’m sure there were some things in the cooking process that I’m not supposed to have either but, as you can tell from my last post, I’m not going to worry about things like that. I’m pleased to say that the meal was really nice. Had my fill, stopped, and was satisfied that I got through the challenge relatively unscathed (apart from some serious wind!). Just goes to show that it can be done and that there ARE relatively healthy options when it comes to a take away.
The second challenge was more professional and involved a potential take over/merger of the company I work for. Now I survived a take over about 18 months ago at my last company and it was a very stressful and worrying time. I guess you can see where this is going. Long time readers will know that I’ve just mentioned the two magic words when it comes to the emotional eating side of my weight problems. When I worry, I eat. Well, at least I used to. It was a bit of a wake up call to be honest. I think my overeating demons are always going to be there. God that sounds dramatic. What I mean is that I’m going to need to be conscious of the reasons behind my past over eating cos when all this came to light two days ago, I really wanted to eat. I mean, REALLY wanted to. Anyway, I’m not going to go into it too much but what I can say is that I recognised the trigger and dealt with it head on by going straight for the treadmill when I got home instead of the biscuit tin. Feel the burn! After a workout on there I felt much better. The decisions when it comes the future of the company are certainly not made by me. There’s nothing I can do about to so why worry?
So I guess it’s been a week of successes too. I feel particularly educated this week both in the ways of a healthy diet/eating plan and the emotional aspects of comfort eating. Writing this has got me thinking about the situation in more detail actually and to be honest, I’m very happy with the way it went. I think I’ve mentioned before that I can pinpoint the two moments in my past where it all changed. The first was going on a lad’s holiday when I was about 19/20. I was going to the gym every day and feeling good but after that holiday, I never went back. The second was when I stood on those scales and it refused to give me a reading. That was the day I decided to start lighterlife. I think I can now add a 3rd day to the list. Tuesday. The day I stressed out and didn’t crack. I don’t even want to think about the potential downward spiral if it went the other way.
G
P.S. I won’t leave it so long before the next update.
P.P.S. Note to self: talk about the lighterlife RTM CD in the next post. Cracked me up at the time but the above now makes me think it’s true!
