Three week weight loss challenge - update

Just a quick update - not going so well at the moment.

After my last post which said that my weight loss was on track, I somehow managed to get all the way back up to 103kg, and now have come all the way back down to 101.3kg.

To meet my challenge, I need to lose 4.3kg in 9 days. Now even I know that would be impossible/reckless.

But I'm taking some comfort out of the fact that I've managed to drop some weight, and aim now to lose another 1.3kg in the next 9 days (which sounds sensible) and will at last get me back into double figures for the first time in probably a year.

Also, I went out for a bike ride around Richmond Park on Sunday. Despite having been held up by cars on three of the fastest stretches, I was able to complete the loop in the third fastest time since I started recording them a few years ago - which was nice.

If the weight loss continues, hopefully I'll be able to beat my best!

Here's something else to throw into this post - I'd very much appreciate your thoughts on it.

As anyone who has read any diet book from the last ten years knows, the experts say that it's not the amount of calories you eat, but what proportion of fat/carbs/protein you eat, or when you eat, or when you starve, or whether you're eating right for your body type, or blood type, or your ancestral hunter/gatherer type, or whether you chew or not, or whether you eat carbs after lunchtime, or whether you eat many small meals throughout the day etc. etc. etc.

The thing I've come to realise is that for every theory, there is a completely counter theory. There are, however, a few things which I think do make sense:
1) Lots of water - your cells need it, and your liver needs it (and as your liver controls insulin, sugar metabolism and fat storage, it's a good idea to keep him happy)
2) Not too much alcohol - lots of calories, dehydrates your liver (and makes him unhappy) and makes doner kebabs too appealing to resist
3) Lots of vegetables - generally low calories, and packed with minerals and vitamins and stuff
4) Restrict carbs other than for breakfast - not for any special reason other than (i) they are packed with calories which you probably don't need at any time other than breakfast, and (ii) when I eat carbs at lunchtime, I feel sleepy in the afternoon
5) Restrict chemicals (processed foods, any drink which isn't water, tea, or fresh fruit juice) - I'm not saying here that it's impossible for our bodies to deal with chemicals (as some diets try to say) but that they need to be filtered out someway, which puts more pressure on the liver.

Other questions I don't have much of an opinion on:
1) Red meat, white meat or fish? No idea. Fish is meant to be good for you but full of pollutants and/or unsustainable. White meat is lower in fat than red, but has less nutrients such as iron. Red tends to have a bit more fat. So I generally eat a mixture
2) Small meals throughout the day, or three standard meals? I always bought the 'small meals keeps your metabolism ramped up' argument, but I'm not so sure... And apparently new research suggests it's not true.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Currently it seems like I'm losing weight with them, it allows me to have evenings out with friends without feeling like an outcast, I have more energy, I'm getting good sleep, and I'm not feeling too hungry or irritable...

Would this work for you?

Weight loss story - day 7 of three week challenge

My three week challenge to lose 6kg in three weeks is going ok at the moment. If I lose another 0.3kg today, then I'll have done 2kg in 1 week which is right on track.

I know that I'm not doing this in a healthy sustainable way, and this is 'crash dieting', but I just feel I need to get at least some control back over what I'm eating.

So basically I'm not eating very much, but still continuing to exercise. On Monday I got my bike around Richmond Park again - in a reasonably respectable time too given the strength of the wind. And last night I hauled my lardy a*s around Kensington Gardens... Slowly, but at least I made it.

I was reflecting on the last time I lost a lot of weight. I probably lost about 12 to 15 kg six years ago when I was going through a nasty break up - she was cheating with someone I thought of as a friend (he was married). I even called him up when we broke up asking him for advice without knowing she might even have been there with him at the time...

Anyway, my appetite was shot, but it did let me lose a lot of weight - which also seemed to help the subsequent dating (!)

I know that I'm not going to get down to that very low level of eating. Certainly not for the couple of months I did it for that time. But what I am finding interesting is that after the first five or six days of feeling very hungry, the body seems to adjust and the severe hunger pains seem to go away, allowing me to control more carefully what I eat.

I'm sure people will think I'm crazy for not trying to lose weight in a more sensible way, but all I know right now is that it seems to be working (even if early days)...

Day 1 of three week weight loss challenge

So, after my horrible body fat percentage result, I promised to update you daily on progress towards losing 6kg in 3 weeks.

Day 1
Current weight - 102.7kg
Lost - 0.3kg
Weight to lose - 5.7kg

Plan for weekend (including Monday as it's a public holiday in the UK):

Saturday morning - 5k run, again the excellent Wimbledon Common Time Trial
Sunday morning - 40k bike ride in Richmond Park
Monday - gym session (intervals)

Will try to post my weight over the weekend...

New Year's Resolutions!!!

Wow - doesn't 4 months go fast?

Well that's the last time I posted as The Fat Runner. Since the Nike 10k, the amount of running I did went down sharply. A couple of colds in October, a lot of travelling in November, and then the party season in December, coupled with the dark and cold mornings/nights gave me enough of an excuse to persuade myself that it was ok not to go running.

But now is the time for New Year's Resolutions - time to forget about all of the bad habits and to leave them behind, and think only to what you can do now!!

So, here I declare to the world (well at least the world which reads this blog) to:
a) go to the gym 100 times this year
b) on top of this, run a total of 300 miles
c) on top of this, cycle a total of 1,000 miles

This is actually quite a target to go for, and I'll keep you updated as I go.

But, in the luxury of armchair planning, this is what it might look like:

Monday morning - 7am gym
Tuesday evening - 3 mile run
Thursday morning - 7am gym
Saturday morning - 3 mile run (the Wimbledon Common Time Trial)
Sunday morning - 20 mile bike ride

So this doesn't look impossible. But then I ask myself why I haven't been able to do a schedule like this for the last 5 years or so?

Is work the reason?

No - I used to work just as many hours - perhaps more - in my mid 20's but was still able to get to the gym 3-5 times a week.

Is socialising the reason?

While it is true that I spend more time socialising now than I used to, I can't blame that on my lack of progress on my fitness goals.

Is family life the reason?

Ahhh - perhaps we're on to something here. I LOVE spending time with my wife, and given the choice of going for a run or being with her, then it's too easy to choose the latter. I was having a chat with one of my colleagues about this - his wife is just about to give birth to their second child, and yet he is able to go for a long bike ride and a short bike ride per week, and has the same job as I do. His secret was to specify "Me time" with his wife.

Me time - what's that?

It's time which they both specifically set aside for themselves as individuals - he uses his to go cycling and she uses hers to go to art galleries and museums (she works for an auction house).

So I had a similar conversation with my wife this morning and shared with her the above schedule.

The schedule starts when I get back to London (I'm in Sweden at the moment, it's -5 deg C and too cold to run). I'll let you know how I get on - let's see if I can resist the temptations of my wife!

Happy 2009!

Rapid weight loss

A bit of a funny week this has been... But a good one!

When TFR weighed in before the Wimbledon Common Time Trial 5k, he weighed around 100 kg (Saturday 23rd).

His WCTT run performance was dismal. Although he felt great around the whole course, and overtook a few people on each lap, when the clock finally stopped, it was very much the wrong side of 30 minutes... He was at a complete loss to understand why, although a bit of analysis on the Garmin Training Center software showed why. When compared with other (faster) runs around Wimbledon Common, it became clear that the run felt easy because it WAS easy... Basically, he didn't push himself hard enough - his heart rate was a good 5 beats per minute lower for the duration of the run...

So anyway, 100 kg on the Saturday.

Then his weight started to drop throughout the week, so that only 6 days later, he is weighing 3 kg less!!

So what might be the reasons for this?

1) Venom Hyperdrive!!! Actually, no. He hasn't been taking VH for a long time (and never really took it consistently... He has a stressful enough job without adding further anxiety with caffeine pills and other 'metabolic enhancers' in VH

2) Exercise? Well he's done a bit more this week than normally - a 1.5 hour bike ride (around 20 miles) on Monday, and a 30 minute run around Kensington Gardens on Wednesday evening

3) Diet? Not sure - although his lunch has become healthier (the Pret a Manger chicken salad rather than a big toasted sandwich) he has still been having a few drinks in the evening. In fact, yesterday's intake consisted of the salad, 1.5 bags of crisps, a few cans of diet coke, two slices of ryvita with smoked salmon, some shepherd's pie and two glasses of champagne. Not obvious diet food!!

So he's at a bit of a loss to explain why this is happening, but it has given him the motivation to watch what he eats more closely. In fact, he was in the office canteen this morning, where every friday they provide free sausage and bacon baguettes (and they're good!) but he went for the muesli instead.

The good thing is that he'll be hauling around 3kg less in this weekend's Nike 10k race.

Talking of which, I must be going so I can pick up my race pack!
Sun 99.1
Mon 98.6
Tue 98.2
Wed 97.7
Thu 97.3
Fri 97.1

The Fat Runner becomes the Fat Cyclist

The Fat Runner used to be a cyclist before he was a runner. A childhood spent racing BMX bikes at regional level, and then graduating to a bit of mountain bike racing before deciding to get a road bike (as mountain biking in London can be a little pointless...)

But since he moved out of his house and into a second floor flat, his bike has hardly been used.

That was, until last weekend, when he bit the bullet and decided to give his bike an overhaul (inspired by a conversation he had with a colleague while waiting for a plane to Madrid).

Six hours later (there was quite a bit of work to do) he took his bike down to Richmond Park for a lap. The whole ride was around 20 miles, including the 7 mile lap around Richmond Park which he did in 24 mins 30 seconds. This is quite a way off what he was able to do (around 22 mins 15 seconds) and still short of what is seen as the unofficial target for Richmond Park of 20 minutes.

But he's quite happy - this being the first time he had been out on a bike for over a year. But clearly there is room for improvement!!

He'll be trying to finish work early over the next few weeks to see if he can get any more rides in while the nights are still relatively long.

While the cycling is unlikely to improve his running directly, he's hoping that he will have increased fitness and more weight loss so that his running will at least improve indirectly...

I'll keep you updated on how he does!