Death by diet

Tragically, a British bride-to-be died this week, with many pointing the finger at her low calorie diet as being the reason for her death.

Samantha Clowe was 34 years of age and had been following the "Lighter Life" diet for eleven weeks, losing over 3 stone (42 pounds, 19kg) in the process.

Unfortunately, Samantha is not the only one on the "Lighter Life" diet who has suffered.

In 2006, Matilda Callaghan died after losing 10 stone (140 pounds, 64kg) on the diet.

Last year, Jacqueline Henson (a mother of five), died three weeks after starting the Lighter Life diet. The diet apparently suggests drinking 4 to 6 litres of water per day (140 to 210 oz). She drank four litres in two hours, causing her brain to swell, leading to her death.

Sarah Barker was also on the Lighter Life diet - shedding 11 stone (154 pounds, 70kg) in eight months in 2006. However, Sarah now blames the diet for continuing muscle pains, poor vision, memory loss and tiredness, three years after having given up the diet.

In 2007, Christina Massingham began the Lighter Life diet to reduce her weight from 22 stone. Within less than a year, she had lost over 11 stone and tried to start eating normally again. Unfortunately this didn't work and she ended up losing a total of 13 stone, and was diagnosed with anorexia.

Before I get sued, I need to stress that no inquest was able to prove a direct causal link between the diet that these women were on and the tragic consequences.

It's also worth pointing out that, on the newspaper websites on which these stories are reported, that there are a substantial number of comments from people who have followed the Lighter Life diet, lost substantial amounts of weight, and have kept it off. There are also comments from people who have lost a lot of weight and then regained most or all of it, or sometimes regained even more than they lost in the firt place.

So why am I writing about these tragic stories? Because I was worried that I too may be losing weight too quickly and risk having similar effects. My weight loss is currently averaging around 1.5kg per week - equating to around a stone per month. This is a similar rate of weight loss which these women were also experiencing.

On a bit of closer examination, however, I'm comfortable that the approach I'm taking is a long way away from the Lighter Life.

Firstly, the Lighter Life allows around 500 calories per day every day. I may get down towards that on my fasting days, but am substantially above that on other days, so overall I'm getting a lot more nutrition than anyone on the Lighter Life programme.

Secondly, much of the calorie deficit I'm creating is coming from exercise. The stories I read about these women suggested that exercise was not a large part of their programme.

Thirdly, I'm not intending to be cutting calories to the extent I am for any longer than three months - by that point I should be at (or close to) my goal weight of 85kg.

However, the question still remains around what is a 'healthy' rate of weight loss. Almost everything you read suggests that it is between 1 to 2 pounds per week. However, the I've yet to see the science behind why this is the right number, and not the 3 to 4 pounds per week which I'm currently losing.

Let's take the NBC show "The Biggest Loser".

The last winner of that competition, Helen Phillips, lost 140 pounds over the course of the show. Just taking the regular part of the show into account, when they had weekly weighings, she lost 91 pounds between week 1 and week 17 - over five and a half pounds per week.

Mike, however, lost 142 pounds over the same period - almost 9 pounds per week! To be honest, I don't understand how that is possible, as it equates to a caloric deficit of well over 3,500 calories per day and that's allowing for the fact that some of that weight loss will come from water and lean tissue and not just from fat. Creating that kind of caloric deficit (assuming that he's still eating at least something - 500 calories per day?) means that he is burning up over 4,000 calories per day, every day. Lots of lots of exercise - very impressive.

But these cases lead me to the conclusion that my, relatively modest, three to four pounds per week weight loss, is well within the range of being healthy.

You can keep up with my daily weight loss progress in the top right corner of my blog, or click on my "Losing Weight" page to see my daily weighings since I started trying to lose weight properly.

Weight loss mathematics

Being roughly half way through my weight loss programm, I thought I'd indulge myself in a little bit of mathematics to get an idea of where I might get to.

What I wanted to see is where my body fat percentage might end up if I hit my 85kg target.

To calculate this, I'll need to make an estimate of the proportion of weight I'm losing which is made up of fat, and how much from lean tissue mass. I'll also need to know my starting body fat percentage.

Well I reckon when I started this weight loss initiative that my body fat percentage was around 22% - this is at least what some scales in my holiday home say (I don't have body fat measuring scales at my normal home).

And reading a couple of research reports into restricted and very low calorie diets, it appears that between 80% and 90% of weight loss is from fat with the remainder coming from lean body mass.

So, putting all of that together gives me the following prediction - if I get to 85kg (my goal weight) then I'll have 9% body fat. Not the most amazing in the world, but equally well lower than average and it should mean that I'd have plenty of definition in my muscles.

So, here is the working:

At the start of this exercise, I was 102kg with 22% body fat - so lean mass was 79.6kg and body fat was 22.4kg (I hate to think what that would look like if made out of butter...)

If I lose 17kg and 80% of the weight loss comes from fat, then I will lose 14.4kg of fat and 2.6kg of lean body mass.

Therefore, I'll be left with 8kg of fat and 77kg of lean body mass with a total mass of 85kg - this equates to 9% body fat.

All very interesting in theory - so let's see if:

1. I can get down to 85kg


2. 80% (or hopefully more) of my weight loss is in the form of fat


3. I was only 22% body fat when I started this and not substantially more!

I'm not sure how long it will take to get down to my goal weight - I think it'll take me at least until the end of October - stick with me and we'll see if my calculations are right!

Losing Weight through Intermittent Fasting

In my last post which looked at my recent (and continuing) weight loss success, I promised to talk about how I had changed my diet to achieve this level of weight loss.

What I have been doing is a form of 'intermittent fasting' based on the book "Eat Stop Eat" by Brad Pilon.

Without going into the whole whys, wherefores, reasons and whatever around intermittent fasting, what it basically means is not eating for around 24 hours at time - and Brad recommends doing this 1 or 2 times per week.

Before I got the book, I had a handful of major questions, some of which were answered by the book, and others through my experience of sticking to the plan (which I have done now for just over 3 weeks).

Question 1) Would I lose weight - what about starvation mode?

Well I think that my weight loss results , so far, speak for themselves. I'm still continuing to lose weight although at a slightly slower pace than at the start. Initially, I was losing around 2kg per week, but this week it's more like 1.5kg. Not sure if this is a blip or not - we'll see over the next few weeks I guess.

I don't have body fat scales at home, so I can't tell you anything statistically about body composition, other than I look much flatter in the mirror.

In terms of 'starvation mode' then I looked up a few of the studies which Brad researched. There is a key study which looks at the impact of intermittent fasting on metabolic rate, lean body weight, body fat etc. The study (and Brad) point to the fact that the base metabolic rate of the subjects is roughly the same on fasting and non-fasting days to say that there is no drop in metabolic rate from intermittent fasting.

However, when you compare the metabolic rate 21 days after starting intermittent fasting, to the day before starting intermittent fasting, there is roughly a 10% drop. Before everyone screams "starvation mode!" let's compare that to the fact that these subjects are now ingesting almost 50% fewer calories. Therefore, the calorie reduction massively outweighs (no pun intended) the slight reduction in metabolic rate.

Furthermore, between 80% and 90% of the weight loss was in the form of pure fat, with the rest being made up of muscle. Again that gives ammunition to the 'starvation mode' camp - the fact that they lost muscle mass - but the vast majority of weight loss was in fat. Additionally, it is apparently normal for 'fatter' people to have more muscle mass than lean people anyway - we need it to haul our fat butts around! So when we lose weight, it only makes sense that we need less muscle...

Question 2) Would I feel sluggish the way I sometimes do if I get hungry?

From my experience so far, absolutely not. In fact, there is some research to suggest that metabolic rate actually increases slightly in the first 24 hours of a fast. Some have postulated that this is a sensible evolutionary trait - when our ancestors got hungry, they would need to be more alert and energetic so they could go out and hunt food. This makes sense to me (although I'm no dietician...).

Question 3) Would I feel hungry when fasting?

The biggest surprise to me is that I don't feel hungry when fasting. Well perhaps just a little bit but no more than usual. I used to hit 12 o'clock and immediately race out to get some food. Sometimes earlier. Now that I'm fasting, I realise that that urge to eat was not a need to eat - it was purely a learned pattern of behaviour that I'd need to unlearn. Just as someone may feel that they need a drink when they get home from work. They don't need that drink (unless they have alcohol dependency issues) - it's just a learned pattern of behaviour.

So when 12 o'clock comes around, rather than going to get food, I instead go to the coffee machine and get myself some green and peppermint tea which seems to satisfy my urge to put something in my mouth.

(By the way, I hate the taste of green tea but I hear that it's very good for you. So what I do is to put a green tea bag and a peppermint tea bag into the same cup so I get the benefits of the green tea but the taste of the peppermint tea. I've now noticed a number of my colleagues do the same now that they've seen my trick!)

Question 4) Is intermittent fasting healthy?

Well, as far as I'm aware no-one has proven that intermittent fasting is unhealthy. People have been able to prove that prolonged fasting or severe calorie restriction have depressed metabolic rate (although never enough to cancel out the impact of reduced energy intake on fat stores) and have reduced muscle mass (albeit with between 5 to 10 times as much fat being lost). I'm happy to take these two impacts along with the benefits of fat loss.

In addition, however, Brad'd book puts forward a bunch of different health benefits from intermittent fasting, including increased insulin sensitivity. In fact, it was this alone which made me look at the book in the first place. As an overweight (previously obese) person, I was at high risk of contracting diabetes and I wanted to make sure I didn't get there - hence trying to reduce insulin resistance.

Two of the other key benefits I have seen however as as follows:

Firstly, I just have much more time in the day. I no longer spend 10 minutes in the morning eating breakfast and tidying away. I no longer spend 20-30 minutes getting and eating lunch - instead I can work straight through and stay massively focused on what I'm doing.

Secondly, I have a completely different relationship with food. When I look at food now, I'm no longer eating because I feel massively hungry and just have to get food into my stomach. I'm far more balanced, and can make much more sensible food choices. I now ask myself what the food can give me, rather than just grabbing whatever is available. I actively choose salads and vegetables in restaurants now - not because I want to 'be good', but because I know that I want to get a bunch of vitamins and minerals into me.

Question 5) Would I be able to work out while fasting?

Apparently, adrenaline levels are slightly increased in the first 24 hour of a fast - for the same reason that metabolic rate increases. Which should mean that workouts should be just as effective (if not more so) when fasting.

However, I'm not quite sure how this works. Presumably in a fast, all of the muscle glycogen gets used up (that's why fat is being burned). But that means that when you work out, there is no muscle glycogen left meaning you need to burn fat instead, which is (as far as I understand) much slower to release energy. I'm going to ask Brad about this and see what he says.

My workouts have felt just as intense as before I started intermittent fasting - however I was not working out consistently before I started, so I don't have a quantified benchmark with which to compare my strength. What I am able to say, however, is that my strength has definitely increased WHILE I've been doing intermittent fasting. Not massively (I was always quite strong anyway) but it's definitely noticeable.

The thing which I find most puzzling at the moment is my 5k time, which has stuck at between 29:30 and 30:00 despite losing 6kg.

There are, potentially, a couple of explanations I can think of.

Firstly, perhaps the reduction in muscle mass is greater than I thought and I'm too weak to take advantage of the weight loss to run faster.

Secondly, perhaps the intermittent fasting means that I don't have enough glycogen in my muscles at the time I do my run to ensure a good performance.

Thirdly, perhaps it's just the impact of a substantial increase in training volume (mentioned in my last post) which means that my muscles are more fatigued than they used to be, masking any underlying fitness gains.

Fourthly, perhaps it's my running technique and that, whatever weight/strength/fitness I am, I won't be able to run more quickly with poor technique.

Right now, I'm thinking it's probably a combination of the second and third reasons. If I'm right, that should mean that I will start seeing gains in my 5k time soon, as the weight continues to drop off (as I won't be MORE glycogen depleted, or MORE fatigued than I am now). If I'm wrong, I'll look at getting my technique looked at.

Wrap up on intermittent fasting

So, there you have it - my experiences of intermittent fasting with Eat Stop Eat. If you're interested in more of the science behind the approach, as well as how to apply it, I'd recommend picking up a copy of the Eat Stop Eat book by clicking on the link.

Rapid weight loss success

In my last post which chronicled my own weight loss stories, I mentioned that I'd started on a radical new rapid weight loss regime, and that it was, to date, highly successful.

You may notice that at the top of the right hand column of my blog, I'm now posting my daily weight so that you can keep track of how I'm doing in my weight loss quest.

Also, here is a graph which charts my weight loss over the last three weeks.



So, basically I've lost 5.4kg (12 pounds) of weight in 3 weeks. Given where I want to get to (around 85kg or 185 pounds) that means I'm a third of the way already - and in only three weeks.

How have I been doing it? In essence, it's based on the principles which I identified in my last post which worked for me so well in my teenage years.

• Be active


• Eat less


• Get support

Be active

I have massively increased the amount of activity I do. I used to be lucky (if I'm honest) to get two runs or workouts in each week. Now I'm prioritising my health to the same level as my career success. This means that I'm running the Wimbledon Common Time Trial on a Saturday, having another run on Sunday, and then working out in the office gym two to three days a week. I'm following the principles of Turbulence Training which mean that I get a hell of a lot of exercise done in the gym in a short space of time. The Turbulence Training workouts are different to what I'm used to in three key aspects:

• Supersets. Supersets are combinations of two exercises which you do one after the other without a break. Normally they use different or opposing muscle groups, so that's why you don't need the break. For instance, bench press followed by abdominal crunches. Different muscle groups used, so why do you need a break? You don't. This means I can get through around 30 sets of exercises well within half an hour.



• Compound movements. Turbulence Training focuses on doing exercises which use a lot of different muscle groups at the same time, and also involve moving a lot of weight over a large distance to increase the amount of work you do in the workout - it can be rather intense! For instance, rather than using the hamstring curl machine, it advises doing a Swiss ball hamstring curl or Hungarian deadlifts - both of which force you to use many more muscles than just the hamstrings, and they also force you to stabilise your body through every move (so more of that 'core stability' we're all meant to be getting more of).



• Weights before cardio. I always used to do cardio before weights. Of course, if you want to put maximum effort into the weights, then you should be doing it the other way around. What I do find, however, with this is that the cardio suffers a little. Turbulence Training advises to do hard cardio intervals after the weight training, and sometimes it can be extremely hard to push out the final interval at high intensity, particularly if there have been a lot of leg exercises in the workout.

Overall, however, I'm very happy with Turbulence Training - it has opened my eyes to a lot more free weights exercises and body weight exercises, is very balanced across the major muscle groups, gives me a clear plan of what I'm going to be doing every time I step into the gym, and gets me out of the gym in the shortest amount of time possible.

The guy who wrote Turbulence Training - Craig Ballantyne - has a very good phrase to remember:

You can't out-train a bad diet

So in my next post, I'll cover what I've been doing on the eating front - it's worth reading as it's rather controversial.

My weight loss stories

As with most people who are overweight, I have been successful in the past at losing weight. Sometimes these periods have been a few months and sometimes longer.

So I thought I'd share with you some of my weight loss stories and then try to work out what made them successful and what I can learn from them.

Teenage weight loss

When I was 17 years old, I was already rather overweight. I can't remember my exact weight now, but it was certainly over 15 stone (210 pounds, 95kg). I had always been fatter than the other kids even though I was fairly active. At the time, British schools were good at making sure you had one swimming session, one PE (physical education) session, and one games session (anything from rugby to athletics) per week. On top of that, there were many after school clubs which I took part in such as football and basketball. Unfortunately, however, my diet was dreadful. The food at school didn't help (way too much fried and processed food), but I supplemented that at home with sweets and biscuits...

Anyway, I left school when I was 17 and had a "year out" between school and going to university. The first half of my year out was rather dull. I was too young to get a visa to work abroad (most countries require you to be 18) so I worked in a book warehouse. I'm not sure what it was, but I also decided that I'd make an effort to lose weight too. So my mother was helpful in making slightly smaller dinners, and I'd make sure that my packed lunch was also smaller. I still remember that the typical lunch was two slices of wholemeal bread with some ham between, and perhaps a bit of pickle. No butter.

Over those 6 months I lost around 3 stones (42 pounds, 19kg), which I think was pretty successful, and I largely kept it off for another three years. So what made it so successful - a couple of things I think:

• Firstly, I was always active - working in the warehouse I was always on my feet, pushing trolleys, and lifting large packs of books.
  
• Secondly, I was eating less - it wasn't just having the small dinners and lunches, but also the fact that while I was working it was not possible to snack.
  
• Thirdly, other people knew what I was doing. I think it was only my parents, but they were very supportive and helped me along the way.
  

The reason I put the weight back on? Actually it was when I was playing American Football at university and I simply needed more mass. So a lot of training and a lot of eating later, I'd regained almost every pound back (although admittedly much more muscle than before).

Break-ups are great for weight loss

Fast forward around a decade, and we get to the next time I was able to shed a lot of weight.

Since I left university, my weight gradually crept up from 210 pounds/95kg to more like 230 pounds/104kg. But that hid the fact that most of the additional weight was coming from fat and not muscle.

Anyway, towards the end of 2003, I had a rather bad break-up where the woman I was living with was cheating on me with someone I thought of as a friend. Before I found out that he was the reason she'd packed her things and left while I was on a business trip overseas, I even called him to ask for some advice!!

Anyway, needless to say I was feeling a little low and my appetite was absolutely shot. When I'd visit my parents and they'd cook my favourite Sunday roast, they'd only put a little on my plate because they knew I was having trouble eating, but I'd still not be able to finish it.

At the same time, I found it difficult to concentrate at work, so twice a day I'd need to leave my desk and go for a 15-20 minute walk to clear my head and refocus.

In less than 2 months, I lost over 28 pounds/12kg.

Getting into running

Since the break-up, I'd had a lot of fun and dated a lot of girls, which also resulted in a lot of restaurants and bars etc. And the weight came back on...

So the third time I successfully lost weight coincided with the time I decided I was going to start running. This was towards the end of 2004.

Along with running, I also started making healthier food choices, and I once again lost just over 25 lbs/10kg in around 2 or 3 months.

At the end of 2004, however, I met the woman who was to become my wife - and we ended up going to lots of lovely restaurants, not working out as much as we used to before (despite actually doing a few duathlons that year) and over 2005 I'd put most of the weight back on again...

Conclusions?

So what does this tell me?

Firstly, that whenever I've lost weight I've put it back on again. However, each time I've lost weight and gained weight, there have been rather large life changes going on at the same time. I can't imagine similar changes going on for the next few years, so I'm confident that if I lose weight now I'll be able to keep it off.

Secondly, I just ate a huge amount less when I lost weight. Now I know there are lots of people who will be screaming phrases like "starvation mode" and "metabolic slowdown" if I don't eat six meals a day, but I found that it worked.

Thirdly, each time I was also very active - either doing a manual job or exercising in some other way.

So that is going to be my plan of attack - substantial calorie restriction coupled with exercise.

And before a doubter says "it'll never work" or "you'll faint in your workouts" or "you'll lose more muscle than fat", I've got a secret to tell you.

I've started already.

I've lost more weight in the last two weeks than I've been able to shift since 2004, and I'm still going.

I don't feel drained in workouts.

I don't feel drained at work - quite the opposite in fact.

And my body shape shows that I'm clearly losing more fat than muscle.

I'll give it another week before exposing my full stats to you, but if you're interested in knowing the plans I'm following, then here they are:

My weight loss diet plan

My fitness plan

Simple weight loss rules

It seems that Mad TV has beaten me to finding the secret of weight loss.

Please view this video for the two simple things you need to do to lose weight...

Interval training and appetite

Rusty over at fitnessblackbook.com has just written an interesting post suggesting that interval training reduces appetite. Here is the link.

The article says that interval training reduces some compounds called catecholamines which reduce appetite. Looking up catecholamines on wikipedia gives us a few compounds we've heard much more about - adrenaline, noradrenaline and dopamine. Together, these compounds prepare the body for 'fight-or-flight', increasing heart rate, blood pressure, and blood glucose levels.

Presumably this is why these chemicals reduce appetite - it's hard to fight or run away if you're tucking into a hamburger(!)

To be honest, so far, I've not noticed a big difference in my appetite since starting interval training, though perhaps I'm not doing it religiously enough - either not long enough or not often enough. For instance, I haven't actually been for a run for a week (too many evenings out on work functions, and then the most unbelievably bad weather this weekend) so I'm going to need to step things up. After all, only 3 weeks until the Sam Run 10k!!!

Three week weight loss challenge success!

I weighed in this morning at 99.9kg, 20 days after starting my three week weight loss challenge. Therefore, I've lost 3kg! Not quite the 6kg I was hoping for when I first started, but it became clear that that target was neither sensible nor achievable in a sustainable way.

My belt is looser, my 5k time is a bit quicker, I feel better when I see myself in the mirror in the morning - all good!

I think the eating rules which I set out in my Three week weight loss challenge post have a lot to do with it. In fact, those eating rules seem to have generated quite a bit of discussion in the blogosphere.

One of the things I liked about them was that it was very easy to remember them, and therefore live by them. Any book you read on the subject is 150 pages or more of "eat that, don't eat that" with long "do/don't" lists at the back - impossible to memorise! But my handy five rules are so simple that anyone can remember them.

Within the discussion that my eating rules (note that I call them eating rules, not diet rules!) a few good thoughts came out - so I'm going to amend my eating rules (and add a sixth).

Firstly, I wasn't clear when I mentioned no carbs after breakfast. The carbs I was talking about were those calorie-rich carbs (processed and non-processed) like pasta, rice, cereal, potato, cous cous etc. I wasn't referring to other vegetables that also contain carbohydrate.

Secondly, I should have included a rule to always grill, bake, steam or stir fry whenever possible, and don't saute or deep fry.

So, my six golden eating rules for weight loss success are:

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 high-calorie carbs (pasta, rice, cereal, potato, cous cous) 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, additives and 'unnatural foods' (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
6) Always grill, bake, steam or stir fry whenever possible, and don't saute or deep fry

I'm now setting myself the next target - another 3kg in 3 weeks - which means I need to weigh 97kg by 12 June - which also happens to be the day before my birthday! I'm also going to be upping my exercise levels over the next few weeks (especially now that the weather is becoming so much better) and have found a couple of great websites/guides which focus on using compound exercises and 'functional' exercises for increasing fitness and strength and burning fat. I'll tell you more next time. Wish me luck!

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?

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...

Really fat runner - a call to action

A few weeks ago I was asked to try out the LA Fitness gym near where I work in London, and today I finally got around to the induction, which includes a "Health MOT".

While I was prepared for the normal discussion about BMI, I was very shocked by my body fat percentage.

My BMI just about puts me in the 'obese' range, now that I've let my weight creep up to 103kg. But I've always been able to justify that (to myself) by telling myself that I have a lot more muscle than other people (I used to spend a lot of time doing weights in the gym for when I used to play American football) so it's not such a good measure. I'm sure most sprinters, for instance, have much higher BMIs than the 20-25 range which is meant to be healthy.

However, the measurement of my body fat percentage was a huge wake up call. I'm still roughly the same weight was I was when I was in my early twenties, and back then I had my body fat percentage checked twice - and it was around 18-20%. On the high side, but far from terminal. Well, despite being roughly the same weight as I was back then, my body fat percentage is now around 30%. Another way of thinking about this is that I've lost around 10kg of muscle and gained around 10kg of fat in the last 10-15 years or so...

Jennifer, the trainer at the gym, was very diplomatic about it all, and has started me on a programme of mainly interval-based cardio for the next three weeks or so to get the routine back, and then we'll reassess.

In some ways, this is good news - it is motivating me to do something about it. If the measurements had come back with 20% body fat again, I could have decided that everything was ok and I had nothing to change...

So - the three week challenge I'm setting myself is to get down to 97kg. 2kg's per week from a lot more exercise than normal, and much more sensible eating. No more big bowls of pasta and pesto at night. Breakfasts every day. Grilled meat not fried. Regular (small) meals. More vegetables and fruit. More water. Less beer. Less diet coke. Take the stairs, walk to the shops, lose the car, use the bike, cut the fat off meat, less carbs, more protein, more gym, no slacking, no cracking...

I'll post my weight at the end of every post for three weeks.

Weight this morning - 103.0kg.
Weight to lost in 20 days - 6.0kg