Week 10

This week was one of those slow ones which always happen when you're looking forward to something - in this case, my next appointment with Vanusa, and the all important weigh in! However, there were a few days to negotiate before Friday came around.

The food continues to be great, though I have found the fasting morning to be a trial. I think I need to buy shares in garlic & chilli flakes, I'm getting through so much of the stuff! Nothing I'm cooking is particularly complex or complicated - it's just freshly made each day with fresh ingredients. Having the new oven is an absolute godsend, as most things just go into an ovenproof dish and get baked.

Breakfast - H makes the best scrambled eggs!

Lunch- chicken with broccoli & Cauliflower rice, with sweet potatoes.

Dinner - baked fish with beans & tomatoes. And lots of garlic!

On the exercise front, it was quite tricky this week - Gaby's been side-lined with a sprained knee, which meant a lot of ferrying the kids around for me. H & I did manage to ride to school a few times though, but I didn't get a jog until today - and that didn't go so well after 60km meandering around London on a bike yesterday! I didn't feel tired on the ride, or on the run, but I decided to walk home rather than push through a complaining knee! Definitely not a bad commute these days though!

Lots of people ask if I'm feeling better now. It's a difficult question to answer, as I didn't feel unwell before - just a fat bastard. Likewise, it's hard to say whether I have more energy, but it seems logical that I would have - and I've been out and about on a bike or on foot for the last few weekends, and haven't felt tired.

I feel much better *about* myself though - self-esteem is an important thing and maybe I didn't have much in recent years - for example, I was reluctant to take my shirt off on the beach, or to keep it off when I got out after a swim. I reckon that'll be different next year! I've also spoken about catching sight of myself in mirrors or shop windows when running past, and that's becoming less traumatic!

I'd definitely been taking umbrage with my darling wife trying to gently suggest that I needed to do something about my size. Like I've said before, it didn't seem that bad - though given I was heading for type 2 diabetes this time last year, I was obviously in denial. You get used to it, you get lazy, you settle - but this process has shown me that you don't have to do any of that. You can make changes - if you want to enough. So far, it's not been some kind of purgatorial denial of everything I enjoy - but I also know that this a 6 month process, and I have absolutely nothing to lose by taking it seriously and seeing where we end up.

Anyway, eventually Friday came around - exciting because it was my sister's 60th birthday, as well as me getting weighed! Ridiculous to be excited about weighing yourself, but it's a mark of the progress which is being made, and I like the stats! I cycled through a quiet Central London from Victoria to Oxford Street, and was on camera for the family zoom call we were having for  Alison's birthday. Very few people were around - but the Christmas lights & shop decorations were out.

At the clinic they had just got a new machine, so not much by way of statistical comparison with the last 2 weigh ins. But the body measurements were revealing - over 10cm off from my waist now! Little wonder all my trousers are falling down 😂 

More importantly, 85kg - which is over 13kg off in a little over 2.5 months. Another 10kg to go until I get to the target we've set, with 3 more months to lose them. The next phase is going to be more keto - and even fewer carbs. Vanusa asked me if I'd prefer rice or bacon! That wasn't a difficult choice, especially now that we've discovered how palatable cauliflower & broccoli rice is!

I was trying to visualise what 2 stone looks like - you can see below! It's 3 new-born babies! It's half a sack of potatoes. It's 13 bags of flour - you can't even pick that up in a supermarket. It still seems so surreal - I started this less than 3 months ago. I know that there's an initial fast loss, and the next 10 won't be as straightforward. I also appreciate the hard work of keeping it off is to come! 

Vanusa asked me the last time I had been 85kg, or a bit over 13 stone in old money, and the true answer was that I have absolutely no idea. I can't remember being 85kg. I reckon it's probably over 15 years ago though. Good grief!

See you next time!