2013 Slimming Thread

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Get a large Dog and take it walkies 3 or 4 times a day-at least 30 mins per session-and take your camera!

Weight is real pain,easy to accrue,hard to lose (unlike cash).
Eat as much fruit and veg as you can stand.
As soon as your head starts to think"food",scoff an orange or banana etc.
Throw your big Dinner plates away and buy smaller ones!
Avoid ANY kind of fast food,burgers,chips,kebabs.
MInimize Alcohol intake-you get p***ed,you feel hungry,bang goes sensible eating. Money saved will buy a new lens,tripod,camera:banana:


eddie no no no:jaffa:no no no
 
Today I had to wear a formal suit. I wore a white shirt with 17" collar. It was just a tad too large. My tie was worse. When tied, it would barely reach down to my belly button. Today, it reached to my belt and that's with both ends at an equal point.

In other news, I've been eating in excess of 1600 kcals this week (more like 2000kcals a day) and my weight hasn't shifted. Not sure if it's too short to be able to have an effect but I decided to take a break from dieting for a few days and next week I will formally get back into things.
 
Started in April at 16st 12lb and I'm currently 12st 1lb which I've now been floating around that for about 5 weeks or so.

Loosely followed the Slimming World diet which is basically cutting out most of the fat in your diet and all the crap that goes with it. Still eating plenty though, and feel much better for it. Actually forgotten I'd got hip bones :D

I did start some running, but had to stop due to a really bad bout of tendinitis and haven't got going again since, which is a shame as I was starting to enjoy it. Since the dark mornings and evenings the motivation to get out and jog has gone...unlike the keenness to sit on the sofa and eat maltesers which I can still afford to do.

Overall, the SW diet has worked out well for me, it's almost like a lifestyle choice rather than simply a diet. I'd just like to lose those few extra pounds to make it to the 4st and tone it up a bit round the middle!
 
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neil_g said:
diets dont work without an increase in exercise. trust me on that one.
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Unable to take exercise - I resorted to the Harcombe Diet to loose almost 70lbs in a year for my spinal surgery - I am a year out now and doing well.
Proves your statement incorrect.

For people who have difficulty in increasing output / movement - Take a look at the Harcombe diet the results are amazing - IF you stick to it.
 
LASTOLITE said:
Unable to take exercise - I resorted to the Harcombe Diet to loose almost 70lbs in a year for my spinal surgery - I am a year out now and doing well.
Proves your statement incorrect.

For people who have difficulty in increasing output / movement - Take a look at the Harcombe diet the results are amazing - IF you stick to it.
Click to expand...
To say exercise has any significance on weight loss is very wrong. I chaklenge anyone to find contradictory evidence of that.

A bit of a demotivator but it's true :)
 
Question I would ask then is how does weight loss work? If it's essentially calories expended>calories consumed, then surely exercise can help someone who is sedentary? As an example, I'm an office worker so I sit in a chair all day long. If I run and burn say 200kcals/day and ensure I don't change anything else, that exercise done say five times a week (1000kcal deficit) should help towards wt loss?

I know the evidence is v strong for reducing weight by reducing dietary intake.
 
omens said:
Question I would ask then is how does weight loss work? If it's essentially calories expended>calories consumed, then surely exercise can help someone who is sedentary? As an example, I'm an office worker so I sit in a chair all day long. If I run and burn say 200kcals/day and ensure I don't change anything else, that exercise done say five times a week (1000kcal deficit) should help towards wt loss?

I know the evidence is v strong for reducing weight by reducing dietary intake.
Click to expand...
Weight loss is so simple it always baffles me how people don't understand or make such a big deal out of how "hard" it is.

Your body is made up of living cells. Those cells require energy to work. A lot of that energy comes from stored fat. We are ALWAYS using stored fat. The reason why we don't lose or in enough amounts is simply because we are putting more back in. It's as simple as that.

Take this as an analogy...

Fill a glass up with water. Your goal is to remove all the water. Take out one spoon at a time...eventually the water will be gone. Now, do it again but for every 4 spoons you take out, put 2 back in. This is what usually happens at best with most people - they keep eating large amounts of fat in their diet and they use the same amount as they normally would, but sabotage their potential by putting some back in.
 
I disagree that it's solely down to fat intake. We know that the modern life involves a lot more carbs esp in forms of processed foods. But because we eat so much, it gets converted and stored into fat. IIRC although we used stored fat for general activity, we use glucose and glycogen preferentially during exercise.

With your analogy, I reckon people probably put back in 3.5 spoons rather than 2.

What do you think about eating fat before exercise? (reading some stuff about promoting fat use during exercise last night).
 
omens said:
I disagree that it's solely down to fat intake. We know that the modern life involves a lot more carbs esp in forms of processed foods. But because we eat so much, it gets converted and stored into fat.
Click to expand...

I didn't mean exclusively FAT, I meant any excess calories = fat.

omens said:
IIRC although we used stored fat for general activity, we use glucose and glycogen preferentially during exercise.
Click to expand...

Anything under 60% maximum heart rate uses predominantly fat as oxygen is in enough supply and it isn't necessary to use a faster source of fuel.

omens said:
With your analogy, I reckon people probably put back in 3.5 spoons rather than 2.
Click to expand...

...probably.

omens said:
What do you think about eating fat before exercise? (reading some stuff about promoting fat use during exercise last night).
Click to expand...

It would be incredibly unwise.

a) the goal is to reduce fat, not put it back in!
b) fat takes a long time to be digested, stalling anything else in the stomach. This means if you eat protein, fat and carbs together, it will be in the stomach for the next 1.5-2hrs before moving along the small intestine to be assimilated.
 
I wish I could remember what I was reading (have a habit of reading random stuff when I can't sleep), but it suggested that you could improve/induce lipolysis during exercise by consuming fat beforehand (not immediately).
 
omens said:
I wish I could remember what I was reading (have a habit of reading random stuff when I can't sleep), but it suggested that you could improve/induce lipolysis during exercise by consuming fat beforehand (not immediately).
Click to expand...
Whatever it was, it was wrong :)

You will use fat regardless. The amount used is down to;

a) intensity (the higher the intensity the more proportion of glucose from glycogen / amino acids).
b) glycogen storage level - the greater the glycogen storage, the less fat used as there is already a readily available source of fuel.
 
fatmarley said:
Thinking about starting the fast diet.
Click to expand...


My reply post vanished so here goes again.

April last I weighed just under 18st stood at 6'2", I had a double chin, belly that was too big, basically top heavy:(
As I write this I weigh 15 st lost my chin and 70% of my belly and learned how to shave the hollows in my face and neck. (just pull the slack bits tight) :)
My chose to go the fast diet route as it only has an impact for two days of the week Monday and Thursday were my choices, did let slip on holiday with no weight gain at all.
Weight loss was noted within ten days and was fairly constant, not dramatic. I have taken no extra exercise other than my normal walking out in the countryside with may camera, more so in summer than of late because of the weather stuff.
Having more energy was the first plus, second was I spent less money on food as I threw less away. Not found it difficult to stick with as over time your brain will automatically change your food choices.
My aim is to get to my weight when in my 30's approxx 13.5 st.

My tips.
Make a diet plan for your fast days to cover two weeks at a time, get the food in ready not a dash to the shops.

Count you calories, I stick to 500 cals on my fast days and never really feel hungry. I drink tea with a splash of milk as normal the occasional diet coke

Ignore low fat, light foods as in general the have a lots of sugar thrown bumping up the calories

Buy the fast diet book from a bookshop or as I did Kindle the book was written by the chap off the BBC documentary, I paid less than a fiver. It is very good at taking the guesswork away.

The book has all the calorie counting done for you plus a ton of recipes to choose from.

Stop buying processed food. buy decent whole meal bread not that white sliced crap.

Cut the plug of the microwave get a decent cooks knife and a chopping board.

My attitude to food has changed totally, still enjoy the odd chocolate bar and slice of cake and beer just go easy :)

Porridge, fresh veg, fruit and fish will be your friends and yes you will spend more time preparing and cooking but it's not so bad.

Over time you eating habits should change with little effort, It worked for me give it a try.
 
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Nikon Man said:
My reply post vanished so here goes again.

April last I weighed just under 18st stood at 6'2", I had a double chin, belly that was too big, basically top heavy:(
As I write this I weigh 15 st lost my chin and 70% of my belly and had to learned how to shave the hollows in my face and neck. (just pull the slack bits tight) :)
My chose to go the fast diet route as it only has an impact for two days of the week Monday and Thursday were my choices, did let slip on holiday with no weight gain at all.
Weight loss was noted within ten days and was fairly constant, not dramatic. I have taken no extra exercise other than my normal walking out in the countryside with may camera, more so in summer than of late because of the weather stuff.
Having more energy was the first plus, second was I spent less money on food as I threw less away. Not found it difficult to stick with as over time your brain will automatically change your food choices.
My aim is to get to my weight when in my 30's approxx 13.5 st.

My tips.
Make a diet plan for your fast days to cover two weeks at a time, get the food in ready not a dash to the shops.

Count you calories, I stick to 500 cals on my fast days and never really feel hungry. I drink tea with a splash of milk as normal the occasional diet coke

Ignore low fat, light foods as in general the have a lots of sugar thrown bumping up the calories

Buy the fast diet book from a bookshop or as I did Kindle the book was written by the chap off the BBC documentary, I paid less than a fiver. It is very good at taking the guesswork away.

The book has all the calorie counting done for you plus a ton of recipes to choose from.

Stop buying processed food. buy decent whole meal bread not that white sliced crap.

Cut the plug of the microwave get a decent cooks knife and a chopping board.

My attitude to food has changed totally, still enjoy the odd chocolate bar and slice of cake and beer just go easy :)

Porridge, fresh veg, fruit and fish will be your friends and yes you will spend more time preparing and cooking but it's not so bad.

Over time you eating habits should change with little effort, It worked for me give it a try.
Click to expand...
Well done on your loss :)
 
The only downside is my wardrobe is redundant...still sliding into those new 36" jeans ain't so bad. Need to hold off buying to many new clothes until I reach target weight.
With luck I'll finish up around end of February.
 
With the intermittent fasting diet, I ended up stopping eating bread and I rarely eat it now. It has also stopped me feeling peckish so I don't eat biscuits, crisps except very occasionally. It has restrengthened that link between eating and fullness that seemed to have disappeared.

Not sure how you guys did it but I basically had nothing all day (except sugar free red bull and water), and ate a meal in the evening that I'd calculated to 600kcals (using myfitnesspal app). On the non-fasting days, I was still consuming around 2400kcals but I managed to reduce this to 1200-1400kcals which is where I'm at and am struggling to lose more weight.
 
Bit late to this thread but around two years ago I weighed 323lbs (23ish st) as of last week I'm down to 200.6lbs (14ish st) I say as of last week because last Thursday I had a tummy tuck.

Well done to everyone who is/has or thinking about loosing weight, it's not as easy as people seem to think but it will be worth it.

Thanks

J
 
vdubster said:
Bit late to this thread but around two years ago I weighed 323lbs (23ish st) as of last week I'm down to 200.6lbs (14ish st) I say as of last week because last Thursday I had a tummy tuck.

Well done to everyone who is/has or thinking about loosing weight, it's not as easy as people seem to think but it will be worth it.

Thanks

J
Click to expand...
Jeeeze that's a big shift... got a before and after??

Good for you!
 
vdubster said:
Bit late to this thread but around two years ago I weighed 323lbs (23ish st) as of last week I'm down to 200.6lbs (14ish st) I say as of last week because last Thursday I had a tummy tuck.

Well done to everyone who is/has or thinking about loosing weight, it's not as easy as people seem to think but it will be worth it.

Thanks

J
Click to expand...

Thats going some mate...

Suppose I aught to throw my 2 pennorth in, though to be honest, 2013 hasn't really been about slimming for me, more about getting fit.

Wind back to July 2011... I was at a bit of a low ebb. My best mate from way back at school had just died out of the blue of heart failure. Came home from his job as a landscape gardener, lay on the settee after dinner, fell asleep and never woke up. His old lady found him the next morning, still on settee - went over to give him a shoe-ing for kipping on the settee and leaving the telly on all night to find him dead.

Meanwhile, I'd been out on my MTB and managed to get myself whipped by a bramble that was below dog-pee level - I came home, cleaned up the cut, but something had already got into my system, and I ended up with a dose of Invasive Celulitis... it's not nice, and be careful if you google it - i've deliberately not put a link in, as the pictures are generally very unpleasant.

Anyhoo - went to the Doctors, and had it diagnosed, and he said "Okay, you need a course of antibiotics - we need to give you a very high dose, which is based on your body weight... how much do you weigh ??" my honest reply was "I don't know - my scales only go to 21stone, and it just goes "ERR" when i stand on 'em" So - I got to stand on the doc's heavy duty balance scales and was told I weighed 180.4kg. I nearly fell over. The doctor proceded to write me a script for the strongest antibiotics he had, and said "it says 1 a day. Take 2, one after breakfast and the other 12 hours later. You weigh so much, you need that much. Come back in 3 days and if they're not working, you'll have to go into hospital for IV antibiotics. When you come back in a couple of days, we'll discuss your weight as well"

So 3 days later, I limped back up there, the tablets were working, and we had the discussion that changed the direction of my life. Doctor began "Well Mark, do you have a personal pension scheme? Because if you do, and you don't do something about your weight, you may as well stop paying into it, because there's no way you'll draw from it!" He then went into all the different options that he could offer me in terms of support. This began at Gastric Band Surgery, and went down via Fat Blocking tablets through to Weight Watchers "on prescription"... I think I amazed him by saying "Can I just try it by good old willpower, a sensible diet, counting calories and getting some exercise?" - "Do you think that'd work Mark?" he said... "I don't know Doc, I've never tried, that's why I'm so fat I guess! BUT i'd like to try if you'll give me the support I need... A proper full - checkup to see if I'm fit enough to exercise, and regular monitoring..." "Done!" - he then proceeded to give me a really thorough checkup, taking samples of pretty much any bodily secretion short of earwax and one other... I also got a script for another 3.5 day course of antibotics and was sent away to keep a food diary. This was pretty easy, because the antibiotics pretty much meant I couldn't keep anything down, and anything that did stay down, didn't remain in my system for long anyway.

When I returned 7 days on from my initial contact, he had a string of results - basically it went "Heart Rate - normal, Blood Pressure normal, actually lower than mine, Cholesterol - fine, diabetes - not a sign of it. Basically Mark, you're a bit of an anomaly, the only thing that's wrong with you is that you're very, very over weight - actually morbidly obese, but at the moment theres NO sign of any of the problems it could cause - but that's not going to stay like that, if you keep this weight on. So lets do something shalll we..."

He also referred me to the local hospital for a Dexa body scan, which is used mainly to assess bone densities - as my Mother suffered with osteoporosis, and my Dad had also had problems with a broken Hip earlier, he was worried that any drastic dieting may have effects on the bones (especially as I had had a major reconstructive job done on my thighbone after a nasty RTA) - but as a useful spin-off, it also gave a on-going, relatively accurate body fat % reading. I'm still getting referals for this every 6 months...

Anyhoo - I got on with sensible eating, exercised a fair bit (lots of bike riding as it was something I could do for 2-3-4-5 hours at a time without getting bored), logged my intake and exercise burn using a really handy website (www.myfitnesspal.com) and until the end of 2012 the weight came off quite successfully. By the beginning of this year i'd hit 110kg. At this point, my Doctor said "I think my recommendation now Mark would be to stop trying to lose weight as such, and concentrate on working on getting fit now. Think of it as restoring a car - you've done a marvelous job on sorting out the bodywork, now it's time to work on the engine and handling." So, I've switched my emphasis in training on the bike to getting faster and better at climbing. I do the odd strength and core exercise session, but as far as the fueling, I've not really worried about losing weight per se. As such, I've actually only lost 2kg since January - HOWEVER, according to the last Dexa scan last week, they reckoned I'd lost nearer 10kg of body fat - therefore i'd put on quite a bit of Muscle - this being borne out by my dropping 2 sizes in my Jeans since last Christmas - not something you'd expect on a 2kg loss...

I've no pictures of myself at the highest weights, as frankly, I couldn't bear to even look in a mirror, never mind take photo's of myself - or publish them on here. However, just for comparison, I do have a shot from July 2009, and a comparison from earlier his year.

1278-1386243277-1368304da2a475c80c8369ceab47c9a3.jpg


Still a work in progress, but i'm getting there...
 
Hi Guys. Very late to the party here and just noticed this thread. I've been dieting for 6.5 weeks. I've been sticking to 1500 cals a day and I've lost around 16lbs in that time. I'm 6 ft and weighed just under 15 st 8lb I'm now 14st 6lb. Pales into insignificance reading some of the really impressive losses people have posted above.

Although it doesn't seem like I'm that overweight I have to tell you that I'm one of nature's skinny folk. I have thin bones and I reckon my healthy weight would be at the very most 11.5 stones and really probably no more than 11 stones, so I've at least 3 stones to go. I've been told by the hospital that the weight has affected my liver a bit ( not massively but enough to take notice ) so needs to go. My target is to reach that by end of May next year.

Looking at some of the suggestions and accounts above has given me ideas to try and encouragement so thank you everyone for posting.

The thing that bothers me is that I have a hugely chubby neck and triple chin and I'm a bit concerned the skin will flap around like a pelican once the weight comes off. I'm not really super rich and can't afford surgery to help with it and I doubt the NHS will foot the bill these days so its a bit of a worry. Looking at your pics, Mark seems yours worked out pretty well though, so I hope mine does too.
 
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TheBigYin said:
Thats going some mate...

Suppose I aught to throw my 2 pennorth in, though to be honest, 2013 hasn't really been about slimming for me, more about getting fit.

Wind back to July 2011... I was at a bit of a low ebb. My best mate from way back at school had just died out of the blue of heart failure. Came home from his job as a landscape gardener, lay on the settee after dinner, fell asleep and never woke up. His old lady found him the next morning, still on settee - went over to give him a shoe-ing for kipping on the settee and leaving the telly on all night to find him dead.

Meanwhile, I'd been out on my MTB and managed to get myself whipped by a bramble that was below dog-pee level - I came home, cleaned up the cut, but something had already got into my system, and I ended up with a dose of Invasive Celulitis... it's not nice, and be careful if you google it - i've deliberately not put a link in, as the pictures are generally very unpleasant.

Anyhoo - went to the Doctors, and had it diagnosed, and he said "Okay, you need a course of antibiotics - we need to give you a very high dose, which is based on your body weight... how much do you weigh ??" my honest reply was "I don't know - my scales only go to 21stone, and it just goes "ERR" when i stand on 'em" So - I got to stand on the doc's heavy duty balance scales and was told I weighed 180.4kg. I nearly fell over. The doctor proceded to write me a script for the strongest antibiotics he had, and said "it says 1 a day. Take 2, one after breakfast and the other 12 hours later. You weigh so much, you need that much. Come back in 3 days and if they're not working, you'll have to go into hospital for IV antibiotics. When you come back in a couple of days, we'll discuss your weight as well"

So 3 days later, I limped back up there, the tablets were working, and we had the discussion that changed the direction of my life. Doctor began "Well Mark, do you have a personal pension scheme? Because if you do, and you don't do something about your weight, you may as well stop paying into it, because there's no way you'll draw from it!" He then went into all the different options that he could offer me in terms of support. This began at Gastric Band Surgery, and went down via Fat Blocking tablets through to Weight Watchers "on prescription"... I think I amazed him by saying "Can I just try it by good old willpower, a sensible diet, counting calories and getting some exercise?" - "Do you think that'd work Mark?" he said... "I don't know Doc, I've never tried, that's why I'm so fat I guess! BUT i'd like to try if you'll give me the support I need... A proper full - checkup to see if I'm fit enough to exercise, and regular monitoring..." "Done!" - he then proceeded to give me a really thorough checkup, taking samples of pretty much any bodily secretion short of earwax and one other... I also got a script for another 3.5 day course of antibotics and was sent away to keep a food diary. This was pretty easy, because the antibiotics pretty much meant I couldn't keep anything down, and anything that did stay down, didn't remain in my system for long anyway.

When I returned 7 days on from my initial contact, he had a string of results - basically it went "Heart Rate - normal, Blood Pressure normal, actually lower than mine, Cholesterol - fine, diabetes - not a sign of it. Basically Mark, you're a bit of an anomaly, the only thing that's wrong with you is that you're very, very over weight - actually morbidly obese, but at the moment theres NO sign of any of the problems it could cause - but that's not going to stay like that, if you keep this weight on. So lets do something shalll we..."

He also referred me to the local hospital for a Dexa body scan, which is used mainly to assess bone densities - as my Mother suffered with osteoporosis, and my Dad had also had problems with a broken Hip earlier, he was worried that any drastic dieting may have effects on the bones (especially as I had had a major reconstructive job done on my thighbone after a nasty RTA) - but as a useful spin-off, it also gave a on-going, relatively accurate body fat % reading. I'm still getting referals for this every 6 months...

Anyhoo - I got on with sensible eating, exercised a fair bit (lots of bike riding as it was something I could do for 2-3-4-5 hours at a time without getting bored), logged my intake and exercise burn using a really handy website (www.myfitnesspal.com) and until the end of 2012 the weight came off quite successfully. By the beginning of this year i'd hit 110kg. At this point, my Doctor said "I think my recommendation now Mark would be to stop trying to lose weight as such, and concentrate on working on getting fit now. Think of it as restoring a car - you've done a marvelous job on sorting out the bodywork, now it's time to work on the engine and handling." So, I've switched my emphasis in training on the bike to getting faster and better at climbing. I do the odd strength and core exercise session, but as far as the fueling, I've not really worried about losing weight per se. As such, I've actually only lost 2kg since January - HOWEVER, according to the last Dexa scan last week, they reckoned I'd lost nearer 10kg of body fat - therefore i'd put on quite a bit of Muscle - this being borne out by my dropping 2 sizes in my Jeans since last Christmas - not something you'd expect on a 2kg loss...

I've no pictures of myself at the highest weights, as frankly, I couldn't bear to even look in a mirror, never mind take photo's of myself - or publish them on here. However, just for comparison, I do have a shot from July 2009, and a comparison from earlier his year.

1278-1386243277-1368304da2a475c80c8369ceab47c9a3.jpg


Still a work in progress, but i'm getting there...
Click to expand...
That's a great story, with excellent progress. I like hearing about stories like yours - people that have clearly hit that part of their life where they turn themselves around and never look back. Excellent stuff.

...Probably should change your name to TheMediumYin though... ;)
 
wooster said:
Hi Guys. Very late to the party here and just noticed this thread. I've been dieting for 6.5 weeks. I've been sticking to 1500 cals a day and I've lost around 16lbs in that time. I'm 6 ft and weighed just under 15 st 8lb I'm now 14st 6lb. Pales into insignificance reading some of the really impressive losses people have posted above.

Although it doesn't seem like I'm that overweight I have to tell you that I'm one of nature's skinny folk. I have thin bones and I reckon my healthy weight would be at the very most 11.5 stones and really probably no more than 11 stones, so I've at least 3 stones to go. I've been told by the hospital that the weight has affected my liver a bit ( not massively but enough to take notice ) so needs to go. My target is to reach that by end of May next year.

Looking at some of the suggestions and accounts above has given me ideas to try and encouragement so thank you everyone for posting.

The thing that bothers me is that I have a hugely chubby neck and triple chin and I'm a bit concerned the skin will flap around like a pelican once the weight comes off. I'm not really super rich and can't afford surgery to help with it and I doubt the NHS will foot the bill these days so its a bit of a worry. Looking at your pics, Mark seems yours worked out pretty well though, so I hope mine does too.
Click to expand...
Another good set of results.

My response to the latter part of your post would be not to worry - it's a good loss in good time. I doubt you'll be pelicanfied. If you are worried about it then simply add a few more cakes in to your diet to slow the weight loss down - that will give the skin it's best chance of retaining that elasticity.
 
Cheers Phil. I don't need to be told twice to add cakes to my diet :)

Seriously though, I will bear your advice in mind and thank you.
 
wooster said:
The thing that bothers me is that I have a hugely chubby neck and triple chin and I'm a bit concerned the skin will flap around like a pelican once the weight comes off. I'm not really super rich and can't afford surgery to help with it and I doubt the NHS will foot the bill these days so its a bit of a worry. Looking at your pics, Mark seems yours worked out pretty well though, so I hope mine does too.
Click to expand...

One of the reasons I decided to "work on the engine not the bodywork" this year was actually to give myself a chance for the skin to "rebound" a little... being the wrong side of 50, it's fair to say that the skin isn't quite as elastic as it used to be, and frankly, last Christmas there was a distinct air of "Shar Pei Puppy" in a few areas, but sensible eating and exercise seems to have allowed most places to be considerably better than 12 months ago.
 
Yes Mark. I'm 58 so I know the feeling ;) I'm going to just keep taking it easy with the weight decrease as Phil suggested and hope it doesn't happen
 
fatmarley said:
I've been away from this forum for a while and slipped back into bad eating habbits. Had a check-up at the doctors the other day and i'm 19 1/2 stone and my blood pressure is rather high. So for drinks, i'm only drinking water and tea with no suger.
Click to expand...

I'm now just under 18 stone, so i've still got lots to lose but i'm heading in the right direction. Don't know if my blood pressure is any better though...
 
I'm a bit late to the party too. Since August i've been trying to lose baby weight after really letting myself go while I was pregnant. A month after my daughter was born I was 14 1/2 stone, i'm now down to 12st 2lb. I don't really believe in BMI but i've gone from 29 to 24.7. I've been using a mix of racing after 2 kids and the hairy bikers book. Exercise is difficult with the 2 of them so I just try to keep active and eat healthy. I'm hoping to hit a target of around 11 stone so 1 more to go.

I love the Hairy Bikers diet food. It's proper, tasty food and my cooking skills have really improved. I try to do slow cook recipes as I can start dinner when the house is relatively calm in the morning.
 
Julie1979 said:
I love the Hairy Bikers diet food. It's proper, tasty food and my cooking skills have really improved. I try to do slow cook recipes as I can start dinner when the house is relatively calm in the morning.
Click to expand...

I keep meaning to pick up the second one of their books... Though I'm not buying it from the local Asda like I did the first one - while I was looking at the book-shelves, this old dear came up to me with a copy of their first one and asked me to sign it. She was absolutely convinced that I was Kingy... despite my not having a trace of a Geordie accent and considerably greyer hair - but she was having none of it. In the end I just said "Fair enough love, give us a pen" :lol:
 
TheBigYin said:
I keep meaning to pick up the second one of their books... Though I'm not buying it from the local Asda like I did the first one - while I was looking at the book-shelves, this old dear came up to me with a copy of their first one and asked me to sign it. She was absolutely convinced that I was Kingy... despite my not having a trace of a Geordie accent and considerably greyer hair - but she was having none of it. In the end I just said "Fair enough love, give us a pen" :lol:
Click to expand...

I have the 2 books and feel they are very similar. It's the yellow covered one I use most.

At least you made an old dear happy :)
 
I have to confess I've fallen off he diet. I'm in Bruges for a couple of nights and the bratwurst, chocolate, and waffles have proven too much for me. Still you need to be realistic and back onto the programme after Christmas.
 
TheBigYin said:
Thats going some mate...

Suppose I aught to throw my 2 pennorth in, though to be honest, 2013 hasn't really been about slimming for me, more about getting fit.

Wind back to July 2011... I was at a bit of a low ebb. My best mate from way back at school had just died out of the blue of heart failure. Came home from his job as a landscape gardener, lay on the settee after dinner, fell asleep and never woke up. His old lady found him the next morning, still on settee - went over to give him a shoe-ing for kipping on the settee and leaving the telly on all night to find him dead.

Meanwhile, I'd been out on my MTB and managed to get myself whipped by a bramble that was below dog-pee level - I came home, cleaned up the cut, but something had already got into my system, and I ended up with a dose of Invasive Celulitis... it's not nice, and be careful if you google it - i've deliberately not put a link in, as the pictures are generally very unpleasant.

Anyhoo - went to the Doctors, and had it diagnosed, and he said "Okay, you need a course of antibiotics - we need to give you a very high dose, which is based on your body weight... how much do you weigh ??" my honest reply was "I don't know - my scales only go to 21stone, and it just goes "ERR" when i stand on 'em" So - I got to stand on the doc's heavy duty balance scales and was told I weighed 180.4kg. I nearly fell over. The doctor proceded to write me a script for the strongest antibiotics he had, and said "it says 1 a day. Take 2, one after breakfast and the other 12 hours later. You weigh so much, you need that much. Come back in 3 days and if they're not working, you'll have to go into hospital for IV antibiotics. When you come back in a couple of days, we'll discuss your weight as well"

So 3 days later, I limped back up there, the tablets were working, and we had the discussion that changed the direction of my life. Doctor began "Well Mark, do you have a personal pension scheme? Because if you do, and you don't do something about your weight, you may as well stop paying into it, because there's no way you'll draw from it!" He then went into all the different options that he could offer me in terms of support. This began at Gastric Band Surgery, and went down via Fat Blocking tablets through to Weight Watchers "on prescription"... I think I amazed him by saying "Can I just try it by good old willpower, a sensible diet, counting calories and getting some exercise?" - "Do you think that'd work Mark?" he said... "I don't know Doc, I've never tried, that's why I'm so fat I guess! BUT i'd like to try if you'll give me the support I need... A proper full - checkup to see if I'm fit enough to exercise, and regular monitoring..." "Done!" - he then proceeded to give me a really thorough checkup, taking samples of pretty much any bodily secretion short of earwax and one other... I also got a script for another 3.5 day course of antibotics and was sent away to keep a food diary. This was pretty easy, because the antibiotics pretty much meant I couldn't keep anything down, and anything that did stay down, didn't remain in my system for long anyway.

When I returned 7 days on from my initial contact, he had a string of results - basically it went "Heart Rate - normal, Blood Pressure normal, actually lower than mine, Cholesterol - fine, diabetes - not a sign of it. Basically Mark, you're a bit of an anomaly, the only thing that's wrong with you is that you're very, very over weight - actually morbidly obese, but at the moment theres NO sign of any of the problems it could cause - but that's not going to stay like that, if you keep this weight on. So lets do something shalll we..."

He also referred me to the local hospital for a Dexa body scan, which is used mainly to assess bone densities - as my Mother suffered with osteoporosis, and my Dad had also had problems with a broken Hip earlier, he was worried that any drastic dieting may have effects on the bones (especially as I had had a major reconstructive job done on my thighbone after a nasty RTA) - but as a useful spin-off, it also gave a on-going, relatively accurate body fat % reading. I'm still getting referals for this every 6 months...

Anyhoo - I got on with sensible eating, exercised a fair bit (lots of bike riding as it was something I could do for 2-3-4-5 hours at a time without getting bored), logged my intake and exercise burn using a really handy website (www.myfitnesspal.com) and until the end of 2012 the weight came off quite successfully. By the beginning of this year i'd hit 110kg. At this point, my Doctor said "I think my recommendation now Mark would be to stop trying to lose weight as such, and concentrate on working on getting fit now. Think of it as restoring a car - you've done a marvelous job on sorting out the bodywork, now it's time to work on the engine and handling." So, I've switched my emphasis in training on the bike to getting faster and better at climbing. I do the odd strength and core exercise session, but as far as the fueling, I've not really worried about losing weight per se. As such, I've actually only lost 2kg since January - HOWEVER, according to the last Dexa scan last week, they reckoned I'd lost nearer 10kg of body fat - therefore i'd put on quite a bit of Muscle - this being borne out by my dropping 2 sizes in my Jeans since last Christmas - not something you'd expect on a 2kg loss...

I've no pictures of myself at the highest weights, as frankly, I couldn't bear to even look in a mirror, never mind take photo's of myself - or publish them on here. However, just for comparison, I do have a shot from July 2009, and a comparison from earlier his year.

1278-1386243277-1368304da2a475c80c8369ceab47c9a3.jpg


Still a work in progress, but i'm getting there...
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You look poorly now fella, you need a stone or so back on, fantastic transformation though but do as your doc says and dont lose anymore

I plan to get down from 106kg to 95 in the next year, im only 5ft 7inch as well
 
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Gary Coyle said:
You look poorly now fella, you need a stone or so back on, fantastic transformation though but do as your doc says and dont lose anymore
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Wow! I totally disagree. I'd say you look 100% better and I'll bet you any money you like you'll be a lot better for it too.
 
Well I finished off 2013 pretty much where I want to be. Christmas dinner was sushi as normally we really pig out so it would have destroyed all our hard work. Now going into 2014 learning about maintaining my weight and toning up the wobbly bits.
 
Well I weighed myself and surprisingly it seems I have lost a pound despite my festive antics. I reckon most of this is due to the pretty long hours of walking while in Bruges where I did a bit of nibbling.
 
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