Challenge 11 – 52 weeks to lose 10.1kg

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…  Getting on that scale was something I wasn’t looking forward to, and it is all but nice to see those numbers…

Based on my BMI, I have been overweight for at least 6 months (that was the last time I had been on a scale, and I have no idea when I had weighed myself before that).  It is now really bad, with a weight of 82.10 kg…  That is by far the heaviest I have ever been, and it shows.  My clothes are tight, my knees hurt, and I look fat.  I am not obese and I am sure some people would still think me thin-ish, but considering that this is only fat and hardly any muscle, it isn’t good.

When I moved to England 12 years ago, I weight 63 kg.  Yes, almost 20 kg / 40 lbs / 3 stones less.  Realistically, the chances of me ever getting back to 63 kg are very slim.  I noticed around the age of 30 that my body started finding it much more difficult to get rid of the occasional extras.  Unfortunately since then the extras have been the norm and more.  So my goal would be to get back to 67 kg.

This year, I will work towards losing 10.1 kg to get to 72 kg.  I was originally planning to lose about 7 kg but I still want to hope that some of my current weight is associated to the holidays and can be lost quickly, therefore I put my goal up to 10.1 kg.  7 would still make me happy if that’s all I can achieve by the end of the year!  🙂

This will require drastic changes in my lifestyle.  On the nutrition side, I suppose checking my calorie intake would be good, but when you have croissants / cakes for breakfast, eat chocolate and cheese and drink full fat sodas all day long, you don’t need to count to know what is bringing the weight up…  On that front, I will need a few weeks before I can really improve my diet as I still have quite a lot of cheese in the fridge…  I also have chocolate, but that can be kept for one-off occasions (or at least not all day long treatment)!  Plus I was asked to bake some “galettes des rois” (cakes of the kings) for the Epiphany.  I made a couple today – and somehow managed to buy the wrong pastry, realising it only two minutes before taking the second cake out of the oven…  🙂  Oh well…  will still bring it into the office, but also enjoy some, so that will be some more damage to come…

From an activity point of view, I went for a 4.7 miles walk this week.  I was thinking of starting my walking challenge later in the year as I wanted to reach walking 52 miles in the 52nd week (not in one go though at this point), but I would not do this in the winter, hence starting later.  I was also looking at zumba classes organised in my village.  There are two sessions per week, but I would probably be able to attend only one due to the traffic on the way home.  And then, with my depression, I know it will be incredibly easy to have a down day and not go, and then I would not exercise at all, a continuation of the current situation.  So today I signed up with a gym.  This is my first time – I always thought it is money thrown out of the window and that it is possible to keep in shape without spending so much.  But I do need help to get me motivated and on track and I hope that the variety of equipment and classes will help me exercise without getting too bored.  I have an appointment tomorrow night to get some advice on the exercises I should start with.

I will give updates on my journey via the weekly updates and add them onto this page too.  Wish me luck!

Starting point: 82.1 kg

1. 11th Jan 2015: 82.6 kg – very big disappointment as the scale at the gym a couple of days earlier showed 4 kg less than my scale.  Now I know that it’s just a difference in scales…  Otherwise, not a surprise as I tried to “finish up” the cheese, chocolates and cakes from the holidays…
2. 18th Jan 2015: 81.5 kg – nice to see some improvement after the gain last week.  Didn’t eat very healthily but didn’t have any soda, had my coffee without sugar (and reduced the coffee), had porridge instead of pastries in the morning.
3. 25th Jan 2015: 81.6 kg – obviously not good to have put 0.1 kg back on, but considering how much I ate over the three days I was away on business and the chocolate I ate too, it is not too bad a result.