I have been looking at photos of myself spanning the past 8 years - feeling more than a bit aghast at how overweight I had been, without realizing it. I was ‘tricked’ into weighing myself a bit more than 2 years ago; the shock of how heavy I was spurred me into a continuous campaign to reduce my food intake. My very disciplined diet heavily restricts sugar, eliminates cake, pastries, muffins - probably my most favourite foods. Now I eat very moderately, but instead of a sandwich, have only 1 slice of wholemeal toast; also only a half small glass of wine with dinners. Poached or boiled, rather than fried eggs. I allow myself small amounts of dark chocolate and probably indulge in too much coffee.
Over the past 2 years, having lost about 50 lbs, I have gone down 2-3 trouser and dress sizes. Now when I go clothes shopping, all trousers and tops fit. Additionally I am really ecstatic with how I look in my photos.
Weight loss / management has become such a constant refrain in the popular and medical media. Everybody has been on diets forever. For me, this hasn’t really been a diet; I have been ferociously conscientious and disciplined. Working from home and eating a diet of freshly prepared meals with vegetables, fruits, eggs, meat, poultry, and grains, hasn’t been that much a hardship. However the weight loss has stopped; over the past 6 months my weight has remained stable and it has been exceedingly difficult to lose weight. I suspect that I would need a fairly radical change in diet to stimulate further weight loss. My goal would be to lose an additional 7-10 lbs in weight.
I have also worked out using a home-based mini-gym exercise regime into my routine using an orbital elliptical trainer and stationary cycle machines. Initial forays into outdoor cycling had to be curtailed until a fairly serious case of tennis elbow heals, so perhaps that will be on the cards for next year.
When I realize how absolutely huge I had become, it pains me that nobody told me. My mother mentioned that I was obese, which really hurt at the time. But I didn’t believe her then. Now I wished that I had listened to her earlier and had kept track of my weight.
I now think that weighing myself every week and noting down the result in a notepad has been a very useful device, the idea from my long-term partner who has been keeping notepads of his weight and measurements for over 20 years.
