-
Subscribe via RSS
Get my updates in real time via your RSS reader
RSS Entries
RSS Comments
-
Search
-
Recently Written
- Another week, another update…
- Weekly Update: March 7th
- February Highlights
- My weight loss update: Feb 29th
- 5 Tips on How to Avoid Weight Loss Plateau
- My Weight Loss Update - Feb 22nd
- Ok, Elmo Live is just going to drive me nuts (but it is cute!)
- 5 Sites that will Help You Stay Motivated
- My Weight Loss Update - Feb 15th
- Weight Loss Tip: Eat a good breakfast
-
Categories
-
Quick Links
-
Archives
How I plan to lose 40kg in 12 months (part 2)
In my previous post How I plan to lose 40kg in 12 months (part 1) I talked about the strategy I’m using to change my diet. Now I want to discuss adding a regular exercise program.
Stage 2 – Becoming more active
There are two basic things you can do to lose weight – eat less (which I covered in part 1), or burn more calories (additional exercise), which is the topic of this post.
When you’ve got as much weight to lose as I do, just changing your diet will be enough to ensure some decent results in the beginning… when I say ‘just’, I mean I should be able to lose weight even without doing any extra exercise, I don’t mean to imply that waking up one day and changing the way you eat is an easy process, it’s not – you’ve got to teach your body to form new habits, and that’s the main reason why I choose to tackle these areas one at a time.
As the weight loss starts to slow down though, I’ll need to form some regular exercising habits, here’s how I plan to address it.
1. Structured Exercise Time
This is important in forming habits that will continue over time, try to exercise at the same time every day and gradually push yourself further each time.
It’s important to not only find something that you can easily do on a regular basis (go for a walk, work out at the gym – whatever you’re comfortable with), but also find a time where you don’t feel under too much pressure to finish quickly and get home. Last time I tried to increase my exercise I went for a walk/jog (ok, mostly walk) each morning nice and early. As I am usually the one to get up early with the kids though, I think the pressure of finishing up and getting home was a little too much – this time I plan to exercise in the late afternoon where I will have less time pressure on me.
I live in a semi-rural suburb, all the houses around here are acreage, so there are plenty of wide open spaces for me to explore. My eldest son is just getting to the stage where he wants to ride his bike a lot, so part of my exercise regime will likely be a slow casual ride with him, followed by something more strenuous afterwards. We also have a swimming pool, so a lunch time swim will definitely be on the cards during the warmer months.
2. Non-Structured Exercise
By non-structured I simply mean taking advantage of any opportunities I come across throughout the day – things like kicking a ball with my kids, mowing the lawn, parking further from the shops than I normally do etc.
While the structured exercise program forms the basis of meeting the goals I want to achieve, it’s all the extra non-structured bits that will really help to make a difference, so the more I can take advantage of the better.
A quick word about goals
Setting clearly defined goals is going to help you achieve success in virtually anything you try to do, so it is definitely something that I need to address here. My general strategy for goal setting is to define something that is easily measured and has very specific time frames attached to them – that way when it comes time to review my progress, the analysis is pretty straight forward and I can be quite tough in my assessment about how I’ve gone.
My overall goal (to lose 40kg in 12 months), while specific, still needs to be broken down further so that I can analyse my progress effectively. Setting monthly goals would be the most useful here, weight loss can be pretty erratic over a week or so, but the results from month to month should show a definitely progression to the goal and offer plenty of time to analyse and adjust based on actual performance.
I could break the weight loss goals down into equal amounts per month (40/12 = 3.33kg/m), but this doesn’t take into account the easier times I should have initially where the weight will drop off a lot easier, and the tougher times towards the end, so I’m going to structure my weight loss goals something like this:
- February – July: 4 kg/m
- August – November: 3 kg/m
- December – January: 2 kg/m
All those weight loss targets should be pretty easy to meet if I stick to the plan, and that’s where the analysis comes in each month as I will revisit these goals and adjust my focus appropriately.
I do have other goals I want to meet, specifically addressing each point I outlined in stage 1 of my weight loss plan yesterday – they are something that I will analyse on a weekly basis to make sure I’m sticking to the basic principles of my plan.
Well, that’s it – that’s the ‘plan’. If you have any questions, be sure to leave a comment and I will try to answer as best as I can.
Before I end this post, I would like to quickly point out that I’m not a nutritionist, not a doctor – so please take anything you read on here as my opinions only, and not gospel. I do spend quite a bit of time reading and researching most areas I have an interest in, and weight loss in particular is something that I have spent a great deal of time examining, but these are just my opinions – please seek professional advice for your unique situation before acting on anything I might say or imply in this blog… I have been known to be wrong on occasions 
Starting to feel like ‘home’
After a few days of fiddling with the look and feel of my blog, I think I have finally settled on it’s appearance… knowing me I’ll probably change it again before long, but for now, I rather like the way it all looks… what do you think? let me know in the comments below – is it easy to read? do you like it?
Ok, I know what you’re thinking, the last thing a 131kg guy should be concerned about is appearance, but when it comes to web sites I do get a little fussy – I work as a web developer / analyst, my graphical skills are, let’s say ‘improving’ (it’s not my speciality), but I am rather chuffed with how it has turned out so far.
For those of you that are interested, I’m running this blog using the Wordpress blog platform and the theme I’ve made is essentially a modified version of the Downtown Java Wordpress Theme by Brian Gardner. Even though it looks completely different, I used his theme as a starting point and customised it to suit my needs. Once I tidy up the internal files I’ll make it available for anyone else who wants it, you can never have enough Wordpress themes, lol.
Brian has some fantastic Wordpress themes on his site, if you run your own blog (or are thinking about it), then you must check his designs out.
Share this article, I appreciate your support.Finding my voice…
This is my first ‘serious’ blog, I have dabbled before, but even that is probably being a bit generous.
What I am trying to say is that it will probably take me some time to find my ‘voice’… I’ll be the first to admit that the two posts I’ve made so far are a little on the dry side, and while I want to make this experience fun and easy to read for all involved, there is a bit of background information that I need to get through first… so there will likely be a few more still to come yet.
While I do have a reasonable idea about the type of things I’ll be blogging about, what I really want to hear is the type of stuff you’re looking for - ok, if you’re reading this soon after I posted, you’re quite possibly the only reader I have since I just launched this yesterday, but regardless of whether you’re following my journey from the start, or you come across this post a bit further down the track, I will always be looking for your views. Why? because I think being part of a community, that feeds off one another’s wants and needs can be a powerful motivating force when it comes to losing weight.
Always feel free to leave a comment on any post, email me, or have a chat on any of the social networks that you find me on (something that I will be highlighting in some posts soon). I want this to be a journey that everyone who is interested can participate in, it’s not just my journey, hopefully it will be yours too. I can’t wait to see where this goes, I think we’ll have a lot of fun along the way.
Share this article, I appreciate your support.How I plan to lose 40kg in 12 months (part 1)
I’m pretty conservative when it comes to weight loss – even though I have a lot of weight to lose, I don’t plan to lose it all that quickly. I honestly don’t see the point in sprinting to the finish and seeing how quick I can say “I’m done!”… what do you do once you get there? If you have to really push yourself to make it, then you’re obviously going to have to take a step back once that goal has been achieved, but take a step back where, how far do you dip back into your old habits and start putting the weight back on again?
My approach is to make relatively small changes to my life at any one time – I want to form new habits that I know I can maintain permanently, not ones that I have to make sacrifices to achieve and then be forced to give up once I reach my goal – I want to form new habits that will remain with me forever and to help promote a healthy and enjoyable lifestyle.
Stage 1 - Changing the way I eat
My biggest weakness I feel is portion size, I just eat way too much… especially of the wrong things! The types of food I eat are pretty good really (well, some of them), but my diet does need tweaking.
For me, this is the obvious place to start, and I think it is probably the same for most people… you can’t lose weight unless you get one basic thing right, and that’s to eat less calories than your body uses up… pretty simple stuff really, couldn’t be any easier (everything sounds easy when you write it down doesn’t it!). So in starting out, the immediate goal is to really have a look at what (and more importantly ‘how much’) you put in your mouth each day… so that’s what I’m going to do right now.
Cutting out the ‘dead’ calories
By ‘dead’ calories, I mean those foods that give you plenty of energy (calories), but often don’t do a lot to stop you from feeling hungry. One of the main topics I will explore in this blog is the concept of ‘Low GI’ and ‘High GI’ foods, and that’s part of what we need to look at here. Food like chocolate, pasta, potatoes etc. can provide a lot of energy in one hit, but they are used up by your body pretty quickly and in simplistic terms, a lot of that will be converted to fat and you’ll start to feel hungry again before you get a chance to use it.
For me personally there are a three major food items that I know I have to cut out if I want to lose weight.
- ChocolateI’ve put chocolate at the top of the list for a reason… there aren’t many people out there who don’t like chocolate, and I probably eat more than most – definitely a weakness of mine.
- Ice CreamMy kids (like any kids) love ice cream… and since they have it most nights, so do I, and more than I really should.
- Hot Chips (fries)If I’m out of the house around lunch time and close to some shops… chances are I’ll seek out some hot chips (they always smell so good don’t they), obviously a big problem.
For you it’s probably different (although I bet Chocolate at least is pretty popular!), writing them down and acknowledging them is an important first step, so if you’re trying to lose weight and haven’t done that yet, I urge you to do it now, facing the problem is half the battle… why not add them in a comment below this post? Let’s get a discussion going on this – what foods are piling on the weight for you?
I want to illustrate how easy it is to slip into some bad habits. Most Friday nights, I go out with my wife and a few friends to watch a movie. We eat dinner first right outside the cinema (I usually have Chinese), we then load up on chocolate and soft drink and basically pig out while watching the movie. Why? I’m quite full after dinner, why do I then go and chase it down with heaps of chocolate and cola? Switching to something like Subway for dinner and replacing the chocolate and cola with maybe a small amount of dark chocolate and water would be a heck of a start to cutting out those dead calories don’t you think?
Reducing Portion Size
I’m definitely one to over-eat.
I rarely leave a scrap of food on my plate, and regularly help finish off what other people leave, I tend to stack up my plate with way too much stuff, and while I do eat plenty of good healthy vegetables, the foods I usually have too much of tend to be the heavier stuff like potatoes, pasta etc.
My strategy for dealing with this is pretty simple:
1. For the first few weeks completely cut out the foods that I know I will over-eat to remove temptation, for me that means:
- Potatoes
- Pasta
- Rice
- Bread
After awhile I will introduce a small amount of bread (multi-grain), rice (basmati) and to a lesser degree pasta (whole meal if possible), but in consciously significantly smaller amounts… potatoes I will hold off on for as long as I can, I think I tend to have too many bad habits associated with those round little monsters.
The idea behind this is these are the foods that are easy to eat too much of, they are the ones that really blow the portion size of my diet and last time I lost weight I found really cutting back on these gave me a lot more freedom to eat healthier foods and reach my goals.
2. Always try to leave something on my plate at the end of the meal.
This is a simple technique that I find to be really helpful. If you’re like me and always eat whatever is put in front of you (and then some), you’ll find that by just leaving something (it doesn’t have to be much), you can start conditioning your body to stop eating once you’re full… it may sound a bit strange, but just leaving a few mouthful’s on the plate really does make you feel as though you’re making progress if you are used to eating everything.
I guess one thing that I should make clear is that when I talk about portion size, I’m mostly talking about the portion size of the foods I mentioned above. It’s really quite hard to over-eat on leafy vegetables, fruit, or anything that typically has a fair amount of fibre in it. To illustrate this point, have a think about what you’re more likely to eat – 400g (14oz) of chocolate, or 5.2kg (11.5 pounds) of grapes … both have exactly the same amount of calories!
A limited detox
Finally, I’m going to cut out some of the more harmful foods in my diet… I’m not going to give up coffee or anything as drastic as that (one step at a time remember!), but there is one thing I drink too much of that really isn’t doing me any good, and that is diet soft drink… with all the chemicals pumped into it and plenty of rumours flying around about how harmful the stuff might be, it really isn’t worth the trouble of drinking it and I’m sure my body will appreciate the extra water intake that will follow. It’s something I don’t need, now is a perfect time to get rid of it.
I hope that all makes sense, there is a lot there to absorb – you will notice that I haven’t mentioned anything about exercise yet, and that’s intentional. With the amount of weight I have to lose, just making changes to my diet should see some fairly speedy weight loss over the next few months, as that starts to slow down, that’s when I’ll look at changing my exercise habits… I’ll talk more about that in part two of this article tomorrow.
If you read all the way to the end – thanks for sticking around, there’s quite a bit of background stuff I want to get through before I get into all the fun stuff, the time you spend getting up to speed with my ramblings is definitely appreciated.
Share this article, I appreciate your support.Welcome to my Weight Loss Blog
Welcome
Hi, welcome to my Blog. My name is Martin and I’m… well, a bit over weight.
As of right now, I tip the scales at 131kg (that’s 289 pounds), and it’s well beyond time that I did something about it. I turn 33 in a couple of weeks, I have two wonderful young children (aged 4 ‘and a bit’ and ‘nearly’ 2), and I want to be able to keep up with them as they grow.
Setting the scene…
That’s me in the photo below (obviously!) taken about 3 months ago… one of the rare times I get to the beach (this particular spot is Hervey Bay, a few hours’ drive to the north of where we live in Brisbane, Australia). As you can see, I definitely have the weight to lose… the only thing that has changed from that photo is that I now have a full beard instead of just the goatee, if only making all lifestyle changes were as easy as that.
Already my 4yo can out run me (really, he can). It’s not something I am proud of, although in my defence he’s a very athletic kid, the first time he saw a sporting oval he set off on a run and did a lap! If that wasn’t enough, he actually thought that was pretty cool and immediately did another! No prompting, no urging… he just did it - how many 4yo’s do you know would (could) do that? Could I run two laps of that oval? Maybe, I’d be a wreck at the end of it though… at the moment I don’t even have the desire to try… my son is already teaching me lessons in life – you have no idea how scary that is!
How did I get here?
I don’t think it would come as much of a surprise to anyone – eating the wrong foods, little exercise (I work from home, in front of the computer all day)… over time things slowly get out of hand, and before you know it 4yo’s are running rings around you. I’m not the first person this has happened to, nor will I be the last, but at some point you’ve got to draw a line in the sand and do something about it.
For me, that time is now.
Have I been on a diet before? Sure… in fact 12 months ago I weighed 144kg (317 pounds), over about five months I managed to lose 20kg (44 pounds, got to be happy with that)… I learned a lot during that time, I even changed some things in my life for the better, but I eventually slipped back into my old habits and have since put 7kg back on again. This time is different, this time I am adding accountability into the equation, this time I am bearing my soul to the world, this time I am getting help from people like you, and helping others achieve their goals… powerful stuff, at least it should be, time will tell.
So what’s the plan?
The title of this blog is ‘Lose 40kg’ and that’s exactly my goal. By February 2009 I want to weigh 91kg… according to the ‘weight calculators’ that’s still over my ideal weight, but I like to set achievable goals, and dropping 40kg would certainly be life altering. In the next couple of days I will expand some more on my basic strategy and start breaking that goal down into more manageable chunks.
That kind of sets the scene for this blog – 40 kg is a heck of a lot of weight to lose, and while I am committed and keen to dive in right now, I know there will be times where my resolve will weaken and I will give into temptation. I figure a permanent, public record of my weight loss attempts, will help to keep those low points to a minimum and help me get back on track again with the least amount of fuss. It’s not going to be all about me though, far from it – sure, I want you to share this journey with me, but if you are trying to lose weight yourself, then not only do I hope you can take some inspiration from what I post, but I also want as many people to share your journey too… that’s another aspect I will expand on over the next few days, something that I am quite excited about actually.
Welcome aboard.
Share this article, I appreciate your support.