Considering how well the week started I’m a little disappointed (but not too much) about the way it’s going. I’m not really bothered about the weight readings, I’m more bothered that I haven’t stuck to my eating plan.

Luckily I Know why it’s happening so I can do something about it.

My usual daily routine isn’t happening because the kids are still home from school while we’re all snowed in. Sounds dramatic but where I live, being snowed in happens after on 4 inches of snow. All the schools are closed and the kids are bored so there’s a certain amount of comfort eating on my part.

It looks like the schools might be closed next week too so I need to try hard to get back to the plan. Spending a few days each week eating only one meal a day is too much to go through if during the rest of the week I undo all that I’ve achieved.

I’ve missed a daily updates as well and this is also due to the lack of routine.

Weight Checks:
Thur 186.6
Fri 186.8
Today 187.2

Just because I’ve overeaten doesn’t mean it’s all doom and gloom. It doesn’t mean that I have to abandon what I’m trying to do. It just means I need to adapt to changing circumstances.

If I were to look for a bright side I would point out that I’ve been very physically active over the last week. The snow has meant lots of shovelling and sweeping snow from driveways. Had I not been doing this stuff and still been over eating I would have cause to worry – but what I’m encountering now is only a minor glitch.

Losing weight is important to me but it isn’t who I am – it’s just something I’m doing. Life goes on.

I’m still around two pounds down on last weeks weight so I’ll cling to that to carry me through.

Fit Dad

A very quick update. I’m running late today. It’s nearly midnight here in the UK and having promised myself I’d get a daily update posted on the site, I’d better get cracking.

I was supposed to have just one meal today but I ended up having two. It’s not the end of the world because I did a hell of a lot of physical stuff today.

There was heavy snow overnight in the South of England and I spent nearly two hours clearing snow from driveways and pavements. I also walked the dogs for an hour in the forest which saw me working very hard push on through 12 inch deep snow. Hard hard work.

I know I ate the extra because there was much more physical exertion than usual. I was dehydrated as well and I think I mistook thedehydration for hunger and certain points in the day and my snacks today weren’t fruit or veg – they were sweets and pastries. Ouch.

This excess eating crept up on me. I hadn’t foreseen that this might happen – but at least I’ll be prepared for it next time.

Tomorrow I’ll have one meal and the balance will be restored.

This morning the scale read 187.2lbs, down from yesterday’s 187.4.

Fit Dad

I’ve given myself 8 weeks to lose 16lbs and reach my target weight of 173lbs. This is only day 2 of the process but I’m already feeling good about it.

Yesterday was one of the days on which I only eat one meal a day, and as I reported, I stuck strictly to the eating plan.

I’ve done well to stick to the eating plan today in having just one main meal in the evening and seeing through the rest of the day on small snacks. Today though the snacks haven’t always been fruit or veg (which is what I aim to eat), today at lunchtime I ate a small piece of cheese and a cracker together with half a dozen crisps (potato chips). During the early afternoon I also had a bite of a chocolate brownie.

As a stay at home dad I find it difficult not to eat what my children leave on their plates. As a 41 year old you might not be surprised to hear that I come from an era when clearing your plate was expected. I was raised by post-war parents and wasting food wasn’t an option, because it wasn’t an option when they were children.

The good news is that none of this was enough to derail me and I don’t feel bad for eating what I ate. The fact is that if I hadn’t acknowledged the cravings I may well have overeaten other foods to compensate and then still given in to the cravings.

None of what I’m doing is about starving myself or depriving myself – even on the days when I eat one meal a day. I just make sure I determine how much I’ll eat before even a single morsel touches my lips and then stick with my decision.

This morning I weighed in at 187.4, down from the 189.6 of yesterday. The significant drop was most likely the loss of some excess water weight or possibly some dehydration.

I am going to weigh myself everyday over the next eight weeks – which is not something I would normally do as it can be distracting and misleading – but I think it will be a useful as a means to gather average weight data over the course of each week.

I’m pleased with the start I’ve made, and I’ll try to keep the momentum going and ensure I do lose 16lbs in 8 weeks.

Fit Dad

Today marks the first day of my final push to get to my target weight of 173lbs.

My weight this morning was 189.6lbs leaving me just over 16lbs of fat to lose by the end of February 2010.

Beyond my target of 173lbs, which to be honest is pretty arbitrary, my real goal is to get a flat stomach. I’m definitely looking to be a 41 year old dad with six pack.

I spent the last decade with a belly and love handles and I’m determined to spend the next one with flat abs.

I outlined I was going to achieve my goal in the post entitled Lose Fat Eating One Meal A Day. It’s a slight misnomer as there are days when I eat more than that and I’ll probably reiterate the plan fairly soon but until then, that post will give you an overview.

Today, being a Monday is a day when I have just one main meal and I’m pleased to say I’ve stuck rigidly to the plan today. I’m really pleased to report I’ve stuck to the plan as I didn’t expect to, having gained 4.5lbs over Christmas and getting used to eating the little extras.

I’ve taken a picture as I said I would. Like all the others it’s taken on a camera phone so the quality isn’t great. That doesn’t matter to me though, I just want to see the progress and even badly taken photos will show me that.

When I took the picture today I wore the same jeans and the same belt I wore in all the other fat loss pictures and was really pleased that even after putting on a few pounds over Christmas the jeans were still loose. The belt doesn’t do it’s job any more, it’s too loose but it was nice to see it on the last hole.

With my weight loss to date I’ve enjoyed all the little triumphs, and the belt being too loose on the last hole is another one of those moments.

Stats:
Key: Today [6 Dec '09] (20 Jun ‘09)
Weight 189.6 [187.4] (192.5)
Chest 40 [41] (39.75)
Belly 38.5 [38] (38.5)
Waist 37.5 [37.5] (37.5)
Hips 39.25 [39.25] (39.75)

Today:

For comparison:

Fit Dad

Today is my youngest daughters 3rd Birthday and of course there’ll be cake. As it’s also a Sunday there’ll be a traditional Sunday Dinner. It’s also the day before I set out to drop the final 16lbs to get to my goal of 173lbs.

You might imagine that I’m going to pig out and eat as much as I can but honestly I’m not.

One of the things I’ve really enjoyed about my weight loss so far, is how good it feels to be thinner. I’ve gone down a jeans size and my new jeans are feeling loose now.

So OK, I’ve put a few pounds on over Christmas and I did so knowingly, but I’ve pretty much hit the limit of how much damage I’m prepared to inflict on my progress.

The fact is, I don’t feel like pigging out. I’ve been turning my nose up at crap food I would normally eat without even thinking about it.

So yes, today I’ll eat birthday cake. Today I’ll eat a nice meal with my family but beyond that I won’t be eating just for the sake of eating.

When I weigh in tomorrow morning I hope I’m still 189lbs or less. 190lbs is somewhere I don’t want to be again, unless of course that weight is made up from muscle and not fat!

I’m updating early today as I want to enjoy the day with my family and I want to work out how to download images from my new camera so I can start posting weight loss pictures again.

Fit Dad

Things rarely go as planned and I guess that’s just the nature of life. The key thing for me though is having a plan in the first place, because it helps me to know when I’m deviating from it and also it helps me get back on track quickly when that happens.

A couple of days ago I said I was free to get back to the weight loss, thinking that my festive season (over)eating was done. At the point I wrote that I thought all the social engagements had been and gone. I was wrong. A couple of impromptu social engagements cropped up and so the eating plan was shelved.

I weighed in this morning at 189.2lbs which is a further 2lb gain since I last updated.

For all that a 4lb gain should see me in a dejected state of back sliding, it actually doesn’t bother me. Well, it bothers me, I mean I don’t like the idea of undoing all my hard work, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t worry me.

It was always in my mind that I’d be free to eat what I want to eat and enjoy living in the moment. Even in wanting to lose weight and acquire the elusive six pack I have no intention turning my life into a boring existence of bland diet foods. I’ll have my cake and I’ll eat it too, thank you very much indeed.

I’ve enjoyed the Christmas and New Year period but I am looking forward to getting back into the routine of everyday life. It was during this routine that I lost most of my weight so a return to the routine should see me getting back to the plan.

My goal now is to get to my target weight of 173lbs by the last day of February 2010. Starting on Monday 4th January I’m going to lose the last 16lbs of fat to take me to 173lbs – That’s assuming I still weigh 189lbs on Monday morning.

I’m going to stick to the plan I outlined to get a six pack in 2010 in the post entitled Lose Fat Eating One Meal A Day and write about it here – and of course I’ll include some pictures.

Now that I’ve determined the price I’m willing to pay to get to my goal, I need to get busy paying that price. The fact is, that once I reach my goal I know that the value of the achievement will be far greater than the price I paid – and that has to be worth the initial investment.

Fit Dad

Losing weight or more properly losing fat eating one meal a day is a strategy I’ve recently adopted.

It sounds pretty extreme and I suppose in some ways it is.

The idea came to me after I finally came to the conclusion that I could do without breakfast.

Missing out breakfast was something I’ve done on and off over the years. It was never a deliberate decision it was just something that happened.

Within the last month I’ve extended the idea to missing out on lunch and just eating one main meal in the evening.

It’s something of an experiment but it’s showing great promise.

I find that the earlier in the day I start eating, the more I eat, so delaying my eating until the early evening seemed to make sense.

I should stress that this is not a long term lifestyle change I’m looking to make. This is a short term strategy aimed at creating a calorie deficit to help me lose weight.

Over a seven day period I’ll spend the first three days eating one main meal a day. Over the next two I’ll eat two main meals at or slightly below a maintenance intake.

For the final two days I’ll take a relaxed attitude to eating and whilst I’ll aim to consume somewhere around maintenance I won’t get flustered if I don’t. In fact I think there are some benefits to eating big sometimes – if only psychological.

I should clarify that I’m not doing any strenuous exercise other than brisk walking once or twice a day for 30 to 40 minutes.

I should also clarify that I eat fruit or vegetables if I get very hungry, but at best these intakes can be described as snacks (not meals) somewhere between 100 and 150 calories.

Other than water, my beverage of choice is tea, with whole milk and sugar.

Having made this disclosure about the extras you can perhaps see that I’m not leading a lifestyle of total abstinence. There’s a fairly regular intake of calories throughout the day but there’s only one (or two) main meals.

I aim to use this approach to get me to my goal weight of 173lbs or until I see six pack abs or a flat stomach.

Thereafter I’ll use it to maintain and keep the weight off. Thinking ahead to the future I’d like to be in a position where I’m always within four weeks of a six pack (if that makes any sense?). I want to lead a normal lifestyle and eat pretty much what I want to eat and I believe it’s possible – after all, for well over a decade I’ve managed to maintain at 30lbs over weight, so I see no reason why I can’t maintain at my goal weight.

Having said all of this, my problem over the last two days has been my sabotaging my efforts in the evening. I find myself snacking while watching TV. It seems a shame to go a whole day sticking to the plan only to abandon it right at the end.

I’m certain I’m still eating at a calorie deficit but without doubt I’m slowing my progress. The reason for eating one meal per day for only 3 days a week is so I can find the self discipline to do it.

I’ve done it before and I can do it again.

Fit Dad

In between times I lost more weight and got to 185.2 lbs. Over the Christmas period my weight has risen to 187.2lbs, but I’m absolutely fine with that. I allowed myself some extra latitude and I’m pleased that I’ve limited the weight gain to 2lbs.

I don’t plan on eating excessively over the New Year period, so I’m pretty much free to get on with the business of losing weight.

I’m more determined than ever to go for the six pack and believe that 2010 is the year I’ll achieve it. Hopefully it won’t take me the whole year though.

Over the last two days I’ve been getting back into the swing of disciplined eating and barring a few errors in judgement I’m doing very well.

I’m now considering writing daily to this blog to keep me focused on the task at hand. With around 16lbs to go I could conceivably meet my target weight by the end of February – just eight weeks away! Whether a 16lb weight loss will reveal flat abs remains to be seen, but I won’t know until I get there.

Here’s to a six pack in 2010!

Fit Dad

Here’s another update!

After my return to the site last week when I posted that I’d got down to 189lbs and said I felt like I’d reached another turning point, I’m happy to say I continued with the weight loss this week.

I weighed in this morning at 187.4 which is down about a pound and a half on last week and it puts me within 12 lbs of achieving my goal weight. As I’ve said before my goal weight is pretty arbitrary and to be honest I’m more concerned with the fat loss than the weight loss – and there is a difference.

I measured this week too (all previous measurements are June 09) and here are the stats:

Chest 41 (previously 39.75)
Belly 38 (previously 38.5)
Waist 37.5 (previously 37.5)
Hips 39.25 (previously 39.75)

I’ll try and get another picture for my next update.

Over the last week I’ve been deciding on a new direction for this site and I’ll post more about that later. For now I’ve decided that I’m keeping my own goals simple: I want to be a 41 year old dad with a six pack! I like that goal because I feel I’m within reach of it. I’m a bit old to expect a perfectly flat stomach with defined abs but I’m going to give it a go.

Fit Dad.

I’m back.

The short version is, I was doing really well I lost a lot of the excess pounds and was starting to see real improvements in my running.

I’ve reached a point where I was doing 5 mile runs two or sometimes three times a week but then I started to suffer some knee pain.

The pain felt like a trapped nerve at the side of my knee which would occasionally pinch and cause my leg to lock out.

In the end it got to the stage where I was even having difficulty walking and I had to rest for a .

That few days became a few weeks.

During that time I gradually started to overeat and put the weight back on.

It was a slow process at first but after a while I realised I was putting on weight again and for some stupid reason I ate even more.

All the weight I had lost a put back on again and return to my starting weight.

I’m reluctant to make excuses but other things are happening in my life around the same time and frankly dieting, weight loss and fitness took a lower priority.

The stuff that was happening in my life came to a head around six weeks ago and I found myself yet another turning point.

In fact there have been so many turning points with my weight loss and fitness that I’m starting to get dizzy.

I question when, if ever, I’m going to reach the goals I set for myself.

The reality of it is I have to believe that this is the turning point that will see me achieve my goals.

In the last six weeks I’ve lost all the weight that I put back on again plus a little more.

I’m back down to 189 lbs and I feel a new determination to reach my goal weight of 173 lbs.

So 189 means that in six weeks I’ve lost 12 LBS and I intend to lose the remaining 16 in a similar period of time.

I’ve got a new plan for fitdad.net which revolves around me posting updates about my fat loss and fitness on the weekends and on weekdays I’ll be turning the site over to another purpose – more about that later.