Making The Weight

I have thought about what I was going to write in this post for the past 2 months. What image should I use, what should the title be. A few ideas sounded good, ‘Achievement Unlocked’ was the working title, but this morning whilst in the gym the title came to me in a flash, well more like a haze of sweat – but more on this later. The image to use has always been unwavering in my mind as it is in some way a symbol of what I have been trying to achieve. That lump of metal weighs in at 56 pounds, 25.4Kg and for a lot of people it is an effort to get it off the ground. It is used for sport, to see how far it can be thrown (or how high) and for one brief year I was the national masters title holder for throwing that thing. That year, 2009, was also probably the last year I was under 16 stone.

When, in May 2019 I decided to embark on my journey to improve my health I weighed in at 125.4Kg, and I set my goal to get to 99.9Kg – pretty much the weight of that big metal beast had to be lost. Today I achieved that goal – today I weighed in at 99.6Kg. Weight lost is 25.8Kg or 56.9lbs. I have lost 21% of my bodyweight since the start of the journey.

For anyone who has ever had picked up one of those throwing weights they will know it is seriously heavy, often the strain on the back can be felt as it is picked up, the knees have an increased load on them (throwers often strap their knees because of this) and the effort to handle it is immense, and you are only too glad to let it go. Well that was my life, a constant throwing weight strapped to my body causing the same strain on my back and knees, forcing my lungs and heart to work overtime just to cope. Well today I put it down, let it go, and now even though there is no medal going back around my neck I am the national champion again as I have not just thrown it into a bit of sand, I have thrown it out of my life – forever.

Anyway, back to the title of the post and why it came to me in a haze of sweat. Yesterday I woke up and stood on the scales – 100.4Kg, near but not quite there. This morning I stepped onto the scales with I must admit a bit of excitement as I knew I would be close – 100.1Kg. Bollocks.

I had already planned to go to the gym this morning, I had a run down on my training schedule and so headed out before having my breakfast – this is something I have started to do a lot recently, exercise before breakfast and it certainly has helped me shift some weight and it really sets me up for the day. I don’t suffer from low energy in the mornings and there seems to be no ill effects to training on an empty stomach after a 16 hour fast (well for me anyway). I was coming to the end of my run where I had transformed into a big sweaty mess when I thought – this is like a boxer before the weigh-in, trying to shift those last few pounds just so they can make the weight. There it was, this was pretty much what I was doing, trying to find someway to lose that last little bit, seems appropriate then ‘Making the Weight’.

So, achievement unlocked, what next ? What happens to my Fast800 journey ? Well it isn’t quite at an end yet, all the good advice says its not a clever thing to do to go from your 800 calories a day back to normal eating and there should be a gradual reintroduction of a higher calorie diet. I will be continuing as I have been until first week in August, which will be a 13 week Fast800 journey and then start to change my diet. I have been lucky that I chose to have my 800 calories in the form of good wholesome solid found rather than some of the liquid options that are available commercially to achieve the same effect. So for me, it will mean just a slight increase in portion size, increasing the amount of carbohydrate slightly and aiming for about 1500 calories per day. I will probably mix in 3 or 4 days a week on 800 calories, ultimately reducing that to 2 days. I will however continue on the time restricted eating – aim to finish eating by 6pm and breakfast again at 8am (or 10am if I go to gym first thing) as I think this has been one of the biggest changes to my eating lifestyle that has had the biggest impact.

Now that I have achieved my goal weight, is this the end of the blog ? Far far far from it, Fast800 was just the starter, setting in place a few key requirements for the main course. What comes next will be far harder than Fast800, what comes next is Project 50…….

Postscript

Just a recap of the numbers:

Start Date: 7th May 2019

Weight loss: 125.4Kg to 99.6Kg (19st 10lbs to 15st 9lb)

Body fat: 31.8% to 22.1%

BMI: 37.4 to 29.7 – class II obesity (severe) to overweight (never been so happy to be overweight)

Blood glucose: 5.7mmol/l to 4.1mmol/l (pre-diabetic to super healthy blood glucose)

Resting HR: 72bpm to 54/55bpm

Blood Pressure: 146/105 to 127/89 (this was one that was really starting to concern me but seem to be getting it under control)

Cholesterol 4.5mmol/l to 5.7mmol/l – OK, so this is a curious one as it seems to have gone totally the opposite way to expected. Lot of fat changes going on in my body so will keep an eye on it.

Waist: 40-42ish inches to 36 inch.