Losing Weight

By the beginning of 2013 I was 50, my weight had crept up to 90kg giving me a Body Mass Index (BMI) of about 28, a reading considered to be overweight. I thought it was about time to do something about this as I didn't want to turn into one of those middle aged gents whose bellies hang over their trouser belts. Also, because I'm a cheapskate I didn't want to grow larger and have to replace my clothes before they've worn out. My initial aim was just not to get any heavier.

Let's cut to the chase. If my bathroom scales are to believed, I have lost about 15kg over about the last year (2013). Hardly Biggest Looser territory but a noticeable difference.

First up I should say I have been cycling to work for years so I've already got a bit of a head start by having built regular exercise into my routine. And, part of the reason I had gained weight was because I had been ill in 2011 and was not capable of cycling to work for about 6 months. But, I didn’t really change my diet to reflect my lower energy expenditure and so I gained weight while recovering from my illness.

I restarted cycling after that and had gradually been building up to 2 journeys per day on my bike and had lost some weight without any change to my diet. Just at that point when I thought I could return to 2 journeys per day 5 days per week I came off my bike and broke my arm and after that managed to put on the weight I had lost in 2012.

Thinking about this some more; whilst I've had a relatively low fat diet for years and exercised regularly I had gradually been gaining weight in my forties.

I recognized that I needed to consume less otherwise If I’m ill again I’d probably end up gaining even more weight.

Oddly enough if I hadn't been ill and had an accident I doubt I would have realised that I needed to do something until I was further down the overweight track.

As a brief aside I believe that cycling to work (if you live reasonably close to your work) is a great way of killing two birds with one stone; commuting and getting enough exercise. I live about 12-13km from where I work and it takes me 1 hour from closing my front door to being at my desk (that includes time for showering) probably only 15 – 20 minutes longer than the bus journey.

This is what I do now.

Go shopping with a list

I've done this for years largely because I don't particularly like shopping and wandering around wondering what to buy. I also try to avoid 'adhoc' shopping for food since it is too easy to get a snack on the way. I know this because I've just done it.

A recent innovation is that I use a pre-printed list of things I buy. Weekly items down one side and things I only need to buy occasionally on the other, with space for other incidental things as well. All I need to do is fill in the quantities during the week and highlight what I need to buy on the occasional side. See the end of this blog for an example.

Dietary Changes

I have high cholesterol and after the sudden death of my father from a heart attack some years ago I reduced my red meat intake, try to avoid foods high in saturated fat, and now consume more vegetables and mostly white meat and fish for protein.

The focus of my recent change has been to reduce my intake of food high in carbohydrates such as potatoes, bread, pasta, and rice and replace them with larger servings of vegetables. For instance if I make Curry or a casserole I'll have it with vegetables rather than rice or potatoes.

I generally have the aforementioned carbohydrate type of food less than once per day on average. For instance if I have noodles for lunch I wont have bread, potatoes, rice or pasta with my evening meal. Or for another example. I went out to lunch with a colleague recently and because I intended to have Eggs Benedict for my dinner I declined pizza and had a chicken salad instead.

I find cauliflower to be a good replacement for potatoes or rice and have it with many evening meals where I might have had a potato or serving of rice previously. Cauliflower is good for you too.

I stopped buying sliced bread. Its too easy to make some toast or have a sandwich if you are feeling peckish. Some weeks I managed to get through 2 loafs. I now buy those 500g Turkish breads which can be cut into 3 or 4 pieces and frozen.

Then, one morning, looking at my serving of muesli, I asked my self “Do I really need this much?” I had a fairly generous serving muesli and so changed from 2 scoops to 1 and replaced the 'lost' scoop with a few grapes, or couple of strawberries or some blueberries. At first my breakfast looked quite small but now it seems to be more than adequate.

The key point is to change your diet gradually. I'm not on a crash course diet and I do not expect to get heavier, provided I don't consume more or drastically reduce the amount of exercise I do.

I don't starve, I have 3 meals per day 365 days a year. I rarely have snacks other than a daily apple and orange. To reduce snacking the same principle applies, change gradually. Whilst not consuming a lot of snack foods to start with I was consuming 2 muesli bars and a packet of those cup soups per week. So when I decided to reduce this I stopped the soups one month and stopped the muesli bars the next. I don't miss them.

So I've gradually modified my diet reducing my food intake (though not drastically)

So what do I eat?

Breakfast: A ½ cup (125 ml) scoop of muesli, plus 2-3 chopped up strawberries or handful of grapes or blue berries with soy milk
Lunch: most days I have chopped vegetables 1-2 carrots, 1 tomato, ½ cucumber, ½ red capsicum (pepper) or soup and bread and small tin of fish. I also make my own soup; tinned soup, even those that claim to be 99% fat free, can have a lot of sugar.
Dinner: fish or white meat (chicken or pork) plus a carrot, peas, broccoli and cauliflower. Pasta once per week. Poached eggs and sliced salmon on Turkish bread once per week.

I also take the view that a variation on this infrequently will do no harm. So I don't worry too much about what I have on social occasions.

I drink wine and beer and I guess I average 2 standard drinks per day.

Snacks: One apple and one orange per day.

What don't I eat?
SUGAR - I avoid the non diet varieties of soft drinks (and try not to have too many "diet" drinks as well). I also try not to have more than about 1/2 a glass of fruit juice per day. Sugar is sugar whether you get it from soft drinks or fruit juice. There may be benefits of fruit juice over coke (for example) but would you eat the 3 - 4 oranges or apples it would take to make a glass of juice in one sitting? I don't need sugar in tea or coffee or keep things like cookes, cakes or biscuits at home.

My diet may sound monotonous and routine but I like it. I also believe by having a fairly routine diet helps me keep my INR (International Normalised Ratio) between 2 and 3 reducing the frequency with which I have to have blood tests and with which my medication dose has to be changed.

Results

One morning whilst doing up my belt I noticed that I was able to do it up tighter than the very well worn belt hole I had been using for ages. More recently I have been able to fit comfortably into pairs of trousers I had grown out of and hadn't got around to giving away to a clothing charity. I might have to give away my larger clothes instead.

Whilst doing a bit of background reading about weight loss I note that there certainly seems to a lot on reducing carbohydrate intake rather than just fat per-se to reduce weight and that consuming carbohydrates can actually cause hunger. This certainly seems to have worked for me as reducing carbohydrate intake is the largest change I’ve made in quite a few years. I'm doing the same amount of exercise as I was before I was ill and I'm sure I'm lighter now.

I had considered consulting my doctor about loosing weight as she had mentioned it on occasion but I'm glad I didn't because I suspect a dietitian may have started me on totally new alien diet straight away and as you may know many weight loss diets are extraordinarily hard to stick to.

So dear reader no I'm no diet expert but what's worked for me may work for you. I suspect its better aimed at the moderately overweight like myself rather than those who are morbidly obese. I believe I have a healthy balanced diet. I seem to be less hungry, have a smaller appetite and have been sleeping better of late.

The take away points are:

• Change gradually; eating less and exercising more. Even a moderate amount of exercise, such as walking for 30 minutes, will do you good.
• Cut down on foods high in carbohydrate and replace them with vegetables which can be just as filling.
• Use a shopping list.
• It takes time, possibly the most important point. Apparently loosing a lot of weight quickly can cause health problems. I suggest you Google Margie Cummins