Back for 2012

December and January were generally hard months to diet. I'm not in America, but agree with a blogger that it shouldn't be new year day you start a diet, but after super bowl. Here we have Australia day on the 26th, so after that's a realistic start. Until then, we often have holidays, friends catchups, Australia day itself. After that, it's more into the normal grind, and with that, has to come a diet. I mean if not then, when?

Looking back, Christmas was as expected, holidays as expected. With eating, the more bad I ate, the more I felt like bad food. Eventually it came to an end, not craving anything by the end of the holiday. My biggest demon is drinking though, and January was solidly bad, in a good way. It's nice to not have to worry about some of that stuff, and it doesn't really effect me too much during the day. Other than that, enjoyed time with family and friends, had a great holiday.

So now... I've already started, in fact have a solid 1.5 weeks behind me, with the 2 previous weeks to that being poorly executed attempts. My eating arch nemesis, the chip packet, was in abundance the last 8 weeks again. I tried to start the diet first full week of Feb, but couldn't resist these on visits to petrol stations/shops and had plenty over that first week, total miss. The next week I was going OK, but did snack little bits here and there, and still drank too much. Last week I was pretty well prepared with a good meal plan, beans ready to go, quiet week. It went perfectly with eating, though drinking fell apart a bit Thursday, which is still reasonable but not ideal. I weighed in at 103 kgs Saturday. This is from a max of 110 and a min of 100 during last years diet, so I'm already pretty close to the min, even after 6 weeks of horror food and drink, and can imagine getting under 100 by April if I stick to it. It was fun having a cheat day, as it means so much more when you've worked hard all week to have some treats. So far this week, I'm doing perfect.

Goals worked well last time, my goal was to be thinner by Christmas, which I easily was. This time it's easter, and I'll probably take a small break at easter time if I feel like it.

Final stretch

Final step on the way to cheat day turned into a hurdle when we got invited out for pizza. In the new regime, I'm not knocking any opportunity like this, and happily took part, but it's not going to help any weight loss. Like a trooper, I still went through a normal cheat day though! I didn't lose any weight this week, nor did I put any on though. I actually was feeling a little slim late last week, but saw no actual loss. Saturday was a decent cheat day, but even cheat days I'm enjoying meat and veggie dishes now. I had 3 solid meals, plus the usual suspects of cheat food and beer. Sunday was going well, but we went out to carols, and I had some chocolate and beer. So far today looks like a better day, but will also have someone over for dinner, so I don't like my chances of having a sober Monday. But I really need to pull it back, as I had too much alcohol again on the weekend, and really need a quiet week in that area. Have decent meals planned this week, and some leftover roast meat, so should have a good chance at dieting well this week, then Christmas!

Hard week back

I'd hardly call this week a success. It must be the worst time of year to try anything around a diet, but especially now our kids are getting older, Christmas is a constant mess of party's and celebrations of some sort. Every night this last 2 weeks has been flat out either at home or out somewhere, and that won't change until around the 2nd week of January from what I can tell.

Breakfasts have been solid. I think this is a constant for me now, the morning routine is a solid one that I could continue for a long time I think. Lunch has also been pretty decent, except for one bought Chinese lunch, where I still threw out half the rice. Dinner has been mostly good, but the 2 nights out I had sausage rolls, and a couple of snacky thihngs, and home made burritos (not that nice either) and ham. Probably the worst I've had some snacks almost every day. Not heaps, mainly crackers, with some peanut butter, once cheese. Plus the snack food on Tuesday night when out, not 100% good this week. Still I'm happy to be doing the breakfast, and so far today looks like it will be quite solid. I guess tomorrow is a cheat day. I'll probably treat it like that, but I have to closely monitor the results of when I have a medium week like this and do the cheat day, because it may mean I start putting on weight. Either way I want to get back proper routine as soon as the silly season passes. Next week also might be a solid week, as we aren't going out as far as I can tell all week, and Christmas isn't until after cheat day next week. I'll aim for a solid week anyway.

Drinking is the biggest fail. Even after going out at night, not drinking out, I still managed 4 drinks (inc 2 generous bourbons) both those nights, and last night had 1.5 wines with dinner, 3 beers and 2 bourbons, which is way too much for a school night. Chrismtas and late Jan holidays will be tough for me to control too much, so I really want a solid week next week to give me a good start to Christmas. I'm aiming to be drink free early in the week, and 2 reds until Thursday night, the main point being not having the 3rd drink as that is always the turning point from controlled to out of control.

Cheat week.

It's obviously not part of any diet to cheat for a whole week, but I did that, plus a couple of days. The idea was really cheat long weekend, it's just the weekend never ended for the diet. Friend arrived from Perth, and we went out a few times over the weekend, so I wasn't looking to keep to my diet. By Monday I was supposed to have recovered though, but felt a little under the weather. Even a bad Monday wouldn't write off the rest of the week, only I didn't spend any time preparing anything Monday, and had the busiest week I've had in a long time, so all the sudden I'm eating toast and cereal for breakfast, rices and pastas for dinner, and snacked out a few times too. Probably as bad a week as it gets for me when you add in what we had over the weekend.

But my body is hurting. I'm not doubled over in pain, it's more subtle than that. More like my body is saying "why are you doing this to me?" Yep, I'm craving going back on the diet!!! And that is why this is so effective. Once the wife breaks her diet, it's goodbye for 3 months until she feels so guilty she has to start another diet. And it's always a new diet, that is usually taking the wrong approach. Her previous one she tried was pretty close to mine, but the promise of any sort of sweet food was many months away. That's a warrior that can last that long without a little cheat food, especially to people addicted to eating junk food. She, like probably 99% of people that try that, failed to keep going.

But in my case, I'm cheating again on Saturday, and probably won't have a perfect week before then either. My new start won't be the strictest, because I don't really have to lose much weight. The reason for the diet then, is because I trully believe things like bread, cereal, pasta and rice aren't quality foods to be filling up on, and in fact I think they promote snacks. But you need to ensure you get enough good food into you, and after losing those other foods I just mentioned, I may as well add in some 4 hour body foods and stick to the diet.

I heard another fanatical person talk about diet tips the other day, and again I agreed with some of what she said. She said just do the breakfast she advises, and already you will be way better off. That's how I started this diet, just breakfasts, because I wanted to shed cereal and toast as my breakfasts. It took 1.5 days until I was fully on the diet, because I loved how the good breakfast made me feel in the morning. so the breakfast is a strict diet meal for me still. I think after a big healthy breakfast, the rest of the day will usually be 4 hour diet, but if a meal comes up that isn't strict, I won't go way out of my way to avoid.

So I start again. I weighed myself right after my first diet breakfast Monday at about 101.5 kgs. I kind of expected 103 or something even more drastic after a long week of crap, but it doesn't suprise me heaps that I only went up that much. I guess I'm hoping to get that down to 100 kgs again by year end, but I'm not massively worried about that. What I really want is to keep to my diet through the holiday period, which is the toughest, with things booked nightly almost right through to Christmas (that's insanity for me), including our family hosting a decent sized Christmas. My first day back on was fine, normal breakfast, leftover roast and veggies lunch, and bolognese on cabbage (awesome replacement for pasta in a bolognese dish) with veggies. Had 2 reds, which is OK. Today will be tougher as I'm having a cheat meal at lunch with work, but will try to maximise the good foods for that anyway. The week is up and down from there with kids Christmas nights for the next 3 nights, but I'm hoping to sneak in some good meals before going out to those.

Wish me luck.

Now and next

Been very busy, but need to do a quick update. Saturday weigh in, right on 100kgs again. I wouldn't have been surprised either way, going up or down, so I guess my split thoughts got met with the expected result. My week had a little less eating while sick, and a few snacks, no excersize, so it was a tough call. I'm mostly happy with 100 kgs for that weigh in. Saturday was another mammoth eating day. It's amazing how much you can eat that day and not put on weight. I won't go into details, but it was a really fun packed day, and I ate a heap as usual. Sunday was a little less painful than usual. Usually there is a little "hangover" after eating and drinking so much, but not a real issue this time. Had a smooth day, no cheats, ending with drinks though at night.

So my drinking. I put last night into my final little binge of last weeks overall bad week, so want to go 2 nights completely dry, then no more than 2 drinks the following nights. This is not a big ask, but as mentioned a couple of times, having drinks with dinner kills me. Friday onwards, is another world. A friend is over from interstate, and I imagine plenty of drinking and bad eating over the following few days. It will almost certainly be a lot more than just a cheat day this week. I obviously don't expect this to work well, so I have to aim at harm minimisation, and repair work over the next few weeks. Given that it will be December later this week, I'll pretty much spend most of the rest of the time before Chrismtas in repair mode. January is also a tough month. Plenty of Christmas cheer still about, plenty of days off work, and I have 2 weeks off later that month. I anticipate a few more drinks and possibly food between Christmas and February, so I really want to end the last few weeks before Christmas with good solid drinking and eating habits, and not loose control too early. That's a pretty good short term goal.

Sick week

It's been a tough week in more ways than one. Things went very much down the gutter after my high peaks of cheat day morning. Sure I had a decent enough cheat day, but there was an overwhelming feeling that my eye wasn't right. To top that, my son seemed to be getting sick. Sunday morning proved no better with the eye, and I saw a doctor who put me on drops. My son also got sicker, so it was obvious we were both going to be off work and school for a day or two. I got worse again Tuesday, and my son was throwing up and not eating, so another visit to a different doctor changed my prescription, and put my son on drugs too. He has recovered pretty well, and will be at school today. I'm at work, but my eye is still blown up.

After all my blabbing off course, of how I have full control of my diet, there is only one thing possible. A bad diet week of course. There is one thing I hadn't counted for in my full control rant, and that is being sick. Being sick brings a whole new challenge to eating well. It's always the time where you add a couple of nice tasting foods in, just because you feel shitty in other ways. Despite that, I've been pretty damn good, but have cheated. I'll give a run down.

Sunday night, even though my eye was not great, I had a few drinks, 3 beers and 2 wines. I was cooking a BBQ, and figured if I felt well enough to do that, I'm probably OK to have a couple of Sunday beers, and did so. Had one more, then 2 wines. Wife had made my life near impossible buying chips, so I had a small handful of those, but then also had 4 crackers a little later. Kids were showing signs of not wanting sausages again, so I've use them every day this week for breakfasts. Not a massive cheat, but definitely fattier than the bacon I've been using. Two of the lunches I was good, since I was home, having veggies, beans and meat. The other lunch my wife got chicken and chips from the shop, so I had chicken, the cooked veggies and beans, but some hot chips too. I'll add I had cous cous, which is pretty much a no-no too, but only in small doses with plenty of meat and veggies with that meal. Finally, had 2 ice creams (great pick me up when feeling sick), and one lollie too. That's not 100% control, nor is it not having cravings, from what I can tell.

Finally, drinking. I felt 100% better last night, and had my first drink for the week. Too much, but it was a little stress relief, given I'd had a tough day of looking after myself, sick kid, other kid, meals, then my wife rang up to say she wouldn't be home until after their bed, so bath, bed time too was in order. I broke out a bottle of white, had 2 glasses with dinner, and the kids and I played a couple of games, so it helped me relax and we had fun. I hate fun ending, so had 2 reds and a bourbon too. I don't know how to label this, so probably won't bother.

I have to write this week off too, due to a lousy week so far, but still I wonder whether it's danger time for me. I've allowed a few bad foods to creep in here and there, and that could easily balloon if I don't watch out. Funnily enough, I'm still not worried about that. Drinking is a real concern though. The 2 of the 4 nights I did drink recently, I can't just leave it at 2 drinks ever, rather ending up at 5. Far from ideal.

Well, I'm still trying here at least, will push through to the weekend, trying to minimise harm before cheat day. As I said, it could have been a whole lot worse, the wife has been junking right out recently, and eats all sort of tempting food in front of me. I will recount on Saturday morning, but don't expect any drop in weight this week, even though I was sick.

100 kgs!!!!

Well, that's one goal down. 100kgs! Feels great, looks great. By great I mean there is still a few kgs to lose if I want to see a 6 pack, but anything under 100kgs is a very healthy weight for me. I went out to play a little golf today, and I hit some amazing shots. I think I definitely benefited from having 10 kgs lost.

First, I'll wrap up my week, which saw an as promised 3 glasses of wine plus a bourbon Thursday, then 2 wines and 3 bourbons last night. Given the higher than expected drinking, I've burned through most of my bottle of bourbon, and thought that should last at least a month, but it's only been 20 days and will be gone by 22 days. Not good. Food wise, no snacking at all, so on target there.

Now for the overall milestone, 110 kgs to 100 kgs. I think this is the end of the 7th week, so that's 10 kgs in 7 weeks, or 22 pounds. My lightest adult weight is 92 kgs, and I looked like a stick figure at that point, so as you can imagine, I'm pretty close to where I want to be. I don't want to look like a stick, so really anything around 96-97 with a little more muscle than my 92 would be absolutely perfect. I still have a little more weight around my thighs and very bottom part of the stomach (hardest to lose), and could use more muscle, but in any case I'm in the ball park now. 7 weeks. Not really that hard, actually fun a lot of the time. I really like the ideas with this diet. Don't starve yourself, just cut out the sugary crap, and have anything you want on cheat diet. Easy. And as hard as it can be on a Sunday, or when you don't have a meal planned for a Monday or something, the cheat day really does brighten up the last couple of days of the week, as well as the fact your body is almost always at a new low weight by then.

My other goal i set was to get to Christmas, and that looks like a given now. Beyond that I don't even need to set goals, I think I've already made the changes I need to not look back at eating as poorly as I was before. My biggest challenge is alcohol, and after tomorrow, I want a super lean week with that, so that is definitely my number one challenge this next week. I take that challenge much more seriously now, as I feel well in control of food right now. Perhaps it will work well to be able to not worry as much about the food, and focus right in on alcohol. Again, I could go dry for a week, but my big challenge is good long term balance, so one week off, or even a month off doesn't really mean anything for 10 years from now.

Anyway, really pleased with everything right now. I hoped something good would happen from this diet, but actually seeing it happen, and seeing my habits get so much better is obviously something to be proud of.