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Hlyde

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Hi everyone

I've been stalking some stories the last few days, avoiding actually taking the time to do my own. So I'll just jump in before I fall asleep. I can always update later. Starting from tomorrow, I'll be changing my diet.

I'm your average guy in my mid 30's with a height of 190cm. I haven't weighed myself in a while, but I generally average around 108kg.

The target is to at least lose 1kg per week. I know this is possible and realistic as I've done this before without too much difficulty. The difficult part is keeping that weight off. My big goal is to go down to about 85kg. My short term goal is to just get under 100kg before the end of March.

As for the how...for now it will be low carb food mixed with intermittent fasting. This is what worked for me in the past. Drinking black tea, coffee and water during fasting time. I'm struggling with time, so won't be doing exercises atm, but might add those in later. I don't have specifics to what the food will look like. Mostly veg and salad things thrown together. Sometimes I make my own food, sometimes my wife makes it, so it's difficult to track.

Hopefully this gives some idea. I'll try to weight myself daily and push the information to a google sheet. I would like to track how my weight, fat, muscle and BMI changes over the period.

Let me know if there are any suggestions.
 
Hi, Hlyde & welcome to the forum. It sounds like you have a good plan & that's half the battle. IF combined with low carb works for lots of people. Starting a diary is also a good idea. I look forward to following your progress :)
 
Hlyde said:
....Let me know if there are any suggestions.
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be blatantly under-realistic in setting goals. it's already the start of the second week of February. chances are very good that you will not see a positive change for about a week (that's the way it works). that leaves six weeks before the end of March. you are "guessing" that you are currently 108 kg. care to re-evaluate your goal of 100 kg by 3/31?

when you meet or exceed an easy goal, believe me, you won't dwell on the "easy" part.
 
Hi, Hlyde! Welcome to the posting side of the forum! :)
Yes, a kilo a week sounds doable to me, though Flyer's tip makes good sense psychologically - if it turns out that unbeknownst to you you are weighing 112 kg, not 108, then you might be setting yourself up for a demotivating thump of disappointment if you "only" go down to 107 by the end of March.
It's relatively easy to track and control sugars - it involves ditching a lot of things with added sugar, but processed foods will tell you if there's sugar (fructose, dextrose etc) in there. For me, that's the easiest way to go low-carb.
 
Hey Hlyde welcome to the forum!

A kg a week is an agressive goal, but not impossible. Even if you don't make it and come close you will have done well. In fact any loss is a good thing.

I am looking forwarding to following your progress.
 
Welcome Hlyde and best of luck with your goals! I hope you´ll get a "real" weigh-in before committing to an exact time-related weight goal, if only because afterwards it´s great to be able to say how much weight you lost exactly.
 
Hi everyone

So the weekend didn't go as well as I hoped. The main issue was that I never prepped my food and was left with junk food from the previous shopping trip. I won't let that get me down though. I was able to do some shopping today and started my first proper day of eating well.

As mentioned before I'm doing intermittent fasting, so I had coffee, black tea and water during the day. Once I got home I was able to enjoy an amazing salad that my wife threw together while I had a good gardening workout for about 2 hours. I'm really passionate about salads, especially when my wife makes them. She tends to experiment which means the salad is different every time. I usually tend to splash olive oil and balsamic vinegar over my salads, but tonight I measured it with a table spoon. That being said, having just checked online it's still about 120 calories for that one table spoon of olive oil, so I'll probably bring that down to a teaspoon of olive oil and a table spoon of balsamic vinegar. Maybe I'll mix it with some greek yogurt and lemon juice. All in all it was a really good day. I enjoyed the food, had a really intense unplanned workout and I feel good.

Now to the question that some of you asked. My current weight. (I weigh myself in the mornings)
  • 106 kg (not as bad as I thought, so that makes the goal more realistic!)
  • 30.9 body fat
  • 47.6 water %
  • 29.4 BMI
  • 30.4 muscle %
  • 4.1 bone mass index
  • 2364 calories
(I'll add these to a spreadsheet as mentioned, just need to make the time)
The main things to take away are the weight and BMI.
Weight of 106 which means that if I lose 1kg per week as planned then I'll reach my goal of being under 100kg before the end of March with a week to spare, which is a good buffer. With my BMI I need to get under 90kg to get to a healthy goal. So in total that is 16kg to go, which will take about 4 months. If I add a bit of buffer that should be around the beginning of July.
1581365648636.png

@Cate Thanks. I'm def planning on going low carb. The weekends are my weakness due to getting bored.
@overlandflyer Thanks for the advice. I think reaching my goal of 100kg should be easy. It's the weight after that which I'm more concerned as that usually slows down. If I go for the end of March it means I have to lose about 0.85kg per week, which is manageable. 106kg is already 2kg down from 108kg.
@aiminglow Thanks for the advice. I'm not good with measuring and try to make science out of my meals. Therefore I opt to stick with low carb vegetables. That means I can in theory eat as much as I want and probably still lose weight. I've set up a spreadsheet and try to stick to the foods which are under 50cal per 100g, with the majority of my foods being 25cal per 100g.
1581366663367.png
@alligatorob Thanks. 1kg might be aggressive, but I've lost about 12kg in 3 months last year, so I know it's doable. My big goal this time is to keep that weight off!!! A lot of that is about mental health as stress or depression is usually what triggers my weight gains. That's why I opted for the forum approach this time. To keep myself accountable and to stay on the journey with others rather than losing sight due to doing it myself. Btw, enjoyed your thread. Your thread was actually why I decided to join the forum as I could see the impact your perseverance had on you as well as others.
@LaMaria Thanks. The goal is more realistic and doable after weighing in. I agree, it could have been worse at which point I would have had to re-evaluate. I'll also keep track via the spreadsheet as well so I can see over time how the weight goes down.

Now to get some good sleep. I'll update again tomorrow.
 
It sounds like you are off to a good start. Thanks for all the info. It's good to see how you are tackling this. Alligatorob's influence is greater than he thinks. Not only is he a good influence & a motivator, but he also offers lots of support. Welcome to our kind space.
 
Hey Hlyde, you're certainly bursting with motivation right now! Good on you not letting the leftover junk get you down. What kind of things were in your salad? If you're only going to eat once a day it's important to get enough nutrition in with that one meal and if that olive oil is your only source of fat for the day a tablespoon sounds more sensible to me than a teaspoon.
 
Thanks for the kind words @Cate I'll try keep as much info available so others can maybe learn from my journey as well.

@LaMaria Haha...yes, I'm taking advantage of the beginning phase where one is still all motivated. As for your question of what is in my salad. It's really just a big mix of different things. I try not to throw everything together in one go, but rather play with the flavors and colors. It's really not extravagant though. An example might be cut up kale, brocolli and baby spinach mixed with cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, a few grapes, a small radish thinly sliced with some grated carrots on top. I've learnt that a nice variaty of colors makes for a good salad. I'm not a fan of carrots, but grated and mixed with others it works well. Oh, it's all raw, so it's quick to throw together and tastes amazing.
Some things that I try to stick with:
  1. I swap out sauces for mixing foods with Greek Yogurt. Lemon juice, herbs and GY OR Honey, olive oil, balsamic vin and GY as some examples.
  2. As mentioned I always try a good mix of colors. The general rule is that green is lower in sugar, but going too green just makes it boring and causes me to binge quickly afterwards. The variety really makes for interesting salads which I wouldn't normally do.
  3. Different textures. I try and avoid croutons as I tend to eat them like a bag of chips. A few in the salad and the rest in the mouth. I would use dried onions to have something crunchy. Otherwise I would get a small amount of chips and crunch it really fine so as to sprinkle it over the salad. It adds a chunchyness and with the variety of chip flavours it can spice up your salads.
Feedback for the last 2 days (wasn't able to post yesterday)

106.1 kg on Tuesday
104.8 kg on Wednesday

Ate variations of salads both nights.v Feeling good. I don't have a lack of energy as I still get into the garden every day after work.
 
Cate said:
I love salads a lot & have lots of variations. What are you having for protein?
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At the moment, not much. Last 2 nights I've grabbed a vienna from the fridge as I finished my salad. I would prefer to swap that our for cold chicken meat or eggs. Will have to get that on my next shopping trip.
 
LaMaria said:
Sounds delicious but I'm joining Cate in wondering where the protein is coming from.
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The strange thing is that I'm not feeling the affect of low protein or even low carb meals. I'm getting a proper workout every evening when I get into the garden...to the point that I'm drenched in sweat. We recently moved in so we are having to redo the whole garden as the tenants didn't maintain the garden. I'm not tired or exhausted at all atm. In truth I'm actually feeling really good. My energy levels are more consistent through the day as apposed to extreme highs/lows.
 
Sunflower19 said:
Hey welcome!!! We are similar in age!!:) Best of luck on your journey, can’t wait to hear about your progress :)
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Thanks! Hope my feedback is of use to you since our age is similar. Still feeling young, but I can definitely feel it's getting harder with age.
 
Quick update.

Weighed myself this morning.
  • Start Weight: 106 kg
  • Current Weight: 104.2 kg.
  • Total Weight Lost: 1.8 kg
  • Average Weight Loss: 0.6 kg per day
1581574084151.png

For a detail report, check HERE
 
:) That´s a LOT of extrapolation from 3 points (that aren´t actually on one line so really it´s just extrapolating from 2 points...). I hope you´re right though! About the protein: you won´t get away with not eating protein until you reach your goal weight. Exercise or not your body is going to cannibalize an unnecessary amount of muscle mass if you´re not eating a decent amount of protein. Which often leads to regaining the weight.
 
LaMaria said:
:) That´s a LOT of extrapolation from 3 points (that aren´t actually on one line so really it´s just extrapolating from 2 points...). I hope you´re right though! About the protein: you won´t get away with not eating protein until you reach your goal weight. Exercise or not your body is going to cannibalize an unnecessary amount of muscle mass if you´re not eating a decent amount of protein. Which often leads to regaining the weight.
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Haha! Yes, I'm not taking the graph too seriously. I'm just setting it up so that it's just a matter of updating it and showing the progress over time.
It's currently based on the last 4 days:
106
106.1
104.8
104.2

As to your point on protein...that's really good advice! I'm not looking to lose muscle mass even though I have a big build. I'll add some tuno, egg, cold chicken meat. Any suggestions to low carb protien, preferably plant based?
 
I love tempeh, tofu isn't too bad, and seitan is pretty much pure protein. I'mnot low-carb so I can't tell you specifics but "whole" plant foods are rarely low-carb. Something like pumpkin seeds or hemp hearts might help as well.
 
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