Update #9 - Hectic Weekends!

OK, OK I've succumbed to group pressure and here's the update everybody's been waiting for! 

Not long after my previous update where I went semi off reservation I decided to give the myfitnesspal thing a go where you basically track what you eat everyday. You give them a starting weight, your goal weight and few other vital stats and from that they calculate your daily calorie goal that (if you stick to it) eventually should lead to your ideal weight. 

Now I've been following this for about 3 weeks and I found it pretty useful (yes some days I go completely overboard but on most occasions I'm sticking pretty close to my daily goals) Using the simple idea that a calorie is a calorie makes dieting so much less "regimental" meaning that if you want to eat your daily allowance of calories in twinkies or cheese burgers or celery sticks it's basically all the same thing (in reality it's not really the same ... 10 twinkies vs 10kg celery isn't the same no matter who tells you what!)

Anyway, to make a long boring story short I've lost another 2kg over the 3 weeks ... unfortunately I've gained about 1kg in the week or two I went bonkers but in total I'm down to 167.5kg (meaning I'm slowly but surely creeping towards 20 kilos lost overall ... still a long, long way short of my goals for the year but fuckit, so be it! ... Rome wasn't built in a day either) 

The past few days was a bit hectic with a work function at Crawdaddy's on Friday, a close friends bachelors party on Saturday, my dad's birthday yesterday and another friend's birthday today! (and you were wondering why the title of the post is Hectic Weekends?) All of the above conspired to make a huge assault on my dieting efforts but I'll rectify things during the week (hopefully the damage wasn't too much) ... the wedding itself is this coming Friday but since I'm also the token paparazzi for the occasion I probably won't drink anything alcoholic and any forbidden foods consumed will be nullified by frantic photo shooting (p.s wish me luck!)

So ja, there you go, a short and sweet update to what I've been up to the past few weeks. Luckily all weddings and birthdays and sporting events and whathaveyou's are slowly coming to an end for this year (except for the wedding, a year end function at work and christmas itself) so I basically have 3-4 months in which I can try to kick-start this whole process again! Super Rugby only kicks off towards the end of Feb and the my first real important for the coming year is in April, which means until then I don't have any real excuses to hide behind and it's probably high time for me to pull finger and get my ass in gear. 

Update #10 to follow sometime towards the end of the month! 

Update #8 - Desperate measures!

Hmmm, so someone is looking for an update ... 

Let me start off with saying dieting sucks and even if I promised myself (plus world and dog) that I'm on the right track twice now over the past 2 months I've been doing diddly squat about the eating thing. 

Personally I think I'm the world's foremost expert on dieting and living healthy after reading approximately 1 brazillion books and websites on the subject but do you guys think I do anything about it? Nope, nada, fuckall, zilch! 

At least I'm trying during the week but there will always be at least 2 days in the week that I totally fuck-up everything and eat like a demon. Things are now so bad that I'm actually considering the following options ... 

1. Follow a low-fat, vegan like plant based diet ... maybe something like the Engine 2 diet but in all honesty I'm not ready to give up cheese, youghurt or the odd chicken breast! 
2. Join a monastery in India, commit a white-collar crime and get locked up in a low-security prison or join a wood-cutting crew and live in the woods in some far-off wilderness 
3. Wait for the freaking aliens to finally arrive and hope they have some sort of fat-zapping device! 

Basically what I'm trying to say is that I'm gatvol of trying to live my life according to what "the norm" is supposed  to be ... I do realise that I'm a big ugly fat fuck and I do know I'll probably die of a heart-attack earlier than my super fit friends but I'll get over this shitty fat 30-year phase of my life doing it my way. 

Before I totally go off at a tangent and sound like a bitter old fatty who missed his evening cookie I honestly hope I achieve this goal before I actually die of a heart-attack and I do hope my friends (and anonymous web followers) keep on supporting me and kick me in the arse every now and then ... just don't expect miracles overnight and just accept the fact that no matter how I look I'm actually quite happy with myself (even if some of my previous posts might indicate otherwise) so fuckit, just let me be!!! I'll get there eventually! 

Having spend a significant portion of my day yesterday walking around Nasrec at JIMS listening to 2 close ( and much, much slimmer and trimmer) friends moan and bitch almost the whole fucking day about being tired of walking and standing around and other warra-warra shit, this whole "What-the-Fuck ???" attitude slowly dawned on me and made me realise I'm actually in a happy place at this moment in my life so fuck the rest (plus world and dog) 

Will update this blog one day when I feel like it ... I'm now going to lie on the couch and eat a fucking cookie! 

Update #7 - Special Announcement

Holy crap! Nearly a month since my last update!!!

Anyway, as most of you has gathered by now, I've been pussy footing around for the past 4-5 weeks and all I can say is ...

Enough is Enough!!!!

As of yesterday I'm full taps back on my diet and if anybody who knows me personally sees me cheating I hereby give you full permission to give me the PK of my life (for those not familiar with a PK, it's basically a bitch slap, only several orders of magnitude harder!)

Luckily while effing around I don't think I've gained too much weight (although I haven't lost anything either) ... last weigh in 2 weeks ago I was still hovering roundabout the 168kg region. This Biggest Loser contest at work basically has 3 months left (September, October, November) and losing another 18kg in that time seems a breeze ... I just need to get my fucking lazy ass in gear!!!

This all just goes to show how much it can hurt to cheat only for 2-3 days in a row (as discussed in update #5) ... by all means have your cheat day once in a while but stick to one day and not a whole damn weekend  like I did, it only led to my downfall. Talking of cheat days, I have a birthday coming up in a few weeks (and my dad's in November) so please, any PK privileges you think you might have over me are null and void on those 2 days ... they are currently scheduled as my official cheat days for the next 3 months. (and basically my only 2 reasons for living from my current perspective!) 

So ja, please wish me luck and hold thumbs!!! 

Will report back soon ... 

Update #6 - Brain dead food craving

Sheez, probably high time that I update this thingemajig ... last time around I was moaning about the 7 B's and how it influenced my weekend, I was also probably trying to bullshit the bulshitter by mentioning how motivated I was but unfortunately that feeling only lasted a couple of days.

My brain dead problem started with my weigh in on the 23rd of July which showed that I dropped another 2,5 kilos against all expectations, notwithstanding the fact that I have been eating like a pig the previous weekend (no disrespect towards pigs intended, in actual fact I wish I was a pig!!!) ... that meant that I was now down to 168.8kg with a total of 17.4kg lost in roughly 7 weeks. This whole debacle triggered a series of unfortunate events, all of them roughly based on my brain dead thoughts of how on earth did I still lose weight even when eating in total contradiction to my eating plan?

Needless to say the last 2 weeks were a real struggle and although I have been following my prescribed diet quite rigorously during the day it's in the evenings when I simply can't stop thinking about food. After eating my allowed dinner early in the evening, 2 hours later I just go berserk and ransack my cupboards for anything edible! This whole scenario leads in nicely into my second all time über important dieting tip ...

Tip #2 - Don't keep sweets or chips or chocolates or cream cakes or anything nasty in the house while you're on a diet!!!

Luckily for me that is exactly the scenario in my humble old pozzie so the only things I could get hold of are mostly things like Pro-vita, fat free cottage cheese, Tussers and tons and tons of fruit (with the odd Wacky Wednesday or Quarter Pounder with cheese thrown in to the mix) ... so in my defense, the very least I can say is that I have been cheating semi-healthily (I say semi because it's never a good idea to munch after let's say 9 in the evening ... your metabolic rate slows down to crawl while sleeping so even if you consume something healthy it's not really benefiting you if you are asleep. Off course chowing a quarter pounder is also never a healthy choice )

So it's been 2 weeks since my last weigh in, I haven't eaten according to plan, my exercise goals are basically non-existant at this stage (how freaking cold has it been the past week? Flippen hell ... nobody in his right mind can contemplate exercise in this weather) and to top it all off I think I have a deep seated psychological eating disorder! Damn I need to get my head straight!

Anyway, I have a scheduled appointment this morning to go see what the damage is but I forgot all about the  Aussie All Blacks clash so together with the info in the preceding paragraphs I think it's better to postpone any weigh-in sessions I have planned for this weekend and rather take this time to get motivated again so ja, please wish me luck!!!

Pretty short update this week I know, sorry but tough luck (the game is about to kick off so please give me a break!) I'll update next week after a weigh in and hopefully with my head screwed in straight this time ... in the meantime I'll leave you with a website that is well worth visiting, www.livestrong.com (I've added the link in the websites page for future reference) but in particular this blog entry ... Glenda's Story. If something like that doesn't inspire me I don't know!

So cheers, enjoy your week (especially if you have a 96 hour weekend) and remember Smile Dammit!

Update #5 - Cheating and the 7 Deadly B's

Bliksem! It's difficult to comprehend what a powerful instrument your brain really is ... I'm referring back to that stupid McDonald's double quarter pounder I had last weekend and how one single innocent little burger totally mind-fucked me the whole of last week! Not only did I convince myself that I wasn't eating enough, I was actually convinced that I was in starvation mode and therefore needed to eat more!!! 

Luckily I didn't completely pig out during the week (although the Wacky Wednesday and Colonel Burger on Thursday might disagree) but once the weekend started I went totally overboard. Having scooted through to my weekend destination near Rust de Winter with a couple of friends, I decided there and then that I needed a break from 5 weeks of semi-religious dieting which leads to the first of the deadly B's - Biltong! No normal semi-starving human being can spend a reasonable amount of time on a game farm without giving into the heavenly temptation of biltong. (The problem is that my resistance only lasted a couple of minutes at most)

Which eventually leads to the second B of course ... being pretty salty, eating copious amounts of biltong can  lead to the Great Thirst and off course hanging out with the manne in the bushveld can only mean drinking Beer! ... lovely, and let's just rather leave it at that. 

Once again, being on a game farm and stoking a humongous bonfire goes hand in hand (like Julius Malema and bloody agents) which in turn led to Deadly B numbers three, four and five (and I hope you guessed correctly) - Braavleis, Braaibroodjies and Boerewors - Oh my it was freaking awesome! OK, OK I lie, I wish we had steak and chops and wors and braaibroodjies, that was the plan anyway, but with everyone feeling slightly tipsy by that time it was decided it was easier to simply prepare some food in the kitchen (actually that's another fib, most of my friends were pretty wasted by this time so I'm quite confident that I could have gotten away with that little white lie ... in reality we had the most awesome fillet and paptert, which at the end of the day is another deadly combo I suppose ?)

So tummies full, feeling slightly tipsy and warming up next to the fire on a cold winters evening, there is simply nothing better on earth than to slowly enjoy a beautiful Brandewyn! (Brandy & Cola) or Richelieu and Coke Zero to be precise ... the more the better of course!!! Anyway, to make a long boring story a lit bit shorter let's just say that many, many hours, brandy's and Disprins later, nothing cures a hangover better than a slightly greasy Bacon! and scrambled egg breakfast. (being in the bush and not having a Red Bull and Bar One close by basically qualified anything else as the #1 cure) Not having had my absolute favourite food in the whole world for at least 5 weeks I naturally made up for lost time and all I can say is that it was GOOD! 

So ja, there you have it ... my couple of days of insanity to escape the diet madhouse which all started with a bloody Mickey Dee burger. I'm pretty glad I didn't have an opportunity to go weigh myself last weekend because looking at everything I ate it feels like I probably backtracked about 2 weeks in my journey, but on the other hand I can still feel it in my pants (quite literally) that I'm still way smaller than I was 5 weeks ago. Maybe I'm just trying to convince myself again that my feeding frenzy last week wasn't quite the fustercluck it really was but my next weigh in this coming weekend will probably reveal all. For those few supporters who actually do read this blog and is now sitting there in horror let me just finish off by saying that for some strange reason I don't feel nearly as confuckulated in the head as I did last week ... the past 2 days has been A for away as far as motivation was concerned and I've been eating exactly to plan so hopefully everything is back on track! 

Will keep you posted this coming weekend.

P.S Sorry about the delayed update ... my laptop hard drive decided to grind itself to pieces last week (which  was maybe another reason for me going off the reservation for a while) and I only received it back today ... not bad for something that was purchased with a next business day onsite warranty isn't it? Luckily this isn't the place nor the time to rant about shoddy South African service! 

Update #4 ... Eating Habits vs Swine Flu vs Mickey Dee

Let me start with saying that at least I don't have the dreaded H1N1 but it sure as hell feels like it. Started feeling a bit under the weather by Tuesday and by Wednesday it had developed into a full blown case of whatever flu is running rampant these days. Under the circumstances I think I did quite alright and didn't give into the temptation of feeling sorry for myself and go into a eating frenzy (which is usually the case whenever I feel sorry for myself) ... Not until today that is.

I feel like such an idiot but after 5 weeks of dieting and convincing myself that all the fruit and veggies in the world isn't good for surviving a bout of flu, today I fell into the temptation of a McDonald's double quarter pounder with cheese ... maybe it's a blessing in disguise because not only did it satisfy the craving I had slowly but surely been developing over the past week or two but once I finished the damn thing it made me realize how disgusting McDonald's actually is ... fuck, it actually makes me nauseous just thinking about it so believe me I definitely won't be having anything as drastic in the very near future!!! Maybe a choppie or two might sway my hard fought for convictions but I'll try my best.


Luckily my lapse in concentration also came in after my weigh in session yesterday which saw me pushing the scales just past 170kg ... 171.3kg to be exact. That would make my total weight loss 14.9 kg in 5 weeks (but having had the stupid McDees today probably wiped out everything I accomplished over the past week ... only time will tell) All of this does sound fantastic but I am slightly concerned that everything is going to fast. According to the guys over at Fat 2 Fit Radio, weight loss of up to 1% of body weight per week is acceptable for the massively obese (or up to 1kg per week for you normal skinny people) otherwise you stand a very good chance of not only losing fat or water mass, but muscle mass as well which is terrible for your metabolism in the long run. Looking at my starting weight this means I can safely loose 1.7 - 1.8 kg per week (or 9kg over 5 weeks which makes 15kg look a bit worrisome) Not only does muscle burn more calories than fat but loosing weight too quickly may also lead to your body switching to "starvation mode" which stops any weight loss that may be going on and also start the body to store anything consumed as "fat" just in case it doesn't get any food in the near future. All of this basically leads to the typical diet yo-yo effect. Anyway, enough of the scientific stuff, I'm not an expert ... if you need a more info head over to Fat 2 Fit Radio where they will explain everything in detail.

So, there you have it, this week's update. Just one last thing before signing off , I have calculated that my average daily intake is definitely below my BMR which isn't a good thing so over the coming weeks I'm going to try to tweak my diet a bit to contain a little more calories just so that I can keep my weight loss in the safe zone (obviously something else that one can to do to keep muscle mass stable is to start an exercise routine but honestly with the flu and winter and me being a lazy ass that won't happen very soon). Talking of exercise, I know walking around the block is a cheap and effective way to get started but let's say for arguments sake that I'm interested in buying aerobic equipment, be it a stationary bike, an elliptical trainer, a treadmill or even a rowing machine, they are all mostly designed for small people!!!! Bloody hell, all the locally manufactured (and affordable) Trojan equipment has a weight limit of 110-120kg which makes them pretty useless for really fat people. The imported, commercial exercise machines with maximum weight capacities in excess of 150kg all cost in the region of R20,000 - R30,000 ... please allow me to repeat, BLOODY HELL!!! Just another excuse for me not to start exercising!

This coming weekend I have plans to go away for the weekend (to a lovely bushveld retreat) so I won't really have a chance for a weigh in but I'll still try to do an update next week Sunday. (for what it's worth)

Cheers

Update #3 - Soup in Winter Rules ... OK?

Another week done and dusted and feeling better than ever ... having lost another 2.5 kilos during the week and clocking in at an almost aerodynamic 173kg this morning sure is reason to feel good (That makes it 13.2 kg lost in just under a month). Just a pity I have another 73kg's to go but I'm sure I'll eventually get there!

The reason for my title is a follow up from last week when I mentioned developing a craving for my parents weekly soup brew and me going to try and attempt something similar ... anyway, with my first attempt at making a pot of soup from scratch behind me I can successfully report back that it was mission accomplished. Having a nice hearty bowl of soup instead of a bland old skinless chicken breast with a heap of unappetizing veggies nearly brought a tear to my eye. OK, just kidding ... the soup was a nice change though, almost to such a degree that I was beginning to doubt whether it is allowed on my diet plan. Luckily after a quick chat with my dietician she re-assured me that soup was 100% acceptable as long as the weight of the protein / carb combo didn't exceed my meal allowance. Adding water to that doesn't alter the calorific value of the actual food. So ja, I was more than chuffed to say the least. 

Now onto 2 quick topics I've never ever seen being discussed or even mentioned as being an advantage of dieting. I'm not talking about all the well known reasons like you'll feel better about yourself, you'll be more attractive to the opposite sex, you'll perform better in bed, you won't die of a heart-attack at age 42, you won't develop type II diabetes and lose your legs due to bad blood circulation types reasons, oh no!  In my personal opinion what you are about to read is an exclusive world first so listen up ... 

#1 Doing the dishes becomes an absolute doddle (unless you’re doing the Atkins thing off course) ... basically going the fat free route means no more pots and pans and hours of elbow grease to get rid of the damn burnt oil or whatever tried to bond with the so-called non-stick Teflon surface (yeah right!) Anyway, I found myself turning more and more to plastic containers and microwave cooking than anything else and this makes doing the dishes nothing more than a quick rinse job every evening! Major Bonus! 

#2 You can wear 2 pairs of pants ... ok, ok, this really only works after a couple of weeks of weight-loss and in winter (unless you live in the Antarctic or Greenland)  ... having experienced a particularly cold snap last week and my office at work closely resembling an industrial fridge I was in the lucky position to wear a pair of sweat pants underneath my trousers to work without anybody noticing. Well it was either that or sit in my office with a blanky covering my legs ala granny style! Talking of trousers, I have to seriously start looking for some old pants in my closet since my current size 54’s is waaaayy to big for me!

So there you have it ... 2 absolutely unique Top Tips to get you going on your very own journey! Ok, maybe it wasn’t as earth shattering for you as it was for me but I simply hate doing dishes and I’m too much of a man’s man to show any sign of weakness. Maybe, just maybe you feel the same way and may find that kind of info useful in future.

Well that’s it for this week. Luckily the Stormers lost to the Crusaders today otherwise I may have been obliged to go out celebrating which in turn would have led to who knows what (nothing beats Bar One and Red Bull to cure a babbelas) So thank you boys for playing like your arses today, you have done me a huge favour!!! 

Cheers till next time!

Cold Weather and Dieting Sucks a.k.a Weekly Update #2

Sjoe, what a week ... first the almost unusually warm weather mid week followed by arguably the coldest Gauteng weather in recent memory. All this temperature yo-yoing left me with a slight cold which is not cool to say the least and not being able to eat my usual fair under these circumstances made me feel pretty miserable by weeks end.

Luckily all that misery cleared away quite quickly after my weigh in on Saturday morning when I learned that I dropped another 4.3 kilograms during the week. (Meaning I'm now at 11.1 kg lost in 3 weeks and 175.5kg overall) Speaking of this rapid weight loss I cannot stress enough that in reality any normal person with a slight to mild overweight problem cannot and shouldn't try to emulate these results. Most diet experts advocate a 2-3 kilo per month weight loss as being ideal and anything more is only setting yourself up for failure in the long term ... I'm no diet expert but when starting from such an extreme size as I did and simply switching to eating correctly it makes totally sense. Under no circumstances am I starving myself to death but I'm also not quite eating as much as the excellent BMR calculator over at Fat 2 Fit Radio suggests I should (I would like to reach my goal weight before reaching retirement age!) and I'm also under no illusion that this rapid trend will continue. A plateau will be reached where my body simply accepts my new calorific intake and weight loss will come to an almost standstill at which stage I hope (hold thumbs) I can kick things up a notch by starting to exercise a bit more (or let's be honest, actually start to exercise, at the moment I'm doing sweet bugger all in terms of actual exercise)

As a final note this week, last night was my first braai (or barbeque for those not from the great continent of Africa) with a bunch of friends since starting this whole diet thing. Fully expecting the same bunch of asses who continually mocked me for being a fat ass now tuning me for not eating half a cow or drinking a dozen beers with them, it actually came as quite a surprise to find them full of encouraging remarks and being totally supportive of my weight loss goals! So ja, I may not have been the life of the party but one day I'll join you again for a drink (or two or three) and at least I don't have a major hangover this morning like most of you probably have! :-)

Thanx guys, with friends like you around it certainly makes this journey I'm undertaking much more tolerable!

OK, the previous "note" was not so final ... for the week ahead I don't really foresee any difficulties but if this cold weather continues I'll try to make some sort of soup from whatever veg/protein I'm allowed. I'm starting to develop a small craving for my parents veggie soup (they make the most awesome 10-12 liter pot of veggie soup every weekend for consumption the week ahead but unfortunately it's laden with all sorts of starches and meat that I'm not allowed to have), my attempt will be a poor substitute for sure but it will have to do as sort of a consolation prize! Speaking of cravings I was also surprised not be tempted by the copious amounts of fillet, rump steak, spare ribs, boerewors and choppies that were on the braai last night. Sure it smelled divine and looked absolutely freaking awesome but my lonesome spiced up chicken breast looked equally enticing on the coals and at the end of the day it was delicious! (OK OK, I'll admit those chops made my mouth water but luckily I didn't give in to temptation) 

So there you go, that really was my last comment for the week which makes your misery of reading update #2 done and dusted ... Thanx for your support and please don't hesitate to leave a comment, I most definitely read everyone of them and really appreciate the effort it takes!

Same time, same place next week ... Cheers!

Update #1 (with über important tip!)

Hi there, just a quick update after my second weigh in on Saturday … lost another 1.7 kilos during the week and broke through the 180kg barrier (Woot! only 80kg’s to go!) 

This in turn brings me to the one thing I left out last week … my actual goals!!!

In the short term I’m looking only at the 6 month duration of the Biggest Loser contest at work so I hope to at least break through the 150kg barrier by the 1^st of December (although closer to 140 would be great) Losing 36 kilograms in 6 months (i.e. 6 kg per month) might seems a bit excessive to most diet experts but in reality I honestly believe if you’re mega-overweight as I am it’s not inconceivable (or even that unhealthy for that matter) 

Longer term ideally I would love to get into double figures (for the first time in probably 20 years) but being rather “big boned” it’s probably not going to happen very soon so 110kg by the December 2012 would be really, really awesome! Before I leave out another crucial stat I just have to mention that at least I’m 1.96m tall and 110-120kg’s in context of my length and nationality (South African for those who need a picture) isn’t such an astronomical number as you might think (unless you’re 50kg jockey perhaps?)  

And now for my very first diet tip so listen up people … if you’re on a calorie counting / weighing your portion type diet I would like to make a comment regarding the humble old kitchen scale … please make sure the one you are using is at least sort of accurate! Having followed my old SureSlim program for the past 2 weeks I never got the “hungry sensation” like I remembered having many, many years ago. I had a vague suspicion that even though I was weighing my portions I was simply eating too much. Well my suspicions were confirmed when I bought a 680gr chunk of white cheddar cheese that my old piece of crap scale measured at 590gr!!! That is a whopping 15% error! Anyway, to cut a long story short I bought a cheap electronic scale over the weekend and it’s much better (it measures the chunk of cheese @ 677gr) 

Tip #1 – Buy an accurate kitchen scale … it doesn’t have to be expensive, just accurate! 

Now that I‘m eating the recommended portion sizes hopefully I’ll see better results than the 1.7 odd kilos lost last week (Most people would probably find that quite acceptable but in all honesty that was less than 1% lost so I wasn’t the happiest camper) I'm definitely not a big supporter of starvation but let’s just say I’m considering the past 2 weeks as a practice run for the real program which started in earnest on Sunday, 19 June. 

So ja, there you have it - my first update. Maybe I’ll post something later in the week but I did make a weigh in appointment for Saturday so I’ll definitely give you an update after the weekend.

Cheers!

Hi and welcome to The LTFU Blog*

I’m starting this blog mainly as a motivational tool for my weight loss journey that started in earnest (again!) on the 1^st of June 2011. This will be my second serious attempt at losing weight and hopefully things will work out better this time around. In all honesty I’m not writing this for the whole world to share in my sad panda story but purely to keep record of my lifestyle change and the ensuing fat loss (or so the theory goes). In the off chance that somebody else might actually visit this page I thought I might as well make it interesting and if anyone in a similar position finds something useful on this blog in future at least all this effort wouldn’t have been in vain. 

Let’s start off then with a short and painfully boring history lesson … About 10 years ago I started using the SureSlim program (yes the one that tests your blood and all sorts of other things) but please don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if I’ve suddenly realised that I’m fat and I needed to lose weight, I’ve always been the fat kid as far back as I can remember. I know I had some sort of kidney issues as baby/toddler but it’s not something I know or remember much about. I distinctly remember though being the biggest kid in our whole group when I started school and was pushing the scales close to 60kgs (which is apparently a lot for a 7-year old kid), the day I left school I couldn’t have been much less than 125kg. When I started the program for the first time, about 10 years after I left school, I’ve already ballooned to a not-so-beefy 150kg but following SureSlim’s sort-of personalised program for 8 months (without any form of exercise I might add) I’ve dropped down to approximately 115 kilos which I thought was pretty remarkable. Unfortunately around this same time I’ve lost my job and went through a 2-3 year period of not really knowing whether I was coming or going which saw me surely but slowly gain back everything I’ve lost. 

By 2004 my life was sort of back on track but by now I was so accustomed to this 150kg-ish bulk it didn’t really bother me at all. So it went for 5-6 years with me not really giving a hoot about my looks (or how people sometimes looked at me) but by the end of 2010 I started to notice that whenever I saw myself in a photo all I saw was this gigantic monstrosity. Deep inside I just knew that my 150kg days were long gone and that I’m just kidding myself to think along those terms.  Even my closest friends of many years started asking embarrassing questions and made comments on my huge size. Being the “jolly guy” that I am it was pretty easy to joke about it and laugh out loud whenever the subject got mentioned but at the end of the day it still leaves a painful impression which led to me finally deciding to do something about this matter.  

Starting 2011 I consciously tried to eat healthier (with emphasis on try) and consistently had thoughts of starting some sort of exercise in the back of my head but being the perennial lazy ass I never really did anything about it and before I would know it I would find myself in the queue at the McDonalds or the KFC or ordering some sort of takeout pizza. 5 months down the line and still not really having done anything about my predicament I heard that some people at work was thinking of starting a Biggest Loser contest with a pretty decent cash prize for the winner. Luckily with me also being the perennial poor ass, I saw this opportunity as the great motivator I was always waiting for. (Who knew money has this amazing property?) Knowing that SureSlim worked for me in the past I thought that if I simply followed my old program again I would stand a very good chance! 

Anyway, the competition kicked off on the first with me realising my worst fears, embarrassingly I weighed too much for the 150kg max capacity electronic scale which tried valiantly to give a reading but all it could muster was an error message. At least they could take my measurements which were:

• Chest 137cm
• Waist 152cm
• Hips 165cm

These figures may not be the most accurate though since it was taken by a less than eager male colleague who didn’t seem too enthusiastic about measuring a fat dude but at least it’s something to work with. Obviously to make things fair for everyone competing I had to get myself weighed accurately as soon as possible. Having had SureSlim on my mind from the beginning I phoned and made an appointment to go see them on the 4^th of June. To make a long story short I went there simply to abuse their industrial scale but after talking to them they made me a great offer I simply couldn’t refuse … so I joined up again for 6 months which at least allows me to go weigh myself every week (which I feel is important in the beginning to keep you motivated when you see that your suffering during the week was actually worth it) and it gives me a support base should I need it. 

The big question everyone is probably asking is “So how much did you weigh?” Well the embarrassing answer is 186.2kg … I’ll even repeat that ridiculous number (and make it bold and a ridiculously zany colour and for good measure a decent font size as a reminder of my humiliation and to say to myself … NEVER AGAIN!!!)

 

186.2kg!!!!!

^th tomorrow I can happily say that after 2 weeks of rigorously following the program (at least mostly) I had my first weigh in last week and I’ve already lost 5.3 kilos (i.e. weight = 180.9kg after Week 1) and that I’m due for my second weigh in tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll see a similar result so here’s holding thumbs! 

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If you’ve read this far first of all congratulations and thank you, not many people would have. Since you already know basically everything about me why not join me in my weight loss journey? I’ll try my utmost to update you at least once a week on my progress, share with you know what’s working for me (or what’s not) and give general tips and hints on weight loss as I stumble upon them during my own research. Please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or if you know of any helpful or inspirational websites please let me know so that I can share it with everyone else.     

  

Many thanks and see you all next week! 

^* I’ll try to keep swearing to the bare minimum but sometimes in life things just needs to be said ... if you can’t live with the odd expletive being uttered … Eish, I don’t know???