Monday, September 15, 2008

Four year low :o)

Yippee, I have just achieved a four year low with my weight ( you can see the evidence on my "Weight progress page" ). At the moment I am a very pleasing 14 stone 10 pounds, the lowest I've been since September 2004. Which as my wife has just pointed out also matches the lowest I've been since I started keeping a record of my weight back in May 2001.

I have achieved this latest trend of slimness through nothing much more than common sense, and a little bit of simple planning. The common sense part was essentially cutting out extra 'snacks' (chocolate bars, crisps, biscuits, and so forth that I'd graze on all day), and eating sensible meals. The planning comes in with the sensible meals, I have been making sure of a solid balanced breakfast, a simple solid lunch and then a usual meal in the evening. The planning has also been in evidence in shopping for the right kind of simple foods, so that if I do feel the need for any snack there are simple 'healthier' alternatives on hand (dried fruit and so on).

One of the main changes to meals I have made has been to have something to drink shortly before main meals, and moreover to sit down with the meal set out in front of me and focusing on sitting relatively quietly and enjoying it. I have found that I feel 'fuller' for longer if I have had the opportunity to sit and enjoy a 'slow' lunch, for example, rather than feeling 'hungrier' after a rushed / snatched lunch.

It hasn't been a process of making the diet 'clinical' merely an exercise in making meals defined components of the day, avoiding the eating as a series of snatch and grab episodes. The food I have been having has been fairly formulaic in as far as similar ingredients repeat through the week, but because I sit down and enjoy eating them and the process of eating them I don't seem to find the choices 'boring' or 'samey'. I do have a target weight in mind, but I am not going to commit it to Blog, as I often seem to slip after such grand statements (call me a tiny bit superstitious or something).

All the progress has gone hand in hand with my usual fitness stuff based around rowing, but I have not done anything dramatic on that side of things - the progress has been with simple and enjoyable meals without the 'expensive' calorie packed snacks.

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