The 2021 OTF Weight Loss Intention & Mutual Support Thread

[Third rate Leszno]

Good work Foxy, that's impressive stuff.

In my last update in February I was aiming to get to 16st by the end of March. I didn't quite make it as I seemed to get stuck at around 16st 3lb and despite continuing the same eating, drinking and walking regime that had dropped me from 17st 8lb at NY, those last 3lb refused to shift.

On May 7th, we got a puppy. I'm now 15st 11lb, so I can recommend this course of action to anyone struggling to get off a weight plateau. It's not really the extra exercise as we can't take him out for walks yet, it's the not having time to eat snacks or relax in the evening with a beer (I've had two beers in 3 weeks). Keeping him occupied and entertained is full-on, when he goes to sleep it's time to catch up with household jobs or work that has fallen behind when he's awake.

[nmrfox]

Since the start of the year, been up and down. Started with good intentions, lost weight; stress of the house move and all of the shenanigans that went with that, put on weight. Moved house (eventually), good intentions, lost weight; got comfortable in the new house and lost focus; put on weight. So at the time of my wifes birthday, 2 months ago, I asked her what she wanted and she said the only thing she wanted was for me to lose weight - I was around 16st (101kg, 224lbs) at the time. Swallowing my pride, I did give her the Kindle I'd already bought for her birthday, which she liked, but also promised that I would try to lose some weight for her (as she was afraid of losing me to a heart attack).

So, 2 months later. I cannot deny that I like a drink, and I also enjoy sitting up late, watching TV and eating trash. However, on school nights I've resolved to be a good lad and have been off to bed early, we've both laid there reading in bed, so by the time it's lights out it's a reasonable time in my mind to go to sleep. Exercise (i.e. dog walking) has never been an issue as we go for a bare minimum of 4 miles a day. There have even been weekend/Bank Holiday nights when I've not had a drink/snack. Net result is a loss of over a stone so far with my current weight of 14st 13lbs (94.8kg, 209lbs), with the plan to try and get under 200lbs by end of July.

I feel better, being an asthmatic my breathing is a lot better than it was earlier in the year, clothes fit much better, I feel much more happier in my lifestyle, and best of all, my lovely wife is really happy with me (and also urging me not to get complacent and slip back as has happened before).

[Balderdasha]

I put new batteries in my electronic scales and they are now recording my weight as a kilogram higher than it was before I replaced the batteries. Outrageous.

But I really do need to get a handle on my weight. I went to the gym three times last week. I'm still 1.6kg down on my peak weight on January 6th this year, but about 23kg higher than I should be so a long way to go.

[Janik]

Very impressive!

Given your substantial weight loss, what changes in your physical performance have you noticed?

I know it's a blunt tool, but what's your current BMI?

(My weight, top end of the healthy BMI range, has oscillated gently since last summer. It's so stable that I'm thinking about moving from two weigh-ins per week to just one. )

Performance, how?

Erm, well, it's kind of hard to unpick what is down to weight loss, what is down to improved fitness from the running I've been doing, and what is down to the knee strengthening exercises that a physio advised as generally good after a very slow recovery from an injury at the start of 2019, something (the slow recovery) that she put down to weak muscles around the knee rather than any problems in the joint. But in general the stamina is much better, my knees don't hurt when I go up or down stairs, standing up is from the floor is now straightforward again, my back gets stiff when lying down very rarely now rather than occasionally, my core strength is improved and my balance is better. Oh, and improved digestive health as well - it turns out having a heavy stomach pressing down on and squashing your intestines is unhelpful.

As for BMI, my height is 1m77. So at 69.3kg, it calculates as 22.1.
[BMI = weight in kilos / (height in metres)squared]

[Wouter D]

Nice going Janik!

[Nocturnal Submission]

Very impressive!

Given your substantial weight loss, what changes in your physical performance have you noticed?

I know it's a blunt tool, but what's your current BMI?

(My weight, top end of the healthy BMI range, has oscillated gently since last summer. It's so stable that I'm thinking about moving from two weigh-ins per week to just one. )

[Janik]

When I started losing weight it was something I sort of stumbled into - it went something like an extremely busy day at work meant I simply didn't eat, only getting around to my planned lunch at around 9pm and never managing dinner. A combination of factors and motivations, of which being overweight already being known back then as a serious risk factor for Covid was a main one but nothing like the only one, saw me decide to make the most of the accidental start and commit to trying seriously to get into better shape. All that meant I don't have a pre-weightloss day 0 weight - the first time I carefully weighed myself was already at handful of days (1 or 2, I don't remember exactly) into the attempt. And given I eat basically nothing on those first couple of days it is likely I had already shed up a fair amount* prior to getting a baseline figure. However, the first day where I did weigh myself according to what became the establish 8am protocol was 26th March 2020, i.e. exactly a year ago. My weight then was 87.6kg. This morning it was 69.3kg, which is 18.3kg down.

* - during that first few days I was losing around 1kg per day! (down to 84.6kgs by 29th March, which was three tracked days in) This would actually tally with previous ad hoc, uncontrolled weigh-ins, which used to show me around the 89-90kg mark.

Crucially, the weight now appears to be quite stable... well actually, it is still drifting down very, very slowly (see graphs below - the current rate is ~2.0kg lost per annum!). Putting it back on again seems to be being avoided. For instance I haven't had a weight of 72.0kg or greater since 12th October last year, 71.0kg or higher since 23rd November and 70.0kg or above since 23rd Feb. And that is weighing myself literally daily - it is now part of the morning routine.

The next challenge will be seeing if this is maintained when the world goes back to normal, given the weightloss period maps basically exactly to the bizarrest time of most of our lives. But I'm not seeing why it would as by now my new appetite is very ingrained. Fingers crossed.


And finally, the graphs



Blue = 2050 calories per day
Red = shifting from 2050 to 2750 calories per day and then seeing if weight is stable
Green = shifting from 2750 to 3000 calories per day and then seeing if weight is stable
Purple = ceased calorie counting as weight appears under control

On the equations, the gradients (i.e. the mulitpliers of x) are the weight changes of the best-fit lines, each expressed in kg/day (for example, the blue line is y = -0.1782x, which means an average weight loss (the minus sign) of 178.2g/day or ~1.25kg/week over that period) and the constants/intercepts are meaningless (there is no sensible origin point on an ongoing date axis, so how can there be an intercept?)




This is the relative weight change from week to week, as measured on Monday mornings. Anything below zero on the y-axis is a week where weight has been lost overall, anything above it is one with a gain across the 7 days.


And finally



Monthly numbers, showing that a slow weightloss continues even allowing for the margin or error, which is needed as the average daily changes would be lost in the noise of general fluctuations and only become apparent when an overall trend is computed. Note that the x-axis is very foreshortened, and the ongoing percentage change is much lower than this makes it appear. Notably, re: this month, I haven't yet had a single weight of 70.0kg or above (three at 69.9 but 69.9 is < 70.0!). Something which I will hopefully maintain through the next five days, and that will be another first for this millennium.

[Third rate Leszno]

So, my last 3 weigh-ins (across a 5 day stretch) have been 16st 8lb, 16st 9lb and 16st 7lb. The first one seemed too good to be true as I hadn't noticeably lost any belly, so I gave it a couple more goes and it seems reasonably consistent. I'm surprised but feel like my efforts have been rewarded. As per my last contribution to this thread I've (mostly) continued to do well on avoiding lardy meals, had no more than one beer on a Friday and Saturday and none at all the other 5 days. I've managed to avoid snacking on anything other than rice crackers and kept up a decent number of steps each day (the cold dry weather has been a massive help on that front). Last three weeks have been 90,000, 83,000 and 86,000 steps respectively.

As there seems no prospect of any sport, pubs or restaurants opening up this side of Easter I will continue to plug on with this routine and should hopefully be free of distractions other than my own sketchy willpower and a large cupboard full of beers. If I can get to 16 stone by the end of March I will be more than happy.

[San Bernardhinault]

To be fair, it was only three or four frozen pizzas. It's the dry stuff, which all travelled with us and which lasts forever which is the biggest issue.

[Sporting]

You only really just moved so where did all the pizzas arrive from?

[San Bernardhinault]

I've been meaning to revive this, too. I'm still working on the margin because I am still depleting the stockpile of "bad" food left in the house from before Christmas - seriously, how did we have this much sugary candy and bags of crisps and frozen pizza? But I'm down somewhere around 5lbs on the year and probably 12lbs from my moving-house-plus-Covid max.

I suspect that my biggest problem is that I absolutely love bread. And bread leads to butter. I think once I get back from our week away next week that I might have a moratorium on (non-pizza) bread products for a month and see what that does.

[nmrfox]

So the start to my year was very encouraging, but with the house sale being pulled at the last minute (see Mundane Thread IV if you must) and with fridge and freezer run down, it was back to junk food for a while and back to the drinking as an excuse because of the stress and strain that I was under. Fortunately the house sale finally completed last Friday and a fresh start was made. So, since we moved here, and with no 5 minute walk to the late night offy for a bottle of wine, I've eaten well and not had a drop of alcohol. New result is a weight loss of 8lbs, also helped by a lot of lifting and shifting of furniture as we settle in. Thats a third of my goal total already gone, and whilst I appreciate that this rapid loss won't continue, it's made my feel much more confident about getting things right going forwards.

[Third rate Leszno]

So, since January 3rd I have done (mostly) quite well at reducing the amount of shit I eat and drink. No Greggs breakfasts, and only one Maccy's breakfast (which was slightly mitigated by having a single sausage and egg muffin instead of a double). No week night beers, in fact no beer at all between 3rd Jan and 15th Jan, and only 3 small cans over the weekend just gone.

Lunches have been mostly just 1/5 of a chicken (we cook a chicken on Sunday and it lasts me 5 days, basically) with some low fat crisps (Walkers baked, Quavers, Burt's lentil curls etc.). Allowed myself one chocolate per day only - we have to get through the Xmas tree decorations, Quality Street and Miniature Heroes somehow. This Saturday was a blow out - my Mam was gagging for chippy chips so I shared a portion with her, then had a chicken pie mid-afternoon and in the evening a mix of starters and crispy duck from Jade Gardens takeaway. But I'd go mad if I didn't do that occasionally, it's about minimising the number of times I do it.

I've done 86,000 and 76,000 steps in the past two weeks respectively (work and shit weather accounting for the reduction in week 2), but to be honest it's the reduced food/drink intake that'll make the difference to my weight, the walking is probably more useful in just keeping my circulation going and my lungs working than actually chipping away at my excess chub.

The result is that I've dropped from 17st 8lb to between 17st 1lb and 17st 4lb (it's fluctuated a bit - perhaps dependent on how hydrated I am?). I shall plough on with the reduced rations and see if I can get down to 16st 7lb by March.

[Janik]

That fits with what I have observed on myself. And it makes logical sense - the body will deposit unused calories as glycogen in the muscles in readiness for it being spent, as recent experience says that is required. But it won't keep it there for long before transferring it to it's longer term storage of adipose.

[Nocturnal Submission]

A 30 minute run will burn roughly 300 calories,* depending on how fast you go. And on how much you weigh. This is one situation where being heavier is actually a bit of a minor benefit - it means you burn more calories per minute or running. But 'wipes out the effect of' is a rather negatively loaded way of looking at it... (and 30 minutes run = 1 beer is also dependent on the beer as well, of course!)

* - or more like ~250 additional calories. Because there is often a double count going on with these sort of statements from fitness website and the like. Yes, if you are running for half-an-hour you will burn 300 calories or so. But if you are sitting in your armchair watching TV you instead for that period you would also burn 50 calories. That is the rate of energy expenditure that humans have simply to exist. [The later number is based on the recommended average daily intake of 2000kcal for a woman and 2500kcal for a man. So ~100kcal per hour, or ~50 per half-hour.]

However, that 30 minutes of running, if it is something people can do regularly, does provide a double benefit in a different way. Because if it is something done often it will drive your metabolic rate up. You must have all heard a slim young woman who is with friends and is eating something 'naughty' saying to her compadres something along the lines of "Oh, I'm lucky, I can get away with it as I've just got a fast metabolism". But she is eliding things when she plays it down like that. Namely that said young woman is highly likely doing a fair amount of exercise to have her fast metabolism. It's not actually luck at all.

The baseline (or basal) metabolic rate does vary per person on things like genetics, of course. And again height, weight and gender are significant factors. But BMR's don't change all that much between people on genetic grounds. A few dozen kcals maybe. The range it can vary by pales compared to the changes a person can make to their actual metabolic rate by the amount of exercise they are regularly doing. That can move the needle by several hundred calories.

For my own height/weight/gender, the difference in caloric needs between being 'inactive' and 'active' (as per the NHS) is supposedly ~400 kcal. And in my experimenting last year, it seemed that these numbers were about right. Due to the amount of deliberate exercise I do, I would be placed in the next category up from 'active' by the NHS - 'active' is 60-150 minutes of vigorous exercise per week and I get through more than that, usually 200+ minutes per week. And again, the self-experimentation said that was about right as I'm a 1m77 tall / 70 kilo male in his mid-40s, and my weight appears to be stable whilst consuming ~3000 kcal per day.

As Hot Pepsi noted, ~2000 kcal/day is not a lot by US standards. But 3000 is a fairly large amount by UK ones. But the key thing here is that my body doesn't appear to start to make adipose tissue until I've gone over the regular 3000kcal, even if I'm on a rest day. On rest days I do no exercising, but still consumed my usual amount of food (three full meals and a snack or thereabouts). And on quite a few occasions I've still found my weight had dropped the next morning despite not 'burning' 300 kcal with a run during the day. The effects of such exercise would appear, anecdotally, to spread itself out much more.

Isn't it the case that the positive effects of a period of exercise on one's metabolism last for a relatively long time, 48 hours or so, which would allow you to take intermittent days off from intense activity but see no deterioration in your body's fat-burning performance?

[Janik]

I know that one beer etc wipes out the effect of 30 minutes running (ir something like that; the figures are not meant to be exact)

A 30 minute run will burn roughly 300 calories,* depending on how fast you go. And on how much you weigh. This is one situation where being heavier is actually a bit of a minor benefit - it means you burn more calories per minute or running. But 'wipes out the effect of' is a rather negatively loaded way of looking at it... (and 30 minutes run = 1 beer is also dependent on the beer as well, of course!)

* - or more like ~250 additional calories. Because there is often a double count going on with these sort of statements from fitness website and the like. Yes, if you are running for half-an-hour you will burn 300 calories or so. But if you are sitting in your armchair watching TV you instead for that period you would also burn 50 calories. That is the rate of energy expenditure that humans have simply to exist. [The later number is based on the recommended average daily intake of 2000kcal for a woman and 2500kcal for a man. So ~100kcal per hour, or ~50 per half-hour.]

However, that 30 minutes of running, if it is something people can do regularly, does provide a double benefit in a different way. Because if it is something done often it will drive your metabolic rate up. You must have all heard a slim young woman who is with friends and is eating something 'naughty' saying to her compadres something along the lines of "Oh, I'm lucky, I can get away with it as I've just got a fast metabolism". But she is eliding things when she plays it down like that. Namely that said young woman is highly likely doing a fair amount of exercise to have her fast metabolism. It's not actually luck at all.

The baseline (or basal) metabolic rate does vary per person on things like genetics, of course. And again height, weight and gender are significant factors. But BMR's don't change all that much between people on genetic grounds. A few dozen kcals maybe. The range it can vary by pales compared to the changes a person can make to their actual metabolic rate by the amount of exercise they are regularly doing. That can move the needle by several hundred calories.

For my own height/weight/gender, the difference in caloric needs between being 'inactive' and 'active' (as per the NHS) is supposedly ~400 kcal. And in my experimenting last year, it seemed that these numbers were about right. Due to the amount of deliberate exercise I do, I would be placed in the next category up from 'active' by the NHS - 'active' is 60-150 minutes of vigorous exercise per week and I get through more than that, usually 200+ minutes per week. And again, the self-experimentation said that was about right as I'm a 1m77 tall / 70 kilo male in his mid-40s, and my weight appears to be stable whilst consuming ~3000 kcal per day.

As Hot Pepsi noted, ~2000 kcal/day is not a lot by US standards. But 3000 is a fairly large amount by UK ones. But the key thing here is that my body doesn't appear to start to make adipose tissue until I've gone over the regular 3000kcal, even if I'm on a rest day. On rest days I do no exercising, but still consumed my usual amount of food (three full meals and a snack or thereabouts). And on quite a few occasions I've still found my weight had dropped the next morning despite not 'burning' 300 kcal with a run during the day. The effects of such exercise would appear, anecdotally, to spread itself out much more.

[Janik]

Thiking of BMI, I'm now in a somewhat ironic position. My BMI* is right on the cusp between 29.6 and 30.2 depending on the time of day I weigh myself.

In around a month or two, the state is going to open up vaccinations to people who have comorbidities. One of which is technical obesity and a BMI over 30.

I am now in a position where it might be healthier for me, personally, to not lose a couple of extra pounds, because I might get vaccinated earlier if I don't lose the weight.

Perverse rewards in action, there.

And you should weigh yourself first thing in the morning. Obviously. Preferably at pretty well the same time each time.

[Gangster Octopus]

Lowest today since I started weighing just over a year ago. My wife's delighted.

[San Bernardhinault]

Thiking of BMI, I'm now in a somewhat ironic position. My BMI* is right on the cusp between 29.6 and 30.2 depending on the time of day I weigh myself.

In around a month or two, the state is going to open up vaccinations to people who have comorbidities. One of which is technical obesity and a BMI over 30.

I am now in a position where it might be healthier for me, personally, to not lose a couple of extra pounds, because I might get vaccinated earlier if I don't lose the weight.

[Ek weet nie]

I'm 111kg now so down 16kg since September, still in obese territory but BMI down to 32 so overweightness is in sight. Christmas knocked my routine and structure out but managed to keep it to a weight plateau rather than piling weight on. Stress of returning lockdown and (thankfully averted) loss of childcare lead to some stress eating episodes too so I'm not at the 1kg per week rate that I was previously. 2 months to due date for our second child. Realistic target is to be 105kg at that point.

[Balderdasha]

71.8kg again today. No change up or down. I count that as a consolidated loss.

[Levin]

I've done the first couch to 5k session with Michael Johnson. It feels much better doing something with a plan rather than just going out and running as long as I can before walking for a bit. It's also nice to have Johnson tell you you're doing great.

I did something to the lower inside of my left knee a few days ago. I don't know what, it's a new type of pain, it's pretty much gone away now but on the day after I struggled to put weight on it. I'm not sure what the alternative aerobic exercise is though.

[Balderdasha]

71.8kg this morning (11 stone 4 pounds). Down 0.3kg. Am no longer officially obese, merely very overweight now. Interim goal: to be under 70kg by the end of January, preferably down to 69.8kg which is just under 11 stone.

[Nocturnal Submission]

I weigh myself twice a week (usually Wednesday and Saturday mornings) and thought that today's numbers would be down, after what I thought had been a good few days on the food and exercise front.

Sadly, no change.

[Balderdasha]

Down 0.1kg this morning to 72.1kg. I know I should weigh myself weekly, not daily, but I'm very much an all or nothing person. If I'm weighing myself, I'm weighing myself daily. Another 0.1kg to go to get myself out of the obese category. The trampoline has been built so I'll have a go on that later today.