Results tagged “Health”

Over the last few months I'd pretty much given up making any concerted effort to lose weight.

Why?

Apathy.

When recently I met up with a few people I hadn't seen for quite some time they mentioned they were concerned about my weight, so I guess guilt may be working.

So what to do?

A friend who I only meet once or twice a year claims to have lost over 30 kgs quite easily by simply tracking his calorie intake and doing a bit of exercise.

Since I've now got an iPhone I've decided I'll try out a few of the apps that are available for tracking weight and calories. Why? I always have my iPhone with me, so all I should need to do is enter the data as I take in the calories

Will it work?

Who knows?

Even if I don't actively change my diet tracking how many calories I'm consuming should be a useful exercise.

The last week hasn't been exactly stellar.

Apart from anything else I was hit with a touch of 'flu which "knocked me for six" in more ways than one.

As a result of the 'flu I ended up spending several days feeling pretty dire and eating quite badly.

I may not have put on much weight, but I definitely didn't make any progress in losing weight as a result.

Lack of progress is bad. You end up in a "catch 22". Your lack of progress means you feel quite negative. The negative feeling makes you feel more negative, so you don't have any motivation. Without motivation it becomes really hard.

Hopefully when I've fully recovered I'll be able to get my "mojo" back!

I generally weight myself on Sunday morning shortly after getting out of bed and before I've had any breakfast.

I'm tracking my progress with FitDay.com, but I have to convert the weights back from Imperial to Metric, which is quite annoying!

Progress has been slow.

I gained back some of the weight I'd initially lost and then lost it again!

Of course I should have really expected something like that to happen - consistent weight loss would have been too much to ask for!

I've lost close to 4kg since I started tracking my weight at the end of November. I'm averaging a weight loss of about 1kg a week, which probably isn't that bad. However I'm a lot more interested in seeing my waistline reducing than I am in simple "weight loss".

My biggest problem is my "gut". As I'm quite tall and broad it may not be as apparent to other people, but I am incredibly conscious of it.

So I may need to step things up a little bit and start doing exercises for my stomach muscles, though I've never been a fan of situps!

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How are you feeling?
Are you happy?
Are you sad?
Are you in love?
Are you bored?
Are you stressed?

These aren't questions that I ask myself every single day - if I did I'd probably lose my mind, but when it comes to dieting and eating properly they are very important.

You could read lots of studies about how people's moods affects their eating habits. But is there any need?

When they're bored a lot of people snack.

If you're not happy you tend to eat badly - you've probably heard people talking about "comfort food" or eating to cheer themselves up.

I'm the same.

When I started making a concerted effort to reduce my waistline and lose weight I was in quite a good mood. Of course that wasn't going to last forever. Things happen in your daily life that have an impact on how you feel, so it's very tempting to either "pig out" or simply lose the motivation to keep up your regime.

At the moment, for example, I am not 100% happy. However I also do not want to have wasted any gains (well they're really losses!) that I've made by straying from "the path".

Over the last few years I've read quite a bit about how our bodies build up junk. Whether you have a good diet or not you still seem to end up with undigested leftovers and other undesirable stuff floating around your stomach and intestine.
Some friends of mine, who were into archaeology, used to purify themselves using quite an extreme method which involved drinking water and very little else for several days!

Fortunately there are other options open to us these days.

One of them, that I was interested in trying, is a series of detox tablets. Supposedly this helps reduce the amount of toxins in your bowel areas etc., which should help with weight loss and digestion. I know that it would probably do me good, as I've been treating my body like a playground for as long as I can remember!

Find out more about the detox tablets (and other solutions) here (the free shipping to Ireland really caught my eye!)

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So I'm avoiding lots of food. Trying to eat better and more healthy options etc., etc.

Most of the time it's relatively easy - munching on fruit throughout the day seems to work out okay and if I've got too much fruit other people in the office help make sure that it doesn't go off.

Of course the big question is whether or not any of this is actually working.

While it's nice that people say encouraging things it's hard to know if they're just saying that to help boost your morale. Not that I'm complaining, but tangible results would be so much nicer!

So I was delighted to find that I'd dropped a full kilo when I weighed myself this morning. A full kilo! That's 2 lbs if you're into Imperial measurements.

Unfortunately I suspect that the 1kg is due to my horrible hangover yesterday - as I couldn't stomach food for most of the day, but let's not dwell on that too much.

Other positive things ...

I've bought a smaller belt for my trousers, as the one I was using couldn't be tightened any further and my trousers felt like they were going to fall off me most of the time.

So what now?

Rome wasn't built in a day, so I just need to keep on at it.

As I've mentioned before, I work in IT, so I like gadgets and web services. However I am pragmatic. If it's going to take me hours to setup a profile on a site and keep it up to date, then I probably won't really use it.

In my quest to keep track of my dieting and weight loss (I prefer to refer to it as "change of lifestyle") I sought out some online services to help me.

Weight Watchers have an online service, but as it's pay to use I haven't assessed it as yet.

Three other sites did attract my attention:
Daily Plate
Fit Day
Traineo

There were problems with all 3 sites.

Both Daily Plate and Fit Day are very American, while Traineo's signup page was broken on my first visit. While I did eventually manage to signup a number of the site's functions are not working correctly at present, which is more than a little annoying.
Of the three only two sent me confirmation emails after signing up. FitDay didn't, so I had to search my browser history to work out the site's name.
That is annoying.

Anyway, what about the site's themselves?

All three offer very similar functionality. The main difference is in how you can access it and add your details ie. keep track of your eating, exercise and weight etc.,

Traineo would appear to be the slickest and simplest to use, as they give you a relatively simple "portal" to work from. Unfortunately, like the other sites, it allows you to enter data in lbs or kg, but then displays suggestions related to lbs only, which is really annoying.

Daily Plate is quite powerful by the looks of things, but to be able to access any of the more advanced features you need to upgrade to a paid subscription. It allows you to track what you eat by searching their database, but unfortunately it's very American in its bias and the display of options when you search is confusing to say the least

Fit Day is quite easy to use and doesn't seem to want my money to access any of its features. Unfortunately, while it allows me to set targets and enter data using metric values it provides all of its advice and graphs using Imperial measurements!

After playing around a bit with all three services I'm really none the wiser.

If someone were to launch a more Euro-centric solution I'd probably be a lot happier.

Weight Watchers seems to be a very popular way of losing weight amongst my female friends.

I've been looking into joining weight watchers, as I like to keep my options open, but I have a few reservations.

To start with, while I may be happy to write about my battle to lose weight or to tell anyone I know, I'm not 100% sure if I would like to get involved in a group of complete strangers. I've never been particularly good with groups or anything that involves regularly scheduled meetings, so I don't think I'd feel particularly comfortable going to a meeting by myself. If a friend or colleague was attending as well then I probably would.

The other thing is that while weight watchers has "men only" meetings in some parts of the country, they don't have any in my area.

Of course if I really wanted to I could always opt for the "Weight Watchers at Home" system, which gives you all the booklets that you'd get normally plus you have access to their consultants. 

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If, like me, you spend most of your working day sitting at a desk it's all too easy to let the pounds pile on.

So what can you do?

While it might be a nice idea to advocate going to the gym or getting lots of exercise you need to be realistic.

You can't teach an old dog new tricks

I don't entirely agree with that saying, but I think there is a grain of truth in it.

If you aren't a fitness freak then you won't be able to convert yourself into one overnight.

It's probably easier and more sustainable to try and change small habits gently over time, rather than trying to reinvent yourself.

For example you can walk to the shop instead of driving.

I live within walking distance of the town centre, so I don't really need to take the car with me if I'm just going out to buy a couple of things, though I would need to take it for a proper weekly shopping trip.

I'm still trying to find a way of exercising that fits with my mentality. I have considered walking, but unless a walk has a purpose I can't see myself doing it ie. unless walking is to get me from point A to point B I won't do it.

Another option would be to get some home fitness equipment so that I could exercise while watching TV or listening to the radio.

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If you're sitting at a desk all day you probably end up drinking lots of coffee or tea (I know I do!)

So when you're drinking your tea or coffee you may feel that overwhelming urge to indulge yourself in a snack - maybe a little biscuit or a small bar of chocolate. Wouldn't it be nice to wash down with that coffee?

Stop!

Snacking is a really bad idea!

If you're trying to control your waistline and bring down your weight then you need to cut out unncessary snack in between meals.

If you must eat something then try an apple or an orange - I don't think you can really overdose on fruit!

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Everyone is different.

It's one of humanity's strengths - we're diverse in more ways than one!

Bearing that in mind when it comes to the ideal weight then it's obviously not as simple as some might think.

If you are a broad shouldered giant you will be able to carry a lot more weight than a lanky beanpole!

The simplest method for calculating ideal weight is via their BMI (body mass index) which basically takes into account height, gender and weight to come up with a figure. Based on that figure you can then see if someone is overweight etc., etc.

If you want to work out your BMI then there are plenty of tools online to help you.

Here are a couple I found (I'm not saying they're better or worse than any others!)

• calculate your ideal weight
• BMI calculator

You'll obviously need to know your height AND weight to be able to use any of those tools!

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As you can gather I have a fondness for old sayings:

An apple a day keeps the doctor away

Fruit and fresh vegetables are a wonderful source of vitamins and other things that help your body.

Unfortunately my Irish diet of the last couple of years probably wasn't as rich in fresh fruit and vegetables as it could have been.

Over the past few weeks I've replaced any and all snacks with fruit. The easiest fruits to eat are of course tangerines and apples.

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Dieting, weight loss and everything to do with the entire subject has been a hot topic and a massive industry for years.

There are probably as many "wonderful" diet systems out there as there are days in the year and for every success story you can probably find several "failures".

The bottom line is that there is no "magic solution".

You can read all the books and watch the dvds, documentaries etc., etc., but if you're looking for a quick and "easy" answer you're probably going to be disappointed.

I've started this little blog as a sideline and personal journal about losing weight (the domain name should give that one away!)

I'm not 100% happy with my weight at present, or more precisely, with my waist size.

I'm in my mid-thirties, so I know that if I don't do something about it now it will be even harder to rectify later.

I'm not going to go on a "crazy diet" or try to run a marathon. I know damn well that trying to do anything extreme is not going to work for me, so instead I'm going to focus on making small changes to my lifestyle that will hopefully help reduce my waist size.

I'll be the first to admit that I've never been thin, but over the last few years I've gone from being a bit heavier than some to being overweight.

I work in IT and sit at a desk all day long and my lifestyle in general hasn't helped matters.

So now I need to change.

Let's see how we get on!