Dieting A personal Journal

A little background information :

• Every ten years or so during my life I have had to lose weight and dispense with the excesses of the previous decade.
• I have reached the 50 milestone heavier than ever
• Weight is harder to shift as you get older (fact)
• The less mobile you are the less mobile you become.
• The heavier and older you get the more issue's like blood pressure and things like diabetes raise their head. ( I don't have Diabetes)

Going forward this leaves me say 7 stone overweight, 50 years old, with a mental age of 14 ( perhaps i should reread the Diary of Adrian Mole again I might understand it now i've matured.) In addition because of the weight I was feeling lethargic and lacked enthusiasm, oh and I should mention that I have a policy of never leaving a bottle of wine opened with some in it!.

Not a good picture that one, overweight 50 year old with a drink problem who makes the royal family ( TV show) look positvely active and well groomed.

The situation started to resolve itself last december when someone who I regard as a good friend suggested going to the gym together for 3 months to try and improve our respective fitness levels, so we set off early Monday, Wednesday & Friday each week for our torture experience and the result is we both 6 months down the line are substantially fitter and hooked.

The real problem is that obviously the last decades excesses were cumalative and are proving hard to shift. Fat it seems converts to muscle before you lose weight and ive now got a lot more muscle. I had more chins than a chinese telephone directory although some of those chins seemed to have been cut off and are no longer visible. Ive got a Thinner face in case you didn't get the Joke. I've probably lost 3/4 of a stone and can take most things in my stride.

In the afternoons when I needed a nap I now continue through most things and am back to working 12 hour days when last year I could only manage 3 hours. Thats a hell of a turnaround and I'd like to think so but I haven't got time to rest on my laurels, incidentally I only started to weigh myself in kilo's so I wouldn't understand how heavy I was.

1. When I look in the mirror I see a thin person and I must focus my mind on becoming the person I want to be.
2. Intake should be balanced against calorie expenditure very difficult to do unless you actively try hard.
3. If you must have 3 meals then do so but cut the food across 3 meals to be the equivilent of what you'd normally eat in 2 as a first step.
4. Learn to be hungry but don't be a slave to it, find something to do to occupy yourself rather than eat.
5. Walk the dog more often if not the dog get a lead for the cat,hamster whatever but become more active slowly at first, if you are really unfit find a suitable program to offer support.
6. Remember cutting down intake by itself works slowly, doing more exercise speed up weight loss

These are really just notes to self on the things I've discovered re weight loss in the last 6 months when I've really had to think about it. I eat and drink normally no fad diets for me but do try and reduce portions and say no to alcohol more often and sooner.

Righto just off for something to eat, well to stare at something to eat and perchance to drool.