The infrequency of my blog updates pretty much represents the plateau I've been on over the summer. I'm chalking some of it down to muscle being developed while fat is being lost, as I'm definitely getting smaller (at the moment my trousers are 38, at the beginning of June they were 42) and my arms and legs are getting harder. However I've had some problems with self-discipline that I'm not going to deny, not on this forum at least
. In the last two weeks I've really gotten back into the swing of eating properly, something I did habitually all through 2006 but have had trouble sticking to since January.
The original motivator was to be thin by the wedding in August, and that didn't pan out as I'm still a long ways off my goal. All things considered though I'm glad that
this guy showed up...
(pic taken at the wedding last month, roughly 206lbs)
...as opposed to
this guy:
(pic taken at Glastonbury 2004, probably my most bloated at around 320lbs)
So now that's been and gone I'm not sure what next to shoot for. With the initial health concerns no longer an issue the urgency is gone, and I don't see any big reunions on the horizon where me showing up thin would turn any heads. An unnerving, adolescent part of my brain keeps piping up and suggesting I carry on for the attention of a girl I have a bit of a crush on, but the rational side of me knows that'd just be setting me up for a fall.
A friend of mine who has similarly dealt with weight loss told me that her biggest perk upon losing the weight was to go into department stores and not have to worry about whether or not the clothes she liked would fit. Guys by and large aren't that excited about clothes, but it did give me an idea. I found a t-shirt that I'd really like to wear and purposefully bought it a size too small (L) so at the moment it's useless. I get down to a size L, I can wear it and I won't have wasted my money. So my current motivator is comparitively silly, but there's no harm in trying - whatever works works. While I tell people that the reason I lost all the weight initially was because of health concerns, really it was to see the look on my stepsister's face who, at the end of 2005 got drunk at a party and tore into me for being fat (I guess it had been festering for a while). Now it was childish and petty, and the satisfaction of seeing her again having lost nearly 100lbs (she'd gained about 30) was pretty fleeting and hollow. But in the sober light of day I'd still lost the weight and was far healthier. So sometimes dumb reasons can pan out I guess.
To digress, I've found that for snacking these are quite helpful:
They're less than 100cals a bag and are nice enough to fill that urge for something savoury, but
not quite nice enough to want a second bag. As a result far better than Doritos, Cheddars etc which are like 250cals each and incredibly moreish. Came upon them by accident (they're kinda tucked away behind the fried stuff) so not sure how well known they are.
These are also good for occasional nibbles:
Speaking as a man who can quite easily get through a whole tennis-ball-holder-thing of Pringles without batting an eyelid, any kind of low-cal alternative is welcome.