Weight Loss Update 4

Unfortunately, not too much to update again 😦

I had some progress by mid January, but have fallen back into bad habits or feeling like I should reward myself with food. Work’s been really busy and I have fallen into the trap of feeling can’t be bothered going to the gym and just wanting to vegetate at home. It’s been over a fortnight since my last gym visit and my step count has been pretty ordinary.

Speaking about step count, I read this interesting article The 10,000-step question recently.

The last two days I have been watching I Used To Be Fat. All of the participants have way more weight to lose than me, so most of the episodes are pretty inspiring. That said, they focus so much on the workouts than the food plans and many of the participants are actually expected to workout for hours (e.g. 6 hours!) daily! Not really feasible for most people…

I must get back into it. This is the year to achieve my 55kg goal. I am accountable only to myself!

Tomorrow is the start of a new lunar new year. Another opportunity for a new start! Happy Chinese New Year all!

 

Couch to 5k update: Completed!

I’m done! 😀

Whoo, a goal achieved!

Couch to 5k update: 19.5km to go!

Almost completed week 8 of the c25k. One and half weeks until completion and only one more session to complete before I start doing 5km non-stop runs!

I have also actually registered into a 5km run event too – The City 2 Sea! Crazy! After I finish the c25k, I will have a month to acclimatise to running outside and hopefully improve my time for the event.

Couch to 5k update: non-stop, can’t stop, won’t stop

Completed workout 3, week 6 of the C25k this week!

For the remaining weeks (only 3 more!) it’s all just non-stop running. I will miss the variety the previous workouts provided, but it’s time to graduate to the next level.

4km runs next week! 🏃

Couch 2 5K Update – “Halfway!”

Yesterday, I completed Workout 3 of Week 5 of the Couch to 5k.

This particular workout is the first non-stop run in the program: “Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then jog 3.2km (or 20 minutes) with no walking.” I started the run speed at 10kmh, but after the 10 minute mark I was mostly on 8kmh in order to continue on. Due to my slowed down speed, in order to complete the 3.2kmh non-stop, I had to run an extra minute. It was bloody tough!

4 more weeks until I can do it for 5k! 😮

Getting back on the health track

Remember in previous years where I made resolutions to do these two?

Achieve the C25K

Get down to 55kg

Well, I can’t report yet that I have finally achieved them, but I’m taking them much more seriously now.

This time a friend and I are doing the C25K together. This means we keep each other motivated and accountable. We started at Week 3 last week, as we both felt we had previous running experience to not start from the beginning. If we stick to this, that means in 6 weeks and by the end of September, I will be able to finally run 5km without stopping! Whoo!

One thing I have already learnt with the weight loss is I have to be really realistic. A few months after Europe, I became the heaviest I have ever been. Soon after Europe, I tried to curb the weight gain by rejoining the gym. However I couldn’t stay motivated for whatever reason, and also continued to just eat pretty much whatever I want. Let me say, there was a lot of eating out!!! Including one hefty feast at The Fat Duck! There were some weeks where the only home cooking was once a week at my parent’s place!

After a few months of this laziness and gym procrastination, I got on the scales in mid June and saw the biggest number ever! If I thought I had gained too much in Europe or even in Japan two years ago, this was nothing! As a result, I made use of myfitnesspal and started calorie counting again. I tried to get back into a gym routine, but I still couldn’t get the motivation going.

Honestly, I stuck with the calorie counting for about a month. From previous experience, I know it works for me. However, it’s hard to keep up.

Now, two months since that big weigh in, I have managed to lose a few kilos. However, realistically I know I have a long way until I can get down to 55. With a modest estimated decline and accounting for likely massive calorific surpluses in Japan, I’m unlikely to get there until sometime in Q1/Q2 of 2016.

But I’ve got to stick to this!

Cellular Age Assessment (Health Kick Update 12)

Last week I received a health wake up call.

Except I still haven’t woken up.

My gym was offering free “Cellular Age Assessments”. Not one to pass a freebie, I signed up and awaited curiously. How old really is my body?

It was a quick assessment. Firstly, I was weighed and then had my waist and wrists circumference measured. Lastly, I was hooked up to a Bio-Impedance Analyser machine (non-invasive).

The Results

• I am old. I am one year older than my real age 😦
• I have gained weight and I am on track to return back to my start of the year weight 😦
• I actually received “good” for all factors; the factors being “Phase Angle”, “Active Tissue Mass” and “Cellular Fluid Balance”. It appears that you probably can’t get to be your actual age (or less) unless you receive excellent for at least one of the above.

Explanations

• Phase Angle: Measures cellular health and function. Basically how well your cells are absorbing the good nutrients and getting rid of the bad ones – “toxins”.
• Active Tissue Mass: Basically what percentage of you is muscle.
• Cellular Fluid Balance: The ability of cells to regulate fluid levels. Basically your hydration, but this factor can be decreased if you’re suffering an infection or allergy.

So, given these results, especially the very disappointing weight gain, this should be a kick up the bum right?

Unfortunately no. I seem to have lost the motivation to eat well. I have kept up the 3 times a week gym routine and striving for the daily 10,000 steps, but food is my weakness.

I gots not to be a fatty boomba 😦

Health(?) Kick 10

Oh yeah, totally gone off the wagon. Well, at least I’m still going to the gym 3 times a week.

My eating have gone back to the bad old days of chocolate, chips and ice-cream on top of a relatively healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner. Why does food just taste oh-so-good? Mmm…. I’m like a sad case study. 😕

The gym scales keep swinging between two single kilo tickers. I have been trying to go the full 15 minutes on 11km/hr on the treadmill, but I feel like I am hitting a plateau. Although I can run at higher speeds for short amounts, I feel like I hit a wall when running for certain periods, sometimes even short as two minutes… There’s also one particular treadmill in the gym that feels harder than the others. It could be placebo, but 11km/hr on that one feels so much harder than on the other two… 😕

I probably just keep continuing on as now until those scales scare me back into calorific restriction!

Missing In Action / Health Kick Update 9

Edit: This entry was supposed to be published last week. Not sure what happened…

Haven’t really blogged much recently. I have a feeling most of that is due to a large part of my Health Kick goals going down the drain. Well, I’ve kept my gym sessions to 3 days a week, but from Easter, I couldn’t be stuffed counting the calories anymore – probably because I ate too much to even track it. Controlling my food intake is very important to my weight loss goal and I know it’s the one real thing that makes the visible difference on the scales.

Health Kick Update 8

Last Monday, I had a weigh-in in the gym supervisor’s office. Unfortunately, both my body weight and body fat percentage went up from my last weigh-in about a month ago using this same scale. It was proof of how important diet is in weight loss.

I have been attending the gym regularly for 3 days a week, pretty much following the routine from my last Health Kick entry. I have been too lazy to follow the exercise videos. However, most notably, during March, my diet started to creep quickly back to old habits. I am still tracking everyday on myplate, but since the beginning of March, I have been averaging at least 500 net calories over my goal everyday. No wonder I’ve gained weight! Actually, I had a feeling I would gain weight, but at the same time I was also hoping that if I was eating “only” roughly extra 500 calories everyday, I wouldn’t have actually gained but only maintained. Shows that my old habits are not sustainable 😦

I’m a little confused as to how my body fat percentage also went up, but it could be a fault of the scale. Accurately measuring body fat percentage requires more expensive methods.

This recent weigh in should be a wake up call for me to stop eating junk, but even today I’ve devoured Cadbury Dairy Milk, Doritos and Tim Tams 😮 This is a bit slack of me, but I will probably keep going as is for April. With birthdays and Easter this month, there’s no point in depriving myself. I’ll get back on the restricted calories from May! It would also probably be great to resume those exercise videos, especially the 30 Day Shred, but I gotta be not lazy.

OT: Ha! I have a WordPress tickbox option “This post is super-awesome”. False advertising for this post, but I’m going to click it anyway.