Background...
For the last few years, I've hovered around 11 - 11.5st depending on the season. This is about the weight I was 35 years ago at uni. Unfortunately it is no longer distributed in quite the same way. This may be due to me having to cycle everywhere back then, not really being a great fan of junk food, and not being quite so keen on wine. Or I'm just getting old and lazy.
MrsF has been a fairly constant [redacted] and over the last couple of decades has slowly and reluctantly got rid of her size 10 goth gear from 1980, the size 12s have largely gone, and every now and then the 14s go to the back of the cupboard and another short lived diet ensues.
Weight loss is made harder as until covid hit she was working full time, spending 8-10 hours per day at a desk, and I like to cook, and we both like wine. And Rum and coke, and etc etc. She went part time at the end of 2019, but has been working from home since.
So last year we decided to make a slow but concerted effort. And so I foolishly present...
DrF's 11 steps to weight loss.
Step 01. Eat less.
Einstein tells us E=mc2, E is energy measured in Joules, or calories, and m is mass. As c is the speed of light, and therefore fairly constant (see later), it stands to reason that consuming more energy means more mass.
Step 10. Move more.
Newton tells us that stopping and starting to move changes momentum, which requires Force, which requires Work, which uses Energy (we will ignore air resistance - see below). As above, energy is related to mass, so a change in momentum reduces mass.
Step 11. Learn Binary.
Because, really, when it comes to weight loss, those are the 2 rules.
Step 01 - Eat less.
Sure, you can dress it up in a myriad of ways, 5:2, high fibre, high fat, low carb, high protein, soup wednesdays, carrot before every meal, only eat foods begining with the same letter as the day of the week, the Rainbow diet (Red foods one day, orange the next, I just made that one up, but I bet it exists somewhere), Paloe diet, raw food diett, etc, but what all these things have in common is they are methods for trying to restrict your calorific intake, either by cutting out certain foods, all food, or smaller portions. The difficulty is finding a method that you can cope with, that suits you, your tastes, your health conditions, lifestyle, and most importantly, still gives you a healthy balanced (ish) diet that suits you.
Before you can eat less, it helps to know how much you are eating. We did a basic food diary, and got the baking scales out. It turns out that the cereal bowls hold nearly 2 standard portions with ease, and a single portion looks really small, unless it is shredded wheat, which just reminds me of Donald Trump, and is about as appetising. Crumpets are pretty stodgy but not hugely calorific, but as for pain-au-chocolat,
Lunch is typically bacon bap, fried egg bap, or soup and toast. Followed by 1/2 or a whole of the "Finest" range of cookie that the local supermarket sells (usually at £1.50/bag, or 2 for £2, so you buy 2. and eat them.).
A few cuppas during the day with a biccy, and then evening meal, which was either something with pasta, rice, often a "just cook" semi prepared meal, a 'TTD' Moussaka with 2 slices of garlic bread, and followed by some sort of sweet pud. Or cheese and biccies and port. Or peanuts and Brandy. Or a combination. 4 days or more per week this was accompanied by a bottle of wine.
It didn't take long to see that calories were around 500-1500 more per day than suggested by health professionals.
However, we didn't want anything drastic, it mustn't feel like a diet, because we would not cope with that. Not for us are those long days with an apple for breakfast, a bowl of thin soup for lunch, and then the long slow drag through the afternoon and evening until a normal meal at teatime. Because diets like that generally fail. This is because in those long lonely desperate hours, where you look at the clock at 4pm and an hour later it is still 4:15, time doesn't appear to slow down, it actually does. This is due to a reduction in the speed of light (see above for Einstein's equation), and the reason you don't lose weight is because as time slows, 'c' reduces, so m actually goes up for a given value of 'E'. Brian Cox, eat your heart out.
Eating less starts with a list - a shopping list. Not because of what is on it, but because of what isn't. Because when you have the willpower of a half starved labrador, the way to avoid gorgeing on cookies or snacking on port and fruit cake or Cognac and peanuts, is to not buy the things in the first place. However the secret turned out to not be replacing then with healthy alternatives (there are some very old and wrinkly apples in the fruit bowl as testament to this), but to replace them with slightly lower calorie similar alternatives. Except the garlic bread - we found a large salad with leaves, toms, olives, herbs, and some toasted mixed seeds was actually better than garlic bread. Healthier, more filling, and (surprisingly only slightly) lower calories. A LOT more expensive though.
A twirl, or kitkat, or similar gives you that luncthime sugar kick, but for about 200 calories less for a finger each, they're usually 4 bars for a quid, and the last longer so you don't feel obliged to eat them all within 3 days. A single crumpet for brekky is actually enough, and it doesn't need quite so much spread, saving another 150 cal. Similarly a single serving of cereal saves a few.
As for lunch, well those cartons of soup often on a deal are pretty low calory at around 120 per half pack, and one slice of bread or toast rather than 2 saves a bit. We still have the bacon or egg butties, usually on a Sheldons oven bottom muffin, but no spread, and soup is every other day. Sometimes we make our own soup, carrot and onion, Beetroot, and Brocolli and Stilton (as long as you get teh Stilton from the deli counter, as then you can buy a small bit and don't end up eating the rest with crackers and port later.
Then comes teatime. Gone are 4 or 5 bottles of wine per week, replaced with 3 (usually Fri, Sat, and Tues) and the other nights it is low sugar squash or Morissons do some interesting soft drinks in their posh range, generally 2 for £3. Spuds are almost a thing of the past, swede, carrots and beetroot offer a similar eating experience with fewer calories. We still roast them in a little oil,because they taste nice like that, but any spuds are just one or 2 of the small ones. And we replace that with veg, we like brocolli, cabbage, kale, green beans, etc. It isn't much, but it saves 100-150 cal per meal, and 250 for the substitued bottle of wine. And afterwards, well I like yoghurt and tinned peaches, but MrsF likes those little bars of Aldi/Lidl choccy, small intense hits of cocoa and sugar for about 120 cal, which is a shedload less than a GU dessert or a bowl of trifle.
These little changes mean the daily intake has dropped, not massively, but generally to 1500-1700 cal for MrsF and 2200-2500 for me. And the beauty of it is, we aren't actually missing anything. We're not punishing ourself with things we don't really like, or cutting out things we do like, we just found a way of eating slightly less of them and are pronbably eating more of the healthy things we like as well.
Rum and coke is now the Friday 6pm treat, but proper coke, not the hideous diet stuff, and not buying peanuts means the cognac probably has cobwebs on it.
Which brings me to step 2 (I'll assume you've mastered step 11 by now).
Move more.
Again, a baseline is needed. This turned out to be a £30 basic Huawei fitness watch from Argos. Purchased last September, it helpfully informed MrsF that she was managing about 4500 steps per day on average, and around 2k on a work day.
There are simple ways to move more, park further away from the office, use the stairs, but working from home precludes this. The downstairs loo is next door to MrsF's study, but the uptairs loo is 4o steps and 16 stairs further ways. Given her tea intake this can make quite a difference. Occasionally she cheats, but I can check on this by leaving the seat up and seeing how long it takes for her to tel me off.
A stroll around the garden or along the lane helps, but we needed an incentive, so like a lot of people in lockdown, we got a dog. Now last time either of us had a dog, Hades' bat population was saving up for their first motorcycle, and Robert Smith was still taking beach holidays in Mallorca, so we didn't go the usual route. We ummed and ahhed, wondered if we wanted the commitment, and finally at Xmas found a 14 year old staffie cross at the local RSPCA.The downside is that the arthritic old girl doesn't so much walk, as amble, so aerobic exercise isn't a benefit, and hence why I could discount air resistance (see above). However on days when MrsF doesn't work, 10-12k steps are the norm, and on working days it is nearer 5k, and as the evenings lighten up the dog walk will become after she stops so that will help. None of the effort of buying lycra or machinery, but we did look for walking boots and found out you could spend quite a lot of money on posh wellies, the local farm suppliers has them from £20 to £200+ a pair.
And so there we are. Small changes to our lifestyle, almost imperceptable, but enough to tip the balance towards Micawber's second principle. And the result has been far from spectacular. I have read that you weight settles according to your calories, there is a balance between intake and weight, whcich our contant overeating with no further weight gain seems to support. However it has yielded a slow and fairly steady decline in weight of 2.5 - 3lb per month.
Now this decline is not going to go on forever, for a start as mass decreases, so does momentum, hence exercise has less of an effect, and buoyed with initial succes we went back to the cake shop last week, which killed at least a day of dieting, but we have managed to avoid the takeaways.
Quite soon one of us will hit one of those round numbers that we like to see as a 'milestone', and then there will be a celebration of fajita wraps with dips and doritos (about 2000cal in 1 meal) or Chorizo and pasta in fresh cream with garlic bread, but until then the salmon with veg and couscous or grilled chops and veg will be a regular feature.
Paul
We were hoping a brisk walk would help, but we actually do several 50 yards brisk walks, followed bu some standing around waiting for the dog.
Using nitrites and other chemicals? I think we're starting to realise that the damage is cumulative and only noticed after a long time. Type two diabetes? Effect of partly digested protein and subsequent nitrogenous compounds due to mixing food and thus the enzymatic juices? My boss in the lab years ago used to sieve most of the sauce off the baked beans before he gave them to his son, to remove some sugar!
Fortunately, though, I have pretty good self-discipline, and holding the line isn't too arduous. A few favourite 0% alcohol bevvies also help.