barefoot wrote:Anyway, by way of a check-in...
40M, 178cm. Was 90+kg, dropped to 74kg in the second half of last year.
Drifted back up to 77kg over winter.
Now back in the 75kg range.
Would like to get closer to 70kg, just to see what it's like. I haven't been there for 25+ years.
Repeatably in the 74.x range for the last several days.
A little bit surprising, because I haven't been eating particularly well. I'm cramming for exams (midlife crisis career change retraining), which inevitably leads to excessive snacking. I'm trying to snack responsibly. It helps that I still don't eat before lunch, including snacks, so I only have an afternoon's worth of grazing to regulate.
I'm not strictly "on a diet", I'm just aware that this is a challenging circumstance, for me to avoid eating _really_ badly. So I'm managing things to try and stay closer to a long term sustainable healthy eating plan than I might otherwise end up.
I'm going through bulk quantities of dates. I have a bit of a soft spot for dates at the best of times, but I'm really ploughing through them lately. They're pretty energy dense, but not terrible if taken in small handfuls.
Boring biscuits. We used to avoid having biscuits in the house at all, because once you open a packet of Tim Tams they inevitably disappear that same day, even if you're the only one eating them. They're just too enticing. Overkill of reward sensor stimulation. But boring biscuits - like Shreaded Wheatmeal, sometimes stretching to Malt, Granita, Milk Arrowroot... no cream, no chocolate dip, preferably not very sweet... I can have one of them (with a couple of dates), which is enjoyable, but doesn't leave me craving the rest of the packet as a single serve.
Fruit. Again, there's a bit of energy in a piece of fruit, but it fills a hole.
Lots of water. A pee break can substitute a snack break.
Not-too-milky coffee. I'm customarily a flat white guy. Most often a double in a mug so it's not all gone in 30 seconds. I'm now drinking something closer to a very long flat macchiatto. Single shot of espresso, maybe 60mL of steamed milk, topped up with about half a mug of water. I can have a few without getting excessively caffeinated or drinking a whole cow worth of milk. Proportions of coffee/milk/water are probably similar to an old-school mug of filter coffee with milk.
...and a few good early morning sessions on the bike. Good for mental wellbeing as well as using up some spare kJs.
It helps that the Mrs is also working on shifting a few kilos, so we're both on the same page and not giving each other excuses to join in eating wrong things.
I find it helps to make sure there's plenty of good-ish food in the house. If I'm going to eat, if good food isn't convenient, I'll figure out a way to eat something bad. If I'm out of dates to nibble, I just might end up snacking on a stray toasted cheese sandwich.
Only a week and a half to go. Then I will be out of this particular danger zone.
tim