Eat less exercise more!

The words that are bound to irritate when used by a HCP as a simple (for them) answer to shift responsibility to you.
Reminds me of being told, when reporting that there was more work to be done than time available, to "work smarter not harder". The implication being, of course, that it was my fault that I wasn't bright enough to fit all the work in.

The correct response of course, in both cases, is to take joint responsibility for solving the problem.

However I can report that eating less and exercising more can result in weight loss, as long as you go to uncomfortable lengths and have the time, physical ability, location and determination to go on a prolonged campaign.

I have been a bad person, and prior to the year end I have spent quite a bit of time away from home being tempted by the food normal people eat. My particular downfall was seriously good roast potatoes which lit up pleasure centres I'd forgotten that I had. My alcohol consumption was routine and fairly major (by NHS standards) of a beer or two during the day plus half a bottle of wine with my evening meal and perhaps a brandy as a digestif before bed. More on social occasions, obviously.

My HbA1c was 7.7 just before Christmas and my cholesterol 8.39; both way higher than recent tests.
[Noted to check further about cholesterol sometimes tracking HbA1c.]

Anyway I decided that I was probably drifting into a danger area and decided to have a campaign to improve stuff. Doing several things at once means that I cannot track which were effective and which weren't but I have another blood test scheduled 3 months after the last one to see if I really (in the opinion of the surgery) need to try statins again.

I am not a fan of statins, which is another reason to improve my overall numbers.

Anyway:

(1) Increase Metformin from (2 * 500 mg) to (3 * 500 mg). Two in the morning and one at night.

(2) Try to briskly walk at least 4 miles every day, or at least every other day. I am lucky to live by the sea, and a return trip along the promenade is 4.4 miles which makes for an easy exercise regime with minimum organisation overheads and cost.

(3) Cut out the booze - which has drifted to one smallish drink per day with the main meal. Psychological weakness on my part but a small glass of red or white wine sipped slowly removes the illogical cravings without hopefully doing too much damage. This hopefully will let my liver get on with its main functions to do with glucose and cholesterol without being derailed to handle metabolic poisons.

(4) Eat very little. Current regime is:

• Strong coffee with butter and double cream around 8-9 in the morning. Take 2 Metformin with this.
• Apple or similar around 2 if I am feeling desperate.
• Lidle roll with protein filling around 4-5. Salad sometimes but not always. Metformin with this.
• Small drink with meal (sometimes, not always)
• Drink plenty of fizzy water (big green bottles from Lidl) with a squirt of lemon juice (yep, Lidl again) in each.

I have noted that moving my main (only?) meal to between 4 and 5 ties in with a recent theory about this being better for you because of the longer fasting period between last meal of the day and first meal of the next. For me this could be around 16 hours.

It is (unsurprisingly) working at the moment, in that I am losing something like a pound every other day. Some days I lose a pound a day. So far the very dense meal of a Lidl roll and protein seems to fill me up for a few hours, and then it is just a battle of willpower not to snack on anything before bed. Keeping extra busy helps.

So far I am more alert. However a constant nagging hunger can do that to you.

I seem to be sleeping better, but then again not drinking alcohol later in the evening probably reduces bladder pressure and I suspect that when the liver has finished processing alcohol somewhere in the middle of the night and switches back to more normal functions this can disturb sleep. Hot flushes and the like. So lack of that will help.

If I can hold the line and lose even 4 lbs per week then my long term target weight may be achievable.
I have always wanted to get down to 11 stone 7 lbs.
The nearest I ever got was 11 stone 10 lbs.
My starting weight this time was 12 stone 10 lbs, and I am now down to 12 stone 5 lbs.
Of course, the first few pounds are generally the easiest and then it gets progressively harder.

Am I happy?

I am struggling against being totally miserable.
I feel good after my brisk walk, but that wears off.
The rest of the time I am constantly aware of denial.

Food has been a traditional reward and celebration in our society, especially sweet things.
Birthday? Cake!!

Alcohol has always been built into society as well.
Bad day mate? I'll buy you a beer to drown your sorrows.
Promotion? Champagne!!
Wedding/birth? (Hopefully not on the same day). More champagne!!

So I am in the traditional mode of "Give up smoking, drinking and sex and you may not live to be 100 but it will bl**dy well feel like it!".

It feels as though if this campaign really improves my numbers then I will be faced with the choice of health or pleasure/comfort and I'm not convinced that I can countenance a regime of constant denial for the rest of my life.

So "eat less exercise more" may be (when you really push it) a way to lose weight but is it sustainable? It certainly isn't the easy solution that non-combatants sometime present it as.

Anyway, this rant has distracted me for a while which can only be a good thing.

Thanks for all the supportive responses so far.

I do eat LCHF (unless I am giving way to temptation) and it does generally let me maintain my weight at around 12 stone 4-7 lbs without any discomfort. 12 stone 10 lbs (starting point this time) is a BMI of 24.1 which is scarily close to the top of the normal range.

Maintaining the exercise is not an issue because I cycle in the summer but find it a pain in the winter so I am trying brisk walking instead. I used to love running but my feet don't seem to be up to it these days and my knees have lost their spring as well.

From previous experience getting down close to 12 stone is not too hard but getting below gets progressively harder. My target of 11 stone 7 lbs is based on my weight in my late teens when I was consistently that with a 32" waist. That would give me a BMI of 21.8 which is just a whisker over the mid point of normal.

The weight seems to be coming off my bum at the moment. Fat seems to cling to my belly (internal not sub-cutaneous) like grim death and my waist only seems to start shrinking when I get below 12 stone, hence my target. I can tell the state of my belly by my belt. If it starts to look as though it needs an extra notch then I am winning.

Anyway, good days and bad days. Today has been better because I have been out and about and busy.

SWUSA_ said:

<snip> The only thing about fizzy water is that it can decrease your bone mass<snip>.

Click to expand...

I wondered about this because it didn't seem logical.

I've checked and according to the Internet it is an urban myth with no science behind it.

The biggest risk I run with fizzy water and lemon juice is the slight acidity which may soften tooth enamel if you have prolonged exposure. However this is considered a low risk.

http://lifehacker.com/three-myths-about-sparkling-water-debunked-1759280798

Colas and other complex soft drinks are apparently higher risk.

Just a brief update - stuck at 12 stone 1.2 lbs at the moment.
My daily(ish) walk is now just over 6 miles at a brisk pace.
The main thing of interest is the amount that I am currently eating - judging by the shopping we used to do compared to now I must be eating less than half of what I was eating to maintain a steady(ish) 12 stone 7 lbs.

I've also cut out almost all the booze, including the very moreish Leffe Belgian beer and almost all the wine and spirits as well. Getting so I don't miss it so another load of money saved.

My BG numbers are looking pretty good at the moment; test around 7th March for HbA1c and cholesterol to see how my new regime is working and hopefully I should see some record beating numbers.

I could of course, eat even less and exercise even more but I am assuming that the human body is very wasteful in times of plenty and only really gets serious about extracting nutrition from food when the going gets tough. Much as muscle becomes more efficient when made to work hard, I think the digestive system must kick up a gear or so when there is not much food available.

I can't see myself sticking to this regime for the rest of my life; hopefully when I hit my target weight I can add a bit more food back in without putting on loads of weight.

Just to rub in the lack of logic, I've started a little calorie counting exercise.

Yesterday I had my standard meals - no little occasional extras, no small glass of red wine, no small brandy "digestif".

Morning: bullet resistant coffee with 10g butter and 100 ml double cream.
Approx. 500 kcals

Mid/late afternoon: Lidl 130 gm protein roll with 20g butter and 60g cheese, 6 mini vine tomatoes, 2 Lidl mini cucumbers.
Approx. 700 kcals

I did my brisk 90+ minute walk; MapMyRun estimated approx 700 kcals burned (must check working out)
I did my 90 minute Yoga class (once a week)

This morning same weight to the ounce as yesterday morning.

So in theory I ate 1200 kcals, burned 700 kcals just with the walk leaving 500 kcals to meet all my other bodily needs.

I assume one day of calorie counting doesn't allow for any food residue in your gut from the last few days which is still being digested (although the weight of this would be included in the morning weigh in).

Perhaps two things are going on; I'm substituting muscle for fat and the muscle is being "pumped up" with extra water (note that "pumping up" muscles is a known phenomenon). See:
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drobson161.htm
I know that if I go for a long cycle ride after a layoff then my thighs seem to inflate overnight and then go down again over a couple of days if I don't cycle again.

I will try and be very boring and strict for a few days (I had tried adding chicken soup to my daily eating plan for the extra nutrients) and see if the weight loss resumes.

However I seem to be surviving on a very low calorie intake for a 12 stone six foot active male.

However I am a month into my "eat less exercise more" push and I have already lost 9 lbs so my initial glycogen stores should be pretty much depleted.

I am certainly (first test using ketostix) in ketosis.

I am also weighing myself to the nearest tenth of a pound.
[So 350 calories worth?]

So in theory I should see at least a couple of ounces every couple of days

Update:

I'm battling tiredness in the evening at the moment, and I think I may just be eating a little too little.

I can go for a couple of days on about 1,200 kcals (with a 6 mile walk to burn around 700 kcals) but on the third day I get very sleepy and hungry in the evening. Last night I had to retire to bed at around 18:00 because I was just knackered.

I think this is because my body is starting to panic. I don't think it is low salt, but a little broth has been recommended by others including Volek & Phinney.

Unless you are on an extreme diet (like the Newcastle 800 kcals - how do people manage to stick to this for 8 weeks?) I understand that it is counter productive to feel hungry. One LCHF principle is to eat protein and fat when you feel hungry and not count calories. I am counting calories in an effort to get my weight down because I don't seem to lose weight otherwise.

I think I will try 2 days on 1,200 kcals and then have a day with something added in. This morning I had two medium eggs on half my daily Lidl roll. I may have some chicken, turkey and vegetable soup with the other half this afternoon.

The good news is that my BG figures are looking pretty good, with quite a few below 5. I may switch my priorities from weight loss to maintaining good BG control. My diet drifted late last year, especially over the Christmas/New Year break but I have been on the straight and narrow since the start of January. I was due a 3 monthly blood test after my last disastrous results in December but I think I will delay this until the end of March to see the full effect of my new regime. I have managed a pre-diabetic HbA1c before and I am aiming to be as close to 6 as possible in the next test.

Edit: rereading my original post, I am much happier in myself now that I have settled into my new lifestyle. I no longer crave the comfort of an alcoholic drink or two and as posted above I am avoiding the hunger pangs for two days and trying a new plan for the third. We shall see how I feel three months in!