At the weekend I saw that my weight had dipped below a hundred kilograms for the first time : in this project at least. It coincided quite neatly with the end of a week that was also close to the end of a diet and training cycle and even neater that it was the end of May thus I regarded it as the end of term and wrote my own end of term report.
Well, it’s early on a quiet Monday morning, Jackie has already gone to work and iv’e been out for my first walk of the day/week/cycle and new term of my grand health project. It’s the best time to walk around here as it’s only the early shift workers going to work on the road and there isn’t the convoy of impatient taxi drivers that will infest the place in a couple of hours time. By then i’ll be hard at it with the next stage of my workshop project ; which is a huge tidy up of it’s exterior work space where all the junk is ‘stored’- until I throw most of it out that is.
I’m starting the day/week/cycle/term with something that iv’e not done for a long time ; by having fast. As I write, i’m sitting at the computer while having a coffee which doesn’t taste that good which means that i’m already in ketosis, which in turn means i’m metabolizing fat – which is the whole idea. I feel a lot more positive now than I did several years ago when I first tried fasting. I think that, because I already go into a fasted state overnight ; I last ate at around 5 yesterday afternoon, that it feels a lot easier to continue that fasted state into the day rather than what I used to do , which was to start in the morning and go through the uncomfortable stage during my working day. Aside from the slightly metallic taste with early ketosis I feel ok and as soon as the rain passes over and the taxis clear off i’ll go out for my second walk of the day.
Edit/update.
As promised I weighed after I fasted, early the next morning before we went for breakfast. As expected my weight was more than a kilo down (1.5 Kg) and that can only be water loss.
Maintenance Mode Chosen.
I want to say, very cautiously, that i’m mostly happy with the long term changes iv’e made so far. I’m sure that there will be a lot of tweaking and fine tuning but as I go into a second term with this I want to have to take less attention to it, relax a bit and have some degree of confidence that it’s still working. I may or may not do regular fasts : that’s a decision for next week Steve. The best way for me to do it is when Jackie is at work as then I also will spend the whole day working and all I have to do is prepare a good dinner for her for when she comes home – we have a working routine for that.
I realize that iv’e been very coy about my actual weight all along so I feel that it’s time to correct that. Before I even started I took a glanced at weight to give me an approximate idea of how heavy I had got. The answer to that is 112 Kg although I didn’t record that as my actual weight and I ignored the first 2 Kg loss as likely to be water loss and recorded my starting weight as 110 Kg exactly. Weight loss was only moderate at first – I regularly saw a change of only 260 Gm’s per week until I stopped having an evening snack of toasted sweet fruit bread. After that small change my weight loss accelerated and when I went past 7 Kg (or roughly 7% loss) I noticed that my prostatitis disappeared almost overnight. I then saw my GP at around 8% loss and had to halve my anti hypertension medicines. A week ago, in writing time, I saw 99.8 Kg for the first time and then 98.3 after my recent fast.
It’s difficult to determine what my average weekly loss is now as it’s gone right up to near 2 Kg per month and doesn’t look like slowing down. If that’s a true indication then I should see 90 Kg by November this year – my end goal being sub 80 Kg and preferably around 75.
My guess is that weight loss should be consistent way past 90 Kg but after that I have no idea : again a guess but I assume that weight loss will naturally slow as I get rid of more and more visceral fat. On that note i’ll almost certainly invest in an impedance weight scale as they seem to be able to estimate visceral fat with some degree of accuracy. When I get one I will weigh and record weight less and percentage visceral fat more – at some point i’m sure that i’ll be chasing some end point of percentage visceral fat.
Maintenance Mode Rejected.
Immediately I finished this post and while I was editing it to post, I had my long awaited review with the orthopaedic surgeon and the outcome of that consultation is that i’m now on his list for a total knee replacement at the end of 2026. What that means for me is that I have to assume that iv’e got 6 months to get into as good a state as I can for surgery, and more critically to be as low an anaesthetic risk as I can. On the ground that means being as light as I can, as fit as I can make myself and on minimal medications : iv’e already discussed all of that with the surgeon and he’s delighted that iv’e done what iv’e done so far and agrees with me on the level of weight loss to eventually aim for.
What it doesn’t mean is settling into maintenance mode for the long term but instead going full pedal to the metal, full balls to the wall mentality and maximum effort and concentration for the next six months. I joke about it but I want to slip onto the operating table in a full on power slide with the engine hot and the bearings still smoking. What it really means is keeping my eye on the ball and making small but significant tweaks to what i’m doing now : my pedometer goes back on and i’ll go back to weekly weigh ins.
Dirty Wet Dog, the great adventure. 