My Not Quite Five Year Plan.

No…..not even one year – in fact it’s more like 3 months.

This month, as I write, there’s been a whole load of overpaid blokes kicking balls around and while that’s been going on we’ve got another prime minister that none of us proles voted for. This one seems to be so confident that he’s talking about a ten year plan. Having read a bit of history I wonder how the man has the sheer balls to call it that ; to me it just sounds like the old Soviet Union and their whole load of disastrous five year plans – maybe he’s pulling our collective plonkers and being tongue in cheek ironic. At the same time that balls are being licked around and former cabinet members are being kicked into touch I have to formulate a plan for the next three months, or maybe as little as ten actual weeks before going for knee surgery once again.

Well, two weeks ago I was sitting pretty on 16 Kg’s ( 35 Lbs) of weight loss and feeling pretty confident about getting below 90 Kg before my estimated date of surgery. Since then though my weight has bounced up, not just in one hot week but in a second one too. I’m hoping that it’s only water retention as iv’e been working physically hard on the workshop project and drinking lots of water. That’s one or two of the main problems of estimating progress just on the results of body weight : first getting all whoopdedoo about having hit 94 Kg, thus having 90 in my sights and cruising to the line, but then getting a slapping from a clearly lying bathroom scale and getting all sad and dischuffed about it.

There are no whips out here : both the surgeon and my local GP are more than happy with my progress – it’s simply me being me that is the problem. Right now I feel like the Jockey that has to hit his numbers to give his racehorse the best chance of slipping over the line in first place. There isn’t even any research that I know of that supports my weight loss and fitness anxiety. I have promised myself a minor treat as and when I hit the magic 90 and an even bigger one if I get down to 80 Kg without further strokes so at least i’m giving myself something to shoot for.

Assumptions.

We all know what they say about assumptions but I need to make a couple of bucket level guesses about what my current weight actually is and a second one about what i’m likely to be able to achieve in the next 10 weeks – I would like longer but i’m assuming ten weeks as the worst case scenario. I might be 94 Kg dry weight and I might be as high as 96*so lets start with a bucket estimate of 95 Kg and that I have ten weeks to go in which I can. by current experience, achieve more weight loss. My bucket weight loss estimate in normal conditions I peg at around 1 pound per week or 453 Gms. That estimate suggests that I will lose, or could lose, 4,5 Kg over the next ten weeks and that would put me at somewhere between 90 Kg (Yay !) and 92 Kg (Not so Yay) depending on what my starting weight actually is.

Monday mornings vs Friday evenings.

If now was six months ago I could well be in trouble but as it is I jumped on it then and for the first time in my life my exercise and dietary regime has survived half a year. If instead i’d done nothing at that point and only started when I knew that my surgical pre assessment clinic was due in a few weeks it would be almost pointless starting out on a crash weight loss regime : as it is I feel that this 6 months hasn’t been wasted. Iv’e often thought of this as my Monday morning principle – getting on with something that needs attending to and doing the work early rather than leaving it until Friday evening. I think that it’s a bit too late to start something new at this point ; even in my gym going days it used to be said that you won’t feel or see much change inside of 3 months. Better now perhaps to revisit the disciplines iv’e learned in the last 6 months, maximize the low intensity exercise as much as I can and tidying up around the margins of my diet.

Volume vs intensity.

If I had what I thought I had which was six months to go then I would add to my low intensity exercise by firstly maxing the volume but then adding some resistance training and some higher intensity exercise : I was even thinking about introducing a couple of gym days per week, doing some basic weights even though I am horribly weak and having as hard a session as possible on the exercise bike or rowing deck – maybe even having a swim. Right now isn’t great for walking as it’s already toasty warm at 0800, when I walk it’s around 6 in the morning and the same in the evening. It might well be that what I have to do is learn to deal with the heat and do extra but shorter sessions in the morning when it hasn’t heated up totally and in doing so aim to complete 10.000 steps per day or average it out and round it down to 50.000 per week.

A new plan or revising an old one ?

I know that iv’e said that I regard actual body weight as a weak variable and that other metrics are more valuable. However, when it comes to joint problems – especially knees – weight begins to matter due to the mechanical effect of force concentration at the joint. Thus getting my body weight as low as I can prior to surgery will give the new joint a much longer working life ; that’s why I continue to focus on weight loss so much.

I find it more useful, most of the time, to think about what’s happening with other measurements though even when the change is slow. One that has shifted only slowly is my waist circumference : I don’t so much take a measurement but gauge it in notches of my usual waist belt. That’s been sitting at 3 notches for several weeks with little apparent change but then this week my belt buckle snicked into the 4th notch for the first time – most days it’s between and 4. The other significant change is measurable – my resting blood pressure. After my series of strokes I was keeping my BP under control with 5mg each of a pair of anti hypertensives : for several months now iv’e only been needing half doses and for most of this week iv’e not needed the evening dose at all – that suggests that my Q risk is lower which is a definite positive.

I seem to on the right lines, in fact my usual weight change has been greater than I anticipated from the first few weeks of dietary change and consistent exercise. I said early on that this is most likely a 20 month project ; long haul rather than short sprint. Water and weight wobbles aside I think I should relax a bit and trust the process although a small part of me still says that doing regular resistance training now would be a very good move anyway ; the physiology of muscle is that I almost certainly wouldn’t be increasing my muscle mass (at 68) but could maybe preserve what iv’e still got and thus reduce another risk of age – falls risk. With that thought i’m going to slip out with Jackie and treat us to a decent coffee !

Best estimate/weight came out as 94.5 Kg so still retaining some water although sub 90 before surgery is looking more likely.

Best wishes Y’awl.