Fat Loss Diary — Day 3
Today felt like it was going to be tough. Looking sleepily at the weather forecast on my phone I read ‘signifcantly cooler than yesterday’ and thought, “I’m going to need more calories to stay warm.”The fog in my head didn’t clear as quickly as I’m used to and I thought I was going to struggle. That was just over an hour ago.
Things changed when I stepped on the scales. I’m down to 72kg, meaning I’ve lost three kilograms in two days! Seeing the scale was like seeing a rainbow. It filled me with hope.
Hope is great, but belief is better. Belief is fuel. Doing the work required to achieve something is incredibly difficult if you don’t believe it’s going to work, or you don’t believe you’re capable, or you don’t believe it’s worth it. Maybe that’s why I hate doing DIY, the pay off never seems worth the effort, and there’s always more to do.
This is going into the realm of motivation now. Isn’t this meant to be a fat loss diary? It is a fat loss diary. Motivation is relevant to everything.
I’m surprised at how little I’m eating without feeling terrible. Yesterday I had my bowl of granola in the morning and some supper twelve hours later. I didn’t become faint or delirious. I’m still alive and kicking. I think in developed countries we have all become used to eating far too much food.
What was supper? Some kimchi pancake, some vegetable rice, a slice of toast with butter and cheese, and a packet of crisps. I was telling myself that I’d be really careful about my food choices, now that the amount of food I can eat is limited. Yesterday I didn’t have a choice. My daughters had cooked for me, and the food was great.
This reminds me of an experiment a professor somewhere did. He ate nothing but sweets and fast food for weeks and lost a lot of weight. The point he was making is that when it comes to weight loss, the amount you eat is pretty much insignificant compared to what you eat. His diet was not healthy by any stretch of the imagination, but he did lose a lot of fat.
My sustenance in the twelve hours between meals yesterday consisted of a peppermint and liquorice tea, a latte courtesy of my niece, and a bottle of blackcurrant squash. Liquorice and peppermint tea is absolutely delicious by the way.
I was tired yesterday but I managed to go to the gym. I give credit to my wife for that. She had wanted to go, but I lacked motivation entirely. After we’d both changed into our gym clothes, I sat down at the laptop and started watching a video. If it had been up to me alone, I wouldn’t have gone to the gym and I would have disliked myself for it. I did better than I expected to do in the gym. My strength wasn’t that much greater on the exercises I performed, but I stop expecting it to be when I’m on a calorie deficit. If I want everything else to be the same as it is when Im stuffing myself, I am more likely to quit.
Whatever you intend to achieve, identify the most important activity or action required to achieve it, then be prepared to let other things slide. I’m prepared to let my strength slide whilst I’m dieting because my priority is losing fat. I must restrict calories, and I must remain pleasant to be around. It’s easy to be irritable when you’re hungry all the time, but my family, friends and colleagues don’t desserve to have me acting like an arsehole. So I concentrate on staying hungry and being upbeat and happy.
It seems to be working. When I got back from the gym yesterday I took a look at myself in the mirror. I do look a bit slimmer than I did two days ago. I’m reminded of what I said yesterday, it’s always too soon to quit. When you’re going for a goal, it’s tempting to slack off a bit when the progress is good. That’s a mistake. It’s always a mistake. If you take your foot off the gas, you don’t just slow down, you might go backwards. It’s an uphill journey.
Take your foot of the gas might become an anachronistic phrase in a decade or so. I’ll have to think of some new phrases.
The sun is up. It’s time to eat some food, have another coffee, and get to work.
Go and find some rainbows.
