How I lost 7.5 kg
Tomorrow is my birthday and I'm glad to say that my bold statement some months ago about loosing weight has paid off.
It is quite normal for men over their thirties to gradually gain weight. This is caused partly because of physical changes in how the adult body consumes energy, and partly because of the eating and exercising habit of men with busy families and a demanding job. The weight gain goes very gradually and I've noticed that my weight has slowly grown, about 1 kg a year over the past 10 years.
When I was a skinny student, I used to weigh 78 kg, with my 1m96 that makes my BMI 20.3. When I was 25 I weighed about 83 kg, which seemed to be OK. But very gradually I put on more weight, until after last summer I weighed myself and was 90.8 kg. Even that still is a BMI of 23.6, which is not overweight. But still, I did not like it, and especially was afraid this would continue. The weight will go to my beer belly and my face, which I did not like.
I decided on Monday August 24, 2009 that I would try to loose weight, to get back to the more reasonable 85 kg. I set as the target date my birthday, November 7th, which gave me about 10 weeks to loose 5 kg, or 1/2 kg per week.
I am very glad (and a bit proud too) to say that I have lost weight indeed, and this morning weighed 83 kg, and even have started to eat normally again, so the weight seems to be stabilizing. Of course I have kept all of this in Excel, a graph of my weight over the past 10 weeks is in the next graph:
How did I do it?
I am too smart to require stupid diets that rely on incorrect assumptions of how the body or normal life works, so I decided to simply eat less than I need. A grown man needs about 2500 kcal per day, so I decided to eat much less. So on weekdays I decided to eat
- one sandwich in the morning (which is hard for me because I don't like breakfast at all)
- only 2 sandwiches in the afternoon, with a cup-a-soup
- if needed, an apple in the afternoon
- only 1 plate of dinner
And that's it. No more milky cappuccino's, but unlimited apples. This actually meant really being very very hungry, especially in the afternoons. When I was very busy at work, it was OK, but at home this was really hard at times. I have even almost fainted while at work with a customer one day.
But still, I lost weight during those days. I decided that I was allowed to eat some more, and bad things like chips and cola in the weekend, and in the graph you can actually see that. But every Monday I was a bit lighter than the Monday before, and I could see it directly when I had a party or something different. I think doing it like this, and not following a complete Crash Diet actually works better because it stops my body from adjusting to a lower calory intake, which is why crash diets usually do not work and cause a jojo-effect afterwards.
During those days, I discovered how you can actually enjoy food. If you can only eat two sandwiches (while you would like to eat 8), this means you really think about what to put on it. And, I rediscovered the exceptional taste of the Gherkin... gherkin gherkin gherkin oooh how I love that word. Did you know a gherkin has almost no calories in it, and you can tastefully put it on a sandwich with cheese, or ham? ;-) I can safely say the gherkin has made me loose the weight and I decided to dedicate this success to the gherkin: this is from now on known as the Gherkin Diet.
As I passed my target weight of 85 kg, I decided to gradually eat a bit more normal, as you can also see in the graph, and now I am no longer really dieting, just watching out what I'm eating, and still enjoying my portion of bad food in the weekend... So I hope that I will be able to keep this weight and balance between the 83 and 85 kgs.
Do I notice the difference? Well, it's hard to tell. My face looks a bit less fat, but not very dramatically. But I do notice that my favorite pair of jeans is far too wide now and really needs to be held by my belt from slipping off my bony ass ;-) So maybe I will treat myself to a new pair of tight jeans to emphasize my renewed midlife crisis body.
And no way you can after today step up to me and say: wow, did you loose weight, Anne? Because I know you just read it here and you did not really noticed it. But I'm still happy and proud of what I did using perseverence.
And now, let's enjoy the cake Jeane is baking right now, and all the beer and chips and bitterballen tomorrow!
It is quite normal for men over their thirties to gradually gain weight. This is caused partly because of physical changes in how the adult body consumes energy, and partly because of the eating and exercising habit of men with busy families and a demanding job. The weight gain goes very gradually and I've noticed that my weight has slowly grown, about 1 kg a year over the past 10 years.
When I was a skinny student, I used to weigh 78 kg, with my 1m96 that makes my BMI 20.3. When I was 25 I weighed about 83 kg, which seemed to be OK. But very gradually I put on more weight, until after last summer I weighed myself and was 90.8 kg. Even that still is a BMI of 23.6, which is not overweight. But still, I did not like it, and especially was afraid this would continue. The weight will go to my beer belly and my face, which I did not like.
I decided on Monday August 24, 2009 that I would try to loose weight, to get back to the more reasonable 85 kg. I set as the target date my birthday, November 7th, which gave me about 10 weeks to loose 5 kg, or 1/2 kg per week.
I am very glad (and a bit proud too) to say that I have lost weight indeed, and this morning weighed 83 kg, and even have started to eat normally again, so the weight seems to be stabilizing. Of course I have kept all of this in Excel, a graph of my weight over the past 10 weeks is in the next graph:
How did I do it?
I am too smart to require stupid diets that rely on incorrect assumptions of how the body or normal life works, so I decided to simply eat less than I need. A grown man needs about 2500 kcal per day, so I decided to eat much less. So on weekdays I decided to eat
- one sandwich in the morning (which is hard for me because I don't like breakfast at all)
- only 2 sandwiches in the afternoon, with a cup-a-soup
- if needed, an apple in the afternoon
- only 1 plate of dinner
And that's it. No more milky cappuccino's, but unlimited apples. This actually meant really being very very hungry, especially in the afternoons. When I was very busy at work, it was OK, but at home this was really hard at times. I have even almost fainted while at work with a customer one day.
But still, I lost weight during those days. I decided that I was allowed to eat some more, and bad things like chips and cola in the weekend, and in the graph you can actually see that. But every Monday I was a bit lighter than the Monday before, and I could see it directly when I had a party or something different. I think doing it like this, and not following a complete Crash Diet actually works better because it stops my body from adjusting to a lower calory intake, which is why crash diets usually do not work and cause a jojo-effect afterwards.
During those days, I discovered how you can actually enjoy food. If you can only eat two sandwiches (while you would like to eat 8), this means you really think about what to put on it. And, I rediscovered the exceptional taste of the Gherkin... gherkin gherkin gherkin oooh how I love that word. Did you know a gherkin has almost no calories in it, and you can tastefully put it on a sandwich with cheese, or ham? ;-) I can safely say the gherkin has made me loose the weight and I decided to dedicate this success to the gherkin: this is from now on known as the Gherkin Diet.
As I passed my target weight of 85 kg, I decided to gradually eat a bit more normal, as you can also see in the graph, and now I am no longer really dieting, just watching out what I'm eating, and still enjoying my portion of bad food in the weekend... So I hope that I will be able to keep this weight and balance between the 83 and 85 kgs.
Do I notice the difference? Well, it's hard to tell. My face looks a bit less fat, but not very dramatically. But I do notice that my favorite pair of jeans is far too wide now and really needs to be held by my belt from slipping off my bony ass ;-) So maybe I will treat myself to a new pair of tight jeans to emphasize my renewed midlife crisis body.
And no way you can after today step up to me and say: wow, did you loose weight, Anne? Because I know you just read it here and you did not really noticed it. But I'm still happy and proud of what I did using perseverence.
And now, let's enjoy the cake Jeane is baking right now, and all the beer and chips and bitterballen tomorrow!
