Measurements – 16 Aug ’18

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Ok I missed measuring myself last week as we were in the middle of a move.  We’re in, not quite settled as there are still boxes all over the place.  Moving is tough 🙂 So it’s just under a fortnight and here’s my new measurements.  Again using the bathroom scales and the calliper – Accu Measure Fitness 3000 Personal Body Fat Tester.

Weight – 18st 4lb (give or take a lb as the scales are very temperamental)
Chest – 19mm
Abdomen – 31mm
Thigh – 19mm

Running it through the Weight Trainer – 3-Point Bodyfat/Lean Body Mass Calculator‘ again.  I have 23.3% body fat percentage and estimated lean body mass of 196lb (14 st)

So weight down, body fat percentage up.  Hmmmm.  Over the last fortnight, I’ve been eating quite a bit of stir frys, with soy sauce as flavouring.  I noticed that this has some sugar in it, so I have stopped that over the last few days.  I have also been picking a bit on nuts in between meals.  Meals have been a bit erratic due to the move.  So I will see if cutting down on the snacking and now stopping using soy sauce will help.  But still going down weight wise and the variation in body fat is not that much.  I’ll keep on doing this and see how it goes.

I’d be interested to hear from anyone who reads this to see how they’re measuring their progress.

Measurements

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Up to now I’ve been using the single measurement of weight to gauge my progress.  (I’ve also had a bit of a blunter measurement in terms of trouser size – 44 -> 38 at the moment)  But while, I do need to lose weight, the aim is body fat and fitness.  So I stumped out for a calliper – Accu Measure Fitness 3000 Personal Body Fat Tester.  And this Friday morning I weighed myself, 18st 9lb, and then did a quick 3 point measurement – Chest (21mm), Abdomen (31mm), and Thigh (11mm)  and ran it through the ‘Weight Trainer – 3-Point Bodyfat/Lean Body Mass Calculator‘ – which calculated 21.7% body fat percentage and estimated lean body mass is 203lb (14st 7lb)  I’ll be measuring this over the next few weeks to see if it gives me a better gauge of my progress and reporting the results here.

Polly put the kettle on…

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As I said a little earlier, I’ve been stalled a little.  And to push myself past this plateau, I have joined a gym.  It’s been going well but I know that there are going to be some weeks when it’s going to be tough to fit in the time.  This week is one in particular, with our local air show snagging up the traffic near my gym making it difficult to get there.

Reading through the 4 hour body again, and Tim’s blog I noticed that the kettlebell swing played a strong part in the physical regime.  So I stumped up for one in Amazon – with a little feeling of guilt for the driver who had to deliver it :-).  It came a week or so ago.

20kg of brushed metal.

Following on from Tim’s article, I’ve been attempting 75 reps (in smaller sets 20, 15 and 10 – until I reach 75) a couple of times a week.  Having it at home has helped to keep me focused when I can’t reach the gym.  It’s early to notice any change other than a general feeling that it’s getting slightly easier.  Over the following weeks I’ll increase my sub-rep size towards the goal of 75 in one go, and I’ll keep you up with the progress and the impact.

Cheat days

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I’m just back home after a weekend away for a family wedding.  On a normal diet, it would have been a challenge, but cheat days for the win.  I was able to let my hair down on the wedding day, not worry about what I was eating … or drinking … and enter into the sprit of a family wedding.

As mentioned earlier, I’m 14 weeks into this new diet and without the promise of a cheat day every week, it would have been much harder (and I’m not certain, no matter how firm my decision to trim down had been, that I would have got through to this point.)  Here’s what Tim has to say about cheat days…

Hello from Shrinking Webby

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Shrinking Webby is … me.  Who is Webby?  I’m a older geezer.  OK.  Here goes.  Inside I’m still 19 but outside I’m 55 and have been expanding over the last few years.  55 is a milestone year for me.  It is a year when I had wanted to be ‘retired’.  That’s not quite the case, but I am working on making this my last year working for others.  But that’s not what this blog is about.  Another challenge for this year is I’ve made a commitment to get down to my ‘fighting’ weight.  I’m going to use this blog to keep me honest and chart my journey from a fat old geezer as I shrink.

This was me, just over two years ago…

Looking at that, I can see why I did not like having photos taken.  It confirms that I was not a 19 year old and I could be used as a pillow.  I am a vegetarian, and have been for almost 30 years.  When I said told people that, they used to do a double take.  But chips, cake and chocolate are all vegetarian.

Now I’m three months into the slow-carb diet, as described in 4 Hour Body by Tim Ferris.  I came across Tim through the 4 Hour Work Week, while looking for an escape route from the drudge with the rest of the herd commuting up and down to London, squeezed in the Tube like sardines in a can.  I’ve not escaped yet and, again, that’s not what this is about.

So, why the slow-carb diet?

One advantage of a long daily commute is the time for reading, podcasts and I took full advantage of that, devouring many and in my journey I came across the idea ‘decision fatigue‘ and the simplistic rules seemed to resonate:

  1. Don’t eat white carbs: potatoes, pasta, rice, bread (or grains)
  2. Eat the same meals as often as you can
  3. Don’t drink calories (although 1-2 glasses of wine is OK)
  4. Don’t eat fruit
  5. Have one anything goes, cheat day a week

So without warning, I decided to try it for a week up to Easter and use Easter Sunday and the promise of chocolate eggs my cheat day.  It was a bit of a challenge but it seemed to work OK.  Now just over 14 weeks and I’m still going.  I’m can now actually use the bathroom scales and I’m wearing 38cm trousers when I used to be wearing 44cm ones.  But it’s slowing down and I’m starting to stall a little.  So this is what I am here for, to keep me going as I break through this plateau and continue my life as Shrinking Webby.