OK – I’m back, and blogging again as a way to remind me to stay focused.
My last blog entry, ironically enough and purely coincidentally, was dated exactly 2 years ago tomorrow, 7th July 2021! At that time I’d yo-yo’d back up and down and then up again a few times after my initial weight loss of 50lbs.
When I left off this journal, I’d had a stressful 2 years working for a new company, got made redundant, been out of work for almost 6 months and just received a job offer, which has been great.
But over that period for various “reasons” I’ve not felt able to focus on my weight, and it’s gradually crept back up.
Today, I’m back up to over 19 stone (269.8lbs/127.7kgs). Not quite the 20 stone plus that I was way back in May 2018 when I first started this blog but not far off.
During that time – inexplicably, I’ve begun to feel tired and really struggled with my motivation to exercise. I had put my weight gain down to that primarily. I still fasted on and off – mostly OMAD (One Meal A Day), but that gradually dropped off, notably at the beginning of 2022 when I was in a long-term relationship where my partner lived with me so my eating habits started to “normalize” towards hers. She didn’t necessarily have the healthiest eating habits so this also helped my weight creep up.
But this year I really wanted to lose that weight, and struggled more than ever before. Finally I decided to investigate if there was an underlying health cause and paid for an off-the-shelf “health-check” via blood tests. I was suspecting thyroid issues as my mum suffered from that, and it does have some similar symptoms to those I’ve experienced – ie fatigue. But my thyroid tests came back fine. Cholesterol was a little high but not dangerously so.
No, you want to know the real culprit? It looks like I have type 2 diabetes. The fatigue is certainly the major symptom I’ve experienced thus far, but the more I look into it the more I can see others. I have to wonder if my yo-yo dieting, and my fasting, are part of the reason for it. By fasting and eating once a day or every other day as I did during this diet, what I have been doing is effectively dumping all of my daily calories into my body to process in one go. Again and again. Also – as I’ve often boasted through these pages – I never really thought too hard about eating healthily. I’ve just eaten whatever the heck I wanted, and between exercising and fasting managed to keep my weight under control.
At least – while I’ve been exercising and fasting, as of course there have been these quite large yo-yo swings back and forth between 16 stone (224 lbs) and 19 stone (266lbs) – so regularly losing and regaining over 20 lbs in fairly short periods of time.
I daresay that this has confused the heck out of my poor pancreas, which is the organ responsible for insulin production and therefore central to the onset of diabetes.
And to be honest, my pancreas is something I REALLY should be taking care of since my dad died from pancreatic cancer when he was aged 53.
The good news is that type 2 diabetes is reversible, if not curable. Ie the symptoms can be rolled back very effectively through good weight management. Note that clinicians don’t talk about “reversal” but instead use the term “remission”. Remission is generally agreed to be getting your HbA1c result under 48 mmol/mol or 6% and retaining it there without medication for between 3-6 months.
Diabetes UK and the UK NHS (National Health Service) both agree that losing approx 15 kgs (33lbs) can push you into type 2 diabetes remission.
As you will have seen in these pages, I have certainly lost that kind of weight before, and this is about the best possible motivation anyone could ask for. The problems type 2 diabetes can cause if things progress aren’t good:
Untreated diabetes affects many major organs, including your heart, blood vessels, nerves, eyes and kidneys.
Diabetes UK
So, that’s why I’m back here blogging. To keep me on track and focused as I embark on another weight loss journey – my initial target is obviously to lose 15kgs (33lbs) as recommended. But I would like to at least give myself a bit of a buffer and go beyond that, so I’m targeting at least 20kgs (44lbs).
This is a very nice number I think, as that would take me down to below the lightest I managed so far over the last 5 years since I started this blog. My lightest weight was 16 stone 3 (227lbs / 103kgs) back in August 2020).
Losing 20kgs will get me down to just under 16 stone 2lbs (226lbs / 102.5kgs)!
Now – that said – once I get there I’d only need to lose another few lbs to take my total weight loss to 50lbs from where I am now which is a nice round number, and I know I’ve done this before (ie – lost 50lbs – at least twice in fact!). This would also have the benefit of taking me to under 100kgs in weight (219lbs or 15 stone 9lbs) and also under 16 stone to the 15 stone range which would be a fantastic accomplishment.
So that’s my ultimate target – to lose 50lbs. And yes, I know the name of this blog is “lose 100lbs fast”, and yes, I know I failed. But if I lose 50lbs again that’ll make it up to 100lbs right? 😉
So to reiterate my new targets:
- Target 1 – lose 15kgs / 33lbs
- Target 2 – lose 22.7kgs / 50lbs (taking me under 100kgs and under 16 stone!)
I’m going to try not to get too hung up on a time period for this weight loss – I’m setting a moderate weight loss target. I know that even at my best while fasting I didn’t average much more than 1-1.5lbs a week. I often had big weight losses (4-6lbs) followed by stagnation for a week or two, which brought the average down.
If I did manage to hit a more aggressive weekly target of around 2lbs a week I could hit my target 1 in about 18 weeks, 4 months from now around the first week of November. And then I would hit target 2 around Christmas – but being realistic, let’s say early January 2024. Still around 6 months from now.
At a more moderate/realistic weight loss of 1-1.5lbs, it will only take me a bit longer. I know I tend to struggle to maintain steady weight loss through winter, so allowing for plateauing etc then I’ll hopefully still be hitting target 1 by the end of January 2024 or early February, so around 7 months from now – and then target 2 could be anywhere from March to April 2024. That’s still only 10 months from now and not something to grumble about to achieve a weight loss that could, quite literally, save my life.
Wish me luck, and I hope you follow my journey again! Feel free to leave a comment if you’ve been wondering where I’ve been and are excited as I am to start this journey again! 🙂
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