If you have been following my posts about weight loss (here, here and oh here) then you will know that I got down from 26 stone (365 lbs or 165 kg) to a respectable 13 and a half stone (189 lbs or 86 kg). After getting down to the lovely low number (for me anyway) I for some reason relapsed and started putting on weight again and thankfully I have snipped the increase in the bud. But since June 2016 it has steadily went back up and I find myself now at 260 lbs (I don’t even want to look at the breakdown of it) and I have tried a few things to kick start the weight loss again with no success. What went wrong?
Crazy diet
From March 2016 for a few months I tried a carb cycle style diet to assist my friend who was doing it. I thought it would just cut out a bit of fat and that it would be grand. But after finding out that it is usually only a 6 week cycle I began to notice some really positive changes and for a while after the diet had finished I kept trying to keep all of my carbs low. This was the craziest thing I could have done. Should I have just removed the refined carbs from my diet? Definitely, but silly old me had cut out a lot of vegetables as well during this cycle, so when I began to reintroduce everything once more I slowly began to put on weight.
At first I thought my weight increase was muscle as I was also working out with weights more than I had ever done so previously. But as time went on that weight started to sneak up and me and I think that cutting out carbs in the way that I did was in the end quite detrimental. Would I do it again in the exact same way? Not a chance. But I think I will attempt an adapted version of it that focuses more on refined carbs than all carbs. Mainly because I love my fruit and veg.
New job, rounder me
Anyone who knows about working in a cinema or customer service/entertainments role will know that it can be quite the struggle to eat healthily when your shifts are ever changing and you lack structure.
Although I struggled in my previous job, I was able to settle it down and keep a healthy lifestyle going. I would make big batches of food and then bring them in for lunch. I would only snack on fruit and I was feeling great and weight was naturally coming off me for a good year. Then I started the diet and we know how that went.
I had switched jobs during this diet faze and so I would politely turn down the offers of snacks and little treats. “Got to keep the weight off” I would say. Then the diet ended and the nightly offers of a takeaway or wanting something “bad” to eat came in and I was snacking and drinking sugary nonsense and while in work, eating very poorly. This went on for MONTHS and shirts that were loose became a little tighter, then those shirts had to be swapped for my old larger shirts and trousers and the sad cycle started.
I have since moved to a new job which is 9-5 and although I haven’t gotten it completely right, from tomorrow today the pre-made lunches are prepped and the fruit and veg for snacking is bought and prepped. I am going to return to my King prep persona and get this smashed down.
Motivation to exercise gone
I was going through an annoying time when the weight crept back on and due to the new job I found that I wasn’t getting anytime to go out and run or get any form of exercise in. I was adjusting and in retrospect, adjusting poorly. I was determined to make the new job start off well that I negated everything else. So my usual morning or late evening jaunts to the gym or for a run were curtailed. I hold my hands up and admit, I should have pushed myself to work out and exercise and maybe I would be nowhere near the place where I am now. But that is in the past and I just have to accept that I messed up. On wards and upwards! Well for the weight…. Downwards.
My confidence ran far away
With weight gain comes that horrible little monster, confidence. I had put on weight and when I tried to go for a run, I felt sluggish and slower and seeing my times drop run after run and how I was getting more tired after a gym workout threw my confidence through several windows. You see, the gym I went to was a small local one and people had started mentioning to my friend that I had put on a good deal of weight.
This annoyed me greatly, and I worked harder at the gym, but my diet was still all over the place so no improvements were made. Very annoying. So slowly over time I went to the gym less and less, which is so frustrating as I was really enjoying it there and I had made a point to keep that membership and another that I had (the second one is 24 hours which is far handier) For a while I had to remind myself why I was keeping that other gym membership and it was simple.
I wanted to go back and show them that I had re lost all of that weight and they can shove their comments. But, that’s not how this story goes. That was nearly two years ago and for me to be in this funk for two years has hurt me greatly mentally. I think I am generally a positive person about things. Though the one thing that gets to me is my weight. My confidence is gone. I hate looking at myself and although I have spoken about weighing myself and doing this diet and this workout challenge.
As you can see from the lack of updates on those. I did bugger all. I am embarrassed a lot of the time and actually I feel embarrassed for people to be around me. I hate how I look and I am viewing this as the slate. I am happy that I have stopped gaining, my diet has improved and I am finally working out and running more than I have all year. Now I have to make it all click, which I know I will, but this is almost the point where I have to look at myself and say I will not be going into Christmas like this, I will not go on holiday in March like this.
Luckily Victoria is helping me out on this and I think with her being honest on things that I am doing that it will help me. I need someone to be mean, to give me that kick and I can’t think of anyone better. Like a cute little drill Sargent making me get up and work hard to get fitter and lose that weight!!
Well that is it for today’s post. I wanted to keep these short, but, whoops I went off on tangents. If you gained weight again after losing a lot, what did you do? Are you still struggling? Let me know! I hope to have a little action plan made up over the weekend, so expect that! It will probably be a culmination of all of my ideas before, but in a nice ready to rock format. I am going to be strict with myself as that is the only way my brain listens to me. Until next time…
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Scott H Gilliland 