The MacAlba

There was a period, not too many months ago, when there was what seemed like a never-ending stream of media reports from Australia, the UK, and the USA about ever-increasing percentages of the nations’ populations, and especially their children’s, being categorised as obese. And if not obese, then most definitely overweight.

I was, at that point, about mid way though my own weight reduction regime.

Over the years I’d been slowly but surely putting on weight. This was a combination of exercising less than I used to, and eating more than I needed. I would say that I was eating reasonably healthily, but simply eating too much. My BMI (Body Mass Indicator) was 27.7 meaning that I was mid-range “overweight”.

Towards the end of October last year I decided, one Sunday, that enough was enough, and that I would rectify the situation - beginning that day. My “secret” was, simply, to eat less - not differently. I steadily lost just under 1 kg each week (2 lb) for about 12 or so weeks, then, strangely, the weight loss dropped to about 0.5 kg (1 lb) each week (give or take a little) for another 12 or so weeks. The end result being that after 7 months, I’d lost a little over 20 kg (45 lbs). My BMI is now 21.5. This puts me at mid-range “normal”.

Without any conscious intention or effort, as of about 3 weeks ago, my “walking the dogs” each morning has become “jogging with the dogs”. I certainly work up a sweat - and that’s with the temperature dipping down to -6 degC (21 degF) around sunrise. I’m not looking forward to finding out what jogging’s like if we get down to the lowest winter minimums of around -15 degC (5 degF).

To be honest, I can’t say that I feel any different - before my weight loss I wasn’t feeling short of energy, or feeling tired, or ill, or suffering in any noticeable way. The only difference is, as noted above, that I’ve started jogging again. I’ve even had my mountain bike serviced and am looking forward to doing some cycling again.

The tricky thing now it to find the level of food intake required to maintain my current weight - and not put it on again. To assist here I continue to record and graph my weight on a weekly basis - any trend (whether up or down) should become fairly obvious.

Oh, I nearly forgot, one bad (and good) aspect of losing so much weight is that I now have to purchase new clothes. I’m still wearing my old jeans around the house - when I undo my belt and hold the waistband out to its former location (in front of my stomach), there’s a rather large gap It reinforces the benefit of what I’ve done to think that not so many months ago, that air gap between my stomach and the jeans was once filled with fat!

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[With thanks to Dave Slusher / Evil Genius Chronicles, and Mark VandeWettering / Brainwagon, whose talking about their own weight reduction programmes got me thinking about mine ]