Because my Summer was a tough one I put on 3-4 kgm -- and it ain't coming off in a hurry.
In the scheme of things maybe that's not a big deal, but if adipose tissue is granted an inch it may take you out a mile.
I'm still carrying a lot more weight than the official body image data recommends. Despite what I eat/despite what I do.
I suspect that after a certain age losing weight becomes much more difficult. But then a lot of what I carry around is the denser, heavier muscle meat rather than fat because I do exercise one helluva lot. Unfortunately I carry my obesity about in the worse place for a bloke: in my abdomen.
Nonetheless, give or take a couple of kilograms, I have lost 10 kgms over the past couple of years by pursuing a low carbohydrate regime. And, until last Summer, I maintained that weight loss effortlessly. The genesis of the weight gain wasn't what I ate but that I was less active because of pain and stiffness due to Fibromyalgia festering in the Summer humidity.
I'm sure I can get back to where I recently came from....and therein hangs a challenge.
Metformin
I eat well and in the main I do indeed eat low down the carbohydratic totem pole. I suspect I consume around or under 100 grams of carbohydrate per day. I know that that is the case because my blood sugars register between 4.2 and 6.2 mmol but usually I'm flagging fives, despite my low dose (500 mgm) of Metformin.
So my diabetes is being 'controlled' -- sort of -- by diet. (You can't/I can't cure it.) Therefore, thought I, since I have been such a good boy maybe I could stop taking the drug.
So that's what I did: stopped taking Metformin. Gone cold turkey.
The main reason I did this is simple: Metformin' s primary side effect (experienced by up to 50% of its users) is diarrhoea, and I was suffering from that big time. In fact that condition was worsening.
So far so good. There has been no major change in my blood sugar readings. If there is, I'll need to shave back my carb intake and fiddle with my exercise regime some more.
Weight loss
That still leaves the chronic problem of me being overweight. When you know you can lose weight and you know that taking off x number of kilograms will mean that is x number of kilograms you won't have to drag around all day/every day ... the quest is like a chimera.
If only....
I'd like to lose another 5 kgm at least...making my total weight loss 15 kgm. That's a good result by 'diet industry' standards and should be feasible without me getting all angsty or depressed if I don't attain that figure.
It also gives me something to do: an in-house project.
The question is: how am I gonna get there? What are my options?
- LCHF. The diet regime I pursue is Low Carb High Fat so I'm tweaking that some more. I know it works. I eat very well indeed. It's sustainable long term. Suits me fine. I just have to shave back my carb intake some more, at least for a while...and eat more fat (like coconut oil, which isnt my favorite)!
- More exercise? I do plenty already and am master of my activities, but to my High Intensity Interval Training regime I've added rope skipping. That I have to lift my heavy frame so many times into the air per minute against the forces of gravity must amount to lift offs of some significance. That a person my age skips surely must add more bounce to my ageing ounce. I used to rope skip/jump and I love it. It was a personal goal and I get a lot of satisfaction skipping as relentlessly as I can like a boxer training for a fight.
- Activity. My habit has been to often lie down during the day. I carry so much fatigue, stiffness and pain around that a good lie down -- a siesta -- has sustained me for years. The problem is that resting routinely like that drags down my metabolism and switches off a range of somatic challenges. So I've engineered more stand up into my day. I'm less sedentary. I no longer sit longer than 25 minutes at a time. I move around more and don't lie down during the day. I will nap after my evening meal for an hour or a couple of hours...and that will get me through each 24 hour period. But in daylight I'm active and upright. My approach here has been fostered by the notions explored in Sitting Kills, Moving Heals: How Everyday Movement Will Prevent Pain, Illness, and Early Death and Exercise Alone Won't by Joan Vernikos but the approach promoted by N.E.A.T is in the same parameter.
For now that's the limit of my imagination and creativity....
[The Weight Loss? graphic figures above are avatar mock ups of what I may look like now with my current weight and what I could look like if I took off some more.]
