Things have been improving mentally, particularly as I made good on my commitment to go to the gym yesterday. I’ve found that if I tuck my stomach in to hide some of the remaining flab, I have a rather trim torso.
In just over 16 minutes I managed to do 1.1km on the cross trainer; though I was going as fast as I could for most of it, reaching the high parts of the suggested heart rate, it felt like it was taking forever. Resistance training was also interesting: I’d managed to complete sets on the lateral pulldown, leg press, pectoral and chin assist machines.
Thankfully I’d stopped when I did, because I found myself becoming nauseous just after taking a shower. I attribute it to a lack of blood sugar.
We’re getting close to the end of [what was supposed to be] the abstinence, otherwise known as Foundation, stage of the diet. I didn’t manage to go to the gym last night, but I am aiming to go tonight.
One little bit of advice I’d give to anyone who succumbs to eating during this gruelling phase: limit yourself to one item of food during the day if you do eat something, and stick to water and black tea/coffee for the rest of the day. Only have the shakes and soups if you get hungry.
A bit of a mixed weekend, this weekend.
On Friday I went to my 12th speed dating event, at a venue somewhere in Leicester Square. I’d started a little bit late – firstly because I was certain the event started at 7.30 rather than 7pm, and secondly because I had to use the loo for a significant amount of time.
The turnout at the event was unprecedented: 24 girls to just 19 guys. Unfortunately most of them looked a lot better than their revealed personalities, as is usually the case.
The event was significant because it was the first time I drank anything other than water, black coffee or black tea. The taste of Jack and Coke – the drink of true playaz 
– was just too irresistible… but I kept my intention of making up for it at the gym.
Saturday was an eye-opener as well. I treated myself to a meal at the Fine Burger Company in Finchley Road, having not had anything apart from a bar that day.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but one thing was certain: I could not eat much of that meal. Back when I was grossly overweight, I’d have been able to devour the whole thing without a second thought, and go for dessert. This time around, I could taste all the grease and fat in the food, and I was conscious of being full.
I began to think: do I really want to eat this kind of food? If I did, I’d be far better off cooking it myself.
Yesterday I hit the gym as I’d promised myself, and am proud to have completed 1km on the cross trainer. It took just over 16 minutes, so I’m not sure whether it’s good or bad.
I also had a go at chest presses as well; having done some strenuous chest exercises at an embarrassingly low weight (of around 20-30 lbs), it was a little bit of a struggle. Today, though, I feel somewhat pumped up.
We’re fast approaching the tenth week of the diet, and once again I can’t believe just how far I’ve come. I knew I would lose a lot of weight on this particular diet, despite the naysayers throwing all kinds of obstacles in my way, but I’m grateful for the little support I’ve been getting from the diet group.
Purely because I couldn’t make a shake that morning (the kitchen had been left in an awful mess, and I wasn’t going to add to it), I had a doughnut for breakfast. It was one of those promotional chocolate ones from Krispy Kreme, and I went for it mostly because it would give me energy and a much-needed sugar hit.
Unfortunately, and probably rightly, it tastes nowhere near as good as it looked. On the plus side, I should pat myself on the back for eating just one doughnut. Usually when I went to Krispy Kreme, I would always leave with a white Americano as well as two – usually three – sugar-laced doughnuts.
But I did manage to go to the gym last night, despite being extremely eager and excited to work on Foley. Though I’m not feeling much of the familiar stretch from the workout, I am quite pleased with my cardiovascular activity: I’d managed half a mile (0.8 km) on the cross trainer, and just over 1 km on a reclining bike, before giving up. (I’d set the resistance on the bike way too high.) The cross trainer on its own burned 135 calories, which is probably my new record for a single exercise.
My intention for going to the gym is to build muscle and tone up, though fitness is a goal too; that’s why I’m trying to do distances rather than times. It feels like it’s going to take forever to build muscle, and particularly to remove the stubborn midriff fat, but my chest began to take a little shape…
The word of the last three days was low. Low, low low. I was mainly low for other, more personal reasons, but also because of the end of my nine-week run of losing weight. I guess it would have come in time anyway, but the four stone barrier is slipping by very fast.
Because of my frustration with the slowed-down weight loss, it was agreed that I’d stick to the diet for 12 weeks (84 days) instead of 105. In actual fact, some official dieting body had recommended against being on a VLCD (very low calorie diet) for more than 12 weeks, so the counsellor wasn’t really doing me a favour.
I’d gone to the gym yesterday, determined to get myself in shape, and had a not-so-okay workout.
This time I’d decided to do distance cardiovascular exercises rather than timed, going for a mile (1.6km) each time. Doing it on a bike wasn’t that hard, but the crosstrainer proved to be difficult and very time consuming.
It took me eight and a half minutes to do half a kilometre before giving up; it was incredibly hard to imagine anybody running a four-minute mile. I remember doing a cross-country run back in high school, which I absolutely hated; it was around a mile long, and my best time was 13 minutes something, I think.
Weight training wasn’t so great, either. If you saw how skinny my arms are, you probably wouldn’t be surprised, but I had problems lifting any kind of weight. The bar was too heavy for me to do chest presses properly, even with only two measly 2.5kg weights on each end. Lifting a 12.5kg barbell with both arms was humiliatingly difficult, too.
The good news is that I feel a little stretch, though not as much as I’d like. This kind of extremely slow progress is one of the main reasons why I don’t go to the gym that often; anything that’s this slow gets boring for me.
I’m really hoping that I’ll reach a four stone loss by the end of the remaining three weeks, otherwise I might as well have stopped after the eight weeks.