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| An example of my new style of eating: low carbohydrate, healthy fat. |
Four years ago, in
February 2012, I completed a 27-day juice fast. I felt fantastic and documented
my little experiment here. I maintained my weight easily enough for the next year or so but then
as I entered my mid 40s the weight started to creep up again.
My weight gain started
innocently enough. Following the successful completion of my first ever Great
Victorian Bike Ride in late 2013, an epic cycling journey of more than 610km, I
decided to reward myself with a “calorie amnesty”.
I ate and drank my way
through the festive season that summer with gay abandon; avocado on several of
pieces of toast every morning for breakfast, a big bowl of last night’s risotto
for lunch, working days often concluded with a packet of kettle chips, a
selection of dips accompanied with half a packet or more of water crackers and
a generous glass of wine or three down on the riverbank before a substantial
serving of dinner. In hindsight this was not one of my finest ideas.
By the end of that
summer, I’d gained 5kg and my appetite had increased considerably, to the point
where I always felt hungry. Initially, I had optimistically thought the weight gain may have been muscle. You know, from all that bike riding.
It was the arrival of
winter 2014 and my winter wardrobe that dispelled any illusions the extra
weight might have been muscle. Muscle does not bulge over the top of your jeans
like… like the top of a banana muffin!
Admitting to myself
that I needed to trim down and actually doing anything about it were two
different things but I did try.
I decreased my alcoholic
drinks and increased my exercise… and swapped kettle chips for dark chocolate,
all the while allowing myself generous servings of pasta, rice and wholegrain
bread because I was a cyclist riding anywhere between 100 and 200km per week
and I needed carbohydrates, right? I
gained yet more weight in 2015.
Last month, despite
the fact I had added swimming three times a week to my exercise regime, I
topped my scales at 72kg - proving to myself you cannot out exercise a bad diet or even a good diet that is far too generous in portion sizes. I had begun to feel quite self-conscious about how I
looked… and how my clothes no longer fitted me. I decided to get serious about
losing the weight.
First of all I wanted
to do some research into weight loss diets to try and figure out what would
work best? Unfortunately, weight loss diets are renown for their long-term
failure rate.
It’s all very well
replacing meals with “diet shakes” and smoothies or dramatically cutting out
whole food groups for short-term weight loss but if you go back to your
previous eating pattern once you’ve reached your target weight, the excess weight
comes straight back on, plus a bit more.
I was confident my
general diet was pretty healthy and I certainly wasn't slack in the exercise department but I always felt hungry and ate
far too much; far more than my body really needed.
A good mindset, I felt
would be essential for losing the excess weight and I allowed myself nearly the
whole of January to just think about a healthy eating plan. To help keep myself
accountable, I also told my family and many of my friends and clients that I
would be beginning my personal experiment into weight loss on Sunday 31st
January.
The more I read, the
more convinced I became that the amount of carbohydrates and refined sugars in
my diet were the principal cause of my hunger and weight gain.
My personal weight
loss experiment began with a 5-day juice fast; every morning I juiced a variety
of fruits and vegetables to drink throughout the day. For the next five days I
continued on with the juice but added an avocado and/or boiled egg, a small
portion of meat and vegetables and some dairy in the form of cheese or plain
yogurt. By this stage I’d read a considerable amount of information on low-carb/healthy
fat diets (LCHF) and the similarly principled Paleo diet and I was encouraged
by what I’d learnt.
I gave up alcohol, tea
and almost all coffee and refined sugar for the month of February.
As the weight started
to come off, my appetite decreased and my energy levels started to increase.
The less carbohydrates and refined sugar I ate, the less hungry I felt.
Within four short
weeks, I have lost 4kg and amazingly, my symptoms from primary lymphoedema
(excessive swelling in my lower legs, ankles and feet), have all but
disappeared. Some long-term aches and pains that I had put down to aging have noticeably
reduced and my skin looks clearer.
I’m still fine tuning
my general diet and will write an update in a couple of months time to let you
know how I’m going and what I’ve learnt but without doubt the biggest
difference for me has been from dramatically reducing the amounts of
carbohydrates and refined sugars I consume. I no longer feel hungry all the
time, I feel clear-headed and my energy levels have increased. I’m happy with
that!
There's nothing like some before and after photos when it comes to weight loss:
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| Not a recent photo but how my feet, ankles and lower legs typically look by the end of the day |
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| What my feet, ankles and lower legs looked like the other night (21.2.2016)! |
