Dieting Bloke - Starting again 2019
DietinhBloke
Posts: 20 Member
So ive been dieting on and off for years now, and the time has come to try again! This time there are a few people around me who are dieting so hoping that will make things easier,
I also decided to start blogging to see if that encourages me more, I welcome you all to give it a read if you want to (caution though, I try to be a little witty and therefore can be offensive to some though not massively!)
Internal to MFP: https://myfitnesspal.com/blog/DietinhBloke
Yes i know there is a typo in my username but MFP only lets you change it once so im stuck with it (dont really want to create a new account as ive had this one for so long!)
Am interested in following other like minded people so give me a shout if you can relate to my blog.
I also decided to start blogging to see if that encourages me more, I welcome you all to give it a read if you want to (caution though, I try to be a little witty and therefore can be offensive to some though not massively!)
Internal to MFP: https://myfitnesspal.com/blog/DietinhBloke
Yes i know there is a typo in my username but MFP only lets you change it once so im stuck with it (dont really want to create a new account as ive had this one for so long!)
Am interested in following other like minded people so give me a shout if you can relate to my blog.
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Replies
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Tip. You can change your name once without having to get a new account. It is under your profile/settings/change username.2
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What's in a name, anyway?
I've found that the blogging feature of MFP is rather thankless. You'd have to promote your blog here and elsewhere to get anyone to read it. Even then, it seems like most don't get read. It's easier just to post stuff here.2 -
L1zardQueen wrote: »Tip. You can change your name once without having to get a new account. It is under your profile/settings/change username.
Yeah, that was my once... no more changes remaining
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Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »What's in a name, anyway?
I've found that the blogging feature of MFP is rather thankless. You'd have to promote your blog here and elsewhere to get anyone to read it. Even then, it seems like most don't get read. It's easier just to post stuff here.
Thanks for the tip, will start doing that in future (As replies and not new threads i presume?)0 -
DietinhBloke wrote: »L1zardQueen wrote: »Tip. You can change your name once without having to get a new account. It is under your profile/settings/change username.
Yeah, that was my once... no more changes remaining
Try the help desk, I think they can change it for you. Having a spelling error in my username would drive me nuts.2 -
DietingBloke - STARTING AGAIN – 16TH JUNE 2019
Here we are again, as I’m sure a lot of you have done before too, I’m determined to lose weight n get healthy! Though I already know that it’s either not gonna happen, or I’m going to struggle for a very long time until I get there.
What’s My Problem!?
My problem is I’m weak, very weak! Once I get a bit stressed with anything, I become very lazy, throw my toys out the pram and hit the takeaways and alcohol. I have been known to have on average 4-5 takeaways a week and at least 3-4 beers everyday for a long period of time.
But it’s daft, I get fed up of takeaways and drinking but then I just can’t be bothered to wait for something to cook so order food in. Then this takes much longer to arrive than it would to make something from scratch!
Just this morning, after last nights Chinese takeaway and a number of beers, I woke up with this sick taste in my mouth. Sure enough, there I was, at 5am bent over the toilet, where my lovely kids (aged 5 & 7) showed their inability to clean the toilet after themselves, bringing up all the water I just drank trying to stop myself being sick.
Now if I had brought up all the the previous nights food I wouldn’t have minded so much, at least it would have felt worth while knowing I don’t have to burn those calories off somehow.
My Weight So Far…
Here is my weight journey since I got a FitBit Aria. The graph is populated by TrendWeight.com, which grabs data from FitBit (or Witherings or Manual Data Entry) to plot your trending weight based on historic data. This works well for me as I tend to weight daily (which i know many say is a bad thing but it works better for me!).
Trending Weight 2014 – 2019
So over the past 5 years it’s clear to see I haven’t got anywhere, or rather I have, but then put even more weight on that when I started, which is rather annoying.
Why Now? What’s Different?
Not a lot really, but quite a few things come together at once. I’ve wanted to lose weight for a long time now, my wife also does, my kids want me to, keep feeling sick, looking down I now need to bend over to check everything is still there etc. The kicker though was knowing friends also want to lose weight and I want to be there for them should they want my support.
And Why This Blog?
Mainly to jot things down that I think will help keep me on track and share my experience with those who might be interested. My aim is to update this fairly frequently with witty content, recipes, and just general nonsense!
I hate fruit (yes, all sorts of fruit!) and love my meat, I’m a simple bloke with simple tastes, none of this fancy green crap on everything! I know that’s why I’m so large but I don’t see a way of making me enjoy fruits, veg I can handle fairly easily so hoping that can save me!
[edited by MFP Moderators]2 -
LIQUID MEALS – 17TH JUNE 2019
One of my biggest struggles is preparing food for when I’m out of the house, given that I work in a office at least 3 times a week, it usually meant going out and buying food! Now whilst this was pretty nice to start with, in London you are lucky to find lunch any cheaper than £7. Unless of course you do a Tesco £3 meal deal of which I only have the simply Ham or Cheese since all other choices involve seeds in the bread and or fancy crap on them!
Meal Replacements Maybe?
I’d seen a few full on meal replacements and decided to give Huel a try, it wasn’t massively expensive (compared to buying lunch!) and seemed convenient. To start with I was kinda enjoying it, there was a strong oat taste to it (and surprise surprise, I don’t like oats!) and it did fill me up, though the side affects did include a bit of bloatyness and foul smelling gas. Now I’m not saying my farts smell of roses but this really did take it to another level.
It didn’t last long, apart from my wife gagging on my farts constantly, as it was powder and self mix I often found without a electric blender to hand, it was full of lumps and powdery bits not matter how hard you shook it. I decided to call it a day when I started to get dodgy looks from the desk opposite as I sat there trying to beat the lumps out, it must have looked like something that should get reported to HR.
Could Ready Made Be The Answer?
So a year passed by and my wind got back to normal, no HR cases were raised against me (though still get questionable looks when ever I move) and my wife can breath freely without gagging again (mostly…), then I saw a ready made meal replacement shake called Saturo.
Plain 500ml vs Chocolate 330ml
I then started to hunt around for real people reviews since the website made it sound perfect, which of course nothing can be! I tend to use YouTube for reviews since I’m better at taking things in visually (he says as writing a blog with one image in it…).
To my surprise there were only a handful of reviews when I searched, so of course I watched them all, they were all fairly positive with the only negative being the cost (which I guess is to be expected for this kind of thing). There was one thing that was clear, this is not a weight loss product!
This did make me question whether this is for me, especially since my main goal is to lose weight! But then I realised my goal shouldn’t be to lose weight, it should be to eat healthy which in turn, should result in weight loss. That was it, I brought way much more than I should have done before at least trying it, next thing I know I’m opening 4-5 boxes of Saturo and trying to find somewhere to store it all!
So What Does It Taste Like?
Surprisingly, it doesn’t taste of something I can pinpoint, Huel tasted of oats (yuck!) but this was, regardless of flavour, just, well, I can’t explain. The chocolate flavour did taste chocolatey and the plain one… tasted plain, there was a after taste which wasn’t horrible, but did take some getting used to. The main thing was it was like a milkshake, nice and smooth with no powdery bits floating around.
As you might have been able to tell, I’m really fussy about my flavours and textures, and whilst I wouldn’t choose this for its taste over a Burger King, I could go as far to say I enjoy them and could have them regularly.
And The Verdict?
After using it for breakfast and lunch, followed by pretty much anything I want for dinner, I lost 7lbs in the first week and started to feel myself feeling better health wise. Whilst this sounds great I know it won’t last for long, when ever I start dieting I lose a lot in the first week but then soon settles down to 1-3lbs a week, assuming i stay on track of course.
No one at work has questioned me over these bottles of food (yet…) and seem to mostly go unnoticed, which is something I was worried about following my Huel experience.
Though it should be noted I don’t believe this will be a long term sustainable option. They are rather expensive (approx £3.50 a large 500ml bottle which is 500cal) and , whilst they contain all the nutrients my body needs, I should really eat proper food.
I’m pretty happy with Saturo and would recommend you give it a try if you are even slightly thinking about it (and they are Vegan friendly to!).
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CLEARING THE CUPBOARDS OUT – 18TH JUNE 2019
We only decided to start dieting properly again just a couple of days ago, it just so happens that the day before that we went shopping and got a load of junk food in. This was meant to be for a Father’s Day picnic (at home…) but, of course, we got way to much and ended up with loads left.
Waste Not, Want Not
I’m the sort of person, who if knows there is food somewhere, will go and hunt it down and eat it as soon as the thought enters my head. This means for my best chances of losing weight, the temptation has to be taken away as much as possible. I’m not even sure what “Waste Not, Want Not” means but I’m not a fan of wasting food and the food bank will not take them (they highlight no junk food), this means it must be eaten!
My wife is going to sign up at Slimming World on Saturday, which means we have less than a week to eat everything that’s not good for us! In theory that sounds great, but i know its counter productive and not the way I should be preparing to diet properly, but im up for the challenge!
Preparing Not To Fail
With the above in mind, I head to work with a 330ml Saturo for breakfast and a 500ml Saturo for Lunch. I was meant to have breakfast before going to work, I was determined to get out of bed early, but I didnt, so i couldn’t. This only accounts for 830cals of my 2,160cal allowance, as provided by MyFitnessPal, leaving me with 1,330 for dinner (which is plenty!) and junk food (which is not so much…).
At lunch I decided to take a walk to try and produce extra calories I can eat later on. I would like to say it was a most enjoyable walk where I got to take in all the London scenery and de-stress a little, but it wasnt. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to go from the South side of the river over to the north in a bit of a loop, but I forgot how annoying other people can be.
Now I understand its a touristy place and lots of people want to take photos of things, but please, PLEASE have a bit of common sense and an awareness of your surroundings! Maybe I’m overreacting but I get really frustrated with people, not for walking slowly, but for walking in the centre of the pavement, 3-4 people wide, sometimes stopping all of a sudden without warning or moving to the side.
Looking back on my HR tracker i wonder if the peaks are when im going up hill/stairs, or if im just behind people who don’t have consideration for others. For future walks I’ll be avoiding the hotspots for sure, this will probably slow me down in other ways though as I don’t know any routes which don’t involve either tourists or then need to constantly cross roads.
Eating For The Sake Of It
So the evening is finally here and we had some friends round for board games, which is a great opportunity to get the snacks out and offer them to our guests. Well.. I thought it would be, turns out they all brought their own so I ended up eating majority of what i put out!
This included half a bag of doritos and half a tube of pringles left over from the Father’s Day at home picnic, as I was eating them I was thinking to myself “I’m not even hungry, why am I eating these”. Now I would like to think I have a fair amount of common sense and logic about me, but obviously not when it comes to food as I polished off all the crisps going!
MFP Diary for 17th June 2019
It was a good job I went for that walk… with just 29cal’s left for the day, though as I didnt weigh the snacks it could be more or less than that, but gives me a rough idea!
Tomorrow I probably expect more of the same, but I’m not in the office so wont be getting as much exercise as normal with the added temptation of crap in the cupboard that needs eating.0 -
BISCUIT ANYONE? – 18TH JUNE 2019
Working from home today which meant I had a bit more time to sort myself out, didn’t really go to plan though since I had a whole packet of Fox’s Golden Crunchy Creams for breakfast at a lovely 780cals.
Dunking Breakfast
The plan was to have something a bit healthier but the bread had gone mouldy, Bran Flakes just has the powder stuff you get at the end and meetings were about to start any minute, since I had already made a cuppa tea I thought I’m already half way there, just need biscuits for dunking.
What I wasn’t on planning on was finishing the whole packet (though secretly I probably was…), but before I knew it half my tea was gone, not because I had drank it, but because I was constantly dunking biscuit after biscuit whilst concentrating on the meeting.
I felt a little bad after but then remembered the goal was to clear the cupboards of junk food before the weekend. I decided to ignore the fact I’ll probably get moaned at later in the week by my wife because she wanted some, but my defence will be “I’m just trying to help you reach your targets!”, which of course she won’t buy, she knows I’m just a greedy git.
Super Spicy Lunch
Lunch time came and I hunted through the cupboards for something fairly healthy (at least better than a whole pack of biscuits!). There were a few healthy options but I thought it best to keep for when I’m dieting properly (which I know doesn’t make any sense!), saw some super noodles and thought they would be the best option
I was quite surprise the packet shows calorie amounts per half packet… I don’t know I know anyone who has a half a pack, surely there isn’t enough there unless it’s a very lite snack. But at 528cals I didn’t think it was to bad, though I’m lucky to not be on a carb free diet as this would have smashed it.
Now I like my food hot, very hot! At work there is a Vietnamese restaurant who do a awesome egg noddles and roast chicken dish (no idea how many calories!) which I normally have without salad (since it’s all fancy crap, some of which look like stinging nettles). But they put this chilli in which is fantastic, mega hot but keeps it’s flavour, some colleagues have to ask them not to put it on as they can’t handle it.
Anyway, I brought a jar of this chilli off them and I can’t stop putting it in everything, super noddles included. Though I’m still trying to get the amount right, normally I don’t put enough in but this time I think I put a little bit to much in.
Sat at my desk eating super noodles, watching a webinar, with tears rolling down my face.
Experimenting with a Pressure Cooker
We have had a pressure cooker for some time now but after its first few uses as a pressure cooker, it just became a very expensive slow cooker that got used every 2 weeks to cook beef.
We were due to have a Chicken Roast today as we ended up eating left over picnic snacks all day Sunday. I put the oven on to warm up (which takes at least half an hour as it’s a fancy big one… also a pain in the *kitten*!) then realised I should be using the pressure cooker!
Hunted online for some syn free recipes, all of which had fancy stuff with them, like seasoning and lemons… So I made my own up, which was basically copying the existing ones but removing fancy crap.
How it certainly didn’t look nice, could do with more browning to make it look better, but it was really juicy and lovely to eat. We also put in all the veg so literary all our dinner was cooked in one pot (apart from the gravy), only problem was everything has mixed together and was hard to separate so we pretty much had a plate of lovely sliced chicken with a side of mush.
Fancy Cheese n Cracks
Came to the evening and I was a little peckish, turned out dinner was only 310cals, so hit the cupboards again to see where I could make a dent in the junk.
I’m a simple man, and I like simple foods, this means I only ever eat simple cheddar cheese. Though my neighbours love all sorts of cheese and I started to warm to one of them, so decided to get some when we went shopping. Thing is I had no idea what it was… so had to guess based on the shape and size of the packet it was in.
I was right, my quest to be a little fancy was a success, was some french cheese that went well with crackers. Had it my daughters Christmas Paw Patrol plate she had used previously today, since I couldn’t be bothered to open the cupboard and get a clean one…
Overall a fairly ok day with a rocky start but a tasteful ending! Diary for the day can be found on MyFitnessPal for 18th June 20190 -
Wow! Now I'm thinking you should put those in blogs and post a pointer with a synopsis. I'm getting that TL/DR feeling...1
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This is what the blog section of your account is for. People can friend you and read if they want to, but popping it to the front of the forums every day is rude in my opinion. This isn't the place to mine followers from; OP has already had his personal blog edited out of two posts.2
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MelanieCN77 wrote: »This is what the blog section of your account is for. People can friend you and read if they want to, but popping it to the front of the forums every day is rude in my opinion. This isn't the place to mine followers from; OP has already had his personal blog edited out of two posts.
Noted, i was just following advise. Didn't mean it to come across as rude and not doing it to mine followers, just share my experience and interact with others.
Reason for the edits from mod's was due to external links to my personal blog which I didn't realise was against the rules, it wasnt done on purpose and not done since receiving the warnings.
A simple "I dont think this is the right place for it" would have been enough, as suggested by another member, however your reply has really made me feel very small and that I don't deserve to be here.
Thanks...4 -
You’re good. Hugs. I hope all is going well with you.3
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