84kilos

When I'm at home with nothing to do And I'm bored and frustrated, maybe a little tired and unmotivated Then instead of reading social media and snacking I will go for a 5 min walk to clear my head, and do one task off the Trello board.

  Write about five qualities that I am proud of having. These can be signature strengths, or others.  These should be things that are the same no matter your weight or size. I'm proud of being a servant leader. I don't like being the manager but I do have a skill at getting the best out of a team and being an agent of change at a 2ic sort of position.  I'm really happy with the changes I've made to my life through cillan and through noom. I thought I'd have to change fundamentally and lose something. But I'm still me and I've got new tools in my kitbag for handling things I wasn't good at before. I'm more self aware so I understand what is happening and can make choices - instead of just keeping on and wondering why I'm getting the same unhelpful results.  I'm smart and I have empathy. 

So I finally joined Noom and am ready to get started. But I’m a bit confused. The only way I know what a food is comes from logging it? Seems like they would tell me what foods are green to start, so I can grocery shop? How do I meal plan? Yep the idea is to not stress too much about it, and don't try to change to everything green all of a sudden. Each meal, take a look at what you ate and think about alternatives further up the colours. For instance I've changed from rice to quinoa, white bread to rye bread, from other snacks to grapes and miso, etc etc but over many weeks of experimentation. But it's got to be stuff you actually like. It's a voyage of discovery, not another tool to beat yourself up with and make you feel guilty and stressed. Brie is yummy. I'm not giving that up and I don't care if there is cardboard fake cheese that might be lower cal. I do buy more expensive brie and eat less of it though - quality over quantity. I've also discovered tha...

I've reached the part of Noom where you're asked to write things down. So there will be a few posts like this one, where I'm asked a question like:  Think about a stuck point. Take 5 minutes to write about it. It can be physical (like a plateau), mental ("I'll always crave junk food") or emotional (I'm disappointed that I didn't start my journey 10 years sooner). My stuck point is partly physical, partly mental. I'm having too many 'oh well' days, where I either go over my calories and can point to one or two mistakes that caused that; or I blow out completely. The latter is okay as long as it's occasional. The former is also okay but it can't happen every day!  How do I reduce the mistakes on 'normal' days and reduce the damage on 'blow out' days?

Character strengths are long lasting with your character; they're universal; we all want them and they define what we are. Wisdom - Creativity, curiosity, judgement, love of learning, perspective. Courage - bravery, perseverance, honesty, zest. Humanity - Love, kindness, social intelligence. Justice - Teamwork, fairness, leadership. Temperance - Forgiveness, humility, prudence, self-regulation. Transcendence - Appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, humour, sprituality. As I type this, I'm not 100% sure what they have to do with behaviour change and weight loss. But they're cool.

https://content.noom.com/courch-experiment-week-5-q4-2017/day-33/courchexpday33newnormal/ And just like that, my new normal looks a little something like this on the 6th of October. I'll: finish dinner on a rooibos. Slow my drinking down. Not drink at home. So that I'll feel: Always in control of my eating and drinking. Then I'll: Prioritise to feel: healthy and happy. Last but not least, I'll: Keep doing what I'm doing, and run a half marathon in summer and feel: fit enough to do anything I want and enjoy it. On the 7th of October, my new normal came up again and it looked like this. I'll: keep moving and watching my weight so that I'll feel: fit and healthy all the way to my 70s Then I'll: look for the best option on the menu. Not eat the fries. Drink at the slowest person's pace to feel: comfortable eating and drinking sensibly when I'm out with friends Last but not least, I'll: write down weekly goals and stick to them And feel: Motivated...

 This week I will focus on Doing my reading every day, or blogifying the screen shots I took.  Sticking to my calorie count most days by eating sensibly and to my plan, and logging before eating. Not drinking at home at all. I'm going out 2 nights and I'll have only a couple of beers both nights.

My ultimate why is to be fit and active for decades, as long as I possibly can. It's harder to envisage change when I'm nearly there - but it's clear that I have to embed habits to ensure I don't put on 1kg a year until I'm failing again and have to take drastic action again. Regular maintenance will be easier and more fun - with just a little bit of effort. This year I need to  Goal weight, 82.0kg , by the end of the year at a rate of 0.5kg/week. That's 4kg. So that's 8 weeks. Deadlift 140kg . Done. What can I achieve by December? Run a half marathon by... 21 November in Queenstown was my original goal. This doesn't feel achievable, especially since pushing over-fast is doing bad things to my archilles. Maybe 21 February in Wellington or March/April in Martinborough .  So this year, I need to be running twice a week, ever increasing distances, so that I'm consistently running 15km by mid-December. How's that, then. How will I achieve these g...

 After two months on Noom I got within a few hundred grams of my target, and then lurched back to within a few hundred grams of where I started. Why this not working? Here's some reflection on this. Key thing I think is I am really, really struggling to achieve goals. This reflection is a case in point. I didn't do it, or anything else I intended to do over the weekend. All reasonable reasons why, or justifications why. But even this morning I haven't been able to get tasks done without interruptions and distractions. I'm batting off notifications as I type. How do I keep my focus around all this? I think my previous success was also because I was able to set up a really clear routine that was set up for success, by modifying a past, fairly clear routine with bad habits and missteps. This meant I could identify my weak spots and figure out strategies to work around them. Don't have a cinnabun at 10am - keep working until 12. Don't use food as a distraction - put...