Boring Weight Related Stuff

[daveon]

M has been on at me about weight related stuff.  We've both put on weight we can ill afford to while moving here.  It's hard not to :(  I've also started travelling again which isn't good.

As part of her employment package with the Beast she and her spouse (me) get access to MS funded weight and fitness programmes.  We took a look at the last week.  Basically the format of the 2 is the same, they do a physical and provide a 12,16 or 20 week programme of diet, counselling and personal training.

We'll probably start the flashest of the two (Lifestyles 20/20) in November.  Not because I particuarly like the programme.  I know it works, I've seen the results around campus - if you've seen recent Steve Balmer footage compared to 5 years ago, you'll see the results there.  I do have a problem with it that it is slightly cultish and that most of the stories by the uber-fit salesman did not apply.  I do not eat at Claim Jumper thank you, I do over eat on better food than that, and I do drink too much.  They also didn't really have an answer to my question about business travel.

However, all that said, the program works.  Why?  Because for 12-20 weeks (depending on how much you have to lose) you have three 75 minute personal trainer sessions a week and they ask you to log another 2 hours of exercise elsewhere.  They give you access to a dietician including a specialist on eating out, and they have group support sessions for staying on program.  I know I lose weight rapidly when I exercise, the problem is actually sticking to a regime long enough for it to become second nature. 

I don't want to hit 40 weighing over 120kgs thank you.  So, I've a tour of Europe to come and then back to the gym.

 
EDIT:  That isn't to say I haven't been being careful.  I've been exercising more and trying to watch what I eat.  According to the doctor on Friday my BP was 116/68 - which was without my Altace.  So I think I can say that my BP is back to normal.  I can also wear one size down in trousers, but frankly, I'm not going anywhere like enough.

Comments

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

That's pretty impressive with the BP given your previous figures. Congratulations!

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Thank you, although I just took it and it was 140/90... hmmm... I'll go back to checking through the day. :)

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

um... does that mean you're over 120kg now?..... whoa, think how much more milage you could get out of your pension if some of that got shot of!

Have to say the MS programs sound like the schizzle though. I hear so many people saying they are "trying" to lose weight, and I suppose an analagous situation is hearing people saying they are "trying" to save, five minutes before they show you their new £45/month phone and order another £N latte.
It drives me nuts. [dentist says You Must Not Grind Your Teeth, no really, he did !].

But then I tried to write down all the things I'd learnt when I was losing weight (this last time I managed to internalize Yoda and "do" not "try") and every time I've tried to do this I've just run out of time or a sensible framework because there is just so much.

Sleep. Liquid calories. Muscle mass and metabolism. GI. Adult behaviour. Calcium. Protein and saity. Micro-nutrients. Exercise and appetite suppression. << OK that last paragraph was what I managed to churn out from the top of my head in a minute. I cheated and corrected the spelling of suppression afterwards.
The MS programs - from what I understand - take the confirmed data about healthy living and put it into a well thought out framework (which is surprisingly hard to do). When you have busy people who are worth a lot to the firm, you don't want to hope that they will work it out by trial and error like I did (actually Slimming World, aka 7th Circle Of Hell, and extensive reading of t'internet and (sensible) fitness magazines about What Actually Works and Useful Details and also observing how people who weren't overweight lived, and thinking about what the actual consequences might be otherwise, which, when the 'rents start going down with lifestyle related stuff, is all too visible). << is that a sentence?
I kind of wish my own firm did it - for a tech firm we are actually dead healthy, i.e. in any given meeting only half the people there tops will be clinically overweight and there are only one or two who are carrying heartbreaking amounts of excess weight, but still... every time I look at someone with a John Peel belly now it just makes me sad.

I suppose the scary thing is that to keep it off you do really have to step up to the line and do what it takes, not what you want. And that might involve changing so much that (from the "now" perspective) you become a completely different person. However from "the other side" I should say that this is actually not the case. It is more that you get a lot closer to the person you were, usually in childhood or puberty, before you embraced a variety of dumb practices as being an essential part of your personality. (I don't know why we do that - is it to fit in, or is it to pretend to the world that we're not losing any battles because this is "what we really want" or...? I dunno but there's a thesis in there for someone).

Anyway good luck in your efforts to get an extra ten years' worth out of the pension :D

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Well, yes I am. I'll counter with that I'm around 6'4". What was bugging me most was starting to find my nice comfy 42" waist trousers were too tight, which I've addressed. But it is time to do something about it all really and fitting healthy living into the life I've been leading has been a challenge and while I have no aversion to exercise I can't kid myself that I'm good at forcing myself to do it, especially if M has the will power of a 4 year old too.

I've been my "ideal" weight when I was 21 and had Glandualar Fever. People, including the family doctor, thought I had aids. It wasn't pretty on my build. When I lost most of my body fat 10 years ago, through not drinking much and gym 4-5 times a week, I went down to around 100kgs which was pretty ideal for me. I was a 38" waist and had a pretty flat stomach and that would be my target for the next year. What balls'd that up was starting business travel - which has pretty much counted for 3-4 kgs a year for 7+ years.

To be honest, I'm still not sure how I'm going to come up with coping mechanisms for business trips. Client dinners, evenings out in bars etc... it's hard to avoid temptation and boredom is a real killer on these things. I suspect I'll have to find tricks to force in more exercise and come up with some mechanisms for limiting the drink and food.

The MS system frankly annoyed me, but it's sensible stuff and as you said elsewhere support is part of the key. There is a "pod person" element to those who emerge the other side of the program. I suspect part of their success is providing an ongoing support and maintenance system where you can still see the Doctor's every 6 months for checks and you can have access to your personal trainer, dietician etc...

The thing that actually annoys me about a lot of the guff they were spouting at the indoctrination session was actually how little applied to me. I have been fit, I historically have exercised a lot and I'm not exactly a basket case now. While I do over eat, I am picky about food, a lot more so now than when I was younger, but I do have some serious weak spots, wine and beer being 2 of them. I do walk around a lot, I use the stairs over the lift, and I do figit. All good things for burning extra calories. However, a really good steak (8oz will do frankly) with a Blue Cheese sauce and daphinoise potatoes with a few glasses of a decent red wine really appeals more than the herb crusted salmon with roasted mediterranean veges and a bottle of water.

Listening to the indoctrination program they really were focused on developers who spend 24/7 in a chair in front of their computer drinking full fat coke and eating crisps by the large packet.

Learning how to enjoy less of the things I adore is the hardest thing.

Getting back into the place where I enjoyed 4-5 hours of sold CV work a week won't.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

You two are absolutely poles apart in terms of lifestyle. Drinking/teetotal, vast amounts of work travel and entertaining/none, carnivore/vegan, indoors/outdoors hobbies.

I'm not convinced about the 'returning to the person you were' argument, as I expect most fans were never really fit healthy children, I certainly wasn't.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I was reasonably fit as a child, although, to be fair, not particuarly thin. I played a lot of rugby and swam huge amounts. Certainly when I was 10 I was doing 6 hours of swim training a week which certainly does have an effect on you.

I stopped doing a lot of that as a teenager. Started again at University, stopped, started, stopped, started etc...

I didn't particuarly start drinking, for example, to fit in. I quite like it and am fairly catholic in my taste for beers and wines and spirits. Likewise, years of living with a family for whom haute cuisine was meat and potatoes means that when I found Indian and French cuisine I was hooked.

Unlike John, I have, however, always felt that the outdoors is over rated.

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

Unlike John, I have, however, always felt that the outdoors is over rated.

You know when I read that I pulled a face and thought, Oh god he shouldn't have said that. Within two years he'll be sea kayaking and thinking, "How the hell did this happen? How? How?". Tempting fate, that's how. Don't do it! Don't say it! Say "the outdoors is of course beautiful and I am always open to new points of view" and then you'll be safe.
I was all "bah not another walk" and now I've turned into my bloody Dad with his bracing country walks. I have nothing against Outside but that still unnerves me and I try not to think of it...

[daveon.livejournal.com]

The joke around Seattle is that you all end up hiking before too long. It might happen, it might not.

What I will not do is camping. I have camped, and I find nothing wonderful about sleeping on the ground; waking up in a damp tent, washing in cold water and peeing in a hedge, then walking. It really really isn't fun.

I like hotels with spas and fine restaurants and nice swimming pools and room service.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Washington state manages to cloak its magnificent Outside in a cloak of drizzle much of the year, so it may be safe. OTOH Colorado shouts 'come and see my snowfields, flowers and rock walls' by being sunny 300 days a year. I find it very hard to stay indoors on a sunny day.

If D doesn't like the term Cyldesdale, how about Percheron then, a posher breed of draft horse that would appreciate a fine wine...

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, you say that, but-
I'm not TT - I just stopped drinking very much when I realised it was making me fat and oh, it gives you breast cancer as well (I know most cases are cured these days, and frankly I still have better things to do than be forever finding change for the hospital carpark thanks). Don't miss it - quite a lot (you realise later) is brainwashing by the sunday supps about what "adults" should consume. We finally cracked open the wine we'd been given at work to mark a release and it was ... just a dull Chardonnay. Dull dull dull.

Good call about the work travel (though I fear I may have to schlep it out to Seattle for a plugfest unless we hire someone keen on economy longhaul). That said I should perhaps make the point that if a vegan can make arrangements to follow their desired diet when travelling then the barriers for someone who just wants to eat no more than is healthy can be no worse. In both cases it takes planning and flexibility (and realising no-one else gives a stuff about what you're having).

Does sitting in front of the tellybox count as a proper hobby? I still read you know! I read a novel the other day (not running pr0n honest) so there. :D

I was a shortsighted asthmatic studious child and even so I did once make it into the run-offs for the school cross-country team, quite liked PE on account of it being a change, enjoyed body-surfing on hols and going to the adventure playground in Kettering, going swimming in the pool at home, and playing tennis/cricket/footie badly with my siblings. And you (matey) with your hikes and cycling and badminton and scrabbling over forts and round-the-world-trips, cannot pull the sedentry-fan one with me :D
Competitive sport OTOH - I can only hope school sport is no longer the unpleasant wheat-and-chaff, fuck-you affair it was 30 years ago but I would not be surprised if there was still a lot like that. The dead good thing about the big fiesta-like races like the GNR and London and the Race For Life jobbies is not only do they celebrate what you *can* do, but because there is such a wide range you can enjoy a realistic amount of competitive ambition (e.g. faster time than That Man In Project Management), however tiny, despite having absolutely no chance of any "placing". (That said, having been to smaller races I think it's pretty much true of any road race - having been to local athletic-club run 10ks where the straggling spherical 50-somethings struggling over the line at the end were greeted with rousing cheers and applause). (The 60- and 70- somethings all being lean sinewy creatures who beat the 40-somethings in, crying "well done young man/lady" as they pass, bastards bastards bastards :D).

But back to D's mention of "ideal weight" - if the program is any good then they will have some sort of body fat monitoring system, which is what is needed for the "clydesdales" of the world (*). Cos obviously muscle and bone weight is good! You want to be keeping that, very handy. And, you know, liver, kidneys, organs in general (mmm spleen!).

(*) this is a special category in road-running so that people who are really not built for running, (e.g. compare Steve Redgrave and Haile Gebrselassie though that is a bit misleading as Cracknell is bloody fast!) can have their achievements recognized in the same way as age- and gender- grouping works.. kinda.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

We finally cracked open the wine we'd been given at work to mark a release and it was ... just a dull Chardonnay. Dull dull dull.

Oh dear, I would suggest a bottle of Cakebread (http://www.cakebread.com/) then, their Sauvigon Blanc is just out of this world... Of course, there lies one of the problems and benefits of earning lots. I've found that there are so many more things out there which do taste amazing if you pay for them. I can't drink a £2.99 bottle of plonk anymore because it'll taste rancid and be just nasty compared to the £17.99 bottle of Preimier Cru Chablis etc...

Likewise I honestly do like beer, always have done, pretty much since my first taste (the brief dangerous flirtation with McMullens Country Bitter was an aberation). Likewise fine malt whiskey is just amazing. Of course, that's probably calorie for booze the tipple I should focus on because you really can't drink very much of it. So for good booze and interesting beer there is always room in my heart and sadly stomach. It's the beer drinking in particuarly I have to watch.

Frankly, at home I can take or leave it. It's stuck in a dreary hotel in the middle of some hot asian hell hole, or American hell hole (Dallas springs to mind) and I'm lost at what to do. Even if I kill an hour with a trip to the gym or a walk, you've still got hours of the evenings left. Ugh.

If the customer wants dinner, the customer gets dinner and the customer will expect wines and so forth. If you're out with a peer group, as I will be at our management meeting next week, it gets worse.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

That's the ratchet problem. Once you try nicer things you can't go back, and as in many areas (except thank God beer), nicer gets rapidly more expensive, you have to start working harder to earn the money, that eats up your free time so you feel the need to treat yourself on your odd free nights, and the spiral increases.

When I visited the Chablis vineyards a few years back, I preferred the ordinary Chablis to the Premier Cru :-)

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I've not been there yet, I'll bear that in mind. The Cakebread is worth a trip if you're there though. Their wines are amazing. On the plus side it does mean that you can avoid spending more on crap.

You are correct that beer is something of an exception to this rule, but that doesn't necessarily mean a lot.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

If you do get to Seattle you can meet the Clydesdale in person (what a great term, I'll use it for Dave from now on!), as I don't think you've ever met? Teetotal was just an approximation, and a good one compared with D.

I may be more active now, but I was a very sedentary child from 11-18, hiding in my room with the curtains shut tapping away on the computer. I did some cycling in the woods when younger, and played my brother at badminton in the garden, but that all rather faded away in my mid-teens, so while you might be returning to an active life, I never really had one, so unlike you both I've never known what it is to be slim or fit, so don't really have an idea what this sense of well-being is. I think hiking gives me a buzz from the environment rather than the exercise, and I'm not sure I'd push myself into injury over it as athletes do.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

If you do get to Seattle you can meet the Clydesdale in person (what a great term, I'll use it for Dave from now on!),

Er... thanks John.

Frankly most of my build comes from an inordinate amount of time spent doing fairly serious swimming which tends towards the chunkier build, especially around the legs and upper body.