Why am I writing in this thread? 

1. to make public my results in the hope that the added pressure will help prevent me from weakening on the tough days and

2. because I've been overwhelmed by the helpfullness of this forum and want to give something back.

Please note that the weights I'm using here are the ones from my electronic scales at home and are not the ones from weighing myself at a TF chemist.

Starting weight: 148.0 (09 Feb 2009)

Goal 1 – To get to 99.9 kilos

Goal 2 – To get to 85.0 kilos

2009

Week	Loss	Week	Loss	Week	Loss
1- 16 feb	145.0 (3.0)	11 – 27 apr	132.8 (1.5)	21- 6 jul	127.4 (+0.9)
2- 23 feb	144.2 (0.8)	12 – 4 may	133.5(+0.7)	22- 13 jul	126.3 (1.1)
3-  02mar	141.4 (2.8)	13- 11 may	132.2 (1.3)	23- 20 jul	126.9 (+0.6)
4- 09 mar	140.4 (1.0)	14 – 18 may	131.3(0.9)	24- 27 july	124.8 (2.1)
5- 16 mar	139.6 (0.8)	15- 25 may	130.3 (1.0)	25- 3 aug	124.4 (0.4)
6- 23mar	139.2 (0.4)	16 – 1 jun	130.1 (0.2)	26- 10 aug	126.6 (+2.2)
7-30 mar	137.7 (1.5)	17- 8 jun	128.8 (1.3)	27- 17 aug	125.6 (1.0)
8- 6 apr	136.6 (1.1)	18 – 15 jun	127.8 (1.0)	28 – 24 aug	124.9 (0.7)
9- 13 apr	136.0 (0.6)	19- 22 jun	126.9 (0.9)	29- 31 aug	125.3 (+0.4)
10- 20 apr	134.3 (1.7)	20 – 29 jun	126.5 (0.4)	30 – 7 sep	124.4 (0.9)
Subtotal	-13.7	Subtotal	-7.8	Subtotal	-2.1

2010

Week	Loss	Week	Loss	Week	Loss
22 feb	126.8
1 mar	124.0
Subtotal	-2.8	Subtotal		Subtotal

Above: Nov 05, about 140 kg

Above: May 09 - About 132 kg - the shirt is one I've only recently been able to fit into, the jeans are at the point they that are too large to wear now. I'm in about 5 notches on the belt since my worst.

Above: October 09 - About 122 kg.

Loss for the week: 3.0 kilos

Looking back, I am extremely happy with last week. It was such a good feeling to come to work today and tell people I have lost 3 kilos.

Things that stood out for me in the first week are:

Make no mistake, week 1 is hard.

Initially it was very hard to drop the caffiene, the breakfast cereals and the bread. I am still having trouble with eating so much meat and so many green veggies as its not normal for me. My evening meals are starting to feel a bit ho-hum also as I don't want to stray from the plan so I've kept the dinners very strict but very unimaginative.

My weaknesses this week. For lunch on Wednesday I had a chicken schnitzel as part of a work lunch. I didnt have any chips or bread etc but felt guilty about having a crumbed schnitzel. On friday night I had an Ingham Chicken Kiev heat and eat thing, full of garlic butter. It was very nice but not so sure it was ok to have.

What made me happy this week was that I bought a packet of 3 Ferrero Rochers during the week and planned to have one Sunday night as a treat, with my wife having the other 2. I ended up letting my wife and kids have all 3 and I didnt have any. Was proud of that

I've noticed that I felt a lot calmer than usual in week one. Whether that was from no caffiene, lower blood sugar levels or both I'm not sure but I really never felt stressed or "hypo" at work all week.

It really was a good idea to take Friday off work as a "reward". By the end of Thursday after 4 days of detox my brain was really fuzzy so it was a good way to "escape" and reward myself at the same time.

Exercise: I really did nothing unusual this week, no planned exercise at all just normal amount of working.

Alcohol: None, I'm not a big drinker so thats not really an issue, but it was tempting to have a few on friday night.

One suggestion to come from week one, keep yourself busy at home. My way of doing it was playing a lot of computer games with my son on the weekend so I wouldnt think about eating. It seems to have worked and my son had fun

Plans for next week: Stick to it!! I'm expecting a loss of at best 1 kilo in week 2 based on other figures I've seen so I'm prepared for that, but I'll try to do a bit more walking now I'm over the "detox" to help keep the weightloss to at least a kilo a week average.

cheers

Week 3 was very different to both Week 1 and Week 2.

I AM IN SHOCK. Seriously, in shock. I cannot believe I lost 2.8 kilos.
For about 4 days this week I really struggled to make myself eat anything except the shakes and a few coffees.
I started the week constantly feeling bloated, took 2 fibre tables one morning, then spent 2 days with what may have been food poisioning, I'm not sure, felt like a bit of Bali belly.

But for a lot of the week I really didnt feel like eating at all. I often only ate half the meat I cooked at dinner, skipped fruit a number of times. I am hoping this was due to food poisoning but who knows, this might be normal now.

I can put up with the bad gastric symptoms for now though if it means I keep losing at this rate, my goal is to lose over 10 kilos by March 19 so I can enjoy a piece of birthday cake on my son's birthday and at the current rate I feel confident of being there.

I am really motivated to keep going and be 13x.x kilos next week, I want to be out of the 140's forever!!!

When I hit 120 kilos I've decided I'm going to buy a new 12 speed cycle and get back into cycling.
In my 20's I used to ride up to 100 km a day on weekends.
I've also decided that in 2011/2012 I want to do a 3 month cycle around Europe with my wife so my long term goal is set.
To do that I want to be around 85 kilos and fit again.
After this week I am feeling very confident of getting there!

My weaknesses this week. I was very strict this week, except for caffiene. I havn't had any treats in the 3 weeks so far.

Exercise: I really did nothing unusual this week, no planned exercise at all just normal amount of walking.

Alcohol: None.

Caffiene: Sticking to 1 or 2 normal coffee's a day but not being too strict about caffiene

Water: I don't think I drank enough during the week, trying to though.

Plans for next week: To crack the 130's (i.e. lose at least 1.5 kilos)

cheers

Week 4 weight: 140.4 kilos.
Loss for the week: 1.0 kilos

An incredibly average week. I weakened on a few things this week, but overall I’m happy with the 1 kilo loss. After being crook last week and not eating much at all, this week I got my normal hunger back. I probably lost more than the 1 kilo as I think my last weigh-in was affected by the whole not eating thing and was a bit unrealistic.

Did my first “Official” weigh in at a TF store this week and the result was a 7-8 kilo loss, which is consistent with my weigh ins at home. Weird thing is that I have only lost 2 cm from the waist while losing 8 kilos; I would have expected a lot more off the waist.

I noticed that I really did crave some of the foods I haven’t had for 4 weeks during this week. I find Friday and Saturday nights the hardest, I want to “reward” myself by having a few things on the weekend but apart from a few very minor hiccups I’m happy that I did ok.

My weaknesses this week. 2 squares of chocolate on the weekend, as well as 1 piece of those dried apricot fruit things and 1 (yes only 1) BBQ shape. Also one schooner of “pure blonde” beer. Went out for lunch one day and had a beef schnitzel and for evening meals a few nights this week had 3 salmon patties, which are pre-processed and just heated up. All in all it was probably my worst week weakness wise but still nowhere near what I used to eat and still no bread, pasta, rice, cakes, biscuits etc etc

Exercise: I really did nothing unusual this week, no planned exercise at all just normal amount of walking.

Alcohol: 1 beer

Caffiene: Having 1 to 3 normal coffee's a day but not being too strict about caffiene

Water: I don't think I drank enough during the week, trying to though.

Plans for next week:  (Again) to crack the 130's.

Week 5 weight: 139.6 kilos.
Loss for the week: 0.8 kilos

A less than average week, with one bad weakness and overall was a bit slack.

My weaknesses this week.   This week I had too many chicken caeser salads for lunch (for the 200g of meat) but without the croutons, cheese and much of the dressing. Too many of my dinners were heat only crumbed fillets of chicken etc, probably had too much carrot, peas and corn. Saturday was my first real stuff-up, I spent the day watching the Sound relief concert (all 10 hours of it) and I’m not used to watching much TV. While I did watch it I ate a lot (probably about 8) of the mini chocolate easter eggs. *Sigh* Hard to admit but it did happen. Fortunately though still no bread, pasta, rice, cakes, biscuits etc etc

Based on all that weakness I’m surprised I lost anything! I am going so Buddhist next week though and aiming for a 1.5 kilo loss!

Exercise: I really did nothing unusual this week, no planned exercise at all just normal amount of walking.

Alcohol: nil

Caffiene: Having 1 to 3 normal coffee's a day and not being too strict about caffiene

Water: I don't think I drank enough during the week, trying to though (again).

Plans for next week:  To have a “Buddhist” week and get to the goal of having lost 10 kilos

cheers

Week 7 weight: 137.7 kilos.
Loss for the week: 1.5 kilos

Very happy with the result this week. I’ve now set myself a major goal of being under 100 kilos by December 31 this year. To achieve that I need to lose an average of a kilo per week, so anything more than that is a bonus. It’s a bit of a balancing act, mixing long term sustainability with effective results and having hit a real milestone (1/5^th of the way there) I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how to keep this going long term.

I started the “walking on the spot while watching the footy” this week but to be honest it was a bit of a slack effort, all I did was the first quarter of the Carlton/Richmond game. On the positive side though I got stuck into the front garden Saturday afternoon and cleaned that up.  Also went to the football on the weekend (Go the Power J ) and did a good amount of walking then. I also started getting off the bus earlier and walking for 15-20 minutes each morning.

I’ve also volunteered to captain one of the Global Corporate Challenge teams at work so from May until September I’ll be looking to do my 10,000 steps a day (averaged 13,000 last year but didn’t lose any weight due to my old high carb diet, this year will be very different!). If anyone else is interested in this I suggest having a look at http://www.gettheworldmoving.com/ it’s a great way to get active with your work mates (even better if you can get your company to sponsor you for it).

I’d like to thank Jolegirl for messaging me this week with her comments, its nice to know someone is reading this.

My weaknesses this week.  

I cut right back on the crumbed dinners and lunchtime caeser salads and I’m sure that helped with the result. Deli meats are back on the agenda with the shake for lunch and I don’t mind doing that long term.

Chocolate was a weakness this week, as I had a few squares of 70% dark early in the week and had 2 squares of snack on Sunday. I also had one 40g caramel easter egg on friday night after grocery shopping.

The one other thing was the can of Woodstock and cola at the footy on Sunday, I’m planning to make that the treat once every 2 weeks (on average) when I go to Port home games, but the chocolate has got to be cut down to 40g a week again.

Exercise: While not particularly structured, I did do a lot more walking this week (as above).

Alcohol: One Woodstock and cola at the footy.

Caffiene: Having 1 or 2 normal coffee's a day. I’ve now noticed that 2 coffees is enough for me, and 3 would be too much. That’s a good thing. Instead I’m trying to sleep more (and hopefully sleep better as the weight comes off).

Water: I think the water was fine this week.

Plans for next week:  To simply make sure I stay at 1 kilo or more a week loss, do the good things I did last week, but make sure I have fun while doing it all so I can sustain it for the year.

cheers

Week 8 weight: 136.6 kilos.
Loss for the week: 1.1 kilos

I am really starting to dislike those “biggest loser” guys, 30+ kilos in the same time I’ve lost 11 heh. I do keep thinking though that I can’t wait to have the same change in looks that they are getting. I have been having more and more people notice the difference, and I’m almost at the point that some clothes are too big now to wear (but its still fun wearing them as a reminder of the change). I might have to spend a few hours over Easter sorting out my clothes into 3 piles, too big, wear now, wear in 3 months J

A very “normal” week for me, I know if I was more strict I could probably drop 1.5 – 2 kilos but I enjoy the current diet and I can keep this going long term. And if start losing less than 1 kilo a week I’ll go back to basics until it’s fixed.

One ‘discovery” I made last night though is that there are probably a huge range of dishes out there that I like that could be slightly adjusted to remove the carbs and still taste good.

Ok this might not be earth-shattering and there are things like notatoes etc around, but last night I had a Pad Thai without the noodles and really enjoyed it. I can almost see the puzzled looks J but yeh, we cooked it up and kept the noodles separate until it was served, so the rest of the family had a normal Pad Thai and I basically had the meat, veges and nuts without the sauce and it was really nice. When I thought about it, the noodles don’t add to the flavour, just to the kilos, so this was a real winner. I’m now wondering which of my other favourite dishes I can have without the carbo bit, I’m thinking Tuna Mornay without the rice might be a good one to start with.

My weaknesses this week.  

I had about 3 crumbed dinners and 2 lunchtime caeser salads for the week and I’m sure that affected my result.

Chocolate was again a weakness as I had a row of Snack and one 40g caramel easter egg again. Easter this weekend is going to be interesting.

Exercise: The getting off the bus early and walking more has probably saved me from going under 1 kilo this week, its now part of my normal routine again.

Alcohol: nil

Caffiene: Having 1 or 2 normal coffee's a day

Water: I was probably a bit light on for the water. Cooler weather the problem maybe.

Plans for next week:  To make sure I still lose at least a kilo over Easter by allowing myself only the bare minimum of chocolate over the weekend. If I don’t then its back to basics.

cheers