21 December 2021
Progress!
Ahead of the Christmas season, I’m feeling generally OK about my direction of travel. Since my last post here on 1 December, I’ve lost another 3Kg (6.6lb) and am happy with that. I’d hoped to have lost more, but I’ll take what I can get. As the photo shows, there are obvious physical changes underway, including to my resting heart rate as a result of the exercise – especially, I think, HIIT on the exercise bike.
Having said that, once Christmas is out of the way, I aim to focus more on diet. I’ve been doing the right things, but haven’t really gone all out for what would effectively be a short-term keto diet. The idea is to do this for a few weeks to get the weight off before shifting to the so-called Mediterranean diet. At present I’m doing a hybrid of keto and child’s portions of normal household meals (restricting carbs). I’m also having little or nothing at lunchtime on alternate days.
I’m not especially worried about the impact of Christmas. Even in a traditional Christmas meal (in our house at least), the main carb content is the roast potatoes, and main sugar content Christmas pudding, both of which are easy to eat in small portions. I’ll be making my usual mince pies, but not as many, and not scoffing them myself. In a funny sort of way, the current Covid situation is helping, as the opportunities for socialising and nibbling sweet things are pretty much eliminated.
I see the doctor again some time in February. My aim remains to use January to make significant inroads into my ‘numbers’ when the inevitable fasting blood tests are scheduled. I will be disappointed if my HbA1c reading isn’t heading down, but, even if it isn’t, the weight loss is a good thing in itself. As is the impact of the exercise: when I started doing high intensity bursts on the bike, they pushed my heart rate up into anaerobic/VO2 max territory; now they barely get me into the aerobic zone. Given the short time I’ve been doing this, I’m really pleased with that, even if I need to think of ways of upping the exertion rate. There is a gym not far away, but Covid makes me leery of going there just now.
Onwards!
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