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First Post - My 9 month weight loss journey

Aftabs profile image
9 Replies

Hi all!

This is my first post to this forum but I have been using the NHS Couch to 5k forum for the last few months.

I am near the end of my weight loss journey and thought I should post about what I have done so far, so I apologise for the length of this post but I am trying to summarise the last 9 months!

Back in October I was at 94kgs and walking up a few flights of stairs got me out of breath. There are a few things that started my weight loss and exercising. A friend passed away last summer of a heart attack at the age of 30 and weight was a contributing factor, so this did get me thinking of my health but I didn't do anything at the time. We also have a gym at work but since joining in 2011 I was too lazy to apply to join it. One day an administrator who looks after the gym was walking by my desk and I decided to ask what I needed to do to join up. I completed a health and safety induction the following day and I had access to the gym!

I started going 3 times a week doing light weights and cycling and it was difficult, however I didn’t change my diet. One day after going to the gym I got home and had fried eggs, chips, beans and garlic bread for dinner. Only after eating did it dawn on me that I had just undone and good I did in the gym. A friend had mentioned an app that they used for a few months to log their food so I researched a few and found one called calorie count. I logged my food for a week and could see I was eating far too much. By reading a few articles on line and by some simple calculations I worked out that I should be eating 1800 calories a day, which gave me a 500 calorie deficit and would lead to weight loss.

At the same time I bought a Nike Fuelband, which is a fancy pedometer. It turns your movements into a score and encourages you to be more active. This really helped me to get out and walk more in evening and weekends and to keep me going to the gym. It was £130 so I wanted to make sure I got my money’s worth! When I began my walks I used the Nike+ running app to log my walks but I did not run at the time because the walks themselves were tiring for me out.

So I kept logging my food, eating healthier, exercising and slowly lost the weight:

Mid Oct – 94kg

Mid Dec – 90kg

End Jan – 81kg

End Feb – 78kg

End Mar – 74kg

End Apr – 73kg

End May – 71kg

End June – 70kg

Today – 68kg

I felt the improvements to my health early in the year and by the beginning of April I felt confident that I could begin Couch to 5K (C25K). I also stopped logging my food in April because I had got into good habits after using it for 6 months. The first few weeks of C25K were not difficult because of the gym work I had already done but by week 4 I was finding it hard. I persevered and graduated at the beginning of June!

It is currently the Islamic month of Ramadan so I have not carried out any exercise for 2 weeks. Ramadan is when Muslim's do not eat or drink during daylight, which is around 19 hours each day this year. I think I am eating about 1500 calories a day at the moment and have lost 2kgs in the last two weeks.

So in the last 9 months I have lost 26kgs, improved my health and become a runner. After Ramadan I will increase my calorie intake because I will first try to maintain my weight for a month and then increase my intake to put on some muscle mass. My aim for the rest of the year is to run a half marathon and improve my strength. My profile pic is an attempt at a before and after comparison, my photoshop skills are not great but hopefully the weight loss shows.

Good luck to everyone!

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Aftabs
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9 Replies

Congratulations Aftabs - what a fantastic post!

Aftabs profile image
Aftabs in reply to

Thanks!

manish83 profile image
manish83

Congratulations

Aftabs profile image
Aftabs in reply to manish83

Thanks!

OlsBean profile image
OlsBean

Well done Aftabs :)

Aftabs profile image
Aftabs in reply to OlsBean

Thanks!

manish83 profile image
manish83

so did you cut all the asian food like we use to make with onions oil etc . i cant stay away from roti being punjabi. what did u eat? many thanks

Aftabs profile image
Aftabs in reply to manish83

I have your same background and therefore tastes! When I was losing weight I changed my diet quite a lot. I ate curry and roti only 3/4 times a week rather than every day. The roti we made was a lot thinner than we used to have, roti has a lot of calories in it so it is important to eat a thinner roti. You can still have the same amount of curry with it. We use olive oil rather than sunflower oil and we cut the amount of oil drastically, this does affect the taste, but you will get used to it quickly. I also used an oline tool to calculate the calorie content of the curry and then weighted it to get stick to the calorie limit I had set myself. This meant that when I had meat dishes I did nto eat a lot. I also would only have meat currys about twice a week.

On the days I didn't have curry I was having stir fry mix veg with grilled fish, this had a very low calorie amount and filled me up.

I run a lot nowadays (you can see the C25K HU forum for my posts) and am able to eat much more and still keep my weight stable at around 68kgs.

manish83 profile image
manish83 in reply to Aftabs

Hi Aftab,

Many thanks for your reply and the tips and the information you shared. For me it seems impossible to leave stuff but I will try to reduce the amount.

Take care

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