Health Kick

Image by size8jeans via FlickrThis summer, during our holiday in Amalfi, Italy, I did a lot of walking up and down stairs in 35 degree celsius heat. I sweated like a pig, going through two or three shirts a day, and what really saved me was the two hours my son Christopher and I spent (literally) chilling out in the ocean. I felt, in other words, seriously out of shape. Christopher weighed me right after we got back from Italy, and I was a scale-crushing 96kg. That puts me into the 'obese' category. With my height, I shouldn't be any more than about 69kg. Anyone who knew me when I was young won't be surprised to hear that I was 54kg with the same 5'7" (171cm) frame, meaning that I was coming close to being double my weight at 18. Not good. At the time I was a pencil-knecked geek, somewhat underweight, and couldn't put on weight even when I tried. Now I was just a fat middle-aged man who sweats all over everything, huffs and puffs up and down stairs, and will never find a mistress at this rate. (just kidding)
So, when I got back to the UK, and after my mom was gone back to America, I decided to turn over a new leaf. I (re)joined the fitness club at work. When I joined, in fact, I got some extra bad news that made getting fit even more important: I am pre-hypertensive, which means that my blood pressure is higher than it should be.
So, I have gone to the fitness club pretty much every day since I joined, although it isn't open on weekends, when I either go to my wife's on one day, or go jogging. I generally ride the bike for about 40 minutes, and then do two or three weight training exercises, with one always being for the stomach.
A few weeks ago, when I had finished my workout, and felt a bit dehydrated, I bought a Lucozade Sport fitness drink. I drank it down, but then had the thought: How many calories are in this thing? I looked, and it was something like 150 Kcals per bottle. So, I had just burned 350 Kcals doing exercise, and here I was ingesting 3/7ths of that back on this sports drink!? That didn't seem to make much sense. Then I began to look at the calories on all sorts of things, and realise that I was eating really stupidly, piling on the calories for very little benefit. I already had The Doctors Calorie Fat & Carbohydrate Counter from when I tried the Atkins diet several years ago, and purchased a bit of software for my mobile phone that lets me keep track of what I am eating.
So, I have been aiming at 1800 Kcals/day minus whatever I burn off in exercise, which is about 400 Kcals at this point. However, generally I am only eating about 1200-1400 calories. It isn't a fad diet, just being aware of how many calories are in the stuff I am eating and not eating things with too many. I switched from lattes (180 kcal) to Americano (5 kcal), which, at two a day was pretty much negating all my exercise. No more muffins (240 kcals), and instead I have two boiled eggs (140 Kcals) and a piece of fruit. Instead of a pizza for lunch that I had been having (1400 kcals!!!), I have a chicken (no skin, and boiled, about 250 Kcals) salad, or fish and vegetables). By dinner time I am seriously under my goal intake of 1800 Kcals/day, so I have whatever my wife has cooked, which generally happens to be fairly healthy Japanese food. With the amount of exercise I am doing, I am still way under my goal intake.
Now, this all sounds like bullshit, and there is definitely no way that two boiled eggs are going to give a person the same satisfaction as a lovely chocolate and coconut muffin. Yes, that is true. Lovely sweet things are lovely...and sweet. And I have to say that this ultra-low calorie thing has made me somewhat irritable (yes, Adrie, that is my excuse) and given me cravings sometimes. My body doesn't want me dipping in to my (enormous) fat reserves, and is telling me to eat more. I am telling it to get stuffed: Those giant fat reserves are having a serious impact on my health.
So far, so good: I have lost about 5 kg since I started about 5 weeks ago, much more in the last 2 weeks since I have been minding my diet.