On the Road Again!

Another evening meal. Roasted Ratatouille Spaghetti from the Slimming World cookbook. Vegetarian and tasty. Plus it's very filling with plenty of veg, fibre and protein.

When I weighed myself after our holiday last August and found I was a pound and a bit over 20 stone (280lbs) I agreed with Claire that it was time to do something.  So we enrolled at Slimming World in Hythe. Gradually I have started to get used to eating more healthily. There is always the day, it even the hour, where I could easily eat a packet of biscuits! Or a large chocolate bar. The results are so far pretty good. Today at the weigh in I came in with a total loss of 3st 1lb (43lbs). It's still not easy. What is good is something the younger me would have laughed at - group support. I would have run a mile if someone had suggested such a thing. But for someone that lacks willpower it is that little extra kick up the arse I needed and still need.  We have a few holidays coming up. And there will be the challenge. A 2000 mile ride across Europe to the Czech Invader Rally.... folloed by a fortnight in the van with Claire and Reggie in France.

A little disappointed to only maintain today as fat club weigh-in. Still stuck on 2st 12lb (40lbs) loss.  However on the upside, Claire and are our group's Couple of the Year!  Most weight loss at just over 5 stone (71lbs).

A bit of a surprise to be named "Biggest Loser"!  In other areas of life it would be an insult, but at Fat Club aka Slimming World it is the opposite.

Another of my retirement goals was to lose weight and enjoy life a bit more. Riding the bike with too tight gear was going to be a thing of the past.  That was my aim. So far since I started at Slimming World I have lost 1st 10.5lbs (24.5lbs) and have along way to go.  I am still wearing the same jeans as before but I can do the belt up on a tighter hole or so.  But when you are large, losing this amount really doesn't seem to make any visual difference. I an starting from a very high fat lad position! I guess we have all stood in front of the mirror or seen photos of the pink beached whale in swimwear! That was one of my motivators.  Floating off the beach as Venice FL and likely to be mistaken for a manatee in distress.....  The other was forcing myself into tight over trousers on a rainy day when I was caught out!  Dry setting out and then lashing down later.  Hopping on one foot swearing and sweating tugging them on. Anyway. Positive th...

Seven weeks of attending fat club at "Slimming Word" in Hythe and I have lost a stone.  That's probably an Olde English measure of weight going back many hundreds of years.  It is the same as 14lbs. It's not as easy as celebs would have you believe. No operations, no stomach bands and no personal trainers required. An average of 2lbs a week. In reality we shouldn't need to have things like Slimming World, but there it is. Something to help eat less junk and be better and healthier. I don't think I have eaten so much veg and salad stuff for years.  

It's got to the point that with less exercise during the 18 months since I went to the office, pandemic lockdowns etc, weight had to go on.   It was all too easy to do nothing.  Watch TV and munch on all kinds of lovely snacks, chocolate and take-away food delivered to the door from the likes of Papa John's and the local Chinese takeaways. So it's back to Slimming World to get back into the habit and maybe lose a few (a lot) of pounds.

Although we hadn't really strayed too much from the Slimming World straight and narrow, after our holiday in France in May we decided to go back to start again.   For me the support is okay but what really makes me try harder is that I have to pay to be weighed and get that support.  TBH the organiser of our local group, Kirsty, is very nice and helpful,  and of course supportive. So last Thursday after missing three weeks, luckily all of them we hadn't paid for, we went..... With two weeks in Florida behind us I had expected to have put on quite a bit of weight. After all, the portion sizes are vastly greater than here in Europe.  We soon learned to only have main course and no starters. This also extended to no desserts either. Hardly any ice-creams but we did have bagels, two a day for breakfast reduced to one and a half later, and peanut butter every day for breakfast. On the scales Claire lost (!) and I put on 1.5lbs!  That's e...

It had to be done. Too fat to get into my biking gear apart from my old Hood Jeans and my Frank Thomas jacket. Slimming World.  "Like a sack of potatoes" as my Gran used to say, and I wasn't even the portly geezer I am now! Claire has been doing it for a while and so many of the evening meals were cooked with SW's focus in mind; cut out fat. But it is in the day that I can easily fail. The fatal £1.99 burger and fries vouchers for McDonalds's, trips to the café a couple of times a month for "All Day Breakfast No5" with toast and milky coffee, sandwiches from Harry's on Upper Street, plus the bags of crisps and chocolate that so very easily goes in the pie-hole. Oh, and not to mention the occasional visits to Manze's and Clark's pie and mash shops and Piebury Corner. In comes the new regime. In fact it isn't as odorous as I had imagined. It was hard at first. In our office there is always food. Like many places across the gl...