Dave - Journey to lose 180lb from June 2018 (Target achieved in 52 weeks)

That’s amazing Dave what you have achieved. I tried Slimming World back in 2016 and lost a few stone. I was quite into exercise at the time but that has slowed right down due to a hip replacement. I’ve joined online today to give it another go. I’m 16St 6lb and I’ve set my target weight as a very ambitious 12 stone. I found this Forum really helpful for support in the past. It’s like starting again for me as I can’t remember much from last time…
 
Welcome @Paul8 I am unable to exercise most of the time. I have sjorgrins syndrome, multiple sclerosis and lymphoedema. so exercise is very limited. Sw online has just added some exercise that you can do sitting down. Yet to give it a go. but even with limited exercise i have managed to lose 6.5 stone in 18 months.
 
That’s amazing Dave what you have achieved. I tried Slimming World back in 2016 and lost a few stone. I was quite into exercise at the time but that has slowed right down due to a hip replacement. I’ve joined online today to give it another go. I’m 16St 6lb and I’ve set my target weight as a very ambitious 12 stone. I found this Forum really helpful for support in the past. It’s like starting again for me as I can’t remember much from last time…

Welcome back and thanks!

If you wanted to get some exercise in have you tried and yoga? I also have a slam ball which I lay on the floor and do chest passes in the air, hold the ball and do crunches with the ball going from behind my head to my chest with my knees and also russian twists.

Whilst the exercise helps speed up the loss a bit (not as much as most think!) it's the positive mental benefits which keep me doing it regularly.
 
Looking good for the wedding, I personally do not see your son as overweight. He maybe one of these youngers who like my nephew used to be deemed overweight just before his next growth spurt then he was the perfect weight.

Family gathering are a great way to catch up, many of us now have not seem relatives in such a long time due to the covid and lockdown. So gatherings such as weddings had been cancelled or put on hold. So the reunions have been extra specially a few weeks back saw my brother in law and his family for the first time in two years. Partly due to covid and his busy work life working on film sets as a parachute stuntman. So they had not seen me with my new weight loss of then nearly 6.5 stone. So they were shocked by it.

He's not even remotely overweight. He's in his age range of clothing, he's very active, he eats more than the recommended fruit and veg etc. I was going to bring it up with the school but they'll just laugh at it as well and it's nothing they are pushing on to the parents.
 
Then your son is doing perfectly well and definitely a shining example of what youngster should be eating. So many have a diet full of sugar and processed foods and very inactive.
 
Played cricket at the weekend and posted a selfie of me at the ground. I was then sent a pic of me 4 years ago in my cricket gear preseason.

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Another month since my last post....

I'm now down to 13st 4lbs. That's 15 stone down from my heaviest recorded, 8 stone down since joining my local group 7 and a half months ago and the lightest I've been since I was probably 13 or 14 years old.

A few weeks ago I had a big screw up and celebrated a nice loss by coming home and eating the leftovers I made my wife and kids for dinner followed by some biscuits and crisps. I then did pretty much the same for the next 6 nights! I cycled 300km, weight trained hard, played cricket and did some yoga and put on 5lb that week. It was another nice reminder that I can exercise as much as I want but if I eat rubbish I will gain weight. Again, similar to the last time I did this, I didn't particularly enjoy it but still did it. I wasn't hungry, I wasn't filling a void, I was just being silly for no reason. It's all in the head. The following week I reverted back to my normal ways and lost 6lb so the gain was short lived and probably that water weight people talk about when you eat junk.

Anyway, I'm down 8lbs this month and have my next weigh in tonight which I'm optimistic of a loss as I've been on plan all week again, if it's not down it will be next week anyway as sometimes it does have a slight delay in showing on the scales. I've stopped caring as much as I did about the weigh in if it's smaller than expected as this delay seems to be quite common and the weight loss is a long term thing and the weekly figure isn't as big a thing.

I have also dropped my target again. I have pushed it down to 12st 7lbs. I was worried about the weight dropping off my face continuously and looking gaunt. Thankfully this isn't the case. I'm still not happy with the excess fat around my gut but I'm again not sure how much of it is fat and how much is excess skin. I google it regularly and get mixed answers making a good case for it being skin and fat. My plan of action is to continue the weight loss and see what happens with it. Knowing whatever exercises you do can't target particular areas of fat loss or skin etc it's all about keeping going. I do dumbbell pullover crunches 3-4 times a week though and my abs are obviously reaping the benefits below the layer above them. My fitness levels are through the roof again too.
 
Well done, an amazing achievement 👍
 
So...

turns out I made the final 8 for the Slimming World Man of the Year 2022 Award and have got to go to Slimming World HQ on Sunday 26th June.

I have to give a presentation about my story to the 7 other finalists and judges and whoever else is there. I can't even talk in front of my local group about what I've eaten the previous week :oops:
 
I've just had a bit of a read through this thread this morning. As most of my old posts indicate, I never went by Dave on here either as I was too embarrassed to share personal info etc. I tried to hide away online like in real life!

On Sunday I went to the Slimming World Man of the Year 22 awards as one of the finalist. 8 of us there as shown in the picture above with Ken McLeod who won last years award in the middle. Ken is such a nice man, had time for everyone there and his story is so inspiring. If you haven't read it give it a google, it's quite likely you have though as it turns out his Slimming World stories have hit 17 million people in the last year!

So we had to sit in a small circle of us 8 finalists and tell our stories. Around the outside of the circle were the judges including the managing director at Slimming World and the Director of Marketing. Also sat around the outside were the amazing consultants who I will get on to a bit later. We all pick our numbers out of an envelope to see what order we tell our stories, I pick number 8, I was hoping for 1 or 2 as I was so nervous and wanted it over and done with. So as we tell our story which is strictly limited to 5 minutes (at 4 minutes we are warned we have 1 minute remaining so if we need to get something in urgently we have time) and whilst we read our stories our consultant walks our Progress/Achievement boards around to show everyone in the room.

I'm not allowed to go in to the result as this is officially announced in 4-6 weeks time and to be honest I don't think any of us started this journey to be in this competition or with the idea of winning or even getting to this stage. It was all about being a better me. The stories from all were hugely inspirational and I wouldn't be surprised if many of them made it to publications in the magazine/blog/podcasts etc. The consultants there were also amazing, all supporting everyone, not just who they came with. I was a nervous wreck and having them come up to me after my presentation to tell me how well I had come across and well done etc was really nice. There wasn't really that competitive feel about it all, we were just 8 men giving our stories on how Slimming World has changed our lives.

The past 2 weeks since being invited to this though, I have had to open up about a lot of things. I have shared things about my life which I had previously never spoken about before. I will share my boards, you might be able to see the text on them if you zoom in, some of these I had never told my wife who I have been with for nearly 19 years. It has been a very emotional week.

So looking back through those old posts. My whole perspective has changed I think. I used to be quite negative when it came to having an off plan meal. Now I'm not beating myself up about having to go off plan. It doesn't come across too well in my posts but I know if I have a celebration out somewhere or a bbq, I may gain 1 or 2lbs that week but it will come off the week after. As long as it's something I will enjoy, I'm not going to beat myself up about it and I'm going to enjoy it. Weight loss is a long term thing. As long as after going off the rails enjoying myself I'm big enough to own up to it and weigh in at group I know I'm doing well. You've got to enjoy life whilst doing this and the whole plan allows for that.
 

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OMG - so well done and congrats 🎉👏🎉
 
Another few months away, quite a chaotic time!

I went on holiday and gained a fair bit of weight for a couple of weeks away and struggled to get back into it consistently when I returned! Yo-yo'd for a few weeks but with the general trend being the weight coming off. I'm almost back down to where I was a few months ago now but losing the weight when you're at or close to target is difficult isn't it!

My story has now been in a few national newspapers and in this months Slimming World magazine.

A couple of weeks ago my mum and sister ran the virtual London Marathon. My mum injured herself a few weeks before and wasn't feeling up to it on the day so I decided to turn up and join her for 6-10km of it to see if it would help motivate her a little. I ended up running half the marathon with her having had no training and turning up with my phone and a packet of chewing gum 😂 The buzz from doing that was huge so earlier this week I joined a local running club and started up a strava training plan. This week I've hit a 5km PB, my vo2 max has hit 52 and I've run for 3 and a half hours. Running with the local group was a great decision too, not only did I have an hour running and chatting to people making the time fly, I then had lots of people cheering me on during parkrun on Saturday, a great group of people.

Hope all is well for everyone 👍
 
Another few months away, quite a chaotic time!

I went on holiday and gained a fair bit of weight for a couple of weeks away and struggled to get back into it consistently when I returned! Yo-yo'd for a few weeks but with the general trend being the weight coming off. I'm almost back down to where I was a few months ago now but losing the weight when you're at or close to target is difficult isn't it!

My story has now been in a few national newspapers and in this months Slimming World magazine.

A couple of weeks ago my mum and sister ran the virtual London Marathon. My mum injured herself a few weeks before and wasn't feeling up to it on the day so I decided to turn up and join her for 6-10km of it to see if it would help motivate her a little. I ended up running half the marathon with her having had no training and turning up with my phone and a packet of chewing gum 😂 The buzz from doing that was huge so earlier this week I joined a local running club and started up a strava training plan. This week I've hit a 5km PB, my vo2 max has hit 52 and I've run for 3 and a half hours. Running with the local group was a great decision too, not only did I have an hour running and chatting to people making the time fly, I then had lots of people cheering me on during parkrun on Saturday, a great group of people.

Hope all is well for everyone 👍
Hi Dave. All quiet on here not sure where everyone is. It is difficult to get back onto track when you been off plan but you can do it, you done amazing xx
 
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