From Chunk To Hunk! (or slim at least!)

[TomC]

Hey everybody,

A bit about me.......well i'm 20 years old and called Tom I've always had issues with my weight and managed to gain roughly a stone a year for aslong as i can remember. I've tried things like the Cambridge Diet but despite really big losses i would always quit after a couple of weeks due to cravings, irritability and it making me miserable. Despite that, i tried and failed at it twice more as i had it stuck in my head that i just couldn't lose weight if i did it any other way and yet everytime i'd end up failing and regaining all the weight plus an extra 7lbs or so for good measure.

So here i am, one week into my slimming world adventure and i'm LOVING it i've been eating what i want, when i want and not really even felt like i'm on a diet! And to top all that off, at my first weigh in 2 days ago, i'd lost 6.5lbs! I was over the moon!

So thats me an emotional eater who has binged his way to 21st 3lbs and is now determined to get slim! I look forward to getting to know you all and reading your diaries for inspiration

 

[TomC]

Well so far today i've had:

Breakfast:
Bran Flakes (HexB) with semi-skimmed milk (HexA) a muller light and an apple.

I've been for an hour long brisk walk, up some very steep hills too for the most part and got back and had another muller light and another apple.

I really should eat a proper lunch but i just haven't felt hungry really.

Anybody else had a much lower appetite since starting SW and increasing excersise?

Dinner tonight i think shall be maybe some sort of morrocan style mince dish with loads of veg and cous cous. Yummy!

 

[TomC]

Well dinner tonight has ended up being a chilli jam packed with vegetables which me and the family shall be enjoying later over some wholewheat pasta with maybe some brocolli. Yummy!

 

[TomC]

Breakfast today: Bran flakes (HexB) with semi skimmed milk (HexA), a mullet light yoghurt and an apple. Yummy!

Then im gonna have to battle the rain to get out for a good hours walk before lunch.

The problem tonight could be that i'm going up to my dads house for dinner. He's got the best intentions but he's a bit rubbish at remembering exactly what i am eating and what im not. Still, should be pretty straightforward staying 100% again today

 

[Esme1981]

Hi Tom, thought i'd say hello, what a fab 1st week you had with your loss. I do hope my loss is as good and as motivating as yours. I think I also need to get out and do some excercise this week to help me along, especially after my hugh amount of syns that i used last night at my friends dinner party. Well done

 

[Clavicles]

Hi Tom, sounds like things are going really well

My overall appetite decreased a bit over time, my portion sizes got smaller as I got used to things. SW principles are to eat until full and not stuffed, so I started eating a bit less and if I was still hungry I'd have some more. It's trial and error really.

I'm always STARVING after exercise though!

 

[TomC]

Well i went for a nice 5km walk today, Breakfast was bran flakes (HexB), Mullet light and an apple.

Then came my walk.

Lunch was spinach and cherry tomato with some bacon (fat removed) and a little drizzle of chilli sauce.

A muller light and an apple for an afternoon snack and for dinner it was boiled new potatoes, cabbage, carrots and swede mashed, with a beef casserole. It was DEEEEE-Lish

 

[charleybabes]

just thought id pop in and say well done Tom... it sounds like youre really motivated and your meals sound gorgeous!!

 

[TomC]

Thank you PC, Esme and Charley for the kind welcome I'm still feeling really driven and positive about this all.

I thought it might be helpful to put some of the reasons i got to this size down in the first place as maybe seeing them in writing will help me to feel more accountable for it and stop me going back to it once i make it to target!

I'm not sure why i got so big when i was young, until i was about thirteen i was a very active kid, i used to go swimming a few times a week, play tennis, i was in a football team and was always running about at school. I can't really remember what my eating habits used to be like but i was always a chubby little thing! Infact, it was probably the memories of being bullied about my weight despite how active i was that implanted the thought in my mind that i was always going to be fat no matter what i did and i just couldnt ever lose weight and be "normal".

I suffered with depression around the age of 15 for two years i would say following the loss of a close relative and the divorce of my parents, i turned to food for comfort and it wouldn't be unheard of for me to eat 8 sausages as a "snack". As well as this, i had fallen in with the wrong crowd and become a regular cannabis user, which of course led to getting the "munchies" and stuffing crisps and fizzy drinks and biscuits into my mouth! I was prescribed anti-depressents which also saw my weigh balloon by two stone before i finally decided that the gained weight was making me more miserable than i was before going on anti-D's.

In 2007 following getting kicked out of my house after a party whilst my mum was away, i moved in to a close friends house in the middle of nowhere. It was here that i stopped using drugs completely and i got my first job working as a labourer on the refurbishment of national grid. I was very enthusiastic about working there and the manual work really helped me to lose inches from my waist and arms and legs. Unfortunately it became impractical to work so far away from devon so i was unemployed again. I went back to college to study ICT and try and get some qualifications, but my student eating habits were awful! Crisps, chips, fried breakfasts, coffee from costa with caramel syrup in it every morning, fizzy drinks. It was terrible and i gained a lot of weight.

Eventually i left college and went to work full time in probably the worst place for me......a fish and chip shop. This meant spending 50 hours a week working hands on with my biggest vice, takeaway food, along with the fact we were allowed whatever we wanted to eat for lunch and and evening "quick bite" too......needless to say, the late hours and long days spend there helped me to balloon again, as not only were battered sausages, chips, curry sauce, burgers etc all on hand whenever i fancied it, they were free! And in the quiet times of day we would stand around drinking sugary tea, having a natter and eating sweets and biscuits.

I left that job a few months back and at my all time heaviest weight (after a few attempts at cambridge diet which failed and always left me bigger than i started pre-CD) and started a course with the Open University, I'm really enjoying it and studying at home means i can make better choices without the temptations with regards to food. I'm really hoping that starting OU, quitting smoking (which i started to do 3 weeks prior to SW) and slimming world will help me to find a much better and happier quality of life!

Wow, thinking back it all kind of adds up. Sorry for the long rant everyone!

 

[TomC]

Well i had another fairly standard day for me yesterday.
Breakfast: Bran Flakes (HexB) and Semi-Skimmed milk (HexA) with an apple.

Went around my normal 3.5km route, it takes me around 45-50 minutes but its very hilly.

Lunch: Lunch was some Spicy veg bolognese over the top of some cous cous with a big helping of spinach on the side and an apple for pudding.

Dinner: I made cous cous again with a lots of diced veg (leeks, onion, green peppers and garlic) cooked with some spices and a tin of chopped tomatoes added and then i put some strips of turkey steak which i had sliced and grilled on the top. It was delicious.

A rushed breakfast this morning so just my normal bowl of bran flakes with semi-skimmed milk and now im out seeing my god daughter for the day! Lovely!

 

[Esme1981]

Just thought i'd see how you were getting along?

 

[TomC]

Yeah i've kind of failed so far at keeping this updated. I lost 6.5lbs my first week, then 4.5lbs in week 2 (1/2 stone and SOTW) then lost another 4.5lbs in week three to take me up to 1st 1.5lbs lost overall. very chuffed! Had a few social things going on in the last fortnight and was laid up 5 or 6 days with an awful chest infection which meant no excersise. Back on plan now though and hoping to pull it back for a good loss at the weigh in in 9 days time.

Hope everyone else is doing well

 

[TomC]

Right, time i kept to my new years resolution and got a lot more active on here i've done relatively well so far, i joined SW in the 29th of september 2011 and here i am heading towards i think my (18th?) weigh in and needing just 1.5lb loss this week to get my 3 stone award!

Massively chuffed

I also started slimming world around xxl-xxxl with a 42" waist and a 50" chest + 18.5" shirt collar.

I've just measured etc and i'm 38" waist, an xl t-shirt a 44" inch chest and a 16.5/17" collar!

Needless to say i'm very impressed with my SW so far!

Hoping to carry on with lots more of the same in 2012 and hopefully get to target, although i'm not exactly sure what target will be as i've never been slim and am quite tall and broad so if i lose too much i could end up looking rather silly!

Planning to cook cous cous with grilled chicken, roasted butternut squash and maybe some other roasted veg too nom nom

 

[Louise24]

Well done Tom, thats a brilliant loss x

 

[TomC]

Having a bit of a downer day today, i've been sticking to the plan 100% as much as possible since drawing a line under the festive season on january 1st, but so far i seem to be struggling to make good progress again. I was flying up until late december and really want to pick up a strong pace again now we are in 2012. Determined to get to target (although i havent got a clue what target will be yet) this year!

I'm eating very similarly to the way i did before xmas and i can't for the life of me work out where i'm going wrong :S

I think this is all stemming from a (naughty!) mid week weigh this morning and it showed me at +2lbs, although our scales seem to be possibly not weighing very accurately since the other day :S weigh in isnt until thursday so im hoping that its just my scales being silly and ill have a great loss on thursday and get my positivity back......especially as a loss of 1.5lbs this week would get me my 3 stone award!

Well i guess ill just carry on as normal this week and if the worst comes to the worst i can just change things up and try some different meals next week.

Going to cook a nice low syn chicken curry for dinner tonight! Yummy!

 

[TomC]

Well feeling a bit better this morning after yesterdays downer had a good old clear out of my wardrobe and ended up with about 2 bin bags of clothes i've shrunk out of!

The downside of this is i've been left with a very limited wardrobe to see me through, however i dont really want to spend out on new clothes when i know i'm only going to shrink again in a couple of months.....

Ah well, maybe just invest in one new pair of jeans and poke a couple of new holes in my belt for now!

I've got aa feeling today will be a very sluggish day so hopefully lots of fresh fruit will pep me up a bit

 

[TomC]

Welllllll it was a disappointing weigh in this week, STS which after being all but 100% and doing plenty of toning weight excersises was kind of disappointing.

However i have noticed that im fitting my clothes a lot better now which is really good! Important to keep an eye on inches as well as losses.

Gonna keep it up and try and avoid a few possible places where a bump in the road might make it easy to slip off the wagon!