Progress – Fit for Friday #9

At last I feel I’m making progress with my fitness and weight loss. Plus I’m feeling positive about achieving my goals. So to the summary for this week.

Diet and weight loss

In some ways double paying for weight loss support seems crazy. But for a limited period it feels the right thing to do. My slimming world group is supportive and a social event. But I have struggled to stay on plan. I am also convinced that I can no longer eat loads of carbs and still lose weight. Slimming world is based on a food optimising approach, concentrating on eating a balanced healthy diet. It doesn’t involve calorie counting, because if you make healthy choices calorie intake should be less.

But the Noom approach is actually similar, encouraging you to focus on eating foods with a high water content rather than stuff that is proposed. What I am getting from noom though is evidence based guidance about habits and the psychology of over eating. The calorie counting is useful as a guide, but I’m not religiously weighing everything. Interestingly some foods I had considered healthy are more processed than I imagined.

But whatever the science etc. I have lost 2lb this week and am motivated to continue.

Fitness

Spurred on by our recent holiday I have kept up the exercise. Last week I hit 70k steps for the week, though that included the end of the holiday and 20k steps in one day in Amsterdam. I rested a bit after we got back, but then got back to it on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week. I swam again this week, and am pleased to note that I am managing more laps within my half hour in the pool. The sports centre has a gym, which can be used on an ad hoc basis so that will be my next fitness challenge.

Health

This week I had an abdominal CT scan in preparation for my next plastic surgery appointment. The purpose was to check that I have a healthy blood supply so that the subcutaneous fat can be used to create my new breast. I won’t get the result till I see the doctor in August. Meantime, I have to concentrate on losing weight so I am fit for the operation when the time comes. This has, I think given me the renewed incentive for dieting. It is behind the mental progress which is spurring me on.