If you read last weeks weigh in report you’ll know that I’ve bee struggling with somewhat of a plateau in recent weeks, my body simply has not wanted to shift any weight at all. This has been tough to swallow as I was so close to my goal.
My primary goal has always been, ever since that fateful first day at Weight Watchers, to have a healthy BMI of under 25. BMI isn’t for everyone. I understand that if you are a body builder, or a rugby player then your BMI is not going to be an appropriate way to measure your health based upon weight. But for an average guy like me, not interested in bulking up, its as close to an accurate barometer as I am likely to find.
After following most of the advice in the article (I didn’t change up my workout routine, but I have changed my weigh day to non-running day) the results have been a staggering success. I weighed in at 14st7lbs. Thats a shift of 5lbs week on week.
Now, thats a huge amount and extremely unlikely to have been achieved in a week. I would say that last weeks was an anomalous result to some extent. But nonetheless I am absolutely chuffed as nuts. Thats a 10 year old goal, finally achieved.
I don’t have accurate records of my weight loss until I started using Garmin Connect in November. But since then alone the graph looks pretty cool.
“Back in the day” I though reaching this goal would be some kind of watershed moment, that I’d be overcome with emotion, or want to throw some sort of party for my achievement. But it doesn’t really feel like that. Its taken me so long to do it, and there were so many false starts I’d feel a bit of a fraud for celebrating this. After all, the real challenge is learning to keep the weight off.
I still feel happy, but it’s not the life changing moment I thought it would be. Its more a sense of quiet satisfaction. Unless you’ve struggled with your weight you won’t understand I guess.
I want to thank the following people from the bottom of my heart for helping me acheive this personal goal. I quite literally couldn’t have done it without them.
- Mum – without you I wouldn’t have gone to weight watchers and set me off on this journey
- Jodie – You put up with the miserable weeks when I don’t lose weight, and the hours I’m out running. I hope the good times outweigh the bad! I love you
A New Goal
Since I’ve started running though and I’ve gotten closer to my goal I’ve realised that even a healthy BMI was still going to leave me with a bit of a wobbly belly and wobbly inner thighs. So it isn’t quite “Job Done” yet, and I’ve known for a while I’d need a secondary goal to shoot for. Much like with Races, its always best to have a target!
Trying to work out what that should be is a tough question. On the one hand, I’d like to have a certain body fat %, and on the other hand I’d like a mid-range healthy BMI. So I’ve gotten to work in excel and come up with some numbers.
- According to the NHS, a healthy BMI ranges between 18.5 and 25. The midpoint of that is 22. At my height, I would need a weight of 12st13lbs (181lbs) to be this BMI.
- The generally accepted body fat percentage for “Fitness” is between 14% and 17%. The midpoint for this is 15.5%
- My current Body Fat % is 22.3%. If I were to take 7% off of my current bodyweight it would give me a weight of 13st 7lbs (189lbs)
Therefore, my newly amended target is 13st 7lbs (189lbs). Once I reach this target I’ll use the same methodology so see where my Body Fat is vs my Weight/BMI to see if I can find a way to reconcile those two numbers. But, for now at least, only 14lbs to go!
Former Fatty Runner 