There is a reason for that, of course. After giving the food diary a rest, I wanted to really give the whole thing a rest to see how I got on without having the Saturday morning weigh-in sword of Damocles hanging over me.
Could I maintain my weight without keeping a diary of my calories and without getting on the scales every Saturday morning? As the graph shows, yes, I pretty much could.
Nine months into the diet
It's been about 9 months since I started this diet, and I'm about 10 pounds lighter than I was at the start, pretty much right on where I wanted to be. Yes, I've been a bit lighter than that, but I think I actually look better now.For one thing, I've started exercising a bit more again, so my muscle mass has probably added a pound or two over where I could have been. And that's fine too. As I've said before, this isn't a competition to see how light I can get, it's about having a diet that works for me, allows me to enjoy a particular lifestyle, and means I look alright in the mirror.
Yes, More bicep and shoulder muscle would be nice, but the pectorals are mostly acceptable and I've maintained my six-pack for a few months on the trot, so I'm happy with that.
Losing weight through doughnuts
Generally, the easier things are, the more inclined we are to do them, and the more likely we are to keep doing them. So, for me, I wanted this diet to be as easy as possible.I don't want to have to scan barcodes of foods into an app, don't really want to weigh everything out and spend every mealtime doing maths. I'd rather have that time to do something fun thank you very much.
Having spent a few months keeping the food diary at the beginning of the diet, I have a reasonable idea of how many calories are in most of the foods I eat regularly. And that's all I need to know.
If I go out for dinner, I don't worry about how many calories I'm eating (and drinking!), I just eat, drink, relax and enjoy.
And I think that makes me better company.
I can do that, because I know I don't eat like that every day, not even every week, and I know that this is a marathon and not a sprint.
That's why I don't like daily calorie targets: they put you under too much pressure. A weekly or even a monthly calorie target makes much more sense. They make sure you stay on track for losing weight, but they take the pressure off and give you the flexibility to enjoy a night out without worrying that you've ruined your diet.
For perhaps the last two months, my Monday to Friday diet has been mostly doughnut based. Five Sainsbury's jam doughnuts at about 11.30 am provide the bulk of my daily calories (ca. 1150). Adding in a couple of ham sandwiches, some cherry tomatoes or celery (and the ever-present multi-vitamin!) and perhaps a chicken breast or an omelette takes me to somewhere around 1800 - 1900 calories for the day.
Take off say 500 calories for my 10,000 steps, and that's a respectable net calorie intake for 5 days of the week, letting me go a little bit wild at the weekend and have a few bottles of wine and a cheesecake or two.
And to those of you who say (or have been told) that you can't lose weight eating five doughnuts a day, I assure you that you can.
The evidence is plotted above.
