I have spoken at some length about my battle with my weight and, whilst I am not obese by any stretch of the imagination, I am larger than I should be. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care what size anyone is, as long as they are happy in their skin, that’s all that matters to me. I believe that the media is a major contributor with regard to making people feel like they have to starve themselves, or worse. Body shaming is a genuine thing and a lot of celebrities need to think about the consequences of what they are either doing or saying or both! My weight loss journey is about getting myself healthier and trying to fix my diastasis recti issue. I have looked at quite a few different diets and, some of them, appear to be quite faddy, and that is not a route that I want to go down. My PT instructor suggested the 16 : 8 intermittent fasting method and, yesterday, was my first day on it. For those who don’t know, the 16 : 8 method is eating all your meals in an 8 hour window and then fasting for 16 hours. This means that although you can have water and black tea and coffee, you cannot have a single calorie during your fast. So, milk, sugar etc. are out, because they all contain calories and that is not conducive to fasting! Fasting causes your body to use its fat cells to survive during the fasting period, thereby causing you to lose weight. So, for me, a typical day is made up in the following way: Get up at 6am and do a 30 minute cardio session on my elliptical cross trainer, without eating first. At 7.30am, I will have my breakfast and my 8 hour window starts from the time I put the first spoonful into my mouth. Once breakfast is out of the way, I will have my lunch around 11.30am and I will follow that with my dinner at about 2.30pm. After 3.30pm, I am not allowed to eat anything until 7.30am the following day. I can only drink black tea, black coffee and water if I find myself becoming hungry. Today is my 2nd day of fasting and, whilst I am feeling a bit hungry and a bit more tired than usual, I don’t feel too bad! Fingers crossed, I can make it through this week, start to see results and then I will be able to keep it up. The biggest challenge will be at the weekend, because we are out to dinner on Friday night with some friends and I won’t be able to eat anything!! Oh well, think of the benefits!!

For those that are interested, I weighed myself on 25th April and I weighed exactly 103kg, that’s 16st 2.6lb in old money! My current BMI is 33.5 and I’m 5’9″ or 175cm. As you can see, I have some work to do! I know that BMI isn’t an exact science, far from it, but it is a figure that I can track to make sure I’m going in the right direction!!

Love & Light

RG