How I lost three stone in 2009

The usual story with the usual suspects and the result was too much weight. My winter coat wasn’t even close to fitting, my shirts were tight and the suits were archived. Not today though.  In 2009 I lost three stone, which is 42 lb.

I didn’t join a gym or do some crazy diet. Team work, budgeting, healthy eating, lifestyle and some exercise.

When we set a shopping budget we choose more wisely what to eat. Instead of wandering the supermarket picking up this and that at a whim, we meal planned and took a shopping list. Resulting in a more healthy, balanced diet and a positive effect on our finances to boot!

Noticed I said ‘we’, I didn’t sit there on my own trying to be healthy, my wonderful partner joined in. I found strength through her support. Plus we both are vegetarians which helped. Along the way we started making new meals, discovering new favourites and forgetting the greasy, fat filled meals that we used to enjoy.

Next chuck in a decent amount of exercise. We live on a beautiful island surrounded by beaches, countryside and such like. A stroll or two over the weekend helped and was relaxing, rejuvenating and encouraged my photography hobby… which I am still awful at, but I enjoy taking photos anyhow. Plus we walk when others would pop in a car for short journeys.

Okay here comes a major factor… treats. Our birthdays and on any holiday are exempt from ‘healthy’ eating. This resulted in situations like not eating pizza, chips, ice cream and such like for almost six months at one stage. Then if we wanted to, we could eat them at various times throughout the year. But here’s the thing… we still eat curries, roast meals and a variety of mexican dishes etc. We just moderate, like no side dishes or nann bread and make sure we have plenty of salad when appropriate. Being healthy is about taking control and ‘we’ decided what was okay in moderation and what was a ‘treat’, nobody else.

I used to be a very heavy drinker, but I’ve hardly touched  a drop of booze this year also and over this Christmas have moderated what I did have. Other than four to five glasses of wine and champagne that was it over Christmas and before that I had some wine in August.

So this is how I lost three stone in a year. It wasn’t a crash diet with fast results. Perhaps sometimes weight was put on for a while, who knows? We got rid of our weighing scales before the year and instead used other people’s every few months.

Am I done yet? No I’ve still got more weight to lose, but a sensible approach has helped and no quick rash crash dieting employed.

9 Comments

  1. Wow, that’s great – well done. 2010 is definitely going to be the year I try harder to eat more healthily, although meal planning sounds like it might ruin my love of supermarkets!

  2. Congratulations, this is inspirational. I’ve lost a fair bit of weight and have stayed moderately the same for about 9 months now. I have lost my way & get distracted very easily that I jump on our dodgy scales every day and eat accordingly.

    As one of my favourite homemade foodies (I always get jealous when you’re posting about homemade bread :]) I had no idea…I look forward to reading your blog again 1 year on.

  3. I did very much the same the last 6 months after being diagnosed with high cholesterol. Not that I was massively overweight or that I ate loads of junk food. My doctor was actually shocked that I had high cholesterol. Anyway, I contacted the Heart Foundation and they forwarded me some great information about living a healthy lifestyle. I follow the five different food groups rule for each meal and never cook with any kind of fat anymore. I allow myself ‘treats’ at the weekend and never deny myself anything because the minute you do that you are screwed as all you’ll end up doing is craving that constantly! But I don’t over do it, the odd donut or pizza is acceptable.
    After 6 months of living my new lifestyle I have lost nearly a stone and a half and am at a very healthy weight for my size. If only everyone realised this was the easiest (and safest) way to lose weight, but not only that, it’s healthy and will help you live longer. But then I guess a most people would rather take the easy option and put no effort in to try to lose weight. Problem is, as with everything in life, there is no reward without hard work!

  4. Thanks Rosemary. It could ruin your love of supermarkets. We did find though to create better meals and stick within budget mean’t using multiple supermarkets occasionally and shopping online at times. So in the end we got more variety.

    Cheers Rae. Love the homemade bread, but sometimes found absolute bargains in supermarkets that we put in the freezer. Congrats on the weight lose and completely understand getting distracted. Perhaps avoid the scales everyday and do it fortnightly, monthly or longer? Let me know how you get on and best of luck.

    Thank you Cate for your reply. Sorry to read abot the high cholesterol. Congrats on the losing a stone and a half in six months! Impressive. 🙂 Love how you contacted the heart foundation. Your right about people taking the easy option and especially ‘no reward without hard work’.

  5. Great job Andrew! This post is very inspiring for me. I need to get back and eat healthy again.

    I know you are busy, but I would love it if you could share some of your healthy recipes that you have been using. I’m looking for new recipes, and while I’m not vegetarian, I want to good vegetarian meals at least once a week.

    Once again Congrats on the weightloss!!

  6. Cheers Amber, much appreciated.

    I will share some of the recipes sometime. I’ve even taken a load of photos during the making of some.

    Currently we are seriously addicted to soups. Like the carrot and lentil one we had tonight, but it doesn’t taste bland and goes well with homemade bread.

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