Kate Calorie Counts Her Way to a Five Stone Loss!

Kate, Age 36, Height171cm

Start Weight	94kg
Current Weight	62kg
Weight Lost	32kg
Working to Rate of Loss	1kg/week

About You

I work in IT, so sit on my backside most of the day.

When I was at my heaviest to when I was at my lightest I did walk quite a bit and not use the car very much apart from for long journeys to visit friends and family.

"I used to swim a lot when I was a postgraduate student, usually about five to six miles a week, and that was great as it meant I could eat like a horse and still stay fit and slim."

However, career and location meant that I didn’t get to swim any more and I didn’t do any form of proper exercise until early last summer when I started to cycle to and from my husband’s house (before we were married), but when we started to live together the cycling dwindled somewhat.

We do go cycling together sometimes, but my husband is so much better at it than me (he’s cycled quite a lot all his life) that I get frustrated sometimes that I’m flat out and he’s sailing along faster than me without a hint of effort!

At the start of my weight loss I had a long-term boyfriend and no children. We broke up about a year after I lost weight and now I’m happily married (still no kids!).

"My husband and I both really like good food and eating out on occasion, but he’s joined me in losing a bit of weight and learning about how it all works and he’s even joined wlr too and lost eight kilograms as well."

We are very much into home-cooked and cooked-from-scratch food, so it’s quite easy for us to eat very well.

We are generally very good at supporting each other in sticking to healthy eating and drinking, most of the time, but sometimes lead each other astray.

My job (a manager in IT) leaves me sitting down a lot of the day, though in our current office I do get to skip up 3 flights of stairs a couple of times a day to visit other departments.

"There is a lift, but I never use it.  My office is on the 2nd floor which makes for a nice little extra bit of exercise a few times a day."

Thankfully we have few parties and dos, but there are often birthday cakes in the office though as they usually come from M&S there’s nutritional info easily available and I can make a quick, informed choice whether to indulge or not.

My previous job made it much easier to resist food in the office as

A. there was fresh fruit available every day and

B. there was free bread and marg/butter which meant there was a smell of toast in the office all day which you get used to after a while and stop wanting to have some every time you smell it.

Dieting History

I’ve never really dieted in the past. There was one summer when I was at university that I tried to eat salads for most meals, but that wasn’t a real diet.

I always thought I was eating healthily (I was eating healthy food, just too much of it!).

How Being Overweight Has Affected You

 

Kate's Stats:

	Start	Current
Weight	94kg	62kg
BMI	32 obese	21 healthy

The worst thing that happened to me was that a couple of kids threw stones at me and yelled some pretty nasty comments about my weight one day when I was walking home.

I felt fat, frumpy and unattractive and was convinced that nobody did or would find me attractive and that people thought I was lazy and stupid.

It’s pretty horrible: the prejudice against overweight people and the stereotypes society draws to being overweight

What Was Your Main Motivation To Lose Weight?

In May, I went to the doctor with a suspected chest infection. 

The doctor confirmed a chest infection and then said “you are quite overweight aren’t you?” (I so rarely go to the doctor that she’d never seen me before), then took my blood pressure which turned out to be quite high, and weighed me.

I was shocked to see 94kg on the scales! I was then put onto blood pressure monitoring and told to come back in a month, every month for the foreseeable future to have my blood pressure checked.

The doctor advised that I should cut down on salt and lose weight.

I was pretty shocked and decided to lose weight for my health more than anything else.

I had felt down quite a bit about being overweight, but this one thing was the catalyst that got me going.

For the first month I struggled keeping a food diary using the nutritional information I could get on food packaging etc. and sticking to 1500kcal a day.

I found it very difficult to keep track of things, especially on raw foods which just don’t come with nice little labels on them telling you how many kcal/100g.

Every time I went looking for raw ingredient nutritional information, this same website kept coming up in the search results, so I decided to give the free trial a go.

I haven’t looked back since. I kept going back to the doctor every month to have my blood pressure and weight measured and, whaddyaknow, they both went down :o

The Best Of wlr

The food database has been the most invaluable tool for me, in conjunction with the food diary.

The recommended calorie intake per day to lose my target amount each week, along with absolutely truthful recording of everything that passed my lips over the first three months of my weight loss, meant that I lost 1kg per week like clockwork and reached my initial goal of getting down to a BMI of 25 three months after joining wlr.

"Now that my initial weight loss journey is over and I’ve been working to maintain my weight for two and a half years now, I’ve taken things to the next level and added in structured exercise."

So now I’m using the exercise diary and database as religiously as the food ones and I’ve started to dip a toe into the forums.

Why Do You Think wlr Has Helped You Lose Weight Where Other Diets Have Failed?

wlr helped me to lose weight because it helped to keep track of everything: food and weight changes and the proportions of fat:protein:carbohydrate along with the portions of fruit and veg.

"It helped to see graphs showing the weight coming off. I’m a scientist by training and data and graphs is a perfect way for me to see my progress. "

The little nuggets of encouragement when putting in a weight measurement were always a nice little pick-me-up even though they’re automatically generated – I get the same little rush of happiness when my heart-rate monitor watch gives me a little trophy cup icon when I hit my targets for the week.

"Little things sometimes just make a huge difference to confidence as computers don’t judge you, exaggerate, or falsely flatter when you haven’t done so well."

Yes, it’s nice when a real human being says “gosh, you’re looking good,” but you never know if they really want something ;o)

Have you struggled at points in your weight loss journey or experienced a weight loss plateau? What has kept you motivated?

I did struggle, yes. There were days when my weight didn’t go down and I’d stuck like glue to my 1100kcal allowance and I’d sit on the floor and cry.

"But then I’d look at the graph so far, see the lovely downwards slope and rationalise that if it’s worked so far, then it’s going to keep working."

There’s no magic involved; if kcal in is, on average, lower than kcal used then I’m going to lose weight. 

I was very, very lucky that I never plateaued at all in the whole time I was trying to lose weight.

Lifestyle Changes

Clothes shopping used to be a traumatic event. I hated it.

"Even shoe shopping was tricky because my feet were so wide due to the excess weight."

I had to shop in “fat bird” shops as I used to call them, but everything in those shops were made out of horrible material, were cut in awfully unflattering ways and always had elasticated waists.

"I’d buy things just because they fitted me, not because they looked good. "

Now I can go into normal high-street shops and just pick up something in a 12 and it’s more than likely going to fit, or even be a bit too big.

I can shop online for clothes and most of the time what arrives is going to fit.

I can choose between 10 different dresses now and pick the one that looks best on me rather than just “the only one that fits”.

Exercise Changes

I didn’t use exercise at all to lose weight.

However, two and a half years of weight maintenance later and I have a personal trainer, go to the gym four to five times a week and even go running!

Three weeks into my running training and I’ve just managed my first two miles non-stop and it feels great!

What You Love About Your Body Now

I have a bit of a mental block about my size; I can only really comprehend that I’m smaller because my clothes are smaller.

I didn’t really see that I was fat in the first place, so I don’t see myself as slim now.

"That said, two months after I started going to the gym bits of me are getting firmer, more defined and perkier in general."

My husband said only this morning that he can “see lines and things” – I think he meant my wobbly bits are starting to get some kind of shape to them ;o) 

I’m starting to stop paying so much attention to the scales as much and starting to pay attention to the tape measure and fat % measurements I’m getting at the gym.

Your Tips

Don’t stop weighing things! If you’re anything like me, portion sizes will drift (usually upwards!).

Record everything, even on the days when it all goes wrong.

When there are days when you end up way off the rails it’s not the end of the world; close the book on that day and move on. 

Just try not to do it too often!