My six month review, facts, and feelings.

Since I am approaching the six-month time of my journey, I have decided to dedicate this blog post to a six month review, highlighting all the changes to my body. I have two primary goals, to lose weight and to improve my heart health and overall fitness levels. Let’s start with weight.

At my very heaviest, I weighed in at a whopping 122.2 kg (19stone 2lb) or (269.4lbs). At the time of writing this blog my last weigh-in was 92.3kg (14stone 6lb) or (203.4lbs). So that give me a total loss of 29.9kg (4stone 8lb) or (65.9lbs), As I am sure you all realise, I obsessively track all data available to me, please see the chart below of my weight loss

6 month weight loss chart

Starting at 122.2 kg with a steady progressive loss to 92.3 kg

As you will see, my weight loss is fairly linear, which is interesting as most keto sites say that you will lose rapid weight at the start (water weight as they call it), then your weight loss will slow down. I think I have overcome the slowing down process by adding exercise to my routine. As the weight comes off, your mobility will increase, you will feel better about exercise. It is, however, very important to remind my readers that you will NOT lose weight by exercise only. All successful weight-loss programs start with the diet. I stole this quote from another site, however it is so true. “You cannot out run a bad diet”.

I want to chat briefly about BMI or Body Mass Index, a calculation the medical professionals use to establish your overweightness, some sites are now saying that BMI is not the best measure of health, as it varies hugely with ethnicity and does not really take into account extremely tall or short people. My BMI is still in the obese category at 30.8 after losing 4.8 stone.!! A better method is to measure your belly. Your belly should ideally be half your height. So, at 173cm my belly should be around 86cm, which it’s currently at 101.5cm, so a long way still to go, however I did start at 117.5cm. losing 16cm or 6.3 inches off my belly size, is a remarkable achievement.

Note

I only started tracking belly size in December, so it probably was a lot bigger.

Now the second aspect of my journey is to improve my heart health and overall fitness, various metrics are used by both medical professionals and athletes to monitor fitness levels and overall heart health, VO2 max, HRV, Blood Pressure and recovery time. Now you may not want to monitor your heart, you may just want to lose weight, but it is important to track these metrics as there will be times in your weight-loss journey that you plateau (a period where your weight stays the same for a few days). During these plateaus you may become down about your weight loss stalling, but look at your heart metrics, these should be improving all the time and should serve as an inspiration to continue with your plan.

How have my heart metrics improved? Well, starting with blood pressure. In the start, my blood pressure was very concerning, I consistently was scoring 200+ over 100+ (221/111), which is shockingly bad, my heart was silently screaming to me “I can’t cope”. Imagine your heart as a car engine which works perfectly, now start towing a heavy caravan or trailer everywhere you drive. Your engine will struggle and eventually pack up, which in the case of your heart is a really bad thing. Your body struggles with the excess weight you carry every day.

My BP machine always sits next to my desk where I write my blog, So I just checked it and got 107/71 which is awesome, granted I am sat resting. I have not returned to my GP since he shunned my get fit plans, however I am planning a meeting soon to reduce my BP meds and I also am planning being a little smug at that meeting.

My most recent reading

Taken at 20:30hrs on 08-04-2024

As you lose weight, your heart does not need to work as hard to pump blood around your body, even at rest. An important metric to track is your resting heart rate. Your smart watch or fitness tracker will do this automatically for you. When I started my journey my resting heart rate was 85-87 on average, now with jump rope and small changes, its down to 63bpm which is now within the normal range for my age and sex.

Resting Heart Rate

Always track your resting heart rate, it will give you a good indication of overall heart health

Heart rate variability is a relatively new metric to indicate heart health, basically it is the variation in the gaps between heartbeats, High HRV indicates good health and low HRV indicates poor health, however it is important that if you’re going to track HRV then you need to know it varies in every individual. You need to set up your own baseline HRV then try to improve it, do not compare it to others, its related to your heart and stress levels, how much you rest etc. I have only included my HRV charts to show slight improvement, I currently work 70-80 hours a week, trying to get fit, writing a blog, making content when I can. It is no wonder I have a low HRV, but you can see a slight improvement.

Heart rate variability

Remember, It varies in every person.

The last metric I want to talk about is what my heart does during exercise, when I started my jump rope journey my heart rate would shoot up to around 150-160 bpm then I would get tired and rest and let my heart rate drop, now I am more advanced in the art of jumping rope, I notice that my heart rate barely goes above 130 during exercising and it recovers very quickly now. Some comparisons below.

In conclusion, we all know the benefits of losing weight and getting fitter, but with me its also the small things that matter, being able to reach your toenails to cut them, having more energy at work, sleeping better, having to put a new hole in your belt as you have run out of holes. The little things matter in any weight loss journey, not just the big metrics, like your actual weight loss. The dramatic change in my leg composition, meaning I had to replace all my socks, since they had changed their shape to fit my elephantine legs, means more than the scales. Even though I am a massive data freak and love collecting data, sometimes the tiniest thing can push you along your path.

One stupid tiny thing that I am working towards, and I have not got there yet, is underwear. Bear with me here. As a man I like to wear nice underwear, it makes me feel good, however modern underwear is designed to have big waistbands, which is perfect for the makers of the brand to advertise their company. When you are overweight or obese, you put on your nice underpants then sit down to put your socks on and your belly pops the waistband inside out, it folds over to hide the branding. Subconsciously its like Calvin Klein himself saying “You’re not worthy of wearing these, fatty!”. I cannot wait for the day that my underwear over powers my belly and I can proudly wear nice underwear again.

Whatever the reason for starting a weight loss journey, stick with it, make tiny changes. It will pay off in the end.