As you may already know if you have been reading my previous posts I have suffered a number of health issues in the last few years mostly starting with a heart condition which led to alot of other issues including me gaining alot of weight, I used be around 95kg most of the time +/-5kg but at my heaviest and my worst I shot up to a whopping 177kg.
For the last year I have been battling illness whist trying to and get my weight down and it was working although slowly, I had managed to get back down to 166kg but this was over a period of 6 months or more. Having times when I could exercise and then I would fall back due to pain etc and then I would try again, obviously trying to watch what I ate but that one its own can be difficult when you are on so many pain killers you barely know what day of the week it is. But slowly I have been fighting back to a more healthy life, walking more, exercising more etc, but the weight it seemed just wouldn’t budge.
And then late December I had a blood test and was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, although a previous bloody test in October had already shown this but the doctors in their infinite wisdom had decided to ignore the results…… but thats another story for another day, but something had to change, I had to change what I was doing, and not in a small way.
My first port of call was agreeing to taking Metformin and Mounjaro with the doctors to control my blood sugar and help me lose weight, now I have read a-lot of things about both of these drugs and the potential side effects can be quite scary, so I have so far not allowed my doctors to push-up the doses beyond 2.5mg of each, at least until we see what effect my other efforts are having on having.
But the radical change was in my diet and exercise routine, previously I had pushed up my excersice too early this time I have made a conscious decision to keep it to 30 – 40 minutes of Moderate cardio on the treadmill each day, so walking at around 4 – 4.5kmh for 30 to 40mins, with a 5 minute 3kph cool down afterwards, this burns around 220 kcals per day, which combined with my diet changes is enough.
And now to my diet, breakfast is not longer cereal or muesli or some other sugar soaked rubbish off the shelf, but 2 scrambled eggs, a tomato and a toasted wholemeal Pitta bread, lunch is generally some celery, carrot sticks and some Humous, and then dinner and for this it’s Gousto to the rescue, one of my biggest issues has always been portion control and Gousto is a great was of controlling both your portions and your calorie intake.
Now using a calorie calculator i should be taking in around 2,108 Calories a day given my height and weight and that should give me around 1kg a week weight loss. so lets have a look at what im actually eating.
| Meal | Food Item | Calories |
| Breakfast | Eggs x 2 | 104 Calories |
| Wholemeal Pitta Bread | 61 Calories | |
| Total | 165 Calories | |
| Lunch | Carrots x 2 | 20 Calories |
| Celery 1 Stick | 5 Calories | |
| Humous ( Lidl Classic) 100g | 260 Calories | |
| Total | 285 Calories | |
| Evening Meal | Gousto (Varies) | 400 – 700 Calories |
| Daily Total: | (850 – 1150) Calories |
Now the above may look fairly extreme and let me tell you that even with the effects of the Metformin and the Mounjaro suppressing my appetite I am still very tempted to snack, so I keep a ready supply of things like tomatoes, apples, carrots, celery, strawberries, so if I want to / need to snack then I can, but as the title says I am losing around 2 – 3kg a week, which some would say is unhealthy but at the moment I can do it, and I can keep doing it, obviously as my weight comes down and I can start to exercise more then I am going to need to take in more calories to maintain my weight at a healthy level but for now, this works.
One trick I have found that does really work is to hold off eating breakfast until around 9am this way you don’t have to long to wait until lunch, and then hold off lunch until around 2pm then it’s not so long until dinner, then eat your evening meal around 6 or 7pm so you have at least a couple of hours before you got to bed. And if you fancy it have a hot chocolate made with skimmed milk before bed (It’s around 160 Calories so not a big deal).
Of course one of the other major changes I have made Is that I no longer drink alcohol, going back a few years I would think nothing of seeing off a bottle of wine in a night, during my illness I pretty much stopped drinking anyway, but now I have stopped altogether, and that has got to be helping as drinking even a single glass of red wine is the best part of 100 calories and thats a small glass, not the kind you pour yourself over dinner which is more like 3-400 calories.
Now yes I do drink coffee in the morning and thats about 20 Calories per cup (with skimmed milk) and I usually keep a water bottle with me to drink during the day, but using Robinsons No Added Sugar dilute sparingly that is about 1 or 2 calories per 100ml so max 20 Calories per bottle, these things are not going to effect my overall intake by alot.
So would I recommend this kind of diet to anyone else, well thats upto you, this is working for me at the moment, and the results speak for themselves just 8 weeks in and I am down to 139kg, thats over 20kg lost already and my target is 95kg then I can start training properly and build back muscle without too much risk of injuring myself doing it.
What I dont recommend is blindly following what doctors say when they want to pump up the dosages of drugs like Metformin and Mounjaro without first seeing if you can achieve the results through changing the way you eat and how much, yes Mounjaro definitely helps but go and read some go of the horror stories about side effects before you blindly let them increase it to 15mg a week without trying to do something yourself first.
If you do fancy joining Gousto then please please please use this Link…. You will get a new starter discount and I will get a credit off my next box too.
