Posts Tagged ‘obese’

In about an hour from now a story that I filmed with Today Tonight will appear on national TV, and I suppose a lot of people who are reading this now have found me because of the story, so welcome.

My story is just like everyone else, not putting myself first, not planning, etc etc I am not unique or super strict, in fact I continue to battle into the second half of the Saving Alan program. I have another 35 kilos to go (I’ve added a few kilos since Nov) an the plan is to get of them between now and the end of December 2010. So the sponsorship is now open again, just fill out the form and commit to X amount of dollars, but only payable if and when I hit my goal weight of 90 kilos. Just click on the sponsor me tab above.

To help you understand my story here is a list of blog posts that will give you a good background. Please drop me a note, leave a message and even sponsor me .. it all helps and keeps me headed in the right direction.

If you’re interested in Bikram Yoga (and you should be) head over to Bikram Yoga Glen Waverley and South Melbourne to discover more.

• So here we go … almost
• My Son will not be condemned
• The starting point
• Over 50 and I’m super
• The first serious break
• Week 9 Update
• 80 years old
• The Physical
• ABC Richard Stubbs Interview
• Little Victories Week 19
• Man’s Week The Path Back
• Who’s right? PTs or me?
• Still Indestructible
• Week 32 Update
• A Perfect Gift for a Man
• Sunday Age – Page 2
• As seen on TV
• Wobbleguts and the Ironman
• And so 2009 comes to a close
• A late Christmas Gift

Connect with m on Facebook and Twitter as well, I need the support and keep coming back each week.

Cheers

Alan

Welcome to all the readers who have found Saving Alan through the Sunday Age article today (Jan 17, 2010). The article on Page 2 is titled “Super sized desperate to get things into proportion‘ and covers a bit of how I have gone about losing 43 kilos so far.

Amongst the many things that didn’t get mentioned there are two things that I have found to be very importnt to my success so far and they are;

1. Counseling - understanding what is going on, how I feel and think about myself and starting to get some strategies for change. I am of the very firm belief that in a large proportion of obesity cases the mental health aspect is the underlying disease, not simply the issue of being overweight.
2. Bikram Yoga – a low impact yet intense exercise that has been integral on a number of fronts. Firstly to get me moving without putting too much joint strain, providing the opportunity for the mind to be still (meditation) and gaining a great support network without being judged (unlike the feeling I get in a gym).

One more thing, the cartoon The Age decided to put within the article is a prime example of the ridicule that obese people get all the time. I am not overly offended by it, but it does highlight the stupidity of our media at times just being damn inconsiderate to the plight of the obese and holding them up for ridicule. The outcome of stupidity and deliberate ridicule feel the same. What a shame for a serious article to be diminished by a lack of thought from an editor or sub-editor.

If you’d like to follow my story as it unfolds, connect via Facebook as well as subscribing to the RSS feed on this page.

So here I sit on NYE 2009, just an hour to go until the new year comes and with it more hopes and dreams that I need to find ways of turning into realities. I’m not sure if I am ready, but I wasn’t really ready 11 months ago when I et out on this journey.

It’s been a pretty amazing year by anyone’s standards, here are some of the highlights and lowlights of the year and stories that made it into the 130+ blog posts during 2009.

• Launched Saving Alan, sharing my journey through a blog and social media.
• Appeared on Channel 7 News in January 2009 regarding obesity and genetic research.
• Having a fitness age of 80 and a BMI of over 50 putting me in the “Super Obese” category. (BMI now 37)
• Reducing my risk of heart disease substantially.
• Running a fundraiser for the victims of the vic bushfires with a couple of other local bands and raising over $3,500 in one night
• Lost 40+ kilos from a starting weight of 158 kilograms.
• Sponsorship of $6,400+ for Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute.
• Become a Yogi, loving Bikram Yoga and going on average 2-3 times a week.
• Cooking, skill improved and filmed 8 Cooking with Al sessions, more to come next year.
• Reconnection with old friends and colleagues.
• Generosity, love and support of family and friends.
• Putting myself first sometimes more often.
• Better understanding of what makes me tick and why I make certain choices.
• I like myself a whole lot more.
• Temptations – the failures and the successes, both equally as important.
• On air interview with Richard Stubbs on 774 ABC Radio Melbourne in May.
• Part of Perfect Gift For a Man book for the Inspire Foundation.
• Featured in an article in Sun-Herald on December 13.
• Story coming on Channel 7’s Today Tonight.
• Openly discussing depression and my darkest moments publicly for the first time.
• Started a new band  (a second one)
• Axed from original band of 7 years for personal reasons that they wouldn’t share – don’t you love 30+ year so called friendships.
• Resigned from new band – now selling one of two drum kits.

The key thing was a happy year with lots of time spent with my son. Most of ll I m in a much better and healthier place than this time last year and I have so many wonderful people to thank, which I will, but at another time. It’s getting late, I’m tired and I want to make the 8am Yoga class and set my intent for 2010.

I am enjoying the journey with all it’s highs and lows and twists and turns and look forward to 2010 as an absolute breakthrough year.

I’ll share resolutions / targets with you in the New Year.

Meanwhile have a safe and happy New Year.

You can imagine how much of a problem losing 40 kilos is, in terms of the challenges of clothes. As I am losing eight there seems to be no use buying clothes only to see them hang off me within a month or two. So far I have lost my way through 3 suits – not a cheap exercise and it wont be long until I am on to my fourth.

On Facebook yesterday Sasha Goldsmith suggested to Witchery Men that he needed a new wardrobe for Christmas, so I piped up and added that I was getting desperate and clothes were going to cost a fortune. So who knows, Laura? Maybe a little sponsorship deal?

Anyway here are some of those photo’s that usually appear in weigh loss ads to illustrate the change in size since I started in February, the most amazing one is the suit jacket, when I started I couldn’t do it up. The jeans were so tight they were digging in severely and I only wore them under sufference. The shirt .. well I can fit Declan in there at the same time.

I am looking forward to what this will look like with another 30 kilos gone.

off to the Healthy Heart Clinic and final weigh-in, will update tonight.

Just reading today’s Herald-Sun and saw the story of an Englishman, called Paul Mason who weighs in as 444.5 kilograms, almost 3 times my current size.

It’s easy to mock him or the predicament he finds himself in. This is more proof that weight gain / loss definitely has more to do with mental health, than purely a series of bad habits. It’s why we do things that dictate the actions and eventually the outcomes, we all know that.

Yet Governments look to solve the issues in ways that don’t deal with the root of the problem, sometimes believing (here comes the cynic in me) that it is good enough to be seen to be doing the right thing, saying the right words verus actually understanding the underlying issues and skills that need to be comprehended and positively implemented.

Of the high horse now, check out the story here http://bit.ly/22yBKE

Slept in the morning, missed the hour walk, so am going to have to catch up a little over the next few days. I really need to make sure I confine work to work hours as much as possible.

Yesterday I ventured into the Healthy Heart Clinic at the Alfred Hospital, run by Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute, for an update on the health impact of my lifestyle changes.

This is the third visit I’ve made, and the plan is to visit again in late September and then again right at the end of SavingAlan in late November. I wrote about my last visit in this blog post.

Here are the comparative results from my visits so far;

Smoker: If I stopped smoking then I would get my overall risk factor cut by half to 2.5, which is the average for someone of my age.

Systolic Blood Pressure: They say the pressure is a little high, but a surgeon mate of mine reckons my blood pressure is brilliant for someone my age, regardless of the weight I carry.

Diastolic Blood Pressure: This is the pressure coming in to the heart, it remains good if not excellent.

TC (Total Cholesterol); Have reduced by 22.5%, and it is within the healthy normal range

HDL (Good Cholesterol): Here’s the impact of the changes in my diet, I am now over the 1.0 mark, regarded as the healthy benchmark.

LDL (Bad Cholesterol): Down 35.3% in 5 months.

Triglycerides: No issues here, in fact the decrease of 38.8% is a fantastic result.

Glucose: Sitting right in the healthy range..

Weight: In the last period I only dropped 5 kilos, but have still been able to get the great results we see above. School Holidays blew my routine though.

Body Mass Index (BMI): Down 17.7% – not sure if I will ever get to 25.

Waist circumference: Down 11.4% or 17cm. By my weekly measurements I am down to 126.5cm, so I must have been bloated from toast I didn’t have the day before. I can’t imagine how good it would feel to be 94cm around the waist, but if I stay motivated anything is possible.

Heart Health: Risk factor has dropped from 9% to 8% and now to 5%, regarded as a mild risk to have a cardiovascular event in the next 5 years. My target absolute risk is 2.5% and I am 2 times more likely than a person with a low risk profile to have said event, down from 3.6x.

Diabetes Health: My risk of developing type 2 diabetes within 5 years is High, and with this risk level I have a 1 in 7 chance. I’d like to see this drop considerably over the next 4 months.

So I am still indestructible!

The Heart Clinic is based at the Alfred Hospital in Commercial Road, Prahran (between Punt and St.Kilda Roads) and you can call them on 03 9076 3398 to organise your own check up. The first time you go takes about 40 minutes and all it consists of is a questionnaire, blood pressure and a blood test. The blood test is cool compared to what I have been used to, instead of taking a syringe to you and extracting a heap of blood, they just prick the end of a finger  and take  small amount of blood through a tiny little straw .. it just runs up there on its own.

Then they analyse the blood in a little machine and that provides results on cholesterols, triglycerides and glucose levels. These combined with blood pressure, weight, body mass index, waist measurement, age and whether you’re a smoker all combine to provide a risk factor.

So give Jan or Liz a call now, it’s free and the information is worth knowing before you end up in the Alfred proper.

It’s interesting speaking with different fitness and health related people and getting their view of what is the absolute best method of exercising to get the maximum results in wieght loss.

Some of the Personal Trainers I have spoken to are so hardcore in their view that there is just no way I would consider following their program or working out with them. I am not fit, I need to understand my body and its limitations until I can handle more intense workouts. Them being so rigid in their view misses the whole point of the ‘personal’ in their job description. I think most people would think of personal trainers as taking a purely cookie cuter approach to fitness and health, that you follow this to get a certain outcome. having said that I am sure there are some absolute rippers out there who can combine all the different elements needed to help someone reach their goals.

I am stubborn, pig-headed and at times a damn know it all.

What do I want from exerise?

I want to be amused, challenged, entertained, I want solitude, I want to meet other people with similar challenges and I want to see results. If I can package this all up, I’ll be so motivated and committed to the plan that I will end up with all and more of my goals met. But I am doing this on my own, and pulling in the help when I need it. Why?

Not all of us can afford months away from work and family to go on Biggest Loser, spend weeks at health retreats, afford gym memberships and the like and we need to find ways within our budget and commitments to reach our goals. Sometimes this means adjusting budgets and commitments to place different priorities on different aspects of our lives.

So now I have a priority on my health -  combination of physical health (exercise and food) and mental health.

I think I have worked out what is a good exercise balance for me – Bikram Yoga 3 times a week and a one hour walk 3-4 times a weeks, seems to be getting the best outcomes for me. I’d like to get back and do the occasional aqua aerobics session as well, and look forward to when my feet and ankles will stand up to playing tennis once a week.

I understand as I get lighter I need to become more intense in my workouts / exercise. I tripped across a spreadsheet the other day that showed the level of  variance in effectiveness of walking and running and the weight factor www.brianmac.co.uk/excel/energyexp.xls. So for me being very heavy, I get good outcomes from walking at the moment, but the day will com when it is not intense enough and I’ll need to up the ante, I’m looking forward to that. One thing that interests me is kayaking on the bay, I think that would be a great way to get some sun and exercise at the same time.

I bought a pair of Nike’s just so I could use the Nike+ sensor in the shoe with my iPod Nano, but now I have the iPhone 3GS and it’s all integrated it’s even better. So from today’s workout here is the screenshot;

So I have set a few challenges. i) to walk 285 kilometres by the end of November, this is 15 kilometres a week for the next 19 weeks.  ii) 48 walks minimum over the next 16 weeks. I should be able blow these out of the water, and if I do then I’ll see some great results.

Today’s walk was great, new socks meant no blisters, but I did suffer really sore ankles and feet, so I obviously need to build back up again after the two week layoff. I am so lucky to live close to the bay and be able to walk along the coast, fresh air blowing and no traffic roaring by.

The city of Melbourne in the background

I know laying around somewhere I have some exercises that I can do at home with dumbbells to strengthen my shoulders and arms as well, so I am going to try and get a routine with that going 3-4 times a week, as well as setting a push up / sit up challenge in the weeks ahead.

All this combined with the strengthening and toning that Bikram Yoga provides, not to mention the calorie burn which I have been able to find estimates between 350 calories and 1845 calories per session. Let assume it’s down between the middle and lower third of the range for me as I cant get into all positions as yet – 500-800 calories.

Anyway, I’ve been for my walk, done loads of washing and cleaning and now it’s time to get some work done.

It’s no understatement to say that my biggest challenge is dealing with me!

You’ll notice that the absence of posts correlated directly with weight being added instead of subtracted. For two weeks I went quiet, while I battled myself to try and get my routine sorted out. A few things conspired to throw me off balance and out of a routine that was really working for me.

The first was school holidays. My son gets 12 weeks holidays a year, of which 6 he spends with me. I get 4 weeks annual leave .. you do the math. So this holiday period I decided I wouldn’t take the time off. So the compromise was for the two of us to stay with my parents some 80 kilometres away and I’d just have to drive in to the city every day and back at night.

So the two mornings a week at Bikram Yoga went out the door, and the Monday and Wednesday walks also got cancelled. It wasn’t that so much, as the other things I added to it, food! For whatever reasons I decided that I could take a break from the food plan as well .. DUMB! I should have set that week as a challenge to lose weight regardless of the difficulty of coordinating all the different parts of my world. Okay, I did, but I gave up.

By the time holidays were over, the routine had been broken and I was exposed to all the old habits and the feeeling that I could just turn it back on any time I wanted and get the weight loss moving again. Well it proved not to be so easy. That following week I was still in dissaray from the previous one and just didn’t buckle down and get organised. The house became disheveled (a nice word for a pig sty) and I was all over the place and just couldn’t be bothered. I’ve always known that failure is part of the process to my goals and bad weeks are just as important as good weeks to expose how my thinking works during that time so I can catch it next time. The mind plays tricks on me to go easy, knowing that everyone will understand, “you can still do it”, “just walk a bit extra tomorrow” etc etc.

Well enough, I’m back.

I added 2 kilos during the 2 bad weeks, and then took off 1 kilo last week, which was a bit of  surprise as I really didn’t exercise much and my food intake wasn’t anywhere near as good as it normally is. So now I have another false security to deal with, that even if I am not that good with food and exercise, I can still get a weight loss outcome. But if I stay on course and stick to the process then I should be able to improve my outcomes and power towards to 100 kilo mark.

I think this coming week is going to be a good one, I can already feel some change in my body, and I am going to avoid bread all week and should see some decent cm loss results.

So the plan for the week ahead;

Friday – gig, 3 hours of polaying drums and sweating it out – done

Saturday – Bikram Yoga – done

Sunday – 1 hour walk, early morning

Monday -not sure yet, have a business commitment in the evening and an early start, so may have get up very early and head out for a walk.

Tuesday – Bikram Yoga, 6am.

Wednesday – Walk the Tan with Penney and Kerry.

Thursday – Bikram Yoga

Highlight of the week, my brother who has completed a number of Marathons and is about to take on the full Iron Man Triathlon in Bussleton (WA) later this year came to class on Tueday morning. Nice to hear that he was weary from his first hot Yoga experience, even better is that he’s coming back for more this Tuesday – thanks Paul!

So here’s the current status;

Still short of the half way mark in the savingAlan campaign to lose 50-60 kilos and I am now well past the half way mark to the target set for end November. This week’s weigh in was good in a weight sense but short of centimetre loss, which is weird because I feel like I have lost more size around the chest and waist but it din’t show up.

Maybe i am going to see size and weigh alternate week to week. As long as I am having a loss and not a gain I am heaing in the ight direction. There has only been one week where I have gained weigh an size in 4  months and I am oretty pproud of myself for being able to achieve that on my own.

The change in size is obvious to everyone who hasn’t seen me for a while and the positive reinforcement is fantastic and driving me to stay true to myels and continue to follow my plan and not allow temptations get in the way. having said that, the odd break is fine, it doesn’t mean the end of the prorm, it just means a challenge next time I feel tempted.

So here’s the weekly update chart, a 2 kilo loss, and only 0.5cm loss around my thinghs.

Week 18 Update

I’ve worked hard this week, two Bikram Yoga sessions, two walks and a session on the stationary bike.

Compare that to the last week of January and it’s a big improvement, well it’s actually a total reversal as the only exercise I was doing was playing in the band or walking around the shops (not just fast food stores).

On Mondays I now have some permanent exercise partners, Marc and Clare. Last Monday we took off for a walk around Albert Park Lake, something I haven’t done for 6 years and walked the 4.6kms in around 47 minutes. And Marc is already hammering me for  commitment for next Monday, but I’ve given them the week of due to the long weekend and I am going to head in and do another Bikram Yoga session.

Clare, me and Marc

So tomorrow morning is my weekly weigh in, my moment of truth. I have no idea what weight loss I will get this week, but I can tell that I have lost some centimetres.

My suit is hanging off me, but I don’t quite fit into another old suit that I have – it’s probably not far away though. This is the last suit that I have to get back into, after that I’ll have to start finding some money to buy clothes during the transition from fat guy to healthy guy.

I tried an old shirt on a couple of weeks ago and it was a good 4-5 cms from being able to be done up around the girth, tonight I was able to do it up comfortably and has now moved from the old side of the wardrobe to the current side.

So we’ll just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.