Eating ‘n’ My apples…

I’m sticking with the theme of growing “My apples…”. In my last post I looked at, what is laughingly called, my “gym” and I described the equipment that I use in the exercise side of my “orchard”. Essentially, it’s telling you that you don’t need masses of money, with loads of kit and memberships to be successful in developing an exercise habit; let’s face it, I’m a pensioner so I need to do things fairly cheaply.

However, I am told, by my personally trainer (my daughter…she’s properly qualified), that there are two parts to weight control. There needs to be a balance, well imbalance really between what you eat (and drink) and what you burn calorie-wise. So, this time I’m going to tell you a little bit about how I deal with that.

I like to eat all the wrong stuff it seems, and I do like a drink (Shiraz, ESB, and Guinness with the occasional Vodka and Tonic). This does not help maintaining that imbalance I mentioned – they call it a deficit in weight-management circles.

The key component of diets for weight loss and weight-loss maintenance is an energy deficit. Under the “calories-in, calories-out” model, dietary management has focused on the concept of “eat less, move more,”

Kim JY. Optimal Diet Strategies for Weight Loss and Weight Loss Maintenance. J Obes Metab Syndr. 2021 Mar 30;30(1):20-31. doi: 10.7570/jomes20065. PMID: 33107442; PMCID: PMC8017325.

That’s a real scientific paper, properly cited…I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on the list 😉

 A chap called Lord Kelvin is often quoted as saying “When you can measure what you are speaking about…you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it…your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind” – basically, give me numbers! So, I needed the ways and means to measure, and a manage my deficit.

I have apps – don’t we all – that I’ve mentioned in previous posts, but the one most relevant in this post is Lifesum^®. It’s not bad as these things go, but like any tool – I control it, not it me – like any tool we use to help us, you need to use it. I enter all the information I can to record my consumption and it makes an estimate of what calories I’ve consumed in the day. My other apps make similar estimates for what energy I’ve use, and I can calculate my deficit…and most day I have a deficit.

Now, apparently, calories, or rather kCals, this being the common measurement used these days, isn’t the full story! You can have good and bad calories, and you can even have something called “empty calories”. You also need to balance something called Macro nutrients: these are generally Carbohydrates (carbs), Protein, and Fat – I’m sure there are others, but these are the ones I monitor…using Lifesum®. The app helps me monitor my kCal intake, along with my macronutrients to stay in balance – or rather, stay imbalanced.

Now, you see lots of stuff, especially this time of year, about diets, and you can join loads of clubs to help you diet and lose weight. But they all tend to cost you extra money – have I mentioned I’m a pensioner? The other thing about these approaches, is they are often boring, and more importantly don’t let me eat what I want…or drink what I want, which is just as important. There’s also the thing that, if you live in the same house as someone else, and share meals, you don’t really want to inflict your diet on them – especially is they don’t need to diet.

So, the good thing about using these apps (Lifesum^® is only one of many) is that you can eat what you want and monitor your calories in. I have days when I consume more than twice the recommended amount (I’m currently aiming for 2000 kCal daily), often as a result of an over-consumption of ESB and bar snacks! Over-consumption often coincides with visits to places like Oxford or Brighton, of which I have written.

I don’t always manage to record what I’ve consumed, there is are big gaps from various trips to Brighton, and some days I just hit the doldrums and can’t be bothered but I do record most things, most days. This allows me to monitor and manage that dreaded deficit. I can also monitor the macronutrients, the balance of which is key to weight control and muscle management.

Another thing the app does is to calculate a Life Score for me, this tells me how well, or not, I’m doing keeping my consumption right, and healthy. It also gives me hints about how to improve my score, and areas where I’m doing good. To the right is a screen shot of my score today, and it’s nice to see that I’m balanced, an adjective not often used about me 😉.

So, to mis-quote Bob Dylan, “[I’ll] eat when I am hungry, [I’ll] drink when I am dry”, but Lifesum^® will help me manage the deficit so that I can keep my weight where I want it to be, around the 80kg mark (80.1kg at today’s weigh in).

Hope this is a bit useful, eat well, move lots people. Until next time, take care

Mark

My apples…

Back in March, when I started this latest blogging journey, I wrote a post called ‘Planting Apple Trees’. I used Blogger to publish it (I didn’t get on well with Blogger, so here I am), and the full article can be found here.

In essence, the post was about my overcoming depression to move my life along and try to build for the future. It was triggered by a quote: “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree” that spoke to me quite deeply. I summarised what that it had done for me: “studying is my version of planting apple seeds in spite of what’s going on at the moment, ready for the time when I can use the fruits productively”. However, study was not the only me-project I was working on.

Toward the end of last year, around November I think, and into this year, I started working on my weight and physical fitness. In March last year, I weighed in at 98kg (about 15½ stones…way overweight for my height and build).

When I started this work, I’d improved and weighed in at 89kg, which is still too much apparently. I hadn’t done much in truth, just started taking the calorific content of my food into account when selecting stuff to eat. I didn’t monitor weight (didn’t have any scales) nor did I track consumption verses energy usage. I had no exercise regime except to occasionally go for a walk ‘round the block. However, I’d set myself a target of 85kg initially, and now a final 80kg.

One measure of my unfitness always amused my daughter and I while we were in Brighton. I may have mentioned that we walk a lot in Brighton, and encounter lots of hills, ramps, and stairs. One set of stairs in particular is the subject of at least an annual photo: it’s the stairs that take you from Marine Parade down to Madeira Drive just be for you get to Concorde 2, where we visit every August Bank Holiday Monday for their Alternative Notting Hill Carnival

The 84 Steps

These are the stairs in question, from the top taken in July when I visited with my son, Antony. Antony and I didn’t try to walk up, but we did walk down to Madeira Drive, then along to the Palace Pier. In August, Fiona and I counted the steps…there are 84 in all.

When we first started going to Concorde 2 for the Reggae, we used to try and climb those stairs. I needed to stop at least twice to catch my breath and to rest, and I would often have to pull myself along just to get to the top. I guess it didn’t help that we’d consumed lots of Guinness, but I know I couldn’t have managed them sober.

The alternative off-ramp…beaten

Fiona and I took to avoiding the stairs and walking along toward the pier and walking up some slightly easier steps further down…just opposite the Volks railway. Those steps were bad enough, and I always needed to rest when climbing them too. The first inkling I had of improved fitness was in July with Antony when I climbed them without stopping, without pulling myself up the handrail, and without being so out of breath at the top, that I had to wait before moving on. I recorded the steps as I was so very proud of myself.

So, in August Fiona and I decided to test me a little further. After our visit to the Alternative Notting Hill Carnival this year, the first such event for a couple of years due to Covid, we went for it. The photo on the left is the view from Madeira Drive of the 84 Steps, you can see it’s quite a height.

The view on the right is the sunset at the top of those steps after my uninterrupted, unassisted, and fully functioned lungs climb. Note, there’s no shake, I was steady, breathing well and took that photo without leaning on anything. I was so very proud of myself, as was Fiona, so we treated ourselves to dinner at the Thomas Kemp pub (the call it the Kemp now), followed by a very pleasant evening in The Hand in Hand, my favourite pub of which I have written before.

There is one more obstacle that needed to be overcome…there is a hill that is an extension of Trafalgar Street; it passes under the main station in Brighton. It is short, but very, very steep…and when you’re dragging baggage behind you, it’s really hard work to climb. Even when sober and well rested I have to stop and rest part way up. We always stop off in a grand café called Bread and Milk to fortify ourselves from their marvellous menu before that climb. This year, I went for it: I climbed that hill, ‘at pace’ as they say these days, dragging my luggage, without stopping. That was proof that Fiona’s advice (she is my personal trainer) and my hard work had paid off. You can see some of Fiona’s work on Instagram at fh_sport_massage

In the Fortune of War, by Fiona

So, where am I now? What is my ‘apple tree’? I’m averaging around 80kg, obviously that varies but it’s in the right ballpark, I have reasonably decent muscle definition these days and I no longer have an ‘overhang’ at my waist (in fact, it’s almost flat). I exercise daily (almost), only at home, no need for gym membership, alternating between walking and callisthenics one day, and cycling and weights the next on a 14-day cycle.

I watch the calories…not a diet, just keep an eye on calories consumed, and calories expended, there is generally a deficit. I drink (ESB and wine) most days, but not to excess…and yes, I count the calories for them too, and I’m not hungry. I do try to make sure I have an appropriate amount of protein daily. I use two monitoring apps, Google Fit and Lifesum, along with some fitness apps for Dumbbell (Dumbbells) work, Exercises (Lose Weight App for Men) and Stretches (Stretching Exercises), all of which ‘talk’ to Google Fit. There’s also a Cycling Diary app for the cycling. All the apps are available from Google Play.

I also monitor my weight using Quality Management tool, SPC, to ensure I’m ‘in control’ and that I’m neither too heavy nor too light. The tool shows you when there’s abnormal variation, and when that variation is within the bounds of a normal process (i.e., living in this case 😉). You can see, Brighton trips take a toll, but it was fairly easy to get back to where I want to be,

And more importantly, I can make those steep climbs in Brighton, and I think I make Fiona (at least) proud of her dear ol’ dad.