My Podcast

2023/12/19

Weight loss journey - Week 5

Week 5! C'mon this has to be better... I can do it! 

Wow, what a disappointing week 4...  You know what? I could spend my time complaining but I won't! Despite the fact that I gained 0.3 kg last week, I can actually feel a positive change in myself. My belly has shrunk quite a bit. You know that "pouch" that women tend to have? It's perfectly normal and nothing to be ashamed of, but as somebody who has endometriosis, it can get quite prominent to the point that it makes me look borderline pregnant. 🤦‍♀️ It's an actual nightmare for me so it became one of my biggest insecurities. Luckily, in my situation, the pouch is caused by a bloat, which can easily be fixed by finding the right diet, and doing this for the past 4 weeks has definitely helped a lot. My legs seems to be looking pretty decent too but I'm not sure whether it's a change in my body or my black leggings giving me a false sign lol. But then again, my jeans are loose again which is amazing news. Before I started this, most of my jeans were pretty tight. Not to the point that I can't fit in them, but definitely tighter than before. That has changed now! So the moral of the story is, even if you're not seeing desired numbers on your scale screen, take a look at what you're seeing in the mirror and overall wellbeing. I know I'm definitely changing for the better! 

Week 4 weight loss chart

Just looking at the chart above frustrates me a little bit not gonna lie lol. Look at this flat line! Frustrating as heck. I'm hoping that this week will be better. As mentioned at the end of the previous week's post, I've spoken to my friend about my lack bad habits of not drinking enough water and she gave me some advice on how to work on that. Throughout the day, as we do bits and bobs, maybe working or doing chores, it's a great habit to get into by drinking water between the little jobs that you do. So if you finished washing dishes - drink some water. You just folded the laundry - drink some water. And so on. I only just stated doing it so we'll see how that goes. Hopefully this will help the water retention that my body is dealing with right now. Contrary to what people might think, water retention doesn't happen when you drink a lot of water. Quite the opposite actually. When you don't drink enough water, your body panics and starts retaining it. So interesting! Also, contrary to popular belief, your body does not go into starvation mode and start retaining calories if you eat less calories than you normally do. As long as you cut your calories in a healthy way and still eat enough to get all your recommended minimum caloric intake you'll be perfectly fine!

Monthly weight loss chart

I have started this weight loss journey on the 8th November, so it's now been a month and it's interesting to look back on the monthly chart. It's been a pretty stable downwards line except for last week when it sort of went up a bit and now back down. It's still not back to the lowest point, which happened at the end of week 3 but hopefully the downwards line will continue steadily from now on, otherwise I'll lose my 💩.


 Week 5 Day 1

Weight: -0.2 kg (-0.2 kg weekly weight loss; -2.6 kg total weight loss).

Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs with 2 pork sausages, leftover pasta, broccoli, cherry tomatoes. 

Snack: 3 mini macarons. 

Lunch: homemade soup with a dollop of high protein greek yoghurt and soft boiled egg. 

Snack: 5 mini macarons. 

Dinner: mushroom gnocchi with preserved truffles and a glass of sauvignon blanc.

Total calories: ~1826 kcal.

Workout: no workout today.


 Week 5 Day 2

Weight: +0.6 kg (+0.4 kg weekly weight gain; -2 kg total weight loss).

Breakfast: high protein granola with half banana, dried cranberries and oat milk.

Lunch: 2 pork sausages, 2 eggs, sautéed mushrooms, tomato and red bell pepper.

Week 5 Day 2 dinner

Dinner: mushroom noodles with sriracha peanut sauce and soft boiled eggs.

Snack: lobster cocktail crisps. 

Total calories: ~1549 kcal.

Workout: 50 minute workout session at the gym (elliptical, bench press, pec deck machine, chest press machine) ~197 kcal burned.


 Week 5 Day 3

Weight: +0.1 kg (+0.5 kg weekly weight gain; -1.9 kg total weight loss).

Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs with onion, mushrooms, tomato, 2 pork sausages and a little bit of ketchup.

Lunch: homemade veggie soup with fried egg.

Snack: a few mini macarons. 

Dinner: peanut butter noodles.

Total calories: ~1432 kcal.

Workout: no workout today.


 Week 5 Day 4

Weight: +0.5 kg (+1 kg weekly weight gain; -1.4 kg total weight loss).

Breakfast: 2 pork sausages, 2 eggs, sautéed mushrooms, tomato, red bell pepper.

Lunch: a few goats cheese bonbons, 2 roasted potatoes and custard.

So I was once again running a private dinner event with my husband so all of those things mentioned above weren't actually consumed at the same time, okay? I wasn't dipping my potatoes into custard. 🤣🤣

Dinner: peanut butter noodles.

Total calories: ~1106 kcal.

Workout: no workout today but I walked a lot due to work.


 Week 5 Day 5

Weight: 0 kg (+1 kg weekly weight gain; -1.4 kg total weight loss).

Breakfast: leftover peanut butter noodles.

Snack: a few glasses of beer.

I ended up skipping lunch as I wasn't hungry at all and went to meet my friend at the pub instead lol. 

Dinner: spaghetti bolognese.

Total calories: ~1271 kcal.

Workout: no workout today.


 Week 5 Day 6

Weight: 0 kg (+1 kg weekly weight gain; -1.4 kg total weight loss).

Breakfast: homemade veggie soup with a dollop of high protein yoghurt. 

Lunch: 2 eggs, 2 pork sausages, sautéed mushrooms, tomato.

Week 5 Day 6 Dinner

Dinner: surf and turf rice bowl (white sushi rice, pan seared salmon, ribeye steak, pak choi, radish, avocado).

Total calories: ~1374 kcal.

Workout: 40 minute workout session at the gym (10 minutes on elliptical, pull ups, lat pulldowns).


 Week 5 Day 7

Weight: -0.4 kg (+0.6 kg weekly weight gain; -1.8 kg total weight loss).

Snack: 2 digestive biscuits. 

Breakfast: leftover cooked pasta stirred fried with 2 pigs in blankets, mushrooms, green beans and 2 eggs.

Snack: 1 banana with peanut butter, apple cider at the pub. 

Lunch: Burrata with pigs in blankets, sautéed oyster mushrooms and 1/4 avocado.

Can you tell I'm eating leftovers? Lol. 

Dinner: homemade wonton soup.

Total calories:  ~1371 kcal

Workout: no workout today.

Week 5 weight chart

What can I say? It hasn't been the best week and I don't really know why. There were days when I wasn't eating the healthiest way and I did have a few beers but I've always stayed within my calorie range ~1850 kcal (+whatever burned during workout if needed). My husband says that it could be muscle. Because I'm definitely seeing my belly much smaller so there's no way that I have put on fat while living and eating like this. Once again, I'm thinking that it could be water issue? I haven't been drinking enough water which has been causing me some headaches. I have nobody else to blame but myself for that lol. But in the past few days I have been walking around with a pint of water in my hand while I'm around the house lol. Let's hope this helps?

My Podcast: A Pint Of Rice | My IG: Lina B 🦭

Byeee~

Lina (Rinatsu)

2023/12/06

Weight loss journey - Week 4

After a successful week 3, I'm back and ready to achieve even more! 

So, last week I managed to achieve an impressive 1.5 kg weight loss, which made my current weight loss rate on Happy Scale become 0.94 kg per week. After such impressive calculations, I'm being shown that I'll achieve my weight loss goal in 7 months, July 2024! Wow, that's really promising, since my weight loss goal is quite big. But we'll see! 

Week 3 weight loss chart

Loving the steep line on my weight loss chart. Not only I can see a difference on the scales, but I'm also seeing a difference on myself. My belly has shrunk massively. I'm not sure whether it's the extra water weight or the bloat. I bloat really easy since I have endometriosis. I can also be an emotional eater. I noticed that since I started eating much smaller portions and my stomach kinda shrank (probably to its normal size lol), I started listening to my body more. If I'm not feeling hungry, I simply don't eat. There's no point sticking to that strict frame that you HAVE to eat 3 meals a day, if your body can't tolerate it. Stick to what your body tells you.


Week 4 Day 1

Weight: +0.4 kg (+0.4 kg weekly total; -2.3 kg total).

Breakfast: kimchi sandwich (2 slices of buttered white bread, 1 Cumberland style plant based sausage from Tesco, a few leaves of spinach, generous bunch of homemade kimchi) with a bit of tomato ketchup.

Lunch: 2 slices of white bread with smoked salmon and cucumber.

Dinner: homemade spaghetti carbonara and a glass of ale.

Total calories: ~1284 kcal

Workout: no workout today.


Week 4 Day 2

Weight: +0.3 kg (+0.7 kg weekly total; -2 kg total).

Breakfast: leftover high protein noodles with miso aubergine and kimchi.

Snack: fresh croissant from Lidl. 

Lunch: 2 pork sausages, 2 eggs, 1 tomato, sautéed mushrooms.

Snack: couple pints of ale at the pub. 

Dinner: homemade spaghetti bolognese.

Total calories: ~1684 kcal.

Workout: 50 minute workout session at the gym (5 minutes on elliptical; assisted pull ups, bicep curls); ~220 kcal burned.


Week 4 Day 3

Weight: -0.6 kg (+0.1 kg weekly total; -2.6 kg total).

Breakfast: kimchi sandwich.

Lunch: 2 pork sausages, 2 eggs, sautéed mushrooms, 5 cherry tomatoes.

Snack: fresh pain au raisin from Lidl. 

Dinner: homemade spaghetti bolognese and mulled cider.

Total calories: ~1719 kcal.

Workout: 50 minute workout session at the gym (focusing on legs - deadlifts, RDLs, adductor machine, abductor machine, leg press); ~336 kcal burned.


Week 4 Day 4

Weight: +0.5 kg (+0.6 kg weekly total; -2.1 kg total).

I'm so done with this weight jumping. 🙃 The current weight loss chart has flatlined and my weight loss rate is in shambles. What is happening. 😭

Breakfast: 2 pork sausages, 2 eggs, sautéed mushrooms, spinach and cherry tomatoes.

Lunch: a small piece of mushrooms strudel. 

Once again husband and I were running a private event so didn't really have time to eat. 🥲 

Dinner: homemade spaghetti bolognese with homemade mulled cider.

Total calories: ~1205 kcal

Workout: no workout but many steps taking due to work.


Week 4 Day 5

Weight: 0 kg (+0.6 kg weekly total; -2.1 kg total).

Oh gosh this is like week 2 all over again. 🥲 Even Happy Scale can't make this look good. The weight loss has completely flatlined this week and weight loss rate is down to 0.61 kg per week. Weight loss goal is now predicted to happen in 11 months. Ugh this sucks!

Breakfast: banana, high protein granola, oat milk.

Lunch: 2 pork sausages, 2 eggs, sautéed mushrooms, cherry tomatoes. 

Dinner: homemade spaghetti bolognese; lemon tart for dessert; a glass of pale ale.

Total calories: ~1727 kcal.

Workout: no workout today.


Week 4 Day 6

Weight: 0 kg (+0.6 kg weekly total; -2.1 kg total).

Pre-breakfast: leftover spaghetti carbonara.

Right, so it's a bit of a weird one. I had a lot of errands to do in town and I was also helping friend collect her new puppy, so in the morning I had a quick bite of leftover spaghetti carbonara (only about 120 kcal worth) and had a proper breakfast when I came back home, that's why I called it pre-breakfast lol. Talking about pre-breakfast, this is actually something that my husband and I discuss on our A Pint Of Rice podcast, Breakfast episode lol. You can find us on any podcast platform you use!

Breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs with potato, plant based sausage, tomato and turkey.

Lunch: homemade spaghetti bolognese; lemon tart for dessert.

Dinnerhigh protein granola with banana and oat milk.

Total calories: ~1589 kcal.

Workout: no workout today.


Week 4 Day 7

Weight: -0.3 kg (+0.3 kg weekly total; -2.4 kg total).

Breakfast: leftover spaghetti carbonara with cheddar cheese.

Snack: maple pecan pastry while shopping. 

Lunch: homemade spaghetti bolognese.

You might be wondering why I'm eating so much bolognese... Well, Lawrence made a 4litre worth tub of bolognese so I'm kinda forced to lol but it's making me quite heavy and bloated so I think I need to go back to my soups lol... The beef mince he got was also super fatty so it's causing me heart burn. You'd think that heart burn is an older adult issue but I actually had it since I was a teenager... 🙃

Snack: maple pecan pastry, a few mini macarons.

Today was a damn mess. I was shopping for an upcoming event and running errands and my whole daily schedule ended up being a complete mess. So I ate lunch really late and wasn't hungry but then started craving sugar, which is bad. So I had a few snacks. This is probably my biggest slip up since the beginning of this lol. 

Total calories: ~1617 kcal.

Workout: no workout today.


So, haven't had the best week. My weight has stalled and my current weight loss rate is 0.5 kg a week, which is technically what I initially have set up to do. Unfortunately, I have gained weight this week, although very little, which is not great, but I'm not too upset. I know my diet hasn't been very balanced this week. I've been eating a lot of fatty foods and definitely not drinking enough water. My friend has given me some tips and tricks on how to drink more water so I will be trying those out starting now! Week 5 better be a good one!

My Podcast: A Pint Of Rice | My IG: Lina B 🦭

Byeee~

Lina (Rinatsu)