My weight loss journey - 9 months progress update

Week 42: Tuesday 26th October

It is now just over 9 months since I started my weight loss journey back in January. I took some photos after three months, and then again after six months. So now it's that time again - it's time to check in on how things are going.

What I've been doing over the last three months

Now that I'm happy with my weight and am getting so close to my target weight, I've relaxed my eating habits just a little. I buy bread from my amazing local bakery once a week - and I've accepted that I just don't have the will-power to walk into that bakery, see all of their amazing cakes and cookies on display, and come out with just a loaf of bread.

So now I allow myself a once weekly treat from the bakery!

Some of my recent treats from My Loaf bakery in Cardiff

As long as it's just once a week, and as long as I'm doing plenty of exercise, I think I can safely get away with an occasional treat.

The good thing is that those rare moments of eating cake are now so much more special to me. I really appreciate the taste of every mouthful, as I know I'll have a whole week to wait before I can eat cake again!

Aside from eating cake, my eating habits have stayed fairly consistent and I'm still basing most of my meals around a weekly Mindful Chef food delivery box.

Exercise and personal training

In terms of exercise I've been doing more personal training sessions than usual - I've been doing three sessions most weeks - with Toby King of TK-Fitness in Cardiff (before I was mostly doing two a week, with just an occasional three a week).

In terms of my own exercise, outside of the personal training sessions, I've backed off from going running over the last few weeks - my knees have started to get stiff, crunchy and painful directly behind the knee-caps. I'm a bit worried about my knees to be honest - and I'm pretty sure it's been caused by the high impact nature of running. So instead of running I've just been focusing on doing plenty of yoga at home for now.

Oh, and cycling! Now that I have my new bicycle I've hardly used my car at all, as I've been cycling almost everywhere within Cardiff.

I've also recently started going to pole dancing classes. I'm aware that I really struggle with upper body stuff in the gym - press ups and pull ups in particular - so I'm hoping the pole dancing will help to increase my upper body strength.

Back...

So, onto the weight loss photos - first up is my back!

1: January 2021 2: April 2021 3: July 2021 4: October 2021

This time my back is the only place I can visibly see the difference in the photos. I definitely look a bit more muscly in the October photo compared to July - and the shape of my back seems to be constantly changing.

Front...

Next up are the front comparison photos...

I wasn't sure whether to include these front photos, as I can literally see no difference at all in the photos between July and October - but for consistency I decided to include them anyway.

Perhaps I need to work a bit harder at all of the stomach crunches and core exercises, to get some more visible progress here over the next three months!

Side...

...and finally, the side comparison photos.

Again, as with the front photos, I can literally see no visible difference at all between July and October in these photos. Again though, I've included the images for consistency.

Crunching the numbers

As with my three months progress update and six months progress update, the main two statistics I'm tracking with the Renpho scales app are my weight and my body fat percentage - and despite the lack of visible results in the photos this time, the statistics are still heading in the right direction.

My weight has decreased by another 4.25 kilos since July and has decreased by 19.15 kilos in total since January. I'm now getting so close to my 20 kilo weight loss target!

My body fat percentage has decreased by another 2.1% since July and has decreased by 7.6% in total since January. Just another 4.8% of body fat to lose before I hit my 25% body fat target.

As well as those main ones all of the other statistics are continuing to head in the right direction:

My weight loss statistics

	Jan	April	July	October
Weight	77.4kg	69.6kg	62.5kg	58.25kg
Body fat %	37.4%	34.8%	31.9%	29.8%
Protein levels %	14%	14.8%	15.7%	16.3%
Skeletal muscle	36.5%	38%	39.7%	40.9%
Body water percentage %	42.9%	44.8%	46.7%	48.2%
Visceral fat	12	9	7	5

I'm particularly happy with how my visceral fat is decreasing nicely every 3 months, as I know that's the most dangerous type of fat which lives around the organs in the body.

Goals for the next 3 months

I feel like the next three months will be quite hard work as Christmas is a busy time of year. It's also the most gloomy time of year weather-wise, meaning it might take more motivation stay away from comfort food, Christmas food, and to keep exercising.

That said, I'm sure I can continue to make some progress.

I've only got 0.8 of a kilo let to lose to hit my target weight and I should be able to hit that easily within the next three months. I've still got 4.8% of body fat to lose - at my current rate I think it's realistic to expect that I'll successfully knock off another 2% of body fat by January 2022.

I'm still no-where near being able to do those pull ups that I mentioned wanting to achieve - perhaps I need to re-assess my expectations on these pull ups! To be honest, I think I'll still be quite along way from being able to do them even in January 2022 - but hopefully the pole dancing will help me to get a little closer a little more quickly.

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Up next - my weight loss journey week 42...

The week where I grew like a tree

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My weight loss journey - 9 months progress update